Start time of raids

[jjc927]

I was playing while on my lunch break today and one of the gyms where I work had a raid battle that started about a minute after the game loaded. I wasn't close enough to access it and I didn't get to it in time to start the raid so it went away. There was nobody else there to play. So my question is, do raid battles need to be started immediately at the start time? If there's other people participating, would I be able to join in if I'm not there as soon as the timer hits 0, or do you need to be at the gym as soon as the clock hits 0 to participate?

 

[bobandbill]

I was playing while on my lunch break today and one of the gyms where I work had a raid battle that started about a minute after the game loaded. I wasn't close enough to access it and I didn't get to it in time to start the raid so it went away. There was nobody else there to play. So my question is, do raid battles need to be started immediately at the start time? If there's other people participating, would I be able to join in if I'm not there as soon as the timer hits 0, or do you need to be at the gym as soon as the clock hits 0 to participate?

You can start it anytime during the one-hour counter begins after the Egg hatches. Best not to start it within the last 5 minutes however in case you run out of time.

You can join in with other people if you start the battle within ~160 seconds or thereabouts of each other (the first person who starts waits that amount of time in a lobby, and then after the time counts down they start regardless of whoever is around). You can also lose a Raid battle and try again as many times as you want for that particular Raid battle without needing another Raid Pass.

 

[jjc927]

The egg went away though as soon as the clock hit 0. It went back to showing the Pok?mon that is currently defending the gym and when I clicked on the gym it showed the options for getting the items and battling that Pok?mon. There was nobody else playing so I guess that's why it went away.

 

[51Nisa]

Are you saying after the 2 hour timer counts down the egg didn't hatch?

 

[Neltharion83]

You can start it anytime during the one-hour counter begins after the Egg hatches. Best not to start it within the last 5 minutes however in case you run out of time.

You can join in with other people if you start the battle within ~160 seconds or thereabouts of each other (the first person who starts waits that amount of time in a lobby, and then after the time counts down they start regardless of whoever is around). You can also lose a Raid battle and try again as many times as you want for that particular Raid battle without needing another Raid Pass.

Oh, damn, i did not know that you can re-try, i assumed it costs a raid pass each time.

So, assuming that you have enough time and revivers and potions, you can immediately run to a Tyranitar-Raid and just start it and lose if noone else shows up, and then heal up and retry until people show up, in the worst case gaining plenty of practise in how to do most damage with your pokemon.

Raids run for 1 hour and are announced 2 hours earlier by the egg spawn. From what i heared, people generally only go to level 4 raids before the egg is hatched, and once it is hatched, if it is something nice, more people will come a bit later.

The problem with coming late is that people leave after they defeated the raid boss, and everyone tries to be early, most successful raids happen early in that hour.

People are looking mainly for technical machines, so when they go to a level 4 raid egg hatch, they do it even if the pokemon is boring, because a level4 raid gives most stuff and the highest chance for a technical machine.

So i would keep my eyes open for lvl4 raid eggs and try to be there when it pops open and the raid boss appears. Good chances that there will be a group early in the hour after the egg opens.

 

[Ho-Oh]

Also another thing that may help in the future for anyone wondering: go to gyms with medium to high turnover and hang around there for a bit. You'll generally find PGO players attempting to take down the gyms. Befriend them and see if they're part of any local messaging groups - you can even make a group over Discord if you wanted but a lot use Facebook, at least here that is. If you join a local group there's less luck involved - and more coordination the better. Even people who live in rural areas benefit in a way as even people that live 45 minutes away can join in and help you out. It really pays to try and befriend every PGO player you see!