Announcement SV National Dex Suspect 1: Crystals

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Hi hi. Been playing Showdown ever since XY under a lot of different names, so my perspective comes from someone who's used to every generation introducing some brand new defining characteristic that ends up making a huge impact on the metagame. I've watched discussions about Mega Evolution and Z-Moves and Dynamax from the sidelines, but decided to make an account here finally just because I feel like this is something I should speak up on.

(tl;dr I want Terastal to be limited in some fashion like showing Tera types on team preview or only having one dedicated Terastal mon but since the only options are ban or no ban and the meta hasn't had time to settle yet I say no ban for now)

The way I see it, Terastal is something sort of in between Z-Moves and Dynamax, being incredibly flexible and built around the surprise like the former and a persistent effect that changes how you have to fight a mon like the latter. Dynamax was banned though, and I think most people (me included) are pretty okay with that. Why? Dynamax puts an extremely restrictive bottleneck effect on the game. Playing around it is completely mandatory, virtually always going to happen the same way, and its only real counter is also using it in response. The meta begins to pivot around Dynamax rather than it being a part of the meta. You can make teams without Mega Pokemon or Z-Moves and do just fine even if your opponent has one or both, but if you don't Dynamax and your opponent does, you are immediately at a huge disadvantage because of that.

So what makes Terastal a middle ground? A couple reasons, most notably in my opinion being that Terastal isn't only countered by itself. You can predict it, play around it, and punish it, albeit with more or less difficulty depending on the combination. I compared it to Z-Moves earlier because it's got a lot of flexibility, but instead of one giant hammer of a move or super big buff, you change how the Pokemon works. A lot of weak Pokemon get stronger, and a very interesting defense metagame is created of predicting what Tera type a Pokemon is, when they'll Terastallize, who they'll use it on, and how you'll respond to it afterwards, often creating a situation where whoever Terastallizes first is at a disadvantage. Unfortunately, Terastal has the downsides of also being kind of mandatory to use every match (ish, not like Dynamax where not using it was an objective and straightforward misplay) and of making already-strong Pokemon even stronger. The double STAB bonus is really strong on its own, but add in any other kind of damage buff like Swords Dance or rain... Well, you've seen the posts here about stuff like Swift Swim Barraskewda. It's crazy. On the whole, people haven't developed reliable ways to shut it down yet.

That "yet" is going to do some heavy lifting in this paragraph. Scarlet and Violet have been out for all of two months as of this post, and I just don't think that's enough time to decide whether or not this mechanic can be wholesale banned for the entire format. Terastal is not like Dynamax, where it's mandatory and has little variation and if you aren't also doing it you're kneecapping yourself. There's a lot of different things you can do with it, and even the really nasty combinations aren't immune to being checked. Of course, over time people are naturally going to settle on a few combinations that prove to be the most consistent, like Tera Normal on anyone with Extreme Speed, Tera Water or Fairy for defensive Pokemon that need to shed an inconvenient typing, the aforementioned Barraskewda, so on. But those combinations aren't the only possible uses for it, and they don't force you to use them in return. You could even argue a Pokemon having an extremely predictable Tera type makes it open to being countered, but that's not really my overall point.

Now, despite everything I've said here, I do think Terastal needs to be reigned in for the time being. In my experience on ladder at least, the nastiest thing about it is that you don't know how the opponent will use it. You don't know when they will, who they'll use it on, or what type their Pokemon can suddenly change to, which is especially dangerous when a Tera Blast comes off a Pokemon that blindsided you. The first one of those kinds of mind games is absolutely mandatory if you want Terastal in a competitive format, and not necessarily important if they plan to use it strictly offensively, but the second two are able to be extremely strong situationally and can pivot the course of matches. In my humble and handsome and intelligent and very humble opinion, we should probably start with removing one of those questions. Perhaps only one dedicated Pokemon on your team could be the one you can Terastallize, or Tera types are displayed on team preview. The ambiguity of how and when it will pop up in a match is one of the strongest things about Terastal, and selectively clearing up parts of that ambiguity might do a lot to make it more manageable. Who knows? One of these might work. We won't know if we just delete Terastal and all experimentation with it.

Also, this one's just a me thing, and I fully understand that fun is subjective and being competitive is the most important thing, etcetera and etcetera, but I think it'd be a real shame if the National Dex format ended up looking really similar to how it did last generation except Chien-Pao's the new revenge killer on the block and Tapu Koko/Regieleki shenanigans include Quark Drive users now. Terastal has a lot of really fun and creative applications I'd hate to see junked this early into Gen 9's life.
 

Steorra

nya smells
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National Dex format ended up looking really similar to how it did last generation
i dont really understand this argument. We have a ton of new additions that have seen play in the metagame from skeledirge to gholdengo. In addition to a few mechanic changes like the nerf to recover moves or the nerf to abilities on certain mons, the range of threats and weaknesses in the metagame has definitely changed compared to last gen. Heck if tera gets banned we might see some unbans to even further prove that point but thats speculative.

This argument couldve also applied last gen to compare gen 8 natdex to gen 7 ou which was arguably similar for a while, but eventually with movepool expansions and bans/unbans after dlc waves it shifted from that perspective. Another point as well is potential dlc can shake up the metagame, we dont know what game freak plans to do but based on last gen expectations can be at the very least a few new additions to the metagame.
 
I'm a bit new to this, and I admit I'm not exactly the most competitive pokemon player, as I like to experiment with pokemon a lot of pro players wouldn't even dare touch, but my personal opinion on this matter is that terastal in itself is not a broken mechanic. While certain strategies and pokemon can be made broken (Melmetal and Shedinja having been notable examples), I don't argue that it is an inherently broken mechanic (After all, Mega Evolutions in general weren't banned just because Rayquaza and Kangaskhan broke the game, so can't it be the same with Barraskewda or Melmetal), as it can be dealt with in a number of ways and has greatly expanded the ways in which the game can be played, which in turn allows for more interesting battles. As the initial post said, it has helped previously underpowered pokemon find their footing in a competitive setting and I believe that removing it would make it less appealing.

My personal thoughts on this mechanic are similar to what P McGee has stated. Instead of a complete ban, we should instead focus on ways to place checks and balances to allow usage to become healthier. This can include the introduction of ability to see your opponent's Tera Types, movement of specifically dangerous pokemon to the uber category like Iron Bundle and Shedinja, or having one or two designated pokemon to be Terastallized.

I would also like to propose, if the ban does go through, to perhaps promote the mechanic as its own unique meta, since I think it's really fun as is and I like the idea of being able to have Terastal as a mechanic without having to play AG or Uber.

Edit: I would also like to add that, after playing some more battles with this mechanic, I'd like to point out that your opponent can also be weakened if they terastallize. Someone tried to Terastallize a Dudunsparce to ghost type and the result of this was screwing themselves over once they had only that and an Oricorio against my Aegislash.
 
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Kyo

In Limbo
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I don't argue that it is an inherently broken mechanic (After all, Mega Evolutions in general weren't banned just because Rayquaza and Kangaskhan broke the game, so can't it be the same with Barraskewda or Melmetal)
I would be careful comparing Megas to Tera as they're very different mechanics, both in function and in scope. Megas were confined to a limited pool of mons with an even smaller number of those being potentially broken. I think we've seen already just how many mons can be cracked with the correct application of Tera so understand that not banning or restricting Tera in some way is almost certainly going to result in far more individual bans than the handful of Megas we had to deal with. Also worth noting the other major difference between the two mechanics which is that you can usually tell exactly which Pokémon is going to Mega evolve and what it will likely do whereas Tera tends to be far less predictable, at least in its current unrestricted state.
 
I would be careful comparing Megas to Tera as they're very different mechanics, both in function and in scope. Megas were confined to a limited pool of mons with an even smaller number of those being potentially broken. I think we've seen already just how many mons can be cracked with the correct application of Tera so understand that not banning or restricting Tera in some way is almost certainly going to result in far more individual bans than the handful of Megas we had to deal with. Also worth noting the other major difference between the two mechanics which is that you can usually tell exactly which Pokémon is going to Mega evolve and what it will likely do whereas Tera tends to be far less predictable, at least in its current unrestricted state.
I do get what you're saying, yeah. And I do agree that it would be the healthiest option to apply checks and balances to the system, as I said. I believe designated Terastallizing Pokemon and/or more transparency about Tera types would help this become healthier in terms of the meta. The comparison was mainly me trying to articulate a point that a full ban on the mechanic would be "throwing out the baby with the bath water" in my eyes.
 

Solaros & Lunaris

Hold that faith that is made of steel
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In this post I will address some anti-ban arguments I’ve heard in the Tera tiering thread, as well as Discord and PS!, as well as some of my own thoughts on how Tera influences building and playing for the worse. Bear in mind I’m someone who wants Tera gone fully, and I will explain why restrictions are largely ineffective.

1. Tera is fun/Tera is the generation mechanic
This is ultimately a subjective take, and being a generational mechanic does not bar Terastalization from being looked at. Pursuing competitiveness is arguably the reason anything gets banned at all, and “fun” is ultimately dragged along with that concept, but it certainly should not be the first thing brought up to keep Tera.

2. Tera is like Z-Moves
This is simply false; Z-Moves are limited by an item slot, being one-time use moves, and usually augment moves that have any number of drawbacks, such as low BP (Kyurem’s Freeze-Dry), low accuracy (Zapdos’ Hurricane), or recharge turn (Kartana’s Giga Impact). Terastal requires no item dedication and can be used on any Pokemon at any time, and is capable of flipping a Pokemon’s matchups for the rest of the game (both offensive and defensive counterplay are hurt by this). Oh, and Z-Moves never granted Adaptability to a slew of offensive powerhouses at basically no cost. The overall benefits of Tera far outweigh its downsides, and have the potential to be far more braindead thanks to it lasting the entire battle.

3. Tera should be restricted
While I can understand where this argument is coming from, the truth is that restricting (which is referring to revealing Tera types at Team Preview) isn’t really going to help with building or playing against Tera. Even if I know the opposing Melmetal is tera Steel or Barraskewda is tera Water, accounting for one (let alone both) in the builder is an issue that is not solved. Restricted Tera just tells me that I can forfeit earlier because I couldn’t handle the matchup I caught, thus rendering it largely useless. Other Tera restrictions I find to be either similarly ineffective or delve into complex ban slippery slope territory or both, but I can address them if desired.

As for why I think Tera should be banned, I think its influence on both the builder and individual games is very harsh, resulting in builds that need multiple Pokemon to check a single threat or hoping you have enough offensive pressure for Tera not to matter. Even if you have multiple checks to a Pokemon that will Tera in the match (and that’s a big “if”, they have 5 other mons that may Tera), how can you guarentee you will switch to the right one on the turn/attack with the correct move when they Tera? These sorts of scenarios are continuously caused every turn with very little exception. While you can argue unpredictability is not a valid reason to ban something, having a level of unpredictability at almost no cost to the user just leads to very dire reads and praying your guess was right. As a result, I really think Tera wrecks the competitive aspect of the metagame, and should be banned.
 

sealoo

PaulGod
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Not gonna write a complete soliloquy about Tera, but I think it is completed busted and unhealthy for a truly competitive metagame.

It is fun to play with more often than not, although subjective as adem has mentioned earlier.

I also would like to add the unpredictablility and the 50/50s it forces are very annoying as Ryuji said. Running into a Volcarona for example and guessing if it will Tera Water, Tera Grass, or just stay in base can cost you potential games.

The adaptability from matchup to matchup is ridiculous, as you can Tera any mon in any position with minimal drawback due to still having an item slot usable.

Overall, I am definitely in favor of banning Tera, mechanics broko!
 
Most of your complains about Tera could be avoided just associating the mechanic to an item slot, like a Z-move. This way there's no stack from choice items and "adaptability" effect (no Barraskewda or Melmetal spamming), and you also reduce the number of mons to terastallize (as you would need to run a Teracrystal to do it).

There would be no need to reveal teratypes in preview, people could build creative sets to surprise their enemies and you wouldn't remove the generational mechanic.
 
Someone tried to Terastallize a Dudunsparce to ghost type and the result of this was screwing themselves over once they had only that and an Oricorio against my Aegislash.
No disrespect, but I do not think Dudunsparce, Oricorio and Aegislash are [at least for the moment] prime Tera users or checks. Perhaps you could illustrate your point further with more salient examples, to help us all understand your thought process and opinion?
 

Ryuji

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Most of your complains about Tera could be avoided just associating the mechanic to an item slot, like a Z-move. This way there's no stack from choice items and "adaptability" effect (no Barraskewda or Melmetal spamming), and you also reduce the number of mons to terastallize (as you would need to run a Teracrystal to do it).

There would be no need to reveal teratypes in preview, people could build creative sets to surprise their enemies and you wouldn't remove the generational mechanic.
This is not the way smogon do things, as the idea is to replicate how a game between 2 players is played in real life. Banning is something we can do, as people can say before the game: "i'm banning this/that". the same goes for clauses that already has been explored. But restricting tera to an item heavely impact its nature and change way too much the game, meaning it is not an approach smogon should take. There isn't such item, meaning we would have to create one and derogate to the "we try to replicate a real game" and therefore this is not something doable.

As a council member i'd like to emphasis this: what we want is a competitive enjoyable metagame. That does not mean we're banning tera happily or that it's just made for "killing your fun", as ive seen in multiple previous posts.

The main annoying part about tera aren't the "random part", because at some point metagame trends appears and people are more aware of it. It is the nature of how a metagame and its player developp, meaning people will soon know that Regieleki will most likely be Tera Ice/Grass, for example. What's annoying, tho, is how tera redefine the question of what check what. It means I have to play several mons to only check ONE variant of a Pokemon. Let's take Eleki again, it means I need a ground type and also a good SpD wall that is able to stomach multiples Volt Switch and Tera Blast. This is incredibly restricting and Eleki isn't that common nowadays but still something you need to respect. And there's a lot of Pokemon you need to respect in the builder, Eleki was just an example.

When you want to play at a high ceiling level competitively, you therefore need to check as many common Pokemon you can or having somewhat of a gameplan against those. Good teams are good because of their ability to deal with meta trends properly if played correctly. But what if now I don't need one Pokemon, or one gameplan, but multiple for the staple of the tier? In the previous generation, the metagame was restricted, even with the 1000ish mon available, and this is because the restricted pool was able to match the criteria ive mentionned. Now, if i need multiples ways to answer one Pokemon because of tera how does it will affect the metagame? By restricting even more the pool you have access to, and this is a big issue competitively speaking. The irony is, in National Dex where you have the largest pool available the metagame is as or even more restricted than OU.

That is the first reason Tera is suspected, and why so many top players wants it gone. The second reason is an ingame thing. Tera has the power, if used correctly, to completely turns the table of a game and reversing 100% losing situation, everyone will agree with me on that. Having such an impact while still not being able to be baited or scouted is incredibly annoying. It also, by its nature, overshadow most of its issues by how good its qualities are, is completely free to use and can combine with boosting item. Those factors are important. This is the nature terastallization has, and as id say earlier, we can't change it. Roughly put, its a low risk high reward button in most cases. It's not going to win you the entire game but will still have reward in some situations. To elaborate, when there's a situation where you could choose to tera or not, and bar some exceptions you will ALWAYS have reward clicking it. For example, why wouldn't you tera eleki first turn? The only exception is the 50-50 case i already talked about earlier in my dnite post.

So, in short, tera restrict the metagame and while restricting it, it still can completely change a game by its use and will always have reward. Smogon wants to reward the better player, I think everyone that has played a tournament would agree to this statement, and I honestly don't see how it does personnally, so as many top players. If tera isn't competitively enjoyable it needs to be banned, and that's all.

When it comes to restriction, they weren't explored as a choice, simply because we don't believe it will make the tera enjoyable competitively and by that removing its issues without deeply changing the mechanic.
- Showing tera types at preview is just doing your homework before playing. If i want to win tournaments i need to play as many games as i can to practise and learn the tier, meaning i will learn how the meta work and what are its trends, including tera types trends. So showing them is just me saving time not playing as many games as i was supposed to, basically, because i won't need as many game knowledge about terastallization. It also doesn't solve the free-to-use part, and doesn't help as much making a proper gameplan, especially when i have nothing to deal with a said pokemon with a said tera type. Finally it does not solve the 50-50 scenario i enlighted earlier and does not solve the restriction part. It's just less time consuming and was not explored as a solution.
- restricting tera to STAB is straight up a bad call. While i don't have to prep for Eleki and it will alleviate a bit the builder, giving free adaptability to already strong Pokemon will restraint the metagame, because you now need to check even more stronger pokemon with a smaller pool, since you cannot rely on tera typing a bulky pokemon to deal with it anymore. Same goes for restricting tera to non STAB or to one Pokemon, it does not solve the two points i enlighted.

And finally, when it comes to the famous question: 'but lets just ban broken' I want to say that this is just blinding yourself and not seeing the problem. Stuff like Roaring Moon were banned BECAUSE of the tera, Shedinja is banned because of that as well and although i dont miss it Tera is and will be the main reason of upcoming bans. Reducing the pool isnt a good solution, if Pokemon like Floatzel are already good right now, while tera is unexplored, what can be said about other similar cases? In short, if tera becomes the main reason stuff are banned then maybe tera is the issue and we should look for it before we ban half of the mon available.

I get people don't like this decision. People that simply wants to ladder sees their fun being taken away by people they don't know/give a shit about. However, as a council we need to work for the competitive playerbase as well. It is not because it is fun for you to tera type and reverse a game that tera is something competitively enjoyable. At the end, the best action is to make the decision that ensure the competitiveness of a metagame. So a suspect test with only ban/no ban as a course of action is the best call here. I still hope voters will keep that in mind. My course of action is still the same right now, ill be always in favor for a full BAN.

(little parenthesis before ending that post is that we are different from OU. Their decision does not affect us the way it would for a lower tier, so tera being restricted and working for OU (although i doubt it will) does NOT mean it will be looked again.)
 
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This is not the way smogon do things, as the idea is to replicate how a game between 2 players is played in real life. Banning is something we can do, as people can say before the game: "i'm banning this/that". the same goes for clauses that already has been explored. But restricting tera to an item heavely impact its nature and change way too much the game, meaning it is not an approach smogon should take. There isn't such item, meaning we would have to create one and derogate to the "we try to replicate a real game" and therefore this is not something doable.
I wonder how a game would be played in real life on a tier which simply cannot be played in real life. Furthermore, almost every Smogon clause changes the game experience from the regular games, so that argument of "pureness" makes no sense for me. Megas and Z-moves had the item requirement so it wouldn't be a large assumption to introduce this clause to balance the game, as all the uncompetitive sides of the mechanic would just dissapear.

Not taking this into consideration and going for a simple ban/no ban seems like a poor approach to a complicated question when we have the tools to make it balanced.
 
I wonder how a game would be played in real life on a tier which simply cannot be played in real life. Furthermore, almost every Smogon clause changes the game experience from the regular games, so that argument of "pureness" makes no sense for me. Megas and Z-moves had the item requirement so it wouldn't be a large assumption to introduce this clause to balance the game, as all the uncompetitive sides of the mechanic would just dissapear.

Not taking this into consideration and going for a simple ban/no ban seems like a poor approach to a complicated question when we have the tools to make it balanced.
I'd wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. I still very much agree that there are ways to work to balance it. Item requirements, designated Tera pokemon, seeing pokemon's Tera types... these are all very much useful tools.

I'd also like to use this moment to debunk some specific ban-favoring arguments.

Personally, I think the "Reacting to Terastal is just a guessing game" is very much a gross oversimplification of the mechanic. Even now in this untamed era of Terastal, you can kind of see people gravitate towards very specific Tera types for certain pokemon. If a Barraskewda shows up (I've only once seen one that was ground type in the hundreds of battles I've been playing with the mechanic), chances are you know it's gonna be a Water type and if Melmetal shows up, it'll probably be a Steel type. It's not too hard to predict what types there are, and the counters to that don't require you to Terastallize yourself (In Barraskewda's case, you have many ways to work around its Swift Swim before it goes for an OHKO that wouldn't require it. Priority moves, Focus Sash, Storm Drain, and Weather changes all can count. Sure, I recognize it can be a problem if you're focusing on a specific counter since, as a friend who's more versed in the nature of the tiers than I am said, the point of Ubers is that "this one thing is too powerful if we need to run a specific counterfor it", but I think there's worse out there.)

On top of that, I think a lot of people also forget that, in my opinion, using Terastal also requires some skill. It's like Dynamax where it's simple, easy to use, and completely wrecks everything. You have to consider what specific type you think would work best with the Pokemon and be prepared to sacrifice any double resistances if it's a two-type pokemon (While this can work in your favor if you have something like Shiftry or Aurorus who have a lot of weaknesses, Terastallizing a Spiritomb or Scizor means opening them up little, and you have to be prepared for whatever happens because of it), as well as synchronize it with your move list (If you have a pokemon that doesn't learn any really good Grass type moves, a Grass type Tera Blast isn't exactly much compensation for giving it five weaknesses). There's also the issue of timing. Players have to think about when the best time to spring a Tera Type is. If your opponent has Steel-type Pokemon, you're not going to want to Terastallize into a Fairy type when they're on the field, and even after that's dealt with, you can't simply rush in without thinking about responses. Even Barraskewda probably won't Terastallize unless there's rain on the field, since that's the circumstance in which its power becomes the best. That's why they usually have Pelipper to set up rain. Spring it too early, and you're opening yourself up to counters. I know my story about Aegislash and Dudunsparce wasn't particularly shining examples of the higher tier pokemon, but I still think it does show that Terastallizing is still a double edged sword in a lot of occasions. I've also fallen victim to it, where I've had Mega Lopunny break some of my own Terastallized pokemon, even with type advantages. Even Melmetal has fallen victim to this. I've been running a Body Press Regirock recently, taking use of its high defenses to deal major damage. I've been able to knock out Melmetal with it, even while it's Terastallized, just because I've already boosted Regirock up to 4x defense. And the thing is, I don't need to Terastallize my Regirock to do that (I occasionally Terastallize it to Electric type, but It's not something I think I'm required to do, and I do strategically in response to the situation I'm in)

I'd also want to point out that, despite Terastallizing having helped many pokemon who were otherwise less competitive find their footing, I don't believe it's a replacement for a pokemon's moves, abilities, and stats either. I know these might be extreme examples, but I thought they still could make my point. You could Terastallize a Chimecho to any type, and it wouldn't really make up for its stat deficiencies. Terastallizing a Slaking doesn't change the fact that you're still working to overcome Truant. And if a Pokemon has a mostly Physical movepool despite having better special attack, a type change is going to remedy the limits.

Overall, I very personally believe, based on my own experiences, that Terastallizing does require skill and planning to use properly and I don't believe it to be a broken mechanic. I understand there's been some things that benefit off it to insane degrees, but I believe there's proper remedies to it. I will continue to support allowing Terastal as a mechanic, or, as a compromise, supporting the promotion of its own metagame alongside a non-Terastal one for the benefit of those who still feel like they have a problem with the mechanic, this way those in favor of the mechanic can enjoy using it in a competitive setting, while those against it don't feel like they have to deal with it since they have their own ruleset where it won't be an issue.

Apologies if this is a long post, I just had a while to think about all this since last night and I wanted to share these thoughts.
 

yonmd

Formerly Yes or no my dude
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I wonder how a game would be played in real life on a tier which simply cannot be played in real life. Furthermore, almost every Smogon clause changes the game experience from the regular games, so that argument of "pureness" makes no sense for me. Megas and Z-moves had the item requirement so it wouldn't be a large assumption to introduce this clause to balance the game, as all the uncompetitive sides of the mechanic would just dissapear.

Not taking this into consideration and going for a simple ban/no ban seems like a poor approach to a complicated question when we have the tools to make it balanced.
Smogon is unable to just go ahead and create a new item or something in order to restrict tera. You have to remember all mechanics from ps (aside from oms and cap) are borrowed completely from the games. If they are even hesitant to ban last respects rather than the mon itself I don’t think they would ever come close to doing something like this. Megas and z moves are items in game, while tera isn’t. There’s your answer for that question.

Also, the idea to make tera an item is a bit counterintuitive and won’t serve much of a purpose when coming to improving the meta. It will mostly reduce the skill curve required to learn terastalization, and heavily reduce punishment to a player who doesn’t know how to play around it. It’s quite similar to Dmax in random battles, where more low ladder players complain about it, as they have not played the tier enough to understand the depth of the mechanics. You could say it would be even worse to leave it at the state it is currently in, and I agree, but showing tera type at team preview or limiting it to the first mon of the team are just overall much better options than to make the tera mon significantly weaker as they cannot hold an item.

With the nature of tera not being as frontloaded as a z move in power, it will definitely not be worth putting on every team. There are so many Pokémon that are only strong because they are able to hold an item and terastalize, such as floatzle chiyu and roaring moon. Removing the item will make terastalization heavily favor stall pokemon, and offensive pokemon will more often than not choose to keep their item. This will bring too much of a change to the meta, and honestly will probably make it extremely boring.

Overall, making terastalization an item is a horrible idea and will only worsen the meta, as well as being impossible due to smogon rules. Stop trying to advocate for it lol.
 

Capfoo

formerly Captain Combusken
Hey just got my recs so I figured I would give my thoughts.

I am going to be voting for restricting Terastalisation, but specifically ONLY revealing Tera types at Team Preview.

As someone who was initially in the "Do Nothing at all" camp, I have over the course of playing with it, both in Natdex and also VGC (not super relevant but I thought I'd bring it up anyway for context), come to the conclusion that SOMETHING does need to be done about Terastalisation. The main issue for me is that it is not reasonable to be able to predict which Tera type someone will bring a lot of the time, resulting in a lot of situations where you waste a turn hitting a NVE move into something. Often, this can directly lead to a fainted Pokémon especially in team styles where individual turns matter a lot more, such as Hyper Offense (which is my preferred style of play). Directly losing a game due to something that really isn't in your control is not very fun or competitive, which is why I think it needs to be addressed.

However, I am absolutely against a full ban. I am very much in the camp that believes that the generational battle gimmick is incredibly important to the identity of a Generation, and that we are strictly worse off without it in the game. I do fully agree that Dynamax was way too much and needed to go, but my opinion on Terastalising is that it is nowhere near as oppressive or centralising a mechanic as Dynamax ever was, and therefore, we should be trying as best as we can to preserve the mechanic as much as possible. Yes, being a Generational Gimmick does not make you immune to tiering, but Gen 9 will lack a ton of its colour and what makes it interesting and unique if we lose Terastalisation, especially in an open format like Natdex where all the old Pokémon are usable. And that uniqueness is in my opinion worth saving.

Therefore, we should be approaching this carefully, and not going nuclear and banning it entirely just yet. If once all other options have been exhausted, we still feel like the mechanic is broken, then yes, let's look at a full ban at that point, but there is so much we haven't tried yet, especially showing Tera Types at Team Preview which I believe will fix almost every issue with Terastalising. I should probably note here that the seemingly random and not easy to predict Tera types are the only type of Tera I actually have an issue with, yes as some in this thread have mentioned Tera Water Barraksewda is powerful as is Tera Normal DNite, but they have plentiful counters, both in theory and in practice from the experience I have had with trying to deal with them. Perhaps I have just gotten lucky, or my HO team deals with these better than other things do, but I do not see these powerful-but-predictable Tera options as overly problematic. And even if they are too centralising, it makes more sense to me to ban individual cases than to throw out the entire mechanic.

To sum up, I think we can afford to approach this a lot more carefully and slowly than we might for an individual Pokémon, and I think given how big a decision tiering action on a generational mechanic is, we should be doing that. Please therefore consider a Restriction on Terastalising in this vote.
 
Smogon is unable to just go ahead and create a new item or something in order to restrict tera. You have to remember all mechanics from ps (aside from oms and cap) are borrowed completely from the games. If they are even hesitant to ban last respects rather than the mon itself I don’t think they would ever come close to doing something like this. Megas and z moves are items in game, while tera isn’t. There’s your answer for that question.

Also, the idea to make tera an item is a bit counterintuitive and won’t serve much of a purpose when coming to improving the meta. It will mostly reduce the skill curve required to learn terastalization, and heavily reduce punishment to a player who doesn’t know how to play around it. It’s quite similar to Dmax in random battles, where more low ladder players complain about it, as they have not played the tier enough to understand the depth of the mechanics. You could say it would be even worse to leave it at the state it is currently in, and I agree, but showing tera type at team preview or limiting it to the first mon of the team are just overall much better options than to make the tera mon significantly weaker as they cannot hold an item.

With the nature of tera not being as frontloaded as a z move in power, it will definitely not be worth putting on every team. There are so many Pokémon that are only strong because they are able to hold an item and terastalize, such as floatzle chiyu and roaring moon. Removing the item will make terastalization heavily favor stall pokemon, and offensive pokemon will more often than not choose to keep their item. This will bring too much of a change to the meta, and honestly will probably make it extremely boring.

Overall, making terastalization an item is a horrible idea and will only worsen the meta, as well as being impossible due to smogon rules. Stop trying to advocate for it lol.
So you're saying that it's possible to code Tera to not work when a mon carries a Mega-Stone or a Z-crystal, but it's not possible to limit the use of Tera to mons carrying an specific item?

Besides that, there are lots of items with no competitive use that are already in the game, you could always use one of them as "Tera trigger" if you want. You want to remove Tera because it bothers you? Alright, no problem. You want it to stay because you enjoy abusing the mechanic? Okay too. But don't try to convince us that there are no other options when it's not true, this is not a matter of black or white.

Item request for Terastallizing would still give a room for offensive sets like T.Ice Regieleki, T.Fighting/Electric Chien-Pao, etc. Defensive mons won't like to lose their HDB, Leftovers or AV to carry the Tera-item, and mons like Gliscor or Chansey won't be available to run it. Tera would be a resource to help build teams.

That's my opinion and I will continue to express it in a respectful way, as long as freedom of speech continues to exist in this forum. If you don't want to debate, it's not my problem.
 
I am going to be voting for restricting Terastalisation, but specifically ONLY revealing Tera types at Team Preview.
This isnt an option in this suspect test, it has been stated several times including in the OP of this thread that this test is to decide whether Tera should be banned or not. A lot of posts seem to be talking about restrictions when nothing is on the table regarding them at this point so discussion should really be focusing on why/why not to ban Tera, instead of what restrictions may or may not work like people seem intent on doing.

Personally I'm really interested to see dnb arguments other than just stating that its the generational gimmick or arguing against the null point of randomness. The meta has settled considerably since the test started, Tera's arent "random" anymore, we generally know what types everything is using, and it is still clearly causing issues.

To summarize most of the pro ban arguments against Tera into a list so people can respond to them easily. Note that while I share some of these opinions personally, these are just a collection of arguments I've seen for ease of discussion:
  • It creates unskillful gameplay involving guessing and constant 50/50s around when something will Tera, assuming you know the type it will Tera to, and even worse situations if it can viably Tera into multiple types.
  • Same-type Tera users are too strong. Examples such as Melmetal, Dragapult, Barraskewda, Marowak-A, Urshifu, and Gholdengo have been thrown around.
  • It makes it incredibly difficult to revenge kill set-up sweepers since they can change their type on a whim to beat out your revenge killer. This has been extremely noticeable on the suspect ladder with things like Magearna being the most obvious example here. Even without it being specifically a set up sweeper this interaction is incredibly problematic since you can just lose games on matchup if they catch your speed control with a beneficial Tera.
  • The amount of Pokemon you would need to ban to keep Tera in check would be much less healthy than just removing Tera and keeping those Pokemon.
Happy meaningful discussion gamers
 
Even now in this untamed era of Terastal, you can kind of see people gravitate towards very specific Tera types for certain pokemon. If a Barraskewda shows up (I've only once seen one that was ground type in the hundreds of battles I've been playing with the mechanic), chances are you know it's gonna be a Water type and if Melmetal shows up, it'll probably be a Steel type.
Knowing these Pokemon's types isn't going to suddenly make them tolerable. You don't suddenly have the counterplay because you know. You either have slotted it in already during the building provess or you didn't.

(In Barraskewda's case, you have many ways to work around its Swift Swim before it goes for an OHKO that wouldn't require it. Priority moves, Focus Sash, Storm Drain, and Weather changes all can count. Sure, I recognize it can be a problem if you're focusing on a specific counter since, as a friend who's more versed in the nature of the tiers than I am said, the point of Ubers is that "this one thing is too powerful if we need to run a specific counterfor it", but I think there's worse out there.)
All of what you listed is super specific or just not viable. Priority exists but not every mon has it or runs it, storm drain is on one pokemon (who isn't a mon slappable on just any team), and focus sash is a joke, especially in a hazard focused metagame like this. And weather changing is similarly not reliable because you either have a weather team or you don't. Well or glowking. And this just sort of goes back to the issue: handling this is very dependant on match up. Having the very specific response.

as well as synchronize it with your move list (If you have a pokemon that doesn't learn any really good Grass type moves, a Grass type Tera Blast isn't exactly much compensation for giving it five weaknesses).
This, really isn't how it works. Many applications of terastilize involve a typing used to bypass a key weakness, dodging attempts to revenge KO X mon (for example, Magearna tera into flying or Volcarona tera into grass). In both these cases, they essentially "cheat" bad match ups and turn them into an advantage for no real cost.

There's also the issue of timing. Players have to think about when the best time to spring a Tera Type is. If your opponent has Steel-type Pokemon, you're not going to want to Terastallize into a Fairy type when they're on the field, and even after that's dealt with, you can't simply rush in without thinking about responses.
I've seen this argument brought up a lot in multiple threads and honestly it never makes sense to me. When it comes down to it, if X player identifies a tera threat (for example tera Dragonite), the onus is on them to not give the opponent a free turn to set up. They are functionally walking on eggshells to not let that happen. In essence, the outcome is weighted heavily in the Dragonite player's favor.

However, I am absolutely against a full ban. I am very much in the camp that believes that the generational battle gimmick is incredibly important to the identity of a Generation, and that we are strictly worse off without it in the game. I do fully agree that Dynamax was way too much and needed to go, but my opinion on Terastalising is that it is nowhere near as oppressive or centralising a mechanic as Dynamax ever was, and therefore, we should be trying as best as we can to preserve the mechanic as much as possible. Yes, being a Generational Gimmick does not make you immune to tiering, but Gen 9 will lack a ton of its colour and what makes it interesting and unique if we lose Terastalisation, especially in an open format like Natdex where all the old Pokémon are usable. And that uniqueness is in my opinion worth saving.
Respectfully, you contradict yourself in opening by saying that you "are very much in the camp that believes that the generational battle gimmick is incredibly important to the identity of a Generation, and that we are strictly worse off without it in the game", then admit dmax was too much and had to go. Further more you don't really say why the mechanic is balanced and should stay. Removing tera won't kill the 'uniqueness", this gen could not be more different than the last even without tera.

yes as some in this thread have mentioned Tera Water Barraksewda is powerful as is Tera Normal DNite, but they have plentiful counters, both in theory and in practice from the experience I have had with trying to deal with them.
Name these plentiful counters then please. This happens a lot during suspects where comments will vaguely say "x mon has many answers" but never say what they are. So please share.

So you're saying that it's possible to code Tera to not work when a mon carries a Mega-Stone or a Z-crystal, but it's not possible to limit the use of Tera to mons carrying an specific item?
Same way it worked in the past. You could not run two gimmicks on one mon (even mray could not zmove). Forcing an item on pokemon to tera is not how it works in game in any capacity.
 
This isnt an option in this suspect test, it has been stated several times including in the OP of this thread that this test is to decide whether Tera should be banned or not. A lot of posts seem to be talking about restrictions when nothing is on the table regarding them at this point so discussion should really be focusing on why/why not to ban Tera, instead of what restrictions may or may not work like people seem intent on doing.

Personally I'm really interested to see dnb arguments other than just stating that its the generational gimmick or arguing against the null point of randomness. The meta has settled considerably since the test started, Tera's arent "random" anymore, we generally know what types everything is using, and it is still clearly causing issues.

To summarize most of the pro ban arguments against Tera into a list so people can respond to them easily. Note that while I share some of these opinions personally, these are just a collection of arguments I've seen for ease of discussion:
  • It creates unskillful gameplay involving guessing and constant 50/50s around when something will Tera, assuming you know the type it will Tera to, and even worse situations if it can viably Tera into multiple types.
  • Same-type Tera users are too strong. Examples such as Melmetal, Dragapult, Barraskewda, Marowak-A, Urshifu, and Gholdengo have been thrown around.
  • It makes it incredibly difficult to revenge kill set-up sweepers since they can change their type on a whim to beat out your revenge killer. This has been extremely noticeable on the suspect ladder with things like Magearna being the most obvious example here. Even without it being specifically a set up sweeper this interaction is incredibly problematic since you can just lose games on matchup if they catch your speed control with a beneficial Tera.
  • The amount of Pokemon you would need to ban to keep Tera in check would be much less healthy than just removing Tera and keeping those Pokemon.
Happy meaningful discussion gamers
I think a lot of us are making the posts on restrictions as points against banning by saying that we believe the option of banning is too strict. Many of us in the do not ban camp are in favor of reigning in the gimmick to some extent through our proposed restrictions, but the common thread is that we believe the ban is too strict on a mechanic that has other ways to be properly balanced. We bring them up specifically to highlight there is a better way of dealing with Terastal than a full ban to us.
 
Personally I'm really interested to see dnb arguments other than just stating that its the generational gimmick or arguing against the null point of randomness. The meta has settled considerably since the test started, Tera's arent "random" anymore, we generally know what types everything is using, and it is still clearly causing issues.
I already articulated one earlier as a devil's advocate. DNB really comes down to a chicken-or-egg debate; is tera broken, or do Pokemon break tera?

Take, for example, Volcanion. Volcanion has 600 BST, a colorful movepool, unique typing and pretty good ability. There are a rainbow of useful tera options for it (Ground, Poison, Water, Fire, Grass, Steel) but I think Ground is overall the best, for a few reasons:

1. It completely flips Volcanion's checks, losing the Electic and (Stealth)Rock weakness and gaining an Electric immunity and (Stealth)Rock resistance
2. Earth Power and Earthquake are high BP moves Volcanion already knows, already runs for coverage and are stronger than Tera Blast
3. Synergizes well with Water Absorb, meaning Volcanion only has weaknesses in Grass and Ice
4. Grass and Ice types do not appreciate STAB Fire-type moves

Yet, one would be pressed to find someone who thinks Volcanion is broken, despite not lacking in any category except perhaps speed. Its spread isn't as efficient as Heatran, but Volcanion is a Pokemon that is basically maxed out in all good stuff categories. It isn't anymore broken using tera than Gyarados is Mega Evolving into a Dark-type.

But a Pokemon like tera Poison Latias, which has reverse defensive splits from Volcanion, has a similar immunity granting ability and is also less offensive, is even more suffocating under tera due to the synergy of traits Latias has, namely

1. Levitate
2. 100% accurate Toxic
3. Recover
4. Calm Mind
5. Psychic, Fire, Fighting attacking moves

This isn't tera being broken, this is a clear example of good Pokemon getting broken by tera. Latias's combination of spread, ability, and movepool is broken with the typing change. Latias doesn't even learn any Poison-type moves bar Toxic and she's too weak to take advantage of the Adaptability boost anyway: Latios is better suited towards an attacking role. But that movepool means that anything that could switch in to Toxic isn't going to like Latias' coverage, not even Heatran.

Levitate + tera Poison isn't broken in a vaccum because the other (pseudo)legendary levitators don't have the same strengths as Latias. Cresselia can't really beat Heatran (or other Steels, for that matter) and is slower than Excadrill and Haxorus. Hydreigon is faster than Cresselia and the Mold Breakers but can't boost its defenses, can't hit Poison-types super effectively and lacks Stored Power, which allows Latias to break past bulky Unaware Pokemon not named Skeledirge. Latios is just a worse version of Latias in the same role.

But Regieleki? Regieleki has 499 Speed and 492 Attack/Special Attack due to Transistor. Scarf Darm-G hit 475 Speed and 569 Attack after Gorilla Tactics. imo this is already a broken Pokemon using tera to flex even harder.
 

R8

Leads Natdex Other Tiers, not rly doing ndou stuff
is a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Tiering Contributoris a member of the Battle Simulator Staffis a Top Contributor Alumnus
National Dex Leader
Just putting my two cents here, as even though i am still a bit split about Tera there still are a couple points i wanted to adress and give my opinion about, not to directly argue about whether we should ban tera or not (even though i think it still will be pretty clear from my reasonings that i am leaning towards banning the mechanic), but moreso because i disagree with certain reasonings threw around in general.
  • The main issue i have with tera is not 50/50s, but fitting an at least decent level of counterplay in your team against the threats of the metagame while everything has the option to bypass their checks thanks to Tera not being a reasonnable thing to ask for. I would argue this is the main reason why those 50/50s exist in the first place : you will have to rely on guesswork around tera abusers because you did not have the room to fit complete, reliable counterplay to these in the first place, as said counterplay is often very specific due to how Tera is pretty much designed to help its abusers to get past their counterplay.

  • Taking the previous point as an assumption, any proposal not directly tackling the teambuilder issue will not fix the issue with Tera. As long as each Tera abuser has like 3 good checks at most, Tera will probably still be problematic. Limiting each team to one Tera user in particular is a solution that might actually make Tera less competitive for the following reasons:
    - Even though there only will be one possible Tera abuser per team, you still will have to cover them in the builder, and that without the flexibility Tera gives you in the first place, as Tera does somewhat compensate the builder problem mentioned earlier by giving you the possibility to choose which Pokemon to Tera depending on the matchup. Meanwhile, Tera abusers still will have a counterplay as limited as before.
    - Choosing what Pokemon you want to Tera is actually a skillful part of the mechanic, as you have to properly assess what your and your opponent win conditions are in order to Tera the right Pokemon. Unlike Dynamax, Teraing a Pokemon does not make it automatically better, as the value you get from the typing change depends a lot on the matchup, especially since clicking Tera on something gives up your ability to Tera anything else. Random example: if i have Specs Dragapult and Boots Ice Shard Chien Pao against a team with a Sucker Punch user, i might want to resist the temptation to click Tera Ghost on Pult to keep it for Chien Pao, as Chien Pao has more odds to clean late game with Tera STAB moves than Dragapult as Pult can be revenge killed.
    Basically, what I am saying is that restricting Tera that way would actually make the most skillful play less relevant, and that alone is a reason to not take that route as the point of Smogon tiering is to make the game more skillful in the first place, as you can read in Smogon's tiering policy framework:
    Overall Goal and Purpose of Tiering Policy:
    I.) To create a metagame that is conducive to the more "skilled" player winning over the less "skilled" player a majority of the time.

    II.) To ensure that both our ladder and tournament crowds are catered to regarding I.)

    III.) To ensure that actions are taken with appropriate and complete justification.
    I think mentionning how they define a broken element is relevant here too:
    III.) Broken - elements that are too good relative to the rest of the metagame such that "more skillful play" is almost always rendered irrelevant.
  • Tera fundamentally fucks with the idea of reliable counterplay, as counterplay in Pokemon has a lot to do with the typechart in the first place. I think it is not dereasonable to think that the conditions for a Pokemon to be a broken Tera abuser are not very hard to fulfill : every Dragon type could Tera-Steel to wall Fairies and setup on them, anything checked by a priority move can just Tera into a resist and immediately invalidate these. In general, any pokemon A that is checked by a pokemon B because B can hit pokemon A super effectively can just make the interaction not happen and invalidate its check. Tera STAB moves also restrict the pool of reliable counterplays as sometimes even resisting the move is not enough (Fun fact: Melmetal is about ~14% stronger with DIB than Dracovish's FishRend), and Tera Blast - though uncommon - is pretty much designed to make Pokemon mess with their counterplay.

    As a consequence to that, counterplay to tera abusers is by nature limited, and we go back to the teambuilder issue i went over at the beginning of post. In conclusion, as long as everything in the tier is able to tera, the mechanic is going to be broken, in my opinion.
I wanted to end this post by saying that, even though i probably am going to vote ban, i do understand why people are looking into trying to nerf it. I think this mechanic was much better designed than Dynamax, and sometimes leads to interesting teams, games and gameplans, and is something you need to actually think about both in the builder and in-game in order to make the most out of it. Tera is actually a great mechanic... when it doesn't outright ruin games. You could draw a comparison with to Torn-T and Magearna in gen8NatDex: those Pokemon brought a lot to the tier, but on the other hand they also had really stupid aspects that pushed them over the edge.

The problem is that none of the restrictions proposed - even in the current SVOU suspect test - really tackle the main issues with Tera in my opinion , for the reasons i mentionned before in this post. I think the most convincing proposal i could come up with is banning the ability to use Tera before banning the abusers themselves - which i think would solve the builder issue -, but even that has a lot of issues, not only from a policy point of view as this would be a completely unprecedented as a way to balance the tier (and is pretty much a complex ban, which sets a dangerous precedent in general), but also because having to learn the "tera banlist" each time you want to get into a tier sucks. At this point we should just ban the mechanic, unless a really good restriction idea is found but at this point i doubt a good possibility exist.

Edit: i also wanted to say that i wish the suspect happened later. Even though i think there is a good amount of evidence to ban tera already imo, we did not even had the time to go through an entiere forum tour, which could have provided high level games, so we could see what's the deal with tera in the highest levels of play.
 
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Heya, please keep discussion relevant to the suspect test. Regarding why a restriction isn't on the table right now:

The council had voted on whether to allow for restrictions or not, and the belief was unanimously that allowing restrictions would simply make the voting process far too complicated. This suspect runs alongside OU, so having a different restriction compared to what OU has is something that we want to avoid. We will be revisiting the idea of restricting Terastal later, but it will likely be done in a more controlled environment, and will follow the restrictions carried out by OU if the voting process goes this way.

So you're saying that it's possible to code Tera to not work when a mon carries a Mega-Stone or a Z-crystal, but it's not possible to limit the use of Tera to mons carrying an specific item?

Besides that, there are lots of items with no competitive use that are already in the game, you could always use one of them as "Tera trigger" if you want. You want to remove Tera because it bothers you? Alright, no problem. You want it to stay because you enjoy abusing the mechanic? Okay too. But don't try to convince us that there are no other options when it's not true, this is not a matter of black or white.

Item request for Terastallizing would still give a room for offensive sets like T.Ice Regieleki, T.Fighting/Electric Chien-Pao, etc. Defensive mons won't like to lose their HDB, Leftovers or AV to carry the Tera-item, and mons like Gliscor or Chansey won't be available to run it. Tera would be a resource to help build teams.

That's my opinion and I will continue to express it in a respectful way, as long as freedom of speech continues to exist in this forum. If you don't want to debate, it's not my problem.
As for this, the main reason this isn't on the table is more-so because the idea is woefully unpopular. Technically, you don't even need to code anything in (you can just say itemless Pokemon are able to Terastallize, which would be entirely legal as far as ingame compatibility is concerned), but the simple reasoning for this being considered unfeasible is merely because Smogon as a whole is quite averse to complex bans, especially after the fallout of Baton Pass Clause. This would also be especially unconventional as a complex ban, as most complex bans implemented onto Smogon tend to be the result of two healthy elements that are made broken when combined with eachother.
 
If the option is only BAN vs No-Ban, I vote for BAN.

But if there is an option that tera can be restricted in some way, I choose only 1 tera user per team.
If applicable, only one tera user is not really broken, just the same as mega or z-moves with item slot.

Honestly if terastalizing must need an item, it could be really healthy
 
I just got reqs, and this decision honestly is very difficult for me. On one hand, Tera is the defining "generational gimmick" of SV, and to axe it this early without considering merely restricting it seems like a bit of a letdown. I think Tera affords players a significant degree of creativity, and I dare say it, artistry, in both the teambuilder and in battle. There is beauty in revealing an unconventional Tera-type to turn the tide of the match. Certainly Tera is not as game-breaking as Dynamax, which did indeed deserve a ban.

On the other hand, Tera does introduce a significant degree of volatility into a very high power level metagame. As many have already stated, the standard definitions of checks and counters goes out the window if the Pokemon being checked suddenly changes type. In a metagame like National Dex, where it is already very difficult to account for all the possible threats, Tera massively increases the amount of guesswork in both teambuilding and battle. While it is true that some Pokemon such as Dragonite have predictable Tera-types, there is still often a 50/50 involved as to if and when they will Tera. Tera is also responsible for a large number of possibly broken offensive threats, such as Extremekiller Dragonite, CB Tera-Steel Melmetal, Tera-Ghost Dragapult, etc. If these are banned instead of Tera, it is probable that other Pokemon might take their place and also end up being broken. It is probably more expedient to ban the common factor that enables them, which is Terastallization.

If the only options come down to ban or no ban, I will probably vote ban. I do believe that the first priority of tiering is to produce a healthy and competitive metagame, and unfettered access to Terastallization is likely not conducive to such. However, I would be open to another suspect in the future where Tera is reintroduced with some kind of restriction, such as showing Tera-type and/or limiting it to the first Pokemon in your party.
 
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Teras can be quite annoying, such as when you have a super effective attack against a pokemon and your're about to use it, then it changes to a type that is either not very effective or immune, or when theres that one pokemon which Teras into a different type and completely ruins your chances of winning, plus new players which never played a pokemon game at all may not understand unless they look at bulbapedia, so even though i dont really use it, im still voting to Ban it from Nat Dex.
 

Capfoo

formerly Captain Combusken
Respectfully, you contradict yourself in opening by saying that you "are very much in the camp that believes that the generational battle gimmick is incredibly important to the identity of a Generation, and that we are strictly worse off without it in the game", then admit dmax was too much and had to go. Further more you don't really say why the mechanic is balanced and should stay. Removing tera won't kill the 'uniqueness", this gen could not be more different than the last even without tera.
To Clarify, since I will admit the point is a bit lost; I was making a general point that I believe that we should always try our utmost to preserve the generational mechanic, and that I believed the same for Dynamax, but think that in the end, Dynamax was too much and it wasn't possible to save it whilst keeping the game fun and competitive. I do not believe the same is true of Terastalisation.

Terastalisation is in my opinion balanced because it is nowhere near abusable as Dynamax was. Dynamax gave people high powered moves that directly set effects that boosted power of moves, or boosted stats, it created unstoppable snowbally mons that as others have pointed out were countered only by Dynamax, which was a problem as it made the entire game revolve around it. Terastalisation on the other hand, can be countered by anything, not just other Tera users, and I am of the opinion that the boosts you get from it, whilst still useful and powerful, are more in the realm of the power boost Pokémon get from a Mega evolution. Now, there are still issues with the Tera mechanic, which I have highlighted in my post, but I do not believe they are great enough to ban it outright, instead I think restrictions would bring it in line (but I won't elaborate further on those restrictions right now as, as mentioned by our mods, that's not the topic right now).

Name these plentiful counters then please. This happens a lot during suspects where comments will vaguely say "x mon has many answers" but never say what they are. So please share.
Ok, Barraskewda:
- Any Weather (including your own rain)
- Unburden + Terrain (One of my options, I am a Kokolucha Player)
- Trick Room
- Immunity abilities like Water Absorb and Storm Drain
- Focus Sash + Endeavor Revenge killers (My other main Counter)
- More of a soft counter, but I think Priority in General is pretty decent at chipping at it.
- Another soft counter, though they have undeniably become less good, and I will admit I personally haven't personally tested them to 100% confirm this, I feel like anything that resists Skewda and has good defences, especially in combination with Toxic/Burn and protecting moves, can also halt it to an extent.

Dragonite:
- Anything that blocks priority, particularly Tapu Lele
- Ghost types with decent defenses.
- Steel Types and Rock types with decent defenses (particularly ones that are Ground immune, Corv says Hi)
- Hazards in general help a lot.
- Again, Sash revengers are pretty decent.

Obviously, these aren't necessarily all hard counters, and there's some that are better than others, and I don't think it's worth going through every single mon as it's not productive to the discussion. The point of that point was that I personally think the strength of these Tera options is overblown.
 
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