Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s first seven-star Tera Raid event is live, giving players their first chance to encounter and catch Charizard during this new generation of games. However, the somewhat buggy raid system, continued performance issues, and strange limitations on the event have almost everyone wondering if the raid is supposed to be this difficult, or if the event somehow introduced even more bugs into the game.
To start, a large number of players were reporting a “second health bar” or a sudden health regen for the Unrivaled Charizard boss when it was defeated or took too much damage at one time. Specifically, this would happen when the boss was one shot or stuck at a sliver of health.
The latter is something that players have been struggling with in normal Tera Raids prior to the event, as there would be a number of instances where a Pokémon is defeated or nearly defeated, but players are timed out or handed a loss because they can’t command their Pokémon to move due to a visual error. But the visual bug of regaining health is new and actually has an explanation.
After most of the community was confused and wondering if this health regen was an unannounced feature for seven-star raids, it was discovered that it is actually a visual glitch caused by the move Play Rough being used on the boss. And, because Azumarill and Dachsbun are the Pokémon being used the most in this specific set of raids, thousands of players around the world are encountering the problem and subsequent issues.
It is unclear what specifically causes Play Rough to bug out during Tera Raids and if it is exclusive to the seven-star Unrivaled Charizard raids, or is also the cause of other visual bugs too, especially when a one-hit kill is involved. Just know that, as of now, using Play Rough in any capacity in this event could result in the bug happening multiple times and ruining the raid experience for everyone.
That isn’t the only problem players are encountering with the event either, as it appears the Charizard—which you can only catch one of—can experience texture issues. Players will also quickly discover limitations beyond the capture limit for this Pokémon line.
Whether it be due to some kind of online checker that is applied to Pokémon added through events to prevent them from being spread out initially, or a box on Game Freak’s end that wasn’t unchecked before Unrivaled Charizard was pushed live, players are having very little luck trading the Lizard Pokémon.
Trying to trade it via a normal Link Trade has failed for players who tested it and the only successful method right now seems to be sending hatched Charmander out through Surprise Trade. This should be resolved at some point in the future, perhaps once the event ends on Dec. 4, but it could also be in place until the end of the month since the event will run again from Dec. 16 to 18.
