With Tera Blast remaining as the only viable path to restrict Tera in some way, how do we feel about the move? It underscored on the last survey, but we've recently seen the rise of Tera Blast usage on threats like Kingambit and newly Roaring Moon, as a way to circumvent their traditional Fighting-type checks. Have these recent developments change how you feel?
A Tera Blast ban doesn't stop the problem of Tera and accelerated setup sweepers. But it does solve its own issue of giving mons coverage they otherwise shouldn't have, which decreases the cheese variance factor. This doesn't mean there won't be variance, though. Many mons have enough good coverage moves to be relatively unaffected. Tera Blast also doesn't help and it does add more stress to the builder. In many cases, you just have to accept not being able to deal with certain variants of things.
To me, there are two abuses of Tera Blast that tend to go underdiscussed. The first is to create mostly unresisted STAB combos. Most people just talk about things that hit your checks rather than creating two type combos with great overal coverage. For example, Bolt/Beam coverage is widely known for having little that resists it. A few more examples off the top of my head are Dark/Fairy, Ghost/Fighting, Flying/Ground, Ice/Ground, Fairy/Ground, Fire/Grass, and Water with Freeze Dry. There are others, too. Many mons can get one of these things and then use Tera Blast for the other. There are also mons, such as Lando-T, that don't have one natural STAB and could get something like double STAB on Flying Tera Blast to round out their STAB coverage.
Another use that isn't often talked about is specific to Normal type special attackers. They allow you to attack with a decent 80 BP move that can be changed despite being choice locked. The reason why this goes underdiscussed is probably because there aren't many viable Normal special attackers. The limited options make it feel more interesting than overpowered like the choice lock break was with Dynamax.
The three I've experimented with are Indeedee, Horoark, and Porygon-Z. Each were decent, but not good enough to be more than niche. However, each did have a niche that was usable in OU. For Indeedee, I prefered scarf with Tera Fighting. Horoark was Tera Ghost specs to get power from double STAB. Both also use Trick to potentially cripple walls. Porygon-Z used Adaptability to get extra power on the move, but I found it was best on Webs.
Now about your examples...
Kingambit is a mon that I've always felt is borderline in a Tera meta because of the way it abuses it. Also, the main double weakness meant to balance it doesn't matter anymore. However, we all know how to deal with this mon. It is much more consistent to reliably deal with Gambit if you know it can't just Tera Fairy or Flying TB away your Fighting checks or the like. Stopping defensive Tera or double STAB Dark (which is still insane but fairly predictable) is a bit easier without needing to worry about extra variance. Also, the idea of forcing the Tera early every time a Gambit is on preview is unreliable. Sometimes a player may just choose to play into the fact that losing more helps Gambit power up. This is an oversimplification, but the point is I feel like Gambit counterplay is pretty established outside of the possibility of facing the wrong TB.
Roaring Moon is a disgusting mon that has plenty of good coverage moves and way more set variance than people credit to it. I'm not just talking about your cliche Tera Flying Acrobatics/EQ nonsense. There are also moves like Iron Head, Zen Headbut, or Stone Edge that hit difference checks. Of course, Tera Blast variance on top of everything doesn't help. But the main set that Moon loses is Fairy TB. The rest of the sets, including things that are underexplored, are relatively unnaffected. And Tera Fairy would still be a very good defensive Tera for bulky sets regardless of TB.
