Raids are up, but you’ll need to level up a bit in order to take part.
Pokemon Go’s much-anticipated raid battles are now live as part of a sweeping set of updates to Pokemon Go including the addition of gym badges, TMs, rare candy, legendary Pokemon and other series staple features.
Many of these features have been highly anticipated, but none so much as Raid Battles – multiplayer battles against AI Pokemon that will let you take on very high level Pokemon for special rewards including items that are all new to Pokemon Go and the chance to catch rare Pokemon or even legendary Pokemon for the first time.
But, alas, there is a catch. Pokemon Go Developer Niantic has tweeted from the official Pokemon Go twitter account alerting players that they’ll need to be a certain level to take part in raids – and boy, it’s high.
Pokemon Go: What level to raid?
In order to raid in Pokemon Go’s newest feature you’ll need to be a whopping level 35 or above – which is a pretty damn high level indeed. This was confirmed by Niantic in a new tweet it made from the official support account for the game on twitter announcing the feature had gone live.
If you’re below level 35 – and chances are that you probably are – you’ll still be able to get to grips with a lot of Pokemon Go’s new features including the reworked gyms, gym badges and so on.
It seems this is a tactic to stop the raid system from getting completely rushed with people, as Niantic later added that it would be inviting more players to participate in raids over the coming days. This might involve lowering the level requirement to lower that rather high bar of entry a little bit.
If you need some help getting yourself up to level 35 quickly, we’ve got a page full of Pokemon Go EXP grinding tips to help you out.
Trainers level 35 and above: You can now participate in Raid Battles at select Gyms around the world. http://pic.twitter.com/spg1okmpw8
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) June 23, 2017
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How do Pokemon Go’s raid battles work?
Players will be able to take part in raids by getting a raid ticket, a new item that’ll allow them full entry to a raid battle. Raid tickets are found by spinning the new Pokestops on Gyms and will only be rewarded to higher-end players of the game or those with a high gym badge level.
Raid tickets can also be purchased from the in-game shop: there are regular free ones that can be used once per day and premium, paid passes that can be used more than once. Raid passes are used up regardless of if you win the battle or not, so try not to spend it on losing battles.
Once you have a raid ticket you’ll head into an in-game lobby where you join up with other players before jumping into a battle with the same screen-mashing tactics Pokemon Go fans are used to by now.
You can learn more about raid battles and all of this update’s new and upcoming features on our special page that’s dedicated to the update.
You might want to start grinding gym badges and the like right away – it seems that to get the most out of Pokemon Go, you’re now going to want to give a lot of time over to gym action…
Pokemon Go raid battles are now live, but you’ll need to be a high level to join raids posted first on pipervictor.blogspot.com
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