Thats a very bad way to look at things imo. So whatever the council decides to do we just have to suck it up? Im not saying they were right or wrong, im saying there has to be a place so we can talk about those stuff and voice our opinions. If they end up doing something straight up wrong (Like the Rayquaza non ban from some years ago or stuff like that) then should i follow your flawed post and say "eh, lets suck it up".
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Metagame SV OU Metagame Discussion v2 [Update on Post #5186]
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What would you have had the council or the thread do then dedicate themselves's to the discussion of these banned mons. When this damn thing happened the entire thread went into a full on tirade and lashed out at the council (who mind everyone are just volunteers) and some people have went out of their own way to falsify claims about members like Finch. My view is that the mon's that were banned deserved to be banned and if the players deem it needed they can be retested but as of now with WCOP on the horizon and talks of another Tera retest talking about the qb's seems ultimately pointless like Volc has been on the radar and in discussion since the fucking tier started and now that it got banned instead of tested the council has done some massive wrong and has fundamentally altered tiering?
This is again an extremely flawed point of view. In your eyes Volc should be banned, but in the eyes of many it shouldnt have. Thats why we got thing like suspect test. Is not about what your or i belive, is due process. You said that Volc has been on the radar for some time, but forget to mention that it was never even close to a quick ban which just proves that quick banning it based on 1 vote is not the correct way to go. Lastly and kinda ironically you say that "if the players deem it needed they can be retested" and well, thats exactly what the absolute majority of people in this thread are trying to do but here you are saying we have to suck it up cause in your opinion it should be banned.
There have been multiple posts by councils members and high level players detailing as to why Volc is unhealthy in the metagame. And im not telling everyone here to suck up to the fact its gone I merely want the thread to discuss the metagame and not these bans after we have already had thourough discussion about this ban.
We announced the plan to suspect test Zamazenta-H in the coming days as it was one vote off from a quickban, meaning it deserves further examination.
I said yesterday that I’m happy to look into retesting Volcarona afterwards and we will have another community survey around then as well to dictate. I’m not saying it will happen by X date or given Y condition as there’s so much happening, but we have heard people loud-and-clear.
We also created a thread about policy reform that predates most of the issues brought up in this thread as the quick releases are unprecedented and we want to reform our best practices. I feel a lot of the issues were made possible and worse by the cramped timeline, which can easily be resolved by adjusting our procedure and using experience to our benefit.
Thank you for the reply. For my part at least thats good to hear.
I honestly feel like this metagame is going too fast.
Better that then the "WTF are we doing" approach from Gen 5 OU
I have a question for anyone who’s able to answer this. I’m going to make this quick. What’s stopping Iron Moth from just being Volcarona 2.0, especially with the justified Urshifu-R ban? I struggle to see in the current metagame how Agility sets for Iron Moth can’t pull similar shenanigans to what vanilla Volcarona could do, this time shifting the type it’s 4x weak to (Ground now instead of Rock) while only being 2x Stealth Rock weak instead of 4x and being even faster to boot. I get that there’s metagame adjustments that remain to be seen, and I get that Iron Moth lacks some of Volcarona’s best moves, but still. Not to mention that the movepool disparity goes both ways, and that Urshifu-R would have been one of the reasons either Volcarona wasn’t banned prior (the same logic applies to a Gen 8 Volcarona ban, too, if one ever happened).
I think it's because quiver dance is THAT good of a sweeping utility move. Just look at the oricorio forms.
A lot specifically, that Volcs thing over moth was it's bulk. Moth isn't bulky to be honest and pretty easy to revenge kill compared to Volc, and Volc you had to take in account Flame Body but with Moth the only thing you have to worry about is the booster sets. Quiver Dance > Agility Booster any day of the week to be honest. They're not that similiar to be honest and Volc abused something called Heavy-Duty Boots but with Moth it's only 25% damage to SR you don't have to worry that much of needing boots.
IMO the reason Iron Moth is kinda stopped from being Volcorona is because quiver dance is that good of a move in addition to iron moth being incredibly frail, which is probably why most people I've seen choice the thing or slap on a focus sash on it
I'd like to add my thoughts on the Tera debate.
I'm opposed to banning Tera as a whole, there are healthy users of the mechanic but definitely some unhealthy abusers. You saw it with Regieleki most prominently, with Tera Water annihilape, with Volcarona, Espathra, etc.
My proposal is what if we barred certain Pokemon from using Tera? I see this as more effective than Tera preview because a lot of it could allow more formerly banned Pokemon into the meta, whereas Tera Preview will only really affect Volcarona, Kingambit, and maybe Garganacl. I know Mix and mega has a rule where sometimes they restrict mega stones on a specific pokemon, rather than banning the mega stone or the Pokemon that uses it.
I made a list of pros and cons of banning Terastilization on certain Pokemon to avoid making this a really boring wall of text
Pros:
- Would add some interesting options to the metagame
- A middle ground between banning Tera and keeping it, instead of banning it, all the abusers which fueled pro-ban arguments would be restricted to the point where they can be ou viable, it could please both sides of the argument.
- OU has done complex bans before
- If the Pokemon still prove to be too much, they can just be banned again.
Cons
- Could be too complex or unnecessary
- Could be annoying for the coders to implement (shout out to them for their hard work by the way)
- There are more pressing matters to attend to in this OU neta (Zamazenta, Sneasler)
(Those are all that I know of, lmk if I missed some)
Personally I think this is an idea lots of people will like but I would love to see experienced/casual players and council members' feedback on my idea. Have a nice day.
I'm opposed to banning Tera as a whole, there are healthy users of the mechanic but definitely some unhealthy abusers. You saw it with Regieleki most prominently, with Tera Water annihilape, with Volcarona, Espathra, etc.
My proposal is what if we barred certain Pokemon from using Tera? I see this as more effective than Tera preview because a lot of it could allow more formerly banned Pokemon into the meta, whereas Tera Preview will only really affect Volcarona, Kingambit, and maybe Garganacl. I know Mix and mega has a rule where sometimes they restrict mega stones on a specific pokemon, rather than banning the mega stone or the Pokemon that uses it.
I made a list of pros and cons of banning Terastilization on certain Pokemon to avoid making this a really boring wall of text
Pros:
- Would add some interesting options to the metagame
- A middle ground between banning Tera and keeping it, instead of banning it, all the abusers which fueled pro-ban arguments would be restricted to the point where they can be ou viable, it could please both sides of the argument.
- OU has done complex bans before
- If the Pokemon still prove to be too much, they can just be banned again.
Cons
- Could be too complex or unnecessary
- Could be annoying for the coders to implement (shout out to them for their hard work by the way)
- There are more pressing matters to attend to in this OU neta (Zamazenta, Sneasler)
(Those are all that I know of, lmk if I missed some)
Personally I think this is an idea lots of people will like but I would love to see experienced/casual players and council members' feedback on my idea. Have a nice day.
senorlopez
Formerly Ricardo [old]
From a personal standpoint, I'm a bit disappointed with the tiering decisions made in this generation.
I want to be transparent and acknowledge that I've held an anti-tera position since the release of SV, so my views may be biased.
From a teambuilding perspective, I don't even know what checks what anymore. I try to create my own teams and the tera typing slot drives me insane; I have to take into consideration what tera type is best against common switch ins; I have to take into consideration which tera type beats my opponents probable tera type; If my sweeper is countered by their tera, is there a tera I can put on another mon to counter their counter? Maybe it's just better going with stab? All these considerations make the teambuilding process overwhelming. I've been playing Pokémon for over a decade and it's intimidating for me, I can only imagine how it would be for newer players. This is only made worse when taking some time out of the meta to then have to re-learn all the new tera shifts - it just alienates me from dipping my toe back in when losing to a mon I didn't expect to tera into a certain type.
Moving on to the banning decisions, I can't help but question how much longer we can ignore the fact that most of the bans we've seen are due to the tera mechanic. From Espathra and Annihilape to Regieleki, Urshifu (Chi-yu?), and now Volcarona, the trend is clear. How many more Pokémon need to be banned before we finally address the tera mechanic? And what happens if tera does get banned? Will all these Pokémon be adjusted and retested simultaneously? This constant state of turbulence and chaos in the metagame could have been avoided if we had taken action against tera earlier. And let's not forget the frustrating 50/50 coin flip that comes with snowballing victories, which the tera mechanic can also produce.
And then on to the results of the latest quickbans. I don't understand how the council can justify the banning of Urshifu, voted only a 2.66 on the latest survey, and Volcarona which wasn't even on the latest survey. They then go on to ignore Zamazenta-Hero which had a very similar feedback response to Zamazenta-Crowned. I can't speak to the council having an agenda but it's disheartening to see the council's decision not aligning with the feedback from the community. It raises concerns about their decision-making process and whether there might be other factors at play.
Overall, I have to say that Game Freak hasn't done this community any favours when it comes to balancing the singles metagame in this generation. The power level has been turned up to an absurd degree, and it's affecting the overall enjoyment of the game.
I want to be transparent and acknowledge that I've held an anti-tera position since the release of SV, so my views may be biased.
From a teambuilding perspective, I don't even know what checks what anymore. I try to create my own teams and the tera typing slot drives me insane; I have to take into consideration what tera type is best against common switch ins; I have to take into consideration which tera type beats my opponents probable tera type; If my sweeper is countered by their tera, is there a tera I can put on another mon to counter their counter? Maybe it's just better going with stab? All these considerations make the teambuilding process overwhelming. I've been playing Pokémon for over a decade and it's intimidating for me, I can only imagine how it would be for newer players. This is only made worse when taking some time out of the meta to then have to re-learn all the new tera shifts - it just alienates me from dipping my toe back in when losing to a mon I didn't expect to tera into a certain type.
Moving on to the banning decisions, I can't help but question how much longer we can ignore the fact that most of the bans we've seen are due to the tera mechanic. From Espathra and Annihilape to Regieleki, Urshifu (Chi-yu?), and now Volcarona, the trend is clear. How many more Pokémon need to be banned before we finally address the tera mechanic? And what happens if tera does get banned? Will all these Pokémon be adjusted and retested simultaneously? This constant state of turbulence and chaos in the metagame could have been avoided if we had taken action against tera earlier. And let's not forget the frustrating 50/50 coin flip that comes with snowballing victories, which the tera mechanic can also produce.
And then on to the results of the latest quickbans. I don't understand how the council can justify the banning of Urshifu, voted only a 2.66 on the latest survey, and Volcarona which wasn't even on the latest survey. They then go on to ignore Zamazenta-Hero which had a very similar feedback response to Zamazenta-Crowned. I can't speak to the council having an agenda but it's disheartening to see the council's decision not aligning with the feedback from the community. It raises concerns about their decision-making process and whether there might be other factors at play.
Overall, I have to say that Game Freak hasn't done this community any favours when it comes to balancing the singles metagame in this generation. The power level has been turned up to an absurd degree, and it's affecting the overall enjoyment of the game.
I mean, to be fair, Oricorio wasn’t just insane in the lower tiers so far this generation because of Quiver Dance. Sure, that’s the main buff, and you definitely aren’t wrong, but Revelation Dance’s interaction with Tera was part of the problem, at least in my uneducated opinion.
Regieleki showed us that something doesn’t need to be bulky and have good boosting options to be considered a threat in the metagame. What I’m worried about isn’t that Iron Moth is overpowered, because it definitely isn’t. Not having Quiver Dance was likely very intentional on Game Freak’s part to make it this way. What I’m worried about is that the post-Volcarona OU tier will start taking Iron Moth for granted and not respect what it can do in the teambuilder, because it can do a lot especially if it’s arguably best check Clodsire is removed by a teammate early on in a game.
Yeah I agree. Terastalization was tested way too early in the gen, and I think if we retested it a lot of people would end up voting for its ban. It sucks to see such a cool idea for a gimmick end up being this unhealthy, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
Seeing that we still can’t come to an agreement on what to do about Terastalizing, I would like to suggest a different approach. Just hear me out for a second.
Separate tiering ladders that both have and don’t have the mechanic. If you (players) don’t like Terastalizing, as a prominent member of the Smogon community you (the higher-ups) should let people have that opinion without compromising the beliefs of the other side.
Feel free to tell me why this wouldn’t work, but if we were able to have separate OU ladders for Candied and Candyless during Let’s Go (2018), why couldn’t we do the same approach for stuff like Dynamax and Tera? Let the public decide which of the two options (Ban or No Ban) has more people playing it.
Separate tiering ladders that both have and don’t have the mechanic. If you (players) don’t like Terastalizing, as a prominent member of the Smogon community you (the higher-ups) should let people have that opinion without compromising the beliefs of the other side.
Feel free to tell me why this wouldn’t work, but if we were able to have separate OU ladders for Candied and Candyless during Let’s Go (2018), why couldn’t we do the same approach for stuff like Dynamax and Tera? Let the public decide which of the two options (Ban or No Ban) has more people playing it.
We're probably going to say the same thing for the next gen aren't we?
I just want to say for the record that I was actually pro Tera at the start of the Gen, I just had my opinion changed after a few months more
Quiver Dance isn't enough to break a mon in its entirety, but it is a massive piece to have in the toolbox compared to comparable mons without it. Lacking that completely changes Moth's playstyle compared to Volcarona even if both had identical stats and typing, since Volc can afford things like Bulk investment and early game checking/switch-ins since it choose when all its boosts go up compared to Moth having to monitor Booster energy, for one example. It's very much a "more than the sum of its parts" kit, and those parts are already extremely useful bar the need for Boots.
As for the secondary concern, I don't think Regieleki is an apt comparison because one of the issues with it was the fact that it was the fastest unboosted Pokemon in the tier with literally no effort (0 EV and Neutral outsped Dragapult), which left it a lot of room to invest in bulk alongside Transistor shoring up its low power-by-stats. Iron Moth's stats are good but not particularly exceptional for OU this gen, so it doesn't have the same amount of total EV/Nature Freedom as Eleki that helped it exert that threat. They definitely did consider its kit and intentionally avoided giving it Quiver Dance (especially since the move has never been signature despite its heavy association with Volc), but that does have the consequence of making Iron Moth significantly less of a pressure on teambuilding and game plans than Volcarona is overall.
I would still consider myself pro-Tera actually, if only for the fact that I’m choosing to look at OU in the long term. When Gen 10 comes out and SV becomes a Past Generation, I don’t want Gen 9 to feel too similar to Gen 8, in a similar way to how, say, 7 feels similar to 6, or how 5 feels similar to 4. If Terastalizing were to be banned entirely, I fear post-modern Gen 9 would feel near-identical to post-modern Gen 8. It would be like if Z-Moves were banned in Gen 7 and that OU tier felt like ORAS 2.0, or if Sand Stream was allowed in Gen 5 but not Drought and Drizzle (rip Hail though lol).
Creating separate tiering ladders for these kinds of “universal mechanics” can help everyone’s opinion be recognized as opposed to only the players who agree with the generation’s status quo. Having one where Tera is banned and one where it isn’t would give players more options for how they want to play the game once SV is no longer the current generation.
Then you are the 10% of what I said, I don't think it's unreasonable to shift opinion I just think it's funny when people act like the "tides have shifted" or something, when this is pretty much the same was the Terastilization Discussion thread, where hell, most of the anti-Tera posts got the most likes, and we all know what happened.
Like there is no real discernable way without data, which is why I support a survey, and probably a retest based on that.
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say: Good shit. Thanks for listening!
Gentlemen, a short view back to the past. Thirty years ago, Heroic Troller told us: "Take a trained monkey, place him into the gamer chair and he is able to win in RBY." Thirty years later Finchinator told us: "I had to tera my Volcarona like a computer. It's very complicated." And Joey Pokeaim said he chose during the tournament, I don't remember what tournament, the wrong mon to tera. Question for you to both. Is Scarlet/Violet battling today too complicated with 18 and more types to tera, are you too much under effort, under pressure? What are your wishes for the future, concerning tera options during the game? Less tera, more? Or less and more communication with your ghosters?
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