Agree to disagree at this point we're just going to clog the thread but, in any case, what is the current argument for tera blast not getting banned?
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Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion, Part II [CLOSED FOR DLC]
- Thread starter Finchinator
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The way you administrate these two things is the same: You preview your team to your opponent. Given that we also have move and item bans in current OU, it doesn't actually change having to look at each individual mon compared to the current status quo.
I think a Tera Blast ban will do way more for the format than Tera Preview, but it is an incredibly easy (and very simple) fix.
"The game" isn't telling you that, Showdown is a tool to streamline playing Pokemon Battles, and thus has tools to make the experience better.
In a tera preview format, the equivalent of playing on cart would simply just be telling your opponent which tera types you are using, which the simulator implements automatically.
No, the games Pokemon Scarlet and Violet literally tell you the team your opponent brought. Team preview is a given because the games the simulator is based on has team preview. Tera preview is not a given because the games do not do that.
edit: i misread a little but i do think what i said still applies to the "dont bring x" and "tell me y" thing
Tera Preview would obviously not be implemented in the game, Showdown assumes a verbal communication between players which where they would convey tera types.
The issue isn't whether it's possible for me, but if we should have gen 9 centered around a mechanic effectively altered by a gentleman's agreement. I feel like I've taken enough thread space and some people are missing what I'm trying to say. Anyone who does not see eye to eye we can agree to disagree.
Effectively saying we should do ban vs no ban because of the above (or ban tera blast, not bringing a move is fine too)
Final post I'll make about this but tera preview IMO does not alter the identity of tera completely and allows for a much more streamlined and more informed way of playing away from the constant stalking of tera types and the fear of so called '50/50's" and makes tera far more palatable for people who want something done and doesn't shoehorn tera into becoming just some stab boosting device but still a form of expression that the player can decisively use.
Kinda. You can locally show the tera without showing the moves or stats. You will accidentally show the item but just unequip before the showing. Slightly convoluted but it works.
no, team preview is something that is actually implemented in the game. I have yet to see people wanting to add team preview to oldgens without it. tera preview isnt in the game
rereading your post i think i misunderstood your argument sorry
I agree with you in that amongst the many suggestions done in order to salvage tera in any way this is one of the more sound ones and I would support putting it for debate. My problems with this idea are following, and I know this is circumstancial but let's make the following examples.
Let's say you defog with Corv against a Valiant and in the next turn you slow u-turn to Volcarona (provided they unban it after this suggestion is accepted). You want your Volc to tera so you have it itemless and can enter without rocks on the field now. What's stopping it now from doing what it did before?
Okay so no more Lum Gambit, but bro has so many sets and many dont really rely on the item.
What is better, Scarf Ghold or Tera Flying Ghold?
I feel like amongst the best pokemon who are the best tera abusers, 80% of the time the item has very minimal impact. Is Eleki gonna be any less broken because it can't hold an item?
But I could also argue it from the other side, I mean, if it's proven that running an item is much more valuable than teraing a pokemon, then whats the difference between this clause and an outright ban?
In conclusion, I'm all for discussing this suggestion and I would love to be proven wrong but I don't feel it's going to be what we need.
I don't really agree with the Tera Orb argument but I'm going to clear up a bad counter-argument against it
the concept of a "Tera Orb"-like item is completely within policy (unless it's suggested as an entirely unique item, and with Knock Off immunity lol)
there is no altering of game mechanics, it is able to be done with a handshake agreement, there is no coding, hacking or manipulation involved to make it work
we could hand shake agree that you need to hold a certain agreed upon item at the start of a battle in order for that pokemon to terastilize, like idk, "You can only Terastilize a Pokemon with Beast Ball in their item slot regardless of what happens to the Pokemon's item slot midgame"
which you could only prove was followed in the same way as a tera preview anyways, if the opponent tells you the wrong tera typeson cart, what are you gonna do? if they say that Garchomp's Tera Type is Ground but you don't get to see it, but it was actually Tera Steel, there isn't anything you can really do about that either.
and with the magic of "simulation privilege", you can make it more obvious in the builder, boom. Tera Preview on Showdown is already just QoL for the technical agreement of "Tera Preview Clause", there is absolutely nothing stopping this from also being like that
the concept of a "Tera Orb"-like item is completely within policy (unless it's suggested as an entirely unique item, and with Knock Off immunity lol)
there is no altering of game mechanics, it is able to be done with a handshake agreement, there is no coding, hacking or manipulation involved to make it work
we could hand shake agree that you need to hold a certain agreed upon item at the start of a battle in order for that pokemon to terastilize, like idk, "You can only Terastilize a Pokemon with Beast Ball in their item slot regardless of what happens to the Pokemon's item slot midgame"
which you could only prove was followed in the same way as a tera preview anyways, if the opponent tells you the wrong tera typeson cart, what are you gonna do? if they say that Garchomp's Tera Type is Ground but you don't get to see it, but it was actually Tera Steel, there isn't anything you can really do about that either.
and with the magic of "simulation privilege", you can make it more obvious in the builder, boom. Tera Preview on Showdown is already just QoL for the technical agreement of "Tera Preview Clause", there is absolutely nothing stopping this from also being like that
The ones I typically hear are:
1) it's not broken on every single user" - it's broken on 3-4 and problematic on many more, and the fact that any Pokémon could have it is actually what makes it problematic. Definitely worth looking into.
2) "that doesn't solve every single problem Tera brings" - if the person who says this actually shares what they believe the problems are, it's important to consider that it's true that tera blast ban is not a one size fits all solution, similar to any "tera restriction," but it can be applied in tandem with any other restriction, including banning individual Pokémon
3) "it's not a broken move" - no you can't insta win by using it, but it encourages dynamics that simply are not healthy for a competitve game, Including allowing any Pokémon to lure any Pokémon, and greatly raising the stakes of "Tera guessing games" (EDIT:, that's to say it won't always win you the game, often Tera Blast in fact is what triggers the events that end the game)
4) "it doesn't change very much about the game" - a lot of people want this mechanic to stay and don't want to see it changed much. Balancing bans that don't have a huge impact on many Pokémon but decrease unhealthy elements of metagames are good, not bad
5) "it should be done separately. This is a move ban, not a Tera restriction." - If banning this move can solve the Tera problem without axing the mechanic completely, then absolutely it is a Tera restriction. Let's stop making very deliberate and obtuse interpretations of policy and take a look at mechanical changes for what they really are.
6) "I think Tera is fun and/or the generational mechanic and changing in any way would make the tier stale" - don't care. It won't be stale because it's a new & the most recent generation and how much a person would want to pick gen 9 up when it's not current should not be a factor in tiering decisions.
So there are a few arguments but I'm not sure there are any legitimate ones. People feel it's either too little or too much and there's basically no consistency in their camp.
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in what sense is it not a unique item
Thanks for the actual calm and interesting input on this thought and for the nice words
in that case, you successfully managed to position your sweeper in a spot where they can do a lot of damage, that has always been one of the actual skillfull parts of pokemon but you actually needed to do something for that to happen, it wasnt just "let me use my boots tera ground volc to do volc stuff better than ever" or especially "let me use my lorb tera ground volc to even kill the few checks to my boots set", it was getting your hazardremoval in to remove the hazards while making sure they dont get up again, the opponent doesnt use the turn to set up their val (which could be any kind of booster set with taunt, encore or sd liquidation or even something like a tera sub or tera set to make sure volc doesnt switch in at all)
the pokemon you said didnt have to be volc, the same could happen with a baxcalibur with dd or sd, they could freely rely on their item to carry them to the point where they could tera because they just teraed to ground (or dragon) to setup through their hazardweaknesses because they used boots, same for val: it uses a few sets with booster and a tera type (ive used a few tera ghosts with sub cm) which make it enormously hard to revenge it since it is basically as fast as eleki while being able to completely ignore espeed (and quick attack, fake out, mach punch and vacuum wave), play for mindgames with sucker punch and not get destroyed by bullet punch, ive seen a lot of other sets though
other tera users:
garg without lefties is no garg anymore is a saying i heard a lot and it is true in a way, garg really wants its passive recovery on the switches it forces
DNite: really wants its boots or its cb, otherwise it isnt as long lived and threatening as before
Ting lu: one of quite a few defensive tera users but seriously, ting lu without lefties is like three times as bad as garg without lefties in comparison to with them
kingambit: yeah it isnt hit AS badly, still it really enjoyed lefties for switching in on ghost or dragon moves repeatedly, also air balloon really helped the teams it was on and without black glasses the insane calc against dozo isnt AS insane anymore
Pult: less cheesy tera fighting pults with lorb anyymore, without the powerboost it really just doesnt hit as hard anymore
Enam: i used it as an example a lot, tera ground enam is just a really good teratype on it, it would be worse if it couldnt be boots/specs/scarf on those sets but it would still be great no matter the set
samurott: Oh no, i cant get free spikes while making sure the opponent cant get their spin on me, the metagame will break *irony out* it really wants one of its items but i can see tera ghost be more important on ho or very offensive teams in particular, even though they really want their sash so idk
Sneasler: yeah please stop this tera flying stuff, i dont like that personally as i feel its one of those "predict a turn to win or lose the game" sometimes which just isnt competetive pokemon to me
cresselia: is anyone sad they cant fight opponents with tera poison lefties cress anymore? if so sorry, i cant relate
that should be the most tera users, i cant say all of ou for obvious reasons but i feel like many of these pokemon get enabled by being able to use tera plus item so much that having to choose might actually be difficult and many of these could have good sets on each spectrum, which makes the metagame more interesting, while calming the powercreep down a lot and making balanced teams (the sign of a balanced metagame) better and more popular, sure a lot of the pokemon i didnt list love to use their defensive tera to check something but thats such a weird mechanic as well: "my only way to break through amoonguss is my cinderace, every time i get my cinderace in on their specs gholdengo i have to uturn or double out now though since if i pyro ball and they stay and tera, i lose to amoonguss"
that was only an example to everyone yelling at me on how bad that team is but the same can be said offensively (i brough the amoonguss on sub val now so often that everyone knows it, same goes for a tera flying/fire gambit with tera blast, tera flying sneas, tera ice sandy (i dont think thats too common atm but still it does run around sometimes) and so on, and that was only for one defensive pokemon, if you have a big problem against pokemon x on the opposing side and you usually could use pokemon y to check both x and another one of the opponent, lets call it z, you cant use y to check z unless you want to get killed by something, be it stab tera or some different tera and a stronger move/tera blast and have x sweep you
that was a weird walk through my problem with tera, in the end i just feel like tera is a permanent but a bit weaker zmove with defensive boosting capabilities, a bit like how i see megas, tera just sits awkwardly between those two but springs to the eye due to its nonreliance on an item
Ehm... i think i talked a bit too much in the part above, however ill just say that it can very well depend on your team and that is something tera without item is capable of: supporting your team without being overwhelming for the opponent
you lose to bax and have a hard time against zama? use tera fairy dozo and eeven without helmet/lefties it helps your team immensly due to not instalosing
you really hate losing to amoonguss? use tera flying tera blast lando or tera psychic cm valiant, might not sweep outright but you are better versed against this pokemon that the rest of your team hates facing
(the second example actually is a good example of a lureset imo, it has a big opportunitycost but helps your team in the way that youcan use your otherwise good team due to having a good chance to just beat the one pokemon you struggle with)
Again, im sorry but it is really hard to answer to this comment one by one due to it being quite connected in itself which i actually like, since it is not just many different arguments but a nice train of thought:
Eleki without specs isnt going to be "fine" that easily so yes, you might be right with that one, however without specs ti doesnt directly kill so much and without boots its not going to love switching into rocks and spikes, still i would guess it is broken even with the "no-item-tera rule", that is very true, i dont know how it would effect espathra as well, since it really enjoyed lefties or a seed but didnt needed it so id say it is still the matchupmon it was before, we actually could look into chien though maybe, since it still is enormously powerful, no questions asked, however without lorb plus tera or cb plus tera or even boots plus tera it isnt as easily to switch in to make use of its breaking potential
i view it as a bit of a faster Kyu-B of gen 7 and yeah that sounds insane, however the powercreep we went through was enough to make tyranitar, a pokemon that was comfortable in ou for six generations, drop to RU (yes i know it lost pursuit which is a big deal but still) and make lando, the king of gen 8 (and tbh every gen from 5 on) ou succumb to another physical ground, in result making chomp hanging by its teeth to keep in ou
oh and the top five and seven of the top ten are from gen 9 (or hisui)
still unsure on chien, that was just a little train of thought i wanted to chase
I'm very much for discussing it as well, thank you a lot for your thoughts and would love an answer on what you see similarly and what you see completely different, my vision is very much tainted by my glasses as a fan of gen 7 with its many options to build ho, stall and everything inbetween and be successful, id love for gen 9 to become similar and as already said above i see tera as a mix of z-moves and megas, so why not make it similar in the cost as well
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as already mentioned i did a mistake in thinking the tera shards were holdable items and went overboard with the thought of untrick- and unknockability, making it a useless item would be okay too like the mentioned beastball
Instead of tying to voice my input on an OU metagame I am very uneducated on since I inevitably wouldn’t know what I’m talking about, I wanted to ask a different question upon seeing this topic come to light again.
Let’s say that tiering action of some kind is taken on Terastalization, no matter what it is. That’s fine and all, but it leaves me curious about how the OU council would go about handling some of the Pokémon previously banned from the tier. Would re-tests be a thing they’re interested in? Would they leave these Pokémon in Ubers untouched assuming Terastalization remains untouched in that metagame?
I understand that some of you might disagree with what I’m about to say, but I think there’s something that’s just as important, if not even more so, than how competitively balanced a metagame of any kind, and that’s how accessible it is. Just because a metagame is balanced doesn’t mean newer players looking to learn more about the communities supporting their favorite games will be able to enjoy playing. And at the end of the day, few things are as reliable a measurement of a game’s health as its active player count. Case in point, while I don’t have an educated opinion on Terastalization in “standard play” (that is to say, Gen 9 OU) at the moment, I would like to support whatever outcome can make this tier more enjoyable for newer and/or more casually oriented players. I’m willing to bite my tongue and admit that I don’t have the education or the experience to say anything further.
Let’s say that tiering action of some kind is taken on Terastalization, no matter what it is. That’s fine and all, but it leaves me curious about how the OU council would go about handling some of the Pokémon previously banned from the tier. Would re-tests be a thing they’re interested in? Would they leave these Pokémon in Ubers untouched assuming Terastalization remains untouched in that metagame?
I understand that some of you might disagree with what I’m about to say, but I think there’s something that’s just as important, if not even more so, than how competitively balanced a metagame of any kind, and that’s how accessible it is. Just because a metagame is balanced doesn’t mean newer players looking to learn more about the communities supporting their favorite games will be able to enjoy playing. And at the end of the day, few things are as reliable a measurement of a game’s health as its active player count. Case in point, while I don’t have an educated opinion on Terastalization in “standard play” (that is to say, Gen 9 OU) at the moment, I would like to support whatever outcome can make this tier more enjoyable for newer and/or more casually oriented players. I’m willing to bite my tongue and admit that I don’t have the education or the experience to say anything further.
so, being pro-preview (as i am also), how do we refute these arguments?
number 1 is easy: tera preview isn't actually a mod at all. it can easily be replicated on cartridge by simply telling each other the tera types of all your mons at the beginning of the match, or whenever your opponent asks, or whatever.
number 2 is a bit more complicated. yes, tera preview isn't a magical band-aid that will solve everything, but there is no magical band-aid that will solve everything in one fell swoop. even banning tera won't do that—in fact, it may end up tilting the scales even further towards braindead hyper-offense slop, since we'd no longer have access to any good defensive fairy-types and some defensive mons (cresselia in particular stands out here) would be rendered effectively nonexistent. no matter what happens, we're gonna have to ban several more mons before we get something stable—or, more likely, we'll just collectively curl into the fetal position and rock back and forth waiting for the dlc.
number 3 is hard to refute because any time you try to argue against this point, everyone is going to accuse you of being bad at the game because anti-preview people have poisoned the well by conflating "not knowing things" with "skill". i prefer my games to be less bayesian when possible.
number 4 isn't even really an argument because even if things homogenize that doesn't necessarily make them less balanced.
I'll preface by saying I'm not the greatest player, but I have a different idea to balance out terastilization. Note: I'm not completely married to the idea and any criticisms and counterpoints are welcome. I am making my post to help generate discussion and new ideas.
I remember a big balancing aspect of Z-Crystals was the opportunity cost of not having another held item. So what if we do the same here? We can force any Pokemon that wants to terastilize to hold a tera shard of that type. This could help a Pokemon like Volcarona, who loves having the versatility of a different type, but in exchange, it has to give up HDB. This feels like a good way of keeping the versatility of tera in the team builder, but provides a drawback to being able to do so. Plus, it would be easily implementable on cartridge, so there's no worries about keeping showdown accurate to it.
Whether or not you lose the ability to tera, and whether you want tera preview outside of figuring it out with knock off, I'm not sure the best way with this. (Speaking of knockoff, there'd be some interesting new tactics with trick and thief as well).
What do you all think about this idea? Is it the most dog-shit thing you've laid your eyes on? Or is it potentially discussion worthy?
I remember a big balancing aspect of Z-Crystals was the opportunity cost of not having another held item. So what if we do the same here? We can force any Pokemon that wants to terastilize to hold a tera shard of that type. This could help a Pokemon like Volcarona, who loves having the versatility of a different type, but in exchange, it has to give up HDB. This feels like a good way of keeping the versatility of tera in the team builder, but provides a drawback to being able to do so. Plus, it would be easily implementable on cartridge, so there's no worries about keeping showdown accurate to it.
Whether or not you lose the ability to tera, and whether you want tera preview outside of figuring it out with knock off, I'm not sure the best way with this. (Speaking of knockoff, there'd be some interesting new tactics with trick and thief as well).
What do you all think about this idea? Is it the most dog-shit thing you've laid your eyes on? Or is it potentially discussion worthy?
It's been repeatedly suggested and has no traction because it's a messy solution. If terastalization needs psudo-game-mod nerfs to remain in the tier, it should just be banned - and I say this as one of the pro-tera voices.
That's why the two most popular solutions are Tera Blast Ban and Tera Preview, because you can do that during a local match (You have to take items out though, but is not unreasonable) and the other is just a "gentleman's clause" of asking to not use X move. That's not convoluted, although the former isn't feasible on online.
Many have suggested this, not only is it bad because it is a pseudo game mod (yes it can technically be considered a handshake,) but it is COMPLETELY arbitrary. Has it been demonstrated that the PROBLEM with Tera directly relates to the ability to hold an item? Yes holding an item objectively makes the mechanic better than not holding an item, but does it have anything to do with the fact that any Pokémon can blow up its check and be rendered nigh uncounterable, and that this happens once per battle so you need to constantly be cognizant of it? Does it have anything to do with the fact that not being able to factor in all 700 possible Tera combinations (rough approximation based on number of Pokémon OU by usage x number of types, yes I am aware some are more viable than others) making perfectly competent teams lose instantly in the builder & making this meta game extremely matchup reliant? I can't count the number of times a Tera type I've no answer to pops up & gets a free turn to boost and despite having 4+ healthy mons I have to say "well there's absolutely nothing I can do about that." Does ANY of that have to do with an item? Tera Blast bans and Preview directly address these issues.
And for what it's worth the very first post in this thread says "fringe options like Tera Captain are not being considered" so "think of a new restriction that satisfies everyone" has never been the goal, and even if it was, this restriction is Tera Captain with a different name, so it's definitely not happening
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This does nothing to address the issue at hand. While I don't speak for everyone I do think that the vast majority have settled into some preferred ranking of no action, full ban, Tera preview, or Tera Blast ban. I personally feel that anything else is too convoluted, including predesignated Tera user and restricting Tera types. This suggestion is bizarre and almost wades into "Palkia is legal but only at level 62" type territory.
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