I think a lot of people are underestimating how Volcarona continues to evolve with the metagame. Volcarona’s set mix some months ago is different than it is now and it will continue to evolve, spiraling to unreasonable lengths and adversely impacting our metagame.
Tbh I’ve been toying with some more “niche” (but somehow still very effective) Tera types lately. I think everyone acknowledges Ground and Dragon are great, for example, and we can occasionally see Bug Swarm pop off in the right matchup as well. A big thing is that some people in this thread have played it off like “Yes, the right set can sweep anyone, but you can say that for any dynamic offensive Pokemon” and like sure, but Volcarona can actually pull off a ton of these sets with consistency and justification. You’re not going to see this range on much else. You’re just making empty claims by extending this to the whole metagame because we don’t actually see other things go to this length, but Volcarona has and will continue to.
Just to give some firsthand examples as the proof is in the actual games beyond any forum post or theory: I’ve been having a lot of success with Ghost, Grass, and Steel recently. I also got swept by someone using Rock a week or two back, but I won’t speak to that without having used it.
On Tera Steel, the application is probably more limited, but on a Grassy Terrain team, I used SubQD + STABs and Tera Steel. This is able to shut down common GKing sets aimed to limit Volcarona — they’ve begun running Toxic and Psyshock more, but this doesn’t move the needle here. You’re also able to set up on most Garganacl, especially if Terrain is up still. Steel does leave you weak to Body Press, but you retain the good typing into Fairy and Ice moves, which Volc appreciates greatly.
On Tera Grass, you run it with Giga Drain and pretty much always pick off a free kill in the Primarina and Garganacl matchups. Helps a lot against Ground types, too, as you get a free turn and heal up frequently. I quite like it with Bug Buzz fourth as not many people are scouting for Bug coverage right now, giving you some free kills on Wellspring or Moon among other things, but it works with Sub or Morning Sun as well.
Ghost is probably the most niche of the three as it’s more of an extension of Tera Blast being good coverage, which the first two sets don’t even bother using. Hitting GKing super effectively while still getting Pult like Tera Dragon would is great. You can immunize a boosted Body Press and sit on Seismic Toss Blissey, too. I do find this set to be a bit more of a “fish” and usually prefer Tera Ghost on other special attackers like Iron Moth, Raging Bolt, or even Ghost types themselves like Dragapult, but it definitely has a niche when trying to compress some roles on specific offensive schemes.
Regardless, the point here is that in theory any Pokemon can adapt around counterplay with Tera, but the opportunity cost of doing so with many different Tera on many different Pokemon is pretty atrocious. This is why we only see a small handful of options on many things or more niche options tend to be readily apparent from team preview or how someone is playing. With Volcarona, the line gets blurrier and options become greater in number, viability, and effectiveness. The range of outcomes becomes far wider and the ability to pull off so many different things puts an unprecedented strain on both team construction and counterplay sequencing. Even if you have a check to a Volcarona set, there’s no saying it’ll be your first response to it and that’s not always due to bad play, but rather due to the nature of Volcarona. The Pokemon is just too much for the tier right now and I hope others see this. I’ll def be voting ban.
Tbh I’ve been toying with some more “niche” (but somehow still very effective) Tera types lately. I think everyone acknowledges Ground and Dragon are great, for example, and we can occasionally see Bug Swarm pop off in the right matchup as well. A big thing is that some people in this thread have played it off like “Yes, the right set can sweep anyone, but you can say that for any dynamic offensive Pokemon” and like sure, but Volcarona can actually pull off a ton of these sets with consistency and justification. You’re not going to see this range on much else. You’re just making empty claims by extending this to the whole metagame because we don’t actually see other things go to this length, but Volcarona has and will continue to.
Just to give some firsthand examples as the proof is in the actual games beyond any forum post or theory: I’ve been having a lot of success with Ghost, Grass, and Steel recently. I also got swept by someone using Rock a week or two back, but I won’t speak to that without having used it.
On Tera Steel, the application is probably more limited, but on a Grassy Terrain team, I used SubQD + STABs and Tera Steel. This is able to shut down common GKing sets aimed to limit Volcarona — they’ve begun running Toxic and Psyshock more, but this doesn’t move the needle here. You’re also able to set up on most Garganacl, especially if Terrain is up still. Steel does leave you weak to Body Press, but you retain the good typing into Fairy and Ice moves, which Volc appreciates greatly.
On Tera Grass, you run it with Giga Drain and pretty much always pick off a free kill in the Primarina and Garganacl matchups. Helps a lot against Ground types, too, as you get a free turn and heal up frequently. I quite like it with Bug Buzz fourth as not many people are scouting for Bug coverage right now, giving you some free kills on Wellspring or Moon among other things, but it works with Sub or Morning Sun as well.
Ghost is probably the most niche of the three as it’s more of an extension of Tera Blast being good coverage, which the first two sets don’t even bother using. Hitting GKing super effectively while still getting Pult like Tera Dragon would is great. You can immunize a boosted Body Press and sit on Seismic Toss Blissey, too. I do find this set to be a bit more of a “fish” and usually prefer Tera Ghost on other special attackers like Iron Moth, Raging Bolt, or even Ghost types themselves like Dragapult, but it definitely has a niche when trying to compress some roles on specific offensive schemes.
Regardless, the point here is that in theory any Pokemon can adapt around counterplay with Tera, but the opportunity cost of doing so with many different Tera on many different Pokemon is pretty atrocious. This is why we only see a small handful of options on many things or more niche options tend to be readily apparent from team preview or how someone is playing. With Volcarona, the line gets blurrier and options become greater in number, viability, and effectiveness. The range of outcomes becomes far wider and the ability to pull off so many different things puts an unprecedented strain on both team construction and counterplay sequencing. Even if you have a check to a Volcarona set, there’s no saying it’ll be your first response to it and that’s not always due to bad play, but rather due to the nature of Volcarona. The Pokemon is just too much for the tier right now and I hope others see this. I’ll def be voting ban.