Niantic Labs appears to be preparing “Pokemon Go” for a new EX Raid Boss. The latest data mining activity in the game’s APK revealed vital details that spoiled the upcoming event of the popular augmented reality title. It also revealed the arrival of the speculated Gen 3 species of pocket monsters.

The game developer recently tweaked the GAME_ MASTER file to prepare the game for its upcoming Halloween event. While data miners discovered several changes related to the new pocket monsters that will be released in the game, they also uncovered an interesting find.

Latest data mine

As revealed by “Pokemon Go” Hub, data miners discovered that Niantic Labs has made several changes to the stats of the Legendary Bird Ho-Oh. The Mythical bird is the only Generation 1/ Generation 2 Legendary monster that is not yet released in the game.

New Stats

According to data miners, the bird’s base stats are all dropped by nine percent. Its max CP is also decreased from 4650 now down to 3889. In other words, the legendary Bird is no longer the most powerful monster in the game since its CP is lower than Mewtwo. Aside from those, Niantic Labs also dropped the bird’s Stamina to 193 while its Attack is now only 239 and its Defense now down to 274.

Along with other special creatures, the Legendary Bird Ho-Oh is one of those exclusive monsters with base stats directly edited by the game developer.

Although there are several changes on how the game computes the CP of other monsters, it is only Mewtwo’s stats that were edited in the past. Last summer, the powerful legendary creature’s stats were decreased by nine percent. Its max CP was also dropped from 4760 to 3982.

Gen 3 preparation

It appears that Niantic Labs is trying to keep the stats of its creatures below 4000, which could affect the Gen 3 species upon their release in the game.

Gen 3 monsters with CPs above 4000 are Slaking, Groudon, and Kyogre. Players should expect their CP to be decreased before their official release in the game.

Good news

While Ho-Oh’s stats have been nerfed, this is in a way a good news to players. Niantic Labs usually nerfs the stats of its monsters before they are officially released in the game.

This could only mean that Ho-Oh could go live anytime in the popular augmented reality game.

Several days ago, a leaked email surfaced online claiming that there would be an EX Raid for Ho-Oh. However, Niantic Labs debunked this claim.Other players are speculating that the Legendary Bird could potentially be the new EX Raid Boss in 'Pokemon Go."