Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX: How to Get Through Magma Cavern and Beat the Groudon Boss Fight
We show you how to get through the lava-filled dungeons and beat the legendary Pokemon Groudon.
One of the most powerful bosses in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX, the legendary Ground-type Pokemon Groudon, rampaging at the bottom of its lair in the Magma Cavern. We'll show you how to get through Magma Cavern and beat the Groudon Boss Fight here.
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Magma Cavern Walkthrough
Magma Cavern is a brutal dungeon of 26 floors, filled with lava rivers, traps and extremely powerful Pokemon. There's no guaranteed means of success, but there are some things to keep in mind that should help you as you proceed.
How to Clear Magma Cavern
- You should be at least level 31 before entering the Dungeon, and ideally much higher. Go visit the Dojo a few times if you're falling short of this marker.
- Obviously Magma Cavern has its fair share of Fire and Ground types, but it also has Poison, Steel, Rock, Normal and Flying types. Have a diverse move-set ready to go as you go into the dungeon, but ideally you'll have some Water and Ice moves in there. A lot of enemies have weaknesses to those, and Groudon will too at the end.
- Magma Cavern is a harsh area that often inflicts burns and poisonings. Bring at least eight Reviver Seeds, five to eight Apples, four Max Elixirs, three Pecha Berries, three Rawst Berries and a Link Box for the boss fight. More equipment wouldn't be a bad idea, but this is the bare minimum you should have prepared.
- Some wild Pokemon are far bigger threats than others, usually owing to special moves that do huge damage or can hit your whole team at once. Sandslash, Magcargo, Onix, Golem and Rhyhorn are the worst offenders - if you see one, prioritize killing it as fast as possible. Moves like Magnitude or Superpower can be devastating if unleashed.
- Rescue and hire as many Pokemon as possible along the way. You don't have to Revive them if they go down, but ideally you'll want as large a team as possible for the boss fight.
- If you're unlucky enough to trigger a Monster House, back up into a corridor immediately. Fighting multiple Pokemon at once is a bad idea, and you'll want to bottleneck them to fight one at a time. Monster Houses also tend to have a lot of traps in them, so you don't want to go in at all if you can help it. They'll usually be hinted on your map by having a lot of items close together, the lure designed to pull you in.
- There is a Kangaskhan Statue Checkpoint on floor 23, three floors before Groudon. Your hunger, health and PP will be restored here. Use this opportunity to make preparations for the boss fight, including linking your most powerful moves together.
If all goes well, at this point you should've made it through 25 floors of subterranean hell. When you reach floor 26, there'll be a cinematic in which you find Team ACT; first Charizard and Tyranitar, then Alakazam, who'll be beaten by Groudon before you can save him. Finally the legendary behemoth will arise from the ground, and the battle begins.
How to Beat Groudon
Brace yourself, because by our best estimate Groudon has over 1600 health, combined with high defensive stats that means we never did more than 91 damage at a time, even with powerful moves and type advantages. Win or lose, this battle will go on for a while, but we've amassed this advice to ensure you come out on top.
- Groudon is a Ground-type Pokemon, weak to Water, Grass and Ice moves. However, it's resistant to Poison and Rock, as well as totally immune to Electric attacks.
- When the fight starts, Groudon will trigger a Magma Cataclysm, spreading out all your team to different corners of the room and causing magma flows. If a tile turns green, it will be consumed by lava on the next turn, inflicting the burn status on any Pokemon standing there. Move them away from the tiles if you're worried about them getting burnt, but frankly it's almost inevitable that it'll happen sooner or later, so it might be worth just powering through it.
- Groudon's most powerful attacks are Hammer Arm, a Fighting-type attack that lowers its travel speed, and Lava Plume, a Fire-type attack that hits everything around it. Keep Pokemon that are weak to fire fighting from a distance, using those that more resilient at a close range to keep Groudon from moving.
- Status Effects are as helpful as always, though Lava Plume hitting everybody close by means that Confusion isn't as effective as it could be. Putting Groudon to sleep or slowing it is a better alternative, though like all Boss Battles it can shrug that off pretty fast.
- Groudon does know Roar, which will blow Pokemon back until they hit something. It's not very damaging, but it does mean that Groudon can control the battlefield fairly well.
Rewards for Beating Groudon
Despite stopping the world from being consumed by earthquakes and saving the most famous Rescue Team in existence, you won't get any tangible monetary or physical reward for defeating Groudon, though everybody will tell you how great you are. Gardevoir will also keep the promise she made and explain the big mystery of what's happened when you go to sleep that evening. Still, you'll now have Magma Cavern as an explorable area in which you can do missions, assuming you're mad enough to go back there.
There's plenty of Pokemon to go around at USG. Check out Joel's full review of the game here, or follow this link to see Kat's first impressions of the game.