Best counter and build for defeating 7-star Blastoise Tera Raids in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

The Blastoise Unrivaled Tera Raid event has landed in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and it’s a tough battle ahead.

Starting Tuesday, March 5 at 6pm CT until Tuesday, March 12 at 6:59pm CT, special seven-star Blastoise Tera Raids will be appearing in the Paldea region. As of right now, this event period is your only chance to battle and catch a Blastoise with the Mightiest Mark. 

If you’re a fan of the Gen I Water Starter or just want to add another rare event Pokémon to your growing collection, here’s everything you need to know to clear the Unrivaled Blastoise Tera Raid in Scarlet and Violet.

Beating the Unrivaled Blastoise Tera Raid in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Unlike many of the other seven-star raid bosses in Scarlet and Violet, Unrivaled Blastoise starts by focusing more on defense than offense. It sets its shield up at the beginning of the battle along with defensive buffs, so your job is to figure out how to break through the turtle’s bulk and deal meaningful damage. For example, consider hitting Blastoise with special attacks rather than physical attacks since it only buffs its Defense and not Special Defense.

As the raid progresses, Blastoise will buff its offense to hit harder. It’s a sudden change of pace in the middle, and you shouldn’t get too comfortable when the turtle isn’t dealing damage. Otherwise, you’ll be blown back by a strong attack when you least expect it.

What type is Unrivaled Blastoise?

Blastoise is a pure Water-type Pokémon by nature, but it will have the Steel Tera Type for this specific Tera Raid event. This gives it three defensive weaknesses: Ground, Fire, and Fighting. Blastoise’s Ground and Fire weaknesses can be countered by its STAB Water-type offense, so your best bet might be to start with a Fighting-type Pokémon to get super-effective hits on it without taking too much damage in return. Your other option is to find a way to work around its Water offense with Abilities like Water Absorb or Storm Drain to make your Pokémon immune to Blastoise’s strongest attack.

What moves does Unrivaled Blastoise know?

Unrivaled Blastoise has three attacking moves and four setup moves. Its attacking moves are Hydro Pump, Flash Cannon, and Aura Sphere. Its setup moves are Iron Defense and Withdraw to boost its Defense, Shell Smash to boost its offense, and Rain Dance to power up its Hydro Pump.

Between its shield and the defensive buffs from Withdraw and Iron Defense, Blastoise will be the bulkiest toward the beginning of the raid. As you whittle down its HP, it will switch to an offensive mode with Shell Smash and Rain Dance. Blastoise’s Hydro Pump can be annoyingly strong in the rain with the Shell Smash boost, but the good news is that it only has 80 accuracy and can miss often if you’re lucky.

Moves

• Hydro Pump
• Flash Cannon
• Aura Sphere
• Iron Defense

Additional Moves

• Withdraw
• Shell Smash
• Rain Dance

Best counter for the Unrivaled Blastoise Tera Raid in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Right now, it seems the best counter for Unrivaled Blastoise is surprisingly a fellow Water-type Pokémon—Vaporeon. Unrivaled Blastoise is super bulky on the physical side and counters its defensive weaknesses well, but a special attacker like Vaporeon gets the job done with a fun build you wouldn’t expect from a Water-type ‘mon.

Best Vaporeon Tera Raid build in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Vaporeon is known to be a pretty good counter in Tera Raids, and it can easily take down Blastoise with a combination of its Water Absorb ability and the Fire Tera Type. Unlike normal Fire-type Pokémon that are extremely vulnerable to Blastoise’s super-effective Hydro Pump in the rain, Vaporeon is completely immune to Water-type attacks thanks to Water Absorb. In other words, Vaporeon can freely Terastallize into the Fire Tera Type without worrying about taking massive damage from Hydro Pump.

In fact, Vaporeon is quite tanky and shouldn’t take much damage from any Blastoise attack—Hydro Pump is useless, Flash Cannon is resisted, and Aura Sphere is the raid boss’ weakest non-STAB option. Just be sure to EV train Vaporeon in either HP or Special Defense. I went with HP for a more general build, but high Special Defense is great here too. The rest of the EVs can go into Special Attack to make sure Vaporeon is doing as much damage as possible.

The ideal Nature for this build is Modest (+ Special Attack, – Attack), but a few alternatives are Quiet (+ Special Attack, – Speed) and Mild (+ Special Attack, – Defense) if you don’t have the right mints to change its Nature. Finish the build by giving Vaporeon the Shell Bell to heal its HP. That should be enough to keep Vaporeon nice and healthy throughout the whole raid.

During the raid, you want to start by setting up with around three Calm Minds to boost your Special Attack and Special Defense. Then set up the sun with Sunny Day to give Weather Ball the Fire typing while also boosting its power. 

From there, you just need to keep spamming Weather Ball, paying close attention to when the sun goes down and when your stats reset. Use three more Calm Minds when your stats reset, and use Sunny Day as soon as the sun disappears—otherwise, Weather Ball won’t be nearly as strong. Consider using PP UP on Weather Ball and Sunny Day to ensure you don’t run out during the raid. You can also run Tera Blast on Vaporeon’s moveset just in case you do run out of Weather Ball, but it will be slightly weaker.