I’ve come up against the Team Go Rocket Boss, AKA Giovanni, just a handful of times in my Pokemon Go career, but every encounter we’ve had has made me want to retire from Pokemon training and move to the country where the game is still unplayable. It’s downright irresponsible for Pokemon Go to make a boss fight this punishing. It’s one thing to rage quit Dark Souls by smashing a $60 controller, but if I throw my phone on the ground over an unkillable Shadow Latias I’m going to have a big problem.
If you haven’t had the displeasure of facing Giovanni, let me tell you a little about this son of bitch. Giovanni is basically a Team Go Rocket Leader from Hell. His Pokemon can block and use charged attacks, and for some reason they’re always way above your current max, making them incredibly difficult to defeat without taking every possible advantage. Giovanni’s team always scales with your level, So no matter how much you grind he’ll always be a major threat. If you’ve tried to beat Giovanni and failed, don’t take it too hard. You have to have a nearly perfect team to survive three rounds with that monster, and there’s no real way to build the perfect team if you don’t already have it.
Giovanni has always been a tough customer, but this month’s fight may be his most difficult one yet. He shows up during the Silent Schemes Special Research Assignment with a team made up of Persian, Shadow Latias, and either Honchkrow, Gyrados, and Rhyperior. You need to have Pokemon with good IVs and high CP that can counter at least two, if not all three, of his. I’m level 34 with quite a few max CP Pokemon and a pretty big roster of legendary and high IV ‘mons to choose from, and I struggled a lot. I ended up spending over 100,000 stardust, dozens of TMs, and my entire supply of revives and potions while working on the best counters for this fight. It’s not a matter of getting good, you just have to have the right Pokemon that can beat him.
My strategy was to start with a high defense Pokemon with a Charged Attack that builds quickly in order to burn both of his shields as fast as possible. This created the opportunity to use Charged Attacks to counter his Honchkrow and Shadow Latias, but I still had problems just keeping them alive long enough to charge their attacks. I ended up starting with a Tyranitar in order to build up its Charged Attack against the Persian, then swapping to Alolan Golem to burn both of its shields with Wild Charge. Golem is thick enough that I was able to take down both the Persian and the Honchkrow with it, but it fainted immediately to the Latias. Tyranitar came out next and used Crunch, which took the Latias down to half health. It wasn’t able to get another Crunch charged before it fainted, but then came Jolteon - another fast-charging Electric-type - who was able to build up a single Thunderbolt to finish off Latias. Jolteon finished the fight with 19 health, meaning I was less than a second away from losing the fight.
Those three Pokemon were max CP with 90 percent or better IVs, and while they aren’t the only possible counters for this fight, you’ll need a similar team of powerful, counter-effective Pokemon if you’re going to have any chance. Recommendations for countering Shadow Latias include Rayquaza, Dialga, Palkia, Garchomp, and Gengar. Hopefully you have one of those, and hopefully it’s a good one.
It feels unfair for Pokemon Go to throw such a punishing fight at you when it doesn’t provide the means to overcome it. If you’re struggling with a fight in a regular Pokemon game, you can go grind until you’re ready, level up your Pokemon, or catch new ones. If you’re struggling with Giovanni in Pokemon Go, there’s nothing you can really do about it. You can’t just go catch a Rayquaza, and if you could, it probably wouldn’t be a good one. Even if you already have one, you can’t just train with it to raise its level. Pokemon Go gives you a lot of Pokemon to catch and candy to collect, but you have absolutely no control over what kind of Pokemon and candy you get.
This month, the only Pokemon you can catch are Water-type, which will not help you against Giovanni’s team at all. No matter how many strong Dewpiders, Wailmers, or Lotads you collect, you’re never going to be able to build a team to win this fight right now. Pokemon Go expects you to have a counter for everything and maintain a selection of strong, high-CP Pokemon, but doesn’t give you any way to actually do that.
When I defeated Giovanni, I got to catch his Shadow Latias. Considering how many of my Pokemon it had just brutalized, I was excited to get my hands on a potentially powerful new weapon. The 4320 CP Shadow Latias must have fled with Giovanni back to his secret lair, because the one I got was a pathetic 764 CP Pokemon with just 68 percent IVs. In other words, completely useless. It’s not easy to build a strong team when so much depends on luck. Defeating tough enemies should make you feel accomplished, but Giovanni just makes me frustrated.