Rogue Mega Rush strategy guide for Pokemon Legends: Z-A

Rogue Mega Rush is a strong candidate for the toughest challenge in any Pokemon game. After you’ve completed Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s base game, its DLC story, and its postgame, you’ll unlock the ability to take on the Rogue Mega Rush challenge at Quasartico’s headquarters. For this challenge, you’ll have to defeat all 27 Rogue Mega Evolutions with the same team, a total of 3 full team heals, no items, and no breaks. Needless to say, that makes this pretty tough! Chances are, your in-game team is not even going to come close to cutting it. You’ll need a great deal of resources to construct a Rogue Mega Rush team, but the challenge can be made easier thanks to Annihilape and its ghostly fists. Since this is a boss rush of all of Pokemon Legends: Z-A’s bosses, there are spoilers within, so be warned.

Rogue Mega Rush team setup

Setting up a team for Rogue Mega Rush is half the work. Here’s what you’ll need: two Gourgeist and four Annihilape. The strategy here is that you’re going to use Gourgeist to use Trick-or-Treat on each opponent, which makes them weak to Annihilape’s Rage Fist. As Annihilape takes damage, Rage Fist’s power increases, until eventually it becomes almost twice as strong as your typical Z-Move. For Gourgeist, any will do, but a Jumbo-sized one is your best bet by far. Note that an Alpha Gourgeist and a Jumbo Gourgeist are two different things – Jumbo Gourgeist has the highest HP stat, making it the bulkiest option. You’ll want to give it a Careful nature, 252 EVs in HP and Sp. Defense, and the moves Trick-or-Treat, Light Screen, and Safeguard. None of those moves need to be made into Plus Moves, by the way. For an item, you can either go with Quick Claw or Leftovers. In my personal run, I used Quick Claw to make Gourgeist’s moves come out faster, but Leftovers is probably a better idea because Gourgeist cannot heal itself (and it does nowhere near enough damage to heal anything meaningful with Giga Drain). The last move can be Phantom Force to deal some extra damage, but ideally you will never use this move. Don’t forget to hyper train your Gourgeist – both of them should be completely identical, by the way – and make sure they are Level 100.

As for Annihilape, you’ll want all four of them to be exactly the same as well. An Alpha Annihilape is technically optimal because Rage Fist gets a slightly bigger hitbox, which can make a difference against bosses like Mega Absol Z who sidestep to dodge all the time. To easily evolve Primeape into Annihilape, head to the Justice Dojo and use Rage Fist on the dummies 20 times. You’ll want an Adamant nature, 252 EVs in HP and Attack (and 4 in Sp. Defense), and the moves Rage Fist, Bulk Up, Screech, and Focus Energy. The item must be a Shell Bell, which will let Annihilape heal itself whenever it uses Rage Fist. Fortunately, none of the Rogue Mega Pokemon are Normal-types, which means Rage Fist hits every single opponent in Rogue Mega Rush. Mega Staraptor actually loses its Normal typing in exchange for the Fighting type, which makes things much easier for us. Once you’ve confirmed your 2 Gourgeist and 4 Annihilape match our descriptions, you’re ready to go! For your convenience, make sure their moves are all in the same slots as each other. That way you don’t get confused when you have to switch Annihilape.

Battle strategies

At the beginning of each battle, you will want to send out or switch to Gourgeist and immediately use Trick-or-Treat, and then Light Screen, and then Safeguard. Not every opponent uses special moves or status, but Safeguard is an absolute requirement against Mega Heatran and Mega Darkrai, who will burn or put your Annihilape to sleep and render it essentially useless – you can’t heal its burn without wasting one of your 3 heals. Once Gourgeist has done its thing, switch to Annihilape and use Focus Energy, Screech, and then Bulk Up. Then, use the plus move version of Rage Fist, assuming you have enough Mega Power. As Annihilape takes more damage, Rage Fist’s power will increase. When the message “Annihilape is no longer pumped up” appears, use Focus Energy again. When the opponent’s Defense is no longer lowered, use Screech again. And when Annihilape’s Attack and Defense boosts go away, use Bulk Up again. That’s the general strategy, but some of the Rogue Mega Rush opponents like to throw a wrench into things.

Mega Absol, Mega Slowbro, Mega Camerupt, Mega Victreebel, Mega Beedrill, Mega Hawlucha, Mega Banette, Mega Ampharos, Mega Barbaracle, Mega Mawile, Mega Froslass, Mega Altaria, Mega Venusaur, and Mega Dragonite are all self-explanatory and shouldn’t give you any problems. The Annihilape strategy works perfectly for each of them, but remember to focus on dodging attacks yourself – if your trainer is knocked out, the run’s over. Mega Tyranitar is the first opponent who is neutral to Ghost even with Trick-or-Treat applied, so it will take you longer to defeat it. Thankfully, Mega Starmie winds up incredibly easy too. Mega Absol Z is also neutral to Ghost, and since it’s already a Ghost-type, you can’t use Trick-or-Treat on it. Absol loves to sidestep right when you fire off a Rage Fist, causing it to miss. Try to wait until the moment before it attacks to launch an attack yourself. Mega Staraptor is easy too, but when it charges up an attack, it will teleport around and try to kick you. Focus on dodging the attack with good timing, and then go back to commanding Annihilape when it’s done. Mega Tatsugiri shouldn’t be too bad, either.

Mega Meowstic is your first problem. It becomes quadruple weak to Ghost thanks to its Psychic type, which means you should be able to defeat it easily. Unfortunately, it generates a huge psychic box that you’re supposed to destroy. If you play along and try to break the box, Annihilape will most likely go down in one hit – and if you don’t have any Canari plushes, your trainer could get knocked out in a single hit too. You will instead want to just spam dodge roll against the edge and recall Annihilape to its Poke Ball until the box is gone. Mega Heatran can burn and render Annihilape useless, so make absolutely sure to use Safeguard. Mega Heatran will often aim its first few attacks at you, so command Gourgeist to use a move and then walk to the side, away from Gourgeist, so it doesn’t take any damage. Mega Heatran is pretty much immobile for the entire battle, but focus on dodging the many projectiles it sends out.

Mega Zeraora is another potential problem (yes, you need to have caught Zeraora to unlock Rogue Mega Rush). Most of the battle is self-explanatory, but when Zeraora starts using Plasma Fists, it will fire off many electric projectiles. It’s best to just recall Annihilape for this one, because there are so many projectiles that it will go down fast even if Light Screen is still up. Zeraora also loves to target the trainer, so make sure you dodge – commanding Annihilape to use a move forces you to stand still for a second, which can be risky against Zeraora. Once he’s down, you’ll have to take on Mega Darkrai, who winds up neutral to Ghost after Trick-or-Treat thanks to its Dark typing. It’s best to use one of your three heals right before fighting it. Safeguard is extremely important here; Darkrai making Annihilape drowsy means its moves will take much longer to recharge. During the battle, Darkrai uses Future Sight to attack large chunks of the arena. If you find your Annihilape is taking too much damage, you can recall it. Once Darkrai is defeated, it will Mega Evolve for a second phase, which actually means you have to bring out Gourgeist again to use Trick-or-Treat a second time. Every time a Pokemon has multiple phases, each phase will need to be hit with Trick-or-Treat. Mega Darkrai sometimes uses an attack where it splits into copies – as soon as it does this, recall Annihilape to its Poke Ball and spam dodge roll under one of the Mega Darkrai copies. This is the longest battle in Rogue Mega Rush, and unfortunately it isn’t the last.

Other than Groudon having some RNG when it comes to burns, it’s pretty straightforward along with Kyogre and Rayquaza. All three of these Pokemon have two phases, so be sure to use Trick-or-Treat twice. Mega Rayquaza has an attack where it generates a tornado in the middle of the stage that sucks you in, and you will once again need to recall Annihilape and spam dodge roll. The final battle is Zygarde, which is completely free up until the third phase, which is still very easy. Zygarde, in its 100% form, will use Core Enforcer, which is a one-hit KO if you have no Canari plush. Make sure to stay out of the Z and find the safe spot at the edge of the level. You’ll want to recall Annihilape for this one, too. Then, send it out, use Focus Energy, Snarl, and Bulk Up again, and keep attacking with Rage Fist.

Once Zygarde is down, you’ll have defeated all 27 Pokemon in Rogue Mega Rush! This is really a test of endurance, and it’s good to space out your heals around Mega Darkrai so that you can have a refreshed team before taking it on. If you want to challenge some random Pokemon player’s Rogue Mega Rush time (mine!), my run took 49 minutes and 13 seconds. It’s definitely possible to do it faster, though. For all your hard work, your reward: absolutely nothing! Well, you do get a special Rogue Mega Master title you can use in ranked battles, but that’s really it. Certainly a very disappointing reward. At any rate, if you have any of your own Rogue Mega Rush tips to share, feel free to do so in the comments down below! I’d be curious to see if anyone comes up with a way to do this without Annihilape. You’d need lots of Pokemon with setup and self-healing moves, for sure. In the meantime, check out the official Pokemon Legends: Z-A website for more info on the DLC.