Metagame Tera Override [LCotM October]

very interested to see how this metagame progresses, cool concept. wanna give some of my initial thoughts

- Wherever possible, types should be broadcasted. For a metagame that is still in its infancy, knowledge checks can't be largely assumed; Heatran will probably be Tera Ground to avoid the 4x weakness, but it could also very reasonably be Tera Water or something too. This may just be a problem we have to deal with until games get played and we figure out what is and isn't good, but not knowing the actual type of Toxic Spikes or Stealth Rocks seems very annoying. I do agree that, at the very least, the type should be broadcasted for weathers and terrains.

The sunlight turned harsh!
Rock.png


Pointed stones float in the air around the opposing team!
Grass.png


Grass grew to cover the battlefield!
Fighting.png

- Snow and Sand seem extremely good, especially with, as drampa mentioned, the Slowkings being able to slow pivot into any breaker or sweeper and give them a big chunky Defense boost basically for free. Not sure how big of a problem this will end up being until we actually get games played, but I think that Chilly Reception is worth keeping an eye on in the early stages. Tyranitar and Hippowdon will likely have similar support potential but the lack of any pivoting moves will probably make them much less constraining.

- Curious as to how Ground-type Grassy Terrain would interact with itself seeing as Grassy Terrain is hard coded to reduce the power of Earthquake. If I'm not mistaken Earthquake would actually suffer a 20% power cut? This hypothetical probably doesn't happen anyway but still interesting to think about.

- On the topic of terrain, Misty Terrain seems good since the only type mentioned by name in the effects is Dragon, which it cuts the power of by 50%. Could have useful applications for fatter team structures in the same way Sun or Rain might.
and now some theorymons

:primarina:
Primarina @ Assault Vest
Ability: Liquid Voice
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 80 HP / 252 SpA / 176 Spe
Modest Nature
- Surf
- Moonblast
- Flip Turn
- Hyper Voice

90 BP coverage of any type you want! Works with Sparkling Aria/PsyNoise too.

:kyurem:
Kyurem @ Choice Specs
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Steel
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Ice Beam
- Freeze-Dry
- Draco Meteor
- Earth Power

Steels can't switch into this anymore, good luck have fun.

:garganacl:
Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 52 Def / 204 SpD
Careful Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Salt Cure
- Recover
- Protect

Takes half damage period from any type of your choice AND chunks it to death faster with Salt Cure, will have some very unique applications in shoring up shitty matchups. (No, it doesn't stack, Water/Steel types don't take 50% from Salt Cure vanilla, thank god.)
 
Actually i just thought of an edge case that should be mentioned:
What happens when a pokemon with one tera type (eg fire) uses tspikes, and then another pokemon with a different tera type (eg grass) sets the second layer of tspikes? Does the whole stack become removed by just grass, just fire, or can the spikes be removed by fire or grass?
 
Crep50 said:
Actually i just thought of an edge case that should be mentioned:
What happens when a pokemon with one tera type (eg fire) uses tspikes, and then another pokemon with a different tera type (eg grass) sets the second layer of tspikes? Does the whole stack become removed by just grass, just fire, or can the spikes be removed by fire or grass?
Click to expand...
i would assume the easiest and simplest way to deal with this would be defaulting to the first type

so in this example, if a tera fire mon set a layer of tspikes and then a tera grass mon set the second layer, then a fire mon would remove the stack entirely. not sure how i feel about the idea of having two separate layers of tspikes that need two different mons to remove naturally, but it also depends on how coding and implementation work out. might just lead to vanilla hazard removal being stronger!
 
gulch said:
i would assume the easiest and simplest way to deal with this would be defaulting to the first type

so in this example, if a tera fire mon set a layer of tspikes and then a tera grass mon set the second layer, then a fire mon would remove the stack entirely. not sure how i feel about the idea of having two separate layers of tspikes that need two different mons to remove naturally, but it also depends on how coding and implementation work out. might just lead to vanilla hazard removal being stronger!
Click to expand...
Makes sense, since that’s how Passive Aggressive tackled it. Just thought it’d be important to mention :3
 
I cannot say for certain I know what the leading flavors of "good Stealth Rock" or other passive damage will be, most likely they will fluctuate and push and pull as the meta develops, but I certainly know there are Types that would be, at least at "layer 1", both desirable Tera Types for hazards and for offensive/defensive Tera uses, and it might be smart to theorycraft mons that can leverage a general resistance to a whole lot of em.
It may be a gimmick but something that immediately came to mind to me was something like:


Arcanine @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Dragon Pulse/Hyper Voice
- Scorching Sands
- Will-O-Wisp/Roar/Etc

This is probably a wack set on a wack mon, but the point is kinda more just to serve as an example for some thought processes I had. There are quite a few types that jump out at me when I think of "types you might want passive damage to be" and "types you might want to Tera into", Fairy jumps to mind, obviously, as it doesn't have any immunities against it unless it's an ability. Ice is generally a good type to make hazards and a coverage type that is offensively Tera'd to a bit. Grass probably ain't bad either? And, as of right now, on day Minus Seventeen or so of the meta, Sand, specifically Ground Sand and Steel Sand, are kinda boogeymen being preemptively built up. At the same time, Fire types, and Flying types as well, are uniquely liberated from Boots because Rock Type Stealth Rock, while undoubtedly still good, has to compete with the novelty and opportunity cost of 17 new flavors of Stealth Rock, as well as other passive damage sources that now all function similarly to SR. Arcanine and, perhaps actually good Pokemon Ceruledge, in this situation I have most likely made up entirely in my head, have a defensive profile that minimizes a fair amount of these probable outlier hazard Types while also being able to not only blank one of the ones they're weak to but punish it with a free boost (on switch in/Sandstorm chip? is Sandstorm chip "getting hit with a move"?) may be nice in a meta wherein people are stacking 5 ground types and Clefable and setting ground type Sand day 1. (Edit: scratch that, not how hazards function)

Edit: My bad I just now right this second realized I don't actually know how to embed the little sprites in this forum. My status as a Casual Lurker is showing, I suppose.

Edit 2: I only just realized that, if Sap Sipper-type abilities worked in the way I suggested, they would be a lot more potent as part of Sand as opposed to against them, my mind completely blanked that possibility because I was stuck thinking about hazards.
 
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3417gekko said:
is Sandstorm chip "getting hit with a move"?
Click to expand...
No, Sand chip damage (and all other forms of typeless passive damage, i.e. Spikes) do not trigger abilities that proc on being hit with a move.

Sand, while it definitely has the potential to be potent, is not nearly as big of a concern to me as Snow is. This is in part due to two things: Snow boosting Defense seems largely more applicable thanks to Quiver Dance allowing you to boost your speed, an offensive stat, and the other defensive stat all at the same time (see drampa's post on Volcarona, Volc is banned but you get the point being made surely). In addition, Sand does not have a move like Chilly Reception, which pivots out the user immediately. On top of this, Chilly Reception's distribution is on two historically very good Pokemon! Snow also grants access to Aurora Veil, and Light Clay IS still legal for the time being. My #1 worry in terms of oppressive team styles when the playable version of this launches would be Snow, with or without Screens.

As a side note that's somewhat related to Sand and the above post, I do agree that Magic Guard users will be very strong, especially early on in meta development when people are still figuring out the preferred types for hazards. Clefable is, again, just historically very good. Reuniclus also comes to mind, I think that bulky setup sweepers who are able to just ignore the chip meta entirely will be extremely effective, especially with the possibilities at hand for passively increasing bulk (whether that be weather, Misty Terrain, etc.).

edit: more theorymon stuff

:gourgeist: :hatterene: :golduck:
Trick-or-Treat, Magic Powder, and Soak are all moves that, to me, only seem limited by their terrible distribution (Smeargle is the primary learner for two of the three). However, being able to change your opponent's Pokemon to any type you want at will seems EXTREMELY useful as a tool where a primary strategy is exploiting ways to give yourself damage immunities and cover weaknesses. Soak in particular is much less of a victim to the bad distribution of its brothers, and even has plenty of users that are either good by default or could prove to be very potent abusers of the move. Additionally, combining Soak and Whirlpool to trap and remove opposing Pokemon without a pivoting move could end up being a potent strategy. I don't think this is worth taking any tiering action on preemptively but I would not be shocked to see Soak get very very ridiculous.

:hawlucha:
As lettuce said, this thing is probably really good, Flying Gem Acrobatics was a common strategy in Gen 5 for a reason and Hawlucha gets the added benefit of proccing Unburden with it. Flying Press is custom coverage which already seems to be a hallmark of Good Shit in this meta. Probably ends up being a little much.

:sceptile: :drifblim: :grafaiai:
On the topic of Flying Gem Acrobatics and Unburden, that's not even really limited to Hawlucha as a concept. Hawlucha is, far and away, likely to be the best abuser, but I could easily see the need for some kind of restriction to be put in place for Gem or Unburden or something. A lot of these are kinda shitmons, but it's entirely possible to just stack all of them on one team and beat your opponent to death. I made this in less than five minutes and it probably isn't even completely optimized.
 
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When having a look at all the relevant* (in this case meaning fully evolved or with a unique type) mons that have immunity Abilities (other than lev) both for their own value's sake and for a hypothesis of mine that "Ground is a good Stealth Rock flavor even with the baked in immunity but a lot of the new 'custom immunity' mons most likely wanna cover a weakness and many are already weak to Ground", Ive started looking at some trends I'll compile in a more professional manner at a later time as I've only gotten started. I'll post some tidbits I've figured out so far:
-Ground is in fact a quite disproportionately common weakness among immunity Ability havers, 24 of the 45 I counted are at least 2x weak to Ground with ability not taken into account. You probably know this, but Fire and Electric Types make up a large portion and that's a large contributor. In comparison, the next largest common weakness is Ice, at 15/45* Editor's note I musta done real bad calculations on paper, non-FD Ice is actually a poor type against this sample, at 9/45 weak (I will get to this in a second). This commonness among mons who can now have whatever immunity they want, alongside the already existing immunity from Levitate and Flying Types may make Ground a weaker Type for Stealth Rocks, maybe even generally as an offensive Type, than it may look on paper.
-Ice is scary because it is the Type that has Freeze Dry and Freeze Dry, on top of already being scary as is, can hard callout every immunity mon except Heatran, Lapras, and Volcanion, and many even become 4x weak to FreezeDry (Fire) or Freeze Dry (Steel). As the actual pool of meta relevant immunity Ability mons is much, much smaller than 45, picking your FD callout Type goes from a gimmick to an educated guess and many immunity mons might be biased towards picking Tera Ice in order to not deal with it (this benefits mons like Ogerpon-W, Rhyperior, Thund-T who already have Tera Ice high on their priority list).

I hope someone with much more gamesense than me can make use of this information as more than just statistical trivia, and I will post more, hopefully better, findings when I have access to spreadsheet software (doing this in pencil and paper sucks).

EDIT: I've started working on a spreadsheet, nothing special (making spreadsheets isn't my expertise) right now just a list of the 45 relevant mons with Terra-changeable immunity Abilities and a Type chart so I can mull over the data, but I plan on adding a page to keep track of the different Freeze-Dry Types, etc at some point.
Anyways so this isn't just a wall of text that links to another wall of text, some Heatran ideas because it's probably the meta's special special boy.

Heatran @ Life Orb
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Fire Blast
- Flash Cannon
- Earth Power
- Will-O-Wisp

or

Heatran @ Leftovers
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Ground
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpD / 4 Spe
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Lava Plume/Magma Storm
- Flash Cannon
- Scorching Sands
- Stealth Rock

or maybe even

Heatran @ Air Balloon
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Overheat
- Steel Beam
- Flame Charge
- Stealth Rock

Heatran is, as stated above, uniquely unafraid of Freeze-Dry (anything) among the immunity ability crowd, alongside like, Lapras? It's a pretty exclusive club. I think that makes it pretty good considering its already very nice defensive profile.
 
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i think it's very little surprise that heatran seems to be a top tier glue, not getting dunked by freeze-dry while having an immunity ability and access to everything heatran normally has access to is obviously great. gholdengo will also likely be good in a metagame where hazards have the ability to be much more pressing as it can block mortal/spin while also not needing to spend a slot on a flying immunity to block defog thanks to good as gold. ironically, balance actually feels like it has the potential to be very strong in this meta despite the added offensive pressure coming from the unique hazard game thanks to keystone pieces like the two mentioned above alongside magic guard users like clefable. i'm also expecting to see a lot of stupid hyper offense builds though depending on how much we can squeeze out of our terrain setters, limited as they are. maybe people will resort to doing it manually, who knows
 
With all this talk of flash fire (ground) heatran (and immunities in general. ive got my eye on flash fire (dark) HDB ceruledge (and dark immunity in general)), i’d like to double down on some mold breaker pokemon that could be worth looking at, or even considering using ability shield against

:excadrill:
Great sand abuser, actually destroys the heatran matchup, and is a rapid spinner too. Just dont get knocked if facing hazard stack and you should be ok.

:hawlucha:
Great on its own, but something ive noticed is that you have to pick between unburden acrobatics and improving flying press. Just something to keep in mind when i mention mb, where running tera rock is always a solid option. Also, MB defog can make the dengo MU less annoying. Also cant have it’s U-turn blocked

:tinkaton:
Fun fact, this is the only mold breaker mon with knock off! Could be a niche pick on hazard stack, being able to click knock without a care in the world.

:basculegion-f:
Ok im stretching the definition of “worth” here but it *is* the only mold-breaker with a usable special attack stat so. Just be weary if your specially-frail physical wall has ghost absorb or smthn.

Other than that i dont have any more mold-breaker-related thoughts. did whip up this though:

:quagsire: Quagsire @ Leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Atk / 252 Def
Relaxed Nature
- Whirlpool
- Toxic
- Recover
- Earthquake

Traps you, starts chipping you down, AND you can’t pivot (unless you have flip turn or parting shot, but those are less common than volt switch and u-turn, so the point stands).

One last note: also thought of Water Absorb (dark) Lapras with HDB but that seems like a shaky idea at best


Edit: ok i lied about hawlucha lmao sorry
See, I forgot about Terrain Seeds

:hawlucha: Hawlucha @ Grassy Seed
Ability: Unburden
Tera Type: Rock
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly / Adamant Nature
- Flying Press
- Acrobatics
- Swords Dance
- Roost / Throat Chop

The only saving grace here is that Hawlucha isn’t considered “grounded”, and so none of it’s moves will gain any terrain-related boosts. But yeah, kind of a “best of both worlds” set right here
 
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Time for some new strategy I introduce the bulk
:sv/alomomola:
Alomomola @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Bold Nature
- Wish
- Flip Turn
- Scald
- Protect
With
:sv/Slowking-Galar:
Slowking-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SpA / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Chilly Reception
- Slack Off
- Future Sight
- Toxic
And
:sv/talonflame:
Talonflame @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Gale Wings
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
 
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An underrated gimmick I noticed is that slow, bulky ghost types now gain access to Curse as a boosting move (while also situationally being able to tera and regain access to the bad ghost version). I'll make some sets later but expect some silly theory crafting for Dusknoir (Dark) and Spiritomb (Fire?)
 
curse of egypt (Electrode-Hisui) @ Leftovers
Ability: Soundproof
Tera Type: Electric
EVs: 248 HP / 8 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Leech Seed
- Curse
- Giga Drain

yuoyre welcome
 
InfernapeBud said:
:sv/talonflame:
Talonflame @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Gale Wings
Tera Type: Bug
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- U-turn
Click to expand...
I’ll do you one better

:sv/pelipper:
Pelipper @ Damp Rock / Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Drizzle
Tera Type: Electric / Water
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Def / 252 SpD
Calm Nature
- Hurricane
- U-turn
- Roost
- Surf / Weather Ball*

:sv/talonflame:
Talonflame @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Gale Wings
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Weather Ball
- Hurricane
- U-turn
- Roost / Filler

Priority boosted 100 BP Fire Stab (that isn’t hurt by non-fire non-stellar rain) and 110 BP perfectly accurate hurricanes :3

Pelippers Weather Ball will be a 75 BP move, due to matching the type reduced by weather, because of your Tera Type.
 
Some sets to showcase some nuances with Curse that I find are interesting. First off I have three users who are actually traditionally like, good Pokemon worth using, and I will discuss whether setting up with curse actually benefits them or not. After that I have three shitmons who aren't very good but synergize with curse quite well.

Pecharunt @ Air Balloon
Ability: Poison Puppeteer
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Gunk Shot/Malignant Chain
- Poltergeist
- Recover
- Curse

Pecharunt gets to click slightly stronger moves and set up, and boost its already pretty large defense, but I don't think this is a role it really wants to be in, it lacks coverage outside of foul play and Curse kinda nonbos with Toxic and an option I think might become prominent on bulkier mons if Dark immunities become meta, Black Sludge Trick (but not Choice Item Trick). I think in a lot of these mons below the telegraphing of Tera type gives away a bulky trick set or a bulky curse set.

Skeledirge @ Leftovers
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpA
Relaxed Nature
- Torch Song
- Poltergeist/Will-O-Whisp/Substitute/Etc
- Slack Off
- Curse

Similarly to Pecharunt, Skeledirge really doesn't care for the Attack boost.

Ceruledge @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Flash Fire
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Bitter Blade
- Brick Break
- Poltergeist/Night Slash
- Bulk Up

Ceruledge has Bulk Up, don't bother with Curse it's strictly worse.

Golurk @ Life Orb
Ability: Iron Fist
Tera Type: Grass
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Poltergeist
- Drain Punch
- Brick Break/Knock Off/EQ/Utility
- Curse

Golurk, and similarly Dusknoir who didn't make the cut, are built a lot better to click Curse to shore up their good but not great defense as well as boost their sizeable attack stat. Because they have very straightforwardly good attack stats they can also use a Choice Trick set with the same Tera Type as this more setup oriented idea. They also don't really have anything better to be doin, bc they aren't good, so that's a plus I guess.

Decidueye @ Leftovers/HDB
Ability: Long Reach
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Spirit Shackle/
- Knock Off/Grass Stab/Something annoying
- Defog/Roost
- Curse

Probably wants to SD instead but Curse shores up its mediocre defense and boosts its alright attack, plus it has decent spdef so it can actually stay in if it lures Gholdengo and hope to not die. Or Shackle the hazard setter and defog on them so they can't swap to Gholdengo, something like that. Like all of these sets though except maybe the Dirge set, it's still hitting Gholdengo on its bulkier side so you aren't really super threatening to it. Tera Roost is funny tho I imagine.

Spiritomb @ Leftovers
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Poltergeist
- Payback/Sucker Punch
- Skill Swap/Shadow Sneak/utility
- Curse

Spiritomb similarly to Decidueye has decent to good defense all around to boost and a passable attack stat, it threatens stab Dark type moves so it can lure Knock Immune mons fairly easy and (this is probably a gimmick) try to weaken the enemy team's defenses by swiping an immunity ability with skill swap (most of the ghosts can do this but spiritomb is an actual dark type). Also can run a choice trick set if it has to, just makes a lot less progress when it actually has the choice item.

I think overall Curse is a mixed bag because a few mons do get to boost from it but many of them either don't make the cut or make the most of the boost. I also think the way it conflicts with Toxic/Black Sludge also makes both sets telegraphed in a way that takes a lot of bite out of both.
 
:ss/bombirdier:
Bombirdier @ Choice Band
Ability: Rocky Payload
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Brave Bird
- U-turn
- Knock Off
- Sucker Punch

+1=Rocky Payload

+1 252+ Atk Choice Band Bombirdier Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 264-312 (62.8 - 74.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Choice Band Bombirdier Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Pecharunt: 211-250 (55.5 - 65.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Choice Band Bombirdier Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Avalugg: 189-223 (47.9 - 56.5%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO

Strong birb. Dark may seem better but Dark immunities seem likely to be common, and you don't reach the same ridiculous calcs. Bombirdier is certainly not perfect, with subpar bulk, large amounts of recoil making for low sustainability, and low speed for an offensive Pokemon, but its raw power makes it difficult to switch into if given a free switchin. Corviknight also makes its life difficult, although Dark Tera solves this.

In conclusion big damage number is fun.

As a side note, with how spammable immunities are likely to be in this meta Choice items are likely very risky to run. RIP Birb :(
 
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We've mentioned the dreaded Knock Off Absorbers here quite a few times so let's talk a little bit in detail abt which mons they actually are.
Of the 45ish immunity mons I compiled earlier, I think you can break it down into like, three groups who would want to or be able to tera Dark for Knock immunity:

Group 1 is the mons who are actively already weak to Dark and as such have a whole lot to gain by becoming immune to it. There are 6 mons in this group and they are Typhlosion-H, Ceruledge, Chandelure, Armarouge, Farigiraf and Wyrdeer. These are the type I anticipate will become the most relevant overall, Ceruledge is obv the cream of the crop but Chandelure is a nice special attacking alternative, Armarouge's stab combo answers are a little worse overall (Tera-Fire Cacturne, anyone?) and Farigiraf and Wyrdeer now only being weak to Bug gives them some potential as bulky utility and setup mons.

Group 2 is mons that are married to their item slot enough that they would forgo a more pressing immunity. This group is more fluid and open to interpretation but most bulky mons married to their leftovers and all NFEs if you count them (Rhydon Pikachu Girafarig and Stantler being the only ones worth truly being mentioned and only as trivia).

Group 3 has a good enough defensive typing that they can afford to become knock absorbers/situationally immune to prankster on tera. Goodra-H, Quagsire, Gastrodon, Kilowattrel, etc can be argued to belong here.

As I mentioned in a prior post, a common shared weakness many of these, especially the good ones, have, is Ground. 4 of the 6 most incentivized mons are Fire types and many of the bulky options (Heatran, Volcanion, Coalossal, Goodra-H, Rhyperior) are weak or even double weak to Ground.

Your items aren't quite safe either because there are still options (that I'll elaborate on at a later time, they are mostly silly gimmicks tbh) to get those items off if it becomes absolutely necessary. For example, Wyrdeer and Farigiraf are Knock Absorbers that can punish other Knock Absorbers with Trick, and then Roar them out to spread hazard damage.

EDIT: I genuinely forgot abt Typhlosion-H not only in this post but on the spreadsheet, my bad. There's nothing to say abt it that doesn't apply to Ceruledge or Chand tho. nvm false alarm ripbozo (reg Ty has been added)
 
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3417gekko said:
EDIT: I genuinely forgot abt Typhlosion-H not only in this post but on the spreadsheet, my bad. There's nothing to say abt it that doesn't apply to Ceruledge or Chand tho.
Click to expand...
You didnt actually: Typhlosion gets Flash Fire - Typhlosion-H has Frisk, instead, for some reason.
 
hello, this meta seems cool as fuck, i wanna talk about the hazard game.

the introduction of knock off absorbers makes boots even stronger than before: not only can dark-immune mons run boots and keep them vs most threats, but protect their team from knock as well. overall this makes the item slot much more powerful than in standard play, and with more pokemon able to retain leftovers and boots, hazards end up a fair bit less powerful. this is compounded by the fact that any pokemon which doesn't need a "specific" item to function is heavily incentivized to run boots when the damage type of stealth rock isn't set. normally corv or lando are quite good into hazards thanks to their typing, but would be in significant danger against fire or water rocks respectively. those with a 4x weakness are especially vulnerable, you don't want your lando to catch ice rocks and lose 50% in an instant. in effect, hazards being so potentially dangerous sorta hampers them in a way, as most teams will be prepping against them aggressively, and with knock off neutered in being free as hell to click it's much more difficult to force the opponent to take hazard chip.

this does not mean hazards should just be glossed over in the builder, a lot of pokemon need their item slot to augment their stats or role on a team and those are going to be prime targets for your hazards to tackle. non-knock off item disruption exists as well, and a number of knock off users can easily threaten absorbers to make blocking said knock off more challenging for the opponent. a lot of the finer details will establish themselves as the metagame takes shape, so for now i want to speculate mostly on the individual types your rocks can be and what pokemon would want to run such a tera type at all.

will note, i am assuming 1-1 mechanics for type effectiveness being translated onto rocks, i.e. a mon that is immune to a type is also immune to rocks for that type, the same way it works in passive aggressive. also unsure of how abilities interact in this regard, my assumption is they don't and rocks consider typing only, but i could very well be wrong. the list in unordered.

Ice
Potential setters: :deoxys-speed::glimmora::sandy-shocks::azelf::mamoswine:

ice looks really strong primarily because it's a good offensive type already, but also because of one very particular pokemon: gliscor. it's hard to gauge how good gliscor is going to be off the rip, but as one of very few pokemon that is (essentially) item-locked, boots are largely off the table for it. ice-type sr absolutely demolishes gliscor as a result, forcing it to play much more cautiously and passively to stay healthy, as well as mandating heavy hazard support to stick around. yeah, technically nothing is stopping gliscor from using boots, but what's the point of the mon when it's no longer able to sit on the field for eternity?
the biggest hurdle for ice sr mainly comes down to the potential setters. tera ice is typically not run on anything that isn't already an ice type, as it's an awful defensive typing to lock into. as a result, if anything runs ice rocks, its going to be primarily offensively-inclined pokemon, moreso those that aren't looking to tera most games anyway. the other three i mentioned are more theoretical but could certainly work.

Dark
Potential setters: :deoxys-speed::garganacl::ting-lu::clefable::clodsire::kleavor::coalossal:

generally strong offensive type while also likely being a popular tera type just because of the immunity mons. garg and clod stand out here as i can see both running tera dark even before considering rocks on their set, just because dark is that dangerous to go up against.

Flying
Potential setters: :glimmora::landorus-therian::garganacl::kingambit:

flying has a fairly small pool of resists much like dark, so it should work quite nicely on a handful of pokemon. special shoutout to glimmora here, as it gets a ton out of tera flying thanks to also having toxic spikes, which are now immune to being absorbed like they normally would unless a flying type actively equips iron ball (author's note: Don't). this is also quite good for teams wanting to apply extra pressure vs woger, another mon that has to face hazards head-on. i put gambit here as, although not the first choice as a rocker like ever, you could potentially use it to improve your mu vs common checks like tusk and zama, and tera flying is great on a mon weak to ground and fighting. overall super solid even if this list is small, flying simply works.

Fire
Potential setters: :great-tusk::garchomp::heatran::arcanine-hisui::orthworm:

hitting steels SE is huge for fire, and is largely what gives it a clear niche, as the other two steel-hitters, fighting and ground, face immunities that some steel-types can take advantage of. a lot of fire's other targets are sorta uncommon sadly, either just in general, are commonly paired with a neutralizing dual-type, or are the kind of pokemon that wants boots most of the time anyway.

Fairy
Potential setters: look up "Stealth Rock" in the Pokemon Showdown teambuilder

honestly i do not know what else to say, tera fairy is a fantastic tera type already and a lot of mons that would want to run it also like to run rocks. it's a great neutral type, has a lot of potentially valid targets because of the surplus of dark/fighting/dragon in the metagame, and is low on resisting types. this is one you definitely want to prep for as you'll likely come across it just by happenstance of people needing garg as their hazard setter.

Water
Potential setters: :garganacl::gliscor::clefable::landorus-therian::ting-lu::heatran::clodsire::coalossal:

much like fairy, water is very popular as a tera type, and it makes for a good hazard type to threaten the litany of grounds and fires we're likely to see. being neutral vs many types helps as well, though you do nothing vs woger. that fact is at least slightly made up for by dealing 25% to gliscor, not the same highs as ice will bring but that's still serviceable pressure being applied, and attached to a far better tera type to have ready for use than ice.

Ghost
Potential setters: :iron-treads::ting-lu::garganacl::deoxys-speed::glimmora::kleavor::kommo-o:

this is the first typing i've covered which can flub completely into a type, that being normal. thankfully for ghost, there aren't exactly a ton of normal-types running around.... unless you count sd facade gliscor, of course. ghost is great for a lot of dedicated leads as you can block rapid spin, so this may be less of a tactical choice for damage and more a byproduct of wanting rocks on your lead. still, ghost is phenomenal offensively, only resisted by dark and ineffective vs normal, resulting in the overwhelming majority of mons being susceptible.

Rock/Stellar
Potential setters: :deoxys-speed::glimmora::great-tusk::arcanine-hisui::excadrill::kleavor:

did you know iron boulder doesn't get rocks? they really wanted that guy to be as close as possible to being good without actually being good. this one's very weird as the base typing for rocks is pretty awkward to fit onto teams: deo and glimm once again come to the rescue as offensive setters, both even having access to meteor beam if you really wanted to go that route. the other three are mons that i could see running tera rock/stellar just to improve their offensive potential or specific coverage option. it's not a wide list, especially as stellar mons typically don't want to spend time clicking a status move that doesn't boost their stats. unfortunately most pokemon don't have great reasons to go tera rock, which is fair, you almost certainly become more vulnerable doing so and only gain a boost in power for moves which never hit anyway...

Steel
Potential setters: :clefable::tinkaton:

steel is going to be a byproduct of wanting tera steel on an existing mon that also wants rocks. these hit a very small pool of pokemon SE, even if one of them is fairy, and face a lot of resists to common types. very mediocre overall. if some pokemon started running tera steel to help block mortal spin maybe this would see more use as a result.

Grass
Potential setters: :garganacl::glimmora::ting-lu::gastrodon::quagsire:

grass faces a ton of resists, which makes its prospects as a useful type pretty grim. thankfully, it does hit two prominent types, water and ground, which could eek out a niche for it depending on the team. realistically this gets run primarily as a byproduct of wanting tera grass defensively.

Bug
Potential setters: :kleavor::garganacl:

bug faces a ton of resists, which makes its prospects as a useful type pretty grim. unfortunately, it doesn't hit two prominent types, water and ground, which would eek out a niche for it depending on the team. realistically this gets run primarily as a mistake.

more seriously, i think bug immunity might be nice for a small subset of mons, since stuffing u-turn is fantastic for preserving momentum. what mons want to do this over a more generally helpful immunity to an actually dangerous offensive type? not sure! especially among those that learn stealth rock! i put garg down because it sorta owns tusk with tera bug but it doesn't really need tera bug to do that. these hit woger hard tho!!!!

Electric
Potential setters: :deoxys-speed::heatran:

pretty unimpressive rocks type sadly, even though hitting water and flying is great, that's all you hit SE. and every ground ever comes in for free. not a whole lot even wants tera electric anyway, especially among the setters, so i put deoxys because it really likes the thunder wave immunity + coverage boost, and heatran because the electric immunity on it could be pretty good at shutting down zapdos and raging bolt, though you'd be often better off running a more pertinent immunity like ground, water, ground, or ground.

Fighting
Potential setters: :garganacl::deoxys-speed::heatran::coalossal::orthworm::kleavor:

honestly i think fighting would be quite scary, given it's fantastic SE coverage, but there's also plenty of resists and an immunity to work around. tera fighting is also rather rare, with only a few rocks setters i found really appreciating it. still, hitting all of garg, most steels, most darks, and the odd ursaluna for 25% is a pretty big deal, making fighting a very strong tech choice for teams wanting to brutalize certain structures. these also absolutely annihilate kingambit for the people upset his ass still around.

Psychic
Potential setters: :deoxys-speed:

ah, yikes. the problem here isn't the damage as much as what kind of stealth rock setter is using tera psychic??? there's a point where you need to weight the om mechanical benefits of using a specific tera type with the actual benefits of a specific tera type. psychic is certainly not the worst tera type out there, but if you're using it, it's surely on a sweeper that needs its four moveslots dedicated to the act of sweeping, and NOT for setting up some sneaky pebbles. thank you deoxys-speed for doing literally whatever the fuck you want with your tera type half the time.

but yeah you also let darkrai in for free so idt you ever run this.

Ground
Potential setters: :heatran::coalossal::hippowdon::glimmora::skarmory::heatran::orthworm::clodsire:

even though ground is infamous for being an offensive powerhouse, it's pretty whatever as a rocks type. this mostly stems from the fact that flying types and anything not grounded are now immune to ALL of your hazards. which sounds like a great way to shoot yourself in the foot during teambuilding. at the very least, you are spreading damage across a large list of types, with very few hard resists to worry about, so there might be some gimmicky strats you can employ to make ground rocks legitimately scary. it helps that a number of potentially useful pokemon in the format are 4x weak to ground. overall although these certainly look a bit misdirected, proper strategy could let ground rocks pop the hell off.

Dragon
Potential setters: :garganacl::landorus-therian::skarmory:

this is another example of "wanting a specific defensive typing but also wanting rocks." dragon does at least have very good neutral coverage, though steel and fairy are pretty common types which don't mind these at all. fairy btw does this entirely better, you legit miss out on dragalge and that's it in terms of dragon-types.

Poison
Potential setters: :clefable::ting-lu:

lots of resists, does nothing to steel, and only hits fairy and grass. hey you do 25% to woger! another byproduct type where tera poison is simply useful defensively for some pokemon.

Normal
Potential setters: :arcanine-hisui::deoxys-speed:

normal, as has been the case for a while, is ironically very weird. no SE at all sucks a ton, but is kinda mitigated by the neutral coverage??? sadly, with two resists (one of them steel and the other Garg-type) and no effect vs ghosts, normal just lacks a lot of punch, and the few pokemon that could feasibly run tera normal to good effect typically lack room for rocks, or rocks entirely. harcanine is here because flash fire normal + tera espeed is fucking funny, deoxys meanwhile is mostly to nullify the ghost weakness vs like pult or ceru or whatever. don't pick stealth normals.
 
Looking forward to the “how to remove items without knock 101” course

Jokes aside yeah someone needed to do this, and i cba lmao. Thank you.

In the meantime i fleshed out that knock off tinkaton set

Tinkaton @ Leftovers / Air Balloon
Ability: Mold Breaker
Tera Type: Water / Flying
EVs: 248 HP / 8 Atk / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
- Knock Off
- Stealth Rock / Encore
- Gigaton Hammer / Play Rough
- Encore / Thunder Wave / Filler

As i said before, tinkaton is the only pokemon in SV with both knock off and mold breaker, letting it break through dark-absorb pokemon if positioned well enough. This is a massive niche in a metagame where knock-off immunity is a highly desired trait for many walls

Tera water is already a good defensive tera for tink, but also hitting gliscor for 25% on switch-in is a great benefit. Sadly woger is definitely tough for a team with tinkaton as their only setter
Thats why I suggest bringing a second, alternative rocks setter (maybe fairy tera or flying kingambit), or at the very least building a team that can pressure woger without rocks.

Edit: Flying is also a weirdly good tera for Steel/Fairy? Ground immunity, fighting resist, you get flying rocks for woger and to hit gliscor for neutral, and tinkaton even gets ice hammer if you wanna hit gliscor anyways. So yeah also consider running tera flying.
 
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Ok so let's say you're playing webs/hazard stack/etc and you need to take knock absorbers into account, what are your options here, are they any good? Lets go through them all. (I'm not gonna list like every pokemon that can do every method, there's a lot but I will use examples)

Uncontroversially Good
-Tinkaton is, as previously stated, the freest way to be able to get items off without fear, and Tinkaton is well, decent enough, though it doesn't like having to deal with Ceruledge very much.
-Trick is on a lot of good and decent mons, including some other Knock Absorbers like Farigiraf, Arcanine, etc. as well as generally good workhorse mons like Ursaluna and Clefable. It is also signifigantly less free and, if you want to do a black sludge trick set, highly telegraphed and with a high opportunity cost (your item slot a move slot and your tera type). Not every mon that learns Trick really wants to trade their item away, so it's very much an emergency option.

Controversially Good
-So Prankster Trick is just better Trick right? Well, it depends, one one hand, it has the chance to force out early Teras, and many mons with this combo, like Grimmsnarl, Klefki, even Thund-I etc. have good ways to punish the Dark type. At the same time, for the same reasons, it's walled by the very Tera type it's trying to get around, alongside all the actual normal Prankster stuff you might want to do. Probably better than regular Trick overall but you're gonna be playing a lot of fun minigames with your opponent.

Gimmicky, But Have Potential
-Knock Off and Worry Seed/Simple Beam, mostly the former (Golduck is the only user of the latter combo) is, well, dogwater in a vacuum, but has a decent distribution for Sun/Rain/Grassy Terrain oriented mons, including Rillaboom, Meowscarada, Golduck etc.
-For similar reasons, Terrain Seed Covet, can be a surprising option useable on a fair amount of mons, especially on mons that can also run a Knock Off/Trick/etc set. It usually only works once, it doesn't work on Ceruledge, but it isn't telegraphed at team preview and it's definitely never expected. Mons that can make good use of this are Rillaboom, the Arcanines, Tinkaton (DO NOT ATTEMPT), and iunno, Wigglytuff?
-It's definitely not good, but I'd be lying if I didn't say Gem Covet (or any consumable plus covet really, if you wanna run like, curse white herb Snorlax or something) was very funny. Ambipom gets Knock Off so you can use it as a Knock Absorber lure and then (If they aren't Ceruledge, which they probably are) click an extremely juicy stab technician normal gem covet for like, 24%.
-I'm just gonna put all the Magician Gimmicks here, since, because we have gems back, at the cost of tera type of course, Braxien and Hoopa can attempt to click an extremely juicy coverage or stab move and maybe steal an item. Hoopa has Knock so they're the good user here. You can do Seeds too, I guess.
-You would be surprised how many mons learn Skill Swap plus Knock Off, there's even some that actually aren't crippling themselves by doing this! This is yet another gimmick that for some reason, Tinkaton gets. Your best bets here are like, Iron Valiant, Gardevoir, Deoxys-S, Sableye, Hoopa, but the pool is actually fairly deep. SS Contrary onto Bulk Up Ceruledge with Malamar for a fun time.

Gimmicky, No Potential
-Entrainment plus Knock Off would be flat better than skill swap knock off if the pool weren't so incredibly shallow, only Leavany, Cetitan, and Pawmot gets this, and in most cases Pawmot clicking entrainment doesn't do anything because it's got volt absorb.

Desperation
-On a terrain team you can use Seed Pickpocket, or maybe Snowball Pickpocket or something. You can bluff a prankster Grimmsnarl or try to lure in Ceruledge with Weavile or, again, Tinkaton is also here, able to do this thing it doesn't want or need to do.

Completely Non-Functional
-Because of the way they're worded, no, Scrappy/Mind's Eye/Pixilate Covet don't do anything, don't bother, you aren't cooking.
-If you don't have Trick, but you have Switcheroo, or you have Thief, sorry but you're SOL, those are Dark type moves and if you could use those, you'd use Knock anyways.
-I am not even going to give Fling Covet the time of day.

I think that's abt everything. It looks dire I know, but most of these gimmicks are pretty interchangeable, lots of mons have access to at least two, so if you really must, you can slot one in somewhere. You could also like, just run earthquake until ppl stop using Ceruledge, Chandlure, etc as their dark absorbers.
 
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