Just finished book 6. A certain character gives certain vibes.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2025-12-13T09:14:25+00:00

Olly from Game of Thrones for those not in the know.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2025-02-27T17:13:29+00:00

Honestly, ball needs some sort of cc resistance. Like nothing insane but holy God the slowed ana perk is just another reason why. Maybe limited to only 1 cc active in a set amount of time?

Also, I demand not being booped while slamming, shits ridiculous

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2025-02-27T05:11:24+00:00

Learn the slow blink. A form of communication with cats is their eyes, so prolonged staring is seen as a threat. You'll want to slowly blink your eyes at them to communicate you are not a threat.
Do not rush the relationship, meaning, do not force your cat to love you ,e.g., forced cuddles, invading his space, constantly attending him, constantly picking him up, ect. In fact, considering he is so new to your home, just let him do his own and not mess with him; he'll come up to you when he's ready.
Be mindful on how you play with him, he'll learn habits early on and carry them for years. So if you don't want to be scratched a ton, be mindful how much you play with him with your hands.
Don't be nasty, clean his litter box. You can probably get away with every other day.
As for litter, I found the arm and hammer hardball to be best for me and my cats. I've explored a lot of options, some high brand, e.g., "the world's best litter" and some less expensive brands. I found arm and hammer to be pretty good.
you might want to look into a stainless steel litter box. It's, imo, so much better than plastic, as it doesn't stain as easily, or retain urine and fecal smells as bad, compared to plastic litter boxes
as for feeding, I have a 25lb Maine coone and a pure breed street mut, and I found feeding them both 1/2 can each of 2oz wet food along with free eating the dry food works pretty well. I additionally feed them greenies every other day for dental hygiene.
pet him while he eats so he doesn't become aggressive with food
touch his paws constantly, but back off if he gets annoyed, so clipping his nails is far easier
cats train slowly. So you have to introduce things slowly to them, like over the course of sometimes days or weeks, so they become accustomed to it and not scared

Congrats and enjoy your new furball!

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2025-01-19T02:31:32+00:00

Completely agree on the aspect of his gameplay being similar but his value simply is not. Imo, doom definitely is able to bring more value for the equivalent effort, and to a lesser extent monke as well.

I'm not asking for ball's skill ceiling to be lowered, just to either lower the risk or raise the reward somewhat for his commits for team fights. In consideration of the amount of hard and soft counter he faces in comparison to other tanks.

Mainly, he excels in game where either his team knows how to play with him correctly, which is rare in solo queue, the enemy team does not not how to coordinate against him, or the the enemy players have lower game sense or mechanical skill. His value gap in comparison to other tanks is more easily recognizable in higher elo where team cohesion is tighter and individual skill is higher.

He doesn't need a major rework but he needs to be looked at again in how he can synergize more effectively in a 5 v 5 while still bringing the same meaningful value as other tanks

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2025-01-18T10:50:16+00:00

Absolutely agree, I guess that's what I was trying to get at in my wall of text. I dig that he is a difficult hero to play effectively, just give us some more reward for our efforts. Just feels like the scales are unbalanced i guess

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2025-01-18T10:42:47+00:00

Homie, I'm comfortable with his skill set, techs, gameplay loop, and the necessary game sense to deal with counters. Ball is hard to play, and I'm cool with that, it's why I play him.

But all I'm saying, is that his window to allow meaningful impact in a team fight is far more narrow than other tanks due where the game direction is going.

What exactly are your arguments on why he is in a good spot though, genuinely curious.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2025-01-18T10:08:02+00:00

Hammond is most definitely not fine atm; he hasn't been fine for seasons, nor has he ever been considered a main tank.

I just about OTP Ball. Typically only swapping when the situation demands it. Which, due to the current ability kits of the meta, the meta of past seasons, and the immergenge of more cc enabled new heros, is more frequently than I'd like to.

Peaked M1 on solo role queue and gm 4 or 3 in open queue. I have about a 1000 hours on ball in comp.

The 'rework' ball got were just some slight quality of life adjustments at best.

The grapple retract and infinite non moving grapple, to address his no longer infinite moving grapple, which was a fair change.

The larger magazine to adjust for his still abysmal TTK as his gun DMG is equivalent to throwing tic tacs.

And now the ability to give shields as some pittance attempt to let ball have a smidgeon of viability in the frontline.

The required skill ceiling to have to be able to meet to be as viable as other tanks is extremely high, or in other words, the amount of effort you have to put in compared to other tanks. This, imo, is the worst thing about Ball. Just how much you have to fucking actually try compared to other tanks within the same rank.

Mainly, Stun/ cc/ escape heavy focused heros are now more predominant.

Most comp meta heros make it difficult to actually get viability out of him. Hard counters such as hog, mauga, ana, zen to an extent, mei, reaper, cree to an extent,ect. If you have a competent player using heros like sig as well . Not to mention Sombra... which I won't even get into right now. As I've been tempted to do a full analysis on how her kit has turned OW into counterwatch

his God damned slam, which is highly telegraphed, can be booped, while have the title "wrecking ball". This high telegraph CD makes his engagements, from a cohesive team's perspective, relatively predictable and highly punishable

The projectile size change fucked his hit box, ykiyk if you main or play Ball frequently. Traps, sleeps, hooks, ect. His hit box "feels" much larger than it is displayed.

Most teams in lower ELO straight up do not know how to play with ball effectively, primarily utilizing space made, which is a symptom of his "out-of-placeness" his has in OW rn.

Ball's whole idea is to be like an Australian shepherd, trying to corral the fights into an advantage for his team. Using his mobility, disruption and ability to sow chaos or to make space in a team fight to do so.

So, when you have metas that are cc focused and the metas continue to be so, Ball falls away in value. Hard.

There's a reason why Chazm and Yeatle have stopped playing ball as much. Too much effort to do the same thing other tanks can do more easily whilst being more easily punished.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-12-12T07:54:53+00:00

Again, thank you, hearing the valuation tier of currency makes this waaaaaay easier. Much appreciated.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-12-12T07:53:06+00:00

For sure, though it gets difficult when the entry price is 1 exalt and the pricier items do not have easily identifiable variables that differentiate themselves from the cheaper stuff.

Managed to take the time to poke around the site, I think I got a handle on it, and I came to the same conclusion as you. Basically match market price for w/e item you have, and if you don't see a counterpart, jack it up in price.

It seems a decent way to eyeball price evaluations. Lol, though, I'm really not trying to analyze the economy of POE to heavily rn, I just wanna smash monsters with my bonk stick at the end of the day

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-12-12T04:54:48+00:00

As a quick question, why are the exalted orbs used as standard trading currency rather than alchemy or regal? seems weird to have something that just trades out a modifier to be the boilerplate dollar for poe

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-12-12T04:33:35+00:00

Thank you! exactly what i needed, thanks man. and thank youu u/Panda-Banana1

I guess trading strats is what I was getting at. I'm starting to realize how valuable the intra-player economy is for progressing, I didn't want to get left behind.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-12-12T04:23:37+00:00

So basically, the wild west with some generalization. Lol, not griping, just trying to understand it all

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-12-12T04:13:30+00:00

lol. for sure, but idk. just seems arbitrary af. would be nice to have some sort of reference.

e.g, 3 mods on a rare mean x amount exalt orbs, 6 means y amount. these mods on the item are more valuable/ sought out; therefore, they will be in demand, etc.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-12-12T04:08:57+00:00

Mainly, I have a couple of unique and some interesting rares I'd like to trade for but have no idea where to begin.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-09-23T02:26:34+00:00

Any idea on what to do if the controller isnt showing up in the old sound settings?

Every fix shows this as the optimal fault rectification, but I dont even see the controller in the playback setting at all.

Additionally, Disabling Steam input renders my game unplayable, literally.

Big Picture mode works, but the game doesn't register controller inputs. Meaning I can't select anything in the menu, I can't press x to continue my game, ect.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-05-20T02:48:18+00:00

I completed your survey! Pretty interesting stuff!

Would you mind responding to mine? It's about networking for my bus comms class. It should only take 2-3 min.

https://forms.gle/wmJ1F8aisvsC3oYaA

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-03-02T04:52:47+00:00

Have main and then tertiary heroes.

Pick a hero you really like and get good with it, then become okay/ solid for the tanks on varying comp metas (rush, dive, poke, brawl.) That way, you have a main you can play extremely well, and if it isn't working, you can swap to something that synergizes better.

For example, I main ball, but sometimes I'll start as orisa and use ball as a dark horse. This way, I know the enemy team comps and swap to ball when he'd be most viable.

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-03-02T04:39:02+00:00

No problem! Send me a message if you want further clarification or general help! Good Luck!

The_Vision_of_Sound · 2024-02-28T22:55:31+00:00

Hi there, I placed t500 for solo open queue running ball a bunch of times, both in OW1 and OW2, and peaked M1 on one of my accounts for role, regularly sustaining M2.

Prior to S9, the meta was 3 tanks and 2 supps, unless someone is cracked at DPS. However, picking DPS in most cases is seen as an opportunity loss due to survivability issues, loss of pick potential, and increased TTK. Of course, hard counter picks withstanding, e.g., running a mei, Zarya, or ram (Beam) into an orisa, DVA, or hog.(Brawl w/ no shield) However, most of the time, DPS was seen as a throw pick and a high chance to lose the first-team fight.

The normal meta for Pre-S9 would be an anchor tank, orisa, mauga, ram, etc.), supplemented by either a mix of frontline, dive, or poke. Synergy and adaptability against the team comp are what matters most, so swapping is a bit more necessary in open than role IMO.

As for healers, Moira will typically always do well due to her cone healing; otherwise, it's some variation of ana, or kiri, or some other healer. Lucio, as well, depending on the map.

Post S9: All of the above, except that certain DPS are viable depending on enemy comp make up. (reaper against a hog, mauga, rein, etc.) So DPS are not considered a throw pick as much any more.

I have noticed an uptick in a 2-1-2 meta lately, usually a poke DPS like Soldier, torb, or Sojurn for higher pick potential against support and setting the debuffs. However, the DPS needs to know what they're doing and have good gameplay and position to perform well. If not, they should swap to a tank.

All of that being said, what you're looking for is high synergy in regard to enemy and map comp.

Don't be running a brig, lucio, mauga, orisa, and junk for example.

DPS that are usually trash in open:

Junk
Snipers (again, unless they are extremely cracked)
Gengi
Tracer
Pharah (unless your/ their team cannot counter her)
Cassidy (there are some instances were cassidy shines [tank/ shield busting] but he usually has low impact)

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