Pokémon Day 7* Raid Event - Pikachu (Water-Type Tera)

[Count Bleck]

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT DETAIL

The Pikachu has a light bulb, on turn 0 sets up a shield and rain dance. The catch? The shield is it's entire life bar.
The HP is also significantly higher than normal. Unless you tera, you will NOT be damaging this thing.

My first attempt had 1 quag with acid spray, a sunny day leafeon, a QD lilligant, and my arboliva. We didnt see its HP dip once.

 

[Worldie]

The catch? The shield is it's entire life bar.

Huhu, I knew they'd pull off some trick, but I did not expect this one.

Guess our planning is out of the fucking window. T1 shield means no debuffing that isnt via offensive moves, so no Miraidon oneshots either.

 

[Count Bleck]

Huhu, I knew they'd pull off some trick, but I did not expect this one.

Guess our planning is out of the fucking window. T1 shield means no debuffing that isnt via offensive moves, so no Miraidon oneshots either.

Oh, don't worry, it gets worse. The reason why my team wiped and not being able to chip pikachu down at all? It has 50X HP over the usual 30X. So again, tera is the only way you will damage this monster.

 

[Worldie]

Oh, don't worry, it gets worse. The reason why my team wiped and not being able to chip pikachu down at all? It has 50X HP over the usual 30X. So again, tera is the only way you will damage this monster.

Anything about when it does the buff clear pulse?

Cause if it does it relatively early, i'd assume grass tera Leafeon / Lilligant / Tsarena with a sun setter and support mons that keep them alive could tecnically work.

 

[doipy hooves]

Anything about when it does the buff clear pulse?

Cause if it does it relatively early, i'd assume grass tera Leafeon / Lilligant / Tsarena with a sun setter and support mons that keep them alive could tecnically work.

Pikachu does not seem to reset your buffs at any point. It does steal tera orb charge and reset its own debuffs fairly often though.

Based on discord discussion, the solo strategy I ended up using was to take a random Tera Grass Lilligant and rely on an Intimidate NPC to lessen the impact of Iron Tail for a relatively low investment clear. Covert Cloak helps to negate all the random effects that Pikachu can throw at you.

(max HP/SpA with the rest in SpD, IVs are whatever)

At the beginning I immediately went for Sunny Day to stop the boosted Surfs and then go for a big Synthesis heal. Then I Giga Drained 3 times to get tera up immediately, but Pikachu stole tera charge right after I made my move input so I didn't actually terastallize and it crit killed me instead which was fine. I ended up doing one more Giga Drain and then used my tera to start going for 6 Quiver Dances before using the rest of my Giga Drains to finish the fight. After starting to gain Quiver Dance boosts, Pikachu swapped from Thunder to Iron Tail which was less preferable but still manageable with Intimidates.

 

[Count Bleck]

The smogon Pokemon Unite Discord (yes we still exist) came up with a strat: 3 Meowscaradas and one Arboliva. Turn 1, no one attacks save for one Meow, to knock off the light ball. After that the arboliva sets up sunny day while the other 3 flower trick en masse until they can tera. Once the tera's are up, its basically game, set match.

 

[pika pal]

The smogon Pokemon Unite Discord (yes we still exist) came up with a strat: 3 Meowscaradas and one Arboliva. Turn 1, no one attacks save for one Meow, to knock off the light ball. After that the arboliva sets up sunny day while the other 3 flower trick en masse until they can tera. Once the tera's are up, its basically game, set match.

Is it worth running Hone Claws or such on the other Meows or should they just go All out Attacking once the Knock Off and Sunny Day are up? Also I assume Shell Bells to counter Pikachu's own damage.

Any important moves for Arboliva once it sets Sun and presumably Seed Sower sets terrain?

 

[Count Bleck]

Is it worth running Hone Claws or such on the other Meows or should they just go All out Attacking once the Knock Off and Sunny Day are up? Also I assume Shell Bells to counter Pikachu's own damage.

Any important moves for Arboliva once it sets Sun and presumably Seed Sower sets terrain?

No set up on Meow: even without a light ball Pikachu can still chunk they're very frail defenses, not to mention you can only afford so many deaths. Shell Bells are optimal, Maybe a Covert Cloak to prevent being paralyzed.

My Arboliva was Max Hp, Max Sp.A 4 Def.
Heat Rock
Seed Sower

Sunny Day
Energy ball
Giga Drain
Growth (but honestly, replace this with Light Screen or Safegaurd)

 

[doipy hooves]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1628992932039602177

Pretty interesting ways how gamefreak is playing around with the raid mechanics this time to make Pikachu feel more like a threat, even adjusting the ratios for shield damage taken so that Pikachu is basically untouchable without terastallizing (1%/70%/120% with no tera/STABless/STAB Tera). The thread also brings up the ratios for normal raids (20/35/75) and the past 7 star raids (20/30/70) which are pretty sensible in comparison.

EDIT: This also means that most of the CPU partners are pretty pointless if they don't have Intimidate or any secondary effects that might occur while they aren't wasting their turns on status moves against the infinite shield.

Notable highlights:
Arcanine has Intimidate and might get a burn with Flamethrower.
Tauros and Staraptor have Intimidate, with Staraptor being more vulnerable to Thunder to reactivate Intimidate more often.
Toxapex has potential attack debuffs from Chilling Water.
Arboliva has Seed Sower to get Grassy Terrain up for sustain and grass boosts, as well as Safeguard and potential SpD drops from Energy Ball and Earth Power.
Sylveon has a decent chance to lower Special Attack with Moonblast.
Weavile might freeze with Ice Punch.
Gardevoir might Life Dew but I haven't really noticed it doing this.
Drifblim might get some Shadow Ball debuffs but will probably just die quickly. Umbreon is in a similar position with Psychic but will probably live longer.
Bellibolt should be avoided because it will activate Lightningrod.
Everyone else will probably not contribute anything to the battle with just raw attacks.

 

[BlueRay]

No set up on Meow: even without a light ball Pikachu can still chunk they're very frail defenses, not to mention you can only afford so many deaths. Shell Bells are optimal, Maybe a Covert Cloak to prevent being paralyzed.

My Arboliva was Max Hp, Max Sp.A 4 Def.
Heat Rock
Seed Sower

Sunny Day
Energy ball
Giga Drain
Growth (but honestly, replace this with Light Screen or Safegaurd)

No, you definitely need Growth on Arboliva. You never know what Pokémon random people will bring to the raid. Being able to rely on your own Arboliva will very likely lead to success. My own Arboliva was max HP and SpA and had Covert Cloak to avoid Paralysis. Set Sunny day turn 1, then set up Growth three times, attack with Grass moves afterwards. Heal if necessary. Once you are able to terastallize, Arboliva will 2HKO or 3HKO Pikachu. So far, I've always succeeded, both on my own and on a team.

 

[Chou Toshio]

God this thing is insane to try to solo (I don’t want to burn an ability patch on Lurantis…).

In any case caught it with 2 Lurantis and Meow as teammates. I just brought my Greninja Gastro but now with Mud Slap and Helping Hand. Didn’t even bother trying to do damage myself.

We also beat it on my 6 year old’s game with just a level 84 Meow by getting 3 Lurantis as teammates— we knocked off, and mostly relied on Double Team and Defense Cheers to avoid dying too much until the Lurantis could bring it down.

 

[TheMantyke]

If you have a Clodsire from the Greninja raids, it's pretty solid here as a support pokemon just for the sake of not really ever dying. You can Mud-Slap forever while your Grass-type allies do the heavy lifting. My only gripe is it feels like the weird damage shield multiplier stuff going on for this raid means... I don't think Mud Slap is building any tera charge? Like straight up, I will check how much tera charge I need, see it's at 2 more attacks, attack once, it's still at 2 attacks despite Pikachu not doing any sort of tera draining. I have to assume at this point I'm getting Scarlet / Violeted.

Got my Pikachu, but I don't think I'll be going ham on this one like other ones. My candy banks are still overflowing from Greninja, I'm expecting Mewtwo to show up on Monday and actually grab my attention, and Fire Emblem Engage on Maddening is very fun (Goldmary would miss me if I left her game unplayed for too many hours).

 

[Chou Toshio]

If you have a Clodsire from the Greninja raids, it's pretty solid here as a support pokemon just for the sake of not really ever dying. You can Mud-Slap forever while your Grass-type allies do the heavy lifting. My only gripe is it feels like the weird damage shield multiplier stuff going on for this raid means... I don't think Mud Slap is building any tera charge? Like straight up, I will check how much tera charge I need, see it's at 2 more attacks, attack once, it's still at 2 attacks despite Pikachu not doing any sort of tera draining. I have to assume at this point I'm getting Scarlet / Violeted.

Got my Pikachu, but I don't think I'll be going ham on this one like other ones. My candy banks are still overflowing from Greninja, I'm expecting Mewtwo to show up on Monday and actually grab my attention, and Fire Emblem Engage on Maddening is very fun (Goldmary would miss me if I left her game unplayed for too many hours).

I’m mostly in it for the Calciums— soooooo Carbons loaded after Gren, but could definitely use every other vitamin especially since Speed is so useless for raid mons.

 

[Clementine]

Heyo, just played this morning
This mon is tough to beat, definitely a step up from the previous 7 star raids we got before
Here's what I used to solo it

252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature

You definitely want to Sunny Day on turn 1, weakening Surf, making Thunder less accurate and activating Protosynthesis
Don't bother setting up before Terastallizing, you're not gonna deal any kind of damage either way.
I went with Sunny Day into 4 Bullet Seeds (Pikachu steals the Tera Orb charge fairly often), then Tera -> Sunny Day -> Growth twice -> Bullet Seed twice
You can probably run Heat Rock + Seed Bomb / Power Whip, or Covert Cloak as your item with a more reliable damaging move to avoid Thunder Paras / Play Rough drops

 

[Esserise]

Pikachu does not seem to reset your buffs at any point. It does steal tera orb charge and reset its own debuffs fairly often though.

Based on discord discussion, the solo strategy I ended up using was to take a random Tera Grass Lilligant and rely on an Intimidate NPC to lessen the impact of Iron Tail for a relatively low investment clear. Covert Cloak helps to negate all the random effects that Pikachu can throw at you.

(max HP/SpA with the rest in SpD, IVs are whatever)

At the beginning I immediately went for Sunny Day to stop the boosted Surfs and then go for a big Synthesis heal. Then I Giga Drained 3 times to get tera up immediately, but Pikachu stole tera charge right after I made my move input so I didn't actually terastallize and it crit killed me instead which was fine. I ended up doing one more Giga Drain and then used my tera to start going for 6 Quiver Dances before using the rest of my Giga Drains to finish the fight. After starting to gain Quiver Dance boosts, Pikachu swapped from Thunder to Iron Tail which was less preferable but still manageable with Intimidates.

This setup worked great for me! The only differences on my end were that my Lurantis had a Calm nature, Chlorophyll, and I went ahead and Hyper Trained it since I had a Gold Bottle Cap I wasn’t going to use for anything else.

I played solo, and my AI partners were Gardevoir, Staraptor, and Garganacl. I do feel like I got lucky with a lot of Thunder and Iron Tail misses, and I should say that I did need to set up an extra Sunny Day at one point for bigger Synthesis heals.

 

[pika pal]

A guy in another server I follow had another idea after our Champion: Gogoat. Sunny Day/Grassy Terrain, Growth, and Horn Leech/Leaf Blade for attacking options to build Tera. Just get a partner to set whichever effect you don't use if main DPS, or run both if you want to play Support attacker. Grass Pelt also gives a defense boost for the Neutral Phys coverage, or you can use Bulk Up for slower boosting that shores up that side too.

In general the key element just seems to be Sun and Grassy Terrain to support boosting Attackers and then not dying yourself. Wo-Chien might make another good defensive backbone since it's the only other Grass Type Knock off we have, plus the other support on the side.

 

[Worldie]

In general the key element just seems to be Sun and Grassy Terrain to support boosting Attackers and then not dying yourself. Wo-Chien might make another good defensive backbone since it's the only other Grass Type Knock off we have, plus the other support on the side.

I've considered Wo-Chien but the problem is... it doesnt do shit other than that. Aside from being weak to Play Rough (who cares really), the -attack aura actually hurts potential phisical setup sweepers, and it... doesn't really do anything else.
I suppose it could spam Snarl?

Edit: I went and scienced it.
After Knock Off, Pikachu barely tickles even with Play Rough, I had Light Screen as well for extra safety, so you can either throw whatever utility move you want other than that.
If your Wo-Chien is grass and not dark type like mine, then maybe you can actually do some damage with Giga Drain... maybe. Honestly this thing does no dmg but also doesn't die so support it is. Conveniently, it does get Growth so there's that since someone else is likely to be setting sun anyway

 

[pika pal]

I've considered Wo-Chien but the problem is... it doesnt do shit other than that. Aside from being weak to Play Rough (who cares really), the -attack aura actually hurts potential phisical setup sweepers, and it... doesn't really do anything else.
I suppose it could spam Snarl?

Edit: I went and scienced it.
After Knock Off, Pikachu barely tickles even with Play Rough, I had Light Screen as well for extra safety, so you can either throw whatever utility move you want other than that.
If your Wo-Chien is grass and not dark type like mine, then maybe you can actually do some damage with Giga Drain... maybe. Honestly this thing does no dmg but also doesn't die so support it is. Conveniently, it does get Growth so there's that since someone else is likely to be setting sun anyway

I considered Wo-Chien worthwhile as a support with the -ATK Aura because so far most of the attackers I see come up are Specially oriented in their moveset (Contrary Lurantis, Growth Arboliva, and QD Lilligant) with the exception of Meowscarada or recent/rogue options like Brute Bonnet and Flapple, at which point the extra passive Bulk is a big deal for getting more set-up in before needing a healing action. It does have Power Whip and Solar Beam if you trust its passive recovery enough to throw a second STAB move after Growth Boosts, and generally any damage the support mon provides is supplemental given no Buff-Wipe will allow the set-up sweepers to chunk Pikachu in 2-3 turns each after Tera.

 

[Worldie]

Eh, my Wo-Chien isnt even EVd, with just lefties + grassy terrain it was mostly outhealing any damage play rough would do.
I think Knock Off + Growth + 2 of Ingrain, Light Screen, Giga Drain, another grass stab, Snarl, even Mud-Slap if you really want to go full support can work fine.
Still I think that more than 1 support is kinda overkill for this raid, like in my first kill with Wo-Chien, we basically just had Arboliva doing anything (that meowscarada didn't really do much, was a miracle it only died once), it took it ages but *eventually* we won

Realistically speaking I think bringing something with Acid Spray or Mud-Slap is more productive, though.

 

[Menshay]

This is fairly doable solo with the right partners:


Meowscarada @ Shell Bell
Ability: Overgrow
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 Atk
- Knock Off
- Flower Trick
- Seed Bomb / Grassy Terrain / filler
- Hone Claws / Mud-Slap / Chilling Water / filler

1 - Start with Knock Off to remove its Light Ball
2 - Attack with a weak move until the Tera Orb is charged (Mud-Slap seems nice to reduce its accuracy)
3 - Activate Tera
3 - Keep attacking with Flower Trick (note that its 10 PP might NOT be enough) / Seed Bomb

I won with just Knock Off, Flower Trick and Seed Bomb; the rest are ideas I had which might be interesting to try.
Being Grass-type it naturally resists both Water and Electric, though Thunder can still paralyze (I was lucky enough to get only one full paralysis).
My partners included Arcanine (Intimidate + weak to Water, which means it gets to trigger several times) and Toxapex (has Chilling Water), which helped reduce Meowscarada's initial weakness to Play Rough. I guess Arboliva would have helped.
I used the standard offensive spread I had ready (Jolly / 252 Atk / 252 Spe) to avoid wasting resource, but Meowscarada should be fast enough to outspeed Pikachu uninvested so a bulky spread would likely be better (I guess Adamant / 252 HP / 252 Atk).

---

This is another COMPLETELY UNTESTED idea which might or might not be useful:


Gardevoir
Ability: Trace
Tera Type: Grass
- Knock Off
- Energy Ball
- Calm Mind / Light Screen / Reflect / Magical Leaf / Sunny Day / Life Dew / Stored Power

I just note this because of Knock Off + Trace to copy Lightning Rod, but I doubt it takes Iron Tails too well.

 

[McGrrr]

Discovered all the Shield/Rain Dance nonsense on my first try with Iron Hands, so went and caught a Lilligant.

Lilligant @ Leftovers / Covert Cloak
Ability: Own Tempo
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
- Giga Drain
- Quiver Dance
- Petal Dance / Synthesis
- Sunny Day

I soft reset for the NPC Arboliva and then beat Pikachu at the first attempt. Giga Drain at +1 was some weak sauce before Tera, even in Grassy Terrain.

Turn 1: Sunny Day
Turn 2: Quiver Dance
Turn 3-5: Giga Drain, died after turn 5

I was able to Tera soon after respawn and then it was relatively easy. I never got more than +1 though because lack of Intimidate support meant that Pikachu's Iron Tail (with defence drop) dealt too much damage.

Edit: while Petal Dance is fun with Own Tempo and is a nuke in Grassy Terrain, I tried doipy hooves' suggestion for my second Pikachu Raid and the Synthesis/Cloak combo is probably much more consistent

 

[Vengeance417]

This is the Wo-Chien I'm currently running:

Wo-Chien @ Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 180 Def / 76 Spe
Bold Nature
- Grassy Terrain / Growth
- Knock Off
- Energy Ball
- Reflect

Going with Energy Ball over Giga Drain for that bit of extra oomph. Grassy Terrain + Leftovers is more than enough healing after Knock Off is used. May as well get more power out of it. Reflect to further weaken Play Rough. Speed hits 195, one point faster than Quiet Pikachu, so you can Knock before it goes for an attack. Might even experiment with SunnyBeam. Thinking about replacing GT with Growth since Arboliva is a common ally.

 

[Terimas]

So far I've found that Toedscruel is actually incredibly effective as a support Pokémon in public raids.

Toedscruel @ Assault Vest
Ability: Mycelium Might
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Giga Drain
- Knock Off
- Acid Spray
- Mud-Slap

Maximum physical bulk alongside Assault Vest grants the highest overall survivability, especially after Knock Off. Acid Spray and Mud-Slap can then be used to debuff Pikachu while the ally Lurantis, Arboliva or Appletun are preparing their Tera. Mud-Slap and Acid Spray can also be used on the ally Lurantis to give them buffs if you feel the need. Since you're running all offensive moves, you're also able to charge up the Grass Tera to go on the offensive yourself in the endgame if necessary, though the healing from Giga Drain is also nice.

In my experience I've found Toedscruel to be more effective Knock Off supporter than Meowscarada (too frail and not really effective) or Wo-Chien (limited ability to support team beyond Knock Off).

 

[Chou Toshio]

I never tried fighting Pikachu all the way to terrastelizing with Gastrodon myself, but Youtubers were saying that Adamant Clodsire was one of the most consistent soloists, so I figured if Clod could win then so could my Gastro. So whipped out those Earth Tera shards that ended up being useless for Greninja, finally changed Gastro to Ground Tera and deleted Helping Hand to re-learn Earthquake. Still Mud Slap > Clear Smog too. Turns out that pretty much holds true (ironically, again can't use Arboliva as a partner though). On one hand, soloing I often need all 3 Cheers for Power, and risk running real low on Earthquake PP to get across the finish, but the Pikachu allows for so much setup time that it really doesn't feel like a nail biter like with Greninja. Need to progress to max power while Tera'd, but the clock always looks reasonable to do so.

Still kicking myself for like never doing Lurantis or Arboliva raids until now (not my fav mons), but some consolation. That said, watching Lurantis especially kick ass in this event totally changes my perception of valuing it as a Pokemon. Really enjoying how these raids make us re-evaluate the value of like... everything in the Pokedex.

Even how there's like a "normal" day-to-day meta where Iron Hands and Azu get to rule... but then in the highest level 7 raids there are moves almost taylor chosen to fuck up the day-to-day meta real bad and let all the forgotten/derpy Slugs, Salamanders, Bugs and Hermit Crabs be S-Tier threats.

So far I've found that Toedscruel is actually incredibly effective as a support Pokémon in public raids.

Toedscruel @ Assault Vest
Ability: Mycelium Might
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Giga Drain
- Knock Off
- Acid Spray
- Mud-Slap

Maximum physical bulk alongside Assault Vest grants the highest overall survivability, especially after Knock Off. Acid Spray and Mud-Slap can then be used to debuff Pikachu while the ally Lurantis, Arboliva or Appletun are preparing their Tera. Mud-Slap and Acid Spray can also be used on the ally Lurantis to give them buffs if you feel the need. Since you're running all offensive moves, you're also able to charge up the Grass Tera to go on the offensive yourself in the endgame if necessary, though the healing from Giga Drain is also nice.

In my experience I've found Toedscruel to be more effective Knock Off supporter than Meowscarada (too frail and not really effective) or Wo-Chien (limited ability to support team beyond Knock Off).

Very cool... would have been even cooler if GF had given it like Water Absorb to nod at the design's watery origin.

 

[Worldie]

Still kicking myself for like never doing Lurantis or Arboliva raids until now (not my fav mons), but some consolation. That said, watching Lurantis especially kick ass in this event totally changes my perception of valuing it as a Pokemon. Really enjoying how these raids make us re-evaluate the value of like... everything in the Pokedex.

To be fair I struggle to understand how people using Lurantis survive.
I've tried it. Ofc, to be fair, mine wasnt EVd, but even with EVs I mostly see other people's Lurantis stuck to use a lot of Syntesis until either they get missed or someone else sets up defensive cheers or screens and they can actually get some Leaf Storms off.

Also, if you've been grinding previous raids as I understand, at this point you're likely drowning in both exp candies and bottle caps (and maybe ability patch/capsules too), so you could just do what I did, aka catch a bunch of random Smolivs until I got a grass tera one then just quickly bring it to 100 + cap up the IVs.