How To Defeat The Blastoise Tera Raid In Pokemon Scarlet & Violet

12 Mar 2024

TheGamer

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How To Defeat The Blastoise Tera Raid In Pokemon Scarlet Violet

Here's how to complete the Blastoise Tera Raid in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.

The second Kanto starter raid announced on Pokemon Day has just made its way to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. This time, Blastoise is making an appearance with a Steel tera-type. Blastoise isn't as hard as Venusaur, with an ability that doesn't give it a large advantage.

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Players looking to solo can beat it with Pokemon easily found in the base game, no Pokemon Home or DLC required. Even if you don't want this special Blastoise with a unique mark, it's still worth taking on this raid a couple of times for the good Herba Mystica drop rates, making it great for farming.

Event Information

A screenshot of Blastoise in a Tera Den in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

The Blastoise raid will run until 11:59 UTC on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. Players can catch it once and will receive a Blastoise with the Mightiest Mark and its hidden ability, Rain Dish and the TM for Hydro Pump.

Each type of Herba Mystica has a three percent drop rate upon successfully beating the raid.

Blastoise's Kit

A screenshot of Blastoise in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet activating its Tera Shield

Blastoise focuses on boosting its physical defense, and will pretty much always have its defense maxed out, especially if you are playing solo.

Blastoise will use the following moves:

Move	Type	Category	Power	Additional Effects
Flash Cannon	Steel	Special	80	Ten percent chance to lower the opponent's Sp. Defense
Hydro Pump	Water	Special	110	No secondary effects
Rain Dance	Water	Status	-	Summons rain for five turns
Withdraw	Water	Status	-	Raises Defense
Aura Sphere	Fighting	Special	80	This move cannot miss
Iron Defense	Steel	Status	-	Raises Defense
Shell Smash	Normal	Status	-	Lowers user's Defense and Sp. Defense while raising Attack and Sp. Attack

Blastoise attacks four times per turn, once for each trainer. However, you don’t see which moves it uses on turns that are not yours, so Blastoise can max out its defense in the span of one turn without the game telling you.

Because of this, it’s not worth lowering physical defense if you’re playing solo. Furthermore, Blastoise will immediately activate its shield, so you can’t lower its stats with non-damaging moves.

While Blastoise will use Rain Dance when you've gone through half its HP, its ability Rain Dish isn't all that useful as it does not heal it enough to matter.

The Best Pokemon To Solo Blastoise

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Gastrodon is a special attacker with good bulk. Before starting the battle, make sure you’ve Hyper Trained it to give it the best stats possible, then use the following build:

Ability	Held Item	Moveset	Tera	EVs	Nature
Storm Drain	Shell Bell	Skitter Smack, Earth Power, Recover, Surf	Ground	252 Sp. Atk/252 Sp. Def/4 HP	Modest

Use Skitter Smack three times until you can terastallize. This will lower Blastoise’s Special Attack and mean you’re barely taking any damage by the time you Terastalize into a Ground-Type.

Warning: Skitter Smack has an accuracy of 90, so you may get unlucky and miss, but it shouldn't ruin your attempt.

Once you’ve terastalized, start using Earth Power. You’ll quickly break through the shield and heal back any damage Blastoise does.

Use a PP Up or PP Max on Earth Power.

Once you break through the shield, Blastoise will use Shell Smash, lowering its Defense and Special Defense while raising its Attack and Special Attack. From this point on, focus primarily on using Earth Power, regardless of what Blastoise does.

The only times you should deviate from this is to use Recover if your health reaches the yellow during the second half of the fight or you run out of Earth Power PP, in which case switch to Surf.

Several aspects can make this strategy work better or worse. For example, if Blastoise uses Hydro Pump, it will strengthen your Special Attack and you won’t take damage.

Meanwhile, Earth Power and Flash Cannon both have a low chance of dropping the target’s Special Defense, which can help or hurt you depending on who gets hit with it.

Despite this, overall, this strategy is very consistent and easy to implement.