#ob53

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.

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:

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. 

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

Amazingly, I got first reply.