Torterra 7-Star Raid Solo Strategies

[Devalue]

Battles a Tera: Ground Torterra in the next 7-star raid event. What solo strategies are you thinking of?

________

First: What is Torterra bringing to the battle?

Ability: Almost certainly Shell Armor (no criticals). Might be a nice one to steal for yourself. Leaves it alone just fine too.

Moves: Probably Earthquake over Headlong Rush and High Horsepower. Leans towards Wood Hammer over Seed Bomb. Bets against the Curse + Body Press combo here. Walls Torterra too easily with a Flying type otherwise. Goes with Smack Down + Body Press.

Other options for moves:

• Shell Smash: Decently likely as a one-off move.
• Iron Head: Hits Ice types. Could be in there instead of Body Press. Flinches if Shell Smash is in the mix too.
• Curse, Amnesia, Swords Dance, Stockpile, Growth, Iron Defense: Possible. Would not mind seeing Stockpile on the main set.
• Leech Seed: Probably not. Only affects one target. Ignores it if it goes on an ally. Will faint soon enough.
• Reflect, Light Screen, and Grassy Terrain: Only as a between-turns move. Probably not Grassy Terrain, given Tera: Ground and weakening Earthquake.
• Crunch, Body Slam, Zen Headbutt, Outrage: Does not really help against the types super-effective against it.

Eyes Grass types for this. Cannot be hit super-effectively by anything Torterra has, unless a secondary type is. Heavily benefits from Grassy Terrain, potentially, between powering up Grass moves and weakening Earthquake.

Ideas

• Hydrapple: Resists Grass and Ground. Has excellent physical defenses, Nasty Plot, and Giga Drain.
• Bellossom: Weathers the first few turns with Strength Sap. Finishes the job with Acid Spray and Giga Drain. Has Moonlight too.
• Lurantis/Serperior: Contrary + Leaf Storm. Aims for a quick win. Could be underwhelming if the buff clear is ~50% Hitpoints or Time.
• Chesnaught: A sturdier choice with Iron Defense / Bulk Up. Resists Grass, Ground, and Rock. May be a long match if Torterra pumps up its Defense a bunch.

 

[Sandslash Fan]

Looking at Contrary Serperior. Breaking Swipe, Leaf Storm, Solar Beam, and Sunny Day. Holding Shell Bell. +Def nature.

 

[Devalue]

Released the raid.

Moveset: Wood Hammer, Earthquake, Earth Power, and Smack Down.
Nature: Brave (+Attack / -Speed)
Ability: Shell Armor

Out-of-turn moves: Shell Smash x2

Leads with Shell Smash + debuff clear at the start of the raid. Clears your buffs about 4 turns in. Estimates the Tera Shield at around 6-7 turns in. Pulls out a debuff clear + Shell Smash (in that order) at about 70% of the time remaining, according to Serebii.

Went in blind with Tera: Ice Avalugg. Noped out immediately after seeing Earth Power.

Picked Leavanny, mostly due to it being in the second party slot already. (Had to switch it out for the Tera: Grass one, though.) Gave it Leaf Blade, Swords Dance, Struggle Bug, and Entrainment. Lost once or twice. Exchanged Entrainment for Lunge.

Lowered Torterra's Attack by 2 and Special Attack by 1 first. Used a heal cheer while waiting for the buff clear. Hit Swords Dance twice. Threw in another Struggle Bug as the Earth Powers starting doing decent damage. Was not pleased to see a Special Defense drop from Earth Power in there. Terastallized to Grass to lower the Smack Down damage a little. Came at the cost of Earth Power hitting harder. Recalls using one more heal cheer somewhere in here (another solid 50% heal). Entered a healing war with Torterra as Earth Power hit for 140 damage and Leaf Blade healed for 140 damage, almost exactly. Happily continued that exchange until the victory. Thank goodness for no criticals.

Remembers Arcanine as a partner for sure. Regularly died and re-applied Intimidate, thanks to Earth Power. Recalls little contribution from the other two. Might have been Mudsdale and Haxorus? Saw no extra defense drops from Mudsdale's Rock Smash (if it ever did any). Received limited benefit from Scary Face.

 

[Mewtwolover]

Defeated Torterra with Arceus

Arceus
Nature: Lax
Ability: Multitype
Tera: Grass
Item: Meadow Plate
EV's: 252 SpA, 252 Def, 4 HP
- Giga Drain
- Judgment
- Calm Mind
- Taunt

 

[ReKoil]

I still had this raid active in Scarlet. Never tried it till today. First tried it with my playthrough's Baxcalibur as this account's game is rather light on raid ready mons. Figured Snowscape + Ice Body would make it tanky enough. Then Torterra pulled out Earth Power shattering that dream.
I then tried with a Goodra from my boxes twice, got really hecking close to beating it one time... would've won with 1 more turn. Then didn't even get close to beating it due to a different NPC ally team on the second attempt.

I then switched to Brute Bonnet... and after also being 1 turn away from winning with it 3 times in a row... I won with it on the 4th attempt. One of those losses was pure bs tbh... Torterra fired off an Earthquake and then 2 Earth Powers that both lowered my Sp. Def in 1 single turn... like wth am I even supposed to do against that. I can live each of those attacks easily when they're individually, but stacked on top of each other like that is just oof.... especially with those drops added in.

And then I had a close call against it on the 4th attempt with Brute Bonnet:

Spoiler:

Minted to be Adamant natured, holding a Shell Bell for recovery, 192 EV's into Defense and 192 EV's into Sp. Defense, the remainder into Attack. It knew:
-Seed Bomb
-Clear Smog
-Sunny Day
-Growth

The order was pretty much:
Clear Smog turn 1 to get rid of it's Shell Smash boost.
Sunny Day to trigger Protosynthesis, which first time round triggers Defense to be raised. Really helps with Torterra's incoming Earthquake.
Then growth once and then Seed Bomb once or twice till the buff clear just to get some heals in, in preparation of living the next Shell Smashed attack..
After the buff clear, but before it uses Shell Smash, use a Defense Cheer.
Then use 1 or 2 growths depending on hp. Use Seed Bomb to yoink some HP back with the Shell Bell if needed.
Click Clear Smog again when Torterra uses Shell Smash again.
After that just make sure you get to Max Attack by having clicked Growth in the sun 3 times. Might need to Seed Bomb to heal before you get there, in which case this is the point where you click Tera.
Set the sun back up when it goes down. Use a Defense Cheer if needed due to Sp. Def drops from Earth Power.
After you set the sun back up for the second and maybe 3rd time, Protosynthesis should heighten Attack, but it is only heightened when the Sun is up. Keep spamming Seed Bomb from then on till Torterra goes bye bye. It's gonna be a close call time wise so just spam the buttons at this point.

Could probably put a bit more EV's from Defense and Sp. Defense into Attack... it lived the +2 Earthquake quite comfortably. Took about 33-40% damage without a crit. Wouldn't recommend going too low on the Def/Sp. def EV's though... with the buff clear and shield going up timing, healing with the Shell Bell can be a bit annoying if you're not at max Attack and Tera, so your healing won't be quite up to snuff just yet.
I did not try to optimize this thing... I just wanted to try and get a win with it =P
Not sure I'd recommend this Pokemon for this raid, but it can definitely do it.

Seems to rather depend on your ally team too. Had a pretty solid team on my winning run. A Tauros that kept intimidating every time it died and came back in.
Also occasionally got healed by someone before I attacked and healed with Shell Bell... did not pay much attention to my allies' moves. If I had to guess it was probably Gardevoir.