Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: Greninja 7-Star Raid Guide

The following Pokemon scarlet and violet a seven-star raid has arrived, featuring a poison-type Greninja. The first round runs until Monday, January 30, and the second round resumes about two weeks later, from Friday, February 10 to Monday, February 13. Like the other Pokémon in the seven-star raid, Greninja has the strongest mark. , and you can only catch one per save file. just like previous seven star raidsthe Pokemon will require careful strategy to beat it.

Here are all the raid details: Greninja will have her hidden ability, Protean, following the hidden abilities of Charizard and Cinderace in previous seven-star raids. Luckily, this won’t affect the raid itself, as terastallization negates the effects of the protean ability. We can just plan around the type of tera.

Greninja has a tera poison type for the raid, and the following movesets:

• Hydraulic pump.
• Slice of night.
• Blow of a cannon.
• Ray of ice.
• Doubles team.
• Spikes poisonous.

Greninja will always start the battle using Double Team to boost its evasion and Toxic Spikes to poison your Pokemon when they return after being knocked down. It’s a boring setup to deal with, partly because missing attacks mean you wait longer to refill your tera orb and terastallize, and also because sniffing out attacks wastes valuable time. After that, Greninja will mostly rely on Hydro Pump against Pokemon that aren’t immune to Water attacks, or Gunk Shot against Pokemon that are immune to Water. It casts Night Slash and Ice Beam less frequently.

Best Greninja Counters

These are the Pokemon that can most surely win the Greninja raid battles. To give you the best chance of victory, make sure your Pokemon is level 100 and has a nature that increases its relevant attack stat (usually Modest for special attackers and Adamant for physical attackers). Our favorite counters are:

• Gastrodon.
• Vaporeon.
• Clodsire/Quagsire.
• Klefki.
• kingambit.

Gastrodon

Type of tera: Ground
Ability: Drain Storm
Item: Expert Belt / Soft Sand

EV distribution: 252 HP / 252 special attack / 4 special defense

Moves:

• Clear smog.
• Earth power.
• Store.
• Recover.

Gastrodon is one of the first Greninja raid counters, thanks to its advantageous typing and ability. Storm Drain prevents you from taking damage from the Hydraulic Pump, instead increasing your Special Attack, to help you deal more damage. Stockpile bolsters your defenses, helping you stay around longer and depend on Recover less often. Open with Clear Smog to negate Double Team’s evasion boost, then store multiple times before unleashing Earth Powers.

Vaporeon

Type of tera: steel
Power: Absorb water
Item: Shiny Powder

EV distribution: 252 HP / 252 special attack / 4 special defense

Moves:

• Stored power.
• Calm mind.
• Fast/Mist.
• Wish.

The water-type Eeveelution is an effective anti-raid, with a catch. If you can terastallize Vaporeon into a steel-type and survive an attack afterwards, it’s nearly impossible to kill. However, it is susceptible to Gunk Shot until it terastallizes, dying in two or three hits depending on the damage rolls. The strategy is to use Bright Powder to reduce Gunk Shot’s base accuracy from 80% to around 70%, while using Swift the first three rounds to ensure you can terastallize as soon as possible. Getting knocked out before isn’t done if it allows you to terastallize with full HP – Ice Beam and Night Slash don’t threaten you, and in your Steel Tera form you’re immune to the other two attacks. With Vaporeon’s decently high special attack stat and immunity to water attacks in addition to massive HP, stacking Calm Minds in Stored Power is a reliable way to lower raid boss health. You can also run Haze instead of Swift to negate Greninja’s evade bonuses

Clodsire/Quagsire

Tera Type: Ground (although you sometimes want to avoid terastallization to maintain your double poison resistance)
Power: Absorb water
Item: Expert Belt / Soft Sand

EV distribution: 252 HP / 252 attack / 4 special defense

Moves:

• Earthquake/Bulldozer.
• Curse.
• Recover.
• Haze.

An unlikely hero, Clodsire has a lot of toughness against Greninja. The water absorption ability allows Clodsire to turn a traditional weakness (water-type attacks) into HP recovery, and his natural typing means he only takes 25% damage from poison-type attacks. Clodsire takes double damage from Ice Beam, but otherwise it’s a powerful special tank with huge HP, strong special defense, and access to Recover. Use Haze to take out Greninja’s evasion boost, then dive into some curses to boost your attack and defense. From there, trigger Earthquakes to double the damage. Clodsire’s non-Paldean counterpart, Quagsire, is also a good counter without Clodsire’s ice weakness, and you can get its pre-evolution by trading an NPC to Cascarrafa.

Klefki

Type of tera: steel
Power: Prankster
Subject: Leftovers

EV distribution: 252 HP / 252 special attack / 4 special defense

Moves:

• Stored power.
• Calm mind.
• Iron Tusk.
• Sunny day.

This Pokémon benefits from its steel/fairy typing, which grants it resistance to dark-type attacks and full immunity to Greninja’s tera-boosted poison attacks. Klefki also has access to the same “stacking Calm Mind into Stored Power” combo as Vaporeon, which I can further enhance with Iron Defense. And a natural poison immunity negates Greninja’s powerful Gunk Shot move. Start with a Prankster-boosted Sunny Day to reduce damage from the Hydraulic Pump, which would otherwise wipe out about half of Klefki’s HP.

kingambit

Type of tera: steel
Power: Rebellious
Item: Shell Bell

EV distribution: 252 HP / 252 attack / 4 defense

Moves:

• Zen headbutt.
• Sword Dance.
• Iron Tusk.
• Sandstorm.

Kingambit is another Steel type that benefits from Poison Immunity and is an OK counter, though it is less consistent than the others on this list. A powerful physical attacker, Kingambit can perform Swords Dance to boost his attack and unleash super effective Zen headbutts on the Poison-type Greninja. The downside is that Kingambit doesn’t resist Greninja’s powerful water moves, which hit Kingambit for neutral damage. It should be noted that Zen Headbutt only has 90% accuracy, which makes this strategy riskier than bringing in other counters, especially after Double Team. The lack of recovery moves for Kingambit means you’re pretty much forced to use Shell Bell as a held item to help support the raid.

Other Greninja Raid Tips

You may choose to run more of a support build instead of offensive builds, as many of the counters listed here have strong defensive stats. However, when you bring a support Pokémon to a seven-star raid, you rely on your other three teammates to do a ton of damage, which can be a gamble with random teammates. In pre-made groups, you can create support-based teams that can take down the raid boss in one fell swoop with careful planning. But after losing many Cinderace raids to a lack of damage, I recommend offensive builds if you’re relying on unknown teammates.

Remember that the clock is your real enemy in seven-star raids: the only way to win is to effectively strip your opponent’s HP. Big bursts of damage are the most effective way to do this, which is why I recommend stacking Calm Mind in Stored Power as one of the most reliable ways to fight Greninja. But staying alive is also important, as getting knocked out by Greninja will instantly remove some of the remaining raid timer, putting more pressure on a limited resource. Pay attention to how much damage you take from each attack, and use your recovery moves and cheers to keep your Pokemon healthy enough to survive the next attack.

If your HP is in the red, don’t waste your terastallize unless you can stun the raid boss this turn or heal from a safe distance. Instead, it’s best to terastallize after being stunned, so you have more time with your tera type. Using three or more moves in your tera form is almost always more valuable than using just one move per turn earlier.

And don’t feel bad about leaving a raid if the team preview looks bad. Some players might be tempted to bring Psychic-types to fight Greninja’s poisonous tera-type, but they will quickly die in Night Slash. Once you start the raid you’re stuck in it, so bounce ahead if you think it’s a losing battle.

When you defeat Greninja, you will be able to catch it once and you will receive an ability patch and TM 91 for your first victory. You will also be able to earn lots of L/XL experience candies, tera poison shards, ability capsules, rare candies, vitamins, and items for sale from repeated wins. Good luck there!