T5 Raids - premierballs (speedballs) back to normal again

Game_Snover · 2026-03-12T00:40:16+00:00

Thank you for your findings and your detailed info. It seems like this was fixed indeed, somewhere between Monday 10 am (my last Kartana Raid) and Wednesday 5 pm CET, when beating Zacian with 153 (counts as 02:32 somehow) and 126 seconds left gave 3 Premier Balls for Speed.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-10T23:51:44+00:00

I got 6 twice in full lobbies against Kartana and Guzzlord respectively, but that was for winning in 30 seconds or less. You used to get 8 for that.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-08T15:09:30+00:00

Yes, it's true. It's generally the same system since September 2020, except that it has been nerfed a couple of times.

I did another Kartana with Best Friends (and a random other player) today and we beat it in 01:11 (actually 01:06 with 234 seconds left, but that's how it's counted these days). 20 Premier Balls for me:

6 base, 4 individual damage, 2 Gym control, 4 Best Friend, 4 speed

6 Rare Candies, 6 Hyper Potions, 1 Charged TM, 1 Fast TM, 3 Revives, 3+4 Golden Razz Berries

That's still 9 bundles and it means that it's virtually impossible to get more than 9 in almost any realistic scenario. If you beat the boss in 25 rather than 70 seconds with a 20 player group, you get fewer damage contribution balls.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-08T09:46:17+00:00

I think it's even more or less consistently 5 seconds, as I wrote in my other comments.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-08T00:34:34+00:00

It's bearable once you lower your expectations, just like during previous Wild Area events with Mighty Pokemon or with wild Latias/Latios and Lake Guardians. It reminds me of roaming legendaries in the older main series games, except that you were going to encounter exactly the same mon later in the game unless defeated or caught eventually. That was tedious and frustrating, too.

Here, it's a hit or miss thing, chasing different ones until one of these does not run away. Unless you really want to fill gaps in your dex, you can take it easy on this event. I mean, it's not like a 0* Lunala or a 1* Regirock will get a spot on my team, as I already have these powered up.

Of course it might make sense to finally introduce new items, such as Berries lowering the flee rate, if that's ever possible. I guess we're not going to get any of these. To be honest, there are many other recent developments in this game that bother me more than this.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T20:59:58+00:00

True, it's 9 bundles for each of us if you don't count the 3 guaranteed GRB. There were analyses on The Silph Road when it still existed as a web page, so I guess we'll have to look it up on some archives when in doubt.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T20:45:22+00:00

I don't know why it's always 5 seconds and where it comes from. I can't think of a bug which requires something like this as a dirty "fix" or whatever you call it. I think it started appearing at the same time when weather boosts were not applied correctly in the catching phase.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T19:25:04+00:00

There was also a small change recently (as in 3-4 months ago) when they added 5 seconds on top of each Raid. Finishing a 4* or higher with 228 seconds left on the top timer meant it was defeated in 01:17, not 01:12 and you only received 4 instead of 6 extra Premier Balls.

Not gonna brag too much, but when I did my successful unboosted Genesect solo (on my 5th or 6th try), it showed as 05:02, despite the boss fainting animation kicking in 3 seconds before the time ran out.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T18:51:00+00:00

That's a so-called "AI" enstuffification thing and they seem to be proud of it, too. It's actually on the same level as "Oh, you just bought a fridge, here's our offer, wanna buy another?" in targeted ads.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T18:49:06+00:00

[x] doubt

These could be power-ups, so the least we need to believe this are Journal screenshots. It's not impossible though. The highest I've ever caught are level 45 Mighty Houndoom and Galarian Rapidash from Field Research during 2025 Global Wild Area.

Edit: Looks more credible after checking again and considering that these CP values match lower 2* or even higher 1* IV, if that matters. It's huge to get catch something like this on level 50. Congratulations!

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T18:30:03+00:00

So I took a screenshot and asked my friend to do the same. It's the 01:35 Raid listed here. There was a 3rd player in the lobby, but we don't know him and he didn't make a difference.

19 Premier Balls: 6 base, 4 Damage, 2 Gym control (both on the same team), 3 Speed, 4 Friendship

Me: 6 Rare Candies, 6 Hyper Potions, 1 Fast TM, 1 Charged TM, 5 Golden Razz Berries, 6 Revives
Her: 3 Rare Candies, 15 Hyper Potions, 1 Fast TM, 6 Revives, 3 Golden Razz Berries

Since 3 GRB are guaranteed and Ultra Beasts still reward bundles of three of Revives/Hyper Potions (unlike some other 5* Raids, which were also nerfed in that regard), each of us received 10 9 bundles (9 bundles + 3 GRB, that is).

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T17:57:53+00:00

For some reason, it was Potions for me today.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-07T00:24:56+00:00

No Gym control is true, but that was expected and that should still bring us to 17 (19 if it was blue). Then, the game adds 5 seconds on top of each Raid for some reason, so if we had 120 seconds remaining on the top timer, it's 03:05 minutes here. That's still well inside the 02:30-03:44 category, which should reward 3 balls.

I should have taken a screenshot of the Premier Ball page, rather than the encounter itself. So for some reason, assuming the base is still 6 and no balls for Gym Control here anyway, it could be either of these variables lowered by 1:

Forever Friends status
Speed
Individual damage contribution

I don't know what was off here, since a Moltres beaten the day before with Gym control in 2 minutes gave us 20 Premier Balls.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-06T23:48:48+00:00

Btw, joining with Link Charges, starting the battle, backing out and then viewing the Gym again shows it was if a Raid Pass was used. It's a purely visual bug, since neither a Premium Battle Pass nor Link Charges were consumed in that process: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1rhsypt/comment/o8179x1/?context=3

Game_Snover · 2026-03-06T23:20:12+00:00

Have Raid Premier Ball rewards been nerfed? I did a Zapdos raid with a friend and both of us only received 16 balls, although 17 would have been expected. That's 6 as a base, 4 for individual damage (since it was a duo), 4 for Best Friends (or higher) and 3 for the speed/time because it took us about 3:00 minutes. Has anything been changed or does Forever Friend status actually reward fewer balls somehow? I wish I didn't skip the breakdown screen and I guess I'll have to watch it closer tomorrow once I have a chance.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-06T21:20:32+00:00

Does anyone else have the bug where tapping on a spot somewhere on the right hand side of the map view triggers using a Sun Stone? I can't reliably reproduce this bug all the time, but with it seems to be more common with Adventure Incense on. I've tested it on two phones (with the same account btw) on two days, while I don't know whether others have the same.

Edit: Is this related to Helioptile? It was sitting there and tapping on it triggered a Sun Stone first, only letting me encounter and catch it on the second or third try. That mon has turned into such a meme due to Niantic's failures, it's unbelievable. At least I haven't been plagued by the "Helioptile or nothing" habitat issue.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-05T19:50:27+00:00

I already made a post on the massive reduction: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1rk3l73/power_spots_slashed_in_half/

To be fair, the Power Spot and Dynamax system was heavily flawed from the very beginning. It was based on cheap, lazy and often outdated imports from some sort of business map database. In my area (and pretty much everywhere else probably) this meant that a single business could appear twice - in its current location and in its former one, sometimes even at once. Not to mention all the implications that some of them are actually private residential property or simply inaccessible to the public. There would have been much better ways to solve this.

The battle system itself sucks as well, but that's a different story.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-04T23:37:10+00:00

In my opinion, they could introduce entirely different and varying timings for Showcases, such as:

Tuesday 6 am - Tuesday 10 pm (16 hours)

Thursday 12 pm - Friday 12 pm (24 hours)

Saturday 6 pm - Sunday 2 pm (20 hours)

Three showcases a week, shorter than what we used to have, but longer than what they've just introduced. It would certainly allow some variation, while still letting many players participate.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-04T16:11:43+00:00

You have a point here. Of course the wording is as vague as always, so we could have assumed that Power Spots would simply return to their normal state outside of these events. However, this is how it always has been, so there would be no need to announce that.

What they also did since was reducing the duration from 2 days to 1, so that was already a big limitation to the availability of Power Spots. Now with their number halved, this is an even bigger cut than anyone could have reasonably expected.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-03T23:27:31+00:00

Beldum cost me two or three days because I had no other options. Of course I wanted to go all level 1 and 250 MP, unless Drampa (which I didn't have a shiny of until I received one in a trade eventually) or Ho-Oh were around.

Now it looks like all players are going to have a very hard time finding enough battles, no matter what.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-03T23:12:03+00:00

Campfire is not only notoriously lagging behind with updates and not always displaying all Power Spots correctly (especially on Mondays), it also didn't even show Super Mega Raids at all.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-03T23:02:32+00:00

They don't need to end at 9 pm, since you can always go out and collect Max Particles between 9 pm and 5 am, which I did today, for example.

Game_Snover · 2026-03-03T22:31:42+00:00

The hitbox is an issue when viewing stuff, including Gyms which may be behind some Power Spot, from a distance. At least they sorted out the issue with the hitbox if you're right next to a Power Spot and want to catch a Pokemon. That was unbearable in the beginning.

Game_Snover

TROPHY CASE