Pokemon GO: Cresselia counters and weaknesses (July 2021)

Cresselia may not be the most intimidating Pokemon, but trainers are going to have to prepare to tap their phones for a while to lower this legendary Pokemon’s health.

Cresselia is one of the most resilient legendary Pokemon the game has ever seen. Emanating from the Sinnoh region, it is a Psychic-type that is almost incapable of being one hit KO'd. This is no different in Pokemon GO, where Cresselia has 260 Stamina and 258 Defense. With these numbers, the TTW (Time To Win) is going to be much longer than with other raid counters. The following Pokemon are best at getting the job done.

Note: This article is subjective and reflects the opinion of the writer.

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Which Pokemon are strong enough to take down Cresselia in raids?

Being a Psychic-type, Cresselia is weak to Ghost, Dark and Bug moves, so these are the types trainers are going to want to prioritize. In terms of Ghost-types, it’s hard to find a better option than Mega Gengar. Very few Pokemon compare to the power of 349 Attack.

While Mega Gengar has the lowest time to win, though, that doesn’t make it the best option. Both regular Gengar and its mega evolution have this weird dynamic where they do really well in raids against Psychic Pokemon (Cresselia, Deoxys Defense Forme, Mewtwo, etc.), but the Gengars also take heavy damage in return because they belong to the Poison type.

This results in other Pokemon dying to Cresselia less often. Many of the strong Dark-types in the game do well against Cresselia due to their type advantage. Dark-types have to be careful, though, because Cresselia also learns Moonblast as a charge move.

This makes Mega Houndoom the most optimal Pokemon to counter Cresselia with. Mega Houndoom is both Dark and Fire-type, so it will take neutral damage from Moonblast. The Snarl and Foul Play set will also beat Cresselia in 749.06 seconds.

Of course, not every trainer has the mega energy for Houndoom or Gengar, so thankfully there are other options that require less resources. Chandelure is a great Pokemon versus Cresselia since it can flat out resist Moonblast, though it takes neutral damage from Cresselia’s Psychic attacks. Bisharp and Absol also have relatively short TTWs, albeit the latter has to watch out for Moonblast.

Surprisingly, anyone with a Mega Charizard Y also has a great Cresselia counter. Yes, it’s true that Charizard can’t hit Cresselia for any super effective damage. What is remarkable, though, is that Mega Charizard Y can still beat Cresselia in 974.92 seconds simply by spamming Fire Spin and Blast Burn.