Not sure if this counts as an Unpopular Opinion or Little Thing That Annoys me, but I'll assume some people like these so I'll post it here for now:
The Mighty Mark Tera Raids are
NOT fun.
I just caught Greninja, and while with the previous two Might Mark Tera Raids I felt I was involved and could follow along with the progression of the battle... with Greninja I had no idea what was going on and not sure how much I was contributing.
- To begin, it took 3 attempts to get the Greninja. No big deal, except for my first 2 attempts Greninja's HP BARELY budged. I was concerned I wasn't doing things right. And during the 3rd attempt, for most of the battle, once again Greninja's HP barely budged... AND THEN all of the sudden last few seconds of the battle it went from mostly full HP to 0. What I think happened was my Teammates (Vaporeon and Slowbro, also had a Kingambit though not sure if it did much) got all their Calm Minds done finally and began using Stored Power.
- So, what was I doing? Reading some guides, I decided to go with Toxicroak with Taunt, Swords Dance, Earthquake, and Acid Spray. So here's my second complaint: The only beneficial thing I did was Acid Spray and potentially Taunt. As soon as the battle began I Taunted so it wouldn't try stacking Double Teams (which is just a WONDERFUL thing to give to these already tedious battles: Evasion Hax). Next I tried getting up 3 Swords Dance, but it would reset stats before I got in the 3rd and while setting up again would put up its shield. When it uses its shield I use Acid Spray to try and give my team support. So after 3 Acid Sprays I continue to do 3 Sword Dances and unleash my Earthquakes... and ingoing the times I missed... does NADA. And for me, that's ALL I can do. I got its SpD down to -6, its behind its shield so I can't Taunt (and even if I could it would only be the once), and I'm at +6 Atk. All I have left to do is Earthquake which I see is doing like a slit of damage. And Toxicroak's Tera Type is Poison so it wouldn't help. I guess I could have also cheered, but by the end of the battle everyone was keeping themselves healthy enough that obviosuly me not cheering meant nothing would have changed (except I guess ending the battle earlier).
- Now, I would like to say that, at the very least, with me getting its SpD down to -6 that meant Vaporeon's and Slowbro's Stored Power was hitting extra hard, TEAM WORK! Except, I think that's just me trying to grasp at anything to make it feel I contributed anything. For all I know, Vaporeon and Slowbor's Stored Power would have KOed Greninja regardless and at most I maybe ended the battle a turn earlier. And that still doesn't overlook that means, for the entire battle, my ONLY contribution would have been just 3 turns of using Acid Spray which happened pretty much early in the battle.
- But hey, I caught my Might Mark Greninja so all's well that ends well *TOXICROAK*. Oh, hi there Toxicroak. What do you want? *TOXICROAK* What am I going to do with you now? Um... good question, I only really trained you up because online guides said you were one of the good counters. I suppose you'd be useful in other Raids where I need a Poison or Fighting-type. Or you could just chill in the box with the Azumarill I trained specifically for MM Charizard and then by lucky circumstance was also useful against MM Cinderace. But outside Tera Raids... I have no real interest in you two, at least in SV. I made my team and beat the game with them. And despite the game telling me they're my Champion team, in tougher Raids they're impact is less than impactful. And don't even think they have a place in the Mighty Marks, I would have just been a burden to my team. AND that's just the point I'm making: either you go online to see the suggested options and pick the one you'd think would work best (FUN FACT: Originally I was training up a Clodsire, I decided to change last second cause Greninja has a lower Defense stat... and good thing I did cause I discover that MM Greninja was packing Ice Beam), or you're just a burden to your team. No middle ground, you either follow a competitive mindset or you're being cursed at by your fellow teammates (if they aren't too focused on what they're doing).
What GF probably thought would be engaging cooperative battles have only turned out to be sterile experiences of my using a Pokemon I have no interest in & using specific strategies to pretty much game the system. And you HAVE TO game the system because they stack the MM Raids very much against you: Even before you could make a move the MM Pokemon sets up two status Moves. Next they're quick to both reset your stats and as well setup their shield, said shield so bulky that even Tera STAB only does a small dent unless you spent a few turns raising your stats/lowering the MM's stats (oh, and of course when the shield is up they're immune to Status moves).
GF said all the changes they did with Tera Raids was a response with criticisms of Max Raids. But with Max Raids I've NEVER felt completely useless. In addition, in Max Raids it always felt the bar was being moved, even when you got close to the wire at the very least you knew how far you progressed if you failed and can learn how to improve next time. And the Max Raid barriers were SO much better as they were their own pseudo-HP bar but required a specific amount of hits instead of going off a bulked up HP stat, and when you broke the barrier if decreased the Dyna/Giganta's Pokemon's Defense & Special Defense as a reward! Finally, when they introduced a tougher version of Max Raids with the Dynamax Adventures, instead of making the Dyna/Giganta Pokemon so tough you need a competitive build to beat them, instead they used a Rental Pokemon system and, though at first it felt cheap you couldn't use your own Pokemon, turned out to be a good move and made the Adventures fun to replay through as you never know what you would get next. With Dynamax Adventures the Pokemon you battle before the boss helped build a stronger team, one of the ones you catch are your reward at the end, AND to top it off all Pokemon had the highest yet chance to be Shiny (so even after you catch the Legendary you have reason to keep going through it)!
So, what do the MM Tera Raids offer? Just a normal version of a Pokemon you'd be able to transfer over later when they connect SV to HOME & a "Mighty Mark" which no one cares about (seriously does anyone care about Marks/Titles? The most pointless customization addition cause, if I wanted to give my Pokemon a Title, I would have liked it to be something I imagined my Pokemon having and not some arbitrary trait a Pokemon just so happened to have; Ribbons feel like they have more value than Marks and thy have no effect on battle animations or box text!). "They give a lot of rewards" Yeah, by the time I finish a MM Tera Raid I could have battled 3 or 4 easier Raids and gotten more loot. And yes, higher raids gives you rare items like Gold Caps and Ability Patches, but like how many of those does someone need? Whenever the next MM Raid is announced I'm more focused on trying to get as many Experience Candy and Sellable items so I can then build up the next one-trick pony.
Well, there's my rant on MM Tera Raids. Don't know whether this is a generally agreed upon complaint or I'm in a minority, but I'm hoping the SV DLCs offer something more along the lines of the Dynamax Adventures. Anyway, I guess onto the next MM Pokemon. If they keep up the trend of it being a Transfer Only Pokemon, while they have a few "obvious" choices like Starters, Legendaries, or Regional Variants (or Cap Pikachu or, Arceus forbid, Vivillon), personally I'm looking forward to the MM Carbink (and yes, I know, what they're probably going to do is have a MM Diancie and there will also be special 5-Star Carbink Tera Raids to go with it; it was just an odd initial inclusion to the Transfer Only list until I thought about it for more than a few seconds).
