A New Limited-Time Pokémon Scarlet & Violet Tera Raid Battle Starts Today

@Lizuka You could have an entire team of 4 perfectly trained Azumarril, and they still wouldn't be able to win this raid.

Way harder then Charizard and it took me ages to finally get a good team of players to beat it, at least like with Charizard its pretty much battle ready and only needs the EV's done.

For those wondering Azumarill is still useful but doesn't wreck like it did with Charizard, a whole team of them will struggle hard.

Gonna post this to help others. Courtesy to r/Far_Reach5275 for posting this first

Espathra w Opportunist
Shell Bell
252 Hp / 252 Sp Atk / 4 Def
Rain Dance
Luminia Crash
Psychic or Stored Power (just discovered it could learn this)
Roost / Reflect

Turn one Rain Dance, then Lumina Crash until it’s - 6 Sp D, Switch to Psychic. Should go into Stance and clear buffs/debuffs. Refresh Rain Dance and spam Lumina Crash. You’ll likely get knocked out during this so don’t Tera until you come back and regain the Opportunist Buffs / Have full health. Tera, Lumina Crash if needed and Psychic spam away.

I was able to solo a raid with this rather easily. And was able to assist in two raids back to back afterwards. Solid build, and works well.

Edit - the main reason Azu sucks this raid is because of how fast Cinder gets physically tanky. Char never did that, and was lacking in Physical defense to begin with. Cinder doesn’t lack in physical bulk, and moreover, spams Bulk Up. Good luck breaking his Physical side. Much easier to cripple his Sp Def and wreck that.

Armarouge does well with this raid too because the ability to eat fire attacks and Acid Spray to lower Cinders Sp D

Yes, but what about the trees? Or the bugs?!

Slowbro

Modest, Hypertrained

Stored Power
iron Defense
nasty Plot
Slack Off

Holding a Shell Bell

Have fun!

Never knocked out once. Did it first try completely solo

I’ll post two other working builds for solo/group.

Armarouge w/ Flash Fire @ Expert Belt
252 Def / 252 Sp A / 4 Hp
Reflect
Acid Spray
Psychic Terrain
Expanding Force

Support Pelipper w/ Rain Dish @ Leftovers
252 Hp / 252 Def / 4 Sp A

Rain Dance
Hurricane
Helping Hand
Chilling Water

@Zach777 Was just about to post that! Lol! I’ll just add with Slowbro the order of operations is 3x Iron Def, 3x Nasty, then go 3 shot Cinder with Stored Power.

@IronMan30 This stopped being funny a while ago.

This is hard as hell, but Slowpoke is your friend. And honestly, doing it alone is easier. Teammates who don’t know what they’re doing are too much of a hinderance.

The build you should use and that’s being shared online is Slowpoke with Iron Defense, Nasty Plot, and Stored Power. Then just boost your defense 2 or 3 times followed by nasty plot 2 or 3 times. By then, Stored Power should take a decent chunk out of his health. For a held item, use a shell bell to keep your Hp up.

Now, he might nullify stat changes, but you should have time to boost your stats again as long as you’re not getting knocked out. I’ve done it multiple times now with this strategy and, like I said, it’s easier alone. If you have friends who know what they’re doing, it should be ok. Good luck and hope this helps!

Really seems weird to me that you’ve gotta have Pokémon with maxed out levels and EVs to survive these raids. Were Sword/Shield raids like this? I remember them being easier and the matchmaking being the actual problem.

Anyway, I caught this Cinderace with the Espathra + Lumina Crash. Interestingly enough, the Azumarill on my team was able to pull their weight as well.

I’m happy to have my favorite Pokémon in Violet now but I think I’ll wait for Home support if the other transfer Pokémon are gonna have raids like this.

@TheExile285 Seems like the 7-star raids in ScarVi, unlike the hardest Sw/Sh raids, are especially designed to make your life miserable.

Anyone notice that this Cinderace uses five moves? The one my party battled hit us with Pyro Ball, Bulk Up, Hi Jump Kick, Iron Head, and Acrobatics.

Thank Arceus, I'm on a shiny hunting bonanza and need those Exp candies.

@Twilite9 You've gotta do the post game Gyms then the 4 Battles at the school and do a certain amount of 5 star raids to unlock 6 - 7 star raids.

A friend of mine's in the same boat and I had to invite him to my Charizard Raid and make him a raid ready Azumaril.

Made him a Raid ready Slowbro for Cinderace but if that doesn't work might have to make a raid ready Espartha, Ceruledge or Dachshound.

Just started playing, think I can find a team to carry my level 30 Pokemon?

@Lizuka it has iron head. Don’t bring any fairies. This one was tough, but slowbro is out there ready for rabbit season.

@eltomo unfortunately you have to be way into the end game to do 7 star raids. Let me know if you want a scorbunny though

Hm, have just finished the main story last night. Wish they had waited a little longer before they began rolling these extreme raids. Wonder if I can join a random raid to do this one...

@Zach777 Swap Shell Bell for Life Orb and you can practically one-shot Cinderace after the NPCs chip it down. Having an NPC teammate with an Intimidate Pokémon is a big help too.

@Lizuka Azumarill gets wrecked by the Cinderace raid because it has Iron Head and uses Bulk Up to increase it's defense, so special attackers are definitely at an advantage in these raids

@SmileMan64 They will be doing this raid again in a couple weeks so if you miss out on it this weekend you can try again when they run it for the second time

@RubyCarbuncle I agree, the only reason to do it is for the novelty of having that Pokémon. That’s it. Because once Home is active, Cinderace won’t be hard to come by.

I don’t mind a difficult challenge, but this was too difficult. I probably spent an hour or more getting frustrated as teams just kept getting destroyed without putting much of a dent in his health. Luckily I found that Slowpoke build online, or I never would’ve completed this. It’s just not very fun and there’s no way the average player figures it out on their own.

@eltomo I’m sorry, but probably not. A level 30 is just going to continually get one-shot by Cinderace and take all the time away from your team. Your better bet is to get someone to breed and trade a Scorbunny or just wait a couple weeks for the event to come back. Hopefully by then your Pokémon will be stronger.

@Zach777 - not to sound like a complete noob, which I am at end game tera raids, but Slowbro over Slowing?

@Zach777 hypertrained in what?

I didn’t know I needed to have completed the game for this. Crap. I’ve only got like two or three badges lol. Maybe in January.

@Diagnosed_H1N1

Hyper trained in all stats. Any that aren’t 31

Slowbro has a higher defensive stat. Cinderace is a physical attacker. Yes, Slowbro over Slowking.

@RubyCarbuncle

Sorry you had a tough time. Need help? Are you level 100?

@TheExile285 7 Star Raids weren't a thing in SwSh, the highest they went was 5 Star. And 5 Star Raids were about the same difficulty as the 5 Star Raids in this game, so it's definitely a massive difficulty spike from SwSh.

Just gave it a try and didn't have a chance, even with Lv. 100 Pokemon. Doesn't help that all I have to use against it is Iron Valiant (which got destroyed by Acrobatics), Farigiraf, and Corviknight (which don't resist Fighting). Looking at some of the successful builds on here, this is some competitive tier BS that I don't want to be part of, I subscribe to the Karen philosophy and don't want to have to be limited to the handful of Pokemon the meta says are good and have to max them out, that's no fun. F this noise, I'm just going to wait for Home.

@RubyCarbuncle

There’s a lot of contributing factors… what level is your Pokémon? How are the EV spread out? What are its IVs?

Cinderace is Level 100 and gets a lot of unfair priority moves and actions. Keep at it; you’ll get it.

Another thing that helps is if the ai brings a Pokémon that has intimidate. With the Slowbro setup Cinderace can barely do any damage to you with 3 iron defences In play.

@FoxyDude Awesome. Thanks.