When Raids debuted back in Pokemon GO back in June 2017, there were a group of players who saw the new Raid system implemented by Niantic as a new challenge with trios, duos, and even solo raid attempts.
In this Pokemon interview, we have LegacyZelaya share his experience and favorite moments within the game, including his interest in doing Raid challenges and his tips for powering up and defeating Raids with less players. He also talked about attending two live Niantic Pokemon GO events, GoFest Chicago and Go Tour Hoenn Las Vegas.
LegacyZelaya also shared his experience using Niantic Wayfarer, a platform that allows players to submit and review nominations for potential new Pokestops and Gyms in Pokemon GO.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Connect with LegacyZelaya: Twitter | Youtube
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
When Raids debuted back in Pokemon GO back in June 2017, there were a group of players who saw the new Raid system implemented by Niantic as a new challenge with trios, duos, and even solo raid attempts.
In this Pokemon interview, we have LegacyZelaya share his experience and favorite moments within the game, including his interest in doing Raid challenges and his tips for powering up and defeating Raids with less players. He also talked about attending two live Niantic Pokemon GO events, GoFest Chicago and Go Tour Hoenn Las Vegas.
LegacyZelaya also shared his experience using Niantic Wayfarer, a platform that allows players to submit and review nominations for potential new Pokestops and Gyms in Pokemon GO.
Trainer's Eye is a series where the stories are real and people still play this game. From PVP to Shiny Hunting, each person's Pokemon GO journey is unique and we dive into each journey here on As The Pokeball Turns!
Sources
Opening Song: "Forget You" by Alex_MakeMusic from Pixabay
Connect with LegacyZelaya: Twitter | Youtube
Connect with David Hernandez: Linktree
E-mail Me: asthepokeballturnspodcast@gmail.com
All right,
Raid Leader:let's all jump into the rain. Mr. Go Public. The Cooper Valley is ah hell. What do they want? Time for us to go. Hello? Office. Is there a problem? Hopefully not. Did we missed a raid? The raid? Yes. You posted
Officer 1:on Discord, a few raids, right?
Raid Leader:Well, yes. You got it here, Pokemon Go. Yes. Me and my partner play sometimes while we're patrolling. Really? Well go ahead and hop in with us. The coldest chore, man. The store lacks peek at you. Okay, let me go tell my partner how much Tom left. 75 seconds linear time.
Officer 1:Hey, the code is charming under strong. Speak at you. Hi, I'm in. Cool. Is it all right for me to change the station? Sure. Do you want to do another one after this? If game,
Raid Leader:I still need to shine for
Officer 1:the, I'll ask him if we can join all.
David Hernandez:Welcome to As The Pokeball Turns! Where the stories are real and people still play this game. The RAID system debuted on June 23rd, 2017. At the time of launch, legendary raids were non-existent with players only having tier one to four raids. While tier one to two were easily done by one player. Tier three to four were challenging at the time with some trainers needing at least one to three additional players to defeat these raid bosses. However, there was a niche community at the time who saw the Raid system as a challenge and attempted two man, three man, and at time solo raid battles. For a while. Tier three Jolteon raids were impossible to solo. Tier three Alakazam raids were extremely difficult coming down to the last second. These and many other raid bosses presented a challenge for players. Nowadays, the idea of short manned raids arguably is a dying part of the game with most players turning their attention to shiny hunting or PVP. There still remains some people who attempt short man raids and there still remains short man raid boss challenges like the infamous tier three chuckle raid solo and certain tier five raid duos. My guest is one of those players who created content around raid solos and duos, and shares his experience attempting these challenges. From Dallas, Texas, here's his origin story into the world of Pokemon Go. This is LegacyZelaya! Today I'm joined by LegacyZelaya. Welcome to the show.
LegacyZelaya:Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
David Hernandez:Definitely, man. And For me, I feel like it's a lost art in regards to doing short-manned raids because you don't really see that much anymore. And especially after the tier four raids merged with tier three. You just don't see too many Raid challenges anymore.
LegacyZelaya:People that did it in the beginning moved on to pvp. I think that kind of hurt a lot.
David Hernandez:Oh yeah. did you not go to PVP or just not your interest?
LegacyZelaya:Uh, it's, I do pvp, but it's not, I'm not really passionate about it. I do mostly just for the elite charge tm.
David Hernandez:So what's your way to play pokemon Go?
LegacyZelaya:You know, I just go to the park and I used to just use my Gotcha and just catch Pokemon and I just stream and host raids. That's like the only way I really play Pokemon these days and occasionally I'll do a duo or trio and put it on my channel, try to help people see what they can do cuz I'm trying to help people lower, especially now with them Nerf remote raiding, people are gonna need to do it on their own. I'm trying to show people how to do it with weaker Pokemon. They don't need as big a group to take down a legendary or a mega like I did.
David Hernandez:I gotcha. How, how many did you have to use for Mega Alakazam? Just curious.
LegacyZelaya:I used like level 20 legendaries, I had like Darkrai and Giratina. I have my mini account, I think a lot of people have mini accounts. I know it's kind of like frowned upon by some people, but that's what it is what it is.
David Hernandez:Well, let me ask you this, so when did you first start playing Pokemon go?
LegacyZelaya:Started playing September of 2016. I didn't play the first two months, all my friends were playing and I was like, I'm not gonna play this game Catch Pokemon. They were going out every weekend and then eventually I was kind of like, all right, I'll join you guys, cuz it looked like they were having a lot of fun.
David Hernandez:You eventually catered into the peer pressure, it sounds like.
LegacyZelaya:Yeah. Yeah, I did.
David Hernandez:What got you hooked? Because obviously you're still playing, so something must have caught your interest about Pokemon Go.
LegacyZelaya:Well, at first when I first started playing, me and all my friends were instinct, so, you know, we were the underdog team. So we did gyms, that was like the first thing, my first goal was just gyms. We would like make the level 10 gyms and build them up. One of my best friends' name is a legacy Los, we would just leave seven spots open in the 10 gyms, so that random instinct Trainers could just come in and slot in. Cause the goal back then cuz I think in the old days, you could collect, I think it was 5,000 stardust and a hundred coins. Right?
David Hernandez:I believe it was like every 18 hours or something like that. It wasn't every 24.
LegacyZelaya:I don't remember. It was such a long time ago. Yeah, that, And obviously trying to get to level 40, those were like my goals. Back then, there was just nothing around, there was no raids, no PVP, nothing, the game was very basic back then.
David Hernandez:Right? Basically it was just catching and spinning stops and I think that was about it, we didn't even have daily bonuses either, that's the real little shocker for some people
LegacyZelaya:it was nothing. It looks like, like a buddy and the Pokemon were just mostly like Pidgeys wild. I don't think there was even any shinies, There was no Shinies either.
David Hernandez:Uhuh, that didn't come out until I think, uh, probably almost two years after, I think, cause the first one we got was shiny Magikarp.
LegacyZelaya:Right, I don't remember when it was though. eventually I met other instinct trainers and we started like, you know, working together to own our area cuz we just dominated our area with instinct And eventually I hit level 40. I was like one of the first people in my area to hit Level 40.
David Hernandez:Do you remember when it was?
LegacyZelaya:It was like May of 2017.
David Hernandez:Oh wow. That's pretty quick. Yeah.
LegacyZelaya:May of 2017. I did it before raids even came out.
David Hernandez:Yeah, cuz raids came out that year in July, so two months before
LegacyZelaya:Yeah, and then I stopped playing after that. Took like a few months off the game. Actually. I completely stopped playing.
David Hernandez:was that just cuz you hit level 40 or?
LegacyZelaya:I just didn't have any more goals. It was kinda like I hit level 40. Gym system changed at the same time. I dunno if you remember when they changed it.
David Hernandez:Yes. Cause that's when they introduced raids and we got the current system now that still lives on or dies on or whatever you consider it.
LegacyZelaya:I think the gym system now sucks. That's something Niantic needs to change. It's an aspect of the game that they could fix, I don't know how, but...
David Hernandez:Let me ask you this, like, what would you like to see different? I know you don't know how, but like what role would you like to see it play in the game?
LegacyZelaya:I don't, I don't know. It's,
David Hernandez:Would you like to go back to the old ways or,
LegacyZelaya:I think like a balance of the new system and the old system. The problem is the old system, it like lower players had had no chance. I, I remember people hated those Blissey towers, the local 10 bliss towers.
David Hernandez:Oh Lord, yes.
LegacyZelaya:I love, I used to love building them.
David Hernandez:So when raids came about, is that kind of what brought you back into the game?
LegacyZelaya:I took the three months off Pokemon Go and I was like done. I was not gonna play because I didn't see the point, like, like everything happened. Like they changed the gym system, right? And I hit level 40, so I didn't have any more goals and then Legendaries came out and my friends told me, yeah, you can't throw them in a gym, so I'm like, well, what's the point of me going around spending, a dollar or raid pass to get a Pokemon that I can't even throw in a gym? I met, Kaito Nolan. Actually, I already knew Kaito Nolan from the old gym system. She was doing all these solos back then. She knew me cuz I was like one of the first level forties in our area and then she knew my friend Los, he was also one of the highest level players in our area and so was she. And then she was like, okay, I want to trio. She was trying to trio Entei and she didn't have any partners so she asked my friend Lowe's and she was like, can you ask Oscar to come out and he help us with this trio? So we came, we tried the Entei Trio, and we failed the first time. So that kind of lit a fire in me, I was like,"oh wow," cause we were so close, like the game was just so much different back then. Like there was like no battle parties, there was nothing, it was just really hard, like I remember we had to faint Pokemon so that it would auto select like Golem and stuff, otherwise we would pick like Gyarados and a bunch of other stuff.
David Hernandez:I forgot all about that. Holy Crud.
LegacyZelaya:Yeah. This is wet. Had nothing back then. No weather. I don't even think the weather system was out back then.
David Hernandez:Yeah. They didn't come until, uh, Hoen arrived and that wasn't until 2018. Yeah, so almost a full year after that.
LegacyZelaya:Right. Basically, that's what brought me back and then I got inspired. We failed the Entei trio and I was like, okay, I need to go get more Golems, so I started playing Pokemon Go again.
David Hernandez:Right. And that's kind of, it sounds like the challenge of trying to beat a raid boss with very few players, I guess, was a way for you to kind of get motivated with the game cause it made the game, it gave you a challenge.
LegacyZelaya:It gave me a challenge and, and like, you know, just, I enjoy doing it. whereas before my goal was the gym system, and then once that died I was like, oh, I don't really have anything else to do and then, Kaito showed me the, you know, the Entei trio and I was like, okay, this is fun, you know, I want to try this. Ever since then, I have been playing in nonstop.
David Hernandez:I wanna talk about the trios real quick, cuz I saw a lot, you have a lot of content on your YouTube with trios and duos and even some solos. So first question I wanna ask is like, what kind of preparation does it take to get to that point to where you can start doing Short man raids?
LegacyZelaya:Well, you gotta have the right counters and I use PokeBattlr.com. Mm-hmm. I usually go in there and I just look at the top counters and I go based off the move set, and I look at the faint, and the time to win, and that's how I determine can this Raid boss be duo or trio? So it all comes down to the faints and the time to win. I look at the numbers and that's how I'll come up with the unique lineups that I used to do also. Then you also take into account like friendship, weather boost, and then now with the Mega Boost, the mega boost is a little bit trickier, but that's another thing that I also look at now.
David Hernandez:What's the most difficult one that comes to mind to try to do like a solo duo or trio?
LegacyZelaya:There's a lot. I've done so many, but one of the hardest ones that I can remember on the top of my head, I think it was, Altered Form Giratina Duo. I think the moveset was Ancient power. That's like one of the hardest, hardest duos I that I can think of, also the Kyogre duo, I also did Kyogre duo with all Electivire. Now this was like, I think back then the damage was different for Raids. I think it was half, I don't know what it's called. It was like 1.6 damage multiplier or something like that. So like the, Pokemon just did more damage in raids. They changed it back in, 2019, but those two duos are the ones that come to my mind. It was the Kyogre Duo and the Altered Form Giratina Duo. Those two were very difficult.
David Hernandez:Well, let's fast forward to present day real quick. Do you have any raid bosses in mind that, you want to do, but you haven't really figured out how to do it yet? Or is most Ray bosses easy nowadays?
LegacyZelaya:No, some of them are for duos, some duos are tough like me and one of my friends, miss Sato, she's from Italy. Her and I, we tried to do Lugia recently without a weather boost. It's tough. We actually fail, cause now with the Primal Kyogre and Groudon, they boost Pokemon, They don't even have to be in the raid like normal megas, which I didn't know that until recently. That's a game changer, so basically you just put Kyogre at the sixth slot and it's gonna boost your Pokemon or your partners, that's a 30% boost, so Kyogre is boosting electric water and bug. It doesn't even have to be in the raid, so it's a huge game changer. There's some tough duos like I think the Uxie duo was pretty tough. Sometimes you have to find like the foggy weather or snow weather, like, I think like rayquaza solo, you need snowy weather, so that's the real challenge. A lot of times, me and my friends and joke, like the real challenge is finding the weather like snow or fog, especially fog, we're always looking for fog. Fog is so rare.
David Hernandez:For you to be able to power up these Pokemon must have cost a lot of stardust. So in your area, like where's the place to go to play? Like where did you go grind?
LegacyZelaya:I don't grind as much as I used to. Now I'm, just more focused on other stuff, plus I already have like a decent team, or I used to go play at Fort Worth is, okay, downtown Fort Worth used to like go in there on the weekends, there's a place called Sundance Square or Panther Island, that's okay, but where I used to grind a lot, there's like a Home Depot, a bunch of stores, and they have a bunch of spawns there. So I used to just drive around all the stores with my Gotcha, sometimes I would fast catch and I could just catch a bunch of Pokemon, cuz it's based on cell phone data, so that's why there's just a bunch of Pokemon there. We would sit there and just fast catching it would take us like a few minutes.
David Hernandez:So it sounds like the places to go for your area is not really the parks, but it sounds like the parking lots.
LegacyZelaya:Yeah. It just better Parks aren't that great unless there's a bunch of stops at the parks, they're just okay. It's weird, you would think the parks are the better places, but it's not, at least in my area, it's not. There was one, I think it's called 54th Street. There's like two Pokestops there. It's like this bear with a beer or something, that's like the number one place we would go to. close to Dallas. We would always go there after community day.
David Hernandez:So before Pokemon Go, did you have any experience with Pokemon in general? Did you play the main Sears games at all?
LegacyZelaya:Yeah, I played, uh, X and Y and I played, uh, what was the other game? Well, sun and Moon came out during Pokemon Go. I played like the early games, like gold and silver, and I read Leaf green. I played all those when I was a kid. I just played the story, you know, just beat the Elite Four then I don't play again after that. I played, uh, sun and Moon. I played, uh, shoot and Sword, but I didn't play like Scarlet and Violet. I don't know, Now that I'm streaming more, I just don't, I just didn't have time to play the main series anymore.
David Hernandez:Do you have any favorite Pokemon at all?
LegacyZelaya:I know a lot of people have like one Pokemon that's like their absolute favorite. if I had to just pick one, I have to say, Kyogre. Between Kyogre, Gyarados and Blastoise. If I had to pick one out out of those three, I would say Kyogre.
David Hernandez:It sounds like you favor the water type a little bit.
LegacyZelaya:Yeah, for sure.
David Hernandez:You talk about how you did content creation, you make videos and stuff like that, you stream. What made you wanna start doing that?
LegacyZelaya:I think cuz Kaito was doing it first. She was uploading her videos. She did the same thing, she would upload duos and trios, but hers was a little different because she wanted to reach worldwide audience, so she only did the music. And then, so I was like, okay, I'm just gonna record, the voiceover of us just, you know, answering while we're doing the raid and stuff. So I got into that and you see, the goal was just, I was thinking, okay, if I can grow my channel to a point where they can pay for my poke coins, that was like the goal.
David Hernandez:Did it ever work out?
LegacyZelaya:Now it is barely, but yeah,
David Hernandez:we all started somewhere, man.
LegacyZelaya:Also, the thing is the content creation it's one of the reasons why I'm still playing. I think without the content creation, I probably wouldn't be playing this game to be honest. In the game for just to play the game? No. It's really the content creation like, you know, the streams, the videos, and just interacting with people I met on Twitter and on Discord. That's what's really motivates me to play. it is not really the game. I do love Pokemon, but it's, it's mostly like combination of everything.
David Hernandez:I know that you host the Wednesday night Raid hours. Is that kind of just the stuff that you enjoy doing?
LegacyZelaya:Yeah, I do. I just love rating with people from, you know, all over the world. I have friends from like India, you know, Europe, South America, a few Australians. Even have a few Japanese, even though they don't speak English, they kind of know. what to do. It's fun.
David Hernandez:That's awesome! Last question, you know, if somebody's wanted to be a content creator, you know, what would you tell them?
LegacyZelaya:That it's a long journey. It's kinda like if you really love it, you'll suffer for it, you'll just put in the work over time, you know, over the years, and eventually maybe something will come of it, but I think too many people give up too easily. You just gotta treat it like a hobby and then just keep grinding. That's how I look at it. And you're gonna get better at it over time. Like, I remember when I first started streaming, my personality was just way different versus now I've been doing it for almost three years, it's just, you do it in my sleep now. I went back and watched my first stream, it was just way different, I was like more nervous. And then now it's kind of like, oh, it's like breathing now when I turn on the camera and start streaming, so you just gotta get better at it each day.
David Hernandez:Is it almost like the people that are there are kind of with you and you're just having just some fun playing Pokemon Go together? Is that kind of the best way to describe it?
LegacyZelaya:I'm just sitting there and it's kind of like we're playing in person, except they're not talking to me, they're just typing in the chat. To me, it's almost like they're there, especially the people I've known for a long time. Yeah. They get my sense of humor and I get theirs.
David Hernandez:Have you had a chance to meet any of the people you get to chat with at all?
LegacyZelaya:I met a few when I went to the Hoenn Tour in Las Vegas. Not many, cuz Not many people travel, but I have met a few of them.
David Hernandez:What was it like at the Hoenn Tour when you went?
LegacyZelaya:Well it started off bad. The signal was terrible. It's just the in-person events, mostly, you go there really to meet people like the event itself is almost not worth it. Like I went to go fest in 2018 and 2019, it's okay, but it's not like you're missing out on much if you don't go.
David Hernandez:When you went to Vegas, you just went for the friends, it sounds like, to meet the people and everything.
LegacyZelaya:Yeah. Yeah, that there was a lot of stuff going. Plus it's, Vegas is nice, so I didn't mind going to Vegas.
David Hernandez:Did you, uh, go gambling a little bit?
LegacyZelaya:I just, you know, I like seeing this cuz I wanted Pokemon Go is amazing in Vegas. It's like the best place I've ever played pokemon Go at. I went to Chicago for Go Fest, so those are the only two I can compare. I've never been to Japan, so I don't know, that's the next place I would like to play Pokemon go and see what it's like to play in Japan. But Vegas, if you're at the strip, you're just chilling your hotel, you're just drifting all over the place and you can, like if you have your Go Plus or Gotcha, it's ridiculous. Stops and the Pokemon, you don't even have to do anything. Oh yeah.
David Hernandez:Really? You just let your device run in. You just kind of runs over
LegacyZelaya:character just drifting all over the place. That's what I was doing. I was there. So many stops. It's a, it's great.
David Hernandez:You mentioned Go Fest, like what was it like to go for those in Chicago?
LegacyZelaya:Well, there were about two different parks. One was at Lincoln Park and I think the other one was Millennium Park. Had issues both the time. I tell people like, just, you should just go. If you go to in-person anti command, you just expect there to be problems cause all Three times I went, there was issues. You just go in expect, cause it's just a lot of people in a small area, it's gonna happen, but it's okay, you know, everything's lured up, there's a bunch of people walking and it's nice seeing like a lot of the other, like, I remember I met like ZoeTwoDots, I met Brandon Tan, he and I took a picture at the Hoen tour in Vegas. Meeting all, seeing all these people is it's fun.
David Hernandez:So last thing I wanna talk about was, I know that you did some stuff in Wayfarer and you built up your community. I wanted to ask like, how'd you start getting into that?
LegacyZelaya:Kaito, Noah and I, we met playing Pokemon Go and eventually we started dating and I was living with her in a different city. When I first started streaming, she had a bunch of gyms around that she could see from her place. So I didn't really need gyms cuz I, you know, she had a bunch. Then when her and I split up, eventually I had to move back home and basically, when I moved back home, I had no gyms in my area, so I couldn't host raids. That's why I had to work on my area and I had to go explore and I just went around my neighborhood looking for, well, okay, what can I nominate here so I can do my streams? Because I was going to Starbucks to get on their wifi cuz they had more gyms at the Starbucks, I was doing that for like a few months. People remember the Starbucks days, I would just sit in front of a Starbucks and get on their wifi and then just host raids. Host raid hour mostly. Then eventually I got enough gyms where I could do my streams from home, now You see nine gyms from home. And when I came back, I can only see two.
David Hernandez:How did you go about learning what was eligible and stuff like that?
LegacyZelaya:I just figured it out. Same friend Masato from Italy, she really helped me out cause she's really into it, she built her route as well. She told me like, nominate this and so did Kaito, she also, living with her, she showed me like she built her route as well. I learned from them nominate this, this is a good thing to nominate. Trail marker posts are great. Pergolas, gazebos, all that stuff. basketball courts, tennis courts. Yeah, so, those are the stuff that I learned from them and then I did research on the Wayfarer website, and then I found out more stuff like historical stuff and all that.
David Hernandez:That's awesome, man. I'm glad you're able to build up your area. You went from two gyms to nine gyms. Do you know how long it took you to kind of get to that point?
LegacyZelaya:Took me a few months.
David Hernandez:Okay, so it wasn't right away.
LegacyZelaya:I know it took time because, um, I introduced this appeal system. The problem is the Wayfarer is also, it sucks, like, a lot of the people who review, they just don't know what they're doing. So versus like the people who answer the appeals is usually like one person, those people know what makes a good Pokestop. I tell people when they ask me, I told'em if something gets rejected, just appeal it. It'll take six months or maybe even, it'll take a long time, but it might go through on the appeal if it's a good nomination. I remember I told someone on Twitter, I told her that should get approved, appeal it, and then like six months later she sent me a dm, she's like,"oh, you were right. It got approved." And I was like, yeah, I knew it.
David Hernandez:Sometimes the headache you deal with reviewers can be frustrating enough to where you just rather wait the six months because it's better than having to go back and forth to do a picture all over.
LegacyZelaya:So the, the problem is though, a lot of the people who are answering Wayfarer, some of them, they're just going as fast as possible trying to get upgrades and they don't even really read it or they don't even know what makes a good Pokestop. So that's why I was telling'em. Yeah, just best to sometimes just appeal it. If you think it's a good stop, then appeal it. That's what, that's why it took me forever to finish my route, cuz I had to wait months for the appeals to go through all like a few Pokestops.
David Hernandez:It sounds like it was worth the wait though, cuz now you can host it from home and you got a very nice area to do raid hour with.
LegacyZelaya:It was worth it took a a long time though.
David Hernandez:Well, Oscar, thank you for coming on the show. If people wanted to check out your content or get connected with you, where could they check you out, by all means, please plug away.
LegacyZelaya:Uh, I think LegacyZelaya, same thing on YouTube and Twitter. You guys can find me there.
David Hernandez:And I'll make sure to include links in the description of today's episode. Thank you for listening to an episode of As The Pokeball Turns! You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Feel free to follow me on all my socials by clicking the link in the description of this episode and I'll see you next time! Here's the sneak peek for the next episode of As The Pokeball Turns.