retest: 2, at least as long as Tera is around. Flame Body (punishes physical counterplay) + Quiver Dance (limits special counterplay) + Tera (exacerbates both previous issues while expanding its offensive options) makes this thing plain unhealthy. Folks can rehash the glory days of the MU Moth and talk up how borderline Volc has been its whole existence as much as they want, that doesn't mean it inherently deserves a place in the tier.
: 4. That bulk with that ability and powerful priority has no place in a Tera meta. As I said the other day, it doesn't even need to save its Tera for the late game "one free turn" bs. I spent some time running it with Tera Fairy Tera Blast, Kowtow, Sucker, and SD the past few days. Especially with Healing Wish support (which also powers up Supreme Overlord) you can bring it in and Tera early and it will just claim mons throughout the match because there's just not much that can keep it from setting up.
: 3. See nearly everything I said about Gambit. Needs setup more (since it doesn't get boosts just by existing and it struggles to slot in its weaker priority) but also less reliant on guesswork. Always a threat to runaway with a match if it can avoid your first best effort at stopping it from getting a boost.
: 3. Purifying Salt + Salt Cure + Recover alone could be enough to make this the first viable defensive Rock Type in history. A defensive mon that is straight immune to status and can stack unblocking passive damage is nuts. The option to Tera Water/Fairy/occasionally Ghost can make this thing a beast to take down, especially Curse sets, which are less hindered by substitute. Also, Tera Blast > EQ on curse sets. Try it. Fairy and Water both have only a couple of resists, and in both cases, one of those is wasted by Salt Cure damage. And if you're cursing up enough to be clicking EQ on something, you've probably already clicked Tera.
: 2. Both top tier cleaners on opposite ends of the versatility spectrum. Sneasler is far and away the best Unburden Sweeper we've ever had, but the only real question is "How Does this thing want to activate Unburden"? Is it Balloon, White Herb, Focus Sash, Terrain Seed, or what? Beyond that, it's just SD, CC, Acro, Fire Punch/Night Slash/Shadow Claw/Tera Blast (unless it's the rare Poison Touch Scarf set). Valiant, on the other hand, can run a thousand sets: physical, special, or mixed with your choice of coverage, choice sets with Trick on either spectrum, encore + setup, DBond, whatever.
Both can be frustrating to face if they get an opening to set up, especially in the late game, but manageable if you preserve your counterplay. Both fold to even neutral hits offensively, while defensively, they both hate Phazing (since their speed boosts are one time only, and repeated hazard damage is highly costly), and they both hate status (especially para) to set them up to be revenged. The only thing that makes either questionable, imo, is Tera-boosted offense.
: 1. It's fundamentally changed the lead MU since it can't be taunted or bounced, but it's been super manageable to me. Lots of viable Dark Resists around. Lots of fast U-Turns you can lead to weaken it and bring in Tusk or whatever at the same time. Definitely meta defining, but probably not any more than Glimmora.
Get this thing out of here. Not remotely broken, but definitely anti-competitive and adds nothing to the game except lolz. I'll
link back to my previous thoughts on what makes it troublesome and why banning Quick Claw is different than banning other RNG elements.
Tera: As you can probably tell by now, I'm ready for Tera to go. I've had fun with this mechanic. It enables some cool options in the builder and in-game. Still, I really don't think it belongs in a "serious" competitive game. It makes every match too fishy, broadens the viability gap between tiers of mons, and encourages a constant series of micro affordable that make it impossible for the meta to settle. This naturally pushes play styles to the extremes, since there's never a known threat list for balance to build around for long enough to matter.
I'm certainly game to try Tera Preview to see how much it mitigates these issues. I certainly believe that it would reduce some of the in-match strain by enabling players to better preserve the necessary checks and turning plays into actual 50/50s instead of not knowing if you even have the needed coverage to handle the threat in front of you. But I don't see how Tera Preview can possibly resolve the instability that infinite options presents and how impossible that is to account for in the builder. Tera Preview keeps us in this HO/Stall arms race that makes high ladder a chore to play.
On that note, I wish the question on ladder rank had an option for "I was briefly top 250 and then got bored of bashing myself into the same five basic teams over and over again so I went back to building terrible meme shit and tilted all the way to 1300, where I'm perfectly happy, thank you very much"
(Enjoyment) 1
(Balance) 5
(Tera) Yes
Yes
Barack Obama
