Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX: How to Get Through Sky Tower and Beat the Rayquaza Final Boss Fight

The pinnacle of your adventures in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX, climbing Sky Tower to petition the legendary Raquaza to blow up a world-ending asteroid is a true test of skill and perseverance. We'll show you how to beat Sky Tower and the Rayquaza boss fight.

On this page:

• How to Beat Sky Tower and Rayquaza
• How to Get to Sky Tower
• What Items Should I Bring to Sky Tower?
• Items to Beat Rayquaza
• Best Moves and Attacks for Sky Tower and Rayquaza
• How Many Floors Are There in Sky Tower?
• How to Beat Sky Tower
• Pokemon in Sky Tower
• How to Beat Rayquaza
• Rayquaza Weaknesses and Tips
• Rayquaza Strategy

How to Beat Sky Tower and Rayquaza

A rising skyscraper made of clouds, Sky Tower is one of the hardest dungeons in the game, and Rayquaza one of its toughest Pokemon. To beat them both, you'll need to prepare for your longest excursion yet, as well as carefully selecting a build and team to deal with the hazards ahead.

How to Get to Sky Tower

The opportunity to go to Sky Tower unlocks in a cinematic that triggers immediately after returning from Magma Cavern and Groudon. The real threat is made clear after a message from Xatu - a big meteorite - and you're told to venture to the Sky Tower to ask the legendary Rayquaza to destroy the falling star. You'll have an opportunity to use all the amenities of Pokemon Square, and when you're ready, speak to your partner in the middle. This'll trigger another cutscene where Xatu and Alakazam create a Teleport Gem to send you to Sky Tower. This isn't a single-use object; it'll allow you to go to Sky Tower as much as you like, adding it to the Dungeon List along with all the other game locations.

What Items Should I Bring to Sky Tower?

There's no specific items that'll make Sky Tower easy, but there are those that'll save you a lot of bother. When leaving, you should have these items in your toolbox at least, and ideally a few extras:

• Eight Reviver Seeds (Tiny or Normal, either works)
• Four Perfect Apples
• Six Max Ethers
• Four Oran Berries
• Two of any Orb that can get you out of a tight spot (Slumber Orbs, Hold-Foe orbs, etc)
• One of every status-curing berry
• Your preferred held items

Items to Beat Rayquaza

But wait, there's more! That set-up was to get you through the Sky Tower dungeon, not to beat Rayquaza. There's a checkpoint near the top of the dungeon that'll allow you to access your storage close(ish) to the boss fight. Put these items in storage so you can take them out at the checkpoint to help topple the big ol' sky snake.

• Six more Reviver Seeds
• SIx more Oran Berries
• Two Link Boxes
• Four Max Elixirs
• Eight uses of Slumber or Confuse Wand
• Empowerment Seeds - if you own any

Best Moves and Attacks for Sky Tower and Rayquaza

Rayquaza - and quite a lot of the Pokemon in the Sky Tower - have a weakness to Ice-type attacks. If you can teach one or both of your team some frigid moves, you'll have a huge advantage in the coming trials. Failing that, Rock and Electric moves will be a big help going forward, and tend to be easier to learn or find than Ice TMs.

How Many Floors Are There in Sky Tower?

The longest dungeon you'll have encountered in the game so far, Sky Tower is a whopping 34 floors high, with a wide variety of Pokemon that changes as you go higher up the tower. The checkpoint is between the 25 and 26th floor, and Rayquaza, surprising nobody, is at the peak. You'll be playing the long, long, long game here, where the challenge is as much about outlasting the tower as it is ascending it.

How to Beat Sky Tower

There's no easy way to handle Sky Tower, but we advise caution and flexibility. Avoid fights whenever you can, using the mini-map to weave around opponents, and if it is going to go to a fight, use ranged attacks as much as possible to do early damage first. Otherwise, these are the things to remember:

• You'll want to be level 36 at the very lowest to attempt this dungeon, and even then it won't be easy. Grind up a few levels until you're 40 and up for the best shot.
• Don't ever bother hunting for items or exploring for the sake of it: find the stairs on each floor and use them instantly. Even if you survive the battles, you'll lose valuable PP and gear that you'll need higher up.
• You won't be able to recruit enemies your first time up Sky Tower, so don't bother bringing abilities and items to boost your chances.
• Weather can change instantly and randomly in Sky Tower, from hail to sandstorms to rain and sun. Use attacks that'll be boosted by it (such as fire attacks in sun) for a small advantage, and be remember that not only do you take damage from hail and sandstorms, your health won't regenerate.
• If you trigger a Monster House, activate your Slumber or Hold-Foe orb and leave immediately by the route you came in! You probably won't have long to escape, and even if all the Pokemon are immobilized, there's a chance you'll trigger a trap going across the room.

Pokemon in Sky Tower

It also goes without saying that there's a lot of dangerous Pokemon in there, though not all of them are as dangerous as each other. To make matters easier, we've listed them below, along with their weaknesses and, in some cases, what moves they have you'll need to be afraid of. If the Pokemon below has a wild card, you should prioritize beating it above all others!

Pokemon	Weak to:	Wild Card Moves:
Aerodactyl	Electric, Ice, Rock, Steel, Water	-
Altaria	Ice, Dragon, Rock, Fairy	Pluck can steal and eat items in your inventory.
Claydol	Bug, Dark, Ghost, Grass, Water, Ice	Hyper Beam hits all targets in a straight line for massive damage.
Dusclops	Dark, Ghost	-
Duskull	Dark, Ghost	-
Flygon	Ice, Dragon, Fairy	Bulldoze hits all enemies nearby at once.
Forretress	Fire	-
Ledian	Rock, Electric, Fire, Flying, Ice	Knows Silver Wind, which hits all enemies in the same room, and Comet Punch, which hits a target multiple times.
Lunatone	Bug, Dark, ghost, Grass, Steel, Water	Rock Polish allows it to move to triple speed.
Masquerain	Rock, Electric, Fire, Flying, Ice	Knows Ominous Wind, which hits all enemies in the same room, and Bug Buzz, which hits all enemies adjacent to it.
Metagross	Fire, Ground, Ghost, Dark	-
Salamence	Ice, Dragon, Rock, Fairy	Flamethrower can hit targets at range.
Scizor	Fire	Agility allows it to move to triple speed.
Shuppet	Dark, Ghost	-
Solrock	Bug, Dark, Ghost, Grass, Steel, Water	Rock Polish allows it to move to triple speed.
Tropius	Ice, Fire, Flying, Poison, Rock	-
Venomoth	Fire, Flying, Psychic, Rock	Quiver Dance boosts Sp. Attack and Sp. Defense, as well as doubling speed.
Wheezing	Psychic	-

How to Beat Rayquaza

And so it comes to this. Rayquaza is a gigantic sky dragon who will use all of his power to defeat you, sending you back to the checkpoint eight floors ago if he wins. He's also backed by a torrential gale that can move you about the battlefield if you're not careful. We'll go over his strengths and weaknesses below.

Rayquaza Weaknesses and Tips

• Rayquaza has roughly 1600 health, similar to Groudon. However, it's capable of doing a lot more damage in a much wider area, not to mention have a lot less easily-exploited weaknesses.
• Rayquaza is a Dragon/Flying dual-type, weak to Dragon, Rock, Fairy and especially Ice attacks, from which he takes 4x damage.
• However, Rayquaza is immune to Ground attacks, and resistant to Fighting, Bug, Fire Water and Grass.
• Rayquaza's ability, Air Lock, prevents any weather effects with the exception of the Gust Gale. Everything few turns a text box will declare: "There's a Whirlwind!" Numerous tiles will be highlighted green, and one turn later, any character one on of those tiles will be warped to a random place in the arena.
• Rayquaza knows four moves: Hyper Beam, Twister, Extremespeed and Hyper Voice. Of these, the big two threats are Hyper Beam, which can hit all enemies in a line for massive damage, and Twister, which hits everybody in the room and can make them flinch.
• Rayquaza's boss status means that effects like confusion and sleep don't last more than two turns.

Rayquaza Strategy

Beating Rayquaza requires a lot of preparation to make it easy. We've broken down a basic strategy here to give you some help.

• First of all, before going up the final flight of stairs, use Link Boxes to tie all your most powerful moves together, and equip all the best items for boss fights, such as Special Bands.
• Once you enter the arena, immediately eat your Empowerment Seeds if you have them. They'll give you a huge stat boost and guarantee critical hits on all your linked moves.
• The best strategy for placement is to have your tougher Pokemon close to Rayquaza, ideally using Wands, Seeds and attacks to keep him asleep, confused or other incapacitated. Being a boss, it won't last long, keep pouring status effects into him to stop him from using his most powerful attacks - or even any of them. And considering you have a Pokemon next to him, it makes it less likely when he does use an attack, it'll be one of his powerful ranged ones, like Hyper Beam and Twister.
• Meanwhile, your other Pokemon should be doing all your high-distance, high-damage attacks. Fight from range until the wind forces you to reposition.
• When the gusts do start up, make sure the close-range Pokemon stays on his flank, moving him out of the danger zone. It doesn't matter too much if your other Pokemon is warped, considering they're using distance attacks anyway.
• Keep using this system and chewing through Reviver Seeds whenever necessary until you can finally claim victory!

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX Trailer

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We've got Mystery Dungeon content to spare at USgamer. If you want to check out Kat's first impressions of the game, that's right here, or if you want to see Joel's final review, just follow this link.