Pokemon GO Legendary Bird Moltres Now in Raid Battles

The next legendary bird has made its way to Pokemon GO. Moltres, the legendary fire bird, is replacing Articuno in Raid Battles. Lugia will stay in the game. Trainers will be able to defeat and capture Moltres from now until August 7th, at which point Zapdos will enter the game. Like other legendary birds, Moltres is pretty difficult to defeat and catch. You’ll need all the extra trainers you can get.

The signature legendary bird of Team Valor, the fiery Moltres, has been added to Pokemon GO. It will be available for trainers to battle and catch from now until August 7th. Moltres will substitute the Team Mystic bird Articuno. After August 7th, Zapdos, the electric bird of Team Instinct, will start appearing in the game instead of Moltres. Lugia is supposed to remain in the game the whole time, and Ho-Oh will come along at some point in the future, as well. The arrival of Moltres was announced on the official Pokemon GO Twitter:

The Legendary Pokémon Moltres has been spotted in Pokémon GO! Gather your friends and find a Legendary Raid Battle near you! pic.twitter.com/5ar9aV86q9

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 31, 2017

As is / was the case with Lugia and Articuno, Moltres is extremely difficult to defeat in the raid battles, let alone catch afterwards. You almost need a whole squad of trainers in order to bring one down. After you do, you only have so many opportunities to catch one, and the capture rate is extremely low. On top of that, as Polygon reports, the launch time of Moltres was a little problematic for some trainers.

The thing is, Raids have a sort of curfew, after which you can’t participate in them until next morning. Usually, Raids are unavailable from about 8 PM (sometimes earlier) to 6 AM. The official Twitter announced Moltres very late, which left almost no time for trainers to catch them. Therefore, they ended up with only six days to catch Moltres. Good luck out there, fellow trainers!