April 7* Raid Part 2: Typhlosion (Ghost Tera)

[formula4speed]

Without grass coverage now I'm wondering about Vaporeon as potential support.

Rain Dance / Mud Slap / Chilling Water / Helping Hand?

I don't know how to do damage calculations but maybe even Calm Mind with Chilling Water in the rain could deal some damage as well?

 

[KikeKart [SPA]]

Last time around, I mentioned how the raid boss having an ability that's useful for blunting its own assault means that Skill Swap and Trace users have a leg up.

That might be settling in as an intentionally designed feature.


Stantler @ Eviolite
Ability: Intimidate
Jolly Nature
EVs: 218 HP / 252 Def / 40 Spe
- Role Play
- three of Skill Swap, Helping Hand, Sand Attack, Rain Dance, Reflect, Light Screen

The target speed to beat this time is 236, so the path of least investment to 237 is 40 EVs and the + nature. With that, you can Role Play before the obvious turn 1 Eruption, then you're immune to both special attacks, and the physical attacks have been weakened by Intimidate and almost full Eviolite bulk so you basically don't have to worry about your own HP forever. Even after the pozwipe disables Flash Fire for a turn, simply tanking an Eruption isn't too bad (thanks Wyrdeer, just for existing, despite being barred from Paldea yet!)

The reason to run both Role Play and Skill Swap is so you can take the boss's ability, Skill Swap it to a teammate so they don't have to worry about Eruption either, then use Role Play to copy it back from the teammate (not the boss, in case the shield is up). Meanwhile, the boss thinks you don't have Flash Fire on the second Role Play turn, and have that tempting uninvested SpD stat to aim for...whoops! Alternatively, if one of your teammates is Defiant Annihilape, you can use the sequence Skill Swap-Skill Swap-Role Play rather than Role Play-Skill Swap-Role Play, as that forces the boss to use an Intimidate that nets +1 Attack.

Some teammates like Miraidon or Iron Jugulis are impossible to Skill Swap with, so you won't always be able to set up blanket immunities for the strongest move all around, and if someone brought Azumarill they likely aren't going to appreciate being swapped, so there's still some benefit to using Rain Dance, not to mention reversing the weather affects everyone all in 1 turn rather than taking 6. Sucks that Stantler doesn't get Mud-Slap for hitting through shields, and has to make do with Sand Attack instead, but it's something to do early on if you're not using the "pass the escape pods" approach.

I was about to post nearly that same set, it refuses to die. Although I prefer it Timid with Shadow Ball as a 4th move (mine has Role Play, Light Screen and Rain Dance for support), had a rough time with only-status mons. For a fat solo, Blissey is a nice pick:

Blissey @ Leftovers / Shell Bell
Tera: Ghost
Ability: Anyone EXCEPT Serene Grace
Nature: Modest
EVs: 248 Def / 252 SpA / 8 SpD
- Skill Swap
- Soft-Boiled
- Calm Mind
- Shadow Ball
No brainer, Skill Swap on the 1st turn, Soft-Boiled on the 2nd, and once it removes buffs start Calm Minding. Lefties gives constant recovery, which is nice given that it will take time until we start attacking, but the time lost during animations might be a nuisance. And yeah, we don't want to give Typhlosion a 20% chance of lowering SpD with Shadow Ball, so no Serene Grace.

 

[BlueRay]

It took a second attempt for me to solo the Typhlosion raid. I used a Choice Band Tera Dark Roaring Moon and had some luck with my AI partners as one of them had Intimidate Staraptor, which could decrease Typhlosion's physical damage output. I didn't expect it to run Play Rough, so, having an Intimidate partner was a pleasant surprise. First turn, I went all out to increase my damage output. After that, I simply clicked Throat Chop and used Terastallization when appropriate. And to top it, I received 2 Ability Patches. Not sure if that's normal since I think one is guaranteed at the very least but it was nice to receive an additional one.

 

[Menshay]

The monkey works solo.


Annihilape @ Shell Bell
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Rain Dance
- Screech
- Rage Fist
- Bulk Up (never used it)

I had a fully specially defensive one ready and I did not miss the uninvested Attack, Rage Fist is just that powerful and any drops from Play Rough and Shadow Ball just fuel Defiant. Got a KO early but it did not matter. It was even Tera Grass.
I assume good partners include Attack and Speed reducers.
I also assume Typhlosion is fixed to be tiny.

 

[Emergence]

Managed to get one after a few tries, mainly because of others dying. Used this pink blob:

Blissey @ Leftovers
Tera: Ghost
Ability: Serene Grace
Nature: Calm
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
- Rain Dance
- Chilling Water
- Calm Mind
- Shadow Ball

First turn Rain Dance, or Chilling Water if someone beats you to it. Skill Swap is nice but Blissey’s titanic special bulk especially after a Calm Mind or two makes taking Eruptions and later Shadow Balls a non-issue. Typhlosion pretty much just kept using Earthquake against me, which barely tickle after Chilling Water. Make sure to keep the rain up as much as possible. After the early stat wipe, boost with Calm Mind and eventually go tera Ghost so your Shadow Balls really hurt. Serene Grace raises Shadow Ball’s SpD drop chance to 40%, which activated twice during my winning attempt, so that’s cool. In all my attempts, Blissey never fell even once, that’s how dummy thicc she is.

Shoutouts to people bringing Corviknight and other things weak to fire, frail things like Hisuian Zoroark and Greninja, etc. Especially big shoutout to the person who brought Protean Greninja and proceeded to use Ice Beam first thing. Ghost is definitely weak against Ice and Ice Greninja loves tanking those Eruptions.



In my winning run, my teammates were Azumarill, Annihilape, and Miraidon. Azumarill wasn’t being played well, just throwing out Play Roughs and Liquidations, and died once. Miraidon used Metal Sound with Throat Spray first before spamming Parabolic Charge, managed to keep itself alive. The Annihilape user was definitely the most competent, dying once to the initial sun-boosted Eruptions but coming back with a vengeance (Typhlosion replaced my rain and used Eruption twice before any of us could do anything else). Annihilape’ first move was Screech, before spamming Rage Fist. Its Tera Ghost Rage Fist was what landed the killing blow, knocking the last 25% hitpoints in one shot.

EDIT: Also just wanted to add, my earlier ideas weren't completely off!

Decidueye had double attacks, Samurott had crit hell, what will Typhlosion’s annoying gimmick be? I think it would be funny if it does the ability nullification thing right before it casts Eruption, just so you can’t absorb it with Flash Fire or the bread dog. Maybe turn 1 it will cast Sunny Day to power up its Eruptions and us Solar Beam too? I think Lava Plume will be its main fire move, to spread burns. It could possibly run Earthquake to hit Fire types, and as R_N said, Smokescreen could be very annoying.

 

[doipy hooves]

He starts the battle off with Eruption then uses Sunny Day afterwards? Are you kidding me? It's the other way around, you use the fire attack AFTER setting the sun, not before.

To be fair, the first move is random and it does try to go for a couple of Sunny Day Eruptions afterwards, which end up as spread attacks because they are scripted. Here are Typhlosion's actions for reference from https://stevecooktu.github.io/sv_raid_lookup/:

It basically ends up that Typhlosion will Sunny Day after taking some early damage like Samurott's Bulldoze, but at 98% instead of 99%, then go for the status wipe and Eruption, and later on in the fight it goes for a timed Sunny Day/Eruption fight again. The "second shield"/double attacks phase also returns as observed, either happening at the first of 50% HP or 225s halfway through the fight, shortly after the second scripted Eruption combo.

Incidentally, something I was considering for Pikachu's Rain Dance but ended up not using was Utility Umbrella to ignore the weather boost, and it went the same way here. In groups this is probably unnecessary with a rain setter, and in solo you probably either want a better item for sustain and can just take the Eruption or ignore it.

 

[Vengeance417]

Oranguru is super solid for this raid, I use

Oranguru @ Leftovers
Bold 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpDef
Symbiosis
- Instruct
- Skill Swap
- Rain Dance
- Light Screen

Use Skill Swap in turn 1, congrats, now you're immune to both Shadow Ball and Eruption! Earthquake and Play Rough do pretty much nothing.
Now you're free to fully support your team.
Light Screen obviously is great, Rain Dance counters Sunny Day and nerfs Eruption.
Finally the classic Instruct to make one of your partners the frontman of doom.

You need of course someone to do the damage for you.
It is very satisfying to see Annihilape spamming double Rage Fists to shatter shields like porcelain

I tried a spread of this with more speed and I like it a lot:

Oranguru @ Leftovers
Ability: Symbiosis
Tera Type: Normal
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Def / 240 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Skill Swap
- Light Screen
- Rain Dance
- Instruct

This enables you to Skill Swap before taking that first Eruption, greatly improving your survivability.

 

[Coronis]

Used Annihilape for a relatively easy solo, even missing Screech worked out fine.

 

[War Incarnate]

Used Annihilape to solo it [as did a lot of people]

this one was a lot more tense since I wasn't running a super optimized build [252 HP / 252 Atk / some filler EVs somewhere] + Taunt/Drain Punch which I didn't use

Ended up dying a lot, so much so that I was just barely able to eek out a win with the timer bar empty. Tera Ghost + Rage Punch after accumulating a lot of attacks was... hectic needless to say

 

[pika pal]

Need to figure out a secure Solo to get my run in this weekend, since I'm gonna be busy with stuff and will just need to get it out of the way. So far sounding like SpD Annihilape or Krookodile is the way to build for it.

 

[HallowedHarlequin]

If you already have an Azumarill, I beat it solo with max attack+HP, shell bell, Mud slap spam then rain dance + belly drum + tera water liquidation spam. Definitely some luck involved and unoptimized EVs, but most people already have an Azumarill built so it's worth a shot.

 

[Vengeance417]

Walking Wake @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Noble Roar
- Snarl
- Chilling Water
- Rain Dance

Probably my favorite support for this raid so far. For something that lacks recovery, Support Walking Wake never dies, and provides excellent mixed attacking debuffs. Noble Roar is the kicker with this set. It drops both Attack and Special Attack. Meanwhile, Snarl and Chilling Water are your shield options. To compliment these moves, Rain Dance overrides Sun and provides an extra Eruption resistance for your team. Being 4x Fire resistant in the rain effectively gives you a Fire immunity lmao.

Whether you want to go PhysDef or SpDef is up to you, as Play Rough and Tera Ghost Shadow Ball do similar amounts of damage anyway depending on your investment choice. Those attacks will get debuffed with your moves, regardless. SpDef is better since it’ll force the AI to go for Play Rough, which can miss.

Since this is a pure support mon, you’ll want good DPS partners like Annihilape, which heavily appreciates you attack-debuffing so it can take more hits and boost Rage Fist without dying. A screens user or a fellow Snarl Pokémon is just bullying against Typhlosion

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Whether you want to go PhysDef or SpDef is up to you, as Play Rough and Tera Ghost Shadow Ball do similar amounts of damage anyway depending on your investment choice. Those attacks will get debuffed with your moves, regardless.

Yeah WW seems great! I have to imagine going more specially defensive is better, since Play Rough has worse accuracy, a less threatening side-effect, and a faster move animation thanks to not being Tera-boosted

 

[pika pal]

Got it done bringing a Rain Dance/Chilling Water Toxapex as a Cheer Bot. Everyone else has Annihilapes ready so thought I'd weaken the beatdown

For next Week I need to get a Gyarados or something that can do Snarl Support ready.

 

[Vengeance417]

Got it done bringing a Rain Dance/Chilling Water Toxapex as a Cheer Bot. Everyone else has Annihilapes ready so thought I'd weaken the beatdown

For next Week I need to get a Gyarados or something that can do Snarl Support ready.

Gyarados does not get Snarl, sadly.

Good Snarl users for this raid are:

(also gets Screech, Fake Tears for SpA partners, and Screens)
(Howl, 44 Speed to outspeed)
(has Noble Roar and Chilling Water, is naturally faster than Typhlosion meaning full bulk investment while outspeeding)
(debuffs SpA w/ its ability)
(EQ is a 4HKO vs Max HP after Intimidate, can also Howl, has Morning Sun recovery, and can Helping Hand, 44 Speed to outspeed)

 

[Menshay]

Need to figure out a secure Solo to get my run in this weekend

Note that unless you check the portal news raids do NOT get reset, I held on to the Iron Leaves raid up to the Decidueye raid and asked a friend to do the same for Walking Wake with no issues.
I do not have an active Nintendo subscription, so I am not sure whether playing online or joining online raids DOES reset the current pool.

 

[pika pal]

Note that unless you check the portal news raids do NOT get reset, I held on to the Iron Leaves raid up to the Decidueye raid and asked a friend to do the same for Walking Wake with no issues.
I do not have an active Nintendo subscription, so I am not sure whether playing online or joining online raids DOES reset the current pool.

Connecting to the Internet is enough to reroll all your raids if they change for something like an event starting/ending

 

[DougJustDoug]

I solo’ed my raid with Annihilape, but died twice in the process and it really did not seem very satisfying to win that way. I guess it’s about as “reliable” as I can expect for soloing this raid, but I sure wish I could find something more elegant than just brute-forcing it with Ape.

For rando team raids, I’ve been using Oranguru (both builds that have been posted ITT). As expected, it’s hard to win rando raids due to all the garbage that rando players bring to these raids. Oranguru is OK, and the Skill Swap thing is a nifty trick. But due to the timing of the ability wipe turn from Typhlosion, it seems like I often get Flash Fire wiped and hit with a big Eruption that puts me down to low health right at the start. Putting up Light Screen right after the Skill Swap helps a ton, but the famously-often criticals that happen in these raids are truly maddening. Also, using Instruct with randos that have a penchant for dying often or using bizarre moves is additionally frustrating. I’ll continue to use Oranguru, but farming this raid has not been easy at all.

 

[Vengeance417]

I solo’ed my raid with Annihilape, but died twice in the process and it really did not seem very satisfying to win that way. I guess it’s about as “reliable” as I can expect for soloing this raid, but I sure wish I could find something more elegant than just brute-forcing it with Ape.

For rando team raids, I’ve been using Oranguru (both builds that have been posted ITT). As expected, it’s hard to win rando raids due to all the garbage that rando players bring to these raids. Oranguru is OK, and the Skill Swap thing is a nifty trick. But due to the timing of the ability wipe turn from Typhlosion, it seems like I often get Flash Fire wiped and hit with a big Eruption that puts me down to low health right at the start. Putting up Light Screen right after the Skill Swap helps a ton, but the famously-often criticals that happen in these raids are truly maddening. Also, using Instruct with randos that have a penchant for dying often or using bizarre moves is additionally frustrating. I’ll continue to use Oranguru, but farming this raid has not been easy at all.

I'd give Ting-Lu a shot. Here's what I've been using:

Ting-Lu @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Bulldoze
- Snarl
- Taunt
- Mud-Slap / Payback

Vessel of Ruin weakens Typhlosion's Eruption. Bulldoze is nifty for all of the Annihilape that refuse to speed-creep Typhlosion, Snarl to further weaken the boss. Taunt t1 to prevent first Sunny Day. I currently don't have enough Dark Tera Shards to turn mine to Tera Dark, otherwise I'd be using Payback rn, but Mud Slap is a good alternative. Tera Dark Payback after a Screech or two from Annihilape will do pretty good chip to the shield.

0 Atk Tera Dark Ting-Lu Payback (100 BP) vs. -2 0 HP / 0- Def Tera Ghost Typhlosion: 856-1008 (288.2 - 339.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Support Walking Wake next to another support is also just unfair. Noble Roar at the beginning + other support is bullying lol

 

[doipy hooves]

The rerun for the Typhlosion next week will feature the Blissey raids again, apparently back by popular demand.

 

[Moreminds2005]

View attachment 508301
The rerun for the Typhlosion next week will feature the Blissey raids again, apparently back by popular demand.

That doesn't look like the right font...

 

[Vengeance417]

As I suspected, is fantastic for this raid:


Ting-Lu @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Vessel of Ruin
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Taunt
- Snarl
- Bulldoze
- Payback / Throat Chop

Vessel of Ruin weakens Typhlosion’s special moves. Taunt t1 to prevent Sunny Day, then do the combination of Snarl, Bulldoze, then Snarl again. Bulldoze isn’t for yourself, but to guarantee that your partner Annihilapes are faster since not all of them speed-creep. After a Screech from Annihilape, Tera Dark Payback does hefty shield damage for something with no attack investment, letting Ting-Lu play an offensive support role that can be easily reached with Snarl. Throat Chop is another viable option if you want to use Bulldoze more than once.

 

[RocketSurgery]

I didn't do this raid the first time around since I was still trying to farm dittos for 0 atk and speed, so only just did it today using the Annhilape set.

Can confirm that this typhlosion is still tiny mark worthy.

 

[formula4speed]

Thanks for the Walking Wake tip, was able to farm a bunch of these online raids using that for support. Lots of Annihilapes pop up to deal damage, so all I needed to do was keep them from fainting. I used Breaking Swipe instead of Chilling Water because you can remember that move and not have to burn a TM.

 

[Vengeance417]

Thanks for the Walking Wake tip, was able to farm a bunch of these online raids using that for support. Lots of Annihilapes pop up to deal damage, so all I needed to do was keep them from fainting. I used Breaking Swipe instead of Chilling Water because you can remember that move and not have to burn a TM.

True, I just like the idea of Rain-boosted Tera Water Chilling Water doing something to the shield if desperate times called for desperate measures, especially next to an Acid Spray / Fake Tears user. I usually don't tera anyway, but I like having the option.