Raid Guide

Tera Raid Tips and Battle Mechanics | Pokemon Scarlet and Violet (SV)

The Tera Raid Battles are one of the features introduced by Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. In these encounters, players get the opportunity to catch stronger Pokemon and some that are not available outside of the raid. Preparing a team for the Tera Raid Battles requires planning and strategy.

What are the Tera Raid Battles?

A Tera Raid Battle is a battle where four trainers take on a wild Terastalized Pokemon. All trainers attack at the same time.

The Tera Raid Battles are divided into seven levels. Players start with access to one-star Tera Raid Battles. As they progress through the game and earn Gym Badges, the next levels start unlocking.

The higher the level, the stronger the wild Pokemon. Five-star raids will show up for those who finished the game with all three paths required. For the sixth level, players must complete the postgame events and some level five raids.

In these encounters, players get the opportunity to catch stronger Pokemon and some that are not available outside of the raid. Preparing a team for the Tera Raid Battles requires planning and strategy. In this webpage, we attempt to guide you from newcomer to expert raider.

• How to Prepare for Tera Raid Battle
• Tera Raid Battle Mechanics
• Starting Tera Raid battle
• Building Your Roster
• Tera Raid Battle Event
• Recommended Builds

How to Prepare for Tera Raid Battle

Players are limited to one Pokemon per Tera Raid battle, and it is by default the lead Pokemon in their party. Especially for higher Raids, players are incentivized to min-max several party members so that when they get to a Raid, they can choose a Pokemon that best fits the boss. But that is overwhelming for newer players. Our aim here is to make things simpler for you so you can enjoy what Paldea has to offer stress free.

When doing online Tera Raid Battles, try to choose a Pokemon that would synergize with the rest of the team. For example: if the other trainers in your team decide to bring Attacker Pokemon, try to choose a Support Pokemon that can provide healing, boost ally stats, or weaken the enemy, then vice versa if you think your team needs more firepower.

If you play exclusively offline, we have a list of Pokemon you may start your solo raiding career with.

Take note that, defensively, the Tera Pokemon will follow its Tera Type instead of its own type, but its moves will remain the same. This means that if you're up against an Dark Tera Type Tropius, your team should have strong Fairy Moves and can resist Flying and Grass Moves like Tinkaton.

Before you throw in yourself in a high level Raid, make sure your Pokemon is fully prepared! Farm EXP to level them up as high as you can, make them hold the right Held Item, equip them with the best moveset, and take them to Hyper Training! This will increase your chances of successfully completing high Tera Raid Star Levels online, or even solo them!

Tera Raid Battle Mechanics

Though the Tera Raid is a 'turnless battle', there are still technically 'turns' when you and the Tera Pokemon use moves against one another.

Just like in normal Pokemon battles, who gets to use their move first is determined by two things: the move's Priority, and the Pokemon's Speed stat.

If a Pokemon has high Speed and its move has higher priority, then it will most likely be the first to make its move in the raid's move order. Slow Pokemon with low priority moves will most likely use their moves last.

To terastallize your Pokemon, it will have to attack the raid boss three times. This means your Pokemon must also survive the raid boss' counterattacks long enough for your Tera Orb to charge, so heal your Pokemon accordingly.

If your Pokemon gets knocked out during Tera Raid Battles, it can be revived after a few seconds! They will also be revived back into full health, so you do not need to worry about sending back a weakened partner. Note that any pokemon that faints will reduce the remaining time left to defeat the Terestallized Pokemon, so make sure to keep your eyes on your Pokemon's HP.

During a battle, the Tera Raid Pokemon you battle against will do several things to disrupt the flow of the battle when its HP reaches approximately 50% or the timer reaches halfway. It will remove negative status effects from itself, nullify buffs and abilities of your Pokemon, also use a Tera Shield.

A Tera Shield protects the Tera Pokemon from status moves and also absorbs a lot of damage from Pokemon that haven't terastallized yet.

This means if you want to break a Tera Shield as soon as possible, terastallize your Pokemon and use same type moves. It would be better if the moves are of a type the Tera Pokemon is weak against.

Each trainer can only use 3 Cheers per Raid, so you should make each of them count. Know when to use your Cheers and try to make your entire team benefit from them instead of just focusing on your own Pokemon.

We recommend saving all your Cheers for Heal up!, especially if your team can deal decent damage to the Tera Pokemon while also able to withstand several attacks from it.

The best time to use Go all out! is when the Attackers on your team have already Terestallized, which is available after attacking the Tera Pokemon thrice. This is to boost the damage of same type moves further and to make sure the stat boost won't go to waste if your Pokemon faint after using the Cheer early.

You can also use this or Hang tough! as soon as the battle starts if your team have their own healing Moves. Otherwise, save the available Cheers for Heal up!.

Starting Tera Raid Battle

Seek out Tera Crystals in the overworld, marked by a "star-shaped" icon. They are circled in the screenshot.

These objects can easily be located around the map as they emit pillars of light that can be seen from afar. Interacting with the Tera Crystal will allow you to start a Tera Raid Battle.

Note that the Tera Type of the shining crystals will determine what kind of Tera Pokemon you'll encounter in the raid. For example, touching a Grass Tera Type crystal lets you battle Grass-type Terastallized Pokemon.

Black Tera crystal is a special Tera Crystal that house a 6 stars Tera raid and 7 stars event Tera raid. Approach with caution.

Approach a shining crystal and touch it to open the Tera Raid Battle menu. Players could host the raid online or solo it. This is also where player select the Pokemon for raid battle or the game will select first slot by default.

To have a battle together with friends you already know, you’ll need to set a Link Code.. Note that an internet connection and Nintendo Online subscription is required to join Tera Raid Battles with other players online.

in game window to join raid with link code

Alternatively, you can seek out other trainers looking for teammates using the in-game Tera Raid Battle Option.

Building Your Roster

These three won't cover every possible raid but significantly speed up the farming process so you can build more Pokemon like Goldengo, Hatterene, Annihilape, etc. for more specific raids. And yes, there are better Pokemon for raiding but if you're just starting to farm raids seriously, these are a great starting point because:

• They don't require their hidden abilities

• The only move you need for each one is learned naturally

Skeledirge

Fire Tera Type

Unaware(HA)

Torch Song /Overheat /Will-O-Wisp /Slack Off

• Torch Song allows you to attack while increasing Sp. ATK, the other moves are optional

• Hidden Ability Unaware is optional

• Slack Off provide higher survivability

Espathra

Psychic Tera Type

Opportunist

Lumina Crash /Reflect /Light Screen /Dazzling Gleam

• Lumina Crash can attack while lowering Sp. DEF by 2 levels, the other moves are optional

• Can lower enemy's Sp. DEF even after it put up a barrier

• If the Ability is Opportunist, it can copy enemy's stat boosts

Flapple

Grass Tera Type

Ripen

Grav Apple /Dragon Dance /Outrage /Growth

• Grav Apple can attack while lowering DEF, the other moves are optional

• Either of the standard abilities (Gluttony or Ripen) is fine.

Each of these pokemon have a move that has 100 accuracy and guarantees additional damage the next time you use it in some way. In the case of Torch Song, it raises Skeledirge's special attack while Lumina Crash and Grav Apple guarantee the opposing pokemon becomes more susceptible to the move.

Since you're not wasting time with set up moves, your Terastilization will be available very quickly.

Max out your Pokemon's HP stat, slap a Shell Bell on it and go to town. It will keep you healthy since the harder you hit, the more HP you get back. With this, you can drain tank your way through most raids even if they are hitting you with super effective damage.

Since you're not wasting time with set up moves, your Terastilization will be available very quickly.

With these setups, you can comfortably solo the following raids:

• Any 3 and 4 Star Raids

• 5 Star raids that you are super effective against or neutral against

• 6 Star raids that you are super effective against

It goes without saying that there will be some raids that are just too frustrating (Yawn, Clear Smog, etc) but for the most part these Pokemon could clear out most of the raids. If you're just looking to farm candies and ability patches, you can forward your Switch's calendar by 1 day and just wait for a 6-star raid you're super effective against:

• Grass, Bug, Ice, Steel (Skeledirge)

• Fighting, Poison (Espathra)

• Ground, Rock, Water (Flapple)

That's basically half of the exisiting types.

Enter the raid and just press the A button until you can Tera. Press R and then back to pressing A until you've won. It's seriously that easy.

It also goes without saying that these three won't cover every possible raid, however they will help you farm the candies and ability patches you need to build more Pokemon, as well as a lot of sellable items so you can make money and buy vitamins, mints, bottle caps, etc.

Tera Raid Battle Event

The next 7 star raid event has been announced for Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. Battle a Water Tera Type Pikachu. Runs from February 24th through February 27th.

We don't know yet what moves this Pikachu might have. Keep an eye as we update our guide.

Recommended Builds

This section is build from community knowledge. It would be updated as we learn more of the game. These are our recommened build for Each Tera Type Raid Battle

Azumarill

Fairy or Water Tera Type

Huge Power

Belly Drum /Play Rough /Liquidation /Aqua Ring

• Use Belly Drum on the first turn

• Doubles Power with Huge Power ability and Belly Drum move

• Note that your HP will be reduced to half after Belly Drum

Tyranitar

Rock or Dark Tera Type

Sand Stream

Screech /Stone Edge /Crunch /Taunt

• Use Screech to lower the enemy's Defense on the first turn

• Rock-type Sp. DEF is increased by 1.5 times during sandstorms, can be used as a tank against effective Pokemon

• Can support with Taunt and Screech

Garchomp

Ground Tera Type

Swords Dance /Earthquake /FLEXIBLE /FLEXIBLE

• A substitute for Azumarill

• Use Swords Dance to boost firepower in the beginning

• High Base Stats among Ground-type Pokemon

• High Attack Stats makes Earthquake powerful

Lucario

Fighting Tera Type

Nasty Plot /Focus Blast /Screech /Metal Sound

• Super effective Attacker

• Greatly increases firepower with Nasty Plot

• Focus Blast is powerful, but beware of its low hit rate

Sylveon

Fairy Tera Type

Pixilate(HA)

Fake Tears /Calm Mind /Draining Kiss /Hyper Voice

• Use Calm Mind to raise it's Sp. Atk and Sp. Def first turn

• Hyper Voice is powerful with Pixilate ability

• Attack with Draining Kiss to heal yourself

• Use Fake Tears to lower the enemy's Sp. DEF

Perrserker

Steel Tera Type

Screech /Swords Dance /Iron Head /Taunt

• High firepower only if all four players use Perrserker

• Stack Screech and Swords Dance to the max, you may take down enemy with a single blow