Pokémon Scarlet & Violet - Dondozo the Unrivaled

Running alongside the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, but probably not intentionally, is a 7-star Tera Raid Battle event featuring Dondozo. Dondozo is a really random choice for the “Unrivaled” raid series, as it’s neither a first-partner Pokémon, a representative of the series (like with Pikachu the Unrivaled or Eevee the Unrivaled), nor associated with any particular time of year or event (like with Iron Bundle the Unrivaled). Would Dondozo even have any relation to Paris or the Olympics?

Whatever the case, this event is going on alongside a Tatsugiri outbreak event, with Curly in Paldea, Droopy in Kitakami, and Stretchy in the Terarium. The idea seems to be to put Dondozo the Unrivaled to use in battle as you look for a suitable Tatsugiri to activate Commander. There are, of course, counters to this strategy, and most of my teams have some way of dealing with the Commander strategy, but you can get clever with it too. You don’t have to always begin a double battle with Dondozo and Tatsugiri.

To my knowledge, Dondozo hasn’t had any appearances in the anime yet, nor has it really become a part of pop culture, just consistent popularity in competitive circles. It HAS turned up in the Trading Card Game, but so has every other Pokémon. Cards featuring Dondozo always have high HP but also high energy costs to attack, a trait shared with fellow Water-type Wailord.

I brought in Araquanid for Swampert the Unrivaled as a support Pokémon, and my assessment is that Araquanid is just as good for support against Dondozo the Unrivaled. Here are the details:

Big Bubbler (Araquanid)
Level 100
Ability: Water Absorb
Base Stats: 252 HP, 130 Defense, 128 Sp. Defense (Sp. Defense points not necessary)
Hold Item: Leftovers
Nature: Relaxed
Tera: Bug
Moves: Aqua Ring, Entrainment, Lunge, Reflect

This one is pretty simple: Araquanid resists everything Dondozo has except Order Up (his other attacks being Wave Crash, Avalanche, and Earthquake), with the addition of Water Absorb preventing Dondozo from utilizing his Terastallization to its full potential. Araquanid also has the defenses needed to withstand Order Up comfortably, let alone anything else.

Since Dondozo is a strictly physical attacker, Reflect is handy to help mitigate damage. (Notably, Dondozo the Unrivaled does NOT have its Hidden Ability of Water Veil; instead, it has Unaware, so you need to know what Unaware does or doesn’t ignore—screens like Reflect will still work as intended against a Pokémon with Unaware.) Aqua Ring is to heal back damage bit by bit, with no way for Dondozo to stop it. You’ll see that Big Bubbler had Wide Guard at the time of this raid; I had forgotten to change it to Entrainment. Wide Guard doesn’t have much use if you don’t know when Earthquake is going to turn up, which is Dondozo the Unrivaled’s only spread move; Entrainment is handier for removing Unaware and changing it to Water Absorb, though you’ll have to watch out if your teammates are using Chilling Water.

Lunge is, of course, your go-to attack to reduce Dondozo’s Attack. Unaware ignores Defense and Sp. Defense boosts to the target Pokémon, but it doesn’t ignore Attack and Sp. Attack drops on the Pokémon with Unaware.

In addition to those four attack moves, Dondozo will use Yawn on one random Pokémon early into the battle (which can be remedied with a healing cheer), but just once per battle; same goes for Curse, which it’ll activate when its HP is below half. If either HP or the timer are below three quarters, Dondozo will put up the Tera Raid shield, which spans a bit under half of Dondozo’s total HP. Dondozo will also reset its own stat drops and your Pokémon’s stat gains once per battle, both of their fairly early on (but not right at the start, of course), which allows you to furiously drop Dondozo’s Attack for the rest of the battle, and Dondozo will have to live with it.

Surprisingly, we were able to succeed in this raid, despite two people using Miraidon. I thought Dondozo was going to clobber them both left and right from Avalanche and Earthquake, too quickly for my Attack drop Lunge attacks to keep up, but it seens Electro Drift gouges out Dondozo’s HP enough to not worry much about that.