Xerneas Raid Guide

Xerneas

Xerneas is coming back starting October 8th, 2022 10:00AM local time, with their shiny released for the first time in Pokémon GO.

Xerneas is a Tier 5 legendary raid boss and is the first Fairy type legendary Pokémon in the game.

Xerneas can be caught with the following CP values:

• 2073- 2160 CP at Level 20, no weather boost
• 2591- 2701 CP at Level 25 with Cloudy weather boost

It has a mono typing of Fairy and as such, it is boosted by Cloudy weather and its counters include strong Steel and Poison type Pokémon such as Metagross, Dialga, Roserade and mega evolutions like Mega Gengar and Mega Beedrill.

As you will soon find out, Xerneas is quite bulky and as such, it would require 5-7 trainers to be on the safe side.

This time around, the shiny form will be available if you are lucky. This shiny form is really cool, so good luck to everyone on getting that very rare shundo (100% IV shiny) to add to your Master League team.

Xerneas	Shiny Xerneas

Xerneas Raid Counters

Mega Pokémon will be listed separately below. Since Shadow Pokémon are extremely expensive to power up and require specific events to remove Frustration with a Charge TM, they will NOT be listed as raid counters in this article. That being said, if you have the shadow form of a listed raid counter Pokémon powered up and TMed, use it.

The best counters for Xerneas, based on the time required to win, are the following:

#	Pokemon	Fast Move	Charge Move	Time to win	Deaths
1.	Metagross	Bullet Punch Steel	Meteor Mash Steel	558.14s	15.4
2.	Nihilego	Acid Poison	Sludge Bomb Poison	599.98s	15.4
3.	Dialga	Metal Claw Steel	Iron Head Steel	616.86s	18.2
4.	Zacian	Metal Claw Steel	Iron Head Steel	670.07s	15.9
5.	Genesect (Burn)	Metal Claw Steel	Magnet Bomb Steel	653.22s	20.1
6.	Genesect (Normal)	Metal Claw Steel	Magnet Bomb Steel	652.50s	20.2
7.	Genesect (Douse)	Metal Claw Steel	Magnet Bomb Steel	653.69s	20.2
8.	Excadrill	Metal Claw Steel	Iron Head Steel	653.07s	20.6
9.	Roserade	Poison Jab Poison	Sludge Bomb Poison	631.39s	26.78
10.	Gengar	Lick Ghost	Sludge Bomb Poison	654.11s	24.2
11.	Jirachi	Charge Beam Electric	Doom Desire Steel	694.13s	17
12.	Deoxys (Attack)	Poison Jab Poison	Zap Cannon Electric	623.27s	46.2
13.	Overqwil	Poison Jab Poison	Sludge Bomb Poison	660.63s	25
14.	Mewtwo	Confusion Psychic	Psystrike Psychic	719.13s	26.67
15.	Toxicroak	Poison Jab Poison	Sludge Bomb Poison	712.67s	18.5
16.	Victreebel	Acid Poison	Sludge Bomb Poison	720.09s	26.5
17.	Bisharp	Metal Claw Steel	Iron Head Steel	719.09s	25.75
18.	Darkrai	Snarl Dark	Sludge Bomb Poison	714.88s	27.67
19.	Scizor	Bullet Punch Steel	Iron Head Steel	754.58s	26
20.	Ho-Oh	Steel Wing Steel	Brave Bird Flying	775.42s	12.67
21.	Hoopa (Unbound)	Confusion Psychic	Psychic Psychic	754.42s	27
22.	Scolipede	Poison Jab Poison	Sludge Bomb Poison	745.65s	16
23.	Salazzle	Poison Jab Poison	Sludge Wave Poison	748.27s	18
24.	Aggron	Iron Tail Steel	Heavy Slam Steel	807.39s	14.5
25.	Heatran	Fire Spin Fire	Iron Head Steel	795.02s	17.67
26.	Haunter	Lick Ghost	Sludge Bomb Poison	740.35s	27

Best Mega Pokémon Counters

#	Pokemon	Fast Move	Charge Move	Time to win	Deaths
1.	Gengar (Mega)	Lick Ghost	Sludge Bomb Poison	385.08s	12.8
2.	Beedrill (Mega)	Poison Jab Poison	Sludge Bomb Poison	407.53s	23.1
3.	Scizor (Mega)	Bullet Punch Steel	Iron Head Steel	496.79s	14.5
4.	Charizard (Mega Y)	Fire Spin Fire	Blast Burn Fire	553.64s	17.5
5.	Steelix (Mega)	Iron Tail Steel	Heavy Slam Steel	584.48s	11.9
6.	Venusaur (Mega)	Vine Whip Grass	Sludge Bomb Poison	565.29s	16.3
7.	Latios (Mega)	Zen Headbutt Psychic	Psychic Psychic	589.08s	18.5
8.	Pidgeot (Mega)	Steel Wing Steel	Brave Bird Flying	595.41s	23.6
9.	Aerodactyl (Mega)	Steel Wing Steel	Iron Head Steel	626.91s	21.1
10.	Blastoise (Mega)	Water Gun Water	Hydro Cannon Water	628.96s	22.1

Stats and Max CP

Xerneas Fairy
Max CP at Level 40 3781| Max CP at Level 50 4275
ATK 250		DEF 185		HP 246
Weak to			Strong Against
Steel Poison			Dark Dragon Fighting

Moveset Analysis

Xerneas learns the following moves in Pokémon GO:

Tackle is an okay Normal type move that doesn’t deal super-effective damage to any type. The top counter, Mega Gengar, heavily resists Tackle. In fact, Mega Gengar is grinning because it reads ‘Tackle’ as ‘Tickle’. Tch!

Zen Headbutt is the worst psychic fast move. However, it deals super-effective damage to Mega Gengar. For Zen Headbutt, Metagross is your go-to Pokémon.

Xerneas has hard hitting charge moves, Moonblast gains STAB and hits extremely hard.

Close Combat can take off a chunk of HP from your Steel types. The Poison types are more effective here.

Thunder is kind of difficult to dodge and does quite a number, so be wary of this one.

Megahorn is decent but not too much of a threat.

Giga Impact can do a lot of damage but can be dodged, steel types are also effective here.

Xerneas is all about hard-hitting charged moves and underwhelming fast moves. It is bulky and as such, would take a while to be defeated. Otherwise, with numbers on your side, Xerneas can be taken down with relative ease.

Conclusion

We have had many opportunities to get Pokémon like Meteor Mash Metagross, Mega Gengar and Mega Beedrill with free mega energy. So, stacking up your counters to beat Xerneas shouldn’t be too much of a problem. It’s all about having numbers on your side!

Xerneas is a top tier Master League Pokémon. If it ever gets a fairy type fast move it will become mega tier as it has a lot of bulk. Do note that Xerneas’ signature move, Geomancy, is fairy type and if introduced, could potentially be an exclusive fast move. This would be both a first and very cool, so keep your eyes on Xerneas as new moves become available.

If you didn’t have a good Xerneas before, this is a perfect time to get one as you also have the opportunity to get its really cool shiny variant. If you haven’t powered up a good Xerneas yet, this is your opportunity to get a good shiny one or Lucky Trade a friend to reduce the candy and stardust cost of getting a maxed Xerneas.

Happy raiding and happy shiny hunting!

Updated October 2022 by 3kkoIogy.