Pokemon Violet - 7* Skeledirge the Unrivaled (1) with Manaphy and Malamar
0It's the second Paldean starter raid... and it's a doozy! Though that shouldn't be much of a surprise, given how amazing Unaware Skeledirge is in the player's hands.
Tera-fire Rash Skeledirge (with x35 HP and a 550-second timer) immediately starts the raid with Disarming Voice (undodgeable fairy move that hits everyone) followed by Flame Charge; at 80% time remaining it wipes player buffs, near-immediately followed by Hyper Voice. He puts up shield (covering a mere 20% of max HP) at 75% time or 75% HP remaining; at 50% HP Skeledirge wipes debuffs, and at 40% HP remaining he uses Flame Charge again and also starts using a second move 50% of the time. Its regular moveset is then Torch Song of course (+1 SpA), as well as Shadow Ball, Hyper Voice, and... Stomping Tantrum.
Whooof.
As should be obvious, the main threat in this raid is the combination of Torch Song (buffing Skeledirge to +6 SpA) combined with Unaware (ignoring your buffs). Debuffing it is a fool's errand, and buffing yourself isn't an option...
Skeledirge is definitely special-attacker-leaning and a lot of its special moves are sound-based (Torch Song, Disarming Voice, Hyper Voice, Snarl...), so one fun counter that Smogon people theorycrafted was Dodrio spamming Throat Chop: you block sound moves, while your normal/flying typing is immune to ghost and ground moves (like Earth Power). In theory, you could just use any ol' normal type with an Air Balloon too!
...Of course, in practice the insta-Disarming Voice (which hits everyone) doesn't allow for that, and since Dodrio has no defense-debuffing moves (and its buffs are ignored) I can't imagine it's able to solo this raid. Alas, it would've been an amazing counter.
0:00 - Manaphy
Anyways, Unaware plus buffs are the problem here... so why not solve both problems at once? Just use Skill Swap to steal Unaware and use it yourself!
That much was a very obvious solution though. I figured, why not also use Psych Up to copy the SpA buffs instead of having to buff yourself? The list of Pokemon with Skill Swap + Psych Up is surprisingly long but mostly has legends and psychic types... but interestingly Manaphy is one of them, and its STAB water was appealing.
Everyone has Manaphy, right? From BD/SP dex completion in HOME? From Legends Arceus?
Anyways, trying out Manaphy immediately revealed another hurdle in this raid: at 80% time, Skeledirge wipes player buffs (and disables abilities for one turn) then immediately uses Hyper Voice, and soon after (at 75% time) puts up shield. In other words, even Skill Swapping for Unaware won't protect you from the +6 Hyper Voice (and the next turn's attack), and once shield goes up you can't rely on Shell Bell for healing until you terastallize (or copy buffs with Psych Up)! And of course, if you faint then you lose Unaware, which basically means failing the raid.
In the end, instead of Psych Up I used Manaphy's special move Heart Swap to instead swap stat changes right before the scripted Hyper Voice.
My strategy was to Skill Swap for Unaware, then defense cheer (stacking with the AI's) for some extra defense, then remove the buffs with Heart Swap, then wait until the buffwipe... and then quickly sneak in a Take Heart (+1 SpA/SpD) before Hyper Voice goes off, before finally desperately spamming Surf to heal off the Stomping Tantrum damage.
This was very tight!
I only realize this now, but I forgot to change this Manaphy's nature from Calm to Modest... and also since I have SpD buffs I should've invested into Def EVs instead of SpD. Alternatively, I could've used Tail Glow (for +3 SpA) instead in order to simultaneously boost shell bell healing. Also, maybe you should Surf once or twice before the Heart Swap for some extra healing plus tera orb charges?
Still, here's a clear. Don't really care enough to re-record just to showcase those improvements.
9:11 - Malamar
This, meanwhile, is more straightforward. Skill Swapping Contrary both removes Unaware and also reverses Torch Song's buffs, and from there you do the usual 'faint to get back Contrary and also get perma-cheers, then spam reversed-self-debuffs to victory'.
In this run I use my old tera stellar Tera Blast set, but apparently a tera water set with Liquidation or Tera Blast works well too?
This raid is shockingly tricky, to the point that half a day later I still haven't really seen any good counters pop up... Arcticblast on Smogon suggested an interesting 'Skill Swap, wait for buffwipe, 6x Calm Mind (and heal with Synthesis), Stored Power' strat with Florges, which seems promising.
Can something with Throat Chop actually manage to solo? Could someone with Soundproof pull it off? Maybe you bring your own Unaware Pokemon and just attack (like Dondozo's Liquidation or Skeledirge's Earth Power)? I look forward to whatever people come up with over the rest of the week, I might record and showcase sets I find especially clever...