Simple Azumarill solo for once. Mixed Tera Blast boosting and ignoring Iron Fist is funny and late setup + early resets is a kind mercy. My first attempt failed due to using too much Chilling Water, so after seeing Nasty Plot Grass Knot I swapped it out for Amnesia, waited for the buff reset, and decided to just set up to +6 in both defenses with the help of Gardevoir healing for good measure. Dudunsparce's paralysis helped me outspeed and finish it without fear of the one turn of Focus Energy crits.
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7-star Tera Rock Infernape raid event (Oct 4-6, 11-13)
- Thread starter doipy hooves
- Start date
Simple Azumarill solo for once. Mixed Tera Blast boosting and ignoring Iron Fist is funny and late setup + early resets is a kind mercy. My first attempt failed due to using too much Chilling Water, so after seeing Nasty Plot Grass Knot I swapped it out for Amnesia, waited for the buff reset, and decided to just set up to +6 in both defenses with the help of Gardevoir healing for good measure. Dudunsparce's paralysis helped me outspeed and finish it without fear of the one turn of Focus Energy crits.
It's Naughty...so I guess the plan is Tera Blast is physical until you proc Nasty Plot, then goes back to Physical once you hit Swords Dance?
I guess Tera Blast is the entire reason it even has this moveset, I guess they felt they wanted an even split attacker to finally make use of the move's gimmick.
So, honest question here: Will the AI ever actually use Grass Knot outside of random chance? I know that for a long time that the AI doesn't properly "see" moves like Grass Knot at their actual power and just see it as a 1 BP move even against extremely effective targets, but I don't know if that ever got fixed.
I guess Tera Blast is the entire reason it even has this moveset, I guess they felt they wanted an even split attacker to finally make use of the move's gimmick.
So, honest question here: Will the AI ever actually use Grass Knot outside of random chance? I know that for a long time that the AI doesn't properly "see" moves like Grass Knot at their actual power and just see it as a 1 BP move even against extremely effective targets, but I don't know if that ever got fixed.
Bulldoze, Breaking Swipe, Iron Defense, Body Press. Easy solo.
I’ve won several times with Scream Tail. She’s just too damn good for raids.
Cream Tail @ Light Clay
252/0-/152+/0/100/0
Reflect
Light Screen
Rain
Helping Hand
Cream Tail @ Light Clay
252/0-/152+/0/100/0
Reflect
Light Screen
Rain
Helping Hand
You know I think I'll do this just because it's something different than the norm and also a good excuse to use Scream Tail for something.
a real "something's gotta work, right" feature from the AI
Using Registeel
I don't know how, but I was able to beat him on my 1st attempt with Koraidon. At one point he knocked out my Koraidon with double Flare Blitz which got rid of his Tera, but even without it I was able to deal enough damage to his shield and the rest of his health. I am just very lucky he didn't get off a burn when he went for the double Flare Blitz while Koraidon didn't have Tera.
I forgot Grass Knot was an option and brought Gastrodon to my first online raid and Infernape was consistently using Grass Knot, so it seems to be working.
That being said, I was basically just spamming Mud Slap while someone else was clicking Chilling Water and Rage Fist Annihilape just rolled over Infernape for an easy clear. My next raid I brought Annihilape and got Chilling Water/Reflect support from teammates and it was another easy clear.
Overall it was much easier than I expected.
This is the first 7* raid in a long time that I have played without first going out and researching the boss moveset and doing a little pre-strategizing. This time I went in cold and did it the old-fashioned way, by just playing it on the cart until I figured it out until I won. Kinda fun to do it and get surprised by the scripted moves and all that.
I started out with a Garchomp just to see the initial moves. Died to Aura Sphere after the Nasty Plot. So I decided to bring in an Imposter Ditto to read the moveset and definitely raised an eyebrow at the Tera Blast and Grass Knot set. Armed with that knowledge I built the following pokemon and won on my third solo try, after figuring out the right sequence of moves to clear the raid:
Kommo-o @ Metronome
Tera Type: Fighting
Ability: Bulletproof
Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
- Drain Punch
- Rain Dance
- Clangorous Soul
- Swords Dance
The nifty thing with this is that it resists Fire, Rock and Grass and is immune to Aura Sphere because of Bulletproof. So prior to going Tera, you really don’t need to worry too much about taking damage. Start off with Rain Dance to nerf Flare Blitz and bide the short waiting time before it saps your tera charge. Then I do 2 Drain Punches to build tera while waiting for the player stat reset. After the stat reset, I do a Swords Dance to give a little more oomph in my Drain Punches and healing. One more Drain Punch gets my tera ready and I go Tera with a Clangorous Soul.
Up until this point, Kommo-o is slower than Nape, which really is no big deal because you’re not taking any real damage until you Tera. But from the Clang onward, you’re good to go faster for the rest of the battle. After the Clang, I set Rain again, to restore my resistance to Flare Blitz. This is key because even though you Tera Fighting which only resists one of Infernape’s attacks, with Bulletproof and Rain in place, all Nape can do is Grass Knot, which is the worst move in its set. After Rain, I Drain Punch to restore health and then Clang again to get both my defenses to +2, and my Attack is +4 at that point. I Drain Punch again to get health and then I Swords Dance one last time to go to +6 Attack. From there, it’s just Drain Punch the rest of the way and letting Metronome stack up to massive hit levels.
After the Focus Energy from Nape it’s a little scary, but if you didn’t have to waste earlier turns cheering or dealing with too many prior crits, you should only be a turn or two away from the win by the time the Focus Energy happens.
Kommo-o was a solid solo and not too bad a first choice for this raid.
I started out with a Garchomp just to see the initial moves. Died to Aura Sphere after the Nasty Plot. So I decided to bring in an Imposter Ditto to read the moveset and definitely raised an eyebrow at the Tera Blast and Grass Knot set. Armed with that knowledge I built the following pokemon and won on my third solo try, after figuring out the right sequence of moves to clear the raid:
Kommo-o @ Metronome
Tera Type: Fighting
Ability: Bulletproof
Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
- Drain Punch
- Rain Dance
- Clangorous Soul
- Swords Dance
The nifty thing with this is that it resists Fire, Rock and Grass and is immune to Aura Sphere because of Bulletproof. So prior to going Tera, you really don’t need to worry too much about taking damage. Start off with Rain Dance to nerf Flare Blitz and bide the short waiting time before it saps your tera charge. Then I do 2 Drain Punches to build tera while waiting for the player stat reset. After the stat reset, I do a Swords Dance to give a little more oomph in my Drain Punches and healing. One more Drain Punch gets my tera ready and I go Tera with a Clangorous Soul.
Up until this point, Kommo-o is slower than Nape, which really is no big deal because you’re not taking any real damage until you Tera. But from the Clang onward, you’re good to go faster for the rest of the battle. After the Clang, I set Rain again, to restore my resistance to Flare Blitz. This is key because even though you Tera Fighting which only resists one of Infernape’s attacks, with Bulletproof and Rain in place, all Nape can do is Grass Knot, which is the worst move in its set. After Rain, I Drain Punch to restore health and then Clang again to get both my defenses to +2, and my Attack is +4 at that point. I Drain Punch again to get health and then I Swords Dance one last time to go to +6 Attack. From there, it’s just Drain Punch the rest of the way and letting Metronome stack up to massive hit levels.
After the Focus Energy from Nape it’s a little scary, but if you didn’t have to waste earlier turns cheering or dealing with too many prior crits, you should only be a turn or two away from the win by the time the Focus Energy happens.
Kommo-o was a solid solo and not too bad a first choice for this raid.
Ran a couple Infernapes tonight, one for the capture and one for the video
Annihilape @ Shell Bell
Ability: Vital Spirit
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 192 Atk / 128 Def / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rage Fist
- Drain Punch
- Bulk Up
- Screech
It's always good to see a Pokemon fail the Annihilape check. Screech turn 1 followed by Drain Punch turn 2 is just enough to get through the early disruption, then you can set up a couple Bulk Ups and just Rage Fist for basically the rest of the fight.
Hariyama @ Scope Lens
Ability: Thick Fat
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 112 HP / 44 Atk / 100 Def / 252 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Belly Drum
- Focus Energy
- Detect
A bit of a funnier one. Focus Energy with just a bit of waiting gets you past the Tera clear, Drain Punch brings you back to full, and from there it's Belly Drum and click Drain Punch until you win. The extra damage off of your crits actually makes a surprising difference - finishing the fight faster means there are fewer opportunities to get crit. The EVs guarantee you take under a quarter from everything before boosts, so you can Belly Drum safely, and also means Infernape needs to crit you to ever KO you after its boosts... which your own crits gives it fewer opportunities to do. In the successful run, I actually missed the KO on my last hit by a sliver, so I finally used Detect to let the NPC Weavile finish it off.
Annihilape @ Shell Bell
Ability: Vital Spirit
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 192 Atk / 128 Def / 188 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Rage Fist
- Drain Punch
- Bulk Up
- Screech
It's always good to see a Pokemon fail the Annihilape check. Screech turn 1 followed by Drain Punch turn 2 is just enough to get through the early disruption, then you can set up a couple Bulk Ups and just Rage Fist for basically the rest of the fight.
Hariyama @ Scope Lens
Ability: Thick Fat
Tera Type: Fighting
EVs: 112 HP / 44 Atk / 100 Def / 252 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Drain Punch
- Belly Drum
- Focus Energy
- Detect
A bit of a funnier one. Focus Energy with just a bit of waiting gets you past the Tera clear, Drain Punch brings you back to full, and from there it's Belly Drum and click Drain Punch until you win. The extra damage off of your crits actually makes a surprising difference - finishing the fight faster means there are fewer opportunities to get crit. The EVs guarantee you take under a quarter from everything before boosts, so you can Belly Drum safely, and also means Infernape needs to crit you to ever KO you after its boosts... which your own crits gives it fewer opportunities to do. In the successful run, I actually missed the KO on my last hit by a sliver, so I finally used Detect to let the NPC Weavile finish it off.
Kommo-O, wait for the reset, click Protect to get Bulletproof back, click Belly Drum, spam Drain Punch
Thanks for coming to my ted Talk
188 Speed Adamant
Covert Cloak is probably the best item as Flare Blitz burn is the only danger, but Metronome can make things even quicker
Thanks for coming to my ted Talk
188 Speed Adamant
Covert Cloak is probably the best item as Flare Blitz burn is the only danger, but Metronome can make things even quicker
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Fully forgot to switch my Kommo-o's ability to Bulletproof but still won lol
Since there were no curveballs this time around, group OHKO strategies are pretty straightforward. There are quite a few options:
- Anger Point approach, with minimally trained supports
- Gholdengo + 3x Perrserker, where the Perrserkers can be untrained and sashed
- Water Spout Kyogre, also with 3 sashed/untrained supports
- Belly Drum Kommo-o (3 players or 4 players). Takes a little longer, but having a 3-player variant is nice
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Today is going to be fun after work. I put together a Paldean Tauros build, I now don’t think it’s going to do too well with that grass knot sat there. Time to go grab my original Kommo-o from Pokemon home!
Soloed with this:
Kommo-O@Big Root
Careful
252 HP, 6 Defense, 252 Special Defense
Drain Punch
Breaking Swipe
Clangorous Soul
Dragon Dance
One Clangorous Soul/Dragon Dance makes it outspeed the infernape, with the two moves being decided between if Kommo-O can afford to lose the HP or not. Breaking Swipe makes it resort to mostly using special moves, and Drain Punch + Big Root keeps it at full almost constantly. Ended up not needing to use Dragon Dance at any point, and got multiple Clanorous Souls in with minimal risk.
Kommo-O@Big Root
Careful
252 HP, 6 Defense, 252 Special Defense
Drain Punch
Breaking Swipe
Clangorous Soul
Dragon Dance
One Clangorous Soul/Dragon Dance makes it outspeed the infernape, with the two moves being decided between if Kommo-O can afford to lose the HP or not. Breaking Swipe makes it resort to mostly using special moves, and Drain Punch + Big Root keeps it at full almost constantly. Ended up not needing to use Dragon Dance at any point, and got multiple Clanorous Souls in with minimal risk.
First attempt was with a Ceruledge & 2 Kommo-o, with my new Scream Tail.
The Ceruledge was utterly worthless (it did eventually tera into Grass, at least) and the only one that kept dying. Also shoutouts to the Tera Blast that crit on me twice in a row. I almost died and had to keep using heal. Also burns were surprisingly common, the kommo-os each had it happen twice, I had it happen once.
But!
Won first try regardless.
Went with the Level Ball
The Ceruledge was utterly worthless (it did eventually tera into Grass, at least) and the only one that kept dying. Also shoutouts to the Tera Blast that crit on me twice in a row. I almost died and had to keep using heal. Also burns were surprisingly common, the kommo-os each had it happen twice, I had it happen once.
But!
Won first try regardless.
Went with the Level Ball
I am having a very hard time farming this raid online. It's not just the usual stupid random players and dumb movesets. It's that this raid has very few viable support options that can increase the win rate with randoms. Or at least I can’t seem to figure out anything very good. Because Infernape has such great coverage and hits special and physical, it's damn hard for a support mon to do everything needed to keep teammates alive.
Screens are useful, as always. Also I've found Taunt to be much better than Snarl/Skitter Smack/etc Special Attack lowering moves. Because the Nasty Plot comes immediately after the boss stat reset, there's really no time to prevent teammates from getting decimated after the Nasty Plot. But preventing the Nasty Plot is super easy with Taunt, since it happens so quickly at the beginning of the battle. I usually do one move to open the battle (set a screen, do Rain Dance, etc) and then do Taunt and it's still in effect by the time the Nasty Plot is attempted.
I'm trying to make a good support Kommo-o because it gets Taunt and Coaching and other decent support moves. But so far it really hasn't been able to keep random teams alive long enough to win. I'll keep plugging away and trying to find something that works.
Screens are useful, as always. Also I've found Taunt to be much better than Snarl/Skitter Smack/etc Special Attack lowering moves. Because the Nasty Plot comes immediately after the boss stat reset, there's really no time to prevent teammates from getting decimated after the Nasty Plot. But preventing the Nasty Plot is super easy with Taunt, since it happens so quickly at the beginning of the battle. I usually do one move to open the battle (set a screen, do Rain Dance, etc) and then do Taunt and it's still in effect by the time the Nasty Plot is attempted.
I'm trying to make a good support Kommo-o because it gets Taunt and Coaching and other decent support moves. But so far it really hasn't been able to keep random teams alive long enough to win. I'll keep plugging away and trying to find something that works.
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My online support is now Skill Swap Malamar. Full HP investment with the rest split between Defense and Special Defense. Holding Leftovers for lack of a better idea, maybe Light Clay?.
Skill Swap
Reflect
Light Screen
Helping Hand / Rain Dance
With screens up and Infernape eventually putting himself at -2 for both attacks, it's just not very threatening. I started with Superpower in my 4th slot thinking I'd faint at some point and then put in some chip damage, but that wasn't happening so I think Helping Hand or Rain Dance are likely more practical.
Not the most original build, but it seems to do a good job keeping the random Iron Hands alive to do their thing.
Hear me out, Acupressure on that last slot for memes (you can even use it on the now-contrary Infernape if shield isnt up WOWEEEEEE)
Yeah Kommo-o with metronome and bullet proof is monstrous for this solo. I got frustrated with online raids and have found solo raids it’s very easy to follow the same strategy and farm this.
(Thanks to DougJustDoug for the build, really good shout).
(Thanks to DougJustDoug for the build, really good shout).
Unfortunately Acupressure can't target opponents.
Here are Infernape's detailed stats from https://stevecooktu.github.io/sv_raid_lookup/. Most notably is the 550s time, relatively large 50% shield, and the usual 50% double attack rate starting from 50% HP, which times well with the Swords Dance.
Overall I feel like this raid is pretty well balanced compared to the last few and has a very unique pace to it, honestly surpassing my expectations and I'll give gamefreak some credit for making a fair challenge. Covering all its STABs both physically and specially along with taking advantage of Tera Blast's adaptive damage for once makes it a formidable opponent from the very start even with Intimidate, the single debuff reset is well timed with the shield and Nasty Plot, and it scales up very fast near the end to actually pose a threat with a double crit if you don't have the boosts to take it out fast enough. I like this aspect that can theoretically punish you hard if you're still playing slow near the end, though I guess it can be meaner in groups depending on when someone procs it.
I was giving Chilling Water and Marill a few early attempts after clearing with Azumarill, but found that even a neutral Flare Blitz is a 2HKO with no defense investment. I think it can still win with more targeted support and maybe even Rain Dance over Belly Drum, but it highlighted to me how the initial bulk stat check on both sides is pretty high here, which is a pretty interesting form of pressure that doesn't show up often.
Also Aura Sphere as the TM is an interesting pick, but I guess it's a new Gen 9 tool in particular that's more fitting to the mon than matching the tera type in this case.