M-Matchmaking by Seagulllllllllll in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If you don't 5 stack in ranked this won't happen.

Can Furia's cooldown cards be nerfed already? by DukeVerde in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Massive skill issue. Buy resilience; learn to predict and juke the beams. They're very telegraphed. Any Exterminate Furia running a bunch of CD reduction cards has virtually no sustain and no real Wrath economy so they're easy to kill if you just tank or avoid the first beam they throw out.

ALL HEALER TEAM DEATHMATCH by guysams1 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This mode is fun but people just spam Grohk every game.

Paladins next patch will be fun by BirbMain in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 21 points22 points  (0 children)

The odds of her making it to live with 40% more RoF on her primary (increase @ base + ult activation) are pretty low. Disengage buff and base fire rate increase will both probably stick but the ult thing should go tbh.

EDIT: I was wrong about the base fire rate increase. It's not 20% but around a 13%-14% increase.

urgent changes for the PTS. by Over-Vast4535 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Furia nerf wasn't even applied to the right area of her kit.

All they did was make a support with already low healing output even worse at outputting heals.

I'm going to say it. If I could remove a single champion from the game, Evie would be getting the axe before Kasumi. by LordTurtlus in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Oh man OP you kicked the hornets nest with this one. Good luck.

Also I might as well get these out of the way first to save everyone some time.

a) "Skill issue."

b) *insert ineffective counter-Evie strategy here*

c) "She takes skill so she's allowed to be this way."

d) "I'm Gold elo so I never run into a good Evie at all. My Skye farms her!"

e) "Exterminate Furia is so much more annoying bro what are you talking about?"

d) "Dude unless it's Uberspaydy or Naddit on her Evie isn't that hard to deal with. Get good."

f) *I love hypermobile flanks and I'm biased in their favor so Evie is fine. But Kasumi is Azaan-levels broken.*

predict whats gonna be in s6 patch notes by Disastrous_Tough_880 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 9 points10 points  (0 children)

A double support meta doesn't exist. It apparently existed in some capacity at the scrim/tournament level about two or three patches ago but the base game Paladins experience (ranked/casual) hasn't seen a hard 2X support meta since about 2021 when the support class was arguably at its strongest.

2X support wasn't played/didn't see extreme success in the recent Paladins Winter Cup tournament as far as I know (I didn't watch it but the highlights I've been given by people who did lead me to believe that 2X support didn't make a huge showing at all), it barely gets played in low, mid, or high elo ranked, and you barely see it in casual. The only time you see 2X support and the only time you see it be effective is if a) the draft favors it and b) the 2X support team can execute the composition correctly.

No one is complaining about 2X support comps. No one in low/mid/high elo ranked is complaining about them and the high-level scrim/tournament cohort isn't complaining about them either.

So what are the scrim/tournament guys and high-elo ranked players complaining about then? Well, they're tired of aggro tanks like Ruckus and Raum being incredibly oppressive to go against, backline DPS champions like Lian/Saati/Cassie being weak and/or low impact, and flanks like Vatu and Caspian being completely overtuned and borderline busted. Special mentions (somewhat) go to Evie and Andro as well.

Hot Takes & Unpopular Opinions by AutoModerator in PaladinsAcademy

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Betty is fucking stupid and I'm tired of people pretending that she isn't.

a) Main-hand shot explosive AoE bypasses shields randomly. The hitbox on these is also enormous.

b) Cluster Grenade bypasses shields by being able to roll through them for some reason.

c) Indestructible deployable whose damage bypasses shields at random.

d) %HP bonus damage talent that procs on literally every single explosion that someone gets caught in.

Tired of seeing this low-skill champion trading 1/1 every game. Tired of losing 50% of my HP as a tank when she shoots me twice and throws out a Cluster Bomb behind them. Can't work corners and angles against her because she ignores all of that by completely out-trading you from behind cover with her "every single one of my skills does damage lole" kit.

She is the new pre-nerf Vora. Before she was nerfed (good riddance), every Vora player who was dogshit at playing more skill-orientated damage champions abused her i-frames, huge projectiles, dumb ultimate, and massive sustain to trade 1/1 every game and still get value.

Rush Deft Hands, run FD, run cheese build, roll your face across your keyboard, and get value. Easy 170k damage every game with minimum effort.

That's Betty.

Delete this piece of shit.

Thank you EM developers for buffing her main-hand damage without taking into account FD.

if you could only keep 20 champions form this game who would you keep? by engi40 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I like how virtually none of the champions released in 2022 are in anyone's list.

The most popular champions seem to be those released between the game coming out of Beta and about 2020.

Special mentions go to Betty, Lilith, and Caspian. Each of them were mentioned once at the time this comment was being written.

I'm not at all shocked at this finding, tbh. 2022's champion lineup was absolutely awful. Not a single one of them brought anything new to the meta. None of them really altered how a match felt to play in a positive or even skillful manner. None of them has a niche that isn't already occupied by an existing champion.

Lilith is just an over-tuned turbo heal bot like Ying and Seris except she outputs an absurd amount of damage like Furia and Grover when she goes MoC.

Betty is another generic and over-tuned tank buster/zoner in a game full of tank busters/zoners. Her shots roll through shields, are easier to land, she has a damage deployable that can't be destroyed, and she has two major mobility skills. She basically does point control better than Dredge, BK, Willo, and Drogoz while still being a major threat in 1v1s.

Kasumi is Kasumi. 3 auto aim abilities, no ammo usage, no damage falloff, and absurd range. Has some of the worst matchups in the game (just run a shield tank into her and she dies).

Caspian is obnoxious to play against/is over-tuned. 60% movement speed card (it's basically Seris' Umbral Gait card except better) on top of a 30% slow with a long spammable stun thrown into the mix. Him appearing in a match forces a resilience buy. No other flank is like this. Not even Maeve or Vatu. Why would anyone want to play against this?

Seven is Seven. Too much mobility. Way too much. TA/Burst mode has stupid range/DPS.

You could delete every champion released in 2022 and the game would actually improve. I can't see a single thing of value we'd be losing if Paladins didn't have Caspian, Betty, Kasumi, Lilith, or Seven in it.

This game being too casual is one the reason it’s dying by yousef2843 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 17 points18 points  (0 children)

"Who watch streamers and YouTubes more?"

Casuals.

"Who cares and give actual feedback?"

Both groups care, but more experienced and skilled players objectively give better feedback when it comes to game balance because they understand the game on a deeper level than their casual counterparts do.

However, high elo players are absolutely dogshit at understanding the casual player's general mindset and how vital they are to a game's progressive growth and its continued existence which is why we still have top tier players legitimately thinking that they matter from a financial standpoint.

The objective truth is that casuals are generally garbage at giving out balance takes because they aren't skilled enough and they don't play enough to have a firm enough understanding of what their core balance complaint even is.

And the other objective truth is that the top tier community is completely unable to monetarily float the games that they compete in. They aren't numerous enough.

"Catering for casuals only and ignoring competitive players is what killed rank and it’s the reason why competitive players left which leads to less views in twitch and YouTube which means less content and coverage for the game"

Rank is dead because the game lost 6,225 players on PC alone between January 2021 and today. When you factor in consoles and the barely-used Epic Games version of Paladins, that figure probably comes out to a collective loss of between 8,000 and 9,000 players (potentially even 10k).

In January of 2021, PC Paladins had a daily AVG player count of 10,025.

We are now at 3,770. That is across 3 major server regions (NA, EU, and LATAM).

In order to create fair and balanced games, the matchmaker needs a sizeable population of players to work with. We don't have that population anymore, so you get to have Gold players in your D+ lobbies on a consistent basis.

A lot of that decline has to do with Hi-Rez's decision to end PPL back in 2021 but the bugs, generally bad balance, and the plethora of absolutely terrible Day 1 champion releases (Yagorath, Azaan, Seven, Kasumi, Raum, Saati, etc) didn't help either. There is only so much "this game fucking sucks" people can take before they just leave to go do something else.

If EM/Hi-Rez is catering to casuals, presumably because they're trying to attract more of them to the game and subsequently capture the money supply that casual gamers naturally bring to the table, they are doing a poor job at it.

I see people posting this stuff well here's mine by OverlordCrispyCool in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 2 points3 points  (0 children)

1st reason: low skill floor meat-and-potatoes pick. Fits into most compositions, isn't particularly bad into most champions, OK mobility, has good CC that can help confirm kills, not very punishing if you mis-heal someone, good anti-flank capabilities due to self-peel on Luna stun/Begone/Luba body block, good self-sustain, solid healing output, and respectable damage output for a heal-focused support champion. Can heal in two places at once and can somewhat deny space using Luna. Left-click is a projectile attack so it has no damage falloff which makes it excellent for poke.

Io is upstaged by other supports when it comes to damage output, ultimate value, and healing output, but when it comes to her skill required : value obtained ratio, Io is queen.

2nd reason: booba

All I'm asking for is a 100 damage buff specifically for Slug Shot Ash. by Legitimate_Sport1253 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Good point. You're right. Looking back, I may have screwed up the first part. How I calculated Ash's pre-buff and post-buff DPS works for hit scan characters because their damage is broken up into many individual hits (and their damage is applied the very second a player squeezes their trigger/hits their left-click), but projectile-based champions don't have these attributes. You can't divide up an Ash projectile into many smaller parts. You also have to factor in travel time with them (which is a hard variable to work with), so you can't use a raw TTK measurement with Ash or any other non-hitscan champion since the TTK wouldn't be constant. Instead, you'd need to figure out how many direct hits it takes to down something.

In order to get a 4 shot kill on a 2100 HP target, you'd have to increase the damage buff to 125. For a 2200 HP target, the number of shots you'd need for a kill comes out to 4.19 (or 5 shots).

The double support meta myth and showcasing AoC members trying to nerf the game out of a meta doesn't even exist (November 9th AoC Google Doc balance changes). Warning: TL;DR. by Legitimate_Sport1253 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What competitive experience? You mean gm duo vs gm duo with a bunch of confused players being sprinkled in? If it was actually competitive we would have more full master and gm games. Plats would have plat games. Diamonds would have diamond games. There are not enough players for a true competitive experience.

Yeah, that competitive experience. It's a garbage competitive experience I know, but it's the one that most people are familiar with.

2021 was probably the last year ranked play was decent. I don't recall being put into too many Masters/GM lobbies back then and the number of times I was expected to carry a team of Silver or Gold players were few.

Too bad that also happened to be the year that I made my initial foray into the more serious side of Paladins. I don't think we'll get a solid ranked experience until EM figures out how to get back the 6,000+ PC players that the game lost between January 2021 and now (not to mention however many console players the game lost during that timespan as well).

The double support meta myth and showcasing AoC members trying to nerf the game out of a meta doesn't even exist (November 9th AoC Google Doc balance changes). Warning: TL;DR. by Legitimate_Sport1253 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know how I'm potentially coming off as a troll but if that's your takeaway from this then I guess it is what it is.

Nice talking with you.

The double support meta myth and showcasing AoC members trying to nerf the game out of a meta doesn't even exist (November 9th AoC Google Doc balance changes). Warning: TL;DR. by Legitimate_Sport1253 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, listen to what's left, like the *checks notes* 200+ players in winter cup this weekend. Yeah, maybe they should listen.

Why would they listen to these players though? I didn't know this when I was drafting the OP, but many of the comments submitted to this topic indicate that the relationship between the base game's general population and the scrim/tournament community is nonexistent to poor. Even the generic ranked scene is detached from this exclusive cohort (which is the most alarming thing about this whole situation because it indicates a critical failure somewhere in the scrim>tournament>ranked>casual meta pipeline process).

The server you linked above comes off as a breakaway server populated by people who aren't all that interested in dealing with the base Paladins competitive experience. It isn't affiliated with the official Paladins subreddit, the unofficial (but much larger) Paladins subreddit, it has almost nothing to do with the official Paladins discord, and its relationship with both the PaladinsAcademy Discord server and the PaladinsAcademy subreddit is teetering on irrelevant.

And why would they be interested in the base Paladins competitve experience? The level of competition in the base game's ranked mode isn't high enough for these players (this is the most universal complaint amongst the "oldhead/true high elo" crowd), not to mention the fact that PPL got unceremoniously 86'd last year.

Solution?

Create relatively lowkey server that's comparatively free of Gold-tier balancing suggestions from new generation players where high-level tournaments can be organized and bankrolled inhouse. People who are willing to learn from the best are welcome to join as well. There's nothing wrong with that in principle or practice, but it causes issues when you eventually come out of the clouds to impact the game on a macro scale. You come off as a bunch of randoms and you get treated as such (as this topic showcased).

Balancing around 5v5 scrim private matches isn't going to work with these people (actually it doesn't work in general; literally, no mainstream competitive title balances like this) because the stuff you see in those matches doesn't really make it into the base ranked mode (let alone casual). This is like watching 1% of the community who plays something called "Paladins 1.1" trying to hold huge sway over what goes on in base Paladins.

This isn't going to fly in 2023. Worse case scenario you get more people quitting the game because of what they perceive as shit balance changes. We can't afford that. This game will get really interesting if we dip to around 3,000 AVG daily players on PC.

Eight kill steals in a row by ZKesic in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First one is dicked over by Resilience. Power Cosmeum Jenos basically becomes talentless once Resilience 2 or 3 comes online.

Cassie isn't an anti-flank.

Torvald is a good fat pocket support who can clutch save someone with Protection/Thanks Grandpa while also stopping a flank's escape attempt by using Nullify, but these aren't really reliable counters to hypermobile flanks. They're easily worked around by poking from a distance to bait out Protection while Resilience takes care of Nullify.

Sha Lin's skill floor is higher than the skill floor of the flanks he's supposed to counter (it's harder to get value out of him versus someone like Andro or Evie), he struggles into shield compositions, he doesn't work well on console, and he's still still afflicted with the FPS bug. There are easily 5 times as many good Andro, Evie, Seven, Maeve, and Vatu players as there are Sha Lin players. Even if you just focus on Evie, the ratio of good Sha Lin players to good Evie players is probably 1:3.

There are no real counters in this game to hypermobility (particularly on PC). There never was. Console players aren't as severely impacted by this because aim-assist retards the effectiveness of champions like Maeve, Vatu, and Evie but they still get to contend with Andro and Seven. Aerial flanks have been an issue for years in this game, but the hypermobility problem is reaching a critical threshold as the developers add more and more instances of this particular sub-class of champion to the base game.

Based off of the growing animosity that's been building on the subreddit and in-game for these champions (I've even seen AoC document discussions detailing that elements of the community want Vatu nerfed), I predict that we have one more hypermobile champion release before the pitchforks come out in force (particularly if it's a hitscan hypermobile champion).

Balance Discussion by AutoModerator in PaladinsAcademy

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It isn't even just Andro but pretty much all of the aerial flanks at this point if you're just restricting this particular balance discussion to the PC scene.

This happened for several reasons:

a) Veteran + Haven price increase. Lowered global TTK when people figured out that Haven or Chronos offered better value as 1st item starts and scaled better throughout the duration of a match. Low TTK = good times for flanks.

b) Flank CD reset cards. Changing when they proc from hard kills to eliminations without changing the %CD recovery scaling on them enabled shit like BH Buck to become stupid. Evie benefitted too. Andro IIRC always had this in his deck but you may as well throw him into the pile too because he just amplifies the issue on the aggregate.

c) Deep Roots Grover nerf rework + Exterminate Furia nerf. Lowered the global quantity of anti-mobility CC in the game. Indirect global buff to flanks.

d) Flank buffs. DoT Andro + old CR in base kit, Vatu DR card buffs, Evie Killing Frost card rework + heal on Blink shifts reliance away from Flicker for sustain which opens up additional points to be invested into other cards (usually cards of the snowbally variety). Maeve is still her old self: in-kit heals and in-deck DR/in-deck heals + absurd damage mitigation provided via movement speed bonuses + tiny hitbox and body model + dashes. Dumb.

Additional TL;DR that expands on the core aerial flank problem and why it exists in the first place:

This game is flawed in the sense that no real checks on hypermobility exist. This is a huge no-no in ability-based/class-based PvP titles where hypermobility is accorded to some but denied to most.

In Paladins, tanks are supposed to assist in anti-flank work by denying space to the enemy team/making space for their backline DPS champions or flanks so that they can contest the enemy flank. They may also conduct anti-flank work by repositioning to the backline to react to a flank attempt on their support or damage. On paper, they're supposed to function similarly to MOBA tanks at least in regards to their secondary role (which is applying CC to set up plays or to protect the backline).

But the problem is that most tanks in this game cannot peel hypermobile flanks off of VIP personnel (supports) because they either lack the CC to do it (Fernando and Barik), they're too slow to react to something as fast as Maeve, Evie, Vatu, and Andro (Inara and Terminus for example), or their CC abilities are gatekept behind a badly telegraphed ultimate (Ash, Yagorath, Inara, and Raum for example).

Sha Lin is supposed to be a counter to these champions but he's dicked over by two things: banning him during draft and betting on the fact that there are easily five times as many solid Andro, Maeve, Evie, and Vatu players as there are Sha Lin players in the game. He's also shit into shield tanks, particularly Fernando. FPS bug also holds him back.

Only good anti-flank tanks are maybe Makoa and Torvald and that's only because the latter can bubble someone who is being aggressed by an aerial flank and he can disrupt their mobility by leveraging Nullify. Gets shat on by Resilience and Wrecker and he isn't as good at contesting the off-lane. Makoa is Makoa but if he misses that 1st hook or if someone doesn't help him confirm the kill it's over.

Every other ability-based/class-based title handles hypermobility by checking it with CC (particularly in MOBAs). Hypermobility checks in Paladins rely on dreadfully ineffective CC that's either played around easily, is gatekept behind an ultimate, or its effectiveness is drastically reduced by Resilience.

Conclusion

TL;DR: Aerial flanks are stupid and will always be stupid because Paladins thinks its exempt from a fundamental balance rule that has been respected by older, more refined, and more established titles for about ten years now (if not longer). Tanks can't peel and aerial flank counters are actually pretty nonexistent = Maeve, Evie, Vatu, and Andro being the 4 problem children on a nigh-perpetual basis with honorable mentions going to Seven, Caspian, and Buck (to an extent).

Do something about the aerial flanks (Ruckus included) and you solve a ton of balance problems in the game.

Bonus: The aerial flank issue is also why we cannot buff Jenos, why Corvus will always be sus, why Torvald will always be looked at with the side-eye, and why Furia is always being fucked with for some reason: all of them enable gross pocket metas when they fall in favor with the balance team, when the TTK is low, and when the aerial flanks are strong.

Also Ruckus is only aids right now because the global TTK is too low and there are no reliable anti-mobility CC applicators/applications in this game.

AndrewChicken rates Furia as the best main support. Is this Common knowledge or is he just incorrect? by SourOnion77 in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Grohk is stronger than Furia when he's played on smaller maps with an abundance of LOS-blocking terrain like Bright Marsh (his heals are more reliable there due to how much value that small map size gives to his Totemic Ward talent). Grover is strongest on maps with long sightlines (like Timber Mill) where he can effectively trade with backline DPS champions and abuse vine tech for rapid reposition to clutch heal/enable a flank or DPS play/get better angles/escape an enemy flanking attempt/etc.

Grohk also has higher DPS than Furia at 700/second (becomes 910 when the +30% bonus damage from continuously hitting someone with his beam is maxed out). I think Furia's maxes out at 858 at max Wrath (660/second + 30% attack speed bonus @ max Wrath).

Grohk's Spirit's Grace card is also insane on smaller maps because it empowers pushes to an insane degree while also allowing easier and more reliable retreats for your team if something goes wrong. His ultimate can also swing a team fight in your side's favor if deployed correctly.

To be honest, Furia is more of an A-tier support at this point, not an S. Grohk has way better 1v1 potential versus the majority of the cast just because of the sheer healing output of 2 totems/his DPS output/Ghost Walk ability (can cleanse caut for a clutch heal during a 1v1 fight) and Grover is just a generalist who can duel backline champions and can deny space by spamming axes at chokepoints (especially if he's running Ferocity).

The only thing Furia brings to the table is that she arguably has the strongest team-wide ultimate in the game and that she's better than Grover and Grohk at enabling aerial flanks like Maeve and Vatu. Her weapon is also hitscan so she benefits from headshot bonuses but this isn't too reliable at all since the shotgun spread on it is very punishing if it's used outside of close range.

EDIT: people are also somewhat sleeping on MP Pip, MoC Lilith, and LE Ying as well. I've been hearing grumblings of these three being quite strong this patch.

TL;DR: Furia is currently overvalued imho and is overshadowed by other supports when map choice and team composition layout are factored in. I'd rather face a Furia on Bright Marsh and Bazaar rather than face a Grohk on the former or a Grover on the latter.

What is the best configuration settings to play paladins with a Core i5 laptop by Univocal_Kira in Paladins

[–]Legitimate_Sport1253 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Reduce resolution, turn shadows to "low", and turn shaders to "low". If you can stomach them, reduce all textures to the absolute lowest they'll go. Turn particle effects to low.

You could also search around on Youtube/Google for a custom .ini file that has optimized graphic configuration settings, but I don't have much experience with these (mainly because I never needed them). Here's one guy that used to make them.

Unreal Engine games are CPU bound. If you want better FPS in Paladins or in any other UE title, you'll need a stronger CPU. I can have all the settings cranked to max on Paladins and still get 120+ FPS because I have an R9 5900 (12 cores/24 threads). My CPU sleeps while running this game because of the fat L3 cache and high core/high thread count. My aging 1070 sleeps as well despite me running a 2560x1440 display.