We've gone full circle and gotten to the point where people are seriously arguing for "blaziken but without speed boost" level complex bans again
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Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion, Part II [CLOSED FOR DLC]
- Thread starter Finchinator
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Well this is tera, and the two most popular solutions seem to be a lot more flawed than expected, coming up with a restriction isn't easy, you know?
"some" uubl mons? as of right now there are exactly two of them, unless my info is outdated. that's why i even mentioned it instead of saying uu
Im just throwing out other ideas that haven’t been discussed as much. Also you cant compare a pokemon (which only affects the game its brought in) to a whole mechanic that affects all gameplay aspects.
As per tiering policy smogon bans something based on whether that thing is generally deemed broken / uncompetitive. We don't just cherry pick options for complex bans for the sake of keeping things around, especially when the cherry picked option at best only helps mitigate the issues the mechanic presents.
As for Ausma's post on why a Tera Blast ban can be argued for consideration....that reasoning just leads in the direction of complex bans/slippery slope talk. Yes tera blast is entirely tied to the mechanic, but it also exists outside of the mechanic and objectively would never be deemed a problem, it's also not the main topic of frustration when Tera is discussed.
Also "liked by half the council" should not be relevant to any decision being made.
Been giving this some thought and should this really be the norm or the other way around?
It's pretty clear that the generational gimmick is balanced around doubles and VGC and one of it's main purposes since it's been introduced is a push towards the game having a more offensive profile, which tends to be problematic as each gen also introduces more power creep with new mons. Players tend to enjoy the novelty of the new gimmick for a little while but for every gen since Megas it's created problems and has led to tons of back and forth discussions around wheter it should be included in singles play. I don't think it would a bad idea to discuss how it's handled in a broader context.
might i ask how it leads in the direction of complex bans/slippery slope arguments? tera blast and its inherent strength being directly connected to a core mechanic is an unprecedented situation.
What would happen in case those mons become OU because they became popular due to being good Tera users?... Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea from a managing stance.
Not to mention Smogon had banned moves in the past if seen problematic like Baton Pass or Last Respect, although only in case it can be learned by many creatures, and Tera Blast is literally universal. I'm doubtful it'll work to control Tera, but it deserves discussion just like other potential restrictions because it's not complex nor arbitrary.
They're talking about a theoretical OM, which would not influence ou tiering.
It is unprecedented but the suggestion of restricting or banning one thing in an attempt to balance another is pretty comparable to a complex ban.
It's not complex in the slightest. Really, the thing it's most similar to is banning of items like Light Clay or Damp Rock -- a ban to reduce the effectiveness of a thing (screens or weather) that's still desirable for the metagame.
and that another thing is a generational mechanic that has been seen to be generally a positive influence on the skill expression of the tier, and said ban would actively help improve that by limiting variance and allowing the positive aspects of playing around tera to stay intact
contrary to popular belief, complex bans are not bad nor are they ever out of the question (unless the suspect is exclusively on one pokemon), but there is the burden of proof that is necessary in order to prove that it is the move/ability that's the problem as opposed to the pokemon with the move/ability, as well as how it's a problem. this is a pretty solid guideline that does well in preventing slippery slope-inducing precedents to be set, and there is quite substantial proof in both wcop and high ladder where tera blast is used to completely play into the surprise factor and undermine skill expression in the process. i really don't see how this is a slippery slope.
Because the mechanic is unprecedented as a whole... And even then, not really. There were also exclusive Z-Crystals who also have been banned in the past to allow a pokémon to stay in a tier, most notably Mew and Kommo-o in UU (Before OU stole Kommo-o).
I don't think it leads to a complex ban, and if anything it's less complex than tera preview. I could see the argument that it is also a half measure though, as a number of Tera abusers have relied on the move while others are content shifting into a certain type to flip specific matchups on their head. The present "generation" of mons that are at least borderline because of tera (ival gambit garg arguably enamI and bax) generally seem to fall into this second category
regarding the argument that tera blast won't do a ton to really solve the potentially problematic aspects of tera, i implore that you all check out my post in the policy thread where i explain why tera blast is a reasonable target even though it isn't directly broken.
regarding my actual thoughts on tera, here's an excerpt from my first post:
Banning tera blast is like banning choice scarf because it warps speed tiers or breaks a few mons even though majority of the game is fine/more balanced by it.
99% of the game isn't fixed by a tera blast ban cause they're not broken to a degree a few threats are, going for it would be a really strange compromise to allow 1 pokemon be in OU (eleki), nerf 1 that has a chance to be OU even with tera blast should the suspect test actually happen (volc), and 1 that won't ever be OU even without tera blast cause tera fairy with one of its coverage moves is enough for it to break the game (espathra). The rest of the tera blast users currently in OU would need explained on how removing tera blast fixes them and if they're broken if they have it at all. Way I see it, tera blast coverage is nothing new to OU with lures everywhere, we had grassium-Z heatrans to deal with years ago, the difference here is heatran actually becomes the typing, which is what makes it more broken than a Z-move. Removing tera blast does not fix frustrations with mons like dragonite, STAB tera users, and the type chart flip so its a band-aid solution at best.
That's unprecedented because tiering philosophy is to ban an element that breaks most of the game and if not, ban the isolated offenders. Tera blast is on very few isolated offenders while tera itself is breaking numerous without tera blast.
The only example I can think of that has a similar precedent is baton pass which had numerous 'nerfs' before a full ban was implemented, and if tera gets to have compromises idk why baton pass couldn't be revisited for dry passing.. see a slippery slope now?
Okay, in that case a better comparison would be Aldaron's Proposal from gen 5, a decision in a similarly powercrept and controversial meta that has regularly been cited by both good players and bad ones as an example of poor tiering policy for about a decade now. It was an attempt to regulate a clearly broken "generational mechanic" (anyone who says that anything besides the Dream World, which made BW the "weather generation" in the first place and caused a good bit of the chaos associated with the gen, was BW's generational mechanic is wrong) without getting rid of it entirely. Obviously this did not work and weathers are a large part of why BW is such a weird and constricting meta to build in today. Perhaps I am overlooking something here but it seems entirely rational to be wary of complex bans of controversial mechanics after that + the Baton Pass fiasco in XY. I disagree that banning Tera Blast will solve the problems posed by the mechanic, but seeing as a full ban is probably off the table (unfortunately) it seems to be the solution that will accomplish the most, esp compared to preview which doesn't really help if you know something can Tera into a specific type but your team is still helpless vs. it.
As I've said in the meta discussion thread, I don't think that something being a "generational mechanic" gives it much intrinsic value compared to another aspect of the game. It almost seems akin to the arbitrary restrictions put on legendaries etc. by players generally unfamilar with Smogon metagames.
Don't want to degrade this into what could turn into what exactly constitutes "complex ban" as there is some subjectivity to the term complex. I'm not as familar with the Damp rock and Light Clay bans... I assume they are lower tiers but either way I don't see how these are comparable as you have to look into the nuances as to why these are banned. These particular items, Light Clay and Damp Rock enable certain game states for a very long time, in doing so they enabled droves of Pokemon in a specific metagame to be too problematic.
Banning Terablast in an attempt to limit a very specific interaction that only works alongside the mechanic is not the same.
I don't know I would say it's generally a positive thing as poll results are pretty split and "skill expression" is an irrelevant metric for tiering. Banning it would help with variance but that objectively goes against policy.
As for complex bans, it's not about them being bad, it's the fact that they tend to lead to slippery slope/subjective type arguments and easier divides in the player base as a result. They can be done but the burden of proof that it is necessary and worth it is on the side suggesting the complex ban.
my main gripe with banning tera blast is that it just isn't broken. banning a move has been done before, but only when it's something where everything that runs it is (or has the potential to be) a problem, like baton pass, or any evasion move, or last respects, or shed tail. are we seeing people complaining about sandy shocks? heatran? galarian articuno? cresselia? all of those are ou-viable mons that frequently run tera blast and none of them are broken because of it, or indeed broken at all. in fact, galarian articuno wouldn't even be on the vr without it, and there are plenty of other mons that would completely lose their tiny niche in ou that morkal and the ou heat brigade have been kind enough to carve out for them. tera blast improves the meta by adding some much-needed diversity, that's what i think. and there's also the fact that some of the biggest tera abusers don't even use the move, so banning it wouldn't fix the meta's current problems. all it would accomplish is that it would look like we did something
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Looking through the (1825) usage stats, the only common abusers are:
at 14.121%
at 7.294%
at 8.206%
at 16.701%
at 13.370%
at 85.782%The usage stats were for an older metagame however. Using WCOP usage stats though (only counts revealed moves iirc)
Round 2:
used Tera Blast in 1 of 38 games used Tera Blast in 2 of 13 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 2 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 1 gamesNo other pokemon used Tera Blast in Round 2
For a larger sample size but older metagame, I'll use Round 1 too.
Round 1:
used Tera Blast in 1 of 272 games used Tera Blast in 6 of 200 games used Tera Blast in 6 of 102 games used Tera Blast in 1 of 56 games
used Tera Blast in 2 of 47 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 42 games used Tera Blast in 2 of 32 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 25 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 24 games
used Tera Blast in 3 of 23 games used Tera Blast in 1 of 18 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 18 games used Tera Blast in 5 of 11 games used Tera Blast in 2 of 9 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 2 games
used Tera Blast in 1 of 1 games
some absolute gigachad was running tera blast pex. see, this is the kind of treasure we'll be missing if we ban the moveLooking through the (1825) usage stats, the only common abusers are:
The usage stats were for an older metagame however. Using WCOP usage stats though (only counts revealed moves iirc)
Round 2:
No other pokemon used Tera Blast in Round 2
For a larger sample size but older metagame, I'll use Round 1 too.
Round 1:
My favorite exchange I've had multiple times on this thread is
"Tera Blast ban doesn't address hardly any of the issues of Tera"
"What are they and why not"
And then it's either silence or "There are none, there should be no action"
i personally feel that the fact that Tera blast ban "doesn't change much about Tera" is a good thing. Full ban on Tera i'd educatedly ballpark has no more than maybe 30% support at an absolute most. There's been many compelling posts about the skill expression of Tera in the PR thread and it seems to me many high level very experienced players really like the mechanic, and there's a large body (but not a majority) that favors no action at all because they like what Tera brings to the tier. A Tera blast ban doesn't impede on this but impedes on a lot of Pokémon's abilities to nuke their counters and use the momentum (and the 3rd stab of any type, which is huge) to sweep teams. Many pro-Tera players have repeated the adage "just ban the abusers" and this baseline makes that more realistic as the list of abusers is a lot shorter without Tera Blast, and banning the ones that become problematic without Tera Blast "addresses the issues" that tera blast ban doesn't.
I also want to touch on the claim "Banning a move that isn't broken by itself/on everything is against tiering policy." You know what else is against tiering policy? Leaving broken mechanics untouched, and extremely unpopular bans. Tiering Policy as it is doesn't address the depth of what's needed to achieve a satisfactory solution to Tera in gen 9's metagame, and that's why there's a thread like this one in the board called Policy Review
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Unbanning Pokémon should in no way influence the ruling of Tera, that is beyond the point.
How many times have you clicked Tera Blast without Terastalizing? This is dishonest
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