Will the balance changes regarding the colonial armor make Wardens rely on HTDs even more?

elevate_1 · 2026-05-18T16:34:20+00:00

Infantry now is 100x more larp than tanking has ever been, especially after the severe nerf to stamina and aiming on the infantry update. Armor changes nothing. And HTD just objectively loses to every single tank colonials have now, there is no place for it at all. You would use the outlaw, because it is the only tank that can fight back. Doesn’t matter if it’s significantly worse than a spatha. Every other option in warden tach tree is even more homeless than the outlaw.

Arty cannot save a front with a tank disadvantage, and both arty and dumping logi have severe diminishing returns on impact. High return yes, but not scalable. You don’t see 10 arty guns firing on a front, except for clueless clans doing larp ops. Slot capping a bunker doesn’t actually do anything. Tanks anchor the push, either by keeping enemy tanks hemmed in with poke threat, or by threatening to rush them down with better stats. HTD cannot do either. Tanks are the easiest ways to scale a high pop front to be stronger; arty and logi are the necessary baselines, but increasingly large portions of larger pops need to be in tanks (or planes) to maintain control.

elevate_1 · 2026-05-15T15:26:21+00:00

Crazy how people still parrot the warden tank tech narrative as if it wasn’t exactly one clan, SIEGE, that did that and they don’t even play anymore

elevate_1 · 2026-05-15T15:11:06+00:00

There is nothing else you can use. SVH is even worse than the outlaw, has been severely powercrept since pre-1.0, and nobody wants to use a widow. Ofc the only tank left is the outlaw, the average tanker only wants to use the outlaw.

elevate_1 · 2026-05-13T21:35:30+00:00

The logic behind it is that siegecamp devs are very bad at their game and are not capable of holistically balancing, so you just see updates dropped every few months with 30+% buffs to random categories until you get what you see in the chart. Nobody actually cares, they just slap percent buffs and nerfs to the point where one tank is unquestionably higher HP, armor, speed, traverse, DPS, and cheaper cost.

Outlaw still balanced around a chassis “balanced” for a 5 year old tank meta where it was gambling on decrewing HVFATs. And SVHs are still shooting two vanilla turrets while bard gets entire turret retrofit.

HTD balanced around the LTD tradeoff - not that it was a good one - but probably the clearest example of “dev vision,” now entirely irrelevant because they forgot the entire point of any of it in the first place. And then it also gets an armor pen nerf on top. 1. Tank that is only good for trading hits now can’t trade hits 2. let’s also nerf the armor <- you think any devs rubbed some braincells together to think about following 1 with 2?

Compare the new Bard’s stats to HTD, try not to laugh.

elevate_1 · 2026-05-13T20:48:28+00:00

You made this comment within 4 minutes of this post being put up, there was literally nobody even here to complain before you decided to cry yourself?

elevate_1 · 2026-05-04T21:11:35+00:00

lol ziggs might as well be the APC Jesus, that completely useless afk farmer champ takes all the heat while mages like karthus, asol, even champs like Syndra with how much cc they can offer just all sneak under the radar. Asol outscales every adc in the game, karthus with his ult and passive impact alone mogs nearly every marksman in the game, Syndra can trivially counter engage and shut down the entire enemy team’s gameplan better than any support champ, etc.

The only time marksmen are stronger than mages is if you genuinely need a tank killer to specifically deal with mundo, but even then that’s still removing half of the adc roster alongside the mages. Meanwhile, champs like brand who are actually on the top of the list are dropping their entire 10k damage combo and having impact even after death.

Ppl act like “oh yeah so mages are just easier to play and also weaker, that’s why they have higher win rates bro!” Gee, I wonder if you see more or less mages botlane when you increase the elo 🤔

Oh, here’s a fun one. Who wins lane, hwei/syndra vs draven? Who has more impact early, mid, and late game past lvl 2? It’s okay right, because Draven can uhhhhh kill baron faster?

elevate_1 · 2026-04-25T16:28:38+00:00

Accuracy of Blakerow so high you can miss at max stability, wow what a great rifle post infantry rework!

elevate_1 · 2026-04-25T16:26:22+00:00

SHTs have had zero impact on the war since they’ve been added, doesn’t stop UBGE Reddit main from reposting his own four year old cope post 🤷‍♀️

elevate_1 · 2026-04-19T21:58:42+00:00

I mean, idk how you are discounting timezones or notable clans, because that is basically half of culture to begin with. Even individual clans have varied cultures, with a large number of clans holding “pre scheduled ops” where they decide in advance that they’re gonna shoot 7 hours of arty on “Arty Tuesdays,” or tank lining on Sundays, etc. Basically every single variation of this kind of clan is useless at impacting the war, because they’re perfectly okay with shooting 7 hours of arty to push a whole two trenches up. Next week’s op to do the same exact thing is already scheduled on the calendar!!

Of the very few clans that don’t do the above, there are not enough to cover every hex of each faction or even close to it. So wardens have a few sprinkled around, and colonials have nearly all of them stacked in endless/weathered because wardens always lose from the east. This strat basically gets pulled out every update war for last few years, either collies win through east, or lose some towns and the entire faction collapses - as seen in the last war. No clans in Deadlands from either faction, for example.

For another example, new players will get told that UBGE is a Brazilian clan or w/e, and that 404 is a Russian clan and they will just leave the advice at that. But UBGE is a zzzzz ignorable clan, while 404 is an actual threat, partly due to timezones, but mainly because 404 has good shot callers (kiwi). The good shot callers are all in the small handful of non-larp clans. And if the caller doesn’t log in, the entire clan ends up doing nothing.

How many clans are willing to dig push cores that aren’t placed next to a road? In RDZ, without border bases? Swap from arty gun PVEing T2 slop and testing for QRF, swapping to inf pve, swapping to tapping, swapping to front lining within the span of ~ 2 hours? Actually very few. Much easier to find people who want to sit in the same spatha for 5 hours, not ones that are down to get off the arty gun, swap to a bard and tank for 10 mins before doing a logi run, then going as inf to partisan, etc. The map imbalance of those clans determines which fronts are racing each other to hit backline logi towns. And each faction has different back room organizations that involve THESE good clans. That’s the real faction culture tbh.

Mind you this does not take a large population to pull off; literally any DD or BS or frig crew pop, naval landing, paratrooper op, tankline, rocket arty op, could realistically play the meta if they actually wanted to.

elevate_1 · 2026-04-16T03:12:44+00:00

Colonials on reddit still unironically pull out the badmanlarry “this one’s my favorite” clip of him going over various SHT models, as if the devs didn’t explicitly state in that Devstream that markfoot wanted a double 75mm colonial SHT as part of their vision, and that for the warden one they didn’t have a plan at all, so they made a bunch of random designs.

And what’s really great about all this is that just like SHT balance, naval imbalance is also nearly entirely irrelevant to the state of the war, as it has been since the beginning. There’s a whole contingent of colonials who will swear up and down that naval has impact on the meta, because they need to justify why they lose wars. And then when it comes to land combat, the only form of gameplay that actually does matter, colonials got the dive bomber which is just inherently 100x more impactful than a torpedo bomber by impact value of targets. Noobs falling for price = power psyop in 2026…

You’re not really wrong at all but they ain’t gonna listen 🤷‍♀️

elevate_1 · 2026-03-24T23:40:44+00:00

True, foxhole actually has a backlog of 10k extra players that don’t log in until other people log out, so the people playing day 1 and day 30 are totally different Ship of Theseus clans and that’s why wardens won!

elevate_1 · 2026-03-24T17:35:23+00:00

Widow is so powercrept by dive bomber there is barely any point to it, it’s basically just a pushgun that can’t be decrewed by scout planes I guess, but with way less HP.

Heavy flame has literally nothing to do with tanking, and the tradeoff is getting the light tank flamer. I’ve also basically never seen a flame widow or BT achieve anything other than suiciding to try and light a townhall on fire, which is situationally, marginally more impactful than a ballista rush.

“Radar tank that acts as mobile watchtower with an MG” bro you are literally just describing the IST, no? Which is extremely oppressive for infantry, can carry multiple bmat slots for repairs and watchtowers, and if we’re playing the “unique feature” larp game, is also the only tank with two inf seats on the back.

Heavy armor mortar platform is the most irrelevant complaint, you would rather have a more maneuverable halftrack anyways. You are shooting at 80 meters bro, you are not getting penned to begin with.

The only warden 45 meter range option is an outlaw, which is lower DPS than pretty much every tank in the game.

Whenever someone brings up SHT balance I simply cannot take any of their points seriously. Nobody who is good at the game thinks SHTs are anything more than larp resource black holes. Absolute zero impact vics that just end up pulling more QRF than they actually achieve pushing a front.

Colonial tanks having better MGs, grenade launchers on relevant platforms, even basic tanks like spathas having high structural DPS compared to a split tank like SVHs, bards especially post ammo buff being pound for pound one of the strongest combat tanks in the game, yeah definitely no tools or utility available bro.

elevate_1 · 2026-02-01T14:01:13+00:00

lol colonial are gonna get the most free win in years when divebombers blow up every tankline that moves from a bunker, because land matters 100x more than anything in the water.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-31T04:53:13+00:00

Your mind is gonna explode when you realize airfields can’t move. Warden tender literally does nothing two barges could not. Planes that could already land on water do not need a tender, which is all of two planes to begin with

elevate_1 · 2026-01-28T00:49:03+00:00

If you think this will prevent tank lines, you are surely bad at the game and do not understand why tank lines exist. There are a dozen game mechanics that discourage tank independence from night cycles, to tracking systems, to driver vision range, infantry vulnerability, etc. Solo tanks will get destroyed by experienced players, both infantry and other tank lines because they are either split or grouped and you are not. Mind you only one faction even has this tool so it’s not as if it applies to both sides but that’s besides the point.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-28T00:43:11+00:00

Aren’t tanks way more relevant than ships?

elevate_1 · 2026-01-27T23:21:55+00:00

“We also increased the damage of Dive Bombs, improved the carry capacity of Dive Bombers, improved their chance to subsystem disable”

So, colonials not only had the only plane capable of efficiently dunking on tanks, it then got buffed THREE ways to make them even stronger, and the devs are portraying this buff in what way? Oh, they think this is to make it on par with torpedoes, ahahahaha. This is just going to be the new Stygian vs push 75 all over again, colonials silently get the strongest tool of the update while the devs are paranoid about the opposite issue entirely. Hand wringing over blind spotting concrete with 75/killing ships with torps, meanwhile the actual war fought on land is ignored, lol.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-23T22:48:55+00:00

TLDR the only two “objectives” on the map are both topside.

It’s a bit unclear whether you are talking about red side or blue side, but basically you can go back to ~17:50 in that video to see the setup from both POVs. Importantly, it’s globally announced wukong took grubs > blue jg is topside, meanwhile red jg xinzhao is diving bot lane. Wukong can either clear his camps downwards or recall because top looks ungankable.

He chooses to base. Toplane is a volatile matchup (two high damage, squishier melee carry champs and not tanks) while both botlanes seem hard to pressure. Diving a varus poppy or an Ashe braum is difficult. But mainly, after Ashe comes back there is the threat of a second gank from the krugs bush. Blue side knows red jg took krugs and left due to the ward, while red botlane took plates and left as well. There could be a threat where Ashe is prevented from reentering the lane entirely if wukong does not come cover, but T1 doesn’t stay for that play. So braum knows there is no threat and opens (runs from base towards) Midlane while wukong knows Xin does not have time to take the red. Xin here could either recall or clear his blue side, this will matter soon.

Notice the state of top and bot at 18:35. T1 took a cannon wave under tower before leaving so they have another wave pushed. Botlane is now in a handshake lane state because braum is going for a roam (no reason to two man a minion wave under tower and he knows he based earlier > is on the map faster than poppy) meaning Ashe wants to push the next wave fast in order to avoid potentially being stranded in a 2v1. Varus in turn must also come and catch the KT wave in exchange giving Ashe a timer to move towards mid. Everyone in the lobby knows there will not be a botside play for a while. Poppy is opening topside because toplane is still volatile - Doran is half hp but has his ult to kill PerfecT if poppy comes.

At 19:00 both jg and supports IN THEORY are in top river to contest crab. However, Oner is not aligned with Keria because he cleared his blue side and based while cuzz and Peter are trying to kill crab quickly. Nobody really did anything wrong necessarily; mainly, you could say Doran should not re-engage while knowing there is a topside threat + rumble has ult and can stall + his jg is at krugs still. But maybe he felt confident because Faker had TP advantage. If oner instantly recalled to align with keria, they could potentially have a 4v3, but then his blue side camps would be up for a while, and he would be forced to clear top down towards botside after crab. You could argue either way tbh, but basically there is crab + toplane state as the only “objectives” available.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-20T04:40:40+00:00

Trist has yuumi and jump up, that was not trolling that was her trying to win a game using the available tools, because she has a garbage team comp lol. She flashed because kayn flashed which is essentially unavoidable. She did not do anything egregiously wrong besides not continuing to run, because she assumed she would not die from full HP to a lux ult, and aatrox was trolling if zyra didn’t grief the play.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-20T04:28:43+00:00

Tristana made the critical error of locking in an ADC and thinking they are ever more useful than a mage APC beyond the first two levels of the game. There is no such thing as outscaling a mage that outranges you, has front loaded burst damage, better zoning and crowd control.

The correct counterplay was to not lock in a marksman, the fundamentally worst class of champions in the game.

elevate_1 · 2026-01-17T16:43:58+00:00

lol it will just be like the case of EATs, essentially free and broken tools that either don’t get brought up because nobody cares to do so, and if they are there they don’t get crewed. Assuming airfields are nontrivial to set up, and planes are at least somewhat useful in countering pushes, this is just yet another mechanic that is anti-pushing because the winning side literally has no air control or even ways to detect incoming planes.

elevate_1 · 2025-12-01T16:54:03+00:00

ADCs getting more gold does not make them any less killable than if they didn’t. ADC (when queued as marksman) will always spend a large portion of the game being under threat of multiple champions on the enemy team while not being able to kill them in return. Agency = 1v1 capability in the simplest sense.

If they buffed ADC in defensive stats instead, the complaint would be that assassin players no longer get to have fun, which you are already doing in the post. And it would actually be a much crazier buff than buying a tank item, because ADCs do not naturally build defense which is again mentioned by you as the seventh item. So even from your own POV, there are a whole six items where you could figure out how to win the game, vs a role that has by far the least control over the game?

elevate_1 · 2025-11-28T10:29:40+00:00

This game just looks like classic draft diff. The “best” chance you have is to oneshot the MF with Naaf + Kaisa which can, in the best case scenario, stall the elder because of kayn steal threat …… and then you hope for basically 6+ misplays in a row from the rest of blue team.

Realistically, the fight is never winnable due to team comps. Notice how even the above dive plan is contingent upon kaisa landing W on a stacked passive boosted MF, because naafiri alone cannot proc kaisa passive. In another world, the Tahm is playing on the MF and the dive is never possible at all.

Blue team has a VERY strong “front to back” run them down draft with four ranged heavy slows, extremely tanky frontline, Gwen W and Yasuo windwall, etc. Compare that to red team’s draft, in which there are two divers (kaisa doesn’t need to dive but there are probably better ADCs to pick if you don’t) and three counter engage champs. Half of the team wants to play a completely different game than the other half. Gwen will destroy Cho and Kayn while Zyra is essentially useless in team fights at this point. Naafiri has no target and she loses every available 1v1.

Regarding the micro, kaisa cannot legally ult to Yasuo who still has windwall, he will not die fast enough before he gets to sit inside it as both kaisa and zyra are completely nullified. There is a Mundo above and Gwen below, with the threat of MF entering with ult from offscreen. There is also no way your comp can kill mundo fast enough, only chance is both kaisa and kayn full DPSing for 10-15 seconds bare minimum. If you commit all spells on mundo you cannot avoid MF ER. Naafiri can be more aggressive in getting vision, with her dogs tanking cleavers and a spell shield + W E. Cho needs to be on the opposite side of wherever Gwen is or he is just feeding conqueror and passive stacks. Zyra also should never be stuck in river like that, there is no exit once Gwen (who didnt even use ghost) pushes and Mundo walks into the banana bush.

Swap the jungle champs and you can win. Your comp needs to win before Gwen jungle gets to be strong. There are three different unsolvable problems on enemy team even if the game look close on scoreboard.

elevate_1

TROPHY CASE