I wasn't intending to come off strongly?
But also literally every Ceruledge I've run into in one of these raids (bar Rillaboom) has died repeatedly. Even Dialga managed to kill one.
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7-star Tera Ice Empoleon raid event (February 2-4/9-11)
- Thread starter doipy hooves
- Start date
But also literally every Ceruledge I've run into in one of these raids (bar Rillaboom) has died repeatedly. Even Dialga managed to kill one.
The problem is that Clear Smog is not an answer to something that can happen outside of your turn. Clear Smog was not sufficient for Mewtwo f.e. specifically cause it was getting buffs faster than you could dispel them, resulting in you either spamming the move (doing no damage) or getting obliterated if by any chance the boss got +3 before you could do another one.
Competitive poses a similar problem, with both AI and potential players using debuffing moves (even unintentionally like Flash Cannon). You're at risk of the boss accumulating too many stacks before your turn.
I'll cross that bridge when I get there (but will soft reset for no Intimidate solo); I don't have anything more fool proof without training something new. I intend to give Ceruledge two attempts at T1 Sun T2 Dance T3 BB and go from there. Besides, it's always quite exciting when the raid is a close one.
That's fine, but sir don't take it personally, noone is telling you "reee you're a idiot for trying to use Ceruledge".
We're just warning you it may not be worth it.
Or rather, warning potential other posters that would think to make one that it may not work, since you already have one and felt like trying it.
Regardless, we have had times in the past where the "best pick" was actually eating supereffective hits for one reason or another.
Haze is plausible as a 0-second scripted move here, as a mercy bone against the randomness of possible Intimidate partners, but also to blunt Zacian and Zamazenta a bit.
Seems unlikely.
Does Haze go through the Tera shield? Cause if not, I could see Empoleon throwing it out after putting up the shield.
It does iirc, but you'd usually not want to use it cause you're also wiping out your team's buffs and most (proper) damage mons do use buffs or debuffs of some sort.
Although I think we all agree Competitive will be a top concern for this raid, I think there are going to be a few vectors for us to abuse in this raid. Not that it’s going to be easy at all, but two early predictions I think we can leverage:
Empoleon will do an early (I predict T0) Icy Wind
I know there are a lot of fellow Battle Facility enthusiasts here, and you’ll recall that speed control has been a big part of past Empoleon movesets for as long as I can recall. Empoleon 1 & 2 were physical sets with Aqua Jet, and Empoleon 3 carried Icy Wind and spammed it very predictably against faster opponents. I’m predicting in this 7* raid that GF will do something to mitigate Empoleon’s craptastic base 60 speed. A early scripted Icy Wind is right on-trend for 7* raids, being a spread move player debuff. If I’m right about Icy Wind, then I think the big Defiant raid mons with SE STAB like Kingambit and Annihilape are gonna be loving it.
Low accuracy moves like Blizzard and/or Hydro Pump
These 7* raids love to use high-BP moves and Empoleon might have both of these, which means we can abuse Mud-Slap liberally — assuming, of course, that we’ve previously removed Competitive. We’ve seen the general support value of accuracy-lowering in raids in the past, because nothing helps pokemon survive better than getting completely free turns. I think a combo of Ability Removal and Accuracy Lowering is going to be a support move staple for multiple mons in this Empoleon raid.
Empoleon will do an early (I predict T0) Icy Wind
I know there are a lot of fellow Battle Facility enthusiasts here, and you’ll recall that speed control has been a big part of past Empoleon movesets for as long as I can recall. Empoleon 1 & 2 were physical sets with Aqua Jet, and Empoleon 3 carried Icy Wind and spammed it very predictably against faster opponents. I’m predicting in this 7* raid that GF will do something to mitigate Empoleon’s craptastic base 60 speed. A early scripted Icy Wind is right on-trend for 7* raids, being a spread move player debuff. If I’m right about Icy Wind, then I think the big Defiant raid mons with SE STAB like Kingambit and Annihilape are gonna be loving it.
Low accuracy moves like Blizzard and/or Hydro Pump
These 7* raids love to use high-BP moves and Empoleon might have both of these, which means we can abuse Mud-Slap liberally — assuming, of course, that we’ve previously removed Competitive. We’ve seen the general support value of accuracy-lowering in raids in the past, because nothing helps pokemon survive better than getting completely free turns. I think a combo of Ability Removal and Accuracy Lowering is going to be a support move staple for multiple mons in this Empoleon raid.
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If this happens, I'm bringing Defiant Ape and going for Turn 1 defence cheer.
Gonna compile a list of all of the NPC Partner Pokemon that can drop stats:
Intimidate, Leer
Chilling Water
Energy Ball, Earth Power
Mud Shot
Intimidate, Feather Dance
Intimidate
Shadow Ball
Psychic
Scary Face
Moonblast, Charm
Rock Tomb
Rock Smash
Leer
Scary Face
That's 14 out of the 18 partner pool, leaving
, 
, 
, and 
as the only mons that don't have anything that can drop stats. That's simply way too many chances for my liking. Even if the chances for a drop are small like Earth Power's 10% SpDef drop chance, that can still happen through shield at any time. I'm also not a fan of Solo Ceruledge because even when you do have Clear Smog for a potential Competitive boost, you have to kill your momentum to use it, only for it to just get another one the very next turn anyway.
I woudn't waste your time using a solo mon that doesn't neutralize the ability in some way, like Skill Swap, lest you want to spend a long time soft-resetting for partners that don't drop stats or at least have one that does but the chances are slim (say, Gardevoir, Psychic Umbreon, and Dudunsparce as an example comp). Even then, you have to SR anyway to not have an Intimidate partner, and I'd rather just shoot for that instead of a more hyper-specific comp like above.
Intimidate, Leer
Chilling Water
Energy Ball, Earth Power
Mud Shot
Intimidate, Feather Dance
Intimidate
Shadow Ball
Psychic
Scary Face
Moonblast, Charm
Rock Tomb
Rock Smash
Leer
Scary Face
That's 14 out of the 18 partner pool, leaving
, , , and as the only mons that don't have anything that can drop stats. That's simply way too many chances for my liking. Even if the chances for a drop are small like Earth Power's 10% SpDef drop chance, that can still happen through shield at any time. I'm also not a fan of Solo Ceruledge because even when you do have Clear Smog for a potential Competitive boost, you have to kill your momentum to use it, only for it to just get another one the very next turn anyway.I woudn't waste your time using a solo mon that doesn't neutralize the ability in some way, like Skill Swap, lest you want to spend a long time soft-resetting for partners that don't drop stats or at least have one that does but the chances are slim (say, Gardevoir, Psychic Umbreon, and Dudunsparce as an example comp). Even then, you have to SR anyway to not have an Intimidate partner, and I'd rather just shoot for that instead of a more hyper-specific comp like above.
I think that ability removal is probably going to be a prerequisite for both solo and online raids. There's enough distribution of Skill Swap, Worry Seed, Gastro Acid etc that there should be options that can work. And, resetting for no Intimidate NPCs is probably a given for solo. But that kind of resetting is not too tough, and is probably easier than the normal reset reason to intentionally GET Intimidate partners (not sure about the probability math here lol)
Also, I'm guessing a few NPCs, even if they have some stat drop moves, could be a big help for soloists trying to go it alone without ability removal or simply a difficult solo. I'm thinking of Bellibolt and Arboliva specifically here, maybe Umbreon too. Bellibolt in particular with Light Screen to reduce damage and high Paralysis chance to give free turns, could end up an MVP NPC for Empoleon. Arboliva terrain healing is awfully nice for sustain, and Umbreon Twave paralysis could help too. So there are some NPC resetting options that might make a marginal solo attempt... less marginal or whatever.
Also, I'm guessing a few NPCs, even if they have some stat drop moves, could be a big help for soloists trying to go it alone without ability removal or simply a difficult solo. I'm thinking of Bellibolt and Arboliva specifically here, maybe Umbreon too. Bellibolt in particular with Light Screen to reduce damage and high Paralysis chance to give free turns, could end up an MVP NPC for Empoleon. Arboliva terrain healing is awfully nice for sustain, and Umbreon Twave paralysis could help too. So there are some NPC resetting options that might make a marginal solo attempt... less marginal or whatever.
Skeledirge 
@Shell Bell 
Tera-Fire
Modest/Mild
12 HP, 252 SpA, 244 SpD
Torch Song
Sunny Day
Slack Off
Flame Charge/Overheat
Sunny Day mitigate the damages from Hydro Pump while boosting Torch Song.
Flame Charge can negate an eventual Icy Wind to stay faster, otherwise Overheat can be timed just before the reset for extra damages.
Slack Off is the safety net before boosting your SpA, healing for more than an Hydro Pump if needed (especially if you need to waste a turn Flame Charging).
Not sure I'll get enough time to solo and it might depend on the user stats reset, but Skeledirge looks like the Pokémon that can ignore Competitive and still win
@Shell Bell Tera-Fire
Modest/Mild
12 HP, 252 SpA, 244 SpD
Torch Song
Sunny Day
Slack Off
Flame Charge/Overheat
Sunny Day mitigate the damages from Hydro Pump while boosting Torch Song.
Flame Charge can negate an eventual Icy Wind to stay faster, otherwise Overheat can be timed just before the reset for extra damages.
Slack Off is the safety net before boosting your SpA, healing for more than an Hydro Pump if needed (especially if you need to waste a turn Flame Charging).
Not sure I'll get enough time to solo and it might depend on the user stats reset, but Skeledirge looks like the Pokémon that can ignore Competitive and still win
Something you could also consider for the 4th slot is Protect. The boss will eventually reset your stats and nullify your ability, leaving you open to Competitive-boosted attacks since Unaware will stop working for a turn. Ability Shield is also an option to then run something else in the 4th slot, but you lose a lot of momentum without Shell Bell, being forced to click Slack Off more.Skeledirge
Tera-Fire
Modest/Mild
12 HP, 252 SpA, 244 SpD
Torch Song
Sunny Day
Slack Off
Flame Charge/Overheat
Sunny Day mitigate the damages from Hydro Pump while boosting Torch Song.
Flame Charge can negate an eventual Icy Wind to stay faster, otherwise Overheat can be timed just before the reset for extra damages.
Slack Off is the safety net before boosting your SpA, healing for more than an Hydro Pump if needed (especially if you need to waste a turn Flame Charging).
Not sure I'll get enough time to solo and it might depend on the user stats reset, but Skeledirge looks like the Pokémon that can ignore Competitive and still win
Chance to get 0/3 Intimidators: 15/18 * 14/17 * 13/16 ~= 55.76%
Chance to get at least 1 Intimidator: 100% minus the above ~= 44.24%
Assuming the NPCs are selected individually and not in preset groups as far as we know, the odds are slightly more in your favour to not get an Intimidate user, though it's pretty close to a coinflip. It's good enough for me to not bother with locking in a suitable team though and be confident in outpacing Empoleon even with the off chance of a boost.
I beat it solo first try with this:
Tinkaton @ Shell Bell
Tera Type: Steel
Ability: Own Tempo
Adamant Nature
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 SpDef
- Skill Swap
- Gigaton Hammer (PP Max)
- Skitter Smack
- Swords Dance
I got lucky that I had no Intimidate partners first try.
Turn 1: Skill Swap gets rid of Competitive shenanigans
Turn 2: Skitter Smack lowers Empoleon’s SpAtk to make the Surfs bearable
Turn 3 & 4: Swords Dance twice which left Tink at red health
Turn 5: Gig Hammer does a big chunk and regained to green health
From there I just played it by ear, alternating between moves to restore my own boosts or re-lower Emp’s SpAtk and only doing Gig Hammers if I was Swords Danced quite a bit, since I only have 8 PP. In the end I won pretty comfortably on my 7th Gigaton Hammer with about 15% clock remaining.
Online with support partners doing Light Screens or healing or whatever, I think Tinkaton could be a beast in this raid.
Tinkaton @ Shell Bell
Tera Type: Steel
Ability: Own Tempo
Adamant Nature
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 SpDef
- Skill Swap
- Gigaton Hammer (PP Max)
- Skitter Smack
- Swords Dance
I got lucky that I had no Intimidate partners first try.
Turn 1: Skill Swap gets rid of Competitive shenanigans
Turn 2: Skitter Smack lowers Empoleon’s SpAtk to make the Surfs bearable
Turn 3 & 4: Swords Dance twice which left Tink at red health
Turn 5: Gig Hammer does a big chunk and regained to green health
From there I just played it by ear, alternating between moves to restore my own boosts or re-lower Emp’s SpAtk and only doing Gig Hammers if I was Swords Danced quite a bit, since I only have 8 PP. In the end I won pretty comfortably on my 7th Gigaton Hammer with about 15% clock remaining.
Online with support partners doing Light Screens or healing or whatever, I think Tinkaton could be a beast in this raid.
I am assuming it's standard skeledirge with ability shield and sunny day? Or not even that?
Shell Bell
Tera Steel
Modest Nature
252 SpA / 252 SpD / 6 HP
Flash Cannon
Struggle Bug
Nasty Plot (Chose it over Acid Spray in the rare cases you get the SpD debuff from Flash Cannon)
Skill Swap
I wonder if Tera Fire could work.
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Skeledirge @ Shell Bell
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 12 HP / 252 SpA / 244 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Sunny Day
- Slack Off
- Torch Song
- Protect
A boss that can't be safely debuffed may be one of the hardest challenges Azumarill has faced yet, and dealing with a stat reset phase without any safety net is intense. A small mercy is that Empoleon likes to spam Ice Beam against Azumarill for whatever reason. It still uses a fair share of Flash Cannon and Grass Knot though, but I never saw Surf.
As predicted, the choice of AI allies is crucial to success for a non-Unaware mon, with Intimidate allies very easily giving Empoleon +2 and +4 after the initial Blizzard. My initial attempts were with Arboliva/Clodsire/Weavile but after Weavile kept ruining early setup with Leer, I decided to try again. I would settle for two goals, getting Gardevoir for consistent Life Dew healing and also getting a team that would screw me over the least with any debuff moves, which I found the AI ended up being forced to use quite a bit after running out of PP. In the end, despite me calling Sylveon one of the bad AI options in an earlier post, I found it to be the most tolerable of the potential debuffers, being more inconsistent at giving Empoleon a power spike thanks to Moonblast's 30% effect rate and only boosting it a net 1 stage at a time.
I ended up tailoring my moveset around this specific AI team as well, running the standard 252 HP/Atk with Shell Bell and Amnesia/Rollout/Defense Curl/Belly Drum. With Arboliva I was trying Rindo Berry to avoid boosted Grass Knots and Aqua Ring for sustain over Belly Drum, but there just wasn't enough time to manage it. Gardevoir can take care of healing duties which makes getting Belly Drum off a lot more reliable. Overall the goal is to maximize Rollout's power for a massive finishing blow as usual, but this time it takes a bit more effort to get to the point where it's possible.
The typical start to the battle is setting 3 Amnesias and Defense Curl to bulk up/boost Rollout/stall out the snow. I go for an early Rollout without Belly Drum, mainly just to chip Empoleon down to 80% HP for the first stat reset phase, and also have that damage go into the shield as it goes up around 5 turns in. The time immediately after the reset is very harsh to survive in though, especially if Empoleon has accumulated any buffs. In this attempt I ended up getting a miss right after the reset to cancel Rollout, so I was able to set up a defense cheer and offense cheer to be preserved after fainting (still works in 3.0.1), and my sacrifice also knocks the timer down to 50% for the second stat reset, meaning any buffs will stick from now on and I don't have to wait around to set up again.
By this point it had gotten to +2 from 2 Moonblast procs, but I was still able to get all the required setup back up thanks to the preserved defense cheer, Empoleon choosing Ice Beam, and Gardevoir's healing. He did get 2 SpD drops from Flash Cannon so I used an extra Amnesia and a heal cheer to make enough room for Belly Drum.
At this point, the last thing to do was press Rollout and watch as the battle played out to victory or death. After Rollout 2, Empoleon hit the 65% HP mark for Iron Defense. Rollout 4 broke the shield (and Empoleon also reset its debuffs pointlessly), and Rollout 5 managed to finish the rest of its health in one shot from the green at full power. Technically I could have used a Water/Stellar Tera Azumarill to break the shield faster/do more damage in this scenario, but this was my Tera Rock one so I did not tera here.
My Tera Steel Mew build worked. Though it's pretty slow, all things considered. Mew deals far less damage than I expected. Then again, when most previous 7 star killers had an offensive stat of at least 110, as well as using a Tera Type of one of their base typings, I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising.
Jirachi is probably the best solo mon for this. Just beat it with a little more than half time remaining.
Jirachi @ Shell Bell
Ability: Serene Grace
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Skill Swap
- Fake Tears
- Calm Mind
- Flash Cannon
Jirachi @ Shell Bell
Ability: Serene Grace
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 SpD
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Skill Swap
- Fake Tears
- Calm Mind
- Flash Cannon
- SR for no Intimidate NPCs
- Skill Swap T1
- CM once, Fake Tears twice
- Flash Cannon spam
- Fake Tears twice when boss resets its stats
Solo 1: got Tauros, reset
Solo 2: no Intimidate, got KO'd by crit Surf (was only in range because I had to Clear Smog a random Competitive boost), reset
Solo 3: no Intimidate, easy win with Ceruledge
I think Heat Rock might be better, but Charcoal was fine for me. +2 Bitter Blade in Sun was sufficient to sustain HP through shield before Tera Fire (+4 is never necessary). Just Clear Smog to remove Iron Defence.
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