Another 7* starter raid, and it's a doozy!
Sceptile has fairly average stats (apart from high speed) and despite having slightly higher special attack it has far better physical coverage, so people weren't quite sure what to expect or how to prepare... Its tera dragon was a bit unusual, but while Sceptile does have fighting moves to handle ice types, it has nothing to counter fairy types, and unless they pull another Pikachu or Mewtwo it probably won't be holding a consumable item so Unburden won't be relevant.
Well, turns out they basically made Sceptile as troublesome as possible!
Tera dragon Hasty Sceptile (x35 HP in a 10-minute raid) immediately starts off with Leaf Storm, but otherwise only has physical moves: his regular moveset is Leaf Blade (90 BP grass, high crit rate), Breaking Swipe (60 BP dragon, -1 Atk debuff), Thunder Punch (75 BP electric, 10% chance to paralyze), and... Dragon Dance (+1 Atk/Spe). Yet another buff move in the regular moveset! At 85% time remaining, Sceptile wipes player buffs; at 80% time it steals a tera orb charge; at 75% time (or 70% HP) it puts up a shield covering 50% of its health bar; and at 65% time it wipes its own debuffs. Meanwhile, at 85% HP remaining it uses Breaking Swipe, and at 30% HP it uses Earthquake; finally, below 50% HP it starts using a second move 50% of the time.
The combination of 'has a buff in regular moveset' and 'has a higher-crit-rate move' is, uh, incredibly rude, to say the least. Not only do you basically have to assume it'll always be at +6 Atk, you don't really have the option to buff your own defense because the 1/8-chance crits could just ignore your buffs and oneshot you!
Thankfully grass/dragon/electric isn't great coverage, and on top of that only Leaf Blade is a scary threat. In theory two Pokemon can resist all three of those types... but Magnezone is quad-weak to the scripted Earthquake, so the actual only option is Whimsicott.
0:00 - Skeledirge
...Well, it's a raid that buffs itself, so obviously Unaware is an option.
Fire is unfortunately not-very-effective against dragon so it takes a while, but luckily fire resists grass and so Sceptile prefers to use Breaking Swipe (whose Atk debuffs are, of course, irrelevant against special attackers). In theory you could run tera ghost and attack with Shadow Ball/Hex once you've buffed up to +5 or +6 SpA to clear this faster, but again, Leaf Blade would then become more of a threat.
For once, though, there's another Unaware option! Clefable is mono-fairy, and despite having worse bulk initially it actually has access to defense-buffing moves (unlike Skeledirge)... though at +1 Def per turn with Defense Curl/Cosmic Power you probably don't want to use too many, and also Leaf Blade crits would ignore buffs regardless. On top of that, your best SpA-buffing move is Calm Mind for +1 SpA per turn (unlike Skeledirge who can attack while buffing), so while you can eventually attack with Moonblast (and attack+heal with Draining Kiss) I'm not actually sure it'd be a faster clear.
9:33 - Whimsicott
I was actually trying to get a clear with newly-raised Whimsicott but had to give up after two hours and got a quick first-try clear with Skeledirge right before midnight, because I wanted Sceptile's catch date to be the raid's earliest day...
As mentioned earlier, Whimsicott actually resists all of Sceptile's moves, and also is one of the few Pokemon to have access to Cotton Guard for +3 Def per turn. It's also a fairy type and gets Moonblast, so despite middling special attack it should still be decent, right?
Well, uh, as it turns out, once you terastallize to tera fairy Leaf Blade isn't resisted anymore, and even fully-invested-defense Whimsicott is still guaranteed to be oneshot by a +6 Leaf Blade crit, so this is still a depressingly-unfeasible strategy. I did have the genius idea to run Substitute such that any crits would at worst take out 25% of my HP (thanks, Prankster!), but you can't simply always keep a sub up because two non-crit +6 Atk Leaf Blades will still take out your sub.
In the end, after giving up on the initial clear with Gardevoir + Staraptor and pivoted to Skeledirge, I later rerolled AI and managed to get Staraptor + Arcanine (double Intimidate!) plus Drifblim (who can Will-o-wisp before shield). Arcanine's 10% burn chance with Flamethrower was the key to this victory, since it meant Leaf Blade couldn't twoshot subs anymore, giving me time to attack.
Anyways, I postponed terastallization until after I spammed Growth to +6 SpA, then didn't bother to put up sub afterwards and got lucky with no crits. Definitely would not recommend anyone try to imitate this strategy, despite how much I wanted it to go well.
With that said, a super-tricky raid means a bunch of interesting strategies to try, so look forward to two more videos!
7 июл 2024
