Pokemon Go’s Raids Just Got a Lot Better Thanks to This Simple Fix

Pokemon Go just quietly made a big fix that should result in a lot more successful raid battles. At some point over the last week, game developers seemingly adjusted the auto-select feature in raids, which chooses a player’s default Pokemon when entering a Raid Battle.

While most experienced Pokemon Go players know which Pokemon to select based on the Raid Boss, there’s plenty of players who don’t have a nuanced understanding of how various types of Pokemon interact with each other and stick with the Pokemon the game selected, thinking that it would know best.

Most importantly, this should mean a steep drop in the number of Chansey and Blissey that players use during a Pokemon Go raid, which should mean a lot more victories in the long run.

How the Auto-Select Used to Work

When Raids were first introduced, Pokemon Go seemed to put an emphasis on Pokemon with high Stamina stats…even if those Pokemon weren’t very powerful. While on some level, it seems to make sense to have a Pokemon that can survive a few charge attacks from a Raid Boss, a lot of these Pokemon were simply taking up space since their attacks were totally ineffectual.

Pokemon Go‘s raids often come down to how much damage per second a Raid Team can do against a Raid Boss. Raid Teams will often do a lot of damage early on, as players use their most powerful Pokemon. But as the battle goes on and those players are taken out, having a Chansey or another weak anchor on the battlefield causes that damage per second rate to plummet, which could hurt the team’s chances of winning.  

The Auto-Select is Better….But Not Perfect

The adjusted auto-select feature seems to place more of a value on Pokemon that are either super effective against a Raid Boss, or have some sort of resistance to the Raid Boss. Unfortunately, the auto-select feature doesn’t take into account a Pokemon’s actual attacks or their levels when picking out a player’s Pokemon.

For instance, the game might recommend a Pokemon like Magcargo to fight against Entei over a high level Vaporeon. That’s because Magcargo is double resistant to Entei’s attacks, even though Vaporeon can do a lot more damage to Entei thanks to its high Attack power. 

Players will still need to make adjustments to their team before they hop in a raid, but the adjusted auto-select feature means that players should be able to re-enter a Raid a lot more quickly if their first team gets knocked out of battle. It also means they won’t need to leave their Chansey and Blissey fainted to prevent Pokemon Go from adding them to every Raid Team…regardless of which Pokemon they’re facing.