Gigantamax Rillaboom counters, weakness, and battle tips in Pokémon Go

Gigantamax Rillaboom is making its Gigantamax debut in Pokémon Go, and as usual with these types of Pokémon, it’ll be tough to take down.

Rillaboom will specifically be around during the weekend portion of the “Serene Retreat” event, from May 31 at 6 a.m. until June 1 at 9 p.m. in your local time.

Below we list Gigantamax Rillaboom’s best counters and weaknesses in Pokémon Go, as well as general battle tips for the big guy.

Gigantamax Rillaboom weakness

Rillaboom is a pure grass-type, so it has a ton of weaknesses: flying-, poison-, bug-, fire-, and ice-type moves.

That being said, it’ll be resistant against ground-, water-, grass-, and electric-type moves, so don’t use those unless they’re just fast moves to help charge the max meter.

Gigantamax Rillaboom best counters

Try to bring at least one of these attackers:

• Gigantamax Charizard with Fire Spin or Dragon Breath (G-Max Wildfire)
• Dynamax Darmanitan with Fire Fang (Max Flare)
• Dynamax Moltres with Wind Attack (Max Airstream)
• Dynamax Cinderace with Fire Spin (Max Flare)

You don’t really have to care about your Gigantamax Charizard’s fast move unless you’re using it to build the meter as a pinch hitter. Hopefully you have enough other players that it won’t come to that, but Dragon Breath is just a faster attack than its other options, which is why we have it listed above.

This is all to say that, yes, bring a strong fire-type and Rillaboom should go down.

For defenders/tanks, bring one or two of the following:

• Dynamax Blissey with Pound
• Dynamax Corviknight with Sand Attack
• Dynamax Butterfree with Bug Bite
• Dynamax/Gigantamax Venusaur with Vine Whip

These guys’ job is just to soak up the damage from Rillaboom while generating as much energy as possible with their fast attacks.

I hesitated putting Corviknight on this list because Dynamax Rookidee made its debut just this week and Corviknight has a Gigantamax form — so to me, Dynamax Corviknight isn’t worth investing in unless you have a ton of Rookidee Candy sitting around. It resists Rillaboom’s attacks well, so I did include it, but keep that in mind.

Butterfree is a funny one, but it does heavily resist Rillaboom’s grass-type moves, so… go nuts with it, if that’s what you got. As usual Blissey is way to go, but if you still don’t have one, these alternatives should work.

Consider just bringing the strongest Dynamax or Gigantamax Pokémon you have. If you have a maxed out Gigantamax Gengar and your Dynamax Darmanitan isn’t leveled (and you don’t have the means to power it up), just bring your Gengar.

General Gigantamax Rillaboom tips

If you’ve been struggling in Max Battles, here’s some general tips to survive — and make sure you’re an asset to your team. Gigantamax battles involve way more strategy than the usual rampant tapping that you do in raids, so make sure to know what you’re doing before jumping in.

• Make sure you have enough players. High-efficiency groups with maxed out investments can take down the Rillaboom with fewer people, but practically, if you don’t have hundreds of spare candy and even more Stardust laying around, this isn’t going to be an option for you. Make sure you have as many people as possible to ensure that you get your drummer gorilla.
• Don’t sleep on Max Spirit and Max Guard. Teams work best when there’s a variety of moves, not just maxed-out attacks. Each player should bring Pokémon with the defensive and healing moves unlocked as well. Max Guard will focus single-target damage towards you and reduce the damage taken; Max Spirit will heal the whole party. These moves are really important to make sure your damage-dealers can keep dishing.
• Remember to swap to super effective moves when it’s time to Dynamax. For Dynamax Pokémon, their max moves are determined by whatever type their fast move is. This means if you have a Darmanitan with Fire Fang, it will know Max Flare. A Gengar with Lick will know Max Phantasm. Take advantage of this and make sure to swap to a Pokémon that will deal super effective damage to your target before Dynamaxing, if you can.
• Focus on your fast moves. You want to spam your fast moves to build up that Dynamax meter and often times, using your charge move is actually a DPS loss when compared to the damage you could be doing with your max move will be. Spam those attacks!
• Level up a few ‘mons, but you don’t have to go too hard. Depending on your group size, you absolutely do not need to max out all your Dynamax Pokémon to level 40-50. While this will make it easier on the rest of your group, if this isn’t an investment you can make, you don’t have to stress about it. Power things up as high as you can afford to, but don’t fret if you don’t have a maxed out Pokémon.
• All of that said, make sure to come as prepared as you can be. This is a team effort and there’s a chance that a full group of four can still fail. Do not just bring your unleveled Dynamax Wooloo expecting a free ride to a powerful Pokémon. (After all, if everyone does that, then you certainly won’t clear the battle.) Again, you don’t have to completely max out your Pokémon, but it will be better for everyone involved if you bring something helpful to the table.
• There’s no shiny Rillaboom this time around! Grookey’s shiny has not been added to the game yet (and it likely won’t be until it gets its own Community Day), so if you’re looking to shiny hunt Gigantamax Rillaboom… you’ll have to wait until next time.