Greninja Raiding

 

Getting Hyped for Greninja Raiding

Intro:

The previous post was a pretty extensive breakdown of Tera Raiding. Using that background knowledge, this post will focus on the upcoming Seven Star Greninja Raid that will debut for round one this Friday on January 27th. The first round will end on Monday, January 30th. The second round of the event will take place Friday, February 10th to Monday, February 13th. 

Below are the details to the event:

I've been really excited about this event for three reasons:

1. I learned that Greninja is my son's favorite Pokemon
2. I don't know much about Greninja, which is exciting
3. The YouTubers have been hyping this event like crazy

There is a lot of content out there (example link) giving advice on what Pokemon to use and how to build them for success. The best video I've seen by far, is the one below:

In the video, Steve Sarumi breaks down in incredible detail the best Pokemon for the upcoming raid event. Steve Sarumi is the host of a Pokemon Podcast called "It's Super Effective" and had done a previous video for the Cinderace Raid where he led the meta to take down Cinderace with Slowpoke, Espartha and Armarouge:

My son and I used a duo of Slowpoke & Espartha to dominate the Cinderace Event, so Mr. Sarumi seems to know what he's talking about and the builds are really effective. From the intel I've gained in watching his video, reading through all the in depth feedback in the video comments, along with having tested the builds myself in six star raids, I've built and tested seven unique Pokemon that I think will be super fun to use against Greninja.

In the remaining post, I'll share with you my top three of the aforementioned seven I've built. The first two have amazing synergy with one another (as strategically designed by Mr. Sarumi), while the third is a favorite of mine from Generation 8 that I've yet to use in Pokemon Scarlet.

Body:

Clodsire Build

You might remember Clodsire as "Spears" from my Crikey Party used in the story mode of Pokemon Scarlet. In this build, Clodsire is a special attacker that still maximizes its incredible bulk to be a great support Pokemon that can also do some damage once it's setup.

The ability "Water Absorb" is important to neutralize Greninja's water attack move, since Clodsire is a Ground type and would normally take super effective damage from water moves. 

It is predicted that Greninja will be a special attacker and therefore, the EVs have been invested in HP & Special Defense. The cool thing about this build is the item "Assault Vest". It gives Clodsire even more Special Defense. 

In order to use Assault Vest, Clodsire is not allowed to have any status moves; all the moves must be attacking moves. This works out well though for Clodsire because it has really amazing attacking moves that are most effective for their secondary status effects.

Acid Spray is probably the best Tera Raid move in the game. It allows Clodsire to attack and do minimal damage (i.e. 40 base power) while simultaneously weakening the Special Defense by two stages. Most importantly, because Acid Spray is a damaging move, it can still be used after Greninja puts up its shield. In addition, every time Acid Spray is used, Clodsire is one move closer to the goal of terastalization.

Chilling Water is another attack move with a secondary status effect, as every time it lands it will lower Greninja's physical attack by one stage. This move is in case Greninja is a "duel attacker" instead of a pure Special Attacker. If Greninja has no "physical attacking" moves, then Chilling Water should be replaced by "Recover", a status move that restores 50% of Clodsire's health. Since Recover is a status move, Clodsire won't be able to carry the Assault Vest. In this case, you'll need to give Clodsire another item like Leftovers or Soft Sand. 

Mud Shot is another attack move that does minimal damage (i.e. 55 base power) but lowers the speed of Greninja by one stage. Outspeeding Greninja becomes important when using healing moves, as it can be the difference between your Pokemon getting knocked out or healing up significantly with a "Recover" or "Drain Punch". Alternatively, Mud Slap could be a viable option here. Mud Slap does less damage, but causes Greninja to be less accurate with its attacking moves enabling your Pokemon to avoid damage. 

Finally, Clodsire is given Earth Power. While there is no investment in EVs towards Special Attack, due to the weakening of Greninja's Special Defense from Acid Spray, this move will pack a punch with its 90 base power. 

This can be seen by using Pokesport's Damage Calculator to simulate a matchup between this version of Clodsire and an anticipated Greninja.

If Earth Power were to be used without Clodsire being terastalized with Tera Type Ground nor having lowered Greninja's Special Defense with Acid Spray, Clodsire would do only 48.2 damage.

However, once Acid Spray is used three times to drop Greninja's Special Defense by six stages and enable Clodsire to use Earth Power as a terasteralized Tera Type Ground Pokemon, things look a lot different:

Clodsire deals about 5 times more damage due to Acid Spray! This just goes to illustrate how valuable Acid Spray can be in the Tera Raiding format.

Gastrodon Build

Similar to Clodsire's Water Absorb, Gastrodon takes advantage of its ability Storm Drain to neutralize Greninja's water moves against Ground Types. However, not only will Storm Drain neutralize the water attacks from Greninja, but in addition it will increase its Special Attack by one stage every time it is hit by a water attack. 

The EVs have been invested in Special Defense and Special Attack. This Gastrodon has incredible synergy with Clodsire because Clodsire can hit Gastrodon with Chilling Water to further increase Gastrodon's Special Attack. Gastrodon has been given Soft Sand to make it an even stronger attacker with it's Ground attacks.

Gastrodon would likely start out the Raid by using Mud Slap three times.  This will enable Gastrodon to terastalize to a Ground Tera Type without doing enough damage to trigger the Greninja to activate its shield. All the while, Greninja's accuracy will have been significantly lowered by three stages. Hopefully, this will enable you and your fellow Raiders to avoid Greninja attacks in subsequent turns.

Gastrodon also has Recover, in case it needs to heal itself from damage it has taken over the previous three turns. 

Once terastalized, Gastrodon is meant to do massive damage with Earth Power as a Special Attacker. In an ideal scenario, the following will have happened in the first four turns:

1. Not knowing Gastrodon has Storm Drain, Greninja hits Gastrodon with a water move on the first turn, increasing Gastrodon's Special Attack by one stage. 
2. Mud Slap will have reduced Greninja's accuracy enabling Gastrodon to avoid at least another non-Water attack on turns 2-4.
3. Clodsire will have landed Acid Spray three times having lowered Greninja's Special Defense by six stages.
4. On turn four, Gastrodon will use Recover to heal and Closdsire will hit Gastrodon with Chilling Water to increase Gastrodon's Special Attack another stage.

This sets up Gastrodon on turn five to be terastalized with its Special Attack having been raised by two stages and Greninja's Special Defense to have been lowered by six stages.

Again using Pokesport's Damage Calculator tool, we can simulate what the damage will be in such a scenario. 

Gastrodon deals about 6 times more damage than Clodsire's best case scenario! The theory is that these two Pokemon working together might be just as good as the synergy between Espartha and Slowpoke against the seven star Cinderace.

Toxtricity Build

This build is mentioned by Steve Sarumi as his favorite and having used it I can understand why. The Toxtricity I'm used to takes advantage of its ability Punk Rock, so it can hit hard with its many sound based moves like Boomburst and Overdrive.

However, this Toxtricity is built around it being more of a Hybrid-Attacker and being able to leverage the most valuable move in Tera Raids: Acid Spray.

Mr. Sarumi therefore chooses Toxtricity's hidden ability Technician to synergize well with Acid Spray and the other moves being 60 base power and lower.

He also gives Toxtricity Assault Vest to provide extra Special Defense against Greninja. Like Gastrodon, the EVs have been invested in Special Defense and Special Attack.

Warning: This Toxtricity is highly obnoxious. If the NPC Tera Raid Boss had emotions, it would very likely break out in tears at the end of the raid.

The Toxtricity would start out with its Nuzzle. This is a physical attack, but is not used for the damage but rather to paralyze. It can also be used later in the raid to paralyze through a shield since it is an attacking move. Paralysis is important because it not only reduces the speed of Greninja by 50%, but 25% of the time the Greninja will not be able to attack due to being "fully paralyzed".

The fun is just getting started because Toxtricity can then start to Snarl. Every time its uses Snarl, the Greninja's Special Attack will drop one stage. If Greninja is a Special Attacker, this will be a very important move to ensure that Greninja doesn't deal out too much damage with it's powerful arsenal of Special Attack moves such as Grass Knot, Ice Beam, Gunk Shot just to name a few. Due to Technician, Toxtricity will also deal 82.5 base power damage instead of only 55 for each use of Snarl.

Depending on other Pokemon in the raid, Toxtricity can also use Acid Spray to reduce the Special Defense of Greninja.

Once Toxtricity can terastalize, it can then use Charge Beam. While Mr. Sarumi recommended Thunderbolt here due to the extra damage (i.e. 90 base power) Thunderbolt can initially deal out, I prefer Charge Beam for its potential and synergy with Technician. Technician increases the base power of Charge Beam from 50 to 75. However, Charge Beam has a 70% chance of raising the Special Attack one stage. If we remember from a previous post about stage-based stat increases referenced in this article, we're well aware that just one stage increase will increase Charge Beam to a base power of 112.5 and two stage increases will increase Charge Beam to a base power of 150!

Once terastalized, Toxtricity is meant to do massive damage with Charge Beam as a Special Attacker. In an ideal scenario, the following will have happened in the first four turns:

1. Nuzzle will have paralyzed Greninja and reduced its speed by half while also causing it to be fully paralyzed at least once on turns 2-4.
2. Snarl will have reduced Greninja's Special Attack by two stages and setup Toxtricity to terastalize.
3. On turn four, Toxtricity will land a terastalized Charge Beam, which will increase Toxtricity's Special Attack by one stage. It will do the following damage according to the Pokesport's Damage Calculator (assuming Greninja's Special Defense has been lowered six stages by another Pokemon):

On turn five, Toxtricity will land an even more powerful Charge Beam with it's Special Attack having been increased one stage from the previous turn: 

Do you agree with me now that Greninja is in tears by this point?

Conclusion:

While these three Pokemon were my favorites that I have built and tested in preparation for the Greninja Event, there are still four other super cool Pokemon to share with you! If you'd like me to follow-up this post with another similar post describing the remaining four Pokemon in detail, please leave a comment below.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to raiding with you come Friday!