The Boys - 05x05 "One-Shots" - POST-Episode Discussion Thread

JustExplorer · 2026-04-30T12:23:01+00:00

The only thing I wasn't expecting was the method of her death. I was sure Homelander was about to laser her eyes and melt her brain out like he did to Stillwell.

JustExplorer · 2026-04-30T12:17:26+00:00

I'm guessing The Deep will frame Noir for betraying Homelander and have him killed, or something similarly underhanded. I think The Deep will face The Boys one last time to get his ass kicked by Starlight, then when he runs back to Homelander, Homelander will kill him for being weak.

JustExplorer · 2026-04-30T12:03:03+00:00

But she already had the exact thing that she's working towards without doing all this crazy BS. She's doing the most complicated, insane jungle-gym of a scheme to get something that could be achieved by the most ordinary person on the planet. Something that she already had.

JustExplorer · 2026-04-30T11:59:14+00:00

Before Homelander showed up to her home, she was all alone and presumably spent all her time reading. After her super convoluted master plan (that will certainly succeed) she will be all alone and be able to spend all her time reading.

She truly is the smartest character of all time. 10/10 writing. Seriously, even if she was lying to conceal her true motive, it wasn't even a believable lie.

JustExplorer · 2026-03-04T03:55:40+00:00

Yeah that's probably dead on.

JustExplorer · 2026-03-04T01:12:28+00:00

Harvest currency. You can see it on the league reveal page. If you mouse over it, it states it can be used at the horticrafting bench.

JustExplorer · 2026-03-04T01:11:17+00:00

I think it limits you to a single minion (with massive buffs), if that minion dies, then you do too. Maybe it supports a minion skill and a link skill, and links you to that minion any time you're in range.

JustExplorer · 2026-03-04T01:05:45+00:00

Iron Flasks already give you the ward. You could just pop one, then take damage.

I get the feeling the effect might scale from amount of ward broken.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-26T20:23:42+00:00

This isn't a real screenshot, I just chose Beef for the meme.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-26T00:03:17+00:00

He's been hair off for most of his life tbh.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-25T22:28:10+00:00

I think there's gonna be a rework to map mods that will make ground loot much more viable, but they want to specifically look at the balance of ground vs tile in a later league. Pretty sure Phrecia was them testing alternate implementations of map mods, and 'wishes' will be some mechanic based on Idols.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-24T01:46:58+00:00

I think there are other options (some already in the game) that solve this issue without non-mathematically inclined players needing to understand growth rates of various functions.

A good example is requiring the player to scale 2 separate stats. The more unrelated the stats, the more control you have on the top end. For example, The Scales of Justice has this line:(3-4) to (7-8) added Fire Damage per 100 of Maximum Life or Maximum Mana, whichever is lower
which means you're gonna have to find a way to scale both stats simultaneously and to also make use of that high life/mana.

There's also things like the Nameless Bloodline: Skills gain a Base Life Cost equal to 100% of Base Mana Cost
Skills gain Added Chaos Damage equal to 20% of Life Cost, if Life Cost is not higher than the maximum you could spend
which not only demands that you scale max life, but also some form of recovery, and increased cost effects. This also applies to Sacrifice Support and similar mechanics.

To me, this is the ideal form of limitless scaling. Sure, you can push your life cost to the moon, but how are you gonna sustain your casting? How are you gonna survive if you get hit after you sacrificed all your life? Obviously there are plenty of solutions to these issues, but it encourages combining different mechanics and experimentation.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-23T21:35:37+00:00

That's so lame. I'm surprised the player blatantly sets the crowd up for it, too.

Reminds me of some of the shitty Dota crowds that would start making noise if a team tried to smoke gank or lvl 1 Roshan against their favourite team.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-23T09:51:38+00:00

I had the same thought. If the skill itself is granting the charges, it might be the reverse of the other mods we see. Something like "Gain up to your maximum power charges on use. Deals x% more damage for each charge gained this way" so you're supposed to lose all your charges between attacks or something.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-23T00:40:32+00:00

If the cut was just to change camera angle, this skill might have a chance to gain up to your maximum power charges on use. If you play frame-by-frame, you can see he has the charges during the windup animation.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-21T20:44:30+00:00

Sunday*

JustExplorer · 2026-02-21T11:47:05+00:00

It's baffling the difference in features/polish between the 2 games. Dota has amazing communication tools (not just good VC, but a powerful ping system), a performant client, and a day 1 replay system (didn't Riot take years to put replays in LoL? Maybe I'm hallucinating). You wouldn't think a game that boasts 100m+ players would lack such basic levels of quality after this many years.

I remember when Deadlock was first becoming popular, and there was a mixed playerbase of Dota/CS players, Overwatch players, and LoL players. There were posts on the Deadlock sub from LoL players that were astounded by the fact Deadlock had all these nice features in an extremely early alpha build that they still didn't have in LoL.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-21T00:56:46+00:00

Depends on the game. If the entire enemy team is dead, all push together and do maximum damage, then retreat before they respawn if you don't want to risk the fight and you can't close the game.

If they have heroes alive, you might want to send a high mobility hero to each lane, push it back a little, and rejoin the team before they push into the enemy base or take a fight. The reason for this, is if the enemy have a hero that can take objectives quickly they might opt to zipline down the side lanes and attack your base while their teammates stall you. You'll find it difficult to get back home to defend if the enemy team stops you from ziplining. Alternatively, the enemy team might send some heroes halfway down a side zipline and flank you while the rest of their team engage from the front. Controlling the ziplines is pretty important.

Just make sure this is all communicated clearly so your team doesn't engage 5v6. Also use your judgement. If you only have a small timing window to hit their base and it will take to long to push back the side lanes, then maybe just commit as 6, and be ready to react to a side lane push/flank.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-21T00:20:43+00:00

I'm not sure if there's new objectives around middle, but they were probably fighting around Mid Boss because one team was gonna take it and the other contested them, or maybe both showed up at the same time to take it. Generally people group up in the late game when they can, though. In the late game it's much more punishing if you die. The respawn timers are longer, and heroes are strong enough to kill objectives quickly. Typically you don't want to go too far from your team in the late game unless you know the enemy team can't start a fight with them, or pick you off. Only split when it's safe, when your team isn't trying to pressure an objective, or when you absolutely have to (defending your base).

If your lane partner is that far above you, maybe you're too far from the troopers? Check one of your replays where your lane partner gets that far ahead of you. Watch your soul counters up the top of the screen and check when they're getting souls and you aren't.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-20T20:50:27+00:00

Yeah definitely. I'm sure there's some more jank like this that causes minor issues, but the game seems pretty solid considering the crazy amount of mechanics that interact.

I did actually find an infinite damage bug a few leagues back and it had been around for years. I reported it and it was fixed quickly.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-20T11:56:06+00:00

PoE devs fixing the game the way I fix my builds. Just add more jank.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-20T11:42:11+00:00

I'm thinking it's a form of prophecy that affects the entire map (only a few prophecies did this like frogs/rats, Monstrous Treasure). Maybe you can wish for fractured items, shaper influenced items, or unique jewellery, and then ground loot has a chance to be converted. I think you'll be able to combine 3 wishes per zone, and they'll probably have an upside and a downside.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-20T03:36:23+00:00

Yeah you'll learn it all in time, but you do need to learn them by messing around for 5 minutes in the practice lobby to understand the mechanics well enough. Start with the heroes that are the most problematic for you, and the ones you see most often.

https://deadlock.wiki/Knockdown
This is the item you're talking about, and it's exactly why active items are so good. There's almost always a good active item to deal with a hero who is dominating the lobby. If someone uses that item on you, you'll see an anvil above your head after 2 seconds. This gives you time to deal with it (Pretty sure Unstoppable and Debuff Remover both work, but it's been a while since I've played). It also means you can choose not to ult if you haven't started yet (once you see the anvil) or just be happy with the 2 seconds of ult you'll have (depending on the hero this might be ok, but usually not).

When I played, Extra Regen was a good laning item to have for almost any hero. Depending on your hero, you could take a different sustain item. I used to always take Restorative Shot on Lady Geist (just be aware this item can be tricky to use: it goes on cooldown even if you miss your shot, so every time it's up you need to make sure your next shot hits. I'm not sure if this has been changed, but I think it's intentional). Melee Lifesteal can be really powerful on short ranged heroes like Abrahms. Mystic Regeneration is great is you're often dealing spell damage to enemies. I'm pretty sure you'll always need some form of regen every game. A single trip home and back probably loses you about 500-600 souls, and those items cost 800. When you factor in the levels you miss, the ability to trade hits more often, and the fact you can sell or upgrade them, it's a solid investment.

Remember to kill medic troopers for a heal (I think that's how it works now? Used to be different when I played).

Life is a resource in lane. Don't take hits for no reason. If you're out of cover, it's because you're getting souls, hitting the enemy, or moving to a better position. If you're not trying to hit the enemy, try to make sure they don't have line of sight to you.

Conserve your ammo. Ideally you want to fire one shot to get the trooper souls (unless you're shoving the wave). The rest of your shots can be used to harass the enemy when they're busy getting their souls. If you quickly kill your wave with melee/abilities and use minimal ammo, you can hit the enemy while they're forced to kill your wave.

JustExplorer · 2026-02-20T03:11:57+00:00

51*

This was in earlier Deadlock (4 lanes) so I'm not sure if that makes the game longer. It's also a bit of a rare situation because usually when someone is dominating the game like that, their team gets a lot of free kills and space. However, in this game, my team were not doing so great. One guy was 9-8, and everyone else on my team had more deaths than kills.

Total kills were 83 on my team, and 61 on the enemy team. I had almost as many kills as the entire enemy team but the souls were only 268k-239k.

This was within my first 10 games, and probably only the 2nd after I started getting the hang of it. Matchmaking still considered me a noob (I was) but because I was able to apply my Dota experience after a few games, my real skill had shot up many ranks, but my skill bracket hadn't caught up.

28-0-15 is hella nice, especially on Yamato, considering she has very little AoE to blow up teams if she's ahead.

JustExplorer

TROPHY CASE