My February Raid Grind Plan
Step one was finding the dang schedule. Woke up early Tuesday, sippin’ coffee, scrolling through my usual Discord channels. Like always, info starts dribbling out from different sources – some Reddit leaks, dataminers poking around, random whispers. Total mess. My notebook was already open, phone ready.
Started cross-referencing like crazy. Hopped between three different Pokemon Go news sites, two Discords, and checked the official Niantic tweet from last week again. Scrolled back through my DMs where a buddy sent me screenshots from some APK teardown. Took me like half an hour just to confirm the first week’s bosses weren’t fake news, especially that shiny Darkrai possibility. My scribbled list looked awful:
- Week 1: Genesect (Burn Drive), Mega Latias/Latios? (Doubtful but rumored)
- Week 2: Tapu Koko, Tapu Fini – need those shiny checks!
- Week 3: Darkrai hype!! Shadow Suicune? Ugh, conflicting info…
- Week 4: Heatran… seriously? Again?
Smashed that calendar sync. Opened Google Calendar on my laptop – gotta visualize this madness. Blocked out the specific raid hours windows first. Saw those 6-7pm raid hours for each Wednesday immediately. Purple pen for 1-Star raids (easy solo targets), red for 3-Star (need maybe one buddy), big bold black for the 5-Star chaos. Highlighted the Darkrai weeks yellow. Figured out the rotation times – knew things flip-flopped around 10 AM local time on Thursdays. Double-checked the timezone settings like three times. Nothing worse than showing up an hour late for Kyogre because your calendar messed up.
Next up: Team Coordination. Grabbed my second phone, fired up Messenger group chat with my local raid crew. “Yo fam, schedule mostly confirmed. Darkrai dropping Week 3! Who’s in??” Instantly replies buzz in. Debates start: “Heatran raid hour worth it?” “How many Tapu Fini we need for Living Dex?” Scheduled meet-ups right there in chat: City Park gym cluster Wednesday 6:15pm sharp for the raid hour. Marked my phone alarm for 5:45pm that day – “RAID HOUR – PARK”.
Resource check sucked. Opened my bag in-game. Barely 8 Premium passes left. Maybe 40 free ones. Zero Remote passes. Instant wallet pang. Groaned. Grinding gym coins became critical. Spent the next two days driving around after work, shoving crapmons into every blue gym I saw. Felt like a chore. Checked the shop every morning hoping for a cheap pass box – nope. Just stickers. Ended up dropping $20 for a bundle. Painful.
Prep night before rotation one: Charged up both phones and the portable battery pack – learned that lesson the hard way during Rayquaza month. Cleared out bag space for the potions and revives I knew I’d burn through chucking balls at Genesect. Pre-built my fighting teams for Genesect raids using apps that tell me what hurts what. Made sure my walking shoes weren’t muddy.
Execution time: Thursday rollout day felt jittery. Woke up, opened the game – bam, new raid bosses popped at the gyms near work like clockwork around 10:15 AM. Ducked out early for lunch. Saw Genesect chilling at the church gym. Used my free pass, smashed it solo. Felt good! Then saw a 5-star purple egg pop across the street with a 45-minute hatch. Texted the group chat: “Genesect at Library Gym hatching 11:35am, need bodies?” Got two remotes and one local. Barely scraped by with five trainers. That fire chicken hits stupid hard. Burned a few revives. Zero shiny. Typical. Still, candy in the bag.
The real pain came later. Raid hour Wednesday. Six of us met. Weather turned garbage – cold rain drizzle. Huddled under the mall overhang trying to tap screens without thumbs freezing. Some guy in our group kept losing GPS signal inside his car. We kept yelling at him to park and get out. Lost three raids worth of passes during that hour because of his signal nonsense and gyms glitching. Pure frustration. Only caught one shiny Makuhita out of fifteen 1-star raids. Waste. Everyone grumpy, went home soaked.
Darkrai week redeemed it. Weather cleared. Big crew out. Smashed seven Darkrai raids Saturday afternoon park crawl. Felt smooth – coordination was key. Got two shinies! Finally. That rush when the screen sparks pink? Worth the entire soggy raid hour misery. Also snagged a shiny Mawile randomly.
Wrap-up felt mixed. Managed to grab most shinies I wanted except Tapu Fini. Screw you, Fini. Burned way too many passes trying. Heatran week? Skipped almost entirely. Pointless. Free pass only. Spent more time farming gym coins again to recover financially. Final tally notebook shows:
- Premium Passes Used: 38
- Free Passes Burned: All of em.
- Shinies Caught: 4 (Darkrai x2, Mawile, Makuhita)
- Frustration Level: Sky-high during raid hour & Fini fails
- Win Level: Sky-high during Darkrai day
Lessons? Sync schedule early, triple-check boss rotations, force everyone to stand outside the damn car, stock up BEFORE the month starts, and pray harder for RNG luck. Already hunting next month’s schedule leaks. Gotta restock passes…
