Team GO Rocket Leaders

Team GO Rocket Leaders are more powerful enemies than the regular Team GO Rocket Grunts. Similar to Team Leaders, there are three of them: Arlo, Cliff and Sierra, with Giovanni being their boss.

Finding leaders
By defeating a regular grunt, the player will receive a Mysterious Component. After collecting 6 of them, they can be combined to form a Rocket Radar, which can be equipped to find otherwise hidden locations of PokéStops where the Team GO Rocket Leaders are, boasting teams of Shadow Pokémon far stronger than the average grunt. The leaders start to appear at 6 a.m. and leave at 10 p.m. every day.

Without the Rocket Radar equipped, those PokéStops will only function as normal ones. A Radar may reveal multiple locations, but it is consumed after winning the battle against one leader. A new one must be crafted. It may also not reveal any leader hideouts even when there are PokéStops nearby, and your Team Leader would prompt you to travel to a different location to find them, or wait till tomorrow as the hideouts change over time. However, beating a leader does not change the other spots, even if you craft another radar.

Trainer can also find leaders and engage battle with them by tapping the Rocket Balloon that may spawn above the Trainer's avatar in the Map View but only if regular Rocket Radar is equipped.
 * For more information on Rocket Balloons, see: Team GO Rocket.

Battling leaders
After locating Team GO Rocket Leader's hideout at last, Trainer can engage battle with them just like in case of Team GO Rocket Grunts and Giovanni.

Team GO Rocket Leaders battles work similarly to the normal Grunts battles. Trainer has to select a party of three Pokémon and use their Fast and Charged Attacks to defeat the opponent. Enemy Shadow Pokémon fought also have greatly increased CP above normal limits because strength is offensive-biased, meaning they can dish out quite a lot of damage but does not take hits as well as their CP suggests.

The only notable difference is that the Leaders always block the first two Charged Attacks with protect shields, similar to the Master League Trainer Battle against Team Leaders.


 * For more information on battling any of Team GO Rocket members, see: Team GO Rocket.

After winning the Battle, 1000 Stardust and several Potions and Revives will be rewarded and there will be a chance to catch the first Shadow Pokémon they used. If the battle is lost, a rematch will be offered, but if it is won the Rocket Radar is being removed from Trainer's bag and they have to begin completing Mysterious Components again.

Winning the battle with Leader also increases the rank of the Hero medal. Their Shadow Pokémon caught do not necessarily have better Individual Values, but they are possible to be shiny, unlike the battle with regular grunts.

Leaders' parties
These are current sets of Pokémon to be used by each of Leaders in a battle with them.
 * In a single battle with a leader, the first Pokémon of each leader is always the same while the latter two are randomly chosen from three Pokémon in each column. Pokémon highlighted with green can be caught after winning a battle.

Changes to leaders' parties
From the release of Battle against Team GO Rocket Leaders, until now, there were some changes to their Pokémon parties.

Trivia

 * They made their debut on November, 2019.
 * All three Team GO Rocket Leaders have name that refer to mountainous features: "Cliff" is a vertical rock side; "Sierra" is Spanish for "mountain range", and "Arlo" is Old English for "fortified hill".
 * According to in-game commentary, Arlo appears to be the counterpart of Team Leader Candela; Cliff is the counterpart of Blanche, and Sierra is the counterpart of Spark.
 * Event Team GO Rocket Leaders Disruption was held to promote their introduction.
 * The event blog post refers to Shadow Scyther as exclusive to a Team GO Rocket Leader, when it was previously available in regular Rocket Grunts' teams.
 * In their teams debuting in July 2020, Shadow Lapras and Grimer were already previously available from regular Grunts. There are also reports of Shadow Lapras from Grunts possibly being shiny days before the Leader change.
 * On March, 2020, the global take-over mini-event, the Leaders used every first Pokémon which previously appeared. The rest of the team was the newest set though.
 * PokéStops that would be taken over by Team GO Rocket Leaders could not be taken by grunts, which is noticeable during events where all PokéStops are taken over by grunts with the exceptions of those with leaders. However, it is possible for Cliff, Sierra, or Arlo to occupy the same PokéStop as Giovanni.
 * This restrict is no longer in place as of the 12 July 2020 event, when a leader can occupy the same PokéStop as a grunt at the same time. Equipping and unequipping the Radar would change the encounter you get.
 * Friendly Team Leaders may give advice on defeating Team GO Rocket Leaders based on their types. However, it is possible for them to list the weakness of Ground types against Giovanni, even if he has Kingler as his second Pokémon and therefore does not have any Ground types on his team.