You’re noting tera is the common denominator here but Shed Tail is integral to this settup no? As I said I think without shed tail espathra’s a lot less oppressive.
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np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Oops!...I Did It Again
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You’re noting tera is the common denominator here but Shed Tail is integral to this settup no? As I said I think without shed tail espathra’s a lot less oppressive.
fwiw i think you arent including Gholdengo here, who is crazy and also almost never teras.
I also think you underestimate how much cyclizar/shed tail supports mons like dnite and espartha that are “tera broken”. While shed tail itself is only one thing I think its a huge part of the puzzle.
People have compared terastalization to z-moves, megas, dynamax, but I think a better comparison is to the mechanic of held items.
- The only downside of runnning one tera type is not being able to also run another tera type. Similarly, effectively the only downside of running one item is not being able to run a different item.
- Tera types allow Pokemon to offensively run over pokemon that would be their defensive counters, and also allow some Pokemon to defensively check pokemon that would otherwise overrun them. This is also true of items.
- Most Pokemon only have a couple tera types that they can competitively run, and you can have an educated guess from teambuilding which ones are run, but it's always possible to be caught off guard, and scouting can backfire. This is also true for items.
- Tera types are particularly useful for setup sweepers, though can also be used to check them. This is also true of items.
- Many Pokemon that are currently overpowered would not be overpowered if they couldn't terastallize. This is also true of the ability to hold items.
- The lack of knowledge of tera-types can lead to battle situations where whether someone has a particular tera-type on their pokemon determines whether they win or lose. This is also true of items.
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We can't cherry pick what we want and don't want in OU. There are plenty of things in Pokémon we could ban or mod to reduce variance, but in the end we try to stick to cartridge mechanics as close as possible.
I forgot to mention the tiering framework when I last talked about "fun". Looking back, my post was somewhat inaccurate. Some people are going to enjoy Tera, some will not, but if it's banned it will be because it violates the tiering policy and nothing more. The onus is on team Ban to prove that a reasonably competitive metagame cannot exist with Tera, NOT that the game is better or worse by some subjective amount.
Yes we can cherry pick what we want and don't want in OU. That is entirely the point of suspect tests. We do it with Pokemon, we do it with items, we do it with moves and we've done it with generational gimmicks. The job is not nor has it ever been to stick to cartridge mechanics as "closely as possible" the goal has to curate a competitive metagame. Banning tera would not violate any tiering policy ever.
It won't violate tiering policy, I'm just explaining to him that this isn't about the pro- or ban- side arguing if Tera adds more or less to the game. He says
In that vein, nobody needs to argue what makes Tera a good or bad addition to the game. Probability Management and Team Matchup management are given room for in the framework. Focus on if a reasonably competitive metagame can exist with Tera and nothing more... If we DO ban Tera, it will be because it violates the Tiering Framework.
i've seen this comparison a few times before and it really doesn't make sense if you think about it. items are lower impact, much easier to scout throughout a game, and are something you have to commit to holding throughout the entire game. that isn't even to mention that items like choice items do have concrete downsides to running them. the comparison of items and tera would only make sense if you could like, push a button mid game that gave your mon a scarf.
So today I played my requirements for voting, 4 hours straight of gen 9 ou with Trick Room and here are my thoughts.
1. Tera out of 42 games, only dominated two battles with 1 of them being arguable a misplay on my opponents end. This is in mid ladder (1500-1600) where the player skill isn't exactly accurate but its understandable that at higher levels of play tera reversals or straight up wins off tera get more rare the higher the skill cap. I actively saw this as in 1000-1400 players would play badly vs my specs pelliper tera water, but over time in 1500-1650 I got more and more punished and forced into bad situations for trying to capitilize on my tera in the first place whether that be good positioning, prioritizing hazards like tspikes to deter tera water on pelliper, etc.
2. The only broken tera user I can see as of right now is annihilape, we know Chi Yu is getting banned regardless of the suspect outcome so it's pointless to mention.
3. Tera seems to be used more defensively than ever when compared to weeks earlier, it seems that as we figure out how to abuse defensive tera typing changes they might outclass most offensive tera types in the future IMO. Breaking power is really not needed in the metagame as is, most teams naturally have enough power creep to break stalls and semi stalls so general outplay is all you need to win vs the stall MU. From my pov the complaints of the breaking power, aren't really warranted with how the metagame is going in terms of defensive tera usage rising.
4. The game is most fun when tera is active, every match feels fresh and in your hands even when facing the same person again in a shitty mu due to how versatile and the high skill floor that comes with the tera mechanic, losing this ENTIRELY will 100% turn off a sizable chunk of the playerbase and we lose out on being able to micro manage bad MU's likely making the game less skill based if we forgo the mechanic entirely instead of a restriction.
I will obviously vote no action to the first question and in terms of my ranked voting for the 2nd question here they are
1. tera team preview
2. 1 tera user per team
3. ban tera outright
4. stab tera only
I feel stab tera only is possibly the worst outcome, it just turns the metagame into a offense cesspool with little defensive options or variation to combat the heavy offensive pressure. Also there was minimal tera type guessing within my run, aside from 1 scary instance of grass Ceruledge most were understandable and or predictable and I played around practically all of them, sometimes reactively or pre-emptively. I really think people oversell the strength of the mechanic but I am down for a restriction of some kind regardless if it appeases a good portion of the community.
1. Tera out of 42 games, only dominated two battles with 1 of them being arguable a misplay on my opponents end. This is in mid ladder (1500-1600) where the player skill isn't exactly accurate but its understandable that at higher levels of play tera reversals or straight up wins off tera get more rare the higher the skill cap. I actively saw this as in 1000-1400 players would play badly vs my specs pelliper tera water, but over time in 1500-1650 I got more and more punished and forced into bad situations for trying to capitilize on my tera in the first place whether that be good positioning, prioritizing hazards like tspikes to deter tera water on pelliper, etc.
2. The only broken tera user I can see as of right now is annihilape, we know Chi Yu is getting banned regardless of the suspect outcome so it's pointless to mention.
3. Tera seems to be used more defensively than ever when compared to weeks earlier, it seems that as we figure out how to abuse defensive tera typing changes they might outclass most offensive tera types in the future IMO. Breaking power is really not needed in the metagame as is, most teams naturally have enough power creep to break stalls and semi stalls so general outplay is all you need to win vs the stall MU. From my pov the complaints of the breaking power, aren't really warranted with how the metagame is going in terms of defensive tera usage rising.
4. The game is most fun when tera is active, every match feels fresh and in your hands even when facing the same person again in a shitty mu due to how versatile and the high skill floor that comes with the tera mechanic, losing this ENTIRELY will 100% turn off a sizable chunk of the playerbase and we lose out on being able to micro manage bad MU's likely making the game less skill based if we forgo the mechanic entirely instead of a restriction.
I will obviously vote no action to the first question and in terms of my ranked voting for the 2nd question here they are
1. tera team preview
2. 1 tera user per team
3. ban tera outright
4. stab tera only
I feel stab tera only is possibly the worst outcome, it just turns the metagame into a offense cesspool with little defensive options or variation to combat the heavy offensive pressure. Also there was minimal tera type guessing within my run, aside from 1 scary instance of grass Ceruledge most were understandable and or predictable and I played around practically all of them, sometimes reactively or pre-emptively. I really think people oversell the strength of the mechanic but I am down for a restriction of some kind regardless if it appeases a good portion of the community.
1. and we have seen where tera straight up wins if the opponent guesses wrong.... 1000-1400 players obv would not be able to utilize the pokemon well, or the mechanics, or know how to play around it, that is just being new to the game.
2. Dragonite, espartha, chien-pao, volcarona? none of those? maybe even roaring moon is pretty bonkers still.
3. Sure breaking power isnt needed.... but try to revenge kill a mon who can just tera and ur now left guessing... tera to a stab is good on mons who have bonkers stab to begin with such as chi-yu and chien-pao maybe pult to but idk havent seen much tera pult. and many teams just need to tera defensively in order to stand a chance esp balance teams to hold of a threat.
4. uh yeah... but it can just as easily swing the game around and make a game that you are losing impossible to get back from. esp if you are forced to revenge kill that mon and u cannot afford to play around and switch out... just to get terad on. a person is rarely going to be able to swing a game with a tera.. not only does that burn their tera but the opponent still may keep theirs and take advantage of that to just mop your team.... and new players always complain about that.. they complained about dynamax, the ban of many pokemon throught the gen like spectrier, urshifu-r, magearna.. that is how new players are or new players who arent willing to adapt to change
MudkipNerd is any of this true?
1. being able to have games more in control, rather than games being predetermined due to bad mu
2. Every game feels fresh due to the variaty and versatility the mechanic creates in each battle, even in rematches of the same teams
3. The added layer of depth to the game that tera creates is appealing to veteran players, its a major turn on for players who disliked gen 8 in specific due to that metagames simplicity.
4. There are numerous legitimately cool uses of tera that allow Pokémon to have viability that they otherwise wouldn't and a fair number of people would dislike their options being limited due to an outright ban on tera
5. Some just don't think its that ridiculous in the first place anyways
there's more reasonings but these are the most common
idk im not smart enough
1. But games are not as in your control with tera as you would think. Your opponent can have a tera that beats yours and the majority of your team and that is just as out of your control. Some people may say Tera reduces bad match ups, but frankly it can introduce more.
2. This isn't really relevant to whether the mechanic is balanced or not, tbh. Not to mention you don't need tera to have battles feel fresh.
3. This one... Why are you attempting to speak for veteran players? There are some who like the mechanic and some who don't. And also gen8 was not "simple", unless you refer to a lack of a gimmick. Which... Isn't relevant.
4. Sure there are, and most people, even pro ban players acknowledge this. But the cool tech alone isn't a reason to keep it if the mechanic isn't balanced overall.
The whole comparison falls flat when you realize that some held items have a negative effect on their holder. Like the Choice items, which lock you to one move. Also, items can be scouted, tricked, and even knocked off. What's more, they don't allow you to completely alter a mon's counterplay by changing them to a completely different type; no item can make Dragonite a Normal type, for example.
Likewise, there are many more games where Tera straight up buries the opponent if they mess up. Sound familiar? Because that was Dynamax in a nutshell.
Dragonite, Chien-Pao, Espathra, Volcarona... There's prolly more. Special mention to the former two for having priority moves.
Yeah, well, most of the complaints about tera are from offensive tera. Like the aforementioned mons being able to turn a would-be check into setup fodder.
I wouldn't call it "fresh" when literally every turn is a mess of 50-50s until tera has been used. I also disagree on banning terastalize making the game less skill based. If anything, it'd do the opposite because ppl can't BS their way out of a bad matchup by deleting their weaknesses.
So I'm going to be honest, I'm probably not going to go for reqs between my full time job and current hyperfixation on shiny hunting. Comp has taken a backseat in my life for a while on account of the latter hobby, really. But if I want to make an eventual return, I feel I should at least write something here so that I don't wind up whining about the result of a process I didn't even remotely partake in if I don't like what happens, so I've taken the time to write up what my ballot would look like.
First off, I would absolutely vote for some manner of action. Tera cannot be left as is.
First Choice: Tera At Preview. Considering that VGC, the official TPCi format, is going to implement this at events, I feel that this is the bare minimum measure. Even the people running the game rules feel this is a necessary measure for official competition. If I'm only given the option of getting one of these options at all EVER, this is the one I have to have. But ultimately, the only issue this really addresses is the abstract concepts of "variance" and "50/50," which generally leave a bad taste in my mouth because what some people think is "variance" is actually their opponent predicting their actions from a pattern of behavior. To answer Srn's puzzle, since that scenario arose on Turn 25, I'd be looking back at the game at how the Dragonite player responded to checks/threats previously. Did they always assume the threat to be forthcoming and respond accordingly? Then they're more likely to Normal Tera to respond to the threat of Ice Spinner, and it's not a bad idea to react accordingly and Sacred Sword. Did the Dragonite user call bluffs and stay the course, assuming the type of prediction I just mentioned? Then make good on your threat and Ice Spinner. Ultimately by studying your opponent's behavior you could make a well-informed decision in each case, and imo that's always been part of the skill floor of the game, not some pure-luck element. A lot of why I've struggled in the past is jumping the prediction shark because I assumed every player responded to threats exactly like I did, and that mentality cost me so many games. Maybe my insistence on getting into heads is the psych major in me talking, but hey.
In short, I don't think there's as much genuine "wtf do you do" level variance inherent to Tera as people believe, and what of it does exist is largely solved by this measure, but there's other issues at play that imo makes this measure alone probably not entirely sufficient. We'd likely need further action beyond this, but what form that should necessarily take is not up for discussion here. Whether or not that suits you is your choice, but I personally think the investment would be worth the effort.
Second Choice: One Tera User Per Team. This option I find particularly interesting, because you get something more akin to Mega Evolution out of it, where very deliberate thought has to be put into Tera candidates on the team. It also allows an important question for a once-per-battle mechanic like this to be answered more easily: Is it a good idea to Tera first? Tera's limited use forces one to ask the question of if the position gained by Terastallizing first can be outweighed or matched by the opponent going second, and if they can match or outweigh the position an opponent could gain by doing so first. If you know going in what your opponent's Tera Pokemon is, you gain more insight into what your opponent intends to do with Terastallizing and what position(s) they can gain, allowing you to answer the aforementioned questions at least somewhat in advance. That being said, it's very limiting in actual play, because different in-the-moment scenarios can call for radically different Tera candidates. You ironically run into the problem of variance in terms of whether or not your single Tera candidate can answer the inherently unknowable at queue-time problems presented by your opponent's team and Tera candidate, and for me to be really satisfied with this, you'd have to be able to bridge that gap with further policy change (again, the nature of which is not up for debate here). But as written, it leaves the most room for nuance and fine-tuning outside of the simple Team Preview option, hence being the next step down.
Third Choice: Ban Off-Type Tera. This isn't as nuanced as I'd like, probably a bit too sweeping as written, but certain Tera combinations are inherently absurd to put up any kind of prolonged fight against, and this is a large part of why I'm hesitant to make a serious push at Gen 9 comp just yet. If you see a combination of base and Tera Type in an ingame raid battle and instantly don't think you could handle it well with anything outside of Quadruple Viking Mode, chances are it's among the combinations I take particular issue with, but there's one example in particular that is super egregious considering that we have a new pseudo and new minor legend that can both potentially make use of it: Base Ice, Tera Electric. The defensive profile of an Electric Type being transplanted onto the offensive profile of an Ice Type is quite frankly absurd. Electric has one Weakness defensively: Ground. the offensive STAB you keep on Ice attacks hits that type super effectively. This makes answering a Tera Electric Ice Type very tricky. You either need Ground Coverage on something that continues to resist Ice and has the stats to back it up (Difficult when the threat of Sword of Ruin makes defense in this scenario harder in general), risk using STAB Ground alone (can potentially just outright not work), or use a Ground Type Tera'd to resist Ice (forces your Tera to be used reactively and is super limiting in play and teambuilding to need this panic button on hand). There's also the issue of Tera Blast, but this thread is not the place for that discussion. Ultimately, it's evident to me that taking this option and then cooking it down to keep a good balance while regulating Tera Types in the least restrictive way is going to take a lot of effort and consideration, more than current tiering philosophy might consider to be worth engaging with, but it also takes the necessary steps as written to remove obnoxious base/Tera sets like what I described above and addresses some of the meat of the issues I genuinely have with the mechanic as is.
Fourth Choice: Full Ban. I personally don't like this option, full stop. There's no nuance to it whatsoever. Tera gives a lot to Pokemon that have otherwise struggled in the past, like Floatzel and Oricorio, and encourages the study of generally overlooked moves and stratagems (always a net good IMO), while other Pokemon who have generally had their affairs in order prior do not necessarily gain so much from the mechanic. Let's not kid ourselves: Lando-T may not be here now, but it will come back and likely reclaim its near 50% usage rate. But...why Terastallize it? A sizable portion of its appeal is the role compression granted by the combination of Ground and Flying typing it has, granting it two key immunities that you'd otherwise need two Pokemon to fit. Terastallizing will always get rid of that 100% of the time. What does it gain in return? Being...a little better at offense, maybe? Except...wasn't it already fine? Wouldn't that just be a sort of win-moar move with more drawback than benefit? If Ferrothorn also makes a later return, it will deal with much the same problem, because Tera will always make its defensive profile, the thing that has made it OU for over 10 years, worse-the only option that strengthens its defensive profile (Electric) costs it its immunity to Seeds and Spore, something that it otherwise leverages in its defensive roles. These are just off the top of my head examples of some OU figureheads who don't stand to gain much from Tera.
To put this in some kind of perspective, Dynamax I was okay with banning wholesale because literally any Pokemon could use it to do absolutely busted shit. It wasn't even any variance or whatever, it was the fact that the supercharged moves and insane secondary effects in tandem were just blatantly uncompetitive, at least in Singles. The moment that did it for me back then was having a Rhyperior in a Random Battle, faced with a Starmie trying to answer the Rock Polish sweep, being able to click Dynamax to live enough to trigger WeakPoli, Max Flare to neuter the danger, and then Max Quake to just win the matchup and continue sweeping. Compared to Srn's puzzle at the start of the thread? That opponent I faced with that Rhyperior was just screwed because I had the Dynamax button and a Fire move. Their best answer to me suddenly could not win, ever. In Srn's scenario, if the Chien-Pao player scrutinizes the Dragonite player's behavior and makes a correct read, they still win. Tera didn't entirely remove the Chien-Pao player's ability to neutralize Dragonite's threat. It's that measure that makes me want to give Tera a chance to be brought under control. It simply isn't on the level of blatant uncompetitiveness that Dynamax was, and for that reason I believe, at least for now, that it can be balanced, if we're willing to put in the work to address this nuanced and multifaceted mechanic as just that: a complex thing that probably won't mix with a one-step blanket solution to its problem elements. But short of that, a total ban is the best you're going to get, even if I don't like it.
Anyway, fair warning that I'm probably not going to follow this thread/replies to this post too closely. I mostly just want to get this out there, if nothing else. But if you decide you want to pick my brain about a particular topic beyond the scope of this thread, feel free to reach out to me elsewhere.
First off, I would absolutely vote for some manner of action. Tera cannot be left as is.
First Choice: Tera At Preview. Considering that VGC, the official TPCi format, is going to implement this at events, I feel that this is the bare minimum measure. Even the people running the game rules feel this is a necessary measure for official competition. If I'm only given the option of getting one of these options at all EVER, this is the one I have to have. But ultimately, the only issue this really addresses is the abstract concepts of "variance" and "50/50," which generally leave a bad taste in my mouth because what some people think is "variance" is actually their opponent predicting their actions from a pattern of behavior. To answer Srn's puzzle, since that scenario arose on Turn 25, I'd be looking back at the game at how the Dragonite player responded to checks/threats previously. Did they always assume the threat to be forthcoming and respond accordingly? Then they're more likely to Normal Tera to respond to the threat of Ice Spinner, and it's not a bad idea to react accordingly and Sacred Sword. Did the Dragonite user call bluffs and stay the course, assuming the type of prediction I just mentioned? Then make good on your threat and Ice Spinner. Ultimately by studying your opponent's behavior you could make a well-informed decision in each case, and imo that's always been part of the skill floor of the game, not some pure-luck element. A lot of why I've struggled in the past is jumping the prediction shark because I assumed every player responded to threats exactly like I did, and that mentality cost me so many games. Maybe my insistence on getting into heads is the psych major in me talking, but hey.
In short, I don't think there's as much genuine "wtf do you do" level variance inherent to Tera as people believe, and what of it does exist is largely solved by this measure, but there's other issues at play that imo makes this measure alone probably not entirely sufficient. We'd likely need further action beyond this, but what form that should necessarily take is not up for discussion here. Whether or not that suits you is your choice, but I personally think the investment would be worth the effort.
Second Choice: One Tera User Per Team. This option I find particularly interesting, because you get something more akin to Mega Evolution out of it, where very deliberate thought has to be put into Tera candidates on the team. It also allows an important question for a once-per-battle mechanic like this to be answered more easily: Is it a good idea to Tera first? Tera's limited use forces one to ask the question of if the position gained by Terastallizing first can be outweighed or matched by the opponent going second, and if they can match or outweigh the position an opponent could gain by doing so first. If you know going in what your opponent's Tera Pokemon is, you gain more insight into what your opponent intends to do with Terastallizing and what position(s) they can gain, allowing you to answer the aforementioned questions at least somewhat in advance. That being said, it's very limiting in actual play, because different in-the-moment scenarios can call for radically different Tera candidates. You ironically run into the problem of variance in terms of whether or not your single Tera candidate can answer the inherently unknowable at queue-time problems presented by your opponent's team and Tera candidate, and for me to be really satisfied with this, you'd have to be able to bridge that gap with further policy change (again, the nature of which is not up for debate here). But as written, it leaves the most room for nuance and fine-tuning outside of the simple Team Preview option, hence being the next step down.
Third Choice: Ban Off-Type Tera. This isn't as nuanced as I'd like, probably a bit too sweeping as written, but certain Tera combinations are inherently absurd to put up any kind of prolonged fight against, and this is a large part of why I'm hesitant to make a serious push at Gen 9 comp just yet. If you see a combination of base and Tera Type in an ingame raid battle and instantly don't think you could handle it well with anything outside of Quadruple Viking Mode, chances are it's among the combinations I take particular issue with, but there's one example in particular that is super egregious considering that we have a new pseudo and new minor legend that can both potentially make use of it: Base Ice, Tera Electric. The defensive profile of an Electric Type being transplanted onto the offensive profile of an Ice Type is quite frankly absurd. Electric has one Weakness defensively: Ground. the offensive STAB you keep on Ice attacks hits that type super effectively. This makes answering a Tera Electric Ice Type very tricky. You either need Ground Coverage on something that continues to resist Ice and has the stats to back it up (Difficult when the threat of Sword of Ruin makes defense in this scenario harder in general), risk using STAB Ground alone (can potentially just outright not work), or use a Ground Type Tera'd to resist Ice (forces your Tera to be used reactively and is super limiting in play and teambuilding to need this panic button on hand). There's also the issue of Tera Blast, but this thread is not the place for that discussion. Ultimately, it's evident to me that taking this option and then cooking it down to keep a good balance while regulating Tera Types in the least restrictive way is going to take a lot of effort and consideration, more than current tiering philosophy might consider to be worth engaging with, but it also takes the necessary steps as written to remove obnoxious base/Tera sets like what I described above and addresses some of the meat of the issues I genuinely have with the mechanic as is.
Fourth Choice: Full Ban. I personally don't like this option, full stop. There's no nuance to it whatsoever. Tera gives a lot to Pokemon that have otherwise struggled in the past, like Floatzel and Oricorio, and encourages the study of generally overlooked moves and stratagems (always a net good IMO), while other Pokemon who have generally had their affairs in order prior do not necessarily gain so much from the mechanic. Let's not kid ourselves: Lando-T may not be here now, but it will come back and likely reclaim its near 50% usage rate. But...why Terastallize it? A sizable portion of its appeal is the role compression granted by the combination of Ground and Flying typing it has, granting it two key immunities that you'd otherwise need two Pokemon to fit. Terastallizing will always get rid of that 100% of the time. What does it gain in return? Being...a little better at offense, maybe? Except...wasn't it already fine? Wouldn't that just be a sort of win-moar move with more drawback than benefit? If Ferrothorn also makes a later return, it will deal with much the same problem, because Tera will always make its defensive profile, the thing that has made it OU for over 10 years, worse-the only option that strengthens its defensive profile (Electric) costs it its immunity to Seeds and Spore, something that it otherwise leverages in its defensive roles. These are just off the top of my head examples of some OU figureheads who don't stand to gain much from Tera.
To put this in some kind of perspective, Dynamax I was okay with banning wholesale because literally any Pokemon could use it to do absolutely busted shit. It wasn't even any variance or whatever, it was the fact that the supercharged moves and insane secondary effects in tandem were just blatantly uncompetitive, at least in Singles. The moment that did it for me back then was having a Rhyperior in a Random Battle, faced with a Starmie trying to answer the Rock Polish sweep, being able to click Dynamax to live enough to trigger WeakPoli, Max Flare to neuter the danger, and then Max Quake to just win the matchup and continue sweeping. Compared to Srn's puzzle at the start of the thread? That opponent I faced with that Rhyperior was just screwed because I had the Dynamax button and a Fire move. Their best answer to me suddenly could not win, ever. In Srn's scenario, if the Chien-Pao player scrutinizes the Dragonite player's behavior and makes a correct read, they still win. Tera didn't entirely remove the Chien-Pao player's ability to neutralize Dragonite's threat. It's that measure that makes me want to give Tera a chance to be brought under control. It simply isn't on the level of blatant uncompetitiveness that Dynamax was, and for that reason I believe, at least for now, that it can be balanced, if we're willing to put in the work to address this nuanced and multifaceted mechanic as just that: a complex thing that probably won't mix with a one-step blanket solution to its problem elements. But short of that, a total ban is the best you're going to get, even if I don't like it.
Anyway, fair warning that I'm probably not going to follow this thread/replies to this post too closely. I mostly just want to get this out there, if nothing else. But if you decide you want to pick my brain about a particular topic beyond the scope of this thread, feel free to reach out to me elsewhere.
It really doesn't do anything for struggling mons though, going down the viability list, and even comparing it with my own experiences in the tier so far, it's either new mons who would be able to likely stand out by themselves or older mons who haven't been negatively impacted in general. If anything they're only benefiting because of the currently limited dex and small buffs working in tandem, as is the case with floatzel.
Terra continues to be broken, and exploited by top players.
I wanna talk about this:
Volcarona Grass, Psychic, Bug
The Volcarona Problem
I've been laddering in the 1800-1900's, and I only say this to make a point.
High ladder is usually where you usually see players breaking mons first.
These are the players who invented Sub Glare Zygarde, aka breaking it.
(Just an example but y'know what I mean lol)
These were the first players running Psychic on Cheese-Yu
Anyway, I digress.
In the past few days I've seen Volc Terra into:
Ground Volc
Ice Volc
Grass Volc
Water Volc
Psychic Volc
These are 5 different mons.
Look at your builder then look at some of these Volcarona
When one of these Volcs get a QD up, you're in trouble.
We can even look at dedicated unaware walls:
Don loses hard to Grass Giga Drain.
The tankiest spd wall that isn't bad Blissey is Clod
252 SpA Volcarona Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 146-174 (31.4 - 37.5%) -- 87.4% chance to 3HKO
That's not a switch in, folks.
How about Dnite- multiscale is cool, right?
+1 252 SpA Volcarona Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 402-474 (124.4 - 146.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Don't get me started on Terra Ground lol
Look at your builder, and look at +1 Terra Ground Volc.
Also remember, it still has fire coverage that's boosted, aka lol at Corv
Volcarona is balanced due to it's typing and lack of coverage.
And it's still barely balanced.
If we had Hidden Power in gen 8 it would have been banned most likely.
Are we supposed to prep for this? Or magically have the perfect defensive Terra in the back?
And if you do, don't you just lose to another variant?
I can hear pro-Terra tears already "Just ban the mon then!!"
FFS dude, how many mons are we gonna ban to keep this bullshit gimmick?
You do realize all that does is move the goal post down, and some other mon takes it's place?
Do you want a meta filled with UU tier strength mons and OU tier walls?
When a mon changes type, it becomes a new mon, straight up.
It isn't a boost, it's a fundamental change to the game we play.
Terra is essentially a form of instant baton pass- you instantly switch to a new pokemon, while keeping any boost you acquired.
Finch made this Terra list 10 DAYS AGO and we already have new Variants out there.
The meta can never settle in this kind of environment.
All we have is the new tech of the week.
You take 3-6 days off showdown, you're gonna come back to a meta you don't recognize lol
Your Terra Fire Dnite you were using to counter Ice Volc last week is now countered by Water Volc...
If we don't ban Terra now, it may be up to a year before if finally gets banned for good
The restrictions will fail to balance it out, home will drop, we will have to QB or suspect a new mon every other week.
or Terra will have another suspect, and get banned.
No one who actually plays competitively will want to keep Terra, eventually.
Those who anti-Terra now are just the players with the most foresight, and the most understanding of singles 6v6 Pokemon.
The others, even if they are good players, aren't able to envision problems Terra will cause down the road.
It will hit them eventually. It will click that Terra is uncompetitive, and no restriction is going to resolve the issue.
Terra will get banned eventually.
Let's get it over with.
Vote full ban.
I wanna talk about this:
Volcarona Grass, Psychic, BugThe Volcarona Problem
I've been laddering in the 1800-1900's, and I only say this to make a point.
High ladder is usually where you usually see players breaking mons first.
These are the players who invented Sub Glare Zygarde, aka breaking it.
(Just an example but y'know what I mean lol)
These were the first players running Psychic on Cheese-Yu
Anyway, I digress.
In the past few days I've seen Volc Terra into:
Ground Volc
Ice Volc
Grass Volc
Water Volc
Psychic Volc
These are 5 different mons.
Look at your builder then look at some of these Volcarona
When one of these Volcs get a QD up, you're in trouble.
We can even look at dedicated unaware walls:
Don loses hard to Grass Giga Drain.
The tankiest spd wall that isn't bad Blissey is Clod
252 SpA Volcarona Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 146-174 (31.4 - 37.5%) -- 87.4% chance to 3HKO
That's not a switch in, folks.
How about Dnite- multiscale is cool, right?
+1 252 SpA Volcarona Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 402-474 (124.4 - 146.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Don't get me started on Terra Ground lol
Look at your builder, and look at +1 Terra Ground Volc.
Also remember, it still has fire coverage that's boosted, aka lol at Corv
Volcarona is balanced due to it's typing and lack of coverage.
And it's still barely balanced.
If we had Hidden Power in gen 8 it would have been banned most likely.
Are we supposed to prep for this? Or magically have the perfect defensive Terra in the back?
And if you do, don't you just lose to another variant?
I can hear pro-Terra tears already "Just ban the mon then!!"
FFS dude, how many mons are we gonna ban to keep this bullshit gimmick?
You do realize all that does is move the goal post down, and some other mon takes it's place?
Do you want a meta filled with UU tier strength mons and OU tier walls?
When a mon changes type, it becomes a new mon, straight up.
It isn't a boost, it's a fundamental change to the game we play.
Terra is essentially a form of instant baton pass- you instantly switch to a new pokemon, while keeping any boost you acquired.
Finch made this Terra list 10 DAYS AGO and we already have new Variants out there.
The meta can never settle in this kind of environment.
All we have is the new tech of the week.
You take 3-6 days off showdown, you're gonna come back to a meta you don't recognize lol
Your Terra Fire Dnite you were using to counter Ice Volc last week is now countered by Water Volc...
If we don't ban Terra now, it may be up to a year before if finally gets banned for good
The restrictions will fail to balance it out, home will drop, we will have to QB or suspect a new mon every other week.
or Terra will have another suspect, and get banned.
No one who actually plays competitively will want to keep Terra, eventually.
Those who anti-Terra now are just the players with the most foresight, and the most understanding of singles 6v6 Pokemon.
The others, even if they are good players, aren't able to envision problems Terra will cause down the road.
It will hit them eventually. It will click that Terra is uncompetitive, and no restriction is going to resolve the issue.
Terra will get banned eventually.
Let's get it over with.
Vote full ban.
This post above, and a lot of posts complaining about mons broken due to tera, really does cement to me that the main issue is that tera is uncounterable because different teras have different counters and you can't know which is which. This does reassure me that tera preview will fix or at least significantly alleviate a lot of the frustration that comes with trying to work around tera. A volcarona where it could counter any member of your team but you don't know which? Fucking sucks to handle. A volcarona where you know that it has X counter instead of Y or Z on your team? A challenge you have the information to play around.
Wheter or not Tera is good or bad for the game is certainly relevant to any discussion surrounding action on it."Reasonably competitive" is a subjective term to begin with. Until you have some kind of metric to determine what is "competitive" or "reasonable" you will see this vary person to person.
I'd think 1-4 here could be argued from the opposing side, so they feel fairly subjective but this was more my question. Just more curious what people that favor keeping it around value about it.
So as an avid Volcarona enjoyer, Volcarona is busted with Tera and if nothing happens to Tera then Volcarona probably needs to get looked at in a suspect, because it's always been able to snowball better than just about everything, but gen 8 made it not care about Rocks and now gen 9 removed Toxic and Knock Off from wider circulation, which makes Volcarona even more ridiculous.Terra continues to be broken, and exploited by top players.
I wanna talk about this:
The Volcarona Problem
I've been laddering in the 1800-1900's, and I only say this to make a point.
High ladder is usually where you usually see players breaking mons first.
These are the players who invented Sub Glare Zygarde, aka breaking it.
(Just an example but y'know what I mean lol)
These were the first players running Psychic on Cheese-Yu
Anyway, I digress.
In the past few days I've seen Volc Terra into:
Ground Volc
Ice Volc
Grass Volc
Water Volc
Psychic Volc
These are 5 different mons.
Look at your builder then look at some of these Volcarona
When one of these Volcs get a QD up, you're in trouble.
We can even look at dedicated unaware walls:
Don loses hard to Grass Giga Drain.
The tankiest spd wall that isn't bad Blissey is Clod
252 SpA Volcarona Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 146-174 (31.4 - 37.5%) -- 87.4% chance to 3HKO
That's not a switch in, folks.
How about Dnite- multiscale is cool, right?
+1 252 SpA Volcarona Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 402-474 (124.4 - 146.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Don't get me started on Terra Ground lol
Look at your builder, and look at +1 Terra Ground Volc.
Also remember, it still has fire coverage that's boosted, aka lol at Corv
Volcarona is balanced due to it's typing and lack of coverage.
And it's still barely balanced.
If we had Hidden Power in gen 8 it would have been banned most likely.
Are we supposed to prep for this? Or magically have the perfect defensive Terra in the back?
And if you do, don't you just lose to another variant?
I can hear pro-Terra tears already "Just ban the mon then!!"
FFS dude, how many mons are we gonna ban to keep this bullshit gimmick?
You do realize all that does is move the goal post down, and some other mon takes it's place?
Do you want a meta filled with UU tier strength mons and OU tier walls?
When a mon changes type, it becomes a new mon, straight up.
It isn't a boost, it's a fundamental change to the game we play.
Terra is essentially a form of instant baton pass- you instantly switch to a new pokemon, while keeping any boost you acquired.
Finch made this Terra list 10 DAYS AGO and we already have new Variants out there.
The meta can never settle in this kind of environment.
All we have is the new tech of the week.
You take 3-6 days off showdown, you're gonna come back to a meta you don't recognize lol
Your Terra Fire Dnite you were using to counter Ice Volc last week is now countered by Water Volc...
If we don't ban Terra now, it may be up to a year before if finally gets banned for good
The restrictions will fail to balance it out, home will drop, we will have to QB or suspect a new mon every other week.
or Terra will have another suspect, and get banned.
No one who actually plays competitively will want to keep Terra, eventually.
Those who anti-Terra now are just the players with the most foresight, and the most understanding of singles 6v6 Pokemon.
The others, even if they are good players, aren't able to envision problems Terra will cause down the road.
It will hit them eventually. It will click that Terra is uncompetitive, and no restriction is going to resolve the issue.
Terra will get banned eventually.
Let's get it over with.
Vote full ban.
On that basis, though, I definitely disagree that there are a bunch more Volcaronas just waiting to be discovered and turned into utter monsters in the meta. This thing has fantastic stats, arguably the most broken set-up move in the game depending on what you think about Geomancy and a genuinely fantastic typing now that Boots negate its Rocks weakness and gen 9 nerfed/removed all the Water types. Physically bulky spreads with Quiver Dance and Morning Sun are going to set up on something, and Flame Body makes this even crazier. The point is, the fact that Volcarona is a genuinely monstrous set-up sweeper because of its own unique traits, and while Tera has IMO pushed it over the top, a citation is absolutely needed for the claim that something else is going to just take its place. What exactly are the Pokemon that have a real chance at being unmanageable once you remove the broken Pokemon that either outclass it or check it? Even before Flutter Mane was banned, I remember seeing posts like "Bundle and Chi-Yu are going to need attention later, they're just not centre-stage right now because there's more broken stuff here".
You're suggesting preview which misses the entire point of the problem you addressed yourself. Volc is called the matchup moth for a reason, either its dead weight or its an auto win condition if your team isn't prepared... how do you suddenly prepare your team when already in-game? What do you put in the team as the designated volc check? What checks bug/fire/grass/psychic/ground/ice/water/safeguard volc? Before it could run coverage hidden power or coverage moves, but now the typing flips the chart on what can and cannot kill it. You can know fully what tera the volc is, but what can you do about it if you brought the wrong checks in the first place?
X/Y volc had full coverage, but was always bug so bird spam made sure it couldn't do much.
SM volc had hidden power and z-moves, still was managable because special walls could eat a hit and hidden power was 60 BP and not even STAB. A lot of OU threats naturally check it so building often just worked out.
SS Volc got HDB which definitely made it easier to use, but all its checks still checked it and there was plenty of answers viable answers. Dragapult handles volc well too.
Sc/Vi Volc now has stab+20 base power hidden power and swaps its type on top of it so your options of shutting it down are basically 'do I beat a grass type with fire coverage now? Do I kill a ground type with stone edge t-tar in sand even if I tera rock?
That being said, I don't think volc is nearly as problematic as we're making it, not compared to the other tera threats rn that all have similar issues and even the predictable ones require teambuilding in mind to deal with them (which makes it harder to build for the ones in their shadow like volc.) Volc is a case of tera breaking a mon, but its more like 'next in line' once the first wave of the tier gets dexitted from smogon just to preserve a broken generation mechanic.
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OK, after actually making it to semis and still going in the recent SV release tour, building a LOT, laddering, getting my reqs, and talking to lots of peeps about this suspect, my opinion has changed from restricting it to a Do Not Ban stance entirely.
From the start of SV, I took Tera from a birds eye view of a couple questions -
1) I introduced a concept to the idea of banning Tera in my post here, which was just restricting it to their base typing. Essentially, just the concept of having an Adaptability Pokemon on your team. This was the only option I had discussed with the council, and I later found it to be a very bad idea, as more and more proposals were swarming into the thread. It was definitely not worth a complex ban to allow said "fix".
The concept of limiting Tera to one user per team - not the worst, but also to me, a very sloppy way in fixing said mechanic. Just like limiting to STAB types, there are certain things to Tera that will be taken away from what it's intended to be, for example, if you're getting completely rocked by a Chi-Yu, you could emergency Tera water on something like Great Tusk even, and try to alleviate the situation from there. If you're getting rocked by a dragon type, you could turn into a fairy type and get things back into control. These options aren't, to me, a way of bringing momentum back to you - if anything, you're utilizing your Tera as it should be, and in a metagame where recovery moves only have 8 PP, offensive Pokemon are going to be prevalent and you're going to want to try to use your Tera forms as well as possible given the circumstances. Sometimes, there are cases where even Tera can't save you, but those topics can be brought up another day for certain shaky Pokemon that you can argue shouldn't be allowed (I'm looking at you, Chi-Yu! Espathra!)
Reveal Tera type at team preview - Another controversial fix, one that I know many people have entertained. However, it's one that I don't really like at all, and I won't personally be voting for it. It's been a precedent in some Pokemon tournaments, or even the tournament community in general, to reveal what your types were from giving your opponent information before the match. It doesn't break the cart at all - it's tournament rules.
My problem with this? Not everybody is playing in a tournament. As a council member, our job isn't to cater to just tournament players, it's to cater as much as possible to everybody. Not just tournaments. If you're just laddering casually, it's going to feel weird to have this clause for the sake of the argument being basically a 'handshake agreement', that's not how our previous clauses were designed to be. Every clause, from sleep, evasion, baton pass, species, were never designed to cater to tournaments only. They were designed to balance the game as a whole.
Last of all, we have an outright ban - but I'll get to that on the second point.
2) Now, we come to the topic being of banning Tera entirely. Is there truly no merit to this mechanic at all? Is it broken, and should be banned ASAP? Here are my thoughts.
Now, outright ban is definitely better than some of the options we have here - in fact, I'd put it above team preview and STAB. My main issue isn't going to stem off the fact that if we ban said mechanic, we'd have another boooring situation as we did in SS. That's not going to be the case here, and I hope I'm going to clear that out the way for anybody reading this.
I'm not voting for this because I truly think it isn't broken. As of Christmas Eve, the night of the final days of 2022, I have seen no merit to banning the most prevalent mechanic of this generation because I have had no real issues of said mechanic being broken outside of it being abused on certain Pokemon who should be banned over it. People have argued about the surprise factor - this isn't news to Pokemon battles, not since generation 7. I mean, have you seen z moves? I've been surprised as much as I've been with Tera types when a Z move was clicked. It was balanced to stay mainly due to having to hold the item in general, and having it as a one use nuke option, however the argument being claimed here despite all this is the surprise factor of Tera. I mean, just take a look at last years SPL. Yes, Z moves were more balanced, and to make it clear, the argument is not to compare the two, they're entirely different things - it's the surprise factor itself you can relate with.
To this day we're still being shocked by many elements of Z moves three to four years later of said mechanic. It's not news to us.
My main complaint with the arguments of outright banning this mechanic is the fact that they are all based on Pokemon that should be banned in the first place. Chi-Yu? Absurd. Espathra? Unbelievably annoying and disruptive to play against. Annihilape? Disruptive.
Then, you can make cases as we've been making since previous generations to certain mons such as Volcarona, Chien-Pao, even Gholdengo. The bigger picture should be neutralizing the things that take the mechanic to the next level rather than the mechanic entirely, because the fact is that the bigger picture of said mechanic is a completely different image of what people make it out to be. And I discussed this in point 1, but using Tera to counter other Tera forms by having emergency options in the back, to me, is completely valid and fair.
There ARE downsides to using Tera. I've lost plenty and plenty of games where I clicked the Tera button way too early to nuke a Pokemon, just to get swept by another one later in the game. Just like any other generation, you're looking on paper which threats are the most damaging to your team, and coming up with a gameplan to play around said threat. You're not just mindlessly clicking the button most of the time. You are with Pokemon like Chi-Yu, though. lol.
If I ever thought that Tera was an issue in my times of playing this metagame so far, I would come out and say it, as I would want to be clear and transparent with everybody as a member of the OU Council. I just haven't found a real reason.
Now... that brings us to our last point. And last but not least...!!!
Are we too early?
I don't know. This is something I've discussed internally with myself, and with others, for a while now. We're not in a rush to do anything, council wise. Besides that, we still want to get the thoughts of everybody out there, not just tournament players, but of course everybody outside of the tournament scenes opinions, as well.
We could be early based on the fact that we aren't even seeing HOME Pokemon yet. Something that came into my mind was, would this mechanic be completely absurd once the HOME mons come out? It's a lot to think about, but for now, I guess we'll never know until the time comes. If this mechanic were to be kept until the time of HOME, this wouldn't be the end of the topic. That's where I keep my peace in this whole debate.
Does this change the fact that we shouldn't be discussing this topic right now? No. We should be. It's very healthy to discuss a metagames competitivity regardless of how long it's been rolling for.
"Wait a minute, if you're just voting do not ban, what's the point of the other restrictions?"
Oops, I didn't answer the first question of Q1.
A vote of just BAN or DNB is not going to do Tera justice. This is by far, the most controversial mechanic Smogon has had to deal with, probably. Out of my almost 10 to 11 years of playing this game from Pokemon Online, to Smogon, to laddering on showdown, I have never seen a community so split with one big decision. It has always been a simple "ban" or "do not ban". This is not the case here. This is definitely one of the craziest rollouts I've ever seen to a mechanic in general, and I'm here for it. Absolutely love it.
I love seeing the community band together after all these years and discuss what we all love the most - Pokemon. And regardless of if it gets banned now or later, these past few months of playing Gen 9 has been one hell of a ride and has taken me back to my childhood days of where I would play Black and White and OU battle everybody for almost 5 months straight
I have absolutely loved this generation so far, and I'm hoping you all have had at least some enjoyable moments thus far.
Happy holidays to everybody, and take care.
From the start of SV, I took Tera from a birds eye view of a couple questions -
- Is this topic worth a position of being complex banned? What is the most feasible option if so?
- Is Tera uncompetitive? Is there no merit to this mechanic being allowed at all?
- Are we too early?
1) I introduced a concept to the idea of banning Tera in my post here, which was just restricting it to their base typing. Essentially, just the concept of having an Adaptability Pokemon on your team. This was the only option I had discussed with the council, and I later found it to be a very bad idea, as more and more proposals were swarming into the thread. It was definitely not worth a complex ban to allow said "fix".
The concept of limiting Tera to one user per team - not the worst, but also to me, a very sloppy way in fixing said mechanic. Just like limiting to STAB types, there are certain things to Tera that will be taken away from what it's intended to be, for example, if you're getting completely rocked by a Chi-Yu, you could emergency Tera water on something like Great Tusk even, and try to alleviate the situation from there. If you're getting rocked by a dragon type, you could turn into a fairy type and get things back into control. These options aren't, to me, a way of bringing momentum back to you - if anything, you're utilizing your Tera as it should be, and in a metagame where recovery moves only have 8 PP, offensive Pokemon are going to be prevalent and you're going to want to try to use your Tera forms as well as possible given the circumstances. Sometimes, there are cases where even Tera can't save you, but those topics can be brought up another day for certain shaky Pokemon that you can argue shouldn't be allowed (I'm looking at you, Chi-Yu! Espathra!)
Reveal Tera type at team preview - Another controversial fix, one that I know many people have entertained. However, it's one that I don't really like at all, and I won't personally be voting for it. It's been a precedent in some Pokemon tournaments, or even the tournament community in general, to reveal what your types were from giving your opponent information before the match. It doesn't break the cart at all - it's tournament rules.
My problem with this? Not everybody is playing in a tournament. As a council member, our job isn't to cater to just tournament players, it's to cater as much as possible to everybody. Not just tournaments. If you're just laddering casually, it's going to feel weird to have this clause for the sake of the argument being basically a 'handshake agreement', that's not how our previous clauses were designed to be. Every clause, from sleep, evasion, baton pass, species, were never designed to cater to tournaments only. They were designed to balance the game as a whole.
Last of all, we have an outright ban - but I'll get to that on the second point.
2) Now, we come to the topic being of banning Tera entirely. Is there truly no merit to this mechanic at all? Is it broken, and should be banned ASAP? Here are my thoughts.
Now, outright ban is definitely better than some of the options we have here - in fact, I'd put it above team preview and STAB. My main issue isn't going to stem off the fact that if we ban said mechanic, we'd have another boooring situation as we did in SS. That's not going to be the case here, and I hope I'm going to clear that out the way for anybody reading this.
I'm not voting for this because I truly think it isn't broken. As of Christmas Eve, the night of the final days of 2022, I have seen no merit to banning the most prevalent mechanic of this generation because I have had no real issues of said mechanic being broken outside of it being abused on certain Pokemon who should be banned over it. People have argued about the surprise factor - this isn't news to Pokemon battles, not since generation 7. I mean, have you seen z moves? I've been surprised as much as I've been with Tera types when a Z move was clicked. It was balanced to stay mainly due to having to hold the item in general, and having it as a one use nuke option, however the argument being claimed here despite all this is the surprise factor of Tera. I mean, just take a look at last years SPL. Yes, Z moves were more balanced, and to make it clear, the argument is not to compare the two, they're entirely different things - it's the surprise factor itself you can relate with.
To this day we're still being shocked by many elements of Z moves three to four years later of said mechanic. It's not news to us.
My main complaint with the arguments of outright banning this mechanic is the fact that they are all based on Pokemon that should be banned in the first place. Chi-Yu? Absurd. Espathra? Unbelievably annoying and disruptive to play against. Annihilape? Disruptive.
Then, you can make cases as we've been making since previous generations to certain mons such as Volcarona, Chien-Pao, even Gholdengo. The bigger picture should be neutralizing the things that take the mechanic to the next level rather than the mechanic entirely, because the fact is that the bigger picture of said mechanic is a completely different image of what people make it out to be. And I discussed this in point 1, but using Tera to counter other Tera forms by having emergency options in the back, to me, is completely valid and fair.
There ARE downsides to using Tera. I've lost plenty and plenty of games where I clicked the Tera button way too early to nuke a Pokemon, just to get swept by another one later in the game. Just like any other generation, you're looking on paper which threats are the most damaging to your team, and coming up with a gameplan to play around said threat. You're not just mindlessly clicking the button most of the time. You are with Pokemon like Chi-Yu, though. lol.
If I ever thought that Tera was an issue in my times of playing this metagame so far, I would come out and say it, as I would want to be clear and transparent with everybody as a member of the OU Council. I just haven't found a real reason.
Now... that brings us to our last point. And last but not least...!!!
Are we too early?
I don't know. This is something I've discussed internally with myself, and with others, for a while now. We're not in a rush to do anything, council wise. Besides that, we still want to get the thoughts of everybody out there, not just tournament players, but of course everybody outside of the tournament scenes opinions, as well.
We could be early based on the fact that we aren't even seeing HOME Pokemon yet. Something that came into my mind was, would this mechanic be completely absurd once the HOME mons come out? It's a lot to think about, but for now, I guess we'll never know until the time comes. If this mechanic were to be kept until the time of HOME, this wouldn't be the end of the topic. That's where I keep my peace in this whole debate.
Does this change the fact that we shouldn't be discussing this topic right now? No. We should be. It's very healthy to discuss a metagames competitivity regardless of how long it's been rolling for.
"Wait a minute, if you're just voting do not ban, what's the point of the other restrictions?"
Oops, I didn't answer the first question of Q1.
A vote of just BAN or DNB is not going to do Tera justice. This is by far, the most controversial mechanic Smogon has had to deal with, probably. Out of my almost 10 to 11 years of playing this game from Pokemon Online, to Smogon, to laddering on showdown, I have never seen a community so split with one big decision. It has always been a simple "ban" or "do not ban". This is not the case here. This is definitely one of the craziest rollouts I've ever seen to a mechanic in general, and I'm here for it. Absolutely love it.
I love seeing the community band together after all these years and discuss what we all love the most - Pokemon. And regardless of if it gets banned now or later, these past few months of playing Gen 9 has been one hell of a ride and has taken me back to my childhood days of where I would play Black and White and OU battle everybody for almost 5 months straight
I have absolutely loved this generation so far, and I'm hoping you all have had at least some enjoyable moments thus far.Happy holidays to everybody, and take care.
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Our job is most definitely not to cater to *everybody.* Sleep Clause is, quite literally, a gentlemen's agreement, just as much as any ban or restriction on any Pokemon or item is. I don't follow this logic at all. When people click on the Battle! button on the ladder, they are consenting to follow Smogon's rulesets. There is nothing weird about it.
OK, after actually making it to semis and still going in the recent SV release tour, building a LOT, laddering, getting my reqs, and talking to lots of peeps about this suspect, my opinion has changed from restricting it to a Do Not Ban stance entirely.
From the start of SV, I took Tera from a birds eye view of a couple questions -
I'll answer these questions from my thoughts gathered today:
- Is this topic worth a position of being complex banned? What is the most feasible option if so?
- Is Tera uncompetitive? Is there no merit to this mechanic being allowed at all?
- Are we too early?
1) I introduced a concept to the idea of banning Tera in my post here, which was just restricting it to their base typing. Essentially, just the concept of having an Adaptability Pokemon on your team. This was the only option I had discussed with the council, and I later found it to be a very bad idea, as more and more proposals were swarming into the thread. It was definitely not worth a complex ban to allow said "fix".
The concept of limiting Tera to one user per team - not the worst, but also to me, a very sloppy way in fixing said mechanic. Just like limiting to STAB types, there are certain things to Tera that will be taken away from what it's intended to be, for example, if you're getting completely rocked by a Chi-Yu, you could emergency Tera water on something like Great Tusk even, and try to alleviate the situation from there. If you're getting rocked by a dragon type, you could turn into a fairy type and get things back into control. These options aren't, to me, a way of bringing momentum back to you - if anything, you're utilizing your Tera as it should be, and in a metagame where recovery moves only have 8 PP, offensive Pokemon are going to be prevalent and you're going to want to try to use your Tera forms as well as possible given the circumstances. Sometimes, there are cases where even Tera can't save you, but those topics can be brought up another day for certain shaky Pokemon that you can argue shouldn't be allowed (I'm looking at you, Chi-Yu! Espathra!)
Reveal Tera type at team preview - Another controversial fix, one that I know many people have entertained. However, it's one that I don't really like at all, and I won't personally be voting for it. It's been a precedent in some Pokemon tournaments, or even the tournament community in general, to reveal what your types were from giving your opponent information before the match. It doesn't break the cart at all - it's tournament rules.
My problem with this? Not everybody is playing in a tournament. As a council member, our job isn't to cater to just tournament players, it's to cater as much as possible to everybody. Not just tournaments. If you're just laddering casually, it's going to feel weird to have this clause for the sake of the argument being basically a 'handshake agreement', that's not how our previous clauses were designed to be. Every clause, from sleep, evasion, baton pass, species, were never designed to cater to tournaments only. They were designed to balance the game as a whole.
Last of all, we have an outright ban - but I'll get to that on the second point.
2) Now, we come to the topic being of banning Tera entirely. Is there truly no merit to this mechanic at all? Is it broken, and should be banned ASAP? Here are my thoughts.
Now, outright ban is definitely better than some of the options we have here - in fact, I'd put it above team preview and STAB. My main issue isn't going to stem off the fact that if we ban said mechanic, we'd have another boooring situation as we did in SS. That's not going to be the case here, and I hope I'm going to clear that out the way for anybody reading this.
I'm not voting for this because I truly think it isn't broken. As of Christmas Eve, the night of the final days of 2022, I have seen no merit to banning the most prevalent mechanic of this generation because I have had no real issues of said mechanic being broken outside of it being abused on certain Pokemon who should be banned over it. People have argued about the surprise factor - this isn't news to Pokemon battles, not since generation 7. I mean, have you seen z moves? I've been surprised as much as I've been with Tera types when a Z move was clicked. Yes, Z moves were more balanced, mainly due to having to hold the item in general, and having it as a one use nuke option, however the argument being claimed here despite all this is the surprise factor of Tera. I mean, just take a look at last years SPL.
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To this day we're still being shocked by many elements of Z moves three to four years later of said mechanic. It's not news to us.
My main complaint with the arguments of outright banning this mechanic is the fact that they are all based on Pokemon that should be banned in the first place. Chi-Yu? Absurd. Espathra? Unbelievably annoying and disruptive to play against. Annihilape? Disruptive.
Then, you can make cases as we've been making since previous generations to certain mons such as Volcarona, Chien-Pao, even Gholdengo. The bigger picture should be neutralizing the things that take the mechanic to the next level rather than the mechanic entirely, because the fact is that the bigger picture of said mechanic is a completely different image of what people make it out to be. And I discussed this in point 1, but using Tera to counter other Tera forms by having emergency options in the back, to me, is completely valid and fair.
There ARE downsides to using Tera. I've lost plenty and plenty of games where I clicked the Tera button way too early to nuke a Pokemon, just to get swept by another one later in the game. Just like any other generation, you're looking on paper which threats are the most damaging to your team, and coming up with a gameplan to play around said threat. You're not just mindlessly clicking the button most of the time. You are with Pokemon like Chi-Yu, though. lol.
If I ever thought that Tera was an issue in my times of playing this metagame so far, I would come out and say it, as I would want to be clear and transparent with everybody as a member of the OU Council. I just haven't found a real reason.
Now... that brings us to our last point. And last but not least...!!!
Are we too early?
I don't know. This is something I've discussed internally with myself, and with others, for a while now. We're not in a rush to do anything, council wise. Besides that, we still want to get the thoughts of everybody out there, not just tournament players, but of course everybody outside of the tournament scenes opinions, as well.
We could be early based on the fact that we aren't even seeing HOME Pokemon yet. Something that came into my mind was, would this mechanic be completely absurd once the HOME mons come out? It's a lot to think about, but for now, I guess we'll never know until the time comes. If this mechanic were to be kept until the time of HOME, this wouldn't be the end of the topic. That's where I keep my peace in this whole debate.
Does this change the fact that we shouldn't be discussing this topic right now? No. We should be. It's very healthy to discuss a metagames competitivity regardless of how long it's been rolling for.
"Wait a minute, if you're just voting do not ban, what's the point of the other restrictions?"
Oops, I didn't answer the first question of Q1.
A vote of just BAN or DNB is not going to do Tera justice. This is by far, the most controversial mechanic Smogon has had to deal with, probably. Out of my almost 10 to 11 years of playing this game from Pokemon Online, to Smogon, to laddering on showdown, I have never seen a community so split with one big decision. It has always been a simple "ban" or "do not ban". This is not the case here. This is definitely one of the craziest rollouts I've ever seen to a mechanic in general, and I'm here for it. Absolutely love it.
I love seeing the community band together after all these years and discuss what we all love the most - Pokemon. And regardless of if it gets banned now or later, these past few months of playing Gen 9 has been one hell of a ride and has taken me back to my childhood days of where I would play Black and White and OU battle everybody for almost 5 months straight
Happy holidays to everybody, and take care.
A big difference between Z-Moves and Tera is Tera lasts throughout the entire game while changing your defensive type, making you even harder to rkill. The most common example is Tera Flying Gambit vs Tusks, but there is other examples like Ghold clicking Tera Steel or Normal against a Pult attempting to rkill it. It puts a strain in teambuilding where you not only have to account for the threat, but the threat when it Teras.
People are out here saying “there are downsides to using Tera” and the only “downside” they actually propose is the fact that you can’t use it twice. I can’t run two Chi-Yus on my team either (although, with Revival Blessing, I almost can) and that doesn’t make it not banworthy.
Here are some of the things I’ve seen people compare Tera to:
Here are some of the things I’ve seen people compare Tera to:
- Megas, which took up an item slot and were restricted to a small pool of Pokémon. You could also generally tell what Pokémon was going to Mega at team preview because most of them were garbage outside of their Megas; they would also tend to Mega on their first turn out for the same reason (the one exception I can think of being Sharpedo).
- Z-Moves, which also took up an item slot, meaning you kind of had to dedicate a single Pokémon to it—if you tried running Z-Moves on multiple mons per team, you’d effectively wind up with one itemless Pokémon every match. Z-Moves also lasted for exactly one turn unless you were using one of those status Z-Moves, which never really caught on with anything.
- Dynamax, which had much more bonkers rewards than Tera but did come with a higher cost—you couldn’t use status moves during it, it was lost if you switched out, and it only lasted for 3 turns. Don’t get me wrong, Dynamax was leagues more broken than Tera is because the rewards exponentially outweighed the risks nearly every time, but I will go on record as saying that Dynamax had more of an opportunity cost than Tera has.
- Held items, which could always be removed, negated, or scouted for in some way, which you really can’t do with Tera.
- Not having Team Preview, which was never a good thing. I can’t believe it’s nearly 2023 and people are still trying to defend the earlier gens’ lack of Team Preview. If you’re really going to complain about being able to know what your opponent’s bringing, go play Random Battles.
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