Pokemon Scarlet & Violet player exploits NPCs for free health in Tera Raids

Zackerie Fairfax
pokemon scarlet violet draining kiss exploit

NPCs in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet’s Tera Raids aren’t very useful, but one trainer has found a way to use them to their advantage by exploiting the AI Pokemon for free healing.

Tera Raiding is Pokemon Scarlet & Violet’s version of Max Raid Dens, offering players challenging boss battles in exchange for myriad rewards. While these are new and improved Dens, one thing didn’t change much from Gen 8 to Gen 9.

The NPCs in Tera Raid battles are almost as useless as in Pokemon Sword & Shield’s Raids. The only difference is that their deaths don’t affect the counter, their stat-lowering moves don’t get wiped, and they can sometimes deal decent damage to lower-level raids.

But one player has devised a strategy that exploits the game’s mechanics, allowing them to heal their Pokemon without cheering or attacking the boss.

Using NPCs for health in Pokemon Tera Raids

This strategy was shown off on Reddit by user alekismad. In a post captioned “Don’t forget you can use the NPCs to heal up!” they showed their Kelfki using Draining Kiss on an Umbreon teammate.

This killed the Umbreon but restored Kelfki to full health. Since the Greninja was shielded, it wouldn’t have done enough damage to effectively heal the Kelfki. Since the Umbreon is an NPC, its death doesn’t affect the Raid’s countdown timer.

Additionally, players can use this to charge up their Tera Orb, and they won’t have to waste precious cheers on healing.

The comments were in awe of this strategy stating, “My mind has been opened to a whole new world just by this post alone.” Another comment read, “In all my raids, I never even thought to do this. Galaxy brain move here, and I mean that sincerely. Gonna be using the hell outta this in future raids.”

So, next time a trainer finds themself in a pinch, remember that an NPC can be sacrificed for the greater good of a Tera Raid battle.

About The Author

Zackerie is a former Senior Writer for Dexerto who covered a wide variety of games and entertainment. He has a degree in Creative Writing and was previously the editor of The LaRue County News. Zackerie switched to games media in 2020 writing for outlets such as Screen Rant, Fortnite INTEL, and Charlie INTEL.