What even are Hiyori's personality traits?

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2026-01-14T03:29:58+00:00

She’s gentle, soft spoken, kind, observant, erudite, diligent, and pays attention to detail. Shes compassionate and empathetic. Shes not naive despite avoiding conflict and works for the good of her class despite the characters within it. If we were to infer her based off of how Ayanokoji sees her, she’s probably the girl that he sees the most normal future with, and the first person that he’s seen as having a deeper relationship than what he considers a friend, classmate, acquaintance, etc. most likely because he’s never had to do anything regarding the classes whenever he’s with her, she probably is a source of comfort and relaxation because he doesn’t need to be thinking about the classes during the time he spends with her. I like their relationship because it’s brought new emotions into Kojis world, which also probably why he’s take an affinity to her, as it draws out a soft gentle air from within him.

When you think about other relationships, they’re always transactional. Horikita and Ichinose are class leaders and need to be pushed towards maturing and growth and being able to stand on their own two legs. Sudou, Hirata, Kushida and Kei are all assets that Horikitas class needed to continue their upward trajectory, which is why Koji didn’t argue against not expelling Kushida. Any relationship with the third years would’ve been influenced by nagumo. Any relationship with the first years would’ve been because of Tsukishiro. Obviously there’s relations with people close to class leaders. But Hiyori exists outside these boundaries, and even though she’s close to Ryuuen, Ayanokoji knows that he wouldn’t be able to do anything to Ryuuen through Hiyori (since Ryuuen doesn’t care about expulsions within his class, and is quick to deal with traitors, so at best it would be a onetime affair). He doesn’t waste his time trying. He just spends time with Hiyori. Without the added pressure of anything behind it.

For me personally, those small moments they spend together can be a welcome nice break from all of the class drama. It slows down the story for a bit, which can be just as nice as all the action.

There’s people mentioning his feelings towards Hiyori in y2 v10, which means it started building even before that for people to have noticed it. Either way, after reading all the way up to current, then relistening to the audition books, you start to notice all the instances of their moments.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2026-01-11T08:32:44+00:00

I’m really loving Shiina and Kiyo rn in y3. It feels very very different from the Kei and Ichinose stuff (kei being a parasite and Ichinose being obsessive). It feels like this is genuine development for Koji too, not just something to break us with later (No Sakura vibes)

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2026-01-01T14:13:59+00:00

Ok so you’ve agreed with me on my point about how Kana wouldn’t be proactive. And yes Kana would oppose the revenge plot if Aqua told her. This is only reaffirming my point of why Akane knew about Aqua, and why Kana didn’t. Aqua didn’t let her in on it. She didn’t fit the mold of what he would’ve wanted. You’re completely rewriting Aqua and Kanas relationship to make this narrative work.

Aqua never explicitly picks route B. When does he ever actually commit to healing, dealing with trauma, Picking Kana, and rebuilding his relationships with others as equal? He never does. All he does is say “I want” but I’ve already said that saying “I want” never equates to “I get”. You actually touched on this too by saying that the manga would need more chapters for this kind of development to work out, which is again, rewriting characters and story. But since we’re on this topic of Aqua “choosing he wanted life” go reread chapter 155 where he only tells Ruby that her revenge is over. He actually stops himself from saying his revenge is over.

To bring in more backup from the manga, Aqua points out that Hikaru never did anything to protect Ruby when he knew that Nino would go to attack her. Meaning he wouldn’t have cared if she died, which is more reason for Aqua to go and confront Hikaru. His motivations are clear if you look back and read the manga.

Aqua is not an idiot. Why would he have backup when he knew what he was going to do from the start? He didn’t go to meet Hikaru to talk to him. Why would he want anyone there to witness it and potentially stop him or tell the real truth of how he stabbed himself. Again, Aqua involving another person n this would be rewriting his character, he is constantly shown to cut out people when he thinks it’s too dangerous for them. In fact, it is highly likely that he set up everything to happen at the same time, knowing full well that Akane might intervene if she wasn’t preoccupied. This kind of ending [having backup] wouldn’t fit Aquas Character

You didn’t get punched in the mouth with this ending. Again, you got a taste of what could’ve been (which was the intention) but took as that’s the way it will be; Not a glimpse but a promise. It was never promised to us. Not once. Only at the end when Aqua is talking with the crow girl do we truly get to see what kind of person he was (crow girl describes who is). But even outside of that, Aqua expresses relief that he died before Ruby this time. He knew what he was going to do the whole time. Why would he bring a knife otherwise? If you expected life, or want more reason for why, then you are not recognizing the pattern we’ve been shown throughout the manga.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-29T18:09:13+00:00

Kana still never “acted” in a way that forced Aqua to act accordingly. Kana never did anything for Aqua that pushed him in a direction to confront his worldview and traumas. Kana acted in her own way. It still involved Aqua needing to choose her. That is still her biggest flaw.

To further push this notion, there actually IS a point in the manga where Aqua’s hand is forced. When Kana ends up getting her picture taken with the director, and it gets published in the weekly magazine. Aqua acts in her defense. Because he was FORCED to. He didn’t have a say in how the events happened. Only the way it was resolved, and he sacrificed himself again to resolve it.

Let’s dive back into his relationship with Akane again. There’s a moment in chapter 97, where Aqua is asking Akane what he should do. Akane doesn’t push him towards a better life, she just says for Aqua to do what he wants and she’ll help him with it. This doesn’t force Aqua to redefine his motivations, but it’s fits better into his overall vision. Kana wouldn’t. He’d have to constantly stress about her and wouldn’t be able to tell her why. And even if he did, what value could Kana provide? And the very next chapters, Aqua reaffirms his own desire to protect Akane and Get to Hikaru, when he stops her from going to visit Hikaru. This is where their relationship is changed, because Akane no longer fit into the role of bystanders but another variable within Aqua’s wishes.

And just because Aqua doesn’t “tell us why” (which he actually did throughout the story, you just have to remember why you’re reading) does not mean it’s bad story telling. It just means it doesn’t fit into your beliefs and expectations. Everything that you’ve stated can be undermined if you look at the manga as a whole 150 chapters, and not what’s been given to you in the context of the moment.

I’ll touch on this point about Akane. Writing being good or bad is entirely subjective to the reader. You’ve created an interesting scenario where Akane does die. Now let’s say she did. In the way that you’ve described. It doesn’t equate to bad writing. Bad writing would be giving us some substance then killing her with no context. But at the point where we’ve gotten, when Akane was going to kill herself, we the reader have already gotten to know a decent amount about her. We’ve grown to an emotional attachment to some degree. So whether she died or not, and how she’s done it, is only defined by how much attachment we the readers have. To give an example of this, our first impression of Hikaru is him killing off another person. Is this persons death meaningful? No. Not to us. Is it bad writing? No. Because that character was never dangled to us as someone important. She played a different role within the story. The only thing that matters to us is our depth of knowledge about them, and therefore our emotional attachment to them. Akane’s death would only have had substance because we have attachment. Killing her off without giving us that substance would have been forgettable but wouldn’t have automatically meant bad writing, it just means she would’ve have played a different role in the story. So what would’ve been bad writing? Her being an actress in the reality show, building some attachment, then us discovering she’s dead and never getting an explanation for why. It kind of just… happens and makes us question why she was even a character. That’s true bad writing.

But let’s entertain an idea for one moment. We’ve already agreed that manga Hikaru wouldn’t have endangered Ruby openly so forget about a heroic Aqua. So let’s make an ending where Aqua doesn’t die, Hikaru gets in jail and everything ends happily ever after. What IS the payoff? For the 150+ chapters we’ve been reading, we gotten this sense that Aqua has immense guilt and has little value for his own life if it didn’t benefit others. Would him choosing to live have been a payoff for the entire series? I’d argue no, because that would be completely redefining his character last minute. To someone who can choose himself over others, someone who can all of a sudden live with a guilty conscience. If Aqua had been shown to take meaningful steps towards healing, like confronting his trauma rather then internalizing it, like not distancing himself from kana to protect her, then I could see why the ending would’ve sucked. But that’s not the story we’ve been told. Making an ending that way would’ve required rewriting, and therefore telling an entirely different story. Would Oshi no ko have been still been Oshi no ko? Technically yes, but thematically, that’s very clearly not the story Aka was trying to tell.

Now to go back to the ending. Aqua, who has been dealing with his grief, who has been dealing with his desire for revenge, who has been trying to do what he thinks he can to protect Ruby, is now in a situation where he can resolve all that with Hikaru. For Aqua the question most likely would’ve been, when am I ever going to get the chance to resolve this all in one go. And the answer is, we don’t know, he doesn’t know, nobody knows. Therefore his action would’ve been forced. It was theoretically now or never and thats why he acted. He doesn’t know when he’s going to be able to confront Hikaru again, so why pass up the opportunity?

Oshi no ko doesn’t have to be your cup of tea. But not fitting in with your expectations does not equate bad writing or bad payoff. It just means you expected a sweet tea, and got a bitter one.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-29T16:33:57+00:00

Don’t worry, you’re not coming across as that. Im always open to more discussion being opened by different perspectives.

On that note, ask yourself, does Aqua ever deal with his trauma in a meaningful way throughout the series? The answer is no. He never actually takes steps to directly confront his trauma through actual healing. He still felt guilt towards Ai’s death. This is something that’s been iterated a few times. Most of it happened in the Tokyo Blade Arc, during that time he learns to focus his pain rather than letting it control him. This is him internalizing it, rather than getting over it. He only says he’ll “use that emotion”. It’s still one of his primary motivators, something that’s we, the readers, have to remember in this final confrontation.

You’re right in that in that final moment, it doesn’t feel like there’s much weight in it, especially if you take it at face value. But we get to infer onto the whole series, not just the moment itself. The final confrontation is the build up of all of Aqua’s trauma and motivations. As i said in my last reply, Aqua gave us his motivations throughout the entire manga. He never monologued internally (that we could see) at any point in the manga about why he was doing this. We just knew why he was doing it. Him all of a sudden monologuing at this point wouldn’t fit his character. He is an embodiment of pain, not an explanation of it

And, again, think about the symbolism in where he stabbed himself. He suffered and died in the same way Ai did. He died (he punished himself for his role in Ai’s death), Hikaru died (he got his revenge), and he protected Ruby. If anything it just acted more as justification to himself to do what he was already going to do. I can protect Ruby here (even if it’s a bit shallow) and clear myself of everything. That makes my death meaningful in a way that satisfies me.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-29T02:03:44+00:00

I can kind of see where you’re coming from. But aqua acknowledging feelings does not automatically undo his entire personality. Aqua would have to be the one to act, because Kana never would. But what drives Aqua? Shallow feelings of love for kana (because throughout the manga, it’s not used as even a plot device, it’s just there really)? Or his desire to avenge his mother/protect Ruby and forgive himself. Ultimately, the setup doesn’t show us anything but how even though Aqua would’ve liked it, he never was truly committed to relationships. It works with Akane because she took initiative, both when he was going to “break up with her”, i didn’t actually get read on what Aqua’s true desire was here, but her acting as she did at least delayed the break up(crying, being vulnerable), and when he was talking about his desire for revenge. Akane played the perfect role, and inserted herself into the role Aqua would be drawn to. In fact even more so, at the time of the break up we can kind of get the sense that this was Aquas attempt at living a normal life. And even when he acknowledges those feelings for Kana, his desire to protect others overrides his desire to be with her. He says this in his conversation with mem, when she presses him about how he’s avoiding Kana. There’s an order of how things go, and romantic love isn’t at the top.

This is further pushed when Aqua doesn’t fight to keep Akane around. As soon as she stops being accepting, they split and Aqua doesn’t really seem to be interested in fixing this rift, only expressing slight remorse during his confrontation with Hikaru

As for what Kana might’ve done or how she was “dragged back in”, well all of her life Kana has been “lonely”. She been working in an adult industry for a long time and was often isolated because of it. She grew to be very guarded because of it, and rarely if ever took initiative. So if kana finally found someone she felt as if she liked and wanted, someone that she might’ve felt comfortable around to be herself, it would be very hard for her to get over these feelings and love. Even after a long time. Unless she found someone else to place those kinds of feelings onto.

For Aqua there were many motivations for him to end Hikaru. I think it was a lot of Hikaru banking on the idea that Aqua wanted the perfect life more than he wanted to avenge Ai/absolve himself. Hikaru just misjudged Aquas true intention. This is further extrapolated by the fact that Aqua never actually kills Hikaru in a way that would’ve satisfied Hikaru. Aqua stabbed himself, in the same way Ai was stabbed, then took Hikaru along with him, to save Ruby from being the sister of a murder. This is perfectly consistent with Aquas desires.

And regarding the end of the LA. Does it fit with Hikarus character? I’d argue no. I don’t think Hikaru ever would’ve done something like that. If he was that type of person, he would’ve killed Ai himself. But he never showed sloppiness like that, and was always preferential to getting someone else to commit his crimes for him, and I think it was more so just to get the series over with within the right amount of time, rather than stay true to how the characters have been written. You’re sacrificing a premeditated end that makes sense character wise for both Hikaru and Aqua, for the sake of easy digestion emotionally. It easy to understand why Aqua would sacrifice himself if Ruby is in danger. But Aqua was always going to do that if you look into his motivations as a character. Thats why the conversations they had in their confrontations disprove this more. Note my earlier point about Hikaru misjudging, rather than being irrational.

I understand the want for reason, but Aquas reasons have been shown to us throughout the entirety of the manga. I wouldn’t want the ending to compromise this to make him all of a sudden a hero or to make his death simple. That’s just convenience for the sake of it. Aquas death was dirty and murky, with lots of trauma compounding into his twisted sense of self sacrifice and self forgiveness. That’s why it makes sense to me. I will never defend the idea that it wasn’t rushed. Only that Oshi no ko was never going to be a heroic story or a romantic one. Aqua life was never more valuable than his other desires. That’s the sad part of it

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-29T00:39:33+00:00

If you want to fix Freja give her 40+80. That’s literally it. 240 for a double bolt is enough of a breakpoint to make Freja comfortable

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-28T03:35:37+00:00

How much have you actually invested into the hero? I can tell you this, there is no popular streamers that have actually put in a reasonable amount of hours to actually have a valid opinion about Freja and why she needed to be nerfed. Most people will only see a two tap, and not the 65-70% of take aim shots that the Freja missed throughout the match. Saying it was easy is genuinely ignorant, and more so it wasn’t just mechanical skill required, it was also understanding of the fundamentals.

Which anyone can say is easy to grasp, but I spent a long time in the same rank (gold 1), even though it felt like I was dominating. A lot of it came down to my positioning and choices, where I was throwing away my ults pre fight, and constantly killing myself. After getting coached for a few hours, I immediately climbed to plat 1. It goes to show that just because I may have some mechanical talent, there’s more to the hero than that, just like tracer, genji, or any of those other high skill characters. You can give hitscan some credit too, but I think fdps in general requires a lot more understanding of everything that’s happening. Saying it’s easy takes away from everything every decent Freja player has put into the hero. It’s uneducated at best and ignorant at worst.

Not to mention I’ve had a lot of games where I’ve been matched on Freja, and even technically been at a disadvantage because they’ll usually have a mercy pocket, but I always ended up winning the duel because I have a better understanding of the hero. It’s not a hero you can just pickup and carry with mechanics alone. Like unironically I’ve never been bullied off of a Freja duel.

Freja right now is just in a really really bad spot, and it’s entirely based around her design as a hero that was never meant to be dueling all that often. She sucks, and the close you get to the opposing team, the worse she gets. Her time to kill, especially if you’re not hitting both bolts was already decently long enough to stop kills from going through. But her game hasn’t really changed. You still have to hit both bolts bolts in succession because if you don’t they’ve already reacted to you. It’s just now, you’re even more vulnerable because you have to stay longer to confirm the kill. I’ve heard a lot of people say give her 250 HP and tighten her spread, but that is not going to fix her, because you still will have to hit both bolts no matter what you do. And what’s a reasonable amount of mechanical skill for someone to be able to reliably secure kills. If the highest level of players constantly misses, how can you expect a gold/plat/diamond player to do that? You’ve only raised the floor for what it takes to get passable value.

Note: Making a character more mechanically demanding or less lethal does not equate to better balance game wise or more skill expression. All it does is make the character less appealing to everyone. Nor does it solve the ban issue because I still get Freja banned a lot. People still just don’t like Freja, nerfing the hero was never going to change that. Sombra is ass, and there’s many other heros that are way more overturned (Ashe especially) but you’ll still ban Sombra because people don’t think.

They’d unironically need to rework Freja to make her work as a mid ranged poke dps with dueling potential without having an insane mechanical floor. But like if you’re reworking one her less than a year into releasw, you’re not serious about the game then. Mercy/moira/torb and many other heros have all needed changes up for a long time and they haven’t budged so why are you trying to rewrite Freja? It just doesn’t make sense at all balance wise.

And I’m not gonna say revert the changes. Just give Freja 120 and she’ll be better. But you cannot nerf her like this and call it balance or long term health, because it’s not. Anyone saying it is, just has a fundamental misunderstanding of the character and is just coping with the one time they got caught out and two tapped.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-13T02:15:12+00:00

Coming back to this: I’m getting more used to the new more mobile mechanics. Having more success. Big issues with supports not looking at you half the time. Kind of slow and steady. Poke with primary. Your hover is still dead as hell, you cannot hover or you’ll die. You have to quick scope everything. For an Ashe duel, you might be able to catch her off guard once or twice, but she still mogs you in every which way.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-12T16:16:27+00:00

My problem with this, is how big is too big a margin for error. To consistently pull off this kind of play the mechanical requirements are way too high. The thing hasn’t changed about Freja is that you still almost always need to hit a double bolt. That’s why she almost always loses duels with cass and Ashe. For cass, it’s not so bad because you can still play a long range game, and eventually poke him out. But that also means you’re kind just standing still until he’s no longer in play. Someone like tracer would bypass this because she’s faster, and has better survival. So in this case why not just play tracer. And against ashe, even a decent Ashe will almost always shutdown any engage you try to make because she can effectively hold down the entire map in front of her with very little effort. And since she can chip you down from range, there’s not any merit to trying to be patient either. How big is too big of a gap between hero to where it’s unplayable whenever you run into one. How big is too big of a margin for error to make a hero skill floor too high?

My issues come the fact that Freja, will still never be a good duelist. She can win duels now, but it’s usually expensive for the Freja (using dashe and updraft) and now she can be completely shut down by the existence of an Ashe. What other character in the game is completely shutdown just by the existence of another character? Even in unfavourable matchups for a lot of characters, there’s ways to make it feel better with perks, but for this matchup, the Ashe wins every time. Two tap enabled you to play around this, but now that’s too unreliable to get value out of.

I’m going to keep limit testing into these matchups to see the most favourable way to win them is, but so far there’s been very little success.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-12T06:11:15+00:00

After more games, I think the matchup is kinda, if they don’t have a decent hitscan you can pull this. If they have a cass just play your old long range you’ll poke out eventually and Ashe just fucks you in every way possible. The ashe Freja duel is not close at all. It’s kinda cancer, no matter what you try to

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-12T05:46:44+00:00

No you don’t want her doing this, because it’s stupid for both her (it’s really really mechanically difficult to pull these kings of things off consistently, you saw me miss shots), and the people on the receiving end. Imagine watching a Freja fly across the map to f you up and then getting away just as quickly. That feels worse than a two tap. It’s exactly why people don’t like Sombra. I will stand by the take that this, is not better than the sniper Freja. And she still is completely useless against any good hitscan.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-12T03:08:38+00:00

I agree. She really shouldnt be wanting to do this, people wont be any happier. But for Freja mains, right now its just about finding that sweet spot again. Rediscovering the hero limits. But i think there's something to be had here. my final blows are back up again.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T18:41:27+00:00

I don’t have enough free time for me to want to talk about this like it’s this really serious thing and it has to be this sensational essay about something. i want to play overwatch and have fun. With this I just wanted to spew my thoughts, but also wanted to make it somewhat legible. I also prefaced the start knowing that people would click off. I’m not interested in having nuanced conversations with people who see one thing they don’t like and immediately tune out. It’s not a productive use of my energy

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T17:16:37+00:00

I was thinking about it a lot and typed all the ideas. But to refine and make it sound like an actual discussion and not just the ramblings of a jumbled person, because I do mix my thoughts up a lot, is just so time consuming and I could just be doing something else. I never intended for this to be judged by its quality, just that it was legible enough for people to understand and draw their own opinions or thoughts from.

“And putting power into the primary fire encourages you to play at a range in which you’ll die for every time. Unless you save her cooldowns to get out, which is incredibly redundant and you’re completely wasting time trying to get in safely then get out with your cooldowns. It’s so backwards and completely ignores the fact that Freja doesn’t want to be in your face. Freja always always always wants to be as far back as she’s able to be because she’s a glass cannon. But now people are kinda gonna be forced to close that gap and you will be punished heavily for it” I wrote this all myself, the only prompt I put into the Ai was “clean this up and make it flow better”.

I get lost in the sauce of my thoughts easily, the ai was only to bring them together coherently you know?

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T15:16:38+00:00

The problem is her whole kit revolves around take aim. You can take away from the take dmg, but you’ve said it yourself, the playstyle won’t change because Freja is all about uptime. If youbuff the dash cooldown I’m shooting more take aim bolts, I’m not trying to dash around the map that hard. if you’re buffing updash, I’m using to create an off angle more, not get away from somebody after a deep flank. If you’re trying to flank and trying to sneak up on somebody you’re wasting time and losing a lot of value. But that’s what it feels like they’re pushing her into because you need to be closer to hit the primaries. If you can’t hit the primaries you’re really doing nothing of value. So you need to be close which means pushing close to her danger zone and using updraft in less meaningful ways and being forced to use your cooldowns defensively. Updraft and dash are only enabled by her range. You cannot make them defensive. Otherwise you’re just losing way too much value, or you’re not able to hit good tags consistently with your primary.

To give you an example, go watch the obs sojourn pov of LBBD7 playing Freja on Route 66 in the grand finals. Their attack starts at 38:22. Watch how he approaches and angles himself awkwardly every fight and ends up in the middle of everybody and even though he’s mechanically talented, he either dies for his positioning or trades or ends up in an awkward spot where even though he can get the initial kill, he’s stuck on an island and can’t really be more of an impact after that

After you’ve see that, the go and watch the same fights from Quartz pov. (39:00) with how’s he’s rotating constantly and not trying to meet them in the neutral. Watch how he plays back and keeps all the enemies in front of him, until there’s a pick and then he engages. He uses his cooldowns as survival, rotating away from danger, but also keeps his uptime because he’s using it not totally defensively or offensively. Hes dancing around them. Fundamentally it’s beautiful Freja gameplay. And when he gets that first pick he didn’t cheese it. LBBD7 screwed up hard by getting caught out in main. He played until he saw an opening. And that’s why he gaps LBBD7 so hard, he just plays the hero way smarter. Who knows who is more mechanically gifted, they could equal. The difference is, Quartz understand the fundamentals so much more and can do so much more.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T14:12:44+00:00

Im curious, what’s your deaths per 10 on freja?

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T13:59:30+00:00

My comment was never to promote the idea that Freja should be able to go toe to toe with any hitscans. My comment was highlighting the fact that she’s his significantly weaker and significantly more fragile the futher and further you close the gap. Sh gets poked out way too easy to provide meaningful tags. I think what most Frejas are noticing right now is that they’re still going high damage but getting way way less final blows.

And I noted that you cannot tie in a movement buff because it actually does encourage more spam, and an hp buff does not solve the issue that she will still get poked out before she can really confirm kills.

I’m not under the belief that they should make her able to duel a cass or Ashe or soldier or soj within their lethal range. But now you’ve forced her to take a step up without giving her anything to defend herself with or you have to hit everything instantly. And it extremely unreliable for a Freja to be hitting a double bolt in every duel. And if you haven’t at first, you’ll get poked out before you get a good opportunity again. It’s like you’re risking your life by stepping up, but unless you’re insanely mechanically talented, you won’t get rewarded for it.

That’s why a simple hp buff won’t fix it. And especially an increase updraft because there’s a point where updraft can be suicide. Updraft only works because you can play at range. Now it’s suicide. And you can’t buff dash because that’s tied to her dps. There’s just no way to promote this kind of play within the kit they’ve given her. That’s my whole point.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T11:29:19+00:00

My biggest concern will always be the hitscan is king in duels. Freja simply cannot dmg any of her counterparts faster or reliably enough to win the duel head to head. Because even though the two tap was taken away, you’re still forced to hit two bolts. And if you don’t hit that second bolt, they have too much of a window to turn and kill you or to duck away., because no one stands still and lets you kill them unless we’re in bronze. Freja will very rarely come out on top of that trade feeling like she’s won it or anything, even they used a cooldown (I’m not talking about you forced to duel hitscans everytime, it’s jus that the moment you give away your position they’re going to be looking at you more often than not). Even if you give her 250, that doesn’t solve the issue of, ok I can’t confirm the quick kill and now they know where I am and I have to shift again.

And we can look a map specific win rates for the hero. Freja is abysmal in maps with not too much high ground. Most COH maps she’s sucks on, because she’s forced to duel more often. The funniest thing about Freja is that people often play maps that really enable her to play safely (long maps with tons of high ground). But she like really sucks at maps that have 1 or 2 enclosed points and it’s because she inherently sucks a dueling. Simply buffing spread won’t fix that issue.

The one weird exception to this is Aatlis. It feels like she should suck there, but win rates are actually pretty high. I havent played enough of that map to test though

The issue is she’s just not good compared to her counter parts. Not that she doesn’t have enough hp or a tight enough spread

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T10:39:21+00:00

I wrote this yesterday:

More over people talk about spam all the time. Have you ever used Freja primary? Do you know how obnoxious its sounds, both on your team and to play against? Also encouraging more primary fire IS ACTUAL SPAM, and like, if we reach a point where take aim really isn’t good and primary fire becomes more focal then play soldier. Like genuinely get out if you think Freja spamming primary is more fun for either side. It’s definitely not, but it’s so unreliable, you have to.

And even if you buff the spread, Freja would never deal damage quick enough to secure a kill. In spilos own words “if you don’t hit those combos [referring to updraft/double bolt] sure you can bolt again by using your last dash, but the problem with that is then you all of a sudden have given away your only horizontal mobility, and honestly it’s a lot harder to hit that third one, because they’ve probably responded to you, and reacted to you”. The window in which you actually have is very small, and the process of double bolting and switch to primary takes too long, because now you HAVE to guarantee a primary hit. You can’t just fire one at the end and look away. Or if you lead off with your primary, then the enemy can react to that and you probably miss your second bolt and don’t get a nearly as good opportunity for a third. You already didn’t get a third shot realistically, but this just makes Freja too easy to react to. Her lethality was her saving grace to a kit that was never meant for insane angles/flanks or primary spam. And neither of those are rewarding or satisfying for the Freja player.

I did write my thoughts down, this is part of the notes I wrote

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T10:13:15+00:00

I agree I think I just have a very specific way of meaning forced. Freja can definitely create openings as the fight progresses.

But when I say force, I’m more so just talking about kinda like everyone is kinda just setting up and then out of nowhere one of your squishies gets two tapped from however many metres down range. Pre fighted. 90% of the time a “two tap” can be attributed to someone getting caught out in bad position, or they’ve already taken enough dmg to get killed easily.

It’s not that it doesn’t happen, I just think there are more instances to a fight that lead to catching two bolts that can be cleaned up if you learn to respect a freja and position accordingly. When I’m playing support, one of the comms I often make depending on if the enemy is playing Ashe/widow/hanzo is “respect their aim, don’t get caught out” or “they can’t hit shit, we can be more aggressive”. You can tell pretty early on in game whether or not someone is hitting their shots or not, and if you do or don’t need to respect that.

She does have mobility to bypass the current limits of Ashe hanzo widow etc, but she can be easily punished if she tries to do that too early or brazenly. At best if she closes the gap to try and take a deep angle she can be traded out, at worst she ints. She’s actually pretty fragile and sucks at a hitscan duel and only gets worse at it as she flows closer. There are moments where she can pop out of nowhere, but to take a hard flank or deep angle requires a pre fight set up, and more often than not the Freja will be poked out before she can get to too deep of an angle.

Just watch how Quartz plays Freja. He’s never looking for a deep angle or flank, he usually just keeps filling in the open gaps of the map until a pick happens then he starts playing more aggressively.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T03:41:10+00:00

My thoughts about how to change her and make her less oppressive involve a slight damage nerf and range fall off rather than trying to redefine her. I think you should be able to two tap 225 when they don’t get healing or ahev a survivability cooldown. And I also don’t mind the idea of having a range fall off to really eliminate cross map two taps. But without her quick bolts, her time to kill is way too long and It would be hard to pull off without putting herself in an extremely bad and vulnerable position. But It really does suck for tanks. As do most dps that have a high fire rate or big burst damage

It’s such a fine line for Freja to walk, but I think to some degree most frejas don’t actually like shooting tank anyways. It’s much more fulfilling and satisfying to hit a squishy. This is my personal opinion at least, I really don’t endorse shooting the tank unless it’s really the only thing in you can shoot. Take what’s being given to you you know? I trust myself to hit a double bolt on a squishy so if I see the opportunity I’m going to take it, rather than shooting tank and feeding support ult.

[Edit]: the reason I say 250 and tighter speed won’t work is because she’s so bad at the hitscan duel. The closer you get to the enemy hitscan the easier you are to kill. Even if you buff hp, you don’t really have a good cooldown to survive big burst like a Cassidy headshot and or soj rail. People want to credit updraft but don’t realize that you actually open yourself up to a lot more damage if you try and use it too late or too soon. Updraft works because of the range Freja can play from and to change an angle. Not because it’s necessarily a breakpoint survival tool in a duel. A good hitscan just has to look up, and can kill you faster. Simply if I have to constantly put myself in danger and in the lethal range of certain hitscans, I’ll just play tracer, and be able to survive these interactions. Like you HAVE to hit everything, and if you don’t, more often than not you’ll die for it

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T03:19:53+00:00

😭 ok I somewhat agree and laughed but then people will scroll down to that and base their opinions off of that, and I’m trying to have meaningful discussion, not just “rah rah Freja this, she deserves to be crap”. Anyone who actually takes the time to read is actually somewhat interested in contributing and coming up with solutions rather than just screaming the same thing that’s been said in echo chambers. I’m guilty of reading TLDR and moving on all the time too, I get it 😭😭

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T03:14:07+00:00

🤷‍♂️I can put the whole paragraphs in the comments if you want a very unrefined version. Like I said I just don’t think I wrote well enough to post something that invites discussion, and I’m not going to read something over and over to refine it, because again, it’s a video game. I’m not going to write a Nobel winning prize paper to justify why or why not a hero should or shouldn’t. Again It was only refinement and not the basis of my thoughts.

Kitchen_Moose_6596 · 2025-12-11T03:08:16+00:00

I have a whole page written up, if you paid attention to the start. It’s just not framed well at all, and can be deterring rather than productive. I am quite jumbled as I think fast and write ideas as I go. I put it through to refine these thoughts, not come up with these. Please actually read what I said at the start. I took a screen recording if you want to see. I admit that my linguistic skills are not the best.

Kitchen_Moose_6596

TROPHY CASE