Iron Leaves and Walking Wake Raid Event Movesets

[SadisticMystic]

If you don't even want to waste a turn killing the sun against Walking Wake, there's a quack for that.


Golduck @ Clear Amulet
Ability: Cloud Nine
EVs: SpA/SpD
- Nasty Plot
- Grass Knot
- Light Screen
- Helping Hand

Thanks to Cloud Nine, Sunny Day will play an animation but not succeed in doing anything, and there will be no ability popup for Protosynthesis. The boss is heavy enough that Grass Knot hits for max power, and you can boost up knowing that they can't be removed except by the one-time poz-wipe that comes deep into the health bar. You can easily solo the raid with this if you want, but Light Screen/Helping Hand allow you to shift effortlessly into a support role if you see Iron Hands or something that can hit harder than a +6 Grass Knot. Golduck is certainly bulkier than Iron Bundle, and will take even longer to wear down before you have to be concerned about healing.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I have been continuing to experiment with the Iron Leaves raid probably because I am just a glutton for punishment from GameFreak lol. I have a habit of grinding away at stupid, boring, or trolly bs that GF puts in every pokemon game, and this Iron Leaves raid fits that description to a T! But even my patience has limits, and after posting this, I'm probably not going to play the IL raid much more. And not because it's a bad raid, per se. But mostly because this raid has not gotten ANY BETTER when it comes to community general knowledge of the successful playbook for it.

For the previous difficult event raids (Cinderace, Greninja, etc), after a few days of everyone getting wiped, the word gets out to lots of people as to how to play it and win. And you start seeing more good pokemon in rando raid lobbies and rando players start using decent strategies to win the raid. With this Iron Leaves raid, I'm not seeing much progress whatsoever, in terms of the average rando raid level of knowledge and skill. And this raid is literally the most punishing raid I have seen so far, when it comes to penalizing sub-par play. The penalty of fainting is just too brutal. And yet, raid after raid after raid, I still see the same neverending stream of horrible pokemon and moves. It was honestly hard for me to experiment with some of the pokemon I list below, because raids repeatedly are lost when I have only moved 3-4 times in the battle! That is frustrating when I go into a battle, not expecting to win, just wanting to see how a moveset performs, and after 30-40 minutes of raiding (because it takes so darn long to get into a raid in the first place) -- STILL not being able to even attempt some strategies that require 5-6 turns to get rolling.

So yeah, I'm pretty much fed up with this raid. IMO, a new low has been reached for bad pokemon play. Which is saying a lot, considering this game has always been full of little kids and players mostly interested in cute pokemon and to "catch 'em all".

Here's the last of the pokemon that I have played with successfully in this raid. The first one is a real star for this raid, and the other two are much more just interesting experiments for me. But even the "experiments" below work well, and are a million times better than the typical garbage I see in almost literally every public Iron Leaves raid.



Scizor @ Leftovers
Ability: Technician
Tera Type: Steel
Adamant Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk
- X-Scissor
- Focus Energy
- Iron Defense
- Swords Dance

Scizor Moveset Comments

Scizor is awesome for this Iron Leaves raid! If I was playing this raid solo (I don't because my Violet game still isn't finished) I would probably use Scizor to solo it. Its combination of offensive + defensive capability versus IL is unmatched by any other pokemon in the dex. It's not a team player at all really, other than being a good teammate by, like y'know... beating the boss almost single-handedly lol ;-)

Scizor is really the complete package for this raid, and I've been surprised that it hasn't caught on more. I rarely see it. I've been using it off and on almost from the beginning. I didn't use it much or write it up earlier because I was using my standard raid Scizor and I was interested in experimenting with new mons or builds that I hadn't used before. It wasn't until I came back around to Scizor and decided to put Focus Energy in place of Iron Head, and I reminded myself "Wow, this thing is a freaking beast in this raid!"

Scizor is one of the few pokemon in the Paldea dex that resist all three of Iron Leaves attacks. With good defense and the ability to Iron Defense, Scizor barely feels most of IL's attacks. Lefties easily heals Scizor to keep it in green health for the entirety of almost every battle. For some reason, IL tends to choose attacks somewhat randomly vs Scizor, and does not go for Psyblade every time. I'm amazed how often it Leaf Blades Scizor for what amounts to barely even chip damage on Scizor, even when Leaves has a couple of Swords Dances under its belt. Like I said, this is my standard raid Scizor with only one move changed, and there's lots of room to bump up the Def EV's or Nature, if you want. But in my usage, I typically do one Iron Defense at the beginning and that is more than sufficient to keep Scizor healthy the rest of the way.

And of the few mons that fully resist Iron Leaves attacks, Scizor is the best attacker of the bunch by far for this raid. It hits like a truck with STAB SE X-Scissor and it gets to +6 Attack in no time with Swords Dance. And to top it all off, the icing on the cake move for Scizor - Focus Energy. This move is so good for raids, I've sworn to myself I will use it more in the future. It may not seem that great at first, by allowing Scizor to get 100% Critical Hits with X-Scissor. Since a crit is 1.5x damage, Focus Energy is almost the exact same damage output equivalent to a single Swords Dance. So why waste a moveslot on a pokemon that already has Swords Dance?

Because critical hit boosts can't be reset by the raid boss. It never goes away.

Focus Energy is really good for this raid, because the battle is on a short timer. Even if your team is playing well, it's likely that there won't be much time left at the end of the battle, and you just need to get in a few more big hits to win. But typically the raid boss has reset all your boosts and you start weighing in your mind the cost/benefit of using a turn to boost once more, or just keep attacking and hope you pack enough punch to get it done. With Scizor, Focus Energy is the ace in the hole that allows you to confidently tell your teammates, "I've got this" and crit-hit Iron Leaves with STAB SE X-Scissor to win the day.

Forretress @ Loaded Dice
Ability: Sturdy
Tera Type: Steel
Impish Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Pin Missile
- Power Trick
- Reflect
- Curse

Forretress Moveset Comments

This was another fun diversion for me, after enjoying the twist of Focus Energy on Scizor. I loved working with Bug/Steel typing and playing with boosts that couldn't be wiped by the boss. This set is more of a gimmicky kinda thing, but it is not unreliable at all. And I love using mons and moves that other people don't. If you are like that too, then give this set a try.

This Forry is based around Power Trick, which allows it to swap its raw attack and defense stats. Forry has 140 base defense, which is a big number. It is EV'd and natured to push that as high as possible (416 to be exact) which is damn high! With its typing and defenses, Forry takes almost nothing from Iron Leaves and does not at all miss not having Lefties or a recovery move. On top of that, Forry can throw up a Reflect to help teammates and itself, if it wants to. And then it can Curse up as well, which boosts its Defense and Attack equally, which is important for later. Because after it has done the defense and boosting thing...

Forry uses Power Trick to give itself a huge 416 raw Attack stat. This "boost" cannot be cleared by the boss when it resets everyone, which rocks!

After it Power Tricks and goes on the offensive, it uses STAB SE Pin Missile backed by Loaded Dice which makes it a 100-125 BP cannon shot. And although Power Trick doesn't swap stat levels, this Forretress doesn't care because, as I said earlier, it boosts with Curse which boosts Attack and Defense equally. It's a nifty little strategy. When you want the most defense is when you're just sitting there getting hit as you boost, when you want the most attack is when you are... well... attacking. This set allows you to have your cake and eat it too.

And remember, after you Power Trick, it's not like you become a frail glass cannon. Forretress has base 90 Attack, so after Power Trick, it's got 75/90 base defenses. AND it resists every IL attack... AND it has boosted Def from the Curses... AND it has a Reflect in place... AND... well, you get the idea. Regardless of whether Forry Power Tricks or not, it probably isn't too worried about taking hits in this raid, if you know what I mean.

So why don't I use this more? Why is it an "experiment" and not a rock star? Well, tbh, it's because Forretress just isn't amazing at anything in this raid. For whatever you want to do, there are other better options. It's got a great combo of the ability to be big on defense and big on offense, but to do it really well, it takes a LOOONG time to do it. Curse is a very slow boosting move (no pun intended with the -1 speed thing) and pales in comparison to the +2 stage boost moves out there. In a short raid like this, time just isn't on Forry's side. If you want to hit hard, you should probably go with Scizor or Kingambit. If you want to do support, you should use Klefki, Armarouge, or Torkoal. If you want to be an inferior version of all of the above, and use a move that most people don't know about, and use a mon that most people would not think of for this raid -- then Forretress is the perfect pokemon for you!

Avalugg @ Leftovers
Ability: Ice Body
Tera Type: Ice
Impish Nature
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def
- Crunch
- Snowscape
- Recover
- Curse

Avalugg Moveset Comments

This really and truly was just an experiment for me. I knew for certain Avalugg would be super-durable and not be a liability to the team. I knew it would not be a team support mon in any way, and that it probably would not be able to deal damage at the level that the big hitters would. But, I just wanted to make the mon and see the iceberg in raid action for myself. And yeah, it turned out exactly as I expected. Which was fine, and I'm sure some rando teammates were probably surprised to see an Avalugg in their raid lol :-D

Of course, they had time to notice my Avalugg.
Because they were sitting there fainted... waiting to respawn because they died so quickly...
Watching my big, badass Avalugg in full green health...
Cursing and Crunching away, without a worry in the world...
Not weak to any of Leaves' attacks and backed by a truly awesome 516 raw Defense stat with this build...
Receiving a constant double stream of those green healing animations from Lefties and Ice Body every turn as the lovely snowflakes fall...
Yeah -- watch and weep, fainted fanboy... ;-)

As cheeky as that story is, Avalugg is mostly just a change of pace pokemon if you like novelty. Despite its monstrous defenses, it doesn't actually resist any of IL's attacks. And when Leaves gets a few Swords Dances going, they do a chunk of damage. Because Avalugg is so slow, it really sucks to take a hit first when it has to set snow. And snow is a very big deal for Avalugg because of the 50% Def boost and the Ice Body healing. And like I mentioned above, Curse takes forever to get the big attack levels so, you probably won't be doing much damage in this raid.

I only used this in a few raids, and it was fun to just see the theorymon play out for real. But after a few battles, the novelty wore off, and I moved on to other things. I've always loved the design of Avalugg, and I have been eager to find some way to put its staggering Defense to good use in tera raids. Now I've checked that box off my Tera raid bucket list! :-)

 

[Vengeance417]

Going on a rant, don't mind me.

I'm on Scarlet, so I can't solo the Iron Leaves raids, so I try my luck with the random lobbies. It's been nearly a week. How? HOW?! How have so many people not only been unable to come up with a good set to use for this raid, but don't even understand the damn type chart? Love it when I see someone click Miraidon so when it dies, it resets the Electric Terrain. Leaving. Picked Koraidon after this game has been out for almost 4 months? Leaving. Iron Hands? Please stop. I never want to see an Azumarill again. Left. Had someone swap out a Skeledirge for a FUCKING GENGAR. Left. This one game looked to be a decent comp. I forget what the other mons were but one of them was a Grimmsnarl, so I expected the usual screens set. Nope, just kept spamming Sucker Punch. Lost that one. Had a Skeledirge with the baller set of Torch Song, Overheat, Outrage, and Seed Bomb. Only clicked Torch Song twice after cycling through the rest of their other moves first, probably checking to see if they worked, ig. Lost. Meowscarada? Leave. Quaquaval? Leave.

My success rate has been abysmal because my teammates are hot dogwater. The based Klefki set Doug posted can't even fix this level of stupid.

 

[AztecCroc]

Seed Bomb

I wasn't even aware Skeledirge learned that.

Why does it get Seed Bomb and not Energy Ball?

 

[SadisticMystic]

Because it see'd its teammates bomb, why else?

 

[CPU]

I didn't quite finish the main story after the game came out, but I decided that I wanted Walking Wake and Iron Leaves so I quickly got through The Way Home to get to a good spot.

I have Violet, and I was considering options for Iron Leaves. From a type and movepool perspective, I liked the idea of Corviknight; it quad resists Leaf Blade and Megahorn, 2x resists Psyblade, gets Defog, and can use Power Trip to deal good damage. I happened to get a Tera Dark Rookidee from a raid early on that I had sitting in my boxes, so I quickly leveled it up to take on Iron Leaves.


Corviknight (Lv. 85) @ Mirror Herb
Ability: N/A (mine had Unnerve but Pressure would at least have some use)
Tera Type: Dark
Bold Nature (would have minted to Adamant if I couldn't get it to work)
EVs: 100 Attack / 90 Defense (just used the vitamins I had sitting in my bag lol)
- Defog
- Bulk Up
- Power Trip
- Tera Blast/Iron Head/Brave Bird/Drill Peck/Roost/Reflect/Thief? (didn't use this move at all but these are options)

Just did this by solo; the time I beat it my teammates were Weavile, Heracross, and Bellibolt. I'm pretty sure the extra damage from Weavile and Heracross helped a fair amount.

Mirror Herb is a fun little way to get extra Attack boosts to make Power Trip stronger. I started the match with Defog to get rid of the Electric Terrain, used two Bulk Ups (Iron Leaves always used Swords Dance somewhere im there), then started spamming Power Trip. Once the barrier came up, I did a quick cheer to restore some health, then Tera'd and used Power Trip to take out the barrier and finish it off. I was low on HP when I won, and it took me a few tries, but it didn't take too long to win. Not bad for an incompletely trained Pokémon!

Assuming you doesn't have a Tera Dark Corviknight lying around and you don't want to burn precious Tera Shards to get one, using a STAB attack of whatever Tera Type you have is probably the best option for the final slot. It's less vulnerable to Iron Leaves resetting your stat boosts. Roost and Reflect could be useful for longevity.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I also had to take on Iron Leaves with incompletely trained mons on my 2nd Save and my daughter’s game. For both we used the same Mon.

Goldhengo (lvl 92 and lvl 95 respectively)
Tera Ghost
@ Shell Bell
Modest Mint
-Nasty Plot
-Shadow Ball
-Hex
-Recover (almost useless but it’s a thing)

didn’t have enough candy to reach 100 in either game, but this can certainly win in the right conditions. I think it needs the right teammates to solo though. Need at least 2 of the below.

Best Partners:
Terrain Change: Arboliva (even with Leaf Blade boosted, no where near as scary as in Electric Terrain)
Status to power Hex: Drifblim is the best for WoW, but Toxapex w/ Poison good for also Chilling Water, Dundunsparce is okay with Glare
Intimidate anything, but Arcanine best for Flamethrower Burn chance

When you can hit Iron Leaves with a +6 +Cheer Hex you get reeeeeaaaaal close to ensuring you outrace Iron Leaves.

 

[pika pal]

Best Partners:
Terrain Change: Arboliva (even with Leaf Blade boosted, no where near as scary as in Electric Terrain)
Status to power Hex: Drifblim is the best for WoW, but Toxapex w/ Poison good for also Chilling Water, Dundunsparce is okay with Glare
Intimidate anything, but Arcanine best for Flamethrower Burn chance

For Status I might also point out Bellibolt, who has Discharge and Mud Shot for Speed control (saves some animations on Leaves if it procs plus getting your turns in before it does). Clodsire also helpful since Poison Point can re-status Leaves more reliably even after the Shield and cleansing.

The big thing with Leaves is that if you cover Support, you basically win as long as no one drains time with a Sandbag, which a lot of online players still clearly don't get.

 

[wdcjernigan]

https://www.serebii.net/scarletviolet/teraraidbattles/event-walkingwakeandironleavesspotlight.shtml

EDIT: to be clear, the raid is back on through May 14. End edit

Almost feels like a necro-bump.

These didn't seem like raids worth farming, so I will just ask: did anyone miss out on this raid the first time and has been waiting for round two? Did anyone experience the glitch GF had to fix?

 

[Jungle cruiser]

Hello everyone! Since wake and leaves are back in business, I figured I'd share a cute lil moveset that allowed me to catch wakey wakey solo!

While trying to complete it I noticed wake LOVES to spam noble roar in the beginning, usually to the point ur damage is pretty much insignificant. It was definitely annoying, but after some brainstorming I found the solution!


Acetona (Arboliva) @ Miracle Seed
Ability: Seed Sower
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Growth
- Giga Drain
- Grass Knot
- Filler

U don't have to name ur arboliva that btw u can put them any nick u want. Or none at all it's ur choice.
Wake usually goes for sunny day turn 0, therefore u can essentially use it against them for a nasty plot equivalent that can't be undone as easily! They do kinda take a lot from sun boosted flamethrower...

Lvl 75 0 SpA Protosynthesis Walking Wake Flamethrower vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Arboliva in Sun: 122-144 (33.8 - 40%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Tho with defense cheer and giga drain, this shouldn't be much of an issue. Besides, sun eventually goes away and wake doesn't bother to put it back, turning into something like this!


Anyway, giga drain provides additional recovery while grass knot is a general nuke (goes to 120 bp vs wake!) under grassy terrain. The fourth move can be anything tbh I only rly used the first 3 moves, but I'm pretty sure there could be some neat tech I haven't thought about. The bellibolt is pretty much the best partner since discharge and mud shot help with arboliva's poor speed (u can't even outspeed with max investment...) tho the umbreon and dudunsparce also help a lot (their para moves are blocked by shield tho).

Anyway, happy raiding folks! I don't have any iron leaves sets sry....

 

[Vengeance417]

Here's an offensive Iron Leaves set I'm using:


Kingambit @ Shell Bell
Ability: Defiant (doesn't matter)
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Def
Adamant Nature
- Iron Defense
- Swords Dance
- Kowtow Cleave
- Low Sweep

Low Sweep is the kicker for this set, allowing you and your teammates to outspeed -1 Speed Iron Leaves. Being faster also lets you get Iron Defense up first before it can do anything vs you. Max Defense rather than max HP is better, here's why:

+2 Lvl 75 0+ Atk Tera Psychic Iron Leaves Megahorn vs. 4 HP / 252 Def Kingambit: 96-113 (28 - 33%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

vs

+2 Lvl 75 0+ Atk Tera Psychic Iron Leaves Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Kingambit: 116-137 (28.7 - 33.9%) -- 0.9% chance to 3HKO

In fairness, if you have a max HP Kingambit already, you can probably still get away with that as the difference in bulk isn't THAT much higher, but you do benefit more from Shell Bell if running max Defense while also take less damage.

 

[Chou Toshio]

So my family came back to this raid again— because my second kid’s game was no where near raiding when it first came out. Also this is the only raid where Daddy couldn’t win, and give them transferred eggs after a Hypothetical release of Home compatibility.

The save only had 5 badges at the time, but she got into raiding right at Decidueye 2nd round. Decidueye was an incredible opportunity b/c Miraidon toasts it and you had Blisseys alongside— and I think coming out of that raid, our experience and resources are just different.

Going into catching this 4th walking wake, didn’t even bother with Azumarril b/c Anti-Decidueye Miraidon laughs at Dragon Pulse b/c Charge and just easily 1-2 shots it. Actually a teammate Iron Hands Belly Drum Thunder Punched it the same turn we Electro Drifted and Those 2 attacks killed it in the same turn.

For Iron Leaves we re-created another anti-Decidueye Mon I used before:


View attachment 500401
Mirror Armor Pressure b/c in-game Corv
@ Shell Bell
Adamant Jolly b/c in-game and no money for Mint
Tera Flying (in-game raised from early routes)
EVs: 252 HP / 252 ATK / 4 Def WhateverTF in-game EVs b/c no money for EV training
-Power Trip
-Iron Defense
-Hone Claws
-Roost

So LOTS of ineffficiencies— BUT, this Mon Solo’s Iron Leaves one go and did so EASILY.

Corviknight was posted earlier in this thread, but my experience really makes me think you need Iron Defense and Roost, b/c Iron Leaves gets to +6 ATK sooo easily; so I feel you need to match it in defenses and have healing ready to cover Crits.

I could have changed the Tera Type to Dark b/c Blissey raids but honestly I was hoping to win without Tera, b/c losing any of Corv’s resists (nvm giving it a bug weak) really opens a lot of Crit risk. Fortunately I was right— Corv was able to boost up comfortably and break through shield even without Tera. Can’t recommend it enough, even though this is Violet-viable only because no way to set up this reliable win with Randos getting mowed down in the background.

This was my 4th Time taking a new save file to catch Wake and Iron Leaves— and this is the first time we caught both on the first go, first time to not lose to Iron Leaves multiple times or even once before catching it. Really reflecting the gained experience from past raids, especially from Decidueye!

 

[Vengeance417]

After several lobbies with people who just conveniently forget about the type chart when going into Iron Leaves raids, I think I found a consistent support for it:


Arcanine @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Charm
- Any of Helping Hand, Howl, Crunch, Leer, Morning Sun, Bulldoze

Arcaneenay's Intimidate is super valuable in this matchup as it forces Quark Drive to never boost Iron Leaves's Attack, only SpDef or Speed depending on natures and IVs. This leaves its damage output pitiful right off the bat, and Charm only makes it even worse for it. The current moveset I'm using is Charm, Howl, Leer, and Crunch, but Helping Hand and Morning Sun are also viable options. Crunch is particularly nice for helping with shield chip and potentially scoring Defense drops, and works well with Leer and/or Howl. Bulldoze is also neat in case Speed is Quark Drive'd, as well as enabling your slower teammates to move first.

 

[Chou Toshio]

After several lobbies with people who just conveniently forget about the type chart when going into Iron Leaves raids, I think I found a consistent support for it:


Arcanine @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Impish Nature
- Charm
- Any of Helping Hand, Howl, Crunch, Leer, Morning Sun, Bulldoze

Arcaneenay's Intimidate is super valuable in this matchup as it forces Quark Drive to never boost Iron Leaves's Attack, only SpDef or Speed depending on natures and IVs. This leaves its damage output pitiful right off the bat, and Charm only makes it even worse for it. The current moveset I'm using is Charm, Howl, Leer, and Crunch, but Helping Hand and Morning Sun are also viable options. Crunch is particularly nice for helping with shield chip and potentially scoring Defense drops, and works well with Leer and/or Howl. Bulldoze is also neat in case Speed is Quark Drive'd, as well as enabling your slower teammates to move first.

Niiice!!! I think figuring out the build for consistent online wins vs leaves is the hardest part of this event. The Arcanine looks good!

-Does Howl boost Allies?
-Any reason no Wisp?

 

[Worldie]

-Does Howl boost Allies?

It does, it's a +1 attack to all 4. It's a pretty neat little tech on support mons, I used to use it on not-Jigglypuff

 

[Vengeance417]

Niiice!!! I think figuring out the build for consistent online wins vs leaves is the hardest part of this event. The Arcanine looks good!

-Does Howl boost Allies?
-Any reason no Wisp?

I thought about Wisp initially, but with Intimidate and Charm, it's kind of overkill. Plus, it misses and can't be used through shield, and the burn goes away when the shield is put up anyway. Kind of a wasted slot imo.

Edit: got a similar Intimidate support that's pretty neat:


Gyarados @ Sitrus Berry
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 236 HP / 252 Def / 20 Spe
Impish / Bold Nature
- Taunt
- Chilling Water
- Helping Hand
- Scary Face

Similar concept: physdef Intimidater, but it has different tools. Taunt prevents more SDs, Chilling Water can be used on shield, and Scary Face drops Speed by 2, which is especially useful vs Speed Quark Drive. 20 Speed lets you outrun Jolly 31 Speed IVs Iron Leaves.