TL;DR: Exeggutor and Magmar are really easy to solo by exploiting their numerous weaknesses. Weezing is the hardest by far, but it can be tamed with a mix of Psychic glass cannons and sturdy Rhydon/Golem. Electabuzz and Muk are in between.
This is meant to be a guide for those players who are either mid-level (20-25) or rural or just not well-connected to a large raiding community and therefore don’t have many high-level legendaries or pseudo-legendaries or otherwise rare Pokémon to solo Tier 3 raids, but they should already be able to solo all or most Tier 2 raids.
For each level-2 raid boss I will first summarize stats and type weaknesses, then list the best attackers and the best “easily available” attackers (from what is usually common, or from nests), and finally some suggestions and a video.
Keep in mind that charge moves are much more important than fast moves (but still, having the right fast move doesn’t hurt) so I only list charge moves.
Raid bosses are listed in increasing order of difficulty, from the easiest (Exeggutor) to the hardest (Weezing).
General advice
Use my Choose Your Attackers spreadsheet or Pokébattler to check which attackers have a good DPS / Time To Win and which ones have a good TDO / Power. The main enemy is the clock, so Time To Win is more important than Power. In the spreadsheet, this is taken into account with the lopsided metric “Raid score” that gives more weight to DPS than to TDO.
If you time out without using all your 6 attackers, you need to increase DPS / decrease Time To Win.
If your team gets killed before time is up (and rejoining makes you time out), you need to increase TDO / Power even if you need to sacrifice up to 10% of your total DPS, in order to avoid wasting those 10-20 seconds needed to rejoin.
If rejoining is unavoidable, make sure good attackers get autoselected, either by replacing them in your first team choice, or by fainting bad autoselector choices.
Minimize lag by restarting the app before each raid and keeping your phone cool (Pokémon Go has a lot of bugs, and therefore it’s obviously vulnerable to Overheat).
Exeggutor
Base Defense: 158. Weaknesses: Bug (double weakness!), Fire, Ice, Flying, Dark, Ghost, Poison. Punishing charge move (against Poison): Psychic.
Best Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
Scizor | X-Scissor |
| 2 |  |
Moltres | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 3 |  |
Entei | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 4 |  |
Pinsir | X-Scissor |
| 5 |  |
Scyther | X-Scissor / Bug Buzz (Aerial Ace is OK) |
| 6 |  |
Dragonite | Hurricane (Dragon moves are OK) |
| 7 |  |
Lugia | Sky Attack |
| 8 |  |
(Heracross) | Megahorn |
| 9 |  |
Charizard | Overheat (other Fire/Flying moves are OK) |
| 10 |  |
Flareon | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 11 |  |
Mewtwo | Shadow Ball |
Best “easily available” Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Pinsir | X-Scissor |
| 2 | |
Scyther | X-Scissor / Bug Buzz (Aerial Ace is OK) |
| 3 | |
Flareon | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 4 |  |
Houndoom | Foul Play (other moves are OK) |
| 5 |  |
Gengar | Shadow Ball (Sludge Bomb is OK) |
| 6 |  |
Venomoth | Bug Buzz (Silver Wind is OK) |
| 7 |  |
Jynx | Avalanche |
| 8 |  |
Skarmory | Sky Attack (Brave Bird is OK) |
| 9 |  |
Butterfree | Bug Buzz (Signal Beam is OK) |
| 10 |  |
Parasect | X-Scissor |
Against Exeggutor, timeout is never an issue. It can sometimes kill all 6 attackers, but there should be enough time to re-enter and win comfortably. Anyway the “Total Eff” / “Overall” metric against Exeggutor is better than a pure “DPS” / “Time To Win” approach.
Almost anything with Bug moves is excellent. Video of Exeggutor defeated with common/nesting Pokémon
If you happen to be low level but with a lot of level-20 legendaries, this other video is for you.
Magmar
Base Defense: 169. Weaknesses: Water, Rock, Ground. No punishing charge moves.
Best Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  |
Vaporeon | Hydro Pump (other moves are OK) |
| 2 |  |
Golem | Stone Edge (other moves are OK) |
| 3 |  |
Rhydon | Stone Edge (Earthquake is OK) |
| 4 | |
Dragonite | Outrage (other Dragon moves are OK) |
| 5 |  |
Omastar | Hydro Pump / Rock Slide (other moves are OK) |
| 6 |  |
Gyarados | Hydro Pump |
| 7 | |
Lugia | Hydro Pump |
| 8 | |
Mewtwo | Shadow Ball (other moves are OK) |
| 9 |  |
Kingdra | Hydro Pump |
| 10 |  |
Feraligatr | Hydro Pump |
| 11 |  |
Tyranitar | Stone Edge |
Best “easily available” Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Vaporeon | Hydro Pump (other moves are OK) |
| 2 |  |
Kingler | Water Pulse |
| 3 |  |
Starmie | Hydro Pump |
| 4 |  |
Golduck | Hydro Pump |
| 5 |  |
Sudowoodo | Rock Slide (Stone Edge is OK) |
| 6 |  |
Espeon | Future Sight (other moves are OK) |
| 7 |  |
Seadra | Hydro Pump |
| 8 |  |
Qwilfish | Aqua Tail |
| 9 |  |
Octillery | Water Pulse |
Against Magmar, using Water and Rock attackers can never be much wrong. Since Water and Rock resist Fire, it’s very unlikely that the whole team faints. That makes up for the lack of a double weakness.
Video of Magmar defeated with less-than-optimal Water and Rock Pokémon (average level = 24)
Electabuzz
Base Defense: 173. Weakness: Ground. No punishing charge moves.
Best Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Rhydon | Earthquake (Stone Edge is OK) |
| 2 | |
Golem | Earthquake (other moves are OK) |
| 3 |  |
Donphan | Earthquake |
| 4 | |
Mewtwo | Shadow Ball (other moves are OK) |
| 5 | |
Dragonite | Outrage (Dragon Claw/Pulse are OK) |
| 6 | |
Entei | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 7 |  |
Exeggutor | Solar Beam |
| 8 |  |
Sandslash | Earthquake (Bulldoze is OK) |
| 9 |  |
Nidoking | Earthquake |
| 10 |  |
Nidoqueen | Earthquake |
Best “easily available” Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Exeggutor | Solar Beam |
| 2 | |
Nidoking | Earthquake |
| 3 | |
Nidoqueen | Earthquake |
| 4 | |
Flareon | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 5 | |
Espeon | Future Sight (other moves are OK) |
| 6 | |
Jynx | Avalanche |
| 7 |  |
Graveler | Dig (other moves are OK) |
| 8 | |
Pinsir | X-Scissor |
| 9 |  |
Marowak | Earthquake (other moves are OK) |
| 10 |  |
Quagsire | Earthquake |
Electabuzz is in theory as easy as Magmar, in practice it only has one weakness (Ground) and Ground movesets are currently the worst among all 17 types with complete movesets (excluding Fairy which has no fast move).
So the strategy is to use a mix of Ground attackers (Rhydon and Golem are the best) and hard-hitting generalists, which deal neutral damage but with good DPS (e.g. Dragonite, Flareon, Espeon, Jynx). Exeggutor is particularly good because it hits hard and Grass resists Electric.
Muk / Weezing
Base Defense: 184 (Muk), 221 (Weezing). Weaknesses: Psychic, Ground. Punishing charge moves: Dark Pulse (both), Shadow Ball (Weezing).
Best Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Mewtwo | Psychic |
| 2 | |
Espeon | Future Sight (other moves are OK) |
| 3 |  |
Alakazam | Future Sight |
| 4 | |
Rhydon | Earthquake |
| 5 | |
Lugia | Future Sight |
| 6 | |
Dragonite | Outrage (Dragon Claw/Pulse are OK) |
| 7 | |
Moltres | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 8 | |
Entei | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 9 |  |
Raikou | Wild Charge (Thunderbolt is OK) |
| 10 | |
Golem | Earthquake |
| 11 | |
Jynx | Psyshock (Avalanche is OK) |
Best “easily available” Attackers:
| Rank | Attacker | Charge move | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |
Espeon | Future Sight (other moves are OK) |
| 2 | |
Jynx | Psyshock (Avalanche is OK) |
| 3 | |
Exeggutor | Psychic |
| 4 | |
Flareon | Overheat (other moves are OK) |
| 5 | |
Houndoom | Foul Play (other moves are OK) |
Weezing, with a 221 Defense and 3 multi-bar charge moves, 2 of which are Super Effective against Psychic (including one of the most powerful moves in the game, Shadow Ball), is by far the hardest level-2 raid boss. If you fail Weezing, that doesn’t mean you can’t do the other 4 relatively easily.
Muk is not as hard (only 184 Defense, no Shadow Ball) but still quite nasty.
The strategy (the same for both) is to use a mix of Psychic and Ground attackers. Psychic glass cannons (e.g. Espeon, Alakazam, Jynx) provide DPS, while Ground tanks (e.g. Rhydon, Golem) provide durability. Strong generalists like Dragonite, Moltres, Entei, Flareon can also be used, and obviously tankier Psychics like Mewtwo and Lugia.
If you don’t have pseudo-legendaries or legendaries, Espeon/Jynx/Exeggutor/Alakazam/Flareon are fast enough to prevent timeout, provided one or two Rhydon/Golem are put at the end to tank charge moves. Ground/Rock types are harder to get than “disposable” glass cannons, however they conveniently double-resist Poison. By the way Golem is just 1km/candy as a buddy (and it’s anyway useful against legendary birds, including the upcoming Ho-Oh).
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