How to counter Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion in Pokemon GO

Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion are returning to raids in Pokemon GO, and it’s worthwhile to counter, defeat, and capture all three of them.

The Swords of Justice have returned to Pokemon GO as five-star raid bosses for the Festival of Lights event. The gen five legendary trio will be randomly appearing from five-star raid eggs throughout the Festival of Lights’ 10-day runtime.

Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion have unique and powerful typings that can be difficult to counter. Still, it’s absolutely worth tracking down these three Pokemon and adding them to your party.

How to counter Cobalion in Pokemon GO

The best counters to Cobalion in Pokemon GO are Landorus, Swampert, Torterra, and Golurk.

The face of the group is a steel-fighting Pokemon, a typing that offers several resistances and no double weaknesses. As with other trio legendaries, Cobalion has a relatively limited moveset, with steel and psychic options for its fast move and then rock, fighting, and steel moves for its charged move. Cobalion is weak to fire, ground, and fighting attacks.

While Cobalion’s moveset is limited, it does have options to deal with many of its counters. An ideal situation when facing a Cobalion would be for it to have just steel or fighting moves.

If this is the case, flying-fire Pokemon such as Mega Charizard Y, Moltres, and Ho-oh can hit it with super-effective fire attacks while resisting steel and fighting attacks. The trouble with that strategy is Cobalion can use Stone Edge, an attack flying-fire Pokemon are doubly weak to.

That makes various hard-hitting ground types that don’t have weaknesses to fighting or steel attacks the ideal answer. Golurk and Swampert are possibly the strongest counters to Cobalion, resisting most of Cobalion’s moves while being able to hit it with super-effective ground attacks. Garchomp, Landorus, and Hippowdon are also viable options.

How to counter Terrakion in Pokemon GO

Terrakion can be countered in Pokemon GO with almost any powerful psychic, water, or grass type.

While Cobalion’s steel-fighting type helps to offset many of the Pokemon’s weaknesses, Terrakion’s fighting-rock typing leaves it with a long list of weaknesses. The list includes water, grass, fighting, steel, fairy, ground, and psychic. None of those are double weaknesses, but there is ultimately an abundance of options for dealing with Terrakion.

Making matters worse, Terrakion doesn’t have particularly strong coverage with its attacks. It can hit hard with psychic and rock fast moves and rock, ground, and fighting charged moves, but those don’t offer much to counterpunch types that are strong against Terrakion.

There is a long list of Pokemon that can make for a quick battle. Mewtwo, Exeggutor, Gyarados, Palkia, Zacian, Torterra, Vaporeon, and many others serve as strong counters to Terrakion.

How to counter Virizion in Pokemon GO

Virizion is easily countered in Pokemon GO using flying-type moves.

Unlike Cobalion and Terrakion, Virizion has a double weakness thanks to its grass-fighting typing. It also has regular weaknesses to poison, psychic, fire, ice, and fairy attacks.

As with Cobalion, Virizion has access to a rock-type charged move which serves to counter some of the hardest-hitting options against it. Still, the offensive potency of flying attacks is worth taking that risk.

Salamence, Dragonite, Charizard, Mega Pidgeot, Lugia, and any other flying-type legendary Pokemon can help to make quick work of Virizion. Even if those aren’t available, exploiting regular weaknesses with Pokemon such as Sylveon, Espeon, Glaceon, Flareon, Gardevoir, and Exeggutor is also a strong option.