It likes messing around but sometimes Mewtwo just keeps escalating past that point and time to go all out.
The little CG video was basically that as a story arc
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Mewtwo Raid (September 1-17) + Lead Up Events (Aug 9, Aug 18)
- Thread starter R_N
- Start date
The little CG video was basically that as a story arc
A lot of the time when Mew shows up, going all the way back to the first movie, it's with that kind of capricious attitude. The anime shows it most consistently, but you see it in other stuff too like the TCG or, well, the CG short they made for this raid.
Seems to be what they actively want to characterize Mew as.
Games don't really get to show that off at all, dex entries often focus on its elusiveness and genes and its a cute pokemon so cute mannerisms in pokemonamie are a given
iirc Mew has always been shown as pretty curious and playful - but then again I’ve pretty much stayed away from the anime (only properly watched Generations) and have read Adventures - which is my main exposure to anything outside the games.
A Japanese solo has been recorded after reportedly 10 hours. It is very luck based.
Item: Silver Powder
EVs: 252 Atk / 210 Def / 48 Speed
Moveset: Leech Life (max PP) / Bulk Up / Amnesia / Mud-Slap (max PP)
The AI Bellibolt's paralysis seems to be valuable in putting luck in your favor here and not getting hit, especially in the double action phase. I believe Mudsdale and Weavile may also be contributing defense drops through Rock Smash and Leer later on that may help efficiency.
The strategy from the pinned comment seems to be:
1: Up to 75% of time (debuffs reset)
- Mud Slap x 3-4
- Evenly stack Bulk Up and Amnesia
- Tera Leech Life when health is low
2: Up to ~75% HP (buff reset)
- Mud Slap while Bulk Up and Amnesia x6
- Leech Life when health is low
3: Up to shield down, debuff reset, Chesto Rest
- Bulk Up x6, Amnesia x1-2, Attack Cheer, hit with Leech Lifes
4: Up to the end
- Mud Slap x4 then Leech Lifes
- Just before 35% HP (buff reset), do an attack cheer and Leech Life. In the video this barely left Mewtwo at a sliver and the AI actually finished it.
Yeah, no, I'm not doing that.
Oh man that's sick.
Also, having just barely missed out on a 3rd win because I was the only one using Leech Life (and I ran out of PP), I think Silver Powder is the best item choice for the standard Tera Bug Mew set, even if you're not trying to solo
Mewtwo was impossible with AI partners in game, but I beat it at my first attempt with 4 Mews online.
Mew @ Metronome
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
- Leech Life
- Swords Dance
- Struggle Bug
- Light Screen / Thunder Wave
Has anyone tried Imprison/Rest in the last 2 spots? That sounds interesting to me, but I do not know if the mechanic works as expected in a Tera Raid.
Mew @ Metronome
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Brave Nature
- Leech Life
- Swords Dance
- Struggle Bug
- Light Screen / Thunder Wave
Has anyone tried Imprison/Rest in the last 2 spots? That sounds interesting to me, but I do not know if the mechanic works as expected in a Tera Raid.
I believe Imprison always fails in Tera Raids, but Misty Terrain does exactly what you're going for.
I also got it 1st time online with Bug Mew— though was very late to the point where n00b strats basically gone. Sad that repeat play drops seem so much weaker :(
A 2-player OHKO on Mewtwo has been found.
Calyrex-Shadow: Modest, 4 HP/252 Def/252 SpA with Scope Lens
- Snarl
- Nasty Plot
- Astral Barrage
- Substitute
Mew: Bold, 252 HP / 96 Def / 112 SpD / 48 Speed with Lansat Berry
- Acid Spray
- Mud-Slap
- Fling
- Helping Hand
The post mentions that +6 Calyrex against -4 Mewtwo was used with a critical (guaranteed by Scope Lens + Fling Lansat) + attack cheer + Helping Hand + tera Ghost, and it does seem to break through even with the 70% shield reduction though at a range. Mud-Slap seems vital to survival while setting this all up and it seems to take most of the time to get to that point.
+6 252+ SpA Tera Ghost Calyrex-Shadow Helping Hand Atk Cheer Astral Barrage vs. -4 0 HP / 252 SpD Tera Psychic Mewtwo on a critical hit: 23436-27576 (132.7 - 156.2% of 50x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO
It also mentions that +6/-6 can also work with a type boosting item and Mew could run a different set focused on survival like Substitute with Bright Powder, though a reply also mentions that random Calm Minds can make this hard to achieve ideally. I think this is a guaranteed OHKO on Mewtwo's 17650 HP though.
+6 252+ SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Calyrex-Shadow Helping Hand Atk Cheer Astral Barrage vs. -6 0 HP / 252 SpD Tera Psychic Mewtwo: 25272-29732 (143.1 - 168.4% of 50x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO
Calyrex-Shadow: Modest, 4 HP/252 Def/252 SpA with Scope Lens
- Snarl
- Nasty Plot
- Astral Barrage
- Substitute
Mew: Bold, 252 HP / 96 Def / 112 SpD / 48 Speed with Lansat Berry
- Acid Spray
- Mud-Slap
- Fling
- Helping Hand
The post mentions that +6 Calyrex against -4 Mewtwo was used with a critical (guaranteed by Scope Lens + Fling Lansat) + attack cheer + Helping Hand + tera Ghost, and it does seem to break through even with the 70% shield reduction though at a range. Mud-Slap seems vital to survival while setting this all up and it seems to take most of the time to get to that point.
+6 252+ SpA Tera Ghost Calyrex-Shadow Helping Hand Atk Cheer Astral Barrage vs. -4 0 HP / 252 SpD Tera Psychic Mewtwo on a critical hit: 23436-27576 (132.7 - 156.2% of 50x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO
It also mentions that +6/-6 can also work with a type boosting item and Mew could run a different set focused on survival like Substitute with Bright Powder, though a reply also mentions that random Calm Minds can make this hard to achieve ideally. I think this is a guaranteed OHKO on Mewtwo's 17650 HP though.
+6 252+ SpA Spell Tag Tera Ghost Calyrex-Shadow Helping Hand Atk Cheer Astral Barrage vs. -6 0 HP / 252 SpD Tera Psychic Mewtwo: 25272-29732 (143.1 - 168.4% of 50x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO
I just took an opportunity to catch a Beast Ball Legendary haha
I actually just had an idea for a support Mew
Light Clay
No Tera needed
252 Def / 252 SpD / 6 HP
Bold Nature
Rock Smash
Struggle Bug
Light Screen
Life Dew
Light Clay
No Tera needed
252 Def / 252 SpD / 6 HP
Bold Nature
Rock Smash
Struggle Bug
Light Screen
Life Dew
Rock Smash isn't a TMI actually just had an idea for a support Mew
Light Clay
No Tera needed
252 Def / 252 SpD / 6 HP
Bold Nature
Rock Smash
Struggle Bug
Light Screen
Life Dew
And support mew I think still wants speed so it can go before Mewtwo and start getting stat drops rolling before it attacks.
I like this clear because it involves Azumarill passing Belly Drum and Huge Power and using Mud-Slap.
Ok what the actual fuck did I just witness?
+6 252+ Atk Metronome Huge Power Tera Normal Magikarp Helping Hand Flail (60 BP) vs. -6 0 HP / 252 Def Mewtwo on a critical hit: 2906-3422 (823.2 - 969.4%) -- guaranteed KO in 1 turns
Did I mention this isn't even accounting for stuff like the Power Swap or Flail's power boost from being at low health? And that's on a non raid boss Mewtwo.
Also they swap Azumarill's ability and +6 atk to it.
Azumarill throw the berry to give it +2 crit stage.
On the plus side you can (barely) clear this with essentially 1 attacking Mew. I joined an online raid with what turned out to be 3 support Mews. With full attack EVs, only using Leech Life when +6 attack, holding Bright Poweder, having max PP for Leech Life, and blocking Rest with Misty Terrain I was able to KO Mewtwo with my last Leech Life. Struggle Bug was used to set up Tera charge, which I didn't realize was going to be necessary, but it was.
2 of the other players were basically just clicking Struggle Bug and Life Dew. Third player went Tera Dragon and only used Dragon Pulse and essentially contributed nothing, though he thankfully wasn't constantly dying to Ice Beam.
2 of the other players were basically just clicking Struggle Bug and Life Dew. Third player went Tera Dragon and only used Dragon Pulse and essentially contributed nothing, though he thankfully wasn't constantly dying to Ice Beam.
Tbh i've been suggesting to people using offensive mew to have either X-scissor or Tera Blast as 4th move. Life Dew is kind of a disappointment anyway, and hopefully someone else is providing Screen/Terrain, so in the cases where you end up in these 1 offense 3 support scenario, you can use the other filler when you don't need the recovery from LL and save PPs.
Somehow managed to beat it the first try. Hosted the raid and had 3 other mews join. None of them locked in until everyone had a mew which was a great sign. Ended up with 3 Bug tera mews (including me) with struggle bug, swords dance, and leech life. And miraculously a psychic tera support mew with light screen and misty terrain which used it right before rest.
I managed to take two critical psystrikes while teraed and fainted and then frozen by ice beam later... Didn't know if it would be salvaged but I went on support with struggle bug and life dew. Clinched it with maybe 30 seconds left
I managed to take two critical psystrikes while teraed and fainted and then frozen by ice beam later... Didn't know if it would be salvaged but I went on support with struggle bug and life dew. Clinched it with maybe 30 seconds left
Life Dew really isn't that big a disappointment. Once the debuffs are in place it's an easy top off you can keep doing to the entire party without issue, especially pivotal for the buff resets when people have to spend turns getting the Swords Dances back up or the Struggle Bugs back in place.
"Only" 100 HP goes a long way to making sure the math keeps people alive
"Only" 100 HP goes a long way to making sure the math keeps people alive
As gamefreak intended, all 4 of the raid event's counters have been used to defeat Mewtwo together.
The OP's Hydreigon seems to run Scope Lens with Snarl, Taunt, Nasty Plot, and Focus Energy to pierce through Calm Minds during support, though Taunt doesn't seem to be used.
Everyone is able to reduce SpA using Struggle Bug/Spirit Break/Snarl/Mystical Fire.
Grimmsnarl seems to be the Misty Terrain setter and also has Bulk Up, while it attacks with Leech Life.
Hatterene starts off with Nuzzle and uses Life Dew to keep everyone alive, and also sets Light Clay boosted Light Screens.
Scizor has Focus Energy and Swords Dance and Fury Cutter.
Are you one of those people struggling to win the Mewtwo raid, and you don’t have the Bug shards needed to make a good all-purpose Mew? Or perhaps you don’t want to mess with your current Mew build just for this one Mewtwo raid? Are you looking for an alternative to help with the Mewtwo raid, aside from the standard Tera Bug Mew that really is the gold star pokemon for this raid?
If that’s what you’re looking for, Uncle Doug is here to help.
I experiment with all sorts of stuff, not just in this Mewtwo raid, but lots of others. I have found a few things that are readily available to everyone for the Mewtwo raid, without requiring you to mess with Tera types or do anything special besides leveling up your pokemon and EV training them as described. So if you don’t have access to a gold-standard Bug Tera Mew, here are three alternatives you can try:
Mew @ Light Clay / Leftovers
Tera Type: ANYTHING
Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 48 Spe
- Struggle Bug
- Light Screen
- Life Dew
- Mud-Slap / Misty Terrain
Armarouge @ Leftovers
Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Mystical Fire
- Clear Smog
- Light Screen
- Incinerate / Helping Hand
Scream Tail @ Booster Energy
Tera Type: Psychic
Impish Nature
Ability: Protosynthesis
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 132 Speed
- Crunch
- Howl
- Light Screen
- Wish
If that’s what you’re looking for, Uncle Doug is here to help.
I experiment with all sorts of stuff, not just in this Mewtwo raid, but lots of others. I have found a few things that are readily available to everyone for the Mewtwo raid, without requiring you to mess with Tera types or do anything special besides leveling up your pokemon and EV training them as described. So if you don’t have access to a gold-standard Bug Tera Mew, here are three alternatives you can try:
Mew @ Light Clay / Leftovers
Tera Type: ANYTHING
Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 208 Def / 48 Spe
- Struggle Bug
- Light Screen
- Life Dew
- Mud-Slap / Misty Terrain
The beauty of this Mew, unlike the standard Mew, is that it doesn’t require you to Tera at all! You won’t be doing any meaningful damage and therefore you should preserve your base typing which resists Mewtwo’s Psystrike, which YES is the attack it will be using against you even though you resist it. Yes, it’s that badass of an attack. Which is also the reason support Mew is almost full max defensive with a Bold nature, to withstand the physical onslaught and still preserve the meager chip damage that you can do with Struggle Bug and lol Mud-Slap, which are both special attacks.
The 48 Speed EV’s are to outspeed Mewtwo, which is important for getting off your support moves before it hits you. I think you can get away with only 44 Speed EV’s, but I was initially unsure of my math with the Mew-specific 20% stat boost, so I went with 48 to be absolutely sure.
Playing this Mew is easy. Throw up a Light Screen and then spam the hell out of Struggle Bug early and often. Suppressing M2’s damage really is priority one. Life Dew is there to recover your own health and to help top up teammates who might have caught a crit or something.
I prefer when support Mews have Mud-Slap instead of Misty Terrain, because most standard Mews seem to be carrying Terrain for the one turn it is needed right before the shield breaks. And damage-free turns from Mewtwo missing its attacks is really niiiice. But, since you ARE a support Mew and Misty Terrain is a really important support part of winning the Mewtwo raid, you may feel morally compelled to carry it in your moveset. If that’s what you want — You do you, man.
This Mew support set is great because it frees up all the other standard Mews to focus on Swords Dancing and Leeching Life. Because Mewtwo resets player buffs twice in the battle, it’s a chore to Swords Dance NINE times during the battle, particularly when you have to take turns out to do support stuff. Having a dedicated support Mew on the team is not baggage at all, and is a real help to the team.
The 48 Speed EV’s are to outspeed Mewtwo, which is important for getting off your support moves before it hits you. I think you can get away with only 44 Speed EV’s, but I was initially unsure of my math with the Mew-specific 20% stat boost, so I went with 48 to be absolutely sure.
Playing this Mew is easy. Throw up a Light Screen and then spam the hell out of Struggle Bug early and often. Suppressing M2’s damage really is priority one. Life Dew is there to recover your own health and to help top up teammates who might have caught a crit or something.
I prefer when support Mews have Mud-Slap instead of Misty Terrain, because most standard Mews seem to be carrying Terrain for the one turn it is needed right before the shield breaks. And damage-free turns from Mewtwo missing its attacks is really niiiice. But, since you ARE a support Mew and Misty Terrain is a really important support part of winning the Mewtwo raid, you may feel morally compelled to carry it in your moveset. If that’s what you want — You do you, man.
This Mew support set is great because it frees up all the other standard Mews to focus on Swords Dancing and Leeching Life. Because Mewtwo resets player buffs twice in the battle, it’s a chore to Swords Dance NINE times during the battle, particularly when you have to take turns out to do support stuff. Having a dedicated support Mew on the team is not baggage at all, and is a real help to the team.
Armarouge @ Leftovers
Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Mystical Fire
- Clear Smog
- Light Screen
- Incinerate / Helping Hand
This is the pokemon I first built for the Mewtwo raid, since Armarouge resists all three of Mewtwo’s attacks. And Arma is one of the few pokemon with access to Clear Smog, which I assumed would be critical to success in a 7* raid with a boss Calm Minding like crazy. I tried a few different builds before settling on this one as a support mon. Although way outclassed by Mew, Armarouge is quite safe to play (ie. you don’t get slaughtered easily, like almost literally everything not named Mew). However, as I quickly discovered, you need to be careful with a few things when you play Armarouge or you might get some nasty surprises.
The basic playbook for Arma is to limit M2’s damage output with Light Screen and Mystical Fire. Don’t tera your Arma because you want to preserve your dual type resistances for the whole raid. Very occasionally during battle, you might want to Clear Smog, but it doesn’t happen often. Lemme explain…
Before Struggle Bug Mew became the defacto pokemon for this raid, I was using Clear Smog judiciously in every battle. I believe I was also running Shadow Ball at the time, and so I really wanted to get rid of all the CM boosts, including +SpDef, so I could do as much damage as possible. Soon that became a problem for all the Mew players, and me as well. Because I was removing all the debuffs to M2’s SpAtk, we were all getting pounded with harder special attacks, and none of the decent Mews really cared about M2 SpDef boosts, since they were all hitting physical. So I replaced Shadow Ball with Mystical Fire, and found a much more useful niche by helping lower SpAtk like all the cool kids do with Mew. Very occasionally you might look at Mewtwo’s status and see that the boss has gone on a Calm Minding spree (remember it can do “hidden” CMs against other players so you don’t notice it) and is positive in both SpAtk and SpDef. In those cases, feel free to Clear Smog, without too much fear of wasting your teammates’ Struggle Bugs. But most of the time, I’d just stick to Mystical Fire and keeping the Light Screen up.
You can do Incinerate to burn off the Mewtwo’s Chesto Berry, if you want. It’s a clever trick, for sure, and kudos to whoever came up with it first (not me). But it’s really unnecessary, since most Mews will be setting Terrain before the shield goes down, so the scripted Rest is going to fail completely. However, IF you find yourself on a team that doesn’t lay down terrain for whatever reason, you give a small measure of relief by preventing the Chesto-wake from happening. But Mewtwo still gets a full health bar, and only sleeps for two turns, so yeah — you’re pretty much screwed if that Rest happens at all. But you can at least pat yourself on the back that your Armarouge did all it could.
Armarouge is going to be getting hit with Psystrike all the time, and that is PREFERRED for this raid. Originally I was running Iron Defense and max SpDef on Arma, and figured I would ID up my defense to get Mew to use one of it’s non-STAB special attacks and take less damage. Well, I found out the hard way that, while getting hit with a weaker Ice Beam is nice from a damage perspective — getting FROZEN sucks balls. And it happens a LOT with that Ice Beam. That 10% effect chance is bullshit, more like 40-50% from my experience. So, I switched to max defense and just weathered the Psystrike storm.
I’m an Armarouge fanboy anyway, and I have used it in lots of different raids because it is such a beast and has a great kit for tera raids. So, using it here is OK, if for whatever reason you don’t have Mew available. But use it with caution, or you could end up hurting yourself or your team, if not both.
The basic playbook for Arma is to limit M2’s damage output with Light Screen and Mystical Fire. Don’t tera your Arma because you want to preserve your dual type resistances for the whole raid. Very occasionally during battle, you might want to Clear Smog, but it doesn’t happen often. Lemme explain…
Before Struggle Bug Mew became the defacto pokemon for this raid, I was using Clear Smog judiciously in every battle. I believe I was also running Shadow Ball at the time, and so I really wanted to get rid of all the CM boosts, including +SpDef, so I could do as much damage as possible. Soon that became a problem for all the Mew players, and me as well. Because I was removing all the debuffs to M2’s SpAtk, we were all getting pounded with harder special attacks, and none of the decent Mews really cared about M2 SpDef boosts, since they were all hitting physical. So I replaced Shadow Ball with Mystical Fire, and found a much more useful niche by helping lower SpAtk like all the cool kids do with Mew. Very occasionally you might look at Mewtwo’s status and see that the boss has gone on a Calm Minding spree (remember it can do “hidden” CMs against other players so you don’t notice it) and is positive in both SpAtk and SpDef. In those cases, feel free to Clear Smog, without too much fear of wasting your teammates’ Struggle Bugs. But most of the time, I’d just stick to Mystical Fire and keeping the Light Screen up.
You can do Incinerate to burn off the Mewtwo’s Chesto Berry, if you want. It’s a clever trick, for sure, and kudos to whoever came up with it first (not me). But it’s really unnecessary, since most Mews will be setting Terrain before the shield goes down, so the scripted Rest is going to fail completely. However, IF you find yourself on a team that doesn’t lay down terrain for whatever reason, you give a small measure of relief by preventing the Chesto-wake from happening. But Mewtwo still gets a full health bar, and only sleeps for two turns, so yeah — you’re pretty much screwed if that Rest happens at all. But you can at least pat yourself on the back that your Armarouge did all it could.
Armarouge is going to be getting hit with Psystrike all the time, and that is PREFERRED for this raid. Originally I was running Iron Defense and max SpDef on Arma, and figured I would ID up my defense to get Mew to use one of it’s non-STAB special attacks and take less damage. Well, I found out the hard way that, while getting hit with a weaker Ice Beam is nice from a damage perspective — getting FROZEN sucks balls. And it happens a LOT with that Ice Beam. That 10% effect chance is bullshit, more like 40-50% from my experience. So, I switched to max defense and just weathered the Psystrike storm.
I’m an Armarouge fanboy anyway, and I have used it in lots of different raids because it is such a beast and has a great kit for tera raids. So, using it here is OK, if for whatever reason you don’t have Mew available. But use it with caution, or you could end up hurting yourself or your team, if not both.
Scream Tail @ Booster Energy
Tera Type: Psychic
Impish Nature
Ability: Protosynthesis
EVs: 252 HP / 120 Def / 132 Speed
- Crunch
- Howl
- Light Screen
- Wish
I was drawn to test out Scream Tail after seeing some talk about it on Discord, and after getting frustrated with all the turns spent Swords Dancing with the standard Mew. I like that Scream Tail has a massive defensive profile, lots of speed, resistance to two of M2’s attacks, and most importantly - access to Howl, which boosts the Attack of the entire team. And, in the end it works OK. It definitely needs to be on the right team, probably with 3 other well-built Mews. But on the right team, I think this Scream Tail build is a real asset and can contribute valuably to team wins.
Like I said, this Scream Tail’s most valuable party trick is Howl. And it’s a great trick. On a team with other standard Mews, while they are doing the Struggle Bug thing, typically two turns minimum, this Scream Tail can be Howling and raising their attack for them. This takes the typical Mew down from having to do 9 Swords Dances to only 6 or less. While not a total game-changer, it is a really nice luxury item for the team. It also really helps in the endgame, if the team got some unlucky crits or whatever and teammates fainted and burned timer. When that happens, Mew can often find itself with not much clock left after the second boss wipe. And racing to get in Swords Dances to finish the battle can be tough. Scream Tail is a real help in those situations because it gives the team effectively +3 Attack (+1 for all 3 teammates) each turn, and can greatly ease the timer pressure for the win.
Crunch is a bit of a wildcard move, that is there for a little extra damage, and mostly to fish for Defense drops on the boss. I’ve had it trigger Def drops 3 times in a row (making for a really easy win with 3 attacking Mews) and I’ve also had it not trigger even once during the raid. But at least you can feel like you’re not totally a support mon, and you can somewhat take advantage of your own attack boosts that come with Howl. Just try to not look at the boss’s health bar when you’re attacking, or your feelings will get hurt that you are really just love tapping M2 like an NPC in solo raids lol.
Light Screen is there so you can be the one responsible for refreshing the Screen, not burdening the Mew kids with waterboy duty like that. And Wish is nice for topping up your own health if you get a nasty crit. However, don’t think this Scream Tail can survive unless the Mews are out there Struggle Bugging like they should. Even with Scream’s big defensive stats and resistance to Psystrike, you will be pounded into pink dust if your teammates aren’t suppressing damage big time.
I like running this Scream Tail, mainly as a change of pace. If I get anything less than a really good team of Mews, it’s usually an ugly loss. But when I get a good team, Howling Tail is actually a lot of fun!
Like I said, this Scream Tail’s most valuable party trick is Howl. And it’s a great trick. On a team with other standard Mews, while they are doing the Struggle Bug thing, typically two turns minimum, this Scream Tail can be Howling and raising their attack for them. This takes the typical Mew down from having to do 9 Swords Dances to only 6 or less. While not a total game-changer, it is a really nice luxury item for the team. It also really helps in the endgame, if the team got some unlucky crits or whatever and teammates fainted and burned timer. When that happens, Mew can often find itself with not much clock left after the second boss wipe. And racing to get in Swords Dances to finish the battle can be tough. Scream Tail is a real help in those situations because it gives the team effectively +3 Attack (+1 for all 3 teammates) each turn, and can greatly ease the timer pressure for the win.
Crunch is a bit of a wildcard move, that is there for a little extra damage, and mostly to fish for Defense drops on the boss. I’ve had it trigger Def drops 3 times in a row (making for a really easy win with 3 attacking Mews) and I’ve also had it not trigger even once during the raid. But at least you can feel like you’re not totally a support mon, and you can somewhat take advantage of your own attack boosts that come with Howl. Just try to not look at the boss’s health bar when you’re attacking, or your feelings will get hurt that you are really just love tapping M2 like an NPC in solo raids lol.
Light Screen is there so you can be the one responsible for refreshing the Screen, not burdening the Mew kids with waterboy duty like that. And Wish is nice for topping up your own health if you get a nasty crit. However, don’t think this Scream Tail can survive unless the Mews are out there Struggle Bugging like they should. Even with Scream’s big defensive stats and resistance to Psystrike, you will be pounded into pink dust if your teammates aren’t suppressing damage big time.
I like running this Scream Tail, mainly as a change of pace. If I get anything less than a really good team of Mews, it’s usually an ugly loss. But when I get a good team, Howling Tail is actually a lot of fun!
You may be wondering why I have those specific EV’s and I want to point out that they are VERY SPECIFIC for a reason. The 252 HP EVs were easy, but it was very tricky to figure out the optimal use of the remaining EVs. Initially, I was balancing between Def and SpDef trying to find the point where all attacks take as little damage as possible, with Psystrike doing slightly more than the others, so Scream Tail wouldn’t have to deal with Ice Beam freezes, like I discovered playing Armarouge (as mentioned above). Also, I wanted to take advantage of Protosynthesis if possible, since it’s a great stat boost against a boss where huge stats are desperately needed.
Impish 188 Def / 68 SpDef yields the optimal defensive profile to give Mewtwo a very slight preference to use Psystrike. HOWEVER, if you equip Scream Tail with Booster Energy, it jacks up the Defense and makes M2 spam Ice Beam. If you take Booster Energy into account, and you intentionally make it boost SpDef instead of Def, but keeping Def as high as possible, then you can go Impish 136 Def / 120 SpDef. But, in practice, that makes Scream Tail worse off, because then it has a LOWER defense against Psystrike than it would have if you just went with the 188/68 spread, and carried Lefties or something so that Booster Energy WON’T boost your stats at all.
And either way you do that, in the end, one “side” of stats is going to be almost completely wasted. Because Mewtwo is going to hit you almost exclusively with its best attack. So dumping ANY EV’s into Special Defense is a waste, since I want it to hit me with Psystrike. I was only giving Scream Tail SpDef EVs to make Mewtwo hit me with Psystrike on the physical side! I hated the idea of wasting those EVs and getting no real battle benefit, and I hated even more the idea of foregoing the Protosynthesis boost on top of that.
So I decided to not “waste” any EV’s at all, AND take some advantage from Protosynthesis - I split the EV’s very carefully between Def and SPEED. This EV spread put Scream Tail stats at 290 Def / 266 SpDef / 291 Speed. So Protosynthesis boosts Speed and allows Scream Tail to easily outspeed Mewtwo and act first every turn. And it gives Psystrike a 0.4% damage advantage over Ice Beam. The ability to move before Mewtwo is a legit benefit, particularly when throwing up a Light Screen before getting hit. And it easily outweighs the downside of foregoing the maximum 188 Def EV’s mentioned in the non-Proto-boost scenario I considered at first.
So yeah, quite a long road to get the math and damage calcs done. And I’m not always the best at making these sorts of optimizations. But at least now you know why this spread is built this way!
Impish 188 Def / 68 SpDef yields the optimal defensive profile to give Mewtwo a very slight preference to use Psystrike. HOWEVER, if you equip Scream Tail with Booster Energy, it jacks up the Defense and makes M2 spam Ice Beam. If you take Booster Energy into account, and you intentionally make it boost SpDef instead of Def, but keeping Def as high as possible, then you can go Impish 136 Def / 120 SpDef. But, in practice, that makes Scream Tail worse off, because then it has a LOWER defense against Psystrike than it would have if you just went with the 188/68 spread, and carried Lefties or something so that Booster Energy WON’T boost your stats at all.
And either way you do that, in the end, one “side” of stats is going to be almost completely wasted. Because Mewtwo is going to hit you almost exclusively with its best attack. So dumping ANY EV’s into Special Defense is a waste, since I want it to hit me with Psystrike. I was only giving Scream Tail SpDef EVs to make Mewtwo hit me with Psystrike on the physical side! I hated the idea of wasting those EVs and getting no real battle benefit, and I hated even more the idea of foregoing the Protosynthesis boost on top of that.
So I decided to not “waste” any EV’s at all, AND take some advantage from Protosynthesis - I split the EV’s very carefully between Def and SPEED. This EV spread put Scream Tail stats at 290 Def / 266 SpDef / 291 Speed. So Protosynthesis boosts Speed and allows Scream Tail to easily outspeed Mewtwo and act first every turn. And it gives Psystrike a 0.4% damage advantage over Ice Beam. The ability to move before Mewtwo is a legit benefit, particularly when throwing up a Light Screen before getting hit. And it easily outweighs the downside of foregoing the maximum 188 Def EV’s mentioned in the non-Proto-boost scenario I considered at first.
So yeah, quite a long road to get the math and damage calcs done. And I’m not always the best at making these sorts of optimizations. But at least now you know why this spread is built this way!
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