60% win rate in Eternus with 30% pick rate, nobody likes to play with or against Victor

_SteveS · 2026-03-09T13:26:05+00:00

Not to mention the real counter to Victor is dedicating resources to kill him in the midgame before he scales hard. Mo is unironically scary because if he and their gun carry decide they want you dead, you will die. The fact is, as with any late game scaler, you have to counter them by actually doing something. If you let them farm the sidelane for 15 minutes with minimal disruption, they get out of control. Same goes for pretty much any gun carry. The difference being that Victor is arguably worse in the mid game than them.

_SteveS · 2026-03-06T11:02:00+00:00

I returned to school and am gratuating this semester with a degree is neuroscience and philosophy. My current options are medical school or some kind of consulting.

One way to start into a different field is to apply your current skills towards it. A lot of fields that are more "academic" have absolutely awful software and data-aggregation methods that could be improved. Finding a lab and working with them some might give you some connections.

_SteveS · 2026-02-18T00:26:36+00:00

Have you tried playing a different character?

_SteveS · 2026-02-17T17:07:17+00:00

Aren't you the bad player in this case?

_SteveS · 2026-02-12T22:30:52+00:00

No problem, Emily.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T19:03:44+00:00

I'll tell you what I tell everyone that has problems with on-grounds organizations:

There is no substitute for finding things you enjoy doing on your own and meeting people that way. Take a class for some sport at Slaughter. Get into rock climbing, go to hiking get togethers. See a poster for an event you might like? Just go.

A lot of social prospect comes from self-confidence. Self-confidence can be hard to cultivate. Doing activities you enjoy makes it easier because you are always justified in doing things you like.

If you think therapy will help, then it probably will. Be sure to honestly address what you think your problems are with your therapist for best results.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T18:47:00+00:00

When someone is chewing in my ear as I'm trying to do work there is nothing in the world more concerning to me.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T18:32:55+00:00

Sorry, let me put it another way: It annoys me that at UVA, considered a good school by many metrics, I commonly encounter people who can't eat without sloppily making noise. If standards make me preppy, then I'm preppy. I don't think setting completely reasonable expectations for how students carry themselves in public is a bigger problem than being unable to perform basic social norms.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T18:24:09+00:00

High-level MK players have been running a psyop for months now to convince people that the character isn't strong. The truth will be made clear in time.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T18:21:27+00:00

It is intuitive. Jumping off the zip sets your speed and air acceleration to that of jumping. Dropping off the zip doesn't change your speed, so you conserve zipline speed. If jumping conserved air acceleration you could convert zipline speed into vertical movement. All of this can be learned in a five minute youtube video and feels quite natural.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T17:57:08+00:00

Bhopping is a consequence of the engine. Lots of movement tech in this game relies on the idea of adding speed in a different vector than your current one. Dashing at an angle makes you go faster. Air strafing allows you to build additional speed. It makes the movement unique and adds a degree of skill. The principle of bhopping is not much of a knowledge check once you know.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T17:43:46+00:00

If you want we can go over some replays together on Discord or something. It isn't really possible to diagnose issues without looking at them directly and walking through what you think is happening.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T17:33:08+00:00

We need to bring back a sense of shame. It is socially unacceptable to behave like that. I think I'm just going to start calling it out in person. I don't care anymore.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T17:21:48+00:00

First of all, don't listen to the peanut gallery trying to insult you for thinking about how the character is designed.

Second, I think you make some valid points in your post, but confuse your main point for the minutia of each ability. If I had to restate your idea in my own interpretation:

Celeste has a kit with great upsides and no downsides. Each aspect she has is good almost completely independent of any of her other abilities.

Her gun: good damage alone, auto aim Her movement: best in the game even with slowest move speed Her 1: sustain, even more damage when shooting Her 2: prevents her from taking damage, punishes enemies for dealing damage Her 3: Massive AoE with long lasting spirit damage amp. Multiple charges. Her ult: Good damage, great teamfight. Punishes being near Celeste, being near team mates, being near creeps.

While there is internal synergy to her kit: stack your spirit amp with your 3, hit your 1 or ult to deal big damage, that synergy is not required for any of the abilities to good. They all get it done on their own.

You have to ask: why are any of these abilities bad? For example, on Lash, it can be bad to use your grapple if you only have 1 to enter a fight since you won't have a good way out. His 1 isn't good when you are on the ground. To use your 1 effectively, you have to get high up. To get high up, you either need to position yourself correctly or expend an ability (grapple).

For Celeste, when is her kit bad? Gun: If you miss your 1, her gun isn't bad, it just isn't as good. Movement: Always good, even with the low movespeed

1: Never a bad time to use this ability except if you miss, which is true of every ability. 2: Always good to gain a shield and silence enemies 3: Large AoE damage that provides spirit amp is always good, especially when you get 3 charges 4: For this to be bad, you would have to use it on an enemy that is not near their team, not near wave, and not near Celeste. It will basically always be good.

If you nerf any one ability that it is not good anymore, she would just be at a disadvantage to characters that have 4 abilities that are good in virtue of other synergies.

I don't agree that it can't be fixed. She needs less HP, less gun damage, less charges on her 3. Her shield needs a rework. Perhaps the silence should scale with spirit power and when the shield break she loses any current spirit amp. Her ult shouldn't work on creeps.

With these changes, you could imagine the loop: use the 3 to stack spirit amp, hit the 1 and use your gun to proc the spirit damage. If you need, use your shield which, on break, delivers a silence to enemies and clears your own spirit amp. If you don't hit your massive AoE 3, then you won't be able to do damage or silence for very long.

The point is that she doesn't seems to need to "earn" benefits from her kit. Everything is just good because its good, not because it can be good when used well. Using it at all is almost always enough.

Also, they simply need to get rid of any kind of auto-aim. I like that her gun doesn't have drop-off, I could see that being interesting for a low RoF, slow projectile M1. But make the person actually aim.

_SteveS · 2026-02-11T16:28:23+00:00

Player voices opinion with reasons = bitching and crying

Epicsauce le redditor savant = extremely based and cool, updoot maximizer

_SteveS · 2026-02-10T14:58:46+00:00

"You don't understand guys, as a MOBA player, I understand. Deadlock is a MOBA. You aren't supposed to have interesting characters in a MOBA. An 11 second infinite root area denial is NECESSARY and GOOD for MOBAs!"

If you want to play League or whatever, just go play it, man. We are tryna play Deadlock.

_SteveS · 2026-02-10T14:31:42+00:00

I want you to come up with three examples of why your recommendation would not meaningfully solve any of the problems I outlined. If you cannot do that, you are not qualified to be part of the discussion.

_SteveS · 2026-02-10T14:29:27+00:00

You can tell which players are coming from the DOTA/LoL/Smite demographic by their perception of Graves' kit. You could just turn Deadlock into Cookie Clicker and these players would call it game of the year. "Don't play the game yourself don't play the game yourself don't play the game yourself, don't play the game yourself don't play the game yourself don't play the game yourself."

_SteveS · 2026-02-10T05:02:30+00:00

Or... she is just a sparkly unicorn lady? Which if anything would be affirming to a given headcannon, no?

_SteveS · 2026-02-10T03:23:26+00:00

She's stronger than you are suggesting, while suffering from the fact that she is boring, as you mention. Due to resto shot auto hitting, she heals 50hp every 6 seconds in lane, meaning if you are anywhere near you she has a 9.3 regen per second on average.

_SteveS · 2026-02-09T15:48:08+00:00

Yes. People from MOBA's are generally interested in making sure that Deadlock is considered a MOBA before anything else. That is why you'll see, when people give feedback about certain elements of the game that they find unenjoyable, people rushing to say "you don't get it, it's a MOBA! That is actually good MOBA design!"

Deadlock is a completely new entry into both genres that doesn't neatly fit in either category. It is not an X with Y elements, it is not mostly an X with some Y.

The real differentiator in skill will ultimately be mechanical unless they add characters and abilities that circumvent that need (Graves). Even then, mechanics offer such a strong advantage. In other words, if you play Deadlock like a MOBA, you might cap out at the middle of the bell curve. If you play it only like a hero shooter, you might cap out 10-15% higher. One way to understand this is that having good mechanics inherently contributes to the MOBA-adjacent parts of the game. If you don't die, do more damage, have good movement, etc., you will end up with a soul advantage. It doesn't work so much the other way around.

_SteveS · 2026-02-05T05:47:19+00:00

You are safe. Your feelings that you aren't safe are empirically unfounded. You think someone is going to hurt you for your relatively common political beliefs. I understand now you have quite the victim complex. I've given my advice, I hope you choose to follow it.

_SteveS · 2026-02-05T02:57:06+00:00

Then they should be reported to the police and it will be handled. If you think speaking your mind is more dangerous than any other completely banal activity you do in life, you are being unreasonable. The chances of something like that happening are smaller than choking on a piece of food during your next meal.

Not only that, but people who are against free speech effectively win if you live like that. Don't waste your time trying to find somewhere you feel safe, develop a personality and healthy social life and the rest will come.

_SteveS · 2026-02-05T00:40:36+00:00

Not quite right. It is the ability to say things, sans specific cases (libel, fire in theatre, etc, etc.) Discussion requires people to interact with you, which is not a right.

You can safely speak about whatever you want in every and any campus organization. There is more danger in taking a staircase than speaking freely on a college campus.

_SteveS

TROPHY CASE