Treads dropping to UU would probably push Donphan to RU, does RU even have any good spinners?
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion
- Thread starter TPP
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Treads dropping to UU would probably push Donphan to RU, does RU even have any good spinners?
every iron valiant abuser's nightmare
Avalugg is still RU isnt it? bad typing but hard to deny 95/184 physical bulk with recover. Crygonal has always been a favourite but its not that great...
yh it is avalugg is also up there but there's tonnes of strong special attackers its kinda situational
stuff like gardevoir mismagius sylveon etc
WO-CHIEN
"It drains the life-force from vegetation, causing nearby forests to instantly wither and fields to turn barren."
-Pokémon violet dex entry
"I'm Simple”
-Wo-Chien’s name, translated.
Wo-Chien is a niche mon for stall teams. I get it it’s not bad here and not that heat but I do not give a fuck. It has a major benefit of sitting on
without boosting moves with leech seed + protect + knock.
Physically Defensive
Wo-Chien @ Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Poison/Ghost
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Body Press
- Leech Seed
- Protect
As I mentioned, this set completely sits on without a boosting move. Leech seed pressure and knock off will force Nacl to burn many recovers. It is particularly effective with hazards as it can knock off boots while hazards chip away at Pokémon trying to switch around leech seed. Body press can snipe kills on 
and deals surprisingly high damage with defense investment.
This set only fits on stall because it is the only archetype that can afford to use
. Technically 
also has wish but it itself only works on sun, and wo-Chien is a waste of sun turns.Wish support from keeps it alive, because wo-Chien has no instant and reliable recovery to speak of. Knock Off can force progress, and adds another dimension to stall. A great partner is 
as it can pivot into special attacks and can also spam knock, while also having rapid spin to clear hazards.
Wo-Chien’s leech seed also brings with it benefits. It can wear down mons like
without substitute and 
, forcing chip damage and could also knock off valuable items. Leech seed also heals teammates, so it forces switches, and as I mentioned is good with hazards.
However, Wo-Chien has x4 weakness to bug, mainly U-turn. Due to this, a poison or ghost Tera type is recommended. The former resists fairy and is immune to poison, allowing it to sit on 
while the latter can spin-block. This is why you cannot run this on balance because balance actually cares about momentum and hates u-turn spam. Wo-Chien is one of few bulky leech seeders, so it has a niche.
"It drains the life-force from vegetation, causing nearby forests to instantly wither and fields to turn barren."
-Pokémon violet dex entry
"I'm Simple”
-Wo-Chien’s name, translated.
Wo-Chien is a niche mon for stall teams. I get it it’s not bad here and not that heat but I do not give a fuck. It has a major benefit of sitting on
without boosting moves with leech seed + protect + knock.Physically Defensive
Wo-Chien @ Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Poison/Ghost
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Body Press
- Leech Seed
- Protect
As I mentioned, this set completely sits on
without a boosting move. Leech seed pressure and knock off will force Nacl to burn many recovers. It is particularly effective with hazards as it can knock off boots while hazards chip away at Pokémon trying to switch around leech seed. Body press can snipe kills on and deals surprisingly high damage with defense investment.This set only fits on stall because it is the only archetype that can afford to use
. Technically also has wish but it itself only works on sun, and wo-Chien is a waste of sun turns.Wish support from keeps it alive, because wo-Chien has no instant and reliable recovery to speak of. Knock Off can force progress, and adds another dimension to stall. A great partner is as it can pivot into special attacks and can also spam knock, while also having rapid spin to clear hazards.Wo-Chien’s leech seed also brings with it benefits. It can wear down mons like
without substitute and , forcing chip damage and could also knock off valuable items. Leech seed also heals teammates, so it forces switches, and as I mentioned is good with hazards.However, Wo-Chien has x4 weakness to bug, mainly U-turn. Due to this, a poison or ghost Tera type is recommended. The former resists fairy and is immune to poison, allowing it to sit on
while the latter can spin-block. This is why you cannot run this on balance because balance actually cares about momentum and hates u-turn spam. Wo-Chien is one of few bulky leech seeders, so it has a niche.
petition to delete all stall theory from historyWO-CHIEN
"It drains the life-force from vegetation, causing nearby forests to instantly wither and fields to turn barren."
-Pokémon violet dex entry
"I'm Simple”
-Wo-Chien’s name, translated.
Wo-Chien is a niche mon for stall teams. I get it it’s not bad here and not that heat but I do not give a fuck. It has a major benefit of sitting on
Physically Defensive
Wo-Chien @ Leftovers
Ability: Tablets of Ruin
Tera Type: Poison/Ghost
EVs: 252 HP/ 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Knock Off
- Body Press
- Leech Seed
- Protect
As I mentioned, this set completely sits on
This set only fits on stall because it is the only archetype that can afford to use
Wo-Chien’s leech seed also brings with it benefits. It can wear down mons like
However, Wo-Chien has x4 weakness to bug, mainly U-turn. Due to this, a poison or ghost Tera type is recommended. The former resists fairy and is immune to poison, allowing it to sit on
Great Tusk: "I Have my whole life ahead of me"
H-Zoro (in disguise): "No you don't the Grass Knot is coming"
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 422-498 (113.7 - 134.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Great Tusk: 420-496 (96.7 - 114.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Great Tusk: 420-496 (113.2 - 133.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 422-498 (97.2 - 114.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
H-Zoro (in disguise): "No you don't the Grass Knot is coming"
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 422-498 (113.7 - 134.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Great Tusk: 420-496 (96.7 - 114.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Great Tusk: 420-496 (113.2 - 133.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Zoroark-Hisui Grass Knot (120 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Great Tusk: 422-498 (97.2 - 114.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO after 1 layer of Spikes
I made a massive post a while back about Treads, and I think several points of it remain applicable, so I'm going to relink it since the tier shifts (or lack thereof in its case) has put it back on the table
tl;dr Treads is good on Paper, but Tusk and Gholdengo (Kingambit also potential concern) are hard to compete with as bulky Ground/Steel glue Mons, and the things that would advantage Treads in theory barely exist in current OU.
I run 4 extra speed on my Kingambit because I speed tied with a Brute Bonnet once and I got very salty about it
Ain’t now way that it gets banned outright lmao, every sign points to a suspect once home releases for tera shown in team preview
The support to ban tera is pretty big, things are pretty almost banworthy as a result of it, volc has a million sets, knowing what volc set it is doesnt help if you dont have a counter to it, you may have had a counter to tera bug, psychic but u lose to tera rock or grass
Honestly I think a survey needs to eventually needs to come out with saying things in certainty. My assumption is more people from December are more anti-tera but it's purely an educated guess from my perspective.
But that is what Volc has been doing every gen, Volc users always find ways to get around of its counters, yeah, tera makes it easier but even without tera Volc will have sets to beat its counters.
The mons banned to this point also didn't get ban just for tera but for its own traits mainly. maybe Espartha would be easier to wall, but so was Espectrier last gen and got banned anyway.
Initially I was thinking that that was the best solution, but at the end, it's still a guessing game, since you don't know which mon would tera and when will it do it.
Preview also only half helps since, while several mons can run a couple viable tera type, some are pretty obvious. Like, yeah, thanks for telling me Dragonite has tera normal or Kingambit has tera flying.
Personally, I think that maybe limiting tera to only one mon would be better. You know which one it is, but not the tera type. This leaves room for the opponent to still have some liberties and the element of surprise, without forcing you to play 4-D chess, trying to guess if they will tera Garg or Volc for example, especially since most of the time some pokemon ran like one actually viable tera type, would you can still choose to use a wacky one to take advantage of the expected type.
Idk, that's just my opinion though, and I express them to also read more arguments on the matter. I really like tera as a mechanic, but it can sometimes really just be a pain and even feel unfair.
another factor is that one of the most popular and spammed Shed Tail teams had one, so that alone shot up quite a bit of usage lolThe threat of toxic spikes is really strong because we have strong and viable setters like toxic debris glimmora and toxapex. To a lesser extent there's other tspike setters like iron moth itself, clodsire, greninja, etc. The point is, its imperative for most offense teams to have a grounded poison type so that tspikes don't screw you over (because hazard control is so limited), and our choices for grounded offensive poison types come out to...glimmora and iron moth (gengar?). Balance teams will try to fit in amoongus, toxapex, or clodsire somewhere because absorbing tspikes is just really nice for any team.
So in my eyes, I see iron moth on offense as somewhat of a necessity, whereas volcarona is an option.
I'd also add to the point of Fairy Types to compliment HO, a lot of mons Tera Fairy and can kind of own a lot of HO's best Pokemon, but can't make much progress against Moth.
There's no way to balance or restrict tera in a meaningful way.
Preview will make tera 5% less broken, and the meta 10% more wonky.
(putting tera fairy on Glimm and not having d-gleam lmao)
(I also think preview will cause a small % rise in pure 50/50's, but nothing wild)
1 mon tera just causes more issues than it could ever solve and invalidates defensive tera.
If tera was a held item, or reverted back when mon is switched, or something wildly drastic like that then it would be more balanced.
The way it works now, you can't fix that.
Tera will most likely stay, and we'll get preview I assume, but that's basically the only "restriction" that solves more problems than it causes, technically.
It won't do much to address your last issue.
But as I said recently, meta is in a decent spot.
It was jarring to get used to stealing momentum back after it got stolen from you, after years of, y'know, earning it lol- and it still feels uncomp af and unfair- but it's a playable meta- just far from as competitive and balanced as it could be.
Once home drops, we will lose several mons that otherwise would be fine w/o tera, but the playerbase seems fine with that.
Essentially, don't try to fix tera, just do your best to mitigate the unfairness.
Should your specs Val be able to kill a Hydre? Yes. Did it steal momentum by tera Steel and killing you? Yes. But can you steal it back now that it's Steel? Hopefully.
Once that goofy ass, comically broken exchange happens, you're free to play pokemon again.
It kinda all balances out in a weird way.
Building and playing, I'm usually working on a lure of some kind, like I wanted you to tera Hydre and take my Val, now u lose to King sucker.
Reminds me of companies I've worked with.
There are some managers/employees you work with, and some you work around.
Tera is something you have to work around if you want it to feel less unfair.
There are two primary complaints about terastalization, and apart from the true diehards that hate the mechanic like new players hate stall, most posts only touch upon one of them.
First, there are people who complain about the offensive power that psudo-Adaptability (via STAB tera) provides, usually citing this as a/the major cause of HO being so strong this gen. I don't find this particularly convincing, myself; we've had "suddenly, giant STAB move" before in Z Crystals, and it was well liked. There are some important differences, of course; a Z Crystal took your item slot and was much more committal, for example, but didn't require sacrificing your defensive typing and the Z Crystal offered much more power.
I also don't find it convincing because, in my eyes, the main reason HO is so powerful is that every single defensive mon in Gen 8 OU proper was either dexited or lost important moves like Scald or Teleport, and the bulkiest new mons in Gen 9 lack instant recovery outside of Rest. Some of the OU-viable mons in lower tiers emerged largely unscathed, of course, but they were in lower tiers due to not being quite as good, so we're still left with weaker defensive mons to work with.
Second, there are people who hate the unpredictability of terastalization, and this is by far the dominant complaint among the top players. This is easily understood, too - variance favors the weaker side, so if you're good enough to usually outplay your opponent, a surprise tera type flipping the advantage is infuriating.
I find this much more understandable, but also a bit hypocritical. People already increase unpredictability by running high-power, low-accuracy moves like Hydro Pump, and damage rolls have a pretty wide range! A minimum roll is about 83% as strong as a maximum roll, stack up that much variation over every single turn and adds up quickly. Critical hits exist and a well-timed one can end a game on the spot. Unexpected coverage moves and lure sets have been around forever. There's already a lot of unpredictability baked into Pokemon, so why single out terastalization when the mechanic also offers a lot of depth and opportunities to show your skill?
In my seminal magnum opus "Ban Tera," I actually addressed your (bolded by me) argument almost 6 months ago:
I'm going to ignore low accuracy and critical hits because those are out of player control. In general though, this argument of "we already have some bad stuff, so why not accept more bad stuff?" doesn't really fly. Unpredictability is baked into pokemon, but if we are trying to make this game competitive, then we want to try and lower the unpredictability. This is why we ban ohko moves and double team.
Yeah, I feel like the level of prediction and the level of punishment that you get for guessing wrong can be quite big, and the opponent has barely any risk. Little to no risk with a high reward kinda sounds like the main element on a problematic pokemon, or at the very least, a really good one with high splashability and centralization.
Because, as I already said on my previous comment, you have pokemon that use basically only one tera type (like Tera Normal Dragonite), there's not much there to guess, but you still need to try and adapt to when that mon is going to change its typing and, of course, its weaknesses.
This is already a complicated but more or less manageable topic, but when you add that other mons can successfully use multiple different teras, it becomes a different story.
Granted, it sounds similar to when a pokemon has a diverse movepool, and it can have the right coverage for its checks, but the main difference is the change in the type. You could say that it also negatively after the opponent, since now it can not switch into or check the same pokemon as it did before, or it can even be weak to them now, but it is a calculated risk. The team is build and the tera type is selected knowing this possibilities. Meanwhile, on the opposing side, you have no much idea what to expect, and you have to adapt on the spot, sometimes even wasting your tera right there and then simply to deal with that mon (this is what I meant with punishment).
At the end of the day, it is a complicated topic to discuss and a difficult mechanic to balance. Maybe it is true that preview would greatly help, and it may also be true that tera is a broken mechanic at its core. But all things consider, it is a fun one, and it would be in most people's interest to keep it in some way that makes it the most enjoyable while maintaining balance as possible.
Because, as I already said on my previous comment, you have pokemon that use basically only one tera type (like Tera Normal Dragonite), there's not much there to guess, but you still need to try and adapt to when that mon is going to change its typing and, of course, its weaknesses.
This is already a complicated but more or less manageable topic, but when you add that other mons can successfully use multiple different teras, it becomes a different story.
Granted, it sounds similar to when a pokemon has a diverse movepool, and it can have the right coverage for its checks, but the main difference is the change in the type. You could say that it also negatively after the opponent, since now it can not switch into or check the same pokemon as it did before, or it can even be weak to them now, but it is a calculated risk. The team is build and the tera type is selected knowing this possibilities. Meanwhile, on the opposing side, you have no much idea what to expect, and you have to adapt on the spot, sometimes even wasting your tera right there and then simply to deal with that mon (this is what I meant with punishment).
At the end of the day, it is a complicated topic to discuss and a difficult mechanic to balance. Maybe it is true that preview would greatly help, and it may also be true that tera is a broken mechanic at its core. But all things consider, it is a fun one, and it would be in most people's interest to keep it in some way that makes it the most enjoyable while maintaining balance as possible.
I changed my playstyle in many ways to adapt to Tera and saw better results for it. In terms of predicting what the Tera is, it comes down too three simple rules imo.
1) The One Trick-As you stated, there are some mons (but few) who prefer strictly one Tera type in 90% of sets, like Tera Normal Dragonite. But I also pool Same Tera STAB Monotypes into this tier. Though Monotypes aren't common currently in the tier (and we kicked the dolphin out), they typically enjoy the added boost to Power. These mons typically don't really like defensive Tera Because they only function as a dual type, and while the one time defense boost is nice, unless they have considerable set up, the value is often less than that of an already established dual type.
2) The Sweeper- I believe this is the bunch that many find the most disdain in, because typically these mons are already strong but use a defensive tera (mostly) to out maneuver the opponents prospective counter. My general rule of thumb is that the faster the mon is or if it has set up speed boosts, the higher the likelihood of defensive Tera. Roaring Moon rarely runs Tera Dark in favor of something that can mitigate Mach Punch or Extreme Seed like Tera Fairy or Steel, but it still can. The Reverse is also true. While Kingambit does use Tera Flying to stave off Great Tusk commonly, the slower an offensive mon is generally increases the odds of it running a Tera similar to one of it's STAB. And if that mon also happens to have priority of that STAB, the odds increase.
3) The Wall- Defensive Pokemon imo hold the highest amount of variance with Tera type, because the ability to shift types allows them to POTENTIALLY wall more depending on their weaknesses. Garg is an extreme example, given that he has alot of stall potential with Salt Cure + Recover, but Toxapex can similar levels of BS in certain match ups. Most walls don't want to Tera often unless they need to later in the game (again Garg is an exception). Furthermore, a defensive Tera type is amazing on these mons because since they don't benefit from the double STAB that much, being able to function in the late game independent of pure stall tactics against HO is a massive boon to preserving these mons for the late game.
I have also mentioned this early into Tera's release, but I find choice items to be much worse this gen as opposed to others. This is purely my belief, but any I find any choice item not attached to something with U-turn, Volt Switch, or designed to Trick said item away to be weaker due to Tera being around. This can often lead to people feeling like they got cheated out of wins because the opponent had a Tera that could defend against their Specs/Band set. While I am not saying that the items are bad by any means, I think that players struggling with end game Tera matchups should reflect on how often it was their Choice Mon that was getting set up/Tera'd On.
Now I should also note that I think there are mons that benefit FAR more than others due to Tera, but those are only a handful. Baxcalibur has amazing Offensive typing that is normally hindered by it's weak defensive typing, but Tera changes that. Volcarona just has a god tier move pool and potential coverage list, as well as Quiver Dance. But I think that still says more about the mons using the mechanic than the Mechanic itself. These aren't absolute rules, but guidelines I have found to be commonly true.
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