Be prepared for a Ceaseless enemy.
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Nov-Dec 7* Tera Raid: Water-type Samurott-H
- Thread starter Vengeance417
- Start date
Be prepared for a Ceaseless enemy.
To say this one's gonna be tough to prepare for is an understatement. It has:
Not sure which of Aqua Cutter or Razor Shell it'll go for. Razor Shell's always been kind of a Samurott line thing, though, but idk.
I know Air Slash isn't a physical move, and Aerial Ace is right there, but Air Slash is one of two Special Attacks that is actually boosted by Sharpness, and Samurott's base 100 SpA can let it hit physical tanks pretty hard. Maybe as an extra move like Rillaboom's Boomburst.
This is hard because Samurott has coverage for its weaknesses in the form of the aforementioned Flying-type moves, as well as Drill Run for Electric-types and X-Scissor for Grass-types. This is honestly one of those times where I'd kinda rather just wait for the moveset to drop. I'm stumped lol
- Ceaseless Edge
- Aqua Cutter
- Night Slash
- Razor Shell
- Air Slash
- Aerial Ace
- Drill Run
- Sacred Sword
- X-Scissor
- Swords Dance
- Screech
- Focus Energy
Not sure which of Aqua Cutter or Razor Shell it'll go for. Razor Shell's always been kind of a Samurott line thing, though, but idk.
I know Air Slash isn't a physical move, and Aerial Ace is right there, but Air Slash is one of two Special Attacks that is actually boosted by Sharpness, and Samurott's base 100 SpA can let it hit physical tanks pretty hard. Maybe as an extra move like Rillaboom's Boomburst.
This is hard because Samurott has coverage for its weaknesses in the form of the aforementioned Flying-type moves, as well as Drill Run for Electric-types and X-Scissor for Grass-types. This is honestly one of those times where I'd kinda rather just wait for the moveset to drop. I'm stumped lol
Sharpness is going to be bad enough, but it feels like this is also going to be a crit-fest, and that’s gonna SUCK.
I’ll be praying it doesn’t get Air Slash, but it’s hard for me to imagine it DOESN’T get it. It hits grass types SE, it gives Samurott a way to prevent pure physical walls from having an easier time, and it’s a Sharpness boosted attack.
My first thoughts are to crit-immune water resists like regular Samurott and Hisuan Goodra (both with Shell Armor). But nothing great comes to mind for surviving a sharpness onslaught AND do good damage to Tera Water.
I’m also already cringing that we are going to see a million Iron Hands and Azumarills showing up (because of the obvious typing matchups), and I fear this raid is going to murder the standard Belly Drum turn 1 strategy. Just looking at damage calcs of crit Sharpness Aqua Cutter and Razor Shell vs the two staple Belly Drummers, it doesn’t look good. And Samurott is going to outspeed both of those, so it will get two hits on them. I see many unprepared rando players getting fainted over and over for the first day or so. Yeah, I know random noobs are a problem on every raid, but I just hate it even more when 7* raids appear to have a good typing matchup to Hands and Azu, because the early drum-deaths are just SOOOOO predictable.
Like Vengeance417 said, this raid has so much potential variability, it’s hard to theorymon in advance. If GF wants to be brutal, they can surely do it with H-Samurott. But I’ll cross my fingers that they keep it fair, and we’ll have room to solve it.
I might even look to creative options like trying Freeze Dry with something like Iron Bundle or Glaceon. They are rare physical walls (even moreso in Snow, which isn’t bypassed by crits) that hit hard on the special side, which is H-Samurott’s worst defensive stat. But hey, I guess we’ll see how much design space we will have on this one!
I’ll be praying it doesn’t get Air Slash, but it’s hard for me to imagine it DOESN’T get it. It hits grass types SE, it gives Samurott a way to prevent pure physical walls from having an easier time, and it’s a Sharpness boosted attack.
My first thoughts are to crit-immune water resists like regular Samurott and Hisuan Goodra (both with Shell Armor). But nothing great comes to mind for surviving a sharpness onslaught AND do good damage to Tera Water.
I’m also already cringing that we are going to see a million Iron Hands and Azumarills showing up (because of the obvious typing matchups), and I fear this raid is going to murder the standard Belly Drum turn 1 strategy. Just looking at damage calcs of crit Sharpness Aqua Cutter and Razor Shell vs the two staple Belly Drummers, it doesn’t look good. And Samurott is going to outspeed both of those, so it will get two hits on them. I see many unprepared rando players getting fainted over and over for the first day or so. Yeah, I know random noobs are a problem on every raid, but I just hate it even more when 7* raids appear to have a good typing matchup to Hands and Azu, because the early drum-deaths are just SOOOOO predictable.
Like Vengeance417 said, this raid has so much potential variability, it’s hard to theorymon in advance. If GF wants to be brutal, they can surely do it with H-Samurott. But I’ll cross my fingers that they keep it fair, and we’ll have room to solve it.
I might even look to creative options like trying Freeze Dry with something like Iron Bundle or Glaceon. They are rare physical walls (even moreso in Snow, which isn’t bypassed by crits) that hit hard on the special side, which is H-Samurott’s worst defensive stat. But hey, I guess we’ll see how much design space we will have on this one!
Victreebel @ Leftovers
Ability: Chlorophyll
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 132 HP / 252 Def / 124 Spe
Lax Nature
- Lunge
- Gastro Acid
- Reflect
- Giga Drain
If Air Slash or Aerial Ace isn't a thing, I could see this Victreebel set being an interesting support option.
Remove Sharpness with Gastro Acid, then Reflect and Lunge for further lowering the damage output. Once you have enough for Tera, you have Giga Drain for sustenance and decent damage.
You could consider Acid Spray in place of Reflect as well for a more offensive approach.
Turn 1 ability negation feels like a priority since Hamurott can not use debuff wipe to get it back. Other candidate that can perform a similar role is Manaphy with Skill Swap and Chilling Water (or Scald). Manaphy is also very bulky which will be an advantage over Victreebel to make up for the lack of Giga Drain.
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The only thing that feels pretty much guaranteed is that we're looking at using either a bulky water or bulky grass. Not resisting water is just a no-no, and while Water Absorb exists, stuff like Clodsire will just get absolutely annihilated on the ability negate turn.
I feel that the presence or lackthereof of Sacred Sword in the moveset is what will mostly dictate what can be run. If no sacred sword, crit immune resists like ID H-Goodra and Cloyster become super attractive.
Also, one of the ""issues"" is hitting it supereffectively. You can only with Freeze Dry, grass and electric.
I would also not sleep on Wo-Chien though.
Wo-Chien @ Rocky Helmet / Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
- Giga Drain
- Pollen Puff
- Reflect
- Leech Seed / Ingrain
If it doesn't have Sacred Sword, this walls it all the way and back.
If it does... eh, then i'm not sure sadly.
0 Atk Sharpness Tera Water Samurott-Hisui Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tablets of Ruin Wo-Chien: 112-134 (29.9 - 35.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery (lefties to assume Ingrain though can tecnically run both).
Challenge is getting to tera alive, but once you get to tera (Reflect T1 + giga drain should keep you alive) it's all downwards.
I feel that the presence or lackthereof of Sacred Sword in the moveset is what will mostly dictate what can be run. If no sacred sword, crit immune resists like ID H-Goodra and Cloyster become super attractive.
Also, one of the ""issues"" is hitting it supereffectively. You can only with Freeze Dry, grass and electric.
I would also not sleep on Wo-Chien though.
Wo-Chien @ Rocky Helmet / Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Bold Nature
- Giga Drain
- Pollen Puff
- Reflect
- Leech Seed / Ingrain
If it doesn't have Sacred Sword, this walls it all the way and back.
If it does... eh, then i'm not sure sadly.
0 Atk Sharpness Tera Water Samurott-Hisui Sacred Sword vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tablets of Ruin Wo-Chien: 112-134 (29.9 - 35.8%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery (lefties to assume Ingrain though can tecnically run both).
Challenge is getting to tera alive, but once you get to tera (Reflect T1 + giga drain should keep you alive) it's all downwards.
I believe this monk will be the one to take down the fallen samurai: Rillaboom
Rillaboom @ Shell Bell
Level: 100
Adamant Nature
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 4 Spe
- Worry Seed
- Bulk Up / Swords Dance
- Drum Beating
- Grassy Terrain
Reason I chose Rillaboom was because it has the physical bulk to use the move Worry Seed, which will convert H-Samurott's Sharpness ability to Insomnia. Therefore, its moves such as Razor Shell, Aerial Ace or X-Scissor will no longer get a power boost. Whilst H-Samurott may be able to reset its ability behind a shield, the few turns that it doesn't have Sharpness will allow Rillaboom to accrue multiple boosts.
Bulk Up is preferred over Swords Dance so that Rillaboom's impressive defense would withstand H-Samurott's X-Scissor and Aerial Ace Attacks.
Drum Beating is its main attack, whilst Grassy Terrain will boost Rillaboom's grass attacks even further.
Rillaboom @ Shell Bell
Level: 100
Adamant Nature
Ability: Overgrow
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Def / 4 Spe
- Worry Seed
- Bulk Up / Swords Dance
- Drum Beating
- Grassy Terrain
Reason I chose Rillaboom was because it has the physical bulk to use the move Worry Seed, which will convert H-Samurott's Sharpness ability to Insomnia. Therefore, its moves such as Razor Shell, Aerial Ace or X-Scissor will no longer get a power boost. Whilst H-Samurott may be able to reset its ability behind a shield, the few turns that it doesn't have Sharpness will allow Rillaboom to accrue multiple boosts.
Bulk Up is preferred over Swords Dance so that Rillaboom's impressive defense would withstand H-Samurott's X-Scissor and Aerial Ace Attacks.
Drum Beating is its main attack, whilst Grassy Terrain will boost Rillaboom's grass attacks even further.
I'm eeeeh on Grassy Terrain.
On paper yes, it's a stab boost and healing.
However, at same time it's also healing the boss (relatively significantly if behind the shield), and adding animation time, on top of... taking a turn to set up. I feel it would be better to just have Grassy Surge instead, have the terrain up at start to help with the initial sustain, and then let it be and not set it back up.
Fwiw, the debuff reset does not reset non volatile conditions that aren't stat drops or actual status.
Things like ability change or Leech Seed (or Taunt even tho that doesn't last much) do not get wiped by the debuff negate pulse.
Sadly gogoat suffers from the same problem of other entries on this list: if it has Sacred sword, it's a big ouch.
Sadly of all the coverages, it's the one i see most likely =(
Has there even ever been a case where a 7-star raid had an Egg Move (aka like Sacred Sword on Samurott) yet? Everyone was expecting Extrasensory on the original Typhlosion raid but that never happened.
0 Atk Samurott-Hisui Sacred Sword vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Gogoat: 73-87 (18.8 - 22.4%) -- possible 5HKO
I would say this damage is manageable. Removing Sharpness does wonders for survivability. Though, if Samurott goes wild with Swords Dance, that would be a different story.
Original Samurott had Night Slash and Aqua Cutter which are both egg moves.
I think Azumarill is catching some undeserved criticism when randoms will always go for offense over resistance, and the most common super-effective Water-type pick of all time hasn't even been mentioned yet.
+1 252+ SpA Hadron Engine Miraidon Atk Cheer charged Electro Drift (133.3251953125 BP) vs. -2 0 HP / 0 SpD Samurott-Hisui in Electric Terrain: 10874-12794 (112.9 - 132.8% of 30x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO
It'll be funny to see if you can bring some Intimidators and see if they'll afford you the 4 turns to set up this OHKO just like Decidueye.
Miraidon seems a good bet to get a lot of usage in this raid no matter what coverage moves it gets, barring Drill Run.
(Edit: doipy hooves beat me to it by seconds lol!)
I would love it if Ground was the coverage, even if it takes out the Electric counters. But I have a hard time seeing GF go with Ground coverage, because it is a glaring neon sign invitation for a slew of good Grassers to come in and run train. But then again, maybe GF realizes how beastly Sharpness is, even on resisted hits, so they might throw us a bone and let use our grassmons.
Flying coverage (Air Slash, Aerial Ace) makes a lot of sense to hit problematic types like Grass and Fighting. Very few pokemon can hit Tera Water H-Samurott SE with STAB and handle flying coverage. Maybe Wash Rotom has a useful set for this?
Bug coverage (X-Scissor) hits Grass and Dark counters, and perhaps gives past 7* mons like Chesnaught and H-Decidueye a chance to get some play. Also, in this scenario Poliwrath is a great fatmon and near-perfect defensive counter, but may struggle to do decent damage in return.
Fighting coverage (Sacred Sword) hits Dark and Steel types, and causes general issues for all the defensive boosting strats. But this coverage opens the door for lots of Grass types. Maybe this is the time for Ogerpon to shine? Also, I might dust off my Appletun in this case.
(Edit: doipy hooves beat me to it by seconds lol!)
I would love it if Ground was the coverage, even if it takes out the Electric counters. But I have a hard time seeing GF go with Ground coverage, because it is a glaring neon sign invitation for a slew of good Grassers to come in and run train. But then again, maybe GF realizes how beastly Sharpness is, even on resisted hits, so they might throw us a bone and let use our grassmons.
Flying coverage (Air Slash, Aerial Ace) makes a lot of sense to hit problematic types like Grass and Fighting. Very few pokemon can hit Tera Water H-Samurott SE with STAB and handle flying coverage. Maybe Wash Rotom has a useful set for this?
Bug coverage (X-Scissor) hits Grass and Dark counters, and perhaps gives past 7* mons like Chesnaught and H-Decidueye a chance to get some play. Also, in this scenario Poliwrath is a great fatmon and near-perfect defensive counter, but may struggle to do decent damage in return.
Fighting coverage (Sacred Sword) hits Dark and Steel types, and causes general issues for all the defensive boosting strats. But this coverage opens the door for lots of Grass types. Maybe this is the time for Ogerpon to shine? Also, I might dust off my Appletun in this case.
Don’t get me wrong, I think every good player is thinking about using Azumarill for this raid, me included. For a Water/Dark 7* Raid boss sure to carry big STAB Water and Dark moves — Who in their right mind DOESN’T think about using a Water/Fairy mon that is one of the best and most used tera raid pokemon of all time? Yeah, this raid has Azumarill written all over it, for good players and bad.
If you give Miraidon a Life Orb, you get this:I think Azumarill is catching some undeserved criticism when randoms will always go for offense over resistance, and the most common super-effective Water-type pick of all time hasn't even been mentioned yet.
+1 252+ SpA Hadron Engine Miraidon Atk Cheer charged Electro Drift (133.3251953125 BP) vs. -2 0 HP / 0 SpD Samurott-Hisui in Electric Terrain: 10874-12794 (112.9 - 132.8% of 30x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO
It'll be funny to see if you can bring some Intimidators and see if they'll afford you the 4 turns to set up this OHKO just like Decidueye.
+1 252+ SpA Life Orb Hadron Engine Miraidon charged Electro Drift (133.3251953125 BP) vs. -2 0 HP / 0 SpD Tera Water Samurott-Hisui in Electric Terrain: 9421-11085 (97.8 - 115.1% of 30x hp boss) -- 87.5% chance to OHKO
No need for the Attack cheer and it's more than likely that your AI teammates will put Samurott in range of a guaranteed kill.
Edit: That being said, I assume you're running Wide Lens for the accuracy bonus to Metal Sound, so I can see going for the safer play.
Edit 2: I think Bellibolt has potential, but it'll depend on how crit-heavy the boss ends up being:
Bellibolt @ Big Root / Magnet
Ability: Electromorphosis
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA or 4 HP / 252 Def / 252 SpA
Bold / Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Chilling Water
- Acid Spray
- Parabolic Charge
- Reflect
I think PhysDef will be more reliable, but if enough people bring Attack debuffing options, then I can see Modest working, too.
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You need Throat Spray to get +1 SpA from using Metal Sound, so it still takes the same amount of time to set up when replacing the attack cheer turn with Calm Mind. Alternatively, you can still use Throat Spray and Calm Mind instead of the attack cheer and still get an OHKO too. It doesn't make a big difference as long as you have the time to survive and get all this in before the shield in the first place.
+2 252+ SpA Hadron Engine Miraidon charged Electro Drift (133.3251953125 BP) vs. -2 0 HP / 0 SpD Samurott-Hisui in Electric Terrain: 9672-11382 (100.4 - 118.1% of 30x hp boss) -- guaranteed OHKO
I limit my setup to the 3 turns of Charge/Metal Sound/(Cheer/Calm Mind) because if it does not have Focus Energy for 100% crits, then Miraidon can take 3 neutral hits from Drill Run or Night Slash (and one more with the defense cheer if none crit to hit effectively neutral), with some potential room to add more defense investment but not necessary. Otherwise I would probably rig Drifblim to Will-O-Wisp it.
0 Atk Samurott-Hisui Drill Run vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Miraidon: 124-146 (30.6 - 36.1%) -- 47.7% chance to 3HKO
0 Atk Samurott-Hisui Drill Run vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Miraidon through Def Cheer: 82-98 (20.2 - 24.2%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
0 Atk Sharpness Samurott-Hisui Night Slash vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Miraidon: 120-142 (29.7 - 35.1%) -- 19.9% chance to 3HKO
Yeah, like I said, I have a feeling Eevee was so stupidly easy because it was just a warmup. When it comes to offensive Pokemon the only one I can think of is Miraidon, but that's assuming Samurott's not running Swords Dance and doesn't crit too often with Aqua Cutter after Tera. Anyways, time for support that I won't be using.
Black Sludge
Ability doesn't matter
Tera Water
252 Def / 252 HP / 6 SpD
Calm Nature
Acid Spray/Recover
Chilling Water
Haze
Iron Defense
The only time you'll want to go for Haze is if Samurott uses Swords Dance after removing his debuffs or if it's his 1st move. But if it's gonna be in his normal moveset like Calm Mind was for... HIM... Then ignore this.
Black Sludge
Ability doesn't matter
Tera Water
252 Def / 252 HP / 6 SpD
Calm Nature
Acid Spray/Recover
Chilling Water
Haze
Iron Defense
The only time you'll want to go for Haze is if Samurott uses Swords Dance after removing his debuffs or if it's his 1st move. But if it's gonna be in his normal moveset like Calm Mind was for... HIM... Then ignore this.
I don't think it was much of a warmup, it was really just a freebie in similar fashion of the Chansey raids.
Well, minus the part people managed to lose on it too somehow despite it boiling down to "bring a fighting type with drain punch and clear amulet or defiant"....
I think that the Calm Mind being in Mewtwo moveset was probably a oversight or coding mistake they forgot to fix. No other tera boss has something like that iirc.
The only other raid I can think that has a similar oversight is Avalugg having Snowscape as regular move on top of field move.
Cinderace had Bulk Up in the regular moveset and it was a bastard.
Also, I think it's a big reason why people absolutely loathe Raid Gardevoir and Dragonite.
Cinderace's moveset was HJK/Pyro Ball/Acrobatics/Iron Head. It just had 4 scripted uses of Bulk Up.
Yeah was about to say.
It just *spammed* it but it wasnt in the regular moveset.
The main difference between a "regular move" and "extra move" is that everyone sees the extra move cast (it also interrupts all actions until everyone has seen it when triggered, it's one of the causes of those "lag" moments, since the servers wait for everyone to have seen the current turn animation and extra animations before letting you input a move again).
Mewtwo's Calm Mind was seen only by the turn person. It was why you needed a dedicated -spatk spammer, because you had no way to track how many buffs it was getting other than manually checking its status.
I think Arceus-Grass has solo-potential.
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
- Calm Mind / Will-O-Wisp
The play is to Tera ASAP so you can do good damage and heal yourself at the same time, basically similar to Bellibolt but much faster. This is crucial because of Samurott’s powerful coverage options in X-Scissor and Air Slash. Chilling Water, in particular, could be useful in removing any potential stat boosts Samurott-H might gain as you try to build up your Tera, while making the aforementioned attacks weaker, especially when paired with the initial AI Defense cheer. The last slot will depend on the boss’s moveset. CM if it actually has Air Slash in its arsenal, or WoW in the beginning to make Tera set up easier (and it makes crits weaker).
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
- Calm Mind / Will-O-Wisp
The play is to Tera ASAP so you can do good damage and heal yourself at the same time, basically similar to Bellibolt but much faster. This is crucial because of Samurott’s powerful coverage options in X-Scissor and Air Slash. Chilling Water, in particular, could be useful in removing any potential stat boosts Samurott-H might gain as you try to build up your Tera, while making the aforementioned attacks weaker, especially when paired with the initial AI Defense cheer. The last slot will depend on the boss’s moveset. CM if it actually has Air Slash in its arsenal, or WoW in the beginning to make Tera set up easier (and it makes crits weaker).