An entire youtube series worth of Pokemon dedicated to clowning on Serperior
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7-star Tera Grass Serperior raid event (Sept. 20-22, 27-29)
- Thread starter doipy hooves
- Start date
An entire youtube series worth of Pokemon dedicated to clowning on Serperior
I had used Trace Gardevoir with success in some earlier raids, and decided to give it a try here. Trace means you get an evasion boost from the opening Sweet Scent, which is funny, but probably not optimal since it means you have to Skill Swap an additional time to get rid of Contrary (first with a teammate, then the boss).
Even if you get an Intimidate partner, that's not the worst thing; max HP/Defense Gardevoir takes just under 50% from a +1 Iron Tail, and if you get low on health you can go for the sacrificial defense cheer to last forever after you respawn. Once Serperior has lost Contrary, the nice thing about Intimidate is you can then Skill Swap it back and forth to get some attack drops now that they'll stick, or even better build tera charge by attacking your teammate so they respawn and get another ability popup. Once you've built up tera charge, you can get rid of your weakness to Iron Tail and then you're pretty much immortal with all the stat drops.
Gardevoir @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Telepathy (or Trace for the evasion lulz)
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Skill Swap
- Draining Kiss
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
Even if you get an Intimidate partner, that's not the worst thing; max HP/Defense Gardevoir takes just under 50% from a +1 Iron Tail, and if you get low on health you can go for the sacrificial defense cheer to last forever after you respawn. Once Serperior has lost Contrary, the nice thing about Intimidate is you can then Skill Swap it back and forth to get some attack drops now that they'll stick, or even better build tera charge by attacking your teammate so they respawn and get another ability popup. Once you've built up tera charge, you can get rid of your weakness to Iron Tail and then you're pretty much immortal with all the stat drops.
Gardevoir @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Telepathy (or Trace for the evasion lulz)
Tera Type: Psychic
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Skill Swap
- Draining Kiss
- Calm Mind
- Stored Power
I used the Serperior to destroy the Serperior.
Serperior @ Ability Shield
Ability: Contrary
Tera Type: Fire / Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
- Gastro Acid
- Leaf Storm
- Tera Blast
- Sunny Day / Synthesis
I’m using two variants: Sunny Day for online play alongside the many Fire-type attackers, and Synthesis for solo. Tera Stellar can also work, too, with the benefit of boosting your attacking stats and a higher base power, but Tera Fire does slightly more damage and is more accessible.
Serperior @ Ability Shield
Ability: Contrary
Tera Type: Fire / Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
- Gastro Acid
- Leaf Storm
- Tera Blast
- Sunny Day / Synthesis
I’m using two variants: Sunny Day for online play alongside the many Fire-type attackers, and Synthesis for solo. Tera Stellar can also work, too, with the benefit of boosting your attacking stats and a higher base power, but Tera Fire does slightly more damage and is more accessible.
Won’t it Gastro Acid you to remove Contrary? Or is the idea that you only go to +2?I used the Serperior to destroy the Serperior.
Serperior @ Ability Shield
Ability: Contrary
Tera Type: Fire / Stellar
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Modest Nature
- Gastro Acid
- Leaf Storm
- Tera Blast
- Sunny Day / Synthesis
I’m using two variants: Sunny Day for online play alongside the many Fire-type attackers, and Synthesis for solo. Tera Stellar can also work, too, with the benefit of boosting your attacking stats and a higher base power, but Tera Fire does slightly more damage and is more accessible.
It's holding ability shield, so it ignores Gastro Acid
Got it!! Forgot
i like the seviper also being there
More support
Leftovers
Ability doesn't matter
Tera Steel
252 SpD / 214 HP / 44 Speed
Calm Nature
Lunge
Struggle Bug
Helping Hand
Gastro Acid
Leftovers
Ability doesn't matter
Tera Steel
252 SpD / 214 HP / 44 Speed
Calm Nature
Lunge
Struggle Bug
Helping Hand
Gastro Acid
Just wanted to point out I tried this just for fun and yeah, first try clear no problem, despite a team mate's Delphox constantly dying for some reason.
Serperior really has shit coverage. It was the one remaining starter I thought that could be a threat, but I should have seen the moveset.
I recommend Clear Amulet instead of Covert Cloak. It protects you from the stat drops of Iron Tail and Breaking Swipe, while also dodging the Sweet Scent at the beginning, leaving Leaf Storm and Iron Tail not 100% accurate vs you.
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Skill Swap -> 3x Mystical Fire before debuff -> Tera Fire before Tera drain -> 3x Nasty Plot -> Sunny Day -> Attack Cheer -> 3x Mystical Fire (break through paralysis on 3rd)
Have done this exact 12 turn solo win 3x in a row; easiest and most boring farm so far.
Nasty Plot after getting Contrary and still winning in 12 turns says a lot about poor Serperior, honestly.
Which seem to always happens after you Skill Swap the ability. Maybe it's just mine but whenever I Skill Swap with Delphox it always do that and I feel it's because I'm faster than Serp. When I use G-Slowking I have to skill swap Contrary away to someone else which at that point he Gastro Acid.
Used the Galarian Weezing build from this thread. First time victory and so easy once poisoned. Thanks for this build, absolutely smashed it!
I ran a full Support Blissey which cleared with a slightly unusual comp.
Blissey @ Light Clay
Skill Swap
Life Dew
Light Screen
Sunny Day
As it happened I became a heal bot as I was paired with a Galarian Slowking who also had Skill Swap (and decided to use it about 5 times) with a Cinderace and Goodra for backup. I mostly just kept Light Screen up and healing. I did die to wipe the stat change from Sweet Scent - Iron Tail did actually hurt a fair bit and I couldn't out heal with Life Dew. Was easier to die and have it go back to 75% acc and I got missed a whole bunch of times. Cinderace was Swords Dance/Pyro Ball and the Goodra mostly spammed Dragon Moves (Wasn't really looking at it as a huge damage dealer).
Blissey @ Light Clay
Skill Swap
Life Dew
Light Screen
Sunny Day
As it happened I became a heal bot as I was paired with a Galarian Slowking who also had Skill Swap (and decided to use it about 5 times) with a Cinderace and Goodra for backup. I mostly just kept Light Screen up and healing. I did die to wipe the stat change from Sweet Scent - Iron Tail did actually hurt a fair bit and I couldn't out heal with Life Dew. Was easier to die and have it go back to 75% acc and I got missed a whole bunch of times. Cinderace was Swords Dance/Pyro Ball and the Goodra mostly spammed Dragon Moves (Wasn't really looking at it as a huge damage dealer).
I've settled on Tera Poison Venusaur as my go-to for randoms online. I'm not perfectly optimized with max HP investment and the rest split between special attack and special defense. Serperior just spams Iron Tail against it, so some physical defense would be better, but that being said it's got enough bulk to not be a huge issue.
Clear Amulet to block Sweet Scent and defense drops from Iron Tail. I tried Shell Bell but defense drops were an issue.
Worry Seed
Acid Spray
Sludge Bomb
Synthesis
Pretty simple play, Worry Seed turn 1. Acid Spray to build Tera. After clear just Acid Spray to -6 then Sludge Bomb away. Usually have to use Synthesis a couple times but it clears pretty fast so time hasn't been an issue.
My clear rate is 100% even with some questionable teammates.
Clear Amulet to block Sweet Scent and defense drops from Iron Tail. I tried Shell Bell but defense drops were an issue.
Worry Seed
Acid Spray
Sludge Bomb
Synthesis
Pretty simple play, Worry Seed turn 1. Acid Spray to build Tera. After clear just Acid Spray to -6 then Sludge Bomb away. Usually have to use Synthesis a couple times but it clears pretty fast so time hasn't been an issue.
My clear rate is 100% even with some questionable teammates.
Serperior's raid stats from https://stevecooktu.github.io/sv_raid_lookup/. Mostly standard but it has a large 60% shield.
I initially tested the consistency of a T1 Gastro Acid with Azurill, which was reasonably happening but it didn't take Iron Tails very well which led Serperior to go for kills instead of wasting turns most of the time. Leading with an Intimidator would usually lead to an even sooner death without making up the attack drops fast enough, so I switched to Marill instead for the more favourable defensive typing.
For lack of a built Sap Sipper set, I decided to actually try sticking with Huge Power and seeing if Serperior would still take the Gastro Acid bait into Ability Shield when it didn't see a kill, and it surprisingly worked out pretty smoothly with Serperior favouring Iron Tail and a lot of turns still wasted on Gastro Acid. My Marill still has leftover max Defense EVs, so I opt to run Amnesia to ward against the biggest potential hit of a neutral Leaf Storm which did not end up happening.
Marill starts out the battle with an immediate Copycat aiming for Gastro Acid used T1 and resetting if not, which has a 2/3 success rate from the 3 attempts I tried. Afterwards if Serperior is at +0 it can kill with Leaf Storm, but if at -2 Marill can take one. I ended up using an attack cheer T2 and dying T3 to barely preserve both cheers, but knowing this range I guess I could have Play Roughed on T2 to get an extra tera charge. In this case I got a pretty smooth -6 Serperior.
I locked in a NPC set of Drifblim/Gardevoir/Tauros to cover for Azurill initially with potential healing and SpD drops, but it worked just as well for Marill who appreciates the healing to offset constant Iron Tails. I got pretty fortunate with no defense drops.
After fully setting up and taking a heal cheer + Life Dew to full, I pretty much just went on the offense afterwards (having to hit 3 Play Roughs to build manual tera charge and missing one).
Fortunately right after the debuff reset Serperior used Leaf Storm on an AI mon and so I never had to see a full power Leaf Storm, but after going Fairy tera I guess it wouldn't even have been that bad.
I did end up taking the random Glare once more and getting 2 full paralysis turns, but in the end Marill made it out with even more turns to spare than my initial Azumarill attempt and no defense drops.
Might as well use Copycat to build tera charge, and have more Play Rough PP left for when it matters. You'll either copy Leaf Storm and tank a stat you don't care about (but still get the tiny bit of damage), or copy Iron Tail and get a chance to stick a defense drop.
This Serperior raid obviously hasn’t been too tough and there are multiple options available for success in solo and randoms. But as it comes to a close here are two alternatives that I have been using. They are not necessarily better than anything else out there, but I have found them to be highly reliable and I like using them because I don’t see them used much at all by anyone else.
The first one is a fun twist on abusing Contrary in this raid, that *doesn’t* involve Skill Swapping from Serperior…
Lurantis @ Metronome
Tera Type: Bug
Ability: Contrary
Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Attack
- Leech Life
- Superpower
- Worry Seed
- Swords Dance
I like this for solo because it clears the raid quickly and reliably. But it also works well in randoms because it can handle different outcomes in terms of ability removal. My favorite thing about this, is because Lurantis has Contrary natively, it gets an evasion boost at the start when Serperior does the Sweet Scent, so it gets free turns on low accuracy boss moves missing. And even after the player stat reset, it still gets some misses, unlike other players that have lowered evasion for the whole battle.
Lurantis uses Worry Seed on the first turn to remove Serperior’s Contrary. After that, it boosts with Superpower and builds Tera if Serperior doesn’t use Gastro Acid. In my experience, Serperior seems to be awfully aggressive in using Gastro Acid right from the start, so Superpower boosts are few and far between. But even if Gastro Acid is used, you can still Swords Dance after that, so no big deal. After the player stat reset, you boost to +6 and then spam Leech Life the rest of the battle, going Tera at the first opportunity.
At +6 and Tera, spamming Leech Life with a Metronome starts doing huge chunks to Serperior and restores your health to full, even if you’ve been eating Iron Tails against lowered Defense. The battle goes quickly from there and your health is not much of a concern, and the free turns from misses are just a tasty bonus!
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This next mon is my favorite for random play, because you can count on other players to remove Contrary from Serperior. There are usually 2-3 mons with Skill Swap/Worry Seed/Gastro Acid in every battle from what I have seen, so my main job is to deal as much damage as possible with the least possibility of dying. Well, this mon does that better than pretty much anything else I have used, and helps teammates at the same time:
Slither Wing @ Clear Amulet
Tera Type: Bug
Ability: Photosynthesis
Jolly Nature
EVs: 90 HP / 252 Atk / 168 Speed
- Leech Life
- Lunge
- Skitter Smack
- Bulk Up
I chose Slither Wing because it is the best user of Leech Life in the dex, with its massive Attack stat and getting the double STAB with Tera Bug. The speed EVs are to put Slither Wing faster than Serperior. The battle strategy is simple: Use Lunge or Skitter Smack to start the battle, depending on what you think your team needs most. In practice, I tend to use Lunge most of the time, since Serperior is going to lower its own SpAtk with Leaf Storm, and Skitter Smack is not perfectly accurate like Lunge. Since Slither Wing can spam attacks from the start, it goes Tera quickly, well before the tera drop by Serperior. After the player stat reset, I Bulk Up 3-4 times and then spam Leech Life or Lunge repeatedly until the battle is over.
This mon never worries about dying, since it boosts its defense and recovers health easily with big Leech Life hits. And because it carries a Clear Amulet, it never gets its evasion lowered. So the Iron Tails that Serperior prefers to use against Slither Wing, they miss quite a bit, and even when they hit, they have no chance of lowering my Defense. You can comfortably spam attacks as much as you want with little fear of taking meaningful damage from the boss.
The first one is a fun twist on abusing Contrary in this raid, that *doesn’t* involve Skill Swapping from Serperior…
Lurantis @ Metronome
Tera Type: Bug
Ability: Contrary
Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Attack
- Leech Life
- Superpower
- Worry Seed
- Swords Dance
I like this for solo because it clears the raid quickly and reliably. But it also works well in randoms because it can handle different outcomes in terms of ability removal. My favorite thing about this, is because Lurantis has Contrary natively, it gets an evasion boost at the start when Serperior does the Sweet Scent, so it gets free turns on low accuracy boss moves missing. And even after the player stat reset, it still gets some misses, unlike other players that have lowered evasion for the whole battle.
Lurantis uses Worry Seed on the first turn to remove Serperior’s Contrary. After that, it boosts with Superpower and builds Tera if Serperior doesn’t use Gastro Acid. In my experience, Serperior seems to be awfully aggressive in using Gastro Acid right from the start, so Superpower boosts are few and far between. But even if Gastro Acid is used, you can still Swords Dance after that, so no big deal. After the player stat reset, you boost to +6 and then spam Leech Life the rest of the battle, going Tera at the first opportunity.
At +6 and Tera, spamming Leech Life with a Metronome starts doing huge chunks to Serperior and restores your health to full, even if you’ve been eating Iron Tails against lowered Defense. The battle goes quickly from there and your health is not much of a concern, and the free turns from misses are just a tasty bonus!
—-
This next mon is my favorite for random play, because you can count on other players to remove Contrary from Serperior. There are usually 2-3 mons with Skill Swap/Worry Seed/Gastro Acid in every battle from what I have seen, so my main job is to deal as much damage as possible with the least possibility of dying. Well, this mon does that better than pretty much anything else I have used, and helps teammates at the same time:
Slither Wing @ Clear Amulet
Tera Type: Bug
Ability: Photosynthesis
Jolly Nature
EVs: 90 HP / 252 Atk / 168 Speed
- Leech Life
- Lunge
- Skitter Smack
- Bulk Up
I chose Slither Wing because it is the best user of Leech Life in the dex, with its massive Attack stat and getting the double STAB with Tera Bug. The speed EVs are to put Slither Wing faster than Serperior. The battle strategy is simple: Use Lunge or Skitter Smack to start the battle, depending on what you think your team needs most. In practice, I tend to use Lunge most of the time, since Serperior is going to lower its own SpAtk with Leaf Storm, and Skitter Smack is not perfectly accurate like Lunge. Since Slither Wing can spam attacks from the start, it goes Tera quickly, well before the tera drop by Serperior. After the player stat reset, I Bulk Up 3-4 times and then spam Leech Life or Lunge repeatedly until the battle is over.
This mon never worries about dying, since it boosts its defense and recovers health easily with big Leech Life hits. And because it carries a Clear Amulet, it never gets its evasion lowered. So the Iron Tails that Serperior prefers to use against Slither Wing, they miss quite a bit, and even when they hit, they have no chance of lowering my Defense. You can comfortably spam attacks as much as you want with little fear of taking meaningful damage from the boss.
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Good call. Ultimately I don't think this is as consistent as just pressing Play Rough (or just running Tera Blast) in the main phase because Serperior likes to Gastro Acid at random which would waste a turn and Iron Tail is less accurate, and Marill has the PP to spare anyway in this case. But getting defense drops from Iron Tail is a pretty nice bonus.