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Announcement SV National Dex Suspect 15 - Diamonds (Terastallization Re-Test Post DLC2) [NEW SUSPECT PROCESS]
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Hey everyone – despite my best efforts to steer clear of this topic and my two prior Abstain votes, as a council member I believe people are entitled to a public explanation as to my thought process. The post is long. I wrote it anyway.
While I personally do not have a strong preference for the actual outcome of this test, I plan on voting Do Not Ban based on the procedural concerns and the lack of compelling justifications to ban Tera outlined below.
I. Procedural Concerns
Smogon tiering has always been, and should always remain a community-driven enterprise. It can be a deeply frustrating and imperfect process at times, but one of the few constants has always been our collective respect and adherence to the results of community-decided tiering decisions.
Consequently, as someone who is almost always pro-suspect over other processes which undemocratically force certain tiering outcomes (e.g. council slates, kokoloko, quickbans, etc.), this is one of those rare instances where I believe the allowance of a third suspect sets a precedent that is far more harmful in the long-term than any perceived benefits to the current metagame in the short term. It is deeply demotivating to those who which to participate and vote in our suspects if they do not believe their votes carry a level of permanency once a result is achieved. It is also not a far-stretch to say that had Tera been banned after either of the prior two tests, we would not be sitting here today debating its potential return.
I realize these are likely secondary considerations for most players who simply want to have a more enjoyable playing experience, and that retests, while rare, do happen from time to time. But even if you are one who believes that Tera deserves no special treatment or any heightened threshold for removal as SV’s generational mechanic, and if you further place no weight whatsoever on effectively gutting the entire history of tiering thus far, the fact remains that Tera was fairly voted to remain legal in this tier twice. Removing a generational mechanic now, so late into the tier’s development and after two fairly decided suspects, should require an exceedingly high justification to avoid the appearance of outcome-fishing. Unfortunately, I believe the justifications underpinning this third suspect fall well-short of this standard.
II. Tera’s Influence on Gameplay and Skill Expression
Putting aside the procedural concerns noted above, much of the focus by the pro-Ban camp in the earlier tests emphasized how (1) Tera reduces skill-expression and promotes unreasonable guesswork during games. Presently, these arguments appear to be less prevalent now, with most people in the pro-Ban camp instead pointing to (2) Tera’s strain on teambuilding and variance and/or (3) the new developments brought upon the tier by DLC 2 that seemingly justify this third test, and have pushed threat-saturation further into unhealthy territory.
At this juncture, arguments that Tera erodes skill expression and reduces games down to coinflips feel over-exaggerated. Generally speaking, player skill is expressed and measured by the ability to identify your win conditions, your opponent’s win conditions, manage risk based on the information available to you, and then imposing your tools on the opponent with careful positioning. On one hand, yes, it is undeniable that a metagame with Tera legal will likely skew towards rewarding more offensive gameplay and team structures. The nature of the mechanic makes this reality unavoidable. But as far as actually expressing skill in a Tera-legal metagame, the timeliness of an offensive Tera to secure a sweep or a defensive-Tera to avoid what would otherwise be a near-certain loss are themselves evidence of skill expression. I would take it a step further and say that Tera rewards having a greater wealth of metagame knowledge and actual playing experience in determining what Tera type the opponent is likely to have and when they are likely to employ it, rather than a tier which is more “pick up and play” due to having more familiar team structures and known spreads.
If anything, Tera-legal metagames simply create more decisions during games which require players to evaluate risk/reward and manage unknown information. A common counter-argument to this seems to be that Tera creates “50/50” sequences which cause the outcome of certain otherwise-linear interactions to boil down to coinflips, e.g. the Medicham vs Dragonite interaction described above. There will inevitably be some instances of games being decided based on a single flipped-sequence due to Tera, but I simply do not see this happening at-scale in any significant way, even when factoring in that many of the risk/reward interactions forced by Tera do skew towards the offensive player more often than not. You also cannot parse high-level gameplay down into individual sequences like this without considering a myriad of other variables that may not make these interactions truly a 50/50 in practice, e.g. how many sac’s does one player have left, what does team preview look like, would Tera be better-preserved for another pokemon, and so forth. It is a reductionist way of analyzing games that omits critical context, and I do not believe it fairly characterizes the impact Tera alone has on the quality of gameplay.
III. Tera’s Influence on Variance and Threat-Saturation
Moving directly to the present, the premier justification now seems to be that the general state of variance and threat saturation in the tier is too high, and that DLC 2 exacerbated this problem to such a degree that Tera, as the primary culprit, should be banned. While I would reiterate that there is certainly a level of truth to some of these sentiments, I view Tera as an aggravating factor that we can continue to accept in our efforts to reduce variance, rather than the primary culprit of the problem itself.
a. Is Tera Responsible for the Tier's Banlist?
For starters, I wholly disagree that we have banned nearly-thirty Pokemon solely on the basis of Tera. I do not even believe Tera is responsible for a majority of the bans we have seen. Many previously banned Pokemon such as Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Baxcalibur, Terapagos, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, Annihilape and Walking Wake (among many others) all have a long list of arguably unhealthy qualities that extend far beyond their capacity to abuse Tera to their advantage. Curiously, it is telling that pro-Ban advocates are quick to characterize several of these pokemon as victims of Terastallization pushing them over the edge into banworthy territory, but have not been so vocally eager for them to return should Tera be banned. Putting aside the indisputable cases in Shedinja, Melmetal and Regieleki, you could fairly argue that Kingambit was a noteworthy abuser of Tera alongside the other "fringe" cases like Gholdengo, Zamazenta and Gouging Fire, which all had longer lifespans in the tier and incorporated Tera more heavily into how they functioned. But from my vantage point, a lot of these pokemon were either premier Z-move abusers, had individual sets that were deemed too constricting with or without Tera, or more often than not, they eventually became a product of an unusually-favorable metagame state where their best checks and revenge-killers had just been banned.
But with this in mind, all of these close-cases were voted out of the tier very narrowly (e.g. Pult 66.1%, Kingambit 65.4%, Gholdengo 60.3% by one vote), even with these Pokemon at the peak of their powers in prior metagame states. Others like Darkrai and Zamazenta cleared their original suspects by wide margins, and it was only after subsequent bans took place that their continued presence in the tier became untenable. Many of the suggestions for future suspect candidates that are also prominent Tera abusers such as Dragonite, Iron Crown, Archaludon and Raging Bolt did not score anywhere near a threshold for tiering action either, despite all having strong showings in NDPL.
Again, my goal is not to deny that Tera has impacted the performance and potential banworthiness of many of these pokemon - no one really disagrees that it has. However, I do believe the pro-Ban position takes the argument a bit too far and never really addresses why many of these suspect tests have been razor thin, why the survey results suggest these pokemon may be containable even with Tera, or the possibility that other factors outside of Tera alone have played an equal or perhaps greater role in creating the banlist we currently have.
b. Player Enjoyment and Competitiveness Ratings
If there is any doubt as to the truth of what I am saying re: community perception of Tera and its collateral damage, the OP and others make reference to declining player enjoyment and balance ratings taken from the latest survey as evidence that Tera is undermining the health of the tier, which is certainly troubling.
What is omitted from the OP, however, is the fact that in December 2023 when DLC 2 was released, we noted that: "Average player enjoyment came to around 6.88/10, the highest of any survey so far since the initial survey almost a year ago. This can be largely attributed to the new DLC and the introduction to new, yet not overwhelming, Pokemon that are being used and experimented with." But perhaps you might say that this was too early on to evaluate the true impact of these pokemon. We then re-surveyed the playerbase in April 2024 following the conclusion of world cup, which is undoubtedly one of our biggest tournaments of the year in terms of metagame development and community participation. Player enjoyment remained virtually identical, with competitiveness rising significantly: "The average rating in response to this question was 6.99 which is up notably from an average rating of 6.00 on our last survey back in December. This is really great to see." Fast-forward to June 2024, player enjoyment had risen even higher to 7.17, with 6.96 as the rating for overall competitiveness.
Jumping now to the most recent October 2024 results, we see that player enjoyment and competitiveness ratings have plummeted (while ironically enough, Terastallization ratings actually improved from 7.09 down to 6.78 in terms of support for tiering action). Attributing all of the community's frustration with the state of the tier to Tera alone, and none of the frustration on the resulting impact of recent bans feels a bit disingenuous in light of how people actually voted on the surveys. To be fully transparent, I am fine with disregarding survey results altogether and evaluating Tera solely on its current merits. But if we are going to include survey results in the OP and imply that Tera must be the primary culprit of the playerbase's frustration, I believe it is only fair we do so with some historical context in mind. To the contrary, I believe there have been many points along the timeline of this tier's development where a sizeable percentage of the playerbase felt the metagame was in a far healthier state than it is today, which gives me encouragement and reason to believe we can still change course without resorting to drastic measures such as this.
c. Reducing Variance & Tiering Moving Forward
In light of the above, we are faced with two lingering questions - what is the core problem with the tier, if not solely Tera, and how do we fix it?
My answer would be that we have systematically destabilized the tier by banning too many Pokemon that otherwise provided a necessary level of centralization, and which also naturally kept offensive structures in check. When I say "centralization", I specifically mean that some offensive threats, because of their individual attributes and performance at any given time in the metagame, are naturally prioritized when teambuilding over others. I frame the issue in this way because I believe it captures the essence of the issue we face in the teambuilder at present. How do you choose what offensive threats to prioritize when you have to account for a wide pool of offensive threats, all of whom you could realistically face on the same type of structures, and with each threat having several different set variations within themselves? The current answer is that you generally pick and choose what you win and lose against, and try to maximize odds as best you can against whatever you loaded into. What this leads to is a metagame not unlike what we witnessed in NDPL. Sure, there are many games where team preview is relatively balanced on both sides, and the competitive nature of those games reflect well on the tier. There are also games where Player A brought superior tools to Player B, and had virtually no chance of losing on preview.
This is happening a bit too frequently for anyone's liking, but again, I am not convinced that the sole reason this phenomenon is occurring is due to Tera. To me, Tera just adds another layer of risk and variability on top of what is an already-broken foundation, in a way that I personally feel it does not in a tier like SV OU (or in prior iterations of our own metagame), with very different dynamics and tools available to keep offense contained. To name a few, those metagames have/had better options for speed control, better anti-offense deterrents and were more notably centralized around pokemon that you had to respect in the builder, limiting the universe of likely options you would reasonably expect to face at any given time. Conversely, in our current metagame, the tier is largely centralized around pokemon that are naturally very constricting in the builder and that excel against balance and fatter teams, such as Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Kyurem, Tapu Lele, etc., and are more reliably out-offensed than defensively answered. Simultaneously, many of our bans within the last year or so have only served to bolster, rather than nerf offense's viability in the tier. Thus far, we have attempted to fix this problem through a domino-effect series of bans after the last two Tera tests. I sense that the playerbase has grown fatigued with this approach and the overall staleness of the metagame, and that this is the real reason this test has come about. My only response would again be that if other tiers and prior iterations of our own tier were able to achieve a greater level of balance and player satisfaction with Tera still in the picture, perhaps the problem lies in the options the tier has to choose from, rather than the mechanic by itself.
----
IV. Conclusion
For what it's worth - and on a more human level separate from the Smogon policy jargon - I have full respect for the other council members and anyone else in the playerbase who are simply trying to make the metagame less stale, improve community morale and make National Dex enjoyable. If you believe banning Tera is right then I encourage you to vote according to your conscience. I believe we all share a mutual desire to see the tier do well, and for people to enjoy participating in our tournaments. Personally, banning Tera does not align with my vision for doing so, and I will be voting Do Not Ban.
While I personally do not have a strong preference for the actual outcome of this test, I plan on voting Do Not Ban based on the procedural concerns and the lack of compelling justifications to ban Tera outlined below.
I. Procedural Concerns
Smogon tiering has always been, and should always remain a community-driven enterprise. It can be a deeply frustrating and imperfect process at times, but one of the few constants has always been our collective respect and adherence to the results of community-decided tiering decisions.
Consequently, as someone who is almost always pro-suspect over other processes which undemocratically force certain tiering outcomes (e.g. council slates, kokoloko, quickbans, etc.), this is one of those rare instances where I believe the allowance of a third suspect sets a precedent that is far more harmful in the long-term than any perceived benefits to the current metagame in the short term. It is deeply demotivating to those who which to participate and vote in our suspects if they do not believe their votes carry a level of permanency once a result is achieved. It is also not a far-stretch to say that had Tera been banned after either of the prior two tests, we would not be sitting here today debating its potential return.
I realize these are likely secondary considerations for most players who simply want to have a more enjoyable playing experience, and that retests, while rare, do happen from time to time. But even if you are one who believes that Tera deserves no special treatment or any heightened threshold for removal as SV’s generational mechanic, and if you further place no weight whatsoever on effectively gutting the entire history of tiering thus far, the fact remains that Tera was fairly voted to remain legal in this tier twice. Removing a generational mechanic now, so late into the tier’s development and after two fairly decided suspects, should require an exceedingly high justification to avoid the appearance of outcome-fishing. Unfortunately, I believe the justifications underpinning this third suspect fall well-short of this standard.
II. Tera’s Influence on Gameplay and Skill Expression
Putting aside the procedural concerns noted above, much of the focus by the pro-Ban camp in the earlier tests emphasized how (1) Tera reduces skill-expression and promotes unreasonable guesswork during games. Presently, these arguments appear to be less prevalent now, with most people in the pro-Ban camp instead pointing to (2) Tera’s strain on teambuilding and variance and/or (3) the new developments brought upon the tier by DLC 2 that seemingly justify this third test, and have pushed threat-saturation further into unhealthy territory.
At this juncture, arguments that Tera erodes skill expression and reduces games down to coinflips feel over-exaggerated. Generally speaking, player skill is expressed and measured by the ability to identify your win conditions, your opponent’s win conditions, manage risk based on the information available to you, and then imposing your tools on the opponent with careful positioning. On one hand, yes, it is undeniable that a metagame with Tera legal will likely skew towards rewarding more offensive gameplay and team structures. The nature of the mechanic makes this reality unavoidable. But as far as actually expressing skill in a Tera-legal metagame, the timeliness of an offensive Tera to secure a sweep or a defensive-Tera to avoid what would otherwise be a near-certain loss are themselves evidence of skill expression. I would take it a step further and say that Tera rewards having a greater wealth of metagame knowledge and actual playing experience in determining what Tera type the opponent is likely to have and when they are likely to employ it, rather than a tier which is more “pick up and play” due to having more familiar team structures and known spreads.
If anything, Tera-legal metagames simply create more decisions during games which require players to evaluate risk/reward and manage unknown information. A common counter-argument to this seems to be that Tera creates “50/50” sequences which cause the outcome of certain otherwise-linear interactions to boil down to coinflips, e.g. the Medicham vs Dragonite interaction described above. There will inevitably be some instances of games being decided based on a single flipped-sequence due to Tera, but I simply do not see this happening at-scale in any significant way, even when factoring in that many of the risk/reward interactions forced by Tera do skew towards the offensive player more often than not. You also cannot parse high-level gameplay down into individual sequences like this without considering a myriad of other variables that may not make these interactions truly a 50/50 in practice, e.g. how many sac’s does one player have left, what does team preview look like, would Tera be better-preserved for another pokemon, and so forth. It is a reductionist way of analyzing games that omits critical context, and I do not believe it fairly characterizes the impact Tera alone has on the quality of gameplay.
III. Tera’s Influence on Variance and Threat-Saturation
Moving directly to the present, the premier justification now seems to be that the general state of variance and threat saturation in the tier is too high, and that DLC 2 exacerbated this problem to such a degree that Tera, as the primary culprit, should be banned. While I would reiterate that there is certainly a level of truth to some of these sentiments, I view Tera as an aggravating factor that we can continue to accept in our efforts to reduce variance, rather than the primary culprit of the problem itself.
a. Is Tera Responsible for the Tier's Banlist?
For starters, I wholly disagree that we have banned nearly-thirty Pokemon solely on the basis of Tera. I do not even believe Tera is responsible for a majority of the bans we have seen. Many previously banned Pokemon such as Ogerpon-Hearthflame, Baxcalibur, Terapagos, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, Annihilape and Walking Wake (among many others) all have a long list of arguably unhealthy qualities that extend far beyond their capacity to abuse Tera to their advantage. Curiously, it is telling that pro-Ban advocates are quick to characterize several of these pokemon as victims of Terastallization pushing them over the edge into banworthy territory, but have not been so vocally eager for them to return should Tera be banned. Putting aside the indisputable cases in Shedinja, Melmetal and Regieleki, you could fairly argue that Kingambit was a noteworthy abuser of Tera alongside the other "fringe" cases like Gholdengo, Zamazenta and Gouging Fire, which all had longer lifespans in the tier and incorporated Tera more heavily into how they functioned. But from my vantage point, a lot of these pokemon were either premier Z-move abusers, had individual sets that were deemed too constricting with or without Tera, or more often than not, they eventually became a product of an unusually-favorable metagame state where their best checks and revenge-killers had just been banned.
But with this in mind, all of these close-cases were voted out of the tier very narrowly (e.g. Pult 66.1%, Kingambit 65.4%, Gholdengo 60.3% by one vote), even with these Pokemon at the peak of their powers in prior metagame states. Others like Darkrai and Zamazenta cleared their original suspects by wide margins, and it was only after subsequent bans took place that their continued presence in the tier became untenable. Many of the suggestions for future suspect candidates that are also prominent Tera abusers such as Dragonite, Iron Crown, Archaludon and Raging Bolt did not score anywhere near a threshold for tiering action either, despite all having strong showings in NDPL.
Again, my goal is not to deny that Tera has impacted the performance and potential banworthiness of many of these pokemon - no one really disagrees that it has. However, I do believe the pro-Ban position takes the argument a bit too far and never really addresses why many of these suspect tests have been razor thin, why the survey results suggest these pokemon may be containable even with Tera, or the possibility that other factors outside of Tera alone have played an equal or perhaps greater role in creating the banlist we currently have.
b. Player Enjoyment and Competitiveness Ratings
If there is any doubt as to the truth of what I am saying re: community perception of Tera and its collateral damage, the OP and others make reference to declining player enjoyment and balance ratings taken from the latest survey as evidence that Tera is undermining the health of the tier, which is certainly troubling.
What is omitted from the OP, however, is the fact that in December 2023 when DLC 2 was released, we noted that: "Average player enjoyment came to around 6.88/10, the highest of any survey so far since the initial survey almost a year ago. This can be largely attributed to the new DLC and the introduction to new, yet not overwhelming, Pokemon that are being used and experimented with." But perhaps you might say that this was too early on to evaluate the true impact of these pokemon. We then re-surveyed the playerbase in April 2024 following the conclusion of world cup, which is undoubtedly one of our biggest tournaments of the year in terms of metagame development and community participation. Player enjoyment remained virtually identical, with competitiveness rising significantly: "The average rating in response to this question was 6.99 which is up notably from an average rating of 6.00 on our last survey back in December. This is really great to see." Fast-forward to June 2024, player enjoyment had risen even higher to 7.17, with 6.96 as the rating for overall competitiveness.
Jumping now to the most recent October 2024 results, we see that player enjoyment and competitiveness ratings have plummeted (while ironically enough, Terastallization ratings actually improved from 7.09 down to 6.78 in terms of support for tiering action). Attributing all of the community's frustration with the state of the tier to Tera alone, and none of the frustration on the resulting impact of recent bans feels a bit disingenuous in light of how people actually voted on the surveys. To be fully transparent, I am fine with disregarding survey results altogether and evaluating Tera solely on its current merits. But if we are going to include survey results in the OP and imply that Tera must be the primary culprit of the playerbase's frustration, I believe it is only fair we do so with some historical context in mind. To the contrary, I believe there have been many points along the timeline of this tier's development where a sizeable percentage of the playerbase felt the metagame was in a far healthier state than it is today, which gives me encouragement and reason to believe we can still change course without resorting to drastic measures such as this.
c. Reducing Variance & Tiering Moving Forward
In light of the above, we are faced with two lingering questions - what is the core problem with the tier, if not solely Tera, and how do we fix it?
My answer would be that we have systematically destabilized the tier by banning too many Pokemon that otherwise provided a necessary level of centralization, and which also naturally kept offensive structures in check. When I say "centralization", I specifically mean that some offensive threats, because of their individual attributes and performance at any given time in the metagame, are naturally prioritized when teambuilding over others. I frame the issue in this way because I believe it captures the essence of the issue we face in the teambuilder at present. How do you choose what offensive threats to prioritize when you have to account for a wide pool of offensive threats, all of whom you could realistically face on the same type of structures, and with each threat having several different set variations within themselves? The current answer is that you generally pick and choose what you win and lose against, and try to maximize odds as best you can against whatever you loaded into. What this leads to is a metagame not unlike what we witnessed in NDPL. Sure, there are many games where team preview is relatively balanced on both sides, and the competitive nature of those games reflect well on the tier. There are also games where Player A brought superior tools to Player B, and had virtually no chance of losing on preview.
This is happening a bit too frequently for anyone's liking, but again, I am not convinced that the sole reason this phenomenon is occurring is due to Tera. To me, Tera just adds another layer of risk and variability on top of what is an already-broken foundation, in a way that I personally feel it does not in a tier like SV OU (or in prior iterations of our own metagame), with very different dynamics and tools available to keep offense contained. To name a few, those metagames have/had better options for speed control, better anti-offense deterrents and were more notably centralized around pokemon that you had to respect in the builder, limiting the universe of likely options you would reasonably expect to face at any given time. Conversely, in our current metagame, the tier is largely centralized around pokemon that are naturally very constricting in the builder and that excel against balance and fatter teams, such as Ogerpon-Wellspring, Raging Bolt, Kyurem, Tapu Lele, etc., and are more reliably out-offensed than defensively answered. Simultaneously, many of our bans within the last year or so have only served to bolster, rather than nerf offense's viability in the tier. Thus far, we have attempted to fix this problem through a domino-effect series of bans after the last two Tera tests. I sense that the playerbase has grown fatigued with this approach and the overall staleness of the metagame, and that this is the real reason this test has come about. My only response would again be that if other tiers and prior iterations of our own tier were able to achieve a greater level of balance and player satisfaction with Tera still in the picture, perhaps the problem lies in the options the tier has to choose from, rather than the mechanic by itself.
----
IV. Conclusion
For what it's worth - and on a more human level separate from the Smogon policy jargon - I have full respect for the other council members and anyone else in the playerbase who are simply trying to make the metagame less stale, improve community morale and make National Dex enjoyable. If you believe banning Tera is right then I encourage you to vote according to your conscience. I believe we all share a mutual desire to see the tier do well, and for people to enjoy participating in our tournaments. Personally, banning Tera does not align with my vision for doing so, and I will be voting Do Not Ban.
Fast forward to November of 2022, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet release a new mechanic: Terastalization, which alters this core fundamental of Pokemon. Suddenly we have fire slugs become pure water type, fish starting to fly, and earth drilling moles becoming immune to hailstorms. What world are we living in? This is NOT the Pokemon that I enjoy or envisioned playing.
Let me boldly state this: Terastalization is a toxic mechanic that is unfun, unskillful, and uninteractive to the core mechanics of this game. In a game of modern 6v6 Singles, you are faced with an opponent that brings 6 Pokemon with clear identities. If you have knowledge of these Pokemon regarding their movesets and capabilities, you can strategically play out the game with your corresponding squad of 6 Pokemon that share these same boundaries. With terastalization, this fine game becomes an inifinite pool of uncertaintly until one player drops the bombshell and decide one of their Pokemon will completely alter their identity. Look at the consequences, many Pokemon became too much to deal with after being gifted this mechanic that allowed them to shed their primary weaknesses (I'm looking at you, Eleki.), and are now gone from our games, stuck in the abyss of UBERS where they are unable to compete with the top-tier-built-different mons that are SUPPOSED to be there.
Every generation-specific mechanic that Gamefreak introduced to Pokemon after the 6th generations had it's up's and downs to the competitive space. Mega Evolution was a cool, well designed feature that injected life into some unviable mons, which we happily kept. Z-moves cloaked many Pokemon with extended capabilities, allowing it to stay, and Dynamax was agreed to be an unhealthy gimmick that the community decided to banish. We've already had a time where we banned an entire generation's gimmick due to its absurdity, and I believe that Terastalization holds up to that sheer absurd status as it distorts the entire game around itself, in an unhealthy manner.
In the official titles, you can visit many "Trainer Schools" where kids learn about the basics of Pokemon. Now imagine telling youngster jimmy that his little ratata no longer resists ghost types. Poor kid.
TL;DR : Terastalization needs to go. I will be banning Tera and I encourage to vote ban
Shoutouts Fluore
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I'm fairly neutral on Tera as a whole. I think its a great mechanic in SV to give the generation its own identity and has many skillful and innovative uses, and has a good mix of offensive and defensive users that can fulfill unique roles or emergency checking certain Pokemon with defensive Tera. Don't really agree with the notion that HO is the best archetype - feels very fishy and awkward from what I've played + is undercut by a large lack of longevity - most bulky offense / fat teams feel like they have HO beat on that front, esp given their tools to dispatch of bulkier cores like Future Sight, Pursuit, better hazard pressure and control, etc. That said, I do also understand the complaints about potential variance, especially in ND where there will be a lot of random Z-move users thrown into the mix making the counterplay to both a bit awkward. Adding onto this is the "ban everything" mentality here which i think has led this tier to a few too many mons being axed, naturally leading to different top tiers rising in their absence, most of which can run a variety of different Z-moves and Tera-types (i.e. Dragonite, Raging Bolt, etc.) to an even great degree than some of the previous top tiers. I know a lot of players don't enjoy Tera in the standard OU metagame, nor do they like the number of bans that may have been influenced by its introduction. Hence, I do see the merit in its ban in ND & it would give players who are tired of Tera an alternative metagame to sink their teeth into with more traditional mons interactions. Therefore, I don't really mind whatever outcome
That said, there are some things that I have a problem with. Conducting a third suspect test this late in the generation implies to me that there is an attempt here to rig the vote in favor of a ban. I feel this is more apparent when looking at the aftermath of the previous suspect test. More importantly, because this is so late into the generation, I am not sure many of the Pokemon supposedly "broken by Tera" will be given a fair shake in the metagame, maybe beyond a cursorary immediate QB because of "reasons" or whatever.
For me personally, the biggest appeal of a Tera ban is the unbans. If I can get a confirmation from one of the moderators or tier leaders that at least 70-80% of the following Pokemon will be immediately unbanned & given a fair shake in the tier (not QB'd immediately), then I'll consider voting ban.
That said, there are some things that I have a problem with. Conducting a third suspect test this late in the generation implies to me that there is an attempt here to rig the vote in favor of a ban. I feel this is more apparent when looking at the aftermath of the previous suspect test. More importantly, because this is so late into the generation, I am not sure many of the Pokemon supposedly "broken by Tera" will be given a fair shake in the metagame, maybe beyond a cursorary immediate QB because of "reasons" or whatever.
For me personally, the biggest appeal of a Tera ban is the unbans. If I can get a confirmation from one of the moderators or tier leaders that at least 70-80% of the following Pokemon will be immediately unbanned & given a fair shake in the tier (not QB'd immediately), then I'll consider voting ban.
- Gholdengo
- Ogerpon-H
- Melmetal
- Darkrai
- Zamazenta
- Regieleki
- Terapagos
- Roaring Moon
- Baxcalibur
- Espathra
- Palafin
- Dragapult
- Kingambit
- Gouging Fire
- Magearna
- Shedninja
- Sneasler
- Ursaluna-Bloodmoon
- Deoxys-Speed
- Walking Wake
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Respect your ability as a player, but am very surprised by your position and urge you to reconsider. I agree that tiering decisions have been quite questionable in retrospect, but I'll contend that this isn't really relevant to whether or not tera should be banned right now. Even if our problems were 'caused by incompetence' - with all due respect, that ship sailed a long time ago...
We agree that a Tera ban would help the tier, but you're saying tera doesn't make 'just anything' broken. That's true, but I think it's been demonstrated that it breaks enough mons such that the metagame is noticeably worse off than in its absence. Our current anti-offense options simply don't cut it since we banned all the best ones, and no amount of bans is gonna generate new options out of thin air. Ok sure, maybe we just ban more Pokemon until people are satisfied. However, this solution is just not very appealing nor practical.
First, the survey scores indicate that people are generally dislike the metagame but do not find any individual Pokemon particularly broken. From a pragmatic perspective, if we don't ban tera now, there's a genuine possibility we just get stuck in a metagame where people are generally dissatisfied but are wishy washy on banning any individual Pokemon (which is kinda where we are rn), so nobody wins in the end.
Second, people have argued it's too late to do something as drastic as banning tera. We've spent 2 years in a tera metagame and people are still unhappy. Not only that, if you are voting DNB in the interests of time, then it would make more sense to ban tera. We just quickdrop/quicktest a few mons, send some back to Ubers if they're broken - all done within a few weeks. Conversely, if we go the banning mons approach (which we started in June 2023 and are STILL doing btw), It's likely not sustainable and we may be tiering right up until the generation's close. Frankly, I don't want to play a metagame where something new gets suspect tested and banned every single month. This might be hyperbole, but it's been the reality since the previous tera suspect, so there's some evidence for that already. As an example, you brought up Dragonite and Kyurem in your metagame post. We had no idea these mons were going to be even close to radar worthy at the time of the last tera suspect (bax too btw), which I think demonstrates how many potential brokens fly under the radar in a very offensive and top-heavy metagame.
Third, bit of a throwaway reason, but it's just lame to ban a billion mons when we could go after the elephant in the room instead. I like playing with my toys and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I also disagree with the list of mons you think are broken by tera. I'm extremely confident that Kingambit is not broken without tera since its exploitable weaknesses can actually be exploited if it weren't for the possibility of defensive terastallisation - this means it's always going to lose to certain mons and this is a big deal. Even if Pursuit Kingambit wasn't tera reliant, it was never really broken in the first place too unlike SD. A very conservative estimate of what Tera would let us free is just Kingambit, Melmetal, and Terapagos. This alone would make teambuilding much, much easier.
A more realistic guess would be healthy Pokemon like Kingambit, Gholdengo, Dragapult, Zamazenta, Melmetal, and Terapagos, all of which would check each other, ease teambuilding and greatly limit offense which we know is ridiculously potent right now. If you want to limit offense, if you want to free Zamazenta, banning tera is by far the best way to do this. I also enjoyed Zamazenta's presence in the tier but there's realistically no chance it even gets retested if tera remains in the metagame.
As for procedural complaints, can we please acknowledge that the meta is extremely different from the previous suspect and people still think tera is a problem. Yeah, maybe the council is a bit biased against tera, but even if they were entirely neutral, the council objectively wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't respond to the high survey scores on tera. This suspect test is entirely justified and voting DNB because you disagree with testing something three times is unreasonable. It's not like the previous 2 tests were slam dunks either, they were both extremely close with a majority actually wanting to ban the mechanic.
Just as a side note, if you are DNB because you want to preserve tera, there's always SV OU. Plus, wouldn't it be novel to have an ou adjacent metagame where tera is banned? One of each? Another thing is I wish reqs were more difficult but that's not really possible given the state of the ladder right now. We just get brigaded by people from other tiers who see this as a joke tier and go 'haha petmod suspected tera three times'.
TLDR: DNB arguments are not very reasonable, imo evaluate the tier as it is right now instead of dwelling on past decisions
I would also love to drop most of these mons (not Magearna) but I think only around 40% at most will be immediately unbanned, though the others could definitely be retested. 70-80% is a little bit unreasonable to call for an immediate unban... but voting ban would still be by far your best bet at seeing these mons get unbanned. Frankly, the ND playerbase is noticeably more inclined to ban stuff and not unban stuff compared to SV, so I hope you temper your expectations accordingly.
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I rlly dont get the fuss about "I want to ban Tera so we can Retest in Pokémon" Like atp this is not Wanting for more options this is Simping on cutesies and gambit for some reason. Terapagos is fine, Shed is shid, and banned in Ubers anyways so we're not getting it back, Eleki is just going to have higher skill ceiling, butin general This is not "making the meta better", this is "changing the whole meta" and Resetting as if we were Literal 2 months in the Gen. This just motivates le more to vote DNB soit doesn't happen.
Tera is the main reason I quitted the tier so ye I'll be voting Ban and everyone who wants the tier to be playable should. It's a shitfest of who teras a sweeper (which we have an absurd amount of) and wins first. I just brought a random ass screens ho from the discord and played a ladder I hadn't touched in months and got reqs by tera flying my hawlucha or tera grassing my volc, skillful gameplay.
this is some insane work icl. the entire point of suspecting tera is to rework the metagame in a more healthy manner. don’t pounce on the very justifiable reasons of pro-ban players by calling it “simping on cutesies”(not sure what that even means bro). kingambit in my perspective is fine in a no tera metagame. especially if we unban zamazenta too; we’ll probably quicktest some stuff so at the end of the day, the meta is changing more than it is not. i agree with your other points but regieleki really feels like it will be more healthy than not; without tera it becomes pretty useless in the attacking side and delegates to a fast screens setter.
i like to think that by reshaping the metagame we can change the way it is now for the better. if you like the current metagame, then good for you, but as survey results have seen there is obvious community dislike for the current meta and as moisture has stated nobody wants to specifically point out the problem except for the underlying issue of tera
Going to address these points: All of the arguments that Terastallization changes the game competitively kind of just bounce off of me because I think that the way it changes is totally healthy. Games evolve, just kinda need to evolve with it. It changed fundamentally with Tera in a way that has never been seen before but the ways that are presented never seem bad to me. I think it's great that a physically attacking Steel/Dark type is able to beat an extremely physically bulky Ground/Fighting type, like having to think of Gambit as a Fairy or Flying type makes playing so much more difficult. It's a puzzle that doesn't have a simple or straightforward solution. How is having to actually think about every possible situation bad at all? This gen has never felt stale for me in the way that almost every gen has before. Also, if you want to play a game where the more skilled player is guaranteed to win, Pokemon is not that game. There are so many non-skill based factors that are reasonably impossible to play around that when we get one that has counterplay that is gained through practice and tier knowledge, that is a welcome gift in my mind.
Yeah my argument for defensive Tera was pretty weak I know how much more strong offensive Tera generally is, but reacting defensively with a Tera usually means you are either in a do-or-die situation or you would much prefer to have a defensive typing throughout the entire game, e,g Tera Dragon Dondozo to be a consistent Waterpon switchin. So a better sentiment for me would be that Terastallizing offensively is proactive, while Terastallizing defensively is reactive which is kind of how things should be in my mind. Like Z-moves being used defensively happens so rarely just because having a one-time supernuke or an insane omniboost is so much more useful. Not saying Z-moves and Tera are even close to comparable in terms of how they affect the game, just saying. And just for arguments sake: here are some balance replays I found just in the first week of NDPL (including one of yours).
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-789354
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-789763
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-789610
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-788859
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-790008
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9nationaldex-789944 Like the thing with fat balance nowadays is everything is just naturally super fat and can also hit back super hard so HO can't even roll through fat balance like it has historically been able to. And as for your second point, ban all the brokens for all I care there are so many Pokemon that Terastallization breaks, nobody can deny that. And the response to that is usually, "Well if there are all of these Pokemon that are unbalanced with Tera but would be fine without it, why not just ban the source of the problem instead?" which is a fair point, but I will point to the previous gen's center mechanic: Dynamax. DMax broke almost every single Pokemon in an undeniable way that would never be balanceable. Terastallization has some clear culprits, just weed them ALL out. Kyurem, Dnite, Waterpon, Val, are standouts in my mind but I'm sure as the list shrinks there will be more that pop up here and there but even GameFreak themselves knew that having 1000+ Pokemon to balance a game around would be impossible, so just have to take on that Herculean task. Or just split the tier into no-Tera and Tera which is an infinitely worse solution.
Sorry! Didn't mean to come across as a gatekeeper and wasn't trying to be aggressive or rude about it (in spite of my aggressive and rude verbiage, again sorry) because you're right I don't play NatDex a lot, which I did nod to. Since it was so early in the process I did not have a ton to respond to, I just wanted to proactively address some of the sentiments I've seen towards Tera in other formats, because NatDex is not any of those formats and I just used whatever was there as a basis.
I didn't explain it very well but by "fat balance" I meant stuff like 4 or 5 defensive guys + 1 or 2 speed control guys, most of these teams are bulky offense except for 3, the one I played against and both teams in the ezra kyo game, and even then calling the two in the ezra kyo game fat balance is kind of a stretch. As for your other point, I think you misunderstood my argument, my main argument is not the amount of bans that would have to take place, although I won't deny that is one of the reasons I don't want to keep tera, rather it was the fact that we have been banning pokemon constantly for 2 years and more simply keep on appearing. Something I realized just yesterday is that, while not all bans are directly the result of tera, such as Darkrai or Gouging Fire, they can be traced back to their checks being banned due to tera. For example, following Zamazenta's ban (which was solely due to tera), Darkrai became absurdly broken, and you can argue that it was broken beforehand but Kyurem, Dragonite and, to a lesser extent Ogerpon-W, are all extremely contentious topics right now and they were all not really issues or simply didn't exist in the case of dd Kyurem (the broken set), and Gouging Fire was considered by most a mediocre mon while Zamazenta was still around. The same thing happened before, where Gholdengo was banned due to abusing tera far too well, and Dragapult was banned since Kingambit was banned, and Kingambit was banned since it was far too good at abusing tera, all of which eventually led to Zamazenta becoming overbearing and getting banned. If we keep taking the course of banning a billion mons this will keep on happening, if we ban Ogerpon-W for example, Iron Moth, Urshifu or rain as a whole might become overbearing, and I seriously doubt this will ever end.
Also just as a side note, @ ppl who say we aren't open to unbanning anything, I know I've expressed my concerns about Kingambit and Gholdengo coming back in ndcord, but if tera does leave then the council is most likely going to vote on the fate of previously banned pokemon, and I have always planned to vote in favor of a quick unban for Zamazenta-H, Terapagos, Shedinja, Melmetal and Regieleki, and suspect p much everything else that is of a reasonable power level, so no stuff like Metagross, Spectrier, or Blastoise, but I would vote in favor of bringing back for example Roaring Moon, Dragapult, Gholdengo and Kingambit, even though I have my own concerns about the last two they are purely theoretical and would still very much be open to see how they would work in practice, and if they're fine then its not like I have some
If you think that Tera adds to a competitive format, that’s your opinion and you are entitled to keep it; but your statement that Tera changes the format in a positive way is completely subjective. As me and Djwaot both agree, Tera touches on a core competitive fundamental that should not be changed.
For me, generational mechanics are supposed to add to the game, not change it. Megas and Z-Moves are a good example of this; they positively add to the competitive format without completely changing how you look at the game. Djwaot pointed this out in their post; typing has always been one of the core mechanics of pokemon with or without the competitive scene and shouldn’t be edited.
If you take it at face value, I find it that in a competitive scene, it actually provides detriment to the tier more than it makes more complex; if I position my physically bulky Ground/Fighting type versus my opponents physically attacking Dark/Steel, I have the better matchup by definition. I don’t think from a fundamentals standpoint should the Dark/Steel be able to completely change their typing to flip the matchup; it’s broken in that regard.
Also, telling someone else to just “play another game” when the whole point of tiering is for making a more balanced metagame, in my opinion, is just rude. As far as I’m concerned, tiering is about making the game more competitive while minimizing non-skill based and arguably broken features. We banned King’s Rock… (free oculars)
to me, tera and its biggest issues are volatility and making a lot of more simple interactions needlessly and often detrimentally complex. so many interactions are often dragged into a pseudo guessing game at an unhealthy frequency. especially where Pokémon have various viable tera types such as fairy and grass Heatran having 2 different counterplay methods that have almost no tells for which one it is, and i feel like tera is just an unnecessary addition that adds way to much strain on play during games, however i will admit that my opinion has been influenced quite a bit from NDUbers where tera and the super high power level makes the volatility grow at an unhealthy rate, but i do think the same principles that i think make tera a bad addition to the tier are still applicable
To all the DNB voters, what's the way forward for the metagame? Clearly, the metagame is in a bad place right now: enjoyability and balance both took sharp nosedives last survey, and I think you'll be hard pressed to find someone who agrees that this metagame is perfectly fine. So, if we keep Tera, what next? Suspect Dragonite, then Kyurem? Unban Zamazenta and let it run rampant through the tier to check the others? I do not see a path forward to fixing this metagame with Tera, without at least several more bans, with no guarentee of actual stability at the end of it.
And banning Tera doesn't magically fix everything, sure. But at least Tera's ban gives us a chance to fix the tier beyond "one more ban until we reach the perfect metagame". We have had 29 bans this generation, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
And banning Tera doesn't magically fix everything, sure. But at least Tera's ban gives us a chance to fix the tier beyond "one more ban until we reach the perfect metagame". We have had 29 bans this generation, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
Got reqs using the archaludon rain sample team. Only change I made was swapping weather ball on bolt for thunderbolt.
I think Tera is a lot of fun, but it's pretty clearly uncompetitive; it forces many 50/50s that can just end the game or put you in a horrible position if you get it wrong. I'm probably voting ban, since it's pretty obvious what the real issue is when so many mons have been banned specifically because of the mechanic.
I think Tera is a lot of fun, but it's pretty clearly uncompetitive; it forces many 50/50s that can just end the game or put you in a horrible position if you get it wrong. I'm probably voting ban, since it's pretty obvious what the real issue is when so many mons have been banned specifically because of the mechanic.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen! Gentlemen.. It was hard… but I did it! I got reqs!
I wanted to write my reasons for wanting to get Terastalizaton banned out of the tier! The reasons I will be voting BAN on Tera!
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1.) It makes set-up sweepers deadly and (very) hard to kill!
Set-up sweepers are self-explanatory, they use moves such as Dragon Dance or Calm Mind to sweep the opponent's (whole or remaining) team. Normally these set-up sweepers are Dragonite, Iron Crown and Raging Bolt. The player set these pokemon at the right time and starts the sweep. However, these pokèmon can't just click a status move and go ballistic as they have their own defensive weaknesses: Dragonite has a 4x weakness to ice, Iron Crown has fire and ground as weaknesses and Raging Bolt has ground, fairy and ice. These types tend to be everywhere as coverage moves. And there come tera! Tera makes these pokèmon less worried about their weaknesses since they can change their typing defensively, being able to set-up easily, and possibly win the game. This is already frustrating enough, but add screens and there's practically little to no counter on dealing with them, since they are naturally quite bulky and ca take a hit easily. That is a very huge advantage to HO Pokemon, since they can abuse Tera and use it at the right time and set the sweep, being difficult to kill.
For my argument we can look at banned pokemon, Espathra is the perfect example. Espathra was banned due to its ability to terastalize both offensively and defensively and the combination with Stored Power + Calm Mind and Speed Boost. It tera'd itself often into Fighting or Fairy type (or even Ground and Fire) to kill its checks, but that begs the question: would Espathra be broken without tera? No, not at all! Its movepool is pretty bad with only dazzling gleam as coverage against dark pokèmon and roost for healing.
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2.) Tera makes alredy powerful moves more difficult to resist/switch into!
Some Pokemon have such powerful moves with strong offense that it's hard to tank even without tera. For this argument I have Ursaluna with Guts and Facade, Tapu Lele with Psychic Surge and Psychic/Expanding Force and even Hoopa-U with Choice Band Hyperspace Fury. These moves calculating their factors deal a massive damage to even the Pokemon that resist those types. First of all, I want to talk about Crawdawnt! We have witnessed once or many times how much damage this thing can output. But how? Crawdawnt posesses the ability to hit extremely hard due to its ability Adaptability! This abilty makes the Pokemon's STAB moves to deal x2 damage instead of x1,5. When a Pokemon is tera'd in one of if only its natural type, it receives the same boost as Adaptability (x2). Now imagine how much damage those Pokemon deal terastalized in their natural types! In a Trick Room team, the player teras its Ursaluna into normal and it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to tank! Tera Normal + Facade + Guts... yeah the only way to deal with this is with Protect spam or switching into Intimidate Pokemon, but that won't do much as the playe4r can either predict or the power of the Pokemon is just too much! At the end, this factor is a nightmare for slower teamstyles as they have to deal with this massive power that Tera offers. Here I'll let some interesting calculations!
➤ Hoopa-Unbound ():
▹ 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Gunk Shot vs. 76 HP / 48 Def Tera Fairy Raging Bolt: 516-608 (125.8 - 148.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
▹ 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-Therian: 324-382 (84.8 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO / -1 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-Therian: 216-256 (56.5 ▹ 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
▹ 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 274-324 (54.3 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
➤ Tapu Lele ():
▹ 252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 272-322 (69 - 81.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO / 252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 172-204 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- 9% chance to 2HKO / 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 408-480 (103.5 - 121.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO / 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 260-306 (65.9 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
▹ 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 248 HP / 76 SpD Corviknight in Psychic Terrain: 200-236 (50.1 - 59.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
▹ 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey in Psychic Terrain: 616-726 (86.2 - 101.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO / 252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey in Psychic Terrain: 412-486 (57.7 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
➤ Ursaluna ():
▹ -1 252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-Therian: 272-322 (71.2 - 84.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
▹ 252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 184+ Def Corviknight: 195-230 (48.8 - 57.6%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO
▹ 252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 328-386 (81.1 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
):▹ 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Gunk Shot vs. 76 HP / 48 Def Tera Fairy Raging Bolt: 516-608 (125.8 - 148.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
▹ 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-Therian: 324-382 (84.8 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO / -1 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-Therian: 216-256 (56.5 ▹ 67%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
▹ 252+ Atk Choice Band Tera Dark Hoopa-Unbound Hyperspace Fury vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dondozo: 274-324 (54.3 - 64.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
➤ Tapu Lele (
):▹ 252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 272-322 (69 - 81.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO / 252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 172-204 (43.6 - 51.7%) -- 9% chance to 2HKO / 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 408-480 (103.5 - 121.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO / 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Slowking-Galar in Psychic Terrain: 260-306 (65.9 - 77.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
▹ 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 248 HP / 76 SpD Corviknight in Psychic Terrain: 200-236 (50.1 - 59.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
▹ 252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey in Psychic Terrain: 616-726 (86.2 - 101.6%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO / 252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Blissey in Psychic Terrain: 412-486 (57.7 - 68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
➤ Ursaluna (
):▹ -1 252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Landorus-Therian: 272-322 (71.2 - 84.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
▹ 252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 184+ Def Corviknight: 195-230 (48.8 - 57.6%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO
▹ 252+ Atk Guts Tera Normal Ursaluna Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tangrowth: 328-386 (81.1 - 95.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
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3.) Tera is quite unpredictable/a (brutal) surprise defensively AND offensively!
As I said, Tera is used to make a Pokemon's defensive typing change to counter its former defensive weaknesses. However Tera presents a plethra of versatility for Pokemon, they can change in whatever type they want for their advantage and fliping the game to win. That can be frustrating. Imagine this, you have a Garganacl and you have a Mega-Medichan, you plan to click Close Combat to kill it, but it teras into a Ghost type and sets up Iron Defense on you. Garganacl is bulky even on the special side so killing it is a very hard task, not to mention it has leftovers, Recover and the defense boosts. You now find yourself in a very horrible situation that you aren't sure you can win! That's what happens with Tera! Sometimes Tera is so effective that it can flip the match and make it unplayable/unwinnable for one player! Another example would be the set up sweepers we talked about, especially Dragonite! It can terastalize in either a Steel or Normal type Pokemon, the Steel one is fot defensive purposes and let it get as many Dragon Dances as possible or Normal to have STAB in Extreme Speed which with its 134 Attack and potential attack boost (or even Choice Band) can be devastating for the opponent. Tera however isn't necessarely fatal, but it's also very annoying. For example an Amomola or a Toxapex can tera into Fairy or Dragon and badly poison (or burn) the opponent (with Scald). That makes it very annoying and can lead to unfavorable situations where it can be hard for the opponent to win. Not to mention Tera Blast....
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As a Pokemon can take advantage of Tera for a type defensively, it can also bring STAB coverage as offence with Terastalization! And we have here Tera Blast! A pokemon can use Tera Blast to beat a check it normally wouldn't beat. For example Tera Ground Blast Iron Moth VS Heatran. But it also can be a surprise attack as well! Once I played Nat. Dex,I ran into a Ice Tera Blast Garchomp! I KID YOU NOT! It knocked out my Landorus-T! Pokemons like Kyurem are a candidate too! With its Dragon Dance set it can surprise the opponent with either Ground of Electric Tera Blast (Ground for Glowking and Electric for Corviknight/Skarmory, Toxapex or general BolBeam coverage)! In general Tera Blast is in my opinion an nunponpetitive and maybe even busted move that can flip a matchup by the surprising factor! That's how Tera Blast works, as a surprising factor!
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4.) Tera makes players overthinking what Tera the Pokemon has of it it is ever gonna use Tera!
In a battle it's important to know that a Pokemon WILL terastalize to save itself from its defensive weaknesses or offensive coverage, but when will the player terastalize its Pokemon? What Tera does which Pokemon have? These questions can set a lot of players into overthinking and making a bad move that will cost them the game. As I said, Tera is a surprising factor, it is used to flip the game. Therefore players have to be careful and considerate when will the player use its Tera and how to manage it. For me it ruins the meta, as it settles down to overthinking, making mistakes and overall uncompetitive scouting!
These are my opinions! You can agree or disagree, but my points still stand! I'll vote BAN to get rid of this terrible mechanic once and for all! To hell with Terastalization!
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Dragonite? nah. The Tera sus is happening because of the survey, if we follow the Logic the next ones to come are Waterpon, Kyurem and Rain (?) tho I dont think Rain's 2.38 is enough for a suspect. Tera only got .05 more then waterpon and .3 more than kyurem and these should be the ones lookd at right after the Sus, instead of wanting to retest Cheese strings boi who'll js Destroy Defense Much much more. we had 29 Bans because we didn't retest in things, you know, like
Landorus-I, the 101 speed guy who's scaring all councils in History (justified tho)
Blastoise-Mega, the Bulky water who can Tear through anything that doesn't have Chansey AND blissey AND pex
Blaziken Mega, the guy who would KO offensive Pokémon and SD on defensive ones
Kangaskhan Mega because 100 speed aint too fast but -200 HP per turn ain't it
Alakazam Mega, because 150 spe + nasty plot (175spa) we ball
Darm-G because 140 atk + CB + Scarf and bc Zen Mode is "irrelevant" (or broken too, I dont know)
Dracovish because we dont need more Ttar bs (and because it's broken)
Genesect because... because? like I'm not saying it's balanced but what did genesect do wrong? just askin, bc download is very dependant on Positioning.
and Well Lucario Mega is understandable, I'm not even sure Pex can in on +2 CC
but these are just examples of Pokémon we should not retest in I think, idk for sure but if ye ask me Lando-I is less broken than Gambit or ghold.
+we had 29 bans and seemingly one of them (idk for sure) was Ursaluna Base. sure it hits stronk, sure, just like Melme, it can ihit them Ubers mons, sure, but Even Stall can beat it. the one archetype it's suposed to eat live.
TL;DR Dnite aint getting a sus, Waterpon and Kyu should, and Unbanning shid because of "what if...?" won't fix nothing
Just wanted to share since this is the first time I've gotten reqs for anything, pretty happy to have been able to do it. After playing 40 games, I'm still confident in my opinion that tera should be banned, way too many of these games were able to be stolen with tera (looking at you steel dnite and ground moth). Tera just feels much to influential, unpredictable, and sometimes luck-based. And just generally feels unfair on some mons. Plus tera blast is kinda dumb sometimes.
Dumb booster spam ho I built and used for all of reqs.
#BanTera
got myself reqs, first reqs that actually count towards TC at least
I used to be heavily anti-Tera at the start of my playing times here but now it seems that the tier has started to adapt to its presence. Still leaning ban, but some of these anti-ban arguments (not Kinak's) are quite convincing.
While laddering this tier, I ran into so much bullshit it was unreal. And a lot of it had to do with tera. I've never really liked tera, but especially in a ND context where you also have to account for Z-moves as an additional mechanic that sort of in a sense competes with Tera. It really felt pretty chaotic needing to get each turn right esp when I was playing vs stuff like Trick room and other HO that thrives off of getting the 1 turn it needs to flip a situation on its head.
Tbh I don't have much valuable insight to add to the discourse that hasn't already been said, and I'm not even a mainer of the tier. But given how messy it felt laddering, and reading the longer posts of people who do have a much longer history with ND, I really can't bring myself to think that Tera is really something that should stay.
So I'll be voting Ban. S/o to Poosh_i for passing me somebody else's teams
Tbh I don't have much valuable insight to add to the discourse that hasn't already been said, and I'm not even a mainer of the tier. But given how messy it felt laddering, and reading the longer posts of people who do have a much longer history with ND, I really can't bring myself to think that Tera is really something that should stay.
So I'll be voting Ban. S/o to Poosh_i for passing me somebody else's teams
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I am in the process of trying to get reqs. I used to be in the anti-tera ban camp. However, I can see arguments for it leaving as it can be unpredictable. If I do get my required reqs I am gonna share my own thoughts in greater detail. Not sure where I am yet but some arguments have been leveled from both sides that I find convincing. Though some are not convincing and need to be better explained.
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Got reqs so I guess I'll leave some thoughts about why I'll be voting ban. Tera as a mechanic invites so many 50/50 moments where your opponent can either tera into the type you expect, not tera, or tera into a completely different type. In addition to this, every time you guess wrong you basically have to play on your back foot for the rest of the game. While there is defensive counterplay in using tera to stop the opposing tera, it often feels too little too late and symptomatic of a larger overall problem that warps the metagame in a not very fun or interactive way.
Despite being a Gen 8 Nat Dex enjoyer this is the first time I've grinded Gen 9 ND in a year because I hate Tera and think it sucks
There is a genuine alienating element of this meta, it's so unfun that I decided to literally just not play it.
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