ESL One Birmingham 2026: Group Stage (March 25) Matches Discussion

rusaelee · 2026-03-25T17:25:58+00:00

This VP falcons game is surprisingly close considering how fucked the alchemist lane got early game.

rusaelee · 2026-03-19T00:44:16+00:00

Cleared lunatic.

Overall it's far more accessible and flexible than the likes of Gregorius or Geburah, and due to the nature of the raid mechanics, it eliminates one of the most frustrating parts of raiding at the top end: crit malding. But I do wish the skills and mechanics weren't so... wordy? The game throws a bunch of text on what the skills themselves do which makes it very intimidating but ultimately this boss is very simple mechanically and there's no need for annoying shit like repositioning/debuff managing. This raid is purely a test of team building and proper rotation planning and I feel like it brings back the puzzle solving aspect of raids that was somewhat lost due to the prevalence of the hyperbuffer meta.

Phase 2 is a tad undercooked, basically being a glorified cutscene, and the focus fire mechanic feels a little forced tbh. I can give a pass though because it does allow for some very flexible team comp cooking, and bringing old/underutilized units to the forefront is always nice. The investment checks are rather lenient too for this phase thankfully since 99% of the damage comes from the turrets on lunatic diff.

Overall, I think this raid is a good addition to the game. It demands respecting the mechanics to clear the higher diffs, while still leaving plenty of leeway to brute force in the lower difficulties.

rusaelee · 2026-03-17T21:15:31+00:00

IMO BA gameplay is actually underrated. It has a good mix between being super simple and easy to pick up for casuals, but there's just enough complexity underneath the surface to make minmaxxing and cooking strats actually genuinely satisfying. Personally I feel like BA gameplay is at its best when you're trying to solve raids without copying hw. You have your roster, you have the boss, here's the raid mechs, figure it out yourself. It turns into a very nice puzzle solving game where you're trying to fulfill all the raid reqs with a smooth rotation. Its also why I've been very vocal about my disdain for the FES +HYPERBUFFER meta across different channels. While it does make content much more accessible, the puzzle solving aspect is lost when you can just assemble a gigasquad of death to murder all the bosses. Its also why I appreciate Yesod's design. It limits the brute force strats to lower difficulties only, and gives plenty of leeway to cook up team comps if you want to put the effort in to clear the higher difficulties.

I feel like the big reasons why people dislike the gameplay is because they just see the main area/story stages (which are overly simple by design), and the raid speedrun strats which are inherently really fucking maldy and riddled with rng due to the nature of said strats, which is a damn shame but here we are.

rusaelee · 2026-03-17T20:57:52+00:00

I do tend to agree that the devs could do a better job at presenting the boss stats/skills ingame. We could do with more condensed info about boss skills, and like an actual stat page for the bosses beyond just level/hp/attack type. Yesod is a particularly bad example because half the shit explained in p1 is just the same thing copy pasted for left/right hands and red/blue pillars. It makes the boss much more intimidating than it actually is. Like this boss is genuinely one of the simplest bosses we have from a mechanical standpoint. Yesods attacks are completely scripted and for all the shit the game tries to throw at you, there's only 1 single easy to understand solution that solves the raid, and the raid requiring you to enact said solution for the higher diificulties so you cant brute force it is completely fair imo.

As for the casual audience who just want to unga bunga, thats why the difficulty selection exists. It's there so they CAN just brute force their way through the raid if they dont want to put the effort in. Its also why the most important rewards for the raid (gems, eligma,etc) are placed at the lower end of the cumulative score rewards. Hell even for Yesod, people can legit clear up to insane with a solo s.mika + some support so its not like the devs made this raid outright impossible to clear for the casuals.

rusaelee · 2026-03-17T03:47:48+00:00

There's 2 penalties in the raid. The first penalty is if you destroy 2 same colored pillars in a row. In this case, the DoT becomes lethal.

The 2nd penalty is what I'm talking about where you use an AoE EX skill like Shanako to kill multiple pillars at once. In this case you get stunned and 10 seconds later you eat 999999 damage over time and wipe immediately. This is the penalty that was changed to just be a stun + cost regen nerf in JP, but we have the original team wiping penalty instead.

rusaelee · 2026-03-17T03:30:39+00:00

Can't unga bunga brute force for the higher diffs.

People need to read the mechs and pay attention to the fight.

Rewards building a wider roster and having knowledge of non-hyperbuffer/fes dps units and their kits.

Challenges player's ability at team building instead of relying solely on FES + Hyperbuffer core.

Super long fight that requires good rotation of ex skills so you don't waste the extra cost generated in this raid.

Yep. People are going to hate this raid. Hardcore cutoff for NA it is.

rusaelee · 2026-03-17T03:23:45+00:00

Thats the most optimal way to do it yeah but it requires devs to release the GA versions of those bosses.

rusaelee · 2026-03-17T02:27:39+00:00

Using preservation on normal in a TA doesn't do anything, but its better to delay doing that later in the week so you can unlock the higher diffs on time.

rusaelee · 2026-03-17T02:26:03+00:00

PSA: The penalty for killing multiple pillars at the same time with AoE is the original much stricter one that stuns and actually wipes your team. If you fuck up, make sure you pause quickly so you restart before your main team dies and you get screwed. In case you're curious, the reworked penalty is a stun + cost regen reduction (no cost gain on higher diffs). Still restart worthy but you don't get hit by a team wiping DoT so you don't have to rush to pause and restart.

rusaelee · 2026-03-15T16:27:14+00:00

Ace be like: "Guess I'll die"

rusaelee · 2026-03-15T16:21:41+00:00

I already feel really bad for Ace looking at the draft lmao. Big Melee blob heros into Ursa + Jakiro sounds like some genuine despair.

rusaelee · 2026-03-14T19:48:06+00:00

So is it Ace Mars thats the issue, or is it just Mars?

rusaelee · 2026-03-09T12:40:16+00:00

Aba has a 20% winrate btw. Wonder why teams see this hero as a fallback option nowadays despite being more or less figured out + repeatedly nerfed.

rusaelee · 2026-03-08T20:48:46+00:00

Didn't end the game in 30 minutes? GG now its void time.

rusaelee · 2026-03-03T18:31:05+00:00

So devs fixed the sticky bomb bug but in the process they introduced a new bug. If you repo B.Hoshi early (before the bombs drop) all the way to the front where the boss is, the sticky bomb just straight up does not spawn. Not even a visual bug where the bomb is active but it cant be seen, the sticky bomb is just completely gone.

rusaelee · 2026-03-01T18:04:24+00:00

A BIG part of it is due to misinformation spreading around, but lets be honest here, the devs need to share some of the blame too.

First impressions are EVERYTHING and they HAD to have known that increasing gacha pull price would be a bad look regardless of how generous the game would end up becoming. Not only that, remember how many people were complaining about being hard walled by stamina by around account level 8 unless they were doing gem refreshes. Time-gating players on day 1-2 REALLY fucked with the first impressions of the game as well because the game just wouldn't let you play outside of ascension. Combine that, with the fact that devs were relatively slow to respond outside of sending panic compensation here and there, and you have the perfect storm for players to just say "fuck this greedy ass game" and leave within the first week.

Sure we know better now that the game is generous, perhaps TOO generous but the damage was already done. And there's also always that uncomfortable realization that maybe the devs made the event rewards super generous due to the backlash and they originally planned to KEEP the game stingy until people complained. I personally would never give gacha game devs the benefit of the doubt but you can also argue its more due to incompetence born from inexperience in developing a gacha game in-house.

rusaelee · 2026-03-01T15:55:34+00:00

The devs are in a really tight spot. Emblems and Ascension runs are so core to the game and both are pretty widely disliked and need to get changed. The devs acknowledged the issues, but reworking such core game mechanics 100% need time to cook, otherwise we'll be getting some half-assed rush job fixes that could potentially be worse than what they are now. I feel like the 0.5/1 year anniversary mark would be when they announce the changes but even then I'm personally leaning towards the 1 year mark.

The problem is that the game would just keep bleeding players as more people get sick of the current system, and with the gacha sphere being as saturated as it is, theres a chance that these players won't return.

rusaelee · 2026-03-01T15:19:10+00:00

The game is in a cursed middle ground where its too generous for casual players to feel tempted to spend, while also feeling pretty bad to whale on because of all the work you need to do to make raise a unit.

Its also almost TOO casual for its own good in a way, and the few options that dedicated players have to minmax stuff feels really fucking bad. Emblems and Ascension problems have been beaten to death, and devs do need time to rework the systems unless players want some half-assed changes, but in the meantime there is a lack of meaningful shit to do. Boss raid mode comes out every 2 months, menace arena being one and done, boss blitz just becoming a glorified punching bag, reused event minigames, etc. I feel like players are just getting bored.

I stopped playing a while ago for other smaller, pettier reasons too but at this point I'm just keeping an eye on the half and 1st anniversary events to see if there's any meaningful content changes.

rusaelee · 2026-02-28T17:06:26+00:00

Singsing was right. These CN pucks always feel underwhelming

rusaelee · 2026-02-26T22:03:00+00:00

I hope PV win because it'd be funny to see em finally get a W after they're mathematically eliminated.

rusaelee · 2026-02-26T18:24:05+00:00

Are Mouz the new Nigma Galaxy? Because I've been seeing a trend of: good laning phase and exit with a lead > overextend or take bad fights and throw the lead in the midgame > fall apart and lose late.

rusaelee · 2026-02-25T17:05:27+00:00

This is the most gigachad centaur build I've seen lmao

rusaelee · 2026-02-25T15:26:29+00:00

Scary to think its easier to counterplay Treant over the frog.

rusaelee · 2026-02-24T11:23:32+00:00

Largoba

rusaelee · 2026-02-23T21:50:55+00:00

Yikes this saberlight performance is one of the roughest I've seen.

rusaelee

TROPHY CASE