Pokemon Go Legendary Cresselia Leaving Raid Battles Today

Pokemon Go's newest Legendary Pokemon, Cresselia, has been a regular sight in Raid Battles since last month, but it won't be available in the game for much longer. The Lunar Pokemon is scheduled to leave Raids today, December 18, at 1 PM PT / 4 PM ET, making this your last opportunity to catch one for the time being.

Just as with most other Legendaries in Pokemon Go, Cresselia will spawn at certain Gyms. To catch one, you'll first need to head to a Gym where a Cresselia Raid is taking place and then team up with other players in-person to battle it. If you manage to successfully bring Cresselia down, you'll be rewarded with a handful of Premier Balls; you can then use these to try to capture it.

Cresselia is a pure Psychic-type Pokemon, making it vulnerable to Bug-, Ghost-, and Dark-types. It's also got high HP and defense stats, so you'll want to bring along Pokemon like Tyranitar, Houndoom, Scizor, and Giratina--if you managed to capture one before it left Raid Battles earlier this fall--for your best chance to defeat it.

Cresselia is the second Gen 4 Legendary to appear in Pokemon Go, following the aforementioned Giratina, which initially arrived as part of this year's Halloween event. Niantic hasn't announced when another new Legendary will debut in the game, but given how frequently the developer has been introducing them this year, we likely won't have to wait long until another Legendary Pokemon appears.

In the meantime, you have another chance to capture some previous Legendaries thanks to December's Field Research. Each time you achieve a Research Breakthrough this month, you'll earn another encounter with one of six Legendaries: Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Raikou, Entei, or Suicune. Niantic has also improved the effect of the Mystery Box, making it easier to find the new Mythical Pokemon Meltan in the wild.

In other Pokemon Go news, the game's PvP Trainer Battle system has finally arrived. Users level 10 and up can now challenge other Pokemon Go players to three-on-three battles. You can read more about how the feature works in our Pokemon Go PvP guide.