Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Definitive Tera Raid Guide

To get to the final Tera Raid in Pokemon scarlet and violet, there’s quite a bit to know besides “just bring a strong Pokemon.” Five and six star raids can be tricky, especially if you don’t have the right matchup.

If you want to catch Pokemon with perfect IVs, farm Herba Mystica, or collect rare items like caps, you’ll need to participate in high-level Tera Raids, but how do you do it? Time is the most valuable resource in Tera Raids, and each time an allied Pokemon faints, the timer will decrease significantly. You need strong Pokemon to successfully complete these raids.

Below we talk about how to build Pokemon for Tera Raids and how to quickly farm Herba Mystica with Raids, and outline some of the most popular meta builds.

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Build Pokemon for Tera Raids

While lower level raids are easy enough to complete with whatever Pokemon you have on hand, higher level raids can actually be quite difficult. That means you should consider hypertraining for your IVs and EV training, and adjust your Pokemon’s nature to match their stats. You should also avoid using Pokemon with lower Defense stats, as you don’t want to waste time fainting.

Depending on the raid, your Pokemon should also be at an appropriate level. The levels of Pokémon in Tera Raids are as follows:

• A star: level 12
• Two stars: level 20
• Three stars: level 35
• Four Star: level 45
• Five stars: level 75
• Six Stars: level 90
• seven stars: Level 100
  (Note that seven star raids are event restricted and will not spawn under normal circumstances.)

Although the Pokemon you Battle will be high grade, the Pokemon you choose to use catch will join your team at a lower level (i.e. six star raid pokemon is at level 75 instead), so don’t expect to bring level 90 pokemon home just by completing a six star raid.

You don’t even have access to six- and seven-star raids until you’ve beaten the Academy Ace Tournament and completed a handful of higher-level raids.

However, you should bring Pokemon that are either the same level or higher than the Pokemon you’re fighting. Nobody wants your level 25 Pikachu in a six star raid. Forgiveness.

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Use type mappings to your advantage

You must pay attention type benefits in raids at a higher level (Five, Six, and Seven Star Raids). This is not a recommendation. It’s an essential tactic you must use in order to win. Even if you use the high-level Pokemon that excel in the meta, they’ll only pass out if they’re weak to the opponent’s moves, which will cost you time.

You should have a Pokemon that deals either periodic or super effective damage to the Raid Pokemon’s Tera-typeidentified by the icon in the upper-right corner of the raid screen. Your chosen Pokemon should also take either reduced or normal damage from the Raid Pokemon.

That said You also need to pay attention to the regular tapping of this Pokemon. When facing a Dragon Tera type Charizard, it can still master fire and flight moves. While you might be tempted to take your very powerful Froslass to counter the Dragon-type with Ice-type attacks, Charizard will use a Fire-type attack on your Pokemon to wipe them out.

For additional support, Serebii.net has a full list of raid targets and what moves they can have.

Be smart with your selection. The number one reason you run out of time and lose in a raid is because your Pokémon (or your teammates’ Pokémon) faint too often.

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Breeding Herba Mystica from Tera Raids

Graphics: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo

If you want to farm Mystic Herb Tera Raids for the purpose of Shiny Hunt, you should look out for several specific Raids. Herba Mystica only drops in five and six star raidsand certain Pokemon drop certain Herba Mystica strains.

Not every Pokémon in five-star raids drops Herba Mystica, but when they do, they have about a 10% chance of dropping it per Herba. according to Serebii.net. Every six-star raid Pokemon has a chance to drop Herba Mystica at around 13% per Herba.

The following Pokemon in particular have a chance to drop every type of Herba Mystica, meaning you can get up to five Herba Mystica in one run if you’re lucky.

In Five Star Raidssearch Gengar, Blissey, Glalie, drift blim, amoon cast, Electross, Palafin, Cetitanand dose.

In Six Star Raidssearch Vaporeon, Blissey, amoon cast, Cetitan, doseand Farigiraf.

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High level Ditto raids

If you’re hosting a Ditto Raid, choose a weak Pokemon, as Ditto will transform into the host’s Pokemon. Magikarp is a popular choice, but it can reasonably only be something weak. That way, you can easily complete the raid – and end up snagging a Ditto with a few perfect IVs, which is great for breeding.

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Meta Pokemon Picks

Graphics: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo

If the type pairing is good and your Pokémon is properly trained, you can realistically use most Pokémon successfully even in high-tier Tera Raids. However, some players have taken a liking to certain builds that help them truly wipe out raid targets.

Here are some popular tips that we have also tested and used:

Belly Drum Iron Hands Raid Build

Iron Hands who is trapped in Area Zero as Pokemon Purple exclusive, is a powerful electric and combat type that you will often see in online raids. It can solo some six star raids if built properly. Set it up like this:

• Nature: unyielding
• Capability: curd drive
• Tera type: fighting or electric
• Electric Vehicles: 4 HP/252 Attack/252 Special Defense
  (You can also put 252 on defense instead, or you can split EVs between the two defense stats.)
• IV’s: Max HP, Attack, Defense, Special Defense and Speed
• Held Item: batting glove or Booster Energy
• movement set: Belly Drum (learned at level 84), Thunder Clap (learned at level 21), Electric Terrain (memory motion), Drain Strike (TM68)

With this strategy, you’ll use Belly Drum on your first turn, which will cut your HP in half. Then you spam Drain Punch to regain HP. Drain Punch deals a lot of damage (especially with the Punching Glove item) and can restore Iron Hands to full health. If the target Pokémon is weak to Electric-type moves, you can use Thunder Clap instead, but you should still use Drain Life to make sure Iron Hands doesn’t faint.

If you have a lot of other Iron Hands in your raid (which is a common occurrence when playing online), you can use Electric Terrain to boost his stats even further thanks to Iron Hands’ Quark Drive ability. You only need to do this if you and your fellow Iron Hands players don’t have the Booster Energy item.

Do not use Iron Hands against psychic, fairy, or ground-type opponents.

Huge Power Azumarill Raid Build

This is another fan favorite that you’ll see in countless online raid battles. Set it up with the following to build a spooky water and fairy destroyer:

• Nature: unyielding
• Capability: Huge power
• Tera type: fairy or water
• Electric Vehicles: 252 HP/252 Attack/4 Defense
• IV’s: Max HP, Attack, Defense, Special Defense and Speed
• Held Item: shell bell
• movement set: Belly Drum (mirrored egg movement), Play Rough (learned at level 25), Liquidation (TM110), Helping Hand (learned at level 1)

To teach Azumarill Belly Drum, it must be holding a Mirrorweed item (purchased from Delibird Presents) and clearing one of its moves to give it an empty move slot. Then put it in a picnic next to a hariyama with belly drum. After a minute of waiting, the Azumarill learns the belly drum.

This strategy is just like Iron Hands’ strategy: use Belly Drum and then use Liquidation or Play Rough to wipe out the target Pokemon. Unlike Iron Hands, Azumarill doesn’t have an HP draining attack, so you’ll have to rely on HP regenerating Cheers or his Shell Bell hold item to heal it.

Note that as of this writing, there is something wrong with this Azumarill build. When using Play Rough, it may seem like a lot of damage is being done, but the target Pokemon will “regain” some of its lost HP. While we’re not exactly sure what’s going on, despite this bug, the damage is still huge, so don’t worry if it looks like you OHKOed the target, but it then regains 25% of its HP. The Pokémon Company has confirmed this error and says that a fix will come in a future update.

Don’t use Azumarill against Poison, Grass, or Electric-type Pokémon.

Evolite Chansey Raid Build

This is a personal favorite of mine if you’re already having a party full of Iron Hands and Azumarill. You can run support with Chansey by setting it up as follows:

• Nature: Clearly
• Capability: Healer (hidden ability)
• Tera type: does not matter
• Electric Vehicles: 252 HP/252 Defense/4 Special Defense
• IV’s: Maximum HP, Defense, Special Defense, and Speed
• Held Item: eevee
• movement set: Helping Hand (learned at level 32), Lifeline (learned at level 12), Heal Pulse (learned at level 28), Soft Boiled (learned at level 44)

You can also substitute Soft-Boiled for Thunder Wave (TM84) to hold back the Raid-type Pokémon, but make sure you don’t use it against normal targets that may know the attack Facade. (Facade does more damage when the user is Paralyzed, Poisoned, or Burned.) If you’re worried about a raid Pokemon that uses Taunt, you can give your Chansey a simple offensive move like Echoed Voice.

The strategy here is really simple: just keep your companions alive. Spam Life Dew repeatedly and uses Heal Pulse when a specific teammate is low on HP. If everyone is healthy, you can use Helping Hand instead to boost a strong Pokemon.

A chansey holding an eviolite is bulkier than a blissey when properly trained, which is why you go for this setup.

This strategy works fairly well against all Pokemon (including fighting types), but doesn’t work in battles with NPC teammates.