Discussion
Thought it would be helpful to show the team I beat Giovanni with.
Machamp has counter and dynamic punch
Morpeko has thunder shock and psychic fangs
Garchomp has dragon tail and outrage.
I started with the machamp and insta swapped to morpeko, I survived long enough to throw 4 psychic fangs and charge up halfway to a fifth then swapped back into machamp to finish the Persian.
Giovanni’s second Pokemon was nidoking which was probably worst case for me. I just threw 2 dynamic punches and let the machamp go down. I went into garchomp and threw 1 fast attack to finish the nidoking.
Finally the giratina, I threw 2 fast attacks and switched to morpeko, I charged to one last psychic fangs then let it go down. Back to the garchomp I charged to outrage and won the battle.
Yep. Bank energy against Persian and then spam PuP to abuse cooldowns and burn his shields.
It's pretty rare I struggle with a rocket/leader/gio these days with some spam moves like PuP. I don't even bother with type matching. Shadow Ball as a second move on Lucario for a backup against things that resist fighting.
Yep. Sometimes if it's a tough Giovanni I'll build a little energy on my lead before swapping to Lucario just so if I need to swap back I'm already partly charged up. I know a few takeovers ago there was one that needed a finisher.
I personally run Superpower/Double Iron Bash (DIB requires Elite TM) but Rock Slide is a fine replacement for DIB. Superower is almost always good to have on Melmetal even with the stat drops.
Superpower and Rock Slide. Rock Slide to take down the shields, charge two Superpowers and set them off to knock out Persian.
Third is something from my master league stash that's SE against the featured legendary, second fills in the gaps.
But I caught the Melmetal in 2021 and haven't changed its moves since so it's more force of habit than efficiency or effectiveness. I only changed it out of my leader team last rotation because 2/3 were ground type.
Kangaskhan was Giovanni's second for me, so my Annihilape Counter/Rage Fisted through the first two Normal types pretty easily, but was tuckered out by the time I got to Giovanni's third.
Yeah, just like you say, I usually go with something that can tank persian and deliver quick charge attacks to burn through the shields, then swap out to Machamp to finish off Persian. I see the advice all the time to start with Machamp but it never works. I agree that not leading with it is the way to go.
I've done this before and it's an alright strategy. I prefer tanking with something that has quick charge moves before swapping. I'm not worried about Giovanni, just that his Persian wrecks fighting types often for me so I've never found it to be the best bet.
you can lead with something else and hot swap to the tank if you’d like then
the idea is the most, if not all, of the swap cooldown will be gone by the time persian is dead or their shields are gone, so you might as well do this to preserve some health
With this, it does depend on who in your team you think will battle last (ideally against his third). Open with that to give you enough time for the swap cooldown.
Last rotation, a good fighter could roll his entire team with a favourable set of matchups. Not so likely this time
Feint attack is a 1 second move that is resisted by all fighting types
Scratch is 0.5 second and not resisted. That speed makes for some serious chip damage
Bail and go again next balloon/stop.
I have typed this a few times, but it took me ages to figure out (pre-reddit)
Or use a different opener. Lucario resists both. But I am very fond of my shadow Machamp. He won me many a battle before I knew what I was doing, so still gets rolled out
You probably have the wrong moves, you need fast-charging fast moves and cheap crarge moves to take down the two shields quickly. karate Chop and Cross Chop would do it very easily.
I had to go with Annihilape to take out Persian, my higher CP Machamp couldn't do it. But Annihilape's ghost resistance to it's normal fast attack did the trick
Yeah Terrakion with sacred sword just bodies Giovanni. It took down both shields, persian and kang by itself and did some slight not effective damage on giratina with how fast sacred sword charges.
Terrakion rolled me through to giratina by itself as well but then I had chosen two mons with 1-bar charged moves like an idiot and it took both down before I could get a move off. Swapped to closing with White Kyurem (the ice/ice one) and it stomped. Swapped to Kyurem at the end of Kangastan and banked a little energy to get a charged move off faster on gira.
I used Terrakion and two Hydreigons. Terrakion gets its first Charged off, then right when it's charged again, Persian got its first Charged so I shielded that, took the rest period after to overcharge the charged meter some more, then used the Charged to take down the second shield, tanked some more hits and took it down with the third Charged. Then Kangaskhan one one shot whatever was left of its health so I let it go down as low as I was comfortable with against Persian, hit Kangaskhan with the fourth Charged after getting in two hits before it attacked, attacked some more before it took Terrakion down. By that point it had only a sliver of health left, so the first Hydreigon took it down, took Giratina to about half health with one or two Charged, I let Giratina's Charged hit, switched to the second Hydreigon, blocked the next Charged, and finished it off.
Took me a while to find the right team and strategy, though, every tanked hit to charge the meter some more was crucial in this fight. I always struggle with the tanky Persian and Kangaskhan hits really hard, especially anything with strong Fighting attacks. But going with two counters for Giratina was the only way to go since that thing tanked every Charged I threw at it and Fighting is obviously ineffective. Hydreigon gets decimated by Giratina's Charged but it tanks the Fast attack easily and has by far the highest damage output of the Pokemon I've tested in that fight so with two and a remaining Shield it was doable.
My reward for all of that was a 60% Giratina. Not terrible, obviously, but also not very satisfying.
Annihilape goes hard against Persian. Giovanni always blocks the first two rage fists, which is fine because they're worthless against Persian anyway. Persian is finished before I need another charged attack. Hydreigon handled the rest of it for me.
A good lead into Persian will help no end. For any Giovanni you need a solid fighter with a quick energy gain.
Machamp, Lucario or Terrakion work. In that order to easily obtain a good one, apparently backwards in overall effectiveness
Burn both shields on Persian with your fighter, then use appropriate effective types from there. If you are healing and going again on the same encounter. You will know who you are countering.
They did reduce the pause and it seems you can't really get a hit while it's changing forms anymore, but it's still a very effective glass cannon to drop shields and do some damage. Unfortunately not as good as it was though.
They seem to be constantly fiddling around with Morpeko. One of the updates made him vulnerable during phase changes, but they seem to have reverted that recently. At the very least, he's super useful for taking down the shields.
My team is usually Cobalion (with Sacred Sword), Xerneas, and a counter to his third. This time his second was Kangaskhan, so I didn't even need to use the third.
Machamp broke the shields then died, Garchomp took out the Persian, Nidoking and half of Giratina, then Sylveon struggled but managed to kill Giratina. That was on my fourth attempt
I don't usually battle Giovanni but when I need to, Morpekko has failed every single time. Maybe I need to power it up, I'm not sure. I did give it the correct moveset (unless it changed from last time) so it's not that.
I beat him with a Sirfetch'd with counter and two Gardeviors, Sir fetch blasted through Persian the two shield and half of Kangask, then just let the Gardeviors build up their charged skills on him, and unload on Giratina.
This thread was SO helpful! I was getting wrecked and couldn't solve the Ghost/Dragon typing as usually having two Fighting-type Pokémon and a Fairy/Grass/Water/Ice types had pushed me through easily in the past.
Definitely didn't know about the rapid switch-out strategy and that made ALL the difference. Annihilape is an absolute cheat code for his team and I'm so glad that I have one in my roster (will have to make sure to get another as I have a few Mankeys with good IVs sitting in my storage).
My team was:
Sylveon (CP 3012) - Charm, Draining Kiss
Mamoswine (CP 3276) - Powder Snow, Avalanche
Annihilape (CP 3068) - Counter, Shadow Ball
Started with Sylveon, immediately switched out to Annihilape. I used Counter to easily whittle down the Persian (who luckily had Scratch as its move) and knock down Giovanni's shields. Worked in my favor as Persian resists Shadow Ball anyways. The Nidoking was harder but Annihilape still did the job as this Nidoking had a Poison-type move and I was able to get it to red health using a couple of Shadow Balls before Mamoswine finished it off with full health left. Mamoswine then EASILY took out Giratina with red health and I was able charge Avalanche pretty easily as it had gotten some energy against its Nidoking fight.
Thanks all! Now I have the Sinnoh legendary trio under my belt all because of your guys' advice! 💪
I ended up using Swampert, Morpeko and Black Kyurem.
Start with Swampert, immediately switch to Morpeko to take down Persian and the two shields. I got Nido King for the second fight and Swampert took care of it easily while also taking a small chunk off Giratina. Black Kyurem finished it off. Be sure to have at least one shield for Giratina.
The randomness of the second opponent is what makes the battle tricky. If you get Nido King or Rhyperior, Swampert is a great counter, but if you get Kangaskhan, you'll need a strong fighter like Machamp, Lucario, Terrakion or Annihilape.
Giovanni isn't that hard to beat. Machamp and pick something that charges quick and spam, like Dragon Breath, and launch it right as he does his first move, taking advantage of the pause he always has. It's not rocket science.
EDIT: Not trying to sound like a butt either, as I know you're trying to be helpful OP.
You're not exactly wrong, but like if you're trying to help OP use better counters and strategy, you can be more specific or add more information:
Machamp is a good counter to Giovanni, but one thing OP does wrong is the charged moves. For leaders/Giovanni, Cross Chop is far superior because you can reach 1 in 6 Counters/seconds vs 8/7 seconds per Dynamic Punch, letting you break shields faster. If OP had a 2nd move available, then Dynamic Punch would be a good choice because it's stronger than Cross Chop (90 damage vs 50 damage) and would be better with shields down. Close Combat would be even better than Dynamic Punch due to it being even stronger (100 damage vs 90).
Dragon Breath is a good move for Rockets, but not every Dragon Breath user can spam out charged moves to break shields. Something like Dragonite with Dragon Breath/Dragon Claw can get a Dragon Claw in 12 breaths/6 seconds, but a Dialga with Dragon Breath/Roar of Time would be taking 22 breaths/11 seconds, or nearly twice as long per shield. Giving an example Dragon Breath user (like Dragonite) that can spam moves would be clearer.
There's two types of "pauses" or stun, which occur after switching or charged moves done by either the player or the Rocket. Charge move stun lasts 2.5 seconds and switch stun lasts 4 seconds. Rockets don't just stun randomly, and it's important to know when and how long they occur to make beating them easier.
At a certain point, old players can just brute force Rockets because their pokemon are likely strong enough even if their strategy is unoptimal. For helping newer players, I think it's important to be precise with strategy so they can complete Rockets without strong pokemon.
Another tip for new players. Whichever mon you want to use first in your battle with a grunt/leader, place them in your second slot. As soon as the battle starts, switch to that mon and the opponent will have a 4 second pause. So you essentially have a head start on them. If you're matched up properly, you can do quite a bit of damage and charge up a lot before they take their first swing.
I've been using Latios with Dragon Breath against grunts recently. It's baller. I can beat all 3 of their mons without taking more than 50% damage.
Against leaders, it's a little tougher because they will block their first two charged moves. So I try to get those out of the way before I finish with the second mon.
New players tend to find Giovanni hard because they don't understand that quick charging charged attacks are way better than the slow charging, high damage attacks. Admittedly though, the game doesn't make it easy to figure out that stuff. If you don't go on Reddit and you don't use third party apps or websites, then it's pretty much a guessing game.
Thanks! I’ll TM that. I’ve ignored Latios and Latias up until now because I don’t PVP. Now that I caught some good Dynamax ones, I’m realizing how much they have to offer, especially Latios. Appreciate your help!
Mega lucario was amazing for me, make short work of Persian and chewed up the shields and breezed through rhyperior. Then I used black kyurem to finish off the fight.
I used Machamp, Glaceon and Articuno. Luckily I had Kangaskhan after Persian, so two in a row weak to fighting. After saving energy from Persian, used math to figure out best timing to use the charge moves. After that it was up to ice types to not die against legendary and to switch fast enough so they can stll charge and attack. Used Glaceon and Articuno, my top CP ice types, but still had to level them up a bit
My advice to anyone who doesn't want to think: use Giratina-A. All you need is Shadow Claw and Dragon Claw. If you see Gira-A going down fast to Persian, back out of the match and try another Giovanni. That's seriously all you need.
Ok fine you could also pair it with a hard counter in the back for the legendary, but Gira-A is incredibly consistent, charges fast (5 SC = 1 DC) and is so spammy that most of the time Giovanni's Pokemon will be stun-locked. Not to mention that it's bulky and can take a lot of damage. The only downside is that Gira-A can be slow and you'll end up firing so many DCs that you'll get bored!
i Just solo Giovanni or really all rocket battles with thundershock/double iron bash melmetal. Some battles can take upwards of 10-15 minutes, but at least I win everytime. And if somehow my Melmetal goes down, I have a second one ready.
I brought my big guns to the battle thinking it would be something really difficult... But ended off not needing anything other than Pangoro and Avalugg 😅
M-Lucario is in 3rd slot that switches in right away to knock 2 shields out.
Then I have tyranitar or dialga/groudon as final.2nd would be to counter w.e his second mon is.
I'm a weird person who uses my shiny Ultra League altered Giratina alongside a Lucario and a random Pokemon that's super-effective against the legendary at the end. Nine times out of ten, whatever the second Pokemon is, it's weak to one of the two.
annihiliape, melmetal, mega garchomp. melmetal munched the first two incl rhyperior and part of G, Mega G did the rest with one outrage. i lost one shield. annihilape complained of boredom afterwards. G was weather boosted. to be fair, i lost the first encounter since i used a fainted melmetal!!! doh.
Y'all are making this way more complicated than it needs to be. Get a Terrakion with Sacred Sword and invest into that. It's my default for any Rocket encounter that uses shields or has Snorlax; only reason I switched away from it was because it's obviously trash against Giratina, lol.
I used a 2064 Sawk - took out Persian, 1961 Centiskorch- took out Gengaskhan, & 2457 golem, with my second shield took out Giratina…my centiscorch is very quick and it’s charged atk is lunge- hope this helps :)
Never understood people that have problems with grunts, leaders or giovanni. They take a long pause after each charge move, they always shield and you know their lineup.
Mine was Annihilape, Swampert and Hydreigon. It took a few tries though since it sort of depended on the move sets or IVs or something his Pokemon were packing. Important to note Annihilape was dual moved with rage fist and low sweep and Swampert was dual moved with Water Gun and Earthquake. Hydreigon was single moved Dark.
Annihilape attacked as fast as it could to both defeat Persian (shadow punch for the shields since it takes less energy to unleash) and use his shields, Swampert took on Rypherior. Annihilape and Swampert battled Giratina until fainting, I had a shield left to absorb Ancient power once and Hydreigon finished the job.
Snorlax, Machamp, and Mamoswine ths first time, and the second Mamoswine, Machamp, and Mamoswine.
For anyone who cares, I did do the immediate swap as soon as the battle starts, but I will say I think I beat him both times because his second Pokémon was Kangaskan which took lots of damage from my lineup but didn't hit as hard. So he can be easy, but luck matters!
I use Dmax Passimian, Gyarados, Tyranitar. (My Dmax Machamp is weaker than my Dmax Passimian.)
This sounded helpful in my head but now I realize Gyarados may not be super accessible to new players (I was at the beach and pinap'd every magikarp ever).
thanks! i failed after powering up kyogre to 4078 and palkia to 3991 so then i tried this but my machamp was regular and 3455? i had to use rc for morpeko and use mega garchop at 5667 cp. not sure why my results varied but at least in the end the same after multiple attempts
I've been using dragonite(4) with dragon tail/dragon claw, hydregion(2) with dragon breath/brutal swing and chandelure(1*) with incinerate/flame charge
cries in my pokemon get murdered by persian got close! But not strong enough and no candies to power up! Also, are the balloons easier or harder than finding a stop??
Balloons show up after certain amount of time. If you are by a large park or area with a lot of stops you should be able to find tons of grunts. I rarely go through areas with none, but sometimes find areas where there are 5 or 6 at time. Big parks and downtown areas should be plentiful for hunting.
the lineup i used! terrakion ran double kick/sacred sword; tyranitar ran smack down/brutal swing (stone edge might be slightly better here but i was too lazy to roll skills); and dragonite cleaned up with dragon tail/outrage.
honestly, terrakion carried. sacred sword knocks out both shields super quick, and terra’s beefy enough to survive long enough to proc sacred sword two more times.
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u/lumilark Aug 13 '25
The imagery of two behemoths and a hamster is killing me