Kadaj
The Masochistic Hardcore Player XP
Towns Folk
so as i stated before i noticed that people have died a lot on what seems like early attempts to friend rayquaza (not the story event, the aftergame), and for those who havent fought him post game you might be wondering why is he easily highlighted? well, this is probably the most ridiculous and overpowered legendary boss in the game and surviving him is far from pleasant. he has a high tendency to spam hyper beam and twister and due to boss conditons, he very rarely has the one turn penalty from hyper beam. And twister will always hit the entire party no matter what unless you use enough all dodge orbs to avoid being hit entirely. he has a lower chance of using dragon ascent which might lower his defense and special defense, but the range and power of this attack is monstrous. rayquaza will also mega evolve after taking a certain amount of damage, boosting his power drastically and also noticeable defense and special defense increases
the first half of the fight isnt that bad, but the second half is where its just OHKO's all over the place for almost everyone. His attacks simply do too much damage for a team that doesnt have at least 200HP on each pokemon (even this is barely enough since he easily does 100+ damage for every attack) or very high overall defense. this attack spread and his overall power, especially when mega evolved, easily make him the strongest and hardest legendary boss in game. but with that being said success means having one of the strongest pokemon in the whole game there to use as you please and plow through pretty much everything. i got him with only a couple lv 55 mons and had a very careful strategy to avoid death entirely, and he ended up being my first legendary and my best pokemon that i used primarily post game. Here are some hints to safely fight and tackle him that i used to win:
Use your orbs so youre probably thinking "but status ailments only last like one second on him" after reading those words, and yes, almost every status ailment does in fact not last very long at all on him. but theres an even stronger option so you can ignore this problem: bring 2 all power up orbs and 2 all dodge orbs for the fight. this makes it so your normally lower damage becomes incredibly high on him and also so he is almost guaranteed to miss with pretty much every attack. if he cant hit you then remember you cant die lol...
#2 Bait so this one is a bit shaky because of the very low overall hp of the random mons, but gather as many dummy recruits as possible on the way to rayquaza. this might sound awkward and silly but its actually very important as you will need to buy setup time at the start of the boss fight without being killed too early while setting up the strategy. theres a very good chance he will aim for them with dragon ascent and hyper beam and they are very likely to faint if he does hit them, but dont revive them; save those for yourself as a safety measure. if you have around 4 dummy recruits this should be enough to use your orbs and get a good agility spam setup going for free turns and massive damage. he can hit you if you use the dodge orb twice but its extremely unlikely. i fought him for a solid 10 minutes being underlevelled and he lobbed around 5 hyper beams and 3 dragon ascents that all missed my main 3 completely. The chances of being hit here are extremely low and almost impossible, so you wont one or two deaths per turn (this is very likely if you dont do this with the orbs, you will drain your reviver seeds like crazy this way).
#3 What moves to use this is another daunting part of fighting him. its very important to maximize damage in order for deaths to be less likely to not at all. what i did here was spam rollout with rapid bulls eye on my typhlosion and this did wonders on him. had meganium for support (aromatherapy just in case) and then zapdos did a linked agility+ ancient power+ discharge and this ended up keeping rayquaza stuck in a loop of being paralyzed and only attacked a couple times as i had him hopelessly outspeeded. the speed reductio from getting paralyzed also made it almost impossible for him to even move since everyone was at quad speed spamming attacks on him. a multi hit move spread smeargle has the best DPS possible for the situation, but be careful of his lower defense. though unlike kecleon, hes not very hard to get and theres actually a hidden mission that gives you one smeargle 100% upon completion so be sure to look it up if youre missing him.
only other thing to be aware of is that rayquaza will have very strong winds that happen very, very often and these will knock you back over and over again. pounce wands are a must for this reason. if you just use one of these youll instantly be in front of him again instead of having to go tile by tile just to start attacking again. this will happen a lot in phase 2 and people who make the grave mistake of not bringing all dodge orbs or pounce wands had another mound of deaths trying to get close enough to continue attacking him. the only items i wouldnt bring for the fight is anything that causes petrify (the most useless on him) or a lasso orb which also wont do anything to him. slumber wands or slumber orbs are better but still need to be careful-- use these if he blows everyone back alongside the pounce wands as another safety measure
This is the easiest way to beat him early tbh, i won doing the above with almost zero danger, so hopefully more can get him as their first legendary this way if youre more interested in rayquaza than groudon. =)
the first half of the fight isnt that bad, but the second half is where its just OHKO's all over the place for almost everyone. His attacks simply do too much damage for a team that doesnt have at least 200HP on each pokemon (even this is barely enough since he easily does 100+ damage for every attack) or very high overall defense. this attack spread and his overall power, especially when mega evolved, easily make him the strongest and hardest legendary boss in game. but with that being said success means having one of the strongest pokemon in the whole game there to use as you please and plow through pretty much everything. i got him with only a couple lv 55 mons and had a very careful strategy to avoid death entirely, and he ended up being my first legendary and my best pokemon that i used primarily post game. Here are some hints to safely fight and tackle him that i used to win:
Use your orbs so youre probably thinking "but status ailments only last like one second on him" after reading those words, and yes, almost every status ailment does in fact not last very long at all on him. but theres an even stronger option so you can ignore this problem: bring 2 all power up orbs and 2 all dodge orbs for the fight. this makes it so your normally lower damage becomes incredibly high on him and also so he is almost guaranteed to miss with pretty much every attack. if he cant hit you then remember you cant die lol...
#2 Bait so this one is a bit shaky because of the very low overall hp of the random mons, but gather as many dummy recruits as possible on the way to rayquaza. this might sound awkward and silly but its actually very important as you will need to buy setup time at the start of the boss fight without being killed too early while setting up the strategy. theres a very good chance he will aim for them with dragon ascent and hyper beam and they are very likely to faint if he does hit them, but dont revive them; save those for yourself as a safety measure. if you have around 4 dummy recruits this should be enough to use your orbs and get a good agility spam setup going for free turns and massive damage. he can hit you if you use the dodge orb twice but its extremely unlikely. i fought him for a solid 10 minutes being underlevelled and he lobbed around 5 hyper beams and 3 dragon ascents that all missed my main 3 completely. The chances of being hit here are extremely low and almost impossible, so you wont one or two deaths per turn (this is very likely if you dont do this with the orbs, you will drain your reviver seeds like crazy this way).
#3 What moves to use this is another daunting part of fighting him. its very important to maximize damage in order for deaths to be less likely to not at all. what i did here was spam rollout with rapid bulls eye on my typhlosion and this did wonders on him. had meganium for support (aromatherapy just in case) and then zapdos did a linked agility+ ancient power+ discharge and this ended up keeping rayquaza stuck in a loop of being paralyzed and only attacked a couple times as i had him hopelessly outspeeded. the speed reductio from getting paralyzed also made it almost impossible for him to even move since everyone was at quad speed spamming attacks on him. a multi hit move spread smeargle has the best DPS possible for the situation, but be careful of his lower defense. though unlike kecleon, hes not very hard to get and theres actually a hidden mission that gives you one smeargle 100% upon completion so be sure to look it up if youre missing him.
only other thing to be aware of is that rayquaza will have very strong winds that happen very, very often and these will knock you back over and over again. pounce wands are a must for this reason. if you just use one of these youll instantly be in front of him again instead of having to go tile by tile just to start attacking again. this will happen a lot in phase 2 and people who make the grave mistake of not bringing all dodge orbs or pounce wands had another mound of deaths trying to get close enough to continue attacking him. the only items i wouldnt bring for the fight is anything that causes petrify (the most useless on him) or a lasso orb which also wont do anything to him. slumber wands or slumber orbs are better but still need to be careful-- use these if he blows everyone back alongside the pounce wands as another safety measure
This is the easiest way to beat him early tbh, i won doing the above with almost zero danger, so hopefully more can get him as their first legendary this way if youre more interested in rayquaza than groudon. =)