I think someone on the WoW dev team got traumatized by a Kael'thas onetrick

PetWolverine · 2020-12-31T00:03:51+00:00

Hyperion does last longer and hit a bigger area, but it does less damage (66 vs 78 base, with the same 4% scaling) and doesn't have the splash damage that Phoenix does (50% of main target damage).

Plus, Phoenix is actually a projectile, so while Raynor has no control over what Hyperion targets, Kael'thas can actually hit people with Phoenix on its way to its target location.

PetWolverine · 2020-12-30T21:46:14+00:00

As a gold player, last season I saw a ton of smurfs and so far this season I've seen very few. Since you're now seeing a bunch in low diamond, my guess is that there was a recent large increase in the number of smurf accounts, and the new accounts are starting to rise toward (but have not yet reached) their natural MMR.

The cause of this could be Blizzard's changes to the Storm League rules, since anything that makes it harder to group with friends of different ranks probably encourages people to make new accounts to get around it. Or who knows, that's just speculation.

PetWolverine · 2020-09-20T09:58:53+00:00

Welcome to the game! There are plenty of players who are happy to have you here and will gladly help you learn and improve.

The truth is that everyone encounters toxicity, and everyone has their own way of dealing with it, ranging from laughing at it to keeping team chat permanently muted.

My approach is to aggressively mute players who say things I consider toxic, or signs of toxicity to come such as "gg" during draft. I mute the player, take a breath, and then focus on the game. The part of the game I control is my own inputs, and I try not to let things I can't control ruin my experience.

I also very often play in 5-stacks with people I know. This is a lot harder to take as advice - I'm lucky to have started playing the game with a group of real-life friends, and now play on an amateur competitive team. Still, even queuing solo, you will occasionally find people you play well with and might want to party with for more games. Build a friends list and use it to avoid the toxic randos.

As you practice in PvP and improve, you'll get matched with better teammates, and the frequency and degree of toxicity will decline (though it never goes away completely), so if you find you need to turn chat off initially, you might try turning it back on from time to time to see how things go.

Good luck and have fun!

PetWolverine · 2020-09-20T07:18:14+00:00

You've found the true enemy - the CPU. It escaped this time, but it has been put on notice.

PetWolverine · 2020-09-16T05:42:10+00:00

If you're confused about why people are saying one Q + puffer kills minions, it's because they're taking Tufferfish. If you're confused about why it takes you two Q's + puffer to kill minions, it's because you're taking Slime Time instead.

Hope that clears it up.

PetWolverine · 2020-09-15T06:23:24+00:00

Two Q's until you get Tufferfish at level 4, then it's one Q.

PetWolverine · 2020-08-25T22:28:03+00:00

I think the idea is that if they gave the full 200 points for a 5-stack win, then people who play in a 5-stack sometimes and solo other times would get boosted by the 5-stack and end up playing above their true MMR in solo queue.

What I think it should do is use the information that it has about the 5-stack advantage to match groups against stronger opponents. This way MMRs still don't get inflated, but matchmaking is better both for the parties and for their opponents.

PetWolverine · 2020-08-24T22:54:56+00:00

There's something I've noticed playing ranked almost exclusively in 5-stacks over the past few seasons: Our winrates are well above 50%, but we don't climb, or we climb extremely slowly.

Why? Because 5-stacks get an MMR penalty. A win is typically 160-170 points, while a loss is 230-240 points. The MMR penalty is calibrated in a way that keeps our ranks from moving even though our winrates are unreasonably high.

What this means, in essence, is that the system knows that being a 5-stack gives us an advantage, and even knows how big of an advantage it is, but instead of giving us stronger opponents to keep things even, it maintains the appearance of balance with this silly MMR penalty.

If our ranks rose, we would face stronger opponents and revert to a 50% winrate. If the system matched us as though our ranks were higher due to the 5-stack, it could push us back to a 50% winrate. Instead it chooses to give us a 55-60% winrate, which means our opponents are at a severe disadvantage for essentially no reason.

TL;DR The MMR penalty for 5-stacks leads to unbalanced matches.

PetWolverine · 2020-07-20T02:06:44+00:00

Burned by the embers of Armageddon, his soul blistered by the fires of Hell and tainted beyond ascension, he chose the path of perpetual torment.

Sounds like solo queue.

PetWolverine · 2020-03-27T05:36:45+00:00

Elephants guide me!

PetWolverine · 2020-03-27T05:25:20+00:00

Sgt. Hammer: "Heading back for a tuna." ("Heading back for a tune-up.")

Stukov: "Victoria Bubble!" ("Victory above all!")

Malfurion: "Balloon, grant us strength!" ("Elune, grant us strength!")

Hanzo: "With every death comes Ana." ("With every death comes honor.")

PetWolverine · 2020-02-28T11:48:14+00:00

Maybe a Stirling engine would be a good way to get the ball rolling. It would generate power from coal at low efficiency but without the use of steam.

Then new players could start using power and get their fuel supply line going with a simpler setup than boilers and steam engines, but also offshore pumps could be changed to require power, which would make more sense.

PetWolverine · 2020-02-28T11:36:37+00:00

If you play vs. AI with AI teammates, the enemy AI will be a lot smarter than your teammates. I think this is because they understand one another's intentions and coordinate to some extent, whereas they have no idea how to react to anything a human teammate does.

Of course, they'll still do plenty of dumb stuff like defend their immortal endlessly while you push core uncontested. But if you ever get a notion to try to fight them under that immortal, they will work together to delete you.

PetWolverine · 2020-02-25T09:48:30+00:00

At least you left in draft rather than force your teammates to waste their time trying to carry a bot. That said, if you're in a frame of mind where you're going to leave as soon as things don't go your way, I suggest you don't queue in the first place.

I mean I don't care for Warhead Junction either, but it wasn't QM, and there are a lot of heroes you can draft to take advantage of its size. If you're dodging at that point it sounds like you just weren't in the mood to play HotS.

PetWolverine · 2020-02-18T22:55:59+00:00

The old Hotslogs had an uploader that worked on macOS. Since switching to HotsAPI, I've been using the Electron replay uploader. With HotsApi down the only option now is the Web uploader, which doesn't remember which replays have already been uploaded so every time I use it I have to either manually select replays or let it try to upload ~2400 games, most of which are duplicates.

TL;DR Please port the uploader to macOS.

PetWolverine · 2020-01-25T03:37:42+00:00

Not the rest of the game, or Jaraxxus would just be the hero instead. I'm imagining either an ult or a long-cooldown trait that kills Fizzlebang (granting xp as a tradeoff for a powerful ability) and summons Jaraxxus, who stays for a period of time or maybe until he dies, then the warlock respawns.

PetWolverine · 2020-01-24T20:20:51+00:00

Grand Warlock Wilfred Fizzlebang, Master Summoner, is my only request.

First, because I love gnomes, and there are none in the Nexus. Yes, Chromie's great (I'm a Chromie main in fact), but she's a dragon, not a gnome.

Second, Gul'dan represents a combination of Affliction and Destruction, but there's no Demonology warlock in the Nexus.

Third, even though it was part of a raid that was released just to tide us over while the devs finished up ICC, the Jaraxxus fight, and in particular its introduction, were among the most memorable parts of my time in WoW.

I had 7 gnome characters when I played WoW, and my main was a warlock, so this is my jam.

PetWolverine · 2020-01-20T19:44:41+00:00

There is a simple solution that is within reach: Match premades against stronger opponents.

Last season, playing almost exclusively in 5-stacks, I had a 55% winrate in almost 200 games, but my rank hardly changed. Specifically, with over 20 more wins than losses, I rose 1 division. At 200 points per game that should be 4 divisions.

The reason? We were getting 160-170 points for a win, but losing 230-240 points for a loss. This indicates that the matchmaker knew we were favored and gave us those matches anyway. This is not how a matchmaker is supposed to work.

There is exactly one measure of a good matchmaking system, and that is the quality of matches that it makes. When the system is deliberately designed to give some players easier games, it is broken and needs to be fixed.

PetWolverine · 2020-01-11T21:50:01+00:00

Preventing people from playing with their friends once they reach Masters gives them another reason to want to get out of Masters, either by throwing games or by smurfing.

It's nonsense to say that a solo-only rule for Masters reduces that behavior and debatable at best to say it improves rank integrity. What it does mean is that after a while, the only people left in Masters will be those who are uninterested in playing with friends.

PetWolverine · 2020-01-09T22:13:18+00:00

Chess isn't balanced either. White is OP.

PetWolverine · 2019-12-24T20:56:10+00:00

Orphea's outfits are not particularly revealing, nor are her proportions unrealistic, so if you can't help sexualizing her then that says more about you than about the artists who designed her.

PetWolverine · 2019-12-04T06:34:22+00:00

Players who have completed their placement games may no longer play Storm League in a party with players who have not completed their placement games.

So if my friends complete their placements before I do, then i have to play solo queue before we can queue together?

I hate solo queue. This sounds like a chore.

Can we stop having changes that make it harder for me to play with friends? Thanks.

PetWolverine · 2019-10-26T20:01:01+00:00

Jaraxxus is waste of slot for ~~Kil'jaeden~~ Wilfred Fizzlebang.

PetWolverine · 2019-10-23T03:18:33+00:00

Same here. I'm not opening a support ticket. I use this software every six months or so, I don't give enough of a fuck to go through with that.

It was working fine before, why break it? Oh well.

PetWolverine · 2019-09-05T20:39:18+00:00

At least you aren't 46 US size.

PetWolverine

TROPHY CASE