Metagame np: Stage 2 - Teardrop - Victreebel Banned

[g]

I mean Shell Smash + Baton Pass is pretty stupid and if we haven't touched it yet it was because nobody really tried to abuse it too well and wasn't really that popular as a result and because we had some more important tests to do.
It is no mystery that after Dual Screens are set up or with Memento support Huntail has no trouble at using Shell Smash an Baton Passing sometimes even with a Substitute up and if entry hazards are up to break Sturdy and Focus Sashes pretty much anything with a decent STAB move can clean up. Stoutland and Simipour are the main two I have seen being used (and I did use myself) and they absolutely tear apart most offensive and bulky offensive teams after a boost (Stoutland can also use Lum Berry to get around Kadabra) and the fact that the team structure presented also lets other setup sweepers thrive (such as Linoone for example) it can be pretty clear how we want to nerf this strategy i.e. putting an end to it.
SmashPass was also banned in NU and RU last generation for similar reasons and I am pretty confident the council will unanimously choose to ban it.

 

[Twix]

I haven't really experienced Smash Pass for the most part but I could see where it could be either Over Powering or Over Centralizing to the tier. Most people nowadays have to run 2 Pokemon or specific moves on Pokemon which really take fun out of the Metagame. A few time this week when I entered the chat room on PS, people were actually thinking of Pokemon to use to check Smash Pass. Those moves would never be considered at all before which can be seen as "Brick Break Pawniard to break the Screens and Take Mementos", "Prankster Haze Murkrow" or running a Kadabra specifically for Smash Pass that doesn't fit as well as other members could and posting an RMT on it (I'm looking at you Megazard Z).

As Tap said above, effective Phazers only fit well on Balanced or Stall teams taking away from the Metagame in general. Even with Effective phazers Huntail can do massive damage to them.

The only way to completely counter Smash Pass is to run a better Smash Passing team, having a complete countering team or getting lucky.

BAN SMASHPASS

 

[Tazonite]

When the screens are up, Huntail comes in and steals the show. The only ways to get rid of the screens are the situational Brick Break and Defog. And that's just the screens. Even if you get rid of the screens, that Shell Smash is still there. The ways to get rid of the Shell Smash boosts are pretty situational, and if Huntail decides to Baton Pass, it's almost hopeless for you. It's clearly broken, there are almost no common ways of stopping it, and if I were in the position to, I'd ban Smash Pass. It needs to be done.

 

[Dell]

SmashPass has been banned by the PU Council!

The merged reasoning provided by the PU council will be posted momentarily in the suspect votes thread, so be sure to check that out for more detailed information. I think what should be best understood about moving forward with this ban is the need of addressing problems with match-up reliance, as only defensise teams with phazing capabilities can afford a sure-fire answer to an otherwise all-around broken strategy. That said, don't let this discourage you from using Huntail; while it looses its ability to pass its boosts to other threatening sweepers, it retains the ability to function as Shell Smash sweeper with stronger priority than Carracosta (and faster), and good coverage overall. Alternatively, it can serve as a decent Coil user due to Water Veil and good Attack, with the ability to viably pass Coil boosts.

As always, if people can think of logical reasons of why we should reconsider this ban after a considerable amount of changes in the metagame, we're open to this. Part of the reason why we decided to look into this now than before because the metagame has changed to the point where it isn't as accommodated to dealing with the strategy as before (Sneasel made the metagame extremely offensive, and before that the metagame was skewed towards balance/stall which has more answers). Let's move on to the current metagame.

 

[Funbot28]

Are we ever going to suspect Poliwrath?

 

[Raiza]

Are we ever going to suspect Poliwrath?

At the moment, Poliwrath is neither broken or unhealthy for the metagame, instead it's one of the things that keep it balanced, therefore I don't think we are planning on a Poliwrath suspect test any soon.

 

[Anty]

Are we ever going to suspect Poliwrath?

Well if there is a legitimate reason to suspect it then yes. Currently it is viewed to many as healthy to the metagame as it checks plenty of threatening pokemon such as Carracosta and Pawniard. It is definitely not broken in a conventual way, as it has plenty of viable counters (roselia, clefairy, etc) which can also check the most threatening set (rain dance), and the only possible way you could call it broken is in an overcentralising way, however it isnt. Firstly, unlike sneasel, you dont have to include one of two pokes on every team as a dedicated switch in as wrath has quite a few counters and tons of check, and secondly, it may have a high usage on the ladder, but this doesnt mean it deserves that usage. It is pretty much excepted among the top PU players that its usage shouldnt be that high and many dont even think it is the best poke in the metagame rn. Part of this is because the metagame is adapting to it and becoming a lot more harsher, for example barbaracle is rising in popularity meaning costa is decreasing, which can get past poli and also roselia and clefairy have shot up in usage which are both hard counters, also poliwrath does come with an opportunity cost as it doesnt have great synergy with many water types, which are the most common and best type.

If you think it is worth a suspect feel free to make a post in this thread explaining why

 

[g]

In addition to that Poliwrath also tends to have bad synergy with entry hazards removers which is very inconvenient with Roselia and Spikes in general being so exceedingly popular :/

 

[MZ]

So this was brought up by user: trc, but I think it has enough merits to bring up here and he's too lazy to post. Should there be a Simipour suspect? In most tiers, their policy is that all the main play styles should be viable. Clearly, stall is not. Stall is anything but. Simipour is not the only culprit by a long shot, stall has issues facing other common threats like Vigoroth, Stoutland, Chatot, etc. However, as the biggest decimator of stall, I think it's worth at least considering a Simipour suspect to try to give this playstyle some life. The reason this hasn't even been tested so far is that, because PU is an OM, we aren't concerned with having everyplaystyle viable and can sorta do what we want more or less. PU is going to be official eventually (probably) and could use less offensive bias and be more open towards all play styles.

 

[Twix]

Oh great, let's give Poliwrath more reason to be used. In all honestly, it seems that Simipour should get a suspect test. It can run a variety of moves and isn't just known for beating up Stall archetypes. Simipour is a powerhouse in the tier and honestly there isn't that many Pokemon to take it on. I wouldn't say its overused or over-centralizing since it's so low on the usage stats and people don't have to build around taking it on necessarily, but it is still a seriously scary threat. I wouldn't even blame it for taking down stall since you mentioned all those other Pokemon, but it still is a pretty devastating Pokemon in the metagame since it beats common walls such as Lickilicky with Low Kick and can take on Misdreavus with Knock Off or even outpace a Zebstrika with a Choice Scarf.

 

[Anty]

So this was brought up by user: trc, but I think it has enough merits to bring up here and he's too lazy to post. Should there be a Simipour suspect? In most tiers, their policy is that all the main play styles should be viable. Clearly, stall is not. Stall is anything but. Simipour is not the only culprit by a long shot, stall has issues facing other common threats like Vigoroth, Stoutland, Chatot, etc. However, as the biggest decimator of stall, I think it's worth at least considering a Simipour suspect to try to give this playstyle some life. The reason this hasn't even been tested so far is that, because PU is an OM, we aren't concerned with having everyplaystyle viable and can sorta do what we want more or less. PU is going to be official eventually (probably) and could use less offensive bias and be more open towards all play styles.

I really dont get your point, as firstly not all playstyles have to be equally viable, there are even other balanced tiers which some playstyles were p much unviable (stall pre oras ou was very hard due to mega gard/medi/herra - and using it would just be a matchup thing) and it would be impossible to do this without many bans, and secondly simipour is not the main threat and banning it wont make stall viable again. You listed all them but you didnt even mention ursaring, simisear/ninetales, np chu, and leafeon which are all decent mons in the meta (the latter two also 6-0 non-kadabra balance) and ik some of these do have checks, most of the time there is one poke that can live a boosted hit which ur team can weaken (eg pursuiting rose w/ pawn putting it in +2 chu range then letting in coming wrath kill you or w/e for chu to set up). And what if stall gets viable with the ban of simi? People prepare for it. The reason marowak, 4 attacks ramp, np chatot, cm duosion (which is underrated), cm clef, etc fell out of favour was because the meta got too offensive and there wasnt any defensive playstyles for them to be needed on so people chose faster sweepers/wallbreakers. To make stall viable we would have to ban way too many mons.

Also lo simipour doesnt actually 6-0 at team preview, as if running taunt licki/sdef rose can sorta take it on, w/ low kick hypno/clefairy/rose win, and with knock off licki wins (there is also the prediction war so you cant say it auto 2HKOs licki w/ low kick and wrath w/ grass knot etc)

Oh great, let's give Poliwrath more reason to be used. In all honestly, it seems that Simipour should get a suspect test. It can run a variety of moves and isn't just known for beating up Stall archetypes. Simipour is a powerhouse in the tier and honestly there isn't that many Pokemon to take it on. I wouldn't say its overused or over-centralizing since it's so low on the usage stats and people don't have to build around taking it on necessarily, but it is still a seriously scary threat. I wouldn't even blame it for taking down stall since you mentioned all those other Pokemon, but it still is a pretty devastating Pokemon in the metagame since it beats common walls such as Lickilicky with Low Kick and can take on Misdreavus with Knock Off or even outpace a Zebstrika with a Choice Scarf.

If your main point is 'there isnt that many Pokemon to take it on' then that kinda implies that we have a lot of suspects ahead of us. We have pokemon like ursaring/stoutland (see more above) with no actual switch ins yet simipour does have them depending on the 4th move for LO set, and it has plenty of revenge killers as base 101 isnt anything special for PU considering zebstrika is a top 3 mon, and we also have jumpluff/ursaring/rapidash/floatzel/raichu who can revenge kill with not much chip damage. Also regarding your last sentence, it cannot run all those moves at once so it does have checks depending on sets, and yes it takes scouting but that is even harder to with pokes like stoutland who will be clicking one of two moves.

 

[Kingler]

i mean simipour isn't beating lickilicky 1v1 if it comes in on an ice beam or a hydro or w/e as low kick does ~50ish and wish + protect easily stalls that out. all the other checks anty mentioned are also strong and id argue that simipour is more of a balance breaker than a massive threat to stall. i also feel like trying to bring a defense-offense balance through banning stuff isnt required since NU is a metagame w/ mostly offense; some metas are characterized by the main playstyles and all playstyles will NOT be equally viable. if we are to help defensive teams not get destroyed simipour really isn't the offender here.

edit: trc are you ignoring the NU point or what i literally cant tell

 

[Raiza]

Didn't read other posts but I will post my opinion on the Simipour suspect thing
I'm against a Simipour suspect. We don't have to necessarily have all the playstyles to be equally viable, other tiers also have playstyles more viable than others. Even if we suspect and possibly ban Simipour, we aren't solving any problem, that would just start a chain of bans against good wall/stallbreakers, just to make a playstyle more viable, weakening others, which for my point of view is useless and avoidable. Simipour can't even deal with most defensive walls such as Togetic, Hypno, and Grumpig, if it doesn't carry Knock Off, and the absence of Low Kick would make it lose against others that are omnipresent on stall teams, such as Lickilicky.

 

[trc]

im going to make a post tomorrow but since im not doing anything now, let me just say some stuff to provoke some more argument about some things so i can talk about them tomorrow

- simipour suspect is definitely not the main point here, don't misinterpret the argument or there'll be a lot of blah
- stalls unviability is being exaggerated
- anty you don't acknowledge balance in your post (probably the most 'standard' playstyle) outside of saying leafeon/raichu 6-0 it (can you see how this is actually a really bad thing?)
- kingler no other oras tier has such a massive viability disparity between offense and any kind of defensive/balanced team as pu does, that's obvious
- raiza your post is kinda rehashing a bunch of weak points and flawed logic
- if one moveslot decides a massive gap in specific counters for vs stall that pokemon is clearly an issue
- the reason there would be a lot of problem mons is because this offense bias has been going on a bit too long. im all for stall adapting but we have a limited set of mons and you have to account for factors like 101 speed and magic guard you could really try some more drastic changes. shit like ursaring is nowhere near as difficult to manage as a lot of other wallbreakers. the fires are annoying, tales is manageable though

also there's a difference between stall breakers that suck vs offense and ones that don't which is kind of important in building

aNd something doesnt have to 6-0 either, maybe knock off simi can't beat licki but it's not a difficult mon to pressure and 5-0 is kinda big too ._.

 

[Raiza]

I would wait anyway the end of PUPL and see how things turn out during this period. If the point is to discuss the viability of stall and find ways to make it decently viable, we will have to lower the power creep a LOT to achieve it, that will need many suspects just because of the tier being filled with offensive powerhouses which stall struggles with, such as the ones Anty mentioned. The metagame is so naturally inclined to offense that we would need drastic changes to accomplish what you said, so I would rather make steps carefully regarding this. I'm not totally against a Simipour suspect, but the tier at the moment is enjoyable so I wouldn't mind for it to stay like that, especially if to achieve what you said we'll have to go through a lot of changes.

 

[Anty]

im going to make a post tomorrow but since im not doing anything now, let me just say some stuff to provoke some more argument about some things so i can talk about them tomorrow

- simipour suspect is definitely not the main point here, don't misinterpret the argument or there'll be a lot of blah
- stalls unviability is being exaggerated
- anty you don't acknowledge balance in your post (probably the most 'standard' playstyle) outside of saying leafeon/raichu 6-0 it (can you see how this is actually a really bad thing?)
- kingler no other oras tier has such a massive viability disparity between offense and any kind of defensive/balanced team as pu does, that's obvious
- raiza your post is kinda rehashing a bunch of weak points and flawed logic
- if one moveslot decides a massive gap in specific counters for vs stall that pokemon is clearly an issue
- the reason there would be a lot of problem mons is because this offense bias has been going on a bit too long. im all for stall adapting but we have a limited set of mons and you have to account for factors like 101 speed and magic guard you could really try some more drastic changes. shit like ursaring is nowhere near as difficult to manage as a lot of other wallbreakers. the fires are annoying, tales is manageable though

Im gonna talk about these points in order
-by the looks of people saying 'simipour suspect' i assumed they meant simipour suspect - im sorry i misunderstood what you were talking about but no offense but the other posts werent exactly clear on the aims
-you can build a viable stall team but in the end it is heavily match up reliant so it is generally not worth it
-the post was just regarding a simpour suspect and i was counter points based on stall - if the posts were based on how the meta needs improving because of balance also having problems w/ the meta i would have talked about it
-this is an important point to focus on to suggest we need a change
-cant really reply to this
-well there are pokes which break stall not depending on changing of one moves and in certain cases it takes less prediction
-i totally see what you mean and fairly recently i have noticed this, as when trying to build a defensive team i realised it was too hard to overcome flaws i made it into a balance and realised it would be better turned into a bulky offensive team which is the best playstyle in the metagame

A big problem in sorting this issue out is how to go about it. There are so many pokes which pressure defensive builds and make them hard to use (ofc there are the main problems simipour/ursaring/ninetales and even less used ones like simisear not to mention the ones that suck vs offense) that it is going to take a lot of banning to sort out, and a lot of these mons are dealable by offense (ie put in work but arent a major problem) so they are hard to be called broken.

also there's a difference between stall breakers that suck vs offense and ones that don't which is kind of important in building

yeah when talking about these i mean if stall becomes good and people use it, there is much more of a reason to use the slow breakers which then limits stall

aNd something doesnt have to 6-0 either, maybe knock off simi can't beat licki but it's not a difficult mon to pressure and 5-0 is kinda big too ._.

simi is dealable just a big problem especcially with team mates who can also offensively pressure the opponent to weaken down stall (this ends up better for offense due to our offensive mons having an advantage over bulky ones)


Im not sure if koko's UU system would work here but i dont think we have the player base to make it work

 

[g]

First of all stall is not unviable at all.
I could argue that stall is a pretty good and consistent playstyle due to the great defensive hazards users and defensive Pokemon we have an and apart from a few scary threats (Magic Guard users which are pretty big but beatable with Taunt Probopass and somewhat unconventional choices that do indeed work like Pawniard and Vigoroth who I have absolutely no clue to how you could beat it outside of a surprise trickscarf lol) everything can be dealth with reasonably so I don't really think we should / can do anything about making stall better since really, stuff that is nigh unbeatable is pretty mediocre overall (including marowak with SD and rampardos). As for these extreme balance breakers that 6-0 balance I can't really see how this is true since Nasty Plot Raichu is manhandled by a lot of good Pokemon that should fit in balance if it gives too many setup opportunities such as Roselia, Stunfisk, Grumpig with WW and Clefairy with Encore or Knock Off to an extent as well as good revenge killers that are a must on balance since forever that can take it on easily (Choice Sawsbuck, Simipour, Rotom-F, Mr Mime and Aurorus and faster Pokemon like Zebstrika and Floatzel + Priority users such as Pawniard, Piloswine to an extent and Mightyena, as well as Kadabra). Leafeon has less defensive answers but arguably it doesn't "6-0 balance" considering that half the meta out speeds it (Ninetales Simipoour Simisear Dodrio Kadabra Simisage somewhat Rapidash Jumpluff Raichu Floatzel Ursaring Zebstrika + Scarfers). And don't tell me crap like but it can't switch in because Balance is meant to check stuff offensively and defensively but I digress.

If there is anything that invalidates a playstile is Sun versus Offense because if you don't have Scarf Aurorus, Chlorophyll Jumpluff, Scarf Chlorophyll Sawsbuck or some combination of priority and Kadabra you just lose and that is the only issue in the current emtagame I would address even.

Tldr;
Some Pokemonb are threats to some playstyles ("OH DEAR!!?!") but there are answers to these that can be used and obviously should (just like you use a Water/Fire/Grass resist to handle these attackers normally) and if anything the only thing that is almost unbeatable for a playstile is Sun for offense.

Also if there is an offense bias it is just because of the Pokemon we have in the tier (and I guess it is most fun to play, not necessarily most effective mind you) and the shortage of Pokemon with reliable recoveryrecovery I guess

 

[Twix]

If there is anything that invalidates a playstile is Sun versus Offense because if you don't have Scarf Aurorus, Chlorophyll Jumpluff, Scarf Chlorophyll Sawsbuck or some combination of priority and Kadabra you just lose and that is the only issue in the current metagame I would address even.

I wouldn't actually be that mad about suspecting Heat Rock seeing as sun does so well in the meta. On offensive teams you have to go out of your way to take it on as stated by galbia and even then you still have to keep that Pokemon healthy.

 

[Magnemite]

this thread is ded

Anyway, I've brought this up before, but what would everyone think about the possibility of a Heat Rock suspect? Sun basically only has two checks: Chlorophyll Jumpluff and Chlorophyll Sawsbuck, which not only don't fit on all teams but require you to run an inferior ability just in case your opponent brings a particular playstyle. This means that the majority of teams have no checks to sun, particularly offensive teams (aka the most common teams by far), and when you don't have any checks to sun it just steamrolls you, particularly the underrated Victreebel + Sawsbuck + Leafeon sun. I'm not going to push too hard for a suspect if others don't agree, but I just think sun is really dumb and unhealthy in the current meta and could really use a nerf.

 

[Anty]

To add onto what mag is saying, remember that sun is a playstyle as a whole. Dont just mention victreebel checks like people where doing earlier as the most broken part about sun is victreebel + saws and/or leafeon as they dont really share the same (hard) checks outside of your own chlorophyll users/other weather setters. Also listing defensive checks is a bad argument as the main defensive checks really dont fit on (bulky) offense at all, also even if jumpluff by itself beats sun (which isnt necessarily correct as sun teams have adapted and some now even run zebby) it doesnt mean sun isnt broken but just match up based.

I totally agree with a suspect as the main problem is that it is so hard to prepare for sun w/o running specific pokes. Also im not saying a team w/o one of these pokes will always lose to sun, but generally they do have a much harder chance to win as it takes a lot more predicting as with sun a lot of the time there isnt much predicting just clicking strong moves (outside of the opp switching to waste sun turns - but that is still in favour of the sun team).

Whenever i see talks about heat rock suspect come up i always see people say shit like 'unless you run specific mons you auto lose' which really isnt the case, as these mons arent sun checks rather sun counters (adding to it being matchup based like i said earlier). You can beat sun w/o these 3 (or w/e) mons.

e: pls no one talk about its effect on PUPL as that is irrelevant

 

[Kingler]

i mean tours have had effect on the tiering process (see: ost last year though i dont have the details); while pupl isnt an official tour its probably more showcasing about the meta than anywhere else so having a more stable metagame never hurts. I think that heat rock should still be banned as victreebel has very few actual coutners and sleep powder allows it to play around most of them. yes it still has counters but all of those are unreliable like i said on the first pg. and still forcing you to use one of like 5 nichemons should tell you its broken. I get that you don't "autolose" to sun w/ having no "counters" but it still aggravates the matchup issue to an unhealthy extent.

i made a few generalizations here but a lot of the specifics shouldn't be hard to figure out and a bunch of stuff was mentioned on the first pg.

EDIT- I'm not arguing w/ above posters on sun being broken--it is--just providing a few counterpoints to support my argument

 

[Raiza]

Apparently everyone already said what it has to be said so I'll move on on another argument
I'm up for banning Heat Rock, but what is actually a suspect going to accomplish there? A suspect is meant to showcase how the metagame plays without a Pokemon/unhealthy strategy, sun in this case, but actually, sun already doesn't see any play at all at the moment. All the things we suspected until now were extremely popular and clearly unhealthy, so a suspect made sense there. With this I don't mean Sun shouldn't be suspected, but I think a quickvote at this point will be more effective and will take less time to put in work, especially with PUPL around. The only downside would be the loss of rotating council, but I don't think anyone has in mind to not ban it so it would make no difference anyway.

 

[Anty]

ps im not trying to call kingler out at all so pls read the whole post before judging me

yes it still has counters but all of those are unreliable like i said on the first pg. and still forcing you to use one of like 5 nichemons should tell you its broken.

Sorry if this seems a bit cherry picky as what you said after is relevant and important, however i am just using this as an example of what not say. Firstly by no definition are sawsbuck and jumpluff niche as they are both fairly easy to fit onto a team (also they are reliable), and secondly you are not at all forced to use one of these. However, what you said after about most standard teams have a bad matchup to an unhealthy extent is important, and is majorly overstated by most people. Yes you do have to predict, but so does any battle which you have a bad matchup. Obviously this is to a slight more extent and whether it is broken depends on this extent imo (although you said a similar thing, yours was exaggerated), as it is harder to call it broken in a normal way like tauros as it works as a team rather than a single mon. Im still not sure whether this is broken or not but i dont really want another bandwagon suspect/one that is 'omg sosososo broken'.

PUPL is really not at all relevant to this which is why i said that in my other post

Also like i said several times, quick suspects should only be for outright uncompetitive things (chatter/smashpass), though i dont really care what suspect we do

 

[Kingler]

uhh jumpluff isnt a counter to victreebel, neither is sawsbuck. i mean they are effective TOOLS as well as methods of counterplay against sun and can be very threatening to sun teams, but it doesn't counter sun mons lol... they revenge kill victree. what i was mainly talking about was zard's "list" of counters earlier in the thread. jumpluff/sawsbuck are very effective counterplays but jumpluff is countered by zebby which u can find on sun often and sawsbuck takes a lot of damage coming in on anything while other stuff checks it. matchup is an issue yes and we don't want it, sun aggravates matchup against teams that aren't explicitly prepared for it; where's the overexaggeration here lol? i get that this is cherry picking as well and not really relevant to the argument itself (sun's gonna probs be banned regardless) but wanted to address your points =//

 

[ManOfMany]

ps im not trying to call kingler out at all so pls read the whole post before judging me


Sorry if this seems a bit cherry picky as what you said after is relevant and important, however i am just using this as an example of what not say. Firstly by no definition are sawsbuck and jumpluff niche as they are both fairly easy to fit onto a team (also they are reliable), and secondly you are not at all forced to use one of these. However, what you said after about most standard teams have a bad matchup to an unhealthy extent is important, and is majorly overstated by most people. Yes you do have to predict, but so does any battle which you have a bad matchup. Obviously this is to a slight more extent and whether it is broken depends on this extent imo (although you said a similar thing, yours was exaggerated), as it is harder to call it broken in a normal way like tauros as it works as a team rather than a single mon. Im still not sure whether this is broken or not but i dont really want another bandwagon suspect/one that is 'omg sosososo broken'.

PUPL is really not at all relevant to this which is why i said that in my other post

Also like i said several times, quick suspects should only be for outright uncompetitive things (chatter/smashpass), though i dont really care what suspect we do

I don't see how smashpass is uncompetitive, it isn't reliant on luck like Chatter. I was aware that smashpass was banned because it was very match-up reliant- teams without a specific counter to smashpass, such as phazing Munchlax, had to play their ass off to come close to a win.

I see sun in a similar way. Teams without a specific check (say Jumpluff, or Scarf Aurorus) have very little chance of winning. I'm not saying it is impossible- people can make insanely good predictions to stall off the sun turns, such as switching Zebstrika into a grass attack, and then switching Ninetales into the coverage move. But I don't think that is very healthy for the meta.