Tera Raids: Level 5 and Beyond

So, you've perused the Tera Raid guide I put up for levels 1-4 and are interested in levels five and beyond.

I recommended some resources, but here are some articles of recommended readings and videos as well on how to really start working on tera raids 5 and up

And some reddit posts for good measure because while some of the stuff on there can be whack, sometimes you can find nuggets of really good advice over there

There's two trains of thought for the most part with level 5 and 6 Tera raids.

Doing it Solo with NPC's
Doing it multiplayer with other players

Both are for the most part reasonably do-able and in fact valid to do (though perhaps more difficult for 6 star raids than 5 star raids). The caveat is that level 7 raids are technically also doable but you really have to know what you're doing and it is much easier to do in a multiplayer lobby than solo.

First, it is important to understand that 5+ star raids are in fact reasonably end-game, as you gotta complete the three main story lines and beat "the way home" storyline to unlock them (DLC is not required).

The one thing I do have to point out at the start is that compared to other pokemon, a high-end Tera raid pokemon is a significant investment, much like a competitively viable pokemon if you play competitive matches. It will take a lot of time and resources to get a good end-game tera raiding pokemon.

This Gamerant (yeah I know) article does have some solid tips and good explanations on the bare-bones you need for tera raids.

The five key tips are

Have a strong level 100 pokemon with optimized stats and nature
Consider the moves your raiding pokemon will have
Try to pick the most effective pokemon for a raid
Making sure the pokemon have Held items
Pick an Optimal Pokemon

And these tips are generally applicable to most raids.

Level 5 and beyond is considered end-game and most video guides will have some variation of all of these things.

Your raiding pokemon cannot simply be just level 100. It's gotta have a good nature as well as trained stats. Most people tend do break out tera raiding pokemon into Special attackers, physical attackers, and healers. Not that a tank pokemon cannot be viable but I've yet to see one be viable for the purposes of solo raiding or multiplayer raiding unless you're trying to bundle it to make a healer that won't fall down.

There are very few pokemon at level 5 that you can take without a lvl 100 pokemon, and it's inadvisable to try 6 and above raids without such a pokemon.

Optimal moveset is also important, as there are some decently well known strategies for tera raiding pokemon. A good example of this pointed out in the article is Belly drum Azumarill, Iron Hands, and Ursaluna because of how well that can be paired with their movesets to make a pokemon that can tear through raids in nothing by sharpy upping the pokemon's attack stat at the cost of it's HP.

I've touched base on type picking for the other guide for earlier raids, but it becomes even more important for anything 5 and above for raiding that you're picking your types smartly, which can narrow down your scope of potential tera raiding pokemon.

Held items can have a lot of use for a lot of different things, but a common issue with people getting into 5 star raids for the first time is that they're not using items. Some items can give you some extra boost for raids if used smartly in conjunction with everything else.

The very last tip is one that this is all leading up to, is that you gotta pick pokemon to be your tera raid pokemon. There's a lot of pokemon, and while everyone's got their own opinions on which one's the best for tera raiding, between the gamerant article as well as game8.co and this thegamer article all come to a pretty similar consensus for a much narrower pool for high-end raiding. Not that it isn't worth it to experiment with various pokemon and builds, but the smaller pool tends to yield the best results.

Baring having something like an Arceus / Mew / Ogrepon set aside for just tera raiding (those are the best to have because they're all around versatile enough and with great stats to pretty much solo most raids entirely), you can spot some decent trends about why this much smaller pool (out of literally more than a thousand pokemon) are generally considered really good investment picks to get the most out of tera raiding. Many of the higher-end ones can take on most raid bosses without having too much issue with regards to tera types.

Sidebar: Online etiquette

If you do decide to pursue online tera raiding as an avenue, you should also be mindful about etiquette.

Firstly, try not to be dead weight. That sounds a lot like "Git Good" type advice, and by itself isn't great advice, but what I mean is that unlike solo raiding, each of the other people are in fact real people. Hopefully it need not be explained that you ought to be at least polite if not kind to other people.

Some very common small tips are

Try to bring in appropriate high-level pokemon. If you bring a pokemon in that's too weak and is constantly being knocked out, there is a two-fold time penalty. One for your respawn time, and deductions from the overall time limit you have to do the raid. If you're constantly fainting, you're draining the time for the whole party.

Cheering absolutely can be helpful. Sure, you're not actively attacking or setting up for attacking if you do a cheer, but cheering gives some pretty strong buffs, and can help keep other participants from fainting. Unlike solo raids, the time penalty is for all players, so if you don't faint and you see others about to faint, a heal chant absolutely can help make a difference. They are especially handy for dealing with certain kinds of status effects like getting burned or poisoned.

DO NOT RUN AWAY – in solo raids, you can run away and there's no hard penalty, but this is not true of multiplayer / online raids. Unlike solo raids, if you run away, that pretty much ends it for the entire party. You can and will more likely than not incur a temporary ban from online play which is much longer than the kind from rage-quitting a splatoon match, and will increase in severity and length for each time you do that. So best for both you and others that you do not run away if things start going south. It's better to simply do nothing (no attack no cheers nothing) than incur time penalties and possibly other consequences onto yourself and other players.

So, how do you get there?

Easy.

Raid, Raid, and Raid again.

There are in fact a lot of goodies you get from Raiding, and a lot of that can be funneled into developing your raiding pokemon. While certain pokemon, most notably arceus and mew may be very difficult to get your hands on, most of the pokemon deemed great for raiding are not that hard to obtain outside of working towards optimal nature and stats.

As encouraged by my other guide, a good way to get into raids is to start doing raids at lower levels solo so you can start getting the fundamentals. As you get better, the goodies can be used to develop better and more effective pokemon for tera raiding at higher levels. You can even find what I call good mid-level raiding pokemon to help you along before you get into high-end raiding, as sometimes you can find some diamonds in the rough as far as potentially great raiding pokemon go. Like it's a great way to fill out the pokedex and get surprise trade fodder sure, but sometimes you can in fact find a diamond in the rough here and there, and those ones can absolutely take you far if you don't mind sinking the resources into it.