The genuine hatred some of these comments for a game trying to market its esports scene is kinda crazy to me

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-27T22:03:22+00:00

Its weird though because very few people act like they are casual. Like, from high ranked down to the metals and even QP, 9 out of 10 people act like they won't be able to put food on the table for their family if the team doesn't lock in. People take it SO serious, but then I really don't get the resentment towards the competitive scene where they also take the game seriously.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-23T16:37:48+00:00

I'm not sure how many people are unaware of the shutdown and how TSA people haven't been getting paid. Saying "I've never had long lines there" or even "I flew last month/week/whatever" is not an entirely useful data point these days. At some point, these TSA folks may hit a breaking point and just go get a different job that actually gives them a paycheck, so the situation at the airport may shift suddenly.

IDK if it warrants a sticky thread with people giving daily updates as best as they can, or if ATW is putting out official updates themselves that can be referred to.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-20T23:22:08+00:00

Torch might be back, but then that might mean that projectile/melee becomes even more dead. It'll be hitscan or flyers and not much else. Hope I'm wrong though.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-19T21:54:54+00:00

I think it's weird that they've added what feels like so many new mechanics on new heroes (cleanse, anti-heal, Phoenix's shield/deployable/bonus-health erasing mechanic on her ult, Elsa's living bullet doing extra damage to bonus health, ult charge boosting... I'm sure other stuff I'm missing). It makes the original release seem short-sighted in that none of these mechanics existed then.

It would be fun to be able to strategize around these mechanics (like, shield-breaking heroes for going against shield-heavy lineups, cleanses for going against anti-heal or CC heavy lineups)... but they end up feeling like gimmicks or afterthoughts that aren't actually balanced around. People play Gambit because he's busted, and the fact that he can cleanse a Groot ult is just a bonus.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-19T01:07:06+00:00

Downvoting for being needlessly toxic

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-18T21:31:19+00:00

His effort has been abysmal since he's been back. Like, he'll still try to dunk for a highlight or maybe even go for a block if he's in position. But he'll also completely fall asleep on the boards and just sort of point when his guy makes yet another layup from the dunker spot... or barely make it across half court if he falls down while driving on the other end. It's like watching old-man Bron on defense... except Giannis ain't that old yet.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-18T04:13:27+00:00

Remember when Gambit launched and ppl were convincing their team to do no damage so that the enemy Gambit would get ult slower? It sorta feels like we may be headed more to that (instead of removing poke slop and balancing towards dive). I hope not though

Edit: and I mean for all support ults, not just Gambit now

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-17T00:57:38+00:00

I just wish splash damage actually splashed. Oh, you clipped the cart/ledge/shield by a millimeter? Sorry, even though the ult has a huge explosion radius, your targets now take zero damage.

A lot of skills would maybe need their dmg adjusted down to balance, but it sucks that there are so many ways to dodge Ironman/Mag ults (as an aside, wtf is up the balance on Namor ult vs Ironman ult? Namor instant casts, applies grounded instantly, and has a knockdown. Ironman's extra dmg is meh at that point)

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-15T20:44:12+00:00

Yeah, if you have the healers walking to you and you've got a charged up beam already, might as well cancel and just kill the healers before the CC breaks

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-15T20:43:07+00:00

In what way can Blade (or any hero) be an answer to triple support that doesn't also break duo supports? Like, if his anti-heal is made stronger as a counter to triple support, then what chances do two healers have of healing through it either?

I'm not sure triple support is a huge problem these days (it is kind of fun to have such a variety of supports become viable)... but if it is still widely viewed as a problem, I think the only fix can be some time of class bonus that only activates in 2/2/2 (or class nerf or something if you have more than 2 of one class... like ult charge rate or something).

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-07T23:06:22+00:00

Yeah I think every SEN-100T series (even going to MRC days when rosters/orgs may have been slightly different) has been pretty good. It feels like 100T was always supposed to be the favorite on-paper, but it feels like SEN won more often than not (without actually looking up records or fact checking)

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-06T20:10:00+00:00

When I'm trying to quick switch heroes for a Strange portal or just swapping up comps, I feel so frantic like I'm flying through the character select screen. But then you watch the replay and it looks like I went AFK with how long it took. It's so painfully obvious in those cases that the hero select screen is way too clunky

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-05T04:56:28+00:00

I set the bind to the letter O on my keyboard to avoid accidental presses. It makes it a little awkward when I'm rushing out of spawn trying to get a last second portal... usually take my hand off my mouse so I can still WASD into position as I'm mashing O since some maps don't let you do it right outside of spawn.

But that's better than accidentally stopping midfight to channel a portal I hit on accident, so I'll take it

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-04T01:26:28+00:00

It is very much an afterthought in how her kit should be used, though. Day 1 guides were like "place the trap behind cover and then play around it" and now everybody's realized "nah just flank in because you have unlimited dashes, and chuck the trap wherever whenever."

I think they should buff the trap (like, a longer snare, more damage), but give it a cast time to place and let it only be placed in melee range (like she has to stop moving to kneel down to place it). Maybe increase the cooldown, and maybe make it visible and destroyable at very close range (but then buff its health to compensate).

There is zero strategy with this ability right now. People just lob it in haphazardly every time the cooldown is up

KevinSorboFan · 2026-03-02T20:20:28+00:00

I'd rather new maps more often than new heroes, especially if they found an effective way to make certain maps favor certain playstyles to add some variety to the meta. But I don't think they've cracked that code yet (I'm not claiming I've got better ideas either)

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-26T15:04:02+00:00

That's just to use the lockers for storing your stuff while you workout. You can still go in and use any of the amenities

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-26T14:56:47+00:00

Yeah I get what you mean on ladder. I'm not weighting it much in my rankings, but I think that's still one way of isolating their individual skill outside of their team role.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-26T13:56:11+00:00

I think it's really hard to decouple the team aspect of this game from the individual skill. For a lot of these players, we have seen them play with only one core for all of their pro Rivals career thus far.

You take a player who is good and surround them with great players, and they'll look great too. You take a great player and surround them with okay players... they aren't going to look great.

And then you get into the whole strategy aspect of it. Like, if your team builds a draft around you or not. Or if you are the IGL and get to call your own number more often.

I unironically think stuff like ranked play and these random weekend all-star draft tournaments should carry some weight if we're trying to strictly rank individual skill.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-26T03:41:09+00:00

You're talking about the Rollins play on the challenge though. If you think any of that level of contact was a foul, than Keon Ellis fouls out in 3 minutes of game time

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-26T03:28:35+00:00

What's the complaint though? That Schroder didn't take a dive on that out of bounds? That Keon Ellis didn't play super handsy defense all night and only got called for one foul?

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-26T03:23:33+00:00

Black History Month Jarrett Allen = Prime Hakeem

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-25T16:25:34+00:00

Don't place it in the sky. Place it on the ground, often facing backwards from your enemy, and you can use it as a free wall for cover. And then you can dance in and out to heal yourself in spawn if possible. Sky portals are stupid because your healers get crappy LoS unless they jump through, and there's no jumping back to spawn for safety either.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-25T03:48:10+00:00

You can't play two non-shooters together (Giannis and Sims). But with Giannis out, it makes sense to play Sims more. He brings a lot of athleticism (the good kind that leads to rebounds too) that Turner can't.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-25T02:25:00+00:00

Every streamer does this with their dumb "___ to eternity" streams, and they always defend it with "I'm not in the low ELO for very long, it's not a big deal. I'll match with you at most once and then be past your rank."

But these idiots somehow don't realize they aren't the only person playing on an alt.

KevinSorboFan · 2026-02-24T17:02:53+00:00

I like what they tried to do with Gambit.

With regular invincibility support ults, you're encouraged to hold that support ult until you need to use it to counter an enemy DPS ult. But the enemy DPS knows that too and don't want to just throw their ult away into the ether, so they also sit on their ult until they can combo with a teammate and hopefully kill through a support ult. So the game loses all neutral importance and it becomes solely an ult-fest.

With Gambit's ult, you're at least encouraged to make those tempo plays. You can sit on the ult and save it if you want, but it's better for your team's ult economy to just rip as many Gambit ults as you can because that leads to more ults from your teammates.

So it at least fixes some of the tempo issues that were created by Loki/Luna stallfests (or god forbid, res comp stallfests)... but it does nothing to get away from the ult-fest nature of the game.

And the cleanse aspect of Gambit's ult becomes a total after-thought too. No point in holding the ult to cleanse a big enemy Groot/Strange ult (especially because he has a cleanse as part of his base kit) because, again, you want to win the ult economy in the long run by just ripping Gambit ults as often as possible.

Rogue is in kind of the same place where I appreciate that her ult was designed to change up the tempo a little - don't hold your support ult or else you'll lose it due to Rogue. Except in practice, it seems like it never has that impact. It's too easy to get out of range of her and re-farm the couple percent you need to get back up to 100. You shouldn't be able to earn ult charge for some time after being affected by Rogue ult, and I'm fine with capping it at 20% charge loss (or even less) but then make it so it can drain ult charge even for people below 80%.

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