I'm a skinny, zero-facial-hair, white dude and I played a big bearded Tauren for three years. I don't think I could have gotten any farther from what I look like IRL.
It's not always what you look like so much as something about the character you identify with. Even guys with no facial hair often think crazy beards are amusing.
But I would posit in general that the tendency to play something closely resembling you given the choice starts to go down with years spent gaming (too much time playing the same type of character can get boring), PvP or other tabletop gaming experience (more time spent going into other characters), and time spent with fantasy and sci-fi media (more exposure to non-humans though the effect of this one may not be as great as initially appears. I'm pretty willing to bet that a lot of skinny players tend towards elves and stockier players towards dwarves).
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
*looks at cover*
Nope, it's Diablo II.
Weren't all the Prime Evils absorbed into one new Diablo, a stronger Diablo, a... Diablo 2, even?
Not that I have any clue whether HotS Diablo is that Diablo.
Diablo.
The HotS Diablo is the Diablo 1/2 Diablo.
HotS doesn't respect timelines. Also there was a specific reason for this - Diablo was developed for the game before Femablo was finalized? Or it was to avoid Diablo 3 spoilers for the time? I forget exactly.
The reason I choose to believe is because femablo looks dumb and D2 diablo looks hella tight. Also I wish there was a D1 graphics skin.
Diablo 1/2 Diablo is a lot more iconic than D3 Diablo. A lot of characters get a version of them that's iconic even if it's not the most recent. A big example would be Jaina being kinder, early WoW Jaina as opposed to vengeful post-destruction of Theramore in an expansion Jaina. Or Doomplate wearing pre-Cataclysm Thrall.
Also, oh boy free illidan week! How I look forward to idiots diving in unsupported and then flaming the team for not helping them win a 1v5
Sweet!
I picked up Illidan with gold last week (these goddamn heroes are just like pokemon... gotta scratch that collector itch), but I've been leery about trying him as I'm so rubbish with assassins...
BUT THIS WEEK I can try him with the Hots playerbase having zero expectations that I'm even competent because I own a hero lol
Also, oh boy free illidan week! How I look forward to idiots diving in unsupported and then flaming the team for not helping them win a 1v5
Sweet!
I picked up Illidan with gold last week (these goddamn heroes are just like pokemon... gotta scratch that collector itch), but I've been leery about trying him as I'm so rubbish with assassins...
BUT THIS WEEK I can try him with the Hots playerbase having zero expectations that I'm even competent because I own a hero lol
For me he is one of the easier and fun to play assassins. Rely on auto attacks for damage and generally use his Q/W for positioning. Take defense talents excpet for maybe immolation.
Okay so this is gonna be a talk about ethnic diversity in the characters in the game and stuff, so if you're not into this kind of meta level social justice in media discussion and just wanna talk about mechanics, that's cool, you do you and all. But it's something that's been sincerely bugging me, so, I'mma stick it under a spoiler so I don't gum up all the legit talk about mechanics and all.
It's sincerely started to bug me about how very white the cast lineup is. And I mean okay, thanks Seraph slash TealDeer, way to spend too much time on Tumblr! But sincerely...
Of all the humanoid characters, we only have two who aren't white -- Nazeebo and Tyrael. For both of them, all their skins cover their faces with masks or deep hoods, so it's hard to tell. Nazeebo also covers a kind of uncomfortable stereotype of the witch doctor.
I get that most of the characters are from established properties and many of those properties are pretty old and from a Before Time when we didn't even TALK about diversity in games. And I AM glad that Blizzard has been doing a bang-up job of including female characters of a pretty wide variety of body types (from generic sexy elves to HOT BEEFCAKE WARRIORS for Sonya and Hammer to chubby adorable fatties in LiLi). But at the same time, many of the Starcraft and Diablo characters aren't established, pre-existing characters, they're new characters meant to represent units or character types from those franchises. And it's like... why NOT include more people who ain't white?
You can talk all you want about how in lore most of the Starcraft humans are apparently from the South and former convicts (forgive me, I haven't played Starcraft, but people who have informed me that this is the case), but have you been to the south? There's a lot of black people there, as it turns out. And (unfortunately, because America is racist) a lot of convicts happen to be black. Also, there's lots of Asians there too! Iirc Austin has a huge Vietnamese population. Basically, it comes down to, "Why is Sgt. Hammer white?" It's honestly a kind of arbitrary choice when you think about it too hard.
Also, surely EVERYONE from Nazeebo's country isn't a witch doctor? Are there no hunters, warriors, barbarians, scholars, etc? From what little I know of the Diablo franchise, I think there's a Southeast Asian / Central Asian type place, and an East Asian type place too? What about characters from those countries? I have heard the Wizard will be Asian when s/he is released, so I hope so, and I hope s/he isn't a stereotype.
Something that I think would be super cool, and would make a TON of sense: introduce a Korean Starcraft hero. Korea practically INVENTED the ESports genre THROUGH STARCRAFT, they love MOBAs, this would be a no-brainer for Blizzard to do as a hey thank you to the Korean fanbase. In fact, let me break it down... Starcraft is short on Support characters right now, there's only Tassadar, who is... not the ideal support guy right now as he stands. Why not have a melee support human combat medic? Something like a tough, built fireplug, in power armor, the kind of woman* who is trained to get out on the battlefield under heavy fire and administer medical aid on the field. Maybe her mechanic is that she drops bandages and medpacks for people to pick up, I don't know, I just pulled that out of nowhere. Make her Korean, have her toss off common Korean Starcraft gaming catchphrases, and give her a professional Korean ESports skin. Bam! We have a cool new character who fills an empty role who happens to not be yet another white person.
*why woman? I flipped a coin, *shrug*
The thing that irks me the most is probably Zagara's Luxoria skin. Luxoria is EXPLICITLY based on a cartoony version of Ancient Egypt, and iirc the Spider Queen has North African features (sorta) (I mean she's a spider). Zagara has no canon human appearance (afaik) and yet for her Luxoria skin they make her human parts... a white woman? There's literally no reason to do that whatsoever. Like, why, exactly, did you make the NORTH AFRICAN THEMED SKIN of a character with no canon human appearance white, and not Middle Eastern or African?
I know this is all basically just social justice warrior nitpicking but it still bugs me. Diversity in human characters also gives room for diversity in character themes, skins, appearances, and voice actors, which is always a fun and good thing, so it's really perplexing to me that Blizzard isn't taking advantage of the opportunity.
This is a very good post. Would you mind if I tried to pass it along to the appropriate people?
I wouldn't mind at all. Please credit me, of course. I'm Lucid_Seraph here, but Teal-Deer on Tumblr and TealDeer#1985 on BattleNet. And DireJaybird on Twitter.
Re: QM, I think it's a good way to train yourself to use a character, but yeah, it's no good for competitive play. Just today I was on a team with no supports, and we get matched up with a team with Uther. We won anyway due to really good teamwork, plus a Diablo and a Nazeebo who were REALLY GOOD at aiming their fiddly attacks (Zombies and Apocalypse) but it was a close thing.
Re: diversity and all
Okay I'm a very skinny tiny white person. You know what I usually play in games? Really big buff angry monster women. In Guild Wars 2 I main a Charr Engineer, in Elder Scrolls games I'm usually the fattest, angriest Khajiit, Argonian, or Orc I can make. That's my fantasy--being seven feet tall and able to punch people through a brick wall and scare people shitless when I smile, because in real life I'm like 110 lbs with noodle arms.
Somebody upthread brought up the point that diversity in games isn't going to cause any great social change. I know that. I do! Social change is gonna be caused by the folks out on the streets marching. My thing about diversity in games is that to me, it's more interesting and more fun. Maybe it's because I burned out really bad on Standard Generic Western Fantasy And Science Fiction in high school; maybe it's because I grew up in a weird family where my grandpa was with the US Foreign Service so my house is full of stuff from all over the world and so despite being A White Kid I grew up with as much Anansi the Spider and Aswangs as I did Robin Hood and werewolves. Maybe that's a shallow reason I dunno, but whatever.
Playing support in Quick Match is pointless. Completely, utterly pointless. A sucker's bet every time.
A fairly significant percentage of Quick Match games come purely down to team composition. Your team has crap for damage so you auto-lose. Your team is too squishy so you auto-lose. Playing support will almost never push you towards a better composition, because support is the one role that Blizzard forcibly evens out when creating teams. Since pretty much all supports are squishy and low-damage, picking support exacerbates the most common problems in already-bad team comps while never being the edge you have over an opponent. So statistically, the smart call is to only ever play high-DPS assassins/specialists and tanks with at least decent damage.
It's worth it to play support in QM. That squishy-ness you mentioned can be directly compensated for with heals. You won't be able to do a whole lot without decent team mates, but that goes for any role. A healer played with a modicum of skill and awareness is a force multiplier for the other players by allowing them to stay in the field longer and do more overall stuff in team fights.
the problem with playing a support in solo QM is when you get players that tend to ignore objectives and/or merc camps because you can't do shit by yourself.
the problem with playing a support in solo QM is when you get players that tend to ignore objectives and/or merc camps because you can't do shit by yourself.
That's not a support problem, that's a general problem with QM. A lone assassin is not gonna be able to take an objective by themselves if the enemy team shows up. Mercs are different, because some characters can solo mercs fine. I've had fun being playing Gazlowe as a merc machine. In between objectives, of course.
I'll admit to playing characters I identify with/power fantasy over but this goes with personality as well (sometimes more so). I'll play Malfurion but not as eager to play Illidan like I used to. Won't touch the orcs because I just don't like them while I won't touch Arthas because "bad guy is bad". I dig Raynor though so I like him as well as Tyrael.
I'll play brightwing cause she's stupid adorable so I don't mind dabbling in some monster-like characters. Anything nature magic themed seems first pick though. I've never played a girl in an MMO before so I also fall into that group as well. I always put myself in the driverseat of a character and just identify with the male perspective/biology over the female.
the problem with playing a support in solo QM is when you get players that tend to ignore objectives and/or merc camps because you can't do shit by yourself.
I dunno... my experience is that it doesn't matter what role you play... if your pubs are so awful that it's going to cost you the match, it doesn't matter if you're murky or Jojo or illidan. Hots playstyle makes it hard to solo-carry a match.
Maybe soloQ support makes it harder to influence a match that's going poorly compared to solo tank or solo specialist, but (personal experience talking) those matches still wouldn't be wins if you were a different class. That's the crapshoot of the current potato quality matchmaker and some of the toxic pubs out there.
I'd really like to see some feedback from Blizz re: their reporting system with some of these pubs tho... had a match the other day with one of THOSE players in it. Toxic pre-lvl 4 after he got ganked once and went GG mode... this while we were obviously playing better than the other team. The consensus in chat ended up being the other 4 of us muting and reporting the guy for harassment based on his creative use of profanity AND we kept it positive enough to rally around his stupidity instead of buying into it lol... and we won to boot. It was a weird dynamic by the end.... us four all happy and winning with shitheel Jaina riding our coattails knowing he had 4 reports pending. (We're probably kinda lucky he didn't just afk.. I think he was trying to prove us wrong that he was a crap player).
I still miss playing my main in WoW. A female orc shaman.
Was good.
But on this game, I'm Kael as often as possible
Blowing up fools erryday. I know everyone takes Flamethrower, but I always take the living bomb spread. Is the range that big of a difference maker? I usually am able to stay out of harms way enough without it, and I like the extra damage from spreading living bomb and blowing extra people up. It's also helpful in taking camps later in the game if I need to.
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The only time I think where your individual skill can really shine is if both of your teams are evenly pub larva level and you're a specialist that can siege push real well.
I'll admit to playing characters I identify with/power fantasy over but this goes with personality as well (sometimes more so). I'll play Malfurion but not as eager to play Illidan like I used to. Won't touch the orcs because I just don't like them while I won't touch Arthas because "bad guy is bad". I dig Raynor though so I like him as well as Tyrael.
I'll play brightwing cause she's stupid adorable so I don't mind dabbling in some monster-like characters. Anything nature magic themed seems first pick though. I've never played a girl in an MMO before so I also fall into that group as well. I always put myself in the driverseat of a character and just identify with the male perspective/biology over the female.
cism
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
I'll admit to playing characters I identify with/power fantasy over but this goes with personality as well (sometimes more so). I'll play Malfurion but not as eager to play Illidan like I used to. Won't touch the orcs because I just don't like them while I won't touch Arthas because "bad guy is bad". I dig Raynor though so I like him as well as Tyrael.
I'll play brightwing cause she's stupid adorable so I don't mind dabbling in some monster-like characters. Anything nature magic themed seems first pick though. I've never played a girl in an MMO before so I also fall into that group as well. I always put myself in the driverseat of a character and just identify with the male perspective/biology over the female.
Would it be possible to make sure that if we talk about data-mined heroes that you spoiler it? I like the idea of logging in one day and seeing the new hero show up.
I had a Nazeebo game on Battlefield of Eternity last night where the game ended our 15 kills to their 21. We won and had no damage on our structures (even walls) at the end -- I had taken MULE and was using it liberally. I have no idea how we won so decisively lane-wise when they seemed to be outkilling us during the immortal fight clusterfucks. Somehow they didn't win any immortals either.
The other team had an Abathur so I'm going to assume he was stinking it up for them.
Edit: I don't know if I should be taking MULE over Gidbinn as Naz.
forty on
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Would it be possible to make sure that if we talk about data-mined heroes that you spoiler it? I like the idea of logging in one day and seeing the new hero show up.
That's not really feasible, especially when it's been datamined that they're about to drop. A lot of the discussion right before Butcher and Leoric dropped, for example, was potential builds that could be used from the datamined talents.
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Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
the problem with playing a support in solo QM is when you get players that tend to ignore objectives and/or merc camps because you can't do shit by yourself.
That's not a support problem, that's a general problem with QM. A lone assassin is not gonna be able to take an objective by themselves if the enemy team shows up. Mercs are different, because some characters can solo mercs fine. I've had fun being playing Gazlowe as a merc machine. In between objectives, of course.
Well, you can do plenty in those games to decide things... unless you are a support.
Sometimes a lane just needs to be pushed and no one is doing it. Sometimes you can ninja a merc camp cause you see the enemy team on the other side of the map.. except you have no chance as a support (even if you can solo it it will take so long you will prolly get caught). Things like that. Or on spiders you cannot solo down one of the webweavers and your team just ignores it.
The biggest issue though, is in a lot of these games the OTHER team is making these mistakes too. Play an assassin or specialist? You can be the one to make a few risky but high reward plays and push the game in your favor. Play a support? Better hope your team is going to push a good team fight. If they force their way into a 2v5 that only becomes 3v5 if you help is going to basically invalidate your existance. Get in the fight and lose, you are down 3, ignore the fight, you now are defending a push with 3. So either way it sucks. But, if you get at LEAST 4v5s or your team engages but just never at full health you CAN fix those things and turn it around yourself.
Now, a warrior? Try playing THAT in QM with a bad team. You not only tend to do bad damage but your only role is to start a fight. If you have a bad team this will almost always lead to you dieing pointlessly. Sure, you could build damage. You also are basically turning yourself into a bad bruiser/assassin. Warrior is the absolutely most useless role on a bad team. You can be ETC and keep your team topped off before every fight and start EVERY fight with a perfect 5 hit mosh pit. If your team runs away at the beginning of every fight it made your play 100% pointless.
The Diablo 3 Wizards are canonically Asian, and they are both incredibly smug assholes.
This is still a major issue for Blizzard as a whole, especially since every dwarf and gnome are also white. Oh wait, except for the Dark Irons who are the sneaky, normally evil dwarves. Er...moving on!
Heroes is a collection of Blizzard's characters, and the sad reality is that their collection is extremely white.
The Dark Iron Dwarves are actually the most noble of the Dwarves. They had one emperor who wanted to bring Ragnaros back from the dead, but even that was for what they thought was a good reason. The Wildhammer clan are inarguably way bigger assholes than the Dark Iron.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
*looks at cover*
Nope, it's Diablo II.
Weren't all the Prime Evils absorbed into one new Diablo, a stronger Diablo, a... Diablo 2, even?
Not that I have any clue whether HotS Diablo is that Diablo.
Diablo.
The HotS Diablo is the Diablo 1/2 Diablo.
HotS doesn't respect timelines. Also there was a specific reason for this - Diablo was developed for the game before Femablo was finalized? Or it was to avoid Diablo 3 spoilers for the time? I forget exactly.
Diablo in game is either the Dark Wanderer or the Diablo from the first game. He's bulky as hell.
But yeah, all the cinematics show Femdiablo which is *Goddammit blizzard* Prime Evil Diablo. Even though he was one of the Prime Evils, now he is THE Prime Evil.
God, they just literally couldn't do some more world building and introduce some new shit. No, they had to bring back a character that was killed about as definitively as you could kill a character.
EDIT: For that matter, they brought back basically every one iconic guys that they could. Skeleton King and Butcher are in the game despite being killed/put to rest in the first (and the Butcher goes from being the first boss to the end boss). Then Izazael is somehow brought to heaven by way of the burning legions thanks to the damn new Diablo, despite you killing his cursed form and releasing his spirit.
God, I just hate the story of Diablo III so much.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
the problem with playing a support in solo QM is when you get players that tend to ignore objectives and/or merc camps because you can't do shit by yourself.
That's not a support problem, that's a general problem with QM. A lone assassin is not gonna be able to take an objective by themselves if the enemy team shows up. Mercs are different, because some characters can solo mercs fine. I've had fun being playing Gazlowe as a merc machine. In between objectives, of course.
Well, you can do plenty in those games to decide things... unless you are a support.
Sometimes a lane just needs to be pushed and no one is doing it. Sometimes you can ninja a merc camp cause you see the enemy team on the other side of the map.. except you have no chance as a support (even if you can solo it it will take so long you will prolly get caught). Things like that. Or on spiders you cannot solo down one of the webweavers and your team just ignores it.
The biggest issue though, is in a lot of these games the OTHER team is making these mistakes too. Play an assassin or specialist? You can be the one to make a few risky but high reward plays and push the game in your favor. Play a support? Better hope your team is going to push a good team fight. If they force their way into a 2v5 that only becomes 3v5 if you help is going to basically invalidate your existance. Get in the fight and lose, you are down 3, ignore the fight, you now are defending a push with 3. So either way it sucks. But, if you get at LEAST 4v5s or your team engages but just never at full health you CAN fix those things and turn it around yourself.
Now, a warrior? Try playing THAT in QM with a bad team. You not only tend to do bad damage but your only role is to start a fight. If you have a bad team this will almost always lead to you dieing pointlessly. Sure, you could build damage. You also are basically turning yourself into a bad bruiser/assassin. Warrior is the absolutely most useless role on a bad team. You can be ETC and keep your team topped off before every fight and start EVERY fight with a perfect 5 hit mosh pit. If your team runs away at the beginning of every fight it made your play 100% pointless.
Support in QM = I can heal my team up FOR DAYS but the Assassins aren't focusing damage and the Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging at all! I can't do anything as a Support!
Warrior in QM = I can frontline and peel and engage FOR DAYS, but the Assassins and Support aren't following up on my setups! I charge forward and they just stand there leaving me to die! I can't do anything as a Warrior!
Assassin in QM = I can do HELLA DAMAGE FOR DAYS, but my Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging, and my Support isn't healing me or anything, and the rest of the Assassins aren't focusing damage! I can't do anything as an Assassin!
It's a problem with QM, not necessarily with Supports. I will agree that Supports in QM tend to have less overall impact than say, an Assassin/Warrior, though. You can be playing to the best of your ability but you're still relying on the rest of your team to actually make things happen.
the problem with playing a support in solo QM is when you get players that tend to ignore objectives and/or merc camps because you can't do shit by yourself.
That's not a support problem, that's a general problem with QM. A lone assassin is not gonna be able to take an objective by themselves if the enemy team shows up. Mercs are different, because some characters can solo mercs fine. I've had fun being playing Gazlowe as a merc machine. In between objectives, of course.
Well, you can do plenty in those games to decide things... unless you are a support.
Sometimes a lane just needs to be pushed and no one is doing it. Sometimes you can ninja a merc camp cause you see the enemy team on the other side of the map.. except you have no chance as a support (even if you can solo it it will take so long you will prolly get caught). Things like that. Or on spiders you cannot solo down one of the webweavers and your team just ignores it.
The biggest issue though, is in a lot of these games the OTHER team is making these mistakes too. Play an assassin or specialist? You can be the one to make a few risky but high reward plays and push the game in your favor. Play a support? Better hope your team is going to push a good team fight. If they force their way into a 2v5 that only becomes 3v5 if you help is going to basically invalidate your existance. Get in the fight and lose, you are down 3, ignore the fight, you now are defending a push with 3. So either way it sucks. But, if you get at LEAST 4v5s or your team engages but just never at full health you CAN fix those things and turn it around yourself.
Now, a warrior? Try playing THAT in QM with a bad team. You not only tend to do bad damage but your only role is to start a fight. If you have a bad team this will almost always lead to you dieing pointlessly. Sure, you could build damage. You also are basically turning yourself into a bad bruiser/assassin. Warrior is the absolutely most useless role on a bad team. You can be ETC and keep your team topped off before every fight and start EVERY fight with a perfect 5 hit mosh pit. If your team runs away at the beginning of every fight it made your play 100% pointless.
Support in QM = I can heal my team up FOR DAYS but the Assassins aren't focusing damage and the Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging at all! I can't do anything as a Support!
Warrior in QM = I can frontline and peel and engage FOR DAYS, but the Assassins and Support aren't following up on my setups! I charge forward and they just stand there leaving me to die! I can't do anything as a Warrior!
Assassin in QM = I can do HELLA DAMAGE FOR DAYS, but my Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging, and my Support isn't healing me or anything, and the rest of the Assassins aren't focusing damage! I can't do anything as an Assassin!
Would it be possible to make sure that if we talk about data-mined heroes that you spoiler it? I like the idea of logging in one day and seeing the new hero show up.
That's not really feasible, especially when it's been datamined that they're about to drop. A lot of the discussion right before Butcher and Leoric dropped, for example, was potential builds that could be used from the datamined talents.
The week it drops is cool. But I mean the ones that are datamined overall. I'd rather not see a list of who's on the way out.
the problem with playing a support in solo QM is when you get players that tend to ignore objectives and/or merc camps because you can't do shit by yourself.
That's not a support problem, that's a general problem with QM. A lone assassin is not gonna be able to take an objective by themselves if the enemy team shows up. Mercs are different, because some characters can solo mercs fine. I've had fun being playing Gazlowe as a merc machine. In between objectives, of course.
Well, you can do plenty in those games to decide things... unless you are a support.
Sometimes a lane just needs to be pushed and no one is doing it. Sometimes you can ninja a merc camp cause you see the enemy team on the other side of the map.. except you have no chance as a support (even if you can solo it it will take so long you will prolly get caught). Things like that. Or on spiders you cannot solo down one of the webweavers and your team just ignores it.
The biggest issue though, is in a lot of these games the OTHER team is making these mistakes too. Play an assassin or specialist? You can be the one to make a few risky but high reward plays and push the game in your favor. Play a support? Better hope your team is going to push a good team fight. If they force their way into a 2v5 that only becomes 3v5 if you help is going to basically invalidate your existance. Get in the fight and lose, you are down 3, ignore the fight, you now are defending a push with 3. So either way it sucks. But, if you get at LEAST 4v5s or your team engages but just never at full health you CAN fix those things and turn it around yourself.
Now, a warrior? Try playing THAT in QM with a bad team. You not only tend to do bad damage but your only role is to start a fight. If you have a bad team this will almost always lead to you dieing pointlessly. Sure, you could build damage. You also are basically turning yourself into a bad bruiser/assassin. Warrior is the absolutely most useless role on a bad team. You can be ETC and keep your team topped off before every fight and start EVERY fight with a perfect 5 hit mosh pit. If your team runs away at the beginning of every fight it made your play 100% pointless.
Support in QM = I can heal my team up FOR DAYS but the Assassins aren't focusing damage and the Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging at all! I can't do anything as a Support!
Warrior in QM = I can frontline and peel and engage FOR DAYS, but the Assassins and Support aren't following up on my setups! I charge forward and they just stand there leaving me to die! I can't do anything as a Warrior!
Assassin in QM = I can do HELLA DAMAGE FOR DAYS, but my Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging, and my Support isn't healing me or anything, and the rest of the Assassins aren't focusing damage! I can't do anything as an Assassin!
It's a problem with QM, not necessarily with Supports. I will agree that Supports in QM tend to have less overall impact than say, an Assassin/Warrior, though. You can be playing to the best of your ability but you're still relying on the rest of your team to actually make things happen.
Assassins dont need anyone else to kill people. If the other team makes a mistake an assassin can kill them. So no, they do not have the same issues.
And even a bad teamfight can be won by a good support. Only the WORST teams do zero damage, if you keep the right people alive you will come out on top.
But a warrior basically does ONE thing then does mediocre damage. That is initiate (and take and mitigate damage). If your team doesn't know how to take advantage of this then you are 100% useless.
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
*looks at cover*
Nope, it's Diablo II.
Weren't all the Prime Evils absorbed into one new Diablo, a stronger Diablo, a... Diablo 2, even?
Not that I have any clue whether HotS Diablo is that Diablo.
Diablo.
The HotS Diablo is the Diablo 1/2 Diablo.
HotS doesn't respect timelines. Also there was a specific reason for this - Diablo was developed for the game before Femablo was finalized? Or it was to avoid Diablo 3 spoilers for the time? I forget exactly.
Diablo in game is either the Dark Wanderer or the Diablo from the first game. He's bulky as hell.
But yeah, all the cinematics show Femdiablo which is *Goddammit blizzard* Prime Evil Diablo. Even though he was one of the Prime Evils, now he is THE Prime Evil.
God, they just literally couldn't do some more world building and introduce some new shit. No, they had to bring back a character that was killed about as definitively as you could kill a character.
EDIT: For that matter, they brought back basically every one iconic guys that they could. Skeleton King and Butcher are in the game despite being killed/put to rest in the first (and the Butcher goes from being the first boss to the end boss). Then Izazael is somehow brought to heaven by way of the burning legions thanks to the damn new Diablo, despite you killing his cursed form and releasing his spirit.
God, I just hate the story of Diablo III so much.
I really, really want them to bring in Tal Rasha as a character in Heroes of the Storm. He was such an utter fucking badass.
I had a Nazeebo game on Battlefield of Eternity last night where the game ended our 15 kills to their 21. We won and had no damage on our structures (even walls) at the end -- I had taken MULE and was using it liberally. I have no idea how we won so decisively lane-wise when they seemed to be outkilling us during the immortal fight clusterfucks. Somehow they didn't win any immortals either.
The other team had an Abathur so I'm going to assume he was stinking it up for them.
Edit: I don't know if I should be taking MULE over Gidbinn as Naz.
On some maps, or against some comps, absolutely - it's the sign of a good player that they make that choice despite the huge loss in power that not taking Gidbinn inflicts. On Sky Temple, Haunted Mines it's really important for *someone* to have it - it's a game changer. If the enemy team has a suicide murky and Abathur combo, or a suicide Leoric, again it's a great choice.
Kai_SanCommonly known as Klineshrike!Registered Userregular
Mule is kind of huge on the mines. If you set it up right and the other team isnt pushing the lane with it very hard, you can counter most of the golems damage. If it was a weak golem, you can likely finish it off and keep your towers at full.
I think blackheart is another. Maybe even temples. Maps that have pushing mechanics that do not involve the team being there it is huge. Blackheart a little less so though since it does a ton of its damage pretty quick. You can use it for that after the barrage. Maybe even the one with the benny hill plant monster because it basically drops a plant and runs. Drop a mule, kill the plant, and that spot is basically impenetrable (but the other two are in trouble).
Yes mules is good on temples. In pro games you can see all structures intact because of the mule power (and of course, winning).
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
edited July 2015
Also when it comes to mules you'll often see it picked up on Tassadar. Either casually or, on mines, as part of his full base-defense shield build.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Gonna need you to look reeeeal close at what I posted.
Ah, but consider this: he is part of Diablo 2.
*looks at cover*
Nope, it's Diablo II.
Weren't all the Prime Evils absorbed into one new Diablo, a stronger Diablo, a... Diablo 2, even?
Not that I have any clue whether HotS Diablo is that Diablo.
Diablo.
The HotS Diablo is the Diablo 1/2 Diablo.
HotS doesn't respect timelines. Also there was a specific reason for this - Diablo was developed for the game before Femablo was finalized? Or it was to avoid Diablo 3 spoilers for the time? I forget exactly.
Diablo in game is either the Dark Wanderer or the Diablo from the first game. He's bulky as hell.
But yeah, all the cinematics show Femdiablo which is *Goddammit blizzard* Prime Evil Diablo. Even though he was one of the Prime Evils, now he is THE Prime Evil.
God, they just literally couldn't do some more world building and introduce some new shit. No, they had to bring back a character that was killed about as definitively as you could kill a character.
EDIT: For that matter, they brought back basically every one iconic guys that they could. Skeleton King and Butcher are in the game despite being killed/put to rest in the first (and the Butcher goes from being the first boss to the end boss). Then Izazael is somehow brought to heaven by way of the burning legions thanks to the damn new Diablo, despite you killing his cursed form and releasing his spirit.
God, I just hate the story of Diablo III so much.
I really, really want them to bring in Tal Rasha as a character in Heroes of the Storm. He was such an utter fucking badass.
Tal Rasha or Baal?
Because Tal-Rasha as you meet him in the games is Baal.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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It's not always what you look like so much as something about the character you identify with. Even guys with no facial hair often think crazy beards are amusing.
But I would posit in general that the tendency to play something closely resembling you given the choice starts to go down with years spent gaming (too much time playing the same type of character can get boring), PvP or other tabletop gaming experience (more time spent going into other characters), and time spent with fantasy and sci-fi media (more exposure to non-humans though the effect of this one may not be as great as initially appears. I'm pretty willing to bet that a lot of skinny players tend towards elves and stockier players towards dwarves).
Diablo 1/2 Diablo is a lot more iconic than D3 Diablo. A lot of characters get a version of them that's iconic even if it's not the most recent. A big example would be Jaina being kinder, early WoW Jaina as opposed to vengeful post-destruction of Theramore in an expansion Jaina. Or Doomplate wearing pre-Cataclysm Thrall.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Also, oh boy free illidan week! How I look forward to idiots diving in unsupported and then flaming the team for not helping them win a 1v5
Sweet!
I picked up Illidan with gold last week (these goddamn heroes are just like pokemon... gotta scratch that collector itch), but I've been leery about trying him as I'm so rubbish with assassins...
BUT THIS WEEK I can try him with the Hots playerbase having zero expectations that I'm even competent because I own a hero lol
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Feel the hatred of ten thousand tears!
For me he is one of the easier and fun to play assassins. Rely on auto attacks for damage and generally use his Q/W for positioning. Take defense talents excpet for maybe immolation.
Feel the hatred of four random pubs!
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
I wouldn't mind at all. Please credit me, of course. I'm Lucid_Seraph here, but Teal-Deer on Tumblr and TealDeer#1985 on BattleNet. And DireJaybird on Twitter.
Re: QM, I think it's a good way to train yourself to use a character, but yeah, it's no good for competitive play. Just today I was on a team with no supports, and we get matched up with a team with Uther. We won anyway due to really good teamwork, plus a Diablo and a Nazeebo who were REALLY GOOD at aiming their fiddly attacks (Zombies and Apocalypse) but it was a close thing.
Re: diversity and all
Okay I'm a very skinny tiny white person. You know what I usually play in games? Really big buff angry monster women. In Guild Wars 2 I main a Charr Engineer, in Elder Scrolls games I'm usually the fattest, angriest Khajiit, Argonian, or Orc I can make. That's my fantasy--being seven feet tall and able to punch people through a brick wall and scare people shitless when I smile, because in real life I'm like 110 lbs with noodle arms.
Somebody upthread brought up the point that diversity in games isn't going to cause any great social change. I know that. I do! Social change is gonna be caused by the folks out on the streets marching. My thing about diversity in games is that to me, it's more interesting and more fun. Maybe it's because I burned out really bad on Standard Generic Western Fantasy And Science Fiction in high school; maybe it's because I grew up in a weird family where my grandpa was with the US Foreign Service so my house is full of stuff from all over the world and so despite being A White Kid I grew up with as much Anansi the Spider and Aswangs as I did Robin Hood and werewolves. Maybe that's a shallow reason I dunno, but whatever.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
It's worth it to play support in QM. That squishy-ness you mentioned can be directly compensated for with heals. You won't be able to do a whole lot without decent team mates, but that goes for any role. A healer played with a modicum of skill and awareness is a force multiplier for the other players by allowing them to stay in the field longer and do more overall stuff in team fights.
There are also hard numbers to back this up: http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/18543837.
What happened in the last game you played support?
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That's not a support problem, that's a general problem with QM. A lone assassin is not gonna be able to take an objective by themselves if the enemy team shows up. Mercs are different, because some characters can solo mercs fine. I've had fun being playing Gazlowe as a merc machine. In between objectives, of course.
I'll play brightwing cause she's stupid adorable so I don't mind dabbling in some monster-like characters. Anything nature magic themed seems first pick though. I've never played a girl in an MMO before so I also fall into that group as well. I always put myself in the driverseat of a character and just identify with the male perspective/biology over the female.
I dunno... my experience is that it doesn't matter what role you play... if your pubs are so awful that it's going to cost you the match, it doesn't matter if you're murky or Jojo or illidan. Hots playstyle makes it hard to solo-carry a match.
Maybe soloQ support makes it harder to influence a match that's going poorly compared to solo tank or solo specialist, but (personal experience talking) those matches still wouldn't be wins if you were a different class. That's the crapshoot of the current potato quality matchmaker and some of the toxic pubs out there.
I'd really like to see some feedback from Blizz re: their reporting system with some of these pubs tho... had a match the other day with one of THOSE players in it. Toxic pre-lvl 4 after he got ganked once and went GG mode... this while we were obviously playing better than the other team. The consensus in chat ended up being the other 4 of us muting and reporting the guy for harassment based on his creative use of profanity AND we kept it positive enough to rally around his stupidity instead of buying into it lol... and we won to boot. It was a weird dynamic by the end.... us four all happy and winning with shitheel Jaina riding our coattails knowing he had 4 reports pending. (We're probably kinda lucky he didn't just afk.. I think he was trying to prove us wrong that he was a crap player).
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Was good.
But on this game, I'm Kael as often as possible
Blowing up fools erryday. I know everyone takes Flamethrower, but I always take the living bomb spread. Is the range that big of a difference maker? I usually am able to stay out of harms way enough without it, and I like the extra damage from spreading living bomb and blowing extra people up. It's also helpful in taking camps later in the game if I need to.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The only time I think where your individual skill can really shine is if both of your teams are evenly pub larva level and you're a specialist that can siege push real well.
Your XP gains will offset the pubs.
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wra
cism
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
True that.
I knew that Mecha was on sale this week, but never saw how much... what's it at pricewise? (At work behind walls atm)
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
11.25, so think it's only 25% off.
The other team had an Abathur so I'm going to assume he was stinking it up for them.
Edit: I don't know if I should be taking MULE over Gidbinn as Naz.
That's not really feasible, especially when it's been datamined that they're about to drop. A lot of the discussion right before Butcher and Leoric dropped, for example, was potential builds that could be used from the datamined talents.
Well, you can do plenty in those games to decide things... unless you are a support.
Sometimes a lane just needs to be pushed and no one is doing it. Sometimes you can ninja a merc camp cause you see the enemy team on the other side of the map.. except you have no chance as a support (even if you can solo it it will take so long you will prolly get caught). Things like that. Or on spiders you cannot solo down one of the webweavers and your team just ignores it.
The biggest issue though, is in a lot of these games the OTHER team is making these mistakes too. Play an assassin or specialist? You can be the one to make a few risky but high reward plays and push the game in your favor. Play a support? Better hope your team is going to push a good team fight. If they force their way into a 2v5 that only becomes 3v5 if you help is going to basically invalidate your existance. Get in the fight and lose, you are down 3, ignore the fight, you now are defending a push with 3. So either way it sucks. But, if you get at LEAST 4v5s or your team engages but just never at full health you CAN fix those things and turn it around yourself.
Now, a warrior? Try playing THAT in QM with a bad team. You not only tend to do bad damage but your only role is to start a fight. If you have a bad team this will almost always lead to you dieing pointlessly. Sure, you could build damage. You also are basically turning yourself into a bad bruiser/assassin. Warrior is the absolutely most useless role on a bad team. You can be ETC and keep your team topped off before every fight and start EVERY fight with a perfect 5 hit mosh pit. If your team runs away at the beginning of every fight it made your play 100% pointless.
The Dark Iron Dwarves are actually the most noble of the Dwarves. They had one emperor who wanted to bring Ragnaros back from the dead, but even that was for what they thought was a good reason. The Wildhammer clan are inarguably way bigger assholes than the Dark Iron.
Diablo in game is either the Dark Wanderer or the Diablo from the first game. He's bulky as hell.
But yeah, all the cinematics show Femdiablo which is *Goddammit blizzard* Prime Evil Diablo. Even though he was one of the Prime Evils, now he is THE Prime Evil.
God, they just literally couldn't do some more world building and introduce some new shit. No, they had to bring back a character that was killed about as definitively as you could kill a character.
EDIT: For that matter, they brought back basically every one iconic guys that they could. Skeleton King and Butcher are in the game despite being killed/put to rest in the first (and the Butcher goes from being the first boss to the end boss). Then Izazael is somehow brought to heaven by way of the burning legions thanks to the damn new Diablo, despite you killing his cursed form and releasing his spirit.
God, I just hate the story of Diablo III so much.
Support in QM = I can heal my team up FOR DAYS but the Assassins aren't focusing damage and the Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging at all! I can't do anything as a Support!
Warrior in QM = I can frontline and peel and engage FOR DAYS, but the Assassins and Support aren't following up on my setups! I charge forward and they just stand there leaving me to die! I can't do anything as a Warrior!
Assassin in QM = I can do HELLA DAMAGE FOR DAYS, but my Warrior isn't frontlining or peeling or engaging, and my Support isn't healing me or anything, and the rest of the Assassins aren't focusing damage! I can't do anything as an Assassin!
It's a problem with QM, not necessarily with Supports. I will agree that Supports in QM tend to have less overall impact than say, an Assassin/Warrior, though. You can be playing to the best of your ability but you're still relying on the rest of your team to actually make things happen.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
Pfffffffft... I scoff at your pricing blizzard... Pay more than a tenner for a skin? This is not a sale worth the name. I bid thee good day.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
Lost Vikings in QM = Do all of the things.
Hit hard, die young.
The week it drops is cool. But I mean the ones that are datamined overall. I'd rather not see a list of who's on the way out.
This makes me sad, I like that skin, but not at that price.
Assassins dont need anyone else to kill people. If the other team makes a mistake an assassin can kill them. So no, they do not have the same issues.
And even a bad teamfight can be won by a good support. Only the WORST teams do zero damage, if you keep the right people alive you will come out on top.
But a warrior basically does ONE thing then does mediocre damage. That is initiate (and take and mitigate damage). If your team doesn't know how to take advantage of this then you are 100% useless.
I really, really want them to bring in Tal Rasha as a character in Heroes of the Storm. He was such an utter fucking badass.
On some maps, or against some comps, absolutely - it's the sign of a good player that they make that choice despite the huge loss in power that not taking Gidbinn inflicts. On Sky Temple, Haunted Mines it's really important for *someone* to have it - it's a game changer. If the enemy team has a suicide murky and Abathur combo, or a suicide Leoric, again it's a great choice.
Quick tips mode: what's the best time/place to use it (I'll give it a try next time I can get a match in where it's worth taking).
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
I think blackheart is another. Maybe even temples. Maps that have pushing mechanics that do not involve the team being there it is huge. Blackheart a little less so though since it does a ton of its damage pretty quick. You can use it for that after the barrage. Maybe even the one with the benny hill plant monster because it basically drops a plant and runs. Drop a mule, kill the plant, and that spot is basically impenetrable (but the other two are in trouble).
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wra
Tal Rasha or Baal?
Because Tal-Rasha as you meet him in the games is Baal.