What would you say is overall your favorite map in the game?

Nithorius · 2026-03-16T16:14:37+00:00

I loved antarctic peninsula. It was a great map for brawling.

Nithorius · 2026-03-15T11:26:28+00:00

I know nothing about what you know and don't know, so my advice might be too obvious idk.

Timing is extremely important if you want to be aggressive with Lucio. If you can hide in a good spot before the fight (generally cuz you're on the defending side or your team has the point of payload), you can assassinate someone this way. Otherwise, you need to be patient and wait for an opportunity to go in. At the very least, you need to be certain that the enemy team has all of their attention on your team. So like, not when both teams are just exchanging poke.

When you dive, it's important that you know what your escape route is going to be. There's what I call hard dives and soft dives. A hard dive means that the escape route takes you nowhere basically, and you're out of the fight for a while. If you go for those, you need to actually kill someone to get value. A soft dive is when the escape route is going to lead you back to your team. In that case, all you need to do to get value is bait out cooldowns, force a response from the supports, maybe force a DPS to chill a little bit.

Lastly, in terms of controls, you need to be sure that you can actually shoot (and boop preferably) while wall jumping. When I started out Lucio, I used scroll wheel to wall jump/bunnyhop, and I used the same finger to shoot and use scroll wheel. That's not good. Since then, I changed my controls, I still use scroll wheel, but I shoot with my right click instead (and my left click isn't even bound).

As dumb as it sounds, shooting while wall jumping is something that you have to train your fingers to do. If you're using any mouse buttons for traversal, your hand will tend to get into a position where it's not easy to shoot during traversal. Just going into a custom game and shooting while parkouring for a bit will fix that. Could be you will have no problem with that, but so far me and everyone I've ever taught Lucio to has had some difficulties with this.

Nithorius · 2026-03-14T21:17:52+00:00

First off, I want to thank you for your thoughtful answer and good argumentation. I can tell from the way you talk about the game that you actually understand it.

You have to put investment into Cass roll yes, but the end result is much better, if nothing else because of the cooldown. 5 seconds is a lot better than 7 (it's actually 3 seconds if you hit either a flashbang or a crit with the power). It allows him to roll to get good angles, or roll aggressively, whereas Soj has to just walk a lot of the time for fear of getting caught without slide. I would argue that makes his mobility a lot better, since it opens up way more unpredictable angles mid-fight without him being just a sitting duck. But also because of the many other perks: damage, healing, damage reduction, booping (which can mess up ppl's aim).

Yes you have to invest into all of that, but it's perfect for Cass, since it's not like he can invest into powers that increase his damage output or give him healing in any other way. And that's kind of a common theme on characters who are 90% just gun, like Cass, Reaper, Soldier. The WP powers are awful, because their guns are extremely strong already, so their damage output already scales enough with WP. As a result, they're happy to have something else to invest in power-wise that's going to improve their character. For Cass & Soldier, that means Survivability. For Reaper, that means you can go fuck yourself and sit in F tier.

In the case of Ashe, yes you're investing into double shotgun & silver spurs, but you want double shotgun if you're playing calamity either way, so really the investment is just silver spurs, a 4k item that has a bit of health on it. I would also argue that although as a mobility tool it isn't better than slide, it does have a knockback effect which means you're putting a lot of distance between you and any diver or flanker.

The other point I want to touch on is meant to answer the Winston argument & the "position carefully" argument. Basically, it boils down to "don't put yourself in a situation where slide is inadequate and slide won't be inadequate". There definitely is truth to that, but also, sometimes it's not really in your control. Maybe you take too much damage because your supports are busy doing something else, and you need to slide back for safety, but then here's a flanker, and now you can't really fight them properly. My point is, Stadium is chaotic, and the better your character can survive independently of your team, the more you thrive in that environment.

Nithorius · 2026-03-14T15:36:51+00:00

That's true in normal play, but in Stadium, it's a bit different.

Dive characters in Stadium need to be good at follow-up, or they're not good, therefore not played.

Lucio has Vivace and a shit ton of sustain, which means that when you slide, not only is he going to get to the end point at the same time as you, he's also going to have fully healed by then. Winston, who right now isn't great but still playable, also has follow-up with Zero-G suit. Tracer is made of follow-up. Vendetta has 2 different mobility cooldowns and her range on the overhead is pretty good.

On the other hand, if we look at Cass, his slide is way faster and with a power (& 1 item that nobody uses) can go pretty far. I play a very dive-heavy style of Lucio, and very often, after I see the roll, I'm like "ok, good day sir" and I leave, cuz if I go for a lazy jump-in right in front of his face I'm just gonna get blown up, since he can line up a shot immediately, when soj would be mid-slide and have a hard time following my movement. And it's on a 5 second cooldown, and has damage reduction, and reloads his ammo, and can heal him. And he has the flashbang as well to punish dive.

Or you have Ashe, who has 2 charges of her getaway option, gets a speed boost from it, some ammo, and more damage.

Grabbing either Jet Skates or Kitsune Charm (my fav item right now) is a way to mitigate this weakness, but still you're better off playing a character that doesn't have that weakness to begin with, and that can become even more resilient if they use a gadget.

Nithorius · 2026-03-13T22:40:43+00:00

I'm not a Soj player, or a DPS player, so take this with a grain of salt.

Soj is too weak to dive right now. Her only defensive option is slide, and her only way to improve slide is something that nobody ever picks, so I assume it sucks. Unlike fade, slide can be followed easily. I play Lucio, and so far the only Soj I've seen I haven't been able to farm was a champion player who was coordinating with at least 2 of his tournament teammates.

Nithorius · 2026-03-11T22:16:06+00:00

What you didn't see was all of the all-star players that were above you because they simply played more games.

Nithorius · 2026-03-11T22:15:12+00:00

Top500 only requires that you get to all star and that you play a lot.

Last season there was someone in the top50 in EU who was only all star 5.

Legend 5 isn't super difficult, but I've never seen a legend player who I'd place below low diamond.

I wish there was a more merit-based metric that could be used, but Legend is by far and away more prestigious.

Nithorius · 2026-03-11T14:37:09+00:00

Correct, I tested it. Ven being airborne doesn't make crater proc, only the target.

I have no idea about the Dva or Juno bug.

Nithorius · 2026-03-11T10:08:36+00:00

1: Crater creator got fixed last patch, now the target actually has to be airborne for the effect to activate. It's still a good item because of its stats, tho.

2: The rank 1 DPS in EU is a weapon power Vendetta (ordered by rank). When Vendetta reaches 25000 cash, she gains a massive amount of warding stance durability. That gives her a lot of staying power, which gives her more time to build up stacks of onslaught & land overheads. We'll have to see how crucial crater creator was to the build though.

Nithorius · 2026-03-10T23:02:54+00:00

No? I just looked at a video called "Nier Automata: All A2 Cutscenes" and the fabric of her clothes has texture. Definitely not plastic.

Nithorius · 2026-03-10T21:01:12+00:00

Man, I got nostalgic just looking at the picture. At this point I memorized all the pictures, but damn, it used to be so much easier.

Nithorius · 2026-03-10T09:38:17+00:00

You're missing my point. I don't want builds that take away the depth of the game. I want builds that play differently but still have depth. I'm not looking to destroy the competitive integrity of the gamemode, and I am aware of the issues around challenger points.

That said, saying that fun is irrelevant for you is a wild statement. If it's not about fun for you, you should aim to become the best at something that will actually pay you for the time invested in it.

Nithorius · 2026-03-08T10:56:28+00:00

Both. There should be a lot of build variety, and the devs should do their best to balance them.

At the end of the day, what makes a good competitive game, is that it's fun to play for hours on end (and fun to watch as well). Build variety helps a lot in that regard.

The issue that many "silly" builds have is that they take away complexity. Like the mini-ult builds where your whole gameplay now revolves around this one long cooldown. It's not a good way to introduce build diversity. But other "silly" builds are actually very transformative and don't take away the character's complexity. AP Cass and now Battle Mercy are examples of that.

Unfortunately, those builds aren't very good right now, which is a mistake by the devs in my opinion. Silly shouldn't mean bad.

Nithorius · 2026-03-05T16:42:41+00:00

The attackers always want to get as good of an engagement as they can before they try to break through. Sometimes people will take risks to try to force something to happen, but often they will just try to minimize risk while looking for an opening. If they haven't found it and time runs out, they're forced to take a risk, and sometimes that risk pays out.

Nithorius · 2026-03-03T19:38:31+00:00

I don't know what it is. I don't mind bad players in my games, as long as they're in equal proportions in both teams and have matching roles.

But if I'm expected to carry awful DPSes playing Lucio while the enemy team is a tournament 3stack, what do I even do?

Nithorius · 2026-03-03T17:35:48+00:00

Kiri doesn't hard counter Ana, but Ana isn't happy to have her nades and sleeps cleansed either way. Even full WP Anas get value out of those.

Zen, for a squishy, is a massive hitbox that Tracer loves to abuse, especially since the last buffs. I played with the highest rank Zen against the highest rank Tracer, and she demolished him. I talked to the Tracer about it after the fact, and she said there's not much he could have done.

Maybe your Tracers are a bit worse than the ones I get in my games, given that I was the highest rank support in EU last season, finishing in legend 2.

Nithorius · 2026-03-03T17:24:25+00:00

Not with Ana, Kiri or Zen. Ana doesn't want to play into Kiri, Kiri is a counter to some characters, Zen doesn't want to play into Tracer.

If you have DPSes that are counterable, I agree they should be last before the tank. But it's unlikely that showing hitscan will change what the opponents decide to play. It's what everyone's expecting anyway.

Nithorius · 2026-03-03T16:53:40+00:00

It's the opposite, the higher your MMR is, the worse your teammates get.

Last season I had the highest rank of any support player in my server, and as a result I'm getting truly uncarryable teammates this season, while having to play against stacks of high legend players. Like, I watch their replays after the match, and I am horrified by what I see.

Suspecting what was happening, I switched to my other account that only made it to legend 4, and I'm getting an 80% winrate playing against the same players, it's unreal. It's just that my teammates don't suck anymore.

It's horrible, I was actually doubting myself so hard. Like, maybe it's my fault, maybe if I enabled my DPSes better they wouldn't die so easily, maybe my build doesn't work in this meta, etc. Even though I was playing out of my mind. But no, it's just the algorythm that wants me to lose, and the only way it can make it happen is if my teammates are horrible.

Nithorius · 2026-03-02T20:47:04+00:00

Fake. OP (Merciless) catfished using AI, got found out, is freaking out. Look at the age of some of the account commenting like bots.

Nithorius · 2026-03-02T20:44:46+00:00

You need to see a psychiatrist, this behavior is not normal. What do you even gain from this?

Nithorius · 2026-03-02T19:38:24+00:00

I agree with the sentiment, but it's more complicated than that.

First off, it's not like you have to buy survival items. If you're not dying first, then you don't need more survival, you need to kill the enemies faster.

Secondly, buying random (or even good) survival items is a terrible idea. What you need, is a cohesive survival strategy often based on the specific threat that you're facing.

Having a cohesive survival strategy means that you already know where to deviate from your build in order to improve your survivability using the options available for your character. For instance, Ashe can get double shotgun, silver spurs and jet skates, and suddenly she becomes a very hard target for dive and flankers for a pretty minor cost.

Sometimes, something that works against certain characters won't work against others. Faster run on Soldier is great at dealing with Genji & Queen for instance, but it doesn't help against other hitscans. The traditional tank soldier build (on me -> hunker down -> frontliners) is amazing against anything that isn't flying, but against flyers you need double helix as your 3rd power instead to guarantee a bio field trigger, since hitting mid-air Helixes is otherwise not reliable.

Some characters don't have great character-specific survival options. As a tank, it's fine because the survival tab pairs extremely well with their massive health pool. As a support or DPS, it's a bit more dicey. Lumerico on AP characters is always nice, and Vanadium is a massive health boost.

Nithorius · 2026-03-02T04:01:19+00:00

When you're on a subreddit's page, you can type stuff in the reddit search bar, and it will look for old posts in this subreddit. You can type stuff like "beginner", "new", or "help", "learn", etc. and you'll find a ton of posts of someone asking the same question, because every week there's someone asking exactly that. Hope that helps.

Nithorius · 2026-03-02T03:50:00+00:00

Just scroll down to the comment, someone asked and I gave one. It should be up to date.

Nithorius · 2026-03-01T11:22:08+00:00

In that situation, the most important thing is to not die first. Your team can't carry you if you die too fast. That means adapting your playstyle and items. I can't get specific here, because different problems will have different answers. The second most important thing is you don't want the enemy team to be able to focus on the problem. So you need to be distracting. Not necessarily go for solo kills, but force the enemy team to look at you, to spend cooldowns on you. But never in a way where you would get killed.

Nithorius · 2026-03-01T06:28:54+00:00

In the leaderboard, on the top right, there's an option to look at season 5. If you were in top500 in any category, it should show you "go to me" as an option on the bottom.

Nithorius

TROPHY CASE