The Best Way To Get Pokémon Scarlet And Violet’s Only Decidueye
Gaming

The Best Way To Get Pokémon Scarlet And Violet’s Only Decidueye


Image: The Pokémon Company

First, there was Charizard, then there was Cinderace and Greninja. Now Decidueye is the latest seven-star tera raid in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. This limited-time event will give you a chance to catch the Alolan grass-type starter, who is otherwise not available in the games at this time. While there are still some aspects of the raid we don’t know, Game Freak has revealed enough information that there’s some reasonable preparation we can make ahead of the event. Let’s run down some possible strategies to defeat and catch Decidueye the Unrivaled before it goes away forever.

When is the Decidueye tera raid?

The Decidueye raid will begin next Friday, March 17, at 7 p.m. Eastern time and will be available until Sunday, March 19 at 6:59 p.m. ET. Then it will go into the vault until the following week on March 24 at 7 p.m. ET and finally conclude on March 26 at 6:59 p.m. ET.

What should I expect when facing Decidueye?

As is the case with any seven-star raid, Decidueye will be at level 100, and any Pokémon you bring to fight it should be, as well. While the owl archer has a base typing of grass and ghost, its tera type will be flying. This means its inherent weaknesses and resistances will be that of a flying-type Pokémon, rather than its natural grass/ghost. Despite this, its moveset will likely still be based around those base types, so it’s important to consider what Pokémon you can bring that will both be able to deal damage to a flying-type Pokémon, and resist the damage output of an enemy who operates primarily with grass and ghost attacks.

An example of what not to do is bring a Pokémon that can weaken flying Pokémon but would be susceptible to a well-placed Leaf Blade or Spirit Shackle, like the rock-type Sudowoodo or the ice/ghost-type Froslass. These two Pokémon would have rock and ice attacks to weaken Decidueye, but would themselves be weakened by the attacks it will inevitably have. So even if you don’t end up running the Pokémon discussed in this guide, it’s important to be cognizant of how you can juggle striking at Decidueye’s tera type weaknesses while not opening yourself up to getting bulldozed by its attacks.

Miraidon is seen standing in a violet room with shiny crystals in the background.

Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

Who are the best Pokémon to fight Decidueye?

We don’t know specifically what moves Decidueye will have when the raid is live, but given that the owl archer’s learned abilities are almost exclusively physical attacks over special attacks, it’s best to bring a Pokémon that has high physical defense, and honestly one of the best picks seems to be Pokémon Violet mascot Miraidon. Its electric/dragon typing makes it resistant to Decidueye’s grass moves, and with a respectable base 100 defense stat, it’s primed to tough out pretty much any grass attack. This will also extend to Decidueye’s flying tera type, as its electric typing will make it resistant to flying attacks. The tera type will increase the strength of these moves (which Decidueye can learn a fair bit of), but Miraidon is well-equipped to handle these attacks.

On top of this, Miraidon can increase the power of your team’s electric moves through its Hadron Engine ability. This automatically creates an electric terrain on the battlefield, which makes electric attacks more effective. If you want to give yourself every advantage possible, give Miraidon an electric tera type of its own to strengthen electric attacks even further. Decidueye has much lower physical defense than special, and there aren’t many options for physical attacks. Miraidon can learn Wild Charge by using TM147, but given just how much more powerful its special attack stat (135 base points) is compared to its physical attack stat (85 base points), you’re probably better off using special attacks anyway. Hadron Engine and an electric tera type will more than make up for Decidueye’s high special defense.

How do I get Miraidon if I have Scarlet?

As I mentioned before, Miraidon is Violet’s mascot, thus, is exclusive to that version of the game. While there are other options available that we’ll get to, if you have Scarlet and want to run a Miraidon for the raid, the only way you can do that is by trading with someone who has Violet. However, it’s not as straightforward of a process as you might think. Violet has two Miraidon in total, and only one is tradable. The first is the one the player receives at the beginning of the game that acts as their mount. While you get this silly little motorcycle man early on, it can’t be used in battle until the end of the game when it gets all its power back. So while a Violet player can use this Miraidon in the raid, it can’t be traded because you’d be missing a mount to explore its open world.

The Miraidon that can be traded between games is the one that acts as the game’s final boss. You’ll have to defeat it to finish the game, but then you’ll have to go find it again in the depths of Area Zero. The quickest way to find it is to go to the entrance of the Paldean crater and teleport to Research Station No. 4. Leave the lab and fly down directly off the cliff in front of you. The second Miraidon will be waiting at the end of a walkway leading up to one of the giant tera crystals at the bottom of Area Zero. It will be at level 72, and can be battled multiple times if you accidentally defeat it. But this is the Miraidon that will be transferable between games and can be given to a struggling Scarlet player who wants to defeat Decidueye.

A trainer is seen facing Miraidon in the depths of Area Zero.

Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

That sounds like a lot of work. Who else can take on Decidueye?

If you don’t want to work with a Pokémon as limited in availability as Miraidon, a few monsters can reasonably fight Decidueye. Electric is still the way to go in terms of typing, but considering the resistances you’ll need to be cognizant of, Magnezone is also a good pick for its electric/steel typing. This makes it resistant to flying and grass attacks, and its electric moves will benefit from a Miraidon’s Hadron Engine if you’ve got a friend using one in the raid.

If you’re less concerned with keeping an electric-based theme going, there are a few options for an ice-based offensive. Baxcalibur is a dragon/ice type, which makes it resistant to Decidueye’s grass attacks, but not any flying or ghost moves it might have in its arsenal. It has respectable defense to withstand its physical attacks, and some high physical attack stats to bolster ice-type moves like Icicle Crash to deal good damage to Decidueye’s flying tera type. However, Baxcalibur’s signature move Glaive Rush is easily its most powerful option in this, with a base 120 power on top of the Pokémon’s exceptional physical strength.

The trouble is, Glaive Rush has a significant downside, in that once it hits, any attacks that hit Baxcalibur between it and your next turn will do double damage and will hit regardless of any evasion or accuracy checks. So the trade-off here is you’ll get a powerful attack out, but Baxcalibur will be pretty vulnerable until it gets to attack again. A safer build is to focus on using stat-boosting abilities like Swords Dance to increase your attack stat and use Icicle Crash instead. But if you can strategically time your healing cheers to keep it alive, Baxcalibur can pack a punch.

A render of a Hisuian Decidueye is seen with it raising its fist in the air.

Image: The Pokémon Company

Can I get a Hisuian Decidueye from this raid?

The Decidueye raid only includes a standard Decidueye, rather than the Hisuian regional variant introduced in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The grass/fighting version of Decidueye isn’t available in Scarlet and Violet yet, and likely won’t be until Game Freak integrates Pokémon Home functionality, which will allow you to trade between different Pokémon games and Scarlet and Violet. If you breed a Rowlet using the Decidueye from this raid, it will not evolve into a Hisuian Decidueye, as Pokémon only evolve into their regional variants when in that specific region. So there’s no way to get Hisuian Decidueye in Scarlet and Violet right now.

Reminder: You can only catch one Decidueye

As is the case with all seven-star raids, you can only catch one Decidueye through the tera raid event. You can take part in the battle to help your friends as many times as you like, but you’ll only be able to catch one for yourself. The Decidueye is also shiny locked, so if you want a shiny Decidueye in Scarlet and Violet, you’ll have to do so through breeding. Just throw Decidueye and a Ditto together during a picnic and wait for the eggs to show up. Then you can have as many Decidueye as you like.



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