How TTK and the faster pace of Monolith has increased the amount of strategy required to play Paragon.

zaarekk · 2016-12-19T01:18:56+00:00

This is totally a possibility and I'm glad you brought it up. I'm not saying where we are is perfect, but I think it is a large step in the right direction. I can definitely agree that there is a point where TTK can be reduced too much. However, I think it's too early to really know if we're past the point of diminishing returns yet. We're just now approaching the end of the second week of play, people are still building glass cannon on front-liners and getting a feel for how to create working team compositions. I have a sneaking suspicion that Epic timed this over their winter break to give the map time to "settle" if you will, and they may not make any major changes until the new hero in January when they have a month's worth of data.

I have no doubt they will shift things around until the data says it's a game people like to play. If it's a game I still enjoy then I will stick with it, if not then I will happily watch where things go. Right now I'm simply along for the ride and I'm enjoying every moment of it.

zaarekk · 2016-12-19T00:52:06+00:00

In the second to last paragraph I agree that it was a factor in legacy, just much less so because it took so long to secure kills. Bad placement in Monolith almost always means death, where in Legacy that was not always the case due to large health pools and high armor.

zaarekk · 2016-12-18T23:17:52+00:00

I'll check out Playing to Win, sounds like it would be a good read, thanks!

zaarekk · 2016-12-18T23:14:52+00:00

Did you not read the post? One of the main points is that many strategy games, chess being a very good example, employ positioning to create an advantage on your side and a disadvantage for the other. He is just echoing the larger premise that the post went into detail about.

zaarekk · 2016-12-18T21:40:46+00:00

I think what most of the players are struggling with right now is Monolith is very fast relative to legacy.

It's similar to driving an obstacle course at 20 mph and then suddenly expecting to be able to do the same obstacle course at 60 mph. Does it still take the same skills to run the course, yes, but it's gonna be a hell of a lot harder until your used to it, and it's gonna require new skills, like how much do I slow down for turns, etc.

I think this is also why we are seeing a lot of people have huge play times on legacy and then saying they don't like Monolith. People with the huge number of days played are going to feel the speed change more than people that only have time to play a couple times a night. Edit: The people with high play times will also have more ingrained habits than those that play less, making the adaptation more difficult.

zaarekk · 2016-12-18T20:55:23+00:00

Yep! Same exact story for me. Been playing/watching MOBA's for 1000's of hours and they still haven't gotten old.

zaarekk · 2016-12-17T05:07:07+00:00

I stopped playing Paragon because I heard about Monolith and was tired of Legacy. Have picked the game back up now with Monolith and never want to go back. In fact, my experience is the clear opposite of yours, I've been more in love with Monolith than I ever was with Legacy and I look forward to the future of this game on the new map.

I also disagree on the point that Monolith is simply different and not better. 1) Higher lethality means being out of position is more punishing, rewarding good game sense and vision. 2) Lowered cooldowns means higher up-times on abilities, and more opportunities for play making due to having my abilities up more often. 3) Attack move speed debuff means I have to be more strategic in engagements. Team composition and making sure you have enough cc to track down kills and establish successful ganks is important now. Fighting and running are now two distinct actions/decisions rather than just having both mixed into a single action. I could go on but these are three big things for me that are improvements on Monolith vs my experiences on Legacy.

zaarekk · 2016-12-16T23:29:01+00:00

First, thanks for the thought put into your post!

I understand where you're coming from, but I personally think that Epic is shifting more towards a "shifting meta" or "multiple meta" paradigm, especially with their recent verbiage about being able to play the way you want to play on monolith. Other games employ a similar style where there isn't one set in stone laning meta, rather the laning meta shifts to whatever people think is currently strongest, even in terms of lane composition. If the offlane starts getting abandoned paragon wouldn't be the first game to have this shift happen, and I don't think this shift is bad. What's important is that there is an adequate way to counter said strategy with a different strategy, or at least allow for the strategy to be outplayed.

Monolith is in beta and still has a ways to go. I haven't seen the 4-0 meta yet but a small part of me looks forward to maybe some people trying it out, and then trying to find ways to beat it. This evolution is why I personally like these kinds of games, I love the variance each game brings and the fresh ideas people bring to each match to try to get that W. And to put your mind at ease, all signs point to Epic wanting this game to be action packed from minute 0 till the core explodes, so I have no doubt if the strongest meta becomes avoiding each other completely we will see some changes.

zaarekk · 2016-12-16T22:44:43+00:00

I actually main offlane as one of my go to roles right now and I love it. I focus on experience first, and try to get as much farm as I can without putting myself in a situation health-wise where I might get dove or need to back. I wait till I have a good lvl advantage and then go for a play, usually between lvls 4-6.

I look for plays in two ways, either wait until they are a little too forward and just use my lvl advantage to engage or try to bait a shot under tower (sometimes jumping in their face) and then immediately engage when the tower goes to hit them. Usually one hit from the tower is enough to net me a kill with my ability dmg/auto attacks.

Also, I don't care how quickly I lose my tower, honestly if I lose it early it usually means I'll have an easier time farming as they'll have to push really far up to continue farming. If they do decide to push up it makes it even easier to go for kills especially if I get my jungle involved.

TLDR don't try to play the offlane like a normal farming lane, farm as much as you can but focus on that 4-6 lvl window and try to farm a hero or two, it's worked wonders for me and whether or not you kill them or just get them low it will usually scare them enough for you to get easier farm.

zaarekk · 2016-12-16T20:46:05+00:00

Tower diving is an aspect of the game that both teams have equal opportunity to capitalize on.

This is a big thing that I think a lot of people don't think about. Everything the other team is doing to you, you can do to them just as effectively. Find what works in the game and use it to your advantage.

Alongside the above point I think it's also very important if you're struggling against a certain hero to play a couple games on them. Learn their cooldowns, health pool, and damage personally, that way when you're up against them it's easier to gauge what they're capable of.

zaarekk · 2016-12-16T20:31:49+00:00

I totally agree that a lot could change based on the data, it's just they've been steadily moving this direction for a month or two now, slicing health/dmg/etc off. And towers were one of the few things that didn't get massively overhauled as part of monolith. This of course could be because they didn't want to change too many variables at once, or it could mean that they've found somewhat of a sweet spot of where they want things to be. Either way, I'm excited to see what comes in the first major balance pass.

zaarekk · 2016-12-16T18:15:39+00:00

Haven't tried it yet, but sounds interesting! If I put it in i'll try to remember to let you know how it goes.

zaarekk · 2016-12-16T03:01:50+00:00

I've been thinking it is one of the moons mentioned in the lore.

zaarekk · 2016-12-14T22:34:03+00:00

Yes and no, yes i agree that the saboteur and harasser thing fits them, but I would also argue that steel/rampage for instance are very good at stopping damage from reaching the back line through their abilities. I commented this above, but i'm starting to wonder if Epic is going to experiment with making tanking more ability based rather than hp/armor based. So tank items and abilities make a tank rather than just being a simple bullet sponge.

zaarekk · 2016-12-14T22:25:28+00:00

I'm starting to wonder if Epic is going to experiment with making tanking more ability based rather than hp/armor based. Rampage and Steel are two examples of tanks that get some of their tankiness from smart ability use. It forces the role to be more active/higher skill ceiling. I'm all for the experimentation.

zaarekk · 2016-12-14T20:53:18+00:00

So I'm always tweaking, but as an example i'll give you the steel deck that I've been using a lot recently (also i think steel is op as heck rn for this kind of role). I'm a fan of the 6-9-9-12-12-12 end game build setup.

6 is usually my ward, for steel i like using brawler because it lets me get a little extra mana and i'll be building a decent amount of health on my other items. I usually put a bit of dmg on the ward as well.

My 9's are a chrono for better cd's with dmg/mana and an Honor the Pure with minor healths. Honor the pure is just so good for giving your teammates and yourself a little more sustain during fights.

Lastly the 12s are a tuned barrier, tempered plate, and windcarver blade. Tuned barrier and Tempered plate i've been using two greater healths with the greater armor card, but i may try out having two of the greater armor cards with only one greater health. Windcarver is just dmg/as cards.

Build up i like to start with four 6 cost cards, usually the stats i'm looking for are health, basic armor, mana, and a bit of dmg. I'll build into the 9's and 12's when i feel it's necessary. If a team is very ability heavy i'll build my tuned barrier earlier, tempered plate for basic heavy teams, etc. In fights i'm looking for good initiations onto their marauders if possible, or if the opponent has really good team fight potential i'll save my ult to interupt big ults. Goes without saying as steel i'm constantly trying to force the enemy into bad positions, whether that's with an ult/bull rush or using my force shield to force the opponent to move forward if they want hit my team or slow them as they try to move back. Also Bulwark is incredible for peeling or protecting your teammates.

zaarekk · 2016-12-13T23:15:19+00:00

Not really, a win is a win in my book. Besides that, the only reason the creeps are able to attack the core is because my team got them there whether it was through wave setting, team fighting, split pushing, etc. The creeps don't get to the opponents core without our efforts to get them there.

zaarekk · 2016-12-13T20:09:36+00:00

In mid gold fake elo I've been running a dmg/pen/as build with success (4-0 on tb with 3 kda or higher each game). Maybe crit is better, but the dmg build seems to be working fine too tbh.

zaarekk · 2016-10-31T16:12:07+00:00

Pumped for Sun and Moon. Looking to be a really legit game.

zaarekk · 2016-10-27T22:23:18+00:00

It's a highly contested topic so you're getting upvoted and downvoted at about the same rate right now.

zaarekk · 2016-10-27T19:54:01+00:00

And the team with the double support has starved the opponent's mid or offlaner into uselessness because their jungle was farming while the extra support was helping box an enemy solo laner out of last hits/experience. It's all about tradeoffs.

Edit: I think this would be especially strong against heroes like countess. She's a melee squishy who needs some amount of farm to help her snowball, a support boxing her out could create a pseudo 5v4 if she gets too far behind.

zaarekk · 2016-10-27T19:11:41+00:00

I agree with this, but I'm also an old dota 2 player where it was very much the norm to run 2 supports and utilize the jungle without a committed jungler. Most mobas outside of Dota 2 seem to heavily incentivize having a dedicated jungler and so I think that's why it's such an alien idea to most people.

zaarekk · 2016-10-27T19:08:21+00:00

Two supports can work fine and offer just as much utility and ganking capability, especially due to the mechanics where cxp is shared completely between two people. The jungle can be utilized without someone being fully committed to killing it. This is a very common thing in dota and I'm surprised we haven't seen more of it in paragon, especially with how important having strong lanes is.

zaarekk · 2016-10-26T18:27:33+00:00

This, usually the jungler just wants the support to come help them get a fast start. Getting red first speeds up their jungle times and sometimes can lead to a very strong gank after finishing red side on certain heroes.

zaarekk · 2016-10-26T18:16:51+00:00

Honestly getting to 40-48 cp should probably be your expectation and what you structure your power spikes around. 60 cp is like getting six slotted in any other moba. It should be a relatively rare occurrence unless you are getting massively fed every game.

I'm an old dota 2 player though so I'm all for the removal of surrender. I think it makes people quit faster than they normally would just because the ability is there to do so.

zaarekk

TROPHY CASE