Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]

[Beaf Cultist]

Honestly it's significantly less split than it first appears. I don't have to add to the discussion as others, such as Storm Zone, have explained my stance better than I could, but beyond a rather limited amount of people on the Smogon forums, the vast majority of people are pro tera. Even when you look into this very thread, you can see a very large divide between pro tera opinions and their reception compared to anti teraftakes

You can’t just throw out something like this lmfao. Regardless of how you meant it to sound, it just sounds to me like you’re trying to ostracize anyone who’s anti-tera.

Also I’ve said this in previous posts but I’ll say it again since I haven’t seen too much argument against it from the pro-Tera side. Now that we’re mostly past the ”Tera is unpredictable because I’m not used to it” arguments, can we please talk about the actually problematic part of Tera? That, of course, being the massive amount of mons broken by it. If we have to ban 5-10 mons from OU just to save a mechanic, not even mentioning lower tiers, is it really worth keeping around? I’d like to hear some arguments against this cause people who want Tera to stay have been kinda avoiding talking about it.

 

[Alternator]

You can’t just throw out something like this lmfao. Regardless of how you meant it to sound, it just sounds to me like you’re trying to ostracize anyone who’s anti-tera.

Also I’ve said this in previous posts but I’ll say it again since I haven’t seen too much argument against it from the pro-Tera side. Now that we’re mostly past the ”Tera is unpredictable because I’m not used to it” arguments, can we please talk about the actually problematic part of Tera? That, of course, being the massive amount of mons broken by it. If we have to ban 5-10 mons from OU just to save a mechanic, not even mentioning lower tiers, is it really worth keeping around? I’d like to hear some arguments against this cause people who want Tera to stay have been kinda avoiding talking about it.

What do you believe needs at least a suspect with terastalization that would be fine without? I can see four: Dragonite, Annihilape, Roaring Moon, and Dragapult. How are you getting to ten?

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

What do you believe needs at least a suspect with terastalization that would be fine without? I can see four: Dragonite, Annihilape, Roaring Moon, and Dragapult. How are you getting to ten?

iron valiant is nuts with tera.. steel, fighting, fairy just can make it stupid to revenge kill... fairy makes it able to nuke dragonite at +2 through multiscale and just nuke any neutral mon. Steel covers any weaknesses it has and makes it stupider to revenge kill since its very very fast and u may have lost smth u needed for smth else... and prob have smth else weakened.

Volcarona has grass, and psychic ive seen. All nuke smth, grass nukes the waters that can be commonly used to check it. Psychic nukes a would be counter in clodsire and great tusk while removing its weaknesses tho not as useful... mainly to lure clodsire. With a good tera it is easily able to clean through teams, esp if u lure in their counter... well beware of sucker punch chien-pao and sucker punch kingambit

 

[DJ_red_lantern]

Tera definitely seems like it becomes more fair the more I play with it. I had a session yesterday climbing up to 1600 and I honestly can't say there was a single game where Tera determined the outcome of the game and there was nothing that could be done about it.

Just thinking of a few examples where I got "Tera sniped" so to speak.

1. My opponent went Water Tera Great Tusk to be able to survive a fire attack from my Chi-Yu and kill it back. Tough stuff, my Chi-Yu got sniped! BUT now their Great Tusk is still at 20% and they have used up their Tera already. From there I could continue to play on and overpower them.
2. My opponent went Grass Tera Chi-Yu and Tera Blasted my Dondozo. Chunked my Dondozo hard but then I could get a free switch in to something else that resists grass, and could carry a Tera advantage to the win.
3. My opponent went Ground Tera Iron Moth to break through my Clodsire. It dealt like 65% first attack. BUT I built my Clodsire around situations like this, and used my Ground Tera so I lost my Ground weakness and could start healing up. They are then left with a fairly useless Iron Moth in to my team, especially now that I know it won't be Tera Grass my Dondozo can also wall it.

All of these examples were just instances where I theoretically got got by Terastalization but none of them felt unbeatable at all. Especially the last example I think shows a lot of the strength of the mechanic, both from a game play and team building perspective. I was originally a different Tera type on Clodsire but kept finding that the psychic weakness and ground weakness were what were getting the Clodsire so I set Ground Tera to remove those weaknesses and be able to heal up in emergencies.

To me, Tera seems like it adds a very fun dynamic to battling and especially team building. I have adapted my Tera types on my team a few times now and the team just keeps feeling better and better at patching up it's weaknesses. This mechanic rewards you deeply for understanding your team and it's match ups, which I think is the sign of a good mechanic.

 

[Hiddenfreezer]

Btw I realized something when I thought about Dynamax while I want to keep Terra.
Unlike Dynamax, you can stop the terra turn with Fake Out flinches, scout with protect or whirlwind the Terra user. Terra does not temporarily double your bulk aswell. Dynamax felt oppressive and forced. Terra feels "comebacky" and it seems to let the better player win.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

1. My opponent went Water Tera Great Tusk to be able to survive a fire attack from my Chi-Yu and kill it back. Tough stuff, my Chi-Yu got sniped! BUT now their Great Tusk is still at 20% and they have used up their Tera already. From there I could continue to play on and overpower them.
2. My opponent went Grass Tera Chi-Yu and Tera Blasted my Dondozo. Chunked my Dondozo hard but then I could get a free switch in to something else that resists grass, and could carry a Tera advantage to the win.
3. My opponent went Ground Tera Iron Moth to break through my Clodsire. It dealt like 65% first attack. BUT I built my Clodsire around situations like this, and used my Ground Tera so I lost my Ground weakness and could start healing up. They are then left with a fairly useless Iron Moth in to my team, especially now that I know it won't be Tera Grass my Dondozo can also wall it.

1. nobody complains about a defensive tera ever
2. I mean... chi-yu is not exactly struggling vs dodonzo and needs only 1 flinch to beat sp def and force rest cycle
3. They could have just fire blasted.... esp it covers that, that was just a bad play esp since fire blast kills either way and if they know you have tera

 

[Ardy]

Just my two cents in the matter.

Laddering this gen has been really, really fun. Probably the most fun Ive had with a new gen outside of early days mega chaos of XY. In addition, I dont particularly have too many problems with Tera, but thats just my playstyle. I play conservatively, and oftentimes keep Tera in the back pocket to such a degree I find myself winning the game without Tera-ing 3/4 times.
As others have echoed, I dont think a restriction is going to solve much of anything. We might see differently in SPL or whatever major tourney sees high level SV play first, but for now, the most popular tera types have, for the most part, been discovered. A "Tera type at team preview" doesnt really solve much apart from examples like the Tera fighting Garganacl example posted before in this thread, people are, for the most part, in tune to the possibilities your Tera types can be when they load in. All preview tera really does is reduce the pool from maybe 2-3 types to 1 per mon. I dont think thats a significant change at all.
I think the most major problem in the tier right now is how bad balance seems to be. Semi-stall and stall have their place, Offense and HO have their place, but mons like Annihilape, Roaring Moon, Gholdengo, Great Tusk, Dragonite, etc shit over Balance pretty hard. Teamstyles that were niche in previous generations, like Webs or Screens, are just really good this gen with the high power level of the tier, and Tera is excacerbating the issue. I'm not saying that Webs/Screens needs to go back in the shadows or relegated to lower tiers, but this tipping of the scales, while personally fun for me, seems like it will eventually lead to a bad state of the meta. Im personally very interested in viewing high level tournament replays of this meta, because I dont see any way that its not going to confirm what I suspect: HO and Stall are ruling the tier, HO because the playstyle takes the most advantage of Tera, and Stall because its oftentimes the only way of defensively withstanding the offensive juggernaut that is a boosted Tera threat. While the knee jerk reaction is to call this favoring bulkier teams or saying that not every meta has to be the same, I just feel like this situation makes the meta tend towards rewarding matchup fishing. Sure, Tera is fun and its really fun laddering with it and playing with it, but the real question should be is it good for the health of the tier? Does it lead to a consistent metagame? Laddering with it is fine, because hey, if you run into a Tera that counters your whole team, thats fine, load up another game. Playing Bo1 tourneys with Tera? I imagine it'll just lead to players trying to out-Tera and out offense one another, and a lot of games lost at team preview, and that, in my view, is just not at all consistent or competitive.
As much as I enjoy the mechanic, I dont see it staying, and Im okay with that, because at the end of the day, we should be trying to achieve the most competitive metagame. Im sure there will be an OM that satisfies my Tera urge, and thats why I think it should be suspect tested at the very least.

Thank you all for reading!

 

[KunkkaSpammer]

Tera team preview seems alright, but id rather not ban it at all tbh, i feel like there will become a predictable standard, but i also think that it helps team innovation!

 

[TheCounterTeamer]

You can’t just throw out something like this lmfao. Regardless of how you meant it to sound, it just sounds to me like you’re trying to ostracize anyone who’s anti-tera.

Also I’ve said this in previous posts but I’ll say it again since I haven’t seen too much argument against it from the pro-Tera side. Now that we’re mostly past the ”Tera is unpredictable because I’m not used to it” arguments, can we please talk about the actually problematic part of Tera? That, of course, being the massive amount of mons broken by it. If we have to ban 5-10 mons from OU just to save a mechanic, not even mentioning lower tiers, is it really worth keeping around? I’d like to hear some arguments against this cause people who want Tera to stay have been kinda avoiding talking about it.

Which mons are broken specifically by Tera? I can only think of Dragonite, Regieleki, and maybe Annihilape. Valiant and Fish possibly too, but they aren’t too much of a problem as of now. (Edit: Valiant and Fish might be a problem outside of Tera now that I think about it too)

(I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: all the currently banned mons would have been more broken without Tera and Roaring Moon is also broken without it)

Tera is far more of a decentralizing factor keeping broken mons in check rather than making previously fine mons broken. There is no way to spin that Tera is uncompetitve out of a vaccum, and that is ultimately what Smogon is about. Anyways, back on track: Tera has so far seen use both defensively and offensively. Defensively we have things like Tera Steel Garganacl used to merc Flutter Mane or Water Absorb Clodsire with either Ghost Tera or Flying Tera for Palafin, or Steel Tera for Bundle. None of the above mons hugely benefited from Tera either. Currently I think that the only problem is Roaring Moon. Tera encourages better building, and Moon, which is regularly broken, shouldn’t be an argument.

In conclusion, very few mons are actually broken by Tera itself, and are more the mons themselves being good.

Edit2: Also, I’m noticing that the majority of anti-ban posts get more likes on average than pro-ban posts, and tend to be more nuanced. Just sayin. To be clear, this isn’t meant to be against pro-ban people. It’s just my personal observation that anti-ban posts tend to be received better.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Edit2: Also, I’m noticing that the majority of anti-ban posts get more likes on average than pro-ban posts, and tend to be more nuanced. Just sayin

Not here to fact check this. Just wanna reiterate that this ‘holier-than-thou’ mentality sucks ass. Also I made a post before about mons I thought were broken with Tera, but there are even more coming in Home that I wasn’t aware of. Mark my words, if Tera isn’t gone from OU by the end of the gen, it most certainly will be from UU or RU, and many many mons will need to be banned in every Tera-legal tier just to balance it.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

Tera is far more of a decentralizing factor keeping broken mons in check rather than making previously fine mons broken. There is no way to spin that Tera is uncompetitve out of a vaccum, and that is ultimately what Smogon is about. Anyways, back on track: Tera has so far seen use both defensively and offensively. Defensively we have things like Tera Steel Garganacl used to merc Flutter Mane or Water Absorb Clodsire with either Ghost Tera or Flying Tera for Palafin, or Steel Tera for Bundle. None of the above mons hugely benefited from Tera either. Currently I think that the only problem is Roaring Moon. Tera encourages better building, and Moon, which is regularly broken, shouldn’t be an argument.

In conclusion, very few mons are actually broken by Tera itself, and are more the mons themselves being good.

yes but it can make it so mons that are very good will become broken as a result... i doubt mons such as dragonite would be broken or ape would be broken if tera wasnt here... it certainly makes them broken and i mean there will be many mos to follow

 

[Codename C.A.T]

Can we not dilute our arguments to “oh well we get more likes and you don’t therefore your argument is wrong haha”? I’d prefer if we actually had a debate about this instead of half-assed arguments from both sides. I’ll just extend this post with some tera ban arguments:

Ok, yeah, sure, if we ban some stuff from OU like Roaring Moon, that would stop the problem a bit. But hey, Dragonite is right there, too! And if we ban Dragonite, who’s to say we can’t just spam Baxcalibur? With Baxcalibur gone, just use Garchomp and we’ll be fine! Suddenly, like 60% of OU is banned, and it’s all because of one thing: Tera makes them way too fuckin’ strong. I’m not saying that any of these examples are outright broken, of course not, but I think they all easily have potential to be broken when you factor in Tera’s double STAB boost or a free 3rd STAB on their coverage move like Earthquake or whatever. Defensively, it’s also horrifying on bulky sweepers. Your Volcarona answer is great until it goes Tera Water, sets up a million Quiver Dances, and sweeps you. You can handle Annihilape fine, but then it goes Tera Steel and just rips you open with Rage Fist. You got your fighting in on a Garganacl, great work! But now it’s gonna Tera Fairy and set up a billion IDefs. Of course, you could Tera defensively to stop them, but that can easily come back to bite your ass later when you don’t have a Tera to stop the OTHER sweeper. In total, here’s all the mons I think are broken or have potential to be broken with Tera:
Annihilape
Roaring Moon
Chi-Yu
Dragonite
Garganacl
Chien-Pao
Volcarona
Iron Valiant
If you think we should just ban these instead of banning the mechanic, that’s great, think how you’d like. But to me, banning 7 Pokémon when there’s one root cause to them being broken is just too much.

 

[alephgalactus]

Can we not dilute our arguments to “oh well we get more likes and you don’t therefore your argument is wrong haha”? I’d prefer if we actually had a debate about this instead of half-assed arguments from both sides. I’ll just extend this post with some tera ban arguments:

Ok, yeah, sure, if we ban some stuff from OU like Roaring Moon, that would stop the problem a bit. But hey, Dragonite is right there, too! And if we ban Dragonite, who’s to say we can’t just spam Baxcalibur? With Baxcalibur gone, just use Garchomp and we’ll be fine! Suddenly, like 60% of OU is banned, and it’s all because of one thing: Tera makes them way too fuckin’ strong. I’m not saying that any of these examples are outright broken, of course not, but I think they all easily have potential to be broken when you factor in Tera’s double STAB boost or a free 3rd STAB on their coverage move like Earthquake or whatever. Defensively, it’s also horrifying on bulky sweepers. Your Volcarona answer is great until it goes Tera Water, sets up a million Quiver Dances, and sweeps you. You can handle Annihilape fine, but then it goes Tera Steel and just rips you open with Rage Fist. You got your fighting in on a Garganacl, great work! But now it’s gonna Tera Fairy and set up a billion IDefs. Of course, you could Tera defensively to stop them, but that can easily come back to bite your ass later when you don’t have a Tera to stop the OTHER sweeper. In total, here’s all the mons I think are broken or have potential to be broken with Tera:
Annihilape
Roaring Moon
Chi-Yu
Dragonite
Garganacl
Chien-Pao
Volcarona
Iron Valiant
If you think we should just ban these instead of banning the mechanic, that’s great, think how you’d like. But to me, banning 7 Pokémon when there’s one root cause to them being broken is just too much.

You didn’t mention Dragapult on that list. I’d just like to give it a mention because it’s one of the best Tera Blast users there is and it’s definitely worthy of a ban if Tera stays. Also, Chien-Pao and especially Chi-Yu need to go regardless of Tera.

 

[Vastus]

obviously tera is very polarizing right now and it has been pretty difficult to reckon with it all as tier leader, so i went into my thoughts in longer-form

New drinking game: take a shot everytime Finch says 'I don't know'.

Jokes aside, appreciate the openness and communication.

 

[Cuddly]

So here are some of my thoughts on Tera. But before I do, I’d like to point out that poll Freezia had on Tera.

Vast majority of people think Tera is fine and as you can tell I agree. It is a YouTube poll so take that as you will, and even though I do agree it should stay, I do think there are (potentially) problematic elements of that (could) be an issue in the future.

1. The most potentially problematic element is Tera Blast. The most problematic element is making Pokemon who are on the edge of being banned but lack a certain attacking move or a lot scarier. Like for instance Volcarona getting Special Ground coverage, or Dragapult getting a Physical Ghost move (or any decent power fighting move on either side). Just imagine them getting Earthpower or something even like Shadow Claw respectfully. Then you think “yeah this is clearly problematic”, but after some more thinking, the best course of action would to be banning the Pokemon themselves. Why? Well if Volcarona did get Earthpower, would it be appropriate to ban Earthpower and not Volcarona? No. If a Pokemon is on the edge of being problematic, then that Pokemon is clearly the problem and not the move. Do you want Shadow Claw banned because it broke Dragapult? No, ban Dragapult instead. There is a major difference from giving these Pokemon Earthpower, Shadow Claw, or Close Combat, and Tera Blast, and that is Tera Blast is 1 move that changes typing depending on your Tera type and after you Terastallize. It’s not effectively giving every Pokemon every coverage move, otherwise you’d be seeing BoltBeam combos on Pokemon without Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Aside from notion of banning a move to more or less protect some Pokemon, and Tera Blast being more limited than actually giving every Pokemon every coverage move, Tera Blast has a huge cost for your team as only 1 Pokemon is allowed to use it fully and rest of your team can’t Tera either. I often find myself avoiding Tera Blast when I can because Tera has a lot of utility and you never know when you might need it in middle of battle. Despite this, I can still see why Tera Blast could be problematic and think that Tera Blast could be put on The Radar and possibly Suspect Tested, after a bunch of more obviously broken stuff like Chien-Pao and Cyclizar are banned.
2. The potentional to temporarily stave off revenge killing to sometimes denying certain teams ability to revenge kill. In Pokemon, the ability to revenge kill something is pretty important tactic. It’s Pokemon’s equal to protecting your chess pieces with another piece. You don’t want to so easily become behind in resources, so you often send out an offensive answer like Scizor, Dragapult, or Choice Scarf Pokemon like Gholdengo or good ol’ days of Pursuit Tyranitar, who more often then not can get a KO or do at least some damage to the Pokemon switching in. There are also defensive answers to dealing with what is in front of you too like just walling that Pokemon and wouldn’t be considered as a revenge killing tactic. With Tera, revenge killing had been shaken up a bit to make it a bit harder to revenge kill. On paper, it seems like revenge killing is just impossible, but in practice I felt like more often it was my fault for failing to revenge kill and Terastallizing my Chien-pao into a Poison type still lead to me being revenge killed anyways. This largely has to do with neutral hits being often just as effective against a frailer weakened target, and going full defensively for Tera usually lacks the offensive power. Like for example, Roaring Moon can Tera Flying for Acrobatics STAB and resisting Flying, but is still weak to Ice, and plenty of Pokemon run Rock Coverage too, so it isn’t the best defensively. But if Roaring Moon picks Steel or Fire, it doesn’t get much offensively besides STAB for Iron Head against Fairy/Ice, and Fire Fang STAB or Fire Tera Blast for like Kingambit I guess. As the game evolves, this might change to make some Pokemon impossible or overbearing to revenge kill, but I haven’t seen it yet. And realistically speaking, how many Pokemon would that be, and how many of those Pokemon also same time lack a lot of defensive counterplay? Don’t forget, your answer Iron Valiant isn’t just Bullet Punch Scizor or Choice Scarf Gholdengo. It can be the defensive options like Skeledirge or many defensive Poison types. This can be restricting since a lot of offensive teams have less options, so this aspect is still something to look at.

For the most part, the issue is more often with the Pokemon themselves than Tera. Only few cases I can think of where a Pokemon is fine without Tera but busted with Tera are Dragonite, Dragapult, Volcarona, and Iron Moth. And really, only Dragonite gets busted from the type changing part, other 3 are only potentially busted because of Tera Blast. Other examples would be like Chien-pao or Roaring Moon, who definitely feel like they are busted with and without Tera.

 

[IronedSandwich]

I support terastalization as a healthy OU mechanic. Unpredictable elements which such as hidden power and unrevealed teammates have long been part of healthy past gen mechanics and while Terastalization is a very strong mechanic it is also a very flexible one which can act as a different puzzle piece for different teams - perhaps comparable in that sense to Megas in gens 6 and 7. Mega Evolution was centralizing in the sense you would rarely want a team with no mega, but it also added to flexible teambuilding and didn't lead to an unhealthy meta.

While terastalization could certainly make certain pokemon more unbalanced I would much rather pokemon be banned than terastalization as a whole.

As far as restrictions go, I believe the idea of restricting terastalization into STAB is too much of a complex ban and distorts what terastalization is as a concept too much, it would be like bringing in a new mechanic to replace Terastalization. Otherwise, I'm not necessarily opposed to partial restrictions. No tiering action or restricting to team preview would suit me, and I wouldn't mind banning Tera Blast but I agree with the OP that it woudn't change all that much.

These are just my two cents. No special claim of expertise or anything

 

[DrPumpkinz]

So here are some of my thoughts on Tera. But before I do, I’d like to point out that poll Freezia had on Tera.
View attachment 470206
Vast majority of people think Tera is fine and as you can tell I agree. It is a YouTube poll so take that as you will, and even though I do agree it should stay, I do think there are (potentially) problematic elements of that (could) be an issue in the future.

1. The most potentially problematic element is Tera Blast. The most problematic element is making Pokemon who are on the edge of being banned but lack a certain attacking move or a lot scarier. Like for instance Volcarona getting Special Ground coverage, or Dragapult getting a Physical Ghost move (or any decent power fighting move on either side). Just imagine them getting Earthpower or something even like Shadow Claw respectfully. Then you think “yeah this is clearly problematic”, but after some more thinking, the best course of action would to be banning the Pokemon themselves. Why? Well if Volcarona did get Earthpower, would it be appropriate to ban Earthpower and not Volcarona? No. If a Pokemon is on the edge of being problematic, then that Pokemon is clearly the problem and not the move. Do you want Shadow Claw banned because it broke Dragapult? No, ban Dragapult instead. There is a major difference from giving these Pokemon Earthpower, Shadow Claw, or Close Combat, and Tera Blast, and that is Tera Blast is 1 move that changes typing depending on your Tera type and after you Terastallize. It’s not effectively giving every Pokemon every coverage move, otherwise you’d be seeing BoltBeam combos on Pokemon without Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Aside from notion of banning a move to more or less protect some Pokemon, and Tera Blast being more limited than actually giving every Pokemon every coverage move, Tera Blast has a huge cost for your team as only 1 Pokemon is allowed to use it fully and rest of your team can’t Tera either. I often find myself avoiding Tera Blast when I can because Tera has a lot of utility and you never know when you might need it in middle of battle. Despite this, I can still see why Tera Blast could be problematic and think that Tera Blast could be put on The Radar and possibly Suspect Tested, after a bunch of more obviously broken stuff like Chien-Pao and Cyclizar are banned.
2. The potentional to temporarily stave off revenge killing to sometimes denying certain teams ability to revenge kill. In Pokemon, the ability to revenge kill something is pretty important tactic. It’s Pokemon’s equal to protecting your chess pieces with another piece. You don’t want to so easily become behind in resources, so you often send out an offensive answer like Scizor, Dragapult, or Choice Scarf Pokemon like Gholdengo or good ol’ days of Pursuit Tyranitar, who more often then not can get a KO or do at least some damage to the Pokemon switching in. There are also defensive answers to dealing with what is in front of you too like just walling that Pokemon and wouldn’t be considered as a revenge killing tactic. With Tera, revenge killing had been shaken up a bit to make it a bit harder to revenge kill. On paper, it seems like revenge killing is just impossible, but in practice I felt like more often it was my fault for failing to revenge kill and Terastallizing my Chien-pao into a Poison type still lead to me being revenge killed anyways. This largely has to do with neutral hits being often just as effective against a frailer weakened target, and going full defensively for Tera usually lacks the offensive power. Like for example, Roaring Moon can Tera Flying for Acrobatics STAB and resisting Flying, but is still weak to Ice, and plenty of Pokemon run Rock Coverage too, so it isn’t the best defensively. But if Roaring Moon picks Steel or Fire, it doesn’t get much offensively besides STAB for Iron Head against Fairy/Ice, and Fire Fang STAB or Fire Tera Blast for like Kingambit I guess. As the game evolves, this might change to make some Pokemon impossible or overbearing to revenge kill, but I haven’t seen it yet. And realistically speaking, how many Pokemon would that be, and how many of those Pokemon also same time lack a lot of defensive counterplay? Don’t forget, your answer Iron Valiant isn’t just Bullet Punch Scizor or Choice Scarf Gholdengo. It can be the defensive options like Skeledirge or many defensive Poison types. This can be restricting since a lot of offensive teams have less options, so this aspect is still something to look at.

For the most part, the issue is more often with the Pokemon themselves than Tera. Only few cases I can think of where a Pokemon is fine without Tera but busted with Tera are Dragonite, Dragapult, Volcarona, and Iron Moth. And really, only Dragonite gets busted from the type changing part, other 3 are only potentially busted because of Tera Blast. Other examples would be like Chien-pao or Roaring Moon, who definitely feel like they are busted with and without Tera.

I would not take anything Mr. Hitmontop and his audience say with any degree of legitimacy.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

So here are some of my thoughts on Tera. But before I do, I’d like to point out that poll Freezia had on Tera.
View attachment 470206

I dont think having a youtuber poll is even something credible.... its like asking every casual person of what they think of dynamax.... the awnser is gonna sway drastically. Esp ones that think of freezai as their lord and saviour or something. Aka ones who go "stall is no skill" and "smogon loves stall"

I support terastalization as a healthy OU mechanic. Unpredictable elements which such as hidden power and unrevealed teammates have long been part of healthy past gen mechanics and while Terastalization is a very strong mechanic it is also a very flexible one which can act as a different puzzle piece for different teams - perhaps comparable in that sense to Megas in gens 6 and 7. Mega Evolution was centralizing in the sense you would rarely want a team with no mega, but it also added to flexible teambuilding and didn't lead to an unhealthy meta.

While terastalization could certainly make certain pokemon more unbalanced I would much rather pokemon be banned than terastalization as a whole.

And how many pokemon are you willing to ban just to make tera stay... cuz this is just the start of the meta... many more pokemon will join and be broken with tera...... its a puzzle piece sure... but its like having to guess in a match which of the 3-4 pieces can potentially fit in the puzzle to awnser your question. You do not know what tera... and a good player will never be obvious with it. like they will not switch in a roaring moon on a brelooom... they wont do that.. they will force out a espathra for ex... force you to bring in breloom and make u guess "if breloom can actually counter it with CB mach punch"

 

[JforJeff]

So here are some of my thoughts on Tera. But before I do, I’d like to point out that poll Freezia had on Tera.
View attachment 470206

To be fair, I didn't know that poll existed lol. I would be willing to bet the number of those who would prefer a metagame without tera is higher.

E: Higher than the projected number in the poll, that is.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Vast majority of people think Tera is fine

*vast majority of freezai viewers who also are interested enough in the channel to take part in a poll think tera is fine

 

[Finchinator]

So here are some of my thoughts on Tera. But before I do, I’d like to point out that poll Freezia had on Tera.
View attachment 470206
Vast majority of people think Tera is fine and as you can tell I agree. It is a YouTube poll so take that as you will, and even though I do agree it should stay, I do think there are (potentially) problematic elements of that (could) be an issue in the future.

This poll holds no weight at all. We will have a survey with a qualified demographic and a suspect based on reqs that weeds out the obvious issue here.

1. The most potentially problematic element is Tera Blast. The most problematic element is making Pokemon who are on the edge of being banned but lack a certain attacking move or a lot scarier. Like for instance Volcarona getting Special Ground coverage, or Dragapult getting a Physical Ghost move (or any decent power fighting move on either side). Just imagine them getting Earthpower or something even like Shadow Claw respectfully. Then you think “yeah this is clearly problematic”, but after some more thinking, the best course of action would to be banning the Pokemon themselves. Why? Well if Volcarona did get Earthpower, would it be appropriate to ban Earthpower and not Volcarona? No. If a Pokemon is on the edge of being problematic, then that Pokemon is clearly the problem and not the move. Do you want Shadow Claw banned because it broke Dragapult? No, ban Dragapult instead. There is a major difference from giving these Pokemon Earthpower, Shadow Claw, or Close Combat, and Tera Blast, and that is Tera Blast is 1 move that changes typing depending on your Tera type and after you Terastallize. It’s not effectively giving every Pokemon every coverage move, otherwise you’d be seeing BoltBeam combos on Pokemon without Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. Aside from notion of banning a move to more or less protect some Pokemon, and Tera Blast being more limited than actually giving every Pokemon every coverage move, Tera Blast has a huge cost for your team as only 1 Pokemon is allowed to use it fully and rest of your team can’t Tera either. I often find myself avoiding Tera Blast when I can because Tera has a lot of utility and you never know when you might need it in middle of battle. Despite this, I can still see why Tera Blast could be problematic and think that Tera Blast could be put on The Radar and possibly Suspect Tested, after a bunch of more obviously broken stuff like Chien-Pao and Cyclizar are banned.
2. The potentional to temporarily stave off revenge killing to sometimes denying certain teams ability to revenge kill. In Pokemon, the ability to revenge kill something is pretty important tactic. It’s Pokemon’s equal to protecting your chess pieces with another piece. You don’t want to so easily become behind in resources, so you often send out an offensive answer like Scizor, Dragapult, or Choice Scarf Pokemon like Gholdengo or good ol’ days of Pursuit Tyranitar, who more often then not can get a KO or do at least some damage to the Pokemon switching in. There are also defensive answers to dealing with what is in front of you too like just walling that Pokemon and wouldn’t be considered as a revenge killing tactic. With Tera, revenge killing had been shaken up a bit to make it a bit harder to revenge kill. On paper, it seems like revenge killing is just impossible, but in practice I felt like more often it was my fault for failing to revenge kill and Terastallizing my Chien-pao into a Poison type still lead to me being revenge killed anyways. This largely has to do with neutral hits being often just as effective against a frailer weakened target, and going full defensively for Tera usually lacks the offensive power. Like for example, Roaring Moon can Tera Flying for Acrobatics STAB and resisting Flying, but is still weak to Ice, and plenty of Pokemon run Rock Coverage too, so it isn’t the best defensively. But if Roaring Moon picks Steel or Fire, it doesn’t get much offensively besides STAB for Iron Head against Fairy/Ice, and Fire Fang STAB or Fire Tera Blast for like Kingambit I guess. As the game evolves, this might change to make some Pokemon impossible or overbearing to revenge kill, but I haven’t seen it yet. And realistically speaking, how many Pokemon would that be, and how many of those Pokemon also same time lack a lot of defensive counterplay? Don’t forget, your answer Iron Valiant isn’t just Bullet Punch Scizor or Choice Scarf Gholdengo. It can be the defensive options like Skeledirge or many defensive Poison types. This can be restricting since a lot of offensive teams have less options, so this aspect is still something to look at.

For the most part, the issue is more often with the Pokemon themselves than Tera. Only few cases I can think of where a Pokemon is fine without Tera but busted with Tera are Dragonite, Dragapult, Volcarona, and Iron Moth. And really, only Dragonite gets busted from the type changing part, other 3 are only potentially busted because of Tera Blast. Other examples would be like Chien-pao or Roaring Moon, who definitely feel like they are busted with and without Tera.

Tera Blast has been isolated as one of the least problematic aspects of Tera and only included in the OP as a formality. This misses the entire issue at hand and would be a blatantly unnecessary ban.

 

[DaemonChop]

I would not take anything Mr. Hitmontop and his audience say with any degree of legitimacy.

Needlessly rude, it's at the very least a measure of how a large casual audience feels. Which I agree isn't super relevant to how tiering should be done but there's no reason to shit on one of the most dedicated content creators

 

[ThitOneGuy]

As I've been playing more, and reading more posts on this thread, I've come to the conclusion that Tera is balanced, and a few pokemon are busted with it.

The best solution I've seen is banning Tera on certain mons. Not like the "OU mons can't use it but UU mons can" type, as that has the issue many others have pointed out of basically just making a revolving door. The solution I've seen a few times that makes the most sense is making specific bans on Tera on mons that Tera breaks.

Examples: if Dragapult is considered broken with Tera, we suspect it, and then possibly ban it from Terastalizing, meaning that if you want to use Pult in OU, you can, but you can't Tera it there.

When Regieleki comes, if Tera makes it broken by giving it coverage, ban Tera on Eleki.

If Avalugg is broken in NU or whatever tier he ends up in due to Tera, it gets to be used in higher tiers with Tera, but not in the tier he's too much for.

While this could be pretty hard to implement, it would also fall well into the bounds of a "gentleman's agreement" that's replicable on cart, without being too unnecessarily complex like banning certain Tera types on certain mons.

Overall I don't think Tera needs to be banned, and that banning it's use on the few mons it breaks would be the best solution, as it would keep the generational identity intact, while also nerfing the most problematic parts, being the mons who abuse it.

 

[HydreigonTheChild]

As I've been playing more, and reading more posts on this thread, I've come to the conclusion that Tera is balanced, and a few pokemon are busted with it.

The best solution I've seen is banning Tera on certain mons. Not like the "OU mons can't use it but UU mons can" type, as that has the issue many others have pointed out of basically just making a revolving door. The solution I've seen a few times that makes the most sense is making specific bans on Tera on mons that Tera breaks.

Examples: if Dragapult is considered broken with Tera, we suspect it, and then possibly ban it from Terastalizing, meaning that if you want to use Pult in OU, you can, but you can't Tera it there.

When Regieleki comes, if Tera makes it broken by giving it coverage, ban Tera on Eleki.

If Avalugg is broken in NU or whatever tier he ends up in due to Tera, it gets to be used in higher tiers with Tera, but not in the tier he's too much for.

While this could be pretty hard to implement, it would also fall well into the bounds of a "gentleman's agreement" that's replicable on cart, without being too unnecessarily complex like banning certain Tera types on certain mons.

Overall I don't think Tera needs to be banned, and that banning it's use on the few mons it breaks would be the best solution, as it would keep the generational identity intact, while also nerfing the most problematic parts, being the mons who abuse it.

banning tera on certain mons is a system that has been tried by SS ubers.... but has failed since the mechanic is still broken as a result... and trying to hold onto it just makes the meta worse as a result and trying to make it complex as hell.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

Needlessly rude

Found the freezai viewer


Jokes aside, I really don’t get why people are under the assumption that Smogon, a competitive Pokemon forum first and foremost, would be attempting to cater to the wants of casual players with their competitive tiering. Like, even reading through that sentence it sounds ridiculous. I hear the arguments about ‘but where would I go to play with Tera :(’, but online competitive battle simulators should be under no obligation to allow broken mechanics in their competitive tiers just to add ‘fun’!! If you want that, you can find people online to play custom games with, or buy the actual games and play them, or explore OMs and Pet Mods to find something that appeals to your tastes, or hell, just make one yourself! Smogon provides so many options for players to enjoy competitive battling in any way they want to, but if that way is unbalanced, there’s simply no place for it in OU, and arguments to the contrary have absolutely no ground to stand on.