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Trails of Tera Steel (Kiseki-inspired Pokemon Academy Quest)

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Tempera said:
- Roland did really well, soloing a second-badge Pokemon pulled out specifically to counter him. It's looking like a second badge is definitely doable. However, my thoughts are that Mary might not want to treat Dreepy as her ace unless we can get him to evolve before the next gym battle. If she treats Drilbur as her ace, I think she has a better shot coming up.
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Honestly? Drillbur did really freaking well too, getting us most of the way through the first two pokemon.

Tempera said:
It's an impressive showing to be sure. I think the thread can probably debate about whether Mary or Nemona had a better showing this battle (I'm on Nemona's side, for the record, as the Nemona simp I am). I'm just not sure it's quite equivalent to facing off against an Onix and a Gym Leader's canonical Ace for your first badge, or the first badge battle of the guy who would sweep like Red and become the Undefeated Champion in a single year.
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I'm inclined to say, from an outsider's perspective... Nemona's battle was probably the more brilliant showing, whereas Mary's was... as well executed but fails to match up in the sheer unpredictability or ability to pressure the gym leader. Mary gets some points for being able to fight through direct tactical counters, but... typically better to bring something your opponent isn't prepared for than to gamble on just breaking past your opponent's counterstrategy. Still impressive, but not perfect, and there's room for doubt that the Gym Leader might have been underestimating or otherwise softballing her, whereas Nemona fought a clear toe-to-toe battle against the best the Leader could throw at her.
 
[X] Ruby
[X] Roxy
[X] Ries

In order of prefference. Roxy gets a vote only for the pun, and Ries for honorary Trails homage.
 
Ryumancer said:
I'm inclined to say, from an outsider's perspective... Nemona's battle was probably the more brilliant showing, whereas Mary's was... as well executed but fails to match up in the sheer unpredictability or ability to pressure the gym leader. Mary gets some points for being able to fight through direct tactical counters, but... typically better to bring something your opponent isn't prepared for than to gamble on just breaking past your opponent's counterstrategy. Still impressive, but not perfect, and there's room for doubt that the Gym Leader might have been underestimating or otherwise softballing her, whereas Nemona fought a clear toe-to-toe battle against the best the Leader could throw at her.
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I don't think there's any reasonable interpretation Katie was softballing us lol. She went straight for great balls and direct counters to our mons.

As for our performance vs. Nemona's performance...hers was certainly, and literally, flashier. She played Katie like a harmonica to secure victory and dazzle the crowd. Our tactics weren't as complicated, but they were comparable and succeeded just as well, and really I think that comes down to Mariana's and Nemona's different attitudes to battles. Nemona lives for Pokémon battling, eats breathes and sleeps it, and wants everyone involved in the battle to enjoy it as much as she does. Mariana, meanwhile, is skilled and dedicated, but views battles as conflicts to surpass or (if I can move to Rime City for a minute) barriers to get over, rather than ends in themselves, so her focus is going to be on maximizing her chance of victory and respecting her team rather than making a battle great.

When I get around to deep diving on this one I think I really want to get into how Mary's deep empathy with her Pokémon informs her battling style, since this very update also gives us an Elise POV that shows how strong Mary is in that regard. It's not that the rest of the Class doesn't love their Pokémon, but we've got a particular natural talent for inspiring loyalty through kindness, which has a huge effect on how we and they fight.
 
Ryumancer said:
Still impressive, but not perfect, and there's room for doubt that the Gym Leader might have been underestimating or otherwise softballing her, whereas Nemona fought a clear toe-to-toe battle against the best the Leader could throw at her.
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Nemona had to convince Katie to take the fight seriously halfway through the whole thing and got to face a single 3-badge pokemon in return. Mariana otoh faced two 2-badge 'mons in the fight for her first badge and won 2vs3. The only way you could argue that Katie softballed Mariana from an outside perspective is that we won without even bringing out our third pokemon or using any switch-in, but I don't think it'd be a reasonable argument that we were pushed much less than Nemona.
Plus we're a first-year trainer doing our first badge, pretty sure that facing two 2-badge enemies when Katie only has the 3-badgers around for people that have been at this for a year or two is already on the upper end of difficulty she'll generally present to challengers for their first badge.
 
I'd say it's perfectly ok to be satisfied with our performance. We didn't blow out the stadium in a flashy show, but is the castle wall any less destroyed if we did it with a nuke or with careful demolitions. We still did better than most.
 
sheep-dodger said:
Nemona had to convince Katie to take the fight seriously halfway through the whole thing and got to face a single 3-badge pokemon in return. Mariana otoh faced two 2-badge 'mons in the fight for her first badge and won 2vs3. The only way you could argue that Katie softballed Mariana from an outside perspective is that we won without even bringing out our third pokemon or using any switch-in, but I don't think it'd be a reasonable argument that we were pushed much less than Nemona.
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In fairness Nemona's performance was likely part of the reason Katie was willing to escalate straight to a 2-badge mon for her second pick.
 
I mean, our and Nemona's performances still have a pretty large power gap with the rest of our class. :V
 
As someone who is woefully ignorant of pokemon mechanics, and just here for the story, I have to ask, whats the difference between a pokemon type and their Tera type? Like, is Drilbur a Ground Type or Rock Type, even though their Tera type is listed as Ground, Rock and Electric?
 
Solar Saiyan said:
As someone who is woefully ignorant of pokemon mechanics, and just here for the story, I have to ask, whats the difference between a pokemon type and their Tera type? Like, is Drilbur a Ground Type or Rock Type, even though their Tera type is listed as Ground, Rock and Electric?
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Drilbur is a ground type, but in the recent games (Scarlet and Violent) a mechanic called terastralization was introduced, in which a pokémon can temporarily switch their type with their tera type (or increase the strength of their Same Type Attack Bonus if they tera into a type they already had).

In the example of the gym battle, Roland went tera-ghost which removes the Dragon weakness to Fairy (handy) and increased the damage of Shadow Sneak by a significant margin as Roland was already a ghost type and was (briefly) considered Extra Ghost Type.
 
SMBlade said:
Drilbur is a ground type, but in the recent games (Scarlet and Violent) a mechanic called terastralization was introduced, in which a pokémon can temporarily switch their type with their tera type (or increase the strength of their Same Type Attack Bonus if they tera into a type they already had).

In the example of the gym battle, Roland went tera-ghost which removes the Dragon weakness to Fairy (handy) and increased the damage of Shadow Sneak by a significant margin as Roland was already a ghost type and was (briefly) considered Extra Ghost Type.
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So, according to what little I know, a pokemon can be single type, or be multiple type like Roland (Dragon/Ghost), so Terastalization overrides all other types and imposes the Tera type only, is that correct?
 
Solar Saiyan said:
So, according to what little I know, a pokemon can be single type, or be multiple type like Roland (Dragon/Ghost), so Terastalization overrides all other types and imposes the Tera type only, is that correct?
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Yes, with one exception, but that one does not matter for anyone except a specific legendary, Terapagos.
 
Solar Saiyan said:
So, according to what little I know, a pokemon can be single type, or be multiple type like Roland (Dragon/Ghost), so Terastalization overrides all other types and imposes the Tera type only, is that correct?
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Yes. It's very handy for removing weaknesses for that reason. In this particular case, Terastilizing to Ghost removed Roland's weakness to Fairy moves as well as enhancing the damage of his Ghost attacks. He could have also Terastilized to Steel to start resisting Fairy (and like a third of the type chart), but that wouldn't have done anything for his offense.

It's worth noting in the actual video game that every individual Pokémon only has one Tera Type, as opposed to the three or more options that are possible in the Quest (though you can change which Tera type a mon has by grinding certain resources), making the Tera type choice more strategic than tactical. It's also relatively rare in lore for a Pokémon to have a Tera type that doesn't match one of its natural types, hence Drilbur's Electric option being called out as rare in narration here, though there's plenty of in-game opportunity to seek them out by either regular exploration or co-op "Tera Raid" mechanics.
 
Solar Saiyan said:
Thanks. Can you elaborate?
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The "Stellar" Tera Type. Instead of changing the users type, it instead gives them a one-time STAB boost on every type. It's generally considered not very good because of that one-time limitation.

When Terapagos, on the other hand, Terastailizes into the Stellar Type, it doesn't have that one-time limitation, also enters a Super Form, and its signature move gets both more power and becomes Super Effective on any other Terastalized pokemon, regardless of type.
 
On the topic of Terastalization, thank god the hats don't seem to be in this story.

I don't know whose idea it was that Terastalization should come with a giant elementally themed crystalline hat, but whoever is responsible is unforgivable. Their crimes against aesthetics are too great.

Aliya said:
Yes, with one exception, but that one does not matter for anyone except a specific legendary, Terapagos.
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It's occasionally used on other Pokémon. The kind with varied movepools that know they're not taking hits no matter what their type is.

Though honestly, not sure if I've seen it on anything but Terapagos and Chien-Pao.
 
LunaticPanda said:
I don't know whose idea it was that Terastalization should come with a giant elementally themed crystalline hat, but whoever is responsible is unforgivable. Their crimes against aesthetics are too great.
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I can see why they did the hats. It allows even the most unobservant player to know, at a glance, which pokemon is terastalized and to what type. There's an argument to be made that pokemon, as a game designed for small children, should play to the lowest common denominator of players understanding what is going on.

Doesn't change the fact that the things look frikken stupid and draw lots of attention to the graphical shortcomings of S&V, but they did have a reason for it. Not necessarily a good reason.
 
LunaticPanda said:
It's occasionally used on other Pokémon. The kind with varied movepools that know they're not taking hits no matter what their type is.

Though honestly, not sure if I've seen it on anything but Terapagos and Chien-Pao.
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IIRC, Enamorus sometimes run it. Since, for some reason, they decided to make Stellar Tera Blast lower the users Attack and Special Attack, it gives Contrary Enamorus a way to boost its Sp. Attack.
 
I wonder if there will be tournaments we can do in the future. That'd be a neat way to get some training in, some money in case we win, and a more public profile and a positive rep to the wider public! Well, depending on how entrenched the dislike of Mezagozan students is maybe it won't be as positive as I'd hope, but being known as strong, competent, and actually decent with people could be good for our future.
 
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