#palablog

[feralknights]

Mild PSA re: Skye WIPs

If you’re raging about the way her face and hair look in the Superior pose on the right side or how her ears are bending, I’d like to point out and just make clear y’all understand a few things:

Skye’s ears always had physics to them.  It wasn’t huge and you probably didn’t notice it unless you were looking at her head in third person mode, but there is definitely one piece of rigging/boning in her ears.  In the three-point landing pose they used, it’s highly possible that bend to her ear tips is 100% the result of them pausing her landing animation from her stage intro.

The reason her face looks weird is because this is a screenshot from the model viewer they use for turnarounds and animation demonstrations during skin reveals.  It’s a black area with a single bright spotlight, and with her in the Superior stance, it casts a lot of shadow on her eyesockets and brow.

Her hair still has a bounce animation to it.  In screenshots posted today -- by people that thought she somehow lost her butt(????) you can clearly see that her hair is flaring out while she runs -- so in action, the new bob won’t be so tight to the back of her head and under her ears.

There’s a lot of moving parts here and I’m really just begging y’all to take a step back and try to get educated on what’s going on behind the scenes without raging and flipping tables.  The art team is hauling ass to try to make a great product, and even if I myself have a couple of nitpicks, I can see the potential in the design and I’m eager to see the final product.

[malrido]

hello! i'm a multishipper so I'm really glad to run into your blog. Do you know any other klance shippers who are shaladin supporters as well? Thanks before!

Honestly I can’t think of any but I’m sure there’s some! I’ll go through the tumblrs I follow and try to find some to add here! Thank you as well.

Edit; (message me if you want me to remove you from the list!)@klancin-with-myself@klancestolemysoul@thebestleg@pidgesglasses@paladinspride@becausegratsu@savethelastklance@palablogging@softpidge@fancyklance@bluelion-lance@spacemomlance@jigglejaggle@h4gg4r@calmdownklance@lanceisabottom@quiznack-klance@zarkonscummies@letsmcfreakingloseit @space-rangers-partners @spacequiznak@stopmyships@thepurplelions@treenutgallery@theeditorklance@stardust-paladins@archaicsextoy@kawaiikouhaikun@kittykogane@gentle-spacelioness@klance-is@fluffy-keef

[feralknights]

OB64 PTS#6

Unfortunately I didn’t proofread this as much as I probably should have.  But, after reading the notes, chatting with folks, getting opinions from others, and having a bit of a rough night I finally decided to put it all down:  My feelings and opinions about OB64 and the current direction of Paladins: Champions of the Realm.

So if you've read the fourm post that I'd written, you'd know that at the moment I have a lot to say about Paladins OB64, and very little of it is positive.  We're at the 6th iteration of the PTS, with it getting an eleventh-hour push-back another week for more bug issues, card balancing, and now the inclusion of what they're calling a "Classic" mode where the cards will be balanced as they are for Competitive.

Apparently I've garnered something of a reputation with members of the community about my essay-sized feedback; I go on and on with my points, and in almost every post I make sure to highlight and emphasize a few points:  I am not a professional player, I am not a competitive player, and I try to play Devil's Advocate with everything that I suggest on any champion or item adjustment in the game, no matter how insane or unreasonable.

Early on, I expressed sentiments to members of the development team-- those I am fortunate enough to speak with-- that I often times like a shake-up of the system.  Essence being reverted to gold sat all right with me, though if you remember, I was actually a staunch defender of the Essence system.  Yes, it added grind, but it retained a spirit of player agency and decision-making that helped bring me in and keep me in.

Then, the patch notes were released.  I spent an hour reading them again, and then again, and then again, trying to figure this out.  I actually said out loud, "what is their goal here?"  The most vocal components of the community across almost every platform of social media I followed the game on were crying out for a scant few things:  Bugfixes, matchmaking, and balance.  Vivian and Lex were the two most hated champions on the PC circuit; I was regaled with stories constantly about Skye being an auto-ban in competitive from my nephew, an avid console player.

Instead, we were served up this:  Cards Unbound.

We were told that feedback complained about the complexity of a 5-card, 4-point card, 12-point deck system was just "too high" for players.  We were told that this would be "more free than ever."  Then we also got a really cheeky jab at Battlefront 2's decisions on how to monetize content after being a $60 buy-in game.  Having spent a fair share of money on the game in the last year, I can definitely say that that particular comment left a bad, lasting impression on me; I was a Tier 3 founder within a few days of starting the game when they initially offered the pack.

The PTS iterations continued to roll on, leading us up to that 5-- PTS5, where I was hoping that they would provide us with a fair, balanced version of the Casual gameplay or just an announcement that they would scrap the system altogether.  Instead, we were left with card changes, balance notes that made absolutely no sense, and a version of the PTS that was so buggy and insane that streamers from pro to casual were remarking on how bad it is.  Youtube content creators practically rioting, and conspiracy theories flying left, right, and center.

I really don't want to buy into the conspiracy theories.  They breed fear.  They breed paranoia.  People start connecting dots that aren't there.  I do realize that we are in an insane world in 2017 with world leaders that lie and change lies as quickly and easily as they draw breath, but I'm a person that tries really hard to give people a second chance and asks for the data.  I want to see the metrics and data; I want to know what's going on.

The things I can see:  The bug fourms are riddled with people reporting bugs, but I have yet to see much more than *very faint* praise for the Cards Unbound system.  At the time of this writing, the main patch notes thread is currently 122 pages, with scattered pages and posts from fans that are exasperated and tired of fighting Hi-Rez with this.  The subreddit is still on fire with people upset with the changes; the OB64 additions video currently sits with an overwhelming 11k dislikes and a petition to have OB64 shelved has broken 7,700 signatures and it's only climbing.

I think this, more than anything, shows that a significant part of the recurring, constant playerbase loves this complexity.  They love the depth that Paladins provides versus it's competitors.  Personally, I loved throwing down at least five bucks every patch cycle or so, charging into the game and seeing what changes were lined up and how things shook out.  I'm a Skye main, so not only am I a rare breed that deals with way too much shit in the playerbase, but I am one that would look at all of these changes with a critical lens, asking myself "how can I get past this one champion's buff?  This new champion and this specific card combination?"

I'm not afraid to admit it:  Skye is what brought me into playing Paladins in the first place, but I stayed because of the world, the depth, and the complexity.  I'm borrowing and paraphrasing the words of Skillup from Youtube as I have in my prior posts, but I believe it bears some repeating:

"It's a statement to the industry that I hope other developers take note of:  Gamers aren't idiots.  We don't need our hands held all of the time.  Complexity and depth should be embraced, not feared."

I've met more people that were intrigued by the 12-point system of Paladins and the open beta experience than driven away from it.  Even friends that were afraid of the complexity acknowledged the depth and what it brought to the table in terms of customization and decision-making-- even if they weren't up for playing it, they still admired it.  They admired the product, and even folks that felt burned about the Tribes treatment felt that the system was something rich and diverse and good and something that the now-flooded "hero shooter" market needed in order to remain competitive and make a name for itself.

I remember reading the Q&A responses from the subreddit, and how they felt that players that should be in competitive are in casual rather than comp, and how they wanted to encourage and incentivize people to take the step to finally playing competitive.  Unfortunately, that's still not me:  I don't care about comp.  As dramatic as it sounds, and as I've said before, I absolutely despise draft picking with every fiber of my being.  I don't care about the competitive experience in Paladins, let alone any other game, be it League of Legends, Overwatch, Team Fortress, Battlerite, or even the few fledging times people tried to make Conclave a thing in Warframe.  I just don't care.  I've even said as much to Hi-Rez staff members in casual conversation; the only thing that would make me even remotely consider broaching the Competitive queue would be if they added a Skye skin as a seasonal reward.  However, considering she is far and away not a meta darling-- and how certain casters react when she was picked, something that still ires me to this day if only because casters should be more professional and objective-- I don't see that happening anytime in the next few years.

I remember feeling almost singled out, and even made a mockup:  'Bring back casual, make an unbound queue.'  Boom, done.  But even then it wouldn't be what I actually wanted, what actually kept me playing Paladins for so long even as someone that does not play or even particularly enjoy competitive, PVP-driven FPS experiences:  That 12-point card system.

PTS6 almost solves that, but it still feels like something of a slap in the face.

I don't mean that to sound dramatic, either, but it feels wholly limited and punishing because I don't want to play Cards Unbound.  I won't get those First Wins of the Day chests.  I won't get access to Onslaught unless I put myself into Unbound mode.  And then rather than simply leaving it branded as "Casual," they made the conscious decision to call this mode "Classic," as though it were the game mode that Paladins fans have known and loved for over a year-- a maneuver that was undoubtedly made for marketing purposes, as folks that come in with the Cards Unbound system would think that this is what the game always was, and what folks would eventually come to accept.  Plus, I won't get the same rewards for playing "Classic Mode."  Rather than treating Casual as a focal-point experience, it's being treated as a tacked-on afterthought that feels like it's meant to appease people on the fence rather than address the problems that people are having with the system.

But this all comes back to the same thing that I keep grappling with?  What is the mission of Cards Unbound?

I wasn't here for the closed beta phase of Paladins.  Point in fact, I came in kind of late compared to many people; I came in roughly around OB35-36, well after the era of Skye reigning supreme and champion balance being somewhat insane.  Even then, through all of the ups and downs of my favorites, I loved playing the game.  I didn't know about the closed beta systems and mechanics, and when I had heard them, it left me stunned that the system started with something that sounded so haphazard and unfocused and managed to sharply refine into something that was so simplistic on the surface, yet so complex as soon as you start digging into it.  I understood why the pros grabbed on with both hands, why teams flocked to it, why HRX2017 was such a big deal.

Paladins actually made me give a shit about esports.

CU feels like a bold, drastic step that should have been considered-- or implemented-- during a closed beta phase or even an alpha phase.  This is something that should have been done over a year ago, or an iteration of the prior level-as-you-play system from a year ago.  This feels like something that should be used in a game that is specifically not Paladins.  But, the company is so driven and committed to it that I don't think they're going to heed the vocal playerbase-- and to be fair, it feels like a vocal majority rather than the vocal minority-- that I doubt they're going to pull back from it right now.

I think PTS6 hits a place where I can finally sigh, throw up my hands, and say "I guess."  For all it's faults, for everything I feel is wrong with it, it's at least finally offering me a balanced casual experience even if I'm being shortchanged on my rewards and the investment of my time.  As a tier 3 Founder, I don't have to worry about buying Champions anymore, so again, the so-called "Classic" mode will offer me the trade of "worse advancement" for "balanced gameplay," though I still have to put the word "balanced" in those accursed quotation marks.  For as much as I can say, "I guess," I still don't like it.

I really wish I had a better solution, something that allows Hi-Rez to move ahead with their system.  I wish I had that much input or leeway on the company as a fan, a player, an artist, fanartist, and content creator, but I know I'm just one teeny tiny part of the machine.  I just keep coming up short; I really don't have a better offering of how to balance the system, or restore trust, or even restore the player agency that a game like this actually requires in order to flourish.

What I can say, though?

Community management and public relations needs to step up.  Please don't get me wrong here, either:  CMs have an incredibly tough job and they have to deal with a lot of hate, flaming, and bullshit, but they can't be silent day after day.  The team needs to be in front of this literally every single day, talking to the community, hosting more Q&A threads, developer livestreams, and actually showing that they're listening to the input.  They may be getting positive feedback that is steering the current state of the system, but in large part a lot of this could have been avoided:

The company should have been transparent in their goals and plans for this system months in advance.

2017 has been a turbulent year for gaming and developers.  Players are more savvy and less willing, especially in Western markets, to deal with developers that try to do things that they feel are short-changing or otherwise screwing players out of what they feel is a fun, fair, balanced experience.  “Transparency” and “trust” are two critical, key components of free to play gaming that I feel are unjustly overlooked or treated as unfeasable.  That is not the case at all.  As I noted earlier, gamers aren't idiots:  Transparency builds trust.  Being willing to course correct because you were open and honest with your playerbase creates options, opens doors, and makes your players more willing to trust and invest their time-- and money-- in the company and the game.

The community should have been involved in shaping Cards Unbound.

This is a dramatic change.  The community should have had input on how to shape this system over the course of weeks and months, rather than having an ill-conceived, ill-balanced, and frankly ill-executed system being dropped on their lap on a Wednesday afternoon.  I am not against the *concept* of a Cards Unbound system, but I feel like the system would have worked perfectly well within the 5-card, 4-point card confines they currently have.  I think Legendary cards having points and level values is a mistake.  This is a system that, like the Wrecker change, should not have left the PTS cycle.  It still should not leave the PTS cycle.  Honestly, I do openly implore the development team to just release the art assets in as OB64, then for OB65 heed the needs of the community:  Focus on balance.  Focus on bugfixes, and be willing to list not just the most pertinent, but all of them.

Seriously.  All of them.  There are more people than you think that are interested in knowing what and where the bugs were.  Allowing the players that level of trust to know where your mistakes are will make them more willing to quickly jump up and report the things that they see on a broader scale, and acknowledging those bugs quickly and effectively would foster a lot of trust with them.

The company should keep the "eject" button on the table for the patch.

I realize that is the crux of my personal opinion, but I feel that this is something that still needs to be reiterated, put on the table, and stated.  We don't have the metrics on player retention over the last few months, we don't know what the feedback is actually like beyond a quick glance at the fourms, and most tellingly, I cannot recall the last time that Hi-Rez has sent out a player survey to email boxes or had linked in the game's main screen/UI for over twenty patches.  Operating solely on what we can see-- the fourm announcements, a scant offering comment or three subreddit-- people are, bluntly, *pissed*.  I realize that Hi-Rez has done a lot to get OB64 ready, and I realize that there's a lot on the line for them to push what they have, but at a certain point there needs to be a willingness to say, "Maybe we should pump the brakes."

So, with all of this, at the end, all I can really say about OB64 comes down to a scant few things:  I like the skins.  I like the visuals.  I'm glad we're finally getting lore.  I'm really hoping Skye isn't just a cookiecutter villain or spy cliche.  I've heard Mal'damba might be more morally gray and pretty interesting.  I just ... look at the rest, sigh, and go, "I guess."

Balance changes that don't make sense.  Champions that still have innate caut at ridiculous levels.  Skye having her LMB damage reduced unnecessarily while also losing her 25% movement bonus in Hidden without anything to compensate for her kit being hit so hard.  "I guess."

I don't want to feel "I guess."  I want to have the same feelings I had for the last twenty patches, excited, ready to go, and continuing my hatred for anyone that picks Lex and Vivian.  I'm willing to give the patch a go.  I want to keep enjoying Paladins, but I don't want to see the playerbase pick up and leave.  I don't want to see people hating on the game.  I want to see Paladins succeed.  I want a Paladins Worlds 2020.  I want to be there for the game, as a community creator, commentator, blogger, or more.  I love this game, and I've met a lot of amazing people through it.  I've had my audience explode because of it, and I value what I've been given through it.

I just... don't want "I guess."

edit 12/14/17: Touched up a little bit of the grammar and some spelling errors, sorry about that.  I was having A Night!

[feralknights]

Paladins OB64 Patch Preview

It was really interesting.  There’s going to be big changes to the card system coming, and one full week of PTS while they monitor changes to the system, player feedback, and make adjustments accordingly!

You can read about Cards Unbound HERE.

I’ll write more about them and this pretty ambitious change soon!

[feralknights]

Paladins OB62 - Early Thoughts

Hey guys!  Unfortunately I’m in the line of a massive storm heading up through my area and it looks like I’m going to get slammed-- I wanted to write some early thoughts about the upcoming patch before any potential power outages.  If you haven’t seen, you can read the patch notes HERE.

Leading off with the obvious:  Soft reveal/Illuminate!

I feel like it should have been one or the other for this patch, not both at once.  I'm not particularly a fan of Illuminate's range increasing (natch), as the normal soft reveal range (it's always seemed to be about 5 feet/units?) plus 20 more units is I think enough to hit Skye's "damage starts dropping off" range-- for a character who is almost entirely dependent on dives and getting that first hit in, it's going to hit her the hardest as Sha Lin and Seris have the advantage of being projectile champs over hitscans.

I'm hoping that this buff is held "soft" and will be open to getting reduced back to 15, especially depending on how the soft reveal changes work out-- roughly 25 units of reveal for 200 credits feels a bit much, but I don't have the data.  Or hell, maybe this opens the door further to Skye adjustments/kit tweaks?  I know she's frustrating on console play with how run-and-gun blitz'y she can be, but as a PC player, I'm just worried about console control limitations and the reportedly super-heavy aim assist impacting my platform.

Ash's Battering Ram losing CC immunity feels like it will hurt, but to be utterly honest I run Resilience *a lot*, so barring an excess of stuns and slows I should be okay.  I liked Rally Here but rarely had a good comp to use it, so the change will make it a *lot* more impactful and I am hella down with that.

The Buck fix has me screaming "Hallelujah," I usually run Resilience as soon as I see a CC-heavy line and getting tossed from Frog Isle a pretty nutso distance drove me nuts.  I'm in a weird place where I could have never believed the Cassie Incitement nerf would be coming in real life; a bunch of folks I've talked to in the past were in the feedback loop of them complaining about it, but also *using* it.

I don't play a lot of Drogoz anymore, but I'm okay with the vertical getting reined in a little bit.  However, I have said and I still say that I hope mobility and vertical mobility are things that come around and stay in Paladins-- a light touch as required, rather than scare-slamming things with a hammer, etc.

Grohk's rework is a long time coming, and I'm glad it's here.  He and Buck were two characters I never really touched, but I like a lot of what I see with Big Blue, especially with that totem health increase.  Bulldozer value GOOOOOOO.

Big fan of Kinessa getting some love.

Lex getting more damage on Discovery makes me cringe a bit-- the entire purpose of the Legendary was that he was supposed to trade damage for utility, but I've written volumes about my problems with him and his kit, up to and including the drastic need for In Pursuit having separate, distinct SFX to his normal shots.  Shot cadence isn't enough, especially in a game where unique audio cues are critical to gameplay.

Terminus' tweaks give me a few up-and-down feelings; Power Siphon sticks out to me especially since I've heard conflicting reports to it and how it interacts with abilities:  Some have told me that Terminus can use Power Siphon to charge up to full charges off Skye's Time Bomb, but he still eats the damage, but others still have said they've charged, not lost any shielding, and flat-out 0 damage facetank it.  I haven't had enough time against him, I'm afraid.  It's bad enough that Zhin can counter a massive explosion! :cry:

Speaking of, I'm glad Zhin's Billow is getting that additional 2s, but the healing attached to it's associated Legendary still makes me frown a bit.  He's essentially a mobile Ice Block with way more healing than Evie-- she's got flight and teles on her side, so it creates a weird scenario where I can see why he can get more heals, but I don't necessarily agree with it.

I don't play a lot of Willo, but the reductions actually make me squint a little-- they weren't particularly egregious to me, but I think this falls back to the "soft touch vs hammer" analogy with mobility.

And as intrepid Palafan Tixxel points out, Inara’s Earthen Guard tooltip has been inaccurately showing the bonus healing to be 60% when as of OB52 it was buffed to 80%.  It hasn’t been changed since that I’ve found at a cursory glance, but the tooltip still claims it to be 60%.  Keep your eyes on your heals, Inara mains!

UPDATE 10/30/17: I’ve spoken to Krett and been informed that it is in fact 60% and the tooltip is correct.  The 80% bonus healing was rolled back during the PTS phase alongside the tweaks to Zhin and Mal’damba pre-release, and was just one of those things that fell through the cracks.  I apologize if I’ve gotten folks confused, I’ll have to keep my eye on things more closely in the future!

[feralknights]

Runepunk Skye!  Kind of.

As I said in an earlier post, Holt had asked on Twitter about champions and visual reworks.  A lot of folks immediately shouted out Skye, Grohk, and even a few calling for Kinessa though I think her design is absolutely amazing and also does not need to change.

To me, Skye's design is iconic to Paladins-- everyone, especially folks that love or hate her and her polarizing kit, knows who she is from a look, and I don't want to see that go away.  In this, I just wanted to pay respect to that design while also giving it an update, something to make it look and feel good and in place with the Realm.

I haven't really done an update to her Wrist Crossbow-- I think it's such a cool and unique weapon for her that it doesn't actually need updating; maybe a few touches here or there, but it's just that rad.

Also, she has pockets.  And a pouch.  Because carrying things is a thing!

[feralknights]

I still love Ash, but they need to address this.

[feralknights]

Palablog: Strike One?

So what was I talking about with criticisms and complaints?

Skye's introduction in PalaStrike involves her walking forward like a runway model, blinking from point to point with stealth in a way that is just way too cool for words.  Then, she slowly gestures around the shape of her breasts, rubs her hand down her abdomen and the inside of her thigh, back up her butt, side, up her chest, then goes into a blown kiss.

What?  Like... seriously?

Now, don't get me wrong, Skye is definitely meant to be a femme fatale and sexy and all that, but this escalates the "dangerous flirt" into a realm of "this is cringey and uncomfortable to look at" and comes down to the conceit of "sexy vs sexualization."  Long-time followers of my work will know I am not in any way, shape, or form against sexy characters, but there is a heavy difference between these things.  In fact, it goes further than that-- in discussing it with a friend that works and writes for video games, he mentioned an article that he had read that breaks it down into three catergories: Sexy, sexual, and sexualization.  I have a massive headache and my ability to remain eloquent is starting to fade, so I'll quote my friend and I’s conversation:

"I read once that there's actually three words that can be applied. Sexy, sexual, and sexualized. Sexy is 'Skye in a body suit showing cleavage'. It's the same way say, Widow in Overwatch is sexy (speaking strictly about appearances mind you). Sexual would indeed be, if Skye were seducing someone to kill them, as an assassin might. However, is that the situation that is actually happening? Does the context support that, or is she just jiggling her tits? If the latter, then she's being sexualized--she's not performing the action for any reason other than to titillate the viewer."

"Sexy is fine. Sexual is fine, assuming the context supports it. Sexualized is fine only for porn really."

"... to the uninitiated in how games are made, a 'sexualized' character just looks 'sexy'. But 'sexualized' is a causative verb. It means 'to make sexual'. Or to put it another way, 'someone made the character be sexual' which lacks the context I mentioned being necessary for sexual to work."

"Like, they see Skye jiggling her tits and fool themselves into thinking 'Skye chose this action'.  But that's not true, her modeler did.  Or animator or whatever.  And the only way you can be sure that she would have made that choice... is with context. And if the context fits and works and justifies it, then yes, it would work.  But there's no context... thus, sexual motions don't work."

It's a complex topic, for sure, but I feel like this does need to be addressed, and the sooner the better.

[feralknights]

Long time follower here (more or less), I googled that and got what you mean. Keep your head cool - this is most likely not the final variant of her self-introduction movements set. Trust me - it is strictly verbotten in 2017. Relax.

My head is cool!  Or cool-ish; I’m nursing a crushing headache and sitting on my bed, blanket thrown over me like a tarp.  The light of the daystar hurts me, precious.

I did not say it but I did have a similar thought and I do agree:  This isn’t final and what goes into final release may be radically, but it also doesn’t mean that it can’t be remarked on or criticized. 

I often times joke that I’m the most harsh of a critic when it comes to the things that I love; Warframe, Paladins, etc. – I focused on criticism in this instance, but the art team has done some really good work and I admittedly failed to highlight that in the post.

Ultimately, I don’t think they need a lot:  Just dial it back a bit.

edit: I think it was more that, at first, the animation went into the game at all, if that makes sense, and my reaction was to just kind of go, “But ... why??”  That is to say, if they kept the stealth-teleport runway walk and just went straight into the blown kiss, it would’ve been a 14/10 S+++ intro animation.

I dunno.  We’ll see, tender anon!

[feralknights]

Forgot to post this.

[feralknights]

Palablog: OB56+OB57

Hoo nelly, fellas.  OB56 + OB57 were absolute doozies for me, and I mean that in the best way possible.  I'm sorry I haven't responded to asks or been updating much lately, things just got busy and then I was running a lot of hardware upgrades so I missed a chunk of the OB56 patch cycle, and ... yeah.

I'll get the Skye gushing for OB56/OB57 out of the way now:  These two patches have been significant quality of life improvements for me as a Skye main and all across the board.  I think the art team knocked it out of the park with both the Samurai Ash skin (I didn't call it Ronin for a reason, will explain!) and Kunoichi Skye.  We saw the entrance of the Skye Mastery skins, too.  OB56 brought us the 1800->2000 HP boost as well as Retribution finally getting the nerfs it's needed since Lex was released, and OB57 gave us the reworks to Debilitate and Surprise Attack.

In a weird way, Skye having that extra 200 HP made something of a negative impact on me early on.  I was so used to the audio cues for low HP at 1800 that I'd overplay my hand and spent the first day or two fumbling around getting my butt handed to me.  I've gotten used to it over time; the tweaks to her damage dealing and range made my life a whole lot easier and has enabled me to (in some cases) actually work around people that actually buy Illuminate.

I still haven't tried Surprise Attack, but I'm actually somewhat curious to now.  At first I thought, "just slapping more damage onto it will not fix the fact that it is an objectively terrible legendary," but I gave it more thought and gave Raynday's video on SA a watch.  Now, he did amazing with it, but he also had a team comp and players on his side that allowed him to have some of that pressure aleviated from him.  Similarly, our test sample for his praise was one match-- I want to give it more hands-on time, but this means I'm probably going to have to build a deck that balances some of Skye's mandatory cards with cooldown cards and find what works right for me.

Is it weird I'm actually kind of looking forward to trying Surprise Attack at all?

Admittedly, I'm going to miss the innate cauterize effect of Poison Bolts, but if you think about it, the reworks to Decrepify allow it to actually be even more punishing, even more dangerous than it ever was before.  Decrepify is a card that rarely leaves my Debilitate decks with Skye, and now it's more than likely going to be a cornerstone for the Twilight Assassin.

With Strix's introduction, it did highlight issues that Skye still has with cards, but I can understand if the team wants to pump the brakes on further Skye adjustments for the time being:  Healing Vapors is still essentially a useless card at 1-2, mediocre at best at 3, and just not worth the value at 4.  Comperable cards on different champions grant way more value at almost any level, from Androxus' Abyss Walker healing a burst of 40/80/120/160 to Lex's Fortitude healing 25/50/75/100 damage across 1.5s, and then they have access to healing items such as Life Rip-- and Life Rip is essentially the only form of feasable long-term self-sustain that Skye has available to her.

I'm still trying really hard to Devil's Advocate myself on how to justify Slip Away still existing in the form it does.  Ninja and Dissipate both serve the purpose for stealth speed boosts, and I personally feel Victory Rush is one of the best cards in the game.  Again, personally, I'd rather it be "gain damage reduction while in stealth" at the same values it has right now.  Of course, it was easier to justify conditional up-to 20% DR when Skye was at 1800 HP.

OB56 brought a lot of exciting changes in general:  Ash was given an additional ult charge on Rally Here, arguably her weakest legendary.  Admittedly, if I know a team is going to try to maintain point presence and stay with me, I will play the hell out of Rally Here; the damage boost makes ally Ruckus players or even a good Fernando or Ying turn into crazy point-dominating monsters.  Buck's Bulk Up was given an extra boost-- and I'll be honest, I'm glad.  I sometimes feel bad for the guy, because I rarely ever see him played anymore.

Cassie's Exaction was given a light bop on the nose in OB56 though the thing I hear complained about the most is that her dodge roll is almost always up as long as you can land one shot-- and that's honestly not too hard given how much faster her projectiles move these days.  Jenos' HP reduction was warranted and welcome; I love the guy and I play him pretty hard as a support, but he was just too hard to kill.  I barely felt the adjustments to Stellar Wind or Astral Mark, I run a CD reduction build on him and just keep churning heals.

Jenos does present an interesting situation that I hope gets looked at:  Though negative status effects are cleared from her when she goes into her ice block, Astral Mark will persist.  Essentially, if Evie is running the Reprieve Legendary card, she will get all of that healing as well as the healing from Jenos, and all of that healing will just keep going right when she comes flying out of it.  In essence, this allows even a mediocre-at-best Evie to be an absolute immortal monster.

Retribution got nerfed hard in OB56, and I could not be happier.  I'm actually a bit surprised, if only because I was hoping for some QOL tweaks, or one or two touches, I didn't expect such a drastic swat on the ability.  OB57 brought some interesting changes to Lex, and slowly he's coming to the point where I feel like he could potentially be fun to play as as much as against.

The semi-auto was a good change, I feel, but after a few days I started to see the problems with Lex's new Magnums:  The ammo count is too high, the accuracy drop from rapid firing is too low, and it does nothing to address the problem of Lex having In Pursuit, still arguably one of the most devastating abilities in the game.

"Feral, you're mad.  You just hate Lex.  1050 damage over 1.5s is nothing!"

I mean yeah I do dislike Lex's kit, but you can't argue with the fact that as he is right now, Lex can pop In Pursuit for unerring auto-aim accuracy for 1.5s at long range while Combat Sliding in at a target I dare say farther and faster than even Cassie's roll, then hammering 10 shots out for long-range *and* burst potential that comes dangerously close to Point Blank Skye.

In essence, I just hope that In Pursuit's functionality is given a second glance now that he's got these devastating new Magnums.  I also would like to see if it's possible to get the rapid fire inaccuracy increased a bit, because gosh.  dang.

Lian is an interesting case; I make claim about how much I hate auto-aim on Lex but I mind it slightly less on Lian.  I really wish I could better explain it, but something just feels "off" about her kit-- maybe it realy does have something to do with her being able to have two auto-aims?  I'll have to ruminate on it more.

and the grover puns man wtf arrghghhggh

Skipping ahead a little, the Ying changes are great.  Back as recently as 3 patches ago, I was on the train that Ying needed to have Lifelike boosted by 5-10% to help address her throughput, but Illusory Rift is absolutely great and the changes to her in-hand attack are almost terrifying to play against-- but in a good way, of course.

A'right, now that we've gotten this far:  It's time for Strix.

I love Strix.  Dude is insane.  His rifle feels great, offers a lot of feedback when you're firing, and it feels responsive.  His pistol does a lot to offer him some close-range gameplay, and I like that he's so polarizing (long or short range) compared to Kinessa (long or mid-range).  Flare is incredibly powerful, and I would argue almost *too* powerful-- I don't mean that this needs to be slapped hard, but definitely monitored.  They say "large radius" in his skill description, but from some light testing it looks like it's a near-100 unit radius.  I run Flare XL 3 (increases the reveal range significantly) and Overburn 3 (increases flare duration by 3s), so I'm covering a pretty massive swath of a map for about 6 seconds-- that's basically Cassie's ult without the CC/speed boost with a pretty short downtime.

I thought I'd be a little more leery of toggle stealth, but it actually works great.  I've compared Strix a lot to some Warframe friends as being like a MOBA version of Ivara, and when I say this, I mean it in the most complimentary fashion that I can possibly achieve.  Ivara is one of my favorite Warframes as her gameplay pushes for a methodical, strategy-driven focus, stealthing at opportune times, and playing to enemy awareness.

As I said earlier in regards to Skye and her sustain cards, Strix has a card, Escape Plan.  If you aren't familiar with it, if Strix is at 65% or lower health, Escape Plan will heal Strix for 100/200/300/400.  As a burst heal sustain, this is great, and arguably as good as a maxed out Abyss Walker and close to the potential of other non-legendary sustain cards for Flanks.  I really hope the team considers giving HV a rework to be closer to this; the current state of Healing Vapors makes it take too long for too little effect.  But, again, balance, and changing too much in too short of time, etc., etc. -- I can still hope, though!

And in case you didn't know, there's another one on the horizon:  PALADINS STRIKE!  A 5v5 actual MOBA-style Paladins game for Android/iOS.  The game has me excited, and I've signed up for the alpha.  I have some concerns and criticisms about the decisions the team has made for the game, however, and I'll highlight that in my next post.

edit: Made a few tweaks for clarity, going through and highlighting/emphasizing certain words.  Also forgot:

Why did I say "Samurai Ash" instead of "Ronin Ash?"  Because ... really, there's nothing about this incarnation of Ash that makes her a ronin.  She's wearing full armor and helmet, discussing honor very heavily, and carrying a flag that would signify she's actually serving a feudal lord/house, rather than being honorless.  I was kind of bummed that the only Ash/Skye interaction we got was a one-way "poison bad!!" thing from Ash that is just basically the same thing as her default voice pack.

[feralknights]

[aggressive self-fanning]

[feralknights]

Do you play Skye on competitive too (if you play competitive at all)? If you do I'm sure you've gotten called out for it, but how were the results? And how do you usually do on non-comp games?

I do not actually play comp– there is nothing in there right now that actually makes me want to play it, both as a Skye main and as a Paladins player in general.  I’m sure that sort of thing will change if/when they release things like skins that only unlock for purchase if you hit xyz-rating, because I will absolutely slam down some my bux/time if I like the look of something in a game.

Not playing Competitive is also usually why I also encourage people to take my feedback with a grain of salt, as I consider myself an average player-or-a-little-better on my best days!  I’ve been invited to play in a couple of community tournaments in the past, too, but my Skyrim internet connection is a little unreliable until (bare minimum) the end of the summer– fiber’s coming into the area sometime between now and the end of the year!

But, I’ve been called out plenty for playing Skye even in Casuals– the people that can’t cut it in comp, the people that take the game far too seriously regardless of mode, etc., will usually give you a lot of crap for it from the start.  If your team loses while you’re playing Skye, well, then that’s because you picked Skye and it’s all your fault regardless of what’s going on, enemy team composition, and so forth.

It varies from game to game, but on average I feel like I do pretty good.  If Lex is on the field because, again, Retribution is still the most broken and unbalanced mechanic in Paladins, it’s not unusual for me to go at most 9 elims and 15-20 deaths.  On the average, though, I can pull 36-40 elims and 3-10 deaths– even if I don’t get the high damage score, I go after the priority targets and the people that aren’t paying attention!

[feralknights]

[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.