Dynamax Articuno is the first Legendary we’re seeing in Max Battles for Pokémon Go. It’s making its debut during Max Monday on Jan. 20 from 6-7 p.m. and will be available afterwards until Jan. 27 when Dynamax Zapdos will debut.
While it’s likely that Dynamax Articuno won’t be as difficult as Gigantamax Battles, it still will likely put up a fight, so we’re here to help you out.
Below, we list out some general Max Battle tips and counters for Dynamax Articuno in Pokémon Go.
Dynamax Articuno weakness
Articuno is ice- and flying-type, so it has a plethora of weaknesses to take advantage of. It’s weak against rock-, steel-, fire-, and electric-type moves. Under normal circumstances, the best move type to use would be rock-type, since it’ll do even more damage since it’s strong against both ice- and flying-type, but there’s not any Dynamax Pokémon that have rock-type Dynamax moves (as of writing this).
On the other hand, Articuno will resist bug- and grass-type moves, so stay away from those.
Dynamax Articuno best counters
With the above in mind, there’s a few counters to bring to Articuno. We recommend the following to focus on offensive moves:
- Gigantamax/Dynamax Charizard with Dragon Breath
- Gigantamax/Dynamax Toxtricity with Spark
- Dynamax Cinderace with Fire Spin
Note that Dynamax Articuno can have Ancient Power, which will dish out some serious damage against Charizard. Keep your Charizard in your wings and consider only bringing it out to Dynamax, while other tankier Pokémon absorb the damage.
As for defense, you should bring the following with Max Guard:
- Gigantamax/Dynamax Blastoise with Water Gun
- Gigantamax Lapras with Water Gun
- Dynamax Metagross with Bullet Punch
There still aren’t too many ideal Pokémon to use as healers, since Max Spirit wants you to use high-HP Pokémon. If you have a Blastoise or Lapras built out, you can teach them healing moves in the meantime to help out.
Even if you don’t have these powered up, consider just bringing the strongest Dynamax Pokémon you have. If you have a maxed out Dynamax Gengar and your Dynamax Charizard isn’t leveled (and you don’t have the means to power it up), just bring your Gengar.
General Max Battle tips
If you’ve been struggling in Max Battles, here’s some general tips to survive — and make sure you’re an asset to your team. While Gigantamax Battles are tough, a Legendary Max Battle shouldn’t be as tough as that. You can slack a little, but you should still heed our advice:
- Make sure you have enough players. High-efficiency groups with maxed out investments can take down the Articuno with fewer people, but practically, if you don’t have hundreds of spare candy and even more Stardust laying around, this isn’t going to be an option for you. Make sure you have as many people as possible to ensure that you get your musically inclined cruise ship-shell creature.
- Don’t sleep on Max Spirit and Max Guard. Teams work best when there’s a variety of moves, not just maxed-out attacks. Each player should bring Pokémon with the defensive and healing moves unlocked as well. Max Guard will focus single-target damage towards you and reduce the damage taken and Max Spirit will heal the whole party, so these moves are really important to make sure your damage-dealers can keep dishing.
- Remember to swap to super effective moves when it’s time to Dynamax. For Dynamax Pokémon, their max moves will be whatever type their fast move is. This means if you have a Metagross with Meteor Mash, it will know Max Steelspike. A Gengar with Shadow Claw will know Max Phantasm. Take advantage of this and make sure to swap to a Pokémon that will deal super effective damage to your target before Dynamaxing, if you can.
- Focus on your fast moves. You want to spam your fast moves to build up that Dynamax meter and often times, using your charge move is actually a DPS loss when compared to the damage you could be doing with your max move will be. Spam those attacks!
- Level up a few ‘mons, but you don’t have to go too hard. Depending on your group size, you absolutely do not need to max out all your Dynamax Pokémon to level 40-50. While this will make it easier on the rest of your group, if this isn’t an investment you can make, you don’t have to stress about it. Power things up as high as you can afford to, but don’t fret if you don’t have a maxed out Pokémon.
- That all being said, make sure to come as prepared as you can be. This is a team effort and there’s a reason why groups of 30-40 people can still fail. Do not just bring your unleveled Dynamax Wooloo expecting a free ride to a powerful Pokémon. (After all, if everyone does that, then you certainly won’t clear the battle.) Again, you don’t have to completely max out your Pokémon, but it will be better for everyone involved if you bring something helpful to the table.
- Keep your eye out for a shiny Articuno! If you clear the raid, there is a chance that the Lapras you catch will be shiny — which also means it’ll be a guaranteed catch. Use a Pinap Berry to score extra candy if you get lucky enough to find a sparkly Articuno.
