Understanding Pokémon GO's Max Battles: A Year-Long Journey

It took me nearly a full year to actually understand how Max Battles in Pokémon GO worked, and, certainly, made some teammates temporarily feel upset along the way. Max Battles are a gameplay mechanic that debuted in 2024 and are inspired by Sword and Shield’s own Max Raid Battles. The Max Battles in Pokémon GO allow you to face Dynamax and Gigantamax Pokémon and even transform your creatures to face them.

From an initial point of view, they are somewhat similar to regular raids, in the sense that you have to defeat a single featured Pokémon by using a team you build, with the possibility of having allies aid you. Most recently, players had access to Eternatus Max Battles in Pokémon GO, allowing them to catch the Legendary Generation 8 Pokémon and even transform it into its Eternamax form.

I Thought Pokémon GO’s Max Battles Were Just Like Raids

DPS Isn’t The Only Factor In Max Battles

Pokémon GO Dynamax Suicune Max Battle Weekend Guide

Over this past year, however, I’ve committed a big mistake when challenging Max Battles: treating them just like regular raids. When building teams for these activities, my first instinct was to get as much DPS potential in as possible, focusing solely on damage-dealers who would quickly dispose of the opponent featured in the battle.

While I was having an easy time taking down 1-star and 2-star Max Battle opponents like Grookey and Machop, I was having a harder time with anything tougher than that, even with allies. Beating Gigantamax Lapras in Pokémon GO, for example, was an impossible feat. I’d be dealing as much damage as possible, only to see my Pokémon wiped out by a single hit, without even getting to the Dynamax phase.

Surely, Gigantamax Battles in Pokémon GO are tough, something that’s been acknowledged by Niantic itself. However, I was not helping my cause in any way. Now, with the recent Max Finale event, I got to challenge Max Battles daily, and I finally found out the error of my ways, making me feel extremely silly about how mindlessly I’d tackled them to begin with.

Pokémon GO’s Max Battles Need Less Firepower & More Strategy

Unlike Raids, There Are Roles For Your Party’s Pokémon

Poorly used to going all-out on DPS during regular raids, I hadn’t been thinking strategically, at least to Max Battles’ standards. In Max Battles, the key isn’t necessarily dealing a ton of damage per second, but, instead, simply surviving. The foes in Max Battles are tough and will pose a huge threat to your Pokémon, being capable of one-shotting them with what seems like a simple attack.

Dodging attacks in Max Battles is a bit different, as the smaller ones will still deal a portion of their complete damage, while large attacks are unavoidable altogether. This is where the roles of defenders, healers, and attackers come in. Instead of going with a party of three attackers, you’ll want to have a defender to take the opponent’s hits and survive.

The team’s healer can recover damage taken by your allies’ Pokémon, while the DPS is only used when the rest of your team is safe and it’s time to Dynamax or Gigantamax. Contrary to regular raids, Max Battles feel a lot more turn-based. You’ll want to have your defender Pokémon Gigantamax and use Max Guard, creating shields for itself to withstand the next round of attacks.

If its shield isn’t depleted too much, the next Dynamax round goes to your DPS. As soon as the damage phase is over, you swap back to your defender to generate Max Energy. Once I changed my perception, these activities became so much easier. The moment I beat a Dynamax Suicune in Pokémon GO, leading up to the Max Finale event, I learned I was being foolish.

Max Battles Still Require Too Much Grinding In Pokémon GO

Max Particle Limitations Can Feel Overwhelming

Dynamax Pokémon Max Mondays Pokémon GO — Max mondays Pokémon GO

This also made me change the way I upgraded my Dynamax and Gigantamax Pokémon. I was trying to fully upgrade all three of their Max abilities, but once I understood their roles in the party, I saw that the defender didn’t necessarily need investment into healing, and the healer had no need for damage output.

Meanwhile, the DPS doesn’t necessarily need investment into defense or healing because they’ll still die if they stay on the field too long. While this does save me some resources, especially when it comes to Pokémon Candy, Max Battles still require too much grinding for them to be a completely fun activity. You need Max Particles to participate in Max Battles, as well as to upgrade Max abilities.

The issue is that Max Particles in Pokémon GO are limited and can’t be obtained simply by spinning PokéStops or opening gifts. Instead, you can obtain a limited amount by walking every day, as well as some from Power Spots. With these limitations and high costs for everything, you often feel like you have to choose between upgrading a Pokémon and challenging a Max Battle, but not both.

The solution for this is paying for Max Particle Packs with real money, but that isn’t exactly a solution; but a greedy way of capitalizing. The best way of addressing this issue is to either remove the need for Max Particles to upgrade Max abilities or the necessity to consume such a high amount simply to participate in the Max Battle.

I’ve been having a much better experience with Max Battles after fully understanding how they work, even if some of them are still extremely tough challenges. Even so, with this enlightened experience, I’ve also noticed some of the worst issues with Max Battles, which, unfortunately, somewhat feel in line with the general Pokémon GO experience.