Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's latest 7-Star Tera Raid Event featuring Greninja has been quite the challenge, even for the most seasoned trainers. Although many players were hoping to add Gen 6's popular Water-type starter to their squad during this event, defeating this Poison Tera type Greninja is proving a lot more difficult than past Tera Raid Event bosses. While it's still possible to beat, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet players are up against a host of tricks that Mightiest Mark Greninja can pull, making it hard to pin down an effective counter to the boss.
In past events against Charizard and Cinderace, players were able to find solid strategies using carefully crafted Slowbro and Azumarill Raid builds to take down these Tera bosses. However, no such build has been able to consistently deal with the variety of threats Greninja can create, leaving players struggling to catch it during this limited-time event. With its diverse move pool and strong type coverage, players may have to try a variety of strategies before they can successfully take down Greninja the Unrivaled.
Greninja Has Some Nasty Surprises in Store for Trainers
Although Greninja does not have Battle Bond as its Ability, it still uses a variety of annoying moves that make it difficult to keep ally Pokemon from fainting long enough to win the battle. To start, Greninja uses Toxic Spikes and Double Team in an effort to stall out its opponents and run down the battle timer. Toxic Spikes has the nasty ability to poison any opposing mon that switches into battle while the spikes are active, meaning that sending a Pokemon back out after it faints will result in its immediate poisoning. Double Team raises the user's evasiveness, making enemy attacks more likely to miss, and can cause such a headache for players that it's been banned from use in competitive battles.
As if this toxic stall strategy wasn't bad enough, Greninja also has a wide range of move types it can use giving it the power to counter a variety of types players might bring to the battle. Good types to counter Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's Poison Tera-type mon like Psychic and Ground types have to deal with Greninja's access to Hydro Pump, Night Slash, and Ice Beam. Add in Gunk Shot to this move pool and Greninja is just as threatening as a Physical Attack as it is a Special Attacker.
Slowbro Might Still Be the Best Option for This Event
With this powerful move set and stalling tactic, it can be hard to find a bulky mon capable of surviving the onslaught of this Tera Raid boss. Despite all that this boss can throw at players, some trainers have found success with Slowbro as a counter to Greninja thanks to its decent bulk, favorable typing, and a few interesting move choices. The ideal Slowbro build takes advantage of a couple of stat-boosting moves like Iron Defense to bolster its Defense stat and Nasty Plot to increase its Special Attack. Follow this up with Psychic Terrain to give the next move a bit more punch, and then hit Greninja with Stored Power.
This is a very situational move that gains 20 power per stage based on how much the stats of the user have been boosted. Hitting Greninja with this move for superffective STAB damage after a few turns of Iron Defense and Nasty Plot has the potential to deal tons of damage. However, this isn't a guaranteed win because it takes a while to set up and Slowbro is very vulnerable to Nigh Slash if it's hit before it can use Iron Defense - and even then, critical hits ignore the Defense boost. Even with this strategy, Greninja's affinity for Double Team can still cause Stored Power to miss and cause the whole strategy to fall apart, meaning raiders might need to try this method a few times before finding success.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are available now for Nintendo Switch.