Patch 10.5 is TERRIBLE, Everyone is SEETHING and F*CK Phoenix ft Nugnug & Coach_Gap

In this episode we sit down with 2 fellow creators and coaches to talk about the horrible patch 10.5

What is Clear Comms Podcast?

A Marvel Rivals Podcast hosted by Coach Mills and CaptainCoach, two creator and educators for Marvel Rivals. We discuss all things Rivals including META, balance and the future of development. We will often debate controversial topics that surround the game and plan to bring on many exciting guests from pros to devs!!!

Coach Mills (00:00.57)
What's up, everybody, and welcome to a brand new ClearComps episode. Patch 10.5 has finally released, and we're here to break down and talk about exactly what these changes mean. And we brought on two special guests. First off, heavily, heavily requested Nug Nug. Thank you for making some time coming on the pod.

Nugnug (00:18.596)
Thank you so much for the invitation. It means a lot to be here. I do love, love a lot yapping about the game. It's kind of my favorite thing to do. I got a lot of things to say. I'm a thinker. I think about a lot of things. Like sometimes I'll think about one specific topic, like for the entire day previous. And then so when I start recording, like I already know everything I want to say. it's something I love to do. And when I love the game and I'm passionate about it, I I end up thinking a lot about it. from all different perspectives. I know the online community tends to like sometimes shift towards one.

group of people but sometimes i do like sometimes i'll release a video where i defend a group that maybe doesn't have much of a voice in an online community and it's just so funny seeing the way the community reacts sometimes like anytime I would in a video defend like supports I would get some people commenting saying typical support main I'm like my gameplay I'm showing they're call like I get called typical support main sometimes and I watch like are you not watching the gameplay on the screen

Coach Mills (01:08.214)
Who

CaptainCoach (01:09.088)
Ha ha.

CaptainCoach (01:16.896)
Is it subjective or objective though? That's the

Nugnug (01:18.736)
Yeah, this is objective or objective, yeah.

Coach Mills (01:19.3)
No. By the way, Nug Nug, Nug Nug is my coach. I I've recently played an Iron Fist tournament and before that I grinded ranked and I lost like three games in a row and I was like, I'm I'm fucking cooked. So I watched his fifty minute video and then I actually won games in Grandmaster on Iron Fist. I did. I watched it in two X speed. I I think we fucking speed sped through it and then I fucking like I did the I did the golden the the fucking golden loop, you know, and yeah, easy easy I like

Coach_Gap (01:19.625)
my gosh, bro. I think it's stuck in my head for multiple weeks.

CaptainCoach (01:23.662)
Ha ha ha.

Nugnug (01:23.832)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:37.626)
You really watch the whole thing?

Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:43.192)
huh.

Coach Mills (01:48.91)
So that this is my this is my coach.

CaptainCoach (01:51.15)
You gotta you gotta

Coach_Gap (01:51.186)
So you're telling me that attention span isn't dictated by age alone. Okay.

Coach Mills (01:54.096)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. tr

Nugnug (01:54.571)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:54.607)
I was gonna say you gotta watch at half speed to get that watch time up for the stats, bro. These changes. Okay.

Coach Mills (02:03.084)
And and our and our second guest, an amazing coach, someone who thinks extremely, extremely deeply on the game. I've been wanting to have him on for a long time and I'm really excited to have him on. Coach Gab, thank you so much for coming on, man.

Coach_Gap (02:15.184)
Yeah, thank you for having me, man. In this call, I feel like I am an absolute nobody, but I'm so excited to talk about the game. I was like super nervous but excited coming into it and seeing those patch notes. Bro, I am fuming. Like the passion will fuel me to just get past any sort of nervousness. yeah, like I said, I've been coaching for for about a year or so. Collegiate coaching. Shout out my boy St. Edwards.

CaptainCoach (02:21.831)
no no.

Coach Mills (02:26.838)
Hehehehehe.

Coach Mills (02:31.844)
Hell yeah, hell yeah.

Coach Mills (02:39.492)
Yeah, awesome. Well I'm

CaptainCoach (02:39.618)
Hell yeah. Hey, the the the the nerves that that means that means you care. That that's a good thing, right? Like you know?

Coach_Gap (02:41.37)
Like we have a phrase that I don't know.

Coach Mills (02:44.578)
A hundred percent. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And and like before we even get into the patch notes, before we get into the dev vision, I wanna I wanna get y'all's opinion about how do you feel about season ten and then before that, you know, season nine, the the changes and then season nine point five. Like s what's what's your overall thoughts there? I'll start off with you, Nug Nug. What's your general like what's the general consensus there and how do you feel about season?

Coach_Gap (02:44.76)
It really is. It really is about caring.

Nugnug (03:08.858)
So I thought leading up to like season nine specifically, everyone like regarded 8.5 as pretty well balanced because normally it takes the developers like many, many seasons of trial and error to very slowly reach a state of balance. 9.0 like reset everything. So it created a situation where like we're back to season zero, but with all the game knowledge. And so them it was discovered so quickly. In season zero, it took so long because it was a completely new game.

But then 9.0 drops, all the balance changes, like like season zero, which was very unbalanced. We just didn't experience that level of unbalance because the meta wasn't as discovered as quickly. So they reset everything in 9.0 basically, it bounced went through the roof. I'm under the impression it's going to take time. It's just, it sucks because we discovered it so fast. So now we just have to bear with it. I was a little bit disappointed they didn't act.

quicker because some things were like very obvious to us as a community what things needed changes. some things were like not even debatable. Like there were some changes that we were all like this 100% has to change. like Elsa being a c the complete monster she was. I don't think there was really anyone in the community that would say she didn't need nerfs, but it took them so long to do that. and then going up to this season today, I little bit disappointed that there's still certain team ups that I wonder why they even exist. So

Coach Mills (04:32.752)
Right.

Nugnug (04:33.36)
There's a lot of changes that like I I wish they did make. I think when they do make a change, sometimes it's it's pretty good. Like if you were to go through each change in each patch, you'd be like, you know, that's in isolation, it's not that bad of a change, but it's more so like the lack of changes that I think frustrates a lot of the community sometimes is looking at certain things go unresolved. new content's great. They make new content. The new content they give the game is great. A lot of the skins, the the game modes.

It's actually fantastic. It's the redeeming quality of this game because their content is really damn good. it's just it's sometimes it's a bit frustrating when the seasons go by and there's like there's issues that you're like are causing frustration and people are very vocal about it, and they just release the new skins and it feels like they're not listening. The developers are usually pretty responsive when things get very loud, but it seems like it's

It sometimes they're they just don't talk. And I think talking would be would go a long way. Even just little tweet, like we understand your concerns about this. We're working on a solution. Doesn't even need to be in the next few weeks. Just just knowing that they hear it and that they're thinking about it and they're planning on fixing something about it is kind of all we'd like to know. but they don't really they don't really do that. So

Coach Mills (05:49.348)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (05:50.649)
That's one major issue we we talked about last week was I feel like there's a bit of a language barrier with communicating to the community about their intentions. That's one thing we go double went over with like, you know, all all the the in game harassment going on, the uptick and in that. just wanted to clarify something you said. You said that I I think you meant you eight point five you said was in a balanced spot, or did you actually mean you said nine point five. I just wanted to make sure I Okay. Just making sure. Yeah.

Coach Mills (05:53.455)
Yeah.

Nugnug (06:14.86)
did I say nine point five? sorry no no eight point five eight point five eight point five yes

Coach Mills (06:18.2)
Eight point four. and and a follow up question on that is would you so kind of it it I I agree with you that eight point five was this balance it was this balanced state. I think eight point five was probably the most balanced the game has been, and it took them so long to get there. And like you said, nine reset everything, and it feels like they're taking turtle steps towards that balance. Maybe they'll get there eventually, but we figured it out. Everyone has figured it out that plays the game. So

CaptainCoach (06:20.364)
That's what I'm here for.

Coach Mills (06:45.826)
If that's gonna be the case, do you think it was a mistake to even implement a change that fundamentally big, like nine point Do you think it was a necessary refresh of the game? Or do you think it actually pulled us way back all the progress that they have made? And now during the reset period or like them catching up to the community, we have to go through these kind of like pretty miserable patches. what's your opinion on that?

Nugnug (07:08.048)
I thought the team-up system was a little bit broken to begin with. and it needed some changes. Like, for example, the the team-up anchor bonus. I think why did that ever even exist? Because then they would remove it and then just compensate buff. Like, I don't, it's like, what was the point of it? It would change the balance equilibrium of the hero. So then you remove it and then it feels bad. And I think the reason why the team-up system sucked is there's like a fundamental thing Netdy's finally understood.

And it's you can't take powers away from people. It feels horrible. I know, Captain Coach, you played a lot of World of Warcraft. I used to play a lot of retail over the years as it progressed, back in Legion. And this is a mistake Blizzard learnt with World of Warcraft. Is when you give all this borrowed power, it's like the worst thing in the world to rip it all away. And then you go to the next expansion and you lose everything. it's kind of that way with team-ups, although not as like severe because not everyone got one.

CaptainCoach (07:42.829)
Yeah.

Nugnug (08:03.29)
But when you give people a team up, especially if it's like a cool, fun one that like maybe even changes the game, and then you rip it away, it's kind of painful. So like like imagine you play Iron Fist and you have that uppercut, and then someday they take it away. It'll feel so bad. I can't even ex describe how bad that would feel. So we're we're essentially stuck with what we have now. And I do think it was a good change because it allows for like almost like a major diversification in like your game to game gameplay.

because some of the heroes I play, they have clear different play styles with the team-ups. I think it's cool. I think it's engaging. It adds another layer of skill expression. Like, okay, and this comp, I'm gonna go with this team-up because I think I'll get more value doing that. it does create a little bit of team synergy as well with the enhancements. I think fundamentally, like it's also more of a casual game, and these these powers are cool and fun. so diversity of gameplay, power scaling, it's pretty fun. I just think they balanced it pretty.

Poorly to start because there is some team-ups that I think anyone, literally anyone, could look at and go, How could you release it like that? But I do think it was a great thing for the game long term. Okay, long term. It's just gonna take some time to like tune it and fine-tune it. And the system, you can build upon it really easily. Like maybe like season 13, season 14, season whenever, massive wave, everyone gets one new team-up. It could feel fun. Now you have another option, and it's a game.

To game change in your gameplay. as someone like, for like, for example, on Daredevil, I play Daredevil, it can get really stale, I'll admit, because you have one team-up that's viable. The Iron Fist team-up is so bad. and so it doesn't feel good when you can't switch between them. I feel spoiled to play Iron Fist, where I have two team-ups that are actually fun and good. I feel spoiled. I get a white fox, it's so fun. the baseline thing team-up, it's so fun. And so I feel spoiled for having that.

it's something that not a lot of heroes have is that really fun teamup that you can switch between to actually change your gameplay. And it's meaningful. Both team-ups have completely different purposes. It's really meaningful. Like if I have the White Fox team up, my diving is crap. If I have the Thing team up, my brawling is way worse. It's really cool and really fun. They just need to reach that balance and they're just not there yet. Some team ups are just so bad and they don't diversify your gameplay to where you wonder why is it even there?

CaptainCoach (10:07.907)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (10:27.434)
Iron Fist was the hero that I said out of every single character had the best design team-ups. Personally, I thought, I thought they knocked it out of the park with him. And if they could have done that with everyone, I think the tune would be a little bit different. Mills, I mean, you've you've talked a lot about the Thor one, right? Like how whatever the hell the hella one's worse, but everybody goes it just because it's

Nugnug (10:34.856)
yeah.

Coach Mills (10:49.674)
Well yeah, yeah. It it's actually they're actually pretty comparable like in power level. I think the Angelo one is just better in a lot more cases, but the Hello one's just so fun and it's like I feel like I crutch on it really hard, but it's like a fun crutch. It's like it bails me out. like though the antithesis of like the Iron Fist one for is the Bucky one. Like, holy shit, it's so stupid. Like I can't even use the cool one. Like I can't use the fun team up that actually adds a gameplay element 'cause it's just objectively worse than the Elsa one. Like why would I ever

not just use the else one. but yeah I wanna I wanna kinda rotate it to to gap. What do you what was your opinion specifically of ten point and like us everything that's led up to ten point what was your thoughts?

CaptainCoach (11:19.832)
Right.

Coach_Gap (11:32.902)
10.0 is rough. I mean, it was so hard to obviously see Dino and Emma being buffed so hard. And I think these most recent ones, like 10 and then 10.5, have really just like cemented that feeling that where like the game is kind of balanced or made for the casual crowd. Because beforehand, I was like, well, you know, there are like changes that are for this kind of like higher tier, changes that are for the lower tier.

But then after watching Ignite and like starting to coach and vauderview and this stuff and just seeing these insane characters like Loki, Wolverine. I mean the Bucky one was already so good. But it was just like these characters that were already so above S tier or like some of the best in slot characters, being just buffed out the wazoo. And then such a simple character like Dino.

And it was like that feeling of okay, so many people are complaining about Magneto and Thing being good, but being so simple. And then we're like, we need to change this. And then suddenly like Emma and Dino are meta. Like it's it's the exact same thing. And even beforehand, like playing against Dino in like some community or like streamer tournaments, you know, I was like a thing player would get a little bit tossed around by Dino. And it was like, okay, there is a counter there.

That he can do, like it's situational, and then just became a permanent kind of slot in there. And and the feeling that we were we are so close to like an actual good meta, if we just knock down like those 10 characters sucks. It sucks to be like, Man, if I had eight or ten bands, the game would be awesome. Like I'd be running Gamma Strange all day. But at this point, you know, it's it's just not worth it. And there are too many things that'll just toss you around. And so kind of like going.

CaptainCoach (13:08.11)
Poof.

Yeah.

Coach_Gap (13:19.959)
Switching between like this hit scan meta to a more like kidnap meta is just it feels like whiplash. Like I I I almost miss playing against h hard hit scans that aren't Elsa or like that isn't Elsa and then you know, Bucky, Wolverine, just getting snatched away from your team. Like why does that guy still have a rocket pack that he can just like use during his jump and and just take somebody to Narnia? Insane. but the team ups, yeah, I mean were you gonna say something?

Coach Mills (13:44.912)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (13:46.658)
Hm.

No, I d you're just hitting home like the

Coach Mills (13:51.694)
I w I was I I've been saying they should get rid of that rocket jump pack forever. I'm I I I'm I'm I it I said, you know, before like season three it was like fun because no one really knew like and there was like ways to use it. It's not fun anymore. It's just like it's just you're dead. Like like you're just you're just hey, it's fun. I'm in spawn. super fun. Yeah, not fun. It's just not fun. Like I don't know. Maybe change it to something else that's actually fun.

Coach_Gap (13:55.057)
Yeah, just remove the tech.

Coach_Gap (14:15.214)
Yeah, and and coming to the point where it's like, okay, now we don't have double bands. So we've got six bands. Like, this is awesome. And being like, okay, well, actually, I I would have banned like eight characters. Like, even if I get those like six prime bands in there, I I've still I've still got things that are missing or pieces that are missing. And then the enemy team doesn't ban one character or we we forget to ban a character. And I'm like, well, I'm fucked. Yeah. and this triple tank was obviously like a a pretty boring thing to work into.

Like I really actually was like a GOATs enjoyer. I a lot of people look down at me for that, but I loved like min-maxing all these things. It got to a point where obviously it was boring, but I was like fun for a time. Like there was a guy at IOSTUX who made like a 60-something page document and I read the fuck out of that. Like I I was eating it up. And I I played a bit of Zarya, but mostly D.Va in that comp. And just the tempo of it was so fun. So I I really enjoy some of the brawl comps.

But you know, you get tired of these characters like Magneto and like I just want a strange meta, bro. I I've I started saying online, like when the sorcerer supreme, the game is a dream is gonna be my new tagline. Throw Magneto out the window, we're good, man. You did your time, we're okay.

CaptainCoach (15:17.634)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (15:22.181)
Ha ha.

CaptainCoach (15:22.19)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Mills (15:25.104)
East.

CaptainCoach (15:27.054)
So those types of brawl playstyles, right, where you're trying to get like the most effectiveness out of what is is essentially like those like AoE cleave heels like rocket, Jubilee, you know, is that kind of like what you're referring to? Like, how do you kind of justify that from I guess a balance perspective when you know that level of coordination is not what most of the player base experiences, right? So i if something like that is ends up being viable at the highest levels and has such a high like

Viability in like the best case scenarios, but then in the worst. I to me, I feel like they still balance these healers around being able to work in the worst situations to where these types of comps just get like so broken and and so brainless that it like the top level of play kind of just doesn't really it's kind of just broken. Am I crazy in thinking that? Because I you you you have a a team you coach, right? Right. So it's just like

Coach_Gap (16:18.575)
Yeah, yeah, I do.

CaptainCoach (16:21.208)
When you're looking at it from that perspective, like min maxing and trying to be like okay, at a certain point this comp is worth it, where do you draw the line with that? Like in in terms of like skill versus like what's good for the game, I guess.

Coach_Gap (16:35.919)
Well, I think it's it would be unhealthy to have like a sort of goats matter having this triple tank because it feels kind of like unbreakable unless you're playing it. So you have to just constantly match it. And same thing as like what Overwatch GOATs was. It was like you would start telling people, hey, they're playing GOATs. We need to go GOATs. And there'd be one person who's like, I don't really want to. How about no? Like, okay, well, you know, this game is instantly gonna be harder. And so, yeah, I mean that that whole idea of like working in the worst place, it's like, okay, there are these characters that are really good in triple support.

And it's like with people making a tier list, it's like, okay, well does does Mantis go S tier or does she go like A tier? Because in triple support, you know, she's a great character. And then without it, yeah, she she's good still.

CaptainCoach (17:15.982)
Right. It's it's so divided, right? Like like with the community perception of of like what heroes are good just based off of like a certain comp. And I I feel like that's kind of a problem because of how broken a lot of the things are, but only in certain setups.

Coach_Gap (17:30.097)
Yeah, I mean it's it's really hard because like there there's so many people, like I've seen a couple people make tier list and they literally just have like a separate tier where it's like this is the triple support tier. It's just kind of there on top, you know, it is what it is. And so

Coach Mills (17:40.078)
Yeah, it's it's yeah. Yeah. I mean we'll we'll I sorry, sorry, I I didn't want to interrupt you. I was just gonna say that I've I've just seen pros all over the place crash out about Adam Warlock this patch. and I mean that's that I mean case in point, like like the the average casual player just just doesn't understand why Adam Warlock is just completely dominant right now in in pro play, like consistently. That disconnect will probably never like they'll they'll always be that guess disconnect.

They'll just never understand. unfortunately.

Coach_Gap (18:11.088)
Yeah.

Nugnug (18:11.906)
Adam is a perfect example.

Coach_Gap (18:14.053)
Yeah, I played an MRC scrim the other day and we had to we had to run it was our tryout scrim. So like first time any of these people are really playing together. And we had to play against like Adam, Warlock, Storm, Jeff. And there are a couple of the pieces to the comp. But they were just soul bond just run at you. And I was like, What is this, bro? Like, I'm trying out people and meanwhile I have to play against this shit. Like, it was so tiring.

Coach Mills (18:29.488)
You had to play against Lucio's speed boost, unlucky.

Coach_Gap (18:37.869)
Exactly. I wish there were more speed boost though, honestly. Instead of damage or instead of healing reduction.

CaptainCoach (18:41.922)
Well, it it seems like that's kind of the

Coach Mills (18:42.746)
Sl slippy s well, I will

CaptainCoach (18:46.754)
It does seem like that's kind of the direction this game is headed, is that that they're not really too worried about the top end and it's all about just who can comp together the most broken synergies and then just run at you with it. And to me, I I think it we we need to get to this point where we gotta accept that that's kinda just what the game is and individual hero power is not I I don't think it's something they really consider too much.

now I think they they do balance around these team ups and and that's just kind of like the world we live in now with the with the game and and I think the changes reflect that a little bit. I do think they kind of looked at the team ups when we get into the patch notes here. But I don't know is that is that a good direction for the game I guess. Or or do you or do you agree with that, I guess too?

Coach_Gap (19:26.129)
I mean for me, like I think the main reason they go to these sort of sustained comps is particularly because like it eliminates any possibility for errors. Whenever you are just like playing a very simple way and like you have the one target that you're just rushing at, it just eliminates so many possibilities of like, hey, I'm playing this DPS or you know, if if you're playing a Captain America or playing a Hulk, and then you just suddenly get CC'd and you get slut and you're like, Well, I'm fucked.

It's just eliminating those possibilities of like errors happening on the fly and just making it to where, yeah, most of the time we're chilling. And if we're not, then we're at least like stalling at the fight for forever.

Coach Mills (20:06.51)
Well, I think this is a perfect segue for us to actually get into the patch notes. We're gonna go through each change and we're gonna talk about it briefly over, you know, our opinions about each one and then we'll give the patch as a whole a review and talk about the game afterwards.

Yeah, let's let's just jump in. Let me just Okay. So let me zoom this in a little bit. We're gonna start off with the tanks. There are no fundamental changes on this patch notes, no like old charge change or anything like that. and the very first change that we have to talk about is Dino. character got completely gutted. Probably gonna be unplayable. eight fifty to eight twenty five. W what do y'all think? Nug Nug, you start us off. What's your what's your thoughts on this?

Coach_Gap (20:41.681)
The asteroid hit.

Nugnug (20:48.942)
People have so many mixed feelings about Dino. I feel like it might be a bit of a hot take saying I don't want them to nerf him too hard because I think having a tank that needs to be very well respected is something that I I like having in the game. Now people might have the problem because of I like the percentage be.

Coach Mills (21:05.646)
Iron Fist player by the way. I'm sorry, sorry. Ironfist player damage HP HP percent percent damage by the way. Alright. Okay.

Coach_Gap (21:07.813)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (21:11.766)
Yeah, you do you do less damage to him.

Coach_Gap (21:12.623)
He's taking notes from the thing. He's taking notes from Dancy Street.

Nugnug (21:14.436)
No, don't get me wrong. If I'm locking in anything that's not Iron Fist, I'm banning Dino. I think having a tank that players can't just fully ignore, it can be healthy for the game sometimes. like for example, if you if you're playing Spider-Man, you should know in your heart that I can't deal with a dino. Who what is my team playing? Okay, we got we have a Bucky, we have an Emma, and we have a Dino ourselves. They can probably deal with that while I dive the supports.

Coach Mills (21:18.119)
Ha ha ha

CaptainCoach (21:18.679)
Ha ha ha.

Nugnug (21:43.259)
But if you look at your team and you're like, we have no one that can shoot the dyno, you're just gonna lose the game. And I do think it's it's a bit of an issue when you have one hero that determines the entire comp like Gambit, or becomes a Gambit game or a Dino game. Whereas if you let like Hella through or Bucky or Namor, it's not like a Namor game or a or a Bucky game. It's a Dino game, it's a Gambit game. I do think he needed a little bit of a nerf, but I think there's some counters.

That a lot of players aren't thinking of. Like, for example, Jubilee is exceptionally busted into dino games. people haven't realized that yet, by the way. my maybe my team found that out in Scrims. Like, it has a hundred percent success rate. She farms Dino like crazy. There are some, you know, solutions to Dino. I just think a lot of people are upset because certain heroes aren't playable into it. Kind of like with Gambit. I always make sure I ban Gambit because I know my heroes, whether I'm on Daredevil, Gore, or Iron Fist, like.

There none of them are a good experience into Gambit, because at some point you have to dive the back line. And so I know none of my heroes are in any way good into Gambit. So I make sure I ban it. That's why a black people are frustrated, because it's a hero that kind of determines the entirety of a comp. And is that a problem for the game as a whole? When you have one hero that kind of changes the the entire flow of the game? It can be at times. I think that's why everyone wants Gambit out of jail finally.

Is because they don't like it when Gambit goes through, because then everything is different now. It's like that it's like a completely different game. Gambit's in the game. most of my heroes are bad now. What I gotta make sure I ban it. so I I think the health nerf of 25. I mean, they could have done maybe 50 health, and I think that would have been a good compromise. Some people are upset they didn't nerf him more. I think 50 health could have been a bit more of a compromise, in my opinion. I don't want them to kill him completely, because I think having some heroes like this, like he is a good dive counter as well, you know, like if

It's a low rank dive counter in my opinion, because a lot of low rank players just will never deal with the dyno. So if the enemy team is running Spider-Man Black Panther and you're being run over, you can just pull out a dyno. What are they gonna do to the dyno? Now you have an actual solution. Now the enemy team has to think about that dyno. it's just a part of counterplay. I mean, is he too strong? Maybe fifty health would have been a bit better in my opinion.

Coach Mills (24:00.264)
I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm gonna let gat gap go in a second, but you know I to me personally, I I kind of just disagree. I think that this changes the joke. Like an absolute joke. There's only three playable tanks in the dyno that exist. You can't play any of the dive tanks. You can't play Hulk, you can't play Thor. You can't you like you can hardly play characters like Angela because there's the kidnap mechanic does not work. Characters like Rogue, another melee character that also doesn't work unless you just completely circumvent the dino. Like there's

Like, don't even try to play strange in a dyno. Like the character If the character is not banned, you have to play a very specific subset of this game. It's like he's such a a polarizing character because he he counters so much of the tank roster that you're just literally forced into this I have to mirror dyno. But like you said, if your team isn't playing the right characters, the dyno is completely uncontestable. So you take away the player agency. Like I think that 25

Nugnug (24:55.566)
Yep.

Coach Mills (24:59.47)
Taking away 25 HP from this character is just it's actually just what is it? It's just for optics. Captain Coach and I talk about all the time. It's literally pure optics. This is just this is actually a complete joke of a change. Don't even nerf the character if you're gonna do something like this that doesn't matter in any way. Like it doesn't, it doesn't change this character's viability in even the slightest way, in my personal opinion.

CaptainCoach (25:15.843)
There's

CaptainCoach (25:19.8)
This this is worse than not having a change in my opinion, because it shows that they're aware a problem exists and that this hero is, you know, whatever, gatekeeping a certain subset of the tanks, but they are unwilling to make any meaningful change to fix it. That which is even worse than them just

not making a change, which some of the heroes will get to. I I mean I I totally agree. I I think I think Dino has this problem. I think Jubilee also gatekeeps a lot of heroes just because her her floor, like the usability of her orb, just kind of makes it so if your damage isn't isn't high enough, you pretty much just don't get the play. You have to just pick something else to burst her. And and I think this is the the major problem with with the game is that there are certain heroes that just because they're overtuned to such an insane degree, you know

Nugnug (25:55.972)
Mm-hmm.

CaptainCoach (26:07.148)
You know, you kinda mentioned you you asked the question, Nug Nug, like, is this good for the game when basically a comp orbits around certain heroes just because they're picked? I I I to me, I think that's a a r resounding no. And then and that's kind of what I personally, like through this podcast and my content have been kinda fighting for is that individual power level among heroes to kind of be looked at and and and kind of reeled in a bit. 'Cause I I just feel like Dino is like I why does he get to do more range damage than like a magneto with like no aim? Like I d hello?

Like the like w let's nerf his turret. Let's nerf his his beam or something if we're going to make him just like this unstoppable, immovable right. So like he has that niche of anti dive, but then he can do so much other stuff. And that and that's to me is is my big problem with him. Coach Gap, we've been keeping you here. What what do you think about about dynamo?

Coach_Gap (26:57.113)
A lot of thoughts on this. First of all, I agree with with what you were saying, Coach Mills. It feels like an insult, a spit in the face. Like as somebody who's like playing Mag for so long, man, I was bored of my mind. And when I when I saw this new meta, I was like, man, like I said, we're really close to like having a strange meta, like having this really huge amount of diversity. But this character is just an anchor that weighs everybody's game down. And and and the thing is, like I was saying before.

It was like Magneto and Thing were so good, you know, like top three tanks for both of And then like Hood was up there. But, you know, reason that people were so angry with Magneto and Thing is cause you know, because they were simpler characters to play. And this character is the epitome of that.

Like th there are certain characters, you know, where I feel like you know, I kinda agree with the sediment that some of these really simple characters should not be that, you know, best in slot. Like Moira in Overwatch, whenever whenever that was working, like it just in every comp, even in Dive, it was like, okay, well, th this just doesn't make sense.

And then there are so many characters that are just so versatile in rivals towards just they'll work in every single time and to everything. And so, yeah, like I said, like the this guy counters half of the roster. And I thought I had PTSD from getting grabbed by Emma. This dude's even worse. Like, you know, he's got his big ass head walking through my my team. And and yesterday I had to scrim. you know, I I scrimmed for a tryout. Like I said, first time that we were trying out this MRC team.

CaptainCoach (28:14.766)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (28:15.675)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (28:28.431)
And I had to play Dino in that very last one. And even though I'm like way lower than these guys, I mean, I've I this is like first time I've ever played the character in a scrim, or really like sixth time I played him overall. And it was just the easiest thing. Like I I'm just standing in the front line and it's all about tempo. And so he's like one of those characters that would be brawl.

CaptainCoach (28:45.122)
Yeah, y you're you're kind of making me you're you're kinda making me think like the reason I hate dinos so much and kinda to what you were saying, he lowers the s or I g I he raises the skill floor of like both teams. You know what I mean? Like he's so right, like you could just land headshots on him and farm him, but right, like it he kinda he dumbs down the game.

Coach Mills (28:59.448)
Yeah, right.

Nugnug (29:02.042)
You can't miss him.

Coach_Gap (29:03.439)
One for support. So easy. You just shoot this big ball.

Nugnug (29:07.054)
He makes it too simple where it's just a matter of who can put more resources front and back. I think having him heroes like him in being like the top of the meta is not good for the game, especially because like because it's so front to back, it shuts down lanes. Like what's the point using a lane? It just kills the dyno and then you win.

Coach_Gap (29:24.753)
Well, and it's if you try to do any of those lanes, you're just giving him tons of space to be able to walk through. And then the thing is too, like this switch from eight fifty to eight twenty-five health, like I was looking at it earlier today and I was like, Okay, it's three percent overall basically of his health, like you know, three point four percent. But taking into account the extra bonus health that he gets from bleed, it's it's meaningless. Like it's it's like one percent of his health at those times, or like maybe two percent.

Nugnug (29:50.702)
Hundred percent just an optics change.

Coach Mills (29:51.0)
Yeah, it's it's it's con yeah, it is and and and kind of to kind of to kind of one of the things I hate specifically about Dino and Thing, I I felt the same way about Thing in the previous patch, is like I feel like I mean I'm sure you feel you feel it sometimes, Snug Nug, when you play against some random poke slop or whatever, that you've you literally lost the game to a player that you think you're better than. Like your skill is better than this player, but

Coach_Gap (29:53.187)
Yeah. Keep things fair and balanced.

CaptainCoach (29:53.368)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (30:18.084)
Because they're playing X, Y, and Z, you feel like you cannot properly leverage those skills to win the game. I think that Dino and and Thing, when they're the best in slot, I mean it doesn't matter how skillful you play like Venom or Cap or like any of these characters, like you're just not winning against a like it doesn't matter. Someone could be two divisions lower than you on this character. and then another part about Dino is like I I I've been recently playing in some creat like some creator tournaments and like I I I got drafted by Mikey twice.

Mike's above you. And when he's on my team, like on Dino, and when we can control the compositions, Dino's actually fun. The Dino Mirror is fun when I feel like I have agency or like when I feel like my plays matter. But if I ever play Dino and ranked and I have like a fucking Spider Man and a an off angling Psylock, like and then I'm getting fried by like, I don't know, Storm Punny or something, it it just feels like I there's nothing I can possibly do to win that game. There's like unless my team just cook and fry and kill everything by themselves. So like my agency is just gone. So like that that's my big frustration.

Coach_Gap (31:14.799)
Yeah, no difference in the skill levels.

Nugnug (31:16.56)
I think a big problem with that, like the reason why that's the case, is because these are heroes that were kind of designed to fulfill a purpose, but then they just become universally strong. Like thing was designed for like a very clear purpose. We all know what that purpose is. But then when he's so strong everywhere else, and then it's like he's no longer just anti-dive, he's now just completely busted, and you feel like there's not a lot of counterplay. It's the same thing, same thing with like dyno. Dino, it feels like okay, you should pull out the dyno in response to something.

Like with Thing. Like they're running so much dive. We pull out the Dino or we pull out Thing. Not Dino is not just the best anti-dive or Thing, not just the best anti-dive, but they're literally immortal and the strongest in the game. so I think having them at their level of skill expression, it's okay if they're not like top of the meta and they have like their their purpose. You pull them out for this purpose, but they just don't have that anymore. It's like imagine if White Fox had the most healing in the game. Like, what the hell? Like what

Coach Mills (32:11.056)
Right.

Nugnug (32:12.164)
Why would you give like the best anti-dive support, also the best front to back healing? It doesn't make any sense. They wouldn't really do that, right? It's kind of like that.

CaptainCoach (32:15.437)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (32:19.031)
Yeah no I I

Coach_Gap (32:19.089)
You're like they wouldn't do that, right? Right? Because like in in this instance, you know, like it's just

Nugnug (32:21.774)
Right? no no no no no no. no

Coach Mills (32:23.996)
Yeah, yeah, you just just wait until the next release. eleven point Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna clip this back when they do. I'll be like, it's fucking Dug Dug's fault. I was kidding.

CaptainCoach (32:26.754)
Just to add a

Coach_Gap (32:26.768)
Yeah, it's like the little Anakin mean. Well and I thought this was gonna Yeah.

Nugnug (32:28.842)
no. No

CaptainCoach (32:33.026)
Just to to to wrap to wrap it up though with with the dyno, Celestial Plus right now, sixty-four point four five percent win rate, picked eight percent of the time. His ban rate, can anyone guess what it is off the top of their head? How how what percentage of the games in Celestial Plus is Dino banned?

Coach Mills (32:48.92)
It's like it's like it's it's it's it's probably like fucking fifty five percent, I'm guessing, or sixty.

Nugnug (32:51.31)
I'm banning it every game, I will say that.

Coach_Gap (32:52.218)
Seventy three.

Nugnug (32:56.836)
Probably. Eighty seven? Holy crap.

CaptainCoach (32:56.992)
87%. And he's picked in the other eight percent. So that's pr just about every game. And he still wins sixty-four. He's the second highest win rate in the game to Penny, which has always been an outlier.

Coach Mills (32:58.17)
Holy fuck. Do so

Coach_Gap (33:00.088)
Yeah, I

Coach Mills (33:11.126)
So h how the fuck did the devs look at that? They look at that massive win rate. They look at that massive ban rate. Higher ban rate than I've ever seen. Ever. I know that we do have six bands now, so it's gonna be a little bit more inflated, but still. It is the highest ban rate ever. And they say twenty five HP is all you need. I I just I cannot fucking fathom it. Like, I don't know. I like I just

Coach_Gap (33:30.512)
Yeah, it makes me pissed.

Nugnug (33:30.596)
The only thing I can think of, and this is me being very generous, is that maybe they made an exceptional amount of money off their skins. That's the only thing I can think of, is the skins. I know, I know.

Coach Mills (33:38.926)
This is the thing! This is the thing! It's the fucking dino skin!

CaptainCoach (33:40.77)
That dinoskin is fire. That dinoskin is fire.

Coach_Gap (33:43.448)
All those are full balloons. Full balloons.

Nugnug (33:45.488)
It's the only thing I can think of, they must be making bank on this hero.

Coach Mills (33:49.923)
I knew we were cooked. I knew we were cooked already. When they revealed the skin, I already knew we were fucking cooked. It's it my god, I'm actually I'm actually I'm literally actually pissed off. It's it's it's lit we are at this is why we're fucking cooked. It's fire, it's fire fuck me man

Coach_Gap (33:50.053)
Dip it.

CaptainCoach (33:57.263)
The skin is so good, bro. I can't even I can't even deny it. Like, I don't know, but it's such a good skin. It's so good.

Coach_Gap (34:03.138)
I think you could look at it.

Nugnug (34:05.387)
that is

Coach_Gap (34:08.102)
my gosh. Well but but most of the most of the characters that get like legendaries all of a sudden or for the for the first time, which this isn't the first time, but they like get nerfed right before it. Like we we saw it for Ultron a little bit, for Magneto, like he just jumped down a bunch of tears. And so like why isn't the case for Dino? Why does he get an exception?

CaptainCoach (34:09.591)
It's amazing.

CaptainCoach (34:27.288)
They're gonna they're gonna rug pull us after they sell all the skins and then hit with the real nurse in a patch or two, I'll tell ya.

Nugnug (34:32.111)
Yep.

Coach_Gap (34:32.184)
Yeah, the hot fix. I thought he was gonna be like the flavor of the wheat kind of character for a bit. And so yeah, it's just the worst seeing this. And and the fact is too, like, you know, like we said, there are just so many things that he and and I hate these characters, especially tanks that just like make the entire role worse. And for me, like I just ban ever Emma every single game because I know that the enemy team will ban Dino no matter what, basically. And if they don't, I guess we're running the mirror.

Coach Mills (34:32.698)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (34:52.312)
Same.

CaptainCoach (34:58.412)
Yeah, I mean when you ban Emma, it kind of tells them that you're trying to play Dino in a lot of ways with like how straightforward the the meta is right now, right? Because she's so she's like she's good into him, right? We need we need to talk for right. We need to we need to talk about dino for another ten minutes here. So one one for each point of health. We've we made it to fifteen on just twenty five health. So twenty-five health changes. here we go.

Coach Mills (35:09.104)
Like probably the only tank that is probably the only t

Coach Mills (35:17.962)
Okay. Okay. Okay. So let let's move on to the real S tier character of the patch. Banner. Ban specifically banner. Okay. So so so in banner form, Hulk b banner, in banner form, his primary now is up forty meters per second, which is crazy from eighty meters to t one twenty. That's fast as fuck, by the way.

Nugnug (35:19.544)
Coach_Gap (35:27.84)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (35:28.098)
Yeah, yeah.

Nugnug (35:31.29)
Banner.

CaptainCoach (35:46.094)
It's fifty percent buff. It's crazy. Yeah.

Coach Mills (35:47.017)
Yeah, that's insane. That's like i it's hey, hey, guess what? Now you're you're gonna be a higher tier as banner because you actually get to shoot. You get to shoot a gun. That's like the way to be better, right? Is to is to have a gun that you can shoot and not you know. You can't be a melee tank in this game or else you're fucked.

Coach_Gap (35:47.578)
That's like dino gun.

Coach_Gap (36:04.964)
Make a head scan.

CaptainCoach (36:07.126)
I was actually saying they should like just nerf banner or or make it so you're in the form longer, neither of which these changes do. Just so they could give Hulk more buffs. Like like balance the power in a way. So maybe you're in the form longer. So I I I I have some thoughts on this. obviously yeah, yeah, my bad, my bad.

Coach Mills (36:14.596)
yeah

Coach Mills (36:23.342)
Well, I gotta read I gotta read the whole I gotta read the whole thing. so in banner form, increase energy gamma energy gained when Gana gamma grenade hits from fifty to a hundred. Isn't that gonna get really close, right, Cap? It's gonna get is that's like is that does that get him close to being able to go back to Hulk fast? Like a lot faster? I don't know. I don't actually know what this does.

CaptainCoach (36:36.492)
We go.

Coach_Gap (36:36.826)
Are you close?

CaptainCoach (36:45.004)
The the self cast on it is like eight percent. So now it's sixteen. So you you'll you need like whatever, like five grenades on yourself or four or whatever. Now you'll need like one or two less. So it you'll get your alt about ten, fifteen seconds quicker just from that alone. But then the gun projectile, that's actually probably gonna help more because you bet actually like fish for headshots. Yeah. So it it's it's a pretty nice buff. Yeah.

Coach Mills (36:49.572)
Okay.

Coach Mills (36:54.531)
Okay, gotcha. And

Coach Mills (37:03.048)
okay, that's a good point. Yeah. so both of them work in tangent. Okay. And then and the Okay. And then the team up with Wolverine increase the attack speed boost upon entering Furious State from twenty percent to twenty five. Movement speed boost from twenty to twenty five percent. Increase the health threshold to trigger unstoppable from three hundred to four hundred and reduce the unstoppable cooldown from sixty seconds to forty five seconds. So yeah, Captain Coach, you're gonna take the reins on this one. What are your overall thoughts on this change?

Coach_Gap (37:08.24)
So just feed.

CaptainCoach (37:30.048)
Yeah, so back when they did the global alt charge nerf in season seven, they never compensated Bruce Form trying to get his Hulk form back. so this is finally them doing that. I think you'll you'll get it probably a little quicker than you actually did before the alt charge nerf, which is good. I mean, there's some some tech that you lose with the gun actually being faster. You used to be able to like actually kinda like curve your bullets around corners, like pre fire and bait people to chase you, right? So that's not gonna be as much of a thing now, but

The trade-off is now you can just kind of shoot down main choke and get your alt back. So really nice buffs to Bruce. but I think the the problem here is that the Wolverine team up is not really one that you pick anyway. This will make it more competitive, but it's too unreliable. And the reason is because that the unstoppable trigger, i like if you drop that low on Hulk.

You're already trying to get out of a fight. So it's only ever going to help you escape, not secure kills. I I I think maybe good Hulks can maybe play around it a little bit more now. But I don't think this is really going to be one people pick too much. But I could see it being at least a little viable now. I I would have loved to see tankiness buffs for a Hulk. I'm surprised we didn't get that. Like even just fifty health would have been massive for him. I don't

Coach Mills (38:47.048)
It it's it's especially when they didn't take us away from an Emma, Bucky, Dino Elsa meta, and they just didn't change any of those things and so they didn't they like didn't fix any of his weaknesses into the meta?

CaptainCoach (38:58.854)
Right. I I would say contextually this would have been fine had they nerfed all the the top damage heroes. But spoiler alert, they didn't do that. So this is an okay change, I would say, but I I wish it was a bit more. But I I think overall, like as a Hulk main, you can't be too upset about this. At least it's something. But

Coach Mills (39:21.456)
Do you think I could get to GM as banner only? Thoughts on that? did they do it? Okay, so Celestial. No, I'm skidding, I'm kidding. So look you, yeah. Ready So look you.

CaptainCoach (39:26.638)
Nugnug (39:27.3)
Didn't someone do that? I swear someone did a banner challenge. A long time ago.

CaptainCoach (39:33.154)
S Sol solo Q?

Nugnug (39:36.464)
So cute. you need the Luna Flake. You need the Luna Flake and the Mantis damage boost.

Coach_Gap (39:38.884)
I'm not gonna bring it up, but you need the thing on your team, right?

CaptainCoach (39:39.886)
They did they did give him a health buff, like shadow health buff like one or two patches ago. He's got two twenty five now.

Coach Mills (39:41.633)
yeah.

Nugnug (39:47.696)
Triple support, solo DPS banner with his gun. No way that could work. Solo banner DPS.

Coach Mills (39:52.465)
Bro Coach, I need you to go for a play where you flank someone, fucking one clip them, throw the throw the nade, turn, and then ult as Hulk, and then grab someone. Like, dude, make the full fucking it has to be a banner to Hulk combo. Complete combo. The perfect combo.

Coach_Gap (39:52.688)
Yeah, I've seen your solo ba solo Hulk videos, I mean.

CaptainCoach (39:56.119)
yeah, yeah.

CaptainCoach (40:10.968)
Bro, I got so many I got so many crazy B Bruce clips already. My chat my chat says I'm rank one Bruce. I I I think I might I might actually have to take you up on that that challenge.

Coach Mills (40:16.656)
that would be that would be really sick. G I don't know if you saw that Car Cat thing where he had people submit their it was like he had people submit their best BP clip and then he he he made an entire video where he reviewed them and then he crowned one clip the best Black Panther clip of all time for for like money. That would be really cool for you to do as Hulk, I'm not gonna lie. Like whatever is the best Hulk clip ever. I'm sure you'd get like all kinds of pros submitting and top players submitting, it'd be really cool.

CaptainCoach (40:33.006)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that.

CaptainCoach (40:44.782)
That will be sick.

Coach_Gap (40:44.964)
I just imagine if you did a banner one.

Nugnug (40:45.082)
Coach, I actually have a I actually have a question to you, Coach, about Hulk right now. Would you agree that a lot of Hulk's viability? sorry. wait, captain, okay, wait. Would you agree that Hulk's viability is kind of hard carried by the removal of double bands, so you don't actually have to experience a lot of the heroes that would really shut you down? Would you say that?

Coach Mills (40:52.752)
There's three coaches. He's had coaches.

CaptainCoach (40:55.148)
Ha ha ha

Coach_Gap (40:55.85)
That's true.

CaptainCoach (41:12.91)
Yeah, more bands is a direct buff to Hulk and there's pretty much no diminishing returns to that until you get up to like ten, twelve bands per team. Like it's not so much one hero by itself that is the issue. I can't believe I'm giving out like my forbidden Hulk tech so people now can f have more ways to beat me, but it's it's the fact that you can you can like stack.

Nugnug (41:35.128)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (41:38.435)
counters and and it just becomes unbearable. Like a Hulk can deal with one counter because he has map movement. He can just avoid them. You know, like like like Penny or and then like there's there's ways to play each matchup, but it's the problem I mean apart from like a few bad like Elsa just miserable to play against no matter what, doesn't what comp they have. Emma, like not Emma's not that bad on her own. Emma's like Emma, Emma actually has a pretty bad win rate into Hulk. But like Emma with an Elsa and the Bucky, yeah I mean just swap. Like you you can't play the game.

Coach_Gap (42:07.524)
Yeah, I was gonna ask like

CaptainCoach (42:07.788)
So yeah, bands are for sure directly related to like Hulk success. That is probably the bet I've I I always say this a lot, like the best buff you could give the Hulk is just adding more bands to the game. That's still true. That's still true.

Coach_Gap (42:19.088)
What would be like your unorthodox bands that you wish you could be you were able to do outside of like those top characters? Yeah.

CaptainCoach (42:25.166)
for Hulk? that's a good question. like dive heroes, like magic and daredevil, Hulk's actually s pretty pretty bad into. I I personally wouldn't ban them, but just if you're talking like win rates, Hulk is actually really, really bad into like better dive because his damage isn't really high enough to push them off. So you you're kind of stuck in the situation where you can't peel, but you're you you kinda wanna do it and

Nugnug (42:28.111)
Rogue?

CaptainCoach (42:52.972)
A lot of those characters you can never really kill in a one V one and they can kinda move around the map. Like Daredevil and Magic both have instant transmission. So they can kind of like these side angle players and like beat you to the punch, so to speak. It's it's it's kinda weird where it's like you'd think Hulk is good in the dive, he's actually not. But yeah.

Coach_Gap (43:08.558)
Yeah. I f I feel like observing pro play, it it just becomes like as Hulk, you are the bubble boy, basically. Like whoever is making the play, you're bubbling them or trying to bubble, you know, like you're going in diving, you know, kind of pseudo-dive softly, come back, bubble your guys, and just hope for the best. But but I think that this Wolverine or this boost for the Wolverine team of like, you know, we've kind of seen a little bit of Hulk and in Ignite and I mean just the fact that

This boost also applies, like whenever it's enhanced and you have Wolverine, like you know, whenever you use fastball special, you're getting that boost to your kit as well. So it's not just like a boost to the cooldown of the team up. It's also this, like you can activate that every 15 seconds for six seconds, and then in between that, you can throw the Wolverine. Like I I literally just keep on seeing in night teams, like yeah, people like Card and stuff, where

CaptainCoach (43:48.034)
Good point.

Coach_Gap (44:01.996)
Every time whenever their furious state is done, they grab the Wolverine, just chuck him to wherever the fuck he goes, just literally the left click and then have another state for another six seconds. And then there's three seconds in between.

CaptainCoach (44:11.99)
Yeah, th this team up will also help Hulk more with that type of like this this is the type of team up I I I rarely go wolf team up, I mostly just do it for fun, but you you do it to go in one v one, like Daredevil's Hellas on the side, and a lot of times it'll catch them off guard. It's it's better in a dive in some situations, but if I had to give one tip for any Hulk player for this patch, find a a Wolverine player and then just spam that. Just spam it every game. That's gonna be your best way because Wolve is strong. And I I do think if utilized correctly, this is probably gonna be the

Coach Mills (44:16.196)
Then you

CaptainCoach (44:41.762)
the best way to have impact in games. Even though I think overall the cap one is still probably better on its own.

Coach Mills (44:48.208)
Okay. Yeah, okay.

Coach_Gap (44:51.12)
I will say like on team ups too, I think the thing that I enjoy with these team ups and something that is like very clear with the like Thor Angela team up and then this this cat pulk one is like just having something extra in your kit. Like some sort of like mobility or movement tool is like fun. Like it it changes the way that you can play a little bit rather than just like straight up boost to an ability you're already using, you know.

CaptainCoach (45:14.029)
Yeah, d I mean.

Coach Mills (45:14.428)
How do you feel about strange stran stranges two?

Coach_Gap (45:18.57)
man, it's like so there there was one point whenever the Invis team up was kind of changed. back in I guess 8.5. I don't remember what the specifics was over it, but they kind of changed it a little bit. And I was like, wait a second. Like started conspiracy theory, the dots started connecting in my head as I saw these things change, and I was like, it feels like they are going to just make this like part of his kit in some way. and so I th I thought that was just gonna kind of be the case of like

Nugnug (45:31.578)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (45:47.299)
It seems like his E is kind of like moving that direction. Like, okay, we're giving it actual utility. And seeing the the way that they moved the gamma in, I was like, why have we done this? Like gamma was the star that we were looking up towards, like our north star that we could hope towards. And then suddenly it was like butchered, like the cooldown is longer, so it doesn't even matter. There's fall off for it. It's the same amount of damage. I was like, and even now, like it's still hard to sometimes justify using gamma.

Coach Mills (46:02.862)
Ha ha ha.

CaptainCoach (46:04.472)
Ha ha.

Coach_Gap (46:17.344)
but it has its cases, you know, especially if you actually have a Hulk and he can bubble you on your end gauges. It it is good. It is fun. It's so satisfying.

Nugnug (46:22.424)
It is so much fun. It's my favorite Phil tank. I love strange. His E. I swear, if you have a Hulk and you have the gamma team up, I actually for the first time have fun fun playing a tank and it's strange. I love it.

Coach Mills (46:34.468)
Well

CaptainCoach (46:34.569)
That's cool.

Coach_Gap (46:34.906)
Well, and there's so many people that flex to strange that are also like flexing at Mag, flexing at Emma. And and it it feels like they're always trying to keep one of these tanks of like Mag or Emma being in the top. But like, why not Strange? there's a ton of people that can play like a decent strange and that he's a lot more enjoyable.

Coach Mills (46:51.546)
Well what I was kind of wondering, 'cause I this is my big criticism of Strange's team ups to begin with, is like this character's supposed to be the sorcerer supreme, and I feel like they're intentionally keeping him like dumbed down. Like why does Black Cat get a million spells, but the actual fucking sorcerer has two abilities that are just alterations to an ability he already has. Like they just they're literally just changes to an ability he has. It's not a new button, right? He doesn't get anything new.

Coach_Gap (47:19.524)
And give me the TP, you know? Like give me give me the ability to TP through a wall. That'd be go that'd be awesome. I'd love to actually rotate.

Coach Mills (47:21.712)
yeah, yeah, so yeah, why not? Why not? And then you could you could be like surprised you know you know like like a way like a team up that could give that could like open up a window for you to old or do something like it'd be

Nugnug (47:25.401)
that'd be a great team up. A mini a mini TP.

CaptainCoach (47:26.03)
That would be sick.

CaptainCoach (47:30.176)
No shit.

Coach_Gap (47:30.254)
Yeah. And so

Coach_Gap (47:35.534)
Yeah. More options.

CaptainCoach (47:36.566)
I I just want an excuse to be able to use the strange portal to do what they did in Thor Ragnarok Toloki where he's just stuck in an infinite falling loop. I just I just want to be able to put someone in a C C chain. But Right.

Coach Mills (47:43.886)
No,

Coach_Gap (47:47.268)
Yeah, you've been you've been CC'd for too long. You need to exile somebody again.

Coach Mills (47:50.081)
Wha what about a skill shot that puts someone in a mirror dimension for like six seconds? Like they can't be shot at, but they can't shoot. It's just like you're just like in a prison. doorman. Like something like that. Yeah, like you could just fuck it, but it ha it's a skill shot, so you have to hit it. It's small. You have to hit it, but it's like you get mirror dimensioned. Like you're fucking out of here. yeah, yeah, yeah. But but it it makes me feel like they're sorry. well

Coach_Gap (47:57.41)
Like a d like a deadlock, what's his what's his name? The the bell guy? Doorman, yeah, yeah.

CaptainCoach (48:01.838)
Doorman. I love Dorman.

Nugnug (48:10.862)
Knowing Neties, that'll go to a newer hero, not him.

CaptainCoach (48:13.91)
True, true. One one last thing.

Coach Mills (48:18.222)
Just a second. I I feel like they're making him simple on purpose. Because he's the character that you know, everyone has to port. He's like he's like very fundamental. They they intentionally didn't want to make him too complicated, is what it feels like.

CaptainCoach (48:18.829)
Yeah, yeah.

Coach_Gap (48:31.733)
Yeah, I mean I I think that aligns with how Gamble was kind of reinstated of like you don't have to think about your E charge anymore or like timing your E. You could you'll just keep on having it. And then even, you know, the ranges increase. So you don't really have to think about like how or if they're in that kind of range now. So it yeah, I think it really does just kind of dumb it down. And I I really do enjoy the Inbiz team up. Like, you know, it is a new part where it makes something that is hard for strange to go into of like the the CCs and a particular like Angela and sometimes Wolverine.

Green, like you have the pull one up. What's that?

CaptainCoach (49:02.454)
I kinda disagree. I kinda disagree. I don't think the Invis team I I don't think you should ever have a C C ability weaved into a core like burst or damage mechanic. I think that's just bad design. But there are situations obviously where Strange will save it to use it for an interrupt.

Coach_Gap (49:11.297)
It is too quick, I guess. I will agree with that.

Coach_Gap (49:17.763)
Well, I mean he doesn't have any like C C invulnerability, which I feel like you have to at this point, with like, you know, Mag, Emma, Dino. Then it's like all these characters are great because they have these like core just C C immunity. And strange is like one of the tanks that just does not have that at all.

Coach Mills (49:37.155)
last question before we move on about strange, because Gab, I you you mainly play strange. Strange is like your main, your main. Yeah, how do you feel about we get this a lot. How do you feel about TP just being something that you have instantly when you swap to strange? I've heard some people say that you know, if you put it on a 30-second cooldown as an example when you swap to the character, now you have to actually play strange in order to get the value out of team up or out of the portal. Do you think that's good or bad? Like, what what is your opinion about that?

Coach_Gap (49:43.407)
Yeah, it's nowhere in the patch notes, so we we have to talk about it now.

Coach Mills (50:06.83)
I think Captain Coach and I are pretty split on that.

Coach_Gap (50:07.031)
Yeah. Shout out to Strange Mains, first of all. I I sometimes browse these different Reddits for the mains that I like Magito and Strange. And you see have the little amulet on. And so it's sad that

the you know, his his character is kind of core around this. Like people always call him TP boy. He's he's a TP scout. And the fact that, you know, it in past meadows, if I was playing strange, like I was kind of soft throwing because my team wouldn't have TP if I died. And, you know, then it'd just take longer. And so it's sad that like part of his like a core of his balancing is basically centered around his TP. Like it was kind of a similar thing for Hammond before where it was like, okay, for a wrecking ball, you've you've got like you could just touch point and just stall forever.

Coach Mills (50:25.168)
Mm-hmm.

Coach_Gap (50:50.791)
And it's not that's not like the same case for strange. Like it is a little bit different. but but it's annoying that like, hey, you get a TP down and suddenly like their whole your whole team composition has changed. You've got an atom using a soul bond, Loki using totems. And so I I wish that they would change it in some way that where you could kind of be used in his neutral kit instead of just being, yeah, this is something that it's included, but you know, like I said, the TP through the wall would be would be an interesting thing.

CaptainCoach (51:12.443)
Interesting. See

We we we were one so I I can't remember if Mills you agree with this or not, but w I would s I was saying that you should just when you swap to strange thirty second cooldown on T P I mean that'd be one of the biggest buffs you could give to strange because now teleports unique to the strange player, right?

Coach_Gap (51:28.942)
That would work.

Coach Mills (51:33.019)
Cause I was split on it because on one hand it's it's annoying that he is that T P bot and it's also kind of in some ways it is annoying how you like won the fight and then someone comes in last second. But on the other hand, it it it is kind of cool that every fight is winnable. Like being able to make the last second portal into the lack second clutch. It it it is it's yeah, I'm always conflicted in my mind. This is a suggestion that someone gave to me recently on stream that I didn't even think about. At some point they institute another sorcerer that has T P

CaptainCoach (51:50.541)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (51:50.935)
It does make for some cool plays.

CaptainCoach (51:53.688)
Does.

Coach Mills (52:03.16)
It's a shared cooldown between both characters. So like i if if if you're ever someone's ever strange, someone someone else can swap to that character. Like if someone dies, like your Bucky Ints, he can swap to whatever sorcerer it is and port them back. But it's not like you can keep porting back. You don't have a port and then another port. That's the thing, is like you can't double port back because that would just be fucking ridiculous. But y what you can do is like you you are not penalized for staying alive on strange because someone else can port, basically, is the idea.

CaptainCoach (52:06.582)
Mm.

Nugnug (52:08.08)
Yo, that's a great idea.

CaptainCoach (52:13.261)
I don't like that.

Coach_Gap (52:31.271)
And that's what I was gonna say is like it it almost feels disadvantageous sometimes to be like to be the winning team. Because okay, well, I want to fight, but it's basically like an atom res where they they just all come back in. And the the strange portal is, you know, advantageous to them, gives them kind of like a mini shield. And so i if even if my team wins, I can't counter TP really. Or, you know, it's like a difficult thing to have to pull. Where now suddenly they're seeing me like in the middle of point doing this if I want to counter TP. And then

Yeah, so it's it's just it's just a rough thing.

Nugnug (53:02.702)
I think it's really cool personally. obviously with this with something like this, there's both objective pros and cons to adding actually adding a cooldown if you swapped him. I'm more leaning towards not doing that just because everyone gets to have something that's kind of really skill expressive. It's really fun when you go for that teleport, and everything comes down to where you place it. If you get creative and you place it.

Poorly, it's probably a death sentence. I've had teams where they've they've portaled and they the portal was a death sentence. sometimes the portal was a godsend and you it actually kidnapped the support and it leads to the whole fight win. I think it creates for like great moments. Like if you you could TP off the support, sometimes I'll die first, right? And then I'll go and I'll teleport and I'll I'll wall off the enemy supports. And that TP alone, that skill expressive teleport placement, won the entire fight versus a poor TP, maybe even accidentally walling off your own team. Well, now you just lost your entire team the fight.

I think it adds like an entire level of skill expression, which in a way it'd be kind of sad to see it go. It would be a little bit like you you'd kind of miss it in a way. I mean, would it help strange mains? Yeah, but it would be sad to see it go. Maybe it's a bit selfish, but

Coach Mills (54:09.892)
Yeah.

Especially when now now that people finally don't fucking sky portal anymore. People finally finally after fucking ten seasons people don't sky portal anymore. Holy shit.

CaptainCoach (54:14.094)
Hmm. Nah.

Nugnug (54:17.593)
god.

CaptainCoach (54:19.042)
Wow.

If I if I lose another game because my str support player filling on strange TPs into the cart and we can't walk through I'm I might actually I might actually lose it.

Coach_Gap (54:22.649)
Yeah.

Nugnug (54:29.152)
Just so annoying.

Coach_Gap (54:29.817)
Dude, like I feel like it needs to be an obligation. Like as soon as you load up the game, like you go into the the practice range, you know, learn these basic things. And then it's like, here is port placement. Because I've had to go through with some of my students because that, you they're collegiate students. So they don't have as much experience. You know, they're like varying skill levels. And and, you know, I I feel like I have to go through a clinic with them to teach them how to like strange TP. And that is a really good point though, Nug. I I I think like it is really cool. And y y'all are all kind of talking about how like there were some hype moments that come from TPs or these kind of like TPs to split off the healer.

CaptainCoach (54:35.245)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (54:59.821)
and stuff. and that's kind of the difference for me is like

That's really fun, especially on domination. But if they were talking about this sort of cooldown, then okay, you don't have it for first round, but you have them for the second and the third round, potentially. And then, you know, whenever it's on on convoy though, and you're just kind of going for this overtime push, that's a difference for me, is that that's not skill expressive. Like you your TP placement is pretty basic. Like as long as you just like watch a quick couple minutes to figure out how to do it or just try it out a couple of times, then like you you kind of know the basis of that point.

But I do really like those TPs where they're like, you know, they're they're creative. They're really interesting, or they give you like a different angle. But

CaptainCoach (55:42.625)
Imagine if when you got a kill with a T P that like, you know, a strange gets credited for, or like one of your teammate gets a kill through the portal, some like somehow they could track that, the cooldown of of it goes down. So you're encouraged to use it for aggressive plays. Wouldn't that wouldn't that be like a a a change where it it kinda does both? It you still have that chance for cool plays?

Coach_Gap (55:47.235)
Hm. Recens.

Nugnug (55:48.165)
No.

Nugnug (56:01.051)
That's not bad. I do, yeah, that's actually a good point. That it's a bit disappointing that the teleport isn't used in any other way. Besides, they're about to cap the point. We gotta get back right now. I definitely think they could encourage more unique ways because like the teleport by itself, it's pretty groundbreaking for a hero shooter to have something like that. It like even like technologically wise, like the bullets go through, it's it's pretty seamless. It's kind crazy. I think they could definitely add some new mechanics that make the way people use it more interesting.

Coach_Gap (56:02.733)
Second chance is over.

Nugnug (56:30.47)
or and encourage like as you said more aggressive plays. It's people are always very safe with it. Just always, you know, only using it just just to get back to point, not maybe to go for a secret pick, something crazy.

CaptainCoach (56:41.058)
I I also think that's kinda what they want. Like it's kinda like a a rocket beacon but you know, like second chance, you know, the g make the game not too punishing. I think that's kinda the idea as well. but

Coach_Gap (56:53.391)
Yeah, it's like a second chance is on. Like suddenly, I mean, it's like the fact that we have an atom res and that and a beacon, it just gets like it's too much forgiveness for errors. It's ridiculous. And and the fact that, like, you know, I do this strange TP, I'm useless. I go through the port, I'm suddenly treble, triple, grabbed, and frozen. Like it's it's a terrible experience for me too, because I feel like my my life is just in their hands and I'm gonna die for it. You know, that's what it is.

CaptainCoach (56:55.788)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (57:02.446)
Y it is. It really is.

CaptainCoach (57:20.824)
be it maybe it could be cool if you could like cancel it too like early if you wanted if you see if you get someone caught be like whoop nope you're stuck you're stuck in the on on the other side of the map someone went in and chased. Wouldn't that be sick? You know so I I think there's some things they could do with it to to make it a more interesting personally. Yeah. Yeah.

Nugnug (57:30.096)
Yo, that'd be all.

Coach_Gap (57:36.247)
Use it as a scouting tool. Dude, if Strange could go in like an astral form and be able to scout things, that'd be so interesting. Like it just goes up in the air. Yeah. Some of these characters I do think they might need a like a third team up or something. At this point, man.

Nugnug (57:42.608)
That should be his third team up. That's his third team up. He should do it.

CaptainCoach (57:42.67)
That would be sick.

That would be. That'd be cool.

CaptainCoach (57:50.122)
Nugnug (57:50.16)
I think they're gonna do that. I honestly I think they're gonna do it all at once. Maybe like season thirteen, season fourteen, be like bam, everyone gets one new team up. They

Coach_Gap (57:56.688)
See, I I want something I want something different. I want something new, like Magneto, Strange, those are my mains. W I got the same thing that I had before. Just again, I have two options and one of them is kinda better. No

CaptainCoach (58:08.106)
One last thing I wanna say about the the Hulk change 'cause we went on a strange tangent. I I wish for this team up they that the the unstoppable they gave to it wasn't random. Like I or wasn't based on your health. I wish they you just activate the ability and get it. You know, whatever changes they need to make to balance it, just to make it more reliable. So like when I use the fist, the wolf fist, I'm just immune to C C. I'd I kinda wish that's what they did, but obviously I think that'd probably be a little OP, but you know.

Coach Mills (58:12.292)
Mm-hmm.

Nugnug (58:33.616)
I don't know. I think at some point they're gonna have to do it. Just cause the amount of CC in the game with every new hero, it keeps increasing. As someone that plays Gore a lot, I love it when I see Hulk because I can time my one second ground and he's like, fuck, I was preparing to jump out, now I can't do it. So I time it and it's just more and more things. Like even Gore has one now, it's just more and more and more. And I think as more heroes gonna come are gonna join, it's gonna even harder. At some point, a hero like Hulk will have to have something or else he'll just be left in the dirt in the dust again.

CaptainCoach (58:45.546)
Yeah.

Right.

CaptainCoach (58:56.525)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (59:03.683)
Well and honestly, like it being at a at a four hundred trigger, I I feel like that's that's kind of rough because like it says, it's a forty five second cooldown. So it's almost like Wolvie or it's in a similar way to like Wolvie second life, where it's like if you lose that second life, you're like, Fuck, I wasted it. Like now I've just gotta play like super slow, but I have to play safe. And so, you know, I wish there's something that you could control instead of getting below four hundred and you're like, Well, I guess I don't have that for, you know, almost a minute or something.

CaptainCoach (59:10.349)
It sucks.

CaptainCoach (59:31.33)
But Bucky can do four hundred damage to you in about half a second.

Coach_Gap (59:33.999)
Wait till I get to Phoenix, buddy.

Coach Mills (59:34.189)
Yeah.

Magneto. So they're basically buffing his team up with Emma Frost. Increase the damage dealt by the magnetic projection generated with the magnetic resonance from forty-five percent to fifty percent. Increase the maximum duration of the magnetic projection from five seconds to six.

Yeah, I'm still picking Scarlet Witch. I don't give a fuck. who cares? I I like who cares?

Coach_Gap (59:57.869)
I can't put it all on big ass headphones. I don't have I don't have earbuds.

Nugnug (01:00:03.982)
It's cooler. It's cooler. It feels good to deal damage.

Coach_Gap (01:00:06.36)
Thank you, Melon's the only person using Matima, let's be honest.

Coach Mills (01:00:09.974)
Yeah. Well we don't talk about that thrower on this podcast. I'm just kidding. That's my point. but but yeah. yeah, I mean cool. I mean cool. I I think was it I think it was just weaker, maybe. I th I think it was I think this is fine because it doesn't like I'm not sure do you think this is caught up to the Scarlet Witch one? I still think the Scarlet Witch one's probably better. At least I would prefer the Scarlet Witch one still.

Coach_Gap (01:00:18.831)
I mean it's something.

Nugnug (01:00:35.6)
Probably not. It's too small of a buff. I've started to see some mag players use it, but I saw a lot of like pro mag players saying that the sword is just broken. I don't think a small buff, like there's like five percent and one extra second, I don't think it'll make that much of a difference. Having like that extra poke damage on mag, I think, is really important. It allows you to do so much more. It's just so much extra damage and it allows you to like control and like as a tank player, it allows you to do a lot more for your team that maybe you would otherwise rely on your duelists to do.

like poking out someone that's holding a different angle, you could swap to your sword and that sword has crazy range. You can cover an angle with that sword. It does it allows you to do a lot more to to just win any ranked game when you have some when you have maybe duelists that aren't marking someone. Or kill support. Some of mag players are actually good. They're I actually really good mag players. When they when they get the the space, they just they use their sword and they poke the backline. And they actually like land kills on the backline doing it.

Coach_Gap (01:01:31.917)
Yeah, I I think that's the main advantage for Scarlet is it kind of makes up for his

like a lack of range, especially when you're playing it's these like huge anchor tanks that can kinda hold this ground, like, you know, Groot, obviously Devil Dinosaur and Emma. Like you really can't walk like super duper close to them or you like kinda run this risk. And so you're kinda playing a little bit of range, but you know, majority of the time it is really advantageous to have this extra range because yeah, if you're if you're doing like mag left clicks, there are certain fights if you get enough space that you can shoot the supports. But the Scarlet Sword just

It assures that you can always poke out supports. And with how good supports are in this game, it is just inevitable that everything kind of leads to being able to pressure them at some point or just your hardcore brawling. And so like it is really good of just poking out backline and I can force out, you know, their their Fox TP or forcing out their gambit like team-up bubble, different things like this, where now I have like an engagement tool to get in there.

Coach Mills (01:02:34.02)
Yeah, okay.

Nugnug (01:02:34.968)
It's definitely very skill expressive. Allows like good magneto players to just do a lot more. in ways that maybe they're the sword, the sword.

Coach_Gap (01:02:39.887)
Were you talking about the sword or the or the clone? I d I completely disagree. I think it brings his skill floor way too high. that was the main complaint, is that it was just like too easy. So it was like

Coach Mills (01:02:42.382)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:02:44.036)
Really?

Coach Mills (01:02:49.04)
Bray, really? That's interesting.

CaptainCoach (01:02:51.276)
I I actually agree with that. As a mag player I agree with that.

Coach Mills (01:02:54.05)
I don't I don't know if I agree. You think so?

Coach_Gap (01:02:54.103)
Yeah, like it's it's a different approach that you have to do, but it it's like a pretty big hitbox in the sword. And you're just like, you're slinging it.

Coach Mills (01:03:00.305)
If you're hidden it far away though. You can hit it far you can hit it really far away.

CaptainCoach (01:03:01.652)
It's it's so much.

Nugnug (01:03:05.104)
So you would so you would say it needs a a hitbox nerf.

Coach_Gap (01:03:08.087)
Yes, I I would think that he needs a hitboxer.

Coach Mills (01:03:08.662)
Yeah, I mean I mean I mean sure. But like but it its existence undoubtedly it doesn't like its existence doesn't reduce the skill floor of a character. It's like something else you have to do. The rest of his kit still exists. I mean you can argue that it's easier, but it's not up twenty four seven. Like you you could argue that it could be harder. I don't think you can argue that it makes the characters less skill expressive than if he did just didn't have it at all. I don't understand that.

Nugnug (01:03:09.912)
I could be on board with that. I could maybe be on board with that.

CaptainCoach (01:03:20.11)
CaptainCoach (01:03:31.17)
Alright, like r run a race barefoot and then go run a race with shoes. Tell me which one's easier. Like I the shoe shirt Yeah, it's it's like

Coach_Gap (01:03:36.451)
But shoes for just a couple seconds.

Coach Mills (01:03:39.983)
No, I mean that I don't th that doesn't w once again, like exactly. Like that's exactly my point. No, no, it's if if you're if you're racing, like a giving yourself shoes doesn't mean that if you're like the fastest one on the track, like you're still able to ex like you're you're able to leverage the difference better than other people. J in the same way that you can leverage the dist the difference. Like

CaptainCoach (01:03:43.773)
that's right. Magneto floats. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. That's

Coach_Gap (01:03:58.551)
Well, I mean it's it

Nugnug (01:03:59.739)
Yeah, getting yeah.

Coach Mills (01:04:03.488)
It there there there are only I think there's very few abilities in this game that actually reduce the skill expression expression of a character and it's typically abilities that like erase entire parts of a character's like need to do things. So like an as an example, like I think at least previous ice block on cloak, there are like things you just no longer have to track in some games, especially in low ranks. It did just reduce the skill floor.

I don't think that that's the case with something like this. Cause you actually I mean it's something you have to aim, it's something you have to hit, something you have to press, something you have to manage.

CaptainCoach (01:04:35.054)
Yeah, but it's easy it's easier it's easier than your primary fire though. That's what we're saying.

Nugnug (01:04:35.108)
Or the self cleanse on Luna?

Coach_Gap (01:04:35.567)
But it makes your life way easier.

Coach Mills (01:04:38.926)
Yeah, for for five seconds and then you but you d you can get more value from hitting like harder shots from range. He's talking about baiting support cooldowns. Like that's like something that you have to specifically target. You have to hit. Yeah, I know, but like w we're talking about skill expression here. Like I d I don't really I don't really understand. Like

Coach_Gap (01:04:49.175)
can kind of just sling these in there and you have like a fairly high chance of getting it. Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:05:00.258)
There's not really much strategy to pressing the button. You press it Yeah, you just press it when it's

Coach_Gap (01:05:03.895)
You just don't have to think about it.

Coach Mills (01:05:05.678)
Yeah, but you still I mean but but like I I mean I've coached a lot of Magnetos that like do they just fucking misuse it. Like they just don't use it well at all. They never get any value from it. Like I and and like if if if people can get value from it and other people aren't, I like that changes the skill expression on the character, no?

Nugnug (01:05:21.07)
I definitely think it's pretty skill expressive. It's it's it's a rotational ability that I mean, like as you said, you're teaching people that don't you know don't know know when to use it. If you just pop it when your team isn't like taking a turn, you're not really gonna get any value out of it. Like if you're trying to poke a backline when your team isn't taking a turn, you're just wasting your cooldown. So I don't think it's it necessarily lowers the skill floor. in a way, having a another rotational ability could it even be better? Like you notice you have a Spider-Man on your team and you're tracking your own Spider-Man now. Okay.

When is he gonna hit the back line? I pop my mag sword, I can actually help him now. It gives it in some ways it can make him a bit more skill expressive if you're tracking your own team's turns.

Coach_Gap (01:06:01.784)
I can see that. I I think it well, the way that I approach it is like raising the skill floor doesn't mean that the like that the skill ceiling can't go higher. So I think it's both of these things are kind of brought up.

Coach Mills (01:06:14.384)
'Cause wa what y y well y'all are saying that it's re y'all are saying that it's reducing the skill floor, is what y'all are saying. That it's reducing the skill floor of the character.

Nugnug (01:06:14.576)
that's what sh the floor, not the okay. That's a fair point.

CaptainCoach (01:06:15.832)
Fair point.

CaptainCoach (01:06:21.662)
I think it is yes, yes, yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:06:24.151)
It's like bringing people up, but then the ceiling is already brought higher.

Coach Mills (01:06:26.552)
I I I disagree. Like the only things to me that reduce the skill floor of a character are things that make the character like fundamentally simpler. So it it cannot be a decision making No, the floor. No, like if you reduce the floor. So like you make a character So like like like as an example, if like if like an ultimate becomes easier to use. So like the you did the ultimate in the same way, but it's just it like there's less situations where you get countered.

Nugnug (01:06:34.992)
Do mean the ceiling? Do you mean the ceiling? The floor.

CaptainCoach (01:06:40.002)
Tech technically the the ceiling goes up.

Coach_Gap (01:06:50.017)
It became easier to use, I think.

Coach Mills (01:06:52.942)
No, no, I mean I just I just don't agree, I don't understand.

Nugnug (01:06:55.086)
It could be a case of the floor going down and the ceiling going up, 'cause it's it's giving you more options.

Coach_Gap (01:06:56.675)
Not because of the team up with the buffs.

Coach Mills (01:06:58.584)
I don't think I don't think the floor's going down. I don't think the floor's going down. I think the floor's up. The floor goes up. Now that doesn't mean that you can't make the I don't think y I I could still argue that you can make the projectile smaller. But the problem is then you create a higher gap between like high rank mags and low rank mags, which is like I think part of the problem and like with a lot of characters where there's like a big separation. 'Cause when Magneto was broken, you know, last patch or whatever, it's under these same conditions and he was broken in in both ranks. But like imagine if

CaptainCoach (01:06:59.424)
I I I

Coach Mills (01:07:27.886)
They made it so it it they balanced him this way where they just made his projectile much smaller. High rank players are still gonna be able hit those, low rank players are not, so Magneto would fall in low ranks and would still be strong in high ranks. Which is like that would be that would be an example of like that makes the character more skill expressive, that it raises his ceiling. but Okay. Okay, okay. Well yeah, we can we can move on, we can move on.

CaptainCoach (01:07:48.025)
Well, that's subjective and I objectively think that the real question is why are we spending this much time on mag? Yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:07:53.198)
Got two and two. Can we take a vote here? Just kidding. Yeah, this is like the the simplest the simplest change here. Other than the Dino one.

Nugnug (01:07:54.938)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:08:01.031)
Right. Well I mean we spent fifteen minutes on yeah, I was gonna say we s

Nugnug (01:08:04.112)
I think Mag is an important hero in the game. I think having a like a s a strong, not necessarily oppressively strong, but a strong both fill and solo tank. Cause like, I mean, we all know in rank solo tanking is pretty rampant. We all know that. I think if mag sucked, it wouldn't be fun for solo tank or tank players in general. I think having it be good, like very good even, I think it's healthy for the game.

Coach Mills (01:08:21.177)
Agreed.

Coach_Gap (01:08:27.087)
Yeah, I think he's a cool character of just having a pretty large gap between like the people that flex to him and are okay on him versus the people that are like great and have transcended the the the the next eye has opened. There's a huge difference. Yeah. Until a sword.

Coach Mills (01:08:27.578)
I agree.

Nugnug (01:08:38.532)
Very skill expressive.

Nugnug (01:08:42.959)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:08:44.268)
Needo yet never yields.

Coach_Gap (01:08:44.451)
Moving on.

Coach Mills (01:08:45.904)
The thing speaking of skill skill expressive let's talk about the thing. team up with Invisible Woman, reduce unbreaking forces ability cooldown from twenty seconds to fifteen seconds. Enhanced effect, reduce the damage threshold required to trigger healing from one fifty to one twenty-five.

Coach_Gap (01:08:46.893)
Mean that.

Nugnug (01:08:50.574)
This worries me. This worries me.

CaptainCoach (01:08:50.914)
Ha ha ha.

Coach_Gap (01:09:04.995)
I've got some notes on numbers for this, but I'll I'll wait a second.

Coach Mills (01:09:07.894)
I mean you should probably start 'cause I have no I fucking idea what does this matter? Like

CaptainCoach (01:09:11.98)
Okay. I'll I'll I'll let me let me kick it off Yes, yes. I I do enjoy Thing from time to time. I like the punch heroes. so Thing obviously win rate wise, well I guess not, obviously. it it's it's not too good right now, but I think a lot of that is just Dino kind of gatekeeping gatekeeping out of out of the meta, I think. actually actually I don't know his celestial numbers, but if if you didn't know

Coach_Gap (01:09:12.269)
So go ahead. You're a thing player, right?

Coach_Gap (01:09:30.755)
Looking grim.

Coach Mills (01:09:39.864)
Pretty shit.

CaptainCoach (01:09:42.039)
the Invis team up is already considered pretty strong. I've talked to I don't know if he's still the rank one thing player, but the I at least former rank one okay, so he's forty percent win rate in Celestial Plus. Yeah, I that's actually worse than I thought. But I I th I think that is a bit o of of Dino, which that's not gonna change. But

Nugnug (01:09:59.32)
It's not good.

Coach Mills (01:09:59.492)
Yeah, it's pretty bad.

Coach_Gap (01:10:04.419)
But dinos nerfed most games.

CaptainCoach (01:10:07.086)
Yeah, well yeah, that's a good point actually. That is he is not in the game a lot. So so the rank one thing player swears by the Invis team up. And this was before the torch one got nerfed latch last patch. So in my eyes, this is going to be the clear option just about every game. Un unless you again you're you're picking thing just for like a damage increase. Like you just need like I don't know, maybe like to to to kill Thor quicker or something, like just like anti brawl, right?

Nugnug (01:10:18.33)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (01:10:31.342)
Wha what is the the enhanced effect. Okay, I see. Reduce the damage threshold. I mean Invis is pretty popular right now too, and you're gonna get the enhanced effect quite often, I think as well.

CaptainCoach (01:10:41.11)
Now, I'm I I think all the tanks in this game should actually have their damage lowered a bit and have their tankiness increased. So any change like this where the tankiness of tanks gets increased, I'm for. But this to me, it unlike the Hulk team up change, this is gonna create a clear power disparity where this is going to be the obvious favorite in most situations. Maybe not in I I I I would imagine this is not as a as popular in in the lower ranks, is my guess. But I this is if you're a thing player, you're gonna be going this just about every game, I think.

Nugnug (01:11:10.01)
This change is fine. last patch. They like see so he's supposed to be the specialized anti-dive, and his anti-dive has been like extremely oppressively anti-dive, like like anti-dive through the roof since his existence. Is but last patch they finally actually nerfed his anti-dive, the earthbound, right? It got longer cooldown and lower duration, I believe. Pretty big nerf to like his stick, that's his thing, you know. No pun intended.

but they also then nerfed his other parts of his kit as well as the anti-dive, which might have been a bit much if you're gonna nerf the only thing he really does. so I do think giving him a bit of the survivability back is probably the right call. And to be clear though, I do think that the nerf to his earthbound was a bit good. I think having heroes like Penny and thing that are so specialized, like too specialized.

To where you can't play them outside of that hyper specific situation. I don't think it's healthy for the hero to be too specialized. Specializing is fine, it's great. Like White Fox is good, is good anti-dive, but you can play White Fox against not dive. It's just not ideal, but you can do it. now and this season a little bit worse than pre-9.0. She used to be a lot better at doing that. Like as someone I played a lot of White Fox. I could play her pre-9.0 pretty well into non-dive games. But she was a specialized anti-dive. I think.

I would hope for them to go for a bit of a better balance on some of these hyper specialized heroes like Thing or Penny to where they're still really good at the thing you choose them for, but they're not like throw picks into anything that's not their hyper specialty. Cause it also creates the environment where that's why Penny has such a high win rate. is because people play her on her hyper specialized maps and locations on defense on this point. it's I don't think it's super healthy for the hero or the game.

because then on certain maps, like, I have to ban Penny on this map just for this one specific point, or thing is only played because we're running these specific heroes and then they swap off the moment we swap and he's not even viable into anything else. specialties are fine. I just think he's a bit too specialized. I'm kind of happy to see this change. giving a bit back of his survivability after they nerfed his specialization.

CaptainCoach (01:13:24.204)
Yeah. Well said, I agree. I like totally agree. This is this is by the way, this is the former rank one thing taught saying this. Like I I believe s at one point, weren't you?

Coach Mills (01:13:26.554)
Fuck him, nerf him more. I hate this fucking character. Okay, sorry. No, no. No, no, no. Well, I I was really high up on the ladder one on thing. I he he like when he first came out, I feel like I figured him out before a lot of other people did because people didn't really understand what the fuck he did. Yeah, exactly. It's well, like people people didn't really get that if you played double shield into thing, you just

Nugnug (01:13:28.112)
Ha ha ha ha.

Nugnug (01:13:34.564)
Coach Mills, you the rank one thing?

CaptainCoach (01:13:46.156)
Yeah, he he did right click, right click, right click. They did right click, left click click, right click. He he was just ahead of the game, man.

Coach Mills (01:13:56.357)
Literally were not doing damage to him, like 'cause he traded unfairly. But anyways, I've said this a lot, and I'll keep saying it. When a character is is too strong for a little while, it's okay if they're dog shit for a little while. And I feel that way about the thing. I don't think that this I I I think this buff is fine because it doesn't break the character, but I would be fine if we are we don't see a thing meta for like at least, you know, twenty seasons. So, anyways

Nugnug (01:14:18.704)
So th the thing player wants to nerf thing and the person that gets grounded all the time wants to buff it.

Coach Mills (01:14:23.096)
Well you only die. Well no, I I don't I'm not a Think player anymore. Like I like I was a Think player for the first you know, the first two months he came out and then I realized that the character does not have a lot of skill expression and I'm like, alright, let's just do something else. so yeah. I I I I I've slowly as I've played more into in this game, I've I've kind of drifted towards more skill expressive characters. 'Cause I started off as like a Bucky player, I started off as Mag, then Thing

Coach_Gap (01:14:24.922)
Ha ha

Coach Mills (01:14:50.094)
And then I've drifted away to, you know, I did Thor and then I did Venom and like more dive oriented stuff. So like I'm I'm more interested in like I I'll probably eventually end up at fucking Spider Man. I don't know. I just eventually I just like more skill expressive shit. although I do think that like Thor gives me the right amount of skill expressive where I can like still kind of be, you know, a little like hung over and I can still hit my shots for more or less. So like that's good enough. but speaking of Yeah, yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:15:14.861)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:15:16.666)
Thor has a crazy skill ceiling. Crazy on Thor.

Coach Mills (01:15:19.721)
speaking of you do you wanna talk about thing first before we okay yeah yeah yeah go for it.

Coach_Gap (01:15:20.087)
I have a lot of thoughts here. Whatever.

I would like to. So here are my thoughts. The thing, like I said, very similar, like place as Dino, where it's supposed to be like kind of the this like anti-dive character. Whatever it gets too good at brawling, just like straight up, but he's also the counter to dive, it's just doing too much. And I think he is the one of the greatest examples of power creep in this game, where the thing has to have had to have so many changes to actually be good because there was just so much damage, so many CCs.

So much healing in the game to where he just kind of like fell over against these these other comps eventually. And just to give you all perspective on this Invis team up, so the two things that happen with it are, you know, it does does a lot of healing to think himself. but to put it in perspective, so before 20 second cooldown, cool. with it now being 15 seconds, you know, Yancey Street Charge, what, like 12 second cooldown? I think. Yeah, 12 seconds. So

The team up, which I hate this kind of mechanic in rivals, whenever you activate the team up, it starts instantly counting down back to having another cooldown. Like the same thing as cloak bubble, where as soon as you lay down the bubble, it starts coming back, or you know, it'll be back sooner. And so with this team up, it it lasts for yeah, five seconds. So you activate it, 15 second cooldown. By the time that it's done, it's only a 10 second cooldown, which is shorter than Yancey street charge.

So basically every time that you go in, like Yancy Street Charge has basically become like your get out tool. Like you jump in, you know, get the get the purple on somebody, and whenever you get too low, you charge out or to avoid CCs. And the thing team up can be activated during the charge. So basically every 12 seconds, you are going to get to this point where he jumps in, uses his charge, uses team up, and he can even go back in because he gets an insane amount of health from this.

Coach_Gap (01:17:21.933)
I mean, it is like it it is almost already better than the torch team up. The only thing really holding it back was the cooldown because it like really changed his gameplay loop, like having 12 seconds in charge versus 20 seconds on this. But now it's it's even better. and the the whole like healing thing that he gets, every time that he's taken 125 health, he is healing for I think 80 damage each time or for 80 health. So any like dive that's going in with him, like if you see a DD enting into your team.

And thing is just next to him somewhere at an eight-meter radius, which is the same as Gamma Strange, they are going to get 80 healing every time that thing takes 125 HP. Which this Invis team up like basically takes them to having like a thousand HP or 1200 if it's max. But usually it's just 800 and a punisher can't kill this guy if he's alone on shooting him. The left click does nothing to him. So I think this is an a kind of an insane change.

He's gonna be gatekeeped still by Dino and Emma. But if those two are out, he does an insane amount because he can just stay in there. Like honestly, you could use your charge, you'll still be full health, and you could just round back around, just int in again.

CaptainCoach (01:18:36.631)
Great insight.

Coach Mills (01:18:37.796)
Definitely need to nerf him. Like I said. Okay.

Coach_Gap (01:18:38.05)
I think it's crazy, man. I think it's crazy.

CaptainCoach (01:18:40.108)
Yeah. No, I it it's gonna be picked every game.

Nugnug (01:18:41.725)
I I don't really notice thing as someone that plays dive a lot. I don't really notice people really swapping the thing to counter meat anymore. Like even when they do No no when I'm playing not Iron Fest. wait wait, when I'm Yeah wait

Coach Mills (01:18:48.684)
You're It's 'cause you play okay, I was gonna say I was like, this motherfucker, he's okay with Dinah, he's okay with thing. Must be nice, must be fucking nice.

CaptainCoach (01:18:56.812)
Ha ha ha

Nugnug (01:19:00.272)
I noticed they're not swapping to it as a counter as much. and when they do, I mean, like Gore is also a diver, but he he does kind of like screw him up as well. I just don't I'd noticed like they choose other anti-dive options over thing a bit more this season. again, like you broke down the numbers, Coach Gap. So it could end up being like when you look at face value, it looks like it's a good change, but the way you described it.

It could just be like a situation where like the certain breakpoints are hit to where now it actually breaks it. Even though like numerically it doesn't look like it's crazy. But it could be a situation where the break points change and it completely sends him to the roof. I hope that's not the case. I hope it gives him just a little bit of the lift he needs. That's my hope.

Coach_Gap (01:19:45.263)
I think the unfortunate thing is like I really enjoyed Thing whenever he first came out. Like he was a fun character and it kind of got like got me excited. It was hard because he couldn't like just be the hard carry. But if your team was like decent at playing, at least like somebody was decent at playing Mag, you could do so much. But at this point, he's become the person where like he was kind of like the anti-diver for a little bit. Now that's not even the case. He's just a straight up brawler, like same as Dino, where it's not even like.

kind of worth peeling for your team. Like if you are taking the front line for a majority of these comps, especially because dive isn't like the best right now, you're just doing or you're outputting way more. And that's like where this team up comes into place is because once you get below that 50% HP, which is like was it three something on it? Like three fifty something.

then you are getting 15 health every or like five times in a second. So you're getting 75 health per second from the thing team up alone once you get to that point. Which I I think is pretty crazy.

Nugnug (01:20:48.856)
I do think there's ways to make heroes like the thing even more skill expressive in ways that don't like hurt the hero. Like Mills, I have a question. Is there any reason on thing you would like use his like his left click punch, not the right click? because his right click gives the overhealth, right?

Coach Mills (01:21:02.646)
yeah, yeah, yeah. I I typically just do it to finish off of target, like at the very end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just at the very very end is typically

Nugnug (01:21:07.82)
So just like when they're really low and you want that quicker punch. Like they could they could work around that. Like they could add, like maybe if you choose to use your left click, there's some kind of a benefit you get over the right click. So maybe based on the situation

Coach Mills (01:21:20.464)
I would love I would love to give him combos. Like like legit fighting game combos. You know, right, left, right, right, and it does like a little certain thing. Left, right, right, right. Right, yeah, but but it wouldn't wouldn't it be cool if there if if it gave you like a four like there's four different combos you can do depending on the four person combination of right, left, right, left. And then then it then and like they're good in different situations. Like one of them's like a like a sidestep into a punch, one of them's like you could you could definitely do something fucking cool with this character.

Nugnug (01:21:25.018)
Yeah, they could

Coach_Gap (01:21:27.33)
Hitman upp an Iron Fist just double uppercut somebody?

Nugnug (01:21:30.03)
Yeah, like what they did with Iron Fist, do it the thing.

CaptainCoach (01:21:46.337)
I I I would love this is something I kind of wanted to see on Thanos if they ever released him was come some kind of s stance that you you could swap into to give you like noticeable benefits. So if Thing swapped into a defensive stance with his fists up, maybe you just hold like you'll just hold it.

Nugnug (01:21:46.809)
I love it.

Coach Mills (01:21:56.112)
Mm.

Coach Mills (01:22:02.377)
Coach_Gap (01:22:03.243)
Or hi like hits the ground, rock comes up.

CaptainCoach (01:22:05.878)
Right, you just take you take less damage and and you can kinda like move like that. And and I think that that kind of thing would fit really well for him.

Coach Mills (01:22:06.384)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:22:14.38)
Yeah, I I think one reason that people really enjoy the Invis over the torch team up is because it makes up for a big weakness in thing. Where, you know, things big weakness, especially like in the current times or recently, is CCs, like getting Lunafrozen, then charmed, then charmed again is tough on you. And you're just gonna be like stuck in CC jail. But the Invis team up.

you activate it and you're still getting that health no matter how many times you get cc'd whereas the torch one you need to be able to like hit and hit into multiple people and you're like face tanking them. In the Invas team up like you could turn your back not get a headshot and if you're below that 50% HP, like I said, you're getting 75 health a second. That if you pair that with like any sort of healing or like a cloak bubble or something, that's a full ult like support ult that point.

CaptainCoach (01:22:43.543)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:22:56.728)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:23:02.274)
You're just unkillable. So I think that's why it's like advantageous over that one. It's because it doesn't matter what happens to you. You're still getting that health.

CaptainCoach (01:23:09.08)
So it it for anything players watching out there, you know, we we talk a lot about the game balance what we think. Let me tell you the tech that the rank one thing, his name is Atlas. I'm sure you've seen him in quite a few videos crashing out on streamers, but the guy the guy knows his stuff with with thing. you wanna you wanna basically set up dives. Like you you just full commit dive back line and and you use the tankiness. Everyone is they guaranteed to focus you. You apply a damage amp, call out a target, you just win checkpoint just like that. Boom.

You just and you just do that. You just have a

Nugnug (01:23:40.034)
I love it when I get thing players that do that. I love it so much. When I get them on my team and they do that, it's so fun.

Coach_Gap (01:23:40.556)
He's a purple merchant.

CaptainCoach (01:23:43.351)
When when thing players do that.

Right. Like you you so you're you're you should be diving on him. Your job is not to farm tanks. Use that tankiness that you get even now more than ever. Dive their back line, damage amp a high prio target, get him grounded so they can't jump. You burst somebody, boom, instant win a fight. You're gonna take so much more damage than they're able to. And I I'm telling you like he'll he'll I think he'll be pretty good now. I think he'll be pretty good.

Coach Mills (01:24:09.636)
Before we move on, and we'll we'll get to the DPS in a second, are there any tanks that you think that they missed? Any ch any tanks that you think should have been adjusted that were were

CaptainCoach (01:24:17.912)
Emma.

Nugnug (01:24:19.482)
Captain America, Venom.

Coach Mills (01:24:21.434)
Captain America Venom.

CaptainCoach (01:24:22.296)
Ha ha Emma needed nerfs.

Nugnug (01:24:24.08)
I think I think the Venom, I think he should have gotten his swing back. The the cooldown, they should have reverted

Coach Mills (01:24:28.43)
Yeah, because they they fucking got rid of it when they thought he was busted. When he turned out he wasn't busted at all. He was actually terrible.

CaptainCoach (01:24:32.334)
That that change was that change was probably three th two or three seasons late.

Coach Mills (01:24:37.914)
D yeah, they liter they like how does my god, I don't know, I don't I don't even understand.

Nugnug (01:24:38.094)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:24:41.754)
There's just so many ways to stop a Venom and having the swing cooldown be increased, it's like it's like the Hulk problem on Venom and they just made it worse by increasing the cooldown. It's like there's just so many things. So many things. And every new hero has one.

Coach Mills (01:24:51.553)
Yeah, and if and if they needed to nerf the team up, if they needed to nerf the fucking Phoenix team up at the time, that's what everyone thought was broken. Why wouldn't they just nerf that instead of our movement ability? I just don't understand why they would movement creep the fuck out of us. That being said, so I I play I I don't play any cat, but I play a lot of Venom. I don't really think that either of those characters you don't need to buff those characters. It's just other things need to be nerfed, which they were not. Like it's like

Coach_Gap (01:25:06.712)
I think gap is fine.

Coach Mills (01:25:20.738)
It's weird. I I I've talked about this before where it's like, at what point are we gonna give up on the power creep problem? And like the power creep problem is like there are characters that have obviously gotten really high in power level. We could just be like, Okay, we need to gigabuff all these weaker characters. We need a gigabuff hook, we need a gigabuff cap. But then we've completely given up on any idea of returning us to like the old state of power. Like if you do that.

CaptainCoach (01:25:44.158)
yeah.

Nugnug (01:25:44.218)
Judging by this patch, I'm assuming Netes has decided. I mean, we'll get to some of the other changes.

CaptainCoach (01:25:48.897)
Yeah. I I I agree wholeheartedly. This is them saying we don't give a fuck. I totally agree. Yeah. Yes.

Coach Mills (01:25:49.392)
D they they've decided they decided fuck fuck power creep.

Coach_Gap (01:25:51.566)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:25:52.911)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:25:54.424)
Fuck it, we bowl. Yeah.

Nugnug (01:25:56.465)
I mean, we didn't get all the changes yet, but let's look at like Cyclops and Phoenix. I got a lot to say on that. That's them making it very, very clear. Very clear.

Coach Mills (01:26:00.753)
shit.

Coach_Gap (01:26:02.807)
Yeah, I thought this was gonna be like a full like nerf patch. Like I was making a video on it a couple hours before, and I was like, my hopes are they nerfed this character, this character, this character, this character. And maybe they buffed Jubilee, you know? She's the one that deserves a buff. And then reading it, I was like.

Nugnug (01:26:14.596)
I've been telling people to like to give up on it. Like Netdys has fully embraced it and they're not gonna go back on it.

Coach Mills (01:26:17.796)
So i if that's being said that being said, if they are not gonna ever undo this power creep, then fuck it. Buff cap, buff venom, buff thor buff of buff Hulk fuck it, buff buff everybody. Anything that's in D tier, C tier or last, just fuck it buff, fuck it. Like that it's

CaptainCoach (01:26:26.605)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:26:27.714)
Rework half the roster.

Nugnug (01:26:33.336)
Like you can talk about what's the right decision, whether they should stop it. I'm just talking about what I think the reality is. Like reality, right?

Coach Mills (01:26:38.124)
No, no, no. I I I agree with you. I I I I just 'cause that's what everyone always comes to my chat and they say, wait are we gonna buff Cap or are we gonna buff Venom? It's like these fucking characters are in a stronger state now than they were ever in. In like in eight point five, they were like two of the strongest tanks in the game. They're in a stronger state now, like like just in a i i in isolation, right? Their kits are stronger than they were because of the team ups. It's just everything fucking around them is just too much stronger. Like i that's i Well my my shit is

CaptainCoach (01:27:06.402)
Yeah, here I I I I got a I got a quote for your intro, Mills. Everybody be quiet for this. okay, never mind. Yeah. Well, I I was gonna say Yeah, just the the question is not whether or not the game is going to have power creep. It's going to be if your character can keep up.

Coach Mills (01:27:07.61)
Fritz it but yeah.

Nugnug (01:27:14.8)
You know,

Coach_Gap (01:27:15.598)
Yeah, we just have we just have to stop talking once he leaves.

Coach Mills (01:27:18.156)
You can talk. You could talk. I'm I'm serious. I'll just fix this.

Nugnug (01:27:27.376)
That's why okay, I have something to say on that. Everyone will consistently and keep asking for their own buffs. They keep doing it. Everyone keeps asking for their own hero to be buffed over and over. And then they get buffed, and then a couple patches later they do it again. Like I noticed this with the Iron Frist community, it actually blew my mind. I still see people asking for buffs. We got the biggest buff!

Coach Mills (01:27:31.856)
That's the wrong one.

Coach Mills (01:27:37.772)
I will not I will not.

Coach Mills (01:27:44.273)
No. No, I I I'm glad I'm glad you have restraint. This is what I keep telling telling to my Thor community. Cause everyone in ever like 'cause I I just I only maze mainly only play Thor and people come into my chat and they say, Thorbuffs, Thor buffs. It's like if if you buff his ult and you increase his win rate, they're gonna gut his neutral. If you buff his neutral and you make this character one of the best characters in the game, guess what? His entire gameplay loop is around fucking kidnapping tanks. It's

He d I I'm curious if you agree with this take, Nugdug. There are some characters that should never be top of the meta. And I feel the exact way about my main Thor. Because I think characters, especially with with hard to interact gameplay loops or in or gameplay loops that center around taking away player agency are bad. So like I feel the exact same way about any kidnapped character, any CC oriented character. So I see I feel the same way that I do about Thor, that I do about actually Dino, that I do about

Coach_Gap (01:28:19.874)
Deserve to be met up.

Coach Mills (01:28:43.072)
Angelo that I do about Wolverine. I feel the same exact same way. because they just they're hard to interact with characters, the characters that just can completely remove your agency. I mean I've I mean I kidnap a fucking Magneto seven times. I kidnap him until he tr until tenacity procs, and then I kidnap him again after tenacity's done. Like like that like the that that's only okay when w when Thor's a B tier character or whatever, but the second my character is S tier, all of a sudden that is the worst meta of all time. I just I like it's just I don't I also

Coach_Gap (01:29:00.482)
Tenacity, by the way.

Nugnug (01:29:12.314)
So there is two yeah, keep going. Yeah.

Coach Mills (01:29:12.876)
Yeah. no, no, go go on. Well, I was gonna say just about the ultimate thing. It's like people don't understand that if your character is already a reasonably winning character, if you buff any part of that character, then something else has to give. Like you you like you could say, I just wanna fix just this one thing. Well, if you fix this that just like it like Thor, if you just wanna buff his ult, well if everyone can use his ult, so you're gonna raise his win percentage by three percent, now what? Like you you gotta think like

th now they're gonna get rid of his one eighty kidnap. So like is that a sacrifice you wanna make? You know, you can buff this, but you're gonna lose this. It it it always happens. They're not gonna just allow you to have everything, like unless you're Elsa. Yeah, yeah, or a or Everfrost, yeah. But anyway, sorry, sorry to cut you off, go.

Coach_Gap (01:29:49.23)
Unless you're Emma Frost, I mean

CaptainCoach (01:29:51.618)
Hm. Yeah.

Nugnug (01:29:54.905)
Yeah, I think on the topic of heroes that maybe shouldn't be meta, there's like two different w discussions here. There's heroes that are, you know, too easy, so they should never be meta. And then there's what you're talking about now, which is heroes that have mechanics that aren't healthy, should they be meta? That's what you're talking about, right? So I think with the case of Thor, it's a bit interesting because you see from your perspective when you land that actual like that that grab.

And I know because like I play with Sigamode and he plays Thor. He gets abandoned top 500. I see the amount of kidnapping. It looks so annoying. Constantly pulling, pulling. This dude is so good mechanically. He constantly pulling, pulling, pulling. Kidnapping, kidnapping, kidnapping. It looks so oppressive. But the fact remains that to do that, you have to act you have to take an active risk. Upon doing that, you could just die when you try to do it. Now if Thor is that go for a pull and they get CC'd in some way and they actually die. So I don't think it's.

Coach Mills (01:30:47.13)
Well the the only way that Thor would ever be A or S tier is if the risk didn't exist. Like like the like that that's the that's what I'm saying. If you if you made it to where his dashes gave him like a hundred and twenty eight shield or some shit where like all of a sudden he could ignore all of a sudden he could ignore his risk. Or like what people say they that you give his bubble, you make his bubble like an actual bubble. And he could like bubble off healing and then kidnap a tank at the same time. Like all of these like recommended changes to me I get from Thor players, it's like if you remove that that risk, the character

Nugnug (01:30:51.812)
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Nugnug (01:30:57.09)
No, no, no, no, no, no.

Nugnug (01:31:11.076)
Definitely not. No no no.

Coach Mills (01:31:16.612)
Like he j the only the toxicity remains. Like like

Nugnug (01:31:19.876)
Yeah, I think taking risks is healthy for the game. Taking risks. I think if they remove the risk factor, then what's the point of the reward? You can't have the reward be so high with no risk. That's just not how it works. I think the best example of this of why taking risks is so important is 10.0, okay? This was like, or like 9.5 and 10, like 9.5 actually. This was the worst, like, meta, in my opinion, since the game released. It was

Coach Mills (01:31:42.864)
So fucking terrible. I I hated it.

Nugnug (01:31:45.361)
And it's because the entire map didn't matter anymore. It's all one lane. Everyone sits in main and looks forward and just throws everything forward. Heals, damage, and so it makes the game dumb for all roles, okay? Supports don't need to think about anyone taking any angle. DPS just shoot the dyno in the head, shoot the thing in the head. The tanks just look forward. It's like it's like a dumb game for everyone. It's just like slop. It's slop for every role. There's no like dive mains just don't no no, it's slop for everyone, okay? And it's not just like divers, it's also

Coach Mills (01:31:58.276)
Ha ha ha.

Nugnug (01:32:15.44)
Poke heroes that take angles. Like if you have poke heroes that take angles, suddenly Hulk's better because he can contest. Suddenly Captain America's better. If you have people that are taking angles, so it's I don't like it when people like bring it down to like just a dive argument. I think taking angles and taking risks is important for the game because it adds more skill expression. There's like risk reward. Okay, now you assess on the fly. Is this risk worth it? If it works out, I'm gonna feel good. If it doesn't work out, you can VOD it and see where you went wrong.

Why did I make that mistake? Is my risk assess assessment just poor? Well, maybe this is why I'm in a low rank. I need to get better at doing that. like whenever it comes to like frontline brawling on Iron Fist, a lot of like low rank Iron Fist players, they ask me how do you get better at it. And it's like a lot of it's risk assessment. So I give people steps to minimize the risk that they're going to take. and so I think it's healthy for the game to have risk. It's very, very healthy. It makes the games more engaging and also faster paced. Because if

Coach Mills (01:33:06.288)
Hundred percent.

Nugnug (01:33:11.8)
It's just it's just not fun when no one can make a mistake. It doesn't feel skill expressive. I swear, there was this one game in season 9.5 that was so sloppy. It was just support all triple support, triple tank. It was so sloppy, okay? And then we went to overtime. And I have no clue why the enemy tank team's Groot suddenly switched to Thor. Okay. They went Thor. And then on the first fight overtime, he made a mistake. He made a mistake and he died. And I thought to myself, my god. He swapped to a hero that could make a mistake.

Coach Mills (01:33:14.736)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (01:33:24.126)
He's

Nugnug (01:33:41.209)
And the fight progressed. It was the craziest like in my mind, I'll never forget that moment in 9.5. And I hope we never return to a meta like that. I think having risk is important. And I think the only thing that a has to do with bouncing is how they weigh what the reward is for that risk. Certain heroes maybe have too much of a reward and maybe too little of a risk. That's like the bounce that needs to be made. But there should always be some risk and some reward.

Coach_Gap (01:34:06.295)
Yeah, I think that the truth is like with the community, and like these individual, especially tank communities and some of the DPS communities, like, you know, they're these characters that people are tied to. Where like Hulk players, some Thor players, I don't know, they're there are definitely other examples, like where they will just play that character no matter what. there's Scarlet Witch players, the all the cloak and dagger players that will just lock this character no matter how bad and terrible the character is, and how much like how close it is to C and D tier.

But these these people will play the character no matter what state they're in. I don't want them to be like bottom D tier, but like said, I think there are certain characters that just take away too much agency. And that's like their whole gameplay loop. Like Angela has s had certain things before where it was like, okay, like, you know, you're kind of poking the back line, kind of annoying them. And then with this Loki team up, she just becomes like full on kidnap bot. And with a with a Thor, like when your whole gameplay loop is just pushing around a tank, like

That's the worst thing for me. Like yeah. But you can do other things, but there is versatility. Yeah.

Coach Mills (01:35:05.326)
I mean I I I've a lot of fun. I I I I love it. No, but I but I like it's my favorite thing to do. It's my but I but I I get that it shouldn't it shouldn't be the best. Like like I actually think that Hulk is a character that's perfectly fine as S tier. I actually like Hulk Metis. I don't think I don't feel the same way about Thor or Angela or like a lot of

Coach_Gap (01:35:23.669)
I mean like Hulk could juggle me around in monster form and be like, That's fair, that's cool, you earned it. But but with Thor,

Coach Mills (01:35:26.274)
It's it's yeah, it's a it's as old. Right, this is a one off instance. Yeah.

Nugnug (01:35:30.542)
Now you mentioned it, yeah. Hulk like one of the most balanced heroes in the game in terms of like oppressiveness, annoyingness, like all these things.

Coach Mills (01:35:33.369)
Yeah. Ca 'cause I like to I like to ask a lot of people like what is the optim like if you could choose like in this case, if you could choose the tank meta, like if like top three tanks, what three tanks would you choose? just just so you know mine, my my three would probably be something like Strange Hulk tank pool or some shit like that. Would probably be my three. something along those lines. it would de it would definitely not be a lot of what's the str hey, yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:35:36.781)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:35:57.624)
Right.

Coach_Gap (01:35:58.369)
We can wrap up the podcast. That should be it, maybe.

CaptainCoach (01:36:02.808)
To me it just comes down to I mean, his his damage output is just straight up lower than other heroes and and really that's the name of the game right now. So you have windows of counter play, you have opportunity to actually do something. And and I think a lot of heroes we talk about power creep all the c all the time. Damage in the game just is at this point where it you know, some heroes just can't you know, just can't keep up. And Hulk's always kinda been in that area where he's for whatever reason, just a really low damage character compared to

Coach Mills (01:36:29.37)
I would really like it if they just really power creep the fuck out of him one season, I'm not gonna lie. Like it you don't have to power creep him in a way that like makes him in h super hard to interact with, but like fuck it. You know, give thirty more damage per hit or some shit and see what happens, you know, like I don't like

Coach_Gap (01:36:33.56)
Make emoji again.

CaptainCoach (01:36:45.954)
That new wolf team up is is no joke. Like you actually might be able to just kill through things like cloak bubble now. I'll to test it. But usually when I'm popping that team up and cleaving it, I I usually get pretty close and it's just not enough most of the time. But yeah, who knows?

Coach Mills (01:36:55.024)
Right. Well 'cause I I mean I legitimately want to see like an S tier Hulk season. I mean I don't even know when the last time we've had a S tier Hulk season. It's been like

Coach_Gap (01:36:56.344)
The thing that

Nugnug (01:37:03.212)
I was it when he had the team up and that's why he was banned? The gamma team up?

Coach Mills (01:37:06.466)
It was yeah, it wasn't even it it wasn't even because of him. Yeah, it was because of the it was because of the Name War team up, I think, way back in the day, right? Like like original.

Coach_Gap (01:37:10.622)
yeah, yes.

CaptainCoach (01:37:13.24)
Hulk's never he's never been good. Like ac like

Coach Mills (01:37:15.884)
he's just like cosmetically good.

Coach_Gap (01:37:15.918)
I mean like in an OG arrivals, he was like in like first or z season zero. Season zero, like Gamma Gamma Strange with Hulk, like Hulk I felt like was rolling around. I think it's the he might have not been the strongest but I feel like he is a perfect example of like what an off tank is in my brain. Like I used to play off tank in in Overwatch, and I really enjoy some of the main tank characters now. But I I the main reason I like the main tank characters is because they're actually like defending their team.

Nugnug (01:37:18.554)
He's been the t he's been the team up anchor.

CaptainCoach (01:37:21.15)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (01:37:29.53)
Season zero, yeah. Well

Coach_Gap (01:37:43.171)
And I feel like most of the direction for rivals just goes into it doesn't like the best the best defense is a good offense where you're just like you're just pushing their shit in. If you're in their back line taking focus, or if you just have an infinite amount of health in the front, you don't even need to defend your team. But but Hulk is that prime example where it's like, okay, there's like versatility in his playstyle where he can play more offensive if the comp like permits it and if his comp is centered around that. But then he can also play defensive and you know, he actually Hulk's protects.

Hulk protects his team.

Nugnug (01:38:13.624)
I love GameSense heroes. I think they're so healthy for the game heroes like Hulk where you you apply all your game knowledge, game knowledge to make like full use out of the hero. It's like 'cause there's there's so many things you can do with it. Like you can easily tell the difference between the good and a bad Hulk by their decision making. And I personally think that's really cool. I like that kind of gameplay.

Coach_Gap (01:38:16.142)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:38:30.018)
Yeah. And I love being rewarded for being helpful like to my team or being defensive and actually like saving somebody on Mag.

Coach Mills (01:38:31.182)
I I feel similar about

Coach Mills (01:38:37.328)
I I was gonna say I feel similar about Iron Fist. Like I can tell if an Iron Fist is good, but like like fight one frame one. I play Thor a lot, so I I end up in little skirmishes with Iron Fist, and I can just instantly tell it's like I'm I'm I'm like this guy is terrible or this guy's good and then it's like some known it's like it's like some random known Iron Fist player's like, okay, that makes sense, you know. Like it it's you'll have enough like movement skill expression that I just kind of I figure it out like right away. okay, let's move on so we don't make this podcast

Five hours long. Let's move on to the duelist. Let's talk about the duelists. you know, they really hit that hit it out of the park with all these all these big nerfs that we're about to talk about. First off, Cyclops. optic blast single hit damage from 22 to 23. Increase the cooldown reduction from the ricochet force per optic blast. So his his alternate gets reduced, or his E, his Ricochet E gets reduced every time he hits his primary. And now instead of 0.25 seconds, it's.3. So it's you're gonna get have more uptime on the ricochet.

His ultimate gets reduced by 300 from 3700 to 3400. So you're gonna get that ultimate up a little bit faster. And then the team up with Gambit, increase the duration of the kinetic kin from six seconds to eight seconds. yeah, this is a character I I did climb to eternity one season. when he first came out, when he was super, super busted. He's not quite to that level. but he's he's strong. I mean, he was he was the weakest of all the poke characters, by like

by quite a bit is when rate was in the forties. I think this is probably all fine. I think I mean i if if any hit scan's gonna be good, I think Cyclops is the one that like at least Captain Coach and I have talked about him being the most ethical of the hit scans. more ethical than like Hella and fucking Elsa and yeah.

Nugnug (01:40:06.938)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:40:18.478)
Yes, that's exactly what I want to talk about.

Coach_Gap (01:40:21.132)
I think his mechanics are a little bit too easy for me, but he doesn't have a stun, which is huge plus, obviously.

CaptainCoach (01:40:21.411)
He's also

CaptainCoach (01:40:28.418)
Definitely popular in the lower ranks as well. You see him a lot. I I I think he was fine. I think he was actually in a fine spot. And I would have liked to see more of the heroes nerfed to where we you like you wouldn't need to see a change like this. Well, I do I think this is gonna really change too much? No, but I don't really think this is kind of the direction I wanted to see just overall. So I mean it's fine, but I I would have liked to see more nerfs than buffs like this. Yeah, shout shout out.

Coach_Gap (01:40:32.812)
He's fun, man.

Coach Mills (01:40:54.906)
Shout out power creep. Yep. I'm lucky. But what were you gonna say, Nug Doug? What were your thoughts about?

Nugnug (01:41:00.696)
Yeah, I think I think the reason why everyone's really upset, I noticed in response to the patch, everyone was so upset that they quote unquote just buffed poke. But like l objectively, Cyclops was not very good. And so if assuming you know they're going this route of power creeping and bringing heroes up, not down, buffing Cyclops is the right choice. people just don't like how all the other poke heroes are good. But Cyclops specifically, okay, I think he is actually a pretty healthy designed hero when you compare it to Hella.

It feels like she has her kit is just so oppressive. The Venom Orb is it's it makes it to her 1v1s when you do close the gap. She has a get out of jail free card with her bird, which is crazy because now it's 360 and there's there's a damn B-hop! They gave her a B-hop. She can B hop with that bird. I hate seeing it so much. Cyclops, you can track him during it, and he doesn't have a stun. So if you're playing anyone that has to close the gap, yes, he has mobility, but

You can track where he's going in it and you can still damage him while he's doing it. And it's also confined to certain areas. If he's in an open field, yeah, he can fly up and fly away. But if you're getting him trapped in a little room because he's taking an angle and he's in a room and you go and you dive him in that room, well, you can predict where he's gonna go. You can predict where he's gonna fly to unless he's actually good and does like a 360, maybe spins himself around. Because there's obviously there is some ways you can use it that's super skill expressive that requires good mechanics.

CaptainCoach (01:42:16.302)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:42:26.682)
Cause you can like whip your camera around when you're doing that that that knockback thing. But a lot of Cyclops players don't do that, and so it's I think he's healthy. I think Black Widow is also pretty healthy. I d I don't I want Black Widow to be like the Poke Meta and not a hero like Elsa. Because with Black Widow, she oftentimes take angles, she oftentimes gets creative. And if you actually close the gap on her, you close the gap on her. She has really good range, really good damage, but if you do close the gap, it feels very fair and not oppressive.

And a good Black Widow player, there is some counterplay that she can employ, but it requires actual game sense. She has to position herself in a in like a high ground position where if she gets dove, then she can then dive bomb safely back to a safe position using her dive ability. But if she's not using her proper map awareness and you see where she is, and she's like, she's on the ground, she's got nowhere to dive to, I can dive her and I can kill her. And then you actually do that, it feels kind of rewarding. So she has a good reward for keeping.

For being unmarked, which is insane damage, insane lethality. But if you mark her, then she's forced to play in main. If you use a lot more bearable, you don't dive the back line and have the hella turn and orb you, and it cancels any kind of disengage tool. Like it's just so annoying when you dive and the hella can cancel your disengage. If for some reason, if you cancel Hella's bird, she gets the cooldown back. It's just it's like a toxic experience. I think Cyclops and Black Widow are relatively healthy.

Because they don't they don't feel painful and oppressive to actually go up against. And it does feel like there's a level of counterplay that you can think about. whereas for a hero like Hela, like if I'm on Gore specifically, specifically on Gore, okay, other heroes have different problems, but on Gore, I c it's impossible to 1v1 to Hela because there isn't actually a counterplay to her her orb. if I press my disengage, the exact second she throws her orb.

The activation time is too long. It'll straight up just cancel my teleport and I'm dead. There isn't really any way to counterplay it. Her orb is so strong against like Gore. And on Iron Fist as well, I could be not even diving the hell out. I could be diving the back line. And the Venom Orbis, it's so much forgiveness because of its massive radius. And it can pull multiple people in. Sometimes it'll pull me from behind a wall. That was like that pissed me off so much. I was behind a wall and it pulled me from behind a wall. That actually annoyed me so much. yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:44:48.567)
So a really specific thing that also really annoys me with the Hella stun, I don't I don't wanna like harp too much on Hella, but the fact that this this like orb with a team up first of all, I think there are some characters like the reason that I kind of was okay with the team up system before and why I kinda think the direction has gone now is because some of these characters do not deserve to have team ups. Elsa does not deserve to have a team up. Hella doesn't deserve to have a team up. Like i your your stun should be a skill shot. If you miss it, it doesn't do something.

CaptainCoach (01:45:13.185)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (01:45:18.487)
But instead, like even even if I block the grab from the hello orb, I'll still get like pulled down a little bit and it messes up my strange flight so many times whenever I'm like, I'm trying to dive or I'm like trying to take a high ground and then suddenly I'm like a little flaccid to get there.

Nugnug (01:45:27.843)
It's so bad.

CaptainCoach (01:45:29.239)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (01:45:34.128)
I I'm curious what y'all think about this. So my biggest the thing I think they fucked up the most in this game, and I think they could have done it in 9.0, is there should have been team ups that literally you lose something to gain something. So you lose an ability, you lose an effect, you lose an ultimate, and it's replaced with something else. So like you and you get to decide if that's what you want to do. You know, maybe one of the team ups for Hella is you get a completely different kind of ultimate.

Nugnug (01:45:53.943)
Like a trade off.

Coach_Gap (01:45:55.053)
That's what it for Hell or for Phoenix.

Coach Mills (01:46:03.054)
Or you lose her stun and you get some other ability and it's a really strong ability, but there's a trade-off. Like right now there's no trade-offs for a lot of these things. Now I know that you could if you just did it to one character, it'd feel kind of weird. You'd have like do it across the board, but like I I often feel like that with Hella, where it's just like there should be something she loses to gain this, but she just doesn't lose shit. She just hasn't.

Coach_Gap (01:46:22.487)
Can I point out two examples of that kind of trade-off that was happening before? So the main things that I can think of that were like trade-offs in some sense were the strange gamma one, because like I said, increased the cooldown and then gave you fall off on the range. The other one was Phoenix. Phoenix had an increased cooldown on her right click before, where it was 12 seconds instead of 10 seconds. And now with this patch, that cooldown has been reduced.

Coach Mills (01:46:26.0)
What do you think?

Coach_Gap (01:46:49.547)
To where they are in line with each other. And it is just and also Cyclops has a team up with Phoenix. So I think that's part of why they're buffing this one so that people don't always go to that Phoenix one. And I think this is like reached the point where they're like buffing these hit scans to be able to contest the tanks that are just like so strong. So they're like, well, Dino's just gonna be good. So we just gotta give them some hit scans and stuff to be able to deal with it. And that's why, hey, we're not gonna nerf these things because you know, we want to make sure they can still do something. It's like

Just nerf the other characters and then you can nerf I don't get it, man.

Coach Mills (01:47:25.278)
but yeah, let's move on from Cyclops. let's talk about Gore the God Butcher. so his Shadow Scythe damage goes down from 55 plus 2% of the target's maximum health to 50 plus 2% of the target. Wait, 55 to 50 plus 2% of the target's maximum health. Reduce the shock wave damage, shock wave damage from 60 to 55. And his ultimate is reduced from 12 seconds to 10. and the living abyss cooldown. What's living abyss? What was that one? His shift it.

Nugnug (01:47:51.268)
His his shift where he like flies his little black ball.

Coach Mills (01:47:54.611)
okay. the cooldown goes down from fifteen seconds to twelve. Reduce the movement speed during the ability from thirteen to ten. So he gets it up more, but he doesn't move quite as fast. So what is your overall thoughts on this? both Captain Coach and Dug Nuggirl both play this character quite a bit. curious what y'all think.

Nugnug (01:48:10.415)
Go first coach.

CaptainCoach (01:48:11.552)
I I actually kinda kinda like these changes. I I thought Gore needed nerfs personally. I thought he was a pretty balanced hero design wise, just a bit overtuned. that's obviously within again the context that the the higher level DPS like Hella, like Elsa, you know, got looked at, which they didn't. So in the context of this patch, a lot of people are gonna be complaining about this, but realistically, these changes were perfect.

Coach_Gap (01:48:32.909)
Yes.

CaptainCoach (01:48:38.284)
Like I I actually think these changes are like exactly what he needed. A little bit less damage on his cleave. And yeah.

Nugnug (01:48:43.408)
kinda like the changes too.

Coach_Gap (01:48:44.361)
If I saw this first, I'd be like, my God, amazing patch incoming.

Coach Mills (01:48:47.79)
Yeah, it what if they gave a p nerf like this to like I don't fucking know, like seven of the top seven characters? Like I like like Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:48:48.5)
Right, right.

CaptainCoach (01:48:54.902)
It'd be perfect. And you then you could look at the tanks and the healing. We could all just kind of tone everything down. the Living Abyss one's interesting, right? Because you're lowering the cooldown on it, but making it so you can't go as far with it. I actually think this is a pretty clever change. because it's so integral to his kit and his dive to get the shield from the the ability that you're kind of just sitting around

waiting for it to come up if you really want to make something happen. If not, you're just kind of like being useless, just trying to get chip damage here and there, right? So I actually kind of like this. You're gonna have to play a little closer to fights and be a little bit more behind the scenes, but I think that's kind of the the trade off. So I I think I think he's probably gonna feel better in some ways to play just because this ability is going to be up more and he's gonna be able to do more more often. It's just gonna be a little less outright power. I think this like I mean you're seeing him getting getting picked in pro like

I I think this is the the exact kind of change he needed. I actually think this is like a good nerf and it's gonna his win rate's a bit high right now, but a lot of people are complaining saying he needs buffs. Don't think he needed buffs. I just think again, a lot of other heroes probably just needed to get toned down a little bit. I'm curious to hear your thoughts, Nugg.

Nugnug (01:50:02.596)
Yeah, overall I was kind of happy with it. I think anyone that's like really not happy and they just they blankly label as why are they nerfing gore but they're not nerfing, that's more of the frustration with other heroes not getting similar treatment. Because if you look at this in isolation, I think it's pretty good. People just frustrate that like Bucky or Elsa aren't getting changes, but Gore is. so for the specific changes, I do like it. I think I've been adamant that gore in lower ranks, okay, like lower ranks is kind of broken, a little oppressive.

as you get to the middle ranks, he's good. And in pro play, he's great because in coordination, I think he's really powerful. so I thought this was a good change because it can slightly reduce his oppressiveness in lower ranks with that just massive damage. and a little bit less forgiveness on your engagement range from 13 to 10. So you can't just fly from across the map. You have to be a bit more careful with your positioning. Similar to the do Daredevil. although this one isn't it's gonna be.

Coach Mills (01:50:52.955)
Similar to what they did with Daredevil.

Nugnug (01:50:59.376)
I think this one's good. I I like it. the the ult change, his ult did feel really long. I will admit that many times multiple. I had so many ults where I have multiple seconds after where I'm like, it's still going on. It's very long. I like the cooldown reduction as well, though, because the damage nerf it's not too great, especially on tanks. It's mostly the meaningful on like squishy targets.

Coach Mills (01:51:06.416)
Twelve seconds is crazy.

CaptainCoach (01:51:08.032)
It's too much.

Nugnug (01:51:27.17)
I think reducing the cooldown on Living Abyss was kind of mandatory because it gets cancelled and you lose the cooldown. And so you could be you could have a downtime of like 30 seconds if it gets canceled. It can be really bad. You're it's so easy to cancel that lowering the cooldown to 12 seconds, it just makes it more bearable. And I get they want him to have a weakness of being a like really hard C C'd. but he does he just kind of make up for it with his massive damage. Like his his

Cleave damage is insane because like if you were to isolate, you know, Daredevil versus Gore on a single target, you know, Daredevil might beat him in a quicker combo. But he hits everyone. That scythe has crazy range. Like when you're brawling, too, if they have two tanks, you just hit everyone. It's insane damage. so I do like more uptime. Makes the character feel better and more engaging, which by the way, it also is an increase to his DPS. Like if you're taking three seconds off, maybe on one singular go.

He is nerfed on his scythe damage, but his overall DPS is increased because he has more uptime. Like you're reducing it. Yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:52:25.9)
Yeah. Yeah. Which is exactly what he needed, right? Because it's like he's really oppressive when you're coordinated. And this kind of takes a hit at that. Like I think th this shows that they know how to nerf heroes. They can do it. You know, like they know how to do it. Right. But they just choose not to. It's just it's and again, it's because this is a dive hero that you know, I guess in their head is not as hard to play. And Hella and Phoenix take, you know, quote, skill. And it's just like

Nugnug (01:52:36.42)
Yeah, I thought this was good, man. Why can't they do it to others?

Coach Mills (01:52:46.99)
Ha ha ha.

Nugnug (01:52:53.04)
Like it shocks me that this is this is like good. It shocks me how good this is. The the level of understanding. It's like if I were to craft up patch notes, like I'd be surprised they thought of something as good.

CaptainCoach (01:52:56.824)
Very good.

Coach Mills (01:53:02.882)
One of the I'm I'm curious if you agree with this Nug Nug, but like one of the problems that we're always gonna keep running into is the you know, you as a top rank player. Like you get to feel people when they have good mechanical skill when it comes to aim. And so like when we look at like the win rates of characters, especially melee characters, like they they consistently have a higher win rate because the the the barrier to entry for like some of the lower rank players is not there, like that skill barrier to entry. That's why like Neti's always overlooks characters like Hella, characters like Elsa.

Characters like even like Widow, because these characters always have lower win rates than the characters like this, that like you know that just because Gore has a higher win rate than Hella doesn't mean that he's stronger than Hella, right? You know this, but like most players will not feel it. And I think Netty's like kind of crutches on that natural skill differential between low and high Elo. Like, if Hella's the best character in the game, you know, the you know, a plat player won't feel it, right? Like they they know that and I think they crutch on that. What do you think? What do you what what's your opinion on that?

Nugnug (01:53:59.92)
I think it's a it's a pretty complex issue because the game is experienced so differently at every rank. I've been very adamant that there's so many like skill expressive ways to buff certain melee heroes that would not impact lower ranks at all. Like I know in the first like 30 seconds, like the very first fight of the game when I'm on Gore, I know, is her backline, is her team bad? Like are they horrible? Can I just feast them all game? Will I just eat their backline for free every game? I I know in the first 30 seconds. Whereas if it's actual really good team, I'll know in the first fight as well. I'll be like,

I'm screwed. I'm legit screwed. and this is a problem, like, as you go down the ranks, is it becomes a lot easier for like melee heroes and dive heroes because they feast on uncoordination. Like again, Gore's weakness is being looked at. If everyone looks at him, he's toast, he does nothing. But if no one looks at him because it's an uncoordinated team, or maybe one person looks at him, it's gonna feel miserable for the enemy backline. If I dive a Luna and an Invis and not a single person on their entire team looks because

They're in a really low rank and they have no coordination. They're gonna be like Gore's broke and he's hitting both of us at the same time. Full patty cake and we can barely survive. That's like their experience. Yeah, it's a skill check as well. and so I've been for the whole whole for the whole team. yeah, skill floor, yeah. And so Neti's people look at that and they go, they should nerf gore. but like when you look at heroes that are like really strong in lower ELO, but they're really bad in higher ELO, I've been so adamant that netties, I know you can do it.

Coach_Gap (01:55:04.982)
Skill check.

Coach Mills (01:55:08.208)
What's a skill check? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Skill check, you gotta nerf it, right? Obviously. Skill check.

Coach_Gap (01:55:10.477)
Skill four, up, down.

CaptainCoach (01:55:11.309)
Yeah.

Nugnug (01:55:26.126)
You can think about skill-expressive ways to buff these heroes that would allow the people that dedicate themselves to the hero to have higher performance and higher ranks, but that wouldn't impact lower ranks. I think you'd have to ask people that really know their hero to be able to give you recommendations. Like I could give recommendations on Iron Fist, for example. I've been very adamant. Yes, yeah.

CaptainCoach (01:55:35.692)
Yes.

Coach Mills (01:55:43.556)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that I don't think that that's my thing is I don't think that they do communicate it enough with people that are actually experts at these characters. Like

Coach_Gap (01:55:44.493)
Are you saying they should talk to the community?

CaptainCoach (01:55:47.053)
Ha ha.

Nugnug (01:55:53.699)
If they did that, they would have so much success. Like I say multiple times, if you give like Iron Fist a lower cooldown or lower recovery on his jumps or maybe an extra jump charge, it allows me or any high rank Iron Fist player to have get more value out of physically dodging bullets. I can now weave around and have a higher success rate, actually dodging things. Whereas lower rank players, I VOD them all the time, they just they just W key through main. Like they do not use their jump charges. It would literally not make any difference at all, besides increasing the skill ceiling.

To allow for that higher level of skill expression. And I know everyone that mains a hero that's like off meta in high elo, they could all think of something. They really put their mind to it. They could think of something that would not impact most ranks of the game. Like I'm sure you can think of something for Hulk that would do nothing to a untouched backline in lower ELO with no peeling, but would allow you to actually work your way around meta heroes better should you dedicate your time to the hero. I think that'd be

Something Neti I I'm so adamant. Neties, please freaking do this. I know you can do it. It would l it's literally all you need to do. It's all you need to do. I I want them to do it so badly, man. So badly.

CaptainCoach (01:56:52.538)
f full full charge full charge jump does slam damage, you know, something like that where you get a lot of burst. But Coach Gap, I wanted to bring it to you back on the the gore versus like why is win rates high where whereas like people don't feel that way. Like as a as a coach, what are the I guess the types of strategies and comps you're most likely to utilize? Like to to find success, to win? Like just in a broad sense. Like do you like

You know what I mean? Like do are you looking for comps that you can like be really good at and do this thing and like outplay people? Or are you kind of just looking for more of like that consistency that you can you know this strategy works and we're gonna do it every time? Like w like out of those two, be this the the

Coach_Gap (01:57:35.723)
Yeah. I mean, there there's like a couple different lanes that you can go through or options where it's like there's just like a full sustain, you know, eliminating mistakes. I think that's the easiest one for people that are newer to a competitive scene because it's like, okay, well, I don't have the com like the communication skills to be able to know like how to do this effectively or how to like set these dives up. and so I think that that's like easier for people that are on a lower scale, like a lot of people that are doing MRC for the first time.

usually recommend those types. And for my collegiate students, like we're we're kind of in between where, you know, for a lot of these guys and girls, they don't have a ton of like competitive experience. Or if they do, it's like all just in ranked. And so it's a new environment, like trying to get them to comp. And at first, like it is usually kind of doing like a brawl or something so that they can work on these fundamentals of, you know, how to do these different things and where should I be looking? What does tempo feel like?

CaptainCoach (01:58:27.939)
Right.

Coach_Gap (01:58:33.003)
And then as you start understanding those things, then you're adapting into like, okay, well, there are different lanes. How can I use these effectively? And like, what does it look like to kind of like take our turn? and then once you have that, then it's then you start diving into these like dive comms where you know it takes a little more coordination, but you know kind of like who your primary person is and what your win conditions are, what will make you lose the game.

And how to play slow whenever you're setting these things up so that you can like look around, you have more awareness to get ready for that. And then there's also the side of like picking a complete counter comp or just doing something that is like wildly un unexpected. Like, you know, YWL is doing these things that are like so unorthodox. And it just takes people by surprise. Like you were saying with Hulk playing against Emma. These people don't know how to play these matchups. And so they're just fucked when it comes up to it.

CaptainCoach (01:59:27.298)
Yeah, so I I yeah, I mean you you kinda you kinda said it there, like that what I what I was kinda searching for was like the when you're when you're trying to t teach someone how to play and and play well and you wanna create like a winning culture, you you wanna start with something that's you can just kinda do without having to think too much. You want that consistency. So like like Gore is a character that you don't really need to land shots on. He's not it it's not

difficult to execute. It's more about he's more of like a game sense hero. And and that is why heroes like this generally I think tend to skew upwards in win rate, is because in any given game of Hella, even though that hero is most people by most people's standards are clearly way too strong. You still got to land your shots. You know, Gor Gore doesn't really have to do that. So I I think this is like an appropriate trade-off to bring it all back. although I appreciated the insight because I he he's just he just does

Coach Mills (02:00:11.834)
Right.

CaptainCoach (02:00:22.498)
He just does too much. I mean for how easy it is to actually just press left click, who like cleave a whole team. So I mean yeah, I I I Yeah, yeah. Yeah, go for it.

Coach_Gap (02:00:29.77)
I do have one more thing on the team comp side of stuff, if you don't mind.

Other thing I was gonna mention too, or other thing that I was thinking about is just these like very broadly comps, like I said, just kind of eliminate errors. But I think there are also a lot of players who have like massive egos where they want to like chow everything and they have a hard time knowing how to actually like set up plays. So they don't really know how to like lead the team. I I think that's the difference in why we're kind of seeing like the age for esports kind of starting to go up, is because you know, having this veteran presence.

CaptainCoach (02:00:49.431)
Right.

Coach_Gap (02:01:03.566)
In a sense, like veteran presence being my age, 26, super young, is really helpful because you know how to actually like work with people and being able to tell them what information they need. Whereas a lot of DPS players are just, you know, if they want to play some sort of HID scan, there's there's very little comms that are required of them. So that's why like it works into what your team is skilled at. like you can have that person who's like taking initiative, but a lot of times if they're doing that, they're they're just not really doing.

Anything for the team. And so it's really all up to them, like feast or famine, whether they're hitting their shots, unless you're playing hell, then you just stun somebody and left-click them.

CaptainCoach (02:01:43.694)
Yeah, I mean it's it's like obviously like a pretty big risk to play something that you're you're not sure if it's going to work. It kind of r it relies on the player. I think like heroes like Gore and you know, I I would say like to a less like people I I feel like Iron Fist gets a bad rap for a similar reason. Like to me, I have so much respect for Iron Fist players. He is genuinely so difficult to play, but it's like a different type of, you know, skill involved with that. And I think Gore and Iron Fist are kind of similar in

Coach_Gap (02:01:44.33)
I love the sound.

Coach_Gap (02:02:07.914)
Yeah, I love this because it it just makes the gameplay loop more fun. Like same thing we were talking about with the Iron Fist team up where it like it gives you new possibilities, makes things smoother. You know, you just have more uptime instead of just all or nothing when you're going in. It still kinda is, but.

Nugnug (02:02:12.952)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:02:22.768)
Okay, we're gonna move on to Hawkeye. so they did a lot of changes to Hawkeye. I actually didn't expect this. this is one of the characters I had on the chopping block for a potential rework, which we obviously did not get. so this is all the changes they did. So his projectile piercing arrow goes from a minimum of 130 meters per second to 195 to a minimum of 140 meters per second to 210. You know, very fucking fast at the top end.

Nugnug (02:02:41.104)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:02:49.524)
slightly reduced the animation recovery time for Crescent Slash. You're gonna be able to shoot after that a little bit quicker. The spell field for the initial damage of the hypersonic arrow goes from three meters to five meters. with the team up with Psylock, the psionic arrow single sh single shot damage goes up from 32 to 33. And with the cloak and dagger team up, now the moonlight slash is gonna provide healing equal to the healing says he provide self healing equal to the healing dealt.

Does it mean damage dealt or that's interesting. Okay, healing dealt. Okay, interesting. what do y'all think of this? Is it do y'all think that that's a typo? Casting Moonlight Slash will p simultaneously provide self-healing to the healing dealt.

Nugnug (02:03:23.055)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (02:03:29.282)
Doesn't it heel? It it's like a isn't it a frontal clone a cone heel? Yeah.

Nugnug (02:03:34.351)
it heals everyone in front of you, so right? That means it'll also

Coach Mills (02:03:35.948)
Yeah, it does, but but I was just so if but if you use it on an enemy you're not gonna get any of the healing.

Nugnug (02:03:42.724)
Well, it does it goes through everyone, right? So it'll probably hit an ally as it hits an enemy, and then whatever it heals the ally, it'll heal you?

Coach Mills (02:03:49.112)
Well

CaptainCoach (02:03:50.988)
I I think that's yeah, I think that's what they mean. Although we've seen typos mistakes like this before, but I I'm pretty sure

Coach Mills (02:03:53.323)
Yeah. If it feels like this mean I mean reading it it feels like if you hit like a like you're dueling a daredevil, you hit them with it, you're gonna gain some health back. But maybe but maybe that's no, you don't think so? Okay, then it's then it's terrible. Then it's awful. It's terrible then. I sorry. I thought it was actually good.

Nugnug (02:04:04.133)
Mm, yeah, I don't think so. I think it's because it go unless you have it an ally behind the Daredevil and it goes through and it hits them.

Coach Mills (02:04:17.284)
I'ma say it. This character just still asks. Was what is there to say?

Nugnug (02:04:19.66)
I agree. looking at all the changes. He he's he's too like he just sits there and he's just he's just a prey for everyone. not to mention widow, like widow or hella, they have like higher fire rates, and so it's like less margin for error as well. Hawkeye is just you're even slightly out of position position, your toast. You don't get care enough care by your supports, your toast. Kind of like Iron Man, where like the damage output might be there, but like they just sit there and just take it. Like they can't do anything. When they get focused, they just kind of die.

Coach_Gap (02:04:21.514)
Yeah. We do not care.

Nugnug (02:04:49.946)
But I think it's fine. Hawkeye should stay bad until they rework him. He should stay bad.

Coach Mills (02:04:53.008)
Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed.

CaptainCoach (02:04:54.09)
I I actu I actually think he's he's gonna be decent. I think he's gonna be decent. I think they're gonna play differently. I think you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna literally going to play like mid range. Like again, they're they just like they keep encouraging people to just death ball, and that's what this does. Like you're gonna probably sit behind your tanks and just land shots really close. I think you I think a new playstyle is gonna unlock, and I actually think he's gonna be low key kind of strong.

Coach Mills (02:05:00.12)
That's crazy.

Coach Mills (02:05:05.156)
You you just can't.

Coach_Gap (02:05:16.66)
It just doesn't work into the tanks that are currently up there.

Nugnug (02:05:17.198)
Really He's just so slow.

Coach Mills (02:05:17.398)
I mean

CaptainCoach (02:05:20.44)
He'll farm Dino, he'll farm Thing, MAG.

Coach Mills (02:05:23.906)
He died the problem is both Hood and Tank Pool really just completely fuck with him so easily. Like i it's very hard for him to do anything against those characters. It's really hard.

Coach_Gap (02:05:32.972)
Well, any poke damage, you have to just kinda kite out each time. Like if you're if you're taking this continuous like damage from Dido.

Nugnug (02:05:37.112)
Got no escapes.

Coach Mills (02:05:38.276)
This so on my on my tier list that I just made, Hawkeye was my only F tier character in the entire tier list. The entire tier list. Like I actually think Hawkeye is the worst character in the entire game. this change might put him to slightly better, but I just don't I don't know if it bridges the gap. I just don't know. I don't think so.

Nugnug (02:06:01.232)
I think he's like one of the only heroes that's doesn't have a single rank he's actually good in. Like some heroes are like actually some heroes like, you know, are actually good. Like Squirrel Girl actually has a lot of value in lower ranks. He still does, but

Coach Mills (02:06:05.6)
Ha ha ha

CaptainCoach (02:06:07.382)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Mills (02:06:11.352)
Hey no, he's good if you're a top five hundred player playing in silver, bro. Come on. Like it then he's good. But that's that's that's where people get all their clips, you know, from doing that shit.

Nugnug (02:06:15.556)
Yeah, okay, if you're smurfing.

Coach_Gap (02:06:22.09)
I think it's crazy seeing the difference though between Overwatch and Rivals, where like the experience in Overwatch, like Widowmaker was dominant for so long. And it like just being able to one-shot people was so infuriating for so many people. But like this this game has so many different, like basically one-shots to where Hakka, you're like, you're normally bat an eye.

Coach Mills (02:06:40.624)
I mean it's not hit scan. That's I mean, if this was hit scan, then we'd be having a very different conversation if this was hit scan. even very fast movement projectile is not quite hit scan. yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe you're right, Captain Coach. I I just I think that this character he he would need, in my opinion, like I I think there's a fundamental flaw with this character, and the reason that that flaw exists is because you can't duel like his weakest thing is to isolate a duels, but

Coach_Gap (02:06:43.851)
Yeah.

Not sure.

CaptainCoach (02:06:55.214)
I don't think he's gonna be insane ey or anything, but

Coach Mills (02:07:08.076)
He wants to play front to back because he needs to charge his arrow. Like when you're playing in an isolated duel off the side, like you can't even do the the Hanzo thing that you did back in Overwatch where you could potentially win that duel if you hit your shot. Because how are you supposed to track someone that's moving all around? You build up enough bar to one shot them. Like it's just not realistic. It's like the character literally wants to sit there and just farm max charges off tanks and then just shoot down lanes. And like that playstyle is just so much like there's there's like ten characters that do that better.

Like the

Nugnug (02:07:37.966)
He needs a big rework. So much potential, man. It's Hawkeye. He's like the bow guy. So much potential with the rework.

Coach_Gap (02:07:42.826)
Yeah, I mean you're right and just you have to play front to back, but if this character could like poke from a distance, it would be effective. But everybody's like fall off doesn't really matter. So if you're playing that off angle, like playing a high ground somewhere, like for Magneto, I I'm going back to this, you know? I'm slapping him around. And he has to move away.

Coach Mills (02:07:58.757)
Yeah. I r I really think they could give him like get rid of the one shot and turn him into a completely different type of archer. Give him mobility, let him cr climb walls. Like I I'm I'm just trying to think of like Hawkeye from the comics, Hawkeye from the show, it's like I just don't really feel like he's just like this like stand there and shoot guy. Like I don't know.

Nugnug (02:08:15.982)
Yeah, it's kind of odd that us the the the archer has no mobility. You wouldn't think that.

Coach Mills (02:08:19.852)
Yeah, right? Like I and even in in RPGs, don't they typically have like rolls and swift jumps and like all this like fucking I don't know.

Nugnug (02:08:27.524)
Although on that topic though, I think with the new meta of the game, as the game gets faster and more progressed, every hero has mobility now. Any hero that doesn't is bad. Like any hero that can't, like unless they're super tanky, like like like like a tank. Or like Bucky where they have infinite overhealth, like like Iron Man, he can't maneuver maneuver himself out. Like they gave Iron Man a way to actually like maneuver himself when he's being folk. yeah, yes for that.

Coach Mills (02:08:38.766)
Nah, yeah, unless you're Bucky. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's basically you're basically a tank, yeah. You have to be a tank.

Coach Mills (02:08:49.648)
Spoilers Yeah, no it's kidding. Okay. I just say that a lot.

Nugnug (02:08:52.976)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's the same issue, you know, it's like it's the game's just gonna get quicker and quicker and quicker and the game's too fast for Hawkeye.

Coach_Gap (02:09:00.652)
Yeah, you forget, Coach Mills. People are watching us for the opinions in the patch notes. They're not reading them themselves. Okay. Or no, you're forgetting that. You're forgetting that. No spoilers.

Nugnug (02:09:06.469)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:09:06.704)
Well Hawkeye is S tier, play it against me, it counters Thor and all the characters I play, please please luck it.

Nugnug (02:09:09.082)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (02:09:14.518)
Mm-hmm.

Coach_Gap (02:09:14.944)
Blaster just got completely basically forgotten though. It's just like it's a team-up move for the Psylock one. And it's funny, like most of this patch is just kind of how can we bring these team-ups like in line with each other?

Coach Mills (02:09:26.486)
Like why did they even fucking waste time on Hawkeye? I this actually pisses me off. Like, why did you waste time on this character? I'm sorry, but it's just you're just wasting development resources on that character. You also wasted your development resources on this character too. Alright, sorry. let's talk about Iron Man. Tony is rolling out a massive software upgrade. new mechanics, missiles launched by micro missile barrage will automatically track nearby enemies upon release, reduce the single shot damage from twenty to ten.

Nugnug (02:09:27.076)
They forgot a lot though. They did forget a lot.

Coach_Gap (02:09:33.398)
So many dashes.

Nugnug (02:09:33.944)
If they're not gonna rework him, just

Nugnug (02:09:38.636)
Why didn't they put that resource towards nerfing Elsa? Okay.

Coach_Gap (02:09:38.71)
Mm-hmm.

Nugnug (02:09:43.896)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:09:56.046)
Max lock on count on a single target is five. Increased projectile speed from 15 meters per second to 60. New mechanic missile fired via the micro missile barrage during armor overdrive will automatically lock on enemies in front of you. Upon release, single shot damage from 15 to 10. Max locked on count damage from single target to five. when selecting the torque,

Throw Thor team up, increase the uni beam outer range damage from seventy to eighty, increase the thunder overdrive, enhanced unib from eighty-five to ninety. I think this this right here, I think this was kind of showcased. I don't know if y'all watch the two V two mode. There was a little window little showcase of it, and it just looks like a whole bunch of missiles coming at at one target. but kind of like what Nug Nug said, like this doesn't fix any of Iron Man's actual problems. Like

CaptainCoach (02:10:39.627)
Mm-hmm.

Coach_Gap (02:10:45.078)
But it's massive. Massive software update, bro.

Coach Mills (02:10:47.33)
Is it? yeah. Super massive. yeah. auto tracking. Yeah, y I I need I I I you know what's missing from this? I need gains him shields. Gains like like shield gaining per second. Something. invulnerability. None of those words are in here, so it's just not it's not a good change. Wha what what what are y'all what are what are y'all thoughts on this? What are your thoughts on the Iron Man change? I

CaptainCoach (02:10:47.52)
I I feel like it's a

Coach_Gap (02:10:52.138)
Needs a hardware update.

Coach_Gap (02:11:01.516)
Laughing out.

Nugnug (02:11:16.074)
I I mean you let me go first or you Okay. I'm happy they at least fix an ability that was redundant. I mean he's come like a long time coming. Like the ability doesn't do anything. So from that perspective, like cool. It now does something. It's now like his kit is like one new ability that should have been something. Now it's actually an ability. The Thor team up buff, I don't know why. I mean like

Coach Mills (02:11:18.574)
Yeah yeah yeah cover.

Coach Mills (02:11:28.72)
That's true.

Nugnug (02:11:42.171)
I sh I wish they buffed the Gamma one because the Thor one is already the one you should be going with. It does so much damage anyways. He's gonna have the same problems. Like where he like you just focus him. And unless he's in a hyper specific comp where he's like indivishielded, hyper cared, and they're ha they have no dive. I don't see how you'd get value out of him. He's just They they could have done so much more with him. It's just by buffing the Thor team up and not giving him any real.

Coach Mills (02:11:50.484)
huh.

Nugnug (02:12:10.304)
Skill expressive means of spending for himself, he's gonna be the same as he was before, where he's only good if he's hyper pocketed just as a damage bot that holds a right click and doesn't have to think. It's kind of annoying because like I actually played a bit of Iron Man for my MRC team, it was kind of fun, but like it's really all you do on him is you you sit in main and you uni beam and you just you have to build your team around just pocketing the Iron Man. And there's nothing really you do besides just uni beaming.

Coach Mills (02:12:28.088)
Hey

Nugnug (02:12:35.214)
And so if they gave him something to like fend for himself, so if you're queuing into a game and you want to genuinely play Iron Man and you don't have to prey on your support that please God have incredible pocketing on me. Because if they don't, you're screwed. And that's kind of still has the same problem.

CaptainCoach (02:12:50.836)
more more bombs doesn't let you fend for yourself? Come on. More explosions.

Coach Mills (02:12:53.488)
Yeah, well I like we've we we've talked a lot about like the idea of a two charge barrel roll on this character would be really cool. I would also maybe like some type of thing that rewards you for hitting shots, maybe a little tiny bit of shields gained.

Coach_Gap (02:13:06.282)
If he had a little propulsion cannon that he like shot out and pushed him at the other target back, there's options. There's so many options.

Coach Mills (02:13:11.522)
yeah, yeah, I've never heard that yeah. no

CaptainCoach (02:13:15.67)
I I think I think he'll definitely be better though. I mean like I don't think it like he'll he'll be good.

Coach Mills (02:13:18.392)
I mean my my thing is they know how to they know how to make cool flyers with good movement ability. They they did a really good job with Torch, in my opinion. I think the way that they moved Torch, it is it was perfect. They they changed him from this this little skybox spammer that wants to get triple support pocketed to someone that like dives in and slams in and goes for plays and weaves in and out. I mean y'all have all seen Mikey do some shit. Yeah, take risks. D Iron Man if Iron Man is ever in a position where he has to take a risk, you're the character's terrible.

Nugnug (02:13:18.884)
Yeah, he will.

Nugnug (02:13:39.962)
Take risks.

Coach Mills (02:13:48.24)
I mean, like you said, like he's only good in a situation where he's being pocketed to such an extreme extent that there is no risk for the character and he's just like a like a damage output or they didn't fix any of these problems here. Yeah.

CaptainCoach (02:13:58.816)
I they're gonna encourage that even more too with this. That's the s the the scary part.

Nugnug (02:13:59.042)
If they if they

Coach_Gap (02:14:03.402)
Yes, this is the most annoying part of his kit.

Nugnug (02:14:03.79)
If they wanna go the route where they don't give him mobility, then they'd have to make him a walking tank. Like they have to give him insane overshields. what I would have liked to see is if they wanted to make him a walking tank, they should have not buffed his uni beam. Instead, they should have buffed his survivability instead. Not on top of this, but instead. Like constant overshields. because maybe like Iron Man could be one of the few heroes where they legit

Make him an immobile walking tank and it could like thematically maybe work. I mean if they wanted to do that, they could. but they have two choices, you know, walking tank or more mobility. And they chose none here. They chose none, so he's still garbage.

Coach Mills (02:14:41.816)
Yeah, there's nothing like me watching the Iron Man movies that made me think that Iron Man shouldn't have mobility. Like like like yeah, this guy is super immobile. Like like I don't underst I just don't Some of these s yeah Yeah, he's still the fucking Iron Man in the Cave. Like, holy shit.

Nugnug (02:14:46.661)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:14:56.442)
The box.

Coach_Gap (02:14:57.156)
this This is like the most boring part of his of a like a playstyle that you could reinforce where he's just like like I said, he's kind of just like the cannon that you just like everybody's putting him on a stilt and he just like stands there and it's just beaming. He's like the cross of Christ, like he's just beaming, he's just beaming. And it's just so annoying because he's just like a tank shredder at that point.

CaptainCoach (02:14:59.832)
Ha ha ha.

Nugnug (02:15:09.784)
And he just goes like

Coach Mills (02:15:14.724)
I I ch changes the changes to this kind of pissed me off a lot because so one of a buddy of mine, Metric, he's the break one Iron Man. I mean he loves Iron Man and he loves this game, but he's you know, he's also one of the games that he's been playing for a long time is Deadlock, and like he's legitimately like thinking about just swapping over and like playing this game a lot less because his favorite character, they've consistently not given him any tools to further

express himself apart from other Ironmans. Like and like I don't even blame him. Like how am I supposed to blame him when they do shit like this that doesn't allow him to have any sort of skill expression. They're literally pushing away someone that loves this game. You like you're literally pushing him out because you just will not address any of the fundamental issues of this character. It actually it to me it's incredibly annoy

Nugnug (02:16:02.747)
And he's so iconic, it's Iron Man, man. It's freaking Iron Man. He's so iconic.

Coach Mills (02:16:07.19)
Yeah, it's I don't I don't I just don't get it. Like I don't fucking get it. Yeah Yeah.

Coach_Gap (02:16:11.212)
You're saying he doesn't like touching beams with another Iron Man?

Nugnug (02:16:15.664)
I'm still glad he got buffed though, but I I don't know. I think he's still gonna be his playstyle that he's only good in is still gonna be like just high, high pocket, sit there, hold beam, which is a little bit unfortunate. At least it's something though.

Coach Mills (02:16:28.536)
Is is there are there more than like six D PS that he's better than though, even with these changes?

Nugnug (02:16:34.66)
Things like in the situation I gave you where he's hard pocketed, just put any gun here and it's better. It's like the same pocket on anyone else is just better. It's just this is the only way to make him kind of work.

Coach Mills (02:16:39.448)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

CaptainCoach (02:16:43.213)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:16:50.23)
shit. You could also just play triple support that y just don't even need a pocket. You just like playing triple support.

Nugnug (02:16:51.012)
He had okay, he had

He had a small niche, a very small glimmer, faint glimmer of hope when Black Cat was really good because she he could track her while into this. And another small glimmer of hope in season 9.5 when it was triple tank sitting in main and you uni beam through all three of them. That was like the smallest glimmer of maybe he's got a little bit, just a fraction, tiny fraction of something. But now that now that like it's no longer triple tank, everyone sit in main, like what the hell? Why would you ever play Zero?

Ever, like ever anymore.

Coach Mills (02:17:28.45)
One of the many things that is kind of annoying about this patch. But anyways, let's move on to Phoenix. Let's move on to Phoenix. in key increase the cosmic flame shingles shot damage from sixty to sixty five. Increase the direct damage upon detonating sparks from forty to forty-five. And the explosion damage from fifteen to twenty. Upon detonating sparks, the self-heal effect has been removed. Replace it with bonus health of five for four seconds capped at twenty-five. end song inferno ultimate ability.

Nugnug (02:17:33.22)
boy. boy.

Coach Mills (02:17:55.982)
Now inc increase the number of sparks from one to two applied, and when selecting the Hella team up reduce the ability cooldown from twelve to ten. you know Net N Neti's Netties was like, you know who hasn't been meta for a season? Hmm.

CaptainCoach (02:18:08.152)
Somebody call light. He's on life support.

CaptainCoach (02:18:14.798)
Jesus Christ. Guys, she just can't keep up with Hella, Elsa, you know, all these range heroes. They gotta buff her. She just can't compete. Cyclops is gonna be good now.

Nugnug (02:18:18.064)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (02:18:18.156)
You don't have enough hit scans in the game. Natural move.

man. This one is despair.

Coach Mills (02:18:30.416)
It's it I mean yeah like like imagine ner imagine fucking nerfing anything holy shit man like what the fuck

Coach_Gap (02:18:32.48)
The the over the overhealth one is funny, man.

Coach_Gap (02:18:41.394)
I was saying I was saying earlier, whenever I was like making the video about my host for the patch, like Emma and Dino, if Hella and Phoenix are like the hit scan sisters, Emma and Dino are like the CC cousins, the CC siblings. And it's crazy that like they're gonna be both good at the same time. Like both of these super annoying comps, man. Yeah. And that this is the this is the one example that I was saying where she like.

Coach Mills (02:19:00.912)
She has a team up Are Are you excited for the Phoenix Hella duo?

Nugnug (02:19:06.837)
god, bro. Wait, why does she have a team up with Hella? Why does Hella have so many team ups?

Coach_Gap (02:19:11.424)
She she had something in her team up where it was like it applies anti-heal. It it like you know puts more sparks in them if she has the team up. But it had a downside of like the the cooldowns increase. So that makes up for the fact that it has damage reduction by the way on it for 40%, like a Venomolt. But now they they took that down.

CaptainCoach (02:19:30.626)
Just just give us separate balancing at this point. Like I'm just I'm tired, boss. This this is the worst change of the whole patch notes in my well, actually, second worst. I I'm just I'm just exhausted having to deal with this. It's just give us more bands or something. Like I don't even want to just go next. Just just get it off my screen. I don't even look at it.

Coach Mills (02:19:33.616)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:19:41.645)
It's so bad, man.

Coach Mills (02:19:46.628)
Mm-hmm.

Nugnug (02:19:50.413)
So like here's the thing, Netties, okay? So if there's two things here I want to say. Number one is if they're going to go the approach of bringing everyone else up, why just these why like just like up like where's the other ones that actually need to be brought up? So like if Phoenix was being brought up, but all the other heroes that are weak were also being brought up as well, I don't think it'd be as frustrating because they would have more competition now. But it's like you're looking at this, it's like the biggest buff in this entire patch is Phoenix.

Like one of the biggest buffs. And we're looking at it and we're like, well, where's all the other underperforming heroes? Why just the gun heroes? Now it's gonna be an even bigger line of gun heroes at the top of the meta. And all the other heroes that aren't good are still not good. Secondly, if they're gonna do that, why are they not cycling out the already dominant poke heroes? Like if they buffed Phoenix like this, why are you not cycling out?

CaptainCoach (02:20:39.68)
Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one.

Coach Mills (02:20:40.918)
Y you know 'cause they keep g they keep getting banned, man. You gotta give Pokeslaw players another thing to play with their elegants banned. Ha ha

Nugnug (02:20:47.276)
It's so annoying. This is what confuses me though. Every season up till now, Neties has actually been cycling them out. Okay. Elsa, Bucky, Hella, they become meta, and guess what? Cyclops and Finks are garbage. Okay, it was actually cycled out. Now it scares me to death because for the first time, they're legit not cycling out other gun heroes. They're bringing them all up. I'm freaking scared, man. Like, Hella did not get cycled out, nor did Elsa, nor did Bucky, nor did Widow, nor did any of these heroes.

Coach_Gap (02:20:49.6)
Rough bands.

Nugnug (02:21:15.236)
So now it's like they're just bringing them in. It kind of scares me. It scares me a lot.

Coach Mills (02:21:18.736)
This may this make this actually makes the the fact that we like because I actually liked 10. Not everyone liked season 10. I liked it because of the six bands. Like having six unique bands is a big deal and it shaves off a lot of the top meta so other things can thrive. But but they this is actually a step back. Like this this patch is actually fucking worse than 10. Like if you didn't like 10, this is actually just gonna be strictly worse in my opinion.

Nugnug (02:21:32.472)
It was great. It was awesome.

CaptainCoach (02:21:40.448)
I agree. This this will feel worse. This will feel worse.

Nugnug (02:21:44.292)
I think Nedes is thinking, and I hate this so much, was, well, the people are now able to ban out all the good hit scans, so we need to add some more so they can't ban them all out. I hate it. I hate it so much. Why? I actually loved it. I could ban

Coach Mills (02:21:54.328)
Yeah, 'cause we're being dominated by fucking flyers and like a whole bunch of bullshit. I I don't underst Like, what are they thinking, man? This th I I people people so people before we made the episode, a whole bunch of people were like, Don't let Mills be play devil's advocate. Cause like in all a lot of these a lot of these videos, I'm I'm like the the bright guy. Like I'm having a good time. And I was having a good time in season fucking ten, despite all of the issues both about the game and and and like adjacent to the game.

Coach_Gap (02:21:59.19)
Well this is

CaptainCoach (02:22:01.548)
They they won't let us be happy.

CaptainCoach (02:22:10.606)
Get Nils.

Nugnug (02:22:19.608)
Me too, man. I liked it.

Coach Mills (02:22:22.318)
But like I can I can't fucking find any way to defend this patch notes. Like, this is the most dog shit patch notes that we've had maybe since ever. Like, and there's no excuse for it. They said in season nine that there was gonna need to be dramatic changes. They said that they were gonna have consistent hotfix patches. They didn't either. There's no dramatic changes here. There's just constant buffs. There's no nurse. There's no anything. They do not hotfix shit. They could they go radio silent, and this patch is fucking dog shit. I like I don't know how to justify any of this. I really, really don't.

Nugnug (02:22:50.434)
I agree with you. usually when there's a patch, I always give it like, you know, seven out of ten, or I give it a rating, or like last patch, I even, you know, named my video. This is a great patch. I thought it was a good patch. You know, people a lot of people didn't like it, but I thought like the changes were actually good. I don't really have any way of defending this one at all. And it it genuinely frustrates me because I'm usually pretty optimistic overall about the game as a whole. But this patch in general, it's for the first time in like actually a long time. Okay. Actually a long time where I genuinely feel like I

I'm I'm clueless and I'm v I'm actually disappointed, like genuinely disappointed, and scared for next patch. We took steps forward with the double bans. I was able to ban Elsa and Hella every game. It felt great. Now I can't ban these guys too! Like, go no, don't do this to me, Daddies. Don't do this to me.

Coach_Gap (02:23:32.81)
Yeah, it it's the fact that there isn't even a chance for it to be that positive score. It is just infinitely negative. And like I I yeah, I feel like I've never experienced this before where it's like, okay, none of those characters like, you know, I I I wanted all of these nerfs for like those those top like five DPS, a couple of healers, a couple ticks. Like I in my video, I was like, okay, Jubilee maybe deserves a buff. And yeah, I guess like Iron Man 2 could be in there. But it was just like

Nothing nothing was done. There were no nerfs. The fact that we're like just buffing things to be in line with it. And the fact that like Dino barely got nerfed and it feels like they're just making all these changes so that DPS can do something against these top tanks. But it's the same thing of like the disparity between these top tanks versus any of the other ones is just like all those other tanks are gonna suffer so hard from this so that the DPS can have a counter to those very top tanks. Couldn't we have just nerfed Dino instead?

CaptainCoach (02:24:11.598)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (02:24:27.766)
I I think the the dagger to the heart twists a little bit too when this is a a hero that historically they have had such a hard time making balance and the fact that they're just thrusting her right back into S tier, like hard meta viability. I mean a poke hero with like multiple ways to escape, a reset button with their all like and then the cooldown like she's s sho super slippery and now just, you know, back to that assassination potential damage. It's just like, dude, what are we doing?

Coach_Gap (02:24:27.851)
So we don't need that?

Coach Mills (02:24:28.121)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:24:52.409)
Yeah.

I wish the best hit scans were just like Cyclops and Widow. They just feel so contestable. It feels like it's not stuns and like they're they're disengaged. They're free disengages and they're free stuns. They just feel so like not fun.

Coach_Gap (02:25:06.815)
Yeah. I feel like every fight is just gonna be seeing like Hella goes to the sky, Phoenix goes to the sky, cancel each other. Reset guys. What's what's happening next? Like same thing as support.

CaptainCoach (02:25:13.171)
Coach Mills (02:25:14.005)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:25:15.767)
and they get it don't forget don't forget their team up, they'll be on the same team.

Coach_Gap (02:25:19.241)
Yeah, so we're just gonna see the same mirror.

CaptainCoach (02:25:19.378)
We should make a we should make a petition. Just every game a y either team has poke or no one else fights. It's just a one v one to decide the game that everybody just plays for fun.

Coach Mills (02:25:19.577)
Ha ha ha.

Coach_Gap (02:25:28.031)
So I'll go ahead and I'm gonna give some numbers in a second.

Nugnug (02:25:28.302)
It's like Yeah. okay. The frustrating thing is I I genuinely like I miss when they first introduced three bands. Okay, when they first did it. And it felt like for the first time ever. This was the only season I've ever felt this way where people would able were able to actually ban what they felt like banning. Like, not like what we have to ban because we're not playing it. And that's what this season is. Like I have okay, do we have Emma? No, I'm banning it. Do we have Dino? No, I'm banning it. Gambit, gone.

Hella, gone. Elsa, gone. Like, there's mandatory bands. But in that first season where they introduced three bands, it was so good because it everyone was banning support. They didn't even need to ban, because like, screw it. Why not? We can't do it. It's like let letting people ban for the first time what they felt like banning to customize their own experience. Like, we're gonna play dive. Screw it. Let's ban cloak and dagger. And they just they would ban cloak and dagger and they'd ban like Luna. And like they weren't meta picks in that season, but screw it, you know, we can ban it because we can.

Coach Mills (02:26:07.63)
It was fun that was a fun time actually. Yeah.

Coach_Gap (02:26:09.577)
It was super funny.

Nugnug (02:26:26.358)
but now we're I miss that so much. Take me back, man.

CaptainCoach (02:26:28.952)
Just g give everybody one ban. Everybody just gets one ban now. Please. Yeah.

Nugnug (02:26:33.328)
Everyone gets one ban.

Coach_Gap (02:26:34.495)
So so something I was gonna point out, like numbers-wise, well, also it is a spit in the face to see the word bonus health in this character too. Like, I don't think it's like a crazy thing, but just seeing the word replaced with granting bonus health, I was like, my gosh, don't we already have enough? But with the the CC sisters, if they are both being played at the same time, just to give like numbers perspective, I was doing it earlier today. Like the enhanced Phoenix one, or even the regular one, like it but when it's enhanced, it stuns, applies healing reduction.

And deals 145 damage if like all the three things hit. And also it goes in one place instead of like being a little line. So it can just like target one person, stuns them, and then hits them with the rest. And if you do that and hit a headshot, they are insta dead. And if not, they have healing reduction on them. Like that that's insane to me.

Nugnug (02:27:24.9)
Yep. We now have even more like oppressive poke duo combos. Like, where are the oppressive melee duo combos? We have Iron Fist Daredevil, that's probably the shittiest team-up combo in existence. That Daredevil team up for Iron Bridges is horrible. Yep, you have the combos for poke heroes that are crazy. You have Bucky Elsa, you have Hella Namor, and now we got Hella Phoenix. The combos are really strong. They're I like they they synergize so well and make an oppressive combo that you don't want to face. But only these poke heroes have these oppressive combos.

Coach_Gap (02:27:25.076)
Ridiculous.

CaptainCoach (02:27:52.019)
And here here's how I feel, and this is something that has happened pretty much since I've started playing the game. I'll see my hero Hulk get a buff, a couple of buffs, sometimes a patch. But then I look at the rest of the patch notes and see the types of buffs other heroes get. And I'm like, Well shit. Okay, I gotta ask for some more buffs, apparently, because this is like this is I don't know. What do I do into this? Like I'm just gonna get there's another hero that just yeah.

Coach Mills (02:28:18.938)
Cause like that it's it's funny 'cause like last patch, that was I I went through that exact thing where like Thor actually did get a buff where they took twenty five more damage when they left his bubble. And I was like, that's kinda cool. It will maybe help me with some dueling. But one of the same changes on that patch was now Invis doesn't get removed from her her her invisible when she jumps. It's insane and it completely swaps the matchup where before I thought Thor was a soft counter to Invis and now she's a soft counter to me.

Nugnug (02:28:20.162)
A g a banner got buffed.

CaptainCoach (02:28:22.251)
Yeah. Can't wait to

Nugnug (02:28:38.02)
Yo, that turned out being really good.

Coach Mills (02:28:48.078)
Because I cannot kill her in isolation anymore if she has a jump, which she always fucking has. And then she can block on my thing. She can pull me back in. Like it completely flipped that mashup where because this invis is all over the place, I actually think Thor is worse even after the buff. Because

Nugnug (02:29:01.634)
It's really it's a really frustrating buff. I feel like they there's already a lot of supports that can duel really well and Invis had so much utility. I mean giving her s like she could already s put up her Invis shield and stand in it and kind of duel. And like that's j that one second grace is just crazy. Every

Coach_Gap (02:29:02.347)
Crazy about

CaptainCoach (02:29:18.99)
I'm sorry.

Coach Mills (02:29:19.0)
Imagine giving her more survivability to like the most survivable fucking character in the game. Holy shit.

CaptainCoach (02:29:24.0)
I I just noticed the funniest thing, Mills. You can edit this out of the podcast if you want, right next to where it says card grading. If you got your tab, it says dead consolidation. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, but boy, this is so funny. So fucking funny. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Coach Mills (02:29:33.342)
yeah, does it?

No, that's perfectly fine, bro. No, I I tell chat I tell chat like we're fucking why do you think we're pumping out pod videos, bro? I gotta pay off some fucking debt, hello?

Coach_Gap (02:29:39.597)
yeah.

Coach_Gap (02:29:44.757)
Bro, I met I met Jaw at DreamCon by the way, and we were talking about Pokemon cards and we were like, why is Mills not here? Yeah. Yeah, we did like little Magneto post together. It was so fun.

Coach Mills (02:29:49.111)
did you? you actually did? let's fucking go.

CaptainCoach (02:29:53.11)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:29:53.76)
Yeah, no I no I no that's it that that's just how it is. Like I'm not I'm not I'm not ashamed of it. I'm I'm I'm okay, w w I'm I'm still paying off debt from when I was like twenty twenty one years old. Like like really, really and I'm twenty nine by the way, so I'm paying off long, long, long term debt. 'cause it turns just sorry, can keep going.

Coach_Gap (02:29:56.896)
but I mean like the

CaptainCoach (02:29:58.722)
All right, all right, cool, cool. You got kids to feed.

Coach_Gap (02:30:02.207)
Yes, or car like a now.

CaptainCoach (02:30:05.121)
Nugnug (02:30:07.098)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (02:30:07.819)
I try to keep myself from looking at the tabs.

Coach_Gap (02:30:15.061)
But the reality, sorry. I was gonna bring it back a little bit. I mean the reality with this, like what we're in right now, like just taken to the fact we have taken two and a half hours to talk about these nothing burger patch notes because they're just so negative. We're gonna spend three hours going through nothing because they're just terrible patch notes, like wake up sheep!

Nugnug (02:30:32.816)
It's been two and a half my goodness.

Coach Mills (02:30:35.177)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll I'll p I'll pick it up for us, but yeah.

Yeah.

Coach_Gap (02:30:43.871)
This is insane.

CaptainCoach (02:30:46.69)
Wow, forever looking pretty juicy right now. Pretty pretty tempting. Hey, hey. Y you can join my guild. Horde PvP. That's where we're playing if you wanna join up. I got a got a lot of Marvel people already hit me up about it. That's it, okay, okay.

Coach Mills (02:30:49.336)
yeah, you'll vote wildfliers.

Nugnug (02:30:49.688)
I already started playing it, bro.

Coach_Gap (02:30:50.647)
my gosh.

Coach_Gap (02:30:56.491)
Destiny two, maybe we gotta go back to that.

I saw Wormhammer two or Space Marine Two is on sale.

Coach Mills (02:31:06.65)
I'll be I'll be just I I've I've been telling people I'll just be the miserable guy just grinding rank games like forever. But you know, I'm I'm I'm not going anywhere, but I'm I'm not gonna be happy about it.

Nugnug (02:31:14.928)
You know, it's funny because like I still like rivals. It's just the match quality. Like, I just I say it all the time, but like all of us, like thinking about playing the game is often better than actually playing the game. Because when you load it and and then you try to play the game, you'll have some kind of experience that's like, well, I wanted to just have a nice game. That's over now. Like, literally, how many it's been 10 seasons and I'll still lobby into the game like yesterday, and my first game on, someone goes five and twenty on Spider Man while everyone's positive. He's actually throwing and he verbally writes in chat.

I don't care about this account. Okay. He's all I don't care about this account. He runs it down. Okay. And then after he runs it down, my experience is ruined. I report him, we all report him. Four games later, he's still not banned, and I eventually removed him from my avoid list because it's been a long time. and then I cue into him again, and he does the same thing again where he runs it down. And I check his faction. He even so conveniently for Neti's puts all of his accounts in one faction. It's been the same story for so many seasons where they throw and they have the faction of all their throwing accounts.

And nothing ever happens. It's like multiple games where we don't lose fair and square. That it the time feels like it was stolen, robbed. And I just like if I lose, I lose. But if I my time's robbed, I don't want to play the game. And so it's if they can just like fix match quality, man. It's like number one for me, number one is match quality.

Coach Mills (02:32:31.31)
Yeah, they they completely I mean there's been a lot of complaints about whether it's match quality, whether it's people getting banned, whether it's people saying sex is a racist stuff, whether it's fucking a shitty rank system. I mean, we've had more complaints from the entire community, not just high level players, but casuals and every subcommunity imaginable. And Neti's said, Fuck it. I'm not answering any of I'm not I'm not responding. I'm not acknowledging. I'm not answering. I did not hear it.

Here's two game modes that are coming out, and here's a shitty patch notes. I I'm I'm to be honest, that that's what they did. Like that's actually what they did.

Coach_Gap (02:33:05.129)
Zeon Xeon couldn't even face the camera. He was like, I I did I don't know, man. Fire me if you want. I'm not doing the video.

CaptainCoach (02:33:10.414)
I I think this is a great opportunity to bring up Mills.

EOMM

Coach Mills (02:33:19.85)
fucking my god. I was like, what the fuck is he talking about, bro? Holy shit. fuck it, Jesus Christ. is that w hey Scarlet Witch next, not reading it. No, Scarlet Witch. Okay, so now that we finished all the DPS, Now that we finished all the DPS, are there any DPS that you think that didn't

Coach_Gap (02:33:20.371)
Mm-hmm. my.

Nugnug (02:33:24.599)
man.

Coach_Gap (02:33:25.867)
Like you are you trying to form clips for the intro or something? Ridiculous.

Nugnug (02:33:31.288)
E O

CaptainCoach (02:33:32.846)
Skip and you're like scarlet witch, go

Coach_Gap (02:33:36.361)
He's like fifteen minutes. Let's talk about EOMM.

CaptainCoach (02:33:40.546)
That's right, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We d we don't do s

Nugnug (02:33:42.222)
Mm.

Coach_Gap (02:33:45.035)
Can we just give you like rate them?

Coach Mills (02:33:48.388)
Well, is there any DPS you think that, you know, didn't get touched that should have got touched? Any I mean, we can talk up we've already talked about all the DPS that should have gotten nerfed. I thought it was very interesting how like this has probably been the first good Psyloc season that they didn't immediately nerf the fucking character because they just have a habit of doing that where they're like buff and nerf and buff and nerf and buff and nerf with Silock, but Silock is still good. you know, of course Hella is still broken, you know, people have complaints about Bucky. I think Bucky is like on the more balanced tier than like Elsa, Hella, and Cy, but he's still like a very strong, like long distance poker.

Nugnug (02:34:16.036)
Yeah. You know, I have a little little bit of a maybe a hot take, and I think heroes like Psilock and Star Lord, them being like strong, not necessarily permaband, but them being really strong, I think is healthy healthy for the game. Because they're these hybrids that generally occupy more places in the map. whereas a lot of other heroes, they're just so linear. These heroes occupy space, they verticality, like they did I think it's a lot healthier for the entire map to be used. And so I think having these heroes be good.

I think it's a bit healthy for the game. Now, this doesn't mean they should be permaband broken, but I think having them be very viable and not like dead, I think that's actually really good for the game.

CaptainCoach (02:34:53.742)
Coach Mills (02:34:53.838)
I a hundred percent agree. I I I don't know if I love Sylock's team up where she gets two bodies. I don't know if I love it for visual clarity's sake. Like it does get a little bit like hard to follow at times for like a support trying to win a duel. But I do think that like these characters that at the very least are killable and they have moments of vulnerability like you talk about, risk versus reward, very important. When you're across the fucking map is hella, there's zero risk to you and you can take infinite lethal shots at somebody, but

You Silike going for a combo. Sh if she gets frozen, she gets shot, she could just die. So like I a hundred percent agree.

Coach_Gap (02:35:26.867)
Yeah. I I don't I don't know what your opinion is on this, Captain Coach, but like for me, I I disagree now. I used to hard agree. Like in the beginning, I thought Silock was like the coolest and like maybe not healthiest, but a healthier DPS. my gosh. Where it was just like

Nugnug (02:35:26.992)
Like Hella has a better escape tool than Star Lord. It's

Coach Mills (02:35:29.495)
It's actually crazy.

CaptainCoach (02:35:40.83)
Thought we were talking about EOM. Sorry. Sorry. I'm s I's I'm still thinking about it. Sorry, go ahead.

Nugnug (02:35:44.791)
Okay.

Coach Mills (02:35:45.744)
He's al you're always thinking about it, bro.

Coach_Gap (02:35:48.499)
But but my opinion

But my opinion changed on it like somewhere around like three or four seasons ago. Because there's a one season where Psilock basically became just like a hardcore old farmer, and then you just engage with your ult. And then with this current one, like it it feels like it's just basically one shots constantly is all you're really going for. And if not, hey, I'm out of here. Or like I force slamps, I guess. But before it felt like she kind of developed the play, like it's kind of the difference between how I feel like most rivals dive goes, where like for the most part.

It's kind of like you're in, you do your combo. If you hit it, great. If not, I I'm I'm out of there. But for Silock, it felt more like you were developing it as opposed to like how Venom is, where you know, you're kind of just doing a lot of damage at once and you've got crazy mobility. But Silock felt like a little more limited in like what her length was, as compared to like Daredevil can just like I said, you just like hypers hyper time space is just like across the map suddenly.

CaptainCoach (02:36:27.032)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:36:39.845)
Mm-hmm.

CaptainCoach (02:36:45.186)
Yeah, I I that's a great point. I I feel like Silock right now can brute force kills where sh as before she wouldn't have otherwise been able to do. Yeah, she can kind of sh she can do something where she'll just like go stand on your face just to guarantee land her shots, dash through you to get out, double dash and it's just like there's no counterplay. She'll just stealth in. It's such a unhealthy loop right now.

Nugnug (02:36:52.356)
Her combo's really fast.

Coach_Gap (02:36:54.367)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:37:03.502)
Yeah, I think that's a I think that's a matter of hero balance, which I agree with you on that. But I think if they, you know, were to fix that hero balance, I would still like a world where a hero like Psilock that occupies more of the map and does take risks is a good hero. I just think it's a matter of hero balance, right?

CaptainCoach (02:37:19.512)
Fair. I agree. No, I I agree with that. I Mills has said that a lot, actually, didn't you, Mills? Like you like Silock when she's

Coach Mills (02:37:21.998)
Yeah, it it's almost

Yeah, yeah, I do. I like I think I think if if you're gonna pick one hero being best in slot, I think Silock is typically like typically better. I mean there are times where like Silock was an old bot and like times like now. It just feels really this is all a result of power creep. Like the way that Silock is played right now, it's like in order to threaten these super strong hit scans, you need to be able to fucking one shot them. Like like you have to be able to interact in that in that way, which is just

Like I I don't really know how we got here, but we have, unfortunately. So Okay. Yeah, I d I do know. no, no, okay.

CaptainCoach (02:37:57.343)
you know.

Coach_Gap (02:37:58.917)
E o E o is.

Nugnug (02:37:59.756)
I I genuinely think a lot I genuinely think a lot of it will be fixed if they tone down their like escape tools and stuns, their escapes and stuns. Like Widow and Cyclops. Like I genuinely think if if that was the standard, like heroes like Widow and Cyclops, I don't think we'd be having this discussion, and I don't think the sentiment would be nearly as negative. It would feel so much more like outplayable. Like you can think about where they are and actually approach them and take a good angle and your dive angle and all these things really matter now.

Whereas like you can have the perfect jump on a hella, literally perfect, but she birds back to her team, 360 around the corner into a b hop, back to main. It's like you catch her off guard. Wow, I caught you here. You didn't see me. I'm above you. I was waiting for you. I predicted you. I caught you, but we 360 around the wall, up and down, and back to my team with a b hop. It's like, what's the point?

Coach Mills (02:38:47.896)
It it's it's so chat typically or the comments typically get triggered when we talk about Overwatch and like 'cause it always feels like we're like glazing like old school Overwatch and we always want it back. But I'll tell you that Overwatch never got this shit right either. Like Widow was completely busted and she felt the the exact fucking same where they gave her a goddamn grapple hook. She could one shot you from range, grapple away, then when as you chase her, you she can one shot you again. And they they they've even made it worse with characters So Jordan that are also hit scan pokes left characters that just have like this fucking

Coach_Gap (02:39:17.035)
Yes.

Coach Mills (02:39:17.932)
Insta-burst potential like and and mob and mobility on top of it. It just like feels like all of these game devs only know how to like hyper like like once again I just think it's the crutch of hit scan. Like they they know that it's like low-rank players and people who have lesser skill will just never be able to abuse the characters, so they are not afraid of making these characters really strong at their ceiling because they just understand that.

Coach_Gap (02:39:37.673)
When you feel like people from other games.

Nugnug (02:39:38.224)
I don't really play much Overwatch, but is it better now? I don't know. No, still the same thing?

Coach Mills (02:39:41.336)
No. No, it's worse. They've got it they made it worse over time. Actually they actually they actually made it worse 'cause they they've released characters like SoJorn that like she basically gets the mobility too and they still have one shot characters and and yeah, it's just

Nugnug (02:39:45.188)
I see.

Coach_Gap (02:39:54.294)
And with the perks, it was like it made even worse. But I I think this is like part of the logic too is like for these hit scan characters, people can easily play them and they'll like have fun because they're very simple. But people can also come from different games to come play your game. And like, you know, if some random creator that usually plays a complete different type of game, like CSGO comes to your game, they're still gonna have the aim part of stuff. So they're not just gonna be like instantly turned off from playing the game entirely. Which I think is kind of a

not a completely correct concept. Cause then you go into Raint and you're like, Man, I'm getting rolled by this guy.

Nugnug (02:40:29.242)
That ha yeah, that has to do with I talk about that a lot. It's like transferable skills between games. Melee heroes don't have that, which is why you look at most melee players, they don't play all of the melee heroes. Some of them are so different. Like, like look at Day, he doesn't play Iron Fist. I mean, he can play Black Cat because he learned it, you can play Daredevil because he learned it. you look at all the melee heroes, like they don't play all the people that play melee don't play all of them. Because they're all their own unique universe of gameplay.

CaptainCoach (02:40:29.303)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:40:29.466)
Yeah, yeah.

Nugnug (02:40:52.964)
That have skills that only kind of translate, like Diver Game Sense will translate, but not the mechanics of playing that specific hero. whereas hit scan players, they can usually play all the hit scans pretty easily, because transferable skill is the aim, and you transfer that from game to game. That's why when you have a game like Marvel Rivals, where Gore releases and everyone was calling him bad, and I made a video and I'm like, guys, trust me, look, he's a melee hero.

It's going to it's gonna have a skill curve. It's not like Cyclops, where on day one, everyone's like, he's so strong. Well, because everyone can just aim on the hero. You just you pick up the hero and you're good on Cyclops. And as time went on, as we see, people are getting good at Gore now. Someone hit rank one global on Gore. Another person, like there was Elite Kakovy, another person, Hakeem, hit rank three global. lots of who's played Nick Knight. People are getting good at him and understanding him now because that's how it is with melee heroes. The skills don't really transfer. You have to learn an entire new universe of playstyle that's completely different.

From any other melee hero in the game, a teleport on a three-second cooldown, a scythe with massive range but less single target damage, you adjust everything around how you play now. So every new melee hero is a completely new world. And so the skills just aren't really transferable. That's also why like you can make guides that are like two hours long on a one melee hero.

CaptainCoach (02:42:04.534)
So much more punishing to the melee heroes, especially with just the damage. It's it's it's like such a a steeper learning curve to play dive. And it's just odd to me that they make it this it seems like it's just so unfavored despite it I mean, this is probably an unpopular opinion. I think dive is harder to play than than all the poke heroes. Like I I I guess maybe not on this podcast, but like I I've been I've been I'm gonna fucking shoot my brain now.

Coach Mills (02:42:25.754)
You don't get it, coach. It's called a hero shooter. So they should be better. That's what the comments always fucking say. It drives me crazy.

Nugnug (02:42:26.125)
I agree with that.

Coach_Gap (02:42:32.946)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (02:42:33.228)
My brain's out. no, like okay, so I've I've been I went on a DPS arc. I'm I've been playing gore and I've this is pretty much like the first time I've like seriously tried DPS and it's it's there is a pretty like it there's a lot of he's very similar to Hulk in a lot of ways and it I'm still like it took me some time. Like it took me a lot of time to kind of figure him out. Yeah, it's he's

Nugnug (02:42:50.746)
Difficult.

Coach_Gap (02:42:51.915)
Yeah, you can't shoot your brain 'cause you need to use that for these type of characters, as opposed to head scans.

Nugnug (02:42:55.08)
The thing is like with melee the topic of melee here, I I don't know if it's fair to say one's easier than the other when the skills are just different. There's just so different. Like if you take someone that's never played a game in their life that requires aim and you put them on Hela, it's gonna feel really, really difficult. But if you take someone that has played just in general, maybe even casually, maybe competitively, has played games that require aim from their perspective, you know, they go into Marvel Rivals like, damn, melee is so hard, but poke is so easy.

Coach Mills (02:42:55.991)
Ha ha.

Nugnug (02:43:23.392)
it's 'cause of the trans transferable skill. And so it's it's hard to say which one's harder or takes more skill. I think each person is gonna have different skill depending on what background they come from.

Coach Mills (02:43:33.454)
It's actually funny you say that. So, like pretty early, I think I don't I think it was one of the early seasons, maybe season five or something like that. I did I did MRC or you know, way w the open in the open where you can just go in and play. And we had a fill, we needed a fill randomly, so I invited my buddy who like never played Marvel Rivals before. Like he played like just like like he like he saw it and he I think he like played like one or two quick play games, but like he never really like seriously played it. But he was Radiant and Valorant, he had an say name.

And he fucking we he subbed on our team and he just fucking cooked like everybody. Like it like we we just told him what to do and where to stand and he just fucking cooked everybody. Cause it's like you just you just know it like he's like, he's like, dude, this character's broken and he was like talking to me, like, is this is this a good character? And I like, Yeah, it's one of the best characters in the game. He's like he's like, okay. He's like he didn't know. He's like, This is doesn't feel fair. I was like, Yeah, 'cause you're fucking you have aimbot, basically. That's why. Yeah.

Nugnug (02:44:03.493)
Mm-hmm.

Nugnug (02:44:08.719)
Yep.

Nugnug (02:44:22.082)
Yeah. So it's like you're comparing like maybe five plus years of experience on aiming with a month on Daredevil. You know, it's that's kind of like the way it's I view it, is like these are like all these are like unique experiences that are like fresh. People have to learn something completely new that they have no idea, completely different, not just from other games, but from other heroes in the game. Two different melee heroes are so fundamentally different that you're like you're like a baby walking for the first time again. You have to completely learn something completely fresh.

New play style, new gameplay, everything is new.

Coach_Gap (02:44:54.283)
I've I've got a hot take for y'all. Kind of hot. So with with Overwatch, Dive was kind of like shown as the golden child. Like it was like everybody wanted to play Dive, you know, so skill expressive, such like, yeah, it was the best. Like playing Winston Diva with like a Genji, Tracial, like these heroes are so skill expressive. In Rivals, it's very different. Like I said, these characters are like very in and out.

Nugnug (02:44:57.573)
Hear

Coach Mills (02:45:07.214)
The best

Coach_Gap (02:45:20.901)
much like easier to play for a lot of them. Like D D, you know, like it's not the easiest character to play, but these gameplay loops are like fairly simple once you really get into it. Like you you have to know how to like use the different things and like what your kind of like rotation is. But like for DD, people talk about like how hard it is. And I I think some decisions are hard, especially in like higher tier play. But like for most people, you know, you're like I mean you're using the same thing over and over again. Like it's just a little the

Or not not that one. It's the it's the little like throwing the baton and it deflects on people and you get overhealth. And like that's all you use. You don't even have to ever think about like whipping the chains down. It there's just kind of one thing. Yeah. There needs to be like diversity in these kits where you you're not just in deflect like throwing

Nugnug (02:45:59.386)
They need to buff his chain. They really need to change the chain. There's no reason to use it right now. It's so bad.

Coach Mills (02:46:08.408)
I I'm curious I'm curious how do you f how do you compare Daredevil's cause I think Captain Coach talked about this before. I think I think Daredevil has a very high skill ceiling, but I'm curious what you think. I think he undoubtedly has a much lower floor than something like Genji. He he d definitely does. but like as an another like an example, like DPS Doomfist had a pretty low floor too, but his ceiling was fucking extraordinarily high. some of these floors are too high. I think that's actually part of the reason why, like you said, like

Coach_Gap (02:46:17.418)
I would agree, man.

Yeah. That's more of what I feel.

Coach Mills (02:46:36.814)
dive is not this gold standard. A lot of low rank players and average and more casual players think like dive is slop. It's because like in my opinion, the skill floors of characters like Black Panther, characters like Daredevil, it's actually too low. Like it's actually too easy to get some of the base value for these characters' kits in a way that like I think a lot of that value should be gatekeeped behind a certain level of mechanical skill and understanding. And it's just not, unfortunately.

Coach_Gap (02:46:57.203)
Yeah, I mean it's more of like understanding and awareness. Like I was talking about before, like with Venom, you don't really have to like hard stage a dive. You can like basically kind of dive from anywhere. As long as you have like clear LOS. Like on Monkey on Diva, you had to like take these spaces. Take like on Gibraltar, you've got to take the box, you're setting up your dive, and you take the next space. And then you dive in. But in here, you you just kind of three, two, one, we're in there. As long as they don't have a daredevil that can see you on the sidelines.

CaptainCoach (02:46:57.857)
Okay.

CaptainCoach (02:47:08.547)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:47:23.354)
So I I would agree with you up until season nine when on Daredevil it's there's the new meta around Daredevil is kind of like soft diving and soft hitting. So I think that did change a lot. Now every engagement you have to go in with a much greater sense of cooldown management and like disengage and routing because you can't just expect to go in and land a kill anymore because the tools and supports were given were so strong. so I do think that's why also why no one plays him anymore. I think you were right that he was pretty easy to get down for the most part. That's why

Up until nine point zero, everyone's playing him. Even if they nerfed him, everyone's playing him, everyone's banning him. I still think he's actually a good hero, but no one's playing him anymore. Because he's so much harder, cause you have to actually soft dive and plan out disengages now. You can't just go in, do your bread and butter combo and land a pick really easily on a helpless support that just dies. Which is how he was up until nine point zero. that's why like I only see Daredevil players play him that have like a known name. If I'm queuing and like top five hundred, I only see like if they're on Daredevil, I know their name, you know.

Coach_Gap (02:48:08.692)
Yep. I agree.

Coach_Gap (02:48:20.062)
I think he is like still good in like high tier pro play because he is still like one of those like maybe top five, top six DPS where he just has like so much versatility that he can do in like any comp and has like a ton of info. But I think you're right in that like the disengages you do have to think about more than you would previously. So that that that is true. That is true.

CaptainCoach (02:48:43.116)
Nug Nug, can you do me a favor real quick? And I'm sure it's people watching. You got like something hanging. I don't know if it's like off. It's to your left, like in front of you. Milt. What yo, what is that?

Nugnug (02:48:49.964)
here my mic just broke the other day yeah wait let me hide it let me hide it there you go there you go bro i'm still waiting for my doo to arrive okay let me hide that let me just stuff that no it's wait it's still out okay i'll find a way to hide it i'll find a way to hide it

CaptainCoach (02:48:54.63)
I thought it was I was I wondering what that was for the Hey, that's that's a real gamer right there. Yeah, tuck it in the back.

Coach Mills (02:48:55.275)
Coach_Gap (02:48:57.13)
It's like a weird piece of hair or something.

Coach_Gap (02:49:03.59)
EOM, right?

CaptainCoach (02:49:05.198)
I was like, what is that? Like is that your hair? No, you're good, bro.

CaptainCoach (02:49:14.612)
I I wasn't sure if that was like coming from your ceiling, like if was like a spider web or something. I didn't know what I was looking at, but just you gotta get these burning questions answered for everybody, all the viewers. There you go.

Coach_Gap (02:49:19.871)
Look behind you, Nugget.

Coach_Gap (02:49:25.47)
Dug Doug, watch out.

Nugnug (02:49:26.404)
There we go. I think it's no, it's not. I'll figure it out. Can keep talking, I'll figure it out.

Coach Mills (02:49:29.54)
But let but let's let's let's move on to the supports. We're almost done with the patch. Let's just let's kind of wrap it up and we can give our full thoughts. so Adam, his team up with Ultron, now the healing provided by a single cosmic cluster goes from sixteen to eighteen. The enhanced effect, increased healing provided by the explosion spell field generated from five to seven while the team up is active. why did they do this? Does anyone fucking know? Anyone anyone have an idea?

CaptainCoach (02:49:55.222)
'Cause there's so much more damage in the game now. You know, he needs to keep up, you know, buffs to excuse more buffs, of course.

Coach_Gap (02:49:55.678)
Make him better at solo.

Coach_Gap (02:50:01.812)
The triple supports need to be able to duo support.

Nugnug (02:50:02.244)
The triple support

Coach Mills (02:50:04.29)
yeah, that that's literally what they this they want him to be a duo support. But like without considering the triple support ramifications of of doing something like this.

Nugnug (02:50:11.054)
No, that's what they did with Mantis. Like they fin she was she was finally good in triple and no in double. But then she was so busted in triple, she had the highest win rate and she was banned every game. They gotta figure out, like just just say, okay, make it a duo support and take away their triple sport offensive power or just say, No, you're gonna be a triple sport bot forever. they need to figure it out. They need to they can't have both.

Coach_Gap (02:50:12.092)
Yeah, me's the same thing.

Coach Mills (02:50:29.956)
You can't yeah, you can't have both. They they want both. They can't unl unless you may unless you locked it at two supports only, you cannot have both. You keep you have to pick one. You have to fucking pick one.

Nugnug (02:50:37.518)
Unless they do something global with like reducing damage to where maybe a third support could actually just be w maybe like maybe there's a world where damage I don't know, maybe there's a world where they reduce his healing even more but then just give him even more damage. But then he would still just be a triple support healer. I just don't see a world.

Coach Mills (02:50:50.096)
Yeah, no, it'd be triple support. Yeah, you can't like the only way that you could possibly do it is by like completely gutting his utility and damage, but then like what the fuck is he? Like as a character. He's he

Coach_Gap (02:50:58.962)
And why is this team up with Ultron, man? And then Ultron has a team up with Penny. Like, these are the most abusive comps that I've ever seen.

Coach Mills (02:51:02.315)
Ha ha ha.

CaptainCoach (02:51:03.47)
True.

Coach Mills (02:51:06.796)
Yeah, actually that is I that's actually dumb as fuck. I'm not gonna lie. Like wh why is this team up with old that n they're just asking for it at this point if they do shit like that? I mean like what the fuck are they doing? Yeah, wait, wait, wait, wait, dad d doesn't doesn't Mantis have a team up with fucking Adam too? Like what are they doing, bro? This actually pisses me off. No, they're asking for it. They're literally creating this shit on purpose. Like like why not make my why not make the powerful enhanced effect synergize with a character that you would never fucking play in triple?

Nugnug (02:51:06.852)
Like and it sucks.

CaptainCoach (02:51:10.232)
Yeah.

That there

Nugnug (02:51:14.596)
The two triple supports get the team up.

CaptainCoach (02:51:16.578)
That's actually such a good point.

Coach_Gap (02:51:17.298)
It's a

Coach_Gap (02:51:21.598)
Yes, yes. I was about to say that as well.

CaptainCoach (02:51:23.67)
Huh.

CaptainCoach (02:51:27.246)
This game's cooked, guys.

Coach_Gap (02:51:28.062)
They're rage reading us.

Coach_Gap (02:51:34.945)
yeah. Hello Phoenix by the way. I mean wild comp. Why would you ever do that?

CaptainCoach (02:51:40.728)
They could do Adam Rocket, they're both guardians.

Coach Mills (02:51:41.956)
Like no no no fucking make him synergize like Daredevil or some shit. Like I don't like like literally never, never triple. Give him a broken enhanced team up like Daredevil or fucking any other you know, just something you'll never you're never gonna ever play it.

CaptainCoach (02:51:46.156)
Daredevil. Hm. right. I see what you're saying.

Nugnug (02:51:47.64)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:51:53.457)
That would be so like why not give these let if they could give these triple supports, like a team up with an actual like diver. So they have now have like a unique comp of like, okay, the offensive support can actually boost my offensive diver. Like there's so many like creative ways they can go about this. Instead, they're it's just

CaptainCoach (02:52:11.096)
Hey, I got it. For Daredevil Adam Warlock can cure his blindness. He has healing abilities. Healing powers. Lore accurate, Mills.

Coach Mills (02:52:14.992)
No way. He just gets the se he just gets his I'm fucking s is the with the with would that nerf Daredevil or do you like like like in the lore? Like is that like a is that like a strategy to beat him in like a comic book fight? Yeah, that's what I was that's what was saying. Like or just i is he just I I'd like I'm fucking I don't I I don't fucking know. Has any villain ever tried to beat him by curing his blindness? That's that's interesting.

Nugnug (02:52:17.848)
Nugnug (02:52:22.926)
It just sucks 'cause like

CaptainCoach (02:52:25.988)
Yeah, well. Thank God.

Nugnug (02:52:30.852)
Well it depends. Does his hearing get worse if you can see now?

Nugnug (02:52:41.806)
It just sucks because like people people that like Adam or like Ultron or like Mantis have been complaining forever for them to get buffed. And like most I've seen it, most lower ranks, they're always asking. Like, guys, it's like a whole other world. Like, you know, when Mantis got nerfed, like I was looking at the TikToks on it. Like, my goodness, people like they're actually like an overwhelming sentiment of why are we nerfing Mantis? She's not even good.

Coach_Gap (02:52:43.028)
Tony Stark.

Coach_Gap (02:52:57.802)
Crazy.

Coach Mills (02:53:02.948)
Yeah yeah I it's so stupid. Yeah, no no t tick TikTok is the worst, by the way. It's so it's so

Coach_Gap (02:53:03.722)
They're like she's fi she was finally good. It's such a skill dependent character.

Nugnug (02:53:06.86)
I know, it's because like in their eyes, they want a player in duo support. And I feel bad. It's like Netty is just like, maybe just give up on your idea of triple support. Maybe just give up on it.

Coach_Gap (02:53:14.568)
Yeah, I feel bad that they have such like limited pools for strategist. Like it's the same thing, you know, I feel pretty limited on tank, especially playing in a Dino and Emma. But yeah, these strategists it's like with a triple. Like you're either you either got that or you have to play like these three, four characters.

Coach Mills (02:53:14.616)
Who

Nugnug (02:53:30.032)
A lot of the support mains I know just are quitting the game. Like they're not they don't play anymore and they say it's boring. They're forced on the same two to three supports every game. And if they play anything else, they get harassed by their team that they're throwing because their supportal isn't as good. It's kind of sad.

Coach Mills (02:53:41.102)
And you just have to fucking heel bot the whole game because you can't interact. Like it's a what I I I've I've talked about it before. I think the support like the entire support gameplay loop is flawed. But but Adam Warlock, this is the perfect example of the character that will forever separate like high rank and pro play from a casual audience, and why there will never be like like unless Netties decides to take like a top down approach or like they just to say we're gonna bounce based on these things, this will never get solved. Because here here's the here's the thing.

Coach_Gap (02:53:49.716)
So flawed.

Coach Mills (02:54:09.764)
They never play triple support underneath Grandmaster. They just don't play triple support unless it just happens to have three support mains. When you only have two supports, this is only above like this is only gonna benefit people in those lesser ELOs because now Adam does more healing. Like it like it makes sense to do it because they're playing two support Adam. It it increases this character when a DPS fills, or people just want to play Adam. Like, this is actually an objectively good change for every one besides the top.

Like Celestial Plus and Pro. Which it it it just to to to us, it's like, what the fuck is this? This is an abomination. But like to them, it's actually a reasonable change because they're never gonna abuse it in triple. And that this is the this is like the fundamental problem with rivals. Like rivals eventually just has to like decide, like, we need to bounce based on this. Like we cannot bounce. This is this is kind of getting to the ethos of like the lights versus the light versus flats argument, where like based on

Nugnug (02:54:42.224)
Mm-hmm.

Nugnug (02:55:07.28)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (02:55:09.114)
Flats' logic, this would be an objectively good change because the vast majority of the people are not in the higher ELOs of play or pros, and this is only gonna benefit them. So this is good. And Light is gonna say something like there is actually an objective truth in balance, and you cannot balance purely taking in like low rank players into account. It doesn't matter, just like it doesn't matter their opinions about a character that they do not utilize his full potential. Like this is at the crux of that argument, and we're seeing it come to life like right here in this patch. Like this this right here is is that exact argument.

Coach_Gap (02:55:34.77)
Yeah. That's a that's a thing.

Nugnug (02:55:35.278)
You know, maybe it's a hot take, but I like I think there can be multiple truths. Like it is it is it is the truth that Adam Warlock doesn't see that much success in lower ranks. That is the truth, because people don't run the really broken comps that are understood at the high rank. does that mean we abandon lower ranks and we just nerf the hell at Adam Warlock so that he's never played again at lower ranks? I don't really think that's the case.

Coach Mills (02:55:55.984)
I think it probably is. I I mean I think it is. Like I actually think it is.

Coach_Gap (02:55:59.243)
Well so the thing for me is like the the argument between like do we like work for competitive or do we work for casuals, like there I hate to use the word. There are objectively like changes that are just fun for everybody. Like you know, nobody wants to play against these certain things that just like take away your like ability to play the game. And people enjoy will enjoy these changes, like the you know, the gore one, maybe a little bit. but these changes that just like objectively make the character more fun or like

smoother to play than what it was previously. And and you're talking about like they have to make a decision what they're gonna do or like who they're gonna bounce for. With this patch, it's clear they made their decision already. That's that's the reality of it.

Nugnug (02:56:44.144)
I think it would be a lot of an easier decision if they had more supports that were engaging. Because, like, for example, they could just leave Adam bad, they could just nerf Adam for the sake of pro play. If there was more supports in the roster, I mean who would care? There's a plethora of people to choose from. It's kind of like how, you know, if if if there was a DPS that was oppressive in pro play and then they nerfed it, maybe people wouldn't be as upset because there's so many duelists to choose from. But on the support roster, it's like people are begging for more supports to play. And Adam is like a unique fun support. There's not many of them.

We need more. And so when Adam is not good, it's like it's a big chunk feels taken away. I think it can easily be solved. It's like if there was like just imagine, if there was five more supports that were really fun, would anyone actually care if they went ahead and not just buffed Adam but nerfed him? Would anyone really care? I mean, if they still had five more supports that were all really fun, people wouldn't care as much. Like not at all.

Coach_Gap (02:57:34.634)
No, I think we delayed Nightcrawler, honestly. How about that?

Coach Mills (02:57:37.328)
Yeah.

Nugnug (02:57:37.572)
Yeah. I I I truthfully think w that what this game needs a lot is like more engaging supports. I think support's like the backbone of the game, and they oftentimes determine what your comp is and how it plays, anyways. I think having more engaging supports would also get more people from the other roles on support. Because that's why no one wants to fill support. I love to fill support when White Fox was good, because it was really fun. On Gambit Launch, I like to fill Gambit because Gambit was fun. turns out Gambit's super skill expressive, so now if I were to fill Gambit, I wouldn't be able

CaptainCoach (02:57:38.422)
Mm-hmm.

Nugnug (02:58:06.34)
I probably wouldn't be doing too well. but like I would used to love failing White Fox because I enjoyed the support. So if they actually had supports that felt like really engaging and just a more diversified roster, I mean I'd be happy to like, we need support, I got you. You know? No one wants to do that anymore.

Coach_Gap (02:58:21.546)
Yeah, it just feels like you never have the capacity to play make because the healing numbers are just so important and inflated that if you were to leave to your team for a second, the other team just rolls over them. Like in the in this brawl comp, you're just you're just toast. And and that's like yeah.

Nugnug (02:58:35.608)
It's so much damage that you just you're constantly looking at the health bars like heal, heal, heal. is there anything else for me to do? Well, I'm too busy healing. I can't do anything else.

Coach Mills (02:58:36.26)
Yeah, you don't

Coach Mills (02:58:43.376)
Yep, you're the you have the bucket and there's a hole in the boat. You just gotta fucking scoop the water out of the boat. That's the only thing you get to do, or else the boat fucking sinks. That's literally your entire job. I mean that's that's that's the analogy I use anyways. It's fucking terrible. It's

Coach_Gap (02:58:52.178)
Yeah. This is this is like a very random thing for me, but the the buff to Loki that happened last time was really confusing to me for this very reason of like the the casual people aren't really playing Loki. They they don't really care what happens to that character for the for the most part. Like I you know, these are the characters like Mantis and Loki. I I there are a lot of times whenever, even if they're the best, nobody is really playing them until like the very high tier.

CaptainCoach (02:59:18.424)
But they could be.

Coach_Gap (02:59:21.438)
Could be.

Coach Mills (02:59:23.952)
Okay, let's get through let's get through these last two changes. So Gambit. reduce the charge time per stack for healing hearts and breaking spades from eight to seven. Reduce the single target range from Raging World Slush Flush's Ultimate from 40 to 30. Reduce the extra jump boost effect granted to self and allies from 500 to 300. and then when selecting the team with Jubilee, increase the duration of the staff from 1.5 to 2.

Nugnug (02:59:28.506)
Can't believe

Nugnug (02:59:55.268)
I just don't know why they added a compensation buff. Everything else was fine, but like why the first compensation buff? Why? Did you really have

CaptainCoach (02:59:55.416)
Take it away.

Coach_Gap (02:59:58.121)
Why?

Coach Mills (03:00:03.707)
It's because he's only S tier for good players, unfortunately. That's how I mean that's we we just can't we can't just ran into that. He's only he's he's not S tier. Every every time I bring up Gambit to a general audience on my tier list, I have a more casual audience, and then just like in general on streams or whatever, people always say, like, does he really need a nerf? Like, is he really that good? Like, he's not even that good anymore. It's like, what the fuck are you talking about? What are we talking about? He's not that good anymore. Are we playing the same game? Like, what are we like what?

Nugnug (03:00:07.13)
Like the the the

Coach_Gap (03:00:07.261)
He's fun.

Nugnug (03:00:09.998)
Why compensate? Why compensate?

Coach_Gap (03:00:23.882)
Yeah, people don't

Coach_Gap (03:00:27.526)
A large amount people really don't understand why he's good.

Nugnug (03:00:31.288)
In lower ranks, it's so much easier to get value on cloak because it's just so easy. You just press you just like look down, press right click, there's your bubble.

Coach_Gap (03:00:37.738)
Yeah, he does feel like one of the like few actual like playmaking healers, I think, in this game. So it's like I it sucks because like we were talking about how some characters don't deserve to be good. And for people that like main these characters, being too good is like a bad thing in that you'll you're gonna be banned. Like when our friends Lemon, I mean, you were on a team with him, Coach Mills. Like, this guy gets you know, gambit banned all the time and he has a counter for it. But it's like people are gonna ban it either way, even if they know that he's on the team or not. And

Coach Mills (03:00:44.622)
He should be. He but yeah.

Coach_Gap (03:01:08.168)
Like, yeah, some of these like for me too, I really enjoy when my character isn't like the best of the best, or I don't feel like I'm getting free value. That's why I was like, I I loved I loved playing Magneto in the beginning and people were always like, why? Like he's such a boring character. And I was like, damn it, like it it feels so skill expressive once you like get to that point. But then whenever like the recent buffs kind of happen, you know, I felt like, man, I'm just getting free value. Like

CaptainCoach (03:01:15.34)
Name Puff

Coach Mills (03:01:17.422)
Ha ha.

Coach_Gap (03:01:32.043)
You know, and so I just I just enjoy sometimes my character being B tier, which is kind of where I'm at with strange sometimes. I've just, you know, I feel like I'm working for what I'm getting.

CaptainCoach (03:01:45.036)
I think the reduced range on Azalt isn't even like helping out lower ranks. Like I've I mean maybe maybe they have some tel telemetry data that says lower rank players tend to group up more. I mean maybe that's true. I mean I it probably is, but to me this is kind of more encouraging people just to like, okay, you gotta you gotta stack, you gotta group up. I mean this is like I mean, with how powerful the ultimate is, you're not even gonna take a hit at the damage it deals. Like, okay, now we have to be close to them. Th this is kinda just limiting people's

abilities to to in the higher ranks to really like do their own thing as much. Like I I just think these changes are just awful. I think they're so bad. I think the jump was the the only cool part about it. I although I I'm c like it's it's still kinda cool. It's

Coach Mills (03:02:25.73)
It th th th that reduces the speed at which he you can close in, correct? The jump boost effect?

Nugnug (03:02:31.618)
I think I mean the movement speed buff's the same, but the jump does let you pounce on the enemy team as like a whole team much better.

Coach_Gap (03:02:40.83)
I don't think for most characters it's different. There are some characters where I feel like I think the jump speed is different.

Coach Mills (03:02:40.836)
Yeah, let me look at it really quickly.

Nugnug (03:02:44.912)
I'm just like the only thing there that's baffling me is just that compensation buff. I don't understand. Like why?

Coach Mills (03:02:47.054)
I can find it.

Coach_Gap (03:02:50.13)
I think it makes it easier for

CaptainCoach (03:02:50.657)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (03:02:50.734)
I mean but ba but what what they're what they're what they're trying to do is they're trying to they're trying to nerf his his ult and buff his neutral is what they're trying to do. It it is very good already. That's that's the thing that but but it's not good for people that fucking misuse their cards all the time or like don't use their cards properly, which is like probably lower rank players, is why they're doing this.

Nugnug (03:02:57.402)
But his neutral's already like one of the best in the game.

Coach_Gap (03:03:00.221)
It is.

Coach_Gap (03:03:07.836)
Yeah. That's what I'm thinking is it's made for more for casuals 'cause it's like easier to manage those resources instead of having to think and you feel like for the for the more like somewhat casual or like lower rank audience, they just feel like overwhelmed with having to take this into account.

CaptainCoach (03:03:20.684)
My my question is

Coach Mills (03:03:21.338)
Jump boot effect. So I don't even understand. It's not even the movement speed boost reach ratio. It says just the cause Gambit and Targeted Ally receive the purify and jump boost effect.

CaptainCoach (03:03:31.554)
What what's gonna happen when all these casual players get good at the game? Like are they are they just going to run into the same problems that we see with the game and then like I to me I d I just don't get the end game here. Like what's the goal? Like yeah, you get this quick burst of somebody getting addicted to your game and then what? They're gonna realize it's slop and quit anyway. Like

Nugnug (03:03:50.417)
I think a problem with the ult is that he's like the only ult in the game that does this. And that's why you ban it. Because like because only one support has this ult, it's like Dino. It changes everything. The entire game is different when Gambit's in the game. but so but what if you had what if over time they had more strategists to have more ults like this? Which I'm I'm sure they will. This is not the only gambit we're gonna get. We're gonna get another ult like Gambit's. They try with White Fox. They try with White Fox. I don't it's gonna happen though, is the thing, it's gonna happen, it's inevitable.

Coach Mills (03:04:12.76)
It's gonna b that's terrible. It's awful.

'Cause my problem with Gambit ult is that it it it fundamentally breaks like like hero shooter fundamentals, which is when an ultimate goes off, you kite it. You back up, you give space, you give you alleviate pressure. The combination of damage, healing, and speed boost specifically, like being able to close the gap, it's unkiteable. It's an unkiteable ultimate. which means it's a win condition plus a survivability all combined into one. Like it I think that's flawed, and there's no tra there's no trade offs, like

Nugnug (03:04:39.747)
I agree.

Coach Mills (03:04:48.524)
Every other support hole is just survivability. It is not also the fucking thing that lets you close in the gap and kill the enemy team. Like I I just

Nugnug (03:04:56.312)
Yeah, I think we all have ex have experience with support ults where they just weren't placed properly and we can't do anything with it. Like offensive, like an offensive Invis ult, and then they just walk out of it. And we're like, Invis, why? Like it's a skill gap on the support in that point. just a misplaced ult. But with Gambit Ult, as long as like your teams are like close to each other, you just pop it like they're not gonna get away. It's like you can't like you only you only fumble it if your gambit is actually garbage and ults way too early to where like you're like

over ten meters more away from the enemy to where you s have to s like significantly close a gap. But that's just like a a bad misplay. Most times if as long as your teams are close together, like you can't misplay like your placement or

Coach Mills (03:05:37.658)
Yeah. And and and that's why I don't understand, like, I feel like they don't listen to what the community asks for. Cause I've gotten like we we've talked about this. Other people have brought it up too. It's like, why not give him two variations of his ult? He has two decks. Why not give him one that gives him the speed boost, the damage, and maybe the ult charge increase? And then the other one that gives the cleanse, the healing, and survivability increase. And you have to pick one. You have to s you survive.

So you have to use if you're on the back foot as a team, you have to survive. You have to use it or else you're gonna die. You're in a Grudel, you have to use that one. And if you wanna run it down or combo it, you have to use the offensive one. Like to me that fixes the problem here and it also increases the skill expression of the character 'cause you pick one or the other. You could fuck up and use the wrong one. Like you use the offensive one when you're all in a Grudel, you're all gonna die. Like you gotta use the right one and then like

Nugnug (03:06:04.76)
That's cool.

CaptainCoach (03:06:24.728)
you can't have situations where you waste a support alt mills. That's it there's no risk reward. You just it's just

Coach Mills (03:06:27.34)
No yeah Why bad, bro?

Nugnug (03:06:31.156)
white fox, white fox. That's why no one that's why no one plays her.

Coach_Gap (03:06:34.514)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (03:06:34.772)
It need you need reward and more reward is is how they

Coach_Gap (03:06:37.967)
It's sad to me that like it's sad to me that like basically with this like compensation sort of thing that like you know it obviously doesn't really like change a whole lot and like you said it's a very like unkiteable ult. This guy has the infinity stones on hand of like the cleanse, the like healing bubble that he got from Mag. Like, thank the lore that that was nerfed.

Nugnug (03:06:38.34)
I think yeah, go ahead.

Coach_Gap (03:07:01.575)
But the this like compensation to the cards is gonna make his ult charge even faster. Like that was one of the kind of downsides is that like at least his ult charged a little bit slower. So if your team was just getting like snowballed, at least you weren't charging Gambital as fast because his raw numbers, like he depends more on this healing over time or like kind of this burst healing with his cards. But now he's gonna get cards back faster. And there's no ult charge nerf. So it we're like

It's just gonna be faster. You gotta ult nerf the old charge if you're gonna do this.

Coach Mills (03:07:31.344)
Yeah, I don't I j I just I don't understand what they're doing with this. I

Coach_Gap (03:07:35.145)
And why do we have cleanses? Why why does he have multiple cleanses? Even Kiri doesn't have the

Nugnug (03:07:40.932)
I think if nothing else, Netty should have at least went, you know what, we don't really know how to bounce him, but people are sick of it, so let's just nerf him. Just get him out. Like

Coach Mills (03:07:49.04)
Well that they they just they don't listen to the cas like they don't listen to the competitive audience, that's the thing. They just don't. And the casual audience have decided that the character is is fine. So

Coach_Gap (03:07:58.333)
Yeah, decide that it's he's not good enough.

Coach Mills (03:08:00.41)
So he's fine, according to them.

Coach_Gap (03:08:02.205)
He's not invincible.

Nugnug (03:08:03.377)
But like even just for like even just saying, you know what, we know he's bad at low rank, but it's been since launch he's been perma banned. Let's just say until we figure out what to do, just get him out and just nerf him. Like I Yeah, just to get him out, just for the game like for one season, anyone that like wants to play Gambit could actually play him every game too. Like think about it. Imagine if they at least just made him like God forbid fucking B tier, okay? Like just make him B tier for one season. my lord, okay, B tier. Bam, now you have a a whole wave of people who at least wanna maybe want to fill support.

Coach Mills (03:08:04.421)
He's not in

Coach_Gap (03:08:14.161)
Lobotomize them.

Coach Mills (03:08:16.076)
Ha ha ha.

Coach_Gap (03:08:17.053)
Comment okay, accurate.

Nugnug (03:08:33.134)
A lot better, like imagine if I could just fill support and go gambit and least have a bit more fun because Gambit's cool, okay? But like I can't even do that because he's always banned. He's just too good.

Coach_Gap (03:08:41.043)
Yeah. Make everybody B tier.

CaptainCoach (03:08:43.928)
But Channing Tatum.

Coach Mills (03:08:45.808)
Shadow, Shadow, Shadow Changitatum, come on the pod.

Coach_Gap (03:08:49.533)
Maybe he'll die in that movie and then he'll get X'd out on our screens. Guys, we're cooking.

Nugnug (03:08:53.145)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (03:08:57.128)
Yes. we can only hope.

Coach Mills (03:09:00.08)
No, he's de he's definitely gonna die in doomsday, by the way. Spoiler I don't know if that's a spoiler or not. That fucking motherfucker's dead, bro. Like he's dead.

Coach_Gap (03:09:03.997)
Whoa.

Because Psycops got buffed, right?

Coach Mills (03:09:10.128)
Yeah, he's dead too. Like he's he's he's also dying. His new act is already cast. That motherfucker's dying too. Anyway, sorry. Moving on. last character on this list, Jubilee. new mechanic provide 25 seconds continuous healing to self during sparking sprint. I don't know why. Reduce the dazzling detonation blind from 1.5 to point eight. shit, that's why. Okay. New Effect I actually this was the one change I didn't read. New effect added when selecting the team up with Blade.

Continuous provide fifteen per second of healing to surrounding allies for six seconds during the duration of vampiric kin. Increase the firework finale ultimate spell field healing from fift one fifty per second to one eighty.

CaptainCoach (03:09:49.998)
Okay, so just to put that in perspective, that is now in Viz like pretty much the same level as the invis alt healing. And by the way, she gets it super fast and she has more healing now, so she's gonna get it even faster. We have lost the plot. Okay.

Nugnug (03:09:57.482)
So

Nugnug (03:10:04.228)
So they gave

Coach_Gap (03:10:06.717)
But hood is you know nerfs it's something.

Nugnug (03:10:07.608)
So her ult had less healing. In exchange they gave her a unique mechanic. Wow, no one used the unique mechanic, so now they just give her more healing.

CaptainCoach (03:10:17.74)
Yeah, no, this is b easily my least favorite change in the entire patch. I

Coach Mills (03:10:21.56)
That's this is actually hilarious. I mean, like I the the skill expressive part of this character is consistently getting the blinds off. I do know that is a kind of a toxic ability 'cause it does like like getting permablind is like not fucking fun, but like they basically have just homogenized her with the other supports, right? Cap?

CaptainCoach (03:10:36.716)
I have very strong opinions about Jubilee. I I I personally think she is one of the I she she's probably the the worst hero they've ever released. I no, I I think she's so 'cause her floor is like the lowest floor out of any support and her ceiling is like one of the highest ceiling and normally that

Coach Mills (03:10:44.791)
You don't you really don't like

Coach_Gap (03:10:45.875)
Mm-hmm.

Nugnug (03:10:52.504)
Really? You think she's easier than cloaking dagger?

CaptainCoach (03:10:58.646)
What the her bubble, what her bubble is able to provide just by pressing one button is like insane value. Like you compare that ability to a cloak and dagger bubble, for instance. It's just objectively better in every way. Yet she has better range. She she still has the blind, which is getting nerfed here, which is fine. And then her alt is is like on par now. Like you you can't just have an ability that you you put it on the ground and

Coach Mills (03:11:22.448)
You're missing you're missing something. Wait, wa wait wait am I right? No mind.

CaptainCoach (03:11:27.276)
And now thirty percent of the heroes in the game, roughly, that just don't do enough damage to to break through that, just okay, we just fuck her like what do we do? We just do fuck all until it's over. Go hit somebody else. Except it's so big, like everybody will just sit in it. Like she gate she is like the ultimate gatekeeping support in in a way that like doesn't require skill like in Viz, in a way that doesn't have counterplay like Coke and Dagger. I I I think she is so bad for the game and and it's man, they're just

Coach_Gap (03:11:27.737)
You're missing some double dinosaur.

Nugnug (03:11:56.456)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (03:11:56.643)
They're removing her one weakness, which is like s being sus being susceptible to burst, being susceptible to dive. I just think this is a a terrible, terrible change. Awful.

Coach Mills (03:11:58.544)
Why is it doing this?

Coach_Gap (03:11:59.933)
Yes.

Coach Mills (03:12:05.019)
It's breaking. It's breaking.

Coach_Gap (03:12:05.318)
Yeah, a couple things on it. I I agree that like Jubilee with her bubbles is a little bit simple. question for you, Captain Coach. So since you're a bubble boy, you don't want there to be a bubble girl. Is that what I'm hearing here?

Nugnug (03:12:20.324)
Bubble bubble bubble boy.

CaptainCoach (03:12:23.234)
I thought I thought that was gonna be a real one. Yeah, it's just me. I wanna be the bubble person. Yeah. Yeah.

Coach_Gap (03:12:27.943)
He wants to be the only bubble person, bubble people.

Nugnug (03:12:30.456)
It it worries me when I see them giving her the healing buff on her sprint, because like she has a clear weakness and they're kind of trying to- She's weak to dive if you focus her down, and like and she's not in her bubble. She's and they're kind of like trying to like lessen the weakness, which I don't like. I mean, like, can we just can her support be weak to something? Can it have a weakness, you know?

Coach_Gap (03:12:37.737)
Yeah, you had to be in your bubble.

Coach_Gap (03:12:51.977)
Yeah, it's like all supports all supports lead to self sustain.

Coach Mills (03:12:54.325)
The the the thing the thing that y'all are missing here is that this skin made them probably like ten million fucking dollars, bro. That's that's what you're missing, okay? Like like

CaptainCoach (03:13:02.961)
Nugnug (03:13:04.206)
Yeah I think that's what it comes down to. I haven't seen a single Jubilee, even in doom matches in between queues, every frickin' one has the skin, all of them.

Coach Mills (03:13:13.356)
Also, that mantis skin probably made a shit ton of money too. I'm not gonna lie. Because I bought it. So like like it's vi it's it's really important that like the this does affect balance a hundred percent.

CaptainCoach (03:13:13.773)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (03:13:21.822)
I I'm really glad the new aesthetic matches the fact that she's going to be totally unkillable now. Yeah, very functional gear she's wearing here to survive all the da damage she's taking.

Coach Mills (03:13:29.944)
Hehehe

Nugnug (03:13:30.116)
To be fair though, to be fair though, buffing the blade team up was fine, because I don't know any high ranked Jubilees that actually use that. I just the ult buff is what gets me the most. Like can she is it okay for a support to have a little bit of less like 150 is still a lot, it's more than a Jeff bubble puddle, but like I don't know, man. Like, is it okay for a support to have a slightly weaker ult? Her damage is insane. She has like one of highest DPSs in the game. Like if you're using the the hit scan team up with a hood.

Coach_Gap (03:13:34.439)
Yeah, for sure.

Coach Mills (03:13:36.056)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We never used it yet.

CaptainCoach (03:13:58.488)
She's with her own. This is just a healing on herself now. She's tankier than any tank. Uh-uh, not including like heavy burst scenarios, which are pretty easily avoided. Yet she has A area of healing, insane damage, the best alt in the game. She like and and like very valuable range CC. There's no area where this character is bad. She's just objectively better now than all the other heroes. Just it's that simple. She's just better. like you, if you don't like, there's never going to be a world where

a one healer comp is going to be something that we see in this game because this type of balancing continues to plague the game in a way that like doesn't allow these supports to be anything more than just heal bots. It's it i I I've lost all goodwill with Netties. I I have

Nugnug (03:14:42.38)
Well, you will see one support comps cause no one wants to fill support.

Coach Mills (03:14:45.616)
Hey, hey, now it can be solo Adam though. Let's fucking go.

Coach_Gap (03:14:45.777)
So

CaptainCoach (03:14:46.035)
Ha ha ha.

Coach_Gap (03:14:51.241)
Yeah, I mean same thing as what you said. Like it just whenever her one weakness basically is taken away, it just shows that there's like just a gross misunderstanding of it. And the fact that, like, yeah, she's the only person that's not like basically invincible in her ult. And she still does like a a ton in the neutral, but yet they're buffing her and just making it to where, hey, like, you know, there are other characters, like, especially for me on Tank, there are a lot of times whenever, you know, people tell me, like,

CaptainCoach (03:14:51.342)
dude.

Coach_Gap (03:15:19.125)
well your character needs to be bad at this thing. Like Magneto needs to be nerfed because this is a team game. You need to be able to rely on your team for damage. But then these characters are here with just illimited amounts of self sustain. Well your other support doesn't even need look back at you because you just activate your team up. You're chilling.

CaptainCoach (03:15:27.694)
Mm.

Nugnug (03:15:34.692)
The these skin sales, they must be they have to be like through the roof. They must be making like ridiculous amounts of money as a company. They must be like swimming in it.

Coach Mills (03:15:35.141)
And this is

Coach Mills (03:15:38.779)
Fucking insane. They are. They a hundred percent are. But but but the th well that's that's what because so like I don't know if y'all heard about Overwatch, but like Overwatch was actually gonna go under after the PvE thing kind of failed, the Overwatch was actually gonna go under. Like they they they couldn't they couldn't actually they couldn't actually pay the like they couldn't like they they were gonna shut down the game. The the Lee Sim for A It's like this like this K pop group, they did a Kiriko collab.

It made so much fucking money. More than they made like almost in the entire year before. That's what we're talking about here. Like the amount of money they're making, they were just like they they said that and they were honest about it. I mean, like, we don't even need netties to say it. It's just the truth. Like the amount of money they're making off of these skins is just like they they don't they actually don't fucking care about like like like a competitive player's opinion on it 'cause they they made like a year's worth of fucking money with one skin drop on a character that's like this.

Nugnug (03:16:36.112)
Truthfully, that's the future. I saw it happen with World of Warcraft firsthand. They gave up all their integrity over the years, and it turns out it didn't, they didn't need to begin with. They just release more shiny things and they'll make more money per player. you don't need the integrity if you can make all this money with new content. Like, isn't Overwatch like they saw what Rivals did, and my understanding is they started releasing way more content since Rivals came out, right? I'm sure they're making a lot more money too.

CaptainCoach (03:16:36.568)
Games.

Coach Mills (03:16:59.704)
A hundred percent, yeah. Tons more collabs, tons more skins. Yeah, lots of skins, lots of collabs. so I don't I don't want to be a doomer because I I actually do believe in the Marvel Rivals long term, but I am gonna be a doomer about a very specific group of people that play this game, and that's kind of the hardcore competitive players. Neties no longer cares about catering to our group in any way, and the reason is because they can they can achieve ten times more success just

Coach_Gap (03:17:01.417)
Especially skins. Expensive skins. Yeah.

Coach Mills (03:17:29.072)
creating this this loop cycle of doomsday hype into doomsday release into Thanos into Doom like Doctor Doom into combining it with the movie releases. Like that is how they reach the four hundred, five hundred, six hundred peak, you know, that they had at launch. And that is worth so much more to them. That in combination with some of these skin releases than consistently catering to us. They could can they could cater to us for an entire year and it's not worth a single month of that.

And that just means that like we're just not priority. Like right now they're working on the the path to doom. They don't give a single fuck about our week to week or month to month. And that's just kind of what we have to accept. Like once again, like I I'm still gonna play the game, I'm having a great time. But if like you're a player that is looking for a hardcore competitive experience and you wanna you wanna be catered to as a competitive player, this game is not gonna cater to you. Anything they the anything they do right, like I think like the Iron Fist uppercut thing with Thing.

Nugnug (03:18:17.082)
Yep, definitely not.

Coach Mills (03:18:22.084)
Like they they almost backdoor into it, or they just do it because it's cool. They don't do it because they're trying to cater to you. They just happen to cater to you on accident. I mean, that's yeah. I mean that the like they do the scatterplot plot approach and they do eventually nail it. but like you know, they I mean that's that's that's pretty much it. I mean, somehow I I do think that this game is actually super fun play playing it in a scrim or competitive level or a creative tournament level.

CaptainCoach (03:18:29.41)
Broken clock, right twice whatever.

Coach_Gap (03:18:46.887)
Yep. I always look forward to those things.

Nugnug (03:18:47.362)
So fun. Most fun I've had playing the game.

Coach Mills (03:18:51.14)
It's like I have so much fun when I play this in a creative tournament and th I think the game's core is so fucking good. It's just like it could be so much better. Like it like the it's it could be absolute peak if they just committed. you know, maybe who fucking knows? Maybe GTA six will take up all the casual players, Netties will shift gears and we'll actually get some real bounce, but this is the worst patch I've ever seen. Like by a by a mile.

Coach_Gap (03:19:12.391)
Well you know what you know what our job as coaches is to do? Like Captain Coach's point was, what happens when the casual players get better? Then maybe the game changes. So we have to make everybody good. And then we'll have good buffs and catches, right? Yeah, just make them top tier.

Coach Mills (03:19:16.313)
Was

Coach Mills (03:19:26.615)
We just have to educate people?

CaptainCoach (03:19:29.934)
but I I hate those people so much, guys. no, I mean it's like, yeah, the game's clearly catered towards casuals and they've they've fully committed to that. And it's it's like, how do you bridge that gap and get people to where like you want the game to be? I mean, i I it that's a lot of work and that's a lot of effort from a company like like in putting trust in a company that has shown really no

Coach Mills (03:19:30.552)
Yeah, but it but yeah.

Coach_Gap (03:19:33.321)
Mm.

Coach Mills (03:19:35.083)
Coach_Gap (03:19:36.338)
I hate those coaches.

CaptainCoach (03:19:59.906)
willingness to listen. I mean, 25 health in on Dino. I'm that we've had how many patches and changes like that over the months. It's just, it's just tiring. I this game, yeah, I mean, Mills, you said it, you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what I was going to say. This game is not made for the for the people who watch this podcast. It's just not.

Nugnug (03:20:18.138)
For what it's worth, they do make good content. Very good content. And a lot. If you're a casual player, you're probably spoiled out of your brains with all the crap this game has. New hero every 30 days, all these new fun game modes, new skins that actually look like this many? I'm I'm actually I'm actually very excited for I think it's really good.

Coach Mills (03:20:25.56)
yeah, a hundred percent.

Coach Mills (03:20:31.834)
The d the two v two looks cool by the way. Two V two looks cool. It i I'm not gonna lie, legitimately, I wanna start a a money match thing. If we can do two v two customs, I wanna start a money match like little little little Discord where we where we do where we where we do a little bit where we do a little money matching going on. That would be kinda fun. Two V two money matches? Just for like t like two gifted subs or whatever, you know, make it simple, but like that would be fucking pretty cool. That'd be cool.

Coach_Gap (03:20:44.625)
Yeah, after the Iron Fist one, you're feeling inspired. Nug Doug's been teaching you?

Nugnug (03:20:46.832)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (03:20:55.175)
Yeah. Yeah. Creators need to spread the word better, by the way, too, about these tournaments.

Nugnug (03:20:56.611)
It looks really cool.

CaptainCoach (03:21:00.118)
I I I would say apart from I mean, I love your optimistic take, Gap, on what needs to be done. This is kind of something we've echoed the sentiment. We need more coaching, we need more introductory content, maybe a tutorial for the game. But I I'm at the point, that is just such a long and and arduous road. Just give us separate balancing. Just and even that won't solve it. But I just give us separate balancing for ranked and put give it give make a team.

Let the less us like have a direct line of communication with the devs. That to me is the only way you can cater to people like us who watch this pod. But people watching, please leave a comment. I'm curious to hear like what your thoughts are. This is not something I ever would want in a game like this. I don't think it's healthy. I don't think it's good. But I we're out of options. this is like I agree. This is this is probably the worst patch just because contextually, like where it at it is in this game's kind of like trajectory, it's just it's just not what it needs.

Two V two mode was my favorite game mode. They they basically ripped it off of League of Legends. It's a basically like in a a a a straight rip of the two V two V two V two mode in in League, which I actually used to make content for. I am excited for that. I will try it, but I did watch it a little bit. Does kinda look like a like zombies if it were PvP, looks a little like like slop, but I'll give it a try. Maybe it turns out being good, you know. But

Coach_Gap (03:22:22.441)
Yeah, do you have another point, but I wanna wanna let Nug Nug, I think, finish something that he was saying before. If he had some

CaptainCoach (03:22:27.809)
yeah. Nug nug.

Nugnug (03:22:29.213)
Wait, what was I saying? I forgot.

Coach Mills (03:22:29.936)
Wait, where'd your name come from? Is it from Nuggets? Like Tinders?

Coach_Gap (03:22:31.177)
I don't remember.

Nugnug (03:22:34.178)
No, it was originally Nug Ug. Like just no second G. Like just Nug and then like no second N. I then I don't know why. It was just a random name I made in World of Warcraft twelve years ago. But then Nug Nug Ug sounds weird, so my friends would just call me Nug Nug. Ten years later, it's like they always call me Nug Nug. They never called me my real name anymore. And so I'm like, it has to be Nug Nug. That's that's really all it was.

Coach Mills (03:22:53.978)
Yeah, you're cooked. You're cooked.

CaptainCoach (03:22:55.554)
Well sorry sorry to deal derail but where what what are you gonna what's your wow plans for for forever? Are you gonna play?

Coach_Gap (03:23:01.075)
You up? You up?

Nugnug (03:23:01.792)
Yes, sir. I just like you. I y I used to have

Coach Mills (03:23:02.192)
Captain Coach has been popping. Yeah, y ye he's been have you seen his channel? Have you seen Captain Coach's channel? He's f he's popping, bro. I I'm gonna send it to

Nugnug (03:23:07.148)
No, I have not. I used to have World of Warcraft channel. I made animations for the game. I used to love the game so much. Like, I even I worked with Blizzard as like an animator. They contracted me for one of their films. It was so much fun. I I ne it never got released because then that then they had their massive layoff wave, so I'm still sitting on it. The unreleased film. but it was

CaptainCoach (03:23:13.209)
nice.

Coach Mills (03:23:19.437)
shit.

CaptainCoach (03:23:22.456)
That's sick.

Bro, come make come make content with me.

Coach_Gap (03:23:27.625)
Make it.

Coach Mills (03:23:29.06)
Yeah, yeah, make it make an intro. Make it make something here. Look, look. Check out check out Captain Coach's new new last two videos. Check that shit out. Check this shit out. He's fucking, he's he's he's already one foot out, bro. Look at this shit. Look at look look at the I I and I I sent you I sent you the I sent you the thing. Yeah, look at look at this sh look at this, look at these fucking views he's getting. Look at these views. Wait, wait, I'm I'm I'm pulling it up on stream. Fuck it. Too late. I'm putting it up. Look at this shit, bro. Look at this

Nugnug (03:23:29.978)
But

CaptainCoach (03:23:31.598)
Come make some content with with your boy.

Coach_Gap (03:23:35.177)
Ooh, the networking.

CaptainCoach (03:23:39.221)
I got some vids.

Nugnug (03:23:40.996)
Let me see this. Captain Kosh.

Coach_Gap (03:23:41.449)
That color's about to change in the background, man.

CaptainCoach (03:23:42.946)
I got some vids, bro. I do our I got a couple million plus view vids, dude.

Nugnug (03:23:52.302)
I'm excited. I love the game and I feel like WoW Forever is like the perfect chance for me.

Coach_Gap (03:23:55.786)
Dude, I don't know what to do next at this point. Sheesh. Pokibon graphics. This is Armin. yeah, it's a couple years ago.

Coach Mills (03:23:59.168)
My p my co host is leaving me, bro. The fuck?

I've I've I haven't I haven't got a hundred K view video on my main channel in a in a year, bro. He's fucking he's shh. He's popping. Yeah no he's the he's he's fucking popping, bro. This is insane. I'm

CaptainCoach (03:24:04.716)
That was a while ago, yeah. Check no check out the shorts. Check out the shorts. Go do by popular. Look at this.

Coach_Gap (03:24:12.403)
Dude, your your shorts pop up my feet all the time. I try to tell YouTube that I don't want it, but you know, they just I'm just kidding.

Nugnug (03:24:14.768)
Steve Jobs and why WoW is dying.

CaptainCoach (03:24:16.215)
really?

CaptainCoach (03:24:22.146)
Yes, sir. I'm on that grind.

Coach Mills (03:24:24.228)
The age

Coach_Gap (03:24:24.318)
So

Nugnug (03:24:24.612)
You know, for for every competitive player that leaves a new a new casual that was brought in will eventually rise up and take their spot. I mean that's just how it's gonna be, I think.

Coach_Gap (03:24:33.394)
Yeah.

CaptainCoach (03:24:33.632)
One of us.

Coach Mills (03:24:33.796)
Yeah, and then they're gonna be pissed off like us. Five years from now there's gonna be a hardcore competitor player that was like, These fucking guys I was disagreeing with them at the time, but they were so right. This Pokeslop shit. And it's gonna be still Elsa as like the best character.

Nugnug (03:24:36.056)
It'll be a it'll be a cycle, but they're gonna they're gonna keep bringing in

Nugnug (03:24:48.196)
Yeah And then they leave and then some some new fresh twenty year old Jimmy joins and he finds the game for the first time and it'll it'll be a cycle, it'll never end.

CaptainCoach (03:24:50.126)
Yep.

Coach_Gap (03:24:57.681)
Was

CaptainCoach (03:24:57.772)
Mike Mike's above you is our only hope, dude.

Coach Mills (03:24:59.812)
That tri he he's our hope. He's too positive. He needs to get jaded, get old and jaded like us. He's too he's he's having too good of a time.

Nugnug (03:25:00.206)
I should.

Coach_Gap (03:25:02.994)
The next generation.

Yeah.

CaptainCoach (03:25:06.572)
He need he needs to like lose the love of his life, you know.

Nugnug (03:25:07.234)
Yeah,

I mean I'm still gonna make rivals content because I still like the game. I do still like for what it's worth, I still like the game. I'm just gonna also make WoW content on my my WoW channel because I I love WoW. It's really fun. It's for me 10.5, looking at those patch notes, I'm like, well thank you, Netties. You gave like the perfect excuse to make WoW content. You gave me probably the worst season since launch. I'm gonna make use of this season.

Coach_Gap (03:25:32.071)
Yeah, bro. I don't I don't know where I'm gonna go. Like I'm I'm so early on in like doing stuff and haven't been like

CaptainCoach (03:25:32.099)
Yeah.

Coach_Gap (03:25:38.365)
very consistent on things. I've really enjoyed coaching like in the in the collegiate scene and be able to do individual coaching sessions. But you know, it's just kind of a long journey from there and want to like put more stuff out there. But it's it's also like they're, you know, like we said, there's such a versatile crowd where you're talking about like competitive players, like one leaves, another casual comes, like there's just this kind of natural progression where eventually at some point like the, you know, somebody's a casual, they start learning more, you know, they get excited, they get passion, and we just lose them.

Like then they just started getting burnt out because it's just such a cycle. And like you said earlier, Nug, like so many people feel like their time is wasted and are just tired of queuing because they know that it's gonna be like a gamble. You're gonna like inevitably get a thrower, you're never gonna get somebody who just like gives up midway in game, or somebody who's like super toxic to all teammates and has an insane ego. And this is just kind of like an accepted thing. And so how do we prevent this burnout? Like it's nothing's happening.

We didn't hear anything from the dev team on all the different problems that are going on. And even before that, people are still already getting burnt out up to this point. And that is just like the nail in the coffin. And then seeing this, nothing's happening. And and the true, like the the egregious thing, like I mentioned before, is the fact that we got like a five-minute dev vision shorter than usual. We add a new game mode. The battle pass. That's it, man. Like, where where's the other 10 minutes?

CaptainCoach (03:27:03.842)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (03:27:04.976)
I mean and this is this is a really bad time to be fucking around like this when I think Overwatch is in a good spot. I'm not gonna play it. Fuck Blizzard, but it's in a good spot. Deadlock is in a good spot for people that you know, are all about that thing. That that abomination. no I'm just kid I'm just I'm just being hateful for no reason. but then like these games are doing really well and then like by the time we get season eleven, like GTA will be right around the corner for a lot of console players. Like Deadlock like pulling people on the PC end and then

Coach_Gap (03:27:15.549)
I thought they were gonna lock in.

Coach Mills (03:27:34.138)
GTA will put people on the console end. Like, like Ri Rivals is betting a lot on them being able to fucking nail it on Doomsday. They probably will, but like it's it is I would not be surprised if there's a lot of content creators that walk away during this time frame. I'm not gonna be surprised if there's people that play and stream different games. I'm not gonna be surprised if the general sentiment sentiment is pretty negative.

Nugnug (03:27:52.482)
I mean, it's it's a live service game. By its nature, it's gonna have lots of ups and lots of downs. I'm sure like right now it's w objectively going to looking like it's gonna be a down season. there will come a time where it's an up season again and all the content creators that you know, so-called leaves. I mean, when the content's fruitful, they'll come back. So it will have its up again, it absolutely will. it's a live service game. You can even point to Overwatch, how many times has it had downs, followed by ups, followed by downs.

Coach Mills (03:28:12.762)
They'll come back, yeah.

Nugnug (03:28:22.436)
Same with all these games. Like, I I I highly doubt Riley.

Coach Mills (03:28:22.862)
Yeah. your mic cut out a little bit. Unless it was me? yeah, your mic went over real quiet. you sound real quiet out of nowhere.

Coach_Gap (03:28:27.177)
It just went real quiet, I think the

Nugnug (03:28:29.616)
My good stuff?

Nugnug (03:28:33.54)
How about now? Is it better now?

Coach_Gap (03:28:34.979)
it does sound like a cable.

Coach Mills (03:28:38.191)
Mm mm.

Coach Mills (03:28:42.512)
It's not me, right? It's not my answer. It's not like he went like super quiet out of nowhere.

Coach_Gap (03:28:44.381)
No, I hear a little bit of static, but I know he's turning it on and off.

CaptainCoach (03:28:44.812)
No it's

Nugnug (03:28:47.416)
Is it good? How about now?

CaptainCoach (03:28:48.544)
You're it's not too bad. Just probably

Coach_Gap (03:28:48.871)
But Mills, you were being yours went up like higher, I think, at some point too. I I don't know if it's like a riverside thing where it's trying to like tune the audio.

Coach Mills (03:28:55.374)
Maybe it's a river maybe it's a riverside just fucking with you thing. but yeah, like in my opinion, Nug Nug, I think that there's a lot of opportunity to cement yourself and grow when a lot of other content creators leave if you're willing to stick it out through the lows. Yeah.

Nugnug (03:28:55.504)
Yeah, as yours did go hyper. Yeah.

Nugnug (03:29:07.352)
No, that's what I was thinking about. I was gonna say that too. It's it's like in making an investment. if you invest yourself in the game because you believe in its future, then when it does become fruitful, you will bear the rewards.

Coach_Gap (03:29:09.118)
Yeah.

Coach Mills (03:29:19.866)
Yeah. I mean I'm I'm not gonna lie, there's like how many how many fucking Iron Fist streamers are there? Like twelve? Fifteen? Like a lot?

Nugnug (03:29:26.532)
The only other big one is like Ricey. All the other ones like there was there was I'm Win, he quit so long ago.

Coach Mills (03:29:30.702)
I know, he's my go as a good buddy of mine actually. but that that's kinda what it's like, is like when people you know, when like th there's always gonna people be people that wanna watch Iron Fist. You when like when one person can't be watched, someone else needs to be watched, you know? it's like like I like I mean there's like almost every fucking Thor player I know has quit. So like that's why they're just like people are drifting to me for the first time. They're like, you're the only guy that's playing fucking Thor It's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am I mean it's just like that's just kinda how it is, so

Coach_Gap (03:29:33.513)
And I think there's a lot of value.

Nugnug (03:29:56.376)
Mm.

Coach_Gap (03:29:57.671)
Yeah. I I think there's still a lot of value to like the educational content. I mean, Coach Mills, you've been doing this for like a long haul. But even there there are newer people that are newer coaches that are popping up to the system and have like, you know, decent quality editing, but they're, you know, they're just sharing a lot of information in something that's like very digestible for people. And people love that. Like it's it's an investment to the game. And I think that's where Rivals isn't afraid to like turn and burn on these people, where they just like try something out and they just kind of like willy-nilly do these changes.

Coach Mills (03:30:04.378)
Yeah, yeah.

Coach_Gap (03:30:27.835)
don't really care about it too much, but they know that they're gonna make bread from it. And I, you know, it's it's like not wanting to invest in the long term, but having these like short term things. Like, you know, Overwatch League I think did a a really good thing for that community for a while. And just that people were so invested in like that was that was their life, like kind of their identity. And at this point, like, you know, people don't a lot of people don't really care too much about the rivals.

Coach Mills (03:30:47.94)
It was peak too.

Coach_Gap (03:30:53.009)
like pro scene or like following these storylines. They'll watch it to try to like learn from it, but it's really like hard for them to understand, which is why they need like these resources. So I think there's a ton of value in that, but I think it's hard for a lot of people to still I said wanna pull want to play the game. Like these tournaments, playing this organized play is still really fun, but

You know, do you really want to do it all the other time? And like for me I I coach a team three nights a week, maybe four nights a week, for multiple hours, like I've got really limited time. Why would I waste it queuing? I don't know.

CaptainCoach (03:31:25.566)
I I wonder how much of this direction we're headed in is premeditated because they know GTA is coming out. They know that there's a lot of like new games on the horizon. So they're just saying, Hey, we're just going to try to appeal to a certain group here and just double down on that. So I mean Nug Nug, I really liked your kind of outlook. I think that's r very realistic. It's optimistic as well. I mean

You've seen plenty of live service games turn it around. Final Fantasy fourteen, Arcage, you know, like MMOs. And there's there's yeah, you're good. there's other ones too. So I I I think that that is probably if if you are someone watching who is doom and gloom but still wants this game to succeed, that is probably, you know, a good way to look about it. I mean, Mills, you and I are still gonna be here talking about rivals, you know, and and potentially other games too, a little bit more now.

Coach Mills (03:32:00.785)
Yeah, my light's fucking sorry. It's fritzing out.

CaptainCoach (03:32:25.358)
'Cause I'm personally I'm gonna be playing less. Like that's just I I needed this patch to be a ten out of ten to keep me doing this full time. It's it's not even close. I'd say it's like a two out of three. So I mean, that's my grade. Curious to hear your guys' grade on the patch, like out of ten. That's usually how we close it out.

Coach Mills (03:32:42.82)
Yeah. I'm not even I'm not really in a fair position compared to other streamers 'cause I only stream for fun. Like like like as far as ROI is concerned, it's it's actually the most useless thing I do. I just enjoy it and I do it because I like to play. I like to play so like I mean that's the every any time I go live it's just because I'm enjoying the game. So I mean that's that's pretty much it. And if I if I don't go live as much, it's because I'm not enjoying the game as much. And if I do, it's because fuck it, I still like playing Thor because I kind of know what I'm I'm signing up for.

CaptainCoach (03:33:04.59)
That's where I'm at.

Coach Mills (03:33:12.514)
I've been known in knowing what I signed up for since the since a long time for Thor, so but but

CaptainCoach (03:33:17.516)
Yeah, I still have fun too. I mean that's that's been my mindset. Like I I no ranked goals whatsoever, just playing the game.

Coach Mills (03:33:20.738)
I I might do more ch challenges, might do more alt stuff, might run it down on Spider-Man more, you know, might do some of that stuff, but like yeah. Anyways, still fucking zero out of ten patch.

Coach_Gap (03:33:24.073)
Just vibes.

CaptainCoach (03:33:27.638)
There you go.

Nugnug (03:33:33.324)
I agree. I'd give it I'd give it a one. No, I like I like the two. Because the gore change is good. That's something.

CaptainCoach (03:33:34.786)
I gave it a two.

Coach Mills (03:33:36.26)
Ha ha ha.

CaptainCoach (03:33:40.534)
Yeah. Gore Hulk changes.

Coach_Gap (03:33:40.987)
Yeah. I I think on your point too, Captain Coach, like there's there's no strong reason to not take a break. Like if you feel like, man, you know, I don't I don't know if I'm gonna really enjoy this. Yeah, exactly. There's no shame in it. I'm I'm I'm probably gonna I'm gonna take a break for a couple days and like this is kind of my job to coach this game. I'll still be watching stuff, but like, yeah, I I need to take a break from queuing. It's just so draining. And if you go try out another game, you know

Coach Mills (03:33:41.06)
Ha ha ha.

Nugnug (03:33:42.616)
The gore change was good.

Nugnug (03:33:49.848)
No shame in it either.

Coach_Gap (03:34:06.493)
What what's what's to lose? What's to lose? If you come back to the game in a couple of months, you you could just pick it back up. And there there's hopefully will be a time whenever the game is revived. Like you said, we've seen multiple games kind of go in this direction and come back once they realize like kind of why that investment matters. yeah, a lot of hero screeners are down. Overwatch's been around for a long time, you know, it'll it'll probably keep persisting.

CaptainCoach (03:34:24.716)
Not two KO Sorry.

Coach Mills (03:34:27.335)
yeah Hey, low blow too soon. What the fuck?

CaptainCoach (03:34:31.342)
my bad, my bad.

Coach_Gap (03:34:35.491)
for this patch though, I I'd give it a negative three out of ten. If you don't mind me plugging some stuff, I might I might do that too, but

Coach Mills (03:34:37.185)
CaptainCoach (03:34:38.679)
Jeez.

absolutely.

Coach Mills (03:34:42.216)
yeah, yeah, yeah, we will.

Nugnug (03:34:42.596)
For me, if I didn't make content about the game, my hours would be like 90% reduced. Because I no, because I actually like I enjoy making content about the game. It's fun. I love sitting there and talking about it. I love making guides. I love queuing. I love streaming the game. And then I get to play my heroes and like talk to my chat and like create an experience. I enjoy that a lot.

CaptainCoach (03:34:49.834)
Okay. Wow. Wow. That's more than me.

Coach Mills (03:34:50.288)
What the fuck? See that's what I'm afraid of for people, because it's like

Nugnug (03:35:10.884)
For me, the only thing about this game that I I don't like, and the reason why I say 90% reduced is just ranked the match quality just makes it so frustrating. Like me and my my team, my MRC team, we scrim every night, eight to ten, every night. And it's a blast, and I love it. I love the game. So we have like two MRCs ago, we got top 16. We beat Shikigami playing Blade Iron Fist, okay? It's fun when you can I know it's fun when you can like we we made a team disband running four supports. We beat them with four supports to piss them off.

Coach Mills (03:35:31.45)
Let's fucking go. That's the good shit right there. Let's fucking go.

Coach_Gap (03:35:38.569)
This bad.

Nugnug (03:35:40.078)
It's just fun. I l this is what I live the game for. No other game for me can capture this experience where you can like do whatever bullshit you want. and so I do love the game. For me, the only thing that just makes me feel burnt out and like some days I'm like, I don't want to play the game today, it's because the match quality when I go in and I can't just play. I'm gonna get some bullshit, some stupid whatever the hell that's just like come on, like they don't get banned for throwing, they waste my time.

Coach Mills (03:35:47.344)
Yeah.

Nugnug (03:36:07.832)
If that stuff wasn't in the game, I'd have a much more enjoyable time because for what it's worth, on a gameplay, on a fundamental level, I love the core gameplay loops. My heroes are really fun. I I play the heroes that I enjoy because I love them. And for me, it's like my perfect season because they introduced Gore. I got another new hero that I actually truly enjoy. So I feel kind of blessed for that. for me, like just having Gore being added to the game extended my lifetime on the game. I just love it. It's so fun. so if

Coach_Gap (03:36:25.481)
Mm-hmm.

CaptainCoach (03:36:27.181)
Yeah, gore's fun.

Nugnug (03:36:35.588)
That's why, like, I what I was praying for so much. I was praying for is something about match quality. Throwers or trackers or or cheat something. That's it. Something. That's all I really wanted. Like all I wanted. I want to be able to play the game that you intend for me to play. And that's all I was hoping for. And sadly, they didn't give me jack shit on that. So I was really, really let down, man. I had faith in you, Netties. I want to play your game more. Let me play it.

Coach Mills (03:36:43.248)
Yeah, a hundred percent.

Coach Mills (03:36:54.736)
Ha ha

Coach Mills (03:37:00.88)
So before closing or do you wanna go real

Coach_Gap (03:37:01.353)
Well it's so s yeah, yeah. I was gonna I was gonna do real short. The sad thing is the casuals don't like the casuals don't know what to do or how to get better at the game.

The competitive people, like we we talk about casual versus competitive. These guys are not actually competitive for like 50% of these people. They are playing ranked, they're playing a competitive game mode, but they do not care to get better. They do not care if they win. They don't give a shit. So why would I why would I want to play with them?

CaptainCoach (03:37:33.78)
I'm one of now.

Coach Mills (03:37:35.312)
But I like the thing is the rank system creates that. Like it encourages that. It encourages you like when like like I was watching a streamer earlier today, a guy that I kinda like, but he's a streamer where his team was fucking up, so he's like fuck all you I'm gonna throw, throws the game, hops on his alt account and pull queues up, like and no penalty, just like whatever. All right, cool, he's on his alt account. But here, like before we give before y'all give y'all's closing and y'all can talk about

Coach_Gap (03:37:35.955)
You're one of before.

Coach_Gap (03:37:40.009)
Played Ultron of my games.

CaptainCoach (03:37:42.433)
I did.

Coach_Gap (03:37:55.783)
Yeah. People are just like, huh, that's funny, rage bait.

Coach Mills (03:38:05.221)
Y'all's personal channels. I wanna I wanna show y'all before the patch list came out. I tweeted this out. I said 10.5 patch wish list wish list realistic ranked system rework. Did not get that shit at all. Nurse to top heroes. Dinah, Elsa, Gambit, triple. Did not get that shit at all. Rebalancing team up power level with the goal to make both options viable. You could say maybe 20%. 10, 20%.

Coach_Gap (03:38:14.057)
Realistic.

CaptainCoach (03:38:19.478)
Nugnug (03:38:23.192)
CaptainCoach (03:38:24.982)
CaptainCoach (03:38:30.687)
yeah. Got the got a little bit of that.

Coach Mills (03:38:34.488)
A little bit. It's it's kind of generous. It's pretty it's really generous. So I I'm gonna say this is closer to fail than it is to pass, but it's still they they at least addressed it a little. Reworked Yiddishil's palace returns. I've thought for a while it's been out of the map pool. Maybe we could rework it and you know, reba rebalance it, rechange it, bring it f the fuck back in so we get more map diversity. One hero reworked. Hawkeye Ultron question mark Iron Man question mark. It's that's that's not really a rework. Not really. They they're

Coach_Gap (03:38:35.121)
I want so many map reworks, man. We need them.

Nugnug (03:38:35.492)
That's generous.

Nugnug (03:38:58.586)
They did do Iron Man kind of kind of semi.

Coach_Gap (03:39:01.545)
How can I sort of well I will just

Coach Mills (03:39:04.75)
And then three sacking and sell plus. That's another one I thought would be cool. they really didn't do any of these fucking things. And like you could maybe argue this, but like I I need a stuff- I'm I I I it turns out that I'm unreasonable. Because I I put realistic here. Because there's a lot of other changes I wanted. I just put my most realistic ones.

Coach_Gap (03:39:07.591)
Yes, please. That's not a competitive rank.

Nugnug (03:39:15.792)
Well they they didn't do anything in general.

Nugnug (03:39:24.268)
It was unrealistic to expect something, okay. You by putting by

CaptainCoach (03:39:28.014)
Season eleven will save rivals. I just know it.

Coach Mills (03:39:30.896)
Fuck me man. Fuck me man.

Nugnug (03:39:31.341)
I just know it. Just wait, the big change is almost there, one month and then it's time.

Coach_Gap (03:39:31.633)
Massive software update.

CaptainCoach (03:39:37.004)
Yeah. All right, guys. Where can people find you nugnug?

Coach Mills (03:39:38.894)
Yeah, it I yeah, what

Nugnug (03:39:44.696)
On my YouTube mainly, Nug Nug TV. And on my Twitch, Nug Nug underscore TV. Pretty much it.

Coach Mills (03:39:51.344)
Let's fucking go.

CaptainCoach (03:39:51.704)
All right. And where can people find you, Coach Gap?

Coach_Gap (03:39:56.147)
Twitch dot TV slash coach underscore gap or on TikTok coach gap same username, make coaching content, doing vaudar views and stuff, and playing a bit.

CaptainCoach (03:40:07.928)
Honestly, I didn't know what to expect bringing you guys on. It was super fun conversation. Like I really enjoyed hearing what you guys had to say and I I I really valued your opinions. Like I think this was a really great conversation and and very productive too, which is not s always something we get, you know?

Coach Mills (03:40:13.168)
Great convo.

Coach_Gap (03:40:24.201)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Mills (03:40:24.368)
And I would love to have both of y'all back on at some point to talk more in depth about like balance and like the what we want for the game. Because I think we we talked a lot about the patch notes here, because it takes up most of it. But I do think like y'all had a lot of insightful things to say. and I I think I would want to pick y'all's brains more in the future. But I do appreciate y'all coming on. Guys, make sure you smash that subscribe and go subscribe to both Nug Nug and Coach Gab. These have been some of our best guests. Really support them. Thank you so much for coming by. Let us know how you felt about the episode in the comments down below.

And we'll see you next time. Peace.

CaptainCoach (03:40:54.958)