One big part of Pokémon Sword and Shield is the ability to participate in Max Raid Battles with four other trainers, in order to take down special Dynamax Pokémon. In some rare cases though, a Gigantamax Pokémon will appear.
While the chances of encountering one of these Gigantamax Pokémon are normally incredibly low, there'll actually be regular events in the game where certain Gigantamax pocket monsters become more common during a specific period. As previously noted, the first one up for grabs is Gigantamax Butterfree.
From Friday, November 15, 2019, until early January 2020, players will be more likely to encounter Gigantamax Butterfree in Max Raid Battles.
During this same period, players who own a copy of Sword will have more regular encounters with Gigantamax Drednaw, and players who own Shield will more regularly encounter Gigantamax Corviknight.
The Gigantamax Pokémon you can encounter will change once this event ends. So keep an eye out for future updates like this one.
[source swordshield.pokemon.com]
Comments 51
Actually i prefer Beautifly since it looks like Swallowtail butterfly but well.... Butterfree on Pokemon Sword / Shield will be on my team also.
No I don't fancy taking on a big Butterfree.
How good is Drednaw? 4x weakness to grass is a big negative.
@BlackTalon2 idk about its stats but water rock isn’t a bad combo despite the double weakness to grass. Grass is one of the less common types in the competitive scene due to it having so many weaknesses and most grass Pokémon either having underwhelming stats or a mediocre move pool.
I still don't quite understand how Gigantamax Pokemons work. So if you encounter a Pokemon that doesn't appear in Gigantamax form, that Pokemon would not have Gigantamax form? Would be quite lame to raise a Pokemon and later reliaze it has a Gigantamax form and you wasted time leveling up an "inferior" Pokemon that can't Gigantamax.
@ShadJV One of my problems is Charizard, which was a pain back in Gen 7. It still has solar beam.
@ReWane yup, just found out that dynamax and gigantamax are different things. So I just wasted my time training my caterpie into butterfree just to find out it wont ever get its new super cool form because I didnt get it from a gigantamax raid.
I like this, and I hope this means some new Gigantimax pokemon will be revealed during these raids. I'd love a Gigantimax Shuckle
@BlackTalon2 And now it has a Megalazer Solarbeam
I'm having such a blast playing this game. I'm 8 hours in and I haven't even gone to the first gym yet! The Wild area is AMAZING! And Raid battles are super cool!
Yes, the Pokedex is small this gen, BUT I have 51 Pokemon registered before the first gym! FIFTY ONE! This is awesome! So many options to choose from! And plenty are brand new, but lots of familiar faces too.
Awesome. Will be on the lookout for it.
@Heavyarms55 Pretty much the opposite of my experience. Ran around the wild area for like five minutes or so which just felt like a boring waste of time so just continued on with the story (which is also a boring waste of time but oh well). Nine hours in with six badges now. Should hopefully finish the story today.
@BenAV I'm about six hours in and only have the first badge, although I have been running around a lot trying to catch every new pokemon I see. Did you just run through most of the areas dodging fights?
@PerishSong Been fighting all trainers on each route but not really worrying too much about wild Pokemon encounters unless I see something I want.
Mosura ya Mosura
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Rusuto uiraandoa, hanba hanbamuyan, randa banunradan
Tounjukanraa
Kasaku yaanmu
I saw it in a raid and was confused I thought that it was like an alternate shiny form or something, silly me I thought that I could use a basic poke all to capture it but I was dead wrong. Now that I know what is actually was I would of used my best poke ball
@Moonlessky
I did loads of Battle Raids and have so many candy's from that that you can level up new Pokémon very fast.
Oh, and I have no gym badge after 11,5 hours. Just doing Battle Raids, I love the wild area.
@Heavyarms55 Yeah, it's great that the game opens up for catching a wide variety of pokémons early on. The wild area is a brilliant addition to the game, imagine how this idea can be expanded even further in upcoming generations.
@BenAV seems like you were unenthused for the game in the first place to me, considering you have a downward view on all the new stuff! It also is weird to me seeing people blitzkrieg through the games when we've literally waited years to see the content. Ah well, 'tis what it is to different people.
Question - how is it made known as to whether a Pokemon from raid battles can actually be in this special form? Are their different sounds/graphics or some other tell? I wish they had just chosen a more unique sounding name for each of the two "boost" paths, lol.
@OptometristLime Yeah, the game looked worse and worse with each new piece of info. I'm not really rushing through the game or anything. It's just really short and has zero challenge whatsoever. I only buy Pokemon for the competitive side though (which I think they might have messed up this time too but we'll see) anyway as the story is always just a waste of time. Every game is just click A to win with no real story of any substance. They really need to add at least difficulty settings or something.
@Quarth The Wild Area shows what the entire game really should be. I'm having an absolute BLAST playing it, but at the same time, every time I go back to the regular routes it just makes me feel like "Why? Why can't I move my camera anymore?"
Sword and Shield are really really cool. But you can see that if they hadn't hesitated so much and really pushed these new ideas all the way, the game could have been OUTSTANDING instead of "just" cool.
I'm loving the gym battles. The presentation is amazing and would have blown my mind when I was a kid! Walking into a gym full of cheering fans, that awesome music starts playing, amazing! 2 badges in now and the game is moving a bit quicker, but that's okay, I spent hours and hours and only explored some of the Wild area. I'll be going back later on.
@BenAV Well that's really on you. Obviously you're not required to like anything, but it's not a lack of content, it's your lack of interest. I have to wonder, if you're playing a Pokemon game and skipping catching Pokemon, exploring, battling and such, what did you want from the game? Sure, you can skip a whole lot but then, you skip a whole lot.
If you have to have the game force you to do something, then the game probably just isn't for you.
@Moonlessky : For reals? Gahhh!!!
I've been raising this Dottler for nothing.
I have 12 hours in, and have three badges. Just arrived to hammerlocke.
"Note: To enjoy the above feature, you’ll need to connect to the internet."
Oh, great, Gigantamax Pokémon are locked behind the online subscription. Basically, they're paid DLC.
@BenAV Sounds like you're punishing yourself, man.
@Heavyarms55 Yeah, they could've done a lot more with the game and that's why I'm confident it will "just" be an 8 for me. But I'm having fun so far and that's what matters the most. Hopefully the next Pokémon game expands on these ideas.
@Heavyarms55 I battled all the trainers I found and explored all the areas for items and everything. Just didn't do a lot of wild battles because when you can see the Pokemon on the map, I'm not going to bother engaging one that I don't want. My lack of interest comes from a lack of any challenge. You can get through the whole game by just mashing A with any old trash Pokemon without any real thought so it all just feels like a waste of time and just a hurdle that you have to jump to get to competitive battling. Don't know why they don't at least just add some difficulty options.
@Quarth Yep, pretty much. Punish myself with each generation when I've gotta slog through the pointless story to unlock the competitive stuff. At least it was short this time round. If they're not going to make a good single player mode then the shorter, the better.
Gigantamax really just feels like it devalues the regular catching gameplay. Makes me not want to bother with it to be honest.
@Quarth If they take what they did right in these games and fix what they did wrong, the next Pokemon game stands to be amazing. They need to polish some of the performance issues, make the entire game like the Wild Area, continuous and and free camera - though I don't mind if they do it like Xenoblade 2 where it's pseudo open world(s) rather than one constant world. The gym battles are amazing and they need to build on them. The variety of Pokemon is awesome, but they need to give us even more.
But rather than talking about it, I'm gonna jump back in and keep enjoying it! I wish Pokemon Home wasn't so far away, I can't wait to bring in all my shinys from Pokemon Go! And all my compatible competitive Pokemon.
@BenAV But why keep playing if it's only one part of the game that you're (as it seems) mildly interested in? If I were you, I would move on to something I find better and more entertaining instead of wasting my precious time. But hey, it's up to you.
@Heavyarms55 Agree 100%.
I'm about to go to the first gym now, sounds like it will be cool, based on your words.
@Quarth Because gotta get through the pointless throwaway story to get to the real stuff. Already finished now anyway. Less than 14 hours without rushing.
@Silly_G yup, thats another one I've been wasting my time on. Also on the tiny bird that evolves into corviknight
@BenAV OK, I understand.
@BenAV -and exactly what the duck is your definition of a good single player for Pokemon? One where you routinely struggle through everything?
@MegaVel91 Ideally something that requires actually putting in effort into building a well balanced team and a bit of thought and strategy into the battles. Gets a bit boring when you can just spam A and win effortlessly with a team of trash from the first route. I don't mind there being a baby mode but it shouldn't be the only mode.
@BenAV Why not just play Pokemon Showdown, then? Saves having to beat the game and skips right to the competitive content (and it's free).
@PerishSong I've played a bit on Showdown here and there over the years but don't really enjoy it much for whatever reason. Always much preferred playing ranked VGC in-game. Probably not this time around though as I'm assuming Dynamax Pokemon will be allowed and will ruin the format.
@BenAV I am the same as you. Gigamtimax is nowhere near as competitively interesting as Mega forms were, the game is so low budget (inexcusable low considering it is the most profitable multifranchise in history at £90biliion), graphics and animations are poor, music is horrendous midi music, pokemon and animations are the same as 3DS pretty much, story is exceptionally weak and more than half of the Pokemon are missing with no National DeX.
@CupidStunt It's almost like they were deliberately trying to make the worst game they could. Bad in pretty much all aspects.
@BenAV I'm hoping you've figured out by now that there are sometimes different pokemon in shaking grass that don't pop up their sprites since you said you were ignoring most of them that you just saw.
I have yet to come across one of these. How do we find them? Is there a special light coming out instead of the regular red beam? I'm confused as to how to actually find these as most of those places where Raids occur (even with the beam of light shining out) end up being empty by the time I get there.
@BlackTalon2 Solar Beam actually has a pretty big buff actually. When you're Dynamaxed, all moves lose their secondary effect, so Solar Beam just becomes a strong grass move (not 120 power tho).
Also using any Dmax fire move triggers Harsh Sunlight.
Also you can hold items when Dmaxing unlike Z-moves/Megas, so you can extend their triggered terrains/weathers using terrain extender/their associated stone to 8 turns (however weather counters are also easier because of how much easier it is to get a weather on the field now).
Butterfree is my number 1 meta-beating favourite pokémon and now there's a gigantamax one?!! Gimme gimme. Butterfree I choose you!
@CupidStunt i can't tell if your serious....
@blueracer Serious about what? My comments. Yes they are. I share the same opinion as many.
@CupidStunt the 3DS animations are not what we have on the switch. I feel like your just bashing it just because. Here is 3DS vs switch https://youtu.be/j7xEXEePXxE
Yes the comparison is between Pokémon let’s go and 3DS but really your argument makes no sense if you think the switch version is inferior to the 3DS and there have been comparison videos already for sword and shield. No where near the same as 3DS Pokémon games.
@blueracer I made many other points. It is my opinion. This game did not need to be so low budget. I miss the GTS, it is so hard to trade, the ev training method is slow, it is a real regression. I am glad you are loving the games. I think they are okay but shoiuld have been so much better.
I went through the entire story and post-story wondering why everyone could gigantamax their Pokémon except me. I was even waiting for it to be a reward at the end of the game or something. Nope. You just have to catch them in gigantamax form in raid battles. Welp. There goes my entire team and the ones I trained and kept in my PC. Maybe I'll just start fresh 😂
@CupidStunt see your making it sound as if we barely got a game this time around. you make it sound as if the additions to the game are crappy and dont work. pokemon purists are never satisfied.
@blueracer Well there is no point in trying to be objective with a raging fanboy so I am not going to waste my time trying.
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