Nihilego raids are all the rage right now, and one Trainer pulled an incredible solo raid featuring only one Pokémon – a level 50 Primal Groudon! In fact, you don’t need multiple Primal Groudon, you just need one and a bunch of Max Revives.
Nihilego
Nihilego is a Rock and Poison-type Ultra Beast, which makes it comically weak to Ground type attacks, and Primal Groudon with Mud Shot and Precipice Blades (both Ground-type moves) is by far the strongest Nihilego counter there is.
What makes this Nihilego solo raid so special is that it showed that you can do it with basically no “special skills” – no dodging, no lobby timer tricks, no rejoins with another Primal Groudon.
This solo was performed under Sunny weather and the Groudon was always completely knocked out, revived with a Max Revive, and returned to fight again.
Is Nihilego worth the hassle?
Well, it depends on what your goal is with a Nihilego. For PvP, the double Ground weakness makes it a questionable choice, but it does have a limited usage in the Ultra League and Master League.
In Raid and Gym Battles, Nihilego is the strongest Poison type currently in the game, outside Mega Beedrill, so there is that. However, we are really not sure where Nihilego fits in as an attacker.
Maybe as the best Fairy and Grass counter for some future Raid, or special scenario, but right now it’s a nice-to-have, but not critical Pokémon.
How to get a Level 50 Primal Groudon?
Well, you first need to get a Primal Groudon by collecting Primal Energy. You can earn Primal Energy by defeating Primal Kyogre or Primal Groudon in a Raid Battle or by completing specific research tasks.
Groudon (Primal)
After undergoing Primal Reversion, Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon will stay in their primal form for eight hours, after which they will return to their standard form. The more times your Pokémon undergoes Primal Reversion, the less Primal Energy will be used.
From that point on, it’s all about collecting Groudon Candy XL and enough Stardust to power up a Groudon to Level 50. As we laid it out in our Ultimate Candy XL and Rare XL Candy Guide, you need just a touch under 300 XL Candy to fully power up a Level 50 Pokémon.
That is the difficult part with this story – if you already don’t have enough Groudon XL Candy, you simply cannot do it.
