Pokemon GO: Cresselia counters and weaknesses

Cresselia just took over as the Tier five Raid boss in Pokemon GO, and it’s going to take a lot of firepower to defeat it.

Cresselia is a Psychic-type Legendary from Generation IV. Its appearance in Raids is appropriate, since Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl is about to release later this week. Cresselia carries a huge Defense stat of 258, along with 260 in Stamina, so trainers need to bring the strongest counters if they want to defeat this boss.

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How can trainers defeat this Legendary in Pokemon GO raids?

As a Psychic-type Pokemon, Cresselia is weak to three types: Ghost, Dark and Bug. Trainers definitely want to bring strong options assigned with these typings to overwhelm Cresselia.

When it comes to strong Ghost-types, no Pokemon compares with Mega Gengar. It tops the Raid counter rankings on many Raid bosses, so it’s no surprise that it would have the quickest time to win against Cresselia.

There is actually danger with using Mega Gengar here, though. As a part Poison-type Pokemon, Mega Gengar is weak to Psychic moves.

Normally this doesn’t matter, since Mega Gengar can just Shadow Ball its opponents to death before they can use their Psychic moves. With Cresselia, though, it has the defense to outlive some of Mega Gengar’s offense.

Actually, Mega Gengar only has a time to win of 619.1 seconds against Cresselia. This is more than enough time for Cresselia to farm down Mega Gengar or even get a Future Sight off. Therefore, Mega Gengar can still end up getting knocked out

Mega Houndoom resists most of Cresselia's movepool (Image via Game Freak)

Naturally, Dark-types would be an alternative. Cresselia packs Moonblast, though, so Dark-types would still need to watch out.

The best Dark-type to bring to this Raid would be Mega Houndoom. Since it’s also a Fire-type, it takes neutral damage from Moonblast and resists Cresselia’s Grass Knot. This will give it enough time to use a couple Foul Plays and hopefully pick up the KO.

Clearly, the best choice for any trainer looking to defeat Cresselia, though, is Chandelure. Litwick was recently a frequent spawn during the Halloween events in Pokemon GO, so hopefully many trainers have this Pokemon.

When Litwick evolves into Chandelure, it becomes a nuke with a large Attack stat. As a Ghost and Fire-type Pokemon, it resists both Cresselia’s Moonblast and Grass Knot. With a short time to win as well, there is no better Pokemon to use here.