February - March 7* Raids: Tera Ground Venusaur, Tera Steel Blastoise, and Tera Dragon Charizard

[Original Dragon Arkvelza]

Ok, I actually think Vaporeon is more viable than Volcanion due to Volcanion lacking a way to boost his SpA. And Vaporeon deals more damage than Volcanion after just 2 Calm Minds when the minimum you want is 3. Heck, you can get up 4 Calm Minds and destroy the shield before Blastoise resets you.

+2 252+ SpA Tera Fire Vaporeon Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Blastoise in Sun: 255-301 (85.2 - 100.6%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Tera Fire Volcanion Weather Ball (100 BP Fire) vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Blastoise in Sun: 192-226 (64.2 - 75.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

 

[pika pal]

All this experience, meanwhile I decided to just be lazy and break out my Support Klefki. Prankster Sunny Day and Light Screen, then some filler slots. I went with Skitter Smack and Thunder Wave to counter the Shell Smash speed later, but also considered Metal Sound for Special Attackers (before my winning run was 2 IH and an Annihilape, despite the ID spam).

Blastoise surprisingly isn't at threatening as it looks, and if you have something like Milotic, Sinistcha, or Goodra to spam Life Dew, even better.

I'd actually be curious if Goodra would make a good support in general. Skitter Smack for Debuffs plus the usual Weather, Life Dew and Dragon Cheer also are good all-round support moves for this raid to bypass the Defense buffs via crits if Randos bring Physical attackers, and Goodra's bulky enough to sustain with Skitter Smack + Life Dew alternating while cushioning the rest of the team through the Shield.

 

[Terimas]

Umbreon @ Chople Berry
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Snarl
- Light Screen
- Helping Hand
- Moonlight

Since I was too lazy to build a counter for this raid, I just brought a generic support Umbreon that I already had ready. The set is pretty self-explanatory and with anything resembling half competent teammates, this set should provide enough support to secure the victory. The Chople Berry prevents Aura Sphere from being used.

 

[DougJustDoug]

A couple of tweaks I am using successfully on some popular mons for the Blastoise raid:

Vaporeon with Metronome and Fake Tears has been a better set for me in online randoms than the one I started with initially. Once Vappy goes into Surf mode, it tends to spam multiple Surfs in a row and Metronome is much better for DPS than Mystic Water or whatever. And Fake Tears has been awesome for this raid with such a short shield and lots of other special attackers on teams. The endgame goes quickly after the shield breaks, as everyone dogpiles Blastoise with its Special Defense lowered by FTears.

I'm using Mud-Slap instead of Light Screen on Delphox for solos and randoms, since it's eating nothing but Hydro Pumps in this raid. One or two Mud-Slaps makes Delphox almost invulnerable and also helps other teammates that are dealing with HPump spam from Blastoise.

 

[flamewizzy21]

Funny set:
Arboliva @ Petaya Berry
Harvest, Specially Defensive
-Sunny Day
-Fling (max PP)
-Synthesis
-Helping Hand

Imagine Alcremie, but worse. You fling petaya berries at special attackers to charge them up. It is a slow and painful process, that just works vs Blastoise. People get very confused by you repeatedly attacking them.

Not good, but it is effective.

 

[NoCheese]

Skeledirge (M) @ Shell Bell
EVs: Modest 80 HP / 252 SpD / 176 Spe or Timid 158 HP / 252 SpD / 100 Spe
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fire
- Torch Song
- Sunny Day
- Flamethrower (optional, use this if you didn't PP max Torch Song)
- Slack Off (optional, safety for if you take too much damage)

Speed is to go faster than Blastoise.

Since time isn't especially tight on this one, I went with my previously built max HP, max SpD calm Skeldirge, and had no difficulty, though a crit on the turn Sunny Day dropped meant I did have to use Slack Off once. The Unaware + Torch Song + Shell Bell combo is just so potent in so many raids. The Speed investment would absolutely remove some potential bad luck loses though!

 

[flamewizzy21]

Smeargle is pretty fun here in randoms, since you don’t get bodied.
Specially defensive with Sitrus.
-Instruct
-Struggle Bug
-Lumina Crash
-Decorate/Simple Beam

Should be obvious.
Simple beam greatly aids Skeledirge/Vaporeon. Decorate for other teammates.

 

[doipy hooves]

(original JP video)

(build in English)

+6 252+ SpA Blaze Tera Fire Delphox Atk Cheer Blast Burn vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Tera Steel Blastoise in Sun on a critical hit: 14104-16596 (134.7 - 158.5% of 35x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO

Delphox has a pretty straightforward solo OHKO route shown here, though it does need to get in Blaze range for it. The Japanese video didn't seem to show Lansat/a crit explicitly, so I imagine Drifblim might have dropped SpD at some point to make up for it. Just from a glance their channel seems to have some more interesting fast solos despite more reliability on AI/luck like Anger Point Tauros-Aqua vs the Venusaur.

 

[Chou Toshio]

(original JP video)

(build in English)

+6 252+ SpA Blaze Tera Fire Delphox Atk Cheer Blast Burn vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Tera Steel Blastoise in Sun on a critical hit: 14104-16596 (134.7 - 158.5% of 35x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO

Delphox has a pretty straightforward solo OHKO route shown here, though it does need to get in Blaze range for it. The Japanese video didn't seem to show Lansat/a crit explicitly, so I imagine Drifblim might have dropped SpD at some point to make up for it. Just from a glance their channel seems to have some more interesting fast solos despite more reliability on AI/luck like Anger Point Tauros-Aqua vs the Venusaur.

Incredible… my question as an Herba Hunter would be though whether or not it’s as consistent as the already super fast Gallade build going around, which 3-4 KO’s after Tera instead of OHKO, that has SOME chance to lose but overall feels real solid (maybe 95%+ WR if paying proper attention).

Delphox clearly with an awesome set of tools here but there’s a couple points in this setup that make me nervous.

Maybe if LO still works > Lansat berry (not guaranteed crit right??) and needing to get into Blaze.

edit: I think neither OHKO’s from full, but both LO and crit come close— so depending on the pre-damage on Blastoise…

 

[doipy hooves]

Incredible… my question as an Herba Hunter would be though whether or not it’s as consistent as the already super fast Gallafe building around, which 3-4 KO’s after Tera instead of OHKO, that has SOME chance to lose but overall feels real consistent.

Delphox clearly with an awesome set of tools here but there’s a couple points in this setup that make me nervous.

Maybe if LO still works > Lansat berry (not guaranteed crit right??) and needing to get into Blaze.

Probably not that consistent as shown, and the original video/channel doesn't really show any set details. Lansat is a 50% crit too.

Just in theory I imagine a more consistent alternative would involve taking a turn with Mystical Fire to break shield, and then finishing the rest of its health with Blast Burn on the free turn regardless of Blaze or crits. I would go Charcoal over Life Orb since you need a few hits to build up tera anyway. If you wait for 75% time for Blastoise to do the debuff cleanse, then you can even hit it for -1 SpD on the second hit after Shell Smash triggers.

+6 252+ SpA Charcoal Tera Fire Delphox Atk Cheer Mystical Fire vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Tera Steel Blastoise in Sun: 3760-4428 (35.9 - 42.3% of 35x hp boss) -- guaranteed 3HKO (minimum 24.5% after 70% shield damage)

+6 252+ SpA Charcoal Tera Fire Delphox Atk Cheer Blast Burn vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Tera Steel Blastoise in Sun: 7520-8848 (71.8 - 84.5% of 35x hp boss) -- guaranteed 2HKO (hopefully finishing the rest of its 75% healthbar)

 

[The Chaotician]

Blastoise took me a few solo attempts (<5), mostly because it kept pulling defense boosts out of its ass, randomly hitting +6 despite not seeing Shell Smash/Withdraw/Iron Defense activating other than the set points in the fight. I found Poliwrath wasn’t dealing enough damage to break the cycle (admittedly I didn’t run taunt), but has very good longevity thanks to immunities/resistances. I ended up beating it with Gallade, with support from NPC Bellibolt (t-wave + light screen) although this is far from essential.

Gallade @ Shell Bell
Ability: Sharpness
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 SpD
Adamant Nature
IVs: 0 SpA
- Swords Dance
- Sacred Sword
- Light Screen
- Mystical Fire

While Mystical Fire seems a strange choice, it comes with a -1 SpA drop for Blastoise, but is situational at best. I didn’t use it at all in the winning raid. The biggest risk with this Gallade set is the onslaught of rain boosted Hydro Pumps after Blastoise loses its shield and uses Shell Smash. It can be played around with Light Screen but is harder to do solo without the NPC Bellibolt. If it crits though, gg.

Sacred Sword is basically a free turn every time Blastoise uses a defense boosting move, +2 Atk is plenty to finish it off after its shield breaks, so no need to waste turns using Swords Dance to get back to +6 on the stats reset.

 

[Worldie]

Blastoise took me a few solo attempts (<5), mostly because it kept pulling defense boosts out of its ass, randomly hitting +6 despite not seeing Shell Smash/Withdraw/Iron Defense activating other than the set points in the fight.

You must be unfamiliar with raids that have boosts in their "regular moveset".

TLDR: they can use it on other player's turn, including AI's. Mewtwo and Iron Leaves had similar scenarios where they'd be at +6 within a single turn with nothing you could do about it.

 

[The Chaotician]

You must be unfamiliar with raids that have boosts in their "regular moveset".

TLDR: they can use it on other player's turn, including AI's. Mewtwo and Iron Leaves had similar scenarios where they'd be at +6 within a single turn with nothing you could do about it.

I’ve never noticed it before. Mewtwo is the only 7-star raid so far that I haven’t been able to solo, guess I didn’t notice it then as I was focused on having semi competent team mates for it for a change.

Iron Leaves was a 5-star wasn’t it? I don’t remember much about it other than it wasn’t difficult at all.

anyway, useful info. Thanks. Will bear it in mind in future.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Iron Leaves was a 5-star wasn’t it? I don’t remember much about it other than it wasn’t difficult at all.

Iron Leaves was widely regarded as one of the hardest tera raids we have ever seen, even though it was only 5 stars and lvl 75 and all that.

It had Swords Dance in its regular moveset so it basically went to +6 instantly. On top of that, it laid down electric terrain boosting its attack even more AND making its Tera Stab move Psyblade 50% more powerful (basically 120 BP), and it carried a high crit move in Leaf Blade, and it had amazing coverage with another 120 BP move, Megahorn, that obliterated most Dark, Psychic and Grass counters for its spectacular STAB moves. And just in case all that wasn’t enough — the raid had an abnormally short timer. So any mistakes or faints by even one online teammate, basically doomed the raid.

So yeah, “wasn’t difficult at all” is not at all what most of us thought about that Iron Leaves raid — as we recall it often around here when the talk of ridiculously hard raids come up. And those phantom Swords Dances were the biggest sore point, as it was the first time we’d ever seen that, and it knocked all of us on our ass, without highly specialized counters.

 

[AztecCroc]

Iron Leaves was widely regarded as one of the hardest tera raids we have ever seen, even though it was only 5 stars and lvl 75 and all that.

It had Swords Dance in its regular moveset so it basically went to +6 instantly. On top of that, it laid down electric terrain boosting its attack even more AND making its Tera Stab move Psyblade 50% more powerful (basically 120 BP), and it carried a high crit move in Leaf Blade, and it had amazing coverage with another 120 BP move, Megahorn, that obliterated most Dark, Psychic and Grass counters for its spectacular STAB moves. And just in case all that wasn’t enough — the raid had an abnormally short timer. So any mistakes or faints by even one online teammate, basically doomed the raid.

So yeah, “wasn’t difficult at all” is not at all what most of us thought about that Iron Leaves raid — as we recall it often around here when the talk of ridiculously hard raids come up. And those phantom Swords Dances were the biggest sore point, as it was the first time we’d ever seen that, and it knocked all of us on our ass, without highly specialized counters.

Unaware Skeledirge go brrr.

 

[pika pal]

Unaware Skeledirge go brrr.

That still left the Psychic-Same-Type Tera with 80-120 BP Psyblade if no one was dealing with the terrain, which wasn't exactly something you could throw at blindly or do solo without specific AI partners.

 

[DougJustDoug]

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/iron-leaves-and-walking-wake-raid-event-movesets.3717189/

Here’s the thread for that Iron Leaves raid, if anyone wants to go back and re-read our experiences there. Yeah, Skeledirge was one of the few pokemon that was generally considered, me included, to be viable in that raid. But there was really nothing that was considered to be a clean “solution” to it. It was also widely accepted that beating Iron Leaves solo was much easier than in online randoms, because you didn’t have to deal with the penalty of teammates fainting. But, like I said before, I think what left all of us so perplexed was how hard that raid was — and it was only 5 freaking stars and our mons were 25 levels higher than the boss! Just incredible.

 

[DHR-107]

Cleared the Blastoise Raid pretty easily with special def/Light Screen Bronzong mostly supporting. Used the exact same Pokemon against Venusaur but just swapped Rain Dance to Sunny Day.

Ended up with decent pub teams both times, Blastoise clear with 2 Gallades and a Vaporeon and the Venu was cleared with an excellent carry by a Chesnaught. I'll probably have a look at Zard again, but that puzzle was solved prior to day 1, with Azumarill absolutely blitzing it with a good supporter option in Dachsbun (Probably the only time its going to ever be relevant).

 

[Worldie]

Fwiw for Charizard if you want to no-effort faceroll it (even solo), I remind that AV Sylveon / Flutter Mane with tera fairy + moonblast and draining kiss more or less stomps it without even trying (bar some very bad turn 1 crit shenenigans).

Will be even easier if you end up rolling some actually useful support, since Charizard only reset debuffs at start so any debuff sticks.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Fwiw for Charizard if you want to no-effort faceroll it (even solo), I remind that AV Sylveon / Flutter Mane with tera fairy + moonblast and draining kiss more or less stomps it without even trying (bar some very bad turn 1 crit shenenigans).

Will be even easier if you end up rolling some actually useful support, since Charizard only reset debuffs at start so any debuff sticks.

Yeah, I distinctly remember using Flutter Mane to win that one pretty easily, but I think my set was Moonblast / DK / Fake Tears / Calm Mind. And I preferred Mane over Sylveon because Mane easily outsped Zard.

I'm not sure, but I also recall Azumarill just decimating Charizard, with the only real problem being the glitch with Play Rough, which made massive hits not affect the boss health bar correctly. Now that glitch is fixed, I wouldn't be surprised if Azumarill runs roughshod over Charizard this time around (pun completely intended lol).

 

[DrrT]

I have managed to clear both the Venusaur and Blastoise raids first try online with random people, they seemed surprisingly easy compared to others. Used Corviknight for Venusaur and support Appletun for Blastoise.

 

[doipy hooves]

Cleared the Blastoise Raid pretty easily with special def/Light Screen Bronzong mostly supporting. Used the exact same Pokemon against Venusaur but just swapped Rain Dance to Sunny Day.

Ended up with decent pub teams both times, Blastoise clear with 2 Gallades and a Vaporeon and the Venu was cleared with an excellent carry by a Chesnaught. I'll probably have a look at Zard again, but that puzzle was solved prior to day 1, with Azumarill absolutely blitzing it with a good supporter option in Dachsbun (Probably the only time its going to ever be relevant).

I think Dachsbun will always be relevant as long as they keep making Fire raids it can exploit because the AI doesn't understand that Will-O-Wisp doesn't work on Well-Baked Body, and just being a solid accessible support in general.

Yeah, I distinctly remember using Flutter Mane to win that one pretty easily, but I think my set was Moonblast / DK / Fake Tears / Calm Mind. And I preferred Mane over Sylveon because Mane easily outsped Zard.

I'm not sure, but I also recall Azumarill just decimating Charizard, with the only real problem being the glitch with Play Rough, which made massive hits not affect the boss health bar correctly. Now that glitch is fixed, I wouldn't be surprised if Azumarill runs roughshod over Charizard this time around (pun completely intended lol).

I still feel like that glitch disproportionally damaged Azumarill's reputation when it was just a visual bug that didn't affect the actual damage done, with people blaming Huge Power and Azumarill in general, or complaining about bosses appearing to have multiple shields or reviving. I would say it was probably the second worst rumour caused by raids after the drowsy/frostbite speculation in prerelease, and I'm going to enjoy seeing it go down to Play Rough properly this time.

In hindsight Charizard has aged to be one of the less threatening 7 star bosses with only 25x HP, a late shield, and its scripted actions mostly being HP based move uses, though it did have double actions near the end. Hopefully its reward pool will be updated with herba even if the boss is the same.

 

[The Chaotician]

Iron Leaves was widely regarded as one of the hardest tera raids we have ever seen, even though it was only 5 stars and lvl 75 and all that.

It had Swords Dance in its regular moveset so it basically went to +6 instantly. On top of that, it laid down electric terrain boosting its attack even more AND making its Tera Stab move Psyblade 50% more powerful (basically 120 BP), and it carried a high crit move in Leaf Blade, and it had amazing coverage with another 120 BP move, Megahorn, that obliterated most Dark, Psychic and Grass counters for its spectacular STAB moves. And just in case all that wasn’t enough — the raid had an abnormally short timer. So any mistakes or faints by even one online teammate, basically doomed the raid.

So yeah, “wasn’t difficult at all” is not at all what most of us thought about that Iron Leaves raid — as we recall it often around here when the talk of ridiculously hard raids come up. And those phantom Swords Dances were the biggest sore point, as it was the first time we’d ever seen that, and it knocked all of us on our ass, without highly specialized counters.

I hope I haven’t caused any offense by brushing it off, I don’t remember it being that memorable is all and pretty sure I went with Unaware Skeledirge too.

I do remember Delphox and Inteleon giving me problems.

 

[AztecCroc]

In hindsight Charizard has aged to be one of the less threatening 7 star bosses with only 25x HP, a late shield, and its scripted actions mostly being HP based move uses, though it did have double actions near the end. Hopefully its reward pool will be updated with herba even if the boss is the same.

Hindsight? I literally solo'd it with my in-game Skeledirge the first time round (well second time, missed the first week due). Never managed that on any future 7*.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I hope I haven’t caused any offense by brushing it off, I don’t remember it being that memorable is all and pretty sure I went with Unaware Skeledirge too.

It’s all good. As I said, solo was known to be easier than online, and if you brought Unaware Dirge the first time, you happened into one of the few viable mons for that raid. So, makes sense that for you it probably was not too memorable. But yeah, around these threads, Leaves is notorious lol

View attachment 612969
In hindsight Charizard has aged to be one of the less threatening 7 star bosses with only 25x HP, a late shield, and its scripted actions mostly being HP based move uses, though it did have double actions near the end. Hopefully its reward pool will be updated with herba even if the boss is the same.

In looking back at the specifics of that raid, I’m doubtful Gamefreak will rerun it with such an easy setup. Because most of the difficulty of that raid (if you could call it “difficult” at all) was just the sheer newness of the whole 7* Raid thing. Yeah there will always be the online kids and dummies, but for decent players, that same Charizard raid nowadays will be cleared in about 3 turns by almost everybody. Surely GF is gonna up the ante this time around. Although, I still think Azumarill is gonna be a beast, no matter what — because there is almost literally nothing Tera Dragon Zard can do to Azumarill, barring something gimmicky like Sunny Day Solar Beam spam. But even that would require both moves to be in the regular moveset for it to legit threaten Azu, AND if one gimmick begets another — say hello to Sap Sipper Aquabunny bruh lol :-D