Tera Types & Raiding

 

Tera Types Breakdown for Raids

Intro:

The previous post was all about Tera Raids. Since having written that post, participating in Tera Raids has been pretty much the only thing I've been doing in Pokemon Scarlet. The Tera Raids are challenging enough that a real strategy is needed before taking part. Most importantly, one needs to determine what kind of Pokemon to bring into the raid. If the team you're raiding with has all attackers, then it is vital that you bring in a support Pokemon. If the team you're bringing with has too many support Pokemon, then you'll likely not be able to dish out enough damage throughout the raid to defeat the boss.

Over the past weeks, I've had a lot of fun building up specific Pokemon to help me be successful in various raiding situations when taking on six and seven star raids. I think this article is the best online for given a nice overview of the different types of raiding Pokemeon to build and use in really competitive Tera Raids (i.e. six & seven star raids). They categorize Pokemon into three main types: Physical Attacking, Special Attacking & Support. They also grade the Pokemon in each of these types and assign them to a relevant tier based on how overpowered they view the Pokemon for that type. 

In my opinion, it would make more sense to have four types of Tera Raid Pokemon instead of just three. The four types I would recommended would be: Physical Attacker, Special Attacker, Special Support & Physical Support. However, this can be debated in more detail in another post. 

More interestingly for this post are the Tera Type recommendations that are made for each overpowered Tera Raid Pokemon. For example, they recommend giving the Chansey support type a Fairy build. While that might make sense in competitive Pokemon, the Tera Raid game dynamics are different than online competitive and therefore the assigning of Tera Types demands a slightly different different logic. While in theory Chansey might benefit from being a Fairy Tera Type, based on the moves recomended (i.e. all support moves) the Tera Type would never be able to be activated in a Tera Raid and therefore is useless.

In the remaining post, I will breakdown Tera Types for Tera Raids by providing a background on the Terastal Phenonemon, breakdown the Tera Raid game dynamics involving terastalizing your Pokemon and provide tips on choosing the proper Tera Type for Tera Raid Pokemon.

Body:

Terastalization

Wolfe VGC did a video shortly after Pokemon Scarlet & Violet was released. The 15 minute video can be viewed below:

By terastalizing in battle, your Pokemon's type will be replaced with its Tera Type. For example, a Dragon/Fighting type Pokemon that has a Steel Tera Type will become a Steel type after having terastalized.

A Pokemon's type is important due to STAB, which was mentioned in the post about Crikey. As a refresher, STAB stands for Same Type Attack Bonus. A Fire type Pokemon deals out 50% more damage to their opposing Pokemon when using a fire attack move.

One of the interesting insights from Wolfe's video on terastalization is its effect on STAB. 

A Pokemon that changes its type via terastalization will receive STAB for its new type, however, it will not lose its STAB for its original type. For example, a Dragon/Fighting Pokemon that has terastalized into a Steel Tera Type will have access to Dragon, Fighting & Iron moves that get STAB and deal 50% more damage. 

A Pokemon that changes to a Tera Type that is the same as its original type will have its STAB boosted for attacking moves associated with the Tera Type. For example, a Dragon/Fighting Pokemon that has terastalized into a Fighting Tera Type will deal out 100% more damage to their opposing Poekmon when using a fighting attack move.

While the Pokemon retains the offensive STAB for its original typing after having terastalized to a new Tera Type, it will only be vulnerable to incoming attacks based on the new mono Tera Type. For example, a Dragon/Fighting Pokemon that has terastalized into a Steel Tera Type will now only take 1/2 damage from Dragon moves because of the Steel type instead of 2x damage from its previous Dragon type.

Due to the aforementioned game mechanics related to terastalization, there are many offensive and defensive strategies involved in determining what Tera Type is best for particular Pokemon. In the video, Wolfe recommends that, first and foremost, one determines what the Tera Type will be used for.

Ideally, the Tera Type will improve your Pokemon both offensively and defensively. However, this is not always possible. Therefore, Wolfe suggests the following when determining what the most optimal Tera Type is for a given Pokemon:

1. Determine what role the Pokemon already fulfills on your team (i.e. fast physical attacking vs. slow bulky supportive)
2. Typically, choose a Tera Type that improves your Pokemon do what it already does well
3. If a Pokemon has poor defense stats, don't focus on a Tera Type for defense
4. If a Pokemon has high stat attack moves in its original type, strongly consider a Tera Type of that move to boost the STAB (example: Tera Type Fire for TorKoal)
5. Consider defensive Tera Type choices only for Pokemon with natural defenses that don't do damage in the first place or don't need more offensive coverage

Terastalizing in Tera Raids

The strategy behind terastalizing in Wolfe's video is mainly centered on using terastalization in competitive online play. However, the game mechanics of terastalization in Tera Raids is slightly different compared to singles / doubles online play. 

Information on the game mechanics of Tera Raids is very scarce However, this reddit post is the most detailed explanation I've been able to find and is an excellent resource.  The reddit post confirms that a Pokemon must land 3 damaging attacks to be able to terastalize in Tera Raids. In addition, the boss Pokemon in a Tera Raid can use a move called "steal charge" where it steals a charge from your count in order to terastalize. For example, if you've used two damaging moves, the charge count will be at two. However, if "steal charge" is used by the boss Pokemon, your count will be at one and the Pokemon will need two additional damaging moves (four in total) to terastalize. 

This mechanic is different from online play in singles or doubles where one Pokemon from a team can terastalize a single time at any moment in the game regardless of using a damaging move or not. This makes a big difference for support Pokemon. If a support Pokemon is given no attacking moves, it will not be possible for the Pokemon to terastalize in the Tera Raid, thereby making its Tera Type useless.

Tera Type Tips for Tera Raids

 Since the Tera Type can only be accessed in Tera Raids once at least three damaging moves have landed, it makes sense to identify how the Tera Type applied can enhance the Pokemon's role in the Tera Raid and how it will be activated.

Attacking Pokemon will frequently get their 3 damaging attacks off early in the Tera Raid. Therefore, it usually makes sense to go with the strategy of applying a Tera Type of a type the Pokemon already has in order to further boost its STAB. For example, if one is using the Tera Raid favorite Iron Hands, a Tera Type of Fighting will make the 75 base damage of Drain Punch land with not with just +50% additional damage (i.e. 112.5 base damage) but rather with +100% additional damage (i.e. 150 base damage). This will allow the Iron Hands not only to land more damage on the opposing boss Pokemon, but due to Drain Punch, heal more from the damage received by the opposing boss Pokemon.

Support Pokemon in Tera Raids, on the other hand, are often recommended to have no attacking moves. For example,  here are such recommendation examples for Gardevoir, Umbreon & Chansey. Changing the Tera Type for a Pokemon is not a trivial endeavor. It is time consuming to either hunt for the Pokemon with the exact Tera Type or even worse collect the necessary Tera Shards to change the Tera Type. Therefore, if a particular Tera Type is provided to that Pokemon, one definitely wants to have some option for application. Using the Tera Type is only possible if the Pokemon has attacking moves to land damage, so it is crucial that they are given at least one attacking move.

Tera Blast is always a great option to provide as an attacking move for special attacking support Pokemon with a small attacking moveset pool. For example,  if Umbreon has a Ghost Tera Type, there are no attacking Ghost moves this Pokemon has access to. However, Tera Blast will function as a Normal special attack move until Umbreon is able to terastalize and then it will become a Ghost move with STAB dealing 120 base damage. This strategy would be even better for Chansey, since Chansey is a Normal type and the Tera Blast will have STAB even prior to Chansey terastalizing. If Chansey has Tera Type Fairy, the move Tera Blast will become a Fairy move with STAB.

Conclusion:

The terastalization concept in Pokemon can be overwhelming. It becomes even more daunting when trying to determine the different applications of a Tera Type for a Pokemon being built for Tera Raids vs. competitive singles and doubles play.

I was surprised that some of the online recommendations were leading people, including myself, astray with the instructions to build Tera Raid Pokemon with Tera Types that were useless based on the moves they were recommending. 

Hopefully this post has made it more clear what the overall strategy should be when building Tera Type Pokemon and determining what Tera Types they should have. 

Currently, there is a Tera Raid even going on where rare Dragapult & Hydreigon Pokemon in various Tera Types can be challenged and captured. After having read this post, I'm curious what the best Tera Type for Dragapult and Hydreigon are when using them as Tera Raid Pokemon. What do you think? If you're struggling for ideas, I recommend that you watch the following video to gain even more insights and ideas.