Most VGC tournaments so far are playing with "open teratype" (and the "official" one at the Stuttgart side event as well). So I don't think this change would be unreasonable for Smogon
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Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]
- Thread starter Finchinator
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TheRealBigC
I COULD BE BANNED!
I'm not sure if this has been suggested already, but what if we had a complex restriction where Pokémon can only Terastallize if they are given no item in the Teambuilder?
I'm a relatively casual player, but I'm growing really quite tired of Tera being able to just flip games on its head, making balance more or less unviable, and reducing a lot of games to 'who can get their broken Tera abuser set up first?'. So far, none of the suggested solutions I've seen really address the issues it brings to the tier; for instance, I think if you could just see your opponent's Tera types ahead of time, nothing would really change. Everyone knows that nine times out of ten Roaring Moon is going to Tera Flying, Skeledirge is going to Tera Fairy etc.. Limiting Tera just to STAB would get rid of anything actually interesting about Tera and just leave a brainless STAB spam meta in its place, and limiting the Pokémon that can Tera in a given game would make Tera more predictable, but at this point I think the meta's in a place where the unpredictability isn't a big issue.
With this being said, I think although Tera probably will be banned altogether eventually, it's too early to take such a radical option without at least exploring forms of restriction first. This is why I propose this 'itemless Tera' solution. Currently Tera is a mechanic without any real tradeoff besides the opportunity cost of not Terastallizing your other mons in a given game. This proposal, however, would create a tradeoff where players have to pick between items or Tera for a given Pokémon, which I think would help curtail both the offensive and defensive strengths of Tera. Flying Roaring Moon wouldn't be able to use Booster Energy; Fairy Iron Valiant and Dark Chi-Yu wouldn't get the extra power of Specs or be able to avoid hazards with HDB; Water Annihilape wouldn't be able to Rest for free, and so on. Tera would obviously remain a very powerful tool, but it would become a more predictable one that would require more careful consideration in the teambuilder, and less of a 'get out of jail free card'. What do you guys think?
I'm a relatively casual player, but I'm growing really quite tired of Tera being able to just flip games on its head, making balance more or less unviable, and reducing a lot of games to 'who can get their broken Tera abuser set up first?'. So far, none of the suggested solutions I've seen really address the issues it brings to the tier; for instance, I think if you could just see your opponent's Tera types ahead of time, nothing would really change. Everyone knows that nine times out of ten Roaring Moon is going to Tera Flying, Skeledirge is going to Tera Fairy etc.. Limiting Tera just to STAB would get rid of anything actually interesting about Tera and just leave a brainless STAB spam meta in its place, and limiting the Pokémon that can Tera in a given game would make Tera more predictable, but at this point I think the meta's in a place where the unpredictability isn't a big issue.
With this being said, I think although Tera probably will be banned altogether eventually, it's too early to take such a radical option without at least exploring forms of restriction first. This is why I propose this 'itemless Tera' solution. Currently Tera is a mechanic without any real tradeoff besides the opportunity cost of not Terastallizing your other mons in a given game. This proposal, however, would create a tradeoff where players have to pick between items or Tera for a given Pokémon, which I think would help curtail both the offensive and defensive strengths of Tera. Flying Roaring Moon wouldn't be able to use Booster Energy; Fairy Iron Valiant and Dark Chi-Yu wouldn't get the extra power of Specs or be able to avoid hazards with HDB; Water Annihilape wouldn't be able to Rest for free, and so on. Tera would obviously remain a very powerful tool, but it would become a more predictable one that would require more careful consideration in the teambuilder, and less of a 'get out of jail free card'. What do you guys think?
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I originally didn't want to butt in because I'm mainly a Monotype player and practically never play OU, but after cramming the theory and reading the threads, I'm firmly in favor of No Action.
The pro-ban arguments come off to me as consistently wobbly, defensive and knee-jerky, defending not competitiveness nor skill but investment/sunk cost in the pre-Terastal metagame - the logic behind the "50/50" argument boils down to "competitive Pokémon means the kind of Pokémon I'm good at", completely missing the fact that Terastal is an actual game mechanic and adds actual choices and new strategies unlike Dynamax.
To be honest, I'd rather have seen Game Freak only allow Terastalizing into types the mon doesn't already have and/or take away previous types' STAB, since those two points are the hardest to swallow both thematically and mechanically, but what's done is done - when you start changing game mechanics at that level, you're well past an OM and into a pet mod, and in the first place that slippery slope is why Pet Mods is a separate concept.
While Terastal is a sprawling mechanic that fundamentally changes the way competitive Pokémon is played, this seems to me to be just one part of an intentional attempt to revitalize the by-now rather stagnant, low-challenge and in the cartridge games straight-out perfunctory core gameplay - and without getting toxic, Smogon didn't ban items, Mega Stones or Z-Crystals.
Dynamax was such a Godless mess that it started living rent-free in a lot of people's heads, ingraining the idea that "this is what happens when you try to change Pokémon", and by now those people have crawled into the trenches and are shooting at everything that moves.
The difference here is that Dynamax objectively narrowed and constrained the metagame by lumping together moves of the same type into one combined setup and attacking move, which combined with the doubled HP and the limited duration meant that it rewarded not making choices and punished consideration - like a BP chain team, Dynamax encouraged unhealthy all-or-nothing strategies where mons were chosen solely for how they interacted with the mechanic, and where the three turns of Dynamax could often decide the rest of the match on their own.
This problem of course exists in this generation too, but it's called Cyclizar and it needs to go back to Digimon together with all the other safety-blankie mons made to let preschoolers win against adults - Tera is a mechanic that people have been asking for, even begging for, all the way from the beginning of the franchise and until Dynamax shat its pants and they turned on a dime.
Allowing one mon per team to change its type to a single type is not just a competitive mechanic, it deepens the metagame to a hitherto unseen degree because unlike Dynamax, it doesn't take away the tools a mon has and boil it down to its typing and stats - it allows underused mons to flourish and gives a degree of teambuilding freedom only rivaled by items, Abilities and the physical-special split.
Sure, there are wonky-ass parts.
Sure, there are very wonky-ass parts.
But bans, suspect tests and discussion threads exist for a reason - and that reason is to pare away the broken bits that every generation has had until now.
Every generation until now, this one included, for the first two or so months after release the metagame has been a cathouse in flames and that's just a part of competitive Pokémon - hell, it's one of the things some people (me, at least) love about a new generation.
It's unreasonable and even slightly histrionic to assume that the metagame having fundamentally changed and being in disarray upon a new release is a bad thing - because unlike Dynamax, where the metagame solidified way, way, way too fast to be healthy due to the regressive snowball mechanics of the gimmick, Terastal is seeing the metagame still mutating at breakneck speeds because the mechanic is far too sprawling to be codified anywhere nearly as fast as Dynamax was.
The fact that the current metagame resembles Ground Zero is a good sign.
It means we still haven't plumbed Terastal's implications, and it means that it's far too flexible and skill-based a mechanic to centralize the entire game around it like Dynamax did.
Chrissakes, let's pipe down and enjoy the change we always asked for.
It's a new generation - stop to smell the roses and/or the rafflesias, because flowers only bloom for so long.
That's my roughly $8.50, at least. Thank you for your time.
The pro-ban arguments come off to me as consistently wobbly, defensive and knee-jerky, defending not competitiveness nor skill but investment/sunk cost in the pre-Terastal metagame - the logic behind the "50/50" argument boils down to "competitive Pokémon means the kind of Pokémon I'm good at", completely missing the fact that Terastal is an actual game mechanic and adds actual choices and new strategies unlike Dynamax.
To be honest, I'd rather have seen Game Freak only allow Terastalizing into types the mon doesn't already have and/or take away previous types' STAB, since those two points are the hardest to swallow both thematically and mechanically, but what's done is done - when you start changing game mechanics at that level, you're well past an OM and into a pet mod, and in the first place that slippery slope is why Pet Mods is a separate concept.
While Terastal is a sprawling mechanic that fundamentally changes the way competitive Pokémon is played, this seems to me to be just one part of an intentional attempt to revitalize the by-now rather stagnant, low-challenge and in the cartridge games straight-out perfunctory core gameplay - and without getting toxic, Smogon didn't ban items, Mega Stones or Z-Crystals.
Dynamax was such a Godless mess that it started living rent-free in a lot of people's heads, ingraining the idea that "this is what happens when you try to change Pokémon", and by now those people have crawled into the trenches and are shooting at everything that moves.
The difference here is that Dynamax objectively narrowed and constrained the metagame by lumping together moves of the same type into one combined setup and attacking move, which combined with the doubled HP and the limited duration meant that it rewarded not making choices and punished consideration - like a BP chain team, Dynamax encouraged unhealthy all-or-nothing strategies where mons were chosen solely for how they interacted with the mechanic, and where the three turns of Dynamax could often decide the rest of the match on their own.
This problem of course exists in this generation too, but it's called Cyclizar and it needs to go back to Digimon together with all the other safety-blankie mons made to let preschoolers win against adults - Tera is a mechanic that people have been asking for, even begging for, all the way from the beginning of the franchise and until Dynamax shat its pants and they turned on a dime.
Allowing one mon per team to change its type to a single type is not just a competitive mechanic, it deepens the metagame to a hitherto unseen degree because unlike Dynamax, it doesn't take away the tools a mon has and boil it down to its typing and stats - it allows underused mons to flourish and gives a degree of teambuilding freedom only rivaled by items, Abilities and the physical-special split.
Sure, there are wonky-ass parts.
Sure, there are very wonky-ass parts.
But bans, suspect tests and discussion threads exist for a reason - and that reason is to pare away the broken bits that every generation has had until now.
Every generation until now, this one included, for the first two or so months after release the metagame has been a cathouse in flames and that's just a part of competitive Pokémon - hell, it's one of the things some people (me, at least) love about a new generation.
It's unreasonable and even slightly histrionic to assume that the metagame having fundamentally changed and being in disarray upon a new release is a bad thing - because unlike Dynamax, where the metagame solidified way, way, way too fast to be healthy due to the regressive snowball mechanics of the gimmick, Terastal is seeing the metagame still mutating at breakneck speeds because the mechanic is far too sprawling to be codified anywhere nearly as fast as Dynamax was.
The fact that the current metagame resembles Ground Zero is a good sign.
It means we still haven't plumbed Terastal's implications, and it means that it's far too flexible and skill-based a mechanic to centralize the entire game around it like Dynamax did.
Chrissakes, let's pipe down and enjoy the change we always asked for.
It's a new generation - stop to smell the roses and/or the rafflesias, because flowers only bloom for so long.
That's my roughly $8.50, at least. Thank you for your time.
TheRealBigC
I COULD BE BANNED!
No one is proposing for Tera to be modified in a way that would not be replicable on cartridge. Smogon rules in traditional tiers have always been a patchwork of 'gentlemen's agreements' that work within the confines of what is possible on cartridge.
I really wish people would stop trying to propose tiering action based on what is 'fun' as well. Ultimately competitive Pokémon is played because people enjoy it, but what is 'fun' is incredibly subjective and a poor standard to use for tiering action. Losing because your opponent pulled out Tera Normal Dnite or Tera Fairy Espathra is generally not particularly fun.
Imo, balance and other slower play styles have quite a few reasons they’re suffering right now, tera is not the sole culprit for that. Obviously it’s a contributing factor, but I think mons like gholdengo/glimmora/ting lu that enable stupidly consistent hazard stacking or grimmsnarl/cyclizar that are enablers way better then pretty much anything we’ve ever had or chi yu who has ungodly high damage and will almost certainly need to be banned regardless of any action on tera are much more to blame then tera is. This is the tera thread not the OU thread so I won’t go more into it, but I wanted to push back on tera being the main factor here.
TheRealBigC
I COULD BE BANNED!
Oh yeah for sure, but the sheer power of Tera certainly doesn't help. Of course balance doesn't need to be viable but I don't see the current HO spam meta as healthy
How much does Smogon care about the “don’t remove a central mechanic” argument? Suppose that I think that the metagame would be more competitive without Tera due to the 50/50 problems that have been mentioned in this thread, but I think that Tera should stay because of non-metagame related reasons, like:
- Keeping Tera helps this generation’s meta retain its identity relative to other generation’s metas.
- Tera is a core mechanic to a game, and removing it is bad because by removing it we aren’t playing SV anymore, we are playing our own little game that doesn’t resemble the base game anymore.
- Removing Tera will alienate new/VGC players from the OU tier, as they will see the removal of a core mechanic and see our ruleset as too restrictive.
- While Tera may not be very competitive in that it forces 50/50s, it is still fun and creative to use, and at the end of the day there are many games of Pokémon lost to way more uncompetitive mechanics (critical hits, non-100% accuracy moves, Paralysis, variation in Sleep turns, multi-hit moves, etc.) so I don’t see why we draw the line here.
Splitting up the tier to multiple ladders or having the ladder go from one variant of SV OU to another overnight is best to avoid.
Multiple tiers creates a splinter situation, which has happened in the past with disastrous results. This isn’t even to mention that this is the worst time to do this as we have interest at a peak right now. Couple this with the abundance of resources and approval needed, that goes well beyond the scope of the council, and this becomes infeasible.
Having the SV OU ladder go from allowing Tera to not is even worse of a prospect, unfortunately. The entire point of a suspect would be to gauge if Tera is broken or uncompetitive, not if the metagame without it is preferable — if Tera is to be touched, the metagame after it would still likely need changes and that metagame doesn’t even exist until the ban happens, so taking time away from the tier’s life with Tera would be unnecessary and also limit the valuable time we have with it that can be used to further develop opinions.
These just aren’t options and where not included in the survey for good reason. We have plenty of other options on the table though.
Multiple tiers creates a splinter situation, which has happened in the past with disastrous results. This isn’t even to mention that this is the worst time to do this as we have interest at a peak right now. Couple this with the abundance of resources and approval needed, that goes well beyond the scope of the council, and this becomes infeasible.
Having the SV OU ladder go from allowing Tera to not is even worse of a prospect, unfortunately. The entire point of a suspect would be to gauge if Tera is broken or uncompetitive, not if the metagame without it is preferable — if Tera is to be touched, the metagame after it would still likely need changes and that metagame doesn’t even exist until the ban happens, so taking time away from the tier’s life with Tera would be unnecessary and also limit the valuable time we have with it that can be used to further develop opinions.
These just aren’t options and where not included in the survey for good reason. We have plenty of other options on the table though.
Our first priority is establishing a competitive and balanced metagame environment, which is always the centerpiece of our tiering system. That is why we framed the tiering survey as we did and got this thread up to encourage discussion of which direction the metagame should be headed.
Preservation would be ideal in some capacity, but cannot override the core focuses of our tiering infrastructure just because of the importance of the mechanic. I personally think it is salvageable in the metagame while maintaining a balance with some restrictions in-mind, but that’s not to say an outright ban is off the table if that’s what the community wants (same goes for no action as well).
Ideas like “generation nine loses its identity” or “generation nine will be too similar to generation eight” if anything happens to Tera I personally find to be awfully misled and excuses/deflections more than actual arguments. We have dozens of key differences and new Pokemon/moves/strategies that span well beyond Tera, so my response to those sentiments at this point is “cope
” if it comes into play.I also don’t see how it alienates anyone. Everyone is entitled to play any format of Pokemon they would like and we welcome all prospective players with opening arms and a wide array of resources. There is no competitive Pokemon format more accessible to new players than ours regardless of the mechanic being there or not.
Finally, even with Tera, we aren’t playing a true 100% mirror replicate of SV on cart due to other bans and clauses, so Tera is just a continuation of this but with another degree of ban — it’s not something worthy of drawing a line specifically for. And people said the same thing last generation, but retention rates where plenty high after Dynamax was banned, dispelling this and some other sentiments.
In my personal opinion. I think that terastlizing should just be left alone as that is how it is in the physical games competitive singles play.
well.... just cuz that is they play doesnt mean that if tera is unhealthy we should keep it and deal with an unhealthy mechanic. Prob the focus when it comes the time to is to restrict the mechanic first then ban it anyway.. because that is how gen defining mechanics are suspected
Dusk Mage Necrozma
formerly XenonHero126
Battle Stadium Singles is a format on Showdown that replicates the games’ online single battles. The point of OU is to ban overpowered/unhealthy things to make a more competitive meta.
I appreciate the response. I am of the opinion that, with Tera (in this meta), the person who plays better wins less often due to the fact that games often hinge on critical 50/50s, which creates outcomes less based on strategy and play and more based on correctly playing a single-turn mind game with the opponent. The main reason I asked the question is that I didn’t know if there are reasons to just accept that fact and say “it is the way it is.” After all, 50/50s (and less competitive things) have existed in Pokémon generations past to a lesser extent. Further, in more casual forums (reddit, YT) it seems like there is a lot of support among casual players to keep Tera, so I disagree that banning Tera would not alienate a substantial part of the community from OU.Our first priority is establishing a competitive and balanced metagame environment, which is always the centerpiece of our tiering system. That is why we framed the tiering survey as we did and got this thread up to encourage discussion of which direction the metagame should be headed.
Preservation would be ideal in some capacity, but cannot override the core focuses of our tiering infrastructure just because of the importance of the mechanic. I personally think it is salvageable in the metagame while maintaining a balance with some restrictions in-mind, but that’s not to say an outright ban is off the table if that’s what the community wants (same goes for no action as well).
Ideas like “generation nine loses its identity” or “generation nine will be too similar to generation eight” if anything happens to Tera I personally find to be awfully misled and excuses/deflections more than actual arguments. We have dozens of key differences and new Pokemon/moves/strategies that span well beyond Tera, so my response to those sentiments at this point is “cope
I also don’t see how it alienates anyone. Everyone is entitled to play any format of Pokemon they would like and we welcome all prospective players with opening arms and a wide array of resources. There is no competitive Pokemon format more accessible to new players than ours regardless of the mechanic being there or not.
Finally, even with Tera, we aren’t playing a true 100% mirror replicate of SV on cart due to other bans and clauses, so Tera is just a continuation of this but with another degree of ban — it’s not something worthy of drawing a line specifically for. And people said the same thing last generation, but retention rates where plenty high after Dynamax was banned, dispelling this and some other sentiments.
Nonetheless, your response pointed out that these factors shouldn’t persuade us to move towards a less competitive metagame, and I agree. And while I think that we should suspect Chi-Yu, Gholdengo, and Cyclizar/Shed Tail before tiering action on Tera, I would support a Tera suspect with the intent to ban.
Alright, someone else coming out of hibernation: Last time on the OU Ladder was gen 4 with Suicune. Woooooow times have changed.
I've played a lot of random battles on Showdown these last few years as a non stressful way to keep playing with new mons.
My experience is only Battle Stadium Singles on Cart. I'll be another one saying I think Tera is "Fun." I like the mind games it brings. I've tera normal'd Cloyster to beat a Dragapult while I'm behind a sub. That was probably enraging for the other player. Tera Grass Skeledridge ruined my day once. I've felt it to be a learning experience. With that, I think Tera should be less healthy in 3v3 where there aren't enough bodies to play around a bad guess, and I've still enjoyed it.
My recommendation would be instead of showing tera types only on team preview, would it be possible to show them in battle. Imagine opponent has Garganacl. The ghost curse set is big right now, as well as tera dark to avoid prankster taunt. The game could read :
Garganacl (m/f) (Lv 100) (Tera: ______)
In this case you really have to measure whether you want to click focus blast or not, but you have the info at all times. If you see tera ghost, you become aware that Salt Mountain can become a spin blocker and chunk your health even more passively. If you see tera dark maybe you assume rocks, but you mash focus blast (and miss).
I worry about tera being ONLY at team preview making me have to sit at team preview and take out a pencil and paper or risk forgetting.
I don't code at all, so I have no idea how hard this would be, but it would kill these arguments of creating an "unhealthy" guessing game. There is a guess but its based off of information always at your disposal;.
I've played a lot of random battles on Showdown these last few years as a non stressful way to keep playing with new mons.
My experience is only Battle Stadium Singles on Cart. I'll be another one saying I think Tera is "Fun." I like the mind games it brings. I've tera normal'd Cloyster to beat a Dragapult while I'm behind a sub. That was probably enraging for the other player. Tera Grass Skeledridge ruined my day once. I've felt it to be a learning experience. With that, I think Tera should be less healthy in 3v3 where there aren't enough bodies to play around a bad guess, and I've still enjoyed it.
My recommendation would be instead of showing tera types only on team preview, would it be possible to show them in battle. Imagine opponent has Garganacl. The ghost curse set is big right now, as well as tera dark to avoid prankster taunt. The game could read :
Garganacl (m/f) (Lv 100) (Tera: ______)
In this case you really have to measure whether you want to click focus blast or not, but you have the info at all times. If you see tera ghost, you become aware that Salt Mountain can become a spin blocker and chunk your health even more passively. If you see tera dark maybe you assume rocks, but you mash focus blast (and miss).
I worry about tera being ONLY at team preview making me have to sit at team preview and take out a pencil and paper or risk forgetting.
I don't code at all, so I have no idea how hard this would be, but it would kill these arguments of creating an "unhealthy" guessing game. There is a guess but its based off of information always at your disposal;.
They oppose every single Smogon ban in some capacity and still come back and play. It’s a movie we have seen before.
I want them to be happy and have fun, but at the end of the day, we do have to focus primarily on our metagame and they have every right to try and get reqs on a suspect themselves if they want to influence it.
Honestly I would much prefer tera types be revealed in TP to banning it outright or even just restricting it.
From my experience, same type tera has been by far the most impactful as it increase the power level of already strong Pokémon to absurd levels, and if you at least know what they can turn into first, it will make defensive preparation and counterplay a lot more feasible.
From my experience, same type tera has been by far the most impactful as it increase the power level of already strong Pokémon to absurd levels, and if you at least know what they can turn into first, it will make defensive preparation and counterplay a lot more feasible.
Genuine question: do you have a difficult time accepting that other people's opinions can be valid? Because your use of this thread has been to trying to invalidate those that disagree with you rather than trying to boost your own argument and then making generalizations like this (that honestly make no sense, how does this even happen frequently let alone every time?). All it does is put your word in bad faith
What I'm personally seeing between here and the metagame discussion is sort of a squabble between whether Tera is the problem, or the abusers are the problems, and I'm gonna say its the abusers 100%. Things like Chi-Yu can use Tera to 2HKO everything but Blissey. Gholdengo can do the same with Make it Rain. Annihilape can manipulate former checks to boost Rage Fist, but when I look at other pokemon like Garchomp, Pult, the Donphan duo, or even Iron Valiant and Dragonite, I don't feel completely hopeless when they Tera. Yeah Dnite ESpeeds are scary but ghosts exist. Iron Valiant doesn't really threaten me as bad as the big boys, and everyone else is just fine.
I think the reason why Tera is so shaky is because the meta itself is just still too unstable rn, and the abusers just haven't been snuffed out. It's like last generation with Z-Moves. Sure without Z-Moves Dragapult and Torn-T wouldn't get banned in NatDex, but did that mean they just banned Z-Moves? Of course not ban the abusers causing the problems then see where the mechanic sits. I definitely think no action against Tera is the better choice.
I think the reason why Tera is so shaky is because the meta itself is just still too unstable rn, and the abusers just haven't been snuffed out. It's like last generation with Z-Moves. Sure without Z-Moves Dragapult and Torn-T wouldn't get banned in NatDex, but did that mean they just banned Z-Moves? Of course not ban the abusers causing the problems then see where the mechanic sits. I definitely think no action against Tera is the better choice.
The one hesitation I have on this is people doing absolute BS fakeout typings. Like just hypothetically, my Gholdengo is out against Great Tusk, and I've got Tera Flying. He's probably not going to use EQ because he knows I'm running a less common tera, so I can bait out a switch/rapid spin, and actually instead just hammer him. I'm actually safer because he knows I have flying than if he didn't know at all, given Flying isn't a meta pick right now (or at least as far as I've seen). Same would apply to any Pokemon really.
You can also throw a useless Tera on just to fake out your opponent there. If he sees in team preview that I've got a tera Ghost Dragapult, almost guaranteed he's gonna think it's a sweeper. Turns out, it's actually dual screens/curse/u-turn.
Yes, you make your own team weaker, but you're trading a teambuilding advantage for a mental one.
It would be a really interesting mindgame but I'm not sure it solves the answer of making tera less powerful.
alephgalactus
Banned deucer.
Aren’t those the same thing, though? A metagame without broken and uncompetitive stuff is, per tiering policy (and, let’s be real, common sense), preferable to one with it.
I think some of the arguments made in favor of tera are very misleading and may have even been made in bad faith, so I'd like to go over some of them.
Technically true, but they're much, much stronger with tera. Usually, a set up sweeper buys one turn of set up by forcing a switch. But with tera you get that, plus a free turn using tera to tank a move that would normally one shot you, plus another free turn as your opponent is forced to switch again. "Just don't let x sweeper set up" is a poor argument, because you can't know what you're trying to stop until you force the tera, which will inevitably give your opponent free turns to continue boosting. By the time your actual counter comes in, it's probably too late.
No you can't. Roaring moon can be flying, ground, dark, or steel. Dragapult can be ghost, dark, dragon, or fighting. There's nothing you can do to cover all these options. There's no way you can tell which it is. Most mons have at least 2 or 3 common tera types plus 1 or 2 less common (but still viable) sets. They all run simlar moves, stat spreads and items too, so there's no way to deduce what they're running or narrow things down. All you can do is guess blindly.
It probably won't. Remember early on when roaring moon was always tera dark? Then people started to rely heavily on bulky fighting and fairy types, so they switched to flying and steel. Then people used bulky steels instead, so tera ground became more popular. Once patterns and trends emerge, people look for ways to counter or take advantage of them. Evidence suggests tera will only become more unpredictable over time, especially when home drops.
True 50/50s are rare, and should stay that way. Besides, Tera is worse than any 50/50. To predict tera you know exactly when and how it will be used. You can't send in a fighting type on dragonite before they decide to tera, which leads back to my first point. You can try double switch to bait and predict, but then you're just giving your opponent 2 free turns instead of three. And if you're wrong, you also end up sacking a mon for no reason. The risk/reward is heavily in the dragonite's favor, and they don't even have to use tera to reap the benefits. It's not a 50/50, it's a 1/3 at best. For mons like roaring moon, it's a 1/5.
Tera matters more than just on the turn it's used. Every turn someone can tera, you have to consider it. Tera forces guesses worse than a 50/50 every turn there's even a slight chance your opponent could use it. This is already hurting the tier. I've seen chien-pao click crunch on my ting-lu when I have no ice switch-ins only to get body pressed. I shouldn't win interactions like that. I'm not looking forward to a meta where people are randomly throwing out not very effective moves in the hopes of catching a tera.
Tera has no opportunity cost, has no tell, requires no commitment or sacrifice in the builder, and rarely has any risk or downsides. (Gaining weaknesses doesn't matter if you choose when you have them.) Despite this, it can completely change any pokemon's counters, grants huge damage boosts, and is extremely unpredictable. Megas take your item slot and are very predictable. Z-moves take your item slot, are a one time nuke with no defensive utility, and are still much more predictable than tera. Other items can be knocked, tricked, scouted, and have severe downsides in the case of choice items or life orb. Lure sets sacrifice a ton to prey on their usual counters, (Perish song azu for example, isn't exactly a great sweeper) You can make a point by comparing two different things, but you have to admit that tera is much closer to dynamax than any other gimmick. The stab boost alone is like a z-move every turn. If tera were an item, it would be every pokemon's best choice.
Very few of the "abusers" do anything unique with tera. They're just the pokemon with the highest stats. If roaring moon were banned people would just switch to dragapult or salamance or gyarados. Chi-yu, annihilape, roaring moon and dragonite would be more bans than z-moves ever caused, and home will bring koko, lele, regieleki, regidrago, blaziken, etc. If half of OU needs to be banned because of tera, then it's the mechanic that needs to go.
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No, not necessarily. It’ll take time for standards to form and adaptation to occur or future tiering actions to happen. There’s a lot to it all, in my opinion
Prolly a super unpopular opinion but I legit think that tera is more balanced than z-moves and even gems in bw ou. Main reason being that you can use your own tera defensively.
You can't use z-moves to defensively answer an opponent's z-move so your only answer is switching to a resist which adds a lot of guessing games nd 50/50s. The same can be said for gems, but the problem is even worse with gems since you can use multiple gems on the same team (and boost priority moves).
With dmax, the only way to answer it defensively is to dmax yourself which is super restricting
With tera, you can choose whether or not to answer your opponent's tera with your own. There are actually a lot of really interesting uses of tera defensively, and a lot of it helps answer setup sweepers that use tera themselves.
I also think that the decision for OU banning tera shouldn't affect the lower tiers, cause lower tiers may be fine with tera, esp with less setup sweepers. I'm an avid UU player and the setup sweepers that are broken with tera (namely esparatha and hawlucha) are sweepers that, frankly speaking, are broken even if they couldn't tera.
You can't use z-moves to defensively answer an opponent's z-move so your only answer is switching to a resist which adds a lot of guessing games nd 50/50s. The same can be said for gems, but the problem is even worse with gems since you can use multiple gems on the same team (and boost priority moves).
With dmax, the only way to answer it defensively is to dmax yourself which is super restricting
With tera, you can choose whether or not to answer your opponent's tera with your own. There are actually a lot of really interesting uses of tera defensively, and a lot of it helps answer setup sweepers that use tera themselves.
I also think that the decision for OU banning tera shouldn't affect the lower tiers, cause lower tiers may be fine with tera, esp with less setup sweepers. I'm an avid UU player and the setup sweepers that are broken with tera (namely esparatha and hawlucha) are sweepers that, frankly speaking, are broken even if they couldn't tera.
Tera Normal Dnite and Tera Fairy Espathra are incredibly common builds on these mons. Good players will keep these threats in mind during teambuilding and especially during the match, and if it comes down to a final few Mons situation it should become more and more obvious which of your remaining opponent's pokemon are looking to Tera and what the most common Tera types they run are.
That's assuming we gauge whether or not it's broken and / or uncompetitive in expectancy, but we don't have the data to back that up yet. To be honest, we don't have the data to back up whether it's balanced either, so everything is in the air. Tiering policy does state that broken and uncompeititive aspects should be limited / removed, but if you can't determine whether something is broken / uncompetitive or not then it's pointless to debate that. In general yes, you're right, a preferable meta and one without broken / uncompeititve aspects are one in the same per policy. However, I think what Finchinator was referring to was that the suspect test would be used to determine if Terastalization was broken / uncompetitive, not whether it's preferable or not.
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