PoGO – Pokémon Go: Arktos as Raid Boss - Counter Guide

Dress warmly, because the legendary Arktos from the Kanto region is coming back to the Pokémon Go Raids as part of the Kanto Tour 2021. Do you want to defeat it in battle? Then take a look at our current counter guide to Arktos!

Update from February 18, 2021: As part of the Kanto Tour 2021, you will once again have the chance to fight the legendary Arktos and then add it to your collection during the bonus encounter – with luck, even in its iridescent form! From February 20, 2021 from 09:00 until March 1, 2021 until 08:00, the legendary birds will share spawns in the raids with Mewtu, in keeping with the event. By the way, Arktos will learn the exclusive attack Gale when you capture him. The current best counters can be found in the following list.

If you want to hunt for an Arktos with the perfect 100% IV, look for an Arktos with 1,743 CP at level 20. With Snow and Wind, Arktos is boosted to level 25 and has 2,179 CP for the perfect 100% IV score.

Rameidon with catapult and rock thrower
Rihornior with catapult and rock thrower
Terrakium with catapult and hail of stones
Despotar with catapult and stone edge
Brockoloss with catapult and hail of stones
Amoroso with rock throw and rock hail
Mega-Glurak with Fire Whirl and Lohe Cannonade
Flampivian with Fire Fang and Stone Hail
Mega Ampharos with Volt Change and Jewel Power
ALoLa-Geowaz with stone throw and stone edge
Stalobor with Metal Claw and Stone Hail
Reshiram with fire tooth and stone edge

Original post September 16, 2020: After Arktos Day on July 7, the legendary bird is now making another stop in Pokémon GO s Raids. As part of the Ultra Bonus event, the ice-flying Pokémon will appear as a Tier 5 boss from September 13 to 20 at 10 p.m. CEST, alternating with its fellow legendary bird Zapdos and Lavados. With a bit of luck, all three birds can also be found in their Shiny variants and once again have their exclusive attacks Gale (Arktos), Thunder Shock (Zapdos) and Sky Sweeper (Lavados) in their luggage, which you already know from the reward days of the three global challenges.

As a Tier 5 boss, Arktos is one of the more challenging raid opponents in Pokémon GO – even more so since Niantic reduced the time window for Tier 5 raids from 300 to 180 seconds with the Ultra Bonus event. You should therefore start the battle with at least three trainers – but a group of four or five players is better. Arktos has 37,603 boss CP and belongs to the Ice Flight type combination. It is therefore particularly sensitive to rock, fire, electric and steel, with rock attacks being doubly powerful.

In battle, Arktos relies exclusively on ice attacks. Therefore, you should not use Pokémon that have a weakness to ice attacks in the raid against the legendary Pokémon. Specifically, Arktos uses the following attack sets:

Ice Sodem (normal attack, ice type) and Blizzard (charged attack, ice type).
Ice Sodem (normal attack, type ice) and Ice Blizzard (charged attack, type ice)
Ice Sodem (normal attack, type ice) and Ice Storm (charged attack, type ice)

The most dangerous combination is Ice Doom and Blizzard, while you can get off relatively lightly with Ice Doom and Ice Storm. If you want to maximize your chances in the Raid against Arktos, it’s best to use the following counter Pokémon:

Despotar (Rock/Unlight type) with Catapult (normal attack, Rock type) and Stone Edge (charged attack, Rock type).
Amoroso (type rock/water) with stone throw (normal attack, type rock) and stone hail (charged attack, type rock)
Geowaz (type rock) with stone throw (normal attack, type rock) and stone edge (charged attack, type rock)
Eintei (Fire type) with Fire Whirl (normal attack, Fire type) and Heat Fury (charged attack, Fire type)
Lavados (type fire/flight) with fire whirl (normal attack, type fire) and heat rage (charged attack, type fire)
Flamara (type fire) with fire whirl (normal attack, type fire) and heat rage (charged attack, type fire)
Lohgock (type Fire/Combat) with counter (normal attack, type Combat) and heat rage (charged attack, type Fire)
Raikou (type Electro) with Thunder Shock (normal attack, type Electro) and Surge (charged attack, type Electro)
Metagross (type Steel/Psycho) with Cartridge Strike (normal attack, type Steel) and Light Cannon (charged attack, type Steel)

Alternatively, the following slightly weaker counter Pokémon are a good choice:

Lanturn (Water/Electric Type) with Charge Beam (normal attack, Electric Type) and Thunder Bolt (charged attack, Electric Type).
Glurak (Fire Type) with Fire Whirl (normal attack, Fire Type) and Heat Fury (charged attack, Fire Type)
Tornupto (type fire) with glow (normal attack, type fire) and heat rage (charged attack, type fire)
Kabutops (type rock/water) with smasher (normal attack, type rock) and anti-power (charged attack, type rock)
Aerodactyl (type rock/flight) with bite (normal attack, type unlight) and anti-power (charged attack, type rock)
Hundemon (type fire/unlight) with fire fang (normal attack, type fire) and fire storm (charged attack, type fire)
Stahlos (type ground/steel) with Iron Tail (normal attack, type steel) and Ram Boss (charged attack, type steel)
Magcargo (type fire/rock) with stone throw (normal attack, type rock) and stone edge (charged attack, type rock)
Mogelbaum (type rock) with stone throw (normal attack, type rock) and stone edge (charged attack, type rock)
Blitza (Elektro type) with Thunder Shock (normal attack, Elektro type) and Thunder Bolt (charged attack, Elektro type)
Magneton (type Elektro) with thunder shock (normal attack, type Elektro) and lightning cannon (charged attack, type Elektro)
Ampharos (type Elektro) with charge beam (normal attack, type Elektro) and lightning cannon (charged attack, type Elektro)

Finally, note the following general tips for fighting Arktos:

Rainy weather increases Electro attacks. So, when it rains, go for Electric-type Pokémon.
Fire attacks are stronger in sunny weather. In this case, use mainly Pokémon of the Fire type.
When it snows, Arktos’ attacks are stronger, but so are Metagross’. Also, Arktos’ CP is higher when you catch it. This also applies to windy weather, by the way.

Pokémon GO

Pokémon Go is the mobile spin-off of Nintendo’s popular Pokémon game series for Android and iOS. It is a so-called “location-based game”, i.e. a game that uses the player’s immediate surroundings. It is based on the principle of augmented reality.

Pokémon Map: Between landmarks and sights

Pokémon Go uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) to determine the player’s location and displays it on a map that also represents the playing field. The map is based on OpenStreetMap maps. The game is played mostly outdoors and uses landmarks, landmarks and other notable or eye-catching objects in the world to position either PokéStops or arenas there for you to battle for supremacy. Join either Team Intuition (Team Yellow, Zapdos), Team Wisdom (Team Blue, Arktos), or Team Daring (Team Red, Lavados). Under their flag you can then fight for the arenas, which are placed at hotspots like churches or similar. Pokémon can appear anywhere, though.

Pocket monsters visible on the Pokémon Go Map are randomly loaded into the game’s virtual map by the game server. If several players are playing in the same location, each player can see and catch the Pokémon independently of the others.

Pokémon Go Updates, News, Raids and More

The developers at Niantic regularly provide Pokémon Go with new updates or special raids that should only be tackled in a group of several people. The Pokémon Go Raids are therefore very popular, as they also offer the prospect of particularly rare Pokémon. For example, in the past, legendary Pokémon could always be caught on special occasions (Pokémon Go events). For particularly eager mobile or smartphone Pokémon trainers, there is also an external IV calculator, such as the online tool from Pokemon.gameinfo.io or on Pokefans.net, to check the values of your Pokémon.