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Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
As the 2024 National Dex circuit progresses, our latest community survey has shown large and concerning drops to player enjoyability (to 6.1 out of 10, down 0.86 from the previous survey) and balance (to 5.53, down 1.64) within the current metagame. Voters ranked the Terastallization mechanic at 6.78 out of 10 in terms of uncompetitiveness, the highest from a shortlist that includes Ogerpon-Wellspring at 3.34 out of 5 and Kyurem at 3.09, among others. Following a National Dex council vote, we are once again launching a suspect test of Terastallization.
This unprecedented third test of Scarlet and Violet's generational mechanic has quite a bit of history and related tiering action behind it. Over a year has passed since the last suspect test in June 2023, and almost two years since the first suspect test near the beginning of this generation, and Tera narrowly survived the vote in bothinstances. An extremely substantial change a few months after, the release of DLC2 in December 2023, brought with it a number of Pokemon that quickly became A-tier and S-tier in the Viability Rankings, if not outright banned. Several suspects have occurred since, with Zamazenta, Darkrai, and Gouging Fire all departing the tier; in addition, Kingambit, Dragapult, Sneasler, and Gholdengo were also voted out in the period between the first suspect test and release of DLC2.
Yet Raging Bolt, Iron Crown, Archaludon, and other DLC2 Pokémon remain as extremely viable options for Hyper Offense archetypes, significantly contributing to the low metagame balance score from the survey cited above. Beyond those, Ogerpon-Wellspring is a notorious abuser of offensive Tera, and rather than suspecting this repeat offender, we have decided to target the mechanic with the funny hats (Tera) as the core issue threatening metagame stability and player enjoyability.
The arguments against Terastallization are well-known at this point. By changing type once per match, a Pokémon team can flip would-be checks and counters on their heads, into a favorable matchup for the Tera user. While not entirely unpredictable or unplayable, Tera often grants its user a large momentum boost that is difficult to catch up to. Moreover, the sheer flexibility of Tera to change matchups makes game plans harder, and a growing body of evidence from tournament play suggests Hyper Offense best capitalizes on this mechanic, reducing the balance of the metagame. Supporters of Tera may enjoy the dynamicism of Tera-boosted gameplay, or argue that the metagame simply has a different point of stability than other generations. Needless to say, this vote has potential to go down as one of the most consequential in National Dex OU history, and the result is up to you.
NOTE: THIS TEST WILL BE USING A NEW SUSPECT PROCESS!
The instructions to participate in this test are as follows:
Create a new account OR use an existing one with no SV National Dex OU games played (resetting W/L does not count for this - the account you use must never have played National Dex OU before the test, full stop.) You do not have to follow any specific naming convention, but your suspect account must have never played a game in National Dex OU before this suspect test went up or you will not receive valid requirements.
At any point on your new account, use the command /linksmogon on Pokemon Showdown! You will receive instructions on what to do once you run this command.
If you want to double check your account eligibility after following these instructions; play at least 1 game on the account, then run the /rank command on that account. You should see a field on the far right that reads "Suspect Test Eligible?"
If this field says "No" then you have either not set up the account correctly or need to use a different/new account. You do not need to complete your entire reqs for this field to say "Yes"
After you believe that you have achieved reqs, double check that you're listed as a voter here! If you aren't listed as a voter despite having valid reqs, please contact Kyo, sealoo, or a member of staff.
If you have any questions about this new process, feel free to PM me or post here!
Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted.
We will be using the regular National Dex ladder for this suspect test, and Terastallization will remain 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.
The requirement to vote in this suspect test is a COIL value of 2950. The suspect test will go on for roughly two weeks, lasting until November 17th at 11:59pm GMT-4, and then the voting thread will be put up in the Blind Voting subforum.
This thread will open after 24 hours to allow all users to share and discuss their thoughts on this suspect test. We expect all posters to follow the following rules:
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.
You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the hypotheticals 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 Pokémon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokémon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it. "I told you so" arguments on their own also contribute little to the discussion without supporting evidence and are rather unwelcomed.
This is not the place to complain about the suspect process. Please PM Kyo or sealoo if you have any questions regarding this, and any broader questions about this test.
Keep in mind that the outcome of our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote and voice their opinion.
As I alluded to in this post, the topic of revamping the reqs we use has been a discussion among tier leaders for several weeks now, and this is what we've decided to do to try to fix the issues various tiers have with suspect requirements. We are bringing back COIL for tiers that opt-in to it.
Before going into what COIL is, I'd like to specify some of the assumptions we make about what a good system for suspect requirements looks like.
1) It should demonstrate comprehension of the element being suspect tested.
2) It should be entirely meritocratic. There should not be any...
Would also like to remind everyone that any kind of racist remarks (whether it's a full-blown rant or a snarky jab) at the Chinese community will not be tolerated - you will be infracted for such offences. Please use common sense regarding a community from a country with 1.3 billion people.
Yes I just clickbaited a Smogon forums post. I, like many other people, thought banning the culprits of what made Tera broken like Roaring Moon and Sneasler (that one was probably broken regardless) was pointless and just removing Tera from the equation would solve all the problems the tier had with balance.
Now, I will be Tera's biggest defender. Addressing some of the arguments against it in the main discussion thread.
From CappyThePulpy, "HO is broken"
Yes, Tera fundamentally breaks HO, turning certain checks/counters to Pokemon into setup fodder or just a straight up OHKO. But it isn't like it doesn't work both ways. Defensive Pokemon are also able to Tera out of bad matchups and if a team is properly built it will have ways to respond to even the worst onslaughts HO has to offer. And obviously HO generally requires less skill to pilot, that fact will be true regardless of the existence of Tera, but a well constructed balance team into an HO team is arguably much easier to pilot, since there isn't any counterplay HO really has if there's a core that nothing can reasonably break through.
From ToxicAriados, "It's just too game-warping"
Yes. The central mechanic of a game will be game-warping for any tier. And that sentiment does increase in validity the stronger Pokemon get since it's much harder to deal with an Iron Valiant than a Crustle, for example. This argument worked a couple years ago because it was new and scary, but now that it's been years and the meta is more settled any shifts are just evolutions to the meta, and constant evolution to a tier is not only healthy, it's really cool to see.
From awyp, "I don't play this tier, but I will get reqs regardless"
I'm a serial tier tourist, not having a single tier I would say I play consistently but come on now. If this is a serious sentiment and not a joke, which is totally possible, to shake up a tier this much just because you're a vengeful hater of Tera is pretty slimy. And this is something that I see a lot and I know for a fact that at least some people are serious.
And I'm sure there are more NatDex specific arguments against Tera but "I hate Tera, Tera breaks HO, and it's overcentralizing" are the big 3 that I see throughout many different formats and in the short time this suspect has been up those have already been presented so wanted to address a counterargument to those, felt like the most productive way to argue.
I think trying to view Tera in a competitive light (in play, in builder, etc.) is always going to lead to arguments and disagreements, so what I'm basing my vote off of is how National Dex can be tiered without Tera. For the past two years the council has been tiering with Tera around and trying to work around things to try and make out a balanced, and healthy metagame with the mechanic. However, from what I've seen as a council member and NatDex community member from the start of the generation is that there has never been a point in the meta where a majority was content. Even after dealing with Pokemon like Kingambit, Gholdengo, and Zamazenta who caused significant metagame changes along with other oppressive Pokemon like Dragapult, Baxcalibur, and Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, there's an never-ending call for more and more tiering action that will go down a slippery slope until we have meta staples gone (i.e. Raging Bolt, Dragonite, Tapu Lele) which, whether you like it or not, will cause a decrease in the metagame quality and truthfully will "solve" problems until a new one magically spawns out of the blue. This has been ongoing for two years straight and to me personally it's pretty sad to see the tier I've spent quite some time on contributing to and playing be left in a state of unresolve because of just one mechanic. I can't seem to find anyone who can counter this opinion when it comes to Tera being unenjoyable to tier because unsurprisingly, most of it is objective. Tournament players usually don't enjoy, metagame surveys enjoyment and balance has always been at a low or slightly average median, and the fact that Tera has been twice and there is still complaints about it should go to show no one is truly content with this tier.
The solution for this is banning Tera to start tiering more productively and to do things right for this metagame. I'm not concerned about the aspects of if it's broken or not (it's not a skill issue at all) as I've been dealing with it for two years and am pretty desensitized to that. But in conclusion, for the sake of tiering a good metagame and trying to achieve the basic rule of all metagames featured on Smogon, I think Tera should be banned from National Dex OU. It is very unpleasant to think of the future if we let it stay.
Yes I just clickbaited a Smogon forums post. I, like many other people, thought banning the culprits of what made Tera broken like Roaring Moon and Sneasler (that one was probably broken regardless) was pointless and just removing Tera from the equation would solve all the problems the tier had with balance.
Now, I will be Tera's biggest defender. Addressing some of the arguments against it in the main discussion thread.
From CappyThePulpy, "HO is broken"
Yes, Tera fundamentally breaks HO, turning certain checks/counters to Pokemon into setup fodder or just a straight up OHKO. But it isn't like it doesn't work both ways. Defensive Pokemon are also able to Tera out of bad matchups and if a team is properly built it will have ways to respond to even the worst onslaughts HO has to offer. And obviously HO generally requires less skill to pilot, that fact will be true regardless of the existence of Tera, but a well constructed balance team into an HO team is arguably much easier to pilot, since there isn't any counterplay HO really has if there's a core that nothing can reasonably break through.
From ToxicAriados, "It's just too game-warping"
Yes. The central mechanic of a game will be game-warping for any tier. And that sentiment does increase in validity the stronger Pokemon get since it's much harder to deal with an Iron Valiant than a Crustle, for example. This argument worked a couple years ago because it was new and scary, but now that it's been years and the meta is more settled any shifts are just evolutions to the meta, and constant evolution to a tier is not only healthy, it's really cool to see.
From awyp, "I don't play this tier, but I will get reqs regardless"
I'm a serial tier tourist, not having a single tier I would say I play consistently but come on now. If this is a serious sentiment and not a joke, which is totally possible, to shake up a tier this much just because you're a vengeful hater of Tera is pretty slimy. And this is something that I see a lot and I know for a fact that at least some people are serious.
And I'm sure there are more NatDex specific arguments against Tera but "I hate Tera, Tera breaks HO, and it's overcentralizing" are the big 3 that I see throughout many different formats and in the short time this suspect has been up those have already been presented so wanted to address a counterargument to those, felt like the most productive way to argue.
1. just because defensive pokemon can tera does not mean it’s balanced. when you tera, you gain an entirely new typing(which is good for both defense and offense), but you also gain a new STAB from that typing, and if it’s same typing you gain a straight permanent 2X stab boost. in actual balanced mechanics such as Z moves and Megas, it required giving up an item slot or it being a one time/limited boost, but tera has effectively no cost/return and doesnt offer anything valuable defensively besides changing your typing.
252 SpA Choice Specs Tera Fighting Iron Valiant Focus Blast vs. 248 HP / 48 SpD Toxapex: 132-156 (43.5 - 51.4%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
2. it’s completely reasonable for a generational mechanic to change the way a game plays, i agree, but terastallization changes the game entirely in a competitive aspect. it denies consistency as a whole, and doesnt guarantee that the more skilled player wins.
of course, that isnt the whole reason why i personally would ban tera, but because of the nature of this mechanic it causes mons that would otherwise be healthy for the tier to be not. a good example is kingambit(some people still think this is broken without tera but its a good example nonetheless), a dark/steel should never be able to beat bulky fighting types like great tusk, but alas tera simply allows it to change its typing at will with no drawback to overwhelm those checks. this would never be a balanced mechanic from a competitive standpoint, but its actually holding up better than it should be(nevertheless i still think its unhealthy)
3. the reason why awyp made that post was because of kin+ak’s post, which mentioned the reasoning behind keeping tera for them was to make more niche playstyles, such as trick room, semi-viable(they doubled down and started pulling gorebyss calcs so im not convinced of their opinion thus far). in my opinion, it’s a weak argument at best, and keeping tera just “for fun” or for “creativity” isnt a good argument when its a detriment to the tier as a whole. unfortunately people’s perception of fun is subjective
Tera isn't broken in my opinion, this "tera is the problem" ship has to sink because it rings as "skill issue" more than having real grounds to it, I do not think it should be tested a third time nor that it's done for good reasons, and finally that a third test is a really big middle finger to the national dex community, because it got saved twice.
I put my thoughts in more details below, I won't bother read or reply to whatever people think of its, it's my thoughts and they probably won't change. If you feel offended by some lines then sorry but that's just genuinely what i think.
I didn't even think i would write something about this, mainly because i'm done with investing myself, but this suspect is legit one of the biggest jokes I've seen. I think it's incredibly disrespectful to suspect something a third time after people saved it, and it comes from the guy that pushed for the previous 2 suspects and was the most pro-ban in the first place. I also don't believe tera in itself is that big of a problem anymore, it's been 2 years in, we got used to it, and i don't think there's any like random aspect to it. The big issue in my opinion that makes this tier awful isn't particularly due to tera but more how it got tiered. If we look at what got nuked over the year you'd notice most of the guys that got banned fixed a lot of things in the builder. Gholdengo was able to patch a fuckton of match ups, and it was even prior T-Wave sets were a thing. Same can be said about Zamazenta. And don't get me wrong, I don't believe council made a blatant mistake by pushing for a suspect, nor the community did, altho I still heavily disagree with Zama getting nuked but thats another topic. So if we ban the guys that were able to slow down certain threats (ie: kyurem/lele for ghold and darkrai/waterpon/gouging for the second) obviously said threats are gonna be awful to deal with, like we've seen with Darkrai (altho guy was a problem even with zamazenta, but banning its best check/revenge killer isnt great). Point is, we committed to do tiering a year ago with tera in mind when it wasn't banned, and we were taking steps in that direction with the bans we made. If the tier looks awful now then maybe we should keep taking steps in the same direction instead of doing a full 180 turn. Again, this is not a shot at council, i believe the decisions were right for the most part, we just need to keep pushing.
I genuinely don't believe tera is that broken/overcentralizing or that it makes HO broken fundamentaly more broken than anything. If I'm being fully honest this just rings as a big "skill issue" to me, in the sense that it's been 2 years, we've played with tera in mind for 2 years, not it's time to either get a grip at how to play the game or move on. If you still think it's a skill-less mechanic, that doesn't reward anyone but the guy that clicked a random button, then I genuinely want to know if you ever played the game, during these 2 years. It does induce skill, it's a ressource you need to manage, and a ressource you must choose correctly while building. Tera also have drawbacks, despite what people might think. Choosing to tera one mon means you can't tera any others, and you're also sacrificing what your mon can check to check something else. While it seems like nothing, in reality it can change games. A wrong clicked tera, either on a wrong mon or a wrong turn, can lose you a game, and the opposite is true. Point is, Tera induce skill, to different levels, wether it's in the builder or in game. Its part of the game we play, denying and/or saying it's just "random" is a massive cope.
Now while i do get the appeal of trying to imagine what could've been or what could be if tera was nuked, i also don't believe it's done in full honesty. Mons like Gambit/Ghold/Baxca will still remain broken, same for like BloodMoon or Sneasler. The only mons that were outright banned dude to tera are Regieleki, Melmetal and Espathra, rest were just busted with or without it. The main Gouging Fire set that got it nuked doesn't even use Tera, same for Dragapult. I don't believe the tier will magically get insanely better once tera is banned, first because you'd have to do tiering all over again, second because another batch of mons is coming "fairly" soon with the new legend game, which means more tiering, and third of all because it's not because "now i know x checks y" that the tier is gonna be enjoyable. I invite you to play swsh LC, after vullaby got banned x would still check y and yet the tier was miserable to play. While 1 and 2 can just strike as "well we don't know because it's gonna take some times", well that's the point: we don't know, and we can't know. Point i'm trying to make here is, this is not how we do tiering. Banning something because we can imagine how the tier is gonna look like isn't how it's done. And same is when it comes to the fun part. Tiering has always been done over the aspect of competitivity. So the question is: is it broken? is it not? If it is you ban it, if it isn't you dnb. End of the story. And that's the question people must ask themselves. If people thinks it's the wrong approach then blame the policy. To me, it's not broken, i don't believe it's overcentralizing, i just think the tier is in a poor state and this isn't the solution.
In short, I'm voting DnB and I encourage people to do the same.
One minor point I will contend per Ryuji's post is that the last time we had Legends mons introduced, they weren't included in the gen's NatDex meta due to not being transferrable via HOME.
For clarity, the new Hisuian Pokemon available with the release of Pokemon Legends: Arceus will not be available for use in National Dex. This is because these Pokemon cannot be transferred into any main series Pokemon game. This is subject to change if PLA and SS are compatible through Pokemon Home in the future. Any other new additions or mechanics changes will not affect National Dex either.
Yes, Tera fundamentally breaks HO, turning certain checks/counters to Pokemon into setup fodder or just a straight up OHKO. But it isn't like it doesn't work both ways. Defensive Pokemon are also able to Tera out of bad matchups and if a team is properly built it will have ways to respond to even the worst onslaughts HO has to offer. And obviously HO generally requires less skill to pilot, that fact will be true regardless of the existence of Tera, but a well constructed balance team into an HO team is arguably much easier to pilot, since there isn't any counterplay HO really has if there's a core that nothing can reasonably break through.
Expanding on boppydop´s point, you fail to account that a defensive terastalization has an inherent demerit in a way that offensive tera does not have. For example, if I decide to terastalize my Toxapex into a dragon type it will never be able to check an iron valiant again in that game, losing Toxapex´s initial defensive value, whereas if I terastalize my iron valiant into an electric type it keeps its stab while also gaining a third one. It is not unreasonable at all for a team to be built in a way that pokemon A forces the opposing defensive pokemon to terastalize to a specific type that benefits its teammate. For example an Urshifu can force a Corviknight to terastalize into a water or dragon type so that its teammate Kyurem can break through it significantly more easily. Also, while stall teams are alright currently since HO can´t just use Gouging Fire+Ogerpon-W and win pretty much instantly, fatter balances have never been more useless, they simply cannot defensively cover even half of the tier and their lack of tournament usage and success is proof of that.
Yes. The central mechanic of a game will be game-warping for any tier. And that sentiment does increase in validity the stronger Pokemon get since it's much harder to deal with an Iron Valiant than a Crustle, for example. This argument worked a couple years ago because it was new and scary, but now that it's been years and the meta is more settled any shifts are just evolutions to the meta, and constant evolution to a tier is not only healthy, it's really cool to see.
Your argument is based off the idea that the tier is evolving in a healthy way, which it is not. There has been constant suspect tests since the tiers inception, and when there is not a suspect ongoing there were real complaints about multiple pokemon, currently those being Dragonite and Kyurem. And no this is not a skill issue, these are concerns raised by many top players with an abundance of replays to support these complaints. The years that have passed since the metagame´s inception have not served to invalidate this argument, but rather to prove it seeing as the tier has not reached a modicum of stability in its entire existence, low and declining stats in surveys for both balance and enjoyment are proof of this.
Ok I keep running into a scenario which I think perfectly sums up the issue with tera:
Mmedi vs dragonite, both at full hp, fake out is available
You are on the side with mmedi. What do you do?
a) fake out + ice punch will ko the dragonite (no tera)
b) fake out + close combat will ko tera normal dragonite, regardless of the turn when it teras
c) fake out + zen headbutt, the play which covers both type options will not ko either, so you have to end the job with something like a rocky helm (and risk eating a zmove, the dragonite doesnt even have to be tera)
Option A is the obvious interaction. The dragonite should never be able to set up in the face of mmedi
Option B is rewarding if you properly predict tera. However, where does the “skill” come into play here? What is the “skill issue”? There is no info which you can use to justify one option or the other. It is, as far as the problem presented, a pure 50/50.
However, the dragonite doesnt even have to be tera. It can run a zmove. The existence of this mechanic breaks an obvious matchup, doesnt even matter if the mechanic can or is used. Ice punch into a dragonite can suddenly backfire even though you did your job properly. The “skill” is that you got medi in on dragonite, you are threatening an ohko with a faster mon, so it cannot setup. Unless it teras and gives a big extreme speedy middle finger to your skill.
Now, your argument might be that if it teras you can use your own tera to stop it. And what do you have then? An equal trade. Tera for tera and dragonite for medi. An equal trade which should not have happened, that dragonite should switch or die.
THIS is the problem with tera. If your opponent teras to start a sweep, you can tera to stop it. Yes, but that sweep shouldnt have started in the first place. You played how you were supposed to, that dragonite should get nothing out of the interaction. I think you can look at this as a broken checks broken case.
Of course, not everything is in a vacuum. You can argue that trading tera puts someone in a better position, or that the tera use is obvious, or this and that. But with 5-6 mons to tera, on average 2 somewhat viable tera types per mon, and the reward of boosting and starting a sweep if your opponent gets the tera wrong, how much of it is skill and how much is it luck / matchup fish? Against a tera-available setup sweeper, you have to account for tera on EVERY SINGLE TURN. Otherwise you may just lose. Meanwhile your opponent can click dd and call it skill if you predict the tera wrong.
Feel free to go through ndpl games and find some real scenarios instead of this vacuum situation. Watch a replay and ask yourself “what if tera” on every single turn and see if you can spot the correct play, and judge the risk/reward difference between the obvious “tera case” and “no tera case” plays.
Why does it “break” HO? Well, mons like volcarona (banned in svou) and dragonite have been notorious with how they can run away with the game if they get a free boost. Now they have it at the click of a button (or they may run zmove and laugh at you trying to figure out if they will tera or not).
Sorry for the wall of text, but I think this is the time and place for it
I'm not gonna waste my time saying how much Tera is broke and is ruining the tier since I'm been doing that for years now, so I'm just gonna summarize it as quickly as I can: Ban Tera, it's ruining the tier, any defensive value it has, it's very inferior to it's offensive ones and it makes good/great mons more powerful/broken.
Now that I very lazily and hastily expressed my opinions about Tera I wanna talk about something else. People, my fellow NatDexers, please, preeeeeeetty please VOTE!!!
Regardless of your stance BTera/DNBTera try to get reqs and vote, especially if you're against Tera. I don't have time right now since real life right now is draining my free time but if I'm able to get some, I'm gonna get my reps and vote Ban. It's a issue I'm detecting especially on NDex were people give their opinions but don't put into action or even fuck around with their votes, like it happened on the first vote were some people voted DNB for shits and giggles because they didn't though it would stay, people do that, it happened as well on OU's Kyurem suspect were because 1 vote it didn't got the boot. So in conclusion, try to get your reps and if you do vote seriously, don't fool around, gen's almost over and I'm not sure we're gonna get another shot at this gen main gimmick, so regardless of your opinion, its DNB but especially if you're like me and despise this gimmick get reqs and vote ban responsibly.
From awyp, "I don't play this tier, but I will get reqs regardless"
I'm a serial tier tourist, not having a single tier I would say I play consistently but come on now. If this is a serious sentiment and not a joke, which is totally possible, to shake up a tier this much just because you're a vengeful hater of Tera is pretty slimy. And this is something that I see a lot and I know for a fact that at least some people are serious.
I can appreciate the rest of this post since it’s just healthy disagreement/debate, but this kind of rhetoric is actively harmful to the suspect process.
If someone can achieve the defined reqs, whether they play the tier or not, they are equally entitled to vote the same as anyone who mains the tier. If that reason is because they hate/love Tera and want to remove/defend it, then so be it!
Forgive me if I’m wrong here since I’m mainly just looking at Smogon posts, but it doesn’t really seem like you play much NatDex either, so I don’t understand why you are shaming someone who also doesn’t play the tier frequently for getting reqs to cast a vote for their opinion.
Reqs literally exist to gatekeep the suspect process; we shouldn’t be looking for extra reasons to disquallify someone on the basis that they don’t play the tier frequently.
how poeple can say that Tera is broken? like i really dont understand this, how? after so many time when that mechanic was introduced people STILL have problem with Tera and struggle to handle? like is so HARD to predict after that time which mons usually on what Tera can change? i mean if somebody play on weekends okay i understand, but complaining people who play almost every day on showdown? okay, like really? after baninng Tera broken mons still will be broken and nothing change, Tera gives you more diversity in builiding teams and creativity, shit mons became finally usable, you can flip your losing position or other hand, completly waste if you decide wrong, i mean if only one pokemon which can Tera can fckup your whole team and strategy than maybe its not a problem with Tera, maybe problem with skill-issue? i see someone has Dnite so i will be ready that he can change into Tera Normal with E-speed, same with Tera Grass Heatran, i mean if somebody sending this mon against Land-T than i think its not hard to guess that opponent plan to counter your EQ with Tera Grass? and this is the really big BROKEN problem here what people see yes? little bit to thinking, to predicting mechanic is for poeple right now broken? ofcourse i will be vote for Do Not Ban
Firstly, I’m grateful the council decided to host a third suspect and the activity surrounding this event has made me very excited to see the results. On a side note I find it comedic that the ND suspect vote has lined up fairly well with the U.S. presidential election so I guess there’s much to look forward to lol. Anyways, this is without a doubt the last suspect for Tera in this tier regardless of the outcome so it is of the upmost importance that if you have a shred of care about this tier, now would be the time because the results of this will drastically effect the future of the tier.
Tera is uncompetitive because it forces unreasonable prediction or scouting that promotes game changing consequences. To avoid misinterpretation, I don’t just mean that making an error = punishment, this is a problem because Pokemon that are supposed to be checked by another Pokemon can flip that match up with Tera. Theres an unlimited amount of examples to choose from between offensive and defensive Teras. To name a few: Great Tusk, or Garchomp both lose to Alomomola but often use Tera to completely flip that match up. Another example that we see on defensive Pokémon: Gliscor clicking Tera fairy on a Raging Bolt to dodge Z-Draco. You can actually argue that these interactions are good for the tier because they add more depth to games and decision making but my issue is that it becomes increasingly difficult to identify a middle ground with the added tera factor. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t some positive applications of tera but in my mind there’s no doubt the bad outweighs the good by a large margin.
Very crazy week, respect each other’s opinions and if you disagree then try to be polite. These types of threads attract a lot of negative attention so let’s try and do better.
how poeple can say that Tera is broken? like i really dont understand this, how? after so many time when that mechanic was introduced people STILL have problem with Tera and struggle to handle? like is so HARD to predict after that time which mons usually on what Tera can change? i mean if somebody play on weekends okay i understand, but complaining people who play almost every day on showdown? okay, like really? after baninng Tera broken mons still will be broken and nothing change, Tera gives you more diversity in builiding teams and creativity, shit mons became finally usable, you can flip your losing position or other hand, completly waste if you decide wrong, i mean if only one pokemon which can Tera can fckup your whole team and strategy than maybe its not a problem with Tera, maybe problem with skill-issue? i see someone has Dnite so i will be ready that he can change into Tera Normal with E-speed, same with Tera Grass Heatran, i mean if somebody sending this mon against Land-T than i think its not hard to guess that opponent plan to counter your EQ with Tera Grass? and this is the really big BROKEN problem here what people see yes? little bit to thinking, to predicting mechanic is for poeple right now broken? ofcourse i will be vote for Do Not Ban
Although I find predicting and scouting to be unreasonable with Tera as a factor, it is not the only consideration. Theres lots of offensive Pokemon who use Tera just as a tool to boost their damage output with little risk. One example of this is Tapu Lele! Specifically Scarf sets have seen the most usage but that fear has only made its other sets more effective (I digress). Scarf Lele is already incredibly strong and difficult to check long term without a steel type with reliable recover.
To explain my concern better look at some of these calcs displaying the difference between choice scarf and specs damage:
Choice Scarf + Tera Psychic
252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 91-108 (23.5 - 27.9%) -- possible 5HKO (choice scarf + tera psychic)
252 SpA Tera Psychic Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 107-127 (27.7 - 32.9%) -- 80.6% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery (choice scarf + tera psychic)
Now Choice specs
252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 102-120 (26.4 - 31%) -- 11.8% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery (Choice Specs without Tera)
252 SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Heatran in Psychic Terrain: 120-142 (31 - 36.7%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery (Choice Specs without Tera)
The damage difference is very slim but the idea that Tera can grant damage boost almost equivalent to a Choice Specs boost with no risks is too much in my opinion.
Tera in a vacuum isnt broken, this can be seen in a variance of tiers which all have tera, OU can, VGC can and a lot of OM also can, the problem begins when we start introducing this mechanic with every mechanic we've had in all of the games and all pokemon having their movepools from all games, we start running onto pokemon that shouldnt have those movepools or become easily overbearing, of course, this can be fixed by banning them.
National Dex has banned 28 Pokemon.
For a perspective on this, OU took ~18 bans to have a relatively stable meta, what has National Dex achieved with 28 Bans? As my friend Dorron told me, "dnite, gliscor, crown, valiant, kartana, kyurem, waterpon, raging, volcarona, moth, they all abuse tera." At what point do we stop seeing Tera as the "Balanced mechanic that helps lower tier mons" and start seeing it like "Tera is fundamentally too overbearing for a tier with so many options." It will help offense more than fat, when we ban the overbearing tera abusers, another ones will rise to usage in the light of not being checked by the banned mon.
Tera in its core is too overbearing for Natdex and that is why I will be voting Ban.
how poeple can say that Tera is broken? like i really dont understand this, how? after so many time when that mechanic was introduced people STILL have problem with Tera and struggle to handle? like is so HARD to predict after that time which mons usually on what Tera can change? i mean if somebody play on weekends okay i understand, but complaining people who play almost every day on showdown? okay, like really? after baninng Tera broken mons still will be broken and nothing change, Tera gives you more diversity in builiding teams and creativity, shit mons became finally usable, you can flip your losing position or other hand, completly waste if you decide wrong, i mean if only one pokemon which can Tera can fckup your whole team and strategy than maybe its not a problem with Tera, maybe problem with skill-issue? i see someone has Dnite so i will be ready that he can change into Tera Normal with E-speed, same with Tera Grass Heatran, i mean if somebody sending this mon against Land-T than i think its not hard to guess that opponent plan to counter your EQ with Tera Grass? and this is the really big BROKEN problem here what people see yes? little bit to thinking, to predicting mechanic is for poeple right now broken? ofcourse i will be vote for Do Not Ban
Like when I posted about tera on the metagame discussion thread, I would like to preface this post by saying that I'm not the best player, nor am I extremely experienced, but I do play natdex and I have at least a basic understanding of the tier and its mechanics.
Some of the points made in the quoted post and my replies:
After banning Tera broken mons still will be broken and nothing change
It sounds like you're saying that we shouldn't ban tera because there would still be broken mons. There realistically can't be an argument made to keep tera around just because some things will still be broken without it, that would be like saying "Zacian-C was broken with dynamax in gen 8, but we shouldn't ban dynamax because Zacian-C would still be broken without it." Things would change in the meta because tiering would go on as usual after a tera ban, if something is broken without tera, it would be banned, so something being broken without tera shouldn't really be a factor on whether tera should be banned IMO. Like the original post on this thread says, "If something needs to be banned because of the result of this suspect, then so be it."
Tera gives you more diversity in building teams and creativity
While tera can allow you to be a bit more flexible with some things in the builder, specifically offensive mons and a few defensive mons like garg, it also makes it near impossible to build some archetypes (ie fat) because with tera, things simply become too powerful to check with what should be a check to it (like psychic terrain tera psychic specs lele obliterating steel types). This forces the meta to gravitate towards offenses because it's near impossible to successfully check everything.
Again, this is technically subjective, but I would argue that being able to flip a losing position into a winning one is an argument to be made against tera. You shouldn't be able to flip a game upside down purely because you happen to have a tera that allows you to do so. This seems to be favoring luck in matchups and 50/50s much more than skill. If you were losing all game and your opponent was playing better than you, I don't think you should be able to just click a button and win.
i see someone has Dnite so i will be ready that he can change into Tera Normal with E-speed, same with Tera Grass Heatran, i mean if somebody sending this mon against Land-T than i think its not hard to guess that opponent plan to counter your EQ with Tera Grass?
But what if when you do something to counter tera normal espeed they end up clicking tera steel ddance? Or what if you click cc with mmedi expecting tera normal but they don't tera at all? Tera just has a tendency to introduce so many 50/50s into games, and they might not even be possible 50/50s like CappyThePulpy said in his example with mmedi vs dragonite. You can also be punished extremely easily for making what many would call a logical midground in an effort to avoid the 50/50s introduced by tera. A lot of times, tera can make it so that there's no reliable or even somewhat safe option for you, so you're forced to make a 50/50 in an attempt to not get screwed.
predicting mechanic is for poeple right now broken?
It isn't even necessarily the fact that you might have to predict it, I think it's the fact that you might have to predict tera 10+ times and guessing wrong at all could leave you with a loss. For example, your opponent has a dragonite in vs alomomola. If you click toxic and they don't tera, that's great, the dragonite isn't very likely to sweep now. But if you click toxic and they click tera steel, they're getting two ddances for free and could potentially go on to sweep with ease, especially later in games. But on the other hand, every time you flip turn just in case they tera steel, when they could be tera normal, they could be tera steel and not use it, or they could be z or something, you're losing out on opportunities to make progress. But again, if you do attempt to make progress with a toxic on the wrong turn, now you could immediately lose. The same thing goes for landorus vs heatran, you can eq to take them out, but if they tera then you probably just lost your landorus, so the logical play seems to be to uturn into something that won't go down to a magma storm, but everytime you do that and heatran doesn't tera, you're missing opportunities to knock out the heatran.
Please, feel free to call me out on things I've mentioned here if you think they're flawed or something, I'd genuinely be happy to hear why. Sorry if this was a bit long-winded but sometimes trying to get across all the opinions you want to can be difficult lol
In this situation, it really feels like you're taking a situation where you should win 100% of the time (-1 speed Iron Treads vs +2 Urshifu) and turning it into a coinflip that, really, has occurred 0 effort from your opponent. Either of these Teras will save Treads from a KO and allow it to spin, and both of these tera types are equally possible.
In this situation, Treads will either go Tera ghost, either not Tera. you have the advantage. if you have revealed CC, it will not Tera water. never. that's how the human mind works.
if I have my blaziken at 20% health after a SD and I see my opp bringing in the Ferrothorn? I flare blitz. its goal is to end me, and the best choice in a no tera situation for me is to CC, as I will live thru Iron barbs. However, if they are rocky helmet, I die anyways, wether they tera or not, wether I cc or not, if they are Tera water/dragon, they know that CC is the best play and thus they wont Tera so flare blitz is the play. If they are Tera ghost or fairy or sum Flare blitz is the play anyways.
This is not too complex for me to play around, it is gen9 dynamic, this is why I got the reqs and will vote DNB on Tera. Note that in this situation I a Electrium Z blaziken, not Tera anything. if you wanna coplicate your life and click Z Tpunch because It might just be Tera water it is not my problem.
true, you know what, out of all 1025 pokémon they can all abuse Tera.
Dnite can run Z dragon, flyin, HDB Tera norm, Tera norm curse, tera steel Curse, and the least counterable of all is Dragonium Z for the sheer power of it, and is often paired with dragonitesque coverage moves in Fire punch, Eq, Dual wingbeat, ice spinner, stone edge, Iron head superpower & shid like that that is rare but not impossible, like the Tera ghost or water treads.
Glisc is a stronk Pokémon, tfw a defensive staple is a Gen4 PKMN with a Gen5 abil, Powercreep is a social construct
Crown is a metagame glue, healthy asf if u ask me, "abusing" is a big word, Stored power techs are js stronk in general, Even musharna stronk with it.
Valiant... Valiant does val things tbh. No solid team gets goobed by Val, it has like 3 viable Teras outside of its base types and it's bettter not to tera unless ur losing tbh.
Kart has stronk leaf blade but has the same counteers tbh, best tera abuse it can do is Tera norm frustration Zardy on switchin.
Kyu is a terrifying Pokémon to face if you don't have glastrier if you do not have a dedicated counter, which, honestly, is difficult enough for a shitlot of complaints to have been made about it, but again I believe at least some people just voted 10 on tera and 1 on everything else to ensure tiering action, movement in which they succeeded, Tera got .05 more than waterpon, .3 more than Kyu, While things like crown or rain or Dnite got 2.25, 2.38 and 2.14 respectively, which should mean they are fine and the playerbase finds them balanced.
Waterpon abuses Tera not because Tera is a problem but because Waterpon is a problem. Trade Grass type's weaknesses for a Spd boost is a Waterpon problem, not a Tera problem.
Raging Bolt "abuses" Tera not in any more significant way than any other Dragon type, and Dragonium Z feels ways more common and much much stronger.
Volcarona doesn't rely on Tera to beat any check, it has a bad defensive typing as base and a new solo typing is not rlly making it any better.
Moth abuses Tera ways more than any other Pokémon on this list, I presume that's why u/ur friend, whatever, put it last, but Tera grass moth is Mediocre and it's so frail it doesn't rlly care abt resisting a Lando EQ when it dies to Uturn for the rest of the game. Now yes they profit from Tera, but abuse is such a big word for such mons, Baxca Tera Poison gets 2DDs very easily, Sneas Tera Ghost gets a free SD on stuff Like Dragonite uncontrollably, just to cite a few. Tera is abused the best on Broken mons, who have aleady been kicked out.
hidin it's great you care about the tiering of the tier but (I do not have the image of the miner giving up before the Diamonds rn) You are literally wanting to go tf back before the tier becomes as enjoyable as it's ever been.
U kidding? That new solo typing solves its historical main weakness and is the only reason it got banned from SVOU. Volcarona got no new toys in gen 9 except for tera
Saying that a new typing like ground, grass, water or fairy (two of which come with new stab options) doesnt make volcarona better shows that you dont really understand how volcarona works, or what kept it balanced all these years.
Edit: example: tera grass volcarona is used to beat lando and (mega) ttar, which would otherwise be the definition of what a check is
As other posts have said I am extremely grateful we have been given the choice to remove it. I've already done a little jabbing in the post earlier, but now that I have reqs(which were horrible jfc) I think I should post my thoughts clearly. For me, the best way to handle this, as I have many things to say, is to reference other posts in this thread and compile my thinking in a summary.
I think trying to view Tera in a competitive light (in play, in builder, etc.) is always going to lead to arguments and disagreements, so what I'm basing my vote off of is how National Dex can be tiered without Tera. For the past two years the council has been tiering with Tera around and trying to work around things to try and make out a balanced, and healthy metagame with the mechanic. However, from what I've seen as a council member and NatDex community member from the start of the generation is that there has never been a point in the meta where a majority was content. Even after dealing with Pokemon like Kingambit, Gholdengo, and Zamazenta who caused significant metagame changes along with other oppressive Pokemon like Dragapult, Baxcalibur, and Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, there's an never-ending call for more and more tiering action that will go down a slippery slope until we have meta staples gone (i.e. Raging Bolt, Dragonite, Tapu Lele) which, whether you like it or not, will cause a decrease in the metagame quality and truthfully will "solve" problems until a new one magically spawns out of the blue. This has been ongoing for two years straight and to me personally it's pretty sad to see the tier I've spent quite some time on contributing to and playing be left in a state of unresolve because of just one mechanic. I can't seem to find anyone who can counter this opinion when it comes to Tera being unenjoyable to tier because unsurprisingly, most of it is objective. Tournament players usually don't enjoy, metagame surveys enjoyment and balance has always been at a low or slightly average median, and the fact that Tera has been twice and there is still complaints about it should go to show no one is truly content with this tier.
The solution for this is banning Tera to start tiering more productively and to do things right for this metagame. I'm not concerned about the aspects of if it's broken or not (it's not a skill issue at all) as I've been dealing with it for two years and am pretty desensitized to that. But in conclusion, for the sake of tiering a good metagame and trying to achieve the basic rule of all metagames featured on Smogon, I think Tera should be banned from National Dex OU. It is very unpleasant to think of the future if we let it stay.
Tera in a vacuum isnt broken, this can be seen in a variance of tiers which all have tera, OU can, VGC can and a lot of OM also can, the problem begins when we start introducing this mechanic with every mechanic we've had in all of the games and all pokemon having their movepools from all games, we start running onto pokemon that shouldnt have those movepools or become easily overbearing, of course, this can be fixed by banning them.
National Dex has banned 28 Pokemon.
For a perspective on this, OU took ~18 bans to have a relatively stable meta, what has National Dex achieved with 28 Bans? As my friend Dorron told me,"dnite, gliscor, crown, valiant, kartana, kyurem, waterpon, raging, volcarona, moth, they all abuse tera." At what point do we stop seeing Tera as the "Balanced mechanic that helps lower tier mons" and start seeing it like "Tera is fundamentally too overbearing for a tier with so many options." It will help offense more than fat, when we ban the overbearing tera abusers, another ones will rise to usage in the light of not being checked by the banned mon.
Tera in its core is too overbearing for Natdex and that is why I will be voting Ban.
hidin and Peum’s sentiment about tera is one of the most defining factors of why I want tera gone. Tiering becomes relatively impossible. I can't really touch deep on this subject as I'm relatively new to the community, but I've been here for half a year now, and I think I've been invested long enough to see the tier repeatedly play Twister with itself and bending the council over its back to try and make "a stable metagame". Never once, from the opinions of older players, and even the opinion from myself, has SVNDOU ever been "a balanced meta". Not in two years has this tier been able to balance itself successfully with tera available. If this doesn't show an obvious issue with tera, I'm not sure what does. I think it's time we stop cutting off the branches and chop down the tree.
Tera isn't broken in my opinion, this "tera is the problem" ship has to sink because it rings as "skill issue" more than having real grounds to it, I do not think it should be tested a third time nor that it's done for good reasons, and finally that a third test is a really big middle finger to the national dex community, because it got saved twice.
I put my thoughts in more details below, I won't bother read or reply to whatever people think of its, it's my thoughts and they probably won't change. If you feel offended by some lines then sorry but that's just genuinely what i think.
I didn't even think i would write something about this, mainly because i'm done with investing myself, but this suspect is legit one of the biggest jokes I've seen. I think it's incredibly disrespectful to suspect something a third time after people saved it, and it comes from the guy that pushed for the previous 2 suspects and was the most pro-ban in the first place. I also don't believe tera in itself is that big of a problem anymore, it's been 2 years in, we got used to it, and i don't think there's any like random aspect to it. The big issue in my opinion that makes this tier awful isn't particularly due to tera but more how it got tiered. If we look at what got nuked over the year you'd notice most of the guys that got banned fixed a lot of things in the builder. Gholdengo was able to patch a fuckton of match ups, and it was even prior T-Wave sets were a thing. Same can be said about Zamazenta. And don't get me wrong, I don't believe council made a blatant mistake by pushing for a suspect, nor the community did, altho I still heavily disagree with Zama getting nuked but thats another topic. So if we ban the guys that were able to slow down certain threats (ie: kyurem/lele for ghold and darkrai/waterpon/gouging for the second) obviously said threats are gonna be awful to deal with, like we've seen with Darkrai (altho guy was a problem even with zamazenta, but banning its best check/revenge killer isnt great). Point is, we committed to do tiering a year ago with tera in mind when it wasn't banned, and we were taking steps in that direction with the bans we made. If the tier looks awful now then maybe we should keep taking steps in the same direction instead of doing a full 180 turn. Again, this is not a shot at council, i believe the decisions were right for the most part, we just need to keep pushing.
I genuinely don't believe tera is that broken/overcentralizing or that it makes HO broken fundamentaly more broken than anything. If I'm being fully honest this just rings as a big "skill issue" to me, in the sense that it's been 2 years, we've played with tera in mind for 2 years, not it's time to either get a grip at how to play the game or move on. If you still think it's a skill-less mechanic, that doesn't reward anyone but the guy that clicked a random button, then I genuinely want to know if you ever played the game, during these 2 years. It does induce skill, it's a ressource you need to manage, and a ressource you must choose correctly while building. Tera also have drawbacks, despite what people might think. Choosing to tera one mon means you can't tera any others, and you're also sacrificing what your mon can check to check something else. While it seems like nothing, in reality it can change games. A wrong clicked tera, either on a wrong mon or a wrong turn, can lose you a game, and the opposite is true. Point is, Tera induce skill, to different levels, wether it's in the builder or in game. Its part of the game we play, denying and/or saying it's just "random" is a massive cope.
Now while i do get the appeal of trying to imagine what could've been or what could be if tera was nuked, i also don't believe it's done in full honesty. Mons like Gambit/Ghold/Baxca will still remain broken, same for like BloodMoon or Sneasler. The only mons that were outright banned dude to tera are Regieleki, Melmetal and Espathra, rest were just busted with or without it. The main Gouging Fire set that got it nuked doesn't even use Tera, same for Dragapult. I don't believe the tier will magically get insanely better once tera is banned, first because you'd have to do tiering all over again, second because another batch of mons is coming "fairly" soon with the new legend game, which means more tiering, and third of all because it's not because "now i know x checks y" that the tier is gonna be enjoyable. I invite you to play swsh LC, after vullaby got banned x would still check y and yet the tier was miserable to play. While 1 and 2 can just strike as "well we don't know because it's gonna take some times", well that's the point: we don't know, and we can't know. Point i'm trying to make here is, this is not how we do tiering. Banning something because we can imagine how the tier is gonna look like isn't how it's done. And same is when it comes to the fun part. Tiering has always been done over the aspect of competitivity. So the question is: is it broken? is it not? If it is you ban it, if it isn't you dnb. End of the story. And that's the question people must ask themselves. If people thinks it's the wrong approach then blame the policy. To me, it's not broken, i don't believe it's overcentralizing, i just think the tier is in a poor state and this isn't the solution.
In short, I'm voting DnB and I encourage people to do the same.
You're literally the only person with a somewhat coherent argument to keeping tera, so I have due respect for that, but I want to put my two cents in this argument:
The main flaw I see with this is that you're not taking into consideration the opinions of other people in the community. We took a survey around the end of NDPL. The results of that survey directly lead to this suspect, and I don't think you can blanket the obvious problem with "skill issue". Enjoyment scored 6.1, a 0.86 drop from the last. Balance of the metagame scored 5.53, dropping an alarming 1.64. Quoting the survey results directly, the results "generally aligns with the community sentiment that the metagame is in a poor place". You can't hide the fact that the tier has issues. You can't ignore the collective evidence that the community wants something to be done; as we all saw coming, Tera scored a 6.78, with over 40% of the poll voting Tera a 10/10 in concerns. In April 2023, Tera scored a 7.03, and as I'm sure you know both Tera suspects thus far have been extremely on the wire(iirc the last one was off by one vote). Given the changing metas, the failure of balancing the metagame, and the results from the survey, it's not a disrespectful act at all by the council to host another vote.
You're not wrong, we are two years in. Maybe the metagame has adapted around tera, and maybe we can just "deal with it" as you propose. Then why did balance score so low? Why did enjoyment score so low? We're just gonna blatantly ignore the elephant in the room, and say it's been here long enough to not take action when a significant portion of the community is unhappy?
You bring in a good point of past tiering. I wasn't around ND when Gholdengo or Kingambit was banned, so I can't really speak much about it. However, as we are now, I think tiering has dug ourselves a hole deep enough where we can't just do a total 180 on our previous tests and try resuscitating Gholdengo(that would be cool), and as the past two years of tiering have shown us, taking the same steps hasn't helped balance the tier either. As it stands, the future of the metagame looks brighter without tera than it does with, and I'm definitely not alone in thinking that.
I don't like this thinking that just because we've had a mechanic for so long, we should ignore it; the ship that needs to sink is this "skill issue" stuff. We looked at the results from the survey; it's not a coherent argument when the results themselves indicate the community is unhappy as a whole.
Also, what happens after banning tera is highly up to debate; for me, Kingambit and Gholdengo aren't broken, but to some they are, and I think the unbans would bring more health to the tier than it will detriment(especially melm for one).
Adding onto that, I'm not sure what's next if tera stays. If we take your definition of tiering at face value, it turns tiering as of now very messy. Council has been dipping their hands in a vat of piranhas every decision they make for some time now, and no suspect test has changed the tier significantly enough to where enjoyment and balance find good results. Looking at the patterns from the recent suspects, it's clear to me that we're not stepping in the right direction. We've had 3 more suspects since Zama and the tier hasn't improved. If anything, it got worse. When we banned Zamazenta, Darkrai soon became broken; when we banned Gouging Fire, Kyurem took it's place. The only thing I see happening if we just ban whatever's broken, like the tier has been, we clear the path for other mons to be broken instead and take the spotlight. If we ban Dragonite or Raging Bolt, then Ogerpon-W will be broken, if we ban Iron Crown, then Lele will be the next complaint. How else do you suggest fixing the tier?
Ok I keep running into a scenario which I think perfectly sums up the issue with tera:
Mmedi vs dragonite, both at full hp, fake out is available
You are on the side with mmedi. What do you do?
a) fake out + ice punch will ko the dragonite (no tera)
b) fake out + close combat will ko tera normal dragonite, regardless of the turn when it teras
c) fake out + zen headbutt, the play which covers both type options will not ko either, so you have to end the job with something like a rocky helm (and risk eating a zmove, the dragonite doesnt even have to be tera)
Option A is the obvious interaction. The dragonite should never be able to set up in the face of mmedi
Option B is rewarding if you properly predict tera. However, where does the “skill” come into play here? What is the “skill issue”? There is no info which you can use to justify one option or the other. It is, as far as the problem presented, a pure 50/50.
However, the dragonite doesnt even have to be tera. It can run a zmove. The existence of this mechanic breaks an obvious matchup, doesnt even matter if the mechanic can or is used. Ice punch into a dragonite can suddenly backfire even though you did your job properly. The “skill” is that you got medi in on dragonite, you are threatening an ohko with a faster mon, so it cannot setup. Unless it teras and gives a big extreme speedy middle finger to your skill.
Now, your argument might be that if it teras you can use your own tera to stop it. And what do you have then? An equal trade. Tera for tera and dragonite for medi. An equal trade which should not have happened, that dragonite should switch or die.
THIS is the problem with tera. If your opponent teras to start a sweep, you can tera to stop it. Yes, but that sweep shouldnt have started in the first place. You played how you were supposed to, that dragonite should get nothing out of the interaction. I think you can look at this as a broken checks broken case.
Of course, not everything is in a vacuum. You can argue that trading tera puts someone in a better position, or that the tera use is obvious, or this and that. But with 5-6 mons to tera, on average 2 somewhat viable tera types per mon, and the reward of boosting and starting a sweep if your opponent gets the tera wrong, how much of it is skill and how much is it luck / matchup fish? Against a tera-available setup sweeper, you have to account for tera on EVERY SINGLE TURN. Otherwise you may just lose. Meanwhile your opponent can click dd and call it skill if you predict the tera wrong.
Feel free to go through ndpl games and find some real scenarios instead of this vacuum situation. Watch a replay and ask yourself “what if tera” on every single turn and see if you can spot the correct play, and judge the risk/reward difference between the obvious “tera case” and “no tera case” plays.
Why does it “break” HO? Well, mons like volcarona (banned in svou) and dragonite have been notorious with how they can run away with the game if they get a free boost. Now they have it at the click of a button (or they may run zmove and laugh at you trying to figure out if they will tera or not).
Sorry for the wall of text, but I think this is the time and place for it
I love your explanation, it puts it very clearly why Tera as a fundamental mechanic is unhealthy. SVOU was made with Terastal in mind, but at this point its clear that Tera isn’t habitable in NDOU. Like a previous post has stated, we’ve banned 28 mons. Tera is not supposed to be in NDOU, it was not made with every other generational mechanic in mind, and it warps the tier so unhealthily that the metagame has never found success in 2 whole years of tiering with it.
It forces unnecessary 50-50s that break the fundamentals of competitive pokemon. Megas nor Z-Moves have done this, but only Tera has actually impacted the way we play the game. It no longer guarantees the more skilled player wins.
It denies consistency. If I click an ice type move into Landorus, I expect it to die. If I save healthy Tapu Lele for a late game Dragonite, and they did not prepare anything else, then by definition I am the more skilled player. Alas, Dragonite clicks Tera Steel and I lose. Or, you try predicting Tera Steel and as you Focus Blast, it turns out it’s Dragonium-Z, it cannot Tera, and there was no point in predicting.
When we start adding every other mechanic in the game, with every pokemon available with their full moveset, it shifts the meta to be oppressively offensive. As I’ve already said in an earlier post, defensive Tera is not as beneficial as an offensive Tera, leading the tier to spam whatever Iron Valiant+Glimmora offense leaving fatter playstyles like fat balance in the dust as an utterly useless one, highlighted as Omar said, in tournament replays.
This post defined the issue with Tera. If you play better than the opponent, no way in a competitive format should the opponent be able to flip their position to gain the upper hand. The mechanic itself is broken from a fundamentals standpoint and was only created with SV and VGC in mind.
how poeple can say that Tera is broken? like i really dont understand this, how? after so many time when that mechanic was introduced people STILL have problem with Tera and struggle to handle? like is so HARD to predict after that time which mons usually on what Tera can change? i mean if somebody play on weekends okay i understand, but complaining people who play almost every day on showdown? okay, like really? after baninng Tera broken mons still will be broken and nothing change, Tera gives you more diversity in builiding teams and creativity, shit mons became finally usable, you can flip your losing position or other hand, completly waste if you decide wrong, i mean if only one pokemon which can Tera can fckup your whole team and strategy than maybe its not a problem with Tera, maybe problem with skill-issue? i see someone has Dnite so i will be ready that he can change into Tera Normal with E-speed, same with Tera Grass Heatran, i mean if somebody sending this mon against Land-T than i think its not hard to guess that opponent plan to counter your EQ with Tera Grass? and this is the really big BROKEN problem here what people see yes? little bit to thinking, to predicting mechanic is for poeple right now broken? ofcourse i will be vote for Do Not Ban
For example, let’s say you work an office job. One day, you break your computer(oh noes!). If you keep using the broken computer, does it get less broken?
Of course not. Your analogy doesn’t make much sense. You can learn how to play with Tera, but that doesn’t change that tera is negatively impacting the tier. From a tier standpoint, Tera pushes many beneficial mons, like Zamazenta, off the edge, making tiering a hell of a lot harder, and Tera is the underlying cause in the failure of a balanced meta. From a competitive standpoint, Tera isn’t even a balanced mechanic at that. In a vacuum, a competitive aspect is defined as “the more skilled player wins”. That’s not true here. Tera allows you to instantaneously change your typing, flipping matchups, and invalidating the player who played better.
Given, you have an argument here; you could expect the Dragonite to Tera, or have your own Tera. The issue with this is that Dragonite doesn’t have to tera either(by decision or using z-moves); it turns into an uncompetitive 50/50 where you have to guess the turn correctly. As for the second argument, it’s been previously stated that Tera generally benefits more offensively than defensively. As I and Omar have stated, using Tera defensively leaves you unable to check other threats granted by your original typing+doesn't add anything defensively as opposed to the STAB increases of offensively. It’s more worth it to run booster spam instead of Unawares and check threats offensively more worth than it is defensively, further leading to an unbalanced metagame.
It’s also true that Tera invites more creativity to teambuilding. It makes shitmons usable to some extent. However, to me, that argument is a weak one at best, The creativity in teambuilding is actually limited in practice; because of how arbitrary Tera is, the tier has evolved to become naturally fast, and utilizes offensive checking more than defensive. A good example of this is Encore Iron Valiant and Hawlucha. It’s one of the reasons why Focus Sash users are all niche; besides just hazards, the tier uses an abundance of priority and speed boosting threats to check sweepers(Booster Energy Iron Valiant, Iron Moth, ESpeed Dragonite, Thunderclap Raging Bolt). In my opinion you get more creativity by banning Tera and reintroducing mons such as Melmetal, which can both be experimented with and have a healthy impact on the tier. Shitmons will be shitmons. If you want to use them, take a crack at lower tiers.
BrisingrDraconis made a great response post talking about this.
In this situation, it really feels like you're taking a situation where you should win 100% of the time (-1 speed Iron Treads vs +2 Urshifu) and turning it into a coinflip that, really, has occurred 0 effort from your opponent. Either of these Teras will save Treads from a KO and allow it to spin, and both of these tera types are equally possible.
In this situation, Treads will either go Tera ghost, either not Tera. you have the advantage. if you have revealed CC, it will not Tera water. never. that's how the human mind works.
if I have my blaziken at 20% health after a SD and I see my opp bringing in the Ferrothorn? I flare blitz. its goal is to end me, and the best choice in a no tera situation for me is to CC, as I will live thru Iron barbs. However, if they are rocky helmet, I die anyways, wether they tera or not, wether I cc or not, if they are Tera water/dragon, they know that CC is the best play and thus they wont Tera so flare blitz is the play. If they are Tera ghost or fairy or sum Flare blitz is the play anyways.
This is not too complex for me to play around, it is gen9 dynamic, this is why I got the reqs and will vote DNB on Tera. Note that in this situation I a Electrium Z blaziken, not Tera anything. if you wanna coplicate your life and click Z Tpunch because It might just be Tera water it is not my problem.
true, you know what, out of all 1025 pokémon they can all abuse Tera.
Dnite can run Z dragon, flyin, HDB Tera norm, Tera norm curse, tera steel Curse, and the least counterable of all is Dragonium Z for the sheer power of it, and is often paired with dragonitesque coverage moves in Fire punch, Eq, Dual wingbeat, ice spinner, stone edge, Iron head superpower & shid like that that is rare but not impossible, like the Tera ghost or water treads.
Glisc is a stronk Pokémon, tfw a defensive staple is a Gen4 PKMN with a Gen5 abil, Powercreep is a social construct
Crown is a metagame glue, healthy asf if u ask me, "abusing" is a big word, Stored power techs are js stronk in general, Even musharna stronk with it.
Valiant... Valiant does val things tbh. No solid team gets goobed by Val, it has like 3 viable Teras outside of its base types and it's bettter not to tera unless ur losing tbh.
Kart has stronk leaf blade but has the same counteers tbh, best tera abuse it can do is Tera norm frustration Zardy on switchin.
Kyu is a terrifying Pokémon to face if you don't have glastrier if you do not have a dedicated counter, which, honestly, is difficult enough for a shitlot of complaints to have been made about it, but again I believe at least some people just voted 10 on tera and 1 on everything else to ensure tiering action, movement in which they succeeded, Tera got .05 more than waterpon, .3 more than Kyu, While things like crown or rain or Dnite got 2.25, 2.38 and 2.14 respectively, which should mean they are fine and the playerbase finds them balanced.
Waterpon abuses Tera not because Tera is a problem but because Waterpon is a problem. Trade Grass type's weaknesses for a Spd boost is a Waterpon problem, not a Tera problem.
Raging Bolt "abuses" Tera not in any more significant way than any other Dragon type, and Dragonium Z feels ways more common and much much stronger.
Volcarona doesn't rely on Tera to beat any check, it has a bad defensive typing as base and a new solo typing is not rlly making it any better.
Moth abuses Tera ways more than any other Pokémon on this list, I presume that's why u/ur friend, whatever, put it last, but Tera grass moth is Mediocre and it's so frail it doesn't rlly care abt resisting a Lando EQ when it dies to Uturn for the rest of the game. Now yes they profit from Tera, but abuse is such a big word for such mons, Baxca Tera Poison gets 2DDs very easily, Sneas Tera Ghost gets a free SD on stuff Like Dragonite uncontrollably, just to cite a few. Tera is abused the best on Broken mons, who have aleady been kicked out.
hidin it's great you care about the tiering of the tier but (I do not have the image of the miner giving up before the Diamonds rn) You are literally wanting to go tf back before the tier becomes as enjoyable as it's ever been.
What do you mean by “that’s not how the human mind works?” Urshifu has an option to click either Surging Strikes or Close Combat. Both are supereffective and have near equal damage. If you’re either Tera Ghost or Tera Dragon/Water, you would Tera in order to rapid spin.
I’m not sure why you went on that entire bout about Blaziken when it’s near completely unrelated… you mention niche/bad items such as Rocky Helm(lefties is better in every way) and knowing Tera Water in a no Tera preview format, then took Electrium-Z out of your pocket when the Blaziken’s Tera type is unrelated. That was a bad example regardless; the Tera typing of the Ferrothorn is defensive and isn’t the main concern as to why Tera is unhealthy. Refer to the Mega-Medicham vs. Dragonite example, as that’s an offensive Tera that threatens a sweep that shouldn’t be a concern.
- There isn’t much doubt that Dragonite abuses Tera; it utilizes Fire/Steel to flip it’s 4x weakness to Ice in order to find setup opportunities, and it utilizes Normal to turn it’s weaknesses to neutralities and boost ESpeed’s damage to scary levels. Dragonium-Z sets exist as well, so there’s a chance they can’t Tera and there was no mindgame in the first place.
- Gliscor has saw a drop in the Viability Rankings despite being such a great mon due to the offensive meta, but that’s partly besides the point; what concerned me is that you say “powercreep is a social construct”(???) when metagame staples in older gens are near the bottom tiers right now. A good example of this from last gen is Mew, who was UUBL in SSND and is now RUBL with no niche in OU except cheesy Imprison sets, and Chansey/Blissey, whom both are delegated to stall only in SV despite being OU last generation.
- Crown definitely abuses Tera. It would find more difficult setup opportunities if not for being able to Terastallize to escape it’s bad typing against Landorus and Gliscor, and being able to boost Focus Blast to burst through even Ting Lu, Ferrothorn, and Heatran, which would all significantly hinder it’s sweep.
- Are you saying Iron Valiant is bad? Sometimes I wonder if you play this tier. Iron Valiant can utilize Tera on almost every set, whether it be Fairy, Fighting, Steel, or Ghost, it’s not necessarily a Tera hog but it can definitely abuse it when it comes to being able to flip it’s matchup versus Mega-Scizor, Iron Crown, or Slowking Galar, which all otherwise would beat it.
- Kartana isn’t a Tera abuser, I agree, but Tera Normal isn’t used at all. Tera Grass or Dark is preferred and can boost Leaf Blade to OHKO Tapu Koko and burst past Landorus.
- I like to see you dislike Kyurem(and you manage to fit Glastrier propaganda, classic). However, stating that people intentionally voted extreme highs and lows for tiering action is extremely disrespectful. You have no evidence of this, and I assure you than an overwhelming majority were truthful in their response. Personally, I voted Ogerpon as a 4, Kyurem as 5, Crown as 2, and Dragonite as 2, even though I’m a very large advocate for banning Tera. Don’t start random shit like this when you don’t have anything to back it up.
- Ogerpon-W is going to be good regardless or not Tera is banned, but nevertheless it will be easier to handle given Tera is banned as it can’t overwhelm checks like chipped Mega-Venusaur.
- Raging Bolt definitely abuses Tera. Dragonium-Z sets are good, but I like to think the large percentage of that set is because it’s the analysis’ set under NDOU on Smogon. Booster Energy/Leftovers with Tera is able to invalidate otherwise obvious checks like offensive Great Tusk and Landorus.
- This is just wrong, also stated in an earlier post; Volcarona’s typing as base isn’t even terrible as it allows Bulkarona to threaten burns on fighting types like Choice-locked Urshifu and Mega-Lopunny. Resisting Bullet Punch and U-Turn is helpful as well. Volcarona was banned in SVOU because it abused Tera, and here it can utilize Tera Grass/Ground to beat otherwise unwinnable matchups such as Mega-Tyranitar, Garganacl, and Rain.
- Iron Moth is probably the most prolific Tera hog of any offense team. Tera Grass is only applicable to pivot sets, and most of the time it’s Tera Ground for sweeping sets which can overwhelm Heatran and Slowking-Galar. I shouldn’t have to explain why Iron Moth abuses Tera, go look at any NDPL replay with it.
Afaik Sneasler ran Tera Flying, but that’s not relevant. You state that most Tera abusers are banned, but most of your arguments are weak or literally untrue and almost all of the mons listed were indeed Tera abusers. The tier is not stable, and I’m beyond unconvinced that repeatedly banning brokens will solve the issue.
- - -
In summary, I don’t like Tera in this tier at all. I don’t know why people are opting to keep it even though there is obvious evidence of the tier being in a bad spot, and as we’ve already tried, banning what abuses Tera doesn’t solve the issue. As a mechanic it’s unhealthy for ND as a tier, it’s unhealthy for the metagame, and it’s shown obvious concern from the community. We need to kill the root of the problem.
U kidding? That new solo typing solves its historical main weakness and is the only reason it got banned from SVOU. Volcarona got no new toys in gen 9 except for tera
Saying that a new typing like ground, grass, water or fairy (two of which come with new stab options) doesnt make volcarona better shows that you dont really understand how volcarona works, or what kept it balanced all these years.
Edit: example: tera grass volcarona is used to beat lando and (mega) ttar, which would otherwise be the definition of what a check is
Yknow you don't have to bring me down everytime we are arguing, not for rn but for thr future. Correct me if I'm wrong but Tera grass Volc can beat mega ttar, if you let it setup, so have a passive as hell Pokémon on the field that cannot do shid into a good Pokémon like volcarona. that's a positioning issue more than a volc issue. volc can run Bug buzz / swarm buginium Z to beat Ttar regardless of Tera, or literally flamethrower/fiery dance Lando on switchin. Tera grass as you say runs QD+giga drain+fire stab + (Roost/hpground/bug buzz) and while it may Win vs Lando, Lando is not a reliable Volc Check anymays you might want a better example. Ttar is never a moth check if the moth is Bug buzz anyways,
what kept it Balanced all what years? Nuh I started at the end of gen 8 I do not know tf was Volc doin in Gen 5 or 6 it ran shid like lum berrry or sum. Many people here dont really know how glastrier works and why it works and I don't tell em to respect the horse in such an agressive way. if you want to argue Volc abuses Tera more than it should, define just how much it should! I do not think that not being able to RK a Pokémon because you rely on Aqua jet to RK it makes either The Pokémon or Tera broken. Volc is checkable, it wasn't even on the survey iirc and if we were to compare to reg gen OU we would Ban literal archaludon. we don't talk about how many good ol pokémon Lost toys in Gen 9. For things like Heatran or pex, SV=Spanish flu. Pex especially cannot be beaten by Volc unless Positioning Crisis thanks to regenerator. js because a Pokémon Tera'd in a game you were losing doesn't mean tera is the cause of your loss.
ou are on the side with mmedi. What do you do?
a) fake out + ice punch will ko the dragonite (no tera)
b) fake out + close combat will ko tera normal dragonite, regardless of the turn when it teras
c) fake out + zen headbutt, the play which covers both type options will not ko either, so you have to end the job with something like a rocky helm (and risk eating a zmove, the dragonite doesnt even have to be tera)
I was going to write something abt that but I am not good enough at explaining to people how the Human mind works or at least how I saw it working in general on showdown. like subconsciously , humans will factor in the risk and their own bias so normal interactions as you say do not occur irl or in realsimulation because the example is too minimalistic. if you didn't understand well that's why I aint writing shalespearian letters abt the minimalization of the situation described there.
While previous sentiments have reflected parts of my disdain for tera within ND specifically, I don't think any post vocalized what I personally feel is the aspect that makes terastalization feel so unfair; I'm talking about defensive tera on sweepers.
You are on the side with mmedi. What do you do?
a) fake out + ice punch will ko the dragonite (no tera)
b) fake out + close combat will ko tera normal dragonite, regardless of the turn when it teras
c) fake out + zen headbutt, the play which covers both type options will not ko either, so you have to end the job with something like a rocky helm (and risk eating a zmove, the dragonite doesnt even have to be tera)
CappyThePulpy spoke about it briefly using the example of defensive tera on dragonite. Without knowledge of what type of tera the sweeper is running, the player must account for all situations, often resorting to the midground and sacrificing in some way. While there may be clues based on the set, it is never something the player can predict with 100% accuracy, forcing guesswork and suboptimal play. It's easy to slap the label of "skill issue lol" on these interactions whenever an incorrect tera is predicted, however when considering all the possibilities the chance of the player correctly guessing the tera is akin to winning a sucker war vs kingambit with 8 pp, especially in a tournament environment where unconventional/surprise sets abound. A tier that regularly generates such situations where "hunches" decide if you get instantly swept is not competitive. HO thrives as a style only because of its ability to fish for such situations, and there is no point in playing fat since it can't exert similar pressure.
Additionally, every pokemon on the team being able to tera makes the prospect of having a few mu fishing teras much less of a concession in terms of consistency. Even if that one tera happened to be useless for that particular game, the player still has 5 other teras to fall back on, limiting the downside of fishing. With such heavy emphasis placed on prep and guesswork, it's no surprise there is no consensus when the discussion comes to "who's the best player in the tier", as individual skill has been left to rot. Anyone could pilot braindead HO to a positive record in NDPL as long as they get decently lucky with matchups and don't completely throw (except maybe a certain someone who always seems to go negative in team tours).
Tera making HO the most prominent playstyle also poses other problems for the tier. As HO vs HO games are usually below 20 turns, the amount of impact missing one move gets amplified tenfold. There have been so many games this past NDPL where just because a single move missed at the start there was no way for the player to outplay and win. In conjunction with the aforementioned points, inconsistent performances are exacerbated and games are usually decided in singular turns.
To conclude, tera as a mechanic within ND is fundamentally reducing the skill ceiling and magnifying the impact of matchup and hax. I implore the community currently sporting the DNB flag to consider otherwise.
Also mods can we have a qualified discussion thread similarly to ou's pweaaaaaaaase
Tera isn't broken in my opinion, this "tera is the problem" ship has to sink because it rings as "skill issue" more than having real grounds to it, I do not think it should be tested a third time nor that it's done for good reasons, and finally that a third test is a really big middle finger to the national dex community, because it got saved twice.
I put my thoughts in more details below, I won't bother read or reply to whatever people think of its, it's my thoughts and they probably won't change. If you feel offended by some lines then sorry but that's just genuinely what i think.
I didn't even think i would write something about this, mainly because i'm done with investing myself, but this suspect is legit one of the biggest jokes I've seen. I think it's incredibly disrespectful to suspect something a third time after people saved it, and it comes from the guy that pushed for the previous 2 suspects and was the most pro-ban in the first place. I also don't believe tera in itself is that big of a problem anymore, it's been 2 years in, we got used to it, and i don't think there's any like random aspect to it. The big issue in my opinion that makes this tier awful isn't particularly due to tera but more how it got tiered. If we look at what got nuked over the year you'd notice most of the guys that got banned fixed a lot of things in the builder. Gholdengo was able to patch a fuckton of match ups, and it was even prior T-Wave sets were a thing. Same can be said about Zamazenta. And don't get me wrong, I don't believe council made a blatant mistake by pushing for a suspect, nor the community did, altho I still heavily disagree with Zama getting nuked but thats another topic. So if we ban the guys that were able to slow down certain threats (ie: kyurem/lele for ghold and darkrai/waterpon/gouging for the second) obviously said threats are gonna be awful to deal with, like we've seen with Darkrai (altho guy was a problem even with zamazenta, but banning its best check/revenge killer isnt great). Point is, we committed to do tiering a year ago with tera in mind when it wasn't banned, and we were taking steps in that direction with the bans we made. If the tier looks awful now then maybe we should keep taking steps in the same direction instead of doing a full 180 turn. Again, this is not a shot at council, i believe the decisions were right for the most part, we just need to keep pushing.
I genuinely don't believe tera is that broken/overcentralizing or that it makes HO broken fundamentaly more broken than anything. If I'm being fully honest this just rings as a big "skill issue" to me, in the sense that it's been 2 years, we've played with tera in mind for 2 years, not it's time to either get a grip at how to play the game or move on. If you still think it's a skill-less mechanic, that doesn't reward anyone but the guy that clicked a random button, then I genuinely want to know if you ever played the game, during these 2 years. It does induce skill, it's a ressource you need to manage, and a ressource you must choose correctly while building. Tera also have drawbacks, despite what people might think. Choosing to tera one mon means you can't tera any others, and you're also sacrificing what your mon can check to check something else. While it seems like nothing, in reality it can change games. A wrong clicked tera, either on a wrong mon or a wrong turn, can lose you a game, and the opposite is true. Point is, Tera induce skill, to different levels, wether it's in the builder or in game. Its part of the game we play, denying and/or saying it's just "random" is a massive cope.
Now while i do get the appeal of trying to imagine what could've been or what could be if tera was nuked, i also don't believe it's done in full honesty. Mons like Gambit/Ghold/Baxca will still remain broken, same for like BloodMoon or Sneasler. The only mons that were outright banned dude to tera are Regieleki, Melmetal and Espathra, rest were just busted with or without it. The main Gouging Fire set that got it nuked doesn't even use Tera, same for Dragapult. I don't believe the tier will magically get insanely better once tera is banned, first because you'd have to do tiering all over again, second because another batch of mons is coming "fairly" soon with the new legend game, which means more tiering, and third of all because it's not because "now i know x checks y" that the tier is gonna be enjoyable. I invite you to play swsh LC, after vullaby got banned x would still check y and yet the tier was miserable to play. While 1 and 2 can just strike as "well we don't know because it's gonna take some times", well that's the point: we don't know, and we can't know. Point i'm trying to make here is, this is not how we do tiering. Banning something because we can imagine how the tier is gonna look like isn't how it's done. And same is when it comes to the fun part. Tiering has always been done over the aspect of competitivity. So the question is: is it broken? is it not? If it is you ban it, if it isn't you dnb. End of the story. And that's the question people must ask themselves. If people thinks it's the wrong approach then blame the policy. To me, it's not broken, i don't believe it's overcentralizing, i just think the tier is in a poor state and this isn't the solution.
In short, I'm voting DnB and I encourage people to do the same.
I'm actually going to agree with everything you've said. Despite the fact that I've vouched for tera's ban previously, after stepping away from this shitshow and playing metagames with an official status after DLC dropped, I've come around on tera's effects, all of which are already outlined by Ryuji. I think some of the bans and tiering the tier has done this generation has been, for a lack of better words, shit. Whether it be Zamazenta (I still stand by the fact this pokemon would be fine if you swung on different things like Gouging first, but I admit this was one of like 2 suspects in the entire tier I hadn't gotten reqs for so I can't say that much), Base Ursaluna's QB, or how poor the handling of the Alpha stages (freeing Kyurem-Black in any capacity, Deo-S leaving immediately, Zama-C leaving immediately, Zygarde-50% was just outright forgotten, and other shit like Mega Metagross pre-buff still not getting a chance), this tier should be a case study for why the order of bans is as important as it is and how fumbling the tiering process can leave a tier up shit creak without a paddle.
Will a Tera ban help the tier? Yes, but I only say that because the tier is genuinely the worst tier I've played in a PL before you almost can't do worse than this. I think the tier would've been way better off prioritizing different bans at different stages and Tera is being scapegoated as the easy solution to a problem caused by incompetence. Tera is not an engine to make just anything broken, you require often specific traits to become broken, of which yes many OU Pokémon have. But I think it stands to reason that a lot of the Pokémon who've been banned would get nuked anyways.
Annihilape, Palafin, Chien-Pao, Chi-Yu, Deo-S, Dragapult, Wake, Gouging fire, Baxcalibur, Darkrai, Sneasler, Bloodmoon, Bundle, Flutter Mane, Urshifu-S, and debatably Espathra, Hearthflame, Roaring Moon, Kingambit and Gholdengo. All of these would very likely be broken regardless, and only Melmetal, Shedinja, and Regieleki are notably never broken without Tera. Honestly this just isn't enough to ban an entire generational mechanic especially after 2 suspects let it stay.
TLDR: Keep tera, the tier can be fixed without nuking the generational mechanic and its not a broken element at all, its the Pokémon. It only feels this high because GF made an unprecedented level of broken mons this gen.
