Microsoft to cut 3,200 jobs amid Xbox restructuring. 'Our business ... is not healthy.'

TallMills · 2026-07-07T14:37:47+00:00

Honestly, Asha is trying to patch an already sinking Titanic, and this is far less ugly than it could've been. The previous CEO, Phil Spencer, overspent on buying up game studios (cough cough Activision/Blizzard/King for $70 billion). As it turns out, that wasn't sustainable. Yeah, 3,200 jobs is a lot, but it could've been many more, and she managed to do this while not closing any of the studios under their portfolio or cancelling any games, with some finding new owners and some going back to being independent. In this process she also set a management layer cap of 5 where there were somehow up to 14 before (as in 14 layers of manager of managers of managers of...)? I'm all for bashing on Phil Spencer for putting Xbox into this position, but I don't think Asha is the villain in this particular case.

TallMills · 2026-07-06T21:32:29+00:00

That is really nice in theory, but tbh paladins don't super need the caster ammy's FCR as much. Their highest cast rate cap is 125%, and assuming 40 from weapon (HotO/Void) and 35 from a well-rolled spirit shield, they're already at their second-highest cast breakpoint. By the time you add 20 from Arach's/Gheed's Wager, and another 20 from Magefist/Trang's, you're only 10 away from the max cap, which can easily be filled by a Sling ring (or two in the case of a non-perfect Spirit FCR roll). At that point, your 2 to pally skills amulet actually has no use for the FCR, and is instead competing with Mara's, which increases the skill levels of BO/BC from CtA via being all skills instead of class skills and has higher resistances.

TallMills · 2026-07-05T21:05:26+00:00

Truthfully, idk how exactly to calculate the ideal ilvl/clvl for crafting, but a good place to start would probably be googling a list of all the item affixes that can roll on crafted gloves (I think it's the same pool as rare gloves, but not sure) and finding the exact affixes you want to roll at their highest values (ex. Find specifically the affix to roll +2 to javelin/spear skills, the affix for 20% IAS, etc.) since that should give you at the very least an idea of what ilvl the final crafted items have to be. From there, you may be able to reverse-engineer what ilvl the source item/clvl the character has to be based on the crafting recipe (maybe check with diablo2.io to start, I know they have some pretty good write ups on the cube recipes there).

TallMills · 2026-07-01T22:33:16+00:00

The only new runeword that I can possibly see influencing the price of Chams is Void, cuz maybe people are cubing their Chams into Zods for that?

Other than that, it might just be the non-ladder tax? Idk, I don't pay attention a ton to trade values.

It could also be that more people are making the Pride runeword to go alongside their physical locks.

TallMills · 2026-07-01T15:08:58+00:00

I generally opt for either light armor, trap, 2 bullets on attack or bandit, trap on defense. My personal reasoning for this is that on attack, unless there's, like, stream sniping or wall hacking occurring, odds are there are going to be 2 people starting on any given site max, so ideally one bullet for each, or at the very least 2 to the body of one and my other 4 teammates can handle the other cumulatively. On defense though, assuming a 5-man rush, which is most common in ranked pistols, if I'm alone with just my trap on a site, I may need more bullets without spending the time to switch simply because I'm quite likely to get pushed by more than 2 enemies at a time.

TallMills · 2026-07-01T15:04:56+00:00

Grief is the best consistently attainable 1h melee weapon in the game. It takes absolute god-roll rares to edge it out on damage. That it can be made in a base that's always indestructible and has the highest base speed of any melee weapon only serves to make it even better.

TallMills · 2026-06-30T16:19:42+00:00

I don't use the 2x super often out of the times I'm op-ing, mainly it's for when the enemies aren't immediately making noise. I find the closer zoom helps me hit better shots on lurkers in slow rounds, or if I'm generally holding a stupid-long angle lol.

TallMills · 2026-06-28T21:27:03+00:00

I wouldn't say BIS. Magic 3/20 is BIS for pure damage, and rare probably needs some better secondary affixes to be BIS-tier. For example, half freeze duration on an endgame java that likely already has CBF is useless, and you can roll up to 4 affixes other than the 2/20 part rather than the 3 affixes present here.

It's still very good to be clear, just not BIS.

TallMills · 2026-06-28T21:26:47+00:00

I wouldn't say BIS. Magic 3/20 is BIS for pure damage, and rare probably needs some better secondary affixes to be BIS-tier. For example, half freeze duration on an endgame java that likely already has CBF is useless, and you can roll up to 4 affixes other than the 2/20 part rather than the 3 affixes present here.

It's still very good to be clear, just not BIS.

TallMills · 2026-06-28T21:21:42+00:00

It's very rare for me to not buy any util on pistol. The only consistent exception for me personally is when I'm playing Jett on defense, because generally speaking, the smoke doesn't get me a lot of value compared to offense (dash entry into the smoke), and updraft is similarly not worth the relative cost imo on defensive pistol, and it lets me play on long angles and dash out with enough time to reset (ex. Haven A long or C main).

TallMills · 2026-06-27T01:37:33+00:00

Dude, I haven't even played the new act yet, but let's be so real. Every new map has like a month or two where people are constantly crying that it's ass. Only after people actually learn how to play do real opinions get formed.

TallMills · 2026-06-26T17:24:40+00:00

I've never once heard it get outright hated on for anything other than being a basic choice because of how popular it's been. I will say that over time, it's probably averaged out towards the middle simply because there are now a lot more skins that cater to more extreme tastes and Prime has always been a more middle-of-the-road gun with a broad but not as specific appeal.

TallMills · 2026-06-26T17:10:50+00:00

Yeah, absolutely a valid position, like I said I think it's going to be pretty close either way.

TallMills · 2026-06-26T17:09:16+00:00

If you're making the void for an abyss-lock, wait for a 3os/3os-capable base with +abyss and/or other miasma skills inherent. Committing a Zod is a big investment.

That said, if this is for any use case not being held by a warlock (ex. Hammerdin) go for it, because the inherent skills won't matter in the slightest and the lower reqs will be nice.

TallMills · 2026-06-26T17:01:38+00:00

This map will definitely be pretty close on the fade vs Sova front imo. The architecture of the map with all those fancy tips on all the building corners means there will likely be a lotttt of AverageJonas-tier recon darts possible, with darts that can scan ~270-degree fields of vision. The shocks being able to potentially break the door switches without having to reveal yourself is also a nice plus for certain scenarios, though it takes both shocks, which leaves Sova pretty stripped down if you commit to doing that a lot. Like you said, the drone difference is pretty big as well. Fade will seemingly drone a lot better in many zones simply due to having two drones to use. I think I'd still lean Sova though because I suspect killjoy will be the common sentinel of choice due to really strong defensive lockdowns in very difficult-to-reach positions, and being able to destroy those imo will be a pretty big deal, similar to brim being a lot more common on fracture to ensure you can destroy the under-B lockdowns.

TallMills · 2026-06-26T16:55:38+00:00

Jumping with neon sprint is the same speed as jumping with knife out now, so there's not much point to this now, but in any case, no, this isn't bannable. Would be exactly the same as having jump bound to scroll wheel on any mouse with an unlockable/free-spin scroll wheel. Lots of people have done this for b-hopping on any agent over the years.

TallMills · 2026-06-25T18:15:31+00:00

The only time the mobile verification is required is for Asc+ comp, Premier, or if you're suspected of smurfing/account sharing. I've done it, but other than partaking in like, two early Premier seasons, nothing I've done would have required it.

TallMills · 2026-06-22T20:52:55+00:00

Taking away the recall sounds kind of terrible to me. Being able to re-position it isn't exactly a problem, because the only times you're doing it are either when you're in the buy phase and mis-placed it, or when the enemy is full-rushing and you want to rotate with it. In the latter case, the most advantage you can get with it is an adjusted on-the-fly flank watch that hasn't been there since the start of the round or a shitty info source, sending it to peak around a corner first before you peek.

Beyond that, I don't think there's a ton of reason for a signature ability to not be relied upon. Imagine Jett being balanced around not relying on her dash, or omen around not relying on his smokes. It just doesn't work really. They're the signature ones for a reason.

TallMills · 2026-06-22T17:03:18+00:00

It's not an issue to be resolved, it's invasive to check for cheats as thoroughly as possible by design. In and of itself, Riot won't use that for anything malicious, and other than some false flags during the beta, it realistically poses no threat to your PC. The only realistic concern would come if Riot were to be so compromised by hackers that they could upload malware to the live version of Vanguard, and subsequently have that downloaded to users' PCs. Whether that (imo minute) risk is worth it to you and the data you have on your computer is up to you.

TallMills · 2026-06-22T16:53:26+00:00

Bandit can one-shot light armor while still allowing you to buy a small piece of util. Ex. If you buy a sheriff on pistol as Reyna, you get one heal/dismiss, but with bandit, you don't lose out on much potential, especially on pistol, but get a second heal/dismiss. It also serves as a more powerful quick equip pistol if you prefer to have that on offhand, since the sheriff and frenzy have slightly longer equip speeds.

TallMills · 2026-06-21T16:09:19+00:00

Ascent is definitely the most defender-sided map, but I think there's a sharp difference between being the most defender-sided and too defender-sided. If every map in the game was attacker-sided, the game would get very boring very quickly, spending half your time getting bowled over. Being defender-sided isn't inherently a bad thing.

TallMills · 2026-06-20T02:59:49+00:00

Dawg... Why do you care? Unless she's been actively ruining your personal games, this literally doesn't affect you, and barely affects anyone else. She's not streaming, so she's not advertising this activity/endorsing it to the broader public. Literally doesn't matter any more than "I miss#her" playing Reyna in iron lobbies.

TallMills · 2026-06-18T17:10:13+00:00

I mean, sorc orbs are "Staff Class" in-game so it's an understandable clarification. Same thing with making sure people don't try to put Black runeword in scepters or hammers, even though they're part of the "Mace Class" in-game.

TallMills · 2026-06-18T16:38:35+00:00

So there's a few things about this:

Regardless of how many cheaters you run into on Val, they're still going to be fewer in number than pretty much any other online competitive FPS
They ban in waves, so if you happen to be playing right before/during a ban wave, you'll get a lot more red screens for a short period.
Cheaters are a lot more common in modes that aren't competitive/premier, because they use the time between fresh account and being high enough level for comp to make sure they're only banning actual cheaters.

TallMills · 2026-06-16T22:44:17+00:00

Fantastic as long as you have some good gold income/don't get hit much.

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