How to make an OP Pokemon Go team for Raids, PvP, Gyms, and Rocket

It’s all about catching ’em all for some Pokemon Go players, but others are in it to become the most powerful of Pokemon trainers. You can battle in various ways such as taking control of Gyms, joining in group Raids, fighting Team Rocket, and in PvP duals. With 900+ unique species now in Pokemon Go, it takes a lot to master the meta across these various activities. To make this a little easier, we’ve put together some tips on how to make an OP team for various activities in Pokemon Go.

How to make an OP Pokemon Go team

This is a rules-based game first and foremost, so you have to do the research if you want to be a formidable trainer. Finding success in battling requires a strong team, knowledge of what your opponents are capable of, and the ability to conduct a strategy with precise timing. It cannot be overemphasized that the latter two of these tenets are just as important as having powerful critters. You also need to know the differences between mechanics in the various activities.

Basic trainer tips

We’ll start with the basics about what makes an individual Pokemon powerful. CP is essentially the level of the Pokemon. Stats define how powerful the Attack, Defense, and HP are relative to other species. Move sets can make or break the usefulness of a Pokemon, because some moves are simply superior to others in every regard. There’s also the quality of the individual Pokemon you caught (Individual Values), which you can assess via the Appraisal system. Lastly, the Type defines weaknesses and advantages against opponents.

There are three more things new trainers should start doing immediately. The first is acquiring powerful Pokemon (or their unevolved forms) and walking them as buddies to gain Candy for powering up the CP. Second, you should start raiding at the highest difficulty rating you can manage. Try to find a local group that frequents Legendary raids and start catching those. Legendaries are the best Pokemon in the game for battling. Third, power up a high-tier Pokemon in each type as soon as possible.

Intermediate trainer tips

The best way to make an OP team in Pokemon Go is to start with the best candidates. As soon as you acquire the desired species for your team, you should immediately Appraise the stats. All unique Pokemon have values between 0-100 of their theoretical maximum stats, but the game keeps this simple with a star and bar system. Aim for an overall appraisal of at least three stars before committing resources to a Pokemon.

If you do manage to find some powerful Pokemon with good stats, the next thing to assess are the move sets. You can change move sets by acquiring TMs as rewards from Raids, the store, and some other activities. There are also sometimes special events such as Community Days during which you can acquire special and more powerful moves for Pokemon which upgrade them from average performers to meta picks.

Pay special attention to the Charge Attacks. There are single, double, and triple Charge Attacks which work based on how much energy is required. Sometimes its good to have a single bar Charge Attack because it outputs the most overall damage, but it can also be a problem if your Pokemon faints right before a full charge. This is why it’s important to consider the double and triple-bar options depending on the use case.

It’s pretty much a requirement to use a resource such as the Pokemon Go Hub database if you want to make your team OP. It provides stat data, all potential move sets, and CP charts. You can also see data like DPS with certain move sets, exact damage outputs over time, and how long certain Charge Attacks take to complete. There are also plenty of tier lists out there for up-to-date meta rankings in the different activities.

By now you should also be aware of all Type advantages and weaknesses in addition to the common meta choices by other players. Seek to emulate those teams until you have enough powerful Pokemon to make your own strategies. You also want to make use of STAB during fights, which is a damage buff for using attack Type moves that match your Pokemon’s Type. Here is a full chart for how damage breaks down with Type advantages and disadvantages.

As an intermediate trainer you should also have several high-tier Pokemon per type powered up to around level 30. This will grant greater success in more activities, particularly allowing you to solo higher difficulty Raids to get better rewards that you can put towards rare Pokemon and Legendaries.

Advanced trainer tips

Eventually you need to have plenty of meta picks available for teambuilding, maximize the CP of your best Pokemon, have the best move sets, unlock the second Charge Attack slots for your best Pokemon, and master the mechanics in different activities. Some of these goals will take a very long time to achieve, though. With that said, you can still go a long ways by mastering the mechanics in different activities to achieve more with what you have.

PvP Leagues

Personal skill has the greatest impact on PvP Battle Leagues relative to the other battle activities in Pokemon Go. This is by far the most competitive activity, so you will need to apply all of your Pokemon Go knowledge regarding how to make a powerful team if you want to be OP.

The rules are unique for PvP battles and there are different Leagues with different metas. Leagues are based off of maximum CP values for individual Pokemon and consist of Great League (1,500 max CP), Ultra League (2,500 max CP), and Master League (uncapped CP). There are also occasionally tournaments and special activities.

Strategy is king in PvP since you can only form teams of three. Although the traditional Pokemon battle rosters allow for six slots, Niantic chose smaller teams for Pokemon Go for whatever reason. This means that offensive and defensive Type coverage is more difficult to account for. You need to accept that any team you build in Pokemon Go will have a decisive counter roster and those players will show up from time to time. However, you can still tip the balance in your favor in most matches if you know what to do with a strong team and employ your allotted turn-based shields at the right times.

Legendary Pokemon are generally good choices for any team, but don’t overlook the respective meta in each League. Excellent move sets combined with decent stats can make some common Pokemon formidable foes. It also takes way less effort to unlock the full battle potential of common Pokemon versus rare and Legendary types. One more thing to consider when building a team is to avoid Dual-Type Pokemon until you really know what you’re doing with the meta. Otherwise, you will likely get a nasty surprise from Super Effective Charge Attacks that one-shot your Pokemon.

I learned some tricks and strategies in my ~800 matches of PvP in which I was able to outsmart opponents with arguably better Pokemon. Take these concepts and test them out in the training matches against gym leaders to see how effective these smallest adjustments to your strategy can be.

Image via Niantic

For starters, you absolutely must have the second Charge Attack unlocked for all of the Pokemon on your team to improve Type coverage. This is a real game changer. This opens up the option to add a second Charge Attack with a lower energy requirement for quickly finishing off opponents. You can also use that second slot to add a different move Type to counter anything your opponent throws at you.

You want as many attack options as possible, because you can perform a lot more strategies in those scenarios. Some things to try include baiting your opponent with a Type that’s vulnerable to a lot of meta picks and then unleashing a super effective Charge Attack that causes massive, unanticipated damage. This might even cause your opponent to panic and make several mistakes. You can also build up a Charge Attack and switch to another Pokemon, saving the Charge for later.

Dealing enough damage to a critical member of an opponent’s team will also often force them to switch out their Pokemon, allowing you to respond in turn and trap them in a Type disadvantage. This is because there’s a cooldown timer that regulates how often trainers can switch out Pokemon and why you ideally want to be the one forcing the switch.

This next strategy is entirely skill-based. Sometimes you can use a Pokemon that’s about to faint later in a match. Instead of letting it faint outright, withdraw it with just a sliver of HP. If you can manage to time your opponent’s behavior of using their own Charge Attacks, you can then predict when they will strike next. Switch in your nearly-fainted Pokemon to absorb a powerful Charge Attack that your opponent saved a lot of energy for. This will essentially waste their attack and put you at a solid advantage for the rest of the match.

Image by PC Invasion

On the topic of energy requirements, it’s best to avoid single bar Charge Attacks due to the high costs and the risks that come along with pulling those off. There will be plenty of instances where you simply won’t have the time to build up the energy for a single-bar Charge Attack, or it’s an overkill attack against an already weak opponent. You can also spam opponents with weaker Charge Attacks to make them waste shield charges. Two-bar and three-bar Charge Attacks are therefore more useful in most cases.

The same concepts generally carry over for standard Fast Attacks, but you want to choose your moves wisely for several reasons. Fast Attacks have traits such as the damage dealt, the speed at which the moves execute, and the energy that’s generated from each attack. You may find it better to go with slow, hard-hitting fast attacks. Alternately, using a Fast Attack that generates a lot of energy will open up more opportunities to use Charge Attacks. If your strategy for that Pokemon relies on powerful Charge Attacks, you probably want the Fast Attack option with the highest energy generation. Use a database to find the best option for your team.

One more great little trick to pull on opponents is to save up energy even if you plan to expend it on smaller Charge Attacks. This will make many think you are about to launch a powerful single-bar attack and they will waste shields. You might even have enough energy left over to quickly fire off a more powerful two-bar or single bar attack right after. This is risky if they still have shield charges, but I was regularly able to knock out my opponents’ first Pokemon early into matches because they couldn’t make sense of my strategy.

There are some meta picks that earn their ranking due to the move sets they have rather than the stats. You can gain a serious advantage if you find a Pokemon with powerful attacks you can spam to make opponents waste shields and switch out their Pokemon. Strategies that use attack spamming can easily net you a quick advantage, though you should be careful to avoid “glass cannons” with high attack power. It won’t do you any good if your opponent can hit your powerful attacker with a single, weak Charge Attack and nearly knock it out.

One last tip thing to take away regarding how to build an OP team in Pokemon Go is that unpredictability goes a long way. Use these tricks to throw opponents off and experiment with Pokemon that don’t regularly appear in the regarded “meta.” You’ll eventually know what to expect out of a lot of meta Pokemon. However, if you use a more random Pokemon, your opponent will have no idea what its move set is and this can be a huge advantage for the reasons already mentioned.

Image via Niantic

Raids

Raids have been a staple activity in Pokemon Go since first introduced years ago. Raids are pretty straightforward since the activity shows you what powerful Pokemon you’ll need to defeat in order to get a chance at catching it. You can go at these alone generally up to the three-star difficulty, provided you have a good team and some skills.

The main things to ensure success in raids are having the right Types to apply Super Effective damage and to resist their attacks in turn. There’s no CP limit in raids either, so it’s fair game for anything you do to power up your own Pokemon further. This includes using Mega Stones to transform compatible Pokemon into more powerful variants with better stats and an attack power boost. In fact, Mega Pokemon are the best option to increase your odds of success with small groups since they add 10% attack power boosts to other Pokemon on the field and up to 30% for those attacking with the same Type. You can also temporarily boost your Buddy Pokemon’s CP by two levels by maxing out your friendship meter.

As already mentioned, high level Raids are no sweat if you find a local active group to tag along with. The additions of remote raiding features and Mega Stones also makes the game more accessible for those with smaller groups. You’ll need a stacked team of high-level Legendaries and Mega Pokemon though if you want to make a truly OP team for raiding in Pokemon Go.

Image via Niantic

Team Rocket

Team Rocket encounters are essentially higher difficulty versions of the player-versus-gym leader training for PvP. You’ll have to beat the powered up Shadow Pokemon which can do a lot more damage, but Team Rocket won’t block Charge Attacks with shields or spam unpredictable attacks.

You have a good chance of winning against the Grunts and Lieutenants if you bring a team with broad type coverage and resistance. You then just need to focus on knocking out the Shadow Pokemon before they can perform Charge Attacks that will often deliver knockout blows. The Team Rocket Boss Giovanni will put up a serious fight, but you can find resources online that show the rosters you’ll be up against so you can plan out your team to counter them.

There are some good rewards for beating Team Rocket bosses, so it’s worth doing especially when you need extra practice or just a break from direct PvP.

Gyms

Gyms were the first activity for engagement between players in Pokemon Go and frankly aren’t that challenging to take down as an attacker these days. Just bring counters for all of the Pokemon you’re going up against and you should be able to succeed even with lower CP attackers. You can also dodge Charge Attacks and often find gym defender teams with degraded Motivation which makes taking the gym easy.

All you really is need is time to take down a gym controlled by another team, but the rewards are worth it. You’ll gain in-game currency for the amount of time your Pokemon control the gym, which you can use to buy useful items like TMs, Star Pieces, Incense, and Incubators.

Image via Niantic

If you managed to stick out this whole read, you definitely now have the knowledge for how to make an OP team in Pokemon Go. It’s not something you can assemble in short order, but you can use the tips discussed to outplay other trainers as you build up your elite team. This is also the type of game that heavily rewards wins. The more success you have, the faster you’ll progress in the long term journey to become one of the best Pokemon trainers out there.

Pokemon Go continues to thrive nearly seven years after the original release, as evidenced by plenty of updates in 2023. If you’re just getting back into it or are new to the game, be sure to learn how to get the Master Ball and bag yourself a powerful pocket monster to up your game.