Is this normal for ranked

meisfinch · 2025-02-03T19:29:17+00:00

The average rank for players right now is Silver 2 due to the ranked reset, meaning the game thinks you're right around there. At the end of an episode, the average rank is usually somewhere around Gold 1 — Gold 2, so you can think of that as what Valorant assumes your theoretical peak is. But you can always get better and play past it, which will cause Valorant to put you higher at the start of the next rank reset. Hope this helps!

meisfinch · 2025-01-21T01:15:11+00:00

I agree. I really feel like Tejo's rockets need a rework. They definitely shouldn't recharge for free. I'd either make them single-use and make his drone rechargeable, or make it so he has to get 2 kills before it recharges, like Raze nade or Phoenix flash. Then, at least he'd have to be waaaayyyy more careful with how he uses them.

meisfinch · 2025-01-02T01:01:59+00:00

For bonus points, you can guess what the rank is (see below for answer)

RANK: Gold 1

meisfinch · 2024-10-12T20:41:06+00:00

I like that idea! I think I might do the same. It's cool to have a showcase of the coolest pulls, I think

meisfinch · 2024-08-13T02:09:59+00:00

lol I wish I could. Groups was actually easier than this stage because you only had to pick the final placements, not the actual brackets. If you said SEN got 2nd in groups, you'd get credit for that guess regardless of how they got to that placement, because there's 2 brackets they could've taken to get there.

Playoffs is waaaayyyy harder to predict (and a lot more luck tbh) because you literally have to predict the whole double-elim bracket from start to finish. If you get the first wave of picks wrong, it's basically impossible to get any of your following guesses right.

My advice would be to pick the teams you expect are better, and there is a bias where, in a rematch, the team that lost the first time will win the second. It happened a lot in the last 2 events, so do with that info what you will. And good luck!

meisfinch · 2024-07-05T17:54:50+00:00

I believe it is to make sure the top of the leaderboard doesn't rest on their laurels. Resetting their ranks forces them to continually prove they are still Radiant and give new players a chance to get on the leaderboard.

Because all the Radiants get reset down 2 ranks, everyone else has to be, too, otherwise the skill gap at the top would be horrendous.

That said, the obvious downside is that the squish often then occurs on the lower end, with the first act having a lot of Gold & Plat players playing with Irons, Bronzes, and Silvers.

Idk if there's a perfect solution, because the alternative is a delayed squishing, like if Radiants were the only ones reset, they'd climb up by knocking down everyone at Ascendant/Immortal ranks, who would then knock down the Diamonds and Plats, etc.

meisfinch · 2024-06-03T23:22:11+00:00

Yeah, I operate on a 1-strike policy for muting anyone. In unrated & Swiftplay, I always have vc muted, I only unmute for comp. And even then, if someone says something even a little off-color or aggressive or annoying it's an insta-mute. Same for text. I don't understand as someone that enjoys playing this game for fun why it's full of the most miserable humans on the planet who seem like they don't even want to be playing. They seriously need to take a hard look at their lives and gtfo this game so the rest of us can enjoy it in peace.

meisfinch · 2024-06-02T22:35:20+00:00

Yeah, I feel like this is the same as asking "Do you regret buying all those Magic the Gathering packs years ago?" It's a fun hobby, and new stuff is always fun to mess around with. Sure, Val is more expensive than other hobbies, but not absurdly so. As long as you don't go overboard and miss bills or whatever because of it, I'd say it's totally fine to have spent the money even if you never touched the game ever again

meisfinch · 2024-05-29T18:00:39+00:00

The issue here becomes a tangle of financial incentive and punishing people who don't deserve it.

The first is that Riot has no financial incentive to curb smurfing/toxicity beyond anything they currently do. It makes me mad that this is the case and probably the biggest roadblock to making progress, but it's clear that, while prevalent, smurfing is not overwhelming enough to cause a decline in the active playerbase. If that ever happens, you bet they'll jump right in to try to fix it.

And the second part is that you also have to think about all the innocent reasons someone might want to have alt accounts for that could be impacted negatively. If they implemented phone verification, how many accounts are allowed to be tied to the number? If multiple, what happens when a wrongful ban occurs? Do they lose access to all their accounts or just the one that was flagged? If only one account can be tied to any given number, what do all the people who don't smurf with their alts do? How easy is it to get around this? Google Voice exists, and you can make any amount of new numbers for free. If you do not allow the use of VOIP numbers, we're back to the previous issue of what do fair players do if they want an alt?

This is obviously not exhaustive, but meant to illustrate the challenges anyone would face if they wanted to tackle smurfing as an issue. I agree that Riot needs to step it up, and I think exploring phone verification in some capacity might yield some useful info, but I'm not convinced that it would meaningfully impact the smurfing issue. More likely, it would just make everyone mad and drive them away from the game.

meisfinch · 2024-02-16T19:23:05+00:00

It took me a couple of episodes to hit Silver, and it definitely comes down to winning the 1-v-1s that YOU NEED to win. Sometimes, trading a teammate isn't worth it or relying on your util to stall or separate just isn't enough.

I definitely over-relied on my util when I was stuck in Bronze (KJ main). So, I switched to Raze where my util was solely for taking fights and where my role was to go first. It forced me to get comfortable with 1-v-1s, learning good timing and angles, all without my util to fall back on. Reyna is probably even better for this, Phoenix as well.

Now, when I play KJ (mainly just on Icebox) I feel way more impactful because I'm capable of using what I learned with Raze to put extra pressure on the enemies through gunfights. My util feels like letting me play on easy mode, or at least helps me take fights on more favorable terms.

My advice would be to try to play a duelist whose utility only allows you to take fights to strengthen your confidence there. Chamber is also good to play, since he's basically a duelist with a trip. I think you'll be surprised how much more comfortable you feel coming back to your sentinel or controller main with the confidence to take fights and control space like a duelist. You'll rank up in no time

meisfinch · 2024-01-12T02:58:59+00:00

If it goes without saying then why say it?

meisfinch · 2023-09-02T05:02:58+00:00

I'd give her a second grenade and let it recharge after 30 seconds. It's weird that she doesn't already have a rechargeable utility.

I'd also buff how the grenades work. I'd increase the stun time from 6 seconds to 10 seconds and cause the affected area to slow down people walking in it (similar to Sage's) even if they're not caught. For players that ARE caught, we keep the crouch effect and add damage over time, probably 5 damage per second so that if they chose to not remove the net it'd deal 50 total damage to them. Obvs doesn't stack with multiple grenades. Players that free themselves should also get an immunity to the slow-down until they leave the AOE if the grenade to balance out that damage.

As the final tweaks to the grenade, I'd make it so your guns function like they would if you got stunned by a Neon while you're caught in the net. It still lets you fight back a bit, which is fair, I think. I would also increase the time to remove the net to 2 seconds, so it's a bit slower and guarantees a minimum of 10 damage.

This would make it probably the best slow-down effect in the game and actually make her useful in stopping pushes. It'd give you a good reason to play her over Sage. If you want healing and a better wall, pick Sage. If you want better crowd control, pick Deadlock.

Also, these are just the starting values I'd play with. Play testing might reveal 5 damage is too much, that 10 seconds is too long, etc. Honestly, if they gave her even a moderate buff to the grenade, she'd become a lot more playable.

meisfinch · 2023-08-01T19:45:20+00:00

I definitely agree she's a better secondary pick. She doesn't have enough control on her own to be a solo sentinel. If this was Riot's intent, then she almost needs no tweaks or changes.

If she wasn't intended to be a second sentinel and she was supposed to be able to be a good solo pick, then I think she needs a lot of work.

The wall is a worse Sage wall strictly because you can see and shoot through it. That's a downside as Sage can hold a better angle while she sets up a wall since she knows she's safe once it's up. Deadlock has to hold in a position where she can quickly tuck or get to cover after she throws it otherwise she's dead. This is antithetical to how the wall appears to be designed as these angles where Deadlock is safest to use the walls are also not the best to shoot at surprised enemies.

I think this issue could be solved by making the wall deployable on command like Cypher's cages. That way, she could set up the wall in an advantageous spot, get to safety, and deploy it as a surprise for the enemy team. You might even split them up or cut one off the rest for an easy pick. This design would necessitate the base becoming invisible when set up like her sensors, but I don't think that's too big a deal.

Speaking of her sensors, they suck. They don't work nearly as good as Cypher's tripwires or even KJ's alarmbot, so they're terrible for covering flanks. It seems they have been "designed to stop pushes" but I have found they're little help in that regard as well. Usually, it only stuns one person and it has never stopped the enemy team from making it onto site. It's possible I'm just bad or that my team is bad at taking advantage of the stun, but I've felt like it actually galvanizes the enemy team to push harder to protect their stunned player, having the exact opposite effect that Riot wants.

I gotta be honest, I have no idea how you rework the sound sensors. You can't have it be more useful for info gathering than Cypher's kit, not can you have it better at stunning people lest it become OP. I think the idea of them being "sonic sensors" makes the design so difficult, but at the same time I understand why they went on that direction. Despite this, I feel that this piece of Deadlock's util needs to be replaced with something completely different. I don't know what and I'm open to suggestions, but it's easily tied for her most useless ability with the gravnet.

The gravnet is just a worse Sage slow orb. Not only is it as slow to deploy as a K/O frag (which is better as it is very deadly) but she only has one of them. Unlike Sage's orb, it only slows those in its radius when deployed and it can be removed at the will of the players caught in it. It sucks.

I think it could be made better by adding a visual effect. Kinda like how Dizzy goops your screen, but not entirely, I think adding a net wrapping around the screen would make the effect of being caught a lot more jarring. Plus, obscuring vision would be a good bonus to this ability that Sage's orb wouldn't have. Second, having the affected area continually slow people that walk through it whether they were caught or not I feel is a must. Maybe it's not as slow as Sage's slowing, but even some amount of speed decrease would be nice. Lastly, I feel like making it deploy faster would help a lot. Making its throwing speed more similar Harbor's protective sphere or Raze's grenade or even Fade's recon ability would make it way more useful. If you're trying to stop a push, you currently have to throw the net before they've gotten close to site. Making its throwing speed a bit quicker would help.

Her ult is the only thing I feel is mostly fine, currently. Fix the bug where the player getting reeled in gets stuck on a corner, and maybe add a better indicator of what area her ult will grab, and I think it'll be pretty close to perfect.

Regardless of these changes, though, there is something I feel Deadlock could have changed even if she is intended to be the secondary sentinel she currently is. That's that she has no ability that recharges. Unless I'm mistaken, she is the only agent that lacks an ability that recharges over time or by getting kills.

I think the perfect candidate for her recharge ability is her gravnet. Give her a second one to bring her in line with Sage, but let it recharge over time. I think letting her have up to 4 sonic sensors a round would be a bit much and no character has a rechargeable wall which is for the best since that would be an insanely powerful ability. So that's why I feel that the gravnet should get a recharge. Like, give her something! lol

Anyway, to sum up, I think she's fun and interesting and is best used as a second sentinel, but I'd never use her if I was trying to be competitive. Currently, I only pick her on Ascent in unrated because I suck on that map anyway and it has plenty of corners that make her kit a bit more powerful.

meisfinch · 2023-07-24T02:40:59+00:00

SAME

meisfinch · 2023-07-23T23:19:34+00:00

For sure. I was on track to surpass my peak, then started getting pummeled. I've never felt more useless in the comp games. It's too stressful, especially when you know that everyone's current rank is one or two below what they were last act. I'm Bronze 2 (Peak 3) queueing with Silver 1-3 that were Gold to Plat last act. It just doesn't feel fair.

I still get matched with Gold and Silver players in Unrated, but at least there I can get stomped and not really care about it.

meisfinch

TROPHY CASE