Max Raid Battle Farm

Max Raid Battles are a staple of Pokemon Sword & Shield. These battles pit you and three other Players/NPCs against a permanently Dynamaxed Pokemon. A quick and efficient Max Raid Battle farm strategy is a must for endgame Pokemon Sword & Shield.

How to Access Max Raid Battles

The first way to access Max Raid Battles is to find the glowing dens around the Wild Area. These glowing dens spawn throughout the day, giving you a number of free fights. Every glowing den contains a Max Raid Battle that you can choose to invite others to or do offline with NPCs.

The second method to spawn a Max Raid battle is to use a Wishing Piece on a den that is NOT currently glowing. This will spawn a Max Raid Battle at that den, which can then be completed like a normal battle. Wishing pieces can be earned in a number of ways, but purchasing them with Watts is the most consistent.

The final method of accessing Max Raid Battles is to join someone else’s using the Y-Comm. This will allow you to search for other people who are looking for people to help them with their Max Raid Battles. With a Nintendo Switch Online membership, you can search for other players using the internet. Without this connection, you will have to be physically close to the Switch of the person you want to play with over Local Communications.

---

---

Rewards from Max Raid Battles

Max Raid Battles offer a number of important rewards, making them a worthwhile farm:

• Pokemon caught in Max Raid Battles are guaranteed to have a number of max IVs
  • The number of max IVs depends on the number of stars for the fight
• Pokemon in Max Raid Battles have a high chance of being shiny compared to normal encounters
• Completing the fight will reward a number of items regardless of if you capture it or not, including:
  • Dynamax Candies
  • Rare and Exp. Candies
  • One-time use Technical Records (TRs)
  • Berries
  • Vendor trash that can be sold for Pokedollars
  • Armorite Ore (Isle of Armor battles only)

---

---

How to Farm Max Raid Battles

Host Your Own

The simplest way to complete as many Max Raid Battles as possible is to create them yourself. If you create them yourself, you won’t have to deal with the issues with Y-Comm even if you choose to have other join you using it. Every day you will get a few free battles. Once these are completed, you can continue spawning more using wishing pieces. To sustain this method, you will have to spend Watts.

To help with this, you can spend any Armorite you are getting from Isle of Armor battles at Digging Pa. Assuming the worst case scenario of only getting 1 Armorite per raid battle, you will need to get at least 21,000 Watts on average from Digging Pa. Considering you will sometimes get 2 or 3 Armorite per wishing piece, this is a sustainable way to farm Armorite Ore, Watts, and all of the other rewards from Max Raid Battles.

Join Others

Your Switch needs to be connected to the internet using Nintendo Switch Online to use this method.

The most efficient way to farm Max Raid battles is to join other players, saving your Watts for your 3 Million Watt Dojo Upgrades. You can do this from anywhere using the Y-Comm to search for “Seeking” cards. If you ever tried to just join a card that comes up, you’ve likely been met with a message saying that it is full or no longer available. The reason for this is that the Y-Comm does not update regularly, so by the time you apply, other players have already filled it.

To get around this issue, you will have to convince Y-Comm to send you updates more often. To do this, start a “Surprise Trade.” You won’t actually be trading this Pokemon, but pick one you wouldn’t mind trading, just in case. Once you have started searching for a Surprise Trade partner, open the Y-Comm again and you will see that the cards are refreshing at a much faster pace. When you see a raid battle you want, spam A on it. This will cancel your current Surprise Trade and join the Max Raid battle. You will normally join around the 2:47 mark if you get in quick.

Despite joining so quickly, many other people know this strategy, so you are still likely to run into full battles, especially for the rare fights. If you run into a full room or an error, queue up another Surprise Trade and try again. Also, be sure to check the icons shown on the cards. A lock indicates that a password is required (likely someone hosting for a friend) and the Isle of Armor symbol indicates an Isle of Armor battle. Only Isle of Armor battles will reward Armorite Ore.

---

---