7* Raid Event: Tera Dragon Sceptile (June 28th - 30th, July 5th - 7th)

Ninetales-Alola @ Covert Cloak / Fairy Plate / Light Clay
Ability: Snow Warning
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 164 Def / 92 Spe
Nature either Timid or Bold depending on speed threshold
- Reflect / Light Screen
- Nasty Plot / Calm Mind (if special)
- Chilling Water (or another support move if special)
- Draining Kiss

The big problem with this set is the only place A-Ninetales could get Reflect was from LGPE, and that move won't follow you into Paldea. It's Veil or nothing.
 
I am watching Sceptile Dragon Dance at +6 and Leaf Blade my Azumarill while I setup. I don't think it has a move to hit it.

EDIT: It just used Thunder Punch very late. Oh well.
 
It has Thunder Punch. Tread carefully.
In my defense he was kind of trolling until he did it:
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Anyway, the stats are out on Serebii. Breaking Swipe is the Dragon STAB of choice, another DLC TM drop, and it's Hasty. No item to capitalize on Unburden. Overall pretty light on the resets, all time based with some scattered scripted moves, late shield, and a tera orb steal. I think I will consider flamewizzy's theory of AI stopping to boost after a capped stat like Meganium and try to Charm early.
https://www.serebii.net/scarletviolet/teraraidbattles/event-mightysceptile.shtml

EDIT: I still see it going for Dragon Dance at +6 speed but it's kind of manageable. It seems like he actually will dance until he hits +6 attack too so plenty of setup time potentially. Big shield though.
 
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Turn 0 Leaf Storm is funny

Feels like a Pokemon you could throw a Contrary Skill Swap onto for extra fun, though you'd have to bear quite a few attacks to get there
 
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Surprisingly simple Azumarill solo despite the supposed threatening coverage move? It didn't stop Dragon Dancing at +6 Speed, but instead of ever attacking, it decided to greedily keep going until +6 Attack which gave me ample time to set up thanks to Charm and Staraptor buffering its Attack stages. Really I didn't need Mud-Slap in particular since it didn't hit me with anything during setup and I didn't use it afterwards. The only scare was a double attacked Thunder Punch into a regular Thunder Punch, which barely didn't KO thanks to 252 Def and Grassy Terrain, but Shell Bell healing carried the day otherwise. Grassy Terrain also nerfed the EQ too. Overall it was pretty frail despite the large shield, didn't take that many Play Roughs to finish off and each healed a ton. I think I would add Defense Curl and just build tera off Play Rough for more consistency.

+6 0 Atk Sceptile Thunder Punch vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Tera Fairy Azumarill: 171-202 (50.1 - 59.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
 
With standard-moveslot Dragon Dance to deal with, it's time to bring back an old trick from Meganium:

Malamar @ Scope Lens
Ability: Contrary
Tera Type: Stellar
(EVs wherever, probably Atk/Def)
- Skill Swap
- Superpower
- Tera Blast
- Night Slash

Sceptile outspeeds you, so it may get a DD in your lane before you can give it Contrary (and then it might cancel that out with DDs in the other lanes). Once a turn begins where the boss knows it has Contrary, it will never click Dragon Dance again--any fantasies of it "boosting" to -6 in futility are for naught. But at least you have what's effectively a permanent Taunt in place, which lasts even through the shield.

Sometimes Sceptile is even cheeky enough to use Breaking Swipe as its first move against you, before you get rid of Contrary, so you'd get the boost of that but it's fated not to last. See, the goal now is to intentionally faint so you can respawn and get Contrary back. To that end, you should burn through about half your Superpowers, nerfing your own defense stat so that Sceptile's unboosted attacks can do more damage to you and get you into fainting range sooner. If it takes more than a few turns to do so, spend the rest on Night Slashes for that 50% critical rate, so you deal more damage despite the nerfed Attack, and to cancel out the orb-wipe when it happens by refilling tera charge with something.

The turn before it looks like you're going to faint, throw out a cheer so that it gets to be permanent after the respawn. Now you get Contrary back and can start using Superpowers to bulk up, as Malamar tends to be used to, and will probably get even more attack boosts from Breaking Swipe. Finally, pop the tera button and spend the rest of the battle spamming Tera Blast for damage. Sceptile deals more damage than Meganium did, so you may need a heal cheer at some point to make up for not having any other form of recovery. Still a very feasible solo.
 
It seems that the best way to do this is just pray his ai acts like an idiot and doesn't spam Thunder Punch post Tera. I'll try it when I'm done with what I'm doing, but if it doesn't work I'm going to try Malamar.
 
Malamar support is great.
Malamar @ Sitrus
252/0-/252+/0/4/0
Contrary
Skill Swap
Topsy Turvy
Reflect
Helping Hand

Randos, as always, have negative IQ, and regularly spam charm and chilling water, even after seeing it give Septile a free Atk boost due to contrary. Which is why Topsy Turvy is MANDATORY. Despite the general lack of neurons from randos, the hard stop to DD spam is too good to pass up.

Main set DD is extremely lame, as it greatly restricts who can come to the raid without getting bodied.
 
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Managed to solo with Fezandipiti. Took a couple tries due to Play Rough missing and Thunder Punch paralysis bs, but I got there eventually. As doipy hooves mentioned, Sceptile appears "greedy" with Dragon Dance, preferring to boost to +6 in both Atk and Spe before really spamming its attacks. As a result, my Intimidate teammate kept causing Sceptile to waste more turns trying to keep its Atk and Spe maxed, sometimes even using Dragon Dance again while already maxed, which gave me a lot of relatively safe turns to set up. I trolled it a few times with Taunt before the shield went up, which also importantly slowed down how fast it reached +6/+6. Caught in a Safari Ball.
 
Didn't want to raise anything new so I just took the PhysDef Armarouge I used for the Mewtwo raid and it worked a treat. Reflect into Clear Smog spam helps boosting partners do their job very easily. especially with Sceptile being so keen to set up to +6/+6
 
I had a great solo going (Charm Sylveon, Wil o Wisp Driflon) and then it got 3 critical hit Thunder Punches in a row in the back half of the fight AND i rolled low on all my heal cheers

just. Nightmare inducing, for no reason.
 
This guy's a real pain in the ass. One more try with an Intimidate ally, and if it doesn't work I'm going with Malamar.

(Edit) Finally, at long last, Azumarill pulled through. Still gonna try Malamar though. If my results aren't much better, I'm not gonna bother farming this guy.
 
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Second attempt it ignored any attempts at speed control causing it prioritize attacking me instead of setting up more dragon dances

Attempt 3 I had both Sylveon & Haxorus but Sylveon just didn't use charm for some reason. But somehow I got enough Iron Defense up that I could get the Drainin Kiss spam going
The only unfortunate part about going Tera Fairy Magearna is then Sceptile starts spamming Leaf Blade but somehow it never crit? So that meant Magearna could tank-heal until it died. I mean hey, I won't complain.

Caught in a Safari Ball
 
No exaggeration, whoever came up with Inkay's evolution method needs to rethink everything about their life. Why in the world do I need to connect the joy cons to my Switch? Unless I'm playing Super Mario Party, I never use them because of the drifting. It's a good thing I didn't lose them.
 
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According to https://stevecooktu.github.io/sv_raid_lookup/, we are back to a 10 minute/600s timer and a 50% HP/50% "second shield"/random double attack rate as usual. The shield is 50% of its health and it has a 35x HP multiplier since Serebii didn't mention it.

+6 252+ Atk Life Orb Azumarill Atk Cheer Play Rough vs. -6 0 HP / 0- Def Tera Dragon Sceptile: 8859-10427 (90 - 106% of 35x hp boss) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO

I am personally considering going for this potential OHKO with Arcanine/Weavile helping to set up to -6 Defense, mostly because I don't have a Tera Fairy Sap Sipper Marill built yet and it doesn't seem like it would play out very differently, so it is a lower priority for now. I do think running Chilling Water over Mud-Slap is better in general just to get more Attack debuffs while charging tera.
 
Ok, yeah, my Tera Ice Malamar had a very easy time with him. Crit Leaf Blade does practically nothing. Though I did have to reset twice. 1st I got a Tauros ally and then I got a Drifblim that burned him with WOW, making it practically impossible for Sceptile to take out Malamar to get Contrary back.
 
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Magcargo @ Light Clay
Ability: Flame Body
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Reflect
- Clear Smog
- Recover
- Lava Plume

This might actually be the funniest support I've ever used. Surprisingly great for keeping your allies alive. It's a Clear Smog spammer with Reflect that can reliably heal itself in a pinch (especially if it gets hit by t0 Leaf Storm). The best part is that since all Sceptile's other main moves are contact, it can trigger Flame Body burns. 4th moveslot is filler (really wish it got Helping Hand, though) so I'm running with Lava Plume to stack 30% burn chances. You'll really want good DPS alongside you, though. There's definitely better supports that help complete the raid faster, but the fact I was able to successfully use Magcargo was hilarious. Eviolite Slugma can probably do this, too LOL
 
:SV/Archaludon:

Archaludon @ Shell Bell
Ability: Stamina
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Body Press
- Reflect
- Dragon Cheer
- Focus Energy

Archaludon's excellent typing alongside defense boosts from Stamina work really well for neutralizing Sceptile's damage output. Reflect, Dragon Cheer and Focus Energy are good support/set-up choices in the early raid. And with all the defense buffs, Body Press can deal major damage later on in the raid. Stellar tera (conveniently available on a wild tera Duraludon) helps preserve the resistance to Leaf Blade which could be troublesome with its crit rate.

Breaking Swipe could be used in one of the slots to charge up tera faster, while wasting Sceptile's turns on further Dragon Dances. Shell Bell doesn't heal that much early on, so Leftovers can be considered, or just a simple Heal Cheer.

Zamazenta :Zamazenta: and Cobalion :Cobalion: could also put in work with Reflect and Coaching for support, and Iron Defense + Body Press for offense but I didn't have a spare of either at the moment to try out.
 
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This raid is not easy at all. Dragon Dance in the regular moveset is cheap as hell, and I hate when GF does that in these 7* raids. I get it; everybody probaby runs train on Sceptile without something pretty drastic like that. But still, a 7* boss that goes to +3, +4, or even +6 behind the scenes in the blink of an eye is a camper move by GF, imo. Maybe I’ll get interested in the raid and enjoy experimenting more later, but right now it feels like a waste of time against an aimbot opponent.

I couldn’t solo this in 3 tries with Azumarill, but I think I could get there with Azu if I really want to keep trying, which I don’t. Even facing a supposedly “greedy” boosting boss — eating super-effective boosted Thunder Punches just isn’t fun. Also passing up Huge Power for Sap Sipper and relying on Azu’s craptastic base 50 Attack stat just never feels right for me, unless it’s a slam dunk solution for a raid, which it isn’t this time. Maybe a nice challenge for Azu fans, but it’s just too much of a try-hard for me. So I decided to go online, and see if random teams could help me catch this 7* Sceptile.

I expected it to be tough with randoms, as it is always hard to find competent teams online. And one of my quick lessons again involved Azumarill fail, as every online Azu teammate was not Sap Sipper, and was practically insta-fainted repeatedly as they Belly Drummed and died over and over burning the timer to no end. So, I now exit every lobby when someone locks in Azu, because the general competence level with those players is worse than horrible. Not surprising really, but eh, whatever.

I finally succeeded online using the support Torkoal below. I don’t remember my teammates exactly, but one of them was a Clefable that did most of the heavy lifting. I’m gonna make a Clefable next for this raid and see how it goes, it certainly looks like it has promise. In the meantime, here’s the mon that helped me get the win:

:sv/torkoal:
Torkoal @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
Bold Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Lava Plume
- Clear Smog
- Will-o-Wisp
- Iron Defense

Torkoal is as safe as safe gets in terms of support for this raid. In all my random battles, even in ugly losses with terrible teammates, this Torkoal never got below green health. Not once. Heck, it normally spends almost the entire battle at 90% HP or more. Everyone else might be dying around you, but you have nothing to fear if you’re using the fire tortoise.

Start the battle off with Will-O-Wisp to burn Sceptile and provide immediate damage suppression for your team.
Then spam Clear Smog repeatedly until the player stat reset.
Use Iron Defense once after the reset, and you’re basically invulnerable for the rest of the battle.
Continue to be a Clear Smog spambot most of the battle, as you will see that Sceptile is continually using DD against everyone and it snowballs quickly if you don’t do your thing.
Occasionally launch Lava Plumes against the shield as you get the opportunity, since the 30% Burn chance is so nice for the team.

Shell Armor means you can’t be critted, and even if Sceptile gets to +4 or more on those hidden DDances, your Defense is so godly it just doesn’t matter. Your damage output against Tera Dragon Sceptile is next to nothing, so it doesn’t matter much whether you tera or not. Your main job is to extend the battle by suppressing damage and giving your DPS teammates a chance to get rolling. In that support capacity, Torkoal is rock-solid and highly recommended for this Sceptile raid.
 
No exaggeration, whoever came up with Inkay's evolution method needs to rethink everything about their life. Why in the world do I need to connect the joy cons to my Switch? Unless I'm playing Super Mario Party, I never use them because of the drifting. It's a good thing I didn't lose them.
Well, 1) Inkay's evolution method was created for the 3DS, not the Switch and 2) the main Switch doesn't have a gyroscope, it can't tell it's upside-down on its own it needs the ones in the joycons for that.
 
I finally found a rando using Malamar with Contrary skill swap. So I immediately chose alcremie, prayed he knew what he was doing, and it went swimmingly.

Decorate the Contrary Sceptile, and he’s totally fucked. By the time he clears his debuffs, the decorates you put on your teammates will eventually allow your Swords Dance Zacian to break through with Moonblast (yes, that happened). At which point you can decorate again.

The Malamar had Swagger, which was smart, but since many randos still use acid spray/tears/chilling water/charm despite contrary, the lack of Topsy-Turvy has a very high chance to auto-lose the raid with typical randos.

Alcremie set is obvious. Phys def, Sitrus, Helping Hand, Decorate are mandatory. Extra moves that really depend on the scenario are Charm, Fake Tears, and Misty Terrain. Pick which scenario you want to shore up. Misty terrain helps teammates who are not most vulnerable to Leaf Blade. Fake Tears and Charm are for cases when you either lack Malamar or he refuses to skill swap.
 
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