Metagame Terastallization Tiering Discussion [ UPDATE POST #1293]

[tinyranitar]

Fairy types do not have bad stats at all my dude. The reason tera Fairy is so good is that the Fairy type itself has weaknesses so insanely niche that the types which are super effective against it are not super effective against much else. What actually genuinely carries Steel or Poison moves, outside Steel and Poison types, unless it's to hit Fairy?
Then factor in you can just not swap into those extremely niche weaknesses, and that's why it's so good.

I do agree a lot of them don't have bad stats. It's more along the line of sometimes they're only used because they were fairy. If there was a bulkier mon with better defensive ability that can be Fairy, they would have chosen that one.

And as you mentioned, some Pokemons are even better with this because they naturally resists Fairy coverage (Dirge resists Steel and Poison). So the idea was that if Fairy Tera was banned, then these "problematic" strategy would be largely nerfed. Personally I don't believe Skeledirge is the worst offender of Tera, I am just drawing this picture because it's easiest to see why some typing can be exceptionally stronger than other Tera typing.

Expanding on this idea, other common "problematic" typing would be Tera Normal, for ExtremeSpeed users like DNite, or Population Bomb Maushold. Tera Flying for Acrobatics Energy Booster Roaring Moon, Tera Dark for Roaring Moon and Chi-Yu and Chien-Pao, etc. Banning these Tera types also hinders some other would-be abusers for example, and also boost the diversity of the meta because people would get more creative with Tera.

P/s: I am not saying very complex ban like "this Pokemon cannot use this specific tera type" but more blanket Tera type ban. We can already see Normal, Dark and Flying are very good offensive typing already, and Fairy is a good defensive typing, which means they're clearly better than say, Tera Bug.

 

[Finchinator]

I am not sure what further community elements are warranted or requested prior to a suspect, to be honest. I see people saying we need to consult the public more, but we already have repeatedly despite it only being a span of less than a month…like what more is even possible?

We normally do not go this far altogether, but I felt a need to engage as much as humanly possible given the importance and polarizing nature of this topic. Last generation we where far more community oriented than ever before with more transparency from the council (see: my thousands of posts) and regular surveys, but even then we did not reach these lengths, including during the Dynamax suspect which was monumentally important.

Since the start of the generation, we had discourse on Terastallization:

• In the Metagame Discussion thread from day 1 without many limitations
• In the Terastallization thread here across well over a thousand posts
  • Which I have read almost all of and responded to many of as the leader of the council for the sake of full transparency
• Through the largest tiering survey in competitive Pokemon history
  • We also publicly posted results on this for the sake of full transparency
• In virtually every other OU space from Twitter to YouTube to PS! to Discord to other areas on the forums — even my PMs are riddled with Tera discussion and that’s to be expected

For people claiming we need more time, we need the community to be more involved, or we need to do our due diligence beyond what we have, what else do you expect? We have exhausted our resources and, quite frankly, I have exhausted myself to assure we have assessed this sufficiently. This is not a rushed suspect and the vast majority of people calling for it are simply worried that the result will contradict that of their personal agenda — to which I say: get reqs and play your part in history rather than nagging tireless contributors.

 

[BobKingOfSeagulls]

the community to be more involved, or we need to do our due diligence beyond what we have, what else do you expect? We have exhausted our resources and, quite frankly, I have exhausted myself to assure we have assessed this sufficiently. This is not a rushed suspect and the vast majority of people calling for it are simply worried that the result will contradict that of their personal agenda — to which I say: get reqs and play your part in history rather than nagging tireless contributors.

I think you've been handling this certainly better than I have, I think it's just that - as you've said before in this thread - there are no good answers. For a lot of people who may not know the ins and outs of managing this place or just dont want something that isn't Their Opinion it doesn't sit right with them and so would assume it has to be someones fault rather than just being a cursed problem.

 

[Finchinator]

I think you've been handling this certainly better than I have, I think it's just that - as you've said before in this thread - there are no good answers. For a lot of people who may not know the ins and outs of managing this place or just dont want something that isn't Their Opinion it doesn't sit right with them and so would assume it has to be someones fault rather than just being a cursed problem.

We can never please everyone. It is physically impossible given how many stances clash, so instead of pandering, we focus on data and making our metagame the most competitive and enjoyable as possible. That’s my job and that’s my focus.

People are always going to be of the mindset that Smogon is ban-happy or the antithesis of their notions of how the game should be handled from an administrative level, and that is ok. We cannot win them all and there are plenty of other ways to play outside of OU, even those on Smogon, but when this translates to people badmouthing volunteers and ignorant opinions spreading like wildfire, it’s disheartening.

 

[flamewizzy21]

I am not sure what further community elements are warranted or requested prior to a suspect, to be honest. I see people saying we need to consult the public more, but we already have repeatedly despite it only being a span of less than a month…like what more is even possible?

Your efforts for transparancy and open discussion are most certainly noted and appreciated (despite some people throwing frankly unwarranted accusations). Any Tera tiering action (or lack thereof) will be controversial. While it might feel like your efforts are in vain, they will help buffer the inevitable blowback of whatever decision is made. There will still be hate, but there would be much more justified hate if the OU council just keeps everyone completely in the dark until dropping a suspect test.

My suggestion for what the community can do: I suggest publicly figuring out which restrictions should even be considered. Some options (like banning non-STAB tera type) seem to be very unpopular, and it would greatly simplify the discussion to get rid of choices that will never see the light of day. It’s abundantly clear that the community won’t spit out a consensus magical answer to the problem of Tera, but we can probably narrow down the options by showing which restriction choices are generally despised.

 

[Finchinator]

Before starting a suspect, I suggest publicly figuring out which restrictions should even be considered.

I mean this is what the survey did — that and the posts in this thread. We are including the two most statistically popular options and the team preview option that popped up in VGC, which came out after the survey went out.

This is narrowed down from a half dozen or so options initially and even more fragmented suggestions. We did not just arbitrarily decide upon a list — we looked at data and posts, we discussed along the council and tiering admins, and so on. Every aspect of every decision has been and will continue to be at least somewhat calculated with the data sets being compromised of public opinion.

 

[flamewizzy21]

I mean this is what the survey did — that and the posts in this thread. We are including the two most statistically popular options and the team preview option that popped up in VGC, which came out after the survey went out.

This is narrowed down from a half dozen or so options initially and even more fragmented suggestions. We did not just arbitrarily decide upon a list — we looked at data and posts, we discussed along the council and tiering admins, and so on. Every aspect of every decision has been and will continue to be at least somewhat calculated with the data sets being compromised of public opinion.

That sounds like our job here is done.

 

[TrueScotsman]

Your efforts for transparancy and open discussion are most certainly noted and appreciated (despite some people throwing frankly unwarranted accusations). Any Tera tiering action (or lack thereof) will be controversial. While it might feel like your efforts are in vain, they will help buffer the inevitable blowback of whatever decision is made. There will still be hate, but there would be much more justified hate if the OU council just keeps everyone completely in the dark until dropping a suspect test.

My suggestion for what the community can do: I suggest publicly figuring out which restrictions should even be considered. Some options (like banning non-STAB tera type) seem to be very unpopular, and it would greatly simplify the discussion to get rid of choices that will never see the light of day. It’s abundantly clear that the community won’t spit out a consensus magical answer to the problem of Tera, but we can probably narrow down the options by showing which restriction choices are generally despised.

What do you mean? Banning non-STAB terra is popular as seen by the survey.

 

[flamewizzy21]

What do you mean? Banning non-STAB terra is popular as seen by the survey.

Sorry. I misremembered. It was STAB tera ban that was least popular.

 

[Wolf-X]

For people claiming we need more time, we need the community to be more involved, or we need to do our due diligence beyond what we have, what else do you expect? We have exhausted our resources and, quite frankly, I have exhausted myself to assure we have assessed this sufficiently. This is not a rushed suspect and the vast majority of people calling for it are simply worried that the result will contradict that of their personal agenda — to which I say: get reqs and play your part in history rather than nagging tireless contributors.

Why not implement a suspect test ladder without Tera so people can actually compare after actually playing and vote with actual knowledge of what a Non Tera meta would look like?

 

[Finchinator]

Why not implement a suspect test ladder without Tera so people can actually compare after actually playing and vote with actual knowledge of what a Non Tera meta would look like?

For starters, how one votes on Tera has to do with this specific, young metagame with it in the tier. The metagame without Tera doesn’t exist and likely will need it’s own clean-up, much like we had in the first days of the generation. So we are trying to maximize the sample of Tera being in the tier to focus on Tera in the vote and if it deserves to be banned or restricted.

Beyond that, one splinter ladder would not even be sufficient for this purpose as there are outright ban and multiple restriction options, so we would really need 4-5 separate ones and that is entirely out of hand for the sake of a singular suspect.

But above all of that and the main reason: splintering the playerbase is never ideal and will make it hard to ever recover a true identity to the metagame. This is a prospect Smogon has tried before that never has ended well. It’s best to keep it simple and universally understandable rather than muddying the waters sometimes.

 

[Bold School]

I mean this is what the survey did — that and the posts in this thread. We are including the two most statistically popular options and the team preview option that popped up in VGC, which came out after the survey went out.

This is narrowed down from a half dozen or so options initially and even more fragmented suggestions. We did not just arbitrarily decide upon a list — we looked at data and posts, we discussed along the council and tiering admins, and so on. Every aspect of every decision has been and will continue to be at least somewhat calculated with the data sets being compromised of public opinion.

According to the survey, this would suggest that the two most statistically popular options are 1 Tera per team and banning non-Tera STAB are the options to be put with Tera team preview? Although, other was still about 33.9% of the vote. I assume this includes a lot of differing opinions and many things that are just impractical. So there likely wouldn't be enough of a consensus among the "other" to make this an option, right?

So we are looking at Tera team preview, 1 Tera per team, and STAB only Tera as the options?

I'm honestly surprised STAB only Tera even made the cut given how much criticism that option in particular got on this thread. But this is another matter.

Will we be voting on just one of these 3 options or ban in the suspect? Or will there be the option to vote for a combined solution?

 

[TrueScotsman]

According to the survey, this would suggest that the two most statistically popular options are 1 Tera per team and banning non-Tera STAB are the options to be put with Tera team preview? Although, other was still about 33.9% of the vote. I assume this includes a lot of differing opinions and many things that are just impractical. So there likely wouldn't be enough of a consensus among the "other" to make this an option, right?

So we are looking at Tera team preview, 1 Tera per team, and STAB only Tera as the options?

I'm honestly surprised STAB only Tera even made the cut given how much criticism that option in particular got on this thread. But this is another matter.

Will we be voting on just one of these 3 options or ban in the suspect? Or will there be the option to vote for a combined solution?

I think STAB-only makes more sense than this thread thinks. Sure stuff like Terra dark chein pao,Chi yu and Roaring moon OHKO or 2HKO everything but that doesn't mean that STAB-Only doesn't work. We just need to ban the 3-5 mons that do that. It also fixes most issues with Pokemon changing types to resist moves and sweep.

 

[Skyuchi]

I think STAB-only makes more sense than this thread thinks. Sure stuff like Terra dark chein pao,Chi yu and Roaring moon OHKO or 2HKO everything but that doesn't mean that STAB-Only doesn't work. We just need to ban the 3-5 mons that do that. It also fixes most issues with Pokemon changing types to resist moves and sweep.

Dude, if you think it's only 3-5 mons that will be will be doing that, I've got some bad news for you going forward.
It also just makes the whole mechanic completely meaningless. There's absolutely no point in even keeping Tera if it's STAB only. You're not adding anything cool or complex to the game or enabling any new strategies. You're not making any weaker Pokemon stronger, outside a few niche situations where something is held back by one of its types. You're just making wallbreaking stronger while offering no reasonable counterplay.
Making Tera STAB only would be the absolute worst possible outcome, including both keeping it as-is and banning it entirely.

 

[Finchinator]

So we are looking at Tera team preview, 1 Tera per team, and STAB only Tera as the options?

Yes, I confirmed this as of this past weekend. For info on the likely suspect, check out this post: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...on-update-post-80.3711464/page-4#post-9430315

 

[Pluim]

That is not true as far as I understand. It has rarely ever been the case that official in-person vgc tournaments implement open team sheets (which is what is happening in gen 9). This is a new phenomenon clearly influenced by Tera. In-person events have team sheets supplied to the staff to enforce the team lock, whether the team sheets are open and available to all players has nothing to do with that team lock.

Again, then open sheet may be a measure of protecting teams from being scouted early then. I don't think we can be sure if it's due to tera.
After some searching people do seem to think it's due to unfair advantages and scouting, and even so using VGC as a baseline for Smogon is fairly weak.

 

[ExXIII]

Honestly, knowing many people would prefer a meta with Stab-Only Tera over No Tera at all is completely baffling.
Like, what's the point? It's not the Tera mech anymore, it's boring af and it wouldn't even add anything interesting to the game.

I'm Pro-Tera, but this is legit the worst possible outcome.

 

[Bold School]

I think STAB-only makes more sense than this thread thinks. Sure stuff like Terra dark chein pao,Chi yu and Roaring moon OHKO or 2HKO everything but that doesn't mean that STAB-Only doesn't work. We just need to ban the 3-5 mons that do that. It also fixes most issues with Pokemon changing types to resist moves and sweep.

STAB only favors offense while nerfing the defensive aspect of Tera. It also takes most of the creativity of the mechanic. I don't really think spamming double STAB nukes and priority is really all that conducive to a healthy or creative meta. The Adaptability like bonus abuse isn't problematic on only just a few pokemon. But I've made my feelings on how regressive I feel this solution is known enough by now and plenty of people have posted some of the insane calcs.

I think the best compromise solution is ultimately a combination of Tera preview, which nerfs the surprise factor of non-STAB Tera on sweepers like Roaring Moon and Espathra, and some sort of ban or nerf on same STAB Tera. It appears unlikely the first survey would ever lead to this because the latter isn't in it. So I would personally probably look for Tera team preview and then see how we try to modify it from there.

But the important thing is all this makes it increasingly seem highly unlikely we will get it completely right in the first suspect, regardless of whether you agree with me or not. There is a lot of split opinions here and Tera is a multi-faceted problem without a single simple solution.

 

[TrueScotsman]

Dude, if you think it's only 3-5 mons that will be will be doing that, I've got some bad news for you going forward.
It also just makes the whole mechanic completely meaningless. There's absolutely no point in even keeping Tera if it's STAB only. You're not adding anything cool or complex to the game or enabling any new strategies. You're not making any weaker Pokemon stronger, outside a few niche situations where something is held back by one of its types. You're just making wallbreaking stronger while offering no reasonable counterplay.
Making Tera STAB only would be the absolute worst possible outcome, including both keeping it as-is and banning it entirely.

I mean stuff like chi yu breaks its checks regardless of terra. And defensive terra would be far from dead. Stuff like Terra water Bros, terra Ghost Pult to avoid a KO from a dark or Dragon move,etc. There is still a lot of stuff to play around with dual typing mons but instead of having 18 types to choose from and have to predict you only have 2 at most. While this might make the game more offensive than some gens it won't be crazy either.

 

[TrueScotsman]

Honestly, knowing many people would prefer a meta with Stab-Only Tera over No Tera at all is completely baffling.
Like, what's the point? It's not the Tera mech anymore, it's boring af and it wouldn't even add anything interesting to the game.

I'm Pro-Tera, but this is legit the worst possible outcome.

You still can play mind games with what dual type you are going to mono into. For example mono Dragon Pult to OHKO chein pao that tries to sucker punch you, or terra Ghost Pult to dodge ice shard from chein Pao. There is still a lot to do with limited terra.

 

[Bugboy]

Again, then open sheet may be a measure of protecting teams from being scouted early then. I don't think we can be sure if it's due to tera.
After some searching people do seem to think it's due to unfair advantages and scouting, and even so using VGC as a baseline for Smogon is fairly weak.

The designers of the game made the decision to remove the in-hardware team lock. Therefore the designers of Tera were aware that the official in-person tournaments would use open team sheets while they were designing the mechanic. This means we can be nearly certain that Tera was designed competitively with open team sheets in mind.

That’s the bottom line. It’s not an argument of whether we should mimic vgc, it’s that we should view the mechanic in the competitive context that it was designed to be used within.

 

[PK Gaming]

I really feel for the tiering staff for the unenviable task of trying to approach Terastallization balance. It is IMO, the most difficult mechanic we've ever had to seriously reckon with as a community. I remember Drizzle + Swift Swim ban being a huge deal back in the day and it feels so much more quaint by comparison.

I also feel for the playerbase (new and old) trying to hold onto a mechanic that is simultaneously legitimately really fun and thrilling, but also incredibly overwhelming.

I'm sure we'll get to a satisfactory decision eventually, though.

 

[Skyuchi]

I mean stuff like chi yu breaks its checks regardless of terra. And defensive terra would be far from dead. Stuff like Terra water Bros, terra Ghost Pult to avoid a KO from a dark or Dragon move,etc. There is still a lot of stuff to play around with dual typing mons but instead of having 18 types to choose from and have to predict you only have 2 at most. While this might make the game more offensive than some gens it won't be crazy either.

It DOES make it crazy, though. Please go into the calculator and do the math yourself to check it out.
Roaring Moon becomes an unstoppable wallbreaker with its base 139 attack. There are plenty of other things that hit even harder, or things that hit almost as hard and still do the job.
Let's take Brute Bonnet just to be absolutely hilarious about this.
252+ Atk Choice Band Brute Bonnet Crunch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Corviknight: 198-234 (49.5 - 58.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
And yes, it DOES outspeed Corviknight if it invests and Corviknight doesn't. And Corviknight would no longer even be able to tera Fighting/Fairy to resist and threaten to KO with Body Press.

 

[Bugboy]

“Tera type revealed on team preview” is not a restriction. It is the way the mechanic is designed to be played competitively from the get-go. We are practically certain of this because we know the designers of the Tera mechanic were aware official VGC tournaments would be open team sheets (in-cartridge changes were made ahead of time to match these tournaments).

It has nothing to do with mimicking VGC, it has everything to do with matching the intended power level of Tera.

By playing without Tera revealed on preview, we are buffing the mechanic to be stronger than it was intended to be. This is an unintentional consequence of being an unofficial meta that is unaware of gamefreak’s intentions, but it is not a problem because it can be fixed. My argument is that it should be fixed prior to a suspect test.

 

[Project_Mars]

“Tera type revealed on team preview” is not a restriction. It is the way the mechanic is designed to be played competitively from the get-go. We are practically certain of this because we know the designers of the Tera mechanic were aware official VGC tournaments would be open team sheets (in-cartridge changes were made ahead of time to match these tournaments).

By playing without Tera revealed on preview, we are buffing the mechanic to be stronger than it was intended to be. This is an unintentional consequence of being an unofficial meta that is unaware of gamefreak’s intentions, but it is not a problem because it can be fixed. My argument is that it should be fixed prior to a suspect test.

Not entirely true, you do not see Tera Types on preview when laddering online this rule is only for in-game events.