Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]

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I made Avalugg Steel and am comitting to this for my team, now what?
As far as I know, Steel isn’t even close to Avalugg’s best Tera type. Might just be a teambuilding issue?

Also I literally mentioned a mon that benefits greatly from Tera Blast in my post. Get off your high horse.
 
there is literally no drawback (arguments about Rocks chip or Black Sludge aren't valid imo because a well-built Tera mon should never come across those problems)
I don’t want to focus on such a small point in your argument, but this absolutely isn’t the case. Any flying or fire Tera has issues with rocks, and removing hazards isn’t simple with Gholdengo around. It’s also worth noting that dropping one or both of your base types often has a drawback e.g Tera Fire Chi-yu no longer resists Sucker Punch, Tera Normal Dragonite is now weak to Mach Punch etc.
 
As far as I know, Steel isn’t even close to Avalugg’s best Tera type. Might just be a teambuilding issue?

Also I literally mentioned a mon that benefits greatly from Tera Blast in my post. Get off your high horse.
What mon, I don't see?

Also Avalugg was just an example, lol. Avalugg is known as a Pokemon held back by its type.

I guess you mean Volcarona? Heatran isn't in the game and I'm pretty sure it's not in HOME code either, but I guess I can see some merit to that set? Dunno what your Tera Blast Grounding here though.

Do note we have played metas with Hidden Power Ground though
 
I don’t want to focus on such a small point in your argument, but this absolutely isn’t the case. Any flying or fire Tera has issues with rocks, and removing hazards isn’t simple with Gholdengo around. It’s also worth noting that dropping one or both of your base types often has a drawback e.g Tera Fire Chi-yu no longer resists Sucker Punch, Tera Normal Dragonite is now weak to Mach Punch etc.
I hear what you’re saying, but imo the positives of stuff like Tera Normal on DNite so far outweigh the negatives that it’s hard to even see a gained Fighting weakness as a problem. Consider how you made every single one of your weaknesses into a neutrality AND your only new weakness is a type you resisted pre-Tera, meaning the opponent almost always has to HARD predict you Terastalizing if they want to have any hope of beating you 1v1.
 
I hear what you’re saying, but imo the positives of stuff like Tera Normal on DNite so far outweigh the negatives that it’s hard to even see a gained Fighting weakness as a problem. Consider how you made every single one of your weaknesses into a neutrality AND your only new weakness is a type you resisted pre-Tera, meaning the opponent almost always has to HARD predict you Terastalizing if they want to have any hope of beating you 1v1.
The issue here is that yes, we know Dragonite has great qualities as a Tera'd Pokemon, but it's still a resource you're using. Not having a Terastilization first is bad a lot of the time, because Terastilization on your end can be so much easier to plan when you know the opponent has no more surprises of their own.

This isn't to say Dragonite can never sweep with Normal Tera or something, but it's not too hard to counterplay especially as one of the more obvious Tera mons on preview.
 
Maybe I'm personally a bit stringent about this, but I don't like anything added to smogon that is an attempt to directly change mechanics in the game. Revealing Teratype in team preview can't be done by team preview in game so I dislike that, for example. Changing how it works ('you only get stab on your teratype') also falls under that same catagory as that's not possible to replicate on cart. 'You can only use Tera on types Pokemon already have', as many have said, doesn't fix the issue... a lot of offensive 'abuse' use cases of Tera are using it for double STAB. I'd rather see an outright ban over mods/clauses to attempt to 'fix it' (even though I'm in the camp that'd rather not see it banned).

I don't think Teratype makes things noncompetitive, per say. It's not RNG what type an opponent chooses (nobody is going to roll a 18 sided dice and assign each of their Pokemon a random type... although if that turned into a viable strategy and proven I think there would be a much better case to ban it lol). I think there is a world where it could even be seen as a form of skill expression to use Tera in a creative way. I feel like Tera should get it's own ladder and given it's own chance to be figured out if it's outright banned, and if it's not banned, Pokemon are tiered with their Terastalization abuse cases in mind. I don't think it's an uncommon take to think that there was a lot of power creep this generation, and Terastalization might be pushing that to even higher extremes, but either Tera stays in the game and more pokemon get pushed to Ubers (and more lower tiered mons find viability in OU with Tera) or Tera gets banned and the current abuse cases get culled and less current mons abusing Tera get kicked from OU.
 
This isn't to say Dragonite can never sweep with Normal Tera or something, but it's not too hard to counterplay especially as one of the more obvious Tera mons on preview.
And then your ‘obvious counterplay’ hard loses to Tera Fire. Now what?
I don’t think people should even be arguing for stuff like Dragonite lmao. Ok yeah, it takes your Tera, but if I had to give up Tera entirely to get a Rocks-weak EKiller Arceus on my OU team, I would do it in a heartbeat. Certain mons are just so obviously broken with Tera that claiming them needing to Terastalize as a balancing point just feels kinda silly.
 
This is devolving into one-liner arguing, let’s look at some questions instead.

In your opinion, what Pokémon are broken with Tera and would they be broken without it?

When do you think is the best time to use a Tera?

How does a Pokemon’s checks/counters change when it Teras, and how significant is this?

How does Tera force 50/50s in a 6v6 metagame?

How much of an impact does Same Type Tera have on a game?

For those of you looking at complex bans, how do these solve the problems, and which problems are you looking at (be specific and give examples).


Hopefully these questions spark some meaningful discussion, and tie some loose ends of arguments. Please do not respond to this post with simply “Tera is broken” or something along those lines.
 
This point isn't being made enough so I'll just restate it here, maybe spark some discussion. Tera as a mechanic may not be inherently broken. I agree that with time players can and will learn to predict Tera types and even timing (though anyone claiming every or even most mons only have 1-2 optimal Tera types is just straight up wrong). However, people claiming Tera is balanced seem to reach their final conclusion right there, without ever considering the many, many mons broken by Tera. Setting aside the unpredictability, setting aside the difficulty of playing around the mechanic in general, you have to realize that there are a TON of mons that only needed a typing change, or an 80 BP coverage move, or just a little more power on their STABs to be absolutely busted. This isn't a 'Megas are broken in theory but balanced in practice' situation either, because besides only being able to Terastalize once per game, there is literally no drawback (arguments about Rocks chip or Black Sludge aren't valid imo because a well-built Tera mon should never come across those problems). Tera Normal Dragonite and Tera Ground/Grass Volcarona can still hold Boots, Tera Flying Roaring Moon can use Acrobatics more than once, Tera Water Annihilape still gets STAB on Rage Fist. It's a silly mechanic and as fun as it may be, I don't think it has any place in a competitive metagame (or at least not OU. I don't want to ban half of the tier just to keep the generational mechanic around. Separate ladder when?).
What mons are fine without Tera, but suspect-worthy with it? Roaring Moon, Dragapult, Dragonite, and Annihilape are all I spot, and that's not tons.
 
And then your ‘obvious counterplay’ hard loses to Tera Fire. Now what?
I don’t think people should even be arguing for stuff like Dragonite lmao. Ok yeah, it takes your Tera, but if I had to give up Tera entirely to get a Rocks-weak EKiller Arceus on my OU team, I would do it in a heartbeat. Certain mons are just so obviously broken with Tera that claiming them needing to Terastalize as a balancing point just feels kinda silly.
I feel like this betrays your point because Dragonite is already a really good Pokemon, that's not a "mediocre or bad Pokemon made broken with Tera" and honestly I just don't think Tera Normal Dragonite is particularly broken. Currently this is a tier full of Steel-types, Rock-types bulky enough to take one super effective hit honestly, Ice-types, Fighting-types and more. There's a lot of checks to Dragonite. That even ignores the two viable Unaware Pokemon. With Skeledirge using Tera Fairy making it viable as a solution, and Dondozo hard walling.

Also, Tera Fire really isn't as strong, and makes it weaker as a whole IMO.
 
Don't really feel the need to write an essay or relate this to MLK or anything. Just ban it or don't.

All the other caveats and alterations suggested are silly. Its either broken or it isn't. Smogon always shies away from complex bans and a lot of people are advocating for some complex ass bans with this lol. Personally I don't think this meta will have much nuance build wise till home anyway. The amount of viable options is very low atm and as such I don't think tera is thatttttt unpredictable. Its still very silly and is the definition of matchup fish.

some mons are fairly egregious with it though (Ape off the top of my head)
 

plznostep

Flittle Fanatic
is a Community Contributor
How does Tera force 50/50s in a 6v6 metagame?
I think this is fairly obvious from other posts from the likes Srn. Srn mentioned the match up of Kingambit vs Breloom, where Tera literally makes this into a 50/50 between clicking Mach Punch and beating Kingambit, or clicking Bullet Seed and beating Kingambit when it Tera's to Ghost. I honestly don't know how people can not think that Tera doesn't cause 50/50s. If you have been playing this meta at all, you will realise it quickly. Not to mention the fact the mon in front of you might just have the perfect way to beat your set with its Tera type, such as Chi Yu (Tera Fighting) vs Tyranitar, or Blissey vs literally any ghost type tera. You simply have no idea, which is why if we do not ban Tera, i would support having to reveal Tera's at the Team Preview section as you are able to know your opponents options and try to play around them better.
 
This is devolving into one-liner arguing, let’s look at some questions instead.

In your opinion, what Pokémon are broken with Tera and would they be broken without it?

When do you think is the best time to use a Tera?

How does a Pokemon’s checks/counters change when it Teras, and how significant is this?

How does Tera force 50/50s in a 6v6 metagame?

How much of an impact does Same Type Tera have on a game?

For those of you looking at complex bans, how do these solve the problems, and which problems are you looking at (be specific and give examples).


Hopefully these questions spark some meaningful discussion, and tie some loose ends of arguments. Please do not respond to this post with simply “Tera is broken” or something along those lines.
Just gonna answer the first question for now, might come back to this later. Mons aren’t in any order, so some more ‘balanced’ mons could be placed between obvious brokemons.

:dragonite::lucario:
The EKillers. Dragonite is the most obviously good one but Lucario also gets STAB Bullet Punch for Ghosts and higher base Speed, allowing it to run SD sets more comfortably. Both of these are stupid (though Lucario is somewhat locked to HO) and I haven’t seen any good arguments for why they’re balanced.

:roaring-moon:
This mon would be fine without Tera, though maybe not pre-Home with how few Fairies are available. Point is, this thing is cracked wide open by Terastalizing, and without it it is a shell of its former self.

:annihilape:
Giving the mon with a move that powers up every time you hit it a better defensive typing while keeping its STABs. Awesome.

:volcarona:
Matchup moth now has a way to play around bad matchups in a far more limited meta. Awesome.

:avalugg:
This mon was never meant to be able to change type. Less egregious than a lot of the mons because it is defensive and that’s just how defensive mons roll, but in a meta with far more limited Toxic distribution this thing goes stupid.

:baxcalibur:
Definitely more of a second-string mon but Tera Ground or Steel on this sounds nuts. Needs more testing.

:chien-pao::chi-yu:
These are both definitely broken even without Tera, but as previous posts have shown, Tera does NOT help their case one bit.

:dragapult:
Dragapult with a real physical Ghost STAB. Awesome.

:garganacl:
I have played against this with stall. It is actually stupid. It will be banned because smogon LOVES stall <3 <3 <3

:great-tusk:
Already unwallable mon becomes even more unwallable/removes all of its offensive counterplay. Very epic.

:magnezone:
Mon kinda sucks in current meta but like, it got literally DOUBLY effective HP Fire. How could it not be good?

:scovillain:
Already unwallable mon becomes even more unwallable/removes all of its offensive counterplay. Very epic.

:skeledirge:
Another mon that goes in more against fat than offense. Tera Fairy and such are actually nightmarish for slower teams to deal with.

:torkoal:
252+ SpA Choice Specs Adaptability Torkoal Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Toxapex in Sun: 164-193 (53.9 - 63.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Mon is definitely fine but like… lol




And finally, a couple assorted mons not in the game that would be absurdly broken with Tera
:kyurem::regieleki::shedinja::tapu-koko::urshifu:
 
I think this is fairly obvious from other posts from the likes Srn. Srn mentioned the match up of Kingambit vs Breloom, where Tera literally makes this into a 50/50 between clicking Mach Punch and beating Kingambit, or clicking Bullet Seed and beating Kingambit when it Tera's to Ghost. I honestly don't know how people can not think that Tera doesn't cause 50/50s. If you have been playing this meta at all, you will realise it quickly. Not to mention the fact the mon in front of you might just have the perfect way to beat your set with its Tera type, such as Chi Yu (Tera Fighting) vs Tyranitar, or Blissey vs literally any ghost type tera. You simply have no idea, which is why if we do not ban Tera, i would support having to reveal Tera's at the Team Preview section as you are able to know your opponents options and try to play around them better.
It just isn’t the case that Tera forces these absolute 50/50s, and yes, I have been playing plenty of the meta. There is almost always another play you can make-in the Breloom vs Kingambit example, why not just click Spore? Or Rock Tomb so Ting-Lu in the back outspeeds? Also, saying you have no idea what Tera type your opponent is running is silly. If you have reasonable meta knowledge you can guess the most likely options, as many have already pointed out, although I’m not completely opposed to showing Tera types at preview.
 

plznostep

Flittle Fanatic
is a Community Contributor
It just isn’t the case that Tera forces these absolute 50/50s, and yes, I have been playing plenty of the meta. There is almost always another play you can make-in the Breloom vs Kingambit example, why not just click Spore? Or Rock Tomb so Ting-Lu in the back outspeeds? Also, saying you have no idea what Tera type your opponent is running is silly. If you have reasonable meta knowledge you can guess the most likely options, as many have already pointed out, although I’m not completely opposed to showing Tera types at preview.
I would like to point out this part that you said in your post
you can guess the most likely options,
That's exactly it. You can only guess. A lot of mons get different benefits from different Tera Types. In my post above i mentioned how Chien Pao really likes Tera Dark, but also can use Tera Ghost to deal with priority Mach Punches from Breloom. It could also be Tera Ice or even Tera Steel to catch Scizor. In a tournament setting, Tera allows for a lot of mix ups and specific match up fishing to completely stuff certain teams. As a result, you can never 100% be absolutely certain that a mon has the Tera typing you are expecting it to have. It's very match up fishy in general.

For the Breloom example; keep in mind Breloom could have spore'd something already, or its just not running it because why would run Spore on some Breloom banded set, and if you have a Ting Lu in the back why would you risk the 50/50 in the first place? Anyways, the fact is, that scenario is still a 50/50. It complicates revenge killing certain mons like Dragapult, Chien Pao, Chi Yu, etc and imo it shouldn't have to be that way, and being forced to make these gambles in my opinion is uncompetitive.
 
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I take your point that you can only guess, but this is the case with several other mechanics. In Gen 8 there’s no way to be sure whether your opponent’s Lele is Scarf or Specs-if it’s Specs then Pult beats it, if not then it beats Pult. This is exactly the kind of thing people are claiming that Tera does-flipping matchups and being completely unpredictable. You can never be sure which item your opponent is running—Lele could be packing HDB, or it could be some wacky lure set. You find out by careful scouting, and the same thing can be done with Tera. Although I’ll admit scouting Tera is a bit harder that working out your opponent’s item, the comparison still stands.
 
I like Tera, but I'm not gonna lose any sleep if it gets banned. I think that compromising is a bad idea though. If we concede that it's problematic, it's probably best to just get rid of it, especially since the ideas I've seen aren't really ideal imo.

Banning tera blast just fucks over a small handful of pokemon, making pro-tera people less happy while not really solving the issue that anti-tera people had.

Revealing types at team preview sounded like a good idea, but when I thought on it more, I decided it wasn't really all that good. I think deriving information on your opponent is a good part of the game, and if that was the problem, this just introduces new ones, like "is my opponent running a suboptimal tera type to juke me out?" I think the real issue with tera is, as mentioned before, the timing.

I'd like to touch on that a little more though. A lot of people mention 50/50s, and while I think that's emblematic of the problem, I don't think it is the problem. I think the real issue is that terastal increases the weight of each turn without allowing for that many more options or informed decisionmaking, which leads to more guesswork. This I think is another example of gimmicks being balanced more for doubles than singles, as in doubles you already have dense, impactful turns, but with far more options per turn and the ability to cover multiple of them.

Just my opinion though
 

plznostep

Flittle Fanatic
is a Community Contributor
I take your point that you can only guess, but this is the case with several other mechanics. In Gen 8 there’s no way to be sure whether your opponent’s Lele is Scarf or Specs-if it’s Specs then Pult beats it, if not then it beats Pult. This is exactly the kind of thing people are claiming that Tera does-flipping matchups and being completely unpredictable. You can never be sure which item your opponent is running—Lele could be packing HDB, or it could be some wacky lure set. You find out by careful scouting, and the same thing can be done with Tera. Although I’ll admit scouting Tera is a bit harder that working out your opponent’s item, the comparison still stands.
The difference is that these items don't change your counters and counterplay this drastically. Most Lele sets will still have trouble with its usual counterplay, which is the same with most mons. Tera gives you a response to this usual counterplay. For instance, say Lele was facing some kind of priority that would definitely kill it if it was hit by it, such as a Shadow Sneak or a Bullet Punch. It can just Tera into a Normal or Steel Type and now it no longer has to worry about it anymore. Tera also gives you coverage vs mons who would be able to ordinarily take your hit and KO you back. The difference to something like Hidden Power that can also do this is that Hidden Power is a base 60 power move which doesn't get STAB. Tera Blast is a base 80 move which gets stab which effectively makes it a 120 power move, which is double the power of something like Hidden Power. Even with super effective hits, Hidden Power wasn't enough to completely break open a mon unless it was a 4x weakness, Tera Blast can with the help of Terastallization, an item cannot do this level of mix ups at all and thus comparing Terastallization to the likes of just "your item also changes answers" is quite odd in my opinion.
 
I think this is fairly obvious from other posts from the likes Srn. Srn mentioned the match up of Kingambit vs Breloom, where Tera literally makes this into a 50/50 between clicking Mach Punch and beating Kingambit, or clicking Bullet Seed and beating Kingambit when it Tera's to Ghost. I honestly don't know how people can not think that Tera doesn't cause 50/50s. If you have been playing this meta at all, you will realise it quickly. Not to mention the fact the mon in front of you might just have the perfect way to beat your set with its Tera type, such as Chi Yu (Tera Fighting) vs Tyranitar, or Blissey vs literally any ghost type tera. You simply have no idea, which is why if we do not ban Tera, i would support having to reveal Tera's at the Team Preview section as you are able to know your opponents options and try to play around them better.
Or you could Tera that Loom set and Terablast it to kill with fire. If you've already used your Tera, then you got yourself backed into a corner by a bad play
 
For instance, say Lele was facing some kind of priority that would definitely kill it if it was hit by it, such as a Shadow Sneak or a Bullet Punch. It can just Tera into a Normal or Steel Type and now it no longer has to worry about it anymore.
Tera simply adds another layer to the cake. The base game is still intact, but now, instead of only having to guess what mons your opponent could switch out to, you have to take into account the possibility of Tera. This could be overpowered if you don't have any way to guess your opponent's Tera type. However, it's day 10 of the game right now. We have literally no standard sets. When the metagame settles down and the game gets more centralized, Tera will become predictable and a normal facet of strategic gameplay.
 
Hello, competitive casual player, I am absolutely against the Teracrystal ban.

First of all I would like to know why ban so quickly the main mechanic of the generation after only 2 weeks! In 6VS6 single player strategies, this is a ridiculously short time to grasp all the options available to us and to allow time for a meta to settle in. There is no rush at this point and if indeed there is a problem, banning may be the solution under certain conditions.

Then if there is a ban, the "Tera Team Preview" seems to be the best solution in my opinion.

1) Knowing which pokemon can Tera in which types will allow more complex game plans by being accessible to both players.

2) More options = more diversity in the pokemons used which reduces the redundancy of some games that tend to look the same in 8g.

3) The terablast allows as many things in my opinion as a Hidden Power, and moreover with the team preview we would already know what type it would be unlike the Hidden Power.

4) It keeps its potential in both offensive and defensive teams.

5) Banning the main mechanic again will scare away potential new players and thus slowly kill the Smogon community.

I'm putting this down here but choosing who goes first in Random Battle would be welcome for this 9G.

Thanks for listening,

Kisses from France :-*
 
I just wanted to chip in on this, because I agree that Sucker Punch mindgames are not a good example, but I disagree with the notion that there aren't constant 50/50s (or 33/33/33s or whatever) regardless of sets.
That doesn't mean Terastallizing is balanced, but that it's arbitrarily similar to (and actively contributes to) game-altering turns.

Being similar to something isn't a good argument for why it should stay.
 
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