#ob53

[feralknights]

Life comes at you fast when you’re playing on a tight map against someone that has 20 levels on Skye.

[feralknights]

I can't believe they nerfed Skye. Getting a Prep reset at low health while my teammates finished someone off saves me. Sigh, Hi-Rez hates Skye. And Evie.

I have to admit, I’m incredibly pissed.I don’t even have a good way to frame this and look both sides/constructively, as all this patch has done is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that PC and Console balance need to be 100% without-a-doubt separated COMPLETELY.  The majority of these balance changes are – even by their own admission– geared toward console play and have subsequently made meta characters even better than they already were.Skye’s nerf is completely asinine, unwarranted, and needs to be voided before OB53 goes to live.  She needs buffs, not nerfs.  She has needed card adjustments badly for over ten patches.  She has needed to have her vertical mobility that they themselves have openly declared they’re doing experiments with addressed.  If she cannot have these things addressed, she needs to have a base movement increase and her HP brought back up to 2000.In OB52’s anti-team meta sparked by the completely unnecessary, bad decision to format the scoreboard in KDA/KDR format, it was hard enough to land Kills as Skye, and now this?  This is just … it’s stupid.  It’s so aggressively stupid, terrible, and bad when she was already unequivocally and unabashedly the worst character on the roster– and I am saying that as someone that absolutely loves Skye and has figured out how to make her work through all the time I’ve played Casual.  Kill stealing is real, and eliminations were what made Preparation actually work.You know what makes this worse?  You know what?  Big thing here:Retribution is not supposed to fully reveal stealth.  This was never intended.  It was supposed to just put a marker over a stealthed character’s head, something that you would actually have to pay attention to.One more time:  Retribution is not actually supposed to full-reveal stealth.  This is a bug.But it’s okay, Retribution– easily the worst-designed, most terrible mechanic to be introduced into Paladins that has historically had nothing but bugs to make Retribution work even better than it was supposed to–They sure nailed that part about where it’s supposed to actually permanently passively reveal people all the time with literally no risk or skill required.

[feralknights]

Did you see the maeve change? It completely screws over anyone who actively plays her and yet doesnt actuallt do anything for her

I have to first state that I don’t play enough Maeve to say that I’ll immediately feel the difference in the dagger drop, but I can absolutely see where making the drop and subsequently the arc of the throws will mess up her gameplay.

I will however openly say that them making Retribution now work through Maeve’s ult is absolute horsecrap.  I don’t care if it was a bug or not, it was the one and only thing in the game that provided any kind of counterplay to that absolutely overpowered garbage ability.  This means a passive ability that requires zero input, requires zero skill to use, has no risk, and yields nothing but rewards can now freely run slip-shod over four separate characters.  And I’ll say it again for good measure:

Retribution revealing stealth completely is actually a bug and they have made no attempt to fix it since Lex was released.

I feel for Maevers right now, I really do.  This, them shackling Skye to the floor after already breaking her legs, breaking Evie’s staff in half, hell– even the Ash change.  The Ash change is completely asinine and runs counter-current to the intent of a close range brawler.

Why is a close-range flak cannon user now going to be dependent on accuracy and skillshots?

There’s maybe one or two things in the Balance section on this patch that even remotely make a lick of sense.  I am openly encouraging people to go the fourms and the patch notes thread and leave your feedback.  Get it in writing where you stand on these changes:

http://forums.paladins.com/showthread.php?45738-Open-Beta-53-Patch-Notes-June-28-2017

I’m in a difficult position in regards to the Essence issue, as well– as a Tier 3 Founder for the game I’ve never had an issue getting Essence or having enough Essence to outright buy all of the cards and legendaries for a new champion, but I absolutely empathize and understand how hard they’re making it to get Essence and gold now.  Their discussion on the stream was nothing but a closed loop with a noncommital answer and this is one of the biggest topics that they need to tackle with the community, like, five days ago.

That, and ejecting this entire balance pass out of an airlock and into the corona of a star.

[feralknights]

why the fucking fuck they keep nerfing skye, she needs a rework!

Because it’s impossible to get actual dev commentary on why they’ve made the decision, I’ve come up with two very possible theories:

Skye is incredibly strong in Onslaught.  Someone got worried, and decided to nerf the best part of her entire kit without giving her anything to compensate for it because Skye’s already the lowest-tier, weakest character in the game.

The more likely theory:  Skye is still very strong in the lowest tier of casual console play due to how hard aim assist snaps/rubberbands.  From players of the console version I know IRL– whom also play the PC version– all I’m ever told is a litany of tales of how absolutely terrible player awareness is in  console casuals.

An example I was given:  With a Debilitate build, they once strafed in front of a Fernando, who proceeded to ignore Skye’s presence on the point, then– without stealthing– walked behind him and unloaded with a Poison Needles-to-Wrist Crossbow combo.  Fernando made no attempt to turn around or defend himself, he basically stopped trying to track Skye and focused on someone else standing on the point.

It’s incredible how much flak, negative feedback, “WTF,” and angry memes are coming out of this balance pass.  With the PTS having been borked up for most of Friday night into Saturday, there won’t even be a full PTS cycle before this patch goes live.  If you do not like any of these changes, do not sit back and say nothing:  Hit the fourms, Reddit, social media– make yourself heard.

Addendum:

If they had said “Preparation will now only fire if Skye lands 80% of the damage to a target before they go down,” I would have found that acceptable.

[feralknights]

I dont even play Skye and her nerf makes me want to rocket off into space for Hi Rez's idiocy

Everything I’ve seen in regards to the balance changes– Skye especially, even from folks like you that don’t play/don’t like Skye– have been wildly unpopular, both on the fourms and on Reddit.

They’re openly crushing PC balance into dust because they aren’t separating the balancing between PC and console gameplay as they should be.

I’m adamantly screaming from the rooftops about this as much as possible every day until the patch goes live.  Though I hope for the best but expect the worst, I hope they actually do listen to their players this time around. 

This balance pass feels entirely tone-deaf to what people have been asking for, and a lot of it feels balanced entirely around the lowest tier of casual console gameplay.

[feralknights]

Paladins PC*: OB53 is released!

I’ll have more hands-on knee-jerk/written opinions on it after I get it downloaded.

Expect more thoughts on Ash’s nerf-- because it’s a nerf-- projectile speed adjustments, and I’ll post some revised loadouts for Skye when I get a chance.

[feralknights]

https://web2.hirez.com/paladins//wp-content/uploads/2017/06/OB53-Launcher-Large-PatchNotes.jpg Sunsational! Open Beta 53 Patch Notes | June 28th Beta ExpectationsPTS Instructions GENERAL

Amazingly, I got first reply.

I’m still incredibly livid.