This is true in several cases but I don't believe bax is the best example of it, given that it's an unbalanced mon in the first place which with the right set has quite literally no counters outside the very specific tera fairy dozo. That said I agree with your point otherwise, and I would cite walking wake as a better example given it was already suspected and not banned.
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Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion, Part II [CLOSED FOR DLC]
- Thread starter Finchinator
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And you'd be right. I think Baxcalibur is one of those mons that would have fewer checks in a meta without Tera. However, the anti-Tera side hasn't said that there wouldn't any bans at all in a Teraless meta, just fewer bans overall with Regieleki, Volcarona, Espathra, and potentially Palafin as well all being legal.
no one has said this and no one thinks this
Palafin was pretty much the number #1 abuser of Tera at the time it was legal due to its ability to end games on the spot by using Terastal to improve its typing and blow up its checks by boosting up against slower mons or use Tera Water Wave Crash to smash through things. With Terastal banned, Palafin would be a lot more limited to an extent no other Pokemon currently in OU would be, not to say it would be bad or not good. FYI, Pinecoishot also believes that Palafin could be balanced in a Teraless meta, but you can do you and post your quick one-liner for likes.
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more like pinecoiswrong, because palafin is absolutely not balanced, tera or no tera. even with the limit of not being able to tera, it's still got base 160 attack, 100/97/87 bulk and a good defensive typing, a solid speed tier, a 60-power stab priority move, a 120-power spammable stab move, stab flip turn, and the infamous bulk up + taunt set that 1v1s dondozo, and in this hypothetical scenario, things can't even defensively tera to check it anymore. anyone suggesting that palafin would be even remotely ok in a teraless meta is just trying to get it back in ou to get free wins with it again. but, you know, you do you and post your wrong opinion for laugh reacts
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252 Atk Palafin Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 36-43 (7.1 - 8.5%) (4.4 - 5.4% recovered)
252+ Def Dondozo Body Press vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Palafin: 115-136 (28.5 - 33.7%) -- 97.1% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
It doesn't 1v1 Dondozo without Tera no matter how much misinformation you want to spread. This set can beat Dondozo with team support, but it will never win 1v1.
bro forgot to change palafin's form in the calc
i'm not "spreading misinformation", i'm quoting a council member. wanna go avirasplain to ausma why she's wrong?
and could you maybe also explain to me and everyone else how disproving that single snippet of a sentence would invalidate the rest of my argument? because it doesn't. you're attacking the evidence instead of the point. (and before you go all "ohhh but that's what you're doing", no it isn't. i never claimed the rest of your initial point wasn't valid, i just took issue with you implying that palafin would be fine in a teraless meta.)
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Palafin isn't my precious widdle dolphin. In fact, I hate Palafin's design. You're way more angry than I am, buddy.
not a single part of this post contains an argument as to why palafin would be balanced in a non-tera meta. you made a claim, either defend it or back down
Honestly, I feel like Palafin could be fine, but I don't believe in Espathra in the slightest. That mon is doomed to never be balanced within a tier. If it's any good here, it'll just be banned again, and if it's not, it'll wind up banned out of whatever tier it winds up terrorizing.
I know it's not exactly wise policy, but I don't think many people would mourn just keeping that dumb bird in OUBL.
I know it's not exactly wise policy, but I don't think many people would mourn just keeping that dumb bird in OUBL.
You bring up that the "Competitive and Balanced survey scores are terrible..." This is an exaggeration at best. I just went back and checked Sword and Shield competitive rankings, and the most it ever reached was slightly over a 7 with 6 months for the meta to stabilize after the final dlc. Looking at a more comparable time period, July 2020, a month following isle of armor release and the addition of over 100 newly usable Pokemon ( Similar to July 2023 survey being the month following home release). Comparing survey results, Sword and Shield July 2020 had a competitive rating of 2.91/5 aka 5.82/10, Scarlet and Violet July 2023 had a competitive score of 5.99/10. Literally, Scarlet and Violet was rated more competitive after a similar amount of time following the introduction of new Pokemon. You keep bringing up that finch should be alarmed by the low competitiveness numbers, where in reality the only survey which scored considerably below the norm was LITERALLY 10 days following home release when the meta had no time to develop and thus was in utter chaos.
Its fine to have your issues with tera, but saying that the current competitiveness scores are alarming is disingenuous, unless your issue is with Pokemon as a whole.
i agree about espathra, but i still have to vehemently disagree about palafin, for the reasons i previously stated and the reasons given in its initial ban post—tera is mentioned largely as an afterthought there. it'd be even more busted now, actually, because iron bundle, one of its most reliable "checks", went with it.
just because something is broken and abuses tera doesn't make it balanced without tera. people are going to try to justify unbanning annihilape, chien-pao, espathra, all sorts of nonsense just because they lost a thing that didn't actually break them, just made them more broken than they naturally are.
not that any of this matters, of course, because it's contingent upon tera being fully banned, which is not actually going to happen. i think even most of the pro-ban people agree with this
I don't know what numbers you're looking at as that is blatantly incorrect.
For February 2022, the competitiveness score was 7.83, which is not in any sense slightly over a 7. The July and September numbers were all well-above 7 as well.
Source: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ou-council-minutes-and-surveys.3684671/post-9133581
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ou-council-minutes-and-surveys.3684671/#post-9340974
I wonder how much of this is arguing in bad faith, considering I saw pro-Tera users say that a majority of the people who voted in the first Tera suspect wanted no action. Do they just think nobody will check the numbers and accept being gaslit?
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I'm of the opinion that Teratalization is a good mechanic that is healthy for the metagame.
well, the things you linked were from 2022, so yeah, i think it's a pretty reasonable assumption that people don't look at numbers too closely
You're in the low ladder, what do you expect?
No dude, there's 0 chance Palafin would be fine in a teraless meta and I highly doubt that Espathra wouldn't be giga busted and annoying as shit without tera, Moonblast still hits like a truck after a couple of calm minds and it'll still find it super easy to set up under screens.
Volc shouldn't have been banned anyway and isn't broken.
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This post makes me wonder though - did people dislike Hidden Power during the times it was around? It seemed silly to me for a mon to run whatever coverage it wanted at any time.
I'm a little confused on how you calc'd this? I think it's because you didn't change the forme to Palafin-H possibly? But either way, I believe your calcs are wrong. With Drain Punch recovery - I think it does beat Dozo 1v1 with Band. It depends on the set really.
252+ Atk Choice Band Palafin-Hero Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 103-122 (20.4 - 24.2%) -- guaranteed 5HKO
252+ Def Dondozo Body Press vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Palafin-Hero: 90-107 (26.3 - 31.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
Everyone forgetting that z-moves have inherent opportunity cost because they take an item slot is crazy
252+ Atk Palafin-Hero Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 69-82 (13.6 - 16.2%) -- possible 7HKO
252+ Def Unaware Dondozo Body Press vs. 0 HP / 252 Def Palafin-Hero: 71-84 (20.8 - 24.6%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
Just like Junko says, beats with drain punch recovery
HP has much lower base power and was locked to special attackers. The two aren't comparable.
Not been locked to special attacker though is healthy as it allows for wide spread and more strategy...
+ it locked a move slot + if you wanted coverage as a psychical attacker you had to give up some EVs if you wanted some good damage + it was 60 base power unlike tera which doesn't take up a move slot, allows for free coverage no matter your build and just allows you to do more damage (2x stab instead of 1.5x stab)
Pretty much the thread is devolving into a flame war. I was pro Tera originally, as I liked the concept and felt the suspect was too early, thus I voted No action. I still think there is merit, unlike DMAX, and, as such, I think it's right to tier Pokémon over the mechanic here. I have my reasons, and they are not too dissimilar to other pro Tera folks here, so I won't reiterate them.
Aside from squabbling over whether it's unhealthy or not, I want to discuss a glaring issue that no one has brought up here. When do we actually expect a second tiering of Tera to happen?
With the suspect confirmed as a Kingambit suspect, bit will take approximately a fortnight of suspecting, with likely a week or so to cool down the format on the result And probably a survey after to get feedback afterwards
Tiering starting during OLT rarely happens, and I expect the council will wait until after OLT to decide the next suspect.
So September would be the earliest for the next tera suspect... Except it wouldn't be.
September starts the wait for DLC 1, due Autumn 23, and DLC 2 in Winter 23. Also, with Reg D of the Battle Stadium finishing Sept. 30th, it's likely that we will see the Reg E start then. Either as a GS cup format or including new Pokémon from DLC 1. Assuming Reg E is the new DLC 1 one, the DLC would need to be available long enough for players to get ready for irl events, say 2 weeks? If it is the next format in October, we can assume a Sept launch.
Therefore, the council will be busy with new suspects and tiering as part of the new format. New and returning Mons can be tested and any new mechanics/items too. That can also mean a Volcarona and Eleki drop at the start of a new format (Former the surveyed player base wanted, the latter cause of the updated Transistor boost was not implemented/found until post eleki ban)
So... After DLC 1, comes DLC 2 in December or pushed back to the new year. Pokémon always likes shifting the VGC format for the new year, so expect Reg F to drop Jan 1st, which likely is including the stuff for DLC 2. Give it a month to settle, and I really don't think a second test is really viable before the middle of January... Unless anything just breaks tera wide open between now and then.
Aside from squabbling over whether it's unhealthy or not, I want to discuss a glaring issue that no one has brought up here. When do we actually expect a second tiering of Tera to happen?
With the suspect confirmed as a Kingambit suspect, bit will take approximately a fortnight of suspecting, with likely a week or so to cool down the format on the result And probably a survey after to get feedback afterwards
Tiering starting during OLT rarely happens, and I expect the council will wait until after OLT to decide the next suspect.
So September would be the earliest for the next tera suspect... Except it wouldn't be.
September starts the wait for DLC 1, due Autumn 23, and DLC 2 in Winter 23. Also, with Reg D of the Battle Stadium finishing Sept. 30th, it's likely that we will see the Reg E start then. Either as a GS cup format or including new Pokémon from DLC 1. Assuming Reg E is the new DLC 1 one, the DLC would need to be available long enough for players to get ready for irl events, say 2 weeks? If it is the next format in October, we can assume a Sept launch.
Therefore, the council will be busy with new suspects and tiering as part of the new format. New and returning Mons can be tested and any new mechanics/items too. That can also mean a Volcarona and Eleki drop at the start of a new format (Former the surveyed player base wanted, the latter cause of the updated Transistor boost was not implemented/found until post eleki ban)
So... After DLC 1, comes DLC 2 in December or pushed back to the new year. Pokémon always likes shifting the VGC format for the new year, so expect Reg F to drop Jan 1st, which likely is including the stuff for DLC 2. Give it a month to settle, and I really don't think a second test is really viable before the middle of January... Unless anything just breaks tera wide open between now and then.
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