Tapu Koko and Tapu Lele will be in raids this month, with their shared exclusive move, Nature’s Madness. It’s expected that Tapu Bulu and Tapu Fini will follow suit in upcoming months. Additionally, Shadow Raikou is in shadow raids on weekends during this season. This article will examine their performance as raid attackers.

Main Points (TL;DR)

Despite not even having fairy fast moves, Tapu Lele, Koko and Bulu still emerge among the top fairy attackers, thanks to Nature’s Madness being overpowered.

• Generally, Lele > Koko > Bulu. (Koko pulls ahead against dark-type bosses, and has more niches from the other top fairy attackers in general.)
• They’re all usually worse than Shadow Gardevoir and Enamorus, and also worse than other competing attacking types (Dragon, Psychic, Fighting).
• Both fast moves on all three Tapus can be viable, as discussed below.
• In the hypothetical event that Tapu Koko gets Fairy Wind or Tapu Lele gets Charm in the future (both are possible), they’ll be better than Shadow Gardevoir.

Shadow Raikou is the #1 electric attacker, period. However, its margins from other electrics are small, so a Shadow Raikou with worse IVs may need to be concerned with Xurkitree and Shadow Electivire.

My analyses of other types are in this spreadsheet. You can also follow me on Twitter (X) and Threads!

Charts (Now and Comparisons)

Fairy

Electric

Tapus’ Fast Move Choices

[TL;DR] (Note that for Lele and Koko, the two moves are very close in neutral situations)

• Tapu Lele: Confusion, unless it’s less Super Effective than Astonish
• Tapu Koko: Quick Attack, unless it’s less Super Effective than Volt Switch
• Tapu Bulu: Bullet Seed, unless it’s less Super Effective than Rock Smash (the latter can even be ignored)

(Section skippable as it’s quite long)

I admit, I was surprised too when I saw them being so high.

What makes them, especially Lele and Koko, far outperform my expectations? In addition to the sheer power of Nature’s Madness (on the level of Frenzy Plant and Meteor Mash), another reason is: All of them have fast moves that generate energy pretty quickly, or high Energy Per Second (EPS).

• Astonish (Lele) and Bullet Seed (Bulu) are stats clones with 12.73 EPS, and Quick Attack (Koko) is virtually equal at 12.50. That’s pretty high, even if not as much as the likes of Thunder Shock and Powder Snow.
• Koko’s Volt Switch has even faster EPS at 13.13. However, its average performance ends up being worse than Quick Attack, as described below.

But, as we’ll see… The EPS discussion doesn’t actually seem relevant.

Tapu Lele

• Surprisingly, despite what I just said… Confusion ends up being the preferred choice against neutral targets, i.e. when it has equal Super Effectiveness (SE) multiplier as Astonish. These are most frequently dragon-type bosses.
  • Confusion’s EPS can’t compare to Astonish, but apparently its heavy neutral damage with STAB is enough to make up for it.
  • The difference between it and Astonish is very small in this case, though.
• Against fighting-type bosses, Confusion has an obvious, significant advantage.
• Against dark-type bosses, Confusion is obviously of no good. While Astonish is still resisted, it ends up being the choice by virtue of faster energy generation and being resisted less.
• Astonish is also better in a handful niche situations: Lati@s, Giratinas and Mega Mewtwo X, as it deals SE damage while Confusion doesn’t.
• Overall, averaged across all bosses in my data, Astonish does net slightly better (2.6%) performance than Confusion, but that’s mostly because it’s dragged down by dark-type bosses and Lati@s. In practice, “Confusion unless it’s less effective than Astonish” is the rule of thumb.

Tapu Koko

• Quick Attack is better in neutral situations this time, despite having lower EPS than Volt Switch. I guess higher damage may be the reason.
  • The difference between Quick Attack and Volt Switch is still very small here, just like with neutral Lele.
• But where Quick Attack really shines is against many dragon-type bosses, where Volt Switch is typically resisted.
• Volt Switch, on the other hand, gains a notable advantage if the boss is also weak to electric.
  • The only applicable cases so far are Yveltal, Mega Gyarados and future Mega Sharpedo. But my data contains several speculative future bosses, like Keldeo, Urshifu Rapid, and Galarian Zapdos/Moltres.
• Volt Switch also has a few advantageous cases: Giratinas and Terrakion, which both resist Quick Attack.
• Overall, the two moves average out almost equally in my data, with Volt Switch a measly 0.5% behind. But I’d say “Quick Attack unless it’s less effective than Volt Switch”.

Tapu Bulu

• Bullet Seed is almost always better.
• Against dark-type bosses, Rock Smash can be a tiny bit better, but even then it’s inconsistent. Moreover, the only three such cases are: Darkrai, Kyurem and Mega Absol.
• Overall, I’m tempted to say “Bullet Seed unless it’s less effective than Rock Smash”. But honestly, you’re fine with just ignoring the Rock Smash part.
• However, this is not a good thing for Bulu: Bullet Seed is often resisted by dragon-type bosses, reducing its competitiveness. This is part of why Bulu performs worse than Koko despite Bulu having better base stats.

Comparing Tapus to each other

The most meaningful comparison here is Lele vs. Koko. The overall picture is that Lele is better, but with a fairly large variance and dependence on typing (meaning Koko gets to shine more often than the line chart indicates).

• Against fighting-type bosses, Lele pulls ahead significantly (beyond what the chart shows).
• Against dragon-type bosses, Lele still has an advantage, though they’re much closer (roughly in line with what the chart shows).
• Against dark-type bosses, Koko instead ends up being better, as Lele’s fast moves are resisted.

Thus, the 40% of cases where Koko becomes better (on the bar chart) are mostly dark types and some dragons. If you’re interested in building more than one Tapus (which itself is a question), it might be a good idea to consider a mix of both to complement each other.

Bulu, on the other hand, seems rather consistently behind the other two, unless it gets a typing advantage.

Comparing Tapus to other Fairy attackers

All three Tapus are rather consistently worse than Shadow Gardevoir. ^{(Though that’s already an achievement for non-shadows.)}

Comparing to Enamorus:

• Enamorus is actually glassier than the Tapus, and has a few “fail modes” where it collapses, primarily due to the flying typing. ^{(Mega Mewtwo X, Zekrom and Terrakion with the wrong charged moves)}
• However, Enamorus is strong enough that only Tapu Lele has a chance of competing. The other Tapus are all behind it, despite being more consistent.
• Tapu Lele vs. Enamorus: Lele’s “wins” mostly comes from (a) fighting-type bosses, and (b) taking advantage of Enamorus’s fail modes. However, in neutral conditions (particularly against dragons), Enamorus still pulls ahead consistently.
• Another advantage of Enamorus is that it can make use of bosses that are double weak to fairy much more efficiently than the Tapus, due to having a fairy fast move. These are fairy attackers’ most valuable niches and the main cases when they’re competitive.

Therefore, I feel confident saying all three Tapus are still behind Enamorus. Note that Tapu Lele (perhaps even Koko) may be a good complement for Enamorus to cover typing differences, though Shadow Gardevoir performs the exact same role as Lele but better.

Besides these two top fairies, though, Lele and Koko are the best among the remaining non-mega fairy attackers. They generally outperform Xerneas.

Comparing Tapus to non-fairy attackers

Unfortunately, no.

Fairy types face stiff competition from Dragon (anti-dragon), Psychic (anti-fighting) and Fighting (anti-dark) attackers. All three types are overpowered. When Shadow Gardevoir can’t even get to the same level as non-shadow attackers of these three types, neither can the Tapus.

Future potential

In the Main Series Games (MSG), Tapu Koko can learn Fairy Wind, and Tapu Lele can learn Charm. They can’t learn them in PoGo yet, and we don’t know if they ever will. (They are plausible candidates for future Go Battle League move updates.)

But in the hypothetical event that they do get fairy fast moves…

• Both Koko and Lele (whoever gets them) instantly become the #1 non-mega fairy attacker, outclassing even Shadow Gardevoir.
• Not just that, but they would be at a similar level as Breaking Swipe Rayquaza. This means they’d also generally outperform the likes of Salamence, Haxorus, and most other regular dragons. Moreover, they’re also often more consistent due to no fear of taking dragon moves.
• The only dragons consistently (though significantly) above them would be shadows and Origin Palkia/Dialga.

Reminder: Enamorus can also improve upon itself in the future with its own signature move, Springtide Storm. We have no idea which of these events will happen first (or at all).

(Tapu Bulu can’t learn a fairy fast move, as it has no other fairy moves even in the MSG. And while Tapu Lele would have much, much preferred Fairy Wind over Charm, that can’t play out, either.)

Shadow Raikou

I’m gonna keep this short, even though it’s probably more notable than the Tapus.

A 15/15/15 Shadow Raikou is the best electric attacker currently, period. It’s even a tad stronger than Mega Manectric in individual power. However, it doesn’t dominate the scene: At L40, it’s only 2% above Xurkitree, and 4-5% above Shadow Zapdos and Shadow Electivire.

Another question is IVs.

• Shadow Raikou with worse IVs will probably fall behind Xurkitree with better IVs. Their margin is so small that it’s well within the range of what IVs can do.
• Shadow Electivire is another to pay attention to, as it has higher DPS. While Shadow Raikou is still more consistent due to better bulk, at an “average” Shadow Raikou IV of 11/11/11, there can already be a debate that a 100% Shadow Electivire may perform better for some players. The worst possible Shadow Raikou from raids (6/6/6) solidly falls to Shadow Electivire levels in terms of ASE.

Otherwise, Shadow Raikou does seem to consistently outperform the remaining electrics in this tier: Shadow Zapdos, Shadow Magnezone and Zekrom, except with huge typing differences. (This is assuming equal level, which can be a problem as Electivire’s and Magnezone’s XLs are more accessible.)

Note that whenever you can use an electric attacker, there’s almost always another type that you can use. Shadow Raikou often performs less well than Kartana, Shadow Rhyperior and Shadow Rampardos under many such circumstances.

Imgur Links and Additional Charts

General attacker charts: ASE and ASTTW*

• Fairy, Now
• Fairy, Speculation
• Electric

Comparisons:

• Fairy
• Electric

* indicates additional charts that are not in the main post.