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Tera Raid Set Theorycrafting for Pokemon DLC Mons

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.
 
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.
 
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:tentacruel:
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.
 
Vengeance417 said:
:tentacruel:
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.
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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.
 
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flamewizzy21 said:
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.
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IMG_5760.jpeg

IMG_5761.jpeg
 
flamewizzy21 said:
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.
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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.
 
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.
 
flamewizzy21 said:
That is not an optimal use of tentacruel, over options like Alolan Muk.
Click to expand...

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?
 
Xenol said:
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?
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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.
 
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.
 
Worldie said:
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.
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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.
 
doipy hooves said:
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.
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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.
 
Worldie said:
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.
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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.
 
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
 
Worldie said:
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
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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.
 
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.
 
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 :Magearna: 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.
 
:pecharunt:
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.
 
Probably a bit late to this discussion but
Serperior @ Shell Bell
Ability: Contrary
Tera Type: Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Leaf Storm
- Light Screen
- Reflect
- Tera Blast

and

Alcremie-Mint-Cream @ Ability Shield
Ability: Aroma Veil
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Decorate
- Fake Tears
- Misty Terrain
- Recover

both serve me well when queuing into random raids
 
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I ran into DougJustDoug in a random Quaquaval raid the other day and it was a fun blast from the past! I might as well post something about raids because they have honestly given these games more replay value than any Switch game to me, kind of impressive for something that's obviously buggy in a lot of ways, doesn't have a leaderboard component (or even any type of player data kind of stuff, like as simple as 'these are the mons that were substantially more likely to be found in a win vs. a loss against such and such opponent'), and is well past the point of offering any in-game rewards I'd ever use.

I agree with the stuff in this thread about Recover being a waste in co-op raids and for the most part solos as well - I think all the DLC brought about enough stuff where you either reduce the opponent's damage well enough that heal cheers are sufficient or can Tera early and then do enough damage to get a hefty chunk of Shell Bell healing against opponents with reduced Sp. Def. Also about Stellar Tera being largely a flop - Terapagos and Malamar are probably its best users but they're almost like Stored Power Slowbro being so slow and so dependent on stat boosts to do damage in a way that rarely works in your typical random raid where you can have teammates dropping left and right. Malamar is kind of Stellar by default because as an attacker rather than a pure Skill Swap support it's got to do decent Fighting damage to safely set up but is still pretty reliant on a Psychic immunity - otherwise a lot of stuff like Iron Hands/Koraidon will just do way more Fighting damage and heal so much with Drain Punch while having better base stats.

It's very hard to justify Terapagos over Shell Bell Normal Tera Arceus most of the time for me - Arceus supports the team and ramps up its own damage faster with Acid Spray, recovers plenty of HP through neutral Tera Normal Judgment to go with its bulk, and has a better support movepool. There are just 3 types that resist Normal, with there being plenty of stuff that smashes Ghost/Rock/Steel super-effectively better than Terapagos or even Stellar Arceus (which I also find myself using less often than Normceus because neutral Normal is comparable enough to SE Stellar damagewise for the healing and extra turns spent attacking to make up for it - again, it gives you space to remove Recover and fit in an extra support move). Steel Tera Steelceus is probably my next most-used Arceus where A) it's not that common to resist something's entire moveset without a dual typing and some defensive ability, but when you do there's a good chance it's by being Steel type and B) Steel Tera Steel Beam is I believe the strongest move Arceus gets that can be super effective so you unlock more possible KOs/shield breaks than you do from Judgment. So yeah I think Shell Bell is good enough on Arceus that Normal Tera's the most generally useful build. Even if you wanted to keep one around to do super-effective damage to certain types, I think something akin to Shell Bell/Fire Tera/Flamethrower/extra utility move/possible type change into a resisted attack upon Tera compares pretty well to Flame Plate/Stellar Tera/Judgment/Recover in a lot of instances, especially in co-op with the stricter timer.

I am definitely happy to use Tera Poison on Acid Spray users where Pecharunt so bulky enough on the physical side that it's pretty much agnostic to the type chart (against stuff that can snowball with stat boosts you're gonna need Taunt/Skill Swap type of stuff rather than Acid Spray anyways) and Iron Moth has solid special bulk combined with the offensive capability to heal a substantial amount with Shell Bell when Poison's super effective or the opponent has low Sp. Def. That extra oomph is great in terms of the extra healing and allowing you to break a shield by using 1-2 Acid Sprays rather than your more damaging move - I guess you have to have a bit of an intuition for how much damage you'll do, but there's not much point to doing a bit more than breaking the shield as opposed to barely breaking it and getting off another debuff for you and your teammates. Toxapex is probably my next most-used Poison type and it's naturally bulky enough that I like to run a more offensive version with max SpA, Shell Bell, and Venoshock (suprisingly huge damage+healing that procs often enough between either Baneful Bunker or spamming Sludge Bomb along with potential Poison moves from teammates when the target's weak to it). Here we can also pour one out for how filthy Eternatus would've been with Acid Spray.

With all those I'm not too worried about being pure Poison type, in large part because Serperior is often godlike against Ground moves/types and Espathra is great against Psychic moves while also being able to get more damage/Shell Bell healing against Poison resists. If you build separate physically/specially defensive Espathras I think you'll be surprised with how well they stay alive just spamming Lumina Crash and then throwing in a Stored Power (not too uncommon to passively rack up +4-5 Speed to hit notably harder than Lumina Crash, or of course you can Calm Mind up if the boss is harsher about removing debuffs than stat boosts) if needed when the opponent's stats are reduced enough. I find that to be a great replacement for Roost when you still have room for more typical support moves like a screen or Mud-Slap to keep you healthy enough until it's time to heal via big damage. Opportunist has its uses too (love copying Coil from Orthworm and ignoring Sand Veil BS for a while) but a lot
of them are great for solos but less co-op friendly compared to having some kind of Taunt/debuffing thing going on.

Going full phys/special defensive investment on some attackers like Espathra is definitely underutilized IMO. The aforementioned Pecharunt does that pretty well where you can have very solid mixed bulk, healing off a lot of non-STAB or weaker STAB Psychic/Shadow Ball/Dark Pulse sort of moves if you're doing big Poison damage and of course being able to Tera ASAP out of a weakness to the latter two. Sp. Def Annihilape can be pretty great too where not only are you obviously taking physical hits well enough with Bulk Up but don't need to boost your stats a ton or even at all to do huge damage with Rage Fist. Not taking as much from Foul Play can be great too where just Focus Energy -> Rage Fist spam can be enough of a damage boost without having to worry about getting KOed with a crit after a few Bulk Ups. These mons can make up for their lower offensive stats with avenues to boost, debuff, Tera early, and access high base power moves, and what really ties it together is that bulk is more step-wise than continuous against raid AI.

Being 3HKOed rather than 2HKOed by an opponent's strongest move makes it far more likely the opponent will open up with some relatively harmless status move, and that free turn will often have you off to the races. Being faster than most things is clutch too, where you get the same number of turns to move before being 2HKOed by a move something bulkier but slower is 3HKOed by; this lets you really swing battles where you can get off something like Acid Spray/Lumina Crash instead of having to recover/boost defenses before you're KOed and then Tera the following turn for a big Shell Bell recovery.


Speaking of being faster, Dragapult is a great "DLC" mon where it got Breaking Swipe to go with Reflect and being the bulkiest mon with Cursed Body (to go with good type synergy with Grimmsnarl). With Cursed Body to go with the physical debuffing you are basically the "soldier taking flying knives while standing over a peacefully sleeping child" meme (very underrated security where once you're looking at like -2 and a Reflect most of your teammates are going to be at the point where only a crit threatens them and when something's attacking 4x per turn you can't really cry hax when they do). With the speed you don't need any investment to outrun and debuff even most speed boosted stuff, and you're offering very consistent shield chip having 120 base attack and STAB that's at least neutral against all but one type. Helping Hand, Dragon Cheer (imo the best user of it although to me it seems to be the most frequent perpetrator of the "DLC moves can make you randomly exist the raid" bug), and Sunny Day are typically what I rotate for the last 2 moveslots.

Grimmsnarl relies on the ability to get its speed, and after those two Friend Guard Maushold has become my most-used support if I want to help my teammates take physical hits. You can go the full debuffing route with Chilling Water/Mud-Slap/Taunt/Charm and something like Covert Cloak or Bright Powder (I believe Charm + Friend Guard is the most physical damage reduction a single mon can give its teammates on turn 1), but with Annihilape more 'meta' than it was at release, Loaded Dice Bullet Seed/Helping Hand for the last 2 moves goes crazy at boosting their damage (and gives you a one-turn wrecking of the 4 different Weak Armor 6* mons's defense). Maybe Lugia is the best true DLC mon in this category, where your ability doesn't provide any team support but does help make you stupidly bulky to the point you can take super effective hits no problem while of course being able to Tera out of the cumbersome Psychic type relatively early in the battle; Reflect/Chilling Water/Rain Dance/Hurricane is nice for some Flying type shield damage and possible confusion to throw in when you've debuffed enough and have a free turn. Faster supports like these are more likely to have super easy matchups on the physical side where you won't have to sacrifice Light Clay Reflect for Covert Cloak against speedy opponents with flinching moves. If there were more mixed attackers, Aurora Veil Ninetales with Chilling Water/Moonblast would shoot up in the ranks; the Snowscape boost with max defensive EVs makes it surprisingly physically bulky as you debuff while almost always moving first.

When Gouging Fire is good it's really great, but generally the first 2 turns are the most important turns for debuffing (with how common risky Belly Drums are) and there are still a lot of 6+ star opponents that will bypass the Bulwark as they use some status moves early, or worse do it all battle by targeting you with relatively common physical attacks like Earthquake/Stone Edge/Rock Slide. Reshiram with the same typing and solid enough bulk gets Fling+Flame Orb for a guaranteed one-time burn in addition to Breaking Swipe/Reflect and a niche of being able to reduce the attack against Mirror Armor/Clear Body. Ho-oh is next in line for burn consistency with Sacred Fire and gets an Earthquake immunity, but from strictly an attack debuffing standpoint that's not really great compared to just using a damaging -1 attack move. If the opponents are cool about not resetting boosts, it can be fun if a bit gimmicky to Psych Up a Belly Drummer and become a juggernaut with huge attack/special bulk/and potential burns.

If I'm trying to support on the special side, Blissey's the #1 for me still as far as purely keeping stuff alive. Alcremie's support outside its particular ability totally screwing with the mons with moves affected by it is kind of incidental - even something like Decorate I'm not super comfortable bringing it to most raids that are just a special attacker spamming attacks, which usually come with side effects that you'd like to mitigate using more than just Light Screen/cheers. Blissey with max defense still has no problem taking special attacks (at least the ones not from super aggro boosters you'd want a different mon for anyways) and it really helps with taking the odd physical moves special attackers can have. I like Sunny Day/Rain Dance as a 4th move rather than Heal Pulse where obviously you get a sharper reduction of Fire/Water damage than Light Screen/cheers; another one I like to mess around with is Serene Grace Ice Beam against opponents where Healer isn't necessary.

Skill Swap can be handy as well, but (especially on 6 as opposed to 7 stars) if you're going that route a Skill Swap/Trick Room/Light Screen/Foul Play Polteageist already holds up well against a lot of special attackers with its bulk plus Light Screen and whatever beneficial ability you may take from the opponent and give to yourself. Ting-Lu (Bulldoze/Mud-Slap/Snarl) has been a nice pick against a few 7-stars. With Light Screen it'd really be top-tier, but without it you have to make a somewhat annoying choice between Assault Vest for the truly stupid levels of special bulk where you laugh off super-effective hits without needing to heal very often or Wide Lens to not miss Snarl and maybe fit in Taunt instead of a 4th damaging attack. The downside of the ability is minor compared to Sword/Beads of Ruin; physical attackers are definitely more common and it just takes one to carry the team damage-wise while you keep the fainting to a minimum, and even the special attackers can make up for it in the long run by having an easier time staying alive and getting more Tera-boosted hits.

It's hard to find too many great ones where the distribution of Struggle Bug is kinda sad, with most of the mons with it + Light Screen much more lacking in physical bulk than Blissey in addition to having a bottom-tier defensive typing. I'm curious what other people use there - maybe SpDef Cress with something else in place of Reflect would be the top DLC option. Blissey really does have outlier special bulk though where even with crits/Sp. Def drops it's gonna have no problem staying healthy, and while Lunar Blessing is a better move than Life Dew you'll still need to use a heal cheer to get rid of something like your own paralysis/freeze/confusion. For burn/poison it's usually not that pressing to heal even physical attacking teammates it if they're not yet Terastallized; like burned +6 Iron Hands/+2 Koraidon type of things are still doing a decent amount and also staying near full HP with Drain Punch healing and your support.
 
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