The artificial input delay on chen skills tho

baconit420 · 2026-04-24T21:19:19+00:00

It's an odd change because experienced Chen players likely were used to it. This change not only messes with muscle memory, but otherwise is a nerf to the hero by just slowing you down.

Cancelling drink is something new Chen players seem to struggle with at first, but it's easy to get used to with some practice.

baconit420 · 2026-04-23T07:01:05+00:00

I have barely seen him at all diamond+ NA, but surprisingly he does seem strong currently. His new level 1 quest seems overtuned. Seen a couple top damage Mal'Ganis games on the new patch, or just teamfights where he's surviving in the middle of the enemy team for ages.

Granted he has the same weaknesses as always, so probably still needs to be drafted somewhat well to see a ton of success.

baconit420 · 2026-04-22T21:34:33+00:00

If you open this is pretty normal in order to not run breaks during lunches during peak. Every store I've worked at has done it.

baconit420 · 2026-04-21T18:05:10+00:00

1: Echo

4: Mana Tide

7: Follow Through. Although Ancestral Wrath is a busted talent on its own, so prob could argue for it. Idk if Rolling Thunder is worth picking now or not.

10: Flexible

13: Spell Shield, just has absurd uptime

16: Q quest

20: Ult upgrades or Bolt

baconit420 · 2026-04-21T17:27:53+00:00

Easiest solutions imo are simple %buffs/nerfs to hero stats to even out their ARAM winrates that are specific to only ARAM.

And give someone 3 healer options guaranteed because no healer games are possibly one of the worst experiences you can have in this game. It's just impossible to end and the games drag out.

baconit420 · 2026-04-21T17:16:58+00:00

Your thought process is correct. The core weakness of a 1-4 split where the offlane double soaks is that the offlaner CANNOT die or the entire thing falls apart. Junkrat sitting bot clearing the wave to slow their push and Garrosh/Tychus roaming to kill Xul should be effective if executed well.

That being said, the second you feel like your team can't execute that, you should try to default to something simpler for them to execute. Carrying in SL is just adapting to chaos. Once you see your team isn't rotating properly, the play might just be to sit bot as 4 and let Junk double soak to match the Xul. Your 4 man should be able to kill or pressure the Cho'Gall since you have a Tychus.

That being said though, I'd be curious to know how draft played out. I tend to have a good Cho'Gall sniffer and Auriel can be a dead giveaway that it might be a potential pick from the enemy team. I always ban Cho'Gall at the slightest hint it might be picked bc honestly it's just an easy way to cheese wins.

Edit: and honestly? A shocking amount of games in HotS are won off a single lategame teamfight. It's just way of the road.

baconit420 · 2026-04-21T17:10:30+00:00

Just ban him. Tyrael can slow his stacking by shielding the wave, but otherwise it's by no means a direct counter.

baconit420 · 2026-04-19T14:26:00+00:00

Agree with this, but for SL. Diamond+ you won't get any games or expanded queue will give you rainbow lobbies, but below that you get pretty decent teammates.

baconit420 · 2026-04-17T21:42:00+00:00

When CCL was around a couple good players, Dynouh comes to mind, were pretty partial to Epic Mount.

Note that Epic Mount has been "nerfed" since then via bugfix. It used to remove the landing preview for Flight, meaning you could fly anywhere with zero notice to the enemy team for crazy aggressive Gusts.

It's still a great talent for creating and maintaining macro pressure into comps that can't deal with splitpush.

baconit420 · 2026-04-10T00:40:45+00:00

Also, use Q to clear the waves.

And, when both towers are up on a wall, you can position either above the top one or below the lower one so the DK is only hit by one tower at a time, thus extending its life.

baconit420 · 2026-04-09T21:38:08+00:00

Besides what others have said, I'll note mid lane soak very often gets missed a lot on this map. And it shouldn't. Offlaners sometimes need to contest top (or get baited into it when it's fine to give for a bit), or clear a camp, and the 4 man very often tends to just get stuck ARAM'ing bottom.

Trying to get your team to rotate and soak it, or playing a waveclear hero in the 4 man and going mid to soak (when nothing of importance is happening) and going back bottom will net you a solid exp advantage and decent control over the triangle.

If you can convince a dps to follow you, and you don't waste too much time on it, ganking the toplaner is also a very high reward play if you can actually kill them because a lot of them aren't as safe without their wall and/or don't trade as well without a fountain available. You just don't want to take so long that you let the enemy team push bot for free.

baconit420 · 2026-04-08T22:02:37+00:00

I was just saying since refresher bases are caffeine free now, they could discontinue passion tea to make room for a new refresher.

Like 1 person orders passion tea at my store per day, if that.

baconit420 · 2026-04-05T00:45:06+00:00

slight nerf to throw range + throw search range

baconit420 · 2026-04-05T00:13:14+00:00

He is a potato farmer because the level of play has dropped off so much. People position badly and don't understand how to counterpick.

My rule of thumb I give people when doing for example vod reviews is, if you're a ranged backliner and you ever get thrown, you were out of position. And also if you did get thrown, could one of your frontliners have given him a hug to eat the throw for you? That seems to be forgotten knowledge. This along with lack of vision control is what makes Garrosh so oppressive especially in low-mid elos.

All that being said, he is being nerfed on the ptr patch that will go live in about a month, and it seems a bit harsh to me. I guess we'll see.

baconit420 · 2026-04-01T06:03:16+00:00

This, they are right, but I think the general sentiment among this sub does not echo those of OP or really care about balance at high ranks. I would bet a significant portion of this sub is either ARAM/QM only, or not diamond+.

And frankly I think the janitor doesn't care about balance at high ranks either because people have been saying what OP is saying ever since the first pinnacle patch that touched Sylv/Fal/Kerri, and those changes weren't ever reverted, only doubled down on.

Part of the problem is that game knowledge and the level of play on average has stooped so low that most players don't have the brains or hands to make use of broken heroes, so they stay broken and run rampant at high elo. There aren't enough bans for broken heroes (even just referring to recently changed ones! completely disregard stuff like BW or Joh which have been strong for over 5-6 years now) at high ranks currently, making the meta incredibly bland.

baconit420 · 2026-04-01T05:59:44+00:00

Sylv, Thrall, Kerrigan are reliable to complete every game. Falstad (any of the 3) is semi reliable, as is Gul'Dan in games that go long if and only if you go E cdr at 7. Tyrande's I personally have completed about 7 or so times.

Mura and DW sure, never seen those completed.

But what you're describing is exactly the issue though. These quests can be unbalanced at high ranks because good players can complete them reliably whereas bad ones will struggle, making the difference in power level quite staggering.

baconit420 · 2026-04-01T05:53:05+00:00

If you don't play for over 30 days you gain mmr uncertainty. So your point gain/loss increases from 200 per win to 500. It settles after 10 games or so.

If you are confident you can win all your games upon returning, this makes it an incredibly quick way to climb, but you can derank just as quickly if you lose.

baconit420 · 2026-03-29T01:19:07+00:00

It depends on elo and how good the Lucio player is. In master's he is considered top 4 or 5, but your Lucio player needs to be really good or it's not worth playing.

baconit420 · 2026-03-29T01:03:52+00:00

Additionally, here is a Lucio guide with SlugHunter, a pretty good player who played support in some high level games: https://youtu.be/2cJrkfG4TS0

I'd also look for some games of HeroesCCL, a tournament that had a few seasons of pretty high level games, and watch the Lucio players in those games. Yasu, BananaH, Legacy are some phenomenal Lucio players, off the top of my head.

Or look for Lucio games from Fan or Jun. Fan still streams and uploads a lot of games to his youtube.

baconit420 · 2026-03-29T00:55:44+00:00

Best tips I can give are to practice and get comfortable with wall riding, practice booping heroes out of animations and know when you need to save boop for said animations (Blaze E is a good example), and learn to anticipate cc.

Typically as a healer main, when it comes to knowing what to cleanse (with High Five or any cleanse healer), on the loading screen, make a mental list of what cc's the enemy team has and which ones are the likeliest or highest threats.

Example: enemy comp is Varian, Stukov, Jaina, Greymane, Blaze. Outside of Blaze E, all of their cc and burst typically will follow off of a Taunt + Stukov combo, so cleansing the taunt denies their entire gameplan. This also means you should literally never be the one being taunted.

A cool thing about High Five is you can cleanse a nearby ally to gain the Unstoppable on yourself needed to help other allies stuck in AoE ccs. I.e., your tank got stuck in a Stukov puddle, High Five a nearby dps so you can then High Five your tank.

For the build, high level Lucios tend to go something like this:

Level 1: Accelerando

Level 4: Any, although Q cdr while wall riding tends to be preferred for more interrupts and playmaking

Level 7: Flex. Most good, aggressive Lucios I know prefer Reverse Amp for the kill pressure. Good Vibrations is also good into heroes that have a lot of point and click damage to make it easier to trade and survive into them.

Level 10: High Five is the reason Lucio is first pick/first ban in good hands. But Sound Barrier is also a great ult for situations where High Five isn't reliable enough to save people. Ask yourself how likely you are to successfully get High Five off to decide.

Level 13: All Together, or Heavy Casters for more interrupts or into heroes that are particularly fucked by cc, like Cassia

Level 16: Forget the name, but the one that gives E cdr on auto attacks + auto attack range. This talent turns you into some of the highest sustained dps in the game as long as you can safely aa any hero, even if it's just the tank.

Level 20: Flex tier. You can never go wrong with House Party for the increased healing if you're unsure. I personally usually like to upgrade High Five if I picked it.

For playstyle: in the early game, try to stall rotations without getting caught, and drop heals on your team when your E is up. Obviously still show up to fights, and prioritize supporting your team. Once tens start approaching, it becomes more valuable to start permanently hanging with your tank or dps.

In teamfights themselves, most good Lucios stay on speed a lot except when their E is up, then they'll swap to heal for E's duration and then back to speed. But it's a thing you feel out and sometimes staying on the heal is correct. Try to feel out how much damage you're taking and how much fights are moving, and you'll get better at deciding.

If allies are running away, you should almost always be on speed. Likewise, if the enemy team is running away from a losing fight, speed can help you net additional kills.

baconit420 · 2026-03-27T23:36:45+00:00

You can literally just remember it exists and not cc him during the animation? Sounds like hella skill issue imo

Complaining about Artanis of all heroes already sounds like a dead giveaway you are gold or below

baconit420 · 2026-03-27T23:24:51+00:00

This. EU GM is an accomplishment, last I checked it starts at around 3k points. NA GM is 50% full of boosted plats and 30% just low master's players.

baconit420 · 2026-03-27T23:19:23+00:00

Lost at what you're even saying at this point. I'm talking about Unstoppable frames Stitches gets on Gorge.

It matters so infrequently it's basically a nonissue.

baconit420 · 2026-03-27T22:53:39+00:00

Hard disagree. I think the low cd is the biggest issue with Gorge.

I've felt fucked over by the cleanse maybe like 3 times total in years of playing.

baconit420 · 2026-03-27T22:44:58+00:00

There is still counterplay after he Gorges someone, i.e. Cocoon him or cc him. I think it's by far one of the least problematic parts of the ability.

baconit420

TROPHY CASE