Let the Good(ra-H) Times Roll
An easy and effective strategy to take on Dialga and Palkia in the latest Pokémon Scarlet/Violet raid event.
Pokémon Scarlet and Violet continue to roll out fun Tera Raid Battle events that give players a new challenge within the game; offer rewards including Herba Mystica, Tera shards, vitamins, TMs, and cold hard cash; plus present the opportunity to catch rare Pokémon in any desired Poké ball (especially the rare Kurt balls that can be dangerous to use in standard wild encounters due to their rarity).
The latest such event features Sinnoh’s Dialga and Palkia, both with the Dragon Tera type and equipped with good coverage moves to punish Fairy, Dragon, and Ice attackers. You can find the full movesets, scripted actions, and rewards possibilities here at Serebii (of course), but suffice it to say it’s worth beating both of these raids at least once to grab the legendaries and plenty of Water, Dragon, and Steel Tera shards.
Thankfully, it’s easier than you might think to beat Dialga and Palkia, and even to solo them, both with the exact same Pokémon: Hisuian Goodra. Goodra-H’s immense special defense (150!) and outstanding defensive typing means it can withstand lots of attacks from both Dialga and Palkia when equipped with an Assault Vest, and it can dish out enough damage to win the raid before time expires by laying down Acid Spray enough to drop the legendary dragons’ special defense as low as it will go.
Ice Beam and Draco Meteor are really just there in case you run out of Dragon Pulse, but that didn’t come up much in test raids I did with friends and ones they carried out alone too. The success rate should be quite high if the build is close to correct and the Goodra is lv 100 — the Assault Vest and 150 Special Defense give a big cushion even if it takes time to lay down Acid Spray (three turns in a row solo, one turn of a group of 3-4 doing it together) and then dish out Dragon Pulse damage.
I mulled both Steel and Dragon Tera types, but settled on Steel to force Dialga and Palkia out of their STAB moves. Either probably works, to be honest. You can use a healing cheer mid-raid if necessary, but if you have Shell Armor to prevent critical hits it likely won’t be necessary — especially if in a solo you’re lucky enough to have Arboliva set Grassy Terrain for you.
The nice thing about this Goodra-H build is it should theoretically have use against other special attacking raid bosses too — Goodra gets good coverage moves and even with the Dragon weakness it has no trouble sponging huge hits from Dialga and Palkia, which bodes well for other opponents (as long as they’re not Tera Steel and thus immune to Acid Spray). Also, it looks very funny to have a full squad of these things battling together:
The raids run until December 21, with Dialga exclusive to Scarlet and Palkia to Violet. If you get to try out this Goodra-H build on them, let me know in the comments below — I’d love to hear some case studies! Good luck and happy raiding, trainers.