Announcement SV National Dex Suspect 1: Crystals

[astralydia]

parts of this post robbed from the OU Melmetal Suspect OP

Heya, the National Dex Council has decided to suspect test Terastallization!​

Terastallization is the newest mechanic made by GameFreak for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and on the first day of release it immediately caused controversy throughout the community. With the entire palette of 18 types to choose from, no clear indication of when Terastal will come out, and the fact that STABs are retained when Terastallized on top of having a STAB boost when Terastallizing into the same type, Terastal was immediately put on the radar by several players. However, not everyone felt this way. Especially in later stages of the metagame, there were more and more people who were convinced that Terastal was, perhaps, not all that bad.

[Terastal pro-ban]
The side for pro-ban argues that Terastal's sheer unpredictability and increase in offensive potency makes Pokemon too hard to reliably answer. Additionally, Terastal's insane versatility makes it so that consistency in the metagame is effectively unreachable, making tiering difficult for the future. Most of these players feel that Tera can be random and often wins games too easily.

Some deeper arguments are as follows:

- Several offensive Pokemon can tech uncommon Tera-types to outright turn matchups on their head. Magearna is notably capable of running several viable Tera types to give itself free setup into otherwise counters, meaning that it's even harder to play around setup variants.
- Terastal boosts several Pokemon that would otherwise be fine to nigh-on uncounterable levels - a Pokemon that's recently made news in this regard is Melmetal, which can Tera Steel to 2HKO otherwise would be resists such as Slowbro and Toxapex with Choice Band Double Iron Bash, where it would otherwise need to fish for flinches or predict their switchin to get the same results. Other Pokemon cited are Urshifu-R (somewhat in part due to getting Swords Dance), Kommo-o, Dragonite, Regieleki and Zamazenta.
- Some Pokemon also become a massive pain to answer offensively with Terastal, such as Garganacl and Gholdengo. Gholdengo in particular benefits greatly from Terastal as it makes certain otherwise good hazard removal simply fail to do enough damage to force it out.
- With all of these arguments in mind, it can be argued that Terastal also greatly increases the potency of weather based styles with same-type Tera, making it nigh-on impossible to resist their STABs. Barraskewda has been making waves for this reason, and arguably some of the biggest reasons for Iron Bundle and Palafin's bans were that they could use same-type Tera to overwhelm their answers.
- Many people also feel that the mere threat of Tera is far too much to consider for each turn, making it very difficult to make moves based on the game state, as Terastal could come out and remove a key piece for the game.

[Terastal anti-ban]
The main anti-ban arguments for Tera are the fact that it creates a distinct metagame, being the biggest change from the last generation. Without Tera the metagame strongly resembles the previous iteration of National Dex, with just a few additions and ability changes. While distinction between previous metagame would not normally be something to consider for a suspect test, since this is the generational mechanic and not a Pokemon, we feel it is a factor that should be seriously looked at. The other main argument is that Tera exaggerates metagame diversity, allowing for more sets, more creative teambuilding, and promotes the use of Pokemon which would otherwise be underwhelming or otherwise significantly worse than they are with Tera, such as Annihilape, Garganacle, Dragonite, and Regieleki.

Some deeper arguments are as follows:
- Terastal in general allows for more creative gameplanning and creates more enjoyable games as a result. For example, Terastal is not only capable of making games shorter, but it also makes gameplay feel dynamic whilst speeding up the pace of the game - well designed teams will be able to make more defensive plays and offensive plays because of both the threat and utility of Terastal. Additionally, certain threats that would otherwise just lack offensive or defensive power, such as Garganacl, Barraskewda, Hawlucha, and Quaquaval are enabled greatly by Terastal.
- Most Terastal users do not need to actually be responded to via Terastal, which was one of the biggest issues that players had with Dynamax. Once Terastal is revealed, another player doesn't need to go to strained extents to get counterplay without trading several members of their team or their own Dynamax in a disadvantageous position. For example, a Water Tera Annihilape is fairly easy to deal with with a fast Electric attacker like Tapu Koko, Regieleki or Zapdos, once worn down a little.
- In the cases where it is needed, the player who Terastallizes second usually has more advantage, and the game can continue on as normal.
- There are several cases where Terastal has midgrounds. There are two cases for this - where Terastal is telegraphed, and where Terastal is not very telegraphed. In the first case, Pokemon that have much greater reasons to Tera such as Dragonite are much easier to attack with their Tera-type in mind. Examples are checks like Buzzwole and Iron Hands having good reason to Close Combat a Dragonite.
- On the contrary to the STAB argument. an argument that can be made with the former arguments is that Terastal reduces matchup spread so long as teams have well thought out Tera types. For example, bad matchups into weather playstyles like Rain can be much easier to deal with if your special / physical checks such as Great Tusk, Ting-Lu and Assault Vest Magearna have Water-resistant Tera types.
- Additionally, some argue that Tera types are much like set variation on preview: it's possible to calculate the potential Tera-types on preview just by looking for weaknesses. Some Tera types are also very clear, such as the several superSTAB Teras on offensive Pokemon, Normal Tera on Dragonite, and Ice Tera on Regieleki. Some Tera types can also be deduced by looking into weaknesses of teams - a Chien-Pao may have Electric Tera to lure Dondozo, Toxapex and Urshifu-R, whilst also potentially flipping defensive matchups into mons like Buzzwole, allowing it to break bulkier playstyles much easier.

There are some additional arguments to consider on top of this. An important one is that this is the generation's defining gimmick, and that it should be held in a higher standard compared to Pokemon bans, to avoid the metagame becoming too similar to past generations. Should we remain held by what GameFreak designed for BSS and VGC? Or should we continue down the path we had been forging since Generation 8, moving away from the more influential mechanics that GameFreak has made? The choice is yours to make.

Suspect Test Information:

• Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test. The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 30 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE will suffice.
• The table for this can be found below:

Requisites list

GXE	minimum games
84	30
83.8	31
83.6	32
83.4	33
83.2	34
83	35
82.8	36
82.6	37
82.4	38
82.2	39
82	40
81.8	41
81.6	42
81.4	43
81.2	44
81	45
80.8	46
80.6	47
80.4	48
80.2	49
80	50

• You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be ND9TS. For example, I could sign up as ND9TS Lydia.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.
• We will be using the regular National Dex ladder for this suspect test, and Terastallization will be legal throughout the entire suspect test.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• IMPORTANT: This suspect will not hold a run-off vote. We are exclusively testing for a full Terastal ban, or to keep the status quo.
• The suspect test will go on for roughly two weeks, lasting until December 26that 11:59 pm (GMT-5), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. Here's a list of rules that we expect all posters to follow:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the National Dex Council and the National Dex Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
  • Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.
  • This is not the place to complain about the suspect process. Please PM me or Kaede if you have any questions regarding this, and any broader questions about this test.

Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you.

 

[R8]

This thread will be closed for 24h for everyone to gather their thoughts.

 

[astralydia]

Additional to this, tagging Kris and Marty for suspect functionality on ladder.

 

[Solaros & Lunaris]

Thread freed. And please read the thread rules before posting. Voter Identification thread up as well.

Happy posting!

 

[P McGee]

I've played approximately 200 games on ladder and another couple dozen in room tournaments. While that is still a relatively small sample size, I feel that it has been enough to get some bearings on the Gen 9 NatDex meta and how terastallization factors into the new metagame.

After really diving into the NatDex format over the last week, it is my opinion that the mechanic is not so inherently uncompetitive and broken that we should be removing it from the meta less than 2 months after launch. Dynamax had a similarly short lifespan and was thoroughly less competitive than terastallization. This new mechanic does not necessarily lead to sweeps nor tactical sacking to stop and opponent that just terastallized. I believe it adds an intriguing new dimension into competitive battling and we should not be so quick to throw it away.

It adds new viability to previously mediocre Pokemon and despite the fact that any Pokemon could be any Tera type, we are already seeing some stability on the types that many Pokemon want to be (i.e. normal Dragonite, Water Barraskewda, Fairy Skeledirge). In more competitive play, this mechanic hasn't been unpredictable chaos and many balanced team builds are naturally able to address non-standard Tera forms.

Might the mechanic ultimately be too much and banworthy? Perhaps. However, I just don't believe we have had enough time to definitively say that yet. There are valid counter-arguments to keep terastallization which is much more than Dynamax ever had.

Rather than banning this 2 months in, I'd prefer to see Pokemon specific bans to address some of the excessive power that comes from same type Tera types or further investigation into possible restrictions for the mechanic (the newly raised "Reveal Tera types in team preview" is my personal preference.)

 

[kllkj089h]

Okay so, I conversation I've always wanted to have around tera, and around tiering policies in general is we should do whatever makes the tier the best it can be to suit its goals. I don't know if this means making it the most competitive tier it can be, and I don't know if this means making it the most diverse tier it can be. Personally, I feel like preserving the tier's competitive integrity is what we should aim for, but also it is nat dex, which is a tier because of its own mechanics is plagued with an inherent instability no matter what tiering action we take. If you really want that perfect competitive experience you could make the argument that you should just play a different tier like GSC or something.

Whatever one we choose, however, I feel like it's important to establish a clear sense of direction moving forward on what we as a community want out of this tier. Choosing whether or not to ban tera I feel should be the starting point in choosing our direction, as no matter which one we choose it will drastically impact the tier and future tiering action moving forward.

The way I see it, and I could be wrong so please feel free to correct me if you feel I am, tera right now enables the tier to have its claim to fame, being diversity in the mons being used. Several mons can that were never viable can now be used because of tera, and several new strategies can be used because of the mechanic. It adds a diversity of strategies to the tier and I feel that's a good thing.

However, several mons, particularly offensive but also some defensive mons become very difficult to handle with tera, gaining both offensive and defensive utility thanks to the type shift that can become too volatile to safely stop them. And this always is more impactful to the better more valuable mons to the tier than those cool underutilized picks.

Checking everything in this tier with tera is simply unreasonable for a team of 6 even with tera of your own. Given the combined volatility and strength of many pokemon with tera, it means that several games can just come down to the mu of whether can you check this tera pokemon or not, which completely sacrifices competitive integrity for mu fishing. This in tandem with the overall weakening of bulky pokemon thanks to both teams' increased offense and the pp recovery nerf, means that in the long run, especially many pokemon will make the meta very unstable with tera.

We could ban everything unreasonable with tera, but that limits the diversity we were trying to accomplish with tera in the first place going against our initial goal of tier diversity.

Banning tera removes this issue, but we also ban tera, and a huge tier-defining fun mechanic is lost trying to make the tier more competitively enjoyable.

In short, we have to sacrifice one or the other as keeping both is just not feasible, but whichever one we choose we must be certain as a community it's the one we want, because we are not getting the other back.

 

[AuroraOurania]

I think that the argument of whether or not it can be predicted isn't nearly as significant as the degree of which it breaks existing Pokemon. It can be predicted, although I would argue that the cost of trying to scout for it when the only way to do that is either to have protect on almost every mon, similar to VGC, or to switch to a different or use a move that, should your opponent not terastalize, will put you at a massive disadvantage. This can be argued for Z moves too, but my counterpoint is one that's been said a lot, since even before the games released, which is that z moves take up an item slot, which makes them far more reasonable to scout for. You also can't run a z move unless you have a reasonably strong move for that type, limiting the options for most mons significantly. Z moves also only happen during a single turn, meaning if you predict it right with either offensive or defensive counterplay, the z move will be entirely useless for the rest of the game, while unless you KO the opponent's tera mon in the process of predicting it, it will still have a significant advantage over its normal use for the rest of the game.

The bigger aspect, as I said, is just how many Pokemon become either unwallable, or have the only way to prevent them from setting up being to win a 50/50, in addition to having a mon that can even threaten both their current type and their tera type out at the right time. We can see this with barraskewda. As an easy example, look at it against amoongus, which should be a solid counter that should force it to go for the much weaker psychic fangs to do reasonable damage.

252+ Atk Choice Band Barraskewda Liquidation vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Amoonguss in Rain: 217-256 (50.2 - 59.2%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery

That is using tera water. Because barraskewda has access to close combat (thus allowing it to deal with ferrothorn), and no difficulty fitting that on a set, the only options to wall it are tangrowth and water absorb users, which is extremely limiting. Another example is Dragonite, which can get extremely free setup due to multiscale, combined with the fact that the only type that is supereffective against its most common tera type is resisted by its normal typing, it is very easy for it to ensure that only minimal damage is done on setup, which can give it the ability to either get a second dragon dance off, or to sweep potentially without concern for being unable to pickup an OHKO on a defensive mon, depending on your team. With tera normal extremespeed, its mediocre speed tier preventing it from outspeeding most scarfers is no longer a limiting factor, and it can even afford to invest more in bulk, as it only needs to outspeed mons that can survive a +1 or +2 extremespeed, which are generally fairly slow steel types that never even run scarf, let alone can outspeed or also survive an earthquake or fire punch.

I've only given two examples, so the argument still stands, of why can't we just ban the most dominating users of tera, like what was (to my understanding) done with z moves? My counterpoints to that are twofold: first, I think that too many mons can abuse tera to too strong of a degree, and that the amount of bans that would force onto the tier would be more disruptive than simply banning the mechanic. The second point is a prediction, that if we simply ban the mons that abuse it right now, other mons will take their place. And while people are generally focusing on mons that are allowed to be good that would otherwise be mediocre, there are a great many mons that can abuse tera that are also otherwise good mons, which means that huge parts of the metagame would have to be banned simply because they have access to tera. And since very few offensive mons can't effectively use tera, that would simply mean that games would be at least as, if not more, dominated by tera, than they already are, as any offensive mons that you don't tera will be otherwise far worse mons than your team would be made of if not for tera.

My final point is, with regards to the argument that this is the big generational mechanic, I think it's worth noting that even The Pokemon Company has announced a ruleset change that will, among other things, limit tera by allowing opposing players to know your tera types in official tournaments. That's VGC, so it's a very different format, that doesn't necessarily have much carry over to Smogon Singles, but I do think that it's worth acknowledging this fact.

 

[DerpySuX]

I honestly believe that banning Terastallization would be a huge mistake. This is genuinely one of the most fun, intricate and honestly, healthy mechanics I’ve ever seen. If utilized properly in the team builder and battle, it almost completely eliminates the “matchup loss” problem, without being completely absurd like Dynamax was. Does it push some Pokémon over the edge? Sure, it’s definitely possible (Palafin was one such example), but I think that’s more a sign of those Pokémon in particular being too much in the context of the new game.

Unlike Dynamax, it’s also fairly reasonable to determine what your opponents main Tera mons are during team preview, and even if you’re not totally correct, it’s not like it’s unreasonable to play around. Additionally, Terastallizing does not grant its user any statistical advantages apart from a new STAB type (or a bigger boost if they terastallize into a type they already were), literally nothing else changes. I honestly fail to see how people find this mechanic broken in the slightest, and I’ve really tried to understand it.

I know that this is probably not something that most people will consider, but this is the generation defining mechanic that we’re talking about here, the entire game is based around it. It makes sense that using it wisely would grant the player a tangible advantage, is this not similar to Z-Moves? Sure, they’re different, since Terastallizing is an “infinite” effect, but the biggest impact it has is on the turn you use it.

If terastallization truly must be limited, take the approach VGC has taken, allow the opponents to see each others Tera-types at team preview. In any case, I think that people are simply over reacting to the mechanic. I find it very concerning that it is becoming the norm to simply toss out the generational mechanic because it changes things too much, I understood why it was warranted with dynamax, but this time, I think people just need to adapt. The game is changing, and we can’t keep tossing out such integral parts of the new generations, are we even playing the same game at that point?

 

[adem]

i think so far this thread has had valid posts, some which i disagree with completely, and some which i agree with, but regardless, they are valid, bar the post above, and before i say my thoughts i just want to address some of the points which are either outright not true / invalid.

I honestly believe that banning Terastallization would be a huge mistake. This is genuinely one of the most fun, intricate and honestly, healthy mechanics I’ve ever seen. If utilized properly in the team builder and battle, it almost completely eliminates the “matchup loss” problem, without being completely absurd like Dynamax was. Does it push some Pokémon over the edge? Sure, it’s definitely possible (Palafin was one such example), but I think that’s more a sign of those Pokémon in particular being too much in the context of the new game.

fun for one, is subjective, i and a lot of others do not find it fun at all barring the first 5 minutes when i discovered tera melmetal and before my entire team was 2hkoed by it. i also do not see how the matchup loss problem is eliminated when a lot of the "matchup losses" are due to tera themselves? people lose to tr because melm clicks tera steel and 2hkoes every mon in existence, regardless of resist (yes unfortunately unless you are running rotom wash fat ur tera water anything, ur physdef pex, ur whatever is going to get 2hkoed. u r still losing to trick room. u can run tera water anything unfortunately floatzel is still 2hkoing ur entire team, yes, even ur tera water skeledrige, yes, even ur physdef pex. (i have discovered floatzel is like barra but scarier because u can run ada). barra poses the same issue but less scary defensively more scary offensively. the benefits defensive mons get from tera compared to offensive mons are like night and day, matchup losses are unfortunately still happening, and it is pretty absurd the fact that we have to resort to using our own defensive tera to have cplay to opposing offensive tera, and still be at a disadvantage. palafin is also a horrible example for mons that are pushed to the edge by tera since it is one of the few mons very easily broken without tera too. better example would be like roaring moon and..... yeah that's about it lol. you fail to mention the mons not yet banned which are pushed far and above the edge because of tera, which most likely will get banned or tested in the future if tera stays (eleki, tera-able swift swim users, pult, tbh any mon that is fast and hits hard lol).

Unlike Dynamax, it’s also fairly reasonable to determine what your opponents main Tera mons are during team preview, and even if you’re not totally correct, it’s not like it’s unreasonable to play around. Additionally, Terastallizing does not grant its user any statistical advantages apart from a new STAB type (or a bigger boost if they terastallize into a type they already were), literally nothing else changes. I honestly fail to see how people find this mechanic broken in the slightest, and I’ve really tried to understand it.

you can think its broken or not, that's w/e, but devaluing it to this level is an exaggeration. idk if i have to provide some calcs to you for explanation, but i will just to help u visualise it.


252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Melmetal Double Iron Bash (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 110-132 (36.1 - 43.4%) -- approx. 3HKO
physdef toxapex is a hard check to melmetal, and the fact it misses out on 2hkoes on stuff like this and slowbro means it often ran life orb in gen 8 natdex so that it can click its coverage move to break this and then still click its stab while not missing out on power.
however, with tera:
+1 252+ Atk Metal Coat Melmetal Double Iron Bash (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 148-176 (48.6 - 57.8%) -- approx. 98.8% chance to 2HKO

(metal coat is iron fist, +1 is band, and it has adapt for tera)
with tera band melm is easily much more valuable, since whats the use of switching moves if you can easily just 2hko them without thinking? why would i have to care about potentially predicting pex or whatever switching in so i can hit it with my coverage, why would i have to care about the orb damage if i have to pivot it into something like weavile when i can mindless click my stab

barraskewda is another mon which was very much outclassed by mpert, and rarely ever found a reason to use it on a rain team (and floatzel), simply because the prediction factor in breaking common defensive cores was far too much and generally not worth over other breakers. but why does that matter if now i can 2hko sturdy water resists with my stab in rain after a spike?

damn! its so annoying that my kisspower magearna keeps getting revenge killed by ditto because i mindlessly set up with a healthy ditto behind! oh wait, i can just tera psychic and beat it while beating everything else now!. damn! its so annoying that my last mon is offensive volcarona and i have played horribly that now it is against a scarf tapu fini! oh wait, i can tera grass now so the hydros do 0 and it is now setup fodder! damn! i have played so well with my specs dragapult against this fat team and killed their chansey, their last mon is skeledrige so thank god my efforts of playing well and setting up this end game has been rewarded! oh wait, the skeledrige teraed fairy, and koed me back with hex while i didn't do enough since it is no longer weak to ghost
:(

i think that explains it well enough

I know that this is probably not something that most people will consider, but this is the generation defining mechanic that we’re talking about here, the entire game is based around it. It makes sense that using it wisely would grant the player a tangible advantage, is this not similar to Z-Moves? Sure, they’re different, since Terastallizing is an “infinite” effect, but the biggest impact it has is on the turn you use it.

we banned z moves, idc if this is a random move on one mon or the one thing making sv sv, that really should not be in consideration if its unhealthy to this level. it is not similar to z moves, z moves has the drawback which is no defensive utility provided, takes up an item slot, can be baited since it can be only used once, is set on one mon at the start of the match you cant choose who you want to z move as the match progresses, does not give the benefit throughout the entire match, and is much much much much much more telegraphed and obvious based on team composition and mons, if u played the tier u would realise which mons use z moves and which mons pretty much never do, and they also rarely ever make a niche/bad/mediocre mon to bannable levels (if ever? lol, genuinely cant think of what mons would suck/be mediocre without z moves that are banned in sm or ss nd) , and also rarely ever push an already solid mon to bannable levels (hint: teras does both of these very easily) u have to be insane to compare the two lol.

If terastallization truly must be limited, take the approach VGC has taken, allow the opponents to see each others Tera-types at team preview. In any case, I think that people are simply over reacting to the mechanic. I find it very concerning that it is becoming the norm to simply toss out the generational mechanic because it changes things too much, I understood why it was warranted with dynamax, but this time, I think people just need to adapt. The game is changing, and we can’t keep tossing out such integral parts of the new generations, are we even playing the same game at that point?

hate that i have to rehash this point every time, but unfortunately seeing that the barraskewda is going to tera water or the melmetal is going to tera steel does not help the fact that they 2hko my entire team, seeing the eleki is tera grass or ice doesn't change the fact that if I'm not running spdef ferrothorn / the correct ground type it will blast through my team. i find it concerning that you do not play the tier to any notable level and can make statements like this lol. telling the playerbase to "l2p" basically as some1 who does not play the tier is quite offensive tbh, and not really appreciated. we can keep tossing "integral" parts of new generations, same way we can toss out anything else poorly designed for 6v6 singles national dex generation 9 overused. it is not any more "integral" than any of the new mons, or a lot of other things. this is not a reason to not ban something, just because you arbitrarily think this is what identifies sv as sv.

anyways, that was a bit longer than i wanted it to but, here's my thoughts.

i think tera is an extremely unhealthy mechanic offensively, which provides much much better buffs for offensive users rather than defensive users of the mechanic. there are a myriad of previously perfectly fine mons that are pushed far over the edge with tera (and even most likely will be fine without tera), and more of these mons are getting discovered every day! see: floatzel (broken), and have discovered god espartha too. a lot of mons which are top tier without tera, and pushed even further over the edge with tera (pult, mage, volc). keeping tera will almost definitely into these mons being looked into as an alternative, and potentially even more. surely at this point with these many abusers on both sides of the power spectrum, tera can be recognised as the problem, and once its gone building without these amazing mons on steroids can happen.

i do however very much like defensive tera, and would say its pretty much healthy and would love for it to be kept only, but alas that cannot happen since that's far too subjective of a choice. a lot of the restrictions mentioned in both the ou thread and some here also i think are worthless, we are very very well past the point where people think tera's randomness is an issue, and i hope more people don't bring that up LOL, so no, a teampreview tera wont help as much as u think it will. the meta overall is funnier than i thought it would be (gen 9 as a whole), but tera is still one of the few things making building and playing a pain in the ass.

to clarify, i have gotten reqs, so inshallah that deters some users with a stick up their ass for people who don't spend their life laddering natdex who aim to discredit points with that basis

 

[Aera]

I think the post above outlines my problems with Terastallizing pretty well. Although there is a bit of a surprise factor to which tera type certain Pokemon will have, largely this is not what pushes terastallizing over the edge. Therefore I feel like revealing tera types at team preview will not address the issues terastallizing brings. Does it matter if you know Barraskewda is tera water if it's going to outspeed and 2 hit KO your entire team? Anyways as this suspect seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition, I am in favor of banning terastallizing because its versatility without any opportunity cost is near impossible to consistently handle. The example given by Astralydia in favor of terastallizing, using Close Combat with Buzzwole or Iron Hands on Dragonite, to me speaks volumes. This is because having to rely on predictions to stop threats your Pokemon are supposed to prevent from setting up is never going to be consistent. While I can understand the sentiment of wanting the generation's defining mechanic intact in competitive play, this should not undermine the competitive balance of a tier.

 

[Ryuji]

Alright, it was about time, some could say.

Every person that had a conversation with me or read my posts about terastallization knows pretty well I was always in favor for a ban. The purpose of our council is to make the tier competitively enjoyable and terastallization isn't something that is competitively enjoyable imo, quite the opposite. I don't get why people thinks it alleviate the "match up" part when it clearly does not, as adem explained in his post, but on another part, being prepared to every possible meta tera type is incredibly restricting for your builder, unless you just don't care and go for HO.

As i outlined with an earlier post about tera, even if you can predict someone tera type it doesn't negate the fact it's still a 50-50. Knowing Dragonite is most likely tera normal doesn't negate the fact it's a 50-50 between either he will and i have to click a Fighting move, or he does not tera this specific turn and i have to click an Ice type move. Without tera, much easier, I can click an Ice type move and remove Dragonite. Another example, although it was banned, is Roaring Moon. Without tera, I can just use a Fairy type and problem solved. With tera, I simply can't, because of Steel tera. It's very simply put, but you got the idea. The fact a Pokemon supposely checked by a Fairy type isn't anymore, and thus without any counterpart is wrong. What's also wrong about tera is how strong some Pokemons becomes because of it. Palafin was a good example, and was banned for it, now Melmetal being able to remove every Pokemon from the existence by 2HKOing everything with tera is also wrong.

Z-moves in that regard are totally different, because they have a drawback. It's an held item, much more easier to scout, can be baited, and to predict because of teambuilding. Some could say it's because of game knowledge, something we got because it's been around what, 6 years Z moves exist or smth? Lemme tell you this: no matter how many hours of gameplay you have, no matter how many games you loaded into ladder, no matter how many tournaments you won you won't be able to negate the 50-50 part, you won't be able to scout or bait for a tera the same way you scout or bait for a Z move, because of how tera is free to use and doesn't have any counterpart, and also it last longer than one turn. Only scenarios not rewarding for the tera user are similar to the Dragonite one, and I believe you can play around to avoid them.

I've seen people say that you need to adapt but I don't see how you can adapt to this without extreme restrictions on teambuilding. The "tera is freedom in builder" is completely false, unless you're unaware or don't give a shit about common threads and meta trends while building. Building with tera in mind is extremely painful, to say the least. It's also worth noting this tier has a much larger pool of Pokemon and doesn't have moves cut. Meaning unlike SV OU, Barraskewda still has Flip Turn, Rilla still has Grassy Glide, etc etc...

Even if I think the mech is funny asf offensively speaking, it's still utterly broken and should be removed. I don't think anyone playing competitively wants to see, let's say, an olt final being settled on this type of 50-50, while players level aren't taken in account or less taken. Example, sure, I can have fun with Dynamax, but does that means Dynamax is healthy? Nope, it's not, and even if it's not on the same scale, it's pretty much the same idea. We should focus on competitiveness, as it was always the case before, and not on what we've found enjoyable. If something is broken it should be fixed, and not ignored because it's fun. It's elitist, but at the end it was always how we approach the tiering policy and it should not change. I believe we made the right call while banning Dynamax and I don't think anyone will contest that.

Now about the restriction discussion. To me restrictions won't negate all the cons ive listed. Knowing the tera type of each pokemon is just giving the opposite player a bit more of game knowledge because tera isn't random anymore, there's trends and stuff stronger than other. In fact, I believe this will make even more 50-50, as now when I hard switch a supposed check I need to be more careful because this can lure me or will lure me if not choice locked. The restriction simply negates the need of game knowledge, as for now I don't think I need my opponent to tell me their Dragonite is most likely tera Normal, or that Melmetal will be tera Steel. Sure now I'm certain of it but does that change the 50-50 factor or the fact certains stuff will be broken? Nope, and I don't think banning Melmetal, Barraskewda or Dragonite will solve the issue. It's just ignoring the real problem.

In short, I don't think tera is, was or ever will be even close to be healthy. I can get that people have "fun" with it, but fun and competitive aren't the same thing. Voters should keep that in mind. As for me, a ban is the only right way to deal with tera, and therefore i'm voting Ban.

 

[Payasiko]

Okay, I will give my opinion about this topic.

I see a lot of people complaining about Terastallization, claiming it’s an “unhealthy” mechanic and comparing it to Dynamax, but, in my opinion, they are quite opposite things. While Dyna forces you to use your own Dyna to minimize the damage, there’s no need to do that with Tera, as there are other viable responses to face a terastallized mon.

I know the trend in this tier is to punish creative teambuilders in favour to mechanical players, as most people prefer to play instead of build. I don’t share this way of thinking, but I assume the reality is what it is and it won’t change. However, some of the things that have been said in previous posts are not entirely true and I would like to point out some of them.

First of all, some mons are just OP rn. We are suspecting Tera in a meta with Dragapult, Magearna or Zamazenta, which distorts reality. With this mechanic available, things as Regieleki will be probably banworthy due to his offensive power, but the problem is not the mechanic itself.

Some people say that Z moves have a drawback and Tera doesn’t, which is not true, as you can’t return to your original type once you’ve terastallized. That means you are defensively exposed even if you keep the stab in attack, so you can actually bait a Tera if there’s an advantage there. As it lasts until you faint, the negative counterpart is more durable than simply misreading a Z move.

Was it fair to lose against HP Electric/Fire Greninja, HP Ground Volcarona or HP Ice Tapu Koko? You can argue that those things are not “competitive” at all, as you are not expecting your Pelipper to be OHKOed by Gren. There are even some mons which can use HP as imposter-proof to face Ditto. Hax and RNG moves aren’t fair either, but that’s part of the game.

Finally, most Tera abusers are glass cannons, and you can deal with them with strong priority moves. Melmetal can 2HKO most of the meta, but is OHKOed by Charizard Y and offensive Iron Moth, Volcarona or Heatran. If something like Dragonite is banworthy, it could be done individually.

I think it’s too early to judge a mechanic like this. You can opt for the easy way and ban every novelty instead of adapting your playstyle to fit the new meta, but that way we will never progress. In my opinion, the most sensible thing for the moment is not to ban.

 

[TCTphantom]

Honestly, I personally am in favor of at least attempting to reign Terrastralizing in rather than outright banning it. I hope that the suspect test is not just a binary Y/N vote on Terra because I think there is a lot of nuance and a wide spread of opinions on the matter. I think something like a ranked choice voting system would do this test wonders. Can Terra be frustrating and borderline noncompetitive at times? Sure, in its current state there certainly are issues, primarily in the 50/50s that are broadly going to favor offense. But there are multiple work arounds to handling Terra than outright dropping the ban hammer on the entire mechanic.

I do think Terra has some intrinsic benefits to the tier beyond just novelty or fears that banning Terra would be controversial. I do think that there is some satisfaction to building around Terra, in spite of trends. Sure, some mons will have pretty locked in hard coded Terra types. I doubt you will see Terra Grass Dragonite or Terra Bug Melmental. But it is nice to have another knob to twist and turn in the builder. The mechanic is still in its infancy, we have only had it for less than a month. Sure, some Pokemon like Magearna or Dragapult are scary with Terrastralizing, but they are already scary borderline cases without it. I know that concepts like fun or novelty are often thrown out right away, but I feel like here it is at least worth noting. There is some novelty to having Terrastralizng in the same tier as Megas and Z Moves with all your favorite Pokemon. Should that be at the forefront when we are determining what is balanced and what is not? No. Dragapult is one of my favorite Pokemon but it gets really dumb in National Dex. I loathe playing against Toxapex but it is far from broken. Despite that, I think that just flat out nuking Terra after a month is just a little too hasty for my liking. We do have viable methods to at least attempt to restrain it.

It also is much easier to balance Terra than Dynamax comparatively due to there being more knobs to turn. I have seen the Dynamax comparisons, and I think that they are just not all there. Restricting Dynamax in the same way didn't matter due to the fact it was much less versatile. If I saw a Gyarados or Hawlucha on the other team, chances are they were the Dynamax pokemon on that team. Dynamax was more or less solved within a week of having it: break choice items, use max moves to snowball, win the game. The only reasonable argument to even keep Dynamx in the tier would be to allow Gigantimax forms only, but even then that was at least a little suspect. With Terra, we have far more options to restrict it and test it. Limiting it to one pokemon on the other team does more than it did for Dynamax, you could limit it to STABs, you could show Terra on Team Preview to avoid some of the guesswork, there are multiple options to handle this.

My personal pick would be limiting one Pokemon to terrastralize per team and having its Terra type be known. Limiting Terrastralizing to one single pokemon per team does fix some of the greatest sins that people have with Terra. The stress of dealing with say both a Terra Steel Dragonite and a Terra Steel Melmetal is gone when you only have to deal with one of them. It also puts far more pressure on the builder to maximize the value of their Terrastralize pokemon. You can't just have four solid Terra options and be ready to flip the switch in a worst case scenario. Will there be some hard decisions knowing that that Terra Steel Dragonite is their last mon? Sure, but Pokemon already forces you to make hard reads as early as Team Preview in Gen V onwards or from their lead in the previous gens. It feels bad to lose to a Terra Steel Dragonite when you have to guess if you Ice Beam or not. In my opinion, its just a slightly more extreme version of the 50/50s that already are inherit to Pokemon broadly.

I am hoping that the council does have planned ranked choice voting and the system is not just Y/N Terra, but if it is I hope that we revisit a couple of pokemon that were banned in some part due to the pressure Terra put on checking them. Sure, Genesect and Deoxys Speed are gonna be Geneset and Deoxys Speed no matter the meta, but I do think a few of the banned mons might have some reason to get a revisit if Terra is toast.

 

[EightBitBlitz]

At present, I don't think it needs a ban. Specific mons can be overwhelming, yes, especially offensively. It's a frustrating mechanic to fight, and it requires you to play carefully and have a lot of knowledge about the tier. But simultaneously, it adds another layer of depth and prediction to the tier that I think makes it a lot more inherently interesting. Tera makes it so that many games that would once be previously out of reach are now winnable with the right outplays and knowledge, which, imo, makes the game significantly more fun.

 

[Phyn]

I'll say right away that I dont think Terastalization is a balanced mechanic and that it should not be a part of the natdex metagame.

The MX42 and Payasiko have highlighted how, in their opionion, Tera is an interesting mechanic to play around with in the builder due to the higher number of options that the player is given to play around with.

I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment.

As Ryuji said in his post, the existance of terastalization puts incredible restricions on the builder if the goal is to build a well structured team that has outs in most MUs, and that is simply because there is too much power AND variance in the tier.

The power problem is self explanatory. Just giving adaptability to a mon that was never meant to have it in the first place generates degenerate (hehe) strategies, like Water Tera Floatzel and Barraskewda in rain, Steel Melmetal and Ghost Alolan Marowak in TR, Fight Zamazenta, Ghost Dragapult and many many many more, as Ive only listed the most outrageous examples. These mons are highly restricting on the builder because they force every team to run a few select mons that can actually anser them, since their power is so high that it is straight up impossible to have midground plays vs them. For example, it was previously possible to try to intercept a Barra Liquidation with Ferrothorn, but now its just not a good enough countermeasure. You either have the Tangrowth, the water immune, or you lose. The same goes for Melmetal and Alowak in TR, there just isnt any reliable form of cplay once the TR is set. I remember playing a lot of games in gen8nd against TR with a team that had no defensive answer to CB Melm but still had decent outs due to it carrying Urshifu-RS, Offensive Zapdos and pivot Victini, which could all tank a DIB a threaten a lot of damage back. Such a form of counterplay is completely lost once we factor in Tera, as all the mons I listed above would just be OHKOd. This goes to show how Tera limits forms of counterplay other than having an actual counter in the back. (If a counter even exists)

Now, regarding variance: At the moment, a team is effectively required to check every offensive mon twice. Since every offensive threat might just switch typing at a moments notice, it is necessary to have forms of counterplay to both the base form of the mon and its Terastalized versions, with different typings and additional stab. Garchomp won't be a reliable Volcarona check if it suddenly runs Grass type and resists EQ while being neutral to Stone Edge. Tornadus-T will not be able to answer Annihilape the moment it switches its typing to Water, it will actually just boost its Rage Fist instead.
No Ice Sharding Dragonites. No CCing Kingambits. This forces every team to run a select few mons that can either pressure the Tera threat in both forms, or MU fish.

The way I see it, Tera is not that problematic the moment that u have the threat in front of you in a game, but in the builder, where every single mon and their variations are ready to dismantle your still in-the-works team.
This, as opposed as what the users mentioned at the top of this post said, restricts mons viability as opposed to enhance it, making so only a few incredibly versatile defensive threats can actually have a place in the meta while an incredible number of offensive threats just basically do the same: exploit Terastalization to deliver incredible damage.

The argument that Tera helps more offensive threats to become viable is also against keeping Tera in the tier rather than for keeping it. We've already seen how mediocre mons can just rise to an oppressive status by just abusing the mechanic, like Barraskewda, Floatzel, Regieleki and such. What this seems to suggest is that a previously unviable mon will rise once the most prominent Tera abusers get banned to keep doing the same thing to the tier, which is just 2HKOing everything thanks to its newfound power. I can see Tera Rock Tyrantrum or Dark Hoopa, Grass Kartana, really just sort the mons in the builder from highest to lowest atk stat and any of em should be good enough.

Ultimately, Terastalization encourages players to use degenerate strategies that just dont care about what the opponent is doing like Steel Melm, Tera Rain, or HO, while limiting the viable forms of counterplay for traditional Offense, BO, Balance and Stall way too much.

And if u disagree ur Sulo, and u dont wanna be that guy.

 

[Jho]

It took me about an hour to get reqs, the climb was real easy because no one was really abusing tera properly. Apart from one guy who was using Dark Tera Clodsire to wall set-up Magearnas that man was a scourge.

My thoughts have my mostly been surmised by others in this thread but I also do not believe Tera to be a competitive addition to the metagame. Having each mon on an enemy team need anywhere between 2-18 answers in the builder, but then also not knowing which of the 2-18 answers you will need at any given moment during the battle is the simplest way I can put what is wrong with the Tera mechanic.

Forcing constant guessing games on when a Pokemon will Tera is more egregious on trying to guess what type the Tera is in my opinion, as you can work the latter or at least make an educated guess based on team comp and common sense. Smogon defines uncompetitive as something which renders the more skillful play irrelevant and I do believe that with having to do so much guesswork and a lot of literal 50/50s if Tera doesnt just straight up fall under that category.

Being a better Adaptability isnt even Tera's strongest aspect and I have seen a lot of arguments that are hung up on this point.

I'll be voting ban, if it wasn't obvious.

 

[Weakness Policy Contrary]

In my opinion, Tera is blown out of proportion. A lot of the time most Pokemon will run either one or two tera types at most, and if you can predict a mon changing type, you can easily take advantage of that type's weaknesses. And as Payasiko said, it isn't much different to hidden power at times, even if its only one weak 60 bp move. Almost the entire time, pokemon that utilize tera have glaring weaknesses, like Magearna falling to unaware and Regieleki is able to be walled since it's tera ice moves aren't as strong as you would expect. I am not the best at this stuff, but I just want to say do not ban.

 

[Moyashi]

With this mechanic available, things as Regieleki will be probably banworthy due to his offensive power, but the problem is not the mechanic itself.

How can you say this with a presumably straight face when the mechanics entirely enable a mon with no anti ground coverage to have it and break everything to become arguably broken (after being awful prior).

Some people say that Z moves have a drawback and Tera doesn’t, which is not true, as you can’t return to your original type once you’ve terastallized. That means you are defensively exposed even if you keep the stab in attack, so you can actually bait a Tera if there’s an advantage there. As it lasts until you faint, the negative counterpart is more durable than simply misreading a Z move.

I have seen this argument tried in the regular OU thread and it makes little sense here as it does there. You are not guaranteed to be able to take advantage of the new weaknesses X mon has after it terastilizes. You are not even guaranteed to get an opportunity to try to take advantage of it. There is so very rarely a time when terastilizing has any negative consequence to the user, whereas burning a z move and using it at the wrong time completely changes the user's game. Not to mention the impact of terastilize lasts the whole game.

Was it fair to lose against HP Electric/Fire Greninja, HP Ground Volcarona or HP Ice Tapu Koko? You can argue that those things are not “competitive” at all, as you are not expecting your Pelipper to be OHKOed by Gren. There are even some mons which can use HP as imposter-proof to face Ditto. Hax and RNG moves aren’t fair either, but that’s part of the game.

Finally, most Tera abusers are glass cannons, and you can deal with them with strong priority moves. Melmetal can 2HKO most of the meta, but is OHKOed by Charizard Y and offensive Iron Moth, Volcarona or Heatran. If something like Dragonite is banworthy, it could be done individually.

If I may be blunt, the HP scenarion is a bit disingenous. Those scenarios cannot be compared to tera typing. Those are sets which become standardized and expected, and have ample ways to be built and played around. And RNG/hax is an even worse comparison because these impact both sides equally and are a part of risk management in playing. There is very little, if any, risk to terastilize. It grants a disproportionate advantage to pokemon who can use it to turn what would be anbad match up into an advantage.

Most tera abusers are able to use it to either break through walls that should wall them, or flip bad match ups on their head and counter kill what should be a check. You can list offensive fire types to beat melm all you want but have fun doing so under trick room. And as for Dragonite, it is ENTIRELY made by terastilize. Last gen it was quite frankly awful junk in natdex OU. That in and of itself is telling.

Now then, i also want to add my own thoughts about terastilize. Participating in both natdex ou and sv ou, and playing both tiers has been pretty eye opening to see how different of an impact it makes to have more pokemon options in regards to tera, which is saying something. I think the idea of terastilize being interesting or fun is subjective in the first place and it isn't exactly relevant to discussions of balance about it. Several people have pointed it out already, but the restrictions on building terastilize causes makes it difficult to build teams with enough ways around MUs, due to the level of power and variance. You can't realistically build in a way that is able to handle so many tera abusers, like the varied Volcarona or the absurd Dragapult (who i've seen run tera steel to flip fairy match ups to grab more dragon dance boosts and sweep), while also trying to stand up to same type tera abuse from barraskewda/floatzel, dragapult, melmetal/alolawak, zamazenta... And probably way more that I am forgetting. This is all just considering having to build to handle these threats on top of huge non tera threats. There isn't nearly enough tools to do all this.

What makes terastilize the worst to me though, above all else, is how it undermines the built in balancing brought on by the type chart. Type tends to go hand in hand with stats in balancing a pokemon. Volcarona is a great example. It is a powerful set up sweeper held in check by its typing and weaker physical bulk, making counterplay very identifiable. Bulky grounds can check it and threaten it back, or pokemon like Heatran can impede a potential sweep due to its defensive profile. Volcarona generally can't easily handle these pokemon very easily and thus it has established and accessible counterplay. With terastilize however, such as grass to handle grounds or water/ground for heatran, Volc is able to bypass these checks and thus it loses what was formally reliable counterplay. Other examples like frail attackers such as the now banned Chi-Yu escaping its weaknesses with an appropriate tera typing, or Chien-Pao dodging priority with the right type. To say nothing of other set up sweepers turning checks into set up fodder through tera types.

Tera doing this to mons, in addition to the aforementioned massive injection of power it brings on, it makes me firmly believe Terastilize is not a balanced mechanic for 6v6 singles. And i would like to, for those who have suggested that we'll know which mons tera into what as the metagame settles, direct them to thia point adem made.

and more of these mons are getting discovered every day! see: floatzel (broken), and have discovered god espartha too.

So even if we took action to ban the brokens now, we would probably just see more pop up due to terastilize. Even just plain breakers like tera Kartana or Hoopa or any decently strong breaker normally balanced for the tier, now having their power jacked up to unreasable levels. I do not believe terastilize should remain in the tier if we want it to as balanced and competitive as it can be. And hopefully this wasn't too long.

 

[poop3]

- Terastal boosts several Pokemon that would otherwise be fine to nigh-on uncounterable levels - a Pokemon that's recently made news in this regard is Melmetal, which can Tera Steel to 2HKO otherwise would be resists such as Slowbro and Toxapex with Choice Band Double Iron Bash, where it would otherwise need to fish for flinches or predict their switchin to get the same results. Other Pokemon cited are Urshifu-R (somewhat in part due to getting Swords Dance), Kommo-o, Dragonite, Regieleki and Zamazenta.

Melmetal is a poor example.
When natdex went live the first team I tested was intended to abuse banded DIB Melmetal, and what I found is that Melmetal is far too slow to really say anything about tera.
Under webs, 252+ SpE Melmetal can't outspeed a +nature base 76, so while a tera Steel DIB can certainly pummel resists like Slowbro and Toxapex, Melmetal is going to struggle against faster resists or webs-immune mons like Moltres, Corviknight, and Zapdos. Heatran can be EV'd to always outspeed Melmetal under webs and the Rotoms laugh at both DIB and Thunder Punch.
Meanwhile, all of these Pokemon sans Corv can hit Melmetal back on its weaker SpD stat for neutral damage, which can threaten a 2HKO anyway. And that's just with Jolly, one needs Adamant to be able to 2HKO Slowbro, or else it's a 3HKO.

+1 252 Atk Life Orb Iron Fist Melmetal Double Iron Bash (2 hits) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 164-194 (41.7 - 49.3%) -- approx. 3HKO
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Iron Fist Melmetal Double Iron Bash (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 132-156 (43.4 - 51.3%) -- approx. 2.7% chance to 2HKO
+1 252 Atk Life Orb Iron Fist Melmetal Double Iron Bash (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 146-172 (41.4 - 48.8%) -- approx. 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

If anyting, Melmetal is a clear example of tera not being broken, because this Pokemon with obvious physical bulk and strength but clear drawbacks can't overcome those drawbacks with just more dakka.

Your other examples also conform to the idea that tera is broken on mons, not in general. Zamazenta is an awful Pokemon that becomes quite strong with a tera Steel or Fairy, allowing it to passive-aggressively stall with the ID/BP/Snarl-Crunch/Rest set or basically turn into his sister with banded Play Rough's.

Regieleki is an unholy hellspawn with Ice Tera Blast, being able to 2HKO at worst anything weak to Ice and pivot out of anything it can't kill in one or two hits, doing massive damage anyway with a Volt Switch one can never outspeed.

I haven't faced many Urshifu on the ladder, but Kommo-o is a versatile Pokemon that can viably run a rainbow of offensive sets and a much better ID/BP defensive set than Zamazenta, since Kommo-o has the support moves to take advantage of walling something. This is not a tera issue, this is Kommo-o, a Pokemon with a typing, stat spread and movepool that lets it do whatever it wants and pick its checks.

That said, I don't like the mechanic and I feel it's broken both offensively and defensively.

An offensive sweeper being able to flip types, avoid the revenge kill, KO back and sweep. Say I use Scarf Lele to check the E-speed Dragonite, and it goes Steel instead and sets up another DD. Even if I tera Lele defensively, Lele isn't going to be killing Steel Dragonite with Moonblast or Psychic, and Lele gets OHKO'd by either a +1 EQ or +1 DW. Now there's this +2 Dragonite, under Psychic Terrain, with a +2 EQ and STAB DW. The only counterplay is defense, and specific defensive Pokemon at that (like Slowbro).

You can abuse defensive tera too, like Latias. Tera Poison Latias is immune to EQ, has a rare weakness in Psychic that is the reverse of its natural typing, and now sports a 100% accurate Toxic. Like with Zamazenta, tera Latias has high bulk and speed with narrow counterplay, and the ability to run whatever it wants, whether that's Calm Mind/Stored Power, Future Sight, Roost/Recover or Wish pass.

IMO it's going to be hard to prove tera is broken with a suspect test atm, since it requires mons with a lot of good characteristics (spread, BST, movepool, natural typing) to make an impact. I think you should ban the mons first, and only start a suspect once those specific mons are out of the picture.

 

[Valnir1717]

Let's start by saying that a mechanic has to be incredibly broken (like dyna was) in order to be justifiably banned from NatDex (considering a big part of what makes the format interesting is the convergence of mons and mechanics we never get to see on the Switch games). And while pretty strong, I do not think Tera gets past that line.

I could be convinced for a team preview tera reveal if everyone feels meta is going out of hand because of it, because that way you just make it a "will the gyarados mega" dilemma instead of a "hope your opponent isn't running a suboptimal tera type that just happens to counter you that specific time".

 

[EonDuoLatios]

I feel like one of the points that has yet to be elaborated on when regarding Terastallisation is how Terastalised Pokemon can get past revenge killing attempts with priority attacks.

One of the main ways to check Tera users are by revenge killing them, and aside from outspeeding them, priority attacks are also vital to this effort, since many Tera users are quite fast themselves. However, the Tera users themselves also have priority attacks, and this may lead to a 50/50 scenario where one incorrect guess may lead to a quick loss of the battle. The Tera users I refer to specifically are Chien-Pao and Regieleki, both of which are extremely fast, as well as Dragonite, which can boost its speed with Dragon Dance; thus, it is unfeasible to check them by outspeeding and revenge killing them.

Chien-Pao, Regieleki and Dragonite both carry a priority attack that has +2 priority: Sucker Punch and Extreme Speed. Therefore, the effort against Chien-Pao would become a much deadlier Sucker Punch mind game, given that Chien-Pao is quite strong and also has another, different, priority attack, Ice Shard, that it can use to clean one's team. As for Regieleki and Dragonite, one may try to use Sucker Punch on them from a boosted or Banded Chien-Pao, but would get hit by Extreme Speed, thus rendering the Sucker Punch failed and useless, while if one attempts to use the more powerful Crunch to look for a KO, they may use their own, stronger, STAB attacks to KO the revenge-killer; this is also a deadly 50-50 that has low reward [removing the priority user] but very high risk [getting swept].

Therefore, it can be reasonably said that the suggestion of using revenge killers to put a stop to offensive Terastalisation is flawed; this suggestion can only be used regarding certain Pokemon, such as Annihilape and Espratha, but not other Terastallised Pokemon, such as Regieleki and Dragonite.

As for whether I support banning or not banning Terastalisation as a whole, I have not made up my mind yet; it remains to be seen whether or not I would take part in the suspect test. However, I would like to contribute to this discourse by sharing a few points I feel to be important, in order to continue this conversation and lead it to its logical end. No matter what we, as a whole, believe relating to Terastallisation, we have to remember that the tier is ours, and we have to change it to how we like it.

[Edit: I will not be participating in the suspect test for a few reasons: first of all, school will be starting back up here very soon, and second of all fjaspdhfpsdaijfasd FUCKING LADDER!!!]

 

[AngryPidgeon]

I am an old player and I mostly stick to DPP, so I lack the perspective on some newer mechanics. I have played through all the games though.

I probably wont participate amd vote. I just want to say I dont consider unpredictability to be a compelling argument in favor of banning. The whole point of a large Pokemon pool and movepool is to encourage unpredictability. Having to make tough calls about your opponents team and move is part of the game, and thats a good thing.

What would be bad is if Tera caused certain sweepers to be unstoppable and avoid revenge kills. If the Tera mechanic forces certain pokemon and counters to be ran, shrinking the overall viable useable pokemon, that would be bad for the meta. It should be the point of a test to confirm whether or not that is happening.

 

[Kyo]

My current thoughts on Tera now that I've finished my suspect reqs:

The main goal of tiering decisions, generally speaking, is to create the most skill-based metagame possible while removing the least amount of variety and player choice in the process. With that said there's only so much you can do to achieve this in an inherently random game like Pokémon, and everyone has their own opinions on what actually constitutes a skill-based meta.

When it comes to generational mechanics (see Dynamax, Z Moves, Megas) that directly buff a Pokémon in some way, Smogon tiering has always reached a point where it needed to choose one of two paths to take. If the mechanic feels too overbearing as a whole (Dynamax), then it gets banned entirely. If the mechanic only has some broken elements (Z Move Magearna, Mega Salamence), then those broken elements are targeted for a ban and the mechanic can hopefully be preserved. It's a difficult decision to make because generally the second choice will have far more collateral damage on the meta when you have to ban a dozen different abusers of the mechanic which would otherwise not be broken. On the other hand, there's a lot of value in preserving a generational mechanic when possible as this is a large part of what gives tiers their separate identity.

The way I see it, Tera in its current state is simply not balanced. I want to place extremely heavy emphasis on "in its current state" because there are quite a few things that I do love about Tera, and I'm not going to sit here and act like it doesn't have some fun and creative applications. Unfortunately, these use cases are mostly overshadowed by poor balancing decisions on the part of the Pokemon devs. By far my biggest complaint with Tera is that the ability to Terastalize into your own type and receive an additional 1.5x boost on an already STAB move is utterly absurd and broken, not to mention how it stacks with choice items. I personally enjoy how Tera can be used defensively to alter a Pokémon's checks and counters, but nine times out of ten I don't even bother doing that because why the f*ck would I when choiced Tera dark Chien Pao or Tera fire Victini can 2hko their "counters" with a resisted attack offering way more value in just about every match. OU is doing their own Tera suspect currently and for some insane reason, one of the proposed solutions is limiting Tera to only STAB types. Uh... ??? On the contrary, I almost feel like banning Tera from STAB types would fix most of the problem although there would still be some mons that need to be considered for a separate ban (looking at you, Tera ice Regieleki).

As things stand, I plan on voting ban on Tera. However, I would really like to preserve this mechanic in a way that isn't going to have a totally degenerative effect on the metagame. There have been some good suggestions in the OU thread like limiting to one Tera user per team which I would probably support. I am hoping that if/when OU reaches a consensus, we can revisit Tera and maybe take a similar approach.

 

[DerpySuX]

i think so far this thread has had valid posts, some which i disagree with completely, and some which i agree with, but regardless, they are valid, bar the post above, and before i say my thoughts i just want to address some of the points which are either outright not true / invalid.


fun for one, is subjective, i and a lot of others do not find it fun at all barring the first 5 minutes when i discovered tera melmetal and before my entire team was 2hkoed by it. i also do not see how the matchup loss problem is eliminated when a lot of the "matchup losses" are due to tera themselves? people lose to tr because melm clicks tera steel and 2hkoes every mon in existence, regardless of resist (yes unfortunately unless you are running rotom wash fat ur tera water anything, ur physdef pex, ur whatever is going to get 2hkoed. u r still losing to trick room. u can run tera water anything unfortunately floatzel is still 2hkoing ur entire team, yes, even ur tera water skeledrige, yes, even ur physdef pex. (i have discovered floatzel is like barra but scarier because u can run ada). barra poses the same issue but less scary defensively more scary offensively. the benefits defensive mons get from tera compared to offensive mons are like night and day, matchup losses are unfortunately still happening, and it is pretty absurd the fact that we have to resort to using our own defensive tera to have cplay to opposing offensive tera, and still be at a disadvantage. palafin is also a horrible example for mons that are pushed to the edge by tera since it is one of the few mons very easily broken without tera too. better example would be like roaring moon and..... yeah that's about it lol. you fail to mention the mons not yet banned which are pushed far and above the edge because of tera, which most likely will get banned or tested in the future if tera stays (eleki, tera-able swift swim users, pult, tbh any mon that is fast and hits hard lol).


you can think its broken or not, that's w/e, but devaluing it to this level is an exaggeration. idk if i have to provide some calcs to you for explanation, but i will just to help u visualise it.


252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Melmetal Double Iron Bash (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 110-132 (36.1 - 43.4%) -- approx. 3HKO
physdef toxapex is a hard check to melmetal, and the fact it misses out on 2hkoes on stuff like this and slowbro means it often ran life orb in gen 8 natdex so that it can click its coverage move to break this and then still click its stab while not missing out on power.
however, with tera:
+1 252+ Atk Metal Coat Melmetal Double Iron Bash (2 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 148-176 (48.6 - 57.8%) -- approx. 98.8% chance to 2HKO

(metal coat is iron fist, +1 is band, and it has adapt for tera)
with tera band melm is easily much more valuable, since whats the use of switching moves if you can easily just 2hko them without thinking? why would i have to care about potentially predicting pex or whatever switching in so i can hit it with my coverage, why would i have to care about the orb damage if i have to pivot it into something like weavile when i can mindless click my stab

barraskewda is another mon which was very much outclassed by mpert, and rarely ever found a reason to use it on a rain team (and floatzel), simply because the prediction factor in breaking common defensive cores was far too much and generally not worth over other breakers. but why does that matter if now i can 2hko sturdy water resists with my stab in rain after a spike?

damn! its so annoying that my kisspower magearna keeps getting revenge killed by ditto because i mindlessly set up with a healthy ditto behind! oh wait, i can just tera psychic and beat it while beating everything else now!. damn! its so annoying that my last mon is offensive volcarona and i have played horribly that now it is against a scarf tapu fini! oh wait, i can tera grass now so the hydros do 0 and it is now setup fodder! damn! i have played so well with my specs dragapult against this fat team and killed their chansey, their last mon is skeledrige so thank god my efforts of playing well and setting up this end game has been rewarded! oh wait, the skeledrige teraed fairy, and koed me back with hex while i didn't do enough since it is no longer weak to ghost
:(

i think that explains it well enough



we banned z moves, idc if this is a random move on one mon or the one thing making sv sv, that really should not be in consideration if its unhealthy to this level. it is not similar to z moves, z moves has the drawback which is no defensive utility provided, takes up an item slot, can be baited since it can be only used once, is set on one mon at the start of the match you cant choose who you want to z move as the match progresses, does not give the benefit throughout the entire match, and is much much much much much more telegraphed and obvious based on team composition and mons, if u played the tier u would realise which mons use z moves and which mons pretty much never do, and they also rarely ever make a niche/bad/mediocre mon to bannable levels (if ever? lol, genuinely cant think of what mons would suck/be mediocre without z moves that are banned in sm or ss nd) , and also rarely ever push an already solid mon to bannable levels (hint: teras does both of these very easily) u have to be insane to compare the two lol.



hate that i have to rehash this point every time, but unfortunately seeing that the barraskewda is going to tera water or the melmetal is going to tera steel does not help the fact that they 2hko my entire team, seeing the eleki is tera grass or ice doesn't change the fact that if I'm not running spdef ferrothorn / the correct ground type it will blast through my team. i find it concerning that you do not play the tier to any notable level and can make statements like this lol. telling the playerbase to "l2p" basically as some1 who does not play the tier is quite offensive tbh, and not really appreciated. we can keep tossing "integral" parts of new generations, same way we can toss out anything else poorly designed for 6v6 singles national dex generation 9 overused. it is not any more "integral" than any of the new mons, or a lot of other things. this is not a reason to not ban something, just because you arbitrarily think this is what identifies sv as sv.

anyways, that was a bit longer than i wanted it to but, here's my thoughts.

i think tera is an extremely unhealthy mechanic offensively, which provides much much better buffs for offensive users rather than defensive users of the mechanic. there are a myriad of previously perfectly fine mons that are pushed far over the edge with tera (and even most likely will be fine without tera), and more of these mons are getting discovered every day! see: floatzel (broken), and have discovered god espartha too. a lot of mons which are top tier without tera, and pushed even further over the edge with tera (pult, mage, volc). keeping tera will almost definitely into these mons being looked into as an alternative, and potentially even more. surely at this point with these many abusers on both sides of the power spectrum, tera can be recognised as the problem, and once its gone building without these amazing mons on steroids can happen.

i do however very much like defensive tera, and would say its pretty much healthy and would love for it to be kept only, but alas that cannot happen since that's far too subjective of a choice. a lot of the restrictions mentioned in both the ou thread and some here also i think are worthless, we are very very well past the point where people think tera's randomness is an issue, and i hope more people don't bring that up LOL, so no, a teampreview tera wont help as much as u think it will. the meta overall is funnier than i thought it would be (gen 9 as a whole), but tera is still one of the few things making building and playing a pain in the ass.

to clarify, i have gotten reqs, so inshallah that deters some users with a stick up their ass for people who don't spend their life laddering natdex who aim to discredit points with that basis

I honestly really appreciate this deconstruction of my thoughts. Really put into perspective for me how different the regional and national dex formats are. I completely forgot that Melmetal existed and how crazy that thing is. The consensus around ND tera actually makes a ton more sense now. Thank you :)

 

[hidin]

Decided to make a YouTube video on my opinions about Terastallization, so here you go! Feel free to watch it! There is also some coverage on Pokemon in the metagame, so if you're interested in listening to that be sure to watch the whole thing in full!