I was reading all of the tera discussion in OU (yes, all seven pages ) and policy review and found something that I think is a good scenario for part of why I think the mechanic should be nuked altogether.
Initially posted by
hornets, but choosing not to ping them in a random OM suspect they have no stake in lmao:
They said:
Tera allows checks/counters to become set up fodder, revenge killers to become the next victim, and its way too unpredictable. Here's an example from one of my games today: I double on a predicted annihilape switch to my specs valiant. Neither of us have terra'd. Consider this ridiculous situation
1) I could predict nothing and specs moonblast for the kill. He could, however, be terra steel and now I'm setup fodder.
2) I could predict a terra steel and focus blast, although tera steel IS less common then tera water atm. and if he just stays in i may as well forfeit
3) I could thunderbolt predicting a tera water, but he could just eat that up by not tera'ing and use me as rage fist fodder.
So from an advantageous position, threatening an OHKO on my opponents win con, the simple threat of tera makes it arguably a misplay to attack the ape at all. This is ignoring the possibility of him even switching, and I'm only considering the two most common tera types. In the end, I did moonblast, it was terra steel, and I lost the game. As a player who relies on long term game plan, risk/benefit, and tries to minimize prediction; I despise that situation. Its simply impossible to make an informed decision.
Now I get that I didn't make the best play in the above scenario, seeing as I knew the possibilities, and maybe the best play was to scout, but letting ape get a free +1/+1 is already so threatening... its just hard to play around anything reliably right now. This is why we're seeing so much offense, hazard stack, and unaware and a relative absence of what I would consider traditional balance.
Furthermore the long tera is kept the the game the more we destroy the future meta and have to waste time resolving it. Ape WILL be banned if tera doesn't go as tera defensive type+rage fist is way too good, but is that mon broken without that? Possibly not. Are we going to end up banning roaring moon for its destructive acro set? Dnite with its ekiller set? Set up mons will continue to run rampant as its impossible to offensively check them with tera running around; so are we going to subject ourselves to this unaware meta forever? Of course not, eventually the toxicity of tera will boil over.
I'm not going to give a tl;dr because if you aren't willing to read the whole excerpt, I don't believe you're ready to make a good faith response to begin with.
Moving on, I think the extra layer of predictive play necessitated by the inclusion of Terastallization mechanics is
detrimental to AAA. In OU, you already know what a Pokemon's potential abilities are, and for the most part you aren't going to be
that shocked by a coverage move since the full moveset of every Pokemon is whatever their default is. In AAA, however, we have
already made a good amount of the game an information war by enabling Pokemon to use any legal ability. It doesn't matter how skilled or experienced you are; you
can't know what abilities you're facing (or could be facing) without making an effort to get more information by playing out the battle itself.
To change the OU scenario above, I'll use an example from one of my own AAA battles:
My CB Mold Breaker Great Tusk finally got in against an Avalugg with no revealed ability on an expected double.
In AAA w/o tera:
1) I Close Combat and 2HKO even if they're Dauntless Shield (252+ Atk Choice Band Great Tusk Close Combat vs. +1 252 HP / 252+ Def Avalugg: 200-236 (50.7 - 59.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO), and they have nothing to OHKO or 2HKO me with in return (0 Atk Avalugg Avalanche vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Great Tusk: 236-278 (63.6 - 74.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO). In the process, I still take a lot of damage but fulfill the goal of KOing Avalugg if they stay in.
2) They switch out because they decide the chip damage on Great Tusk isn't worth their Avalugg being weakened or w/e.
In AAA w/ tera:
1) I Close Combat and 2HKO even if they're DShield, but they could be Fairy or Ghost Tera and not only easily eat (or take 0 dmg outright), but deal a lot of damage to me with (let's say) Rocky Helmet + coverage move and I just lost a chunk of my Great Tusk for nothing gained.
2) I don't want to risk Ghost or Fairy Tera and switch, even though I already just made the plays necessary to get my Fighting type in versus an Ice-type.
In this case, we have a situation where it's arguably a wrong play for a Fighting type to attack an Ice-type it's [ideally] supposed to beat, just because of a set it
could be. If you're following along, that probably doesn't sound all too different from something like a one-on-one ending with a Volcarona switching out of a Corviknight to scout for Flash Fire Before trying to attack it, but what about a situation where there were more layers? Consider:
My Desolate Land Volcarona got into a one-on-one versus an opposing Corviknight.
In AAA w/o tera:
1) I click Fire move and either get a kill or run into Fire immunity/Ice Scales ability Corviknight and get put to bed by Brave Bird.
2) I scouted and now know or am confident it's not Fire immunity/Ice Scales Corviknight (maybe I forced it to reveal Volt Absorb, or it showed Unaware versus a different setup sweeper on my team, or earlier in the battle they didn't switch it into Volcarona for w/e reason), so I go for the Fire move and it either works or doesn't.
3) I switch out bc it might be Fire immunity Corv and I don't want to risk it.
In AAA w/ tera:
1) I click Fire move and either get a kill or run into Fire immunity/Ice Scales ability Corviknight and get put to bed by Brave Bird.
2) I click Fire move because I have scouted and KNOW it isn't Fire immunity/Ice Scales Corv, but it's Water tera and just OHKOes me with Brave Bird.
3) I maybe predict the tera to happen and tera myself into something without a Brave Bird weakness, but it turns out they're immune to Fire anyway + I just wasted my tera on an overprediction, OR it works out and I get the KO. Alternatively, I could predict a tera water and try to Solar Beam, but if they don't do what I'm expecting that could be a super throw.
4) I or the opponent decide to switch out (maybe they want to bluff fire immunity/resistance or actually have it, or maybe I don't want to risk it).
There are probably some other options I didn't think to mention, but I think this is enough to get the point across>
So now even a Corviknight that was "confirmed" to be weak to my Fire move because I properly scouted the ability
still has the potential to cook me anyway as long as the opponent hasn't already blown their tera. Sure, this is a very specific scenario, but I don't think it's all that farfetched. Consider a SFLO Iron Valiant vs a Roaring Moon or Great Tusk: As the Iron Valiant user, should you Moonblast for a "free" kill,
switch out even though you're finally standing in front of Pokemon you're supposed to beat, or even sillier still, use tera
yourself and then Moonblast (or some coverage move) expecting them to tera...? I won't sit down and log all umpteen ways these kinds of exchanges can happen, but the idea here is just to point out how ridiculous it gets once you really break down even the most straightforward interactions possible once tera is involved. This is why even though I sympathize with the position of wanting to keep the generation's mechanic intact and wanting to have more "flavorful" ways to counter the opponent, I don't think it's reasonable to stack yet another layer of this type of play on top of what we already have.
To me, Terastallization adds more information wars and potential for getting "fished" in a metagame where "matchup fishing" has not only already been argued to death as a problem in the generation we just ended, but is inherently a core aspect of the metagame by nature because you can give any legal Pokemon almost any ability and ALREADY have to play around that potential in every match.
Thus, I think the question we should be trying to answer isn't whether or not you can use skill to predict what tera options your opponent might have or on what turn they might use it (same applies to evaluating your own team's matchup). Even though the meta has only been around for a just over a week, we're already seeing some norms in the tera types people choose to use and making some efforts to account for that in teambuilding, so we know it's definitely possible. Rather, I think we should be looking at: Is this manageable on top of the already existing questions regarding what abilities the opponent may or may not have at any given position in a battle? Is it acceptable to have to consider both ability options and potential tera options in teambuilding and gameplay? Personally, I think it's unacceptable. While I find it very fun to be able to adjust my tera types to give me a fighting chance against certain unfavorable matchups, I do not think it has the potential to be
more competitive than (or even equally as competitive as) the "classic" AAA we're used to, where the premier mindgames you have to worry about involve unrevealed abilities--if anything, I can only see the meta becoming noticeably
less competitive. Over the large sample size of playing on the ladder, losing some games to a random ability/tera here and there might not have that big of an impact, but I am absolutely certain that in a tour environment where it's bo1/bo3, the issue would be exponentially exacerbated: not only is your win/loss hinging on getting the right ability calls, but
now you have to worry about them changing type as well. I was hoping to maybe see if my theory has any merit by spectating how tera affects the kickoff tour, but that'll have to wait for another day. I hope that explains my perspective and decision to vote ban well enough to get others to do the same :]