While Terastal probably needs to be restricted with a clause, this should not be treated as a foregone conclusion. There must be a ladder or at least survey where it is asked to keep Terastal as is or to restrict it, only then it should be decided how it is going to be restricted.
December is likely to have some sort of suspect on Terastallization -- be it with two options or potentially more -- that will be the first of the generation. We are likely to have this suspect be longer than the normal one, potentially spanning three weeks rather than two, given the importance of the subject matter.
this point has already been addressed eloquently by another poster, so i will link you that since you must've missed it.You mean like how Z-moves were a guessing game of whether or not the opponent had one on their sweeper until it was used? Except Tera can also be used defensively to slow down an opposing Tera mon, while giving lower tier mons who are only held back by their type a way to be used. Terastalization is the most balanced gimmick since Megas, and just being able to see what types they are would almost definitely be enough of a nerf for it to be no longer remotely banworthy in my opinion.
Unlike Dynamax, Terastalization doesn't give the mon using it the ability to just sweep because it got 3 Z-moves that boost a stat. It makes for a much more varied, interesting metagame, albeit one we aren't used to. I think banning Terastalization now would be premature and not healthy for the metagame, making this gen just Sw/Sh without good defensive cores.
I’m glad you brought this up because absolutely yeah there are some similarities, but there are a quite a few key differences
1. Z-moves are single use, limiting their impact on the game. Terastilize lasts indefinitely, giving it a much, much larger impact on the game.
2. Z-moves are inherently offensive. Outside of the rare Icium Toxapex, Z-moves were used for the sole purpose of hitting hard. Terastilize is a lot more varied and unpredictable in its usage.
3. Z-moves had to be limited to one Pokémon. This further limits its overall impact on how the game is played.
4. Z-moves took over the item slot, denying the use of other items (think about this with stuff like Heavy-Duty Boots, Booster Energy, etc.) and thus had an opportunity cost AND was detectable via Knock Off.
5. Z-moves relied on the Pokémon having access to a particular coverage type to work. Terastilize does not.
All in all, Terastilization is so much more impactful than Z-moves that it’s pretty unhelpful to compare them.
The difference here is that revealing Tera Types isn't actually changing how the game is played at all, it's just revealing information to your opponent that they wouldn't otherwise get. This is something any two players can replicate easily in game. This is different and less egregious than something like Sleep Clause, which mechanically changes the game in a way that cannot be replicated in-game.this is probably a boomer take but we should just either ban the mechanic as a whole or do nothing at all. showing the terastilized type at team preview is NOT how the mechanic works and is not loyal to in-game stuff, at that point were just better off by baning the mechanic. and before ppeople cry out "well play on cartridge if u want", this is literally a pokemon simulator that tries its hardest to simulate in-game online battling; and yes, we might have shit like sleep cause as a precedent, but stuff like that doesnt really compare to literally modifying already predefined mechanics for the sake of the metagame. this is just like saying that dynamaxing should only last 1 turn in gen 8. it just feels like were making our own game/rules idk.
I think you hit the nail on the head for the most part - but tera’s panic-button ability to adapt is, to me, what makes the meta so volatile and frustrating at times.I think Tera Blast ban is irrelevant. It solves nothing and also removes a lot of the upside to more non-problematic tera users without really solving what people consider the more problmeatic part. If Tera is kept in any capacity, Tera Blast is probably the least invasive piece of the mechanic as its only an 80BP stab move with no additional effects. Coverage is good, yes. But coverage is not why Tera is getting a discussion thread.
Limiting Tera to stab types is also IMO a real bad way to balance this as it is inherently an offensive-sided change.
Showing at Preview I think defeats the purpose of Tera but this is a can of worms I don't want to debate right yet (specifically, how much unknown information is fair). Revealing types has some problems specifically like Normal Dragonite where you just gave away its set more or less.
As for having only one mon capable of tera... Eh. I'd prefer preview showing. That at least keeps the adaptability part of Tera available, and you can pick which threat at preview you need Tera for.
1. The turn you actually use your Terastalization holds almost all of the power of using it, when you're using it offensively. That's the big "surprise" turn for their check. It doesn't have anywhere near the lasting impact of Mega evolution, it also doesn't have the immediate impact of Z-moves. Offensively Terastalizing is the weakest of the gimmicks. Especially since the defensive use of it can be used to offset the offensive uses.this point has already been addressed eloquently by another poster, so i will link you that since you must've missed it.
In my opinion, there is a logistical issues with this idea's implementation even if it could be a sufficient solution the the Terastal problem:I think a better restriction would be that a Mon can't terrastalize with set up
I find this comparison to be shallow. With Megas, you’re talking about one, maybe two Pokemon that have Megas that are comparable to Terastalizing, making it far, far easier to read. Plus it came with the cost of using up an item slot. With Terastalizing we’re talking about literally all 6 of your opponent’s Pokemon and 18 types each. They are barely comparable at all. Of course the metagame could adapt to it when its not much more than an Altaria dodging at most an EQ or Sludge Bomb.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
Also Megas don't adapt to the meta. A mega Mon stays the same until next gen/DLC drops, which might change it's movepool at most. However Tera is extremely adaptive and will remain unpredictable even as meta shifts, as new typings keep becoming viable to counterplay.I find this comparison to be shallow. With Megas, you’re talking about one, maybe two Pokemon that have Megas that are comparable to Terastalizing, making it far, far easier to read. Plus it came with the cost of using up an item slot. With Terastalizing we’re talking about literally all 6 of your opponent’s Pokemon and 18 types each. They are barely comparable at all. Of course the metagame could adapt to it when its not much more than an Altaria dodging at most an EQ or Sludge Bomb.
In terms of the specific implementation, it seems a little wacky to make “not having an item” related to Terastilizing, and it seems like it would unduly benefit strategies like Acrobatics and consumable items. Maybe it would make more sense and be more balanced to make it so that a Pokemon can only Terastilize if they’re holding the respective “Tera Shard” item of their Tera type. There might be an issue with Knock Off with this, but I think that might be worth it.
Even if a mega was low tier, except Audino, the drastic change in power and playstyle turned games, even if you knew it was coming. Using Tyranitar as an example, Sand teams would run Mega Ttar just in case the weather was changed so they could reactivate sand stream without switching. Charizard could technically coin flip if it was X or Y and change how moves were picked. Thinking all 6 pokemon on a team are a threat from terastilizing is lunacy. Support mons nearly never terastilize and would/could only in last ditch attempts at a losing game from my expiernce. Just because a Pokemon wants can become one of 18 types doesn't mean all those 18 types are actually good for it. You can quickly figure out just by playing a few games what tera types work for a mon and what don't or are weaker options. Mega's completely defined a meta game so i don't know how you can say they aren't comparable. There were next too no teams in that era that were good if they didn't run a mega. In fact, there are often times/games players don't need to terastilize because there tera type poses a bad match up.I find this comparison to be shallow. With Megas, you’re talking about one, maybe two Pokemon that have Megas that are comparable to Terastalizing, making it far, far easier to read. Plus it came with the cost of using up an item slot. With Terastalizing we’re talking about literally all 6 of your opponent’s Pokemon and 18 types each. They are barely comparable at all. Of course the metagame could adapt to it when its not much more than an Altaria dodging at most an EQ or Sludge Bomb.
I think having one Pokémon Terastral would be like mega evos. That would be cool.As stated in a similar Policy Review thread, there are three solutions for addressing Terastralization ordered in severity:
All three are very viable options to addressing Terastral, but I think it shouldn't be viewed as a "choose 1 of the 3". Rather, I think Terastral should be enforced in such a way that the next severe measure is only taken when the more lenient one is insufficient. While it does have a similarity to the drawn-out process Smogon approached to Baton Pass, I think there are several benefits to this method:
- Showing Terastral typing of every Pokemon at the start of the match
- Allowing only one Pokemon to be Terastral and/or its Terastral typing to be shown
- Banning Terastral altogether
- It provides a more familiar point-of-entry for new competitive Pokemon players who join Smogon because of Scarlet/Violet's release. These new players use Showdown to basically mess around with whichever Pokemon they want while being fairly close to cart implementation as possible. If you enforce something like Options (2) or (3) early on in Gen 9, you risk alienating a bunch of newer players.
- A more gradual process of addressing Terastral provides greater transparency between leadership and players. It charts the progression and rationale behind why certain actions are taken, and having this clarity (hypothetically) decreases the overall negative sentiment that newer players have towards Smogon's ban list procedures.
- Unlike Baton Pass, which has been around for several generations before it was banned, Terastral is a novel mechanic where no meaningful conclusion can be fully drawn until at least thousands of games, both ladder and tours, have been played such that trends can be noticed. Thus, a "play it by ear" approach to testing Terastral is a safer measure.
- The metagame is expected to fully solidify once the Home integration becomes legal. The four months between now and when Home comes out could be used to evaluate Terastral in a more gradual manner. Hopefully, a sufficient solution (from the three above) will be set as the status quo by that time.
I didn’t know those details about how on-cart WiFi battles worked but that seems pretty out of the purview of what Smogon is supposed to be. We can’t be making rules around formats that are not intended to be played following Smogon rulesets. Smogon rules are intended for people who explicitly following Smogon rules… anything beyond that is at the mercy of the whims of Game Freak. I dont think anyone expects to enter a random on-cart Wifi battle and have Smogon rulesets be followed.Just ban it, the other options do not do jack for cartridge outside of discord room tournaments.
Banning Tera Blast
Tera blast is not the core issue, infact I've seen a lot of mons just simply not run it at all because they have moves with additional effects they can use instead. Iron Moth doesn't need terablast when it knows energy ball/psychic/discharge, Chien-pao doesn't need tera when it has near perfect coverage in sacred sword, and its stabs, Espathra which has been popping up more just goes tera fairy with dazzling gleam to ignore some of its priority checks and muscle dark types that otherwise shut it down.
Tera blast if anything is the weaker part of the mechanic, if you tera fire just so you can tera blast steels as magnezone, you're already hindering yourself in other regards wasting it. There's very few instances its worth running unless the pokemon in question is otherwise a shitmon movepool wise and needs the coverage (think HP ice users like jolteon.). It could just be uncommon because ice and ground tera isn't as necessary without lando/heatran in the game but its a far cry from the problem and won't change much but nerf the shitmons that needed it to thrive.
Showing tera types
This won't work on cartridge, it might work perfectly on showdown, but its impossible to replicate on cartridge. You'd have to be playing over discord/social media to communicate and share tera types which isn't always the case. A good example of this is BDSP Wifi battle queues where there was a specific link battle code everyone would input to play semi-competitive matches under the smogon ruleset, as a means of filtering the random timmy. If tera clause with showing types becomes a thing, this just can't work because you don't know who the fuck you're facing and how to contact them with your team.
There's also random link battle queues which sure, can be highly iffy on what the other person is playing, but even in SWSH unless they were a differently language, or an in-game team, most of my random queue battles were mutually respecting sleep and dynamax clauses so we never used them and mentally you can consider the game a win if the opponent breaks any of them... and usually they suck if they do so its w/e then.
As for showdown, which is smogon's main concern, this doesn't fix how restraining the mechanic is in teambuilder, because even if you give your kit coverage moves to deal with threat X, you can't factor in bringing a coverage move for any of its 18 potential mono types, one moment you could hit something super effectively due to their typing (fairy for pult), and then it changes and lives with neutral damage (pult becomes pure ghost) and kills you with a bonus 1.5x boost. Its a broken mechanic you can't build around, you can only play around it with the knowledge given, which currently is none.
It reminds me of X/Y aegislash, teambuilder was the issue, you had to run a team they can muscle through or survive aegislash, it warped the meta, when you got in-game, it wasn't nearly as bad as some made it out to be, but the fact it existed when you crafted teams made it hard to have a developing meta. I believe showing tera types would lead to this because teambuilder you'd be warping your team around trying to cover every possibility and still end up failing in team preview and have to play out the match differently.
Making it 1 user only
This could work but again doesn't fix the problem because then we'd just be looking at the strongest potential users.. and go down the ban list until none are left, megas had the restriction of item slot and comps were built around them. Tera is more of a boost to any offensive mon with their current strengths and so many fit the bill of wallbreaker, the game would just become matchup fishy, which isn't healthy either. Going from unpredictable to matchup fishy isn't a healthy solution.
Banning tera
This is the best and least controversial solution, only casuals would get pissed about it but they're playing a different game anyways so who cares. The meta can develop and we can see what stands out better without factoring in X changing type to overcome X. I will say using the term 'counter' has been a fucking joke for years and everything just checks one another, but its too dangerous to check anything rn especially vs. snowbally HO comps where 1 hole in your team can be the entire game and if your defensive mon you've been preserving for an offensive threat gets cheesed by the boosted STABs now 2HKOing it or destroyed by a now STAB coverage move you're just too fucked.
That's fair but keep in mind smogon's policies are to create what can be replicated on cart. Randomness in queues are always going to be a factor, but unless you're in a cart tournament there's no way to handshake on tera types or mod in a solution to it.I dont think anyone expects to enter a random on-cart Wifi battle and have Smogon rulesets be followed.
Banning Terablast does nothing. I agree that it's a bad restriction.Just ban it, the other options do not do jack for cartridge outside of discord room tournaments.
Banning Tera Blast
Tera blast is not the core issue, infact I've seen a lot of mons just simply not run it at all because they have moves with additional effects they can use instead. Iron Moth doesn't need terablast when it knows energy ball/psychic/discharge, Chien-pao doesn't need tera when it has near perfect coverage in sacred sword, and its stabs, Espathra which has been popping up more just goes tera fairy with dazzling gleam to ignore some of its priority checks and muscle dark types that otherwise shut it down.
Tera blast if anything is the weaker part of the mechanic, if you tera fire just so you can tera blast steels as magnezone, you're already hindering yourself in other regards wasting it. There's very few instances its worth running unless the pokemon in question is otherwise a shitmon movepool wise and needs the coverage (think HP ice users like jolteon.). It could just be uncommon because ice and ground tera isn't as necessary without lando/heatran in the game but its a far cry from the problem and won't change much but nerf the shitmons that needed it to thrive.
Showing tera types
This won't work on cartridge, it might work perfectly on showdown, but its impossible to replicate on cartridge. You'd have to be playing over discord/social media to communicate and share tera types which isn't always the case. A good example of this is BDSP Wifi battle queues where there was a specific link battle code everyone would input to play semi-competitive matches under the smogon ruleset, as a means of filtering the random timmy. If tera clause with showing types becomes a thing, this just can't work because you don't know who the fuck you're facing and how to contact them with your team.
There's also random link battle queues which sure, can be highly iffy on what the other person is playing, but even in SWSH unless they were a differently language, or an in-game team, most of my random queue battles were mutually respecting sleep and dynamax clauses so we never used them and mentally you can consider the game a win if the opponent breaks any of them... and usually they suck if they do so its w/e then.
As for showdown, which is smogon's main concern, this doesn't fix how restraining the mechanic is in teambuilder, because even if you give your kit coverage moves to deal with threat X, you can't factor in bringing a coverage move for any of its 18 potential mono types, one moment you could hit something super effectively due to their typing (fairy for pult), and then it changes and lives with neutral damage (pult becomes pure ghost) and kills you with a bonus 1.5x boost. Its a broken mechanic you can't build around, you can only play around it with the knowledge given, which currently is none.
It reminds me of X/Y aegislash, teambuilder was the issue, you had to run a team they can muscle through or survive aegislash, it warped the meta, when you got in-game, it wasn't nearly as bad as some made it out to be, but the fact it existed when you crafted teams made it hard to have a developing meta. I believe showing tera types would lead to this because teambuilder you'd be warping your team around trying to cover every possibility and still end up failing in team preview and have to play out the match differently.
Making it 1 user only
This could work but again doesn't fix the problem because then we'd just be looking at the strongest potential users.. and go down the ban list until none are left, megas had the restriction of item slot and comps were built around them. Tera is more of a boost to any offensive mon with their current strengths and so many fit the bill of wallbreaker, the game would just become matchup fishy, which isn't healthy either. Going from unpredictable to matchup fishy isn't a healthy solution.
Banning tera
This is the best and least controversial solution, only casuals would get pissed about it but they're playing a different game anyways so who cares. The meta can develop and we can see what stands out better without factoring in X changing type to overcome X. I will say using the term 'counter' has been a fucking joke for years and everything just checks one another, but its too dangerous to check anything rn especially vs. snowbally HO comps where 1 hole in your team can be the entire game and if your defensive mon you've been preserving for an offensive threat gets cheesed by the boosted STABs now 2HKOing it or destroyed by a now STAB coverage move you're just too fucked.
It's Gen 7, and your 20% health Skarmory just performed an emergency whirlwind on a sweeper, and in comes the opponent's Gyarados. They've neither shown their Mega (they also have a Scizor) nor their Z crystal, so you can't be certain what set you're looking at - but you don't suffer an Intimidate drop, so Z Bounce seems the more likely, especially when Scizor makes better use of the Mega slot anyway. In the back you have a physically defensive Tangrowth and a physically defensive Zapdos; Tangrowth is healthy, but Zapdos is at 45%.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.
Please correct me if I am misinterpreting your reasoning, but by this logic isn't banning Terastillization also a failure of cartridge simulation? I don't see how agreeing to not use a generational mechanic is really different from agreeing to tell each other tera types beforehand. Both are a Showdown-forced implementation of an additional rule that two people could easily agree to follow in a cartridge battle.this is probably a boomer take but we should just either ban the mechanic as a whole or do nothing at all. showing the terastilized type at team preview is NOT how the mechanic works and is not loyal to in-game stuff, at that point were just better off by baning the mechanic. and before ppeople cry out "well play on cartridge if u want", this is literally a pokemon simulator that tries its hardest to simulate in-game online battling; and yes, we might have shit like sleep cause as a precedent, but stuff like that doesnt really compare to literally modifying already predefined mechanics for the sake of the metagame. this is just like saying that dynamaxing should only last 1 turn in gen 8. it just feels like were making our own game/rules idk.