I wrote this in March this year but someone asked about raiding today and that reminded me I wrote this but didn’t post it anywhere. Here’s my guide to raiding in PokemonGO.
So you want to be a Pokémon raider? Use this guide to master the basics of raiding with a crew.
Find your local raid groups
If you’re an urban player there should be online communities to organise raiding. Your local group may already be co-ordinating on Discord, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram or WhatsApp.
If you can’t find them online look for a group of people standing together all on their phones at a gym during a raid and introduce yourself and ask to join. Then ask them for an invite code to online groups.
Look for raids posted online
Once you’ve found the groups, keep an eye out for raids posted to the groups. They can be high traffic so you might want to mute the messages. If you do then be aware you’ll need to check in when you’re ready to raid or make friends who will tag you.
Get to know the raiders in your area
Not every PokemonGo player is a social butterfly and it can feel weird to ask people their real name the first time you meet them. Luckily the game will tell you’re the usernames of the players in the lobby and some people will introduce themselves. Knowing the names people use online will help you to tag them in raids. Getting to know people in person will encourage them to remember you and tag you too.
Post raids you want to do to the groups
When you log into the game and see a raid near you that you’d like to go to, post the details on your online group. Be concise. The details people need to know are the location, the pokemon, the hatch time or the time left on the clock.
So for example you might post “Florence Park, Ttar, 40m to despawn”
Then tag the people you think might be available to raid eg “@Luke @Leia @Han”
Find a raid crew chief
Someone, usually the first person to post it, should take responsibility for organising the raid. The crew chief should count the number of players (and accounts) available to raid, agree a time and announce it.
Some online groups have a function to allow you to create a plan or trigger a raid bot. It’s useful to learn those functions if your group has them.
When you arrive at the raid the crew chief should take responsibility for counting that everyone who said they were coming is there, to tell people when to bring up battle screens and when to enter the lobby.
There are other issues that can apply here such as whether the group is using a public or private group, “hard starts”, exiting the raid, and late arrivals. Scroll down for more about these.
Be communicative
If you want to go to the raid, tell people. If you think you might be late, tell people. If you run into a problem at the raid like no signal or the game crashing, tell people.
Be specific: saying “I might be there” isn’t helpful; “I’ll try to make it but don’t count on or wait for me” is.
People will usually try to help you if they can.
What to do at the raid
Arrive and check in with the crew chief by saying you are here. (if the weather is bad and you’re in a car do this via online message.)
When the agreed time be prepared for a call of “battle screens” and then a second call of “go in”. There may be a later call of “come out” so listen for that too.
You have 100 seconds in the lobby to select Pokemon or use a preselected team. Don’t choose Blissey.
The raid begins and everyone taps their screens and makes conversation. This is the boring bit of the raid unless you have only just enough players.
At the end of the raid you get rewards (stardust, items, xp) and premier balls with which to catch the raid boss.
Factors which affect the number of premier balls you get are your battle performance, your team’s battle performance, level of your Gym Badge for the Gym where a Raid is taking place, if you’re part of the team who controls the gym. (See raid etiquette for how to optimise this.)
For a detailed online guide to raids see: http://uk.ign.com/wikis/pokemon-go/Raids
Consider dividing into teams
The maximum number at a raid is 20. If you have enough (or too many) players for a raid, consider dividing into teams. You optimise the number of premier balls players get to throw at raid bosses by dividing into teams by colour. The most effective way to do this is to count Mystic players first and then divide the group into (usually) one Mystic team, one Valour and Instinct team. This (usually) means Mystic and Valour players optimise their number of premier balls and Instinct infortunately gains no extras. Factors which affect the number of premier balls you get are your battle performance, your team’s battle performance, level of your Gym Badge for the Gym where a Raid is taking place, if you’re part of the team who controls the gym.
Know your legendaries
A lot of raiders are only after legendary pokemon. They’ll do the occasional Tyranitar or Agron raid but legendaries are what they want. Legendaries lead to complications when more than one is out at once. Your raid squad will post that a “T5” is due to hatch but you can’t organise a squad until you know what type it is. Groudon and Kyogre need 6 players to beat, Rayquaza only takes 4.
Know your acronyms and jargon
Our raid group uses a short hand to organise raids and our own terms for how we’d doing it. Here is a glossary of common terms we use:
• Tiers = Difficulty levels of raid bosses (https://pokemongohub.net/gym-raid-update/raid-boss-tier-list/)
• T1 and T2 = “tier 1 and 2” raids, pink eggs
• T3 and T4 = “tier 3 and 4” raids, yellow eggs
• T5 = a legendary
• Ttar = Tyranitar
• Battle screens = the screen which selects public or private group
• Go in = join the lobby for a public or private group
• Come all the way out “out out” = leave the raid and the lobby
• Hard start = the group will begin the raid at the agreed time without waiting for latecomers (but see etiquette)
• Automatic hard start = bad weather means all raids are hard starts.
Raid etiquette
Different groups will have different cultures and etiquette, so these are not universal rules but things to be aware of include:
• Don’t block the path. Pokemon players need to be aware of walkers, people who use wheelchairs, parents and carers with small children and pushchairs. Move away from the path and into an empty space or arrange yourself in a line. Don’t intimidate passers by.
• Be on time; people have lives and jobs to get to.
• If you’re late, communicate. Perhaps the group will wait.
• If you were late and they didn’t wait, accept that these things happen. A “hard start” means the group have said in advance they can’t wait. It sucks to miss a raid but there’ll be another one along before long and if you missed out the crew will usually be keen to help you to get the next one. We all have felt the pain of missing one.
• Take heed of the weather. Be safe in bad weather, don’t risk your health for the game. Note that some of our group use an automatic hard start in bad weather. This means when it’s cold/raining/snowy/winter the group begins the raid at the agreed time even when a hard start hasn’t been announced, without waiting for latecomers.
• Take heed of the time on the clock before despawn. If someone errors out and needs to restart they will not be able to re-enter the raid when the boss is gone. (The exception is errors after the boss has already been defeated.)
• If someone errors or is late, the group has the option to back out of a raid. Everyone must leave the raid and the lobby and reenter to do this. (it does not cost a raid pass.) Doing this runs the risk of running out the raid clock or people being late for their appointments. Most of the time the group will back out when someone errors, occasionally they may have reasons why they don’t want to.
• Don’t gloat. Not everyone will catch the raid boss, especially at legendary raids. Be happy for yourself but don’t be a jerk about it and other people will be happy for you. Celebrate when someone catches their first or their best one.
• Be sad, not angry. Other raiders will be sad for you if you error out, are late, don’t catch or have another bad experience. They will want to help you get the next one and be happy for you when you do. Don’t take your frustration out on other people or disturb them catching.
• Be inclusive. If you feel comfortable, get to know people and talk to them. Don’t stand so that one person has everyone’s back to them unless that’s what they want. Be mindful that someone might not have heard an important announcement and pass it on. Watch out for kids or people in wheelchairs, don’t crowd them.