Tera Raiding Thread!!

[Bolt Strike]

so have i - some of the max raids tend to be pretty spicy sometimes! in fact, try out dynamax adventures for difficulty similar to tera raids. you're not always going to have "quality" partners, and dynamax adventures teaches you to use pokemon outside of your comfort zone in situations in which the balance more often than not tips way in favour in the opponent than your team, mostly due to your AI team (assuming you go that route) being incompetent. even if you go into a dynamax adventure raid with a few friends, that is by no means a guarantee that you'll even do well - as stated, you aren't using your own pokemon, and those pokemon sometimes have suboptimal movesets, so you have to strategise to work with what you have while sometimes recognizing you're at a disadvantage. do you opt for healing your team and go for longevity by choosing the route with the berry, or do you choose the route with the professor so you can switch out your pokemon? what about the backpacker that can perhaps help with an item?

it's the same general concept with tera raids. not much different, here.

The A.I. teams have usually been pretty worthless to me except at the lower ranked Raids (like, 3 or 4 Star at most), I generally partner with other players. And that wasn't really a problem for any raid or Dynamax Adventures... until 7 Stars became a thing.

there's a lot to unpack with this statement, i think. let's start with the "cheating" part, because i think that in itself is a lot to break down.

max raid pokemon are also "cheating", in a sense. they have shields, you don't, as a player. unless you nuke them with a super powerful move turn one and circumvent the shield turn (which is something you can also more or less do with tera raids), shields are going to go up, and max raid 'mons have the freedom to go absolutely ham on your team with raid moves that lower your stats or cause status conditions, etc. of course, you can counter all of that by dynamaxing your own pokemon in turn, damaging their shields and ultimately breaking them, lowering their defenses and turning the tide of battle.

Ehh, I would always host the raid and Dynamax the Pokemon first turn, and as long as I had 2 or 3 parterns with SE moves, I never had much problem.

tera raids aren't all that dissimilar from max raids. the biggest difference between the two is the gimmick used - alongside having a lot more HP than usual (because otherwise it'd be far too easy to steamroll them), you'd have to prepare for their tera type. with 7 star raids in particular, you're basically fighting a lv 100 pokemon with your own lv 100 pokemon. the playing field isn't entirely equal, sure, which you, the player have to prepare for in advance. if the 7 star raid mon has a boosting move, what kind is it? would having a pokemon with intimidate help? for almost every 7 star raid that had a boosting move in particular, having AI pokemon with intimidate faint repeatedly and having that trigger the ability several times over was the key to victory as i boosted myself and timed my terastilization turn right and took down my opponent. in that sense, they aren't all that different from 5 or 6 star raids, just with a higher HP multiplier and more things to prepare for but ultimately the same concept applies.

There's a LOT more issues than that that make the Tera Raids a bit tougher.

1. You could Dynamax your Pokemon first turn if you're the host and overwhelm them early as I mentioned above, and usually I would get through at least the first set of shields as long as you had competent partners. Compare that with Tera Raids where Terastal needs to be charged up for EVERYONE after several turns, and the Raid Pokemon can (and usually does) delay that. By the time the game lets you Terastalize, you'll usually be KO'd or close to it and the timer is close to expired.
2. The Pokemon has a Tera type, but they also have moves from their original type which limits your options (for example, a natural Ground type with Tera Water would decimate your Electric types, so Electric would be unideal and you're limited more than you would be against a natural Water type). This issue gets compounded with the Tera Pokemon knowing more than 4 moves and having perfect or near perfect coverage.
3. The Tera Raids tank FAR more than the Max Raid Pokemon. Outside of their shielding, one SE hit from my Pokemon would take about half of their health. Whereas the same attack against Tera Raid Pokemon would do small slivers, even against 5 Stars (roughly about 1/16 against 5 Stars and less than 1% against 7 Stars).
4. Dynamax gives you a limit of 10 turns before you're kicked out of the battle (which, with the other factors I rarely even came close to unless I had poor partners). IIRC, the timer doesn't give you enough time for the equivalent of 10 turns (maybe about 5-8).

So ultimately I didn't need to consider any of those things for Max Raid battles because I could whittle them down FAR faster with the way it works.

i 'unno. they kind of.... do. the difficulty is gradual as you progress through the game - very early game you can do a max of 3-star raids until you start collecting badges in which the difficulty increases - until the time you have.. the 8th badge (or around there?) in which 5 star raids are unlocked. 5 star raids should, in theory, be the moment in which the game teaches you that yeah, just brute forcing through this like you have been through earlier raids isn't going to work all the time, and 5 star raid 'mons are the threshold in which ideally the player should start recognizing that they should probably start thinking of more effective strategies. mastering 5 star raids makes 6 star raids a lot easier as it's essentially putting to practice what you've learned in 5 star raids except in 6 star raids the pokemon have a higher hp multiplier and they're higher level making them less squishy, so on top of them hitting harder than usual you have to start thinking of ways to do more damage.

once you master 6 star raids, 7 star raids are the next step as the games up the ante by not only having you face against a pokemon of equal level, but a pokemon of equal level with monstrous HP and the advantage of starting off with one or two moves at the beginning of battle. the objective is to see what those moves are and how to best counter them. it's the same principle learned and applied during 5/6 star raids except a higher level.

The problem is that the game indicates that you need to be doing something different, but not what or how. It doesn't really communicate why you're not doing enough damage and what you can do to improve your damage output. You can't really switch things up if they can't communicate what needs to be switched. And in practice, I've been perfectly able to skate by on 5 and 6 Star Raids with the right partners just like the Max Raid battles. But at 7 Star, I hit a wall.

bottle caps, sure, i don't really have an issue with making them more accessible, but you yourself said 7 star raids are the main problem, not 5/6 star raids, and iirc bottle caps drop pretty commonly (from my experience?) in 5/6 star raids and aren't that tedious to grind out, depending on how many pokemon you're planning on maxing out and what stats and all that.

I haven't been getting a whole lot of them from 5/6 Star Raids. They seem a bit rare in 5 Star and 6 Star only seems to be about one per day.

the big flaw in this argument that i think a lot of "casual" players overlook as well is that tera raids are optional. the game by no means shoves them in your face or obligates you to do them. you are no more obligated to do harder content in this game than you are to do max raids, dynamax adventures, battle tree, battle maison or really any other battle facility in past generations that progressively get more difficult the further you go. tera raids are in the same boat. you can go the entire playthrough and even do the academy ace tournament with your favourite pokemon and the game will not penalise you for it.

Technically, but when you're attaching Pokemon distributions to them, they're trying to encourage a lot of players to engage with them. Locking them behind a skill wall like that... kind of conflicts with that.

there are things that i agree with that needs to be fixed in tera raids. most notably the all too frustrating issue of getting stuck in menu screens and not to mention lag issues. but i'm sorry, i do not agree with trivialising optional post-game content. i don't see anything wrong with the player actually being challenged and being put to a disadvantage so that they form a strategy and overcome that disadvantage. that's what makes the challenge fun, that's what makes tera raids themselves fun. removing the difficulty aspect of tera raids to the point of throwing whatever pokemon you'd like at it, to me, is boring. it doesn't feel like a challenge nor is it engaging.

Challenge can be good, but they can make them more challenging without making them so challenging that you can only use a handful of top tier Pokemon. The 7 Stars don't really get this right.

the "spirit" of the franchise isn't just using the pokemon you love. it's that - when presented with a difficult challenge that you can't overcome by conventional means, you have to strategise accordingly - how to go about doing that in a way that ensures victory is up to the player to figure out. i think it's a bit of a negative viewpoint to see the utilization of strategy in and of itself as a bad thing, because it's absolutely not. what if my favourite pokemon can't win? then i have to use pokemon that i'm not accustomed to using, that i haven't considered using before, and maybe i'll like that pokemon! that, too, is within the spirit of the franchise. getting to know other pokemon and realizing their potential and what they're capable of and harboring that strength is absolutely within the spirit of the franchise.

Nah, the games and the media tend to frown on trainers dumping their favorites for more competitively viable ones. Nothing wrong with encouraging strategy, but if they really want to encourage you to use your favorites the way they do in the story, they really need different ways to accomplish this than "just make them so strong that only the Pokemon with the best BST spreads can win".

 

[colours]

There's a LOT more issues than that that make the Tera Raids a bit tougher.

1. You could Dynamax your Pokemon first turn if you're the host and overwhelm them early as I mentioned above, and usually I would get through at least the first set of shields as long as you had competent partners. Compare that with Tera Raids where Terastal needs to be charged up for EVERYONE after several turns, and the Raid Pokemon can (and usually does) delay that. By the time the game lets you Terastalize, you'll usually be KO'd or close to it and the timer is close to expired.

not always, it depends on the pokemon in particular, and if you KO a 'mon before you terastalize then... that fight wasn't likely hard to begin with for you since you got it down to the point where even shields became trivial. for 7-star raids, more often than not, unless you have excellent coordination with other players in reducing the 7-star pokemon's stats down to its lowest point + buffing your own stats/a team member's stats, you likely aren't going to be going through shields and as such are going to terastalize, especially if you plan on doing 7-star raids solo.

if you're soloing 7-star raids, then word of advice is to equip the shell bell item as it is a godsend and pretty much a must-have for solo players. because of how shell bell works (recovering HP based on the amount of damage you do) with the mechanics of tera raids, you're basically recovering a monstrous amount of HP if you buff yourself and hit the raid 'mon for even moderate damage. survivability in solos is the strategy, not just damage, and shell bell helps with that immensely, especially since AI players fainting doesn't really affect the clock in any way so you have plenty of wiggle room.

2. The Pokemon has a Tera type, but they also have moves from their original type which limits your options (for example, a natural Ground type with Tera Water would decimate your Electric types, so Electric would be unideal and you're limited more than you would be against a natural Water type). This issue gets compounded with the Tera Pokemon knowing more than 4 moves and having perfect or near perfect coverage.

i mean, yeah, it'd be unwise to bring an electric-type to a tera-water raid with a ground-type pokemon, that's.... how it works. in that scenario, you'd just go "oh well, that's not a problem, i'd just use a grass-type".

"but my opponent is a clodsire, checkmate colours, it's also poison type"

then you'd be like "okay, that's not a problem, i'd use just use (insert pokemon with electric/grass-type coverage)". i suppose to you this may come across as a problem, but that's... strategising. not every pokemon is going to work well in every scenario, nor should they. tera 'mons know more than four moves sure but they're still limited by their learnset, you can make a reasonable assumption that, for example, in the tera-water clodsire example provided, that clodsire isn't going to do much of anything outside of poison/ground STAB and anything outside of that likely isn't going to hit that hard anyway, so in reality it's just dealing with the STAB moves more than anything else.

3. The Tera Raids tank FAR more than the Max Raid Pokemon. Outside of their shielding, one SE hit from my Pokemon would take about half of their health. Whereas the same attack against Tera Raid Pokemon would do small slivers, even against 5 Stars (roughly about 1/16 against 5 Stars and less than 1% against 7 Stars).

if you aren't buffing yourself against 5-stars+ when you probably should (i mean, that's what swords dance/nasty plot/belly drum are for) then idk what to tell you. sometimes you have to pair SE hits with lowering the opponent's stats. yes, they can reset it, that isn't the point, because there's only so many times in a battle they're going to cleanse their debuffs and that's the window you take advantage of. some other useful moves:

• acid spray for lowering the opponent's defense by two stages. this actually counts as an attack so it goes through shields
• screech for essentially doing the same thing but physical defense. status, not an attack, so it doesn't go through shields
• metal sound for lowering sp.def by two stages, status, doesn't go through shields.

usually the go-to strategy for the latter two if you're playing with other players is to have one or two players use screech or metal sound (whichever is more applicable) and have one player buff with nasty plot or swords dance to near max, and then one-shot.

for 7-star raids, it really depends on when shields are up, which is why i vastly prefer utilizing acid spray when possible because it both a) lowers stats and b) counts for terastalizing turns, so at the end of it i can terastalize and have the advantage of attacking when my opponent's stats are at their lowest.

4. Dynamax gives you a limit of 10 turns before you're kicked out of the battle (which, with the other factors I rarely even came close to unless I had poor partners). IIRC, the timer doesn't give you enough time for the equivalent of 10 turns (maybe about 5-8).

i'll agree that the timer is an issue sometimes - i think this issue is more pronounced by lag and getting stuck on menus and the game freezing up for a moment in which the timer still runs, which i think is rather unfair. in solo situations this isn't really much of an issue because AI pokemon fainting doesn't count towards the timer, but i agree it's an issue with other players.

So ultimately I didn't need to consider any of those things for Max Raid battles because I could whittle them down FAR faster with the way it works.

the way tera raids also work is that you can damage the pokemon more if you terastalize. it's the same principle, different battle gimmick. sure, you aren't doing it turn one and instantly obliterating your target (since ideally you'd want to terastalize wisely and pick an opportune moment for it and not do it haphazardly). max raids have inflated HP and also shields that are immune to damage unless you dynamax. the biggest difference between this and dynamaxing is that with tera raids you aren't immediately terastalizing and nuking your opponent.

i suppose your broader concern is being unable to immediately tera and using up three attacks to get to that point as opposed to immediately doing so with dynamax. personally, i don't really mind that because as i've said, i've used the three turns to either lower my target's stats with an attack, or to come up with another strategy entirely and put terastalizing in the backburner until the appropriate time (buffing myself + attacking first to get their HP as low as possible before terastalizing)

The problem is that the game indicates that you need to be doing something different, but not what or how. It doesn't really communicate why you're not doing enough damage and what you can do to improve your damage output. You can't really switch things up if they can't communicate what needs to be switched. And in practice, I've been perfectly able to skate by on 5 and 6 Star Raids with the right partners just like the Max Raid battles. But at 7 Star, I hit a wall.

because there's LOTS of reasons to "what" or "how".

• did you choose the right ability/have the right nature?
• are you a high enough level to where you should be (you'd be surprised how many people are lower level trying to challenge 6 star raids and wonder why they aren't doing as well as people that have lv 100 'mons) against your opponent?
• did you EV train/use bottle caps?
• is the pokemon you've chosen even the right matchup for the fight?
• could you perhaps use different moves, or use those moves in different turns?
• are you using moves like swords dance/nasty plot/belly drum, or are you lowering your opponent's stats?

there's really just so many variables that go into "why am i not doing enough damage in this raid" that's also player dependent. for the record, again, i absolutely agree that the game should do a better job, or at the very least, start teaching more casual players about EVs/IVs/Natures/Abilities, and how that matters in more difficult battles, but anything aside from that is player error to figure out. trial and error may not be a fun way to figure out a solution, but the feeling of accomplishment, in my opinion, once you develop a strategy that works makes putting the puzzle pieces together worth it.

Technically, but when you're attaching Pokemon distributions to them, they're trying to encourage a lot of players to engage with them. Locking them behind a skill wall like that... kind of conflicts with that.

a lot of legendaries are locked behind a "skill wall" that is dynamax adventures in which you aren't even using your own pokemon and are put into unfavourable circumstances more often than not. if you want the rare pokemon that's given in tera raid distributions, you gotta do the work to defeat them so you can catch them. since starters are highly desirable pokemon of course they're going to be behind difficult content, that's kind of a given. it knocks multiple birds out with one stone in that it gives players a reason to engage with tera raids more, provides difficult content, and gives them their starter or rare pokemon as a reward for overcoming the challenge.

Challenge can be good, but they can make them more challenging without making them so challenging that you can only use a handful of top tier Pokemon. The 7 Stars don't really get this right.

debatable, but i think i've argued this point of "they shouldn't be trivialised to the point where you can just throw anything at them". i use non-meta pokemon a lot more than i use meta ones to deal with 7-stars, so as i said, you aren't forced to use umbreon/iron hands/azumarill/perrserker if you don't want to. just know what you're doing, come up with an appropriate strategy and you'll be fine.

Nah, the games and the media tend to frown on trainers dumping their favorites for more competitively viable ones. Nothing wrong with encouraging strategy, but if they really want to encourage you to use your favorites the way they do in the story, they really need different ways to accomplish this than "just make them so strong that only the Pokemon with the best BST spreads can win".

i'm confused. you say there's nothing wrong with encouraging strategy, but part of using strategy is alternating pokemon for the situation. i'm not sure why you feel using different pokemon is a bad thing, but it isn't

not every pokemon appropriate for tackling 7 stars is going to be some 600 BST behemoth, and in fact most aren't. if you're going solo, you're going to need more firepower. if you're playing with other players, you have the option to act as support. why is this being construed as a bad thing against 7 stars? your favourites aren't always going to be the appropriate pick and that's okay. as i mentioned, encouraging variety and different choices is perfectly fine to do.

 

[Bolt Strike]

not always, it depends on the pokemon in particular, and if you KO a 'mon before you terastalize then... that fight wasn't likely hard to begin with for you since you got it down to the point where even shields became trivial. for 7-star raids, more often than not, unless you have excellent coordination with other players in reducing the 7-star pokemon's stats down to its lowest point + buffing your own stats/a team member's stats, you likely aren't going to be going through shields and as such are going to terastalize, especially if you plan on doing 7-star raids solo.

if you're soloing 7-star raids, then word of advice is to equip the shell bell item as it is a godsend and pretty much a must-have for solo players. because of how shell bell works (recovering HP based on the amount of damage you do) with the mechanics of tera raids, you're basically recovering a monstrous amount of HP if you buff yourself and hit the raid 'mon for even moderate damage. survivability in solos is the strategy, not just damage, and shell bell helps with that immensely, especially since AI players fainting doesn't really affect the clock in any way so you have plenty of wiggle room.

Wut? No, I'm saying I get KO'd, not the Raid Pokemon. If I activate it as soon as I'm able, it usually doesn't last long because the Raid Pokemon KO's me 1 or 2 turns after rendering it fairly useless. Or if I intentionally delay Terastalizing until it KO's me and I respawn, the timer is so far down that I still don't get much use out of Terastalizing before time is expired. The Raid Pokemon is just too strong and attacks too frequently to get much out of Terastalizing.

i mean, yeah, it'd be unwise to bring an electric-type to a tera-water raid with a ground-type pokemon, that's.... how it works. in that scenario, you'd just go "oh well, that's not a problem, i'd just use a grass-type".

"but my opponent is a clodsire, checkmate colours, it's also poison type"

then you'd be like "okay, that's not a problem, i'd use just use (insert pokemon with electric/grass-type coverage)". i suppose to you this may come across as a problem, but that's... strategising. not every pokemon is going to work well in every scenario, nor should they. tera 'mons know more than four moves sure but they're still limited by their learnset, you can make a reasonable assumption that, for example, in the tera-water clodsire example provided, that clodsire isn't going to do much of anything outside of poison/ground STAB and anything outside of that likely isn't going to hit that hard anyway, so in reality it's just dealing with the STAB moves more than anything else.

Doesn't seem to matter that the move isn't STAB, if it's SE it tends to hurt badly (like, at least 1/2 my HP). So just focusing on its original typing's STAB doesn't really help much. These 7 Stars have something for just about everything. Also the fact that you can't seem to name a Pokemon in your hypothetical example with Clodsire just shows how unnecessarily restrictive this is.

if you aren't buffing yourself against 5-stars+ when you probably should (i mean, that's what swords dance/nasty plot/belly drum are for) then idk what to tell you. sometimes you have to pair SE hits with lowering the opponent's stats. yes, they can reset it, that isn't the point, because there's only so many times in a battle they're going to cleanse their debuffs and that's the window you take advantage of. some other useful moves:

• acid spray for lowering the opponent's defense by two stages. this actually counts as an attack so it goes through shields
• screech for essentially doing the same thing but physical defense. status, not an attack, so it doesn't go through shields
• metal sound for lowering sp.def by two stages, status, doesn't go through shields.

usually the go-to strategy for the latter two if you're playing with other players is to have one or two players use screech or metal sound (whichever is more applicable) and have one player buff with nasty plot or swords dance to near max, and then one-shot.

for 7-star raids, it really depends on when shields are up, which is why i vastly prefer utilizing acid spray when possible because it both a) lowers stats and b) counts for terastalizing turns, so at the end of it i can terastalize and have the advantage of attacking when my opponent's stats are at their lowest.

I rarely use stat buffs/debuffs in my storyline teams, it's never really needed and my Pokemon tend not to survive long enough to take advantage. I do occasionally use moves that both debuff and damage Pokemon like Acid Spray and Mud Slap, but 99% of the time in any main game battle (even the optional/post game ones) a strong SE attack will do the job. There isn't an indication that you "probably should" use buffs/debuffs because the game never really does a good job teaching you that they make the difference in a battle (except for hax like Accuracy/Evasion, but the competitive environment frowns upon those anyway). It mainly just teaches you about type matchups and STAB. Why do you think going for the SE hit is the most common strategy among casual players? That's the strategy the game is encouraging.

the way tera raids also work is that you can damage the pokemon more if you terastalize. it's the same principle, different battle gimmick. sure, you aren't doing it turn one and instantly obliterating your target (since ideally you'd want to terastalize wisely and pick an opportune moment for it and not do it haphazardly). max raids have inflated HP and also shields that are immune to damage unless you dynamax. the biggest difference between this and dynamaxing is that with tera raids you aren't immediately terastalizing and nuking your opponent.

You damage the Pokemon more, sure, but it's not enough to compensate for the extra bulk that the Raid Pokemon have. Heck, even having 4 Terastal Pokemon doesn't seem to compensate for that. Again, look at the estimates I was pointing to. If you're only doing about 1% damage by yourself, Terastal seems to double it and having 4 Terastals seems to quadruple it. That means you're still only taking out less than 1/10 of its HP per "turn". That is not NEARLY enough.

i suppose your broader concern is being unable to immediately tera and using up three attacks to get to that point as opposed to immediately doing so with dynamax. personally, i don't really mind that because as i've said, i've used the three turns to either lower my target's stats with an attack, or to come up with another strategy entirely and put terastalizing in the backburner until the appropriate time (buffing myself + attacking first to get their HP as low as possible before terastalizing)

No, my broader concern is that Tera Pokemon seem to have MUCH more bulk (presumably HP, but it could be defenses as well) than the Max Pokemon because even when things like the battle gimmick and shield aren't in effect I'm doing 4-8 times as much damage against a Max Pokemon than a Tera Pokemon.

because there's LOTS of reasons to "what" or "how".

• did you choose the right ability/have the right nature?
• are you a high enough level to where you should be (you'd be surprised how many people are lower level trying to challenge 6 star raids and wonder why they aren't doing as well as people that have lv 100 'mons) against your opponent?
• did you EV train/use bottle caps?
• is the pokemon you've chosen even the right matchup for the fight?
• could you perhaps use different moves, or use those moves in different turns?
• are you using moves like swords dance/nasty plot/belly drum, or are you lowering your opponent's stats?

there's really just so many variables that go into "why am i not doing enough damage in this raid" that's also player dependent. for the record, again, i absolutely agree that the game should do a better job, or at the very least, start teaching more casual players about EVs/IVs/Natures/Abilities, and how that matters in more difficult battles, but anything aside from that is player error to figure out. trial and error may not be a fun way to figure out a solution, but the feeling of accomplishment, in my opinion, once you develop a strategy that works makes putting the puzzle pieces together worth it.

Again, maybe if they had an Earl's Pokemon Academy-esque facility to teach this AND provide scripted battles that demonstrate how these concepts actually matter, and if the resources to maximize these things were more readily available, then players would be more inclined to actually improve those things. As is, casual players have no reason to bother with them and might not even know the exist (especially in the case of EVs and IVs, why are they still a hidden mechanic again?) and just use the same basic "go for the SE hit strategy".

a lot of legendaries are locked behind a "skill wall" that is dynamax adventures in which you aren't even using your own pokemon and are put into unfavourable circumstances more often than not. if you want the rare pokemon that's given in tera raid distributions, you gotta do the work to defeat them so you can catch them. since starters are highly desirable pokemon of course they're going to be behind difficult content, that's kind of a given. it knocks multiple birds out with one stone in that it gives players a reason to engage with tera raids more, provides difficult content, and gives them their starter or rare pokemon as a reward for overcoming the challenge.

No, I never had that issue with the legendaries in Dynamax Adventures with the exception of Complete Zygarde (that thing is a monster). No Pokemon, rare or not, has ever been this difficult to obtain.

i'm confused. you say there's nothing wrong with encouraging strategy, but part of using strategy is alternating pokemon for the situation. i'm not sure why you feel using different pokemon is a bad thing, but it isn't


not every pokemon appropriate for tackling 7 stars is going to be some 600 BST behemoth, and in fact most aren't. if you're going solo, you're going to need more firepower. if you're playing with other players, you have the option to act as support. why is this being construed as a bad thing against 7 stars? your favourites aren't always going to be the appropriate pick and that's okay. as i mentioned, encouraging variety and different choices is perfectly fine to do.

I'm saying that's a part of strategy they shouldn't be encouraging. This is a game series that encourages you to seek out Pokemon you like and form a strong bond with them. Like, you literally have a quote from Karen about strong and weak Pokemon being selfish and winning with your favorites a sign of true skill, or a rival character in the anime (Paul from DP in case you don't know who I'm talking about) constantly dumping Pokemon he perceives as weak for stronger ones and he's considered to be cruel by the main cast, and then you have this sort of game design and it basically spits on that philosophy saying "Oh no, you made the wrong choice, this is the Pokemon you should be using". If they want me to use my favorites, they should be creating an environment where my favorites are actually usable.

 

[colours]

Wut? No, I'm saying I get KO'd, not the Raid Pokemon. If I activate it as soon as I'm able, it usually doesn't last long because the Raid Pokemon KO's me 1 or 2 turns after rendering it fairly useless. Or if I intentionally delay Terastalizing until it KO's me and I respawn, the timer is so far down that I still don't get much use out of Terastalizing before time is expired. The Raid Pokemon is just too strong and attacks too frequently to get much out of Terastalizing.

i'm going to be honest here... this seems like more of a you issue than an issue with the difficulty of the tera raids. i'll be clear on this and say that yeah, 7-stars are difficult because... that's by design, but people have and continued to clear them, even solo (i've cleared like, almost all of them solo, personally). they're perfectly doable, and if you keep losing to them and not making much progress, then you perhaps need to re-assess your methods rather than a difficulty adjustment on part of the raid itself.

Doesn't seem to matter that the move isn't STAB, if it's SE it tends to hurt badly (like, at least 1/2 my HP). So just focusing on its original typing's STAB doesn't really help much. These 7 Stars have something for just about everything. Also the fact that you can't seem to name a Pokemon in your hypothetical example with Clodsire just shows how unnecessarily restrictive this is.

i didn't name a pokemon because you didn't ask or wanted me to until just now, but sure:

- gastro acid/acid spray elektross is my top pick. it's electric, yes, but it has levitate, and it can nullify clodsire's unaware ability with gastro acid, and wear it down with continuous acid spray until it's time to terastalize. the more you hurt it, the more you heal with shell bell, so the strategy here would be to get its sp.def as low as possible and then terastalize + thunderbolt and yes, it does actual damage.

- arboliva is a decent example, despite being weak to clodsire's poison typing, it can set up reflect and it can weaken its ground-type even further with grassy terrain, assuming you're doing this with allies. grassy terrain also helps boost the power of your grass moves, meaning giga drain hits harder which heals more, especially if you're carrying a shell bell if solo.

- i also like goodra for this battle. it isn't that physically bulky so it's not perfectly optimal by any means, but it's not like clodsire hits like a train anyway so it'll likely be fine. same acid spray strategy as before with elektross, and terastalize and dragon pulse spam. yes, it isn't super-effective, but you're still doing more damage because of triple STAB (goodra's original typing + dragon pulse STAB + tera dragon STAB). for a bulky option this isn't a bad pick where survivability is paramount in raids.

- corviknight would work, but only as a support 'mon with other players and i personally wouldn't recommend it solo. reflect and screech make clodsire basically irrelevant for your teammates to make short work of it.

- flapple is actually kind of a funny use case of this if only because grav apple would do increasingly more damage due to the defense drops and paired with shell bell + grass tera you're basically set for the fight

"ha, that only proves my example, for that is only five pokemon ever that can stand a chance!"

i mean... i dunno what pokemon you're expecting to throw out here and actually do well, but you wanted examples, so there you go.

I rarely use stat buffs/debuffs in my storyline teams, it's never really needed and my Pokemon tend not to survive long enough to take advantage. I do occasionally use moves that both debuff and damage Pokemon like Acid Spray and Mud Slap, but 99% of the time in any main game battle (even the optional/post game ones) a strong SE attack will do the job. There isn't an indication that you "probably should" use buffs/debuffs because the game never really does a good job teaching you that they make the difference in a battle (except for hax like Accuracy/Evasion, but the competitive environment frowns upon those anyway). It mainly just teaches you about type matchups and STAB. Why do you think going for the SE hit is the most common strategy among casual players? That's the strategy the game is encouraging.

i mean this with all due respect, but this does seem like more of a you problem.

i get what you're saying, by the way. you want the game to basically walk you through a "Advanced Battle Strategies 101" sort of thing. i'm not opposed at all to that (on the contrary, i think it's fair. the more people know about stat buffs and debuffs and how they work in tandem with super effective moves, the better). unfortunately, in lieu of that, you kind of have to figure out yourself that "hey, this move lowers (special) defense, it'll probably either help my physical attacker or my special attacker deal more damage depending on the move". it's the kind of thing you just... connect the dots for and make the realisation on your own. should there be a better way to learn this? yeah, sure. again, i'm all for that. but you gotta put the work to learn the intricacies of battle on your own, too. i don't think the games are ever really going to have a EV/IV tutorial, for instance, nor walk you through how abilities can help turn the tide of battle. it's the sort of thing that you realise on your own through experience the more you go through harder content in where that actually matters.

You damage the Pokemon more, sure, but it's not enough to compensate for the extra bulk that the Raid Pokemon have. Heck, even having 4 Terastal Pokemon doesn't seem to compensate for that. Again, look at the estimates I was pointing to. If you're only doing about 1% damage by yourself, Terastal seems to double it and having 4 Terastals seems to quadruple it. That means you're still only taking out less than 1/10 of its HP per "turn". That is not NEARLY enough.

this is why you buff yourself + use debuff moves as i pointed out earlier. when SE moves on their own aren't enough, then you multiply the damage you do even further by going for a swords dance/nasty plot/screech/acid spray/metal sound (or really any other moves that have a similar effect). i cannot stress enough that these moves are absolutely crucial to winning the more difficult raids out there. people winning 7-star raids isn't a matter of wizardry on their part, i'm not sure why you're making it sound like it's an absolute impossibility to win them. plenty of people have, they do so regularly. i make it a thing to attempt to solo 7 stars since i'd prefer to do them on my own rather than online and have had success in doing so.

if you're expecting to walk into a 7-star raid, treat it as the same difficulty as a story mode battle and click (insert super effective move) until it's defeated with no extra planning on your part then... you're just mistaken. that's not the fault of the raid, that's on you.

No, my broader concern is that Tera Pokemon seem to have MUCH more bulk (presumably HP, but it could be defenses as well) than the Max Pokemon because even when things like the battle gimmick and shield aren't in effect I'm doing 4-8 times as much damage against a Max Pokemon than a Tera Pokemon.

they just have extra HP multipliers. they do not have any extra defenses. you can knock out a 6 or 7 star blissey with a physical move almost just as easily as you would as if it weren't in a raid at all. it just looks like it has "more" defenses because of its extra HP, but the actual stats aren't touched at all.

as far as max pokemon are concerned, dynamax just doubles your HP values and that's it. to my knowledge, there's no further multiplier to it unlike with tera raids which progressively have higher HP the more difficult the raid, but that's essentially the biggest difference and why it may seem like you're doing "more" damage.

Again, maybe if they had an Earl's Pokemon Academy-esque facility to teach this AND provide scripted battles that demonstrate how these concepts actually matter, and if the resources to maximize these things were more readily available, then players would be more inclined to actually improve those things. As is, casual players have no reason to bother with them and might not even know the exist (especially in the case of EVs and IVs, why are they still a hidden mechanic again?) and just use the same basic "go for the SE hit strategy".

tackled this point earlier, but tl;dr: sure. i'm all for it but i don't expect it. sv's academy teaches you about the very very basics of battling and goes no further than the surface which tells me that they expect the player to figure out the rest as they go, for better or worse. considering that such a learning facility hasn't existed since gen 2, i don't have my hopes up if at all for any sort of advanced battle tutorial happening in a main series game anytime soon. it's just one of those things you'd have to self-teach or learn by experience.

No, I never had that issue with the legendaries in Dynamax Adventures with the exception of Complete Zygarde (that thing is a monster). No Pokemon, rare or not, has ever been this difficult to obtain.

then i guess we're in opposite roles then since i've been in multiple difficult predicaments regarding legendaries in dynamax adventures and i dont take issue with their difficulty. maybe i don't have the right pokemon, maybe i use the wrong moves at the wrong times, maybe my AI is too dumb and continuously makes the wrong moves or i'm flat out unlucky, but i've had lots of tough runs in dynamax adventures. zapdos as an example is a massive pain in the ass, and i don't enjoy doing that fight repeatedly since im shiny hunting it. tapu lele is another example of a 'mon thats an absolute monster once it gets to low enough HP - psychic terrain just makes its already destructive attacks hurt that much harder. couple that with unlucky picks and one or more of your teammates are sure to get one shot provided they dont resist.

what makes dynamax adventures doable is the fact that yeah, once you dynamax you more or less have the upper hand depending on when you do it (although it's not guaranteed), whereas in tera raids (especially in 7 star raids) you just have to think a bit more.

I'm saying that's a part of strategy they shouldn't be encouraging. This is a game series that encourages you to seek out Pokemon you like and form a strong bond with them. Like, you literally have a quote from Karen about strong and weak Pokemon being selfish and winning with your favorites a sign of true skill, or a rival character in the anime (Paul from DP in case you don't know who I'm talking about) constantly dumping Pokemon he perceives as weak for stronger ones and he's considered to be cruel by the main cast, and then you have this sort of game design and it basically spits on that philosophy saying "Oh no, you made the wrong choice, this is the Pokemon you should be using". If they want me to use my favorites, they should be creating an environment where my favorites are actually usable.

okay, then use your favourites. the game isn't going to actually prevent you from doing so. you're free to use whatever pokemon you'd like in raids and the game won't stop you. you just keep hitting that "wall" because using a certain favourite puts you at a disadvantage for perhaps multiple reasons, some very well on your part but you continue to blame the game because you believe the power of love and friendship should overcome mechanical challenges when all that needs to be done is extra planning and strategy on your part, which basically means "another pokemon might do the trick". and yes, that in itself is completely fair strategy. you aren't dumping the pokemon, you aren't saying "i'm never going to use you again", you're simply saying "i'm using something else that can perhaps win this fight more easily". dunno why you're treating exchanging pokemon as if they're going to be released, never to be seen again.

i think we can agree to disagree on this point here, bolt. we're not going to agree or even see each other's point here since attachment to one's own pokemon is a philosophy i don't really have any business arguing against. i personally do have attachment to my own team, but i don't have issues swapping them out with others that do well. differences in perspective and principals and all that, so i think to avoid talking in circles we can perhaps end it here.

 

[Nicolas721]

The issue on dificulty is not exclusive to Bolt Strike, I have it as well and a couple others if you look at the earlier pages.

Difficulty is fine and I know that there's people that appreciate it, but to me the issues with it are mostly related to time.

1. Yes, you had to do shiny raids like 5-10 times too to get the shiny, but at least during that time you could also get the rewards, you could still capture the Pokemon and you still lose less. This time, every raid you lose is frustrating and doesn't give you anything.

2. They are very long. On average, 20 seconds of connecting + 2 minutes of accepting participants + 5 minutes of the raid are too much for something that can go really bad, that makes it's frustrating if you spend time and got nothing in return.

3. They last for just a weekend. Yeah, they are announced in advance, but not their moves, so your plan might be all for nothing if they have an unexpected move. And while there's a repeat, the second weekend usually has less interest from the public and thus you're bound to end up with worse teams.

4. Training a suitable Pokemon takes time too and there's many items you have to look up for yourself and can't rely on what you stoked on the main game, like the bottle caps.

It's okay for a game to have user-unfriendly features, Pokemon has a ton (evolution methods...), but if they are "For a limited time only!" and target collectors too with elusive Pokemon, then they should definitely be more accesible.

 

[colours]

i'm not saying that they aren't difficult because of course they are. bolt strike's issue essentially comes down to "i can't use my favourites so 7 stars suck because of that", which is less of a fault of the raid than it is an individual issue.

2. They are very long. On average, 20 seconds of connecting + 2 minutes of accepting participants + 5 minutes of the raid are too much for something that can go really bad, that makes it's frustrating if you spend time and got nothing in return.

you can go the solo route if you don't have as much success going at it with other people to shave time.

3. They last for just a weekend. Yeah, they are announced in advance, but not their moves, so your plan might be all for nothing if they have an unexpected move. And while there's a repeat, the second weekend usually has less interest from the public and thus you're bound to end up with worse teams.

personally i don't do a whole lot of speculation on this (as fun as it is!) until i know for sure what moves the pokemon have. maybe this is just me, but it takes about a minute or so to train up a pokemon provided you have the money and have been doing raids regularly, so it's not like if one pokemon doesn't work out, you're screwed of a whole weekend. plenty of plans don't work out at first, that's why you go back to the drawing board to devise a new plan until one does. that's part of strategising.

if you're someone who doesn't have time on weekends or has very limited means to do these things then i can see how the issue of time can be rather constricting, but the point of raising up a raid ready pokemon still apply and take minimal amount of time. in fact, the game actually spoils you with materials to raise one, given how rare candies and exp candies are thrown at you in raids and sellable materials so you can buy mints and even vitamins with. it cuts the amount of work you do significantly, so really the only remotely tedious part is grinding out those materials in the first place.

 

[Bolt Strike]

i mean this with all due respect, but this does seem like more of a you problem.

i get what you're saying, by the way. you want the game to basically walk you through a "Advanced Battle Strategies 101" sort of thing. i'm not opposed at all to that (on the contrary, i think it's fair. the more people know about stat buffs and debuffs and how they work in tandem with super effective moves, the better). unfortunately, in lieu of that, you kind of have to figure out yourself that "hey, this move lowers (special) defense, it'll probably either help my physical attacker or my special attacker deal more damage depending on the move". it's the kind of thing you just... connect the dots for and make the realisation on your own. should there be a better way to learn this? yeah, sure. again, i'm all for that. but you gotta put the work to learn the intricacies of battle on your own, too. i don't think the games are ever really going to have a EV/IV tutorial, for instance, nor walk you through how abilities can help turn the tide of battle. it's the sort of thing that you realise on your own through experience the more you go through harder content in where that actually matters.

Again, I typically don't use buffs and debuffs because I tend to get KO'd too quickly to make use of them. I don't really need the lessons personally because I understand the concepts, what I need is a sandbox to experiment with the various factors to see which ones maximize my damage. I suspect, based on what you're saying, that this might be more doable with optimized EVs, IVs, and natures, but I need a space to actually test that. Perhaps a Battle Institute type of place might also work for this.

they just have extra HP multipliers. they do not have any extra defenses. you can knock out a 6 or 7 star blissey with a physical move almost just as easily as you would as if it weren't in a raid at all. it just looks like it has "more" defenses because of its extra HP, but the actual stats aren't touched at all.

as far as max pokemon are concerned, dynamax just doubles your HP values and that's it. to my knowledge, there's no further multiplier to it unlike with tera raids which progressively have higher HP the more difficult the raid, but that's essentially the biggest difference and why it may seem like you're doing "more" damage.

I figured it was something like this. Just looked at the HP modifiers and... wow, these are utterly ridiculous. No wonder they're so difficult. Yeah, this is my main issue with Tera Raids. That is way, way, WAY too much HP to be reasonable. Rein that in next time, come up with something else to make them difficult instead of just "LOL 100000000000000 HP". That doesn't necessarily encourage smarter strategies as much as it encourages superior stats.

then i guess we're in opposite roles then since i've been in multiple difficult predicaments regarding legendaries in dynamax adventures and i dont take issue with their difficulty. maybe i don't have the right pokemon, maybe i use the wrong moves at the wrong times, maybe my AI is too dumb and continuously makes the wrong moves or i'm flat out unlucky, but i've had lots of tough runs in dynamax adventures. zapdos as an example is a massive pain in the ass, and i don't enjoy doing that fight repeatedly since im shiny hunting it. tapu lele is another example of a 'mon thats an absolute monster once it gets to low enough HP - psychic terrain just makes its already destructive attacks hurt that much harder. couple that with unlucky picks and one or more of your teammates are sure to get one shot provided they dont resist.


what makes dynamax adventures doable is the fact that yeah, once you dynamax you more or less have the upper hand depending on when you do it (although it's not guaranteed), whereas in tera raids (especially in 7 star raids) you just have to think a bit more.

I'm not doing them solo, that's probably why. You learn pretty quickly that most of the NPC partners are garbage in Max Raid battles. None of them except Complete Zygarde are that difficult with human partners. None of SwSh's Max Raids (again, with the aforementioned exception of Complete Zygarde) ever reach the difficulty of 7 Stars if you have partners really.

personally i don't do a whole lot of speculation on this (as fun as it is!) until i know for sure what moves the pokemon have. maybe this is just me, but it takes about a minute or so to train up a pokemon provided you have the money and have been doing raids regularly, so it's not like if one pokemon doesn't work out, you're screwed of a whole weekend. plenty of plans don't work out at first, that's why you go back to the drawing board to devise a new plan until one does. that's part of strategising.

if you're someone who doesn't have time on weekends or has very limited means to do these things then i can see how the issue of time can be rather constricting, but the point of raising up a raid ready pokemon still apply and take minimal amount of time. in fact, the game actually spoils you with materials to raise one, given how rare candies and exp candies are thrown at you in raids and sellable materials so you can buy mints and even vitamins with. it cuts the amount of work you do significantly, so really the only remotely tedious part is grinding out those materials in the first place.

That's just it though, that's a ton of grinding that few have the time or patience for. Just 1 Pokemon takes about 3 days worth of grinding Raids to max out, and you're saying players should experiment with potentially dozens to try and find the right combination for EACH specific battle? Is it reasonable to expect players to do that? Is that kind of difficulty really encouraging players to strategize? This is the main reason why I want to stick with my favorites. Not because I'm opposed to branching out and trying new Pokemon, there's a lot of Pokemon I'd love to experiment with. It's because grinding takes so long that raising little more than 1 main party is basically a non-starter, I'd get bored and want to move on to another game long before I'm even close to done.

 

[Bolt Strike]

Wait, so the shiny odds for Gimmighoul are the same 1/4096 as normal gameplay, not 2% like SwSh's raids? That is... really scummy and trollish. SwSh's odds were just barely passable, I had some raids when I literally spent all 3 days raiding and still didn't get the shiny, but this? Yeah no fam, not buying into this one. Wake me up when they have a shiny raid where you actually have a realistic chance of getting the shiny.

 

[colours]

so fairy-tera delphox finally gets announced for the next 7* raid!

haven't given a ton of thought about how to tackle this quite yet, though! will think of some strategies when i have the time~

 

[Viridian Beedrill]

...Ok, I just won the Mewtwo raid through the most BONKERS circumstances...

I'd saddled my Dark Tera-type Mew with Calm Mind, Aura Sphere, and Imprison, in addition to Crunch. I thought I could block Mewtwo from using Calm Mind and Aura Sphere with Imprison, then discovered too late that Imprison doesn't work in raid battles. Now VERY much regretting having dragged other people into my experiment, I resolved to support the others as best I could through Crunch chip damage and support cheers, while fully expecting to lose. Things went better than I expected, and we managed to knock out the Tera Shield. Mewtwo then used Rest...

...and nothing happened.

The text "Mewtwo used Rest" appeared on the screen, but Mewtwo never fell asleep, and his lifebar never filled up. I was sure it was some kind of lag. I'd run out of cheers, so I kept spamming Crunch, fully expecting the lifebar to fill up at any moment. It never did. I kept hitting, everyone else kept hitting, and we KO'd Mewtwo with mere moments left on the timer. "Oh, my gosh."

Right at that moment, my sister came downstairs and heard me. "Did you do it?!"

"Yeah, but it...oh, my gosh. I think it was a glitch." Rambling and trying to explain what had just happened, I clicked on a Premier Ball and poof, Mewtwo was mine.

I'm still in shock. I have no idea what happened. But I will cherish my Mewtwo of ridiculous good fortune forever.

 

[Greninjaman]

...Ok, I just won the Mewtwo raid through the most BONKERS circumstances...

I'd saddled my Dark Tera-type Mew with Calm Mind, Aura Sphere, and Imprison, in addition to Crunch. I thought I could block Mewtwo from using Calm Mind and Aura Sphere with Imprison, then discovered too late that Imprison doesn't work in raid battles. Now VERY much regretting having dragged other people into my experiment, I resolved to support the others as best I could through Crunch chip damage and support cheers, while fully expecting to lose. Things went better than I expected, and we managed to knock out the Tera Shield. Mewtwo then used Rest...

...and nothing happened.

The text "Mewtwo used Rest" appeared on the screen, but Mewtwo never fell asleep, and his lifebar never filled up. I was sure it was some kind of lag. I'd run out of cheers, so I kept spamming Crunch, fully expecting the lifebar to fill up at any moment. It never did. I kept hitting, everyone else kept hitting, and we KO'd Mewtwo with mere moments left on the timer. "Oh, my gosh."

Right at that moment, my sister came downstairs and heard me. "Did you do it?!"

"Yeah, but it...oh, my gosh. I think it was a glitch." Rambling and trying to explain what had just happened, I clicked on a Premier Ball and poof, Mewtwo was mine.

I'm still in shock. I have no idea what happened. But I will cherish my Mewtwo of ridiculous good fortune forever.

Maybe Rest does not work in Tera Raids?

 

[Viridian Beedrill]

Maybe Rest does not work in Tera Raids?

It worked for Mewtwo in other Tera Raids I tried. Mewtwo is even holding a Chesto Berry so it can use Rest once without the negative effect of falling asleep. Although, maybe me/another player/some combination of us might have somehow created a situation where Rest didn't work. It's hard to tell with that many moves flying around in a battle.

 

[JollyYoshi]

I was wondering why people weren’t joining my raid for a new Pokémon and realized I wasn’t playing online lol

 

[Claire386]

Mewtwo was pretty easy for me. I beat him with friends and people from other communities many times and usually we would have like a third or more of the bar left. The set we use is basically like this:

Mew @ Metronome
Ability: Synchronize
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature

• Struggle Bug
• Swords Dance
• Leech Life
• Life Dew / Mud Slap

General strategy is for every player to spam struggle bug + 1 uses light screen turn 1 and then have a few players set up SD + Leech Life.

Some people use support sets with defense instead of attack where they take away SD and Leech and basically use stuff like mud slap, light screen and misty terrain to prevent him from using rest! I've even beaten him with 3 players cause with proper movesets it's a super easy raid. c:

 

[JollyYoshi]

Had another interesting thing happen when Tera raiding. My team and I were going against a bug-type Ninetales so we chose all fire types. Seems fairly reasonable, right? However, this Ninetales had Flash Fire meaning none of the fire type attacks were useful. Luckily, my group did end up defeating the Ninetales

 

[Claire386]

Had another interesting thing happen when Tera raiding. My team and I were going against a bug-type Ninetales so we chose all fire types. Seems fairly reasonable, right? However, this Ninetales had Flash Fire meaning none of the fire type attacks were useful. Luckily, my group did end up defeating the Ninetales

Geez. I honestly love that. I'm really happy to see how creative and difficult many of the raids have been, especially the 6 and 7 star raids which have sorta kept me playing the game for a while after finishing it. c: