Giovanni in Pokémon GO is the leader pulling all the strings behind Team GO Rocket. You can only fight Giovanni once a month, so you have plenty of time to pursue him when you feel ready to face him. Here's what you need to know to find and beat him.
How to find Giovanni
To continue your journey towards meeting him, you will need to progress through the special research event titled A Professor's Work is Never Finished. Before you can access this Special Research Event, you must have completed Special Research on the Disturbing Situation. Progressing through these two takes you against multiple Team GO Rocket Grunts and three different GO Rocket Team Leaders. The fourth stage of A Professor's Work is Never Done tasks you with defeating the three leaders of Team Rocket GO, Arlo, Cliff and Sierra.
After defeating them, you will receive a Super Rocket Radar, similar to the Rocket Radar you used to locate the leaders of Team GO Rocket. To use the device, you must go in your bag to equip it. This should point you in the direction of Giovanni. However, a handful of Rocket Grunts disguised themselves as fake Giovannis. You need to visit the captured PokéStops to find out which one is the real Giovanni.
How to beat Giovanni
If you were having trouble with Arlo, Cliff, or Sierra, you might end up over your head with Giovanni. He's a tough individual, and you'll have to defeat his Pokémon if you want to meet the rare Shadow Pokémon he captured.
Giovanni's first Pokémon stays the same every month. However, her second and third options change regularly with each month. If you fought him in January, he doesn't have the same Pokémon rotation in February, but there are a few similarities.
The first Pokémon Giovanni always uses is the Persian, a Normal-type Pokémon. The best Pokémon to use against him are durable fighting types, such as Conkeldurr, Heracross, Gallade, Machamp, and Passimian.
The next Pokémon choice for Giovanni can be one of these three options:
- Cloyster a type of water and ice
- Steelix a steel and soil type
- Hippowdown un type is also left
These three choices vary in typing, which makes your choice of Pokémon a bit trickier. Cloyster is weak for Electric, Combat, Grass, and Rock types, Steelix is weak for Combat, Fire, Ground, and Water types, and Hippowdon is weak for Grass, Ice types. and water. Of the three, Hippowdon will be the most difficult.
For Cloyster, you want to try using powerful electric types like Jolteon, Ampharos, Electrabuzz, or Grass-types like Venasaur, Exeggutor, and Sceptile. These options should prove to be reliable as a second option, especially a Grass-type, which can withstand Giovanni Raikou's next attacks.
If Giovanni uses Steelix, you might want a powerful ground type as a second, like Rhyperior, Excadrill, Garchomp, or Swampert (a Water and Ground type). On the other hand, if you want to prepare yourself for Cloyster and Steelix, your first type of fight could deal out a decent series of punches to give your second option a good start. You can double the combat type option and have another one ready to go.
With Hippowdown only having one type, your options are a bit simpler. You want to rely on ice types like Jynx, Sandslash (Alola), Piloswine (an Ice and Ground type), or Swampert, which also works great against Steelix. However, while Hippowdown is weak against Water-type attacks, you want to avoid using one in your battle, they could quickly lose to Raikou.
After defeating whatever second option Giovanni uses, it's time for you to take on the Legendary Pokémon, Raikou. It is an Electric-type Pokémon, which makes them weak to ground types. You have a handful of Pokémon to choose from, like Garchomp, Rhyperior, Mamoswine, Excadrill, or even the legendary Groudon. These are some of the best Ground-type Pokémon to use, but they're not your only option.
The general strategy for dealing with Giovanni is to take your time and rely on defensive Pokémon. Yes, you want to remove her roster quickly, but relying on direct damage isn't going to win the day. It is a battle of attrition. You need Pokémon that can withstand a substantial amount of damage and do enough damage to dampen Giovanni's options.
We'll update this room every month to find out about Giovanni's new Pokémon spin and what you need to use to defeat them.
