Fire Fang/Play Rough Zacian Duo Raid, Partly Cloudy Weather, Mega Rayquaza Only

Zacian has returned to Pokemon GO as Legendary Raid Boss in Legendary Heroes event in Season Max Out.

Zacian is a Fairy-type Pokemon, which is only weak to Steel/Poison type. As a raid boss, Zacian has 212 attack and 198 defense, in which its attack is slightly below average while it defense is above average. As a raid boss, Zacian learns Snarl/Quick Attack/Fire Fang/Metal Claw as fast moves and Wild Charge/Play Rough/Close Combat/Iron Head as charged move, which means it has 16 different movesets in total.

Back in 2022, Zacian had been defeated by Lv40 Mega Gengar as Duo Raid without friendship bonus. Mega Gengar had a great advantage in typing back in that time where Zacian was using Quick Attack/Close Combat, in which Mega Gengar heavily resisted both of them. In the other hand, Lv40 Shadow Metagross also barely defeated Zacian under a favorable moveset.

Which means, the high variation in moveset was always an headache to the Zacian counters. However, with the "Poison" and "Steel" types debut and Party Power feature released within these 2 years, as well as the new strongest Steel-type Pokemon, Zacian can now be defeated as Duo Raid rather comfortably.

Specifically, Dusk Mane Necrozma, Shadow Metagross, Mega Gengar, Mega Beedrill, Shadow Magnezone, Shadow Gengar, Shadow Excadrill, Shadow Magneton, Shadow Empoleon, Nihilego, Metagross, Magnezone, Dialga, Mega Aggron and Mega Lucario are the Steel/Poison types that can defeat Zacian as Duo Raid without weatherboost.

But more importantly, we have a handful of "Steel" and "Poison" type that is viable or even better than most if not all Steel/Poison type Pokemon listed there except Dusk Mane Necrozma. Dawn Wings Necrozma, Primal Groudon, Mega Rayquaza, Shadow Groudon and Primal Kyogre are those Pokemons. While not as strong as those listed above, Mega Alakazam, Mega Garchomp, Groudon and Shadow Mewtwo are also very promising "Steel" and "Poison" type Pokemons.

Why are those "Steel" and "Poison" types Pokemons important? If you look at the Steel/Poison type counters list, mot of them struggled against some of Zacian movesets because of the high variety. Poison type Pokemons tends to struggle against Snarl/Fire Fang/Iron Head while most Steel type has trouble on handling Fire Fang/Close Combat. However, Zacian seems to never expect to fight against those weird looking "Steel" and "Fairy" Pokemons. Primal Groudon does not weak to any of Zacian moves at all, it instead resists 5 out of 8 Zacian's moves, including its only STAB moves Play Rough.

Sarcastically, with those weird looking "Steel" and "Poison" type Pokemons surpassing every Steel/Poison type Pokemon outside of Dusk Mane Necrozma in DPS, they are the more optimal raid counters against Zacian outside of Dusk Mane Necrozma if you can afford sparing the Mega Evolution slot on them.

This time, the weird looking green snake will once again challenge the legendary raid boss in the rotation as Duo Raid. Since it is a snake, it must be a Poison-type Pokemon. Fire Fang/Play Rough Zacian was found for the raid. While that green snake looks like a Poison-type, it seems to be weak against Play Rough, though.

With the green snake weak to Zacian's strongest attack, it struggled quite a bit on the fight this time. Since Dragon Ascent has a long cooldown, those green snakes would even being stuck in its move cooldown while Play Rough is hitting occasionally, causing a massive damage on them. Thankfully, they are potent enough to defeat Zacian barely in time even with the high rejoin counts.

It is truly ironic that the generalists nowadays can do something the strongest specialists two years ago can only dream of.

Pokemon used:
CP 6458 Mega Rayquaza - Lv50 15/15/15 Air Slash/Dragon Ascent

CP 6458 Mega Rayquaza - Lv50 15/15/15 Air Slash/Dragon Ascent