Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]

[LordHelix]

Meanwhile Tera is instant. You dont know when its coming, you dont know what it is, you dont know which Pokemon will use it, you dont even know if it ever will be used. (This is assuming that no suggested restrictions in OP is implemented for this scenario)

This is a little disingenuous. Upon team preview you can guess which pokemon will be relying on Tera depending on which one is best vs your current team and ballpark guess what type it can be based on its most viable teras


Just for examples sake lets assume a random bad offense team with glimm/chomp lead, great tusk, gholdengo, dnite or roaring, espartha, pult

-You can already guess based off experience that people dont tera their hazard lead, screen setter, shed tail mon..etc

- People wont waste tera on tusk either unless its like tera fighting and youre very weak to it

- Gholdengos usually flying if air balloon, fighting or ghost if scarf

- Dnite will probably be the tera most of the time, usually normal or steel. If roaring then it loves flying, steel or fairy

- Espartha will be fairy 99% of the time

- Pult will be ghost

And this goes for ANY mon or archetype. That Iron Hands in front of you will not be teraing to say poison, rock, bug, ice..etc, Itll be a type that resisted a previous weakness. That scarf chiyu? It wont tera into water, dragon..etc, itll tera into its stabs, psychic or fighting if spicy

still, my proban opinion

Fwiw im for banning tera bcz for me the thing that truely breaks tera is the "timing" factor and the complete flipping of type matchups.

You cant guess whether that dnite will tera into normal or steel. If its steel and you switchin your scarf draco pult then potentially say bye to the game because theyll be getting an additional +2. This is too big of a punishment for getting a single coinflip turn turn wrong

Just wanted to give my two cents and debunk the "its completely unpredictable!!! 18 types!!" argument. Each mon has like 2-4 viable types theyll tera into but for me imo thats still too much

Showing types on preview might potentially balance it but im not sure. Yea youll be able to prepare for it better but the type flips are still there

 

[Icemoo]

Not trying to be pedantic but, you're wrong.

You're confusing Sleep Mod for Sleep Clause. Both are in effect, as separate things. Clause is used on cart and the simulator, Mod is by definition an intended modification of the mechanics.

Ok, fair my bad on the terminology. Still isn't a gentlemans agreement to not have 2 pokemon asleep at the same time if the game doesn't enforce it like it did in stadium and i feel that was the intention of his original post.

 

[bogglywoods]

Is arguing over the semantics of sleep clause being a gentleman's agreement really that pertinent to tera discussion? Genuine question

 

[tubitr]

I'm for showing tera types on team preview. You maybe can't cover all possible type changes in teambuilder but if the tera types were shown I think it'd be possible to limit the effectiveness of unexpected transformations. Right now it feels like whoever can abuse their tera transformations better ends up winning, with more info available when and who to tera type becomes a more skill/experience requiring choice imo.

 

[kosecant]

I genuinely don’t get the argument for not trying the proposed Tera clause. If it’s still not competitive we just ban it, it wouldn’t take that much time, and I feel that this definitely deserves due process before it gets axed entirely

 

[Icemoo]

Is arguing over the semantics of sleep clause being a gentleman's agreement really that pertinent to tera discussion? Genuine question

Technically yes, because it can be used as support to break out from the "but we cant recreate it on cart!!!" argument.

 

[TCTphantom]

Honestly, going through the language around the pro ban crowd does I think show the biggest reason that Terra is controversial. Some of the most common words I have heard to describe it are things like "uncompetitive", "obnoxious", "unfair", etc.

In it's current form, Terrastralizing is a feels bad mechanic.

No one likes having the game flipped on its head and the opposing Pokemon is suddenly no longer in a bad defensive position. Even with how Terra is getting "figured out" and more optimal types are being sorted out for mons, there is still enough "jank" that could swing games. Trying to play around Roaring Moon's Terra type without even knowing it is super frustrating. In its current form, it does not feel like you outplayed your opponent when you get that perfect Terra turn or you got outplayed by your opponent.

I think most people can agree that despite some of the hyperbole from both sides, Terra is not this game breaking mechanic that we were dreading. STAB Terra really does not push the needle as much as everyone was expecting pre release. It's good, but it does not break everything under the sun. Terra Blast also was worried about super hard, but in practice it just is not the problem element of Terra. Sure, some mons like Pult get dumb with it and in theory everyone gets STAB Terra shenanigans, but in practice it is too much of an opportunity cost. You just are not going to want to slap on an 80 BP Normal move on most mons. Sure, it could give your Dragapult that coveted ghost stab, but what if you Terra earlier to have a better defensive profile?

I will say, Terrastalizing is not at fault for the speed of our current meta: power creep, nerfs, and our current roster are. Most defensive pokemon took a huge hit upon the generational shift. Scald is gone, Recovery got nerfed, hazards are more plentiful than ever and hazard removal is scarce, and without transfer moves plenty of our defensive mons just are not as good as they were in SwSh or USUM. We lost a lot of defensive cores in the rotation; Heatran and Lando T are locked away in Home for now, while we don't know if we are getting Clefable or Ferrothorn or what have you back at all. This generation introduced so many powerful offensive tools. There are so many powerful viable offensive mons running around in the meta this time. This meta was always going to trend offensive, especially at first. It is easy to just point at Terra and say it forces a faster metagame, but honestly it does not. Its like if a Street Fighter player got mad at how Dragon Ball FighterZ is as fast as it is. This meta is not SwSh, and it likely never will be. Now, depending on who you talk to, that could be a very good thing or not. But I think that we should at the very least go with a compromise approach.

I think that a compromise is the best measure for now. One under discussed aspect about Terra is the fact this meta is just a week old. Sure, if you were good at past metas you will probably be able to translate that into SV, but I think that at least in some parts discussion about Terra is hard because of how new and different it is. Sure, flipping a defensive profile does feel bad, especially when there is no information to help you there. But the meta is only eight days old. We should let Terra marinate a little with some sort of compromise before we just throw it out completely. I think the biggest issue right now is just that lack of information. Sure, you can probably guess the Terra types of whatever your opponent has somewhat reasonably, but having that information right away would just make it so that Terra becomes just another aspect we know about. Sure, you would have to play around your opponent's Terra type still, but Pokemon is all about playing around things with the information you have and can premise.

I think either limiting Terra to one mon or showing Terra on team preview are both acceptable compromises for now. If Terra still is a problem later down the line, we can discuss a full ban sure. But I think saying that we should ban it completely without at least looking at some sort of restriction is just way too hasty.

 

[chimp]

I am not really sold on the “Show Tera Types on Team Preview” idea because it sounds like a real band-aid solution at this point in time. I would prefer it to an outright ban right now, but I do think there are more effective and more interesting ideas that are worth exploring.

The reasons to keep Tera are valid. It broadens the scope of team building in terms of what a Pokemon is capable of, allowing even oldgen Pokemon to feel fresh (i.e, Dragonite) and it adds a certain layer to the game that makes Gen 9 stand out as a competitive metagame; neither are things I think should be thrown out at this moment. The reasons to axe the mechanic are equally valid, 50/50s and unpredictability are not exactly symptoms of a healthy metagame and that’s what Tera is in essence.

So….. we want a middle ground between those two things? I don’t think the team preview idea accomplishes that and I think it’s ultimately distracting from other, more effective ideas. I think it’s a good start, and if implemented I’d be eager to see if I’m wrong, but consider how it does nothing to remove the 50/50 aspect of Terastalizing;

Let’s say my opponent has an Amoonguss out against my Barraskewda. I know that the Amoonguss can Tera to a Fire-type. That puts me in a spot where I have to guess between using Liquidation or Psychic Fans to hit super-effectively.

or if your opponent brings out Dragonite and you know its Tera is Steel-type. You could switch in your Steel counter assuming its going to Terastalize only for it to NOT and now you’re fucked and boned. Few Pokemon can effectively wall/check a Pokemon with 3 STABS and two potential defensive profiles and I highly doubt anyone wants those Pokemon becoming a necessity.

I know in a vacuum such hypotheticals aren’t that useful but the point is, why remove an uncompetitive mechanic if we are to replace it with something *slightly* less uncompetitive. You’d still be going into a battle against essentially 12 Pokemon, and that just doesn’t seem super engaging to me.

To me the solution has to rest in something that limits when a Pokemon can terastalize or how many Pokemon can in a match; anything else doesn’t seem to be an effective enough measure. Furthermore, let’s be careful not to tread down the wrong path here, this is a big unprecedented decision and choosing the wrong option will have unprecedented consequences.

My proposal is to allow only the first Pokemon in a player’s order to Terastallize. This could be done as a change to the teambuilder while also falling into the umbrella of a “gentlemen’s agreement.” I help run a draft league and this is essentially how the league is going to be running the mechanic. Removes the headache of having to deal with the unpredictability while maintaining the fun parts of the mechanic.

Is it a bit wonky…? Sure. But considering this a big honcho generational mechanic, I think it’s passable to have such an odd mod in place. If we are going to be enforcing a mod, we might as well go all out with it and ensure its curating a metagame we are proud of and happy to play.

 

[bogglywoods]

Technically yes, because it can be used as support to break out from the "but we cant recreate it on cart!!!" argument.

I felt like it was pretty clear to anyone genuine about arguing about this that telling people your tera types or a gentleman's agreement to be honest about any aspect of tera was 100% replicable on cart in the same way the tiering ladder is. As someone who isn't keen on having complex rules about tera in OU, it's silly that people's biggest argument against it seems to be "you can't do that on cart"

 

[Finchinator]

None of this is "unfeasible", it's frankly at that point a lack of care. We have tons of random throwaway ladders, and we have had councils for stuff like LGPE, BDSP, and similar.

There's nothing unfeasible about a Tera ladder, but someone has to take the ONUS, and nobody has.

With all due respect, you do not know what you are talking about and you’re comparing the incomparable.

 

[solstardragon]

If Terastalization is too strong, but not to the extent of other gimmicks, what about banning Terastal from Pokemon who are in OU, but allow the mechanic to be used by Pokemon who would otherwise not be OU? This lets lower tier Mons get the potential usability buffs while preventing the already strong Pokemon from getting stronger while also limiting who could potentially Terastal. This opens up options for weaker Pokemon letting the tier be more colorful while keeping the mechanic in more check.

 

[chimp]

If Terastalization is too strong, but not to the extent of other gimmicks, what about banning Terastal from Pokemon who are in OU, but allow the mechanic to be used by Pokemon who would otherwise not be OU? This lets lower tier Mons get the potential usability buffs while preventing the already strong Pokemon from getting stronger while also limiting who could potentially Terastal. This opens up options for weaker Pokemon letting the tier be more colorful while keeping the mechanic in more check.

I doubt this would work in practice. If a UU or below pokemon got good with Terastalizing, it would then be used to the point it became OU, at which point it would then not be allowed to Terastalize, thus sending it back to UU or below…. At which point it would then be allowed to Terastalize again sending it back OU…….It would just be a really awkward cycle.

 

[Repiteo]

Tera is very funny

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[Leader Fox]

The only realistic way I can see terra staying is if we combine option 1 & 2. (Nuclear Option)

• Showing the Tera type of each Pokemon in the each player's party at Team Preview
• Limiting the amount of Pokemon on any given team that have access to possibly Terastallize during a battle to ONLY 1

This is the only feasible way for the mechanic to be preserved without being to overbearing. Otherwise I’m voting to ban the mechanic altogether because option 1 does not actually solve the numerous scenarios of what Pokémon is going to Terra and when they’re going to Terra. Terra destroys the premise of checks/counters because now players are stuck to determine if the opponent is going to stay their type or change it and must make a decision BASED on those hypotheticals. <- (this has always been the problem with Terra btw; any other action doesn’t address the core issue.) This scenario in most cases can be game-ending against sweepers.

The nuclear option at the very least eliminates the sloppy guesswork of what Pokémon will terra to overcome their check/counters and makes it more akin to Megas. This option also allows for you to try to game plan on whatever mon has terra enabled since you know their terra type also.

This option however still fails to address the issue of when the terra change is going to happen. After all; giving Pokémon the ability to change their typing whenever they please and without opportunity costs is inherently a strong mechanic and breaks the dynamic of checks/counters.

it is very possible that the mechanic would still be banned even with this option. I implore the people reading that the very essence of changing one’s type on the whim breaks game planning and win-conditions and will likely be the reason why this mechanic is banned.

 

[ant4456]

With all due respect, you do not know what you are talking about and you’re comparing the incomparable.

With all due respect, I don't take your word as gospel. What you mentioned has no basis in reality. Smogon has the server capacity, it has people who want a Tera metagame, it has had weirder and nicher OU metagames. It's completely feasible if someone were to make a team to council a Terastilization metagame. You just need someone willing to take the lead and do it.

It's not incomparable in the slightest. I was there for BDSP OU's launch when it easily competed for Gen 8 OU in terms of activity and interest by the playerbase, with a council. It even expanded into several different tiers off of that.

No, things aren't easy, but when are things ever easy? Not being easy isn't unfeasible. Frankly, to further push the notion that there isn't any real possibility of it is prepostorous and makes me question how genuine you are being.

Even if you "don't have people to make a new council", you could much easier find new people by... announcing the existence of a new Tera metagame, and get people with experience.

 

[MudkipNerd]

imo while terastal is very good, its nowhere near as broken as dynamax was. i feel like banning terastal would make the meta much more bland and boring, even if it is fairly strong

 

[malahuju]

One option I haven't heard about is 'Only mons WITH Tera Blast can Terastralize' alongside a Tera preview mod. This places a rather hefty cost on Terastralizing, since you're essentially keeping a dead moveslot around until you activate Tera. Only mons who can both Tera effectively and use Tera Blast to its potential are gonna rise up as prominent Tera abusers, naturally limiting the amount of mons running Tera on a team, and you can instantly start counterplay in a match with the Tera preview mod, since knowing their Tera type and knowing they're running Tera Blast will allow an well-prepared opponent to scout sets before the match starts. I think this is a more interesting ban because it plays into Tera Blast's gimmick. Would appreciate more discussion on this one.

I pretty strongly disagree with this suggestion. FYI my stance is show tera at preview for a next step.

Back to your original post. One of the cool aspects of tera is that it can be very effectively used defensively: either increasing the defensive utility of offensive mons or increasing the effectiveness of walls/utility mons. Requiring tera blast on tera mons removes a slot that is not appreciated by mons using it defensively or mons wanting to use a better 2nd or 3rd stab and favors only sweeper/breaker types. IMO having a defensive utility for this mechanic helps balance it out so the offensive users don't have as much unfair runaway potential.

Another point I forgot to mention earlier is that I find there to be some potentially fascinating innovation potential with tera typing in the teambuilder for people who are willing to think outside the box. Coming up with more than one potentially useful terra per a team and not hard deciding your tera a priori makes the deciding-when-to-tera aspect another way to play well and rewards clever thinking and strategy. One of the ways to help check this new variable is thinking about the best terra type for each mon as a part of the team, potentially bolstering a different aspect of your defensive cores on matchup. Then during matches, those with creative teambuilding and strategy can use tera to soften a bad MU and potentially win by playing well in a case that would be very unlikely to win without tera.

TL;DR tera adds a new layer of strategy that can make the competitive aspect more interesting, while motivating creativity in the teambuilder.

 

[acquiesceyourself]

revealing tera types doesn't solve the issue that every turn is a potential 50/50 until the actual tera change happens, which is not only uncompetitive, but unfun. don't want half a game to be sucker punch games. the only world in which i wouldn't want it banned is where a single mon on the team is designated as the tera user, its tera type is shown at team preview, and a tera "item" is created similar to z-crystals. obviously this combination of nerfs would never come to fruition, so i am in favor of an outright ban.

 

[malahuju]

revealing tera types doesn't solve the issue that every turn is a potential 50/50 until the actual tera change happens, which is not only uncompetitive, but unfun. don't want half a game to be sucker punch games. the only world in which i wouldn't want it banned is where a single mon on the team is designated as the tera user, its tera type is shown at team preview, and a tera "item" is created similar to z-crystals. obviously this combination of nerfs would never come to fruition, so i am in favor of an outright ban.

I don't think you can call this scenario a 50-50 since it is not equally likely at every chance someone will tera. There are even turns when you could probably say with certainty that someone will or wont tera. Just because there are two choices does not equate to 50-50 of each outcome (tera or do not tera). This is basic statistics that a lot of people are confusing. The fact that the choices tera and do not tera are made each turn, but their likelihood changes at each turn means it is not a 50-50 over the course of the battle.

I'll give a proper 50-50 example. Say all pokemon on both teams are dead except each team has a specs pult; both are timid. The result of this is a 50-50 because whoever wins the speed tie wins with probability 50 percent.

 

[acquiesceyourself]

I don't think you can call this scenario a 50-50 since it is not equally likely at every chance someone will tera. There are even turns when you could probably say with certainty that someone will or wont tera. Just because there are two choices does not equate to 50-50 of each outcome (tera or do not tera). This is basic statistics that a lot of people are confusing. The fact that the choices tera and do not tera are made each turn, but their likelihood changes at each turn means it is not a 50-50 over the course of the battle.

I'll give a proper 50-50 example. Say all pokemon on both teams are dead except each team has a specs pult; both are timid. The result of this is a 50-50 because whoever wins the speed tie wins with probability 50 percent.

i am using the phrase 50/50 in a colloquial sense. obviously none of the turns will be literally 50% it happens or 50% it doesn't; this is true for even sucker punch guessing. what it is is still guesswork that has sometimes more and sometimes less information, which doesn't belong in a competitive 6v6 metagame.

edit: also the pult example is a literal 50/50 speed tie but the decisionmaking was not a 50/50. neither player had a choice, which is obviously what we're referring to when making a guess as to whether a mon will use its tera or not. we're talking about the statistically most likely play to be made, so your example does not relate to the topic at hand.

 

[foobix]

I like terastallizing as a mechanic, and would love for it to stay in the meta. What about only allowing pokemon currently tiered UU or lower to terastalize in OU?

 

[RoiDadadou]

I like terastallizing as a mechanic, and would love for it to stay in the meta. What about only allowing pokemon currently tiered UU or lower to terastalize in OU?

Nope.

 

[ayevon]

I don't think you can call this scenario a 50-50 since it is not equally likely at every chance someone will tera. There are even turns when you could probably say with certainty that someone will or wont tera. Just because there are two choices does not equate to 50-50 of each outcome (tera or do not tera). This is basic statistics that a lot of people are confusing. The fact that the choices tera and do not tera are made each turn, but their likelihood changes at each turn means it is not a 50-50 over the course of the battle.

I'll give a proper 50-50 example. Say all pokemon on both teams are dead except each team has a specs pult; both are timid. The result of this is a 50-50 because whoever wins the speed tie wins with probability 50 percent.

You're taking the literal definition of 50-50 as oppossed to the one liberally used. People are just trying to make the point that many turns throughout the battle have instances where Tera is possible, and these turns can have significant impact on win probability (much more than normal predicition) due to the ability to invalidate a counter and further snowball a pokemon in a single turn.

 

[KM]

quick note on the "revealing tera types doesn't stop 50/50s which are inherently bad", that type of mechanic would not at all be new to the game. the most direct comparison is to Megas like m-alt or m-gyara, whose defensive profiles and typings were drastically different between the normal and mega form to the point where deciding to mega evolve at a specific turn could make a decisive difference in the outcome of the turn or game. that versatility definitely does increase how viable a mon is, but it's not a new phenomenon or something that competitive metagames haven't adapted to before, and i think the posts describing these dramatic never-before-seen coinflip scenarios are a little overblown

 

[Athyestic]

I like terastallizing as a mechanic, and would love for it to stay in the meta. What about only allowing pokemon currently tiered UU or lower to terastalize in OU?

Let's say, hypothetically, Chandelure (it won't be UU prob but we'll just use it as an example because I like chandelure) is a UU staple without tera. In OU, it finds a very powerful niche through some crazy tera grass calm mind set. People use this new Chandelure so much it becomes OU by tiering... but now it can't tera. It's only niche was a tera set, which means it has no niche in OU, which means it falls down to UU again... but now it can tera in OU.
Pokemon who are bordering on viability w tera will forever be trapped in this hell, and I don't think we want that.