Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion, Part II [CLOSED FOR DLC]

[That_Dwayneee]

as mentioned lure sets are something that have an opportunity cost and imo changing your tera type from tera water to tera fighting on gholdengo to kill kingambit easier is not a lure set, its just playing guessinggame imo

They are definitely lure sets, however again the difference is opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of running a set like solar beam heatran or colbur berry slowbro in gen 8 for gastrdon and weavile, respectively, was the loss of a moveslot for solar beam and body press, that could replace an important move like heatran’s toxic, for one that was worse in every matchup other than the one you’re luring, so if you don’t run into it good luck with your neutered mon, and an item slot, where you give up tran’s leftovers and slowbro’s boots/rocky helmet.

With tera the opportunity cost is... not having a different tera type. These lures can also work outside of their specific mons also, suck as gholdengo teraing into fairy to avoid an ohko from dragapult’s shadow ball when the actual reason to run it is for gambit’s sucker punch. There’s no reason not to run a set that will beat a mon’s checks (unless it’s tera blast actually, that move is dead weight until tera kicks in) other than you could run one to boost your stab or beat another set of checks. It’s absurd that mons can escape losing 1v1 scenarios and turn what should be an easy endgame for the opponent into a 50/50.

 

[Komodo_Drogo]

With tera the opportunity cost is... not having a different tera type. These lures can also work outside of their specific mons also, suck as gholdengo teraing into fairy to avoid an ohko from dragapult’s shadow ball when the actual reason to run it is for gambit’s sucker punch. There’s no reason not to run a set that will beat a mon’s checks (unless it’s tera blast actually, that move is dead weight until tera kicks in) other than you could run one to boost your stab or beat another set of checks. It’s absurd that mons can escape losing 1v1 scenarios and turn what should be an easy endgame for the opponent into a 50/50

I've got time while waiting for the bus so I want to build on this a little more.

Tera is purely the ability to change typing, and that as an option is only positive as if the chosen type isn't a good matchup, you don't have to change. Gaining a new typing and having new interactions is not a negative point for tera, that's a negative point for the typing. And being one time usage is like the bare minimum for a powerful mechanic, that's not exactly a negative either. It's like basic game design.

 

[Link loyan]

They are definitely lure sets, however again the difference is opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of running a set like solar beam heatran or colbur berry slowbro in gen 8 for gastrdon and weavile, respectively, was the loss of a moveslot for solar beam and body press, that could replace an important move like heatran’s toxic, for one that was worse in every matchup other than the one you’re luring, so if you don’t run into it good luck with your neutered mon, and an item slot, where you give up tran’s leftovers and slowbro’s boots/rocky helmet.

With tera the opportunity cost is... not having a different tera type. These lures can also work outside of their specific mons also, suck as gholdengo teraing into fairy to avoid an ohko from dragapult’s shadow ball when the actual reason to run it is for gambit’s sucker punch. There’s no reason not to run a set that will beat a mon’s checks (unless it’s tera blast actually, that move is dead weight until tera kicks in) other than you could run one to boost your stab or beat another set of checks. It’s absurd that mons can escape losing 1v1 scenarios and turn what should be an easy endgame for the opponent into a 50/50.

Maybe i dont exactly know the definition for a lure set or i set my bar for the opportunity cost too high but yeah, exactly what you said and i totally agree with you

 

[Alternator]

Maybe i dont exactly know the definition for a lure set or i set my bar for the opportunity cost too high but yeah, exactly what you said and i totally agree with you

A lure set is designed to lure in and defeat a mon that would ordinarily be a counter, most often by carrying an unexpected coverage move (Z-moves were fantastic for this), but sometimes by carrying an unusual item or, in SV, an uncommon tera type. Opportunity cost doesn't really factor into it - of course you're trading something out, but lure sets don't need to be weak; Chain Chomp started life as a borderline-lure.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

as mentioned lure sets are something that have an opportunity cost and imo changing your tera type from tera water to tera fighting on gholdengo to kill kingambit easier is not a lure set, its just playing guessinggame imo

choosing a specific tera type does have an opportunity cost in that it might fuck up your matchups against something else. for example, you can run tera fighting over water on gholdengo to beat gambit and garg more easily, but that leaves it way more vulnerable to valiant and enamorus. a lot of people in this thread seem to think that the existence of tera allows every mon to win every matchup at the same time like dmax did

 

[Srn]

choosing a specific tera type does have an opportunity cost in that it might fuck up your matchups against something else. for example, you can run tera fighting over water on gholdengo to beat gambit and garg more easily, but that leaves it way more vulnerable to valiant and enamorus. a lot of people in this thread seem to think that the existence of tera allows every mon to win every matchup at the same time like dmax did

This is technically an "opportunity cost" in that literally any choice you make ever in the teambuilder has an opportunity cost. Like yea, using rapid spin on your great tusk has an """""opportunity cost""""" in that it takes up a moveslot that could be for something else!!!!
But let's be real. When we talk about opportunity cost, we are not referring to the "cost" of using rapid spin on great tusk. We are talking about real, substantial costs like running shuca berry on your glowking over heavy duty boots, running tera blast on your scizor over thief or U-turn, etc. You are lowering the overall high performance of standard sets to do something specific.

The "cost" of running tera fighting gholdengo over tera water gholdengo is the baseline cost of making any decision in teambuilding ever. You use your skill to determine when to best tera in order to minimize the drawbacks of your new typing and maximize the damage you do. You are barely lowering gholdengo's overall performance by going tera fight over tera water. In practice, the opportunity cost of tera lures is far lower than lures of the past, with much higher rewards.

 

[Froctopus]

I TOTALLY agree wtih you besides one point: if they released megas as normal pokemon they wouldve been able to use an item, that wouldve been stupid, glad there are no mechanics that let you hold an item while giving you the opportunity to change your whole pokemon

This is literally the paradox pokemon if I understand what you're saying. But if its a mon that can change forms mid battle to a better, more advantageously better stat distribution, it would be something along the lines of Aegislash and Palafin. Both which got banned.

So you kinda have a point there, if you're trying to relate the change of form mid game to the idea of tera-ing in the mid game. However a counter to this is that with Palafin and Aegislash, they have the opportunity to utilize this with little draw back. Palafin gets an absurd attack stat with priority STAB 60 move, and Aegislash switches between passive bulk and glass cannon to help itself remain a threat. Tera is a one and done and once you've tera'd you have to deal with the new typing. Going back to the example of a Gholdengo, if you tera you lose the Ghost Typing and you may not have a fighting resist on your team. (yet this goes back into the """"""""""""opportunity cost"""""""""""" of the team builder but I think thats part of the art, risk v reward).


Truly novel idea, what if your mon was pre-tera'd once you got into a game. Sort of like a tera captain, but its already been tera'd, and your opponent doesn't know? Would this work, or is it too close to the tera captains idea.

 

[Hugin]

On Opportunity Cost:
A lot of teams are built with 2-3 tera abusers in mind. Yes, there's a lot of thought you have to expend on whether to run Tera Flying or Ghost on Kingambit. But your lead, various support mons? You're probably not going to tera them ever. So if you pick a very minor niche tera type in order to win a specific matchup, then that's just GG for your oppt and no cost to you. I tried building a rain team recently* which had T-Dragon and T-Ground on various mons in case of sun/sand. Were those good options? Nope. But in any match where I click TWater on Barraskewda, it doesn't cost me anything, and in the matches where it does matter, what can my oppts do? That doesn't feel balanced, it feels free.

*I was hoping to OHKO Kingambit via raw power and not caring about Sucker Punch, the damage calcs ended up not working out, screw that mon.

 

[Froctopus]

Can we please stop talking about opportunity cost. Why the hell does opportunity cost matter in the realms of Tera, when the opportunity cost of running a specific tera doesn't matter because you can build around your choices. THE POINT OF OPPORTUNITY COST IS HOW YOUR TEAM WINS/LOSES MATCHUPS. If you didn't prepare for a match up, its because you prepared for a different one you thought was more important.

You aren't supposed to win every game, you are supposed to position yourself in the best general way. Some games you have to tera to bust a few teeth in, other times your opponent just has a worse team and you don't even have to tera.

Going back more generally into the discussion of Tera, the most valid point I've seen so far is that Tera makes it so that little mistakes are punished harder than ever. If you misplay once, your opponent is already set up and is ready to steam roll your entire team, no matter what tera you have. To this I have no rebuttable because it is true.

 

[arnimacarni]

Truly novel idea, what if your mon was pre-tera'd once you got into a game. Sort of like a tera captain, but its already been tera'd, and your opponent doesn't know? Would this work, or is it too close to the tera captains idea.

I mean it doesnt work bc cart doesnt work like that, so maybe you could do the first time you attack with your tera captain it has to megaevolve but as long as you switch it in and out it doesnt need to tera. i dont think its a good idea tho, seems exploitable

edit: not megaevolve i meant tera but im keeping it for confusion's sake

 

[Link loyan]

Can we please stop talking about opportunity cost. Why the hell does opportunity cost matter in the realms of Tera, when the opportunity cost of running a specific tera doesn't matter because you can build around your choices. THE POINT OF OPPORTUNITY COST IS HOW YOUR TEAM WINS/LOSES MATCHUPS. If you didn't prepare for a match up, its because you prepared for a different one you thought was more important.

You aren't supposed to win every game, you are supposed to position yourself in the best general way. Some games you have to tera to bust a few teeth in, other times your opponent just has a worse team and you don't even have to tera.

Going back more generally into the discussion of Tera, the most valid point I've seen so far is that Tera makes it so that little mistakes are punished harder than ever. If you misplay once, your opponent is already set up and is ready to steam roll your entire team, no matter what tera you have. To this I have no rebuttable because it is true.

The game of pokemon is a game in which we try to make as little as possible just a "matchupwin", because winning by matchup is just not skillfull and we want a game where you have at least the ability to win if you built an over all solid team, if we wanted to play a matchupgame just play a stallteam, either you win by default or you lose by default, there is very little inbetween

opportunity cost in the teambuilder is a very important thing in pokemon for that reason, if you see "oh, my team is weak to ferrothorn" in gen seven, you slapped hp fire on your koko, that was a cost you were willing to pay to not beat lando that easily but you could kill ferro better, hell even running pokemon themselves is some kind of an opportunity cost, magnezone is the best example: i myself loved to play a magnezone, corvi, mega gardevoir with hp ground taunt doublestab and scarfchomp team in gen 8 natdex, in matchups without corvi or another trappable steel i wouldve prefered like any other pokemon over zone but i payed that price to win those matchups far more easily, in the end however still my opponent and me both basically everytime were able to win by playing well instead of just clicking the same move over and over and praying that the opponent doesnt have a switchin or a check in their teratypes but i dont know if and which pokemon it could be because my iron head might not kill the iron valiant or my dragon darts could be immune on the bax in front of me, that just feels so wrong to me instead of the positioning and really trying to find the edge in these intense natdex battles


Edit to explain my point better: opportunity cost in one matchup is something you get in another matchup and you build your team so you dont instalose to any pokemon

in gen 9 with tera thats just not possible, how can i build a team that doesnt instalose if i have to check 5 versions of all the insane pokemon in the tier because sometimes my poison move on val is resisted and sometimes its the only way to beat it 1v1

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

in gen 9 with tera thats just not possible, how can i build a team that doesnt instalose if i have to check 5 versions of all the insane pokemon in the tier because sometimes my poison move on val is resisted and sometimes its the only way to beat it 1v1

plenty of people seem to be building successful teams just fine, and if you're in the habit of only carrying one way to 1v1 valiant, you should probably think about adding a second one

 

[Floatstonemafia]

Most people are not building successful defensive teams. Most people are building offensive teams which bypass the issue. Even the few stall maniacs out there are playing the 'you have to tera flying alomomola the second you see x mon, pray you don't see v w x y mon at all' game. They're dredging the depths of NU to find shit like Driftblim to counter Ursaluna out of no other better options.There are just too many permutations in the format to defend against even the majority of the tier. Every top tier threat would require at least 2 mons alone to counter, and most of them are not overlapping. Remember when toxapex walled most special attackers in the tier and all of them were running coverage to try to punch through it? That's whats required for good defensive play, as obnoxious as it was.

Kingambit at +2 doesn't really care if you tera to a resisted type because odds are it still 2hkos you. But an offensive mon like Kingambit switching types to negate a defensive mon (say tera flying against great tusk) means now you have to find an entire other solution.

 

[Alternator]

Most people are not building successful defensive teams. Most people are building offensive teams which bypass the issue. Even the few stall maniacs out there are playing the 'you have to tera flying alomomola the second you see x mon, pray you don't see v w x y mon at all' game. They're dredging the depths of NU to find shit like Driftblim to counter Ursaluna out of no other better options.There are just too many permutations in the format to defend against even the majority of the tier. Every top tier threat would require at least 2 mons alone to counter, and most of them are not overlapping. Remember when toxapex walled most special attackers in the tier and all of them were running coverage to try to punch through it? That's whats required for good defensive play, as obnoxious as it was.

Kingambit at +2 doesn't really care if you tera to a resisted type because odds are it still 2hkos you. But an offensive mon like Kingambit switching types to negate a defensive mon (say tera flying against great tusk) means now you have to find an entire other solution.

That's because a physical grass attacker runs through Dondozo, Clodsire, Alomomola, and Blissey. That's not a tera problem, that's tera solving a mon-availability problem.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Most people are not building successful defensive teams. Most people are building offensive teams which bypass the issue. Even the few stall maniacs out there are playing the 'you have to tera flying alomomola the second you see x mon, pray you don't see v w x y mon at all' game. They're dredging the depths of NU to find shit like Driftblim to counter Ursaluna out of no other better options.There are just too many permutations in the format to defend against even the majority of the tier. Every top tier threat would require at least 2 mons alone to counter, and most of them are not overlapping. Remember when toxapex walled most special attackers in the tier and all of them were running coverage to try to punch through it? That's whats required for good defensive play, as obnoxious as it was.

Kingambit at +2 doesn't really care if you tera to a resisted type because odds are it still 2hkos you. But an offensive mon like Kingambit switching types to negate a defensive mon (say tera flying against great tusk) means now you have to find an entire other solution.

banning tera would massively hurt defense in a way that would put it in an even worse place in a non-tera meta. the reason people aren't building successful defensive teams is because successful defensive teams simply no longer exist. stall as it was known is effectively extinct, tera or no tera, and what passes for stall would wither on the vine without the option to use tera defensively

 

[Alternator]

Gen 8 OU defensive stalwarts that we don't have:

Buzzwole
Clefable
Ferrothorn
Tapu Fini

Gen 8 defensive stalwarts that lost one or more key moves:

Blissey (Teleport, Toxic) - all the way down in NU
Lando-T (Defog, Knock Off)
Slowbro (Teleport)
Toxapex (Knock Off, Scald)
Zapdos (Defog)


As well, there are a vast number of mons that lost access to Scald and Toxic, which generally weaken defensive teams, and I'm not even touching on lower tier mons that are viable in OU, like Tangrowth. Defensive teams aren't weak because of tera, they're weak because of dexit and lost moves.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Gen 8 OU defensive stalwarts that we don't have:

Buzzwole

don't fucking remind me

 

[FCKNfuego]

banning tera would massively hurt defense in a way that would put it in an even worse place in a non-tera meta. the reason people aren't building successful defensive teams is because successful defensive teams simply no longer exist. stall as it was known is effectively extinct, tera or no tera, and what passes for stall would wither on the vine without the option to use tera defensively

Until we actually see a meta where tera doesn't exist, this isn't exactly that clear cut and might not be the case. You can certainly build pretty successful defensive teams at the moment. Defensive teams took the biggest hit with the reduction of recovery move pp and moveset losses but to an extent they can adapt to that.

It's really the unpredictability of Tera combined with the power boost it provides to moves that make playing defensive teams feel so much harder. These types of teams thrive on predictability and potentially losing a key mon because of a mispredicating a tera type or because a pokemon can now muscle through a counter/check is a pretty big issue.

Defensive Tera is certainly helpful for trying to balance this out but it's obvious it's not enough compared to what offense gains.

 

[Empress Mobile]

Gen 8 OU defensive stalwarts that we don't have:

Buzzwole
Clefable
Ferrothorn
Tapu Fini

Gen 8 defensive stalwarts that lost one or more key moves:

Blissey (Teleport, Toxic) - all the way down in NU
Lando-T (Defog, Knock Off)
Slowbro (Teleport)
Toxapex (Knock Off, Scald)
Zapdos (Defog)


As well, there are a vast number of mons that lost access to Scald and Toxic, which generally weaken defensive teams, and I'm not even touching on lower tier mons that are viable in OU, like Tangrowth. Defensive teams aren't weak because of tera, they're weak because of dexit and lost moves.

While I think this is a good summary of notable changes to defensive mons, it's important to note that these mons weren't just used on defensive teams. Teleport actually gave Slowbro and Blissey a niche on HO teams of all things, whereas now they are almost completely relegated to bulky offense and stall respectively. Clefable and Ferrothorn fit on nearly any team, and Defog support from Zapdos and Landorus were just as useful if not more useful for offensive teams as they were for defensive. While I don't support a full Tera ban, I do see a ton of merit in the argument from the pro-ban side that it can produce imbalances driven by overwhelming HO strategies. I think that contributes much more to defensive teams' woes this generation than the missing Pokemon and altered learnsets mentioned here.

 

[Antihaxxer]

banning tera would massively hurt defense in a way that would put it in an even worse place in a non-tera meta. the reason people aren't building successful defensive teams is because successful defensive teams simply no longer exist. stall as it was known is effectively extinct, tera or no tera, and what passes for stall would wither on the vine without the option to use tera defensively

I don't talk about post home because I have played less after Home release. But Gen 9 Pre Home was one of the most interesting stall metagame ever. Cloudsire, Dodonzo, Skeleridge, Corveknight, Alomomola etc... were really powerful tools for stall :)

 

[bigasschungusboi]

Hey folks, this thread's been off the rails for a bit. So let's reel it back in:

1. Preview Ban Haters: What's your beef with the ban? Let's hear your top gripes.
2. Blast Ban Dislikers: Your turn - why's this ban got you riled up?

Let's get this hashed out quick and clean, so we can jump onto fresh topics. Cool?

 

[Biannual Run]

Hey folks, this thread's been off the rails for a bit. So let's reel it back in:

1. Preview Ban Haters: What's your beef with the ban? Let's hear your top gripes.
2. Blast Ban Dislikers: Your turn - why's this ban got you riled up?

Let's get this hashed out quick and clean, so we can jump onto fresh topics. Cool?

I’ll bite. I’m assuming you are asking why people do not like Preview, so I’ll go with that. I’m actually pro-Preview but below I’ve summarized four compelling arguments that I have heard that are anti-Preview.

Purity: Tera Team Preview is a modification of game mechanics and therefore is inconsistent with Smogon’s tiering policy.

Fails to Address Real Issues: The main compelling arguments against Tera are frankly unresolved with the reveal of Tera Type on Preview. The “50/50s”, the offensive power creep by gaining additional STABs or a free Adaptability, and the strain on the builder caused by Pokemon running diverse sets are the main issues with Tera, and Preview fails to address those points.

Reduction In Skill: Ask yourself - “Why do we not have Open Team Sheets”? Metagame knowledge is a skill. Scouting is a skill. Information management is a skill. Creating lure sets is a skill. By revealing information on Team Preview, you are reducing variance but also reducing the skill cap of the game.

Homogenizing Tera Types: The impact of rebalancing around Tera Preview will result in worsening of Pokemon that run multiple types and will discourage picking off-meta Tera Types. Pokémon that commonly run only their STAB type will relatively benefit. However, this happens to be the least interesting, least deep portion of the mechanic.

 

[bigasschungusboi]

I’ll bite. I’m assuming you are asking why people do not like Preview, so I’ll go with that. I’m actually pro-Preview but below I’ve summarized four compelling arguments that I have heard that are anti-Preview.

Purity: Tera Team Preview is a modification of game mechanics and therefore is inconsistent with Smogon’s tiering policy.

Fails to Address Real Issues: The main compelling arguments against Tera are frankly unresolved with the reveal of Tera Type on Preview. The “50/50s”, the offensive power creep by gaining additional STABs or a free Adaptability, and the strain on the builder caused by Pokemon running diverse sets are the main issues with Tera, and Preview fails to address those points.

Reduction In Skill: Ask yourself - “Why do we not have Open Team Sheets”? Metagame knowledge is a skill. Scouting is a skill. Information management is a skill. Creating lure sets is a skill. By revealing information on Team Preview, you are reducing variance but also reducing the skill cap of the game.

Homogenizing Tera Types: The impact of rebalancing around Tera Preview will result in worsening of Pokemon that run multiple types and will discourage picking off-meta Tera Types. Pokémon that commonly run only their STAB type will relatively benefit. However, this happens to be the least interesting, least deep portion of the mechanic.

Thank you so much for responding, sorry if the post wasn't clear but im glad you got the gist of it.

In any case, getting all these arguments are exactly what I wanted so we could all as a community refute or affirm them so we can have some concise clarity on the matter.

Now looking at these arguments number 1 is pretty bad considering we have already messed with the game's mechanics and it's not at all incontinent see (Sleep Clause)


2:The notion that tera alone causes these 50/50s is just odd Imo it's the broken mons exerting immense pressure that forces situations like this and in any case in a tera metagame pokes at +2 with tera are going to be difficult to beat and that's just how things are now, we need to accept this as fact and play accordingly like forcing premature tera's and adapting with more offensive structures.

3:This one just feels odd like yes it's removing an aspect of metagame knowledge but it also makes the metagame a lot easier to keep track of and also interact with and I resent the fact that this will somehow remove skill from the game when we haven't even seen it play on ladder or anywhere to be exact hell it would make skillful players flex that much more of their knowledge by rolling the same Tera's but winning consistently not because tera is broken but because they are skillful and put the time to learn the metagame.


4:This is pretty bad considering half of the mons that currently use tera are just using it as a crutch to remove revengekilling and flipping the type scripts and it has nothing to do with super mega boosting like this argument implies if anything it would boost using safe tera's but intuitive and interseting movesets take for example Glowking with plenty of good tera's but an insane movepool that could back it up even after knowing it's tera at preview.

Stopping this from getting to long now lol tysm for responding with these arguments Biannual Run was really nice to refute them.

 

[Melbelle]

Now looking at these arguments number 1 is pretty bad considering we have already messed with the game's mechanics and it's not at all incontinent see (Sleep Clause)

This does not on its own justify further modifications.

 

[Schpoonman]

2:The notion that tera alone causes these 50/50s is just odd Imo it's the broken mons exerting immense pressure that forces situations like this and in any case in a tera metagame pokes at +2 with tera are going to be difficult to beat and that's just how things are now, we need to accept this as fact and play accordingly like forcing premature tera's and adapting with more offensive structures.

Bold emphasis mine. The metagame is already a heavily offense-leaning runaway train. The entire point of this thread is to address the majority of players answering the surveys wanting something to be done about Tera. Throwing our hands up and giving up on pulling the metagame in is not an option.