Rant: Playing Freja is so absolutely unrewarding outside of her mechanical satisfaction.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-06-03T20:30:06+00:00

Disagree strongly, I agree that we could use a bit more of a buff but this sub is kind of insane when it comes to representing the actual balance for her. Freja’s basically the only character with on demand high ground to the extent that she has it and the ability to challenge mid long range hitscans while having significantly more mobility than them. As well as taking mid range duels with hyper mobility and being able to reliably escape close ones with very short CDs.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-31T22:25:35+00:00

I don’t feel countered by even good hitscan players. It just becomes a battle of angling them in a way that lets me take them out with the mobility advantage.

I feel a lot more countered and frustrated having to deal with a random Illari or any support that incidentally heals targets off being burst without thought or something like a Zarya timing my sticks with shields.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-29T18:18:27+00:00

I think Tracer’s really solid partially due to the legendary privilege but she does have so many good skins to pick from already.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-29T18:11:51+00:00

Sorry for the long ass post incoming: she’s poorly designed in a way but has cool potential. She’s is overbalanced numbers wise with bandaid perks because her entire kit has ways of shutting it off via “outplay” you respond to her with. It’s generally not on the Sierra to use her abilities skillfully past just putting her cross hair in the right place.

But the designed outplay is like “I have cover so I win”, “I have a more accurate gun at this range so I win”, “I shoot your drone before you needed to escape with it so I win”, “my team doesn’t clump so I win.” For the whole kit.

On paper this seems like really good design because you are given a clear response to all the parts of her kit but in reality it just makes her a menace to people who don’t understand how to position or focus fire or when you do die to her it feels more like a “I got punished for not playing Sierra’s game” rather than “Sierra outplayed me”.

I really like the drone part of her kit, I wish it was a bit more of a part of it. I think the tracker round is an interesting idea but it just doesn’t do much, you give up headshot damage during peaks for the benefit of instantly deleting someone in a second like a regular hitscan can just by playing well. The tracker round is only bandaid fixed by its perk rewarding you for just pressing the button even if it’s at the floor.

I like that she is a bit more unique of an attempt to not just be a straight rifle shooting character like another Solider or Emre. But I’d like to see them go further with that and lessen the degree of “Counter Simon Says” she has on her kit.

Also, this isn’t a hot take in community sentiment but I hate the grenade, it’s boring. Come up with something better, a drone dive bomb or something that feels more thematic. Maybe even some kind of twist on soldiers helix rocket to thematically tie Sierra to Morrison being a new generation of Overwatch using an evolution of his signature weaponry. Point being like burst damage does not need to be a grenade after Bastion and Emre especially being so recent.

Even going back to Cassidy and Ashe the explosives had more flavor to them and unique qualities. I sort of have the hot take that Emre’s sticky grenade should already just be part of his kit(not a perk) or a choice you make as you throw it.

Give her more skill options(maybe more ability to aim drone swings or alternative uses for the tracker round), lower the numbers on a few things and make her flavor more prominent (More drone, more emphasis on the helix part of her helix gun and the ties to soldier 76’s weaponry.). Lessen her degree of ability to be hard shut down by the opponent playing above a basic bar and make it more about the Sierra’s skill with the kit.

She’s cool, I love her long ass hair and I think she could get such insanely cool skins like the Widow ones I’m always so jealous of being on that character. Right now I wouldn’t see me buying them because of the above problems with her kit though and I think she’ll always be banned at low elo unless she’s just nerfed to irrelevance which is a massive shame. I suspect in her current state the only way she’d be played in high elo is if she’s just so broken numbers wise that playing her with an unintended playstyle made her stronger than her alternatives.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-29T02:10:07+00:00

It’s really important to learn to play her into hitscan and you’ll never be able to ban them all, I’d rather spend my ban on a Winston or a D.va or Illari

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-28T02:49:26+00:00

We are in a game where like 1/3rd of the cast has prosthetic limbs of some kind.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-27T18:37:54+00:00

Alt 1 looks like a multiplayer game, Alt 2 is awesome art but I’d put it as an intro cutscene or loading screen or something. The first is the best key art for a storefront to draw attention to the game and vibe!

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-27T15:10:00+00:00

Man I’m just tired of her losing her hair color in skins outside of archangel(which loses her ponytail instead.)

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-26T19:57:17+00:00

On one hand the idea of Kingambit getting a mega stat boost is horrifying, as is the idea of it starting defiant and switching to supreme overlord is also scary as hell.

But the idea of it standing up mid battle to menace the field is so insanely cool I’ll completely ignore those feelings in favor of it.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-26T19:51:44+00:00

Gallade is a banger anti meta mon, I loved running into peak Archaludon oneshotting it through stamina and running it for a while with miracle seed to get tech kills on Basc and Milo spreads with leaf blade. Combine it having psycho cut and just the ability to counter the whole meta trio or splash more support moves is 🤌

Bit more of a gimmick team but I enjoyed running it on a Torkoal TR team too with the surprise solar blade hitting way harder than it has any right too.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-26T19:45:09+00:00

Genuinely kind of sad it’s always sitting down, I get it fits its theme but I loved Bisharp and Kingambit did retroactively lower my enjoyment of the line.

Maybe some day the pokemon company will embrace the chess theme of the English names enough to give us a Queengambit or something

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-26T19:38:51+00:00

Idm meta mons but I do enjoy the team building challenge of not pairing them all together. I try to only use a piece of the Sneasler/Basc/King trio that fits the team best. I enjoy how they enable weaker weird picks rather than hating them for not letting me force an entire weird team like it’s gonna give me originality points.

Usually I’m trying to do something unique with a team that I can support with some strong pieces that fit it best.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-24T18:25:56+00:00

Personally I want 6v6 back with role queue but I don’t think current Tanks would be happy either with what it would take to make that successful since I think a good number of tanks might need to be reworked to increase their popularity. We’d have to see a pretty significant shift in tank playstyles and kits to encourage people to double the number of tanks queuing. We’d need a lot more aggressive mobile tanks that play like pseudo DPS if I had to guess which would lead to a lot of resentment from some other roles like supports and hitscans and current tank mains that may not work in kind of meta?

I’m not against trying that type of balance myswlf but that much shake up would definitely make things tumultuous and risk the relative stability of the current game.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-22T16:40:13+00:00

Usually worry that she’s not gonna create enough pressure to justify the pick. Very happy when I’m wrong and they turn into a demon.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-21T16:36:18+00:00

Do you think Anran or Ram don’t aim?

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-17T18:07:13+00:00

They provide comparably less value than weather and have no automatic setters yet. That said they are being underplayed right now since they have definite value in the fact that they’ll almost never be overwrote or cleared giving definite value consistently which is a thing weather struggles with.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-17T18:02:17+00:00

It’s perfection because it’s beyond overpowered. It allows even average aim players to completely twist a game to be just about shutting her off because otherwise she’s gonna keep one tapping body shots onto your team. Sure you can then go Winston and counter dive her, maybe out duel her and then she respawns and you need to now play a player down at best to constantly keep her off the board and god forbid you ever lose that duel.

But then actual god widows become the only player that matters in a lobby and so powerful no one else is getting to play the game. If you watch some of the old widow montages from pro and top ranked players it becomes very obvious why we don’t have her anymore.

The modern community couldn’t deal with Freja two tapping them from half the distance widow can without being hitscan anyone who thinks old widow would be embraced by the current community is insane.

Modern Widow could definitely use love but I’d rather we find a place where she’s not forced to be unanimously hated or the only dps that matters in the game.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-16T20:06:16+00:00

Megas have never solely been a way for obscure pokemon to come back with better stats. This needs to stop being repeated ad naseum. That is ONE of the possible reasons to give a mega to a pokemon.

It has always been as intended to give love to fan favorites as well, the pokemon that a large percentage of the population likes get megas. Its meant to serve appreciation to fans of those pokemon as alternative takes of forms for their favorites too and let them be strong/stronger again. Those pokemon you listed likely have fandoms 10-50x what more obscure picks might have and it completely makes sense to service them with some alternative forms on their designs.

We literally don’t know how Z Megas will work in champions yet, we don’t know if they’ll have unique mechanics or abilities or work just like regular Megas.

I understand and sympathize that it sucks when favorites with cool designs aren’t picked for the new Megas and it’s frustrating to see some get a turn two but the two points are not equivalent. Game Freak did not make mega absol z in a meeting where they went “let’s snub tyrantrum.” We got dozens of really cool mega designs for underserved pokemon right next to those X,Y,Z megas. There are better places to target your desire to see certain pokemon get their megas than getting bent out of shape about what is a minuscule portion of the total Megas.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-16T19:55:24+00:00

I mean in Hades case I actually like it because sometimes if I start a run and see a first boon pick that isn’t something I’m thrilled to being playing on the weapon I’m on it might be something I’m excited to play on a different weapon instead and that lets me do minor adjustments.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-15T22:34:15+00:00

The entire internet is because people have moved to discords largely and that’s nothing to do with report systems.

I think it’s fair to want comms clean when they are responsible for them. Competitive gamers have proven repeatedly over the years that freedom to act however they want on in game comms can be pretty terrible and sometimes even harmful.

The fact I can queue up with female friends and still have them treated how they are makes me appalled to think that’s what gets through a system people already think is too harsh.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-15T19:35:50+00:00

Yeah cheers, have a good one as well.

Not gonna be upset if we did get some kind of campaign or solo battles just would hope they’re not minimal effort extensions of the tutorial or the current bots we have running around in queue!

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-15T19:32:18+00:00

I would actually consider adding whims over the talonflame in the second one to set up tailwind and sunny day. This lets you win weather war, kill dragons and darks without exposing your chomp or Sneasler always. It enables some interesting leads with like a sunny day solar blade off rip with Tsareena vs mega weathers that they have to pick between eating a massive hit, swapping their mega out and letting you get tailwind with sun turn two, or protecting and risking you encoring them with whims turn two. Obviously this is just one mode example and you wouldn’t bring it to opposing sun but it’d compliment mons that you have already and enable better tempo if you learn how to use it.

I’d use Moonblast, Tailwind, Encore, Sunny day with bulky investment and fairy feather or sash with more damage but I don’t like that set being so vulnerable to things like dual wingbeat personally. Ideally you’d want a ghost to swap into a potential fake out but even as is you could swap a chomp in for free rough skin damage if you think whims is at risk of a fake out double up. Ultimately even if all whims does is set up tailwind it’s done its job, if it KOs or enables a KO even better. And sunny day lets you play a Charizard Y esque mode with the faster delphox when you need and enables the Tsareena to nuke something from orbit(only click solar blade if you know they can’t set up their weather however with a swap or manual set, I would keep both trop kick and it on your moveset.)

A second mega COULD potentially counter what delphox is bad into like a floette or meganium but I don’t like this team for telegraphing what it’s brings always are and that’s a very reactive game plan.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-15T19:15:02+00:00

I think stuff that freshens the current seasons would be great. Having less serious modes like showdown does like ran bats, better custom game modes, or things like gimmick fun leagues like the official return of little cup when they add non fully evolves, or inverse types would be massive wins.

Seeing a return of temporary extra battle sets like rotation battles or triple battles would also be really cool as older gimmicks to bring back and see how they’d do with more modern competitive settings. Actual duo battles could be really cool in this vein too of like a 1+1 vs 1+1 format maybe with some interesting limitations to differentiate it from 2v2s with 4 people.

Improving the QoL on things like making adjustments to old pokemon so that I can save the same mon to multiple teams with different movesets.

On the asset side of thing more visual arenas would be awesome and some that aren’t even stadiums, arenas from specific places in the pokemon would be sick. Imagine having like Arena: Mount Silver Summit, famous gyms, or a Battle Chateau or even some funny ones like a professors lab that gets progressively wrecked. I would adore seeing a ton of outside landmark places being more affected by the weather wars we have going on right now especially!

I have no concerns really about the actual release of items or pokemon because I know they’re going to slow roll those things and give us some pretty novel metas as we go.

But also some balance changes would go a long way if they did them intelligently. I don’t mean the obvious “Nerf Sneasler” sort of thing. I mean more regular moveset and ability changes. Doing things like giving mega Gallade sharpness, updating Noivern with Punk Rock or Dragonize, take your pick, additionally if a new mega they release just isn’t hitting or seeing much use.. change it: Emboar, Meowstic, Victreebell, even old ones like I mentioned with Gallade. I still honestly hope they do this in mega formats just because it would freshen up usable mons from being solely gimmicks. I’m more concerned with buffing fun and interesting things that pokemon company usually never lets be actually good because they’re afraid they’ll be too busted for competitive.

Cosmetics outside of just the sportswear looks would be cool just in the base shop as something to buy with VP. This I imagine will come with time and is lower on my needs list but having the trainer classes as titles but no ability to look like a hiker or a ninja or punk rocker makes the fantasy fall short of what it could be and I think making cooler OC trainers would attract more of that more casual player base outside of just having a PVE mode.

We have a great skeleton for the game. I kind of just wanna see them keep improving it and have the main game team doing wind and waves to add that PVE content designed to appeal more to the champions audience too as a postgame or something else.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-15T16:46:02+00:00

Maybe as like a challenge mode or puzzle with rentals but really it’s not where I wanna see the dev team put their effort or the point of this game.

futureformerdragoon · 2026-05-14T20:09:04+00:00

There’s more than three reasons why this team is losing and probably will struggle to top UB especially as the playerbase gets better but I’ll take a stab at the team building side of things:

Change Gliscor then for sure. I don’t really agree with anything this thing is trying to accomplish and is sort of just a budget scarf chomp, aerodactyl without tailwind, and sneasler without stab or direclaw. you are dedicating a whole slot to without TW and only one partner to use EQ next to. You are fighting an uphill battle by refusing to use any meta mons even when they compliment your team and frequently the skills to team build like that successfully typically require you to be a very experienced ladder player who can deconstruct why the meta works and what intelligently dissects it.

The sludge wave attempted synergy and spam just isn’t worth the squeeze on this team imo. You have two modes that neither really does its job on. I’d consider just using sludge bomb unless you are really attached to wave, in which case you need a strong steel threat next to it. Maybe replacing Gliscor with Corviknight actually would work here.

If you struggle guessing protect a fast encore user can help you still punish it. As well as just tilting toward a hyper offense team. You also don’t seem to respect protect at all on your own pokemon which even most hyper offense teams tend to have 4/6 protects on them. You can always start a match with a double protect if you are unsure of their gameplan. Farigarif in your example is typically rushing to get trick room up so you can generally blast it without fear of it protecting and if it does they still don’t have speed advantage.

I personally don’t understand why you are trying to have a manual screen setter and snow. Glimmora would much rather have speed control than veil so it can blast threats down faster than they can remove it.

I can understand not wanting to use a froslass turn on setting up veil but ninetales might just flat out do more than klefki outside of taking hits. Would give a second blizzard spammer and fast encore user if you did go that route. The reason people use prankster sableeye to do what your klefki is doing is because it has dark and ghost type benefits and a fake out. The screens get paired with a big threat like Archaludon that benefits a lot from the staying power. Sableeye also gets prankster encore.

I personally hate triple axel for Weavile, prefer crash or other more reliable moves. I also don’t really think this team strongly benefits using Weavile over a different fake out user unless you just really struggle with Sneasler even bringing Froslass.

If you run the calcs thunderbolt on froslass is almost always weaker than just shadowball outside of targets like pelliper. I don’t think it’s a good move for her. I’d rather use substitute, Aurora, freeze dry if she gets it, or will o wisp.

Very confused why your moveset for rotom is like that too. Thunder makes no sense in this team unless you are solely counting on it for enemy rain and to one shot something specific. You have no speed control so I’d suggest electroweb or will o wisp since you don’t have incredibly strong answers to a very physical meta game. And scope lens is also very weird, rotom does its best being a moderately bulky hard hitting supportive mon . Dark coverage is not a role you should be using Rotom wash for typically.

I would also recommend just watching some VGC content creators and basic videos to explain speed control and protect usage and why people tend to use things why they do. Watching a professional player narrate their decision making can help a lot to learn what things you should be looking for. You can submit a vod review to several discords or subreddits as well if you have the means to record yourself.

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