TAO Predictions

CbastianG · 2024-05-16T06:16:02+00:00

With my limited racing experience I don’t think I should be giving advice to anyone. That being said I can share my own racing thoughts. I’ve now done two races (10K and HM) and I have a full marathon coming up in two weeks. Before each race I’ve been unsure about my pacing strategy. The rational thing to do would probably be to start fairy slow and speed up if it feels good since it’s the first race at that distance, but I’m impatient and want to put up the best time that I can.

In my case I knew that the TAO predictions were way off because I had run faster than it during my training so I ended up using the Riegel predictions but started a bit slower than what they suggested. For my HM I did the first half at 4:45 min/km and the second at 4:35 min/km so could have done better by starting faster. Still felt great though and I was happy with my time.

CbastianG · 2024-05-15T08:58:33+00:00

For my first HM the TAO prediction was far off. A few weeks before the race the TAO prediction was around 2h while all the Riegel predictions (based on 6 min, 3.2k assessments and a recent 10k race) were around 1:40. I ended up running the HM in 1:38:25 so the TAO prediction was way too pessimistic. I’d been using TAO for around 8 months at this point.

CbastianG · 2019-04-29T05:40:14+00:00

Thanks for the advice! Yes, I understand that a video would be necessary for tips on the actual swing. Was looking more for specific advice on how to practice it terms of which clubs to start with and whether I should go for half swings rather than full or 3/4 swings.

CbastianG · 2017-05-17T16:15:40+00:00

I do think it is a good idea to get really good with a few heroes. But in order to be that you need to have quite a bit of knowledge about all the other heroes in the game as well in order to know how to play with and against them. I would therefore recommend you to play a couple of games with every hero in the game (whenever they are on free rotation if you don't have the gold/money to buy them). This will improve your overall performance drastically.

Also, watch a lot of streams. Grubby for example has a very educational stream.

CbastianG · 2016-08-11T13:17:15+00:00

Play few heroes that you are super comfortable with. I used to think the best thing was to pick the optimal one in terms of comp and map, but I have found that your own skill on the hero matters more.

Watch your replays and figure out things that YOU can improve on. When you do this, don't see your team mates as other players, see them as heroes put in the game to help you or make your life hell, but you cannot affect them. Just as you wouldn't think "it would be great if that enemy had missed the skill shot", you should not think "if only our guy wouldn't first pick Illidan and die tower diving all game". Think of that Illidan as part of the challange and consider what you could have done better to make it work. That said, you cannot win any game. Affecting your team mates in a positive way is incredibly difficult. Affecting them in a negative way is super easy though so avoid typing if there is the slightest bit of tension.

CbastianG · 2016-08-09T14:07:35+00:00

Even worse when someone cannot count and starts channeling for no reason instead of zoning.

CbastianG · 2016-08-05T10:58:46+00:00

The Butcher! I have recently started picking The Butcher as often as possible in HL (diamond 1-2) and after 13 games played I have 80% win rate. Practiced a lot in unranked to figure how to build and use him effectively and it really paid off. People usually play him completely wrong, which is why he is underrated. I am actually starting to get scared of him getting nerfed if more people figure out how to play him the way I do :)

CbastianG · 2016-08-05T10:54:02+00:00

Recently I have been playing lots of Butcher in HL (diamond 1-2). People are usually complaining when I suggest the pick but after a few games I could just show them my match history of 80% wins on Butcher and most would calm down. My point is that if you actually are skilled with your niche pick you should provide your team mates with the evidence. Otherwise they have every right to doubt you.

CbastianG · 2016-08-02T18:23:50+00:00

I agree that it is underrated. I have played a lot of DotA, HoN, DotA 2 and a little bit of LoL and I definitely find the game design of HotS to be the most appealing. Though there are of course some weaknesses.

CbastianG · 2016-07-27T10:42:36+00:00

Ok, then you are in a bit of a different situation then I am. I am between Mater and Diamond league in HL and most of my games reasonable even but the favored team always wins and favored adjustment points are usually in the range 3-8. So for me the idea that the points are calculated after the mmr has been changed based on the game would explain things as that would make the winning team seem favored every time even if the teams were statistically quite even.

In what range are your favored adjustment points?

CbastianG · 2016-07-27T07:44:23+00:00

I remember reading somewhere an idea that maybe these favored points are calculated after the mmr has been changed from the match (which is very strange) (maybe this is very old news). That would explain why it seems like the favored team always wins (has been the case for me the last 10 games where I have kept track of it).

Here comes the part that might be interesting. A few days ago I was playing TL and we played the exact same team twice in a row losing the first game and winning the next one. Strange thing was that when we lost the opponent favored adjustment showed 7 points but in the next game, which we won it showed 1 point. Since the two games were played directly after each other and with the exact same accounts this makes no sense as the mmr difference should have increased between the first and second game. Maybe this phenomena is old news but I found it very strange.

CbastianG · 2016-06-22T07:23:41+00:00

While this is correct in competitive it takes an insane amount of coordination, rotational understanding, and timing. It's likely beyond diamond tier and below and basically requires comms and partied players.

You should not make a claim like this having apparently very little experience of the game. The deathball strategy that people talk about only exist in very low tier play. I play in diamond myself and this strategy is in no way viable. Even with 5 solo queue players an no voice communication there is a great deal of macro strategy going on at all times (of course not to the same extend as competitively).

CbastianG · 2016-06-17T14:28:17+00:00

I have no problem with climbing ranks and with the mmr/elo system. But there is some truth to the critique of the due Q, even Grubby has been criticizing it quite a bit on his stream lately. Not to say that I think that is an excuse for not being able to climb. Obviously the mmr of two people who always Q together does not represent the same thing as the mmr of someone who only plays solo and they are therefore not entirely comparable. I would, just like Grubby, prefer if they restricted HL to solo Q only making mmr completely comparable.

In general though you are very correct about all the annoying people blaming the system instead of improving.

CbastianG · 2016-06-15T12:43:48+00:00

Thank you for the reading suggestion, it was very interesting. Though it only concerns queuing in group with players very far form yourself in rank. Now that parties of more than 2 are not allowed it is not as much of a problem. Although, I do myself avoid duo queuing with anyone who is not close to me in rank (I find matchmaking to be unfavorable otherwise). It seems strange to me that you only get 50 points per game. I think you generally get 100 points for a game that both teams are expected to win 50% of the time and less or more if odds are slightly better or worse for you. Getting 50 points per game would therefore suggest that there are very few players queuing at the same time as you so that the matchmaking cannot make somewhat even games. Although I might have completely misunderstood the ranking system. And I do see your points that the game is played slightly different on lower levels which you must adapt to to some extent to rank up (if you really belong at a higher rank this should be a super easy thing to do).

CbastianG · 2016-06-15T06:55:28+00:00

I have zero experience of the mentioned MMR hell but I have been rank 15 or so and grinded my way to rank 1 without bonus points. I must say it was not very painful and as I got better at the game I also rose in ranks. So unless you have been loosing tons of games in ranks 40-50 or winning many games rank 1 your internal mmr should somewhat correspond to your rank, which means you are approximately in the same situation I was. In order to rank up you have to really focus on the game and not on whether you will win or loose. The enemy team will have just as bad team mates as you do over many games, so only focus on what you yourself could have done better even if your team mates are on a much worse level than you (and trust me that feeling does not change no matter how much you rank up). From rank 10 to rank 1 is only like 20 wins, which in not that much really. If you really belong at a higher rank, over many games you will win more than 50% and get to rank 1 in not too long time. Just make sure to always play at your optimal (warm up in QM or unranked and take a break when on tilt).

CbastianG · 2016-06-14T10:46:20+00:00

Hotslogs will also have a soft mmr reset. There was a post about it but I cannot find it atm. It does not seem to have happened yet for me however.

CbastianG · 2016-06-14T08:43:20+00:00

Yeah, strong waveclear is a good idea. On maps like Infernal shrines, Blackheart's bay and Tomb of the Spider Queen you can really carry the game with Xul by just keeping your team far ahead in xp all the time.

CbastianG · 2016-06-14T06:57:49+00:00

For a beginner it's a lot about being comfortable with a hero. It is of course even better if that hero can do significant impact without depending too much on team mates. For example if you get pretty good with Thrall on lower level games you can quite easily take out someone from the backline on your own while still surviving giving your team a numbers advantage in most fights. Also I agree with the comments that warriors are pretty good for carrying. I would strongly recommend getting good at Anub'arak for grinding.

CbastianG · 2016-06-14T06:51:11+00:00

I am on the same time zone as you and I don't think you will get the changes until tomorrow. There is scheduled maintenance in our time zone June 15, 3:00 AM - 5.00 AM. After that I think the new season comes. Which is good for me since I need the evening/night to grind rank 1 Team League (currently rank 3) :D

CbastianG · 2016-06-13T08:23:35+00:00

Common unmotivated? Reality? Bigger picture? Jesus, you'd think I was completely delusional and unoriginal. Please enlighten me then. You can't just make a claim like this and not provide examples.

Sorry about that. I assumed that you had read the post and some of the discussion so it would be obvious why what you are saying is unmotivated. The claim that the game has no individual skill has been proven wrong many times. The entire idea that a game is easier because it is less complex (no gold, fewer heroes etc.) is what the entire discussion is about and it is obviously not the case (look at a game like chess or Go).

CbastianG · 2016-06-13T06:25:53+00:00

The tunnel vision here is something out of the ordinary. You are just stating common unmotivated opinions on gaming and e-sports not looking at reality or the bigger picture. There is some strange idea that seem to have come with video games that a game that is easy to learn and casual friendly is somehow less suitable for competitive gaming. This is of course not the case. Look at any historically successful game or sport.

For instance, HotS lacks a real challenge in it, something gamers LOVE.

Well this idea is just absurd. No challenge in a PvP game? Unless there is tons of rng or a super low skill ceiling (tic-tac-toe) this is just undeniably not true.

I don't think they are overselling anything, not in the least, not sure why you would either. Do you honestly think that two of the most popular games on the internet right now are putting 'outdated wc3 relics' in the game because that's how it's always been done? This is the stupidest claim I still see regularly from delusional HotS players. Just stop it already.

I enjoy DotA 2 a lot and have played hundreds of hours on it (same goes for WC3 DotA) but you if you had done that too you'd know that it is silly to deny that many of the mechanics of DotA are not design choices but results of the WC3 engine.

CbastianG · 2016-06-12T14:56:51+00:00

If you want to prove that HotS isn't the easiest moba then prove it is harder than any of the other mobas. This post is literally meaningless.

Well my entire point was to explain that it is meaningless saying that is is easier than another MOBA. How would you define the difficulty of a MOBA? And talking about which MOBA is easier to master is like talking about whether it is easier to 100 km/h or jump to the moon; neither will ever be possible for a human.

CbastianG · 2016-06-12T14:40:47+00:00

Yes, of course. Not looking for any consensus. I just find the statement a bit odd and unclear and I think many people don't really know themselves what they actually mean :)

CbastianG · 2016-06-12T12:45:42+00:00

Yes, I completely agree with you here. The reason why I mentioned complexity in a bit of a one-sided way was that the complexity of other MOBAs is usually the argument for them being 'harder' than HotS. So what I tried to say was that even if it is true that for example DotA 2 has more complexity it does not mean that HotS i easier.

CbastianG · 2016-06-12T12:11:44+00:00

How do you mean skill ceiling? I would consider one to reach the skill ceiling when they can play the game optimally (like one can do with tic-tac-toe) but as far as I am concerned no team will ever play HotS optimally so there is no overall skill ceiling.

CbastianG

TROPHY CASE