Support NeoGAF

[Alur]

I was firmly in the Valeera camp on release, but after playing her a good bit (and watching Milly play her even more) I've been thoroughly unimpressed in QM. As he said, super fun hero, but frustrating to play in a way I never experienced when I was getting my master skin on Zeratul. Every now and then you'll have a game where you're like a master of death and destruction (or the opponent Valeera is), but mostly it's a lot of no one following up, or AOE's clipping you, or other annoyances that prevent you from really doing your job well. I also think her heroics suck as they are selfish and not even particularly great for even that.

That said, the buffs are kind of scary to me. She's STILL used quite often in QM and has to be one of the few heroes I still see mirror matches two weeks out from release. Encouraging people to continue playing her isn't exactly a great thing for QM players, but then again maybe it will turn out okay.

 

[brian!]

Yeah her heroics seem pretty bad

 

[Xeteh]

Holy shit, today is Toxic Day in QM. Gul'dan sitting bottom on Curse, doesn't join either fight for the objective top on the first two and then says "garbage team, ill take leaver and go play brawl" and leaves. Then the Valeera on our team starts diving when we're way behind and getting mad that no one is helping him fight on the other side of the map when all our lanes are being pushed after the curse. I'm apparently a trash player because I wouldn't go suicide with him.

I'll never understand how people take the smallest things and just act totally vile towards strangers.

 

[Alur]

When is Lucio going live? Tomorrow like usual or Wednesday like Rag?

 

[TheSadRanger]

Saw this on reddit earlier lol

I guess need to check mewns stream more often lol.

 

[Alur]

"In reality, nothing fucking changes."

 

[TheSadRanger]

"In reality, nothing fucking changes."

You should watch this crazy strat with medivh and vikings he's doing with horsepants. It's insane, he did 83k dmg with vikings lol.

Medivh picked raven familiar so every time vikings used a portal they threw 3 ravens lol

 

[brian!]

that sounds amazing

also not to be a zuna apologist or whatever it looks like, but I was checking out those shameful clips of his and
the medivh one was a fail for sure, but you don't really see na going for plays like that, the team communication was there too everyone was ready to come harvest some kills but he blew it
the zera one was a fail too, but I commiserate w/ him since there is no indicator for monk cleansing his seeker in the dark

he really needs to play hero league or something even a little bit, like either his mechanics are rusting over or he really does have terrible lagf

 

[Xeteh]

When is Lucio going live? Tomorrow like usual or Wednesday like Rag?

This says he's on sale tomorrow.

 

[TheSadRanger]

that sounds amazing

also not to be a zuna apologist or whatever it looks like, but I was checking out those shameful clips of his and
the medivh one was a fail for sure, but you don't really see na going for plays like that, the team communication was there too everyone was ready to come harvest some kills but he blew it
the zera one was a fail too, but I commiserate w/ him since there is no indicator for monk cleansing his seeker in the dark

he really needs to play hero league or something even a little bit, like either his mechanics are rusting over or he really does have terrible lagf

It was amazing until they ran into a KT that destroyed them lol

edit: Damn I need to learn to sonya, she's ridic atm.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

that sounds amazing

also not to be a zuna apologist or whatever it looks like, but I was checking out those shameful clips of his and
the medivh one was a fail for sure, but you don't really see na going for plays like that, the team communication was there too everyone was ready to come harvest some kills but he blew it
the zera one was a fail too, but I commiserate w/ him since there is no indicator for monk cleansing his seeker in the dark

he really needs to play hero league or something even a little bit, like either his mechanics are rusting over or he really does have terrible lagf

You're underselling NA, Zuna isn't the only playmaker but his team is in its position in part because he's failing at making plays. Also his carpal got cleansed he Ws right after Q and he revealed himself to tag someone.

The Medivh fail was especially bad because IIRC his team wasn't that far behind at that point.

 

[brian!]

yeah the call was for medivh ult -> fight, i don't think im underselling na when i say no other team in the region tries for stuff like that

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

You are. For instance in the Team 8 vs GFE series T8 sent Falstad flying to 1v1 Diablo then Zera ran up to VP the rest of the team when they came in to pick Falstad.

These sorts of plays aren't that uncommon. GFE vs Tempo was full of Fan making insane plays on Zera.

 

[brian!]

oh i was thinking specifically about forward leyline w/ the rest of the team off map but mounting in, the leylines i usually see in hgc are wombo leylines or tf vp style leylines, like I see them trying to force a fight before 13 and that's a cool unique way to do it
w/ zeratul i was just saying i felt bad for him lol

 

[jaundicejuice]

I was firmly in the Valeera camp on release, but after playing her a good bit (and watching Milly play her even more) I've been thoroughly unimpressed in QM. As he said, super fun hero, but frustrating to play in a way I never experienced when I was getting my master skin on Zeratul. Every now and then you'll have a game where you're like a master of death and destruction (or the opponent Valeera is), but mostly it's a lot of no one following up, or AOE's clipping you, or other annoyances that prevent you from really doing your job well. I also think her heroics suck as they are selfish and not even particularly great for even that.

That said, the buffs are kind of scary to me. She's STILL used quite often in QM and has to be one of the few heroes I still see mirror matches two weeks out from release. Encouraging people to continue playing her isn't exactly a great thing for QM players, but then again maybe it will turn out okay.

QM is toxic as fuck with all of the whack-ass comps it's spitting out. Two to three stealthers, and an aba, I've been in matches where I was the only visible hero.

 

[TheSadRanger]

QM is toxic as fuck with all of the whack-ass comps it's spitting out. Two to three stealthers, and an aba, I've been in matches where I was the only visible hero.

I had a match yesterday where I solo que'd as tass. Match pops up and the enemy team has tass plus auriel and I was the only support on my team.

We actually won the game but I found it odd it ran a two support team against solo support.

 

[Alur]

he really needs to play hero league or something even a little bit, like either his mechanics are rusting over or he really does have terrible lagf

This is something I've been thinking for a good bit. I think, like C9 dudes before them, their lack of playing the actual game is hurting them.

 

[Milly79]

5 stacks in QM are cancer. They need to remove this shit.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Valeera is real weak if you can reliably reveal her but she's a real pubstomper when you facecheck bushes or are distracted.

oh i was thinking specifically about forward leyline w/ the rest of the team off map but mounting in, the leylines i usually see in hgc are wombo leylines or tf vp style leylines, like I see them trying to force a fight before 13 and that's a cool unique way to do it
w/ zeratul i was just saying i felt bad for him lol

There's only a handful of Medivh players in NA and Glau is the only one picking him frequently enough to draw bans.
Forward leyline while down a talent might be unique to Naventic but I'm not sure that's all that positive.

 

[Alavard]

I don't really do the PTR thing other than a quick test map run due to the queues, but I'm going to guess Diablo will be a fantastic counter to Lucio. Lucio wants to stay near the front of his team to help peel, which makes him susceptible to a nice E -> Q from Diablo. Also, Lucio clearly wants to stay around walls when he can, which again, Diablo naturally turns to his advantage.

 

[Xeteh]

I had a match yesterday where I solo que'd as tass. Match pops up and the enemy team has tass plus auriel and I was the only support on my team.

We actually won the game but I found it odd it ran a two support team against solo support.

As someone who only plays QM that happens very very often. I've had a game where our support was Tyrande vs Malfurion+Rehgar. They are super frustrating matches up there with 4-5 stacks that go stealth+Abathur.

 

[Alur]

Yeah QM only matches support against support. Sometimes that means you'll hit two, but it's still better than the old days where you could get support vs no support. The five man queues, though, that shit needs to go. If you want to five man you should be forced to team league to help out that queue.

 

[scoobs]

Ehhh I disagree. 5 mans being in QM really doesn't hurt anyone, its fucking QM, you go in expecting terrible team comps and total bullshit one sided slaughters (or i do anyways).

 

[scoobs]

I don't really do the PTR thing other than a quick test map run due to the queues, but I'm going to guess Diablo will be a fantastic counter to Lucio. Lucio wants to stay near the front of his team to help peel, which makes him susceptible to a nice E -> Q from Diablo. Also, Lucio clearly wants to stay around walls when he can, which again, Diablo naturally turns to his advantage.

The thing about lucio is he can just amp up his speed boost and get the hell out of Dodge... although the wall run/diablo charge thing is totally true. Will make for some super easy stacking if the Diablo takes that charge quest at level 13.

I'm actually wayyyyyy more excited for Lucio than I've been for a lot of the recent heroes (save Ragnaros, who I still get excited to play)

 

[Milly79]

Ehhh I disagree. 5 mans being in QM really doesn't hurt anyone, its fucking QM, you go in expecting terrible team comps and total bullshit one sided slaughters (or i do anyways).

 

[scoobs]

I mean is it REALLY a problem? Its quick match man, go play unranked/TL/HL if you want balanced teams.

 

[Alur]

Maybe that's you, sure, but I don't think that's how most people view going into a game in any mode. I expect it to at least semi-resemble the game, and it seems like others do as well considering the QQ about it when talking with most people we play with, whether our friends or the people who get put in with us.

People want to see something resembling fairness in role distribution. Sometimes you lose out with a weaker hero in said role versus the opposition, but when you hit a five man they often have a thought-out comp and you have whatever shit got scraped together.

Earlier today QM threw together a team of Rexxar/Abathur/Zeratul/Valeera/Tassadar against a fully fleshed comp with two front-liners and consistent damage. We pushed it all the way to level 22 because they never seemed to want to end the game, but every fight was a complete shitshow and there were a lot of em since it was Cursed Hollow. Super enjoyable.

I mean is it REALLY a problem? Its quick match man, go play unranked/TL/HL if you want balanced teams.

Yes, it is really a problem. It would simultaneously make the QM queue better and the TL queue better as well. 5 mans go play team league, which needs more people queuing into it, and face actual competition instead of roflstomping randoms when the RNG gods gives them a free win every other game.

 

[Milly79]

I mean is it REALLY a problem? Its quick match man, go play unranked/TL/HL if you want balanced teams.

 

[scoobs]

I guess I just have a different mindset when I queue up for quick matches. I'm just trying to play a specific hero to level, or just for fun, and really don't give a shit if I win or lose. I expect nonsense at the highest level, and usually get it.

If I'm looking for a more serious game I go play unranked or HL.

Obviously I'm in the minority here, although I do understand the frustration when you get matched up against a 5 stack, but Blizz has said they take that into account with their matchmaker (ie, 5 stacks are typically matched against more skilled groups of 2s or 3s)

 

[Syf]

WoW/HotS promotion starts tomorrow. Looks like it's time to emerge from my remote mountain WoW cave and play some HotS.

 

[scoobs]

That WoW mount is fucking incredible. I have a feeling a lot of people will be playing some HOTS this week.

Anyone else curious what the HOTS team is up to? It feels like we're about to get a big announcement, they've been super quiet since the new year. I'm really hoping the progression system changes are coming soon. And if they do go with some kind of loot box system, I'm hoping they can come up with better rewards than shitty portraits and like 1% chances at skins.

My top 3 most wanted things right now are
- Progression rework
- Gifting (so i can send chromie skins to everyone)
- More advanced stats

 

[Alur]

Blizz has said they take that into account with their matchmaker (ie, 5 stacks are typically matched against more skilled groups of 2s or 3s)

They are and that bears out if you check with hotdogs typically, but as we have all learned over the years the comp is often far more important than the players. We see the better team get out-drafted and rekt in HGC, it happens in HL, and the same thing happens in QM because that 5 man can pick it's entire comp, but you get whatever the special sauce is in the queue. Sometimes it's good, sometime's it's bad, but the majority of the time it takes your MMR advantage and puts you back in a hole because people tend to pick more off the wall heroes in QM. Moving them all (5 mans) to TL solves that issue for multiple parties.

That WoW mount is fucking incredible. I have a feeling a lot of people will be playing some HOTS this week.

Isn't it literally the same mount as Uther's, just with fire now? Like low effort af. Or do you mean the one you get in WoW?

My top 3 most wanted things right now are
- Progression rework
- Gifting (so i can send chromie skins to everyone)
- More advanced stats

I want the new progression system, even if we have to suffer loot boxes. I want some stars or whatever they give us under our names for playing this game for three years in two more months.

More advanced stats so you don't have to rely on the hotdogs so much for finer details would be great.

And more supports, which we know are coming. By this time Saturday night I'll probably be wanting a Murky nerf, too.

 

[scoobs]

I was referring to the mount you get in WoW, the HOTS mount is poo poo butter. They clearly needed something quick so they just took a mount they hadn't reskinned yet and put one of their low-level artists on the job to make it look slightly different and call it good. Lazy, but understandable.

Loot boxes are probably inevitable, but unless they just give out a ton of skins (they won't), there's not much cool shit they can include in them. Nobody cares about portraits, so they must be cooking up something ... extra voice lines? New dances/emotes? Win poses? MVP screen voice lines, poses? That's all I can think of. I honestly don't know what they could put in loot boxes to even be exciting for people outside of skins.

 

[Alur]

I think people care about collecting portraits even if they don't use em. The gold and the portrait are the only reason most play the brawls, after all. I believe people would care more if the portraits they put out were better, though. The HOTS portraits in OW still shit all over most of the ones we have in our own game. Seems like an easy thing to rectify and port, but hasn't happened yet.

I dunno what else can be in loot boxes either. They also have to straddle a line value-wise with loot boxes if they use them because they've charged such a pretty penny for everything for so long that randomly giving away 10/15 dollar items in loot boxes isn't going to sit well with everyone who spent. They can carrot progression with more tints/portraits and stuff like that per hero without loot boxes if they want, but we all saw that "LOOT" tab on that screenshot.

 

[jaundicejuice]

Valeera's ults seriously need a rework and one of those ults needs to be a teamfight one.

 

[scoobs]

Smoke bomb is a great ult. I just don't see how cloak of shadows can even be considered an ultimate ability. Scrap it or give it way more power.

 

[Maledict]

It's okay for heroes to have weak, non- team fight ults if their base kit makes up for it. Not every hero needs to have a team fight winning ult. I'm guessing their thinking is that the baseline stun and silence are so powerful that her ults enabling those are enough.

 

[jaundicejuice]

Her 'ults'. Cloak of Shadows isn't an ult, it's a Sinister Strike dash.

 

[scoobs]

Its just not interesting. Every 15 seconds you can cleanse yourself? Cool?

 

[Kioshen]

That valentine card of Chromie came out of nowhere and had me in stiches. Well played.

 

[Alur]

I didn't realize it was actually Chromie at first, and I was in VOIP with Milly in game while we were playing and I was like "holy shit that looks just like Chromie's new skin!"

Derp.

 

[Alur]

We have faced a crazy amount of Cho'Gall lately in QM. Is there a reason for the big upswing in CG?

 

[brian!]

Now that i think about it is cg the best murky counter

Valeera is real weak if you can reliably reveal her but she's a real pubstomper when you facecheck bushes or are distracted.

There's only a handful of Medivh players in NA and Glau is the only one picking him frequently enough to draw bans.
Forward leyline while down a talent might be unique to Naventic but I'm not sure that's all that positive.

Check the clip again for the context, they were trying to force a sudden 5v4 in a lvl 10 - lvl 12 situation, like all in all it's a brilliant idea that blew up in their face either due to poor mechanics or lag

Other teams in na would have let them hit 13 because they are afraid and then sat around until they themselves hit 13, giving up a shitload of time for any pressure, nvt made the right call but since it looks like they dont play the game anymore...

 

[Alur]

nvt made the right call but since it looks like they dont play the game anymore...

Do you think there's a reason we've seen two of the very best teams in NA go down this path? It just seems really odd.

I see dudes like Glaurung and Fan playing constantly. Udall too, really. There's also others, of course, but I'm talking about people who stream so we can see them on more than just being on chu8 or whoever's friends list.

I mean to some degree it has to be an issue for folks like the C9/NVT guys that is similar to one people with regular 9-to-5's face. They just don't want to mess with whatever it is they do for a living in their off time...but when your direct competition IS messing with it, and in many cases they are doing it together further building synergy/strategy/understanding, you're really hurting yourself.

 

[brian!]

After sporadic winning in the past two weeks, idream also started playing again. i think he's in placements still though

Tbh the most chilling thing about nvt to me is the way kenma talks about tomster

 

[Alur]

What do you mean? I haven't seen that/heard it.

 

[brian!]

Just how he talks about stuff like "bulding fresh talent from the ground up" in interviews and stuff, it all gives off a cultish vibe, esp. when you consider that he was already making him cry when he first joined up (tomster says that stuff is over with and the team vibr is a lot better, but again im feelin some stockholm syndrome shit, dats me projecting tho probably)

 

[Alur]

Hah, I doubt it's projecting. You know that team environment has to be toxic af knowing those dudes pasts. There's pretty much no way the Buechters are all like "It's on me boyz, good job good effort we'll get em next time don't you worry m8's".

That team and B Step are mysteries to me. At least B Step finally won a match or two. I haven't seen Mc on streaming in a few days, I do wonder how much they practice. I seem to remember it being a concern of his with a prior team (not scrimming enough, etc).

 

[thekillermuffin]

Has anyone heard anything about a Blizzard panel at PAX East this year?

2016 was the first East without a Blizzard panel, but it seems like this year would align well for a Hearthstone expansion announcement and new Overwatch and Heroes stuff.

 

[dave is ok]

Has anyone heard anything about a Blizzard panel at PAX East this year?

2016 was the first East without a Blizzard panel, but it seems like this year would align well for a Hearthstone expansion announcement and new Overwatch and Heroes stuff.

There's no info about panels at all yet on the PAX site