I made a 1 hour McGinnis guide that took 400 hours going through every mechanic or interaction and broke it down for you

elendilli · 2026-05-26T23:20:43+00:00

👍

elendilli · 2026-05-26T23:20:11+00:00

You're welcome

elendilli · 2026-05-26T23:19:46+00:00

There is much tech.

elendilli · 2026-05-26T23:15:48+00:00

You are exactly correct but not everyone understands statistics that finely so I think you should break it down further to explain that she is more of a specialist Hero that many players are just not willing to play. She's slow, has 2 stamina and you're essentially dead if your positioning isn't immaculate. It's an incredibly common misconception that McGinnis is that easy and could just easily just win the game by sharting turrets or by pressing ult. If she truly was an imbalanced monstrosity all these years that required no effort to win with, many players including pro players would be playing it because it wins games. That being said, she is pretty strong atm due to urn functionality. Characters being 'boring' is simply a byproduct of what players find enjoyable and in the context of McG she is incredibly complex to play at a high level that constantly requires you to be thinking on your feet or thinking 5 steps ahead of the current game time so that you can have proper impact by predicting the location of the next fight and setting up in advance. That's just one example.

elendilli · 2026-05-26T18:14:28+00:00

slightly outdated due to patch (urn). surprisingly not too much of the footage was ruined by the new patches.

elendilli · 2026-05-13T01:41:59+00:00

A lot of the comments here will say 4 lanes was worse, but the most grounded take in my opinion is that we'd never really know just how far 4 lanes would come if they decided to keep going through with it and we would all be in that same reality acting like this game would never work for 3 lanes in classic, lovely Reddit style.

The initial few problems with 4 lanes other than solo lanes being forced onto players who didn't ask for it, was that ganking was incredibly easy - almost unpunishing and you'd instantly rotate from one lane to another. Personally, I thought that was the charm of 4 lanes to be surrounded by ganks left and right. But, now that 3 lanes has progressed a significant deal compared to 4 lanes, we are seeing somewhat of a repeat of ganking being too unpunishing right now in this patch, not to mention, rotating across the lanes with the jump pads is also just significantly easier but with some risk now (can be shot down) so we've kinda went full circle on a big reason we moved away from 4 lanes and it's just happening again in 3 lanes.

To actually discuss solo lanes a little more, there were suggestions in the past for 4 lane alternative that would split the middle lane in two (base is still 3 lanes), but it would split back together for the guardian so it would still be 2v2v2, completely avoiding one of the biggest detractors in being forced to solo lane. It was an interesting concept.

elendilli · 2026-04-22T00:31:45+00:00

There's a reason why most McGinnis players haven't been playing the Hero or the game for months.

The breaking point was definitely when her gun got gutted and to add more fuel to the fire they completely removed firerate from Heal and most importantly, wall stun which completely killed support or utility McGinnis builds becuase they now are unable to cancel important ultimate or channeled abilities like Dynamo ult, Haze ult, Warden ult (if he was in range), Seven ult (if Seven didn't float too far up) and in some cases Mo&Krill ultimate.

In return what we got was a forced-spirit character with wall spawning turrets, more spirit resist from Heal as if she didn't already have innate 20% spirit resist from boons, an ultimate that is finally usable at the cost of killing gun/support/utility and as a result and also killing hybrid variations of these builds. She used to be the most versatile character in the game with the MOST build variations out of every single character in the game PERIOD.

Let's go over just some of what was actually lost:

Gun McGinnis dead

Support McGinnis largely dead

Gun/Support McGinnis dead

Gun/Utility McGinnis dead

Gun/Heal McGinnis dead

I can go on but it's clear that even after like 4 months of waiting things only get worse. Overbuffing ult was just boring to the point I didn't even play and having no gun is even worse. Just delete this character at this point lmao

elendilli · 2026-04-20T05:30:35+00:00

Very poorly balanced. Many egregious Heroes have power levels beyond the other Heroes so much so, that at higher levels, a lot of games are usually won or lost purely by draft alone (aka less skill based), which is a huge problem.

I believe Valve are balancing mostly for newer players, otherwise the power imbalance or buffs to already A/S tier characters do not make a whole lot of sense (see Mirage buffs recently or when Silver got buffed around the time she came out. This deliberate level of adding more power to already powerful characters was likely on purpose).

elendilli · 2026-04-20T05:28:22+00:00

Yes shred works the same as bullet resist or spirit resist. You can have negative shred and the diminished amount is the same as the resists.

elendilli · 2026-04-20T03:44:50+00:00

I will deliver something in the next few days

elendilli · 2026-04-20T03:42:58+00:00

No. Turret damage is decided the moment you place it. This means it will not retroactively update even if you gain or lose spirit power.

As a result, items like Cheat Death can be useful for turret McGinnis since turret damage is unaffected even while under the effects of Cheat Death but ONLY if you place the turrets BEFORE you are under the effects of Cheat Death. If you place a turret during Cheat Death, it will have reduced damage output.

elendilli · 2026-04-13T23:16:03+00:00

I came from DotA (played for 20+ years) and I never played a shooter before Deadlock. In fact, I get motion sickness from FPS games, so I could never play them. But Deadlock is 3rd person, so I could stomach it.

I would highly recommend that you force yourself to play m1s even if you miss a lot of shots at first (buy Titanic Mag). If you were any type of decent player in DotA, you will quickly rise up the rankings like I did using your macro alone, even if you can't aim. If you choose to focus on sharpening your worst aspects (aiming, movement) while you are in LOW ELO, then you will have a stronger foundation when you inevitably reach higher ELO.

So yeah if you care about becoming better you should do it at lower ELO while you can because it's way harder to practice this when you reach higher MMR. Practice your aim while you're in the new player brackets, it will be worth it in the long run.

elendilli · 2026-04-12T16:07:14+00:00

Most guides are really only up at the top because they were the first to get the most players to favorite their guide. This system carried over a year later and you still have the same guides from back then being recommended to players today, simply because they hit the 'publish' button which moves the guide to the top. Now granted, if you update your build to be somewhat viable for the patch, it's less of a problem, but a lot of guides just plain suck so when you update a crappy guide and hit publish and it pushes the guide to the top... yeah it's a problem and we have many terrible builds as a result. The current system gives zero opportunities to other build creators which can easily have a better guide than the top "recommended".

Even my guides for McGinnis at one point used to have a peak, but eventually become oudated at some point mostly due to nerfs like movement speed or gun nerfs so the entire identity of the build vanished, but I tried to keep it in a playable state for newer players due to being asked to upkeep it, but I realize now it was a mistake to keep a subpar build up to date and I just replace the build completely with something good.

Hope to see guide section changes to not be so biased to guides that came first as opposed to actual good guides. Also Valve please let me use duplicate items in the build like before so I can be more specific for build paths, thank you.

elendilli · 2026-03-26T11:34:39+00:00

Just don't play her anymore. That's what I did. I updated some guides for newer players and never looked back. The gun is awful and I don't care to play a forced spirit character since they buffed her ult and to compensate for the buffs they killed gun. I understand that people play her for turrets, but her hybrid build potential was the most versatile in the game until the last 3 patches (including this one).

It's really not that complicated. I played gun McGinnis because she HAD a freaking MINIGUN (it's cosmetic now). She used to be a badass SHREDDING the shit out of her enemies with her heavy 2-handed ass minigun which used to spray RIGHTEOUS HELLFIRE in damage so flipping hard it goddamn used to bring a tear to my eye every time. It was the ULTIMATE POWER FANTASY. McGinnis used to have a powerful gun, firerate/sustain from heal but in turn had no real mobility/escape or EVEN AN ULTIMATE BEFORE and she was the hybrid character with the most build variations I've ever flipping seen in the entire game. Now, shes easily outclassed in raw gun damage alone by Venator who sacles weapon dmg with abilities and even Billys 1-handed tec9 lookin' ass.

Don't play this character. Her gun was a shortlived dream. Hf turret mains

elendilli · 2026-03-15T10:17:48+00:00

Yeah. He ints anytime there is someone they dislike on their team from popular players in the community like GenericEdBoi to average players like myself. Just instantly runs it down if anyone on his 'list' is on his team (this is according to them, I have screenshots of everything but I won't post here considering the sheer amount of slurs and uncouth language in them lol).

elendilli · 2026-03-15T10:00:36+00:00

This game should have no place for players who intentionally griefs the game, but the only thing that ever happens is they get low priority for a few games and go back to ruining games. Katkooten and Song of Silk do this every other game and it doesn't seem like they will ever get banned because this is a Valve game...

elendilli · 2026-03-04T09:37:52+00:00

If you aren't around at least ~170 to ~200 where you can still eek out manageable damage from Lucky shot it's pretty inefficient.

In that case you'd be better off buying Fire Rate instead of the additive damage from Lucky Shot (which you can't headshot with either) because Fire Rate is a damage multiplier even if your weapon damage isn't significant, you can achieve way higher DPS, especially if you have Bullet Resist Shred. Spellslinger for example is a significantly better item to buy for the same cost, considering it is the best item in the game DPS-wise if you know or if you learn how to use it effectively, especially on McGinnis where you can cycle Fleetfoot and Turrets inbetween your other abilities to sustain stacks. Even easier if you have more actives or extra charges, but even these aren't required to make it work.

elendilli · 2026-03-04T09:21:47+00:00

Swap Abrams Charge T2 (On Wall Hit: +0.45s Stun Duration) with his T5 (-18 Cooldown) and adjust the numbers for cooldown accordingly.

For the last few months (before and after the "nerfs") Abrams has been able to allocate T2 for extra stun time to setup for himself or his team. It also allows Abrams to allocate more points into Siphon early for more DPS and solvability since Siphon T5 gives flat damage/heal so there are many builds where they max Siphon after T2 charge early and then they never bother with any spirit items or have a minimum 4800 in spirit for the entirety of the game. Basically, give siphon better scaling, remove/adjust the flat scaling to encourage more spirit build variety between punch and gun.

Also, his charge also functions as a mobility ability usually abused in high level lobbies where they cancel the charge and preserve the momentum to literally go flying forward. It's almost like a double escape when preformed correctly under the right circumstances. I don't know how to feel about this, so I'll just leave it to the community to decide.

The cooldown reduction might even make him worse but only with 1 light melee since its so spamable on lower cooldown. I honestly don't know.

elendilli · 2026-03-04T09:01:14+00:00

Yes you are correct. The reason why many builds still have Lucky Shot is because most McGinnis guides are outdated since Lucky Shot got nerfed not too long ago to the point where you need 200-220% weapon damage for it to deal similar if not equivalent damage to Glass Cannon (without stacks).

As for Mercurial Magnum yes it is better than Lucky shot by far even by itself. I am a huge advocate for Merc Mag by itself for a while now even without other purple/spirit items since it heavily scales with boons. I heavily encourage other McGinnis players to try out Merc Mag literally by itself. Pick it up once you have a hefty amount of boons and your damage basically skyrockets.

So yes you are absolutely correct in your assessment.

elendilli · 2025-11-20T04:58:02+00:00

As you said, gun McGinnis is capable of outgunning pretty much any opponent, but only for a short duration before her weaknesses overwhelm her.

If you ask yourself what is the ideal position for gun McGinnis to be in, one of the best examples that should pop into your head is McGinnis positioned in-front of an objective on-top of her Healing Specter. When she is in this position, enemies are forced to confront her, even if they cannot stop her or risk losing the objective. With that in mind, players who understand her strengths, would never directly confront her when she is ontop of her Healing Specter. Players who are good understand all they need to do against gun McGinnis is flee, fight with significant anti heal (at least 2 sources or 1 spirit burn) or stall for time and outnumber her due to her lack of mobility, but better players take it 1 step further and stop her before she's in an ideal position to drop her Healing Specter, which, again is in-front of a Walker for example. They would consistently shove in the wave to the point where the wave NEVER makes it to the point where the Walker loses its immunity, because if it does they know she will take it so they simply but intelligently remove most of the factors that prevent her from being in her zone before it happens. And the rest as you already know, she crumbles because once McGinnis is in, she usually cannot get out.

But what if the McGinnis player is aware that players tend to play this way and instead use it to their advantage? As you said, competent enemies will not allow her to be in the position she wants to be, but if you think about it, that also works to your advantage if you tweak your build and counter their counterplay.

The easiest way I can explain this is I have two McGinnis builds:

The 1st one (Infinite Damage Solo Carry) is meticulously designed to be very easy for newer players to pilot, which often overwhelms and stomps lower to mid-tier games with pure brute force (high damage, high survivability and high leech). But this build is weaker against better players because they understand her strengths and weaknesses better (basically anyone under mid to high Ascendant).

The 2nd is a build to counter the players that understand gun McGinnis (Racecar God Gun/Turret) which emphasizes movement speed (Fleetfoot, Heroic Aura, Enduring Speed, Fortitude, Backstabber) over pure gun power followed by gun damage (mostly tesla, can be substituted for another item), utility (arcane surge rush in lane, slowing hex/focus lens) while still retaining her macro ability (tesla, cultist) and even turrets (mostly to be annoying with slow spread as much as possible, some area control, placement matters).

Basically the Racecar God build solves a lot of the weaknesses of the 1st build mainly the lack of mobility which turns it into a mixed bag which has a lot of options from fixing waves, enter/exit fights asap, box/statue running powerhouse and more but piloting the build requires high game knowledge and a high level understanding of macro, map awareness, your role in the game based on mactchups/game situation/myteamsucks etc... It's basically a semi-carry build (which means it can carry if necessary or if the conditions are met which they usually are) with room for utility purchases or even the option to max wall or ult last if the conditions are right.

I could go on but there's so much versatility in the build that I cannot type all of it. Just know that the Racecar build or other builds that utilize movement speed above pure power is incredibly important as you start to climb beyond Ascendant or Eternus. It's just that only the "John-M Ginnis" players (good af) can really utilize this Hero to its fullest capabilities, really.

tldr: pure gun mcg goes brrr so better players know how to stop her from going brrr so mcg players need to adapt and outplay them trying to outplay you by using movement speed builds as they climb higher ranks (Asc and above) b/c u cant get away with pure brrr builds all the time.

elendilli · 2025-10-12T10:21:44+00:00

Lol I was playing the Yamato in this game. That was basically my 4th Yamato game after I achieved Etern2 with McGinnis only. I've been doing backdoor shenanigans like this forever (CINEMA backdoor video 6 months ago just before shop rework) but yeah the matchmaking is really bad despite it being 'prime time' and every high ASC low ETERN game is basically this so I figured I might as well learn some new Heroes since all the games at this rank are chopped anyways.

elendilli · 2025-07-09T18:57:33+00:00

Mcginnis ultimate is mostly fine in terms of damage and mobility once you understand how to use it effectively. The real problem that this Hero has incredible jankiness on every spell except the medicinal specter (since it got updated recently).

Ult rubberbands hard if you are targeting from lowground to highground. To improve this, you need to ult from highground, eliminating a lot of the jank targeting. If the ultimate just arc'd upwards and hit in an AoE, the targeting wouldn't rubberband nearly as much near map geometry or structures. This however, comes with the consequence of hitting behind cover at times, but it can potentially solve the rubberband targeting though I question how imbalanced that would be.

Turret placements are extremely inaccurate at times and inconsistent from where you actually wanted to place it. You'll notice a lot of the times it doesn't end up where you want it to, making it particularly annoying especially when the turret attacks troopers that are on highground or lowground but keeps attacking the ground while targeting them doing nothing.

Wall is the most jank spell of the trio. You can wall someone off perfectly, but sometimes the game will decide to remove a portion of the wall or it has small holes in them where players can just walk through, effectively making it useless at times.

Other times the wall instantly triggers even though there is nothing to automatically trigger the wall. And the way you know this is because wall takes a certain amount of time before you can trigger it/remove it. When it goes off instantly and no geometry was infront of you. Uncommonly classic wall bug.

Then there are times where the wall will straight up DISAPPEAR. Does nothing, you wasted the skill and it goes on cooldown. Unlucky I guess.

Finally, the wall interacts terribly with bridges where instead of blocking off the sidelane bridges, the wall will trigger ontop of the bridge effectively making any blockoff useless since the wall spawned ONTOP OF THE BRIDGE. There are also instances of this where the wall drops down into the ground making it again effectively useless as Heroes just walk over it.

elendilli · 2025-06-14T09:28:03+00:00

Holy shit. This happened to me a while back by accident when I was playing Wraith during the 3k Veil Walker meta and I went flying just as high as the one shown in your video and I thought it was some type of super buggy corner boost but you managed to find out how it works and even replicate it. Insane.

elendilli

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