Tera Raid Set Theorycrafting for Pokemon DLC Mons

[R_N]

There are absolutely plenty of raids where Life Dew kept things going significantly more than the other support moves.
Or working in tandem with them!

It's all about reading the situation and the raid. Obviously if a reset + buff just happened then you need that debuff reapplied asap because you'll risk a kill snowball situation and other raids have no time for anything else but another -1 on something already at -3 (even -2) vs using Life Dew that turn to top everyone up, or to get you out of kill range with Recover, can absolutely save a raid.

 

[flamewizzy21]

Smeargle works great if you have a damage mitigating support alongside him who lets him live enough to spam crazy support moves. Otherwise, he’s just bad. You get checkmated, even by middling threats.

Smeargle might be more self-sufficient with Burning Bulwark vs physical threats. But it still is probably not enough without more support alongside.

——

With respect to Life Dew, the main pokemon who really benefits from Life Dew is Lucario. He has been the unique cleric with screech, making him a good pairing for Belly Drum users. While he’d like to use Heal Pulse, he benefits more from Life Dew (due to his middling bulk), which he can spam more liberally for similar benefit.

 

[Vengeance417]

Tentacruel @ Wide Lens
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Screech
- Acid Spray
- Chilling Water
- Skitter Smack

Great Venonat alternative that withstands the threats the former can’t (mainly Fire, Flying, and Rock types) while also being significantly faster. PhysDef gives you great mixed bulk especially when paired with both chilling water and skitter smack.

 

[flamewizzy21]

Tentacruel @ Wide Lens
Ability: Clear Body
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Screech
- Acid Spray
- Chilling Water
- Skitter Smack

Great Venonat alternative that withstands the threats the former can’t (mainly Fire, Flying, and Rock types) while also being significantly faster. PhysDef gives you great mixed bulk especially when paired with both chilling water and skitter smack.

That is not an optimal use of tentacruel, over options like Alolan Muk.
I would recommend Tentacruel with 252/0-/0/0/252+/4 with wide lens, Screech, Taunt, HelpingHand, Skitter Smack.
Tentacruel’s advantage over Muk is speed, while Muk outclasses him vs physical threats. Fast taunt with screech is relatively unique, as the other main fast screechers are Koraidon (lacks moves against special attackers), Electrode (frailer), Noivern (bad movepool), and Revavroom (lacks HH). The set I proposed gives tentacruel a specific good niche, which makes him very potent against special attackers with a physical attacking team.

EDIT: Tentacruel doesn’t get HH/taunt, so it is just outclassed.

 

[Vengeance417]

That is not an optimal use of tentacruel, over options like Alolan Muk.
I would recommend Tentacruel with 252/0-/0/0/252+/4 with wide lens, Screech, Taunt, HelpingHand, Skitter Smack.
Tentacruel’s advantage over Muk is speed, while Muk outclasses him vs physical threats. Fast taunt with screech is relatively unique, as the other main fast screechers are Koraidon (lacks moves against special attackers), Electrode (frailer), Noivern (bad movepool), and Revavroom (lacks HH). The set I proposed gives tentacruel a specific good niche, which makes him very potent against special attackers with a physical attacking team.

 

[flamewizzy21]

View attachment 582344
View attachment 582345

My mistake. Sorry, I must have mixed up movesets on serebii. Then I can’t see Tentacruel having a good niche tbh. He’s just outclassed by so many options. Goes into the pile of suboptimal fun picks that can work.

 

[Vengeance417]

My mistake. Sorry, I must have mixed up movesets on serebii. Then I can’t see Tentacruel having a good niche tbh. He’s just outclassed by so many options. Goes into the pile of suboptimal fun picks that can work.

No worries, but the bolded text is kind of what I've been looking for recently. I could just be using the top meta supports like Umbreon, Alcremie, etc all the time against 5 and 6 star raids if I want to, but sometimes I like to branch out to make raiding a bit more engaging for myself. I had a shiny Tentacruel and wanted to see if it can put in work and it does.

 

[flamewizzy21]

If you just want fun picks that can work, my Deerling, Floragato/Sprigatito, Joltik, Cottonee, and Azurill all work.

Joltik, Tinkatuff, Golduck, Grumpig, and Misdreavus are all very strong, with several matchups where they are best in slot.

 

[Xenol]

That is not an optimal use of tentacruel, over options like Alolan Muk.

What's this Alolan Muk build you are running?

I assume 252hp 252 spdef with the following moves?
Screech
Acid Spray
Helping Hand
Mud Slap/Clear Smog/Taunt

Just curious which ability/item you would run on it because I don't think Poison Touch benefits it and I'm not sure if I should be ultilizing berries on it? Unless there's some interesting stuff with power of alchemy?

 

[flamewizzy21]

What's this Alolan Muk build you are running?

I assume 252hp 252 spdef with the following moves?
Screech
Acid Spray
Helping Hand
Mud Slap/Clear Smog/Taunt

Just curious which ability/item you would run on it because I don't think Poison Touch benefits it and I'm not sure if I should be ultilizing berries on it? Unless there's some interesting stuff with power of alchemy?

I would run Power of Alchemy, but it doesn’t really matter. Alolan Muk’s main set is: Helping Hand, Taunt, AcidSpray/Screech, Snarl/ClearSmog.

There are several options to pick from, and it can be customized to your specific needs. That said, Mud Slap is normally not worth Muk’s time.

 

[Worldie]

Speaking of DLC raids, as we all know they greatly improved the AI of the AI partners, I am curious however of what was improved

So far I have noticed that Bellibolt uses Light Screen, Umbreon looks to apply Thunder Wave, Arboliva has Safeguard, Gardevoir spams Life Dew, any other notable?
Also I *think* the AI has stopped trying to status shielded bosses but I may have just been "lucky" there.

In general I am quite glad that most of the AI isn't just there for us to abuse their abilities / random status chances.

 

[doipy hooves]

Speaking of DLC raids, as we all know they greatly improved the AI of the AI partners, I am curious however of what was improved

So far I have noticed that Bellibolt uses Light Screen, Umbreon looks to apply Thunder Wave, Arboliva has Safeguard, Gardevoir spams Life Dew, any other notable?
Also I *think* the AI has stopped trying to status shielded bosses but I may have just been "lucky" there.

In general I am quite glad that most of the AI isn't just there for us to abuse their abilities / random status chances.

I am pretty sure the AI always used to use their offensive status moves ASAP, and they still try and fail on shield. I have still seen Bellibolt go for Mud Shots over Discharges as well so I don't think much else has changed in that regard.

 

[Worldie]

I am pretty sure the AI always used to use their offensive status moves ASAP, and they still try and fail on shield. I have still seen Bellibolt go for Mud Shots over Discharges as well so I don't think much else has changed in that regard.

I've definitely seen Bellibolt use Mud Shot a few times already, though I can't exactly speak on "when". May have been on electric immune enemies and I wasnt paying attention to it.

 

[doipy hooves]

I've definitely seen Bellibolt use Mud Shot a few times already, though I can't exactly speak on "when". May have been on electric immune enemies and I wasnt paying attention to it.

It's an old problem with the AI wanting to outspeed. I've noticed for a while that Bellibolt will just spam Mud Shot against initially faster enemies but only swap off when it runs out of PP, which was annoying for some solo runs where I needed paralysis on shield. I haven't been able to tell if it's smarter about it and swaps when it outspeeds currently but I have still noticed it going for Mud Shots on Bundle before Discharge.

 

[Worldie]

To be fair as far as Bundle goes all I cared for Belliboly is that it actually sets Light Screen xd that alone makes it a valid AI for it

 

[doipy hooves]

To be fair as far as Bundle goes all I cared for Belliboly is that it actually sets Light Screen xd that alone makes it a valid AI for it

Speaking of Light Screen, I only noticed recently because of this change that screens use the doubles formula of reducing damage by 33% rather than 50%. It makes sense since it affects the whole party, but I took it for granted because most of the time it just feels like a singles battle.

 

[Dargad]

One thing I'm enjoying about the Stellar Tera type in Raids is its use in keeping your dual type intact, for resistances and immunities. Because being KOd makes the timer go down much faster than an extra turn.

Gholdengo for example. Yes, the damage bonus it gets with Stellar is less, but at least it can get a Tera bonus while still keeping all its immunities and resistances. If it was to Tera Ghost, it can't tank Dragon, Grass, Ice, Flying, Psychic, Fairy or Steel hits anymore. If it goes Tera Steel, then Fighting can kill it.

Same with a lot of dual types that complement each other (especially the ones that give immunities), like Magearna/Zacian/Tinka, Urshifu-S/Muk-A, Zapdos/Moltres or Landorus/Gliscor/Swampert.

 

[Vengeance417]

Stellar is also an extremely cost-effective type for Arceus. Without cheating, you’ll likely not have that many Arceus to work with, and having to go out of your way to change its Tera type to match what you need over and over again can be time-consuming and expensive. Stellar works wonders for it since now it’s a one-and-done deal no matter what plate you run.

Something else that I learned recently is that gets Metal Sound now as of the Indigo Disk, making it even more busted as a solo raider. You can spend your first couple of turns dropping the opponent’s SpDef while your SpA gets passively-boosted as your cannon-fodder CPUs keep fainting.

 

[Vengeance417]

Pecharunt @ Shell Bell
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Poison
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Acid Spray
- Nasty Plot
- Malignant Chain
- Venoshock / Recover / Parting Shot

I’m still at work and haven’t had the chance to play the epilogue yet, but from what I can see with Pecharunt, this might be one of the best offensive Poison-types available. 88 SpA is meh, but we all know of the Acid Spray / Nasty Plot combo and how powerful that is, and 100 BP Malignant Chain is an insanely broken STAB that’s Sacred Fire for Toxic poison, and thanks to Poison Puppeteer, you inflict confusion when the boss is poisoned. 50% poison chance is so high you could run Venoshock as a final move to do even more damage. Recover for solos, or Parting Shot for online. Its base 160 defense will let it do well against most of the game’s physical bosses that aren’t strong against Poison or Ghost.

You could probably run Tera Ghost sets with Shadow Ball or Hex, too, but I feel Tera Poison will be Pecharunt’s bread and butter. Can’t wait to try it out when I get off work.