No, it was egregious and unplayable. Anything that gets banned that early with such a margin is telling. I just think Tera is a very different concept
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Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]
- Thread starter Finchinator
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Yes so that is an interesting point. Every argument implies that the opponent has the ideal tera type and opportunity at all times, while the other does not.
Now of course, many would argue against saying " but sometimes you just can't help these 50/50 scenarios" or " I could never have predicted X mon would have Y tera type." But the fact of the matter is, both players had to decide on what Tera types they brought prior to the game. This is still a skill that can and should be utlized in team building. Just because something like Roaring Moon can tera for double STAB Flying/Dark, doesn't mean the team you built in the back can support it. On the flip side, your opponents tera types could just as easily be steam rolled by said set because it got some set up. Inherantly, the only added "bulk" tera types can produce is my turning into a resistance. But more often than not, you will often see Neutral tera types in most match ups.
I once again can't help but point out that when new items, pokemon, and abilities get added to the game, you will see shifts in playstyles. Heavy Duty boots in gen 8 was a majorly powerful item that was added. Conversely, Terastilization utilizes a similar factor to Proteon/Libero and some mega evolutions: a type change mid battle. For items like Choice specs, scarf, and band this can instantly turn a positive match up into a poor one. These items have been staples on many teams for many generations, however I myself have been running them far less on later ( I still run scarf many times) and seeing better results, simply because locking myself into a move that an opponent can tera into that is either resisted or immune too completely stalls my momentum.
While I'm not the best player I definitely agree Terastalization in its current state is definitely uncompetitive. As others have said, it's highly unpredictable and gives mons either a third STAB or a free Adaptability for one of their types, on top of easily subverting their typing's defensive flaws by switching to a type that resists what they're normally weak to.
I don't think an outright ban is a good idea however. Tera, while definitely crunk, is still not as bad as Dynamax was. Dynamax let its users soak up hits that would've otherwise KO'd them, and do a variety of dumb shit with their moves, from setting weather/terrain to boosting their stats. Its ban in the SwSh era was definitely understandable and warranted. However, this came at a great cost to the metagame itself. As discussed in this post from the Policy Review thread, SwSh OU had a greater drop-off in player counts compared to the previous generation, in part due to the Dynamax ban. This caused the SwSh metagame to lack any sort of unique identity and arguably a loss of interest in competitive singles.
I'm in favor of simultaneously showing Tera type at team preview and limiting the amount of Pokemon that can Terastalize to one per team. This makes preparing for the mechanic a lot more manageable and encourages players to use the mechanic more wisely. If Terastalization continues to be an issue for the metagame after that then a suspect test would definitely be in order, but for now combining restrictions #1 and #2 is the best course of action.
I could probably talk more about Game Freak's constant need to introduce a borked gimmick every generation being detrimental to Pokemon as a whole but I'll leave it at that
I don't think an outright ban is a good idea however. Tera, while definitely crunk, is still not as bad as Dynamax was. Dynamax let its users soak up hits that would've otherwise KO'd them, and do a variety of dumb shit with their moves, from setting weather/terrain to boosting their stats. Its ban in the SwSh era was definitely understandable and warranted. However, this came at a great cost to the metagame itself. As discussed in this post from the Policy Review thread, SwSh OU had a greater drop-off in player counts compared to the previous generation, in part due to the Dynamax ban. This caused the SwSh metagame to lack any sort of unique identity and arguably a loss of interest in competitive singles.
I'm in favor of simultaneously showing Tera type at team preview and limiting the amount of Pokemon that can Terastalize to one per team. This makes preparing for the mechanic a lot more manageable and encourages players to use the mechanic more wisely. If Terastalization continues to be an issue for the metagame after that then a suspect test would definitely be in order, but for now combining restrictions #1 and #2 is the best course of action.
I could probably talk more about Game Freak's constant need to introduce a borked gimmick every generation being detrimental to Pokemon as a whole but I'll leave it at that
You can't invalidate their arguments just because of the pokemon used. In case people forgot, this might just be the most power crept generation in the history of pokemon so far. Before Roaring Moon, it was Iron Bundle. Without Roaring Moon, it would be Iron Valiant, Chien-Pao, Kingambit, Annihilape, etc. Don't forget all the old pokemon like Dragonite or regular Salamance that gets Moxie. If it isn't Roaring Moon, it would be something else taking its place that has similar 1 turn flip potential.
Furthermore, this deflects from the actual argument they made and the arguments everyone else made using it. You could simply replace the pokemon involved and the arguments would remain the same.
No it doesn't. It does not in the slightest.
Every D-Max turn means you've fired an attack with over 130BP AND that benefits the user in some way, most likely +1 on a stat of choice.
Reactive Dynamax was at best an attempt to weather the storm and it usually failed because the initial mon severely damaged something, if not outright KO'd it AND got a stat boost, so even if you had a D-Max vs D-Max scenario, your mon started off at a huge disadvantage.
The thing about Tera compared to D-Max is that Tera does not give any stat boosts.
Sure, you get that juicy STAB and the double-edged sword of a type change, but after that initial turn where you can get the jump on a check, the end result is a mon that might have made a different check for itself.
Even a mon that might actually be ban-worthy with or without Tera, namely Annihilape, might find itself in a pinch in a situation like this.
Ape just Terastallizes into Water because it's a solid defensive type to take hits and get that Rage Fist ball rolling. It might even get a KO off that.
That means that if you get a faster Electric-type on the field, like say, Regieleki when Home drops, Ape is immediately under pressure when it otherwise wouldn't.
Changing your type does have negative points too. Terastal is NOT a drawback-free mechanic.
Notice how I didn't mention counter-Tera in this example too.
N E V E R.
I appreciate your honesty, but I really don't agree with anyone who thinks Tera is better than Dynamax as far as being overpowered. I think it got banned that early more because people didn't like it and there wasn't as much of a call to make it work. Basically, it's about what's popular instead of what's overpowered.
If you actually look at it, Dynamax actually had a lot more restrictions than Tera while Tera can do similar things in different ways. Tera gets survivability via changing typing versus the Meat Shield HP thing of Dynamax. It gets offensive boosts with double STAB without a choice item cancellation. You can talk about the quick turn around of Dynamax or the stat boosts that Dynamax gets, but Tera actually more or less accomplishes the same thing and maybe does it better. Games turn very fast with Tera because most of the set up pokemon only need a turn to set up and get that turn through the type change.
You can argue that Tera is more nuanced and intellectual or that Dynamax is more mindless brute force. But double STAB is undeniably very brute force. And if it weren't for every team needing to run Unaware mons, which is something that I don't remember even being considered to address the Dynamax stat boosts, the set up sweepers off the Tera type change would be at least as problematic because it happens so fast with Tera in this meta.
I can't imagine how one would have been laughed off the forum if they tried to say you can solve Dynamax stat boosts by just running Unaware mons on every team. Yet here we are, in the Terastallizing meta, and everyone not running HO is running Unaware mons because they're concerned about the stat boosts. The narrative is just so incredibly biased against Dynamax and for Tera that it seems like almost no one is pointing these things out.
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I agree, but there didn't seem to be any serious consideration of limiting Dynamax ( at least consideration made available to the public) to a point where it could be playable. Admittedly, it does seem even more complicated to limit than Tera is, and we are already struggling with consensus on potential Tiering action against the tamer Tera if it comes to that, so that perhaps at least that partially may explain it, but I am curious. Baton pass chains, for example, while not on par with Dynamax, were given many chances balancing-wise before the eventual outright ban of the move itself from most tiers.
There was plenty of internal discussion; nothing was deemed possible. We are just more transparent and public this generation now as it’s more possible and I’m a fully fledged tier leader rather than a very new interim in my first weeks.
both sides can tera but in any given turn 2 mons are out only one wants to tera, to gain an advantage over the other, while the other has no immediate advantage to tera because it is in a winning position already, and specifically each turn, only one side is likely to tera - this is what it means by "only one side can tera"
the only reasons I can think of both sides doing tera on the same turn are if you are anticipating the opponents tera and you need your own to beat it, or both players, having incomplete information about the opponent while knowing their own capability, tera in order to beat an opponent they otherwise think they cant
Because there is no point where it was playable. It was banned from Ubers. Hell, there was serious talk of banning in Random Battles. Dynamax was in no way competitive or dealwithable and we recognized that from the beginning.
Maybe this is just me, but I think that OU should be more hesitant to ban things. The question for terra and the hypothetical gen 10 gimmick should not be "do we like this", terra is in the game even if you hate it. The question is if it's uncompetitive.
"Recognized that from the beginning" is code for confirmation bias from the beginning. There were more things the community could have tried that it didn't. I don't know what went on behind the scenes with the council, as Finchinator alludes to. But I definitely know the public discourse was no where near as open minded at the time. It's not that Dynamax was that much more broken. (Tera is honestly more OP.) It's that you were less willing to try to make it work.
Nah thing about dynamax is it not only warped the meta (every team was running ditto as the only true dyna counter with all the boost they gave) but it also broke several mons and there was no way to really nerf the mechanic and save several of them. Mechanic would be gross in lower tiers, it was gross in OU on too many things and there was too many that needed banned, and that was before we even got the DLC patch introducing even more powercreep for that generation.
Like you're saying to the council "try a nerfed version of it" without giving any suggestions yourself, and any suggestions that were given at the time were highly flawed because again, it warped the metagame itself to running shitmons to not get 6-0'd.
Tera I will admit doesn't seem as 'meta' warping but thats mainly because you need 2-3 scouts for to check/bait out a tera type and then need a solid answer still alive. Its hard to run the same 3 mons and tera as a mechanic enables randomness and shifts in terms of what 'standard' typings people use. Adaptability is strong too, but dynamax was sometimes adaptability damage + a free stat boost/terrain/weather + double your HP so you can't even punish and revenge kill, and even if you match their dyna with yours, theirs already has stat boost to win the 1v1 and if you can't outspeed it there's no hope.
Both mechanics are stupid, tera isn't as stupid, but its still stupid for different reasons. Dynamax was just a win button if you weren't against ditto and got one of your max air stream users in.
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citations needed
With Finchinator saying "get creative", how about this. It's asking for a lot but I am proposing a combination of 3/4 restrictions together.
I think having each Pokémon's individual tera typing's having their own ban list (example: chi yu is unable to tera dark, or tera fire) IN ADDITION to the restriction of tera's shown on team preview, AND AFTER TEAM PREVIEW BEFORE THE MATCH STARTS you pick which Pokémon you will tera, is the best possible outcome.
This can help manage the balancing aspect of it or the "swingyness" or "power" of the mechanic many people complain about by getting rid of the ones that pressure teams too heavily like chi-yu tera fire.
The predictability element of tera on team preview can help alleviate the guesswork which is very helpful for newer players trying the tier since it'll feel less overwhelming allowing for a thriving player base.
And finally, being able to pick the tera typing after you see the opponents tera typing's off team preview, limits the potential for 50/50's while allowing for the ability to micro manage bad MU'S still, while also having a skill element that rewards better players for predicting which of the opponents Pokémon they will decide to tera, allowing for a more in depth meta.
If anything, tera typing's when chosen after team preview can automatically be said, if the unpredictability element remains too strong even with the 3 former restrictions. What I mean by this is, after team preview lets say there is 40 seconds to choose tera typing. In the chat it would say "opponent is using tera X on X" and then the game starts. This could alleviate the problem of tera being too "unpredictable" if it proves too much the restriction of team preview tera types and picking tera on 1 Pokémon after team preview. At that point it becomes a battle of "ok when are they gonna use their tera water on clodsire" instead of trying to figure out which tera the opponent chose to begin with.
Obviously having a sub ban list for a mons tera typing is asking a lot from the OU council, and these 3/4 restrictions together doesn't solve everyone's qualms but I believe this can limit 50/50's, still allow for a similar scale of depth in comparison of how the mechanic is in base game, MU fishing is still largely diminished, and much more.
we could also go without sub bans as well, and just ban the broken mons with tera which are like 2 (ape/chi yu) but even without tera they are dumb anyway so, but I propose sub bans as a "last resort" to the haters.
I think having each Pokémon's individual tera typing's having their own ban list (example: chi yu is unable to tera dark, or tera fire) IN ADDITION to the restriction of tera's shown on team preview, AND AFTER TEAM PREVIEW BEFORE THE MATCH STARTS you pick which Pokémon you will tera, is the best possible outcome.
This can help manage the balancing aspect of it or the "swingyness" or "power" of the mechanic many people complain about by getting rid of the ones that pressure teams too heavily like chi-yu tera fire.
The predictability element of tera on team preview can help alleviate the guesswork which is very helpful for newer players trying the tier since it'll feel less overwhelming allowing for a thriving player base.
And finally, being able to pick the tera typing after you see the opponents tera typing's off team preview, limits the potential for 50/50's while allowing for the ability to micro manage bad MU'S still, while also having a skill element that rewards better players for predicting which of the opponents Pokémon they will decide to tera, allowing for a more in depth meta.
If anything, tera typing's when chosen after team preview can automatically be said, if the unpredictability element remains too strong even with the 3 former restrictions. What I mean by this is, after team preview lets say there is 40 seconds to choose tera typing. In the chat it would say "opponent is using tera X on X" and then the game starts. This could alleviate the problem of tera being too "unpredictable" if it proves too much the restriction of team preview tera types and picking tera on 1 Pokémon after team preview. At that point it becomes a battle of "ok when are they gonna use their tera water on clodsire" instead of trying to figure out which tera the opponent chose to begin with.
Obviously having a sub ban list for a mons tera typing is asking a lot from the OU council, and these 3/4 restrictions together doesn't solve everyone's qualms but I believe this can limit 50/50's, still allow for a similar scale of depth in comparison of how the mechanic is in base game, MU fishing is still largely diminished, and much more.
we could also go without sub bans as well, and just ban the broken mons with tera which are like 2 (ape/chi yu) but even without tera they are dumb anyway so, but I propose sub bans as a "last resort" to the haters.
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The Unaware mons we are seeing now are the new Ditto. I already pointed this out. And the reason why Ditto doesn't work against Tera is because of a number of factors like how Tera doesn't restrict Choice Scarf, unlike Dynamax, and the double STAB priority from Tera that Dynamax didn't have isn't replicated from Imposter as far as I know. Also, there are a lot more Unaware mons to invalidate Ditto's imposter stat boosts.
Anyways, it's a more offensive meta now. It's just that it is a less favorable one for Ditto.
I've given examples both now and in the past, but that's besides the point because this isn't a Dynamax thread. So this isn't really practical to say a gen later. However, I have also pointed out how logic that was laughed off the forum in the Dynamax days is being taken more seriously now with Tera, which is a huge double standard. All the suggestions we've seen here to make Tera work are flawed, too.
Well, that's progress I guess.
Seconding this. Why are we picking favorites with our gen gimmicks now?
visual aid here.
I'm certain the combination of tera shown at team preview, having to pick tera on a singular pokemon, and tera being announced...is the best possible way of tiering the mechanic while appeasing to as many as possible.
It's an opinion piece not a college essay mister.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Gen8 Random Battles the most played format? I remember researching this for Showdex to see what formats we should focus on supporting first, and Random Battles had a really high # of monthly battles. If that's true, then the most popular format allowed Dmax and in my humble opinion, I thought it was pretty playable. However, I would say that's probably because people can't build a team that utilize the biggest abusers of dmax like Gyarados, so that's why it wasn't as broken in randoms. I will say tho, it didn't help that the dex was super limited when Dmax got banned, before the DLC added in the really powerful mon that might have kept it in check, but I'm pretty doubtful of that.
I wasn't super clear, but I wasn't saying the mechanics were similar at all, just that you can reactively use your own Dmax/tera to counter the opponent's use of it, thus allowing for counterplay. I absolutely agree that Dmax gave way too many advantages along with more survivability, which is too much. Ditto was on almost every team, and that's never a good sign.
I disagree that reactive dynamax "usually failed" tho. Often they'd Dmax, KO your mon, and maybe get a +1 boost, but then the next turn you Max Guard, stall another of their turns, and then KO them in the next turn or two since you can handle +1 boosted attacks with your doubled HP. You essentially trade dmaxes with each other, or sometimes the person who Dmaxed second came out ahead even. Again not to say that dmax is entirely balanced or even close to it, I'm just saying there was counterplay since BOTH SIDES got access to the "broken" mechanic.
I think this is a bad comparison because Ditto mostly sucks after all the broken set up sweepers are banned while Dondozo, Skeledirge and Clodsire will probably still be very viable afterwards
I think part of the question (a part I really want to hear from Finchinator on) is how much we value maintaining a unique identity for a generation vs. creating the best metagame for the median player/greatest number of players.
I guess the question would be, do you consider the community better served by a scenario in which the current-gen meta is one that appeals to the broadest set of players, or by a scenario in which the generational metas are as distinct as possible so that every player can find a gen they personally enjoy?
On the one hand, most players play current-gen and most new players come in playing current gen, so it having broad appeal is really good for the community. On the other, players who dislike specific mechanics always have the option to play other gens, but if a player wants to play with a gen-specific mechanic and it gets banned in that gen, they're kinda screwed.
I guess the question would be, do you consider the community better served by a scenario in which the current-gen meta is one that appeals to the broadest set of players, or by a scenario in which the generational metas are as distinct as possible so that every player can find a gen they personally enjoy?
On the one hand, most players play current-gen and most new players come in playing current gen, so it having broad appeal is really good for the community. On the other, players who dislike specific mechanics always have the option to play other gens, but if a player wants to play with a gen-specific mechanic and it gets banned in that gen, they're kinda screwed.
The council at the time gave it more thought than I had originally assumed, but even still, there wasn't a suspect with proposed nerfs or anything and as such potential ideas for complex bans that the council didn't necessarily think of were never given any light. But hindsight is 20/20, the council has improved transparency this time around and opened up more discussion, and I think since Dynamax, people have recognized a need for greater consideration for the generational mechanic in general (not saying this sentiment is right ), and it's been made more clear that people are generally of the opinion that Tera might be salvageable whereas for Dynamax it would have been way harder (if not impossible) arguably. And still important to note that people are still disagreeing with complex solutions for Tera as well, not just here but in the policy review thread as well. So far from consensus on the matter.
If I had to pick an option without regard to how difficult it would be to implement, this would be it. The coding is the only real sticking point here, given that it could all fit within tiering policy if you twist the words around cleverly enough.
Terastal does not give stat boosts that can be ignored by Unaware. That meta swing is because of all the Paradox mons and other potent boosting sweepers.
At that point, you might as well ban the whole mechanic, that's absolutely insane.
A lot of the most off-the-wall restrictions and even the "Tera restricted to the same type" idea simply change the mechanic to the point of it being unrecognizable.
It's one thing to vote for "Tera Type on Team Preview" because it ultimately allows the mechanic to function the same, it just solves a potential issue of Terastal being too unpredictable.
It's another to stack complex bans and remove key characteristics from the mechanic. At that point, you're just asking for a completely different thing. That's not particularly directed to you btw.
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