[Question] Inteleon Tera Raid strats?

The new tera 7-star raid was announced; Inteleon with Ice tera type. What is everyone planning to try for the raid?

With the Sniper ability doing massive damage on a critical hit, Inteleon will be similar to Samurott in difficulty I am assuming; This time we'll be able to critically hit Inteleon though. Looks like the only +crit moves that Inteleon has access to in Scarlet/Violet is Air Cutter and its signature move Snipe Shot. It can no longer learn Focus Energy like it could in Sword/Shield (thankfully). Looking at available moves, I am thinking Tearful Look, Snipe Shot, Air Cutter, Acrobatics, and Icy Wind are all strong possibilities with Ice Beam being a likely add due to the tera type. Chilling Water and Rain Dance are also contenders. Rain Dance would be good to reduce Fire-type damage used against it, as well as it boosting Snipe Shot damage.

Lots of raid Pokémon are looking good for this event:
Annihilape / Defiant - better if Inteleon has Chilling water and/or Icy Wind
Tauros (Fire) / Anger Point - same strategy as Samurott raid
Tinkaton / Own Tempo - good Special Defense and resists Ice and Flying damage, Swords Dance and Gigaton Hammer would do some nice damage.
Iron Hands / Quark Drive - Belly Drum, Drain Punch, as well as it can learn Fire Punch
Azumarill / Huge Power - Belly Drum, Super Power; if Inteleon has no physical attacks, this practically has no downside and Azumarill resists both the Water-type and Ice-type attacks.

I really wanted to try Volcarona (with Passho Berry or Assault Vest), but Frosmoth kept looking better on paper.


Frosmoth
Nature: Calm
Ability: Ice Scales
Tera: Steel
Item: Shell Bell or Passho Berry (I've read/heard that a berry makes the AI not use that type of move)
- Quiver Dance
- Giga Drain
- Bug Buzz
- Tera Blast

If Frosmoth doesn't work I'll fall back on Iron Hands. Half the fun of these raids, for me, is trying something new (and to be able to use the random shinies I've found).

Predicts this to be a snow raid. Just did a sun raid. When better for snow than with a Tera: Ice type?

Leans heavily in the special direction. Doubts many physical moves. (Welcomes physical moves over special. Makes it weaker solo.)

Inteleon's likely moveset:
- Snipe Shot
- Blizzard
- Dark Pulse / Shadow Ball
- Air Cutter / Air Slash. Guesses Air Cutter to take advantage of Sniper.

Additional moves: Snowscape and maybe Mist. Adds Mud Shot as a possible primary move and Icy Wind as an out-of-turn move. Could have Tearful Look as another out-of-turn move too.

Feels like a really strong raid to put up sun, if that moveset is correct. Dampens Snipe Shot and prevents Blizzard freezes (not to mention keeping its accuracy shaky). With that in mind:

Solo build ideas

Flutter Mane
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera: Fairy
Nature: Modest (+Special Attack / -Attack)
EVs: Max Hitpoints and Special Attack
Moves: Sunny Day, Mystical Fire, Moonblast, Calm Mind/Fake Tears
Hold Item: Shell Bell

Strategy: Use Sunny Day immediately if Inteleon uses Snowscape. Outspeeds Inteleon without Speed investment (even with a +Speed nature on Inteleon, assuming max IVs). Keep Inteleon's Special Attack in check with Mystical Fire. Stacks Calm Minds for damage. Switches to Moonblast while Terastallized with the shield up.

Shortcoming: Dislikes Shadow Ball.


Bellibolt (yes, again)
Ability: Electromorphesis
Tera: Electric
Nature: Modest (+Special Attack / -Attack)
EVs: Max Hitpoints and Special Attack
Moves: Acid Spray, Eerie Impulse, Parabolic Charge/Discharge, Slack Off
Hold Item: Shell Bell

Strategy: Knock down its Special Attack with Eerie Impulse. Heal, if needed. Lower Inteleon to -6 Special Defense, then let loose.

Shortcoming: Kind of slow. Could be harmed by Mist or frequent debuff clears.

Magnezone
Ability: Analytic
Tera: Steel
Nature: Modest (+Special Attack / -Attack)
EVs: Max Hitpoints and Special Attack
Moves: Eerie Impulse/Light Screen, Metal Sound, Flash Cannon, and Rest/Sunny Day/Thunder Wave
Hold Item: Shell Bell

Strategy: Similar to Bellibolt. Benefits from Sunny Day keeping Snipe Shot down after a debuff clear, but also no easy recovery and a worse debuff method. Could go the Body Press way. Hits less than Flash Cannon, though.


Golduck
Ability: Cloud Nine
Tera: Water
Nature: Modest (+Special Attack / -Attack)
EVs: Max Hitpoints and Special Attack
Moves: Power Gem, Nasty Plot, Amnesia, and Rest/Skill Swap
Hold Item: Shell Bell

Strategy: Reduce damage with an Amnesia or two, then set up and send in the Power Gems. Use Rest + Heal Cheer as a slow full heal or Skill Swap to remove Sniper. Not the strongest Pokemon, but definitely a fun pick.

Sandslash Fan said:

Item: Shell Bell or Passho Berry (I've read/heard that a berry makes the AI not use that type of move)

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Not completely true. Ran into this with Polteageist and Typhlosion. Chose Earthquake and Play Rough over Shadow Ball...sometimes. Seemed almost random. Was not affected by Attack drops once, also. Eventually chose Shadow Ball, which expended the berry. Went 100% Shadow Ball from there.

(Also, Passho (Water-effectiveness) or Coba (Flying-effectiveness)? Never thought to try a berry that would never activate. Could interact strangely.)

Wants to try Frosmoth on this too. Prepared one a while back with the hidden ability. Will attempt to make do with Tera: Bug.

The only predicable thing is the "overused physical attack coverage".

Looking at my Pokémon collection, I'm going to try either with Crabominable or Frosmoth in first place to avoid the frozen status condition hax, since the latter is going to be really lame and a major problem this time.

Inteleon's moveset: Snipe Shot, Blizzard, Dark Pulse, and Tearful Look. Also kicks off the raid with Mist and Snowscape. Renews those...maybe when the shield goes down? Half health? Not sure on that.

Clears your buffs about four turns in. Never clears its own debuffs.

Tried with Flutter Mane blind first. Was horribly stalled between a Tearful Look / Calm Mind battle. Criticaled with Blizzard a little later. Noped out of that attempt.

Beat it with this (solo):
Golduck
Tera: Water
Ability: Cloud Nine
Nature: Modest
EVs: Max Hitpoints and Special Attack
Moves: Power Gem, Amnesia, Nasty Plot, and Skill Swap
Hold Item: Shell Bell

Failed the first two attempts due to insufficient damage. Adjusted by focusing on building Tera Orb charges earlier. Also used an Attack Cheer after hitting +6 Special Attack. Was a bit peeved at zero criticals (with the stolen Sniper) in the first two attempts and getting frozen twice in this third attempt (with one instant thaw). Received a massive luck boost at the end. Finished the fight with three straight critical hits. Ended with 15-20% of the timer left.

Bets on plenty of better choices out there, like Samurott and Aqua Breed Tauros. Gave Inteleon relatively little coverage. Still feels happy to have won with Golduck. (Really hoped to see Brambleghast shine here too. Negates Blizzard and Air Cutter with the Wind Rider ability. Cannot deal with Dark Pulse, however.)

I saw someone post the moves on Facebook, so I went in with Clear Amulet and was able to beat it with Frosmoth on my first attempt. Had NPC Dunsparce, Tauros, and Haxorus. Dunsparce had Inteleon paralyzed with Glare, but Inteleon never missed a move. It did have to go last, though, which helped me decide whether to Giga Drain or Tera Blast on my following turn. Almost had to use a heal cheer once, but just did a YOLO since it was my first attempt and dodged crits for three turns.

Clear Amulet Iron Hands seems to be the way to farm the raid solo, I'll try it tomorrow.

Devalue said:

Bets on plenty of better choices out there, like Samurott and Aqua Breed Tauros. Gave Inteleon relatively little coverage. Still feels happy to have won with Golduck. (Really hoped to see Brambleghast shine here too. Negates Blizzard and Air Cutter with the Wind Rider ability. Cannot deal with Dark Pulse, however.)

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I did think it was funny that Samurott would be good for the raid. "Starters catching starters... how perverse." ~ C3PO (maybe)

One more useful bit of information: Quiet nature (+Special Attack / -Speed). Puts Inteleon on 248 Speed. Outspeeds it without EV investment and neutral nature at base 107 Speed.

Enables Iron Moth to act before Inteleon's first normal move. Leveraged that speed to set up Sunny Day in time. Sufficed to beat Inteleon.

Gave Stantler a shot for fun. Came nowhere close on damage. Mulled over some more convoluted Skill Swap ideas (sticking Haxorus's Rivalry onto Stantler or Inteleon, taking Garganacl's Purifying Salt for freeze immunity, and stealing Sylveon's Pixilate). Ultimately loses a turn to do that. Is that worth it? Probably not. Might be more successful equipping a Scope Lens and leveraging Sniper. Already takes too much damage with Eviolite, however. Keeps all this in mind for some other Pokemon, if nothing else.

So I did try Crabominable and Frosmoth but failed due to tearful look reasons. Right now I'm doing good with Passimian (assault vest as held item, defiant as an ability and draining punch as a move). I manage to drain punch the Inteleon to K.O. by doing this, as long as the party is good and the frozen status hax does not live on, of course.

I beat it solo with my Kingambit that I use for "normal" raids. 252 Attack/HP, Adamant, Defiant, Steel tera and Shell Bell. Pretty much just spam Iron Head, terastallize when you can and you'll win. Inteleon will also help you out with Tearful Look and boost your Attack for you but if you don't want to rely on Inteleon then you can just use Swords Dance yourself.

Hashimi said:

So I did try Crabominable and Frosmoth but failed due to tearful look reasons. Right now I'm doing good with Passimian (assault vest as held item, defiant as an ability and draining punch as a move). I manage to drain punch the Inteleon to K.O. by doing this, as long as the party is good and the frozen status hax does not live on, of course.

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The Clear Amulet definitely helped my Frosmoth. Inteleon tried using Tearful Look on me at least 3 times, maybe 4-5.

I'm pretty dang worn out, so forgive my inelegance of words here.

I got mine done with the basic Iron Hands + Clear Amulet strat. Decent for solo farming as well, due to less RNG issues. Not the easiest 7 star I've done, but far from the hardest. It gets bonus points for being the first time I've ever used an Iron Hands before.

My team was 1 Kingambit with Swords Dance, 2 Iron Hands with Belly Drum, and me the failure with an Azumarill with Belly Drum. I didn't have any of the others built yet. We had some losses and the barrage of Blizzard + freeze was annoying, but did win our 4 raids in the end.

I cracked the Crabominable code. I went Hyper Cutter instead of Anger Point. Only used three moves during the raid, but a fourth attacking move could be added for building up tera charges. Also switching Shell Bell to Covert Cloak for next time since I am not tera Ice and I healed just fine with Drain Punch. Started the raid with a Build Up and Drain Punch on T2, but could have probably went Amnesia T1. I didn't have very good NPCs with me, but Inteleon did miss several Blizzard which helped me set up with Build Up. Inteleon also wasted a few turns with Tearful Look since Hyper Cutter was great against protecting Build Up buffs. Blizzard didn't hurt much at all when Inteleon had Snowscape up and later on with just one Amnesia I was fine in tera Fighting mode.


Mittens the Crabominable 🌟
Ability: Hyper Cutter
Nature: Brave
Tera: Fighting
Item: Shell Bell / Covert Cloak
EVs: Max Atk, Max SpDef, HP 6
- Drain Punch (max PP)
- Amnesia
- Bulk Up

Succeeded with two silly victories.

Qwilfish (Johto form)
Tera: Poison
Nature: Adamant (+Attack / -Special Attack)
Ability: Swift Swim
EVs: Maximum Hitpoints and Attack
Moves: Minimize, Poison Jab, Swords Dance, and Rain Dance
Hold Item: Bright Powder

Summoned rain on the first turn. (Bypasses accuracy checks with Blizzard in snow.) Used Minimize and one Swords Dance while waiting for the buff clear. Spammed three Minimizes and three Swords Dances after that. Pummeled Inteleon with Poison Jabs from there. Cleared off the second Snowscape too. Literally only got hit once. Healed it off from Arboliva's Grassy Terrain by the end of the fight.

Additional note: Was not even fully-optimized. Forgot to Hyper Train it. Performs better with Tera: Water and Liquidation. (Wanted to see how viable it was before committing the Tera Shards.) Terastallized two turns late by accident. Still won on the first try.

Brambleghast
Tera: Grass
Nature: Adamant (+Attack / -Special Attack)
Ability: Wind Rider (Wind attack immunity and +1 Attack per wind move)
EVs: Maximum Hitpoints and Attack
Moves: Defense Curl, Rollout, Protect, and Pain Split
Hold Item: Clear Amulet

Confused this Inteleon's AI badly. Started with a Colbur Berry (Dark berry). Noticed Inteleon spamming Blizzard multiple times, despite it knowing Brambleghast was immune. Appears to heavily favor Blizzard or Tearful Look while in snow. (Occasionally used Dark Pulse and Snipe Shot in snow, but only rarely.) Was only under threat during the buff clear turn. Swapped to Snipe Shot and Dark Pulse after the snow went down.

Dropped the Colbur Berry. Tried Metronome (the item) first. Did not add enough damage. (Chewed through most of its Tera Shield after a fully amped up, un-Terastallized Rollout, though.) Equipped a Clear Amulet next. Turned Inteleon into a sobbing mess. Completed a full Rollout before fainting. Returned with a Terastallize + Defense Curl. Rolled over it for a win.

Brought Protect and Pain Split. Did not need them. Usually wasted a turn with Protect + Terastallize (to remove the Dark weakness without Inteleon being tempted to attack). Picked Tearful Look or Blizzard on the first turn back, typically. Might have spammed Tearful Look five times in a row after Terastallizing. Messed up Inteleon that badly.
__________

Also tried for the ultimate insult with Luvdisc. Read false information, unfortunately. Searched if Attract works on Tera Raid bosses. Displayed a PokemonDB answer of "Yes" on top...despite it being a -2 vote comment, and the +2 comment on that very page saying it did not work. Confirms Attract does not work. Tried a male and female Pokemon. Does not affect the wild Inteleon, even without the Tera Shield up. Sank Luvdisc's slim hopes.

I beat it earlier today on the first try while scouting it with Iron Hands.
An initial Belly Drum and then I just kept using Drain Punch. Got my buffs cleared once and I just repeated the Belly Drum.

Easiest starter raid I've done so far. Had a little over half the bar left time-wise.