enjoyment: 6
i'm still having fun, the meta is definitely more playable than it ever was in dlc1 except
maybe towards the end, but it just feels kinda stale somehow. it probably has a lot to do with how matchup-fishy and lead-centric the tier is; a lot of matches it just doesn't feel like i'm actually
playing
balance: 6
it's more balanced than the arch rain meta, but there's still way too much nonsense running around. between rain, sun, hazards, the overwhelming glut of setup sweepers, and whatever the hell kyurem is doing, there's way too much to try and cover, and far too many matches seem like they come down to either matchups at team preview or picking the right lead on turn 1. those things are natural parts of the meta, sure, but it shouldn't be commonplace to be given so large of an advantage on turn 1 or even turn 0. and it feels like most of the matches that
aren't decided by that are decided by sucker punch or thunderclap 50/50s
tera: no action
the majority of the current problems with the meta would become exponentially worse without tera. being able to control matchups mid-game and forcing your opponent to make midground plays around your ability to do so is just about the only thing holding ou back from being virtually entirely decided around matchups and leads. nerfing tera is a non-starter for any option besides a ban on tera blast, which i'd accept over a full tera ban, but i don't support it and here's why:
on tera blast
i think the risks of running tera blast are understated by its ban proponents—you've got a dead moveslot most of the time if you don't tera, which puts a lot more pressure on you to tera that mon, which can severely constrain your options if, say, you run into a bad matchup or get off to a poor start and need to burn tera on something else to not autolose. basically, you need to actually play well and constantly keep your own tera in mind to get the proper use out of tera blast, and that's what makes it acceptable in my eyes. the other major point that gets brought up against tera blast—namely, that it can give any pokemon any coverage it needs, which could break a lot of things—seems a bit exaggerated. sure, it
can do that, and it
could break a lot of things. but
does it? out of the 9 mons deemed problematic enough to be on this survey, only one runs tera blast enough to mention. it's even fallen off on kingambit, once a prime user of the move. i'll be fair and include kyurem in the "problematic mons" list because i maintain that it still is, and kyurem does run tera blast too, but that's still only 2 out of 10 problematic mons running it, which is in line with the approximately 1/5 of mons in the meta at large that run the move. so it doesn't seem like it's making things problematic at an outsized rate, and i don't believe the reward outweighs the risk enough to consider the move broken. anyway, this was a long tangent, so let's get back to the actual matter at hand: the survey
5
gouging fire remains a significant problem for the tier. some of its sets have almost no viable offensive counterplay, and others have literally no viable defensive counterplay. it's not an exaggeration to say that sun protoatk band gouging 6-0s stall at preview—it just comes out in sun, teras, clicks raging fury, and 2hkos dondozo. that's not an ok thing for a resisted physical attack to do, ever. and this isn't even the best thing it can do—protospeed band on sun doesn't eviscerate stall quite as hard but is still a fantastic wallbreaker that shreds offense too, protoatk dragon dance is harder to pull off extended sweeps with in sun but can give you the benefits of both band and scarf if you pull it off (minus the dozo matchup), non-sun ddance sets (occasionally with booster energy) are perfectly serviceable too, and there's also defensive burning bulwark sets and setup/recovery pseudovolc stuff and so on and so forth. there's a lot of things this mon does and some of them can easily beat things that should by all means hard-counter it
4
she honestly didn't get any healthier since dlc1, there just happened to be more dragons and one of them was archaludon. with arch out of the way, waterpon has started becoming problematic even with the dragons because, well, she can just run play rough. between that and her stabs, not much can withstand a waterpon sweep besides "just outspeed lol", and even that can be kinda shaky for a lot of things since she's got crazy spdef after tera and runs horn leech fairly often. and of course there's plenty of other options for her that can easily surprise people who are expecting the common sets—u-turn all-out-attacking sets are on the rise, encore is a popular niche option, trailblaze is sometimes a thing, and i've even seen spikes + knock off sets popping up to punish momentum-heavy rain teams that mainly rely on treads (which has a horrific matchup against waterpon) for hazard removal. i think it's nearly time to give waterpon the boot, but we should remove a couple other things that are even more problematic first
5
also didn't get any healthier since dlc1, but at least waterpon tried to hide it—roaring moon has just been doing the same nonsense it did before. it still doesn't really have any solid and concrete answers that don't fall to, like, taunt or roost. someone brought up banded quick attack dragapult as a check to it, which i heard was actually run in some spl game or other, and if you're so desperate for answers to something that you're running banded quick attack dragapult in a major tournament, something is horribly wrong with the thing you're trying to answer
3
i don't have much to really say about it, it's still as matchup moth as ever and once the weather wars die down and it stops having to run tera dragon it's probably gonna steamroll the whole tier
4
i'm pretty sure this mon is broken, but i'm not sold on it being the biggest problem in the tier right now. i think that award goes to gouging fire. initially i thought the mon might be fine, but with how gross it can get with thunderclap 50/50s and how easy it is to beat its normal checks with weather ball on rain
or sun, i no longer think that. get it out! but gouging and moon first, please
5
this mon has been cheese since day 1 and it's cheese to this day. i personally don't think it's the
biggest problem in the tier at the moment but you always need two checks to it minimum and i hate it so much that i'm fine with having it be banned at any time
1
i'm tempted to rate this higher because deep down i kinda want it banned so we can blacklist discussion of dropping box legendaries ever again, but i just don't consider it a problem at all. i've never really felt strained to answer it in builder because it feels like common mons and cores just kinda cover it automatically on both offensive and defensive teams
5
the mon itself is not actively problematic on the face of it, but it warps teambuilding so much just by its ability existing
at all, even if it's not physically present in a given match. everyone saying that the addition of one or two defoggers wouldn't change things has just been a prisoner of the hazard meta for so long that they've forgotten just how good it is to be able to remove hazards freely and to be able to actually put a defogger on your team without worrying about it being a dead slot a third of the time
1
salt cure is a cheap-ass move, true. covert cloak never ended up panning out, true. but garg is heavily tera-reliant and that's a terrible thing to be right now. it's also very dependent on defensive matchups and positioning to be able to actually get onto the field so it can click the cheap move in the first place, and it's passive outside of salt cure—ironpress and curse seem kinda iffy when that one turn of setup can lead to, say, the opponent safely bringing in walking wake
other
ban the people who keep bringing up lugia and solgaleo
/
