So this raid was a bit of a shitshow in all fairness. Early barrier gave a bit of leeway, but the Swords Dances later on nearly always made the raid go sideways very quickly. Most of my early attempts failed before even breaking the barrier, even with reasonable? comps.
This one probably took me over 10 attempts, I don't think I even wrote them all down this time like normal. I left a fair number with ridiculous starting mons which had no hope as well.
Started off with the normal Bronzong set (Swapped to Rain Dance for this one) - Bronzong being immune to two of the moves and not that afraid of the others. I swapped from Light Clay to Occa Berry - But interestingly it still used Fire Fang consistently into me (even when Liquidation should have done more due to rain).
Camara did mention the Kebia Berry Appletun (to block PJab) had been working, so not entirely sure what the difference was here.
1st attempt: Dondozo/Samurott/Sinistcha - I'd heard good things about Sinistcha, but this one did nothing useful. The Samurott got obliterated repeatedly and just burned the timer out. Not even close.
Swapped over to the support Gyarados I used previously (Intim+Chilling Water) - Poison Jab ended this run fairly quickly.
2nd Attempt: Kyogre/Manaphy/Meowstic - Again, I didn't see anything particularly wrong with this (minus Meows paper defences). Surely CM Kyogre + Tail Glow Manaphy + Chilling Water in Rain should solve this? Neither of those happened. I got poisoned almost immediately (and ruing my item) - and it kinda went sideways from there.
3rd Attempt: Quagsire/Slowbro/Arboliva - I swapped back to Bronzong here. Even in Rain Dance it was Fire Fanging me (which I didn't think should be possible with the berry so I went back to Light Clay after this). Arboliva didn't appear to have Seed Sower, and it was using
Mirror Coat. I didn't really know what to say about that one...
I gave up on Friday evening after that one. Sometimes you just get tilted by silly people.
At this point I was getting frustrated as I'd cleared most of the other raids within a few attempts. The above doesn't mention the couple of raids I left with no hope. I swapped over to Appletun (Apple Acid/Giga Drain/ID + Kebia Berry) here as I had heard this was working well for others too. Kebia Berry "blocks" Poison Jab, so it should Earthquake you regularly. Which it did...
4th Attempt: Sinistcha/Corviknight/AI Haxorus - Why this person started the raid I have no idea. Fire Fang took down the Corv and Sinistcha in pretty short order, and I never saw Matcha Gotcha get a burn here either. Apple Acid ramps up, but it wasn't enough.
5th Attempt: Malamar/Kyogre/Garchomp - Swapped to Orthworm here as I didn't want to be Apple Aciding and causing issues... Instead the Kyogre Chilling Watered the skill swapped (now Contrary) Garchomp and our own Garchomp was nuked... This was by far the stupidest set up with the worst players, but I actually got through the barrier for the first time. At +4/+6 Orthworm actually puts out decent damage with Body Press and we did actually make headway. I had a feeling the Chomp wasn't level 100 as it didn't make a huge amount of difference to the clock (but I never actually checked).
6th Attempt: Serperior/Amoongus/Sinistcha - Was this it?? I went back to Appletun here to try and boost the Serperior as much as I could. Which then.... Never used Leaf Storm until we were nearly out of time. Amoongus got some clutch Effect Spore procs, but it wasn't happening here either. Another raid without even breaking the barrier.
7th Attempt: Lugia/Smeargle/Ludicolo - The Smeargle Player was waiting on Bug Arceus until the last second so I just assumed they were throwing... That Smeargle
cooked. It Reflect Typing'd to start, then set up Burning Bulwarks consistently + Jungle Healings to try and keep the team alive. Ludicolo was the weak link here. Appletun tanks a lot of hits after 1 ID, and the Lugia and I were managing to do fairly good damage, but we couldn't outspeed the clock.
A few more early abandons happened here, including one with a locked in Rayquaza... Yeah no.
I tried hosting my own raid at this point to see if it made any difference as I was struggling to get one to appear in the listings for some reason.
8th Attempt: Arboliva/Vaporeon (which was hacked)/Orthworm - I went Appletun again here and thought this might be a good set of mons. Vaporeon to lower attack, Arboliva with the Seed Sower Healing/Giga Drain and Orthworm to deal good damage. This was the first match where Arboliva and Appletun had appeared together - After Seed Sower went up, Garchomp started using Poison Jab even through the Berry Resist. Presumably because the Grassy Terrain weakened Earthquake by another 50%, it meant PJab was better even into the berry. First time for everything I guess.
A few more leaves here (another one with a Greninja host locked in) - No way that was happening.
9th Attempt: Azumarill/Arboliva/Sinistcha - I did wonder if I was going to get the Poison Jab problem here too, but for some reason Seed Sower didn't activate until a good 2 minutes into the raid (again, no idea how that happened - #justraidthings) which meant I got decently set up/aiding the team with Appletun before the Poison Jabs came out. Azumarill came out swinging, as Sinistcha got to work with healing/burning fairly regularly. Arboliva actually did damage in this raid too! This was finally the run that got me there after trying out FOUR different mons.
This raid was by far the worst one for a long time with randoms in my opinion (or maybe I just play at bad times). Let's hope some of the future ones aren't quite this awful.
is actually good. Bless.
