7-star Tera Ground Torterra raid event (Nov 15-17, 22-24)

doipy hooves

doipy hooves

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The end of the starter cycle approaches. After Infernape was Rock, I figured Torterra would be something simpler like Ground. Hopefully this doesn't spam Curse with no crit vulnerability but I think Azumarill will still manage to the end.

Also this is the first time I've seen tera Torterra's tera hat, being on the tree instead of the head looks weird.
 
Torterra has some strong tools:

Likely attacks: Earthquake, stone edge/rock slide, wood hammer. Weaker coverage: crunch, body press, iron head, zen headbutt

Boosting etc: Curse, swords dance, shell smash, growth (for mixed sets?), reflect, light screen, iron defense

Headlong rush and superpower are possible, but it would be easy to deal with if it just spammed stat dropping moves.

Analysis: He has some really potent boosting options, and easily slots in edgequake coverage. Grass STAB is basically guaranteed, and threatens water types trying to take advantage of ground weakness to water. Stone edge/rock slide/iron head all threaten ice type attackers trying to go through the ice weakness. Grass type attackers are likely the play here, resisting the dual stab, and not introducing a weakness to any coverage options. Shell armor invalidates strategies using crits trying to circumvent def boosts from screens/curse/iron defense/contrary shell smash. I’m not quite sure what the plan is to handle the boosting, so it depends on what they plan to do.

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Chesnaught @ CovertCloak/Shell bell/Sitrus Berry
252/252+/4/0-/0/0 (needs even HP for BD)
-Seed Bomb (Wood Hammer for OHKO strats)
-Swords Dance (Belly Drum for OHKO strats)
-Reflect
-Filler, depends on how it shakes out

Chesnaught is likely the safest attacker. He resists the dual STAB, resists edgequake, has reasonable options to hit hard with belly drum/swords dance + STAB wood hammer/seed bomb, has high phys def to work with, and learns reflect to semi-support the team. He would need support in the event of def boosting torterra. Torterra’s biggest hit is 22% max from EQ or 35.7% max from zen headbutt.

OHKO: Chesnaught kills with BD, 2 screech, HH, and atk cheer for a simple T2 OHKO. This assumes no Def boosting etc.
+6 252+ Atk Life Orb Chesnaught Helping Hand Atk Cheer Wood Hammer vs. -4 0 HP / 0 Def Tera Ground Torterra: 12613-14844 (108.8 - 128.1% of 35x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO

Lurantis/Serperior is another option in case we need to go from the special side. However, with the lower bulk, they will be a bit trickier to work with. Decidueye (either form) can do work with Nasty Plot, Giga Drain, Feather Dance, Frenzy Plant. Rotom-Mow (leaf storm) and Decidueye may work for OHKO strats.
 
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As far as supports go, ground resistance or immunity (without being weak to rock) seems to be a big asset.

Weezing (either form) with Levitate seems like the only promising Clear Smog user capable of dealing with boosting torterra. He also gets wisp, weather, acid spray, but there is a world where Weezing is MVP solely based on his safe clear smog.

Against non-boost spamming sets, Corvi, Meowscarada/Floragato, Scream Tail all seem viable. Fast pokemon with big attack dropping moves can generally be pretty good in this scenario.

Hawlucha (252/0-/154/0/100 outspeeds +2 Spe torterra) can Feather dance to neutralize a shell smash atk boost, and get everything under control. He also gets coaching, entrainment if you need to remove shell armor, and helping hand. Takes 28% max from stone edge, or 46% from zen headbutt (psychic resist berry can keep you safe from this).
 
I see a scary scenario where Torterra goes for Amnesia and Iron Defense before it goes for Shell Smash. The defense boosts would synergize with Shell Armor, and Shell Smash would leave it at +1 Defense and Special Defense. Clear Smog Weezing will shut that down, though.

bellossom.gif

Bellossom @ Covert Cloak
Ability: Chlorophyll
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 204 Def / 252 SpA / 52 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Charm
- Acid Spray
- Giga Drain
- Pollen Puff

Bellossom of all things can work vs Torterra lol. Pure Grass-typing to resist the STABs, while not taking much from its coverage moves. Charm to lower Attack, Acid Spray for SpDef, Pollen Puff to heal allies, and Giga Drain for offense and self-sustain. Covert Cloak to dodge things like Rock Slide flinch post Shell Smash, and Crunch Defense drops.
 
:SV/Arceus-Grass:

Arceus-Grass @ Meadow Plate
Ability: Multitype
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Giga Drain
- Acid Spray
- Chilling Water
- Iron Defense / Reflect / Grass Knot

As usual, Arceus also has the tools to get results. Chilling Water keeps the damage low, Acid Spray applies debuffs and Giga Drain is the main spammable move of choice.

Iron Defense is recommended if Torterra is very boost happy (e.g. Curse in its non-scripted moveset). Reflect is good for public lobbies. Grass Knot is the strong finisher move with its great 120 BP.

84 Speed Evs can be used to outspeed Torterra after Shell Smash.
 
Resists one STAB and immune to the other, which gets the Tera bonus. It does require the DLC though, and it may not work if he has a super effective move like Stone Edge or Iron Head.

:SV/Enamorus:
Shell Bell
Contrary
Tera Stellar
252 SpA / 252 Def / 6 HP
Modest Nature

Tera Blast
Superpower
Grass Knot
Taunt / Draining Kiss

252 SpA Tera Stellar (First Use) Enamorus Tera Blast (100 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Ground Torterra: 310-364 (93.6 - 109.9%) -- 62.5% chance to OHKO
252 SpA Tera Stellar Enamorus Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Ground Torterra: 370-436 (111.7 - 131.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

When it comes to coverage, these are what come to mind:

Body Press (especially if he has Curse)
Stone Edge
Rock Slide (good thing he's slow, though that may not mater if he has a scripted Shell Smash)
Iron Head
Heavy Slam
Maybe Crunch?
 
I can definitely see Torterra casting T0 Bulldoze, maybe even using it again later too. I’m most likely going to take Appletun since I have one built already. Even if it has Crunch, I want to try Sinistcha too:

:sinistcha:
Sinistcha @ Big Root
Tera Grass
Bold Nature
Ability: Hospitality
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
- Matcha Gotcha
- Nasty Plot
- Iron Defense / Reflect / Life Dew
- Iron Defense / Reflect / Life Dew

Assuming Adamant Torterra:
0+ Atk Tera Ground Torterra Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sinistcha: 94-112 (27.1 - 32.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
0+ Atk Tera Ground Torterra Bulldoze vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tera Grass Sinistcha: 36-43 (10.4 - 12.4%) -- possible 9HKO
0+ Atk Tera Ground Torterra Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Sinistcha: 59-70 (17 - 20.2%) -- possible 5HKO

Matcha Gotcha allows Sinistcha to both fish for burns and heal itself at the same time. Watch out for its 90% accuracy though. Crunch should be survivable so long as defense drops and crits don’t proc repeatedly, and you can use Iron Defense to reverse the defense drops.
 
Perhaps this may work, so long as he won't spam Curse and have Body Press. That is, unless he boosts his SpD.

:SV/Serperior:
Shell Bell
Contrary
Tera Grass
238 SpA / 252 Def / 20 Speed
Modest Nature

Leaf Storm
Giga Drain
Breaking Swipe
Light Screen
 
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Earthquake
Wood Hammer
Smack Down
Earth Power
2 scripted Shell Smashes, reset debuffs after the turn 0 one.

Oh boy, 2 scripted Shell Smashes? And you can't even capitalize on the lowered defenses of the 1st one? Anyways, I'm gonna make a few changes to the Serperior build I wrote before since now we know Torterra's nature is Brave.

(Edit) I'm gonna try Arceus since I don't want to use my only Breaking Swipe TM when there's still a possibility they could redo past raids I missed and Serperior isn't in Gen 8, so I can't transfer her there and give her the TM from there.
 
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First attempt I just brought Scream Tail into a team of Torterra (not the mighty one), Mew and Urshifu Rapid Strike
It went exceptionally poorly, as one might expect from that line up

Attempt 2: A host with serperior, Arceus-Grass, and...Blastoise. Honestly, I figured this wouldn't go well, but I figure I may as well see if I can carry these somehow. I could not and should have backed out the moment I saw the Blastoise.

Attempt 3: Appletun, Corviknight, Walking Wake . I'm honestly mad about this one because the Walking Wake was a Garchomp before everyone else locked in. And then everything just went terribly almost immediately, the Wake died back to back, the turn message got so out of whack it broke my inputs...but I honestly think if the Wake wasn't in the battle we could have won this. Just absoltuely infuriating.

Attempt 4: Went Solo with Arceus-Grass. This is a lot more manageable until you see that after a few chilling waters it will shift to spamming Earth Power and that will just snow ball.

Attempt 5.1: Back online with Scream Tail; I remembered to put Light Screen on. Team was Arboliva, Ogerpon-T and...no one else so the Host quit. Reasonable.

Attempt 5.2: Serperior, Malamar and then the host abandoned it. That's a shame because I think malamar's topsy-turvy might've been a boon. Maybe they thought it'd just skill swap instead?

Attempt 5.3: Appletun, Arboliva and...Jumpluff? Now there's a pick. This did not matter because the host abandoned it. Scared off by the Jumpluff wildcard?

Attempt 5.4: Lilligant, Garchomp and I dipped. Bad vibes, no trust.

Attempt 5.5: Tsareena. Almost auto-dipped but honestly Trop Kick always lowering Attack has potential. Didn't matter, no one else joined.

Attempt 5.6: Fomantis...Articuno....Serperior. Everyone else locked in as soon as I went in so, I decided to commit to the death march. I don't think the articuno knew about Smack Down....By the way I cannot mash fast enough to get reflect off before the first stuff goes off. Evry annoying. Also the idiot Articuno started using Sheer Cold after a certain point. The 2 contrary dudes weren't too bad. If it weren't for the damn articuno we could have won. I'm 100% certain. Literally any other half way decent pick could have won us the battle, we got it to just one more attack from Lurantis.

Attempt 6.1: I saw a primarina and ran despite the Hydrapple & malamar. I am begging people to look at what the pokemon actually is, please.

Attempt 6.2: Forretress and then a Lurantis so I locked in. Then an Eternatus joined, the Lurantis left and the Eternatus also dipped. Then a Fire Ogerpon joined as the timer ran out. I don't want to talk about this one.



And I think that's enough attempts for the night.
 
Giving it Smack Down + Earth Power instead of an actual coverage was pretty rude honestly. It's so basic yet so dangerous cause being +4 atk AND spatk means you can't just iron defense to win.
 
Worldie said:
Giving it Smack Down + Earth Power instead of an actual coverage was pretty rude honestly. It's so basic yet so dangerous cause being +4 atk AND spatk means you can't just iron defense to win.
Click to expand...
Orthworm pretty much can make all of its atk into nearly nothing. Just need time to build up the atk.
 
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2 Shell Smashes and dealing with mixed coverage was kind of scary to see blind and I almost doubted Azumarill could take it for a moment. But for all the early timed resets Torterra has, it still leaves a vulnerability to Mud-Slap as long as you can get one hit off.

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The successful clear came earlier than expected right as I started locking in AI (getting 1 Intimidate Tauros), so I don't have too many other runs to talk about other than just a few tests and seeing Torterra go for the suboptimal Smack Down a few times.

Sap Sipper Azumarill is the key here. My general plan going in was to Belly Drum and faint early to preserve both an offense and the AI's defense cheer, since there's not much point doing anything in the earlygame full of resets and Torterra has a rude chance of OHKOing on both sides if you don't have some mitigation. I had Defense Curl and Amnesia previously but since I was going for full Mud-Slaps, I decided just to double down and set Rain Dance to increase my DPS/Shell Bell healing for safety.

EDIT: I think Intimidate is necessary to avoid an Earthquake OHKO as well unless Torterra throws.

+4 0+ Atk Tera Ground Torterra Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Azumarill through Def Cheer: 408-482 (100.9 - 119.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

This is pretty much where I started making my move after dying once and waiting for the debuff reset to proc:
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Notably I managed to fit in a Mud-Slap input between the debuff clear and second Shell Smash. It didn't really matter since I could have survived +4 Earth Power after the defense cheer but it was something.

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I did get it down to -4 accuracy, but Torterra hit me again and I couldn't get Belly Drum off. I tried going for a heal cheer but ended up just taking a second death.
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At that point I just set Belly Drum, rain, and tera up to start killing him.
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Overall it could be better, could be worse, but Torterra had some nice surprises this time and it was reminiscent of Infernape in that sense which I like, so I think this raid is pretty fair. Glad this wasn't too painless to get a good execution of though. Also they actually dropped an Earthquake TM for once.
 
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Ok, I was able to do it without giving Arceus Snarl. That said, I would not, under any circumstances, recommend doing it without it unless you're feeling THAT daring. The only reason I won was because of the CPUs I had. At some point Haxorus went for Scary Face and got rid of the Speed boost from Shell Smash, so even after the 2nd Shell Smash I was still going 1st. Not only that, there was also a Weavile that got EXTREMELY lucky and managed to freeze him long enough for me to set up. When Torterra reached his double attack phase, he managed to get the SpD down from Earth Power. Afterwards, however, instead of going for another one, he went for Earthquake. And since that was the turn his shield broke the next turn he couldn't do anything, and the turn after that I finished him off with Giga Drain.

You REALLY want to have Snarl, unless you really want to deal with a +4 bonus Tera STAB boosted Earth Power that could possibly lower your SpD. Resistance or not, that will hurt like hell, even with Torterra's paltry SpA.
 
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