Discussion RE: SV OU Volcarona & Tera Blast

[Roller K]

I don’t believe Tera Blast is a detrimental move to have in the metagame. Committing a tera type, a moveslot, and use of tera during a game in order to gain a new STAB coverage in certain matchups is high-risk high-reward. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s matchup fishing rather than patching up areas of the team that other members cannot cover. Volcarona is the main exception to the rule, though that speaks more to Volcarona than it does to Tera Blast. If you believe Tera Blast is fishing, you could also easily argue that Tera itself is matchup fishing, except it uses less resources. Tera Fire Kingambit baits in Wisp Pult and Volcarona just like Tera Ground Volcarona baits in Glowking and Heatran. I don’t believe singling out Tera Blast would do much for the metagame. If I am allowed to speculate, Regieleki will drop to UU because it loses its one viable non-STAB special move and gets destroyed by every Ground type; Espathra will stay banned because Tera Fairy + Dazzling Gleam will still warp the metagame, even if the possibility of Tera Fighting/Fire is eliminated; Volcarona will stay in OU or face a suspect; and Serperior will fall down to UU, which it nearly is anyways. Removing Tera Blast will likely balance out Volcarona in exchange for limiting creativity in the builder, and I consider that a net negative for the tier.

As for Volcarona, I’m happy it’s finally had time to exist in the metagame after being abruptly quickbanned before, so I can confidently say that it’s a bit too overwhelming and, in my opinion, the main reason Tera Blast is being discussed in the first place. Unlike some Tera Blast users like Tera Fairy Kingambit, it can be very difficult to anticipate Volcarona’s Tera type, mainly because they are all so good in their own distinctive matchups. The two I’ve struggled against and made use of the most are Tera Ground and Tera Dragon. Tera Ground on offensive sets give it insane coverage and help overwhelm would-be checks like Glowking and Heatran. Tera Dragon on defensive sets enable it to tank hits from common threats like Ogerpon Wellspring and still apply great pressure with Fire and Dragon coverage. The problem is, due to the nature of Quiver Dance, you have to scout the set right away, and it’s very difficult to do so prior to Volcarona using Tera. And there are so many viable options for Volcarona that it becomes very difficult. Tera Grass with Giga Drain, Tera Bug with Substitute + Bug Buzz + Swarm, Tera Water, Tera Poison, Tera Ghost, literally anything could work on a certain team and catch the opponent off guard. The risk-to-reward is too high, and it makes Volcarona a problem. I’m not entirely pro-ban quite yet, as I really like its role of checking physical attackers with Flame Body, but a ban might help increase the viability of bulky offense and balance, which I feel neither are doing well in the meta.

 

[Highv0ltag3]

I don’t believe Tera Blast is a detrimental move to have in the metagame. Committing a tera type, a moveslot, and use of tera during a game in order to gain a new STAB coverage in certain matchups is high-risk high-reward. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s matchup fishing rather than patching up areas of the team that other members cannot cover. Volcarona is the main exception to the rule, though that speaks more to Volcarona than it does to Tera Blast. If you believe Tera Blast is fishing, you could also easily argue that Tera itself is matchup fishing, except it uses less resources. Tera Fire Kingambit baits in Wisp Pult and Volcarona just like Tera Ground Volcarona baits in Glowking and Heatran. I don’t believe singling out Tera Blast would do much for the metagame. If I am allowed to speculate, Regieleki will drop to UU because it loses its one viable non-STAB special move and gets destroyed by every Ground type; Espathra will stay banned because Tera Fairy + Dazzling Gleam will still warp the metagame, even if the possibility of Tera Fighting/Fire is eliminated; Volcarona will stay in OU or face a suspect; and Serperior will fall down to UU, which it nearly is anyways. Removing Tera Blast will likely balance out Volcarona in exchange for limiting creativity in the builder, and I consider that a net negative for the tier.

As for Volcarona, I’m happy it’s finally had time to exist in the metagame after being abruptly quickbanned before, so I can confidently say that it’s a bit too overwhelming and, in my opinion, the main reason Tera Blast is being discussed in the first place. Unlike some Tera Blast users like Tera Fairy Kingambit, it can be very difficult to anticipate Volcarona’s Tera type, mainly because they are all so good in their own distinctive matchups. The two I’ve struggled against and made use of the most are Tera Ground and Tera Dragon. Tera Ground on offensive sets give it insane coverage and help overwhelm would-be checks like Glowking and Heatran. Tera Dragon on defensive sets enable it to tank hits from common threats like Ogerpon Wellspring and still apply great pressure with Fire and Dragon coverage. The problem is, due to the nature of Quiver Dance, you have to scout the set right away, and it’s very difficult to do so prior to Volcarona using Tera. And there are so many viable options for Volcarona that it becomes very difficult. Tera Grass with Giga Drain, Tera Bug with Substitute + Bug Buzz + Swarm, Tera Water, Tera Poison, Tera Ghost, literally anything could work on a certain team and catch the opponent off guard. The risk-to-reward is too high, and it makes Volcarona a problem. I’m not entirely pro-ban quite yet, as I really like its role of checking physical attackers with Flame Body, but a ban might help increase the viability of bulky offense and balance, which I feel neither are doing well in the meta.

Volcarona is the only exception to the rule because we already banned Espathra and Regieleki, after we ban Volcarona people will claim Tera Blast Ground Iron Moth is the exception to the rule and not realize these pokemon would have been fine in the metagame in case Tera Blast was just banned. (Maybe not Espathra, but I can see it being balanced withouth Tera Blast still)

 

[Roller K]

Volcarona is the only exception to the rule because we already banned Espathra and Regieleki, after we ban Volcarona people will claim Tera Blast Ground Iron Moth is the exception to the rule and not realize these pokemon would have been fine in the metagame in case Tera Blast was just banned. (Maybe not Espathra, but I can see it being balanced withouth Tera Blast still)

I can see the case with Iron Moth too, I almost mentioned it in my original post but didn’t feel strongly enough to say it since I haven’t faced Tera Blast Ground Iron Moth enough to confidently say. But it was definitely annoying when I did run into it, and it would be a bummer for the tier to lose it should it be found to be too strong. Unlike Iron Moth, even with a ban on Tera Blast, I still feel like Volcarona will be very potent at its role and only be walled by Heatran and Calm Mind Blissey no matter the set. Glowking is only a check if it has Psyshock or Toxic, otherwise it is setup fodder and has to pray for a Sludge Bomb poison; Blissey without Calm Mind will lose to Tera Ghost; Primarina and Ogerpon Wellspring will lose to Tera Grass + Giga Drain; and so on. It’s still a matter of matchup fishing, and Volcarona will find a way to adapt and likely overwhelm the meta.

 

[ausma]

Unlike Iron Moth, even with a ban on Tera Blast, I still feel like Volcarona will be very potent at its role and only be walled by Heatran and Calm Mind Blissey no matter the set

Real quickly, I will say that while Iron Moth does make use of Tera Blast quite a bit, it is not at all reliant on it. It has a really deep coverage profile. Energy Ball, Dazzling Gleam, Discharge, Psychic, etc etc, and there are quite a few variants that forego Tera Blast entirely. It still crushes most offense structures quite reliably; Tera Blast's primary utility is against more reinforced balances that more commonly feature Pokemon it struggles against like Heatran, Galarian Slowking, or Skeledirge, as opposed to compensating for its coverage.

The thing about Tera Blast is that there isn't really much collateral in removing it. You do remove fringe viability from some more fickle off-meta picks and grounding the offensive profile of more egregious users, thus keeping their defensive checks consistent. Like I said in my post though, this is not a bad thing and if anything ensures that these Pokemon are used for less volatile applications.

 

[FlamingVictini]

I'm glad it's being recognized that the metagame is evolving continuously and rushing into suspect tests isn't ideal. I hope we continue to give ample time for new strategies to develop, as I think we will frequently find that Pokemon on the top don't always need to get banned to get knocked down.

Banning tera blast is an exceptionally wide net for a move that literally any Pokemon could theoretically use in many different ways, and should be approached with extreme care. Tera blast offers a flexible avenue for creative innovations and metagame development that could be used in many different ways, even on the same Pokemon in different metagames. There is ripe opportunity for it to create or provide crucial counterplay towards burgeoning threats not on our radar now, or even just getting creative with surprise off-meta picks to fill unexplored niches for competitive bo1 play. Just because it doesn't seem relevant now doesn't mean it won't be after a few more months of players improving their teams. This is part of the beauty of the game imo, and we should try to preserve it if reasonable. Tera blast by itself is certainly not overpowered, and it requires a unique combination of properties for certain Pokemon to feel potentially unhealthy or unbalanced with it (often high speed & power or snowballing sweeps). Regardless of how many prior "abusers" may have already been banned, if there are more Pokemon that are in a clear advantaged position to take unusual and consistent advantage of tera/tera blast, those Pokemon should be looked at first before the move.

In this case, I think it's worth pointing out that Volcarona already has the tools in its kit to beat any one of its counters with the right tera type, even if you removed tera blast - it would just be less dynamic and immediate. Quiver Dance poises it uniquely to immediately blow open a game in just one or two turns, and Volc has many (far more than any other OU mon I can think of) "predictable" tera types (and even more viable ones) that let it pick and choose its counters with unprecedented precision. This often forces players to build teams that layer multiple answers for different tera types & sets, or niche/passive hard counters (stall mons) that don't fit on many teams and can still lose to certain sets. The result is a difficult dynamic in-game where choosing what Pokemon to sack/preserve for the volc in the back, or whether to counter-tera, can sometimes be a complete guessing game. There is an opportunity cost with tera of course, but volc can often muscle past this with QD boosts and do enough damage that the backline doesn't need its tera even if it goes down.

I find it is a combination of these unique properties and not tera blast that puts volc on the radar for a suspect.

 

[Rubyblood]

It is obvious to me that terablast must be seriously taken into consideration.

Tera Blast is an ability that greatly amplifies the coverage of Volcarona and other Pokemon, allowing it to threaten many potential counters. Here is a summary of why he could be considered for a ban:

Impact on the balance of the game: The Tera Blast allows Volcarona to effectively bypass many counters that would normally be effective against it. This can unbalance the game by limiting counter options and making team preparation difficult.

Previous in tiering: The Tera Blast has been associated with previous bans in other tiers, such as that of Regieleki and Espathra. These precedents suggest that Tera Blast can have a significant impact on the health of the metagame.

Excessive Versatility: The ability of Tera Blast to provide extended coverage to multiple Pokemon, including Volcarona, can make team preparation and battling these Pokemon difficult and predictable.


The tier should go on a very good path by limiting a minimum the ability to win a game on a random move, because the mechanical tera is the perfect balance between rewarding players who are the most creative to the builder to anything that just wants to play cheese and abusing mechanically broken pokemon.

In summary, the Tera Blast could be considered for a ban because of its potential to unbalance the metagame by providing excessive coverage and limiting counter options.

 

[big pichu]

I don't play OU much so I don't plan on giving much input on the validity of the targets of either test, but I want to say that even recently, split suspects just end up dividing votes based on what the "problem" element people is, as seen most recently with Volcarona + Cloyster's split suspect. There were quite a bit of complaints about how it was a split decision, and I think doing Vert's suggestion of Volcarona + Tera Blast is just a recipe of repeating the same history over again. Especially with how difficult it seems to get people to agree on something in this tier, this is just fast tracking to another dead-end suspect. Just pick Volcarona or Tera Blast.

Not sure of the details here, but a ranked vote should be able to preserve peoples order of preferences while avoiding cases where people are forced to vote for a single option since it preserves local independence of irrelevant alternatives (in the case of ranked pairs, similar to what CAP uses for voting). Double suspects where two elements are suspected independently do not reflect voter preferences, since they essentially have users select one of four metagames, (no bans 00, ban first 10, ban second 01, ban both 11), three of which are unknown. Additionally, double suspects have a high chance of misrepresenting voter preferences in a way that ranked voting of three wouldnt.
A voter that prefers 10>01>11>00 clearly wants something to change, but voting for their top option has a high chance of harming them since they may end up voting to keep the second option, resulting in 00 winning instead of 01. Voting for 11 also has a high chance of going against their best interest, as it could result in option 11 beating out their top preference. This means that this particular voter cannot be represented accurately in a double suspect no matter what, and has a high risk of voting against their best interest.
Ranked voting of three options should prevent this by looking at each pair individually, and essentially checking three votes of two that encapsulate all possible voting options. While this does have chances of tying and resulting in unbreakable cycles, this still better represents the voter than something like a double suspect would.
For the record, I dont think that any combined vote will be perfect since its impossible to fully eliminate issues with ranked voting due to Arrows Impossibility Theorum and score voting makes people antsy wrt strategic voting, but I do think that a ranked vote of three is still different enough from a double suspect that many of the primary flaws with the latter aren't really relevant to the former.
Don't really have a huge dog in the fight and don't want to definitively give an opinion on what the best option is since I haven't played the current metagame, so I don't want people to take this as an endorsement of any option.
I think voting methodology is interesting and wanted to post my opinion on that aspect from a purely procedural view.

 

[Finchinator]

Thank you to everyone who posted and expressed interest in our metagame. It is especially cool seeing many experienced players share their perspective!

As many noted, multi-pronged suspects are best to avoid when possible and it is certainly possible to avoid here. A suspect with multiple conditions will not be occuring here and probably not anytime soon either.

Regarding a solution to this thread, a suspect on Volcarona makes more sense than a suspect on Tera Blast after reading discussion in this page and sorting out how we feel internally, so we are going to proceed with that. I will note we discussed Volcarona vs. Wellspring internally at length, too, and a Wellspring suspect may be possible in the future. Tthat's another topic for another place on another day though.