How to unlock 6-star raids in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet

Tera Raid Battles have become the new standard in raiding. Pokémon Scarlet And Violet, offering up a challenging battle where trainers can capture powerful Pokémon with unique Tera Types — not mention a ton of reward items.

If you’ve been playing Pokémon Scarlet And Violet, you’ve seen these on your Paldean map and around the world itself. They’re marked on your map with little type icons, and in the world, there’s sparking crystals shooting light up into the sky. You’ll unlock higher-level raids as you progress through the game, but where things start getting tricky is with six-star raids. Seven-star raids, which are reserved for events such as the Charizard raid, currently have a seven-star status.

Looking for ’em but can’t find them? We have a six-star raiding guide that can help.

How do six-star raids work? Pokémon ScarletAnd Violet?

They’re raids that are rated with six stars according to their difficulty. You can find most Pokémon and Tera Types in these raids — they aren’t Pokémon-specific. They’re like every other raid, but harder and with better rewards. If you catch these Pokémon, they’ll be at higher levels than those in lower-star raids, too.

What is the best way to unlock six-star raids? Pokémon ScarletAnd Violet?

You can’t just jump into six-star raids in Pokémon Scarlet And Violet. In fact, you’ll have to beat one storyline, The Way Home, which unlocks when you’ve finished each of the three main storylines. Once you’ve done that, you have to go through all the gym leaders again. All the leaders of the gym will be leveled at the mid-60s this time.

The next step is to join your school’s Academy Ace tournament. This tournament will see you taking on up to four other students or faculty members, with a maximum level of 70. Once you beat that, you’ll get a call from Jacq mentioning super—hard raids — but they won’t be available yet. It’s really a hint that you should head out and do plenty of harder raids. So do that — participate in enough five-star raids to get another call from Jacq, where he’ll warn you about even harder raids. These are the six star raids.

I don’t know exactly how many five-star raids to complete, but it’s fewer than 10. (I wasn’t counting while playing! Poor guides writer. Some folks are saying four-star raids count, too, but I can’t confirm that — I just did five-stars. It is possible to do it. Can move around your map and check out raids, but there’s no way to tell what level a raid is before getting to it, so it requires a lot of travel. But you can find five-star raids in the Tera Raid Battle menu in the Poké Portal, which speeds things up considerably. It’s still a time-consuming process, though: Everyone wants to get into the five-star raids, so there’s a lot of denied entry, made worse by slow loading screens.

Now that I’ve unlocked them, where do I find six-star raids?

Image: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo

Six-star raids can be distinguished on the map with a pink glow border. You can see the border above. These are the places to find out how to host six-star raids. In my experience, there’s only one on the map per day. But like five-star raids, you’ll find them under Tera Raid Battles in the Poké Portal, but they’re only available for players connected to the internet. You’ll find them even more attractive than five-star Raids. So be patient.

How can I win six-star raids without getting killed?

Six-star raids are exceptionally hard, especially if you’re playing solo with NPCs. Pokémon Scarlet And Violet’s NPC trainers clearly don’t understand how to counter Pokémon types. You have to bring in very strong Pokémon to get through these, but it’s not impossible. It’s a mixed bag with actual players, too, but it’s a lot better than NPCs. These are best done with friends, who can work together in a team.

But if you don’t have that, here’s some tips. Of course, you’ll want to counter Pokémon types, but there are a few Pokémon that work really well. Iron Hands, a Paradox Pokémon, is one of those — it’s powerful on its own, but with Belly Drum and Drain Punch, you can pack a punch and heal yourself. Belly Drum is a move that deducts half the user’s max HP and, in exchange, maximizes its attack stat. You can really inflict a lot damage by doing this right at the beginning. Drain Punch can do damage, and also restore HP.

Kallie Plagge is a senior Polygon copy editor and recommends Azumarill, which has the Big Power ability. Azumarill’s Sitrus Berry is also available to help recover HP. In order to kill a raid boss, or close to one, she recommends that you have a partner fire off a few Screech attacks before you launch a more powerful attack. Your Azumarill can be improved by enhancing its nature, IVs, or EVs.

On YouTube, a Pokémon player named Unedited has a nice guide with stats, items, and moves that can be applied to a number of different Pokémon. The guide explains, step by step how to select moves for a 6-star raid battle. Another idea, presented by Reddit user aeshnoidea, is to roll with a Chansey that’s trained up in HP And defense, and holding the item Eviolite — this boosts defense and special defense for Pokémon that aren’t fully evolved. Chansey’s hidden ability Healer can heal allies with status conditions.

Beyond these specific strategies, you’ll want to consider the Pokémon’s Tera Type And its move set when you’re choosing a Pokémon to battle with. “Bringing Azumarill to a dark Revavroom raid is a bad idea even though Play Rough will be supereffective because Revavroom can destroy Azumarill with steel- and poison-type moves,” Kallie said.

What about six-star Ditto, though?

If you come across a six-star Ditto raid, don’t do any of this. The raid boss will transform into the host’s Pokémon, which means it’ll have that Pokémon’s stats. Instead of bringing a legendary like Koraidon, you’re better off choosing something like Magikarp if you’re the host — let everyone else do the work while you cheer.

Are there any rewards?

You’ll get more and better rewards from completing six-star raids. In particular, the draw is more Herba Mystica, a rare sandwich ingredient that can help you find more shiny Pokémon, among other things. There are five types Herba Mystica: Salty, Sweet, Spicy and Sour.

You can get Herba Mystica from five-star raids, but you’ll get more in six-star ones. (Of course, if you’re unlucky, you might not get any. If you want a lot of Herba Mystica, you’re going to have to do a lotThere are many high-level raids. Serebii provides a complete list of six-star raids, as well as drop rates and drops for all items (including Herba Mystica).

You’ll also get other items like an Ability Capsule, bottle caps, feathers, Tera Shards, and XP-boosting candies, and six-star raids are the only raids that reward the rare Ability Patch. These battles also offer TM-making materials.

Beyond these, Pokémon in six-star raid battles will have five perfect stats and potentially its hidden ability.