Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
You can't time your locusts though. They come out automatically. You can place yourself in certain positions to kinda make their pathing be more likely to go where you want, but if someone is laning there then you're fucked.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
+3
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Also, the hat counts as a body. You don't have to get last hits with that to soak.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
You can't time your locusts though. They come out automatically. You can place yourself in certain positions to kinda make their pathing be more likely to go where you want, but if someone is laning there then you're fucked.
I haven't watched Fan's streams but maybe positioning yourself at a certain distance away from where the minion frontline is such that the locusts reach them close to when the frontline is about to die? I would think that the level 1 locust talent should give you some flexibility. It seems like a really min-maxy to play him though. Do you have a link to where Fan talks about this Antaeus cause I love to play Abby.
Bnet: CavilatRest#1874
Steam: CavilatRest
0
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
And because @finnith asked for it, a super old video where Fan mentions early that he has "secrit stratz" for Abathur that he doesn't want to reveal. I often put Fan's stream on in the background during late nights, so I don't have a specific video where he talks about Abathur, but he's mentioned it at least once offhand pretty recently and refused to elaborate, which is why I remember: https://youtu.be/DJqZwN28ldk
Also, doing a search on "Fan Abathur" led to this video, which is a replay VoD of Fan's perspective during a recent HGC game: https://youtu.be/0j7NC_k16iU
I haven't seen it but I assume it's got a lot of stuff that you can mine (get it?!?!) from watching.
You can't time your locusts though. They come out automatically. You can place yourself in certain positions to kinda make their pathing be more likely to go where you want, but if someone is laning there then you're fucked.
I haven't watched Fan's streams but maybe positioning yourself at a certain distance away from where the minion frontline is such that the locusts reach them close to when the frontline is about to die? I would think that the level 1 locust talent should give you some flexibility. It seems like a really min-maxy to play him though. Do you have a link to where Fan talks about this Antaeus cause I love to play Abby.
I guess... The rest of the wave is still there, so you'd still have to get lucky with the locust hits. Easier and more reliable to just time your hats properly
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
A top tier aBaThur of the highest caliber will soak three lanes : body, mines, and hat while his team delays the objective for as long as possible.
Personally, I just soak two lanes, using my mines to either help my team or to help push my lane.
And as an abathur player I always read new heroes and go"huh, that will be fun controlling for about ten seconds" and trying to figure out which clones are the most broken.
Malth clones are the absolute most broken motherfucking things in existence, fyi.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I tend to play assassins that are likely clone targets but every time I secretly wish he'd clone a tank or support instead so I can play like a monkey for a bit. I'm Valla with two Uthers in front of me nothing you do matters WHOO BABY YEAH.
butts
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
The best clone targets are the ones that cause insanity by having two of that hero on your team, because the game often just assumes that a buff or debuff that only specific heroes can do means that any hero in that area that type gets the benefit.
Like Jains and Malth. Both benefit hugely from the debuffs the clone provides.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Double Butcher is really awesome if the real Butch knows what he's doing. Double charge and you instant delete someone.
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I also preeeetty sure but have not confirmed that double butch benefits from each other's healing mark.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
The best clone targets are the ones that cause insanity by having two of that hero on your team, because the game often just assumes that a buff or debuff that only specific heroes can do means that any hero in that area that type gets the benefit.
Like Jains and Malth. Both benefit hugely from the debuffs the clone provides.
Putting three or four Jainas on a single team in mage wars is an unstoppable force of death because of that very fact.
butts
0
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
The best clone targets are the ones that cause insanity by having two of that hero on your team, because the game often just assumes that a buff or debuff that only specific heroes can do means that any hero in that area that type gets the benefit.
Like Jains and Malth. Both benefit hugely from the debuffs the clone provides.
Putting three or four Jainas on a single team in mage wars is an unstoppable force of death because of that very fact.
That did not stop every person I played with from going Li-Ming and shouting "BUT RESETS!" Like, okay, sure, but you've gotta land something and you clowns are not good at this. :P
Mage Wars was okay. Took way too long. It's no Pool Party or Sin Jam.
just lost a game up 25-7 on kills, because I was the only person who counterpushed their terror and it solo walked in and just won the game down 20-17. We pushed top as they literally won, as I spent 45 seconds pinging as the terror walked from their base to our base and nobody on my team ever came to help me.
and then it was my fault we didn't force a fight at their base. literally all we had to do was murder their terror in 2 seconds, kill the guy inside it, and win the game. how does nobody understand win conditions? a terror at 20 minutes wins the game for free if it's uncontested. I don't care what level we are and what level they are jesus christ. our thrall literally ran past the terror!
this is every game. either i secure a thousand kills for my team and we still lose because people have zero understanding of even basic macro play, or we lose by 5 levels nearly instantly. i won less than 15% of my games this weekend.
edit: next game our last pick afked on kael but kael got banned, so randomed into lt. morales when we had a malf, and then diablo DCed 3 minutes in. why is every game terrible. We even played really well and almost carried the bot but man late game tank bot is very questionable ((
Knight_ on
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ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
FEAR THE LORD OF TERR- ...
*disconnect* ... drools
TFW you lose a game on Infernal Shrines because you team literally won't do the objective, and even when you solo clear it as Kerrigan, your Sylvanas always split pushes instead of going with the Punisher. But your pro ETC is all about how "I had to clear the lane before going to obj" then gets there down 38-17 on minions and wonders why it's always lost.
My favorite was I glance at map on way to top shrine, my team is mid, other team is bot lane, I arrive, start objective. Guess who's team showed up first? Hint; not mine. Best part? It was dumb Kerrigan's fault for starting the objective early.
morgan_coke on
XBL: Morgan Coke Yes, there is a space, not an underscore. I'm old school like that.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
I really need to switch over to draft instead of quickmatch. I get the dumbest matches lately. Taking Malthael into a team of nothing but mages/assassins is not particularly fun.
I really need to switch over to draft instead of quickmatch. I get the dumbest matches lately. Taking Malthael into a team of nothing but mages/assassins is not particularly fun.
Dude I am gonna tell you right now this is a cycle.
You start jammin' in QM and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love just being able to play who I want. yeah the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's QM right."
But then you start getting some really bad matches. Your faith in QM starts waning. You start thinking "god, this is trash. i keep getting matched against all the bullshit teams and comps. maybe i'll just do draft instead."
So you swap over to Draft. Draft is cool, right? You have more control over your matches, you're always guaranteed to have a healer and a tank, comps will always be even. Awesome!
So you start jammin' in Draft and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love having even comps and having more control over my matches."
But then you start to notice that every single draft goes the same way. If you're stuck on first pick, you have to pick a meta Hero. If you're stuck on last pick, you're most likely gonna be forced onto a tank/healer. Your team's banner is not going ban correctly and let the enemy team literally get the most busted OP comp because they just handed it to them. And you have to sit back and watch as your team drafts the most awful jank-ass comp you've ever seen. No thought or reasoning or logic behind their decisions. They'll just slam a first pick Morales or Nova. They'll just do it, no fucks given. And then the enemy team drafts all the counters to that Hero!
And now you get fed up with the nature of Draft. You're sick of your team just picking shit without thinking. You're sick of seeing the same goddamn meta Heroes in every game. You're sick of watching your team lose on the draft screen by letting the enemy team pick whatever they want.
The final straw is when someone screws over your draft entirely by not picking a Tank/Healer, leaving your team without one.
So you swap over to QM. QM is cool, right? You can play whoever you want! Yeah, the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's just QM, right?
And you start jammin' in QM........................
I really need to switch over to draft instead of quickmatch. I get the dumbest matches lately. Taking Malthael into a team of nothing but mages/assassins is not particularly fun.
Dude I am gonna tell you right now this is a cycle.
You start jammin' in QM and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love just being able to play who I want. yeah the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's QM right."
But then you start getting some really bad matches. Your faith in QM starts waning. You start thinking "god, this is trash. i keep getting matched against all the bullshit teams and comps. maybe i'll just do draft instead."
So you swap over to Draft. Draft is cool, right? You have more control over your matches, you're always guaranteed to have a healer and a tank, comps will always be even. Awesome!
So you start jammin' in Draft and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love having even comps and having more control over my matches."
But then you start to notice that every single draft goes the same way. If you're stuck on first pick, you have to pick a meta Hero. If you're stuck on last pick, you're most likely gonna be forced onto a tank/healer. Your team's banner is not going ban correctly and let the enemy team literally get the most busted OP comp because they just handed it to them. And you have to sit back and watch as your team drafts the most awful jank-ass comp you've ever seen. No thought or reasoning or logic behind their decisions. They'll just slam a first pick Morales or Nova. They'll just do it, no fucks given. And then the enemy team drafts all the counters to that Hero!
And now you get fed up with the nature of Draft. You're sick of your team just picking shit without thinking. You're sick of seeing the same goddamn meta Heroes in every game. You're sick of watching your team lose on the draft screen by letting the enemy team pick whatever they want.
The final straw is when someone screws over your draft entirely by not picking a Tank/Healer, leaving your team without one.
So you swap over to QM. QM is cool, right? You can play whoever you want! Yeah, the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's just QM, right?
And you start jammin' in QM........................
You left out the part where you only had to play one game in each mode for these thoughts to occur and you instead went to play a different game.
I really need to switch over to draft instead of quickmatch. I get the dumbest matches lately. Taking Malthael into a team of nothing but mages/assassins is not particularly fun.
Dude I am gonna tell you right now this is a cycle.
You start jammin' in QM and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love just being able to play who I want. yeah the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's QM right."
But then you start getting some really bad matches. Your faith in QM starts waning. You start thinking "god, this is trash. i keep getting matched against all the bullshit teams and comps. maybe i'll just do draft instead."
So you swap over to Draft. Draft is cool, right? You have more control over your matches, you're always guaranteed to have a healer and a tank, comps will always be even. Awesome!
So you start jammin' in Draft and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love having even comps and having more control over my matches."
But then you start to notice that every single draft goes the same way. If you're stuck on first pick, you have to pick a meta Hero. If you're stuck on last pick, you're most likely gonna be forced onto a tank/healer. Your team's banner is not going ban correctly and let the enemy team literally get the most busted OP comp because they just handed it to them. And you have to sit back and watch as your team drafts the most awful jank-ass comp you've ever seen. No thought or reasoning or logic behind their decisions. They'll just slam a first pick Morales or Nova. They'll just do it, no fucks given. And then the enemy team drafts all the counters to that Hero!
And now you get fed up with the nature of Draft. You're sick of your team just picking shit without thinking. You're sick of seeing the same goddamn meta Heroes in every game. You're sick of watching your team lose on the draft screen by letting the enemy team pick whatever they want.
The final straw is when someone screws over your draft entirely by not picking a Tank/Healer, leaving your team without one.
So you swap over to QM. QM is cool, right? You can play whoever you want! Yeah, the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's just QM, right?
And you start jammin' in QM........................
Ha!
I just started getting back into playing this again and this is so exactly what happened. I hadn't really played since they instituted unranked draft. I was so jazzed. You get to know which map you're getting! AND someone will probably pick a tank and a healer!
Two games in of seeing the exact same characters and getting yelled at for picking something not the optimum (When I was forced to support on last pick), I loaded QM back up.
I really need to switch over to draft instead of quickmatch. I get the dumbest matches lately. Taking Malthael into a team of nothing but mages/assassins is not particularly fun.
Dude I am gonna tell you right now this is a cycle.
You start jammin' in QM and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love just being able to play who I want. yeah the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's QM right."
But then you start getting some really bad matches. Your faith in QM starts waning. You start thinking "god, this is trash. i keep getting matched against all the bullshit teams and comps. maybe i'll just do draft instead."
So you swap over to Draft. Draft is cool, right? You have more control over your matches, you're always guaranteed to have a healer and a tank, comps will always be even. Awesome!
So you start jammin' in Draft and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love having even comps and having more control over my matches."
But then you start to notice that every single draft goes the same way. If you're stuck on first pick, you have to pick a meta Hero. If you're stuck on last pick, you're most likely gonna be forced onto a tank/healer. Your team's banner is not going ban correctly and let the enemy team literally get the most busted OP comp because they just handed it to them. And you have to sit back and watch as your team drafts the most awful jank-ass comp you've ever seen. No thought or reasoning or logic behind their decisions. They'll just slam a first pick Morales or Nova. They'll just do it, no fucks given. And then the enemy team drafts all the counters to that Hero!
And now you get fed up with the nature of Draft. You're sick of your team just picking shit without thinking. You're sick of seeing the same goddamn meta Heroes in every game. You're sick of watching your team lose on the draft screen by letting the enemy team pick whatever they want.
The final straw is when someone screws over your draft entirely by not picking a Tank/Healer, leaving your team without one.
So you swap over to QM. QM is cool, right? You can play whoever you want! Yeah, the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's just QM, right?
And you start jammin' in QM........................
You left out the part where you only had to play one game in each mode for these thoughts to occur and you instead went to play a different game.
Nah. Mostly because you realise most matches aren't actually that bad.
Except on the weekends. Then they are totally that bad.
+1
cptruggedI think it has something to do with free will.Registered Userregular
i accept the good and the bad of my quick match child
I do have to say that it's kind of interesting when you get something like a no support match. Suddenly sustain talents become a lot more attractive. Folks start taking drastically different builds.
Sometimes it really sucks. But I've found it makes me look at my talent options a lot more closely.
Draft is basically a combination of "Same meta heroes every game because that's what the community thinks works" and "This is still QM, right? I just pick what I want and fuck y'all".
I'll stick to QM thank you very much. At least we're all honest about what we're here for, no one can counter-pick and it's all Blizzard's fault instead of the drooling potato-heads on my team.
Yeah like occasionally I'll do like, Unranked for a bit (best way to knock out Dailies!) but otherwise I'm on that QM grind.
QM is my main game mode. I have over 2000 games played in QM alone, it's clearly what I prefer. And I like it. And I acknowledge that it's flawed. But it also comes with a lot of benefits as well.
And sure you get a lot of games where you just don't have a Healer or Tank. But it's those games that forge you into a better player. I have gotten SO much better at this game playing QM than I ever have playing UR/HL. You learn to get better at positioning in teamfights. You learn not to overextend in lane while (split)pushing. You learn when to concede objectives. You learn when you can actually go in and when you need to hang back and wait. You learn how to push the limits of your Hero and what matchups are good and which are bad.
All because you don't have a Tank/Healer. You're forced to play a certain, different way. You're forced to adapt and get better.
Yeah you get some bad games, like sometimes the matchmaker just slams all the Dive Heroes on the enemy team and your team has no frontline or CC, WELP. You still try your best anyway. And honestly, I find that skill overcomes comp most of the time in QM. Not all the time. But most of the time. And if your team can actually come together and outplay the enemy team, you can win. Vs any comp.
And honestly, for all the bullshit things that happen to you in QM, it happens just as frequently on the opposite side of the coin. How many stomps have you done to the enemy team? A lot, probably. But you don't remember those games because we tend to remember negatives more strongly than positives.
i can't really get invested into draft modes - in every moba - because i feel that the process either encourages, or draws people who are prone to, being a bit more high-strung and quick to criticize about doing something Wrong, even if it's not a ranked mode
0
ArcticLancerBest served chilled.Registered Userregular
i can't really get invested into draft modes - in every moba - because i feel that the process either encourages, or draws people who are prone to, being a bit more high-strung and quick to criticize about doing something Wrong, even if it's not a ranked mode
I'm not sure it's true that it draws them out, but that there's certainly more agency for them to comment on. It's not like those people aren't playing QM, but everyone (well, mostly) understands that you all got thrown into said trainwreck rather than building it of your own accord. :P
Draft is kinda great in at least giving you some agency on your pick for the map. I really love that since it definitely gets tiresome gambling on the 2-lane maps appearing when you want a bigger map. But it's also frustrating watching other people make picks completely counter to that since it's theoretically a more serious (see: reality - it isn't ) game mode.
I think one of my bigger weaknesses right now as a player is that I'm not good at playing with baddies. I don't mean that in a #humblebrag kind of way, I'm being serious.
My best roles are tank/bruiser/cc/healer, Utility and Pure DPS (outside of various stealthies) is my worst. So I can't like, just pick good assassin #4 and carry that way. So, a lot of the time I'm on a fairly team dependent character.
And I'm really good about doing team things like going to objectives and fights and supporting people, and covering, or rotating abandoned lanes. The problem is, when your team is terrible, those are often not the right things to do, because you literally CAN'T win an objective fighting 2-3v5 all game. And even after I've died alone or with one other at the obj in a game, I'm not good at skipping it, like, I'll still go to it and then the same thing will happen again.
Basically, when playing with potatoes, it seems like a lot of the time that the "good team" instincts and muscle memory I've developed from playing with you guys in Unranked and QM just turn around and destroy me in HL.
Anyone have any insight to this? I'm curious. Thanks.
XBL: Morgan Coke Yes, there is a space, not an underscore. I'm old school like that.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
i can't really get invested into draft modes - in every moba - because i feel that the process either encourages, or draws people who are prone to, being a bit more high-strung and quick to criticize about doing something Wrong, even if it's not a ranked mode
I'm not sure it's true that it draws them out, but that there's certainly more agency for them to comment on. It's not like those people aren't playing QM, but everyone (well, mostly) understands that you all got thrown into said trainwreck rather than building it of your own accord. :P
Draft is kinda great in at least giving you some agency on your pick for the map. I really love that since it definitely gets tiresome gambling on the 2-lane maps appearing when you want a bigger map. But it's also frustrating watching other people make picks completely counter to that since it's theoretically a more serious (see: reality - it isn't ) game mode.
The main problem I have with Unranked Draft is that people treat it like QM. They will literally show and lock a hero regardless of their pick order, the map, and the team comps that show up during the draft.
If you are not going to actually participate in the draft, in the sense that you have some semblence of flexibility for your draft pick, then go to QM. That entire game mode exists so that you can pick whatever fucking hero you want. Unranked Draft isn't an excuse for you to last-pick Illidan when the team needs a healer just because you "don't want to play Illidan with QM comps".
I also find that QM players in general tend to not understand overall game strategy or positioning. At all. It's literally one giant clown fiesta where players run into each other over and over regardless of the map or the game situation. If you try to explain a win condition, a la "it will be hard to win team fights but Azmodan can split push us to a victory", it will fall on deaf ears because YOLO QM. And in fights you have to play every hero as though they were Raynor, both because you don't have tanks/healers and because you can't trust your teammates to back you up if you engage or dive for a kill.
For me, the difference is pretty jarring, and forces me to set my expectations for QM super duper low. And even then, I don't always succeed in managing the tilt when my teammates do stuff like mill around in lanes when objectives/team fights are happening, or send non-globals back to defend push when there are two globals available on the team. At that point I have to tell myself to stop caring about winning and just focus on getting some practice in (which invariably tilts me more because I die doing stuff I normally wouldn't just to see how far I can push my limits).
It'd be cool if you could show [role] instead of hero in the draft lobby
Edit: the feeling* of agency is driving me toward drafting. I love what quick match offers but I find comp losses assigned by the matchmaker to be more frustrating than comp losses assigned by teammates.
i can't really get invested into draft modes - in every moba - because i feel that the process either encourages, or draws people who are prone to, being a bit more high-strung and quick to criticize about doing something Wrong, even if it's not a ranked mode
I'm not sure it's true that it draws them out, but that there's certainly more agency for them to comment on. It's not like those people aren't playing QM, but everyone (well, mostly) understands that you all got thrown into said trainwreck rather than building it of your own accord. :P
Draft is kinda great in at least giving you some agency on your pick for the map. I really love that since it definitely gets tiresome gambling on the 2-lane maps appearing when you want a bigger map. But it's also frustrating watching other people make picks completely counter to that since it's theoretically a more serious (see: reality - it isn't ) game mode.
The main problem I have with Unranked Draft is that people treat it like QM. They will literally show and lock a hero regardless of their pick order, the map, and the team comps that show up during the draft.
Yeah, no, that's how HL drafts work 90% of the time too.
XBL: Morgan Coke Yes, there is a space, not an underscore. I'm old school like that.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Yeah like occasionally I'll do like, Unranked for a bit (best way to knock out Dailies!) but otherwise I'm on that QM grind.
QM is my main game mode. I have over 2000 games played in QM alone, it's clearly what I prefer. And I like it. And I acknowledge that it's flawed. But it also comes with a lot of benefits as well.
And sure you get a lot of games where you just don't have a Healer or Tank. But it's those games that forge you into a better player. I have gotten SO much better at this game playing QM than I ever have playing UR/HL. You learn to get better at positioning in teamfights. You learn not to overextend in lane while (split)pushing. You learn when to concede objectives. You learn when you can actually go in and when you need to hang back and wait. You learn how to push the limits of your Hero and what matchups are good and which are bad.
All because you don't have a Tank/Healer. You're forced to play a certain, different way. You're forced to adapt and get better.
Yeah you get some bad games, like sometimes the matchmaker just slams all the Dive Heroes on the enemy team and your team has no frontline or CC, WELP. You still try your best anyway. And honestly, I find that skill overcomes comp most of the time in QM. Not all the time. But most of the time. And if your team can actually come together and outplay the enemy team, you can win. Vs any comp.
And honestly, for all the bullshit things that happen to you in QM, it happens just as frequently on the opposite side of the coin. How many stomps have you done to the enemy team? A lot, probably. But you don't remember those games because we tend to remember negatives more strongly than positives.
holy goddamn hell JUST after i posted this, RIGHT AFTER i literally get one of those games
enemy team has tracer/illidan/malthael/alarak/nova YIKESSSS
vs our team of malthael/azmodan/nazeebo/samuro/alarak
but we just, fukken crushed em
like all these dive heroes and we outplayed them. and we played the map hard too. we leveraged the fact that we had WAY better push/siege with azmo/naz and just pushed their shit in. destroyed a TON of forts. samuro was going around the map capping mercs as well. enemy team didn't, really, nor did they get a single fort.
like very very early on, like right out of the gate, i'm at top in the solo lane. enemy illidan is there, tries to duel me. he pops evasion, can't apply my mark, wait til it fades. tag him with an E, go in. he thinks he can duel me! he tries very hard but realizes he is losing and backs off. i pop fear the reaper, chase him down, wraith strike+Q then back off because cool guys don't look at explosions. he dies right after reaching his gate.
enemy team tried to adapt by sending tracer/malth top instead. i'm like shit, they're actually smart, maybe. tracer playing as she should, constantly peppering me while hovering out of my range at all times. can't tag her. if i do tag her she removes it with E. request help from bot lane, nazeebo comes up. rad, now we start pushing them back. eventually i rotate down bottom and i think samuro stayed top with naz.
rest is just history. we just played way better than they did, adapted better and had better coordination
enemy team definitely should have been trying to beat us in teamfights. they basically let us win because they were always split apart, but they should've just been going for picks, like focus down one of us immediately. never happened.
your team is way better than theirs. they have zero waveclear on the most waveclear dependent map and your team is nigh unupunishable, lol.
+14
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Yeah I think that's what tilts me the most in QM. I can look at the loading screen and know which team will have the bigger advantage going in. And then I will assess win conditions and watch the game unfold exactly how it shouldn't (e.g., the team with global push pressure not abusing it, or the team with the massive teamfight advantage avoiding fights and never rotating for ganks), and it will just tilt me the fuck out.
Most of the time I'm good at just turning it off and not caring about the outcome, but every once in a while I just can't take it. Especially if I play a string of QM games in a row while learning a new hero, because I'll likely also be dying to dumb shit while pushing as far as I can go on the hero, which only serves to tilt myself even though I really only have myself to blame.
your team is way better than theirs. they have zero waveclear on the most waveclear dependent map and your team is nigh unupunishable, lol.
I mean objectively, for that map, yes.
But the enemy team had a gameplan in their comp; just kill people. They unfortunately never executed.
But I absolutely think they could have, yknow, made something happen. They just lacked teamwork and coordination. If Nova gets off a Pinning Shot into Snipe into Ult and the rest of the team collapses on that target, they're done and now the fight is a 5v4 and Malth/Illidan/Tracer just clean up while Nova/Alarak's cds come back up.
If they had focused more on roaming as a deathball I think they could have won that game.
But we outplayed them and they played objectively worse than us, so that never happened, even though the potential was there.
Edit: They also kept like, throwing themselves at us 1 by 1. It's partially how we accumulated such a MASSIVE exp lead. We just kept killing them 1 by 1 as the lemming squad rolled in with their staggered death timers. Illidan would literally jump on me and instantly regret it because now he's permaslowed by 20%, eating huge ability damage every 2 seconds from my Q (Q build whatupppp), and being bodyblocked by my W. And then Alarak can shove him back and Silence him, Samuro can get on him, etc etc.
It's strange because we kind of ended up being the deathball, picking them off 1 by 1 when I thought we were just going to win via push. Which we did, kinda, but also teamfight.
Edit Again: Also Nova took Triple Tap/Snipe Master and Malthael took Last Rites. Again, just more mistakes on their part. Game could've been different with Precision/One in the Chamber and Tormented Souls.
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I've been playing long enough I should probably go read how Abathur actually works.
edit: the fuck, you people are crazier than the lost viking players
I love this reaction. XD
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I haven't watched Fan's streams but maybe positioning yourself at a certain distance away from where the minion frontline is such that the locusts reach them close to when the frontline is about to die? I would think that the level 1 locust talent should give you some flexibility. It seems like a really min-maxy to play him though. Do you have a link to where Fan talks about this Antaeus cause I love to play Abby.
Steam: CavilatRest
And because @finnith asked for it, a super old video where Fan mentions early that he has "secrit stratz" for Abathur that he doesn't want to reveal. I often put Fan's stream on in the background during late nights, so I don't have a specific video where he talks about Abathur, but he's mentioned it at least once offhand pretty recently and refused to elaborate, which is why I remember:
Also, doing a search on "Fan Abathur" led to this video, which is a replay VoD of Fan's perspective during a recent HGC game:
I haven't seen it but I assume it's got a lot of stuff that you can mine (get it?!?!) from watching.
I guess... The rest of the wave is still there, so you'd still have to get lucky with the locust hits. Easier and more reliable to just time your hats properly
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Personally, I just soak two lanes, using my mines to either help my team or to help push my lane.
And as an abathur player I always read new heroes and go"huh, that will be fun controlling for about ten seconds" and trying to figure out which clones are the most broken.
Malth clones are the absolute most broken motherfucking things in existence, fyi.
Like Jains and Malth. Both benefit hugely from the debuffs the clone provides.
That did not stop every person I played with from going Li-Ming and shouting "BUT RESETS!" Like, okay, sure, but you've gotta land something and you clowns are not good at this. :P
Mage Wars was okay. Took way too long. It's no Pool Party or Sin Jam.
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i was busy trying to keep a Nova AI alive against a Zagara/Xul lane
A baby dinosaur!
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just lost a game up 25-7 on kills, because I was the only person who counterpushed their terror and it solo walked in and just won the game down 20-17. We pushed top as they literally won, as I spent 45 seconds pinging as the terror walked from their base to our base and nobody on my team ever came to help me.
and then it was my fault we didn't force a fight at their base. literally all we had to do was murder their terror in 2 seconds, kill the guy inside it, and win the game. how does nobody understand win conditions? a terror at 20 minutes wins the game for free if it's uncontested. I don't care what level we are and what level they are jesus christ. our thrall literally ran past the terror!
this is every game. either i secure a thousand kills for my team and we still lose because people have zero understanding of even basic macro play, or we lose by 5 levels nearly instantly. i won less than 15% of my games this weekend.
edit: next game our last pick afked on kael but kael got banned, so randomed into lt. morales when we had a malf, and then diablo DCed 3 minutes in. why is every game terrible. We even played really well and almost carried the bot but man late game tank bot is very questionable
*disconnect*
... drools
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My favorite was I glance at map on way to top shrine, my team is mid, other team is bot lane, I arrive, start objective. Guess who's team showed up first? Hint; not mine. Best part? It was dumb Kerrigan's fault for starting the objective early.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Titan's Creed: Jump first, don't ask questions, punch everything
Dude I am gonna tell you right now this is a cycle.
You start jammin' in QM and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love just being able to play who I want. yeah the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's QM right."
But then you start getting some really bad matches. Your faith in QM starts waning. You start thinking "god, this is trash. i keep getting matched against all the bullshit teams and comps. maybe i'll just do draft instead."
So you swap over to Draft. Draft is cool, right? You have more control over your matches, you're always guaranteed to have a healer and a tank, comps will always be even. Awesome!
So you start jammin' in Draft and you're all like "yeah this is great, i love having even comps and having more control over my matches."
But then you start to notice that every single draft goes the same way. If you're stuck on first pick, you have to pick a meta Hero. If you're stuck on last pick, you're most likely gonna be forced onto a tank/healer. Your team's banner is not going ban correctly and let the enemy team literally get the most busted OP comp because they just handed it to them. And you have to sit back and watch as your team drafts the most awful jank-ass comp you've ever seen. No thought or reasoning or logic behind their decisions. They'll just slam a first pick Morales or Nova. They'll just do it, no fucks given. And then the enemy team drafts all the counters to that Hero!
And now you get fed up with the nature of Draft. You're sick of your team just picking shit without thinking. You're sick of seeing the same goddamn meta Heroes in every game. You're sick of watching your team lose on the draft screen by letting the enemy team pick whatever they want.
The final straw is when someone screws over your draft entirely by not picking a Tank/Healer, leaving your team without one.
So you swap over to QM. QM is cool, right? You can play whoever you want! Yeah, the match quality isn't always the best, it's a roll of the dice, but that's just QM, right?
And you start jammin' in QM........................
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
You left out the part where you only had to play one game in each mode for these thoughts to occur and you instead went to play a different game.
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Ha!
I just started getting back into playing this again and this is so exactly what happened. I hadn't really played since they instituted unranked draft. I was so jazzed. You get to know which map you're getting! AND someone will probably pick a tank and a healer!
Two games in of seeing the exact same characters and getting yelled at for picking something not the optimum (When I was forced to support on last pick), I loaded QM back up.
Nah. Mostly because you realise most matches aren't actually that bad.
Except on the weekends. Then they are totally that bad.
I do have to say that it's kind of interesting when you get something like a no support match. Suddenly sustain talents become a lot more attractive. Folks start taking drastically different builds.
Sometimes it really sucks. But I've found it makes me look at my talent options a lot more closely.
I'll stick to QM thank you very much. At least we're all honest about what we're here for, no one can counter-pick and it's all Blizzard's fault instead of the drooling potato-heads on my team.
It's really annoying when my teammates are getting killed because they're busy typing insults to each other
QM is my main game mode. I have over 2000 games played in QM alone, it's clearly what I prefer. And I like it. And I acknowledge that it's flawed. But it also comes with a lot of benefits as well.
And sure you get a lot of games where you just don't have a Healer or Tank. But it's those games that forge you into a better player. I have gotten SO much better at this game playing QM than I ever have playing UR/HL. You learn to get better at positioning in teamfights. You learn not to overextend in lane while (split)pushing. You learn when to concede objectives. You learn when you can actually go in and when you need to hang back and wait. You learn how to push the limits of your Hero and what matchups are good and which are bad.
All because you don't have a Tank/Healer. You're forced to play a certain, different way. You're forced to adapt and get better.
Yeah you get some bad games, like sometimes the matchmaker just slams all the Dive Heroes on the enemy team and your team has no frontline or CC, WELP. You still try your best anyway. And honestly, I find that skill overcomes comp most of the time in QM. Not all the time. But most of the time. And if your team can actually come together and outplay the enemy team, you can win. Vs any comp.
And honestly, for all the bullshit things that happen to you in QM, it happens just as frequently on the opposite side of the coin. How many stomps have you done to the enemy team? A lot, probably. But you don't remember those games because we tend to remember negatives more strongly than positives.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
I'm not sure it's true that it draws them out, but that there's certainly more agency for them to comment on. It's not like those people aren't playing QM, but everyone (well, mostly) understands that you all got thrown into said trainwreck rather than building it of your own accord. :P
Draft is kinda great in at least giving you some agency on your pick for the map. I really love that since it definitely gets tiresome gambling on the 2-lane maps appearing when you want a bigger map. But it's also frustrating watching other people make picks completely counter to that since it's theoretically a more serious (see: reality - it isn't
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My best roles are tank/bruiser/cc/healer, Utility and Pure DPS (outside of various stealthies) is my worst. So I can't like, just pick good assassin #4 and carry that way. So, a lot of the time I'm on a fairly team dependent character.
And I'm really good about doing team things like going to objectives and fights and supporting people, and covering, or rotating abandoned lanes. The problem is, when your team is terrible, those are often not the right things to do, because you literally CAN'T win an objective fighting 2-3v5 all game. And even after I've died alone or with one other at the obj in a game, I'm not good at skipping it, like, I'll still go to it and then the same thing will happen again.
Basically, when playing with potatoes, it seems like a lot of the time that the "good team" instincts and muscle memory I've developed from playing with you guys in Unranked and QM just turn around and destroy me in HL.
Anyone have any insight to this? I'm curious. Thanks.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Titan's Creed: Jump first, don't ask questions, punch everything
The main problem I have with Unranked Draft is that people treat it like QM. They will literally show and lock a hero regardless of their pick order, the map, and the team comps that show up during the draft.
If you are not going to actually participate in the draft, in the sense that you have some semblence of flexibility for your draft pick, then go to QM. That entire game mode exists so that you can pick whatever fucking hero you want. Unranked Draft isn't an excuse for you to last-pick Illidan when the team needs a healer just because you "don't want to play Illidan with QM comps".
I also find that QM players in general tend to not understand overall game strategy or positioning. At all. It's literally one giant clown fiesta where players run into each other over and over regardless of the map or the game situation. If you try to explain a win condition, a la "it will be hard to win team fights but Azmodan can split push us to a victory", it will fall on deaf ears because YOLO QM. And in fights you have to play every hero as though they were Raynor, both because you don't have tanks/healers and because you can't trust your teammates to back you up if you engage or dive for a kill.
For me, the difference is pretty jarring, and forces me to set my expectations for QM super duper low. And even then, I don't always succeed in managing the tilt when my teammates do stuff like mill around in lanes when objectives/team fights are happening, or send non-globals back to defend push when there are two globals available on the team. At that point I have to tell myself to stop caring about winning and just focus on getting some practice in (which invariably tilts me more because I die doing stuff I normally wouldn't just to see how far I can push my limits).
Edit: the feeling* of agency is driving me toward drafting. I love what quick match offers but I find comp losses assigned by the matchmaker to be more frustrating than comp losses assigned by teammates.
*Keyword
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Yeah, no, that's how HL drafts work 90% of the time too.
Battle.net: morgancoke#1589
Titan's Creed: Jump first, don't ask questions, punch everything
holy goddamn hell JUST after i posted this, RIGHT AFTER i literally get one of those games
enemy team has tracer/illidan/malthael/alarak/nova YIKESSSS
vs our team of malthael/azmodan/nazeebo/samuro/alarak
but we just, fukken crushed em
like all these dive heroes and we outplayed them. and we played the map hard too. we leveraged the fact that we had WAY better push/siege with azmo/naz and just pushed their shit in. destroyed a TON of forts. samuro was going around the map capping mercs as well. enemy team didn't, really, nor did they get a single fort.
like very very early on, like right out of the gate, i'm at top in the solo lane. enemy illidan is there, tries to duel me. he pops evasion, can't apply my mark, wait til it fades. tag him with an E, go in. he thinks he can duel me! he tries very hard but realizes he is losing and backs off. i pop fear the reaper, chase him down, wraith strike+Q then back off because cool guys don't look at explosions. he dies right after reaching his gate.
enemy team tried to adapt by sending tracer/malth top instead. i'm like shit, they're actually smart, maybe. tracer playing as she should, constantly peppering me while hovering out of my range at all times. can't tag her. if i do tag her she removes it with E. request help from bot lane, nazeebo comes up. rad, now we start pushing them back. eventually i rotate down bottom and i think samuro stayed top with naz.
rest is just history. we just played way better than they did, adapted better and had better coordination
enemy team definitely should have been trying to beat us in teamfights. they basically let us win because they were always split apart, but they should've just been going for picks, like focus down one of us immediately. never happened.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
Most of the time I'm good at just turning it off and not caring about the outcome, but every once in a while I just can't take it. Especially if I play a string of QM games in a row while learning a new hero, because I'll likely also be dying to dumb shit while pushing as far as I can go on the hero, which only serves to tilt myself even though I really only have myself to blame.
I mean objectively, for that map, yes.
But the enemy team had a gameplan in their comp; just kill people. They unfortunately never executed.
But I absolutely think they could have, yknow, made something happen. They just lacked teamwork and coordination. If Nova gets off a Pinning Shot into Snipe into Ult and the rest of the team collapses on that target, they're done and now the fight is a 5v4 and Malth/Illidan/Tracer just clean up while Nova/Alarak's cds come back up.
If they had focused more on roaming as a deathball I think they could have won that game.
But we outplayed them and they played objectively worse than us, so that never happened, even though the potential was there.
Edit: They also kept like, throwing themselves at us 1 by 1. It's partially how we accumulated such a MASSIVE exp lead. We just kept killing them 1 by 1 as the lemming squad rolled in with their staggered death timers. Illidan would literally jump on me and instantly regret it because now he's permaslowed by 20%, eating huge ability damage every 2 seconds from my Q (Q build whatupppp), and being bodyblocked by my W. And then Alarak can shove him back and Silence him, Samuro can get on him, etc etc.
It's strange because we kind of ended up being the deathball, picking them off 1 by 1 when I thought we were just going to win via push. Which we did, kinda, but also teamfight.
Edit Again: Also Nova took Triple Tap/Snipe Master and Malthael took Last Rites. Again, just more mistakes on their part. Game could've been different with Precision/One in the Chamber and Tormented Souls.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582