Announcement np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 1 - Oops!...I Did It Again

[BobKingOfSeagulls]

Something I think would be useful for this discussion would be for people to list most of the mons they think are banworthy because of/in part because of tera.

Currently, when people mention tera breaking mons, they just mention the first few that comes to mind for ease of reading/not wanting to write out 20 mons every time. However since these are usually the same mons from every person (Espathra, Chi-Yu, Volcarona, Dragonite, for example) what ends up happening is that the pro-tera camps only ever sees about 4-8 mons being marked as bad because of tera. And I'm sure people can understand why they would rather ban 4 mons that an entire mechanic.

Of course I don't necessarily think its just 4 mons, but only a few mons are getting brought up over and over, so I think it would be very helpful for this discussion for someone from the ban-tera side to actually mention a large number of the tera-broken mons rather than just the main 8 or so.

 

[ayevon]

If the implication here is that espathra is strong to begin with and tera just makes it a bit better, I disagree. Espathra is MID without tera and a top tier threat with it. The key here is that tera allows it to break dark types, letting it flex the obscene stored power+speed boost combo. Without tera, this is how it is faring vs common dark types using the current max defense set:

+2 0 SpA Espathra Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 133-157 (39 - 46%)
+2 0 SpA Espathra Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Chi-Yu: 99-117 (39.4 - 46.6%)
+2 0 SpA Espathra Dazzling Gleam affected by Vessel of Ruin vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ting-Lu: 146-172 (28.4 - 33.4%)
+1 0 SpA Espathra Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Chien-Pao: 248-292 (82.3 - 97%)
+1 0 SpA Espathra Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Meowscarada: 234-276 (79.8 - 94.1%)

Let's be generous and say espathra goes offensive to salvage its dazzling gleam if tera is banned:

+1 252+ SpA Life Orb Espathra Dazzling Gleam vs. 116 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 179-212 (48.3 - 57.2%)
+1 252+ SpA Life Orb Espathra Dazzling Gleam affected by Vessel of Ruin vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Ting-Lu: 198-234 (38.5 - 45.5%) (and eq now 2hkos)
+1 252+ SpA Life Orb Espathra Dazzling Gleam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Chi-Yu: 134-159 (53.3 - 63.3%)
It kills chien pao and meowscarada cleanly, but must be wary of sucker punch.

Needless to say, this is a very limp performance at breaking through dark types. It becomes much more matchup dependent without tera, and thus it's a great example of a mon that is top tier only because of tera. Stored power mons that can't break through dark types on their own tend to be pretty mid, look no further than demon mew last gen.

The implication here is not that Espathra would be as good without Tera, it's that within a Tera metagame, very few pokemon can win on just a free Tera turn alone like Espathra. The uniqueness of Espathra's situation is less of a indictment on Tera than it is on Espathra. Espathra is stupid because Stored Power and Speed Boost are fundamentally not balanced when combined with one other. I don't really think the comparisons to other stored power users are reasonanble due to Speed Boost, and honestly could be very easy to facilitate Espathra sweeps even without coverage. One of the top ladder teams at the moment is an Espahtra team that's only attacking move is Stored Power. For instance, some of the checks you listed have a slim chance of beating substitute variants, while Ting Lu has little chance against Roost etc. Tera exacerbates the problem but a braindead uncompetitive pokemon like this should not be what you hang your on hat when saying Tera is the problem.

 

[Moyashi]

The "50/50" doesn't happen nearly enough to make me uncomfortable with tera, especially given how 6 times in each game I have to wonder what ITEM the enemy is holding.

What...? Unlike Tera, you can very reasonably sus out items and movesets on opposing pokemon based on team composition. (Edit: in most cases)

I think pro-ban players ideal meta would be battles where you pretty much knew what every mon was going to do. With little no randomness at all.

Probably not a good idea to strawman. No one who is pro ban has said this or even hinted at this.

"what if the chien pao turns ghost on my cc" those situations literally don't happen lol and this argument can be made for anything. You can say "well what if hes x ev spread or x moveset" that is never ran in the first place unless your trolling. Just feels like the ban camp is grasping at straws at that point talking about situations that both parties know is not going to happen lol,

Maaaybe don't accuse pro ban players of "grasping at straws" by claiming situations like "tera ghost Chien-Pao to dodge CC literally never happen", when the tera index at the beginning of this very thread has Ghost listed as a common/semi common tera type for Chien Pao. And for good reason given how emblematic such a type is of Terastilization's biggest strength: turning bad matchups on their head. Saying "both parties know it isn't gonna happen" is bordering on disingenous.

After the posts by Srn, Vrin, and others, I don't understand how anyone can logically be pro-Terra.
But I see that maybe logic isn't the way to go.
So I tried to really simplify it, but then I see responses like this...

First sentence makes almost no sense; I'll disregard.



Yes... cut mons will happen.. but the entire point was Terra will force us to cut so many more mons.
It's not "can only be told through time" it's literally happening right now, mons like Espa are proof that Terra can push a mon into OP territory.
Not only is it happening now, it just takes a drop of game knowledge to foresee how this will happen with many other mons.



Why do people keep saying this? We've had plenty of time to analyze the situation.

No one has refuted and even had a semi-logical rebuttal to Srn's post. Literally.
All I see, as he outlined, are subjective ramblings.

I'm not sure why the burden of proof that Terra is broken falls on those who want it banned, but regardless, it's been posted.
I haven't seen a legitimate argument illustrating how Terra makes a meta more healthy and competitive.
I've seen "fun" and "Give it a chance" and of course the aforementioned subjective reasonings
No one has truly documented how Terra adds more to the meta than it takes away.

Anyone who wishes to post is free to continue regurgitating the above reasonings and opinions, of course.
But to the next pro-Terra poster, I kindly ask you to actually address the points made by Srn, specifically.

Thank you in advance.

As a proban player, this sort of attitude is blatantly unhelpful and unconstructive. Plenty of pro tera players have made reasonable posts, and even though I don't share their opinions, I respect them, and I encourage you to read them as well. The way you wrote this comes off as standoff ish and rude. You say you "are not sure why the burden of proof that Terra is broken falls on those who want it banned", but that's the point of suspects. To prove it is or isn't banned. The basis of a suspect isn't "X is broken, prove it isn't", it's more of a "X is contentious/controversial, let's settle if it's banworthy or not" case. Kinda paraphrasing but hey.

 

[Vall]

What...? Unlike Tera, you can very reasonably sus out items and movesets on opposing pokemon based on team composition.

Disagree here, I was absolutely nuked by a rain team that ran a specs pelliper as opposed to a damp rock variation. Was pretty much identical team structure, but when he lead pelipper my tera-fairy garg got immediately nuked by invested specs water-stab nuke. There was absolutely no way of knowing that it was not a damp rock variant, which would've allowed me to heavily damage the rain setter. Another example was a fire-spin dnite that also didn't tera. Lure sets exists and they are generally just as difficult to distinguish from tera.

 

[BobKingOfSeagulls]

Disagree here, I was absolutely nuked by a rain team that ran a specs pelliper as opposed to a damp rock variation. Was pretty much identical team structure, but when he lead pelipper my tera-fairy garg got immediately nuked by invested specs water-stab nuke. There was absolutely no way of knowing that it was not a damp rock variant, which would've allowed me to heavily damage the rain setter. Another example was a fire-spin dnite that also didn't tera. Lure sets exists and they are generally just as difficult to distinguish from tera.

While I do agree that not all items can be sussed, I do think it's fair to say that tera presents a unique level/universiality of not being able to predict based on composition, and you can't necessarily predict based on play either until the actual tera. I say this as someone who is pro tera, but with team preview.

 

[Vall]

While I do agree that not all items can be sussed, I do think it's fair to say that tera presents a unique level/universiality of not being able to predict based on composition, and you can't necessarily predict based on play either until the actual tera. I say this as someone who is pro tera, but with team preview.

Oh yeah, not denying that. Although i'd prefer no restriction to outright ban, I agree team preview is the way to go at this point.

That said I think the original post claiming lure sets are easy to spot is kinda disingenuous.

 

[Moyashi]

That said I think the original post claiming lure sets are easy to spot is kinda disingenuous.

Specs pelipper is not a lure set. It's a set aiming to soften up fatter rain checks to allow sweepers to more easily clean up. Yes some sets aren't instantly gleamable from preview. I should have been more clear. But many are, and stuff like Specs Peli can be assumed instead from damage calcs (like uturning on it).

But on lure sets: yes they are generally difficult to spot. That's the point. But these sets come with a major opportunity cost that balances them out, something Tera distinctly doesn't have by comparison. And in the first place, I never claimed lure sets were easy to spot so please don't put words I never said in my mouth.

 

[Vall]

Specs pelipper is not a lure set. It's a set aiming to soften up fatter rain checks to allow sweepers to more easily clean up. Yes some sets aren't instantly gleamable from preview. I should have been more clear. But many are, and stuff like Specs Peli can be assumed instead from damage calcs (like uturning on it).

But on lure sets: yes they are generally difficult to spot. That's the point. But these sets come with a major opportunity cost that balances them out, something Tera distinctly doesn't have by comparison. And in the first place, I never claimed lure sets were easy to spot so please don't put words I never said in my mouth.

This was earlier in the game and was the first time peli had come in, there wasn't necessarily any information I could have had at this point, and not attacking it would have potentailly let it u-turn into a much more dangerous pokemon, such as floatzel or azu

Unlike Tera, you can very reasonably sus out items and movesets based on team composition

Ah okay, I think I misinterpreted what you said here. I thought you were mainly referring to lure sets in this line, in hindsight that isn't necessarily what you said. Though I do still think this statement does encompass lure sets. Didn't mean to put words in your mouth

 

[Avira]

Something I think would be useful for this discussion would be for people to list most of the mons they think are banworthy because of/in part because of tera.

Currently, when people mention tera breaking mons, they just mention the first few that comes to mind for ease of reading/not wanting to write out 20 mons every time. However since these are usually the same mons from every person (Espathra, Chi-Yu, Volcarona, Dragonite, for example) what ends up happening is that the pro-tera camps only ever sees about 4-8 mons being marked as bad because of tera. And I'm sure people can understand why they would rather ban 4 mons that an entire mechanic.

Of course I don't necessarily think its just 4 mons, but only a few mons are getting brought up over and over, so I think it would be very helpful for this discussion for someone from the ban-tera side to actually mention a large number of the tera-broken mons rather than just the main 8 or so.

Yeah, you got Espathra, Volcarona, and Dragonite (three who happen to be strong candidates for passing a sub from Cyclizar), but Chi-Yu is not among the Pokemon that people say is broken because of Tera. Most people in this thread, the metagame thread, or the viability thread who post about Chi-Yu say that it is broken regardless of Tera. Tera changes what would be a clearly broken mon in an environment without tera and makes it obscenely broken in an environment with Tera.

One Pokemon you neglected to mention is Annihilape, which is one of the best abusers of Tera. As much of a demon it is against slower-paced teams, Annihilape still takes skill to use, and low ladder has no idea how to use it effectively. Most of the people who think that Annihilape is balanced are those who only see their opponents misplay with Annihilape or misplay with Annihilape themselves. Unlike Chi-Yu, which takes almost no skill to use at all, Annihilape requires thought to pilot properly, and in the hands of good players, it's very effective at what it does. It might still be broken without Tera, but it's quite hard to say right now since we haven't seen a SV meta without Tera.

A few of other really strong Tera abusers are Roaring Moon, Dragapult, Chien-Pao, and Kingambit.

I believe that Gholdengo could conceivably be broken even without Tera and that Chi-Yu's presence in the meta is preventing Gholdengo from being even worse than it already is since Chi-Yu is Gholdengo's best offensive check.

I am pro-ban on Tera, but I don't believe there are going to be loads and loads of Pokemon that are broken with Tera like some of the more diehard proponents of a ban on the mechanic. I would rather ban Tera than have 8 Pokemon who could otherwise be fine in OU get banned because the mechanic pushed them over the edge. Tera makes many Pokemon a whole lot stronger with the option of Terastallization, and I don't feel this is a good thing as it increases the variance in the meta to an unhealthy degree to the point of not allowing the meta to stabilize, which I believe is not conducive to a competitive metagame.

My preference would be to outright ban Chi-Yu and Cyclizar and ban Tera too to keep Espathra (It'd be a B or C-tier mon without Tera), Annihilape (maybe), Chien-Pao (maybe) Roaring Moon, Volcarona, Dragonite, Dragapult, and Kingambit in the meta.

I do not think Booster Energy needs a ban when the item is IMO, only a problem on a small pool of abusers such as Flutter Mane, so I don't see the argument in banning the item to make all the paradox mons easier to check.

 

[Arised]

I'm sorry to make a belated post at risk of derailing the thread but the argument about how lower tiers have no bearing on OU feels like perspective at best.

Let’s say no action happens and we go through the tiering process for every Pokemon that’s currently problematic in the metagame, which consists mostly (but not all) of major Tera beneficiaries. At that point, there’s no saying the metagame is balanced either as all we have done is de-crept the power level of the tier and we could potentially spend all generation chasing a balance that simply won’t exist given the nature of the mechanic.

Except we literally have a metagame that is operating at a lower power level that can address this question. Probably everyone agrees at this point that while it might be cool to slap on tera fire on dragonite, it's outclassed severely by better tera types. What if there does exist a power level where tera operates at a similar tradeoff to 4MSS? What if said power level is currently running on a banlist of around 40 mons + box legendaries? Obviously no one wants to blanket ban the current OU tier and make UU the new OU, but it seems to me that it's worth experimenting whether there is a low finite number of bans that converges to a stable metagame before redefining the mechanic entirely to preserve mons that will end up on the suspect list anyways.

In a similar light, assuming Tera will naturally balance in UU and lower tiers is somewhat theorymon. UU is the only lower tier that exists now and it’s in its infancy. UU players can draw some conclusions and I respect that as they have had an unofficial metagame to play for some weeks now, but further down the line really cannot. Once it becomes official and strategies continue to refine, tiering practices continue to update, and so on, a more substantial sample and perspective will exist for UU even and obviously below as they don’t even exist yet.

UU alpha dropped two weeks after box titles were released, so not sure where the line was drawn that OU needs a game mechanic suspect over a banlist but when it looks like there could be a metagame that has all indication of being manageable with tera it's still in its infancy and we have no idea what it's going to look like in the future. I agree that we have no idea what UU will look like in a few months from now. But suggesting that UU could look like OU down the road could also be flipped around to argue that OU could look like UU alpha now in a couple months.

 

[Levant Mir Celestia]

I'm going to compare tera to dynamax. When you to compare the two mechanics. It's literally a night and day difference. Terra only changes the typing of one mon. While dyna basically gives you Z moves while improving your hp. For the most part.

I agree that Dynamax was overtly broken due to the many pluses it gave its user, but terastallization at least rivals Dynamax in terms of being uncompetitive imho (while still being rather broken). It's also a teambuilding nightmare; building a team of 6 that has outs in most matchups is already hard enough, but account for terastallization and it becomes near impossible. What's more, terastallization fucks with the idea of counterplay (which has pretty much everything to do with the type chart in the first place), because any mon can abruptly invalidate their checks. And with the power creep being what it is, that kind of crap can easily cost you a game outright. I'd like to play without having to be paranoid Every. Goddamn. Turn.

 

[PokePoindexter]

Currently, when people mention tera breaking mons, they just mention the first few that comes to mind for ease of reading/not wanting to write out 20 mons every time. However since these are usually the same mons from every person (Espathra, Chi-Yu, Volcarona, Dragonite, for example) what ends up happening is that the pro-tera camps only ever sees about 4-8 mons being marked as bad because of tera. And I'm sure people can understand why they would rather ban 4 mons that an entire mechanic.

The implication here is not that Espathra would be as good without Tera, it's that within a Tera metagame, very few pokemon can win on just a free Tera turn alone like Espathra. The uniqueness of Espathra's situation is less of a indictment on Tera than it is on Espathra. Espathra is stupid because Stored Power and Speed Boost are fundamentally not balanced when combined with one other. I don't really think the comparisons to other stored power users are reasonanble due to Speed Boost, and honestly could be very easy to facilitate Espathra sweeps even without coverage. One of the top ladder teams at the moment is an Espahtra team that's only attacking move is Stored Power. For instance, some of the checks you listed have a slim chance of beating substitute variants, while Ting Lu has little chance against Roost etc. Tera exacerbates the problem but a braindead uncompetitive pokemon like this should not what you hang your on hat for saying Tera is the problem.

To both of these: How about fourteen (at minimum)?

I'm going to compare tera to dynamax. When you to compare the two mechanics. It's literally a night and day difference. Terra only changes the typing of one mon. While dyna basically gives you Z moves while improving your hp. For the most part.

If Dynamax is the bar we're using to consider banning something, then nothing from Gen 9 should've been banned in the first place.

You kinda know which mons are likely to terra. Ofc you can run to certain mons that you won't expect to terra. But that's with most concept's within pokemon. You never for sure what your going to expect.

It's not just "knowing" what will or won't Tera; it's also when they will Tera. The post I linked provides an example of this as well.

With dynamax, you basically won the game if you got momentum off with most mons. But I've seen games where terra didn't help much.

I've seen games where players wasted their Dynamax turns without the opposing player using it at the same time themselves; I'll let you tell me if that discredits the reasoning behind banning it.

I think pro-ban players ideal meta would be battles where you pretty much knew what every mon was going to do. With little no randomness at all.

Nice strawman.

With all of that out of the way: Seeing as how barely anyone has talked about this, probably the one restriction I could be talked into supporting would be banning non-STAB Tera. At least it would cut out some of the more idiotic scenarios non-STAB Tera enables, such as out-of-the-blue type switching or needing to have two ways to check one Pokemon, which the other restrictions would not (see again: Volcarona vs. Meowscarada). However, I am still incredibly circumspect about this one, as there are mons like Dragapult and Valiant that are already wrecking shop with their STAB Teras as they are (I'd add Chi-Yu but that thing is probably getting axed soon enough), and virtually every dual-type mon could still force their opponents to play some potentially ugly mind games (e.g. Volcarona shedding either its Water or Flying weakness, Valiant pumping up one of its elite offensive STABs, etc.). As a result, you'd probably still have to ban a few extra mons you wouldn't have to if you banned the mechanic (albeit not as many as you would without banning any Tera at all), so I can't fully endorse doing this either, and as such am still pro-full ban.

 

[Vall]

To both of these: How about fourteen (at minimum)?

Of those, you've listed 8 that you can identify at all as potentially problematic, and then said "oh these 6 more might become problematic later." I think a lot of people would disagree with the statement that anything past the first 3 are banworthy due to tera. As far as I've seen, no-one would label gambit as problematic, Moon and Valiant have lost a lot of the calls for them to be banworthy, and I've personally had no particular problems with Volc or Pult.

Of the other 6, Ting Lu utilises tera often and it lacks the snowball effect that the initial 8 have, so I doubt it becomes a problem. Typing is not one of its weaknesses particularly. This also goes for Chomp & Tusk. Moth and Pex aren't limited by tera competion, they just don't match up well a lot of common (not banworthy) pokemon, like dodonzo, skeledirge, tusk & ting lu.

The only mons broken with tera (IMO) are the ones that have something special attatched to them:
-Espathra w/ speed boost & stored power - passively getting more powerful, meaning burning turns is more harmful than normal
-Annihlape w/ Rage fist - passively getting more powerful, meaning burning turns is more harmful than normal
-Dragonite w/ Espeed - gives it an incredibly powerful stab combo

 

[Vall]

Yeah, you got Espathra, Volcarona, and Dragonite (three who happen to be strong candidates for passing a sub from Cyclizar), but Chi-Yu is not among the Pokemon that people say is broken because of Tera. Most people in this thread, the metagame thread, or the viability thread who post about Chi-Yu say that it is broken regardless of Tera. Tera changes what would be a clearly broken mon in an environment without tera and makes it obscenely broken in an environment with Tera.
to check.

tbf I think Chi-Yu was named in the initial post as something problematic due to tera, so that might be where the misconception came from

 

[PokePoindexter]

Of those, you've listed 8 that you can identify at all as potentially problematic, and then said "oh these 6 more might become problematic later." I think a lot of people would disagree with the statement that anything past the first 3 are banworthy due to tera. As far as I've seen, no-one would label gambit as problematic, Moon and Valiant have lost a lot of the calls for them to be banworthy, and I've personally had no particular problems with Volc or Pult.

Of the other 6, Ting Lu utilises tera often and it lacks the snowball effect that the initial 8 have, so I doubt it becomes a problem. Typing is not one of its weaknesses particularly. This also goes for Chomp & Tusk. Moth and Pex are limited aren't limited by tera competion, they just don't match up well a lot of common (not banworthy) pokemon, like dodonzo, skeledirge tusk & ting lu.

The only mons broken with tera (IMO) are the ones that have something special attatched to them:
-Espathra w/ speed boost & stored power - passively getting more powerful, meaning burning turns is more harmful than normal
-Annihlape w/ Rage fist - passively getting more powerful, meaning burning turns is more harmful than normal
-Dragonite w/ Espeed - gives it an incredibly powerful stab combo

Speak for yourself; this thread is full of people complaining about all of the first 8 abusing Tera. And yes, I think it is valid in this case to point out other potential problematic ones. Admittedly, the others I named might not have been the best examples I could've offered, but the underlying point is that you will have another batch of abusers once the current ones are gone, and therefore a lot more than just 3-4 mons to have to consider banning. Because the real issue with Tera is independent of a few select abusers of it.

 

[Vall]

Speak for yourself; this thread is full of people complaining about all of the first 8 abusing Tera. And yes, I think it is valid in this case to point out other potential problematic ones. The others might not have been the best examples I could've offered, but the underlying point is that you will have another batch of abusers once the current ones are gone, and therefore a lot more than just 3-4 mons to have to consider banning. Because the real issue with Tera is independent of a few select abusers of it.

I've been through most of this thread and, as multiple people have pointed out previously, multiple people have complained about "Annihlape, Espathra, Dragonite and others." I've seen some people mention Volc & Pult, but there's only been like 2 at most who have mentioned Valiant, Moon or gambit specifically. Anyone can say somethings broken, but its not the common consensus.

As for the others, while its fair to think that there might be other abusers, it's also important to analyse what makes the problematic mons so. With the exception of Ape (Rage fist go BRRRRR), Gambit (sucker Punch) & Valiant (Protosynthesis), all of the mons listed as problematic have an equivalent to dragon dance. As such, its reasonable to conclude that generally, only mons that boost with a way to solve speed issues & power in a single turn become broken due to tera. Of the mons you listed, only really Moth & Tusk have any capability to do that, so theres no reason to conclude that they'll become broken. Baxcalibur is the only OU mon left after the initial 8 are gone that fufills that criteria well enough, so I doubt, even if all mons you say are banworthy currently get banned, I very much doubt we end up with more than like 10, worst case scenario.

 

[PokePoindexter]

even if all mons you say are banworthy currently get banned, I very much doubt we end up with more than like 10, worst case scenario.

Which is still more than it's worth to preserve a battle gimmick, especially since by the time they've all had suspects, HOME will have probably updated and brought even more abusers into the game.

 

[Vall]

Which is still more than it's worth to preserve a battle gimmick, especially since HOME will likely be out by the time they've all had suspects.

Fair enough. I guess we just disagree on this part bc I consider at most 4 of those mons broken (Ape, Chicken, Dragonite and Maybe Valiant). If you truly think that all those other mons are broken due to tera, then it's reasonable to want it banned, but I, personally, just don't find those mons to be overbearing.

 

[k.r.o.b.]

Tera being arguably healthy in UU is actually a strong point in favor of no action. It's the "proof" that tera isn't something that ruins any metagame including it and banning individual mons can be an alternative, more smogon-ish, way to go that could result in a balanced meta.

Expecially considering that we all know perfectly that any decision we take now won't be reverted, and we're taking it based on a provisional metagame lacking key defensive powerhouses (landorus-T, ferrothorn, clefable, gliscor, heatran)

 

[BobKingOfSeagulls]

Which is still more than it's worth to preserve a battle gimmick, especially since by the time they've all had suspects, HOME will have probably updated and brought even more abusers into the game.

I do think this here is a significant reason people are just not going to agree. Even if people all see the same data, some people will just personally believe that X number of pokemon is worth more than a generational mechanic, while some think that mechanic is worth kicking out some pokemon into ubers. At a certain point people will just have different conclusions regardless of how much the other side repeats that tera sucks or tera rules or what have you.

 

[GoodGuy13]

Nice strawman.

How is my argument a strawman? Pro ban players believe terra is too unpredictable and makes it hard to counter. They either want it to be outright banned or limited to one or show which mon has the terra. A literal meta where you know what everything is going to do. That's not strawman that's literally what pro ban players want. Less unpredictably and randomness. Do you know what a strawman is?

 

[Lobby Eeveee]

banning individual mons can be an alternative, more smogon-ish, way to go that could result in a balanced meta.

This has already been mentioned several times already and it’s not a good solution. If the first wave of abusers got banned, the people would just find a new wave of abusers, then they would get banned. Just because of Tera, we essential have RU power levels at the end of the generation. Anyways, once we finished banning the first wave, HOME will be released into S/V and there would be a ton of abusers.

Expecially considering that we all know perfectly that any decision we take now won't be reverted, and we're taking it based on a provisional metagame lacking key defensive powerhouses (landorus-T, ferrothorn, clefable, gliscor, heatran)

We can revert it if we WANT to, we can unban things if it somehow becomes balanced after HOME. Oh, and so you want RU tiers of offense and OU tiers of defense?

 

[Finchinator]

I intend to vote for action (via restriction) on Tera. I believe that the current metagame has too much to account for and the ceiling for consistency is at a low point. I do not think we are particularly far from a metagame where we can both integrate the mechanic and prioritize competitiveness and strategy though. There are likely some Pokemon bans needed in the aftermath of this suspect that will help matters as well. Ultimately, I respect that this generation is like no other thus far and we must proceed with an open mind and perhaps entertain creative solutions in order to handle unique circumstances rather than risking extremism on either side of the spectrum.

I think that there are a lot of redeeming qualities about Tera that add to the game and can be aligned with strategy and creativity rather than sheer guesswork and overly emphasized singular turns/sequences, but it remaining fully intact amounts to a lot of weighted hypothesizing that is not my favorite dynamic. In particular, I find that dynamic to not always be the most competitive or conducive to consistent gameplay environments. Obviously there’s an element of “get good kid” to it where you can bridge knowledge gaps and expect specific interactions, but there are also more layers to this at certain levels and specific hesitancies and mannerisms that can magnify the effect of a timely Tera or a timely bluff of Tera both as a beneficiary and as a deterrent depending on your game state. Accountability in the holder is no walk on the park either, but I find this aspect to be more manageable and Pokemon reliant (as opposed to Tera reliant) than the gameplay component as it stands.

In a sense, I love the prospect of having an intrinsic game feature that offers a novel mode within the context of our metagames, making them more differentiated this generation than any prior and rich in strategy as well, but I also accept that this can create some scary quality-of-life consequences for our product and not every strategy comes devoid of its downsides. And the end-product of our metagames is what matters most for us and our playerbase, who seek a competitively stimulating landscape above all else.

Variance is obviously part of our game and how we police it has drastically shifted over the years, but it’s novel seeing it tied to a core mechanic and how we handle this should be very calculated rather than with reckless abandon. The suspect coming after the survey and with the contingency for potential future suspects allowed us to fit this mold, but even then I acknowledge that this isn’t a perfect practice and there is no outright optimal solution here. A lot of people wanted a different set of options or us to look into Pokémon first. Some wanted us to act on this quicker while others thought it was too prompt. There are plenty of other well-cited critiques of our ultimate decisions as well. At the end of the day, we, as a tiering council, did the best we could and I’m proud of the process that went into it regardless of the result. I have been working tirelessly since release to the point that this has become almost as time consuming as my full-time job, but I also am having a lot of fun both interacting with our vast playerbase and playing the game.

There are certain philosophical contingencies surrounding how different options are perceived and there is no true “right answer” here no matter how much I bang my head into the wall, hoping one ultimately comes to me. It’s impossible to please everyone when the community is more polarized than ever either, so I expect there to be fallout no matter what happens here or in the future. But I also think that we are going to have a stepping stone towards a better SV OU at the end of this and that’s all I care about. I hope everyone understands this.

In terms of my specific opinion on Tera and the evolution of it: Initially, I wanted more severe action to be taken as I found the tier to be very unstable, but it’s been growing on me the last few weeks. Through greater experience with building and playing, deduction of what’s likely coming via Tera is feasible and this has made Tera go from outright broken to more manageable in my eyes, but I still find it to be overbearing in the current landscape. I prefer a restriction rather than an outright ban at this moment because it feels more appropriate and I think if we make an active effort to normalize Tera rather than dismiss it, community perception may shift as time elapses. We can always investigate the topic again in the future with a long generation lying ahead, too. In terms of the specific restrictions, I do dislike the restriction about limiting it to STAB as that’s the most arbitrary and least effective. I used to like this option more and the survey received it decently well, but I feel it would lead to a very uneven metagame and it wouldn’t solve the full scope of the issue. It feels like an incomplete solution essentially.

1 per team and Team Preview are both acceptable to me. Team Preview is a very common pick and I foresee this being the most likely verdict. I think it will help a bit with gameplay, but it does still leave a bit to be desired as there are still so many Tera prospects out there, not solving the full issue either. I’m ok with this to see if the concept continues to normalize and become more manageable with the option to look into it more down the line, but I also think 1 per team may be a more immediate solution. 1 per team is a bit more arbitrary as it lacks the official backing that Team Preview Tera gets, but it would provide users with more vital information while preserving the mechanic, solving a lot of the problems I alluded to above. There are valid grievances with this option stated about it limiting the intention of the mechanic and dwarfing it beyond the point of being salvageable. I don’t really align with that too much as “the spirit of X” arguments never held too much water, but I also respect that many people feel this way and am not going to push for it too hard over the more lenient team preview option given this.

I hope everyone is enjoying the suspect and has a happy New Year.

 

[Beaf Cultist]

I've been through most of this thread and, as multiple people have pointed out previously, multiple people have complained about "Annihlape, Espathra, Dragonite and others." I've seen some people mention Volc & Pult, but there's only been like 2 at most who have mentioned Valiant, Moon or gambit specifically. Anyone can say somethings broken, but its not the common consensus.

Clearly you have not faced a Ghost Tera Dragapult.

But seriously, just because people don’t mention them doesn’t mean returning mons besides Dragonite aren’t serious Tera threats. New toy syndrome is as strong as always, so people are more focused on funny acro dragon and the like, but saying they aren’t broken because people haven’t talked about them much is a bad take. Also, if you looked through threads other than this one, discussion about Dragapult has been almost entirely either ‘yeah, definitely a sleeper brokemon’, or people like you saying ‘well, I haven’t seen it much. It can’t be that bad’.

 

[mcandrew5629]

Clearly you have not faced a Ghost Tera Dragapult.

But seriously, just because people don’t mention them doesn’t mean returning mons besides Dragonite aren’t serious Tera threats. New toy syndrome is as strong as always, so people are more focused on funny acro dragon and the like, but saying they aren’t broken because people haven’t talked about them much is a bad take. Also, if you looked through threads other than this one, discussion about Dragapult has been almost entirely either ‘yeah, definitely a sleeper brokemon’, or people like you saying ‘well, I haven’t seen it much. It can’t be that bad’.

In the same vein, this IS the discussion on tera and it should be as exhaustive as possible so that most of the community sentiment is accounted for; with tons of folks gathering reqs and contributing, I feel like this should be the time we're seeing all the abusers tera enables.

To me, the sentiment of "if we don't ban tera we will ban everything else until it becomes RU" is fear-mongering at best. Vall covers my opinion fairly well.

Can we also stop talking about HOME? The council already said this can be revisited in the future and theorymonning about which import will be broken is not productive to this conversation. There are plenty of pro-ban arguments but this one holds zero water imo