Sword and Shield Raid Dens Guide

Quick tips:
- Turn auto-save off for any kind of save scumming advised below.
- Before joining a raid, put the Pokémon you're planning on using at the top of your team. This saves a lot of time for hosters of busy rooms.
- Consider levelling up the Pokémon you use to level 100 to avoid them fainting as easily. This is easy once you get a few EXP Candy from raids.
- For the all the balltists reading, the official Pokémon twitter page has released 3 codes that give you extra rare Pokéball. You can redeem these via Mystery Gift until January 15th.
	- 1YAHAYA (Love, Friend, Dreamball)
	- K0UN1NMASC0T (Heavy, Lure, Beastball)
	- 0KUGAFUKA1B0RU (Level, Moon, Rapidball)
- Save before a raid in case you want a Pokémon in a specific rare Pokéball. If you fail your catch, you can reset and try again next time the raid is hosted.

Frequently asked Questions:

Q: How do I find X Pokémon in a raid?
A: First Ctrl+F in https://www.serebii.net/swordshield/maxraidbattles.shtml
Serebii calls spawn tables "den IDs" even though this is wrong. Dens each have 2 spawn tables ("den IDs"), one for common raids and one for rare raids, which spawn from red transparent beams and pink with cloudy swirls beams, respectively.
IDs 43 or higher are rare spawn tables (again, pink beams), and the lower IDs are common spawn tables (again, red beams.)

The following image shows the common and rare spawn table IDs for each den:
https://imgur.com/t3bSrrc
So, for example the west-most den in hammerlock hills just before you reach the cliff uses spawn table 23 for common, red beams and 73 for rare, pink beams (both tables give ice types, only 73 gives glaceon.)

(NEW) Interactive map with all the regular/rare dens Pokémon displayed (Really good):
https://pokedens.github.io/

Very useful version with pictures for dens of G-max Pokémon:
https://imgur.com/ORBCHcp
https://imgur.com/a/XBXF2EZ

Usually G-Maxes are exclusive to one or two dens each. All G-maxes normally only appear as rare raids (again, pink beams.).

Q: I got a G-Max Centiskorch, Butterfree, Drednaw, Corviknight, Sandaconda, Snorlax from a den and it's not in the spawn table!
A: Promoted "event" raids can spawn in all dens at some rate. This is why you can get G-max Drednaw, Sandaconda, Butterfree, etc. from any den right now.
Current promoted event Pokémon (From December 4th to January 9th 2020):
- Butterfree
- G-max Butterfree
- Silicobra (Sword only)
- G-Max Sandaconda (Sword only)
- Chewtle (Sword only)
- Drednaw (Sword only)
- G-Max Drednaw (Sword only)
- Rookiedee (Shield only)
- Corvisquire (Shield only)
- G-Max Corviknight (Shield only)
- Sizzlipede (Shield only)
- Centiskorch (Shield only)
- G-Max Centiskorch (Shield only)
- Munchlax
- Snorlax
- G-Max Snorlax

Q: How do I get pink beams (rare dens)?
A: Wishing piece scum. Save up enough to buy a wishing piece, go to the den, save, then repeat until you get a pink beam:
If you set text speed to slow you have enough time to hit the home button before the wishing piece saves your game. You can see the beam color before it saves. You can get a pink beam from a wishing piece even if there's another pink beam on your map.

Q: How do I reset the den until I get the Pokémon I want?
A: As of today there are two exploits that allow you to turn the clock forward and reroll the dens quickly.
	1- The Ranked Battle (VS) exploit.
Faster than the older exploit, this one allows you to reset WISHING PIECE dens without having to invite others to your raid, so this exploit can be done from anywhere in the map.
1) Go to the VS screen in your X menu.
2) Enter the Battle Stadium.
3) Enter a Ranked Battle.
4) Choose whatever team and wait to get matched up with an opponent.
5) Forfeit the battle by clicking Run (or alternatively, if you don't want to lose Ranked points, finish the battle as normal. Forfeiting is just faster).
6) ???
7) You're done. Close out of the VS screen and start advancing the clock forward one day at a time. (Hit Home -> Settings -> System Clock -> Change DATE forward 1 day).
If you've done this properly, the dens will give you Watts and a new Pokémon every day that passes.
8) This exploit will stop working as soon as you go offline, so keep that in mind.

	2- The Invite Others Exploit.
This exploit isn't as fast as the first one, but it's just as reliable, doesn't require you to enter an online battle and you get as many watts from it.
1) Get a pink beam on your map at the den using a wishing piece scumming (see above).
  Note: We need a wishing piece beam for this exploit as well.
2) To reroll the raid Pokémon, start "searching" for others to join (do this offline so as not to fuck over innocent people).
3) As it is searching, hit Home -> Settings -> System Clock -> Change DATE forward 1 day.
  Note: Going back in time any number of days does nothing. You must go forward to reroll the raid mon.
4) Go back into the game, click 'Quit' to stop searching for players
5) Check your pink beam again. You'll know it works because you'll get the 2K watts again.
Repeat as necessary.

Important: Once you get the raid you want, it's safe change your system time back. As long as you change the time while not currently "Searching" it will NOT reroll the raid. This is how you can get an accurate "Caught" timestamp on the raid you used the exploit to get.

Q: If you breed the G-max Mon does it pass on the G-max form to its offspring?
A: No.

Q: Can I skip battle animations / use fast text speed when raiding with others?
A: No. Unless you are raiding solo, animations always play and text speed is "Normal."

Q: How do I get better IV raid mons?
A: The star rating determines # of perfect IVs on the raid Pokémon. You get 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 or 5 perfect IVs for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 star raids, respectively. Whether or not star rating has an impact on HA rate is unknown, but see next question.
Addendum: Promoted event Pokémon from 5★ pink beams will ALWAYS have 5 perfect IVs.

Q: How rare are HAs from raids? do they NEED to be from the rare pink beams?
A: Anecdotally, it seems pretty common but some have had terrible luck in the thread. You need to make sure the den you're farming actually can give the HA for the mon you're looking for, so refer to:
https://www.serebii.net/swordshield/maxraidbattles.shtml
In particular, note that Toxapex can be HA from some dens but not others (i.e. it can't get HA when in table 91). It's weird.

Q: What do we know about catch rates?
A: Thanks to some solid research by poketuber Austin John and friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVo6AEjM7KM

We know the base catch rates for raid mons (listed below.) We also know that ball multipliers apply as you would expect, and that master balls work. Repeat or net are good choices as they have the highest multiplier of 3.5x when you meet their conditions.
Raids you host (online or local, doesn't matter):
 - Promoted, event G-maxes: ~15% (e.g. G-max Butterfree, Centiskorch, etc. right now.)
 - Standard (non-event) G-maxes: Guaranteed catch.
 - All other raids: Guaranteed catch.
Raids you join as a guest:
 - Promoted, event G-maxes: ~3%
 - Standard (non-event) G-maxes: ~3% (e.g. G-max Lapras, Machamp etc.)
 - All other raids: Same catch rate as catching that Pokémon in the wild at its level at 1 HP.

The "Guaranteed catch" conditions above for host are well established. The others numbers are based on experiments in the above youtube video and should be taken with a grain of salt. But they seem about right.

Q: Can I soft reset catching raid mons? When can I leave the lobby as a host?
Yes. Raid mons are entirely fixed when the beam spawns, so IVs, abilities, etc. stay the same. Interestingly, for non-wishing piece spawns the spawn is seeded on your trainer ID somehow so you'll get the same spawn if you soft reset the beam itself.

You can soft reset even if you go online. The host of the raid just reloads their save as soon as the fight starts. The raid lobby will continue with the host as a "zombie" randomly choosing moves. Host can rehost immediately for a different group of guests. All of the guests joining your raid lobbies will get an identical, duplicated raid mon if they catch it. Catch rates are low for guests, probably to make this whole system a little bit less absurd (see above for catch rates.)

Note that if you're hosting a rare raid take care that your raids reset at midnight.

Q: Can a raid / G-max Pokémon be shiny?
A: Yes.
It is CONFIRMED that if a raid Pokémon is shiny, it will always be shiny for every person that joins the raid. If you randomly come across a shiny raid consider sharing it with the thread.

Q: Can I shiny hunt via raid rerolling?
A: Yes you can! A new method of shiny hunting has been discovered.
Pokemon spawned by a Wishing Piece den are locked on your savefile and won't change no matter how much you reset the game... up until a certain point. The first three resets via date changing are set by your savefile, but they become random by the 4th.
This means that if you save your game 4 days before a shiny spawn, every time you reset your game, the shiny Pokémon on the 4th day will be random (based on your den's spawn table).
What this entails is that you could potentially host a shiny raid of UP TO 12 different species of Pokémon from just a single Wishing Piece.
This section is a WIP but check out these videos for details:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMeBWvlErtk&
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNBmBHyDgrs

Addendum: Via pkhex and using rng manipulation it is possible to know how many raid rerolls you need until the Pokémon in your raid is shiny. If you want to know this number use http://116.202.105.91/ and start an ingame trade with code 7724. It should open a trade with Dudu. As soon as you show your pokemon it should post the seed on the website and cancel the trade. (You have to be on the website before showing the pokemon in trade, or you won't see the seed). You only have ~15 seconds to show the pokemon or it will cancel the trade on you.

You may also be able to determine the IVs and ability of a specific Pokémon you want to get from a raid. Once you get your seed, use this tool https://github.com/Admiral-Fish/RaidFinder/releases to obtain all the information you need.
If you get to know how many resets you need until a shiny appears, you don't need to do the "reset every 4 days" method for hunting. Just use the Ranked Battle exploit and change the date -> go back to game -> change the date -> go back to game over and over until you approach the promised spawn.
Use tools like https://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadd.html to know exactly which day is the shiny spawn.

Q: I got my random shiny spawn! How do I host it?
A: Since you've saved three days before the shiny Pokémon shows up, you're gonna wanna do the Invite Others exploit to advance the date until you get there every single time. Yes, you have to do this for every Pokémon. It's slow and tedious, but everyone will thank you.

Q: How do backup saves help with hosting shiny dens?
A: Backup saves come in useful in case you want to host one specific shiny Pokémon for some amount of time, but don't want to lose your random shiny den by saving over it. By pressing UP+B+X on the title screen, you get access to a backup save that is taken before your actual save. As soon as you have finished hosting the Pokémon you want, you can go back to a backup back three resets before to keep rerolling the random shinies.
!!CAUTION!! Backup saves get overwritten by doing trades, using a Corviknight cab OR when the clock hits 00:00!!! Make sure you still have your backup safe regularly, and remember to save after you use it to make it become your regular save once again.

Q: How do dens reset?
A: When you clear all dens on your map, a fresh wave of them spawn. If you used a Wishing Piece, that den counts and must be cleared to get a fresh wave. Using a Wishing Piece erases the Wishing Piece den you already had up, so you can alternate using Wishing Piece between two dens if you like.

All non-wishing piece beams reset at midnight your time. Also at midnight, your Wishing Piece beam reshuffles in the same pool (this is partly why "the exploit" works.)

Note that the sequence of raid spawns in this way is seeded with your trainer ID somehow. If you clear a wave of raids, the next wave is predetermined and will spawn exactly the same way if you reload your save and clear that last one again.

If you then go online and clear someone else's raid, there's a chance (more research needed into seeing why it's not 100% of the time) that one of your raids will be erased from the map. It seems like this doesn't work for pink beams.

Q: Do weather requirements apply to raid spawns or just overworld spawns? Like Salandit only spawns during intense sun in a few areas so will the salandit raids also only appear when it's intense sun?
A: Weather has no impact on raid spawns.

Q: How do I get Watts? Why did I suddenly get way more Watts from dens?
A: Once you beat the champion, you get 2000W for inspecting an active den and 200W for inspecting an inactive one. Keep clearing your dens until you're satisfied. Farming Watts before defeating the champion is suffering, Rotom Rally might be your best bet.

The exploits above makes farming Watts trivial. You should spend it on the "Skill" digging brother for amazing drops like bottlecaps.

Q: How do I solo high level raids?
A: Every* raid can be solo'd with Eternatus.
 Eternatus
 Recommended: Level 100. Use EXP gems you get from raids.
 Optional: Choice specs (find in Spikemuth.) Situational: Life orb, leftovers, lum berry. None are necessary.
 Optional: PP Up Dynamax Cannon to 6 PP.
 Move Dynamax Cannon to the first attack slot. Carry something else to use against fairy types obviously, numbnuts.

Then, just mash the right trigger button through the entire raid and put on Netflix until it's over. Did you know that the right trigger button is a synonym for A? Maybe 10% of the time the raid will fail because the NPCs didn't use enough damaging moves, but the NPCs are different every time so you can just try again.

*You will have some issues with some 5*s that spam AOE moves (Flygon, Ribombee, others.) Here it makes more sense to pick a type-appropriate match up that can set Light Screen or Reflect as appropriate turn one. The NPCs scale to your level, if you're level 100 they'll be ~70 and shouldn't get OHKO'd by anything if Light Screen or Reflect are up, allowing you to slowly clear the raid.

!!CAUTION!! Take care when mashing through raids that you don't accidentally use your master ball on a trash raid.

Q: How do I join raids online?
A: The only reliable way to join a raid is to be friends with the host. The host should disconnect from internet and reconnect with + in the Y-comm screen before hosting. Guests that are online when the raid is hosted should see the stamp immediately when it gets hosted. If you don't see the stamp as a guest, disconnect/reconnect with + in Y-comm screen, search for seeking and scroll down - a raid lobby from a friend tends to get buried with other raids and shows up at the bottom of the list.
You can't search for raids by code.

Q: Why does it give an error message when I try to join this raid?
A: You were too late to join. Clear out stale lobbies by disconnecting/reconnecting with + in Y-comm screen. If you just stay online your client gets backlogged with lobbies that are already gone and have filled.

Q: Why don't I see any raids / why don't my friends see my raid?
A: The game servers suck. Even when disconnecting / reconnecting, restarting the app, etc... the servers just refuse to send raid stamps sometimes. It's probably worst at peak hours.

Q: Why is no one joining my raid?
A: Try taking it down, disconnect and reconnect to internet with + in the Y-comm screen, and start inviting again. If that doesn't work, it could be that no one wants to join your raid. The rewards aren't that compelling if it's not a Pokémon people are interested in (you don't get Watts for clearing raids.). Also, shiny raids are all the craze right now.

Q: I can't find the Discord for this general :(
A: Yes.