THE BEST ZERAORA BUILD GUIDE - POKEMON UNITE

** UPDATE ** : ZERAORA HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE GAME! He finally has a standard 5/7/9 level curve for learning moves. He can finally function on the same playing field as his peers and really start letting his kit shine!

MOVESET 1 – Volt Switch + Discharge (BEST)
Items: Muscle Band , Energy Amp , Weakness Policy
– Muscle Band  autos and procs vastly improve your early lane scrapping power and Volt Switch’s attack speed steroid also makes up a real portion of your damage profile.
– Energy Amp jacks up the damage of your Plasma Gale  and the Discharge  that’s probably up after using it, giving you some absolutely devastating group damage potential.
– Focus Band is a great overall tool for survivability that lets you scrap harder while in and live longer overall. If you don’t find yourself needing it or want to spec into more damage, Weakness Policy is also a great option in this slot for even more damage and synergizes very well with your Volt Absorb  passive giving you lots of attack stat for getting hit.
– Razor Claw in that third slot can be opted for if you want a flex build that works well with both Discharge and Wild Charge  in blind pick.
Battle Item: Full Heal , X-Attack , or Shedinja Doll
– Full Heal  allows you to keep swinging your autos or gurantee that you’re able to get out of a dicey situation with Volt Switch . You have enough mobility as is, so this is a great safety measure all around.
– X Attack is a very real alternative option that synergizes very well with Volt Absorb , your auto attacks , and Discharge’s high total scaling . Is more attractive on lane Zeraora since it makes you much more threatening in lane scraps while possibly skyrocketting your damage output later on.
– Shedinja Doll  lets you be fully invincible while Discharge  is still running, which can bring you some pretty nasty synergy where you can keep putting out your damage while being invincible.
Emblems: 6 Brown  6 White
– Increase your attack for more power with Browns and then more HP with White for good measure. You get pretty good value out of focusing your flat stats on either attack or HP, so pick based on your preferences on whether or not you want more damage or scrapping power.

MOVESET 2: Spark + Wild Charge
Items: Razor Claw , Energy Amp , Flexible – Read for more details
– Razor Claw  is a core damage item for this character, as you are likely to get in a razor proc or two during your Spark combos that weave in its special auto attacks.
– Energy Amp’s extra damage on Plasma Gale  and whatever comes afterwards is incredibly helpful for quickly eliminating targets without having to expend as much Sparks  or your Wild Charge . Very helpful for expanding the possibility of plays you can safely make consistently.
– The third slot is where things can get really dicey and is still being figured out, but as long as you have Razor Claw and Energy Amp  you’ll be good to go.
– Muscle Band is particularly helpful for lane fighting and still adds a bit of extra damage to your Spark autos  . This is also probably your best third slot if you intend on being able to flex into a full damage Discharge  set depending on the matchup you see in blind pick.
– Focus Band is quite good for helping you survive longer while Sparking  , especially in tandem with Spark+’s extra healing. It can give you a lot of uninterrupted healing if it’s activated while in Wild Charge .
– A few Weakness Policy stacks are likely to get built up while you’re setting up for a Wild Charge  or hitting people with Sparks  . Zeraora’s natural attack stat and scalings are still quite good, so this is good value.
Spark hits count as autoattacks, and each of Spark’s 3 uses procs Razor individually, so each Spark hit will be buffed by Muscle and Razor simultaneously. He doesn’t mind the extra crit from Razor either on those autos.
– Float Stone  gives you some extra flat attack while giving you a lot more mobility when it’s active. Very helpful for roaming around to find people to pick off and maneuvering around to find a good flank angle during teamfights more efficiently, which is something this set will often need to do in order to be effective.
Battle Item: Full Heal , X Attack , or Shedinja Doll
– Full Heal is extremely good for letting you consistently get your combos and Wild Charge  off since the initial dash portion of Wild Charge before hitting can be cancelled by CC. This is probably the best all around pick.
– X Attack  can be good if you’re confident in your ability to not need Full Heal. The boost to damage helps really nicely for your earlygame fighting and your combo can have a lot of total scaling for an appreciable increase in damage that lets you close out kills faster.
– Shedinja Doll is a bit experimental, but can have the potential to give you a criminal amount of invincibility time when it’s being used in tandem with Wild Charge . Bear in mind that Spark’s   window to use it again before it goes on its full cooldown is 3 seconds while Shedinja Doll makes you unable to use them for 4 seconds, so be sure not to accidentally stall out your own Sparks.
Emblems: 6 Brown 6 White  – Flat Attack Focus
– This set cares about sheer survivability a lot less if you’re playing your cards right, so feel free to go for the setup that focuses more on letting you get out more damage.

Volt Switch + Discharge (BEST)
Volt Switch + Discharge Zeraora’s AoE damage and safety lets it distinguish itself over other speedsters as something that’s great for getting off some good group damage safely during teamfights. Although the reliance on tick damage over time and auto attacks can sometimes make you a bit slower at killing off squishy targets, you’re still plenty serviceable at playing like a more traditional assassin and picking people off from the flanks instead, especially with Plasma Gale  giving you a powerful burst option for erasing a squishy when it’s up.

Overall, this moveset is a very well rounded and adaptable pick that’s generally never the wrong answer if you’re hung up on whether not you want to play this or the Wild Charge set .

General Gameflow :
TL;DR: Volt Switch  in, hit people with Discharge and auto attacks , then Volt Switch back out to safety. If you hit someone with a boosted auto , then the final hit of Discharge will stun and pull people in.

It’s a pretty simple gameplan overall. Look for an opportunity to safely dash in with Volt Switch  to get in there and activate your attack speed steroid going, then cast Discharge to start doing the bulk of your damage while swinging your auto attacks around. Plasma Gale can be weaved in usually earlier into the whole sequence after Volt Switching in for more big damage and getting as much Energy Amp  value as you can out of your discharge. Whenever things start to look dangerous or the 3 second window to recast Volt Switch  starts to run out, recast Volt Switch to go back to where you first used it to get back to safety.

Remember that recasting Volt Switch  is needed to get it back on cooldown to start getting another one as well, so if your Volt Switch did nothing and there’s no need to keep running forward, just recast it as soon as you can to get it back sooner.

Have your Full Heal  on the ready to avoid any CC that could prevent you from getting out of there safely. Plasma Gale  also has unstoppable during its casting animation, so that can also be used to power through CC in a pinch.

Not recasting Volt Switch  back to what’s probably safety can often be risky since that basically keeps you in the thick of it with no way out for a while. Be sure that you won’t die for doing this should you plan to do it, as you’re basically going all in at that point to keep throwing hands or the enemy team is already dead.

Your boosted auto attacks  apply a paralysis effect for 2.5 seconds that puts on a bit of slow and attack speed reduction onto enemies. More importantly though, getting this onto an enemy opens up an opportunity for the final hit of Discharge to pull people towards Zeraora with a potent 1s stun and an extra tick of damage. This can be huge for helping your team get more openings or help you stay safe while continuing to fight. You have to let the entire Discharge run its course for this though, so the window to safely Volt Switch  away after becomes much tighter unless you start your Discharge  right before Volt Switching in.

Before Volt Switching in, you can also prime a boosted auto  or be less auto attacks away from getting one by swinging your autos at the air before going in.

REALLY MESSED UP KIDNAP TECH :
If you look up right above this section, you’ll see that I’ve explained the whole thing of Zera’s boosted autos  applying paralysis that lets the final hit of Discharge  pull and stun people in towards it.

If you have really good timing, you can also take advantage of this pull property in tandem with Volt Switch  to basically kidnap people by pulling them with you ALL THE WAY to wherever your Volt Switch is taking you to.

The timing can be really tricky, but can be made more consistent with practice. Here’s how you do it:
– Optional first step: prime a boosted auto  or an auto or two before going in so you can get to a boosted faster after going in.
– Volt Switch  in.
– Activate Discharge .
– Make sure to hit people with boosted auto  during this.
– Recast Volt Switch  at split moment before Discharge  expires to dash back and while getting the pull in effect on your targets at the same time.

You don’t usually need this to do your job on the character, but it’s still good to know how to do so you’re aware of it and can go for it when applicable. It’s an absolutely massive displacement where you’re taking people away far away from their teammates and/or right into your team’s open arms, so there’s a lot of huge playmaking potential there if you’re able to tap into it.

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Earlygame Tips  :
This Pokemon is more than playable in both jungle and in top lane. During your first rotation jungle clear, make sure your first hit on the buffs are with Slash . The first two hits of Slash will get the Accelgor/Escavalier to immediately start winding up its stunning attack, then the final hit that knocks up will interrupt it and let you freely dump autos onto it without having to worry about stopping to avoid getting hit. Agility  is a dash that does no damage, but does give you a noticeable attack speed boost for the next 3 seconds to help you clear faster.

Zeraora’s boosted autos have a 10% missing HP healing bonus as well, meaning that while it doesn’t heal much at higher HP, heals a lot more when you’re at lower HP. At times, this lets you stick around deceptively hard when you start getting low on health in these early fights when there isn’t going to be too much other damage still coming onto you by then. Boosted autos also apply a paralysis effect that puts on a small slow and reduced attack speed onto its targets to further help with outscrapping people. Pair that with Muscle Band and Volt Absorb’s  help for your damage output, you can really start throwing hands.

Volt Switch’s on its own generally lower damage potential and movement makes it a bit awkward to get some kills in your first gank with it. However, note that the recast of Volt Switch does more damage than the initial cast and it’s not like Volt Switch itself does no damage. The main value of this move and Agility  as a combat tool at this point of the game is the increased auto attack  speed after using that lets you fight with those harder.

Spark on the other hand, has a much more threatening gank due to the damage from Spark’s   dashes and its special autos  being able to add up very quickly. Just be careful not to overextend and leave yourself too deep in enemy lines without having killed anyone or enough people and with no dashes left.

While Slash  is usually fine to use on farm and is a pretty potent move overall when it works, it’s notorious for being very unreliable on enemies since they will often be able to walk out before Zeraora can finish the move. Avoid using it on further away targets that are running away and try to wait for a stun or slow to get put onto it while you’re already close to them before casting it for maximum effectiveness. If you’re coming from the jungle, try to apply the red buff’s slow with an auto attack or work off someone else’s slow before casting Slash . As a secure for farm, Slash has a big burst range range but the hits can be tick diffed, but you’re sometimes able to catch someone too close to the farm with it with its knockup and basically get it for free by then.

Spark + Wild Charge
This is a much more polarizing set than Discharge that excels at single target elimination and fighting more spread out teams with its high mobility, damage, and invincibility to chase them down with. It has a lot of ways for you to get creative with freestyling your combos and outplaying people by virtue of having a lot of dashes and i-frames , which can give it some very crazy peaks and potential for some absolutely illegal plays. This set can feel absolutely messed up to play against if you’re playing a squishy comp.

However, this set’s lows are also very low. While not always required to kill your squishy targets, Wild Charge’s  invincible attacks have the VERY important weakness of being able to get passed off to a different enemy or farm if they walk close enough to it. This can sometimes lead to some jank interactions, but more importantly, makes this move set struggle to get anything done against people who are playing really grouped up. If you intend on playing this set, it’s going to make your life a lot easier if you have something else on your comp that can consistently punish people grouping up a lot hard enough for you to clean up afterwards easily or make them play more spread out. Without those, you’ll usually want to avoid picking this set into those deathablly setups and/or into bulkier comps.

General Gameflow and Combo Game :
TL;DR: Try to catch out isolated targets while trying to minimize the amount of moves to kill your main squishy target(s) so you can save them for escaping or fighting the people trying to stop you. Use Spark to get in, put on some damage and maneuver around. Wild Charge  to dodge big moves with invincibility or start dealing your biggest damage. Plasma Gale  early to kill things faster and utilize Energy Amp’s  buff so you don’t need to use as many Sparks and Wild Charges.

This set is much more a pure assassin that focuses on patiently finding a flank or opening on a target that’s far enough away from a bulkier teammate, then completely run them down with Sparks and/or with Wild Charge’s .

When using an auto attack  during the dash of Spark , Zeraora performs a special boosted auto with extra range and damage that auto tracks onto its target. Hitting this, a regular boosted auto , or the dash portion of Spark itself will add one more hit to your next Wild Charge  if it’s used within the next 5 seconds. Wild Charge has 3 hits with none of these stacks, and can go up to a maximum of 6 hits, so you technically only need to hit 1 Spark dash + Spark auto  to almost be at Wild Charge’s full damage potential and also be able to build up stacks ahead of time on wild Pokemon. The first hit of Wild Charge does the most damage, then subsequent hits all deal half of the first hit’s damage.

Once you’ve hit something with Wild Charge , you’ll start doing some heavy damage to your target while being completely invincible and being able to continuously track them. You can’t cancel Wild Charge while it’s running like this though, so you’re going to be dropped off at wherever it ends. Killing your target while you still have hits left over will also cause you to jump to another target if one is close enough to you.

The typical combo for killing an isolated target will be Spark dash > Spark auto  > repeat if necessary +  > Wild Charge . This will generally be enough to kill squishies and severely hurt some midweights while still having a Spark or two left over for whatever. If a squishy target is looking really free, you can also just try to fully kill them with Sparks and autos then use a full stacked Wild Charge  to escape or delete another squishy that comes by.

Things aren’t always that simple though, you have to be patient for picking the right openings and when you show yourself so you aren’t likely to have Wild Charge  get passed off to an undesired target. This also entails that you may have to start getting creative with what order you use your moves in so you can safely get your kills.

It is very worth noting however though, that Wild Charge+  is an incredible upgrade learned at level 13 that lets Zeraora still be able to hit nearby enemies at the non first hit damage numbers while in Wild Charge instead of being purely single target. This means that if you’re able to get or catch a target low enough to where they’re still going to die within a few Wild Charge hits after the initial big one, they will still die even if their defender tries to take it off them.

Until then though, you have to be very smart about when you show and start running at people. Each of your 3 Spark dashes can linger around for 4 seconds for your use before expiring and being on cooldown and Wild Charge  can also just be used as a normal dash if needed. The name of the game is trying to distribute your moves in a way that’ll still let you kill your targets, but also have a good shot at surviving afterwards. If things start looking unfavorable before you expended too many resources, you can also just use your remaining Sparks and Wild Charge  as escape tools to live to try again later.

Once it’s a factor, Plasma Gale also generally be used earlier into a combo to have your Energy Amp  buff for your moves and auto attack range (which applies to the Spark autos as well!) while also putting down huge burst damage onto stuff to help get things low enough to save your dash resources. You can very easily drop Plasma Gale onto your squishy target after using one or two Sparks to get in, then finish it with whatever you see fit to the situation. Don’t forget that Plasma Gale also has unstoppable  for letting you have an extra measure against CC.

Especially once you get Spark+ that gives the Spark autos a massive 15% missing HP heal that you can leverage to live longer. You would be quite surprised at how much damage just Sparks and some autos can fight a squishy. Knowing when you can safely kill things with just Spark and autos  is important for saving your valuable Wild Charge  to make sure you get a kill or avoid things with the i-frames.

Bear in mind that Wild Charge even with zero extra hits/stacks will still at worst do half of a squishy’s healthbar as well, so you shouldn’t feel like you’ll only get value out of the move when you have all 6 hits of it available. No mattter what, it’s still pocket i-frames and good damage, and a shorter Wild Charge  can sometimes even be better if you don’t need the extra hits so you don’t have to worry about Spark  timing out in its duration..

Once you get a target low, you can finish off the target with another Spark so you can still have Wild Charge up for dodging something with i-frames or just using it as a dash to get out afterwards. You could just finish with an auto  or two as well if you can to save yourself both moves. Or as yet another possibility, you could finish with Wild Charge because you need the i-frames in that moment or so you can start chowing down other enemies right by the initial target you just finished off with it, which can be absolutely massive if they’re all squishy or low on HP and with Wild Charge+ .

Wild Charge  is still your most committal finisher though. It usually comes later into your combo and the possibility of any of your remaining Sparks  getting timed out while your Wild Charge is running its course if you use it too late into your Spark window. By the end of your Wild Charge, be sure that you’ll either be safe after your kill, killed everyone, or have a way to get out or keep fighting effectively.

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tbh for the longest time i did not know this thing is supposed to be a cat

Favourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined ZERAORA is strong against. ZERAORA will generally be able to shut down these opponents playstyle's or have the advantage in a one on one fight.

Unfavourable Matchup:

These are Pokémon that our team has determined ZERAORA is weak against. These Pokémon will have the upper hand in a fight or be able to exploit ZERAORA's weaknesses.