I should specify by “off the table” I meant it was just suspected (under very different circumstances but still). The tiring policy change doesn’t technically include Ubers UU at all but with the change it would not be wise. That’s mb I should have been more clear.
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Metagame SV Ubers UU Metagame Discussion (Spectrier Ban @ Post 702)
- Thread starter KineSquared
- Start date
To add some extra clarification, Tera blast isn't off the table the same way a Tera ban is, but the justification (only 1 arguably problematic user in the tier currently, NDW was arguably broken even without Tera Blast), or outcry just isn't really enough to warrant a suspect, so it's not being considered as an option as of right now
The Hypno-patra erasure is sad :/
i mean, not really? the reason people hate H-pathra has nothing do do with Tera Blast, yeah, it can use it, but it has plenty of variants that use Dazzling Gleam already, the removal of Tera Blast doesn't change Espathra's gameplan at all, it still Hypnos, Calm Minds and Stored Powers.
People hate hypnosis espathra because it abuses hypnosis, not because it does anything too egregious with Tera Blast. We have other users of tera blast in Eleki, but I did not mention it because Eleki's usage of the move is nowhere close to what could be considered broken.
Yay bundle is back
Anyway Ubers should stop using flutter so we can have it
Anyway Ubers should stop using flutter so we can have it
Want to pull away from Zacian discussion to talk about another pokemon that really caught my eye during my reqs run and am thoroughly convinced is a great pick for heavy offense comps
Mimikyu @ Red Card
Ability: Disguise
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 168 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Shadow Sneak
- Curse
This was the set I used in my reqs run, but after thinking more on it i believe that a more utility focused set dropping Swords Dance for either Thunder Wave, WoW, or Taunt might get you more mileage. Curse i think is actually mandatory for using this one-time phaser set, as without it is can leave you prone to getting exploited without wanting to waste a turn switching out and curse racks up big damage when ur opp is forced to finish you off (and also bypasses sub which is nice). More importantly, it helps you get off of the field faster for these HO teams to get a threat back in after you have phased something of importance from your opponent.
Mimikyu @ Red Card
Ability: Disguise
Tera Type: Ghost
EVs: 88 HP / 252 Atk / 168 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Play Rough
- Shadow Sneak
- Curse
This was the set I used in my reqs run, but after thinking more on it i believe that a more utility focused set dropping Swords Dance for either Thunder Wave, WoW, or Taunt might get you more mileage. Curse i think is actually mandatory for using this one-time phaser set, as without it is can leave you prone to getting exploited without wanting to waste a turn switching out and curse racks up big damage when ur opp is forced to finish you off (and also bypasses sub which is nice). More importantly, it helps you get off of the field faster for these HO teams to get a threat back in after you have phased something of importance from your opponent.
Been feeling pretty fed up with trying to build for this tier lately, and I wanted to make a post about why I feel like the meta feels pretty awful rn.
Right now our tier is quite polarized towards stall and hyper offense, where balance suffers. It's very difficult to account for all the offense in the tier with just balance, so teams tend to either trend towards out-offensing offense, or stall which is able to aptly take on all of the offensive metagame. This further causes balance to be even worse, since on top of needing to have answers for the myriad of offensive options we have, balance now needs to have ways to beat the ever-present (and frustratingly well-built) ewin stall. The way that stall team locks down almost every offensive matchup asides from a few niche counters is a terrible wound for balance, as those niche counters play horribly into hyper offense. But building around hyper offense leaves balance vulnurable to stall. And so the options left for beating stall while remaining strong into the rest of the meta is to bring a stallbreaker on HO, and the options left for beating HO while remaining strong into the rest of the meta are to bring stall. This leaves balance dying in the gutter where you're basically matchup fishing for the team archetype you're better off into. To borrow Frito's words from a convo we had recently, "if you dont want to use the extremes, you have to accept losing to one of them". This is an issue that has been plaguing me for the past few weeks, and I'm wondering if anyone else (asides from Frito whom I talked to already) has any thoughts to share.
Right now our tier is quite polarized towards stall and hyper offense, where balance suffers. It's very difficult to account for all the offense in the tier with just balance, so teams tend to either trend towards out-offensing offense, or stall which is able to aptly take on all of the offensive metagame. This further causes balance to be even worse, since on top of needing to have answers for the myriad of offensive options we have, balance now needs to have ways to beat the ever-present (and frustratingly well-built) ewin stall. The way that stall team locks down almost every offensive matchup asides from a few niche counters is a terrible wound for balance, as those niche counters play horribly into hyper offense. But building around hyper offense leaves balance vulnurable to stall. And so the options left for beating stall while remaining strong into the rest of the meta is to bring a stallbreaker on HO, and the options left for beating HO while remaining strong into the rest of the meta are to bring stall. This leaves balance dying in the gutter where you're basically matchup fishing for the team archetype you're better off into. To borrow Frito's words from a convo we had recently, "if you dont want to use the extremes, you have to accept losing to one of them". This is an issue that has been plaguing me for the past few weeks, and I'm wondering if anyone else (asides from Frito whom I talked to already) has any thoughts to share.
Honestly all it takes is a Tera Blast ban and an Espathra ban and the meta is probably salvageable, but nobody wants to admit to taking these two steps. Banning Zacian will probably make the situation worse since it's one of the only things holding balance together, but I guess it's what the people want.
I'd personally love to see a Tera Blast ban, and wouldn't at all mind an Espathra one either, but the issue is that neither of those two prove banworthy at the moment. With TB, the only problematic users Zacian and NDW. There's much more of an argument to be made for Espathra, due to the way that Hypnosis can inhibit the more skilled player from winning, but there's still ways to skillfully play around it to an extent, and it's not as outright horrible as something like moody.
I personally don't think the meta is in a dire position or anything, and I think there's just cycles of these metagames where balance is significantly less viable than in previous iterations. However, if you had to ask me how to necessarily make it "better", even if I don't think there is a problem, those are the two things I would change.
The problem that I have with the Zacian situation is that a Zacian ban does not help the issue most people are having at all. HO is still going to exist and be extremely prevalent without Zacian, but balance is going to take a more significant hit. The reason I attribute this more to Tera Blast is because on the HO Zacian structures specifically, it's the idea that you have to account for Tera Blast that seems to push this over the edge for many. If you took away this sort of unpredictability factor from Zacian on the HO structures, it would be easier to manage, and, additionally, may even just plain not be used as much on those structures since there are many many non-Zacian HO structures. On balance though, it doesn't even need Tera Blast to hold balance together. So, the only solution in my opinion to fixing the Zacian/HO issue is to remove Tera Blast, since that is what will actually alleviate the problem many people are facing regarding balance being significantly overshadowed by HO/Stall. Removing it altogether kinda explodes it in the other direction imo.
And re: Espathra - it's just not a very competitive mon. It's not really an issue bc it's inconsistent, but I don't see why it needs to be in the tier, doesn't do anything for it and removing it also makes the problem you are alluding to more manageable.
I don't actually care if these things get banned or not, again I think the meta is ok and I think it will continue to change and evolve as we learn to deal with these threats, even moreso with each shifts period. And even if Zacian is removed, I think it will still evolve around that removal as well and be fine, but probably not in the way people are hoping.
The problem that I have with the Zacian situation is that a Zacian ban does not help the issue most people are having at all. HO is still going to exist and be extremely prevalent without Zacian, but balance is going to take a more significant hit. The reason I attribute this more to Tera Blast is because on the HO Zacian structures specifically, it's the idea that you have to account for Tera Blast that seems to push this over the edge for many. If you took away this sort of unpredictability factor from Zacian on the HO structures, it would be easier to manage, and, additionally, may even just plain not be used as much on those structures since there are many many non-Zacian HO structures. On balance though, it doesn't even need Tera Blast to hold balance together. So, the only solution in my opinion to fixing the Zacian/HO issue is to remove Tera Blast, since that is what will actually alleviate the problem many people are facing regarding balance being significantly overshadowed by HO/Stall. Removing it altogether kinda explodes it in the other direction imo.
And re: Espathra - it's just not a very competitive mon. It's not really an issue bc it's inconsistent, but I don't see why it needs to be in the tier, doesn't do anything for it and removing it also makes the problem you are alluding to more manageable.
I don't actually care if these things get banned or not, again I think the meta is ok and I think it will continue to change and evolve as we learn to deal with these threats, even moreso with each shifts period. And even if Zacian is removed, I think it will still evolve around that removal as well and be fine, but probably not in the way people are hoping.
ngl, while i was adamantly anti tb ban during the suspect but ive come around to seeing it as a very valid path, moreso than a zac ban imo. while thinking about its impact i made a list of mons/sets that we would lose as collateral from a tb ban to rein zac in, remind me if i forgot any.
losing these sets/mons is imo not that big a hit to the metagame or diversity. obviously zac loses its more effective sets but thats the intended effect of the ban. emu loses tb fire and ground set but less emu is honestly just better anyway. tb ice eleki isnt rly a real thing atp, its turned into a screens setter so itll at least have smthing to do if a tb ban were to happen. ive seen tb sets on arcs, most commonly tb fairy on poisonceus, but these types of sets arent widespread or particulalry amazing. while we havent seen it in uubers specifically (at least to my knowledge) random tbs on dd sweepers like moon or goug were and are finding use in ou so we would lose those potential sets, but the unpredictability of tb on mons you wouldnt expect to be running it is worst part of the mechanic so this 'loss' would probably be of benefit. spec losing tb is the first example ive gone over so far (imo) of a mon which is both in the meta and uses tb semi often, and would be an actual loss to the metagame, but even so it still has its d kiss set up sets and scarf sets can still function without terablast (tera ghost modest scarf is fun). more recently we've seen offensive cm mags slotting tb ground but its not a super popular set and mag most certainly has other non tb sets. lastly i put np deo, it isnt at all popular/meta relevant and is moreso just theoretical so losing it isnt too bad. overall idt a tb ban would cause any major losses to mon or set diversity, while also fully adressing the current zac issue. the biggest and near solo issue i could c with tb ban is smthing related to tiering policy but idk the specifics of that so :shrug:.
- Zac (other sets)
- Emu (other set + bad)
- Eleki (other set + bad)
- Poisonceus/Arceus (not real)
- Random DD Sweepers (unhealthy)
- Spectrier (other sets, loses scarf sets somewhat)
- Offensive CM Magearna
- NP Deo (bad)
losing these sets/mons is imo not that big a hit to the metagame or diversity. obviously zac loses its more effective sets but thats the intended effect of the ban. emu loses tb fire and ground set but less emu is honestly just better anyway. tb ice eleki isnt rly a real thing atp, its turned into a screens setter so itll at least have smthing to do if a tb ban were to happen. ive seen tb sets on arcs, most commonly tb fairy on poisonceus, but these types of sets arent widespread or particulalry amazing. while we havent seen it in uubers specifically (at least to my knowledge) random tbs on dd sweepers like moon or goug were and are finding use in ou so we would lose those potential sets, but the unpredictability of tb on mons you wouldnt expect to be running it is worst part of the mechanic so this 'loss' would probably be of benefit. spec losing tb is the first example ive gone over so far (imo) of a mon which is both in the meta and uses tb semi often, and would be an actual loss to the metagame, but even so it still has its d kiss set up sets and scarf sets can still function without terablast (tera ghost modest scarf is fun). more recently we've seen offensive cm mags slotting tb ground but its not a super popular set and mag most certainly has other non tb sets. lastly i put np deo, it isnt at all popular/meta relevant and is moreso just theoretical so losing it isnt too bad. overall idt a tb ban would cause any major losses to mon or set diversity, while also fully adressing the current zac issue. the biggest and near solo issue i could c with tb ban is smthing related to tiering policy but idk the specifics of that so :shrug:.
While personally am not *against* the idea of a TB suspect, I think i am very much against pushing for a tera blast ban > a Zacian ban right now. I'm not going to argue that the existence of tera blast isn't a part of Zacian's current strength, but I think when Zacian is currently the only user of it and it isn't even present on all of its good sets is certainly something that should be considered. I think that Tera Blast ban could be a solution, but I dont see why its the direction that should be taken when (if we are going by an ubers standard) I think it makes more logical sense to target a broken pokemon and not a move that really just effects said broken pokemon. If Tera Blast was actively more an issue across more pokemon i would be more supportive, but I think campaigning to ban tera blast explicitly to keep one mon in the tier feels like a questionable approach to trying to manage this tier in my opinion, and I don't think thats an unreasonable thing to say.
While Tera Blast can exist outside of zacian, Zacian is one of 3 real users (two of which are exclusive to niche sets and pretty well broadcast on preview in spec's case and pretty easy to figure out when you see a mage set up) and by far the most dominant one. Its notable to mention that when the last tera blast suspect happened, while i didn't play the meta actively then there were 3 notable abusers of it at the time in Zac, Chien-Pao, and NDW. If it wasn't banned then when you could more argue that TB was a widespread issue I dont see the reasoning for re-testing it when only one Pokemon is actively effecting the meta with it. It makes much more sense to focus on something like Zacian and getting it out of the tier if it is indeed unhealthy instead of having a suspect test of "The best zacian sets".
Again, I don't disagree that Tera Blast can be problematic, its been a huge part of Zacian's own viability, but from my understanding of tiering policy here it doesn't make sense to ban Tera Blast in a meta where only one Pokemon is actively problematic with it. Tackling individual moves feels more apt when its centralizing around certain playstyles (webs) or multiple actively broken pokemon (see last TB suspect test). At this point i probably won't be too upset if Zacian doesn't get banned, but it is frustrating to see all the conversation around it constantly circling back to trying to nerf it in some way out of a desperation to keep it in the tier. I think it is a vital part of the metagame right now, but I don't see how blocking action to cling to a hope that if it doesnt get enough support to ban it will somehow get enough support for a rather unjustified suspect to nerf it is just going to keep us in the same cycle of arguing about what is broken in this tier and getting nowhere.
Banning zacian will rather obviously change the meta a lot, its a pretty significant piece of what makes the tier click right now, but if it goes that does not garuntee the meta will not reach a point of stability eventually. No suspect ever aims to fix the tier in one fell swoop, and as a majority of people seem to think there are some issues in the tier (be it zacian, tera blast, sleep, etc) I think that when the option to take action and enact change arises, is the best step forwards.
Edit:
Just wanna add a comment about how i think its a bit hypocritical to say zacian doesn't warrant a ban as it isnt broken in your opinion (which is fine), but then to say that action should still be taken to neuter it in some way when that action is even less worth of a ban in my opinion at an ubers level. if the meta is able to adapt around Zacian and manage it offensively, we shouldn't be devoting resources to make it "more healthy" if it isn't outright broken, at which point why not support a ban?
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It's also a valid line of tiering to ban Zacian -> suspect TB with the prospect of zacian/NDW coming back -> TB gets banned -> zacian/NDW unban
Consider that if Zacian gets banned, there is no real threat of Tera Blast being broken, that just seems unlikely to work.
It’s perfectly fine to talk about a Tera Blast ban as an alternative to a Zacian ban, because the correct procedure has already been followed in that we are currently suspecting Zacian first. There is likely no scenario where Tera Blast can be targeted for action if Zacian is banned, unless we mass free the bans after a 3 month drop period and then target TB afterwards instead of some of the individual mons. That scenario is unlikely though - but if Zacian is not banned then I think it’s very ok to talk about Tera Blast right now as an alternative if you feel the tier is not in a great spot, and I do believe that is clearly the better path anyways to have the more positive intended effect most people are looking for.
I find this post a little strange, since you have very often in the past often advocated against bans made on the premise that something is unhealthy rather than broken. To me, it feels like there's a discrepancy between saying that zacian isn't bannable because it's not broken, yet still saying that Tera Blast is potentially actionable when the most realistic prong to take is that it's uncompetitive. I personally do believe that Tera Blast is bannable on the premise that it's unhealthy, not that it's broken. And I tried to make that argument during the Tera Blast suspect, but to no avail. So I'm curious as to what your thoughts on the matter are, and would appreciate if you could elaborate some more.
I don’t think Zacian, Tera Blast, or Espathra is banworthy. I was simply responding to your query essentially on how to make the metagame better. Making it better doesn’t always equate to finding things banworthy, as I think the metagame is fine atm
Zacian is a big part of why Balance isn't good right now. I agree that Tera Blast ban would solve a lot of problems but idk if that's really our best course of action (I know you said you don't wanna ban anything you mentioned just adding to the convo here) for the reason of the recent tera policy blurring that line and also a lack of support in general. It's not too early after for that to be a reason not to suspect it as the landscape of the tier is very different but a Zacian ban is the only plausible thing that would help in my eyes.
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should be fixed now
Completely disagree here, this tier was never dominated by a centrally OU playerbase, most of the early people were simply inhabitants of stunfisk, the great majority of proper competitive players we have gotten are Ubers players that came by later on. Also note that the average OU player that might play this meta from time to have not been getting suspect reqs as you can see through the people who got them over our past suspects.