Jan/Feb 7* Event - Greninja (Poison Tera)

If you're looking for using the best pokemon of gen 9 for this raid

Clodsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Mud-Slap
- Acid Spray
- Yawn
- Amnesia / Stockpile

Yawn t1 to buy some time for your team to set up, throw a amnesia or two, then click mud-slap / acid spray, nothing special.
Lefties over Black Sludge if you plan on actually using Tera, mine is Steel type so it works very well since at that point you're actually immune to 2 of its "stabs" and Night Slash tickles anyway.
If you don't plan to Tera or your tera is poison, Black Sludge has slightly faster animation iirc
 
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Should I feel bad for just rolling up with Annihilape, using Taunt and then Cheers, and just Bulk Up + Rage Fist because of Gren's crappy damage output?
I did pull decent raid partners with Miraidon/Vaporeon/Iron Hands, but those well-timed Cheers and the Rage Fist definitely put in work. Gren just doesn't have good damage output on +1 SpD Annihilape (from Hang Tough Cheer.)
 
Should I feel bad for just rolling up with Annihilape, using Taunt and then Cheers, and just Bulk Up + Rage Fist because of Gren's crappy damage output?
I did pull decent raid partners with Miraidon/Vaporeon/Iron Hands, but those well-timed Cheers and the Rage Fist definitely put in work. Gren just doesn't have good damage output on +1 SpD Annihilape (from Hang Tough Cheer.)
Eh, despite everything this raid is way easier than Cinderace and it's possible to carry one "useless" person (or even two) as long as they don't actually die.

Amongst the other kills, I've killed it with a lvl 55 Slowbro in the party, as well as at some point a Palossand, a couple Sylveons, ...
Expecially if there's someone on Mud-Slap spamming duty in the raid, you can actually end up chipping it down slowly even without "oneshot strats".

....editing just to vent that this raid is basically free as long as people don't bring Pokemon that get nuked into oblivion ... and people still keep bringing stuff like Koraidon/Miraidon, Iron Hands, level 75 Lucario, etc.
And people wonder why GameFreaks has to make this game idiotproof...
 
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DougJustDoug

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I have been playing tera raids consistently and I have tons of mons in my box, so I have been able to experiment with a lot of different things in this Greninja raid right from the jump. For those of you looking for some specific suggestions and movesets that are having success, perhaps this can help.

General Greninja Raid Notes
  • This raid is no pushover, but it’s not as brutal as the Cinderace raid. I personally solo’ed my first raid with my bog-standard cinderace Slowbro when I was just testing to see Greg’s moveset and was able to slog through it without much trouble. Your mileage will vary, of course.
  • Double Team is definitely annoying, but not the nightmare I expected when I saw it the first time. Greninja usually doesn’t spam it, unlike Cinderace with its infamous double and triple Bulk Up turns!
  • The meta is heavily in flux right now, but so far this raid has a high degree of luck dependency. Even with good pokemon, critical hits and Double Team misses have turned many battles quickly for me. With the mons below, the downside has been mostly manageable. But I have yet to ever feel comfortable in any Greninja raid.
  • The AI for Greninja is weirder than expected. It makes move choices that I wouldn’t have predicted on almost every pokemon I have played, sometimes very consistently. I have adjusted my movesets accordingly on some pokemon to account for this.
  • Greninja does the stat wipe and throws up the shield quickly, as already mentioned in this thread. So don’t bother trying to go for a one-shot or get in a fast setup with the hopes of killing Greg faster. Early setup is fine and necessary to prevent fainting by you or teammates, but don’t expect it to last. In fact, my strategy with every pokemon has two phases: 1) Pre-Shield Survival and 2) Post-Shield Setup & Brawl.
  • Although this raid is definitely easier than Cinderace, so far in rando raids, there is not much room for noobs on the field that get fainted easily. It’s bad enough with the good mons catching bad beats and with Night Slash crits or DT misses. Some idiot bringing a mon weak to Gunk Shot or Hydro Pump is gonna burn the timer badly in a brawl that is gonna last for while if you expect to win. As I have been saying, luck plays a part in how it goes. But I have not yet won a Greninja raid in less than ~12-15 turns, I think. I haven’t been counting turns specifically, but every win has been a bit of a grind, even when luck goes our way.


Here is the list of pokemon that I have been using personally in Greninja raids and have been part of multiple wins with all of these. I have also been part of losses with all of these mons, and sometimes I’ve been the one that has fainted too much and burned timer for the team (see comments above about luck dependency in this raid). I’m not saying the movesets I list below are the most optimal solutions, but they aren’t theorymon sets. I’ve been running all these myself and the slashes I list below are all variations that I have tried and succeeded or failed to varying degrees. So if this helps you start on your own journey with this Greninja raid, great. But as with all things, buyer beware ;-)


:sv/slowbro:
Slowbro @ Leftovers / Covert Cloak
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
- Nasty Plot
- Iron Defense
- Stored Power
- Slack Off / Amnesia / Psychic Terrain / Chilling Water

Slowbro is the early frontrunner for Greninja raid MVP. Kinda unexpected really, because it is weak to one of Greninja's stabs. I just threw my cinderace Slowbro out there in my personal cart Greg raid, just to see the frog's moveset and how the raid plays. I expected to get hit with lots of SE Dark hits and die at some point, but surprisingly was able to grind out a solo win. I think I was helped a bit by NPC's with Intimidate, but I'm not sure. I was just kinda clicking stuff and getting surprised by early shields and all that, so I wasn't paying much attention to my strategy. And then I found myself late in the raid with the shield busted, with decent health and stat boosts to make Stored Power legit, and realize "Hehe, I think I'm gonna win this thing right out of the gate!" Sure enough, I did.

Slowbro's natural physical bulk combined with Greninja hitting Dark with its weaker attacking stat and using a low-BP attacking move, that really mitigates the problem of bringing in a pokemon with a type weakness to a 7* raid boss STAB. Surprising, but true. Don't get me wrong, Night Slash crits are a real problem for Bro, and it has flipped many raids that I thought were on cruise control. But overall, it's not the problem I had theorymonned it to be.

Although this Bro moveset is only slightly modified from the Cinderace raid, the way the Greninja raid plays out is quite different. No point in trying for a one-shot against Greg. Boost up pretty much the same as the Cinderace raid, but expect to pound away with Stored Power for a while. I’ve seen some Bro’s succeed by doing full deep setups and only having to SP nuke a few times. I’ve seen others succeed by attacking sooner and more often. I’ve even heard of people making sure to PPUp Stored Power so they don’t run out of attacks. Playing Bro on this raid will fluctuate a lot depending on what happens. I’ve caught some early Night Slash crits that have put me on my heels and playing defense sometimes. Other times, Greg decides to DT a bit too much and I need to up the volume of my attacks to make sure I get hits in, even if at lower BP. We’ll see if a Slowbro playbook emerges, but right now, just bring out the smiling doofus and be prepared to think on your feet.


:sv/qwilfish:
Qwilfish @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 160 HP / 252 SpDef / 96 Speed
Timid Nature
- Acid Spray
- Chilling Water
- Acupressure
- Taunt

Qwilfish's Water/Poison typing make it an obvious candidate for this raid. Qwilfish's nifty support options are the cornerstones of the moveset and Intimidate helps lessen the sting of those Gunk Shots and Night Slashes against the team -- keep reading to see why, surprisingly, it doesn't matter for Qwilfish itself. Since Greninja is Sassy, Qwilfish is easily EV'd to 253 speed and gets the jump on the normally-nimble frog. But again, as mentioned below, speed is not as big a deal as I thought it would be.

Since Slowbro is out there a lot, there is a very valuable place for Qwilfish in this early Greninja meta. However, unlike Cinderace, I have found Qwilfish’s support usefulness WITHOUT Slowbro on the team is greatly reduced, at least compared to the other support options available. I’m not saying Qwilfish can’t play the same support role as a generic spammer of Acid Spray, Chilling Water, etc. But Qfish’s ability to Acupressure Slowbro is a HUGE help against Greninja, because the Bro’s on the team are going to be spamming Stored Power more often and they need as much oomph as they can get in those attacks. No other pokemon can boost the BP of Stored Power users like this, so there is definitely a niche for this little blowfish in the Greg meta.

I changed the EV's a lot on this Qwilfish from the cinderace version. I went all-in on Special Defense because I quickly discovered that Greninja makes the odd choice to spam Hydro Pump almost exclusively when hitting Qwilfish. See my general comments above about the weird AI. I don't know why Greg only Hydro Pumps Qwilfish when it seems to vary its attacks against almost every other pokemon I have played. And even after I changed from heavy Defense investment (because that's what I had for the Cinderace raid) Greninja still kept Pumping away at Qfish. Go figure. Whatever the case, Qwilfish appreciates the special bulk, because without it, you'll be doing Heal Up up cheers a lot or relying on others to do so for you. With these EV's Lefties recovery keeps you in pretty good shape. But because Greg only hits Qfish on the special side, it greatly lessens the usefulness of Qwilfish outspeeding Greninja. Against Cinderace, firing off a Chilling Water before getting hit with a big physical attack was a MASSIVE help. But on this raid, it's almost irrelevant. The Chilling Water is still nice for teammates getting pounded with Gunk 'n Slash, but it doesn't increase Qwilfish's survival rate in this raid much at all. I'm even thinking of moving Qwilfish to Calm max HP max SpDef for exactly this reason.


:sv/clodsire:
Clodsire @ Ability Shield / Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Acid Spray
- Chilling Water
- Recover
- Earthquake

Clodsire's typing and ability made it an early theorymon fave, and it plays exactly as I expected it would play. I love Clodsire because it was part of my ingame team and so I have always had one fully trained in my box. But I also have always hated Clodsire for raids, because it just can't do any meaningful damage. On paper, I always get excited about using my Clodsire for different raids because its typing and ability combo is so tantalizingly unique. But every time I actually play it in a raid, even against wet tissue paper bosses -- Clodsire always struggles to make a dent. And it's the same thing here in the Greninja raid. Clodsire has the Acid Spray/Chilling Water combo that is proving useful in many support mon sets, and access to reliable recovery is a big help in long Greninja brawls. But unfortnately, even though on paper you would think a big BP super-effective stab move like Earthquake would do a big chunk to Poison Greninja... to me, it seems more like chip damage. Sorry big fella, I luv ya. But you just can't hit with the big boys...

Don't get me wrong, Clodsire is a fine support mon for this raid. It debuffs Greninja, it doesn't worry about getting poisoned by Gunk Shot, and it occasionally gets free healing from Hydro Pumps. I have been running Ability Shield over Leftovers on Clodsire, because unlike with Storm Drain on Gastrodon (see below) the AI is somewhat consistently smart about hitting Clodsire with a massive SE Hydro Pump on the one turn that wipes Clod's Water Absorb ability. Without Lefties, I find myself clicking Recover or Heal Cheers a little more than I prefer, but hey, it's not like EQ is gonna make much of a difference anyway. Clodsire's job in this raid, yet again disappointingly, is to throw some support moves out there, Cheer for the team, and basically NOT DIE and burn the timer. But it's fairly reliable at doing this job, which is why I have it high on my list of options for this raid.


:sv/toxapex:
Toxapex @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpDef
Calm Nature
- Acid Spray
- Chilling Water
- Recover
- Liquidation

Another Water/Poison pokemon that is easy to predict to potentially have a role against a 7* Greninja raid boss with amazing coverage. Of all the support mons I have played, I would say Toxapex is the only mon I have played where I literally feel comfortable that I am not at risk of fainting or causing the team to lose. That's not to say I am comfortable that the team will WIN, but when I got Pex on the field, I have little doubt that I will be alive and kicking at the end of the raid -- whether that is collecting the spoils of victory or watching Greninja release its energy and sends the team packing. In all the Greninja raid battles where I've used Toxapex, I don't think I've ever seen Pex even get into yellow health, much less red. So yeah, if you are a raid battler that likes stress-avoidance and can't stand the thought of faceless rando teammates cursing and blaming you behind your back for the loss -- then Toxpex is the raid mon for you.

Acid Spray and Chilling Water do their thing and I spend most raids with Pex just using these moves exclusively. Also, I've found that because Pex rarely gets low on health and requires the priority healing cheer like some other slow support mons, I find myself throwing out Go All Out and Hang Tough cheers a little more often. Yeah, I'll do a Heal Up if I notice the team is desperate for some HP love. But I'm not looking at the Cheers menu for my own personal survival, like I find myself often doing with other mons.

Liquidation is on the moveset because it's there from my standard Pex. I theorymoned that I might use it to do chip damage and perhaps fish for a Defense drop. But in practice, I really only use the first three moves and Cheers in actual raids.


:sv/gastrodon:
Gastrodon @ Covert Cloak / Ability Shield / Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpAtk
Modest Nature
- Earth Power
- Chilling Water
- Recover
- Clear Smog

There was some debate as to whether Gastrodon would be playable against Greninja or not, and I can answer that with a definitive YES. Is it an all-star? No, not really. I was eagerly awaiting using Gastrodon against Greninja, because I already had two fully-trained Gastrodons in my box (one Tera Water and one Tera Ground). And I really like using it in this raid because it is a combo between a support mon and an attacking helper.

Access to Clear Smog is a standout move for this raid because it is one of the only ways to dampen the problems caused by Greninja Double Teaming. When I run Gastrodon, I Clear Smog on turn one every battle, and it really does help the team for much of the battle. Because in my experience, after that first Turn 0 DT from Greg, it typically does not DT again until much later in the raid. Not always, of course, but much of the time. And having no evasion in play for the first big wave of attacks from the team is a definite help. I wouldn't call it gamebreaking or anything, but it is a legit help to team.

I started with Leftovers on Gastrodon, and then switched to Ability Shield after seeing my Clodsire get clobbered on the ability wipe turn in a battle. But then later I switched to Covert Cloak and have stuck with that ever since. In general, the AI doesn't like to use Water moves against water-immunity abilities AFTER the first time it uses Hydro Pump and it "discovers" your water immunity -- except on the turn that it wipes your ability. But for Gastrodon, I have discovered that it doesn't seem to prefer Hydro Pump on that one ability-wiped turn nearly as much as it loves it against Clodsire. I suspect this is because sans ability Clodsire gets hit SE by Water, but Gastrodon is only hit neutral by Water. So on that one turn that Gastrodon is susceptible to Hydro Pump, I find that Greninja doesn't usually choose it. However, Greninja LOVES to spam Gunk Shots at Gastrodon, and unlike Clodsire, the big snail really hates the frequent poisoning that comes from that. So, I've been running Covert Cloak and life has been much more enjoyable when the frequent Gunk Shots come my way.

Theorymonning in advance of the raid, I was really hoping Gastrodon would be able to abuse the raid AI and boost up on Water attacks and then fire off big-hitting SE Earth Powers to help win the day. But the reality with Gastrodon has been that it really only gets one Special Attack boost somewhere early in the raid, and then that boost gets wiped and Gastrodon is simply yet another support mon with Chilling Water and a relatively reliable ability to "not die". It is useful and I will almost certainly continue to play it because it is a combo mon and has the Clear Smog niche. But it is more ho hum than I had hoped.



This last pokemon I present is not something I have heard anyone else theorymon about at all before the raid. And so I like it because it's not "obvious", so to speak. Also, I love using stuff that other people don't. I don't like weak stuff, just innovative stuff. Although this mon is not a gamebreaker, it is very much playable and can do a combination of things that other mons can't. It is a pokemon that you have probably been annoyed to no end by seeing so many of them all over Paldea in your ingame travels, but never once thought of it for this Greninja raid. Without further ado, I present to you:

:sv/golduck:
Golduck @ Covert Cloak / Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 160 SpAtk / 96 Speed
Timid Nature
- Chilling Water
- Psychic
- Calm Mind
- Clear Smog

Yes, Golduck.
Don't laugh, this thing is better than you think.

For one, Golduck has really nice balanced stats. Nothing huge, but basically 80's across the board with 95 SpAtk. For a mixed hitter like Greninja, none of Golduck's stats are a liability -- which is nice. After some Calm Minds, Golducks attacks actually contribute to the battle, unlike other mons that really are pure support. Golduck is NOT going to be pounding down Greninja's health bar like the Stored Power ballers can late game. But when everyone is gang tackling Greninja in a free-for-all Golduck can definitely get in some shots of its own.

Golduck also has mono-water typing, which makes it resist one of Greninja's biggest moves, but also makes it neutral to everything else. For this raid, I have found that Greninja doesn't hyperfocus on one move that does the most damage to Golduck. It seems to alternate almost equally amongst Hydro Pump, Gunk Shot and Night Slash. And if you look at the moveset, you'll see Golduck can boost/debuff on both sides, so it doesn't sweat any particular attack more than another. Golduck doesn't have a recovery move, and I've been bouncing between Covert Cloak and Lefties trying to decide what I hate more - getting poisoned by gunk shots or not being able to go on cruise control healthwise after a few Chilling Waters and Calm Minds. Still haven't made up my mind on that one, we'll see how it plays out.

Golduck's mono-Water typing also means that it can Tera freely without worrying about losing a key resist or stab. And because I lean in early with Chilling Waters, I find that Golduck can Tera very quickly. In Tera raid battling terms, the ability to Tera and Tera quickly is a BIG DEAL. Because unlike most of the other players that are stuck by their double typing, or have to go out on a limb when they Tera -- mons like Golduck can start doing real damage to the shield bar while other mons are barely chipping it. Listen, 50 BP Chilling Water or non-stab Psychic is nothing to write home about. But neither is almost literally every other attack in the game from all the other pokemon that AREN'T Tera'd. So while on paper, it doesn't look like Golduck's attacks matter much, when you think about its ability to Tera and how quickly it can do it -- yeah, it matters.

Unlike my earlier comments about Qwilfish and outspeeding Greninja not being a help for the blowfish (see above) Golduck LOVES outspeeding Greninja. Being able to boost spdef or lower attack in advance of Greninja's hits is great and there was one battle where we were at the "there's not much time left" point of the raid and Greninja had barely any health remaining and the other slow team members were in dire straits. Golduck won the day with a CM-boosted Psychic before Greninja could act. Golduck is not a hero pokemon, but when you've been slogging through battles with epic laggards like Slowbro, Gastrodon, and Clodsire -- having a pokemon that can get the jump on Greninja is a welcome change of pace, pun completely intended lol ;-)

Last but not least is Clear Smog. Most people probably don't even know Golduck has access to this move! I do, because I love Clear Smog in general for tera raids and I think I have trained and ready in my box every fully-evolved SV pokemon that has access to the move. That's why I had this Golduck on hand, and I was able to try it out quickly after the Greninja raid went live. For reasons mentioned above about Gastrodon with Clear Smog, it's really nice to have something that can combat the frustrating evil that is called Double Team.

Like I said, Golduck is no hero or all-star pokemon, for this raid or anywhere else. But it is definitely viable and helpful, and it can fill a role that not many other pokemon can do. For me, I like it because it is different and unexpected, but it's not a gag or anything. It's just a mon that you probably never would have thought about for this raid and you never really noticed it -- even though it's been there lurking and walking around damn near every river and lake in Paldea!
 
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I love your descriptions, however I think you're GREATLY underselling the value of Mud-Slap on Clodsire and Gastrodon. I've been running it instead of EQ and at same time as Earth Power on Gastro, and boy it makes a difference. Greninja will not clear debuffs often, which means you'll generally easily have a -3 or more accuracy on it.
Combine it with the fact it's often spamming inaccurate attacks (Gunk Shot / Hydro Pump), even a single miss on one of the setup sweepers (or yourself) makes a notable difference. Moreso when you have Slowbros who cherish every Night Slash miss, and Vaporeon kinda lacking in phisical bulk before Acid Armor.
In similar note, I also think you undersell Minimize on Qwilfish. If you're doing the usual "I will buff Slowbro/Vaporeon until I vomit", 2 Minimize will mean every other Hydro Pump will miss which, combined with a Stockpile boost, means your Lefties or Black Sludge actually outheal the damage you take.

On similar subject, I think Chilling Water is kinda useless and if you have to spam a supportive attack, Acid Spray and Mud-Slap are both much better options. Realistically speaking, every pokemon is going to be boosting their Defense significantly either ways, so the only thing that will end up hurting is crits, and these ignore the -attack anyway.


Edit: As far as "being comfortable", honestly any time I see 3 of Vaporeon / Slowbro / Gastrodon / Clodsire / Qwilfish with me, I've killed it. Even that one time one of the Slowbros was lvl 55.
The raid has to go REALLY REALLY BAD for the "correct mons" to actually die, expecially if the players aren't asleep and are actually using cheers if they drop low.
On other hand, this raid is as punishing as Cinderace toward "bad" mons. If you're weak to a given stab and aren't called Slowbro, you just start chain-dieing over and over and not even 6 Mud-Slaps will save you. Some chonky mons can take Ice Beams (like Clod), but I swear if I see another Koraidon...
 
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DougJustDoug

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I love your descriptions, however I think you're GREATLY underselling the value of Mud-Slap on Clodsire and Gastrodon. I've been running it instead of EQ and at same time as Earth Power on Gastro, and boy it makes a difference. Greninja will not clear debuffs often, which means you'll generally easily have a -3 or more accuracy on it.
Combine it with the fact it's often spamming inaccurate attacks (Gunk Shot / Hydro Pump), even a single miss on one of the setup sweepers (or yourself) makes a notable difference. Moreso when you have Slowbros who cherish every Night Slash miss, and Vaporeon kinda lacking in phisical bulk before Acid Armor.
In similar note, I also think you undersell Minimize on Qwilfish. If you're doing the usual "I will buff Slowbro/Vaporeon until I vomit", 2 Minimize will mean every other Hydro Pump will miss which, combined with a Stockpile boost, means your Lefties or Black Sludge actually outheal the damage you take.
Those are great tips, and yeah I'm gonna put them in play immediately. I didn't run them when I was doing raids last night because I didn't think about it, and didn't see your posts about it until after I had written much of my post. But yeah, I TOTALLY agree that accuracy lowering/ evasion against Greninja should be a key part of support mon strategies, considering Greninja's two biggest moves are very susceptible to misses with even minimal accuracy/evasion in play. I'm gonna do this now, on all the mons you just suggested. Thanks!
 
I am sad that I can't find a use for Tauros-Water

Resists all 4 attacks, has Intimidate and the bulk to eat the shit. Gets Chilling Water and... uh... actually it doesn't get shit :(
Like it can prolly Bulk Up then spam EQ or Zen Headbutt but at that point may as well just use something else.

Big Sadge.
 

Arcticblast

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Are you playing in pubs? Are you tired of seeing triple Slowbro and watching them falter one by one? Well do I ever have the support Pokemon for you!


SHELLTER (Cloyster) @ Light Clay
Ability: Shell Armor
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 12 SpA / 244 SpD
Bold Nature
- Life Dew
- Light Screen
- Chilling Water
- Liquidation / Aqua Ring

Watch as your Slowbro partners can now never die! Even the mightiest Greninja crits will falter to the power of "clicking Life Dew every turn." Light Screen is important to keep you alive, but also helps the Slowbros. Chilling Water helps out the few people who still think Vaporeon is correct in pubs. Life Dew gets absorbed by abilities, which is pretty meaningless with Vaporeon and Clodsire, but actually buffs Gastrodon! This thing is only good if you're the only supporter; if someone else locks in Clodsire, use something else.

Fun fact: Liquidation still does more than Surf with a Bold nature! That being said, you're probably never going to get the chance to use it, so might as well make the Chilling Waters do 50 damage instead of 40. 252/252 is also fine if you're lazy; I just like efficient EV spreads and any EVs above 244 SpD don't change the turn 1 Hydro Pump calc.
 
Tentative SUCCESSFUL solo:

:toxicroak:
Toxicroak @ Shell Bell
Ability: Dry Skin
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 Atk
Adamant Nature
- Mud-Slap
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Bulldoze

* Mud-Slap a couple times.
* Bulldoze (to not waste Earthquake PPs) until Greninja removes ally boosts.
* Swords Dance
* Maybe an offensive boost
* Earthquake until it runs out, then Bulldoze

I have come somewhat close but haven't won yet.
I might try more optimized EVs, something like enough speed to outspeed Greninja at -1/-2 and the rest in HP.
Gunk Shot and Night Slash are resisted but not irrelevant.
Ice Beam is definitely the most dangerous.
I have been trying without Tera because Toxicroak needs those resistances. Mine is Fire and resisting Ice Beam is definitely nice, maybe I'll try hoping for a good combination of attack-reducing partners and no Arboliva.

UPDATE:
I have succeeded solo with Tera Steel, which makes Dry Skin Toxicroak immune / resistant to everything but Night Slash (which can be softened by ally Intimidate / Chilling Water).
Being able to Terastalize ended up being key due to the increase in damage output.

The strategy is something like:
- Start with Mud-Slap, both to drop Greninja's accuracy and to save the other moves until it removes ally boosts
- If it hasn't removed boosts yet, stall with Bulldoze / offensive boost
- Once it has removed boosts, Swords Dance up to 3 times
- By now Greninja has likely set up its shield. If so, Terastalize when possibile.
- Keep using Earthquake / Bulldoze

I would say this set ended up making the raid almost easy and I heavily recommend it. Frog definitely beats frog.
 
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For the 100% support route, I like to use Klefki. Immune to Poison, resists Ice and Dark, and priority screens and recovery. Passive as hell, but will protect those annoying Slowbros trying to set up.

Klefki @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Sunny Day
- Recycle

If you have Slowbro / Vaporeon on your team, Reflect first turn to protect them from Night Slash / Gunk Shot, Light Screen on the second, Sunny Day on the third. If those two are nowhere to be seen, first Light Screen then Reflect then Sunny Day. Either way, up to this point, if Greninja connected all Hydro Pumps you will have used the Sitrus, so Recycle on the fourth. If not, and it already cleared stats, go for a cheer. Just be aware on when screens go down and keep putting them up, you don't even need to use Recycle the moment you eat the berry thanks to Prankster.

Goes pretty well alongside everyone bar Toxicroak, due to Dry Skin preventing Sunny Day. But you don't need Light Screen + Sunny Day to protect from Hydro Pump, the screen and a defense cheer can do the same trick. Yet, Sunny Day will also protect Slowbro from Hydro Pump, which I found the AI alters between it and Night Slash after a single Iron Defense.
:sv/gastrodon:
Gastrodon @ Covert Cloak / Ability Shield / Leftovers
Ability: Storm Drain
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpAtk
Modest Nature
- Earth Power
- Chilling Water
- Recover
- Clear Smog

There was some debate as to whether Gastrodon would be playable against Greninja or not, and I can answer that with a definitive YES. Is it an all-star? No, not really. I was eagerly awaiting using Gastrodon against Greninja, because I already had two fully-trained Gastrodons in my box (one Tera Water and one Tera Ground). And I really like using it in this raid because it is a combo between a support mon and an attacking helper.

Access to Clear Smog is a standout move for this raid because it is one of the only ways to dampen the problems caused by Greninja Double Teaming. When I run Gastrodon, I Clear Smog on turn one every battle, and it really does help the team for much of the battle. Because in my experience, after that first Turn 0 DT from Greg, it typically does not DT again until much later in the raid. Not always, of course, but much of the time. And having no evasion in play for the first big wave of attacks from the team is a definite help. I wouldn't call it gamebreaking or anything, but it is a legit help to team.

I started with Leftovers on Gastrodon, and then switched to Ability Shield after seeing my Clodsire get clobbered on the ability wipe turn in a battle. But then later I switched to Covert Cloak and have stuck with that ever since. In general, the AI doesn't like to use Water moves against water-immunity abilities AFTER the first time it uses Hydro Pump and it "discovers" your water immunity -- except on the turn that it wipes your ability. But for Gastrodon, I have discovered that it doesn't seem to prefer Hydro Pump on that one ability-wiped turn nearly as much as it loves it against Clodsire. I suspect this is because sans ability Clodsire gets hit SE by Water, but Gastrodon is only hit neutral by Water. So on that one turn that Gastrodon is susceptible to Hydro Pump, I find that Greninja doesn't usually choose it. However, Greninja LOVES to spam Gunk Shots at Gastrodon, and unlike Clodsire, the big snail really hates the frequent poisoning that comes from that. So, I've been running Covert Cloak and life has been much more enjoyable when the frequent Gunk Shots come my way.

Theorymonning in advance of the raid, I was really hoping Gastrodon would be able to abuse the raid AI and boost up on Water attacks and then fire off big-hitting SE Earth Powers to help win the day. But the reality with Gastrodon has been that it really only gets one Special Attack boost somewhere early in the raid, and then that boost gets wiped and Gastrodon is simply yet another support mon with Chilling Water and a relatively reliable ability to "not die". It is useful and I will almost certainly continue to play it because it is a combo mon and has the Clear Smog niche. But it is more ho hum than I had hoped.
I've been using a variant of that, with Stockpile over Chilling Water, tera Ground, Covert Cloak, and a slightly different EV spread of 252 HP / 4 Def / 244 SpA / 8 SpD. It goes slow and steady and refuses to die. I start with a single Stockpile until the stat clear, and then throw the next two. At +2, you can even terastallize for more power despite becoming weak to Ice (a support cheer can come in handy here).
 
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For the 100% support route, I like to use Klefki. Immune to Poison, resists Ice and Dark, and priority screens and recovery. Passive as hell, but will protect those annoying Slowbros trying to set up.

Klefki @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Reflect
- Light Screen
- Sunny Day
- Recycle
I've seen Klefki used a couple times, pretty much did this but it actually had Calm Mind instead of Recycle and lefties. Also I'm sure it had an actual attack instead of one of the other moves, can't quite remind which though.
Seems like a better idea honestly, as with this moveset you can actually have turns of "nothing" (albeith, I guess that's going to be pretty rare anyway)


Personally, I've managed to solo it with a Vaporeon that didn't even have full EVs (I think i just have 100 def 100 hp and 4 spatk). Usual plan really, Aqua Ring (since i'm using Covert Cloak) -> 3x Acid Armor -> couple Calm Minds -> Spam Stored Power and hope they connect.

Both Vaporeon and Slowbro can solo the boss, and honestly I think Vaporeon has a easier time since it will eat Gunk Shots instead of Night Slash most of the time, so will be less likely to eat a crit.
Sadly I feel for both of them it ends up boiling down to "just dont miss 4head" though, you'll be struggling for time after buffing and you need to land several Stored Power.
 
I've just ran into probably the biggest 5Head Lucario set.

I've only seen him cast 2 things: Sunny Day and Life Dew.
Idk it was just 5Head. Sunny Day makes the boss actually not cast Hydro Pump, Lucario giggles at all other attacks, and Life dew does life dew things.
By the way, been using this for memes with a friend who REALLY wanted to use Armarouge.

Added a Calm Mind and Heal Pulse as 4th move.
It's a good meme and Lucario eats Hydro Pumps suprisingly well with bulk investment.
 
Also if you really don't know what to put on that last move, Growl is always a option... and so are Yawn and Heal Pulse :wo:
Or even Light Screen to help eventual Qwilfishes that are eating Hydro Pumps
Here's the thing though: Burn can keep the damage halved even on a crit nice slash. Been using Flame Orb Stored Power Slowking as the side option to my Qwilfish and it's putting in plenty of work. I do recommend it, if only because the opening turns of the battle leave you without much more to do.

I did a few raid battles IRL at my local TPCI sponsored Pokemon League (you should go find yours, they're great). One thing I seemed to pick up on was Greninja honestly seems like you can also just fight him pretty honestly without set up. There was a kid there with a level 100 Clodsire with some in game move set of stomping tantrum / EQ / Poison Jab / Sludge Bomb and it actually did a fair amount of work softening Greninja up. Like, by the time the Slowbro cannon was ready to fire, the in game Clodsire had already chipped away most of the shields with Earthquake lol. Seems like the sort of "Skeledirge Strats" you'd use in a normal raid battle just using a pokemon with huge amounts of sustain seem to work well here too.
 
this greninja has sassy nature so i was wondering for when you catch it what the best moveset would be? i don't really like using mints so i'm looking for help on what to build a sassy greninja with - what evs should i invest in? moveset?
 
this greninja has sassy nature so i was wondering for when you catch it what the best moveset would be? i don't really like using mints so i'm looking for help on what to build a sassy greninja with - what evs should i invest in? moveset?
Sassy Greninja is a really, really bad nature for Greninja, like the polar opposite of the nature you actually want. The boost in SpDef doesn't help anything and the Speed drop is such a major bust to how it works. You are easily outsped by max speed base 100 Pokemon, to put things in perspective. If there was ever a Pokemon to spend them on other than shinies, it's this one. Spend a bit of the resources you win in the raid to buy a Timid or Naive mint, IMO.

Edit: typos
 
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Sassy Greninja is a really, really bad nature for Greninja, like the polar opposite of the nature you actually want. The drop in SpDef doesn't help anything and the Speed boost is such a major bust to how it works. You are easily outsped by max speed base 100 Pokemon, to put things in perspective. If there was ever a Pokemon to spend them on other than shinies, it's this one. Spend a bit of the resources you win in the raid to buy a Timid or Naive mint, IMO.
Sassy boosts Special Defense and drops speed. Naive would be the other way around.

on a happy note, guess my clodsire/kingambit builds are still valid lol [i can also just use the slowbro that won me the cinderace raid with a few tweaks]
 

Chou Toshio

Over9000
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I ended up winning on first try with Vaporeon, and it was pretty simple all considered.

MUCH more interesting in my 6 year old’s game, where we just got the 6 star access by beating one of the accompanying Bronzong in this event with a level 85 Miraidon (and online help). We barely made it in time for this event because she likes walking with her mons and taking pictures more than battling— it was only the promise of Greninja and a love for the XY anime that got her motivated to finish the Ace Academy tourney and do level 5 raids at all— and again, we only had enough candy at first to boost Miraidon a bit and beat some Water/Flying lvl 5’s.

But we only had enough candy and money after those raids to level her in-game Vaporeon to 94 and top off whatever Random EVs she had. We lost 4 times even with GOOD teammates in 2 of those rounds— Gunk Shot hit us for ~75% without Armor up. But on the 5th round we were paired up with 2 Slowbro and a Gyarados.

And so I was like, “What~? Gyara?”

But the guy CLEARLY knew what he was doing. With Intimidate and the Gyara starting with T-Wave then spamming Chill Water, we easily got set up with Acid Armor even after the wipes because we could reset Defenses first and Greninja’d awful damage when debuffed. From there we never got knocked below 75% health, and Vaporeon & bros just Stored Powered it to dust. The Gyara guy seriously carried the whole team! (Though not sure if it does anything Qwilfish couldn’t)

Whatever, seeing my little girl bouncing up and down and “kissing” Greninja with her character was the highlight of my weekend.

Playing the games again now with kids as a Dad really makes me better appreciate all the casual-friendly decisions and features of these games that I wouldn’t have on my own— and the greater challenge for my kids makes each accomplishment feel so much more powerful and meaningful!


Anyway, I definitely want to farm this one a bit on my own game. I’m wondering if this Gastrodon doesn’t just wreck every one of Greninja’s options outright:

Gastrodon
(Need to think of EV spread)
@ Cloak (block freeze & poison)
-Clear Smog (get rid of double team)
-Curse
-Earthquake
-Recover

Seems passive, but after playing this raid I also don’t think Greninja is powerful enough or aggressive enough to get over it.

Might not even need Smog in favor of chilling water since Greninja’s Double Team use is minimal. I think it’s more efficient to go with Special Attackers while the event is on and there are lots of great online partners, but the above set might be good for farming solo.
 
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The main reason to use clear smog is just to reduce the rng. Expecially toward the end Greninja will often (not always but often) do debuff clear into 2x double teams.
While by no mean like the 4x bulk up into MURDER that Cinderace did, when you are already struggling for timer + still at risk of losing to a crit, denying that evasion is very nice to secure the kill.

All in all I am appreciating this more than Cinderace.
It is still punishing but as long as you are going in with a plan, it's killable.
It's nowhere as binary as Cinderace was (where you either got the oneshot or faced a horrible death), but also nowhere as free as Charizard was.
 
I don't feel very optimistic about Espathra. You just die to a crit pretty quickly even with full investment
0 Atk Greninja Night Slash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Espathra on a critical hit: 216-254 (54.8 - 64.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

Like, ipotetically if you manage to get a feather dance /reflect off AND not get crit, then you can probably just abuse Speed Boost + Stored Power, maybe throw out substitute or spam roost, but as soon as debuff clear is out you just start eating 40% hp per hit even on a noncrit and need Reflect to be up to even think of living
0 Atk Greninja Night Slash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Espathra: 144-170 (36.5 - 43.1%) -- 98.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
0 Atk Greninja Night Slash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Espathra through Reflect: 72-85 (18.2 - 21.5%) -- possible 7HKO after Leftovers
Espartha is defenitely doable, but a defense boost cheer or 2 helps a long long way. It helps that it has things like Roost to keep itself healthy, and ive been running a Lum Berry just in case if i fall i wont have to deal with poison.
 
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On day 1 of the raid, I joined a hosted raid, chose a random raid mon that I had in my boxes and seemed not too bad to fight a gren, and accidentally ended up getting it cleared first-try.

1674922528240.png

(I do not remember if it's the correct EV spread: if I end up checking and it's not that I'll edit the post.)

I joined a party composed of NP IDef Slowbro, support Pex and a Clodsire that kept feeding due to dropping to Ice Beam.
I just helped Toxapex debuff the thing faster (used Acid Spray once), and then spammed Life Dew to help Slowbro play less passively and prevent Clodsire from feeding too fast.
In the event of an unfortunate crit on Slowbro or Poison on Slowbro or myself, I used a Heal Cheer instead of a move because it has priority.
Tearful Look I did not even use but I keep it around in case I have to support a physical comp in about any raid. In this case, having a move that both debuffs Gren's damage and helps soften it up (hey, a Screech + a Tearful Look would be -3 Def, meaning only 2 turns of setup required in parties of three.

Yup, I beat Greninja with Healer Goodra.
 
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On day 1 of the raid, I joined a hosted raid, chose a random raid mon that I had in my boxes and seemed not to bad to fight a gren, and accidentally ended up getting it cleared first-try.

View attachment 487352
(I do not remember if it's the correct EV spread: if I end up checking and it's not that I'll edit the post.)

I joined a party composed of NP IDef Slowbro, support Pex and a Clodsire that kept feeding due to dropping to Ice Beam.
I just helped Toxapex debuff the thing faster (used Acid Spray once), and then spammed Life Dew to help Slowbro play less passively and prevent Clodsire from feeding too fast.
In the event of an unfortunate crit on Slowbro or Poison on Slowbro or myself, I used a Heal Cheer instead of a move because it has priority.
Tearful Look I did not even use but I keep it around in case I have to support a physical comp in about any raid. In this case, having a move that both debuffs Gren's damage and helps soften it up (hey, a Screech + a Tearful Look would be -3 Def, meaning only 2 turns of setup required in parties of three.

Yup, I beat Greninja with Healer Goodra.
Actually, this isn't far different from the healer Lucario I've been using (it's actually legitimate, surprisingly enough).
I didn't even notice Goodra gets Life Dew and honestly with how THICCC the dragon is, may actually be a solid user for it.

I am curious, was Greninja actually spamming Ice Beam, or did it prefer Night Slash / Gunk Shot on you?
 
Actually, this isn't far different from the healer Lucario I've been using (it's actually legitimate, surprisingly enough).
I didn't even notice Goodra gets Life Dew and honestly with how THICCC the dragon is, may actually be a solid user for it.

I am curious, was Greninja actually spamming Ice Beam, or did it prefer Night Slash / Gunk Shot on you?
It actually preferred Gunk Shot, which surprised me. Maybe Pex did not drop its Attack enough?
 
I (narrowly) soloed it with a Dondozo. (Leftovers, Adamant, with max HP/Attack and Earthquake/Curse/Rest/Sleep Talk.) I chose Dondozo over something like Clodsire or Gastrodon because it has much better physical bulk and Attack (though lack of Ground STAB mostly mitigates that, I guess). Plus it has Unaware to ignore Double Team. I did get somewhat lucky (it never crit me with Night Slash, even though for whatever reason it started spamming it towards the end of the fight instead of Hydro Pump, which is what it used for basically every turn prior except Gunk Shot turn 1.)

If I had worse luck than I did, I probably would have failed (did not have much time left). That being said, it also never missed a Hydro Pump, somehow. Only clicked Rest once I believe. (Though I was low enough that a crit or it using Hydro Pump instead of Night Slash probably would have forced a Rest and cost me enough time to fail.) There's probably a more optimal item and EV's, too.
 

McGrrr

Facetious
is a Contributor Alumnus
On the face of it, Double Team looks annoying and Gren's shield activated surprisingly early.

That said, I soloed this at my first attempt despite 3x Double Teams, with only Gunk Shot poison being an annoyance. Had I failed, I may have tried Shock Wave over Electro Drift. The key to soloing with this Miraidon is to avoid the NPC Arboliva (due to Seed Sower), while any of the 3 partner Intimidate mons are useful.

Turn 1: Calm Mind
Turn 2: Electro Drift
Turn 3: Shield at ~80% (why so early?!)
Tera Electric turn 5-6 depending on if Gren stole a turn of charge

Miraidon just deals consistent damage because of early Tera.

Miraidon @ Magnet
Ability: Hadron Engine
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
- Electro Drift
- Parabolic Charge
- Calm Mind
- Electric Terrain
 
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