This is going to be a long post about how we raid in my city, perhaps people can use this to their advantage.
TLDR: create whatsapp group, invite players. report raids. use signup template, wait for each other.
(This should even work in rural areas in weekends depending on distance and number of players of course)
I’ll start however by saying this first wave of Ex passes this year targeting new players really shits on those players who went all-in during the holidays and did many raids in their vacation to try and get an Ex pass, including me (did over 40 raids in 2,5 weeks). Niantic shouldn’t give us hints how to get ex passes, expects us to go all-in and then just give passes to new raiders/players.
I do however have a mewtwo from the 2nd to last wave of last year, so i’m not too salty for myself, more for ‘my’ community.
Okay, long post HOW WE RAID incoming:
My city has around 100k citizens. We have 31 gyms, 4 of which have been added in the last few weeks. We also have some surrounding towns with several gyms and the tactic we use i’ll bescribe below is used there also, but i don’t play in those towns and focus on my own 31 gyms for the time being, so i’ll stick with 31 gyms for my story from now on.
My city has been doing Ex raids since the last 5 waves. Somewhere begin/midnovember was the first Mewtwo ever for us. Before that no mewtwos whatsoever.
It started with 1 gym, next wave 2 gyms, then 1 gym (the casual wave IIRC), then 3 gyms (including a pass for myself) and then 4 gyms in the last wave of the year (christmas).
In those 5 waves 4 gyms stood out. Those 4 gyms had 2 or 3 out of 5 invites included. 1 of those 4 was in the next town and not part of my 31 gym-city.
We have a very active community. Almost everyone knows ech other by raiding and gymming. If i needed to guess, i think we are around 500 active players in our city, which i think is pretty awesome for a city like us. And with active i really mean active; daily playing, gymming and raiding.
We use Whatsapp for raiding. We started using it for team communication, each team having their own app group for shit&giggles and gymming and bitching about other teams. With raiding introduced we created a ‘level4+ raids” app group, currently having around 350 members (2 groups due to whatsapp group limit).
Whenever a level 5 egg spawns (or 4) someone who sees it posts a screenshot in the group. If he or someone wants to do the raid he then posts the location, time and raidboss and his name. No level 1-3 raids are to be reported or any spam in any way; insta kick from app group. Clean app = happy app.
Example (eggs spawn at 3.00 PM):
City hall 4.15 PM groudon
Ash Ketchum
Players then copy/paste and add their names if they want to join, making a nice long list.
City hall 4.15 PM groudon
Ash Ketchum
Brock
Misty +1
ATQ+5 (we have some1 who plays with 6(!!!) phones)
At this point enough people have signed, letting players know the raid will be done. Other people still add, while some people just head to the gym without notifying. This is no problem whatsoever.
The next part is important and IMO the sole reason we have a community; in my example the raid spawns at 4.00 PM and the raid time is called at 4.15 PM. Taking over gyms is free game, but starting the raid before 4.15 PM is not. Even when it’s 4.14 PM and eveyone from the app is present we wait till 4.15 PM before we start just to give players who didn’t use the app to get there in time. If players app they are 2 minutes late because of traffic, we wait untill he/she is present, even if it takes 5 instead of 2 minutes.
No app and not on time = tough luck you’re too late. However, in most cases if we still can, we just quit the raid and start over including Mr Tardy.
If we have over 20 players, usually the first 2 days of a new legendary boss, we just split by teamcolor. When there are more groups some of us act as raidleader to let everyone when to join.
This bring us to the holidays. I’ve done over 40 raids in the last 3 weeks, 30 of them being groudon (and not a single one over 2312CP ffs), catching 23 of them (the 2312 my 2nd catch, hence my anger towards not getting a better one). I’ve had days where i did 6 or even 7 raids back to back, which is a lot for me and the city i live in.
So i’m happy, much Xp (already level 39), gym XP (right now 12 out of 31 gyms are gold for me, rest silver) and made myself eligable for the next wave of passes in the most extensive way….
3 weeks go by and then last night happens (passes dropped at midnight for us); 1 gym got passes, the same gym from my neighbouring town where already 3 passes have been dealt and where i never do raids.
I don’t really mind. I already have a Mewtwo, my brother got 1 for christmas and i know i will get another at some point. But this wave focused on new raiders?! This means the last 3 weeks were in vein for like 95% of our community! All hard work by everyone for nothing! I know players who have done their best to get a pass and lucked out, this being even worse because it just was useless to even try in hindsight.
Raids for us spawn starting at 6.00AM and stop at 7.00PM, which IMHO just plain sucks when you have to work/go to school. Getting enough players during weekdays becomes a pain in the ass even for an active community as us.
So seeing this wave has gone out i need to get elligable for the next wave, meaning i have to go all out this weekend, again, and hope i’ll be lucky next wave.
P.S.: I know i’m lucky to have people to play and raid with and have been blessed with getting a mewtwo of my own. This is not meant to QQ while be lucky or to dis on rural players, this is just a ‘this is how we play in my city’ story.
P.P.S.: Forgive me for any spelling/grammar errors, English is not my native language and i made this entire post
at work😊
edit/update:
the 2nd wave of Ex 2018 passes hit and 2 out of our 31 gyms got Mewtwo raids planned. Both gyms had previous EX raids on it, 1 for the 3rd time and the other for the 4th time IIRC. On the first 1 gym i got my own Mewtwo last year,
No passes again this wave for me but i’m okay with it since many people in my group do, unlike the first wave where noone got passes.
Downside to thise wave it confirms and enforces raiding on a few select gyms, which is getting worse by the wave…
