7-Star Raids - Strategies, Speculation & Discussion Thread

[Copley Hill Gym]

MOD NOTE FOR CONTEXT:
This thread was originally created for the 7-Star Cinderace Tera Raid. But I have decided to rename and make this a dedicated thread for 7-Star Raids instead.

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I’ve done nine raids so far. Nothing is hitting this Pokémon hard at all. Bulk up, followed by pyro ball followed by negating stat increases and the shield in two turns.

Thought these raids were meant to be fun? I’ve come away feeling like this one is truly unbeatable. No strategy seems to be getting any kind of heavy hit on him.

 

[Bus]

I’ve done nine raids so far. Nothing is hitting this Pokémon hard at all. Bulk up, followed by pyro ball followed by negating stat increases and the shield in two turns.

Thought these raids were meant to be fun? I’ve come away feeling like this one is truly unbeatable. No strategy seems to be getting any kind of heavy hit on him.

I've seen people posting success builds involving a Slowbro and Solo-ing it; no idiot people from internet required. Someone here can feel free to correct me, but from what I remember offhand, they were running Stored Power, Iron Defense, Nasty Plot, and Chilling Water (guaranteed attack lower). Stored Power hits like a truck after maxing out defense and Nasty Plot apparently. Make sure the Slowbro can Terra to Psychic for that Terra STAB bonus and has Oblivious as an ability.

 

[TheodoricFriede]

This feels like they read one comment that said 'that charizard wasn't that hard' and made this the most annoying raid possible.

I have yet to see it get below 60% health. At this point, I just want someone to trade me a scorbunny.

 

[Copley Hill Gym]

I've seen people posting success builds involving a Slowbro and Solo-ing it; no idiot people from internet required. Someone here can feel free to correct me, but from what I remember offhand, they were running Stored Power, Iron Defense, Nasty Plot, and Chilling Water (guaranteed attack lower). Stored Power hits like a truck after maxing out defense and Nasty Plot apparently. Make sure the Slowbro can Terra to Psychic for that Terra STAB bonus and has Oblivious as an ability.

That is quite an extreme to go to though. I have seen a few raids where four azumarills got literally ripped apart. I am going to try again today with other strategies. Thank you for the pointer!

 

[Copley Hill Gym]

42nd Cinderace raid. Using Espathra and spamming baby doll eyes whilst opportunist keeps it alive with bulk up, and everyone else attacks. We won with literally seconds to spare! Having been trying all night I’m relieved to have got it done!

 

[PsiOmega]

I finally beat the darn thing after like 15 tries. The run that finally worked, I ran a Dachsbun with Charm (spammed 3 times at the beginning), Rain Dance, Helping Hand (spammed after my teammates had set up), and Play Rough. Random teammates had 2 Armorouges and an Espathra. We still only beat it right as the timer hit zero, I'm amazed it worked at all.

 

[Wulava]

I did the Opportunist Espathra build and that darn Pyro Ball is the one that always messes me up.

I'm working on the Slowbro build I saw online and I've read people actually beating that rabbit with ease. It doesn't need a specific Tera nor an ability, so it's easier to obtain.

EDIT: Just tried the Slowbro build and I one-shot Cinderace, solo. It did not even manage to put up a shield.

Slowbro / Life Orb / 252 EV SpAtk & SpDef / Modest
- Iron Defense
- Nasty Plot
- Stored Power
- Slack Off

Attack order:
- 3x Iron Defense
- 3x Nasty Plot
- 1x "Go all out!" Cheer
- 1x Stored Power

The key to this is to input commands fast enough. Also, preferably have one of the other AI Trainers with Intimidate (Staraptor, Arcanine, Tauros). And preferably avoid teammates with Fairy & Grass type Pokemon.

 

[Copley Hill Gym]

Beginning to wonder if that's the point of these seven star raids, making us create squad members to do the hard work!

 

[Spider-Phoenix]

Haven't tried yet but I've been thinking about using Ceruledge. With Flash Fire ability and Ghost typing you can cancel Pyro Ball and High Jump Kick while fire typing grants resistance to steel. Only issue would be Acrobatics but then the line does learn Reflect.

My only issue is the one I have is equipped with Weak Armor and not really feeling like wasting a Patch ability on it (I recall seeing in the menu it can work)

Another option is using a Drifblim with Acrobatics Imprison to seal that move on 'Ace.

Like imagine two people playing with Ceruledge. Armor ghost uses Reflect to increase defense. Drifblim seals Acrobatics so all Ace can do is a non-stab Iron Head because Ceruledge would be immune to both Pyro Ball and High Jump Kick (well at least until the "ability nullification" trash thing for the former but even then Ceruledge resist fire and is immune to burn so point stands). Then Ceruledge can just sword dance and then spam Psycho Cut

 

[FatherOreo]

Hi. Yes.

I've done the Slowbro strategy and it works very well as a solo raid for Cinderace. It's not great in a online setting, as people can get knocked out when not running it.

For solo I use:

Modest Slowbro(IVs were already pretty good as it was a Tera Raid Slowbro) with Shell Bell

As close to 252 SpAtk, 252 Defense, 4HP as possible. I'm not the greatest EV person. So I dropped his others were berries and pumped in a lot of Cal/Iron.

Stored Power
Iron Defense
Nasty Plot

Hope for a AI mon with intimidate.

Beat it my first try. Haven't beaten it in online raids because people brought in stuff like Charizard, whose attacks did nothing so they kept getting knocked and running down the timer.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

Just gave it a try and didn't have a chance, even with Lv. 100 Pokemon. Doesn't help that all I have to use against it is Iron Valiant (which got destroyed by Acrobatics), Farigiraf, and Corviknight (which don't resist Fighting). Looking at some of the successful builds on here, this is some competitive tier BS that I don't want to be part of, I subscribe to the Karen philosophy and don't want to have to be limited to the handful of Pokemon the meta says are good and have to max them out, that's no fun. F this noise it's not worth doing, I'm just going to wait for Home to get a Scorbunny. Keep competitive tier battling like this to the tournaments, not in game stuff like raids.

 

[Wulava]

They should've just kept this as Mystery Gifts. Or at least make them 4-5 star raids. Not everyone plays competitively, nor have the time to train one and have it used only for these events.

I will never use them. I also don't like Charizard nor Cinderace. But the collector in me just had to do it for the sake of my peace of mind.

 

[Copley Hill Gym]

Just gave it a try and didn't have a chance, even with Lv. 100 Pokemon. Doesn't help that all I have to use against it is Iron Valiant (which got destroyed by Acrobatics), Farigiraf, and Corviknight (which don't resist Fighting). Looking at some of the successful builds on here, this is some competitive tier BS that I don't want to be part of, I subscribe to the Karen philosophy and don't want to have to be limited to the handful of Pokemon the meta says are good and have to max them out, that's no fun. F this noise it's not worth doing, I'm just going to wait for Home to get a Scorbunny. Keep competitive tier battling like this to the tournaments, not in game stuff like raids.

You say that, but I played twenty competitive matches this evening and virtually all of them had the same six pokemon in different orders. Didn't feel very competitive or imaginative to me.

 

[Bolt the Cat]

You say that, but I played twenty competitive matches this evening and virtually all of them had the same six pokemon in different orders. Didn't feel very competitive or imaginative to me.

No, that is my point. Competitive always just limits you to a handful of Pokemon that the metagame community decides is "good" because of combinations of different factors (stats, movesets, abilities, types, really... all of it) and nearly everyone uses the same Pokemon as a result. And I don't find any of that fun so I just don't bother at all. I don't want that playstyle bleeding into main game content like this.

 

[Noy]

I managed to catch one online with an Oricorio. granted that's because the team was competent enough to use reflect and heal at the beginning. I basically spent the match (after casting def at the start) spamming protect, heal, and feather dance (when shield was not up); and somehow made it thru.

​

 

[PsychoLogical]

Managed to beat it last night solo. Ran with Slowbro with

• Stored Power
• Nasty Plot
• Iron Defense
• Slack Off

Unfortunately I wasted alot of time trying to kill the shield since it kept reaching that point before I could slam through without it. But I managed to beat it in the end.

 

[Ignition]

Not sure how this is competitive. Most of the strategies being used against Cinderace aren't even what's "meta" right now. I grabbed a Slowbro I had in my box from my dex completion, gave it the aforementioned moves, leveled it up a bit, and won easily without worrying about EVs/IVs. Did the same with a Daschbun to help a friend. I don't think having to use some easily obtainable items to invest into a Pokémon for 1 battle is hurting anyone.

This is very simple strategizing compared to actual competitive. I can understand why it's seen as a bit too much and I agree it can be overwhelming though. Not a fan of the shield gimmick they somewhat kept from SwSh and the online often lags to where the Tera Pokémon gets hits in without me being able to do anything.

 

[Wulava]

Not sure how this is competitive. Most of the strategies being used against Cinderace aren't even what's "meta" right now. I grabbed a Slowbro I had in my box from my dex completion, gave it the aforementioned moves, leveled it up a bit, and won easily without worrying about EVs/IVs. Did the same with a Daschbun to help a friend. I don't think having to use some easily obtainable items to invest into a Pokémon for 1 battle is hurting anyone.

This is very simple strategizing compared to actual competitive. I can understand why it's seen as a bit too much and I agree it can be overwhelming though. Not a fan of the shield gimmick they somewhat kept from SwSh and the online often lags to where the Tera Pokémon gets hits in without me being able to do anything.

Well, I guess to casual players like me, just the mere mention of EV/IV training, having to use specific held items, abilities, natures, tera type, and movesets already falls under "competitive" category.

 

[Ignition]

Well, I guess to casual players like me, just the mere mention of EV/IV training, having to use specific held items, abilities, natures, tera type, and movesets already falls under "competitive" category.

Fair but all you really need is the moveset. Stat training, held items, abilities, natures, and Tera Type could be pretty much ignored here as long as you're leveled up. I understand the frustration though.

 

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Well, I guess to casual players like me, just the mere mention of EV/IV training, having to use specific held items, abilities, natures, tera type, and movesets already falls under "competitive" category.

Yeah all that is unnecessary tbh or just extra. I did the slowbro build without any of ev training and even a hindering nature & beat football bunny in one go also wasn't level 100 either.

Key to soloing is to hope to get at least 1 AI with intimidate and hope the rest don't damage him too much so he doesn't get his shield up

Unfortunately raids like this are useless online too many dumb players & raids are really terrible this game anyway, hope for a patch soon