Max Battles - Mechanics

Taken shamelessly from Flyfunner on Reddit

TLDR -

• Max guard shields all active Pokemon for 20/40/60 HP
• Max spirit heals all active Pokemon 8/12/16% HP
• Strong attack - Raid boss attack targets 1 player, gives a "boss is preparing an attack" message, and can be dodged
• Spread attack - Raid boss attack hits all players and can't be dodged

Battle Mechanics, Raids, and Bugs – Information Extravaganza!

After much testing and too much time, we’re back with more information on changes to Raids, Max Battle Mechanics, and some interesting bugs. As always: keep in mind that this is an ongoing research and we do not know things with 100% certainty. We are trying as hard as we can to provide accurate and factual information but be caution against taking anything we say here as hard fact. Especially considering some of what we write about are most likely bugs that we expect Niantic will fix soon.

Parameters of MAX Heal, MAX Guard & sparkling Buttons

Last time we didnt have any data on this, but this time we have a good idea of how the other 1 MAX Moves work:

MAX Guard seems to give all players currently active Pokémon a protective shield, absorbing 20 / 40 / 60 damage per application. This button will sparkle during the MAX Move selection, if any active Pokémon is about to get hit by a Targeted Move.

MAX Heal seems to restore all players currently active Pokémon by 8% / 12% / 16% of their maximum HP value per use. This button will glow, if any currently active pokémon is below 25% of their max HP (has a res HP bar). However Heal seems to be a bit bugged, as we also observed it healing next to nothing on some occasions. We also do not know yet if healing applied to others is based on their max HP or based on yours.

We must correct the record: Dodging and Boss Charge Moves

Unfortunately this is something we didn’t get quite right in our previous reporting. In our last update, we wrote that the boss can have 2 different charge moves (randomly chosen from its non-elite/legacy movepool). What we missed though is that the Boss actually assigns each of the two chosen Charge Moves to a different “charge attack type”. We’re calling these two attacks ‘Spread Move’ and a ‘Targeted Move’. For example: Falinks can choose Megahorn and Superpower as its 2 moves, and assign Megahorn as a Spread Move, and Superpower as a Targeted Move. It doesn't look like the boss can choose the same move for both roles, unless it only has one single charge move available like Beldum.

Now you may be wondering: what is the difference between these two attack types?

Spread moves hit all players present in the raid, dealing “normal” damage to each player’s Pokémon. These moves cannot be dodged (no matter what you do!).

Targeted Moves only target one specific player, while ignoring the others. Targeted Moves deal twice the normal damage and can be dodged. These moves don't come by surprise but are announced in the battle log as “{Boss} is preparing to attack {Pokémon}”. A few moments later a visual indicator appears as 3 yellow lines above the targeted Pokémon. The appearance of these lines telegraph the earliest moment you can dodge the upcoming attack. The longer you wait after these lines appear, the more effective dodging will be. However, about a second after these lines appear, they begin to flash red. Once flashing, it’s too late to dodge as damage won’t be reduced even if you do. We suspect this is a bug, as dodging while the lines are already flashing still displays the “Dodged!” text in the log, even though you take full damage. We hope Niantic revisits this and fixes it soon™.

As alluded to above, dodge timing is important. The later within the dodge window you dodge, the more the damage gets reduced. So far we have observed a reduction of 50%, 60% and 70% respectively, where 50% is at the beginning of the dodge window and 70% at the (currently functional) end of the dodge window. This dodge timing mechanic encourages a “game of chicken” where the longer you wait, the higher the dodge payoff could be. But, if you wait too long, the dodge doesn’t work at all! We aren’t sure if this is fully working-as-intended. We suspect damage is supposed to be reduced even more if you dodge while the lines are flashing, however this is just speculation on our part. This is a case where it is hard to determine if something is an intended game mechanic or simply buggy.

We also feel obliged to mention that dodging more than once within the dodge window appears to completely negate any positive dodging effects. Even if the first dodge was perfectly timed, a later dodge (before the move hits you) seems to cause the move to hit you with full damage. This may be an intentional mechanic, but we aren’t completely sure.

There exists one special case that we have just noticed in our data:

Beldum, which only had 1 Charge move (Iron Head) was forced to choose the same move as its Targeted and Spread Move, which you’d think just means it just used Iron Head for both and that's it. But from analyzing some previous videos it seems that the Targeted Move from Beldum dealt the same damage as the Spread Move. It's possible that this is a bug due to the boss being forced to use the same move twice, but unfortunately we cannot conduct any further research on this for now, but will aim to do so if Beldum ever returns.

Max Battle “Cheering”

If one player’s team faints in a Max Battle, they are still able to stay in the battle and “Cheer” for the remaining players in the battle. Cheering works similarly to a charge move. Each tap you do charges up a cheer meter. When the meter is full, clicking “Cheer” adds a big chunk of “Max Energy” (ME) to the Max Meter.

For 2-player Max Battles it takes 25 taps (each takes 0.5s) to fill the cheer meter (12.5 seconds in total) and then using the charged up Cheer contributes 20 ME to the Max Meter. We have not tested 3 or 4 player Max Battles so we aren’t sure if the cheering mechanics remain consistent with more players.

Also note: there is a bug that prevents charging up the cheer meter if you tap too quickly! If you spam more than about 5 taps per second the meter doesn’t register any progress. Simply tap about twice per second and the meter will charge without issue.

Source link with more details - https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/1fxjzpn/battle_mechanics_raids_and_bugs_information