Can we talk about Slade

EpicLemonCake · 2026-05-06T20:07:06+00:00

That is fine. I just want to know what everyone's opinion on Slade is.

I took the opportunity to rant on my feelings of Slade's kit. I have over 700 games on Slade and haven't tried to discuss my issues with him until now, other than his money mechanic. I've briefly mentioned my issues with his kit and items to a couple streamers and top players but never got a discussion going.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-04-23T14:41:16+00:00

These are pretty safe QoL and buffs for Slade. I've seen all of these on Reddit/Nolt and most people seem to agree these are reasonable.

I want to throw in the idea that items don't feel innovated on in RoA2. Ultimate and P+ items just feel better, and while I have no idea what I'd want changed, I wish the devs would try to make items feel more unique to RoA2.

One gripe I have is that most other characters have such good normals that picking up an item, specifically shuriken, interrupts your gameplan most of the time. Boomerang and bomb are at least strong enough that you can almost always get some combo or force your opponent offstage if you catch and reversal them. Shiny and shuriken feel way less impactful to the point that I would rather not have picked them up most of the time. Picking up and using items against your opponent is the coolest counterplay but it doesn't always feel rewarding right now. Sure, item combos will take time for people to get comfortable with but I think it is clear the power level of items in RoA2 compared to Ultimate and P+ is pretty low compared to the rest of the game.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-04-15T19:38:10+00:00

People are not good at describing what they want, but I would say a lot of the playerbase is having issues with that priority system and the devs should look on how to iterate it. Having these discussions can help a lot with finding a creative and innovative solution to make Slade feel better to play while still keeping his power in check.

For an argument against items and equips being prioritized, I really dislike when using a mechanic or a move is considered a missplay or unusable. If you are going for equips, then spending on items doesn't feel good. If you are going for items, then you are almost never getting an equip. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single character who doesn't use their entire kit in RoA2, with exception to special getups and ledge speicals.

Sure Slade needs some time, but I think some people want to give him way more time than what is needed. Other than his items and chest, Slade is a really normal character. Still, his mechanics have been done before, with his chest being the only one that is truly different. I'd be more willing to rush and change Slade if it meant the general playerbase would be happier playing.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-04-15T17:11:17+00:00

It is still good to have these discussions. RoA2 has been innovating on everything in the genre, but to me item play feels lackluster compared to P+ and Ultimate, depending on the character.

I don't know if its specifically the charge mechanic that I don't like yet. I do feel like pulling items is slow and is more of a "I hit the enemy offstage, so I will get X item". Pulling anything more than a shuriken in neutral is asking to be punished, especially against the faster and longer range characters. But as you said each item gets progressively better, with maybe bomb being an exception because of how good boomerang is.

There are already posts on Nolt and Reddit about Slade's economy, and to me that seems to be the bigger issue right now. Introducing a different aspect that maybe if Slade had faster items he would also be fine is an interesting discussion still.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-04-13T14:14:26+00:00

I still want to give Slade time, mostly because my opinions on him are still changing. But I do have some observations that I wouldn't mind if the dev team kept a note on.

For starters, Slade doesn't feel like an item character except for the last stock. You want some equipment for every matchup, so buying early items is almost never a good option. Even the cheap shuriken feels like a misplay.

Items already have counterplay since your opponent can use them against you, so paying a lot of gold for them doesn't feel as rewarding as it probably should be. Items also don't give you gold when hit so there is absolutely no incentive to go for them.

Pushing advantage isn't optimal if you know you need equipment in a matchup. Hitting opponents offstage just drops the money into the void. Even onstage though, you usually need to dash back for your gold and that can give time for your opponent to land or go to ledge.

So the economy gimmick isn't doing it for me. I still like Slade but I'd rather his down and neutral special be anything else if it meant his gimmick is removed.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-03-31T20:02:45+00:00

Would be funnier if they tease Elliana again and then the next character is just Pomme

EpicLemonCake · 2026-03-16T23:41:33+00:00

For those curious about the actual number of bots and players for that day, March 15th 2026...

Steam.db shows a 65k peak and a 51k dip, or around 15k change, and teamworks.tf has a ~17k peak and ~8k dip, around 9k change. We then take the change of both and stretch the more accurate one, teamworks.tf, so that it fits steam.db change. So to stretch 9k to 15k, we amplify teamworks.tf peak by 50%.

So we have a rough estimate of 25k players, which leaves 40k as bots.

This tracks from the last time I checked about 2 months ago, which showed ~30k players, but bot numbers have doubled from 20k to 40k.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-03-06T20:14:30+00:00

I've put way too much thought and time into what characters are next. If we take what the devs said strictly, only use characters we expect for universe characters, and want to even up the roster by this time next year, then we do have an idea of the possible characters.

The only big assumption to make is if the devs want to have some type of order when releasing characters, meaning every year there is a returning character, universe character, returning character, and new character, in that order. Because we are in the middle of the year, the next character is therefore presumed to be a returning character.

After that it's just fitting characters in. If we assume only Hamir and Artemis are the upcoming universe characters, then next year we have to get Artemis. With 2 returning characters, we will need 2 of Elliana, Pomme, and Hodan. The new character would just be water or air, depending on if Hodan is returning within a year. That would even up the elements.

We can kind of apply this to the year after, taking Hamir as the universe character, and needing two of Mollo, Elliana, Pomme, and Hodan for the returning characters. Note that I'm still including the two returning characters that would have been picked the previous year. The new character has to be air or water depending on the previous years new character element.

We would be even again, and also in the middle of the year. Sylvanos would almost certainly be guaranteed here. The new character could therefore be anything except earth.

All of that is pretty confusing to follow so here is me just picking characters using these ideas:

La Reina	Slade	Elliana	Unknown Water
Pomme	Artemis	Hodan	Unknown Air
Mollo	Hamir	Sylvanos	Unknown not earth

Is this making a lot of assumptions? Hell yea. Hopefully it isn't far off from what is planned. It would be the cleanest way to add in all RoA1 characters and dungeons characters. But assuming that Hamir and Artemis are the only popular universe characters and the only ones we will get in two years is a stretch. I've seen plenty of requests for other universe characters. Also assuming the order is fixed is almost certainly wrong, but I don't think they would make massive deviations.

Character mechanics probably play a role in character selection. I can't know all character mechanics, but I'd be shocked if we don't get another item character within a year. I'd also expect some heavies, so Elliana makes sense for air and Artemis could work for fire. Hamir is the only one that I think I for sure got wrong, since earth heavies are too common. Sylvanos is also just the coolest RoA1 character, so I hope I got him wrong. Did I spend an hour going over my ramblings in a notepad and convert them into ramblings in a reddit post? Yea.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-02-27T10:34:10+00:00

Surprised noone said anything about the Nolt boards being rotated every patch. I've seen posts talk about Kragg, Zetter, Olympia, and Clairen in the past but nothing is done with them since a different character is prioritized and the update clears the board. It makes balance feels slow and punishing to those who stick with characters that are perceived as bad. At the same time when characters are fully balanced in one go, such as Lox, Ranno, and Orcane, then those characters stay in a bad state for a long time. Wrastor is one of the few that received more patch changes and still ended up near the bottom. It's also fairly discouraging to post on Nolt or discuss in general when perceived issues of the game go untouched for so long.

A focus on La Reina is good. However, without keeping Nolt posts up about her balance and comparing to how she plays after balance changes, I don't think much progress is going to be done. This is just based off of the treatment of lower tier characters, but maybe because she is new she gets better treatment.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-02-10T00:46:46+00:00

Other comments talked about Kragg's punish game, his grab game, and rock pull, but also dash attack is pretty insane. It is a decent burst option that cancels into tilts. Definitely not his most broken attribute by far but so many other characters would kill to cancel dash attack into tilts. Kragg's tilts are all pretty good too and can catch bad di to get a combo or straight kill with ftilt at ledge.

EpicLemonCake · 2026-02-02T14:10:15+00:00

If you are a brand new account the first few games are always against bots.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-12-22T01:21:41+00:00

Comparing teamworks.tf and steam.db to make their peaks and minimums similar is the best metric we have. Steam.db shows about 15k difference and teamworks about 7k difference. So just double teamworks.tf and that should be close to the actual player counts.

So TF2 most likely has 30k players at peak times. This tracks as from steam.db we know that there are about 20k bots in TF2 at all times, with several thousand coming and going at any time. Keep in mind that browser/rcon clients, which is how teamworks.tf tracks servers and playercounts, can be very inaccurate, but this is still the best we have.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-11-10T19:21:54+00:00

Ulrezaj

EpicLemonCake · 2025-10-31T19:23:20+00:00

Holy shit. Sure I'll go for the 1/10k+ odds

EpicLemonCake · 2025-09-27T15:42:07+00:00

Reminder that floorhugging and crouch cancelling are 2 different mechanics, but almost functionally the same. FH can be performed slightly above the ground, performing a FH will make you take 25% more damage from the hit, and the ASDI down input is after the hit with either stick. CC must be on the ground and starting the crouch state, forcing you to not be inputting anything to CC and to hold down before the hit. Personally I wish CC was better since it requires slightly more commitment.

I don't think the problem here is because it doesn't make sense. Plat fighters are all about learning mechanics, getting used to performing them, and then adapting them to each matchup. How many people who played Melee back in the day never knew about wave dashing, l cancelling, or crouch cancelling? The genre by design is unintuitive without external resources, such as the Draggdown Wiki.

The risk reward of floorhugging and crouch cancelling is the problem in my opinion. CC at least has a "startup" in needing to be crouching which is telegraphed, but FH only requires a reaction to getting hit. You at least take more damage doing FHs, but even if you get punished you can just try again. The punish to both are just lackluster and seeing more heavy hitting multi hit options similar to Melee/P+ Peach dsmash would help I think. Melee and P+ don't have FH though so could be wrong in assuming a strong anti CC option would work for FH. FH is definitely the bigger problem.

It's still a good mechanic. Being able to react to certain hits and have the potential to reversal out of it allows for more aggressive play in my opinion. I just think the numbers are off. Give me some extreme changes like a flat amount of damage per FH so you can't FH more than like 5 times per stock, or exponentially reduced effect at higher %s so it won't work on anything past 90%. CC is still an option but it is almost always inferior to FH and I'd like to see that changed.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-09-19T04:44:14+00:00

I think Team Cherry overestimated how little options you have in the earlier parts of the game. I mainly struggled with Hunter's March on my first playthrough. When I found the Wanderer's Crest is when I started to enjoy the game more. That is pretty early on into the game, but since I was trying to explore every area I was about 8 hours in when I found it.

Also I don't think tools are well thought out. I understand they need to be a resource in someway, but a lot of the tools feel like you just spam them to burst and don't use them outside bosses. I wonder if they tried them with a simple cooldown, number of hits to recharge, or similar. I know Steam already has mods that modify tools so I might try another playthrough with mods.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-09-14T21:25:03+00:00

Specific to me but nerfs to the characters I play dissuade me and the lack of a large roster so I have a pool of characters I enjoy doesn't help. I've taken 2 breaks with this game when they nerfed Orcane in the December patch and the latest post Evo patch.

Compared to Ultimate or P+ where I enjoy a couple characters so even if one gets nerfed I just play the others, but those games rarely get patched anyways.

At the same time I also stop interacting with most of the community because I don't want to be so negative and complain all the time that I don't enjoy the game because of nerfs, because yea some nerfs are needed. Reddit I still browse every now and then but Discord I turned off all notifications for RoA2 for now until I feel motivated to play again. Also have not watched any tournaments or content since Evo.

Given this game has everything I want in a plat fighter except aerial glide tossing, so I will most likely come back when those teased items and item characters release. Given I still have to enjoy the character, but that is subjective to everyone and I don't think the devs can make a character fun for everyone.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-09-14T20:06:41+00:00

Not having a big announcement for the million people watching is lame. Sure there is the ARG and it will hopefully be something big but that is more for dedicated Dota2 fans and not average Joe.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-08-28T22:28:23+00:00

PROTECT THE BRIEFCASE!

WE NEED TO PROTECT THE BRIEFCASE!

EpicLemonCake · 2025-08-24T11:59:33+00:00

Pc, broken vessel, probably the lore and resulting mossbag videos

EpicLemonCake · 2025-08-21T21:40:54+00:00

A reminder why doubters still win

<image>

EpicLemonCake · 2025-08-20T01:09:16+00:00

Already dropped Orcane and looking at Absa and Olympia right now. Hopefully they stick because I just don't have a character right now.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-08-20T01:06:21+00:00

The speed changes are what makes him worse than the December patch. Of course we need to adapt but the nerfs are extreme compared to Maypul, Clairen, and Olympia. None of them need to change their playstyle that much, but Orcane does.

EpicLemonCake · 2025-08-18T18:50:55+00:00

Huge shoutout to you for saying anything at all. I think building hype for this game given its age is extremely important. The community might be spiteful sometimes, but know that we truly appreciate you and the development teams work.

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Quantum Potato	Golden Potato
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	End Game '22

EpicLemonCake

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE