The second week leading up to GO Fest has been going on since a few days ago. This time it's focusing on Battle Challenges. Which heavily features Team GO Rocket battles. Due to Team Rocket mostly using Poison- and Dark-type Pokémon, a lot of Pokémon of this type have received an increased spawn chance. These two types of Pokémon are currently the majority of the Raid Bosses too and are really common from Eggs. Various Pokémon such as Skorupi and Croagunk are possible encounter rewards from many of the Field Research Tasks you can currently obtain.
Just like last week, the Challenge consists of 3 parts with a bonus Elite Challenge. If enough Trainers of all three teams complete the 3rd step of the Battle Challenge we will unlock Ferroseed, Alolan Grimer and Alolan Marowak as spawns during GO Fest. Once again, the Elite Challenge does not have to be completed for this. It's only for bragging rights.
As you can see the Elite Challenge requires you to defeat 15 Team GO Rocket Grunts, 5 Team Leaders and Giovanni. Luckily we receive a Super Rocket Radar to search for Giovanni as a reward for the 3rd step in the Challenges. Especially useful for those who completed all their current Team GO Rocket Special Research and had no more Super Rocket Radar in their possession.
What's a surprise though, is that Giovanni now has Shadow Suicune! It was said by Niantic a few months ago that no new Special Research quests would be handed out to defeat Team GO Rocket until September, and as such Giovanni would keep Shadow Entei until then.
This is likely due to the introduction of Team GO Rocket Balloons. A few times a day a Team GO Rocket Balloon can pop up which allows you to battle a Rocket Grunt, Leader or Giovanni. You can see a big shadow on the ground if there is a Balloon hovering above you. To see it you will have to zoom out completely, and then you just have to click on it like you would on a Pokéstop that's been taken over. You can see it in the next picture.
During this Battle Challenge week there is also a chance for the Meowth Balloon to appear, which allows you to battle against Jessie and James. First you have to fight against Jessie, which allows you to catch Shadow Ekans and then you have to fight against James and get to capture Shadow Koffing. Defeating them will give you 2 Mysterious Components and count as 2 Team GO Rocket Grunts for any tasks.
Here you can see the stats for my first Shadow Ekans and Koffing.
Today a new Rocket Take-over event took place. Once again every Pokéstop had a Team GO Rocket Grunt. Balloons also appeared more frequently. I took this as an opportunity to make great progress with my Elite Battle Challenge. The day before I already defeated Arlo before I completed the 3rd step, so unfortunately that didn't count towards the 5 Leaders yet, and I had to start from scratch to make a new Rocket Radar today.
That went really smoothly though, and after assembling my first Rocket Radar of today I was really close to a Team Leader, which turned out to be Sierra and I defeated her. I was walking around with two friends too. Shortly after defeating Sierra I was able to have an encounter with Giovanni. His Persian was once again being really annoying, being able to only break one of his two shields with my 1st Pokémon. Then my Mamoswine got lucky to give itself an Attack and Defense boost with Ancient Power, taking off Giovanni's 2nd shield. I defeated his Persian and then used my Mamoswine's Avalanche to take out his Nidoking. I kept battling against Suicune until my Mamoswine fainted and then switched out to my Raikou to defeat his Suicune.
The victory and encounter with Shadow Suicune can be seen here.
I do quite like that screenshot when the Suicune was doing this move. Having the Premier Ball up a bit, makes it seem like it's playing with it like we're passing it back and forth to each other.
As for the stats, they can be seen in the next picture. Purifying it won't make it the best as its Defense and HP won't be that close to max. It is definitely one of the better stat rolls on my Shadow Legendaries though!
I didn't take a screenshot of how many Rocket Grunts I defeated before I started the event today, so I don't have a number on that. But I finished most of the Elite Challenge today during the event. Just missing one more Rocket Leader. So I did do at least 24+ Rocket Grunts, as I had to assemble the Radar each time with 6 Components before I could fight a Leader, and I fought 4 today.
Now I finally finished my currently last Team GO Rocket Special Research too. I didn't want to finish it as I wanted to keep it until Shadow Suicune was out. The new Research line will likely still not be giving out until September though, as I didn't receive a new one. I still have a Super Rocket Radar to encounter Giovanni now thanks to receiving one from this week's Challenge. I'll think about whether I'll use it to defeat Giovanni again for another Shadow Suicune, or just keep it.
Did you participate in the Team GO Rocket Take-over event today? How is your Battle Challenge going?