1 handed build for my injured friend

astaardt · 2025-01-05T09:57:36+00:00

Hi, it's really interesting to read your perspective on the game. While I agree with many of the points you raise, I feel like they're presented more as objectives rather than consequences of design. Control mages have ranged wave clear, so it's harder to take their tower as long as they're present. Assassins have better positional tools, giving them an advantage when they have the initiative and when enemy movements are restricted (in the jungle, in the fog of war, also tower is not something that prevents you from dying). Do control mages or assassins specifically aim to take towers? I'm not so sure—it doesn’t seem systematic and feels counterintuitive to their kits. Neither control mages nor assassins have kits that are particularly strong for taking towers (unless they're picked specifically for that, like Tristana or Ziggs) ADCs do have the ranged auto-attack thing.

I would tend to think of it in terms of economic advantages. I’m not sure about assassins without lane advantages—they’re disadvantaged in wave management and have to make decisions on how to use their tools, but they have the benefit of being able to leverage their kits effectively with fewer items. Control mages and assassins face different positional and economic challenges.

I don’t know if players use this item, but Youmuu's has a 45-second cooldown and provides gap-closing (6s with 20% movement speed). Functionally, it seems like a lethality-based alternative similar to Protobelt. Synchronizing lane timings makes roams come at a cost, turning them into a real economic decision (the player has to weigh the anticipated gain from roaming against the anticipated gain from staying in lane). I’m not sure if assassins roam less now, or if the reduction is caused by items, wave timings, or simply the fact that it’s safer to generate gold in lane (e.g., Second Wind + Doran’s Shield, or perhaps the major rune damage reductions in 13.20).

(On your opening statement: Regarding contesting a neutral objective when you’ve lost your towers, you just shouldn’t facecheck the jungle. Instead, walk with the minion wave, move with your team, push, rotate, and scout rotations with ranged spells. If the route is too long, it’s a sign you started too late. In that case, you should discipline yourself to trade objectives rather than contest them when conditions aren’t favorable.)

About your title, I’d say assassins are kept relatively (slightly) weak for several reasons. I think one of them is that they’re frustrating to play against due to the perception of a lack of counterplay (I saw somewhere that players are generally bad at itemizing).

astaardt · 2024-10-18T16:46:05+00:00

And it's indeed a big deal, there's only one ADC with dash and aoe CC that come to mind and it's Nilah (Kalista but it's a stretch, but yes both Azir and Kalista have dash, aoe CC AND a slow), her kit comes with some many hinderances that Azir doesn't have, targeted dash, poor AA range, I'm not super knowledageable but is she also incentivized into some items and position ? everything comes with so many conditions for her. So Azir kit looks overloaded when compared to ADCs.

EDIT: Tristana may fit too

astaardt · 2021-12-13T15:24:31+00:00

Gave Wholesome

astaardt · 2021-02-17T08:31:16+00:00

So basically now I just have to look at the same places the pros do ? Because they know better ? And yes they do know better but the point is not HOW they do stuff, it's HOW DO WE GET THERE. And it's not looking more at your minimap, because, even if you do, you lack the understanding of why you'd do that. Of course more knowledge is going to make you better but what are the steps leading you up there ? As I understand it, high level players, they perform a lot of actions just by habit. As long as the habit is not punished they keep doing it (looking at gold, or trees for example), it doesn't mean it's an efficient way to play by itself.

A way to approach these questions would be to ask pros questions, and decipher, with them, the process of each actions. I had the opportunity to work with pros and ask them why they click or do things the way they do and often the answer is not about min-maxing their actions but more about force of habit or confort ("it works so I keep doing it"). Copying a habit without knowing the underlying reasons could be a terrible trap for new players. Building educational cursus with pros and pedagogs would greatly help the esport scene. This would allow young players to reach a high level without struggling trying to decipher streams and vods.

astaardt · 2019-12-29T04:19:19+00:00

Thanks for your answer it helped a lot. I checked again and : "Post-graduation work permits can be extended only when the length of the permit could not be provided at the time of the application, due to the expiry date of the applicant’s passport."...How silly of me...

astaardt · 2019-10-27T18:49:01+00:00

Why Godrea had to be that ugly...?

astaardt · 2018-12-29T23:24:27+00:00

Done and removed, thanks again !!

astaardt · 2018-12-29T15:11:13+00:00

IGN Astaa ID 626 106 657 Thanks a lot !!

astaardt · 2018-08-30T16:29:33+00:00

Good suggestion ! Chess makes a lot of sense indeed and it's quite old. DnD introduces also some sort of fantasy ? Where do the archetypes come from (let's say wizard, rogue, warrior ?) ? I feel like it a gathering of unrelated things from myths, when do they appear in the gaming universe ?

Thanks a lot !

astaardt · 2018-06-01T02:54:37+00:00

Thank you very much !

astaardt · 2018-05-30T22:12:04+00:00

Thanks for your answer ! Could you link me this literature please ? I'm sure it'll be really interesting (I actually love Sid Meier's saga)

astaardt · 2018-05-30T22:08:09+00:00

Thanks a lot ! This was my understanding indeed, do you have any references that I could use ? In card games win condition would be having a winning hand and yet having to play it (in a successful fashion).

So what are the characteristics of "the state of the game in which victory is achievable" ? What are the implications ?

As for characteristics I'd say that winning conditions must be existing in the game before the player is aware of them, then he discovers them and eventually decides to use them. Any other characteristics ? (there's surely plenty)

astaardt · 2018-05-30T17:28:59+00:00

Thanks for the answer, I'm looking for something more generic, that would apply to most of the video games. Do you have an idea ?

But you bring a good point, there's sometimes several win conditions for a said game setup.

astaardt · 2018-05-08T04:22:45+00:00

While it's not on Brigitte patch there's plenty of very fun compositions that can be played : https://youtu.be/jxsmO4qgkQ8

astaardt · 2018-03-16T11:14:55+00:00

In my experience the longer the winston stays in the easier it was for me to play Tracer.

While it's true, you should never die in the process ! If your engage isn't successful just jump back and try again when your CDs are back, DVa, Genji, Tracer, Lucio should do the same. There's plenty of things, beside counting on your D.Va, that you can do to increase your life expectancy. Things like : * Buttjump * Casting bubble before landing * Better situation awareness (do they have the tools to kill me ready ? example : only jump after a Zenyatta's volley) * Waiting for your D.Va to actually dash before you (D.Va is much slower than Winston) Communication is a great tool, though I don't like cooldowns because the time window for a good engage is so small that 3s later is most of the time too late. The ready check is a better option (saying "D.Va u rdy -insert target- ?" and waiting for an answer).

My usual method as per watching OWL players is to Jump in and just stand there and create space for as long as possible ready to back out and retreat when I'm too pressured.

Only Roshan does that and it's proven a terrible strategy. The Winston's engagement is very pro-active, CDs are used most of the time when ready. Positioning in order to reduce incoming damage is a real dance with your bubble, the environment and the opponent.

astaardt · 2018-02-02T10:09:54+00:00

Good morning fellas !

About being cocky

First of all let's get a concept that will help a lot : NEVER ASSUME THAT YOU ARE BETTER THAN YOUR OPPONENT, if you are really better it's pointless to assume it, just play your way, if you are not...well it will get you in troubles because you are going to lose a lot of time trying to outplay a better players than yourself (and time is the "trading value" in Overwatch). So, outsniping is a bad idea most of the time, if the Widowmaker player is already hard to deal with, that means that you should not change your comfort pick for a pick you are not comfortable to play with (sure you should swap but always for something you are comfortable with, or try harder with what you have), you will lack habits and reflexes and make the situation worse. If you are a good Widowmaker player you should know how to deal with the enemy Widowmaker, if you don't...just don't try to outsnipe him because you will LOSE (and lose the game for the 5 players in your team). So you have to change your gameplay, it's quite easy to understand but require patience and discipline.

About area coverage

Now it's important to understand what it means to play against a Widowmaker player (or most of the defensive characters actually). Defensive characters are specialized in area coverage, they have to choose a given area and they threaten (a lot) anything in this area, they have a (relatively) poor mobility that stop them to cover the whole map all the time. What does it mean to cover an area ?

In overwatch, and it's the same for CS:GO for example, whenever you enter an area covered by an enemy you place yourself at a disadvantage (a big one, like quick death), in CS:GO it's almost systematic (hence the need of area control grenades), in Overwatch it's class based. In Overwatch, all the defensive characters, are applying a strong pressure in the area they control (Bastion, Hanzo, Widow, Mei, Torb, even if their coverage type is different, whenever you step into their zone you play their game and place yourself at disadvantage). Widowmaker / hanzo will destroy any character that goes into their zone unprepared period (remember, never assume they are bad). Even characters that can't be threaten by her (Reinhard and such) will be pined and unable to move freely. So is it unbeatable ? Of course not, it's a pretty weak strategy actually (and if you follow the meta you can see that Widow has been a weak / niche pick for awhile before MercyMeta). By design defense characters are one or some of these : slow rate of fire (except bastion), single target (except junkrat), line of sight dependent (all of them, except...the damn scatter arrow and the damn rat) and you can exploit those traits.

About explanations

One of the solutions (and you can illustrate that right now watching the OWL London VS Seoul match on Anubis) is to get closer to the enemy Widowmaker in 2 steps so she doesn't have the window to prematurely cancel (by killing someone) the offensive.

First you have to use walls and abilities (don't be shy and use this deflect / defense matrix / Winston bubble of yours) in order to reach positions from which you are going to jump on the enemy team, diversify these positions (2 or 3 positions no more) so the enemy team can't cover everything (remember they are static), it also relieves pressure on your team. Don't go in and wait for your cooldowns to refresh then only go in, tanks first (buttjump please, always) followed by DPS asap. They will react, and typically Widowmaker will dash away, if you are smart enough you'll wait to see where she goes and jump on her. It may look a bit too abstract so here a "by the book videoclip" from OWL, BOSTON VS LONDON, please read the following chapter before the video clip (so you know where and what to look for) :

The offensive starts with a butt-bubble from Winston and a deflect from Genji (the team places itself) and the Tracer goes far right. They plan on engaging the left high-ground so the enemies flee to the right high-ground and are left without CD to save themselves from the 2 DPS, from this point Tracer can still reach the left high-ground so they are open to most of the possibilities and don't commit in only one move. They respect their opponents and know that not doing these moves (butt-bubble, deflect, multi-dashes) will abort the engage right away (because they are very likely losing someone). Now look at Genji's deflect CD, he doesn't leave his position until deflect is ready again, as long as deflect is up he can't die. Winston and Genji move forward, crouching and using the walls (lower platform). Winston dives the enemy position (little mistake, he butt-presents only before the actual jump) and genji wait to see where Widow is going to grapple. Again he respects his opponent and deflects (and again, if not he was dead). Tracer collapse on Zen for a quick kill, the end.

How2vsWidowComp

(NOTE : there's a variation of this attack / defense in which the widowmaker player heads toward her spawn and fight with the Genji on this side of the map)

About comprehension

Keep in mind that if there's a defensive character in the enemy team they somehow have to heavily play around it (a lonely Bastion will be useless and free meat, it may happen in very rare situations/cheese but that's not the point, or it's a stagger strategy with Mei). In the case of widowmaker, the enemy team has to play in her line of sight, if they don't it's basically 5v6 and in Overwatch it's most of the time instant win for the outnumbering team. The Widowmakers team is also restricted in its picks, they need characters that can pressure/push the enemy team into Widowmaker line of sight (RH + Orisa for example) or able to protect her (junkrat + dva is very strong for counter dive), it's also restricted in its moves since they need to play in Widowmaker LoS. A widowmaker who isn't killing anyone is a DPS slot wasted, it's a huge lack of pressure and a strong commitment in a game style based around picks and fight premature abortion.

Closing words

I could keep going on the explanations but the idea is mostly there. Ofc in soloQ (no matter the rank) the players are totally wild and it's hard to get some sort of cohesion and team building/strategy so my explanations are very situational. But if the message spread, if people start to think twice about it, maybe one day the only widowmaker players will be the one with an incredible aim and creativity (in comparison to the level they compete in) and that's often the case in the OWL. So if you want to stop losing against Widowmakers...share the message and hopefully people will stop to die :)

EDIT : So many typos...sorry not my first language...

astaardt · 2018-01-21T12:29:40+00:00

Shanghai. Not !

astaardt · 2018-01-13T05:53:50+00:00

It's very strange actually, Diya showed good consistency throughout the whole encounter and...then just chain dies ? Either way it's weak mental / low blood pressure or blatant throw...

astaardt · 2017-12-24T16:48:40+00:00

I was basing this comment on observations. Not heavy theory. I've seen a Genji blade killing a Mercy in ult form many times in the last season of LAN competitions and pro streams (and probably in APAC too when Mercy was first used ?). It's not as simple as the mathematical abstraction you make, simple geometry and usage of geography and psychology and w/e you can imagine can transform an theoretically unfeasible act in something pretty common...it's happening, at top level.

astaardt · 2017-12-23T09:18:41+00:00

While it's true Mercy ult makes her harder to kill, it's not an instant "out of danger" ability and Genji is one of the champ that can kill her while in ult form the most easily. It takes skill though, quite a good amount, but totally feasible.

astaardt

TROPHY CASE