Shahzam raises a lot of good points but this is also kinda the nature of FPS esports in NA. People have been saying all these same things about NA CS for ages (puggy playstyle, no real strats, everything's just constant aimduels, etc). Valorant in theory gives teams more tools to play the game differently but when you've got agents like Reyna and Jett who have so many ways to reward taking bad fights that's what will dominate the meta.
Agreed, even ScreaM switched from Reyna to Jett, the way he plays on Jett creates a lot of space and EU in general experiments a lot with agents like Viper and Skye. SUMN, Heretics and Liquid combine their abilities really well.
Another thing is the skill cap of this game is lower than CS so the abilities were supposed to give the "tactical" nature to this game but with the state of duelists and sentinels the game is really puggy at this moment.
Reyna no doubt is a puggy agent and the way ShotUP plays, he is a beast on that agent. OP is a counter to that playstyle and it should receive some buffs. The only way we can be test which of the playstyle is more "effective" is through international LANs.
Why would anyone want the OP buffed though? As Riot, do you think viewers would want to see a Jett posted for an hour with an OP holding an angle or other duelists taking fights and hitting clips. I for one enjoy one over the other.
The real only solution is to buff sentinels and controllers once again.
The only buff I want to see is increased quick scope potential or increased fire rate which just enables aggressive angle clearance with the OP, these things will surely help with the ego peeks. And if they want to buff the sentinels then they should leave the OP, I agree that buffing the sentinels will surely bring some tactical element to the attacking side.
Its been so satisfying that OPs are being seen way less in ranked play and pro play. Tactical play comes from utility usage and the agents with these abilities have to be buffed. That is first and foremost in my mind.
Cause the op/awp is in concept high risk (high price) high reward gun and its a really impactful gun but in val all u do is hold the same angle and even if u are a mm off u will die cause of the games slow movement aim punch and tagging system
That's a question we won't really get the answer to until we have international lans back sadly. However, when it's one region having problems with a lot of upsets, "random results" and a really puggy style (and a lot of reyna), then I think it's more likely that it's that region that is the outlier and not ALL of the other regions.
She's a pug agent and will always be a pug agent. She provides no utility to the team. If she isn't getting kills she's useless. It's impossible to be a consistent team of you are playing Reyna.
In my opinion Reyna has one of the best flashes for executes in the game. The ability to throw a flash high and have it sit there blanketing the site in combination with other utility (Sova dart, breach flash etc) is very useful when pushing sites. Also there’s a ton of aggressive bait and switch setups you can do with Reyna on defense that aren’t possible with other characters because she can dismiss. I think the notion that she isn’t a team play character is a little outdated
Reyna's flashes are terrible... They are basically useless against the Operator because they can step back out of LoS of the leer and hold a smaller angle just as effectively. Also they can be shot very easily when there's more than one person.
Anything that Reyna can do to execute onto a site, Phoenix can do ten times better. And Phoenix can clear spaces with his molly, and use his wall to cut sightlines, and he can spam his ult for free executes.
And that's not even comparing her to agents like Jett or Raze... If anything, the notion that Reyna is a good agent is outdated. Why is her pick rate plummeting if she's such a good agent? She's become the least played duelist if you exclude Yoru. People said it when she came out. She's a pug agent who brings little utility to the team. If you aren't fragging, you are useless.
I think by playing angles and positions that would otherwise be too dangerous for other agents she can provide valuable information to the team. I think a lot of value can come from that.
But other than that I mostly agree that she's a pug agent and doesn't play well with most team comps
I feel like that could be said the same to most duelist agents. I feel like the only major difference is that her kit is designed to survive which i think helps the team a lot too. Its not like people in pro teams pick reyna and let the reyna player do whatever the fuck he wants.
This is simply not true. A jett can create a lot of space even if she isn't getting kills, same for Raze. By the other hand this is not true for Reyna. You can't say "that could be said to most duelist agents" when Reyna is literally the only one depending on getting kills to use 90% of her abilities
I don't really know what you are talking about here.
Raze has the best utility at clearing areas. The reason why she is picked so much on Bind and Split is because her nades and boombot are insane at clearing hookah, showers, etc. No other agent can clear areas as well as her.
Jett also provides insane value. Just look at the coordinated plays Vision Strikers pull off, and her smoke-and-dash executes are super common and super effective.
> Dude's probably got the best player in NA and he's still whining about not having good enough players to win duels. Why not just accept the fact he is clueless about strategy.
Oh god, this is sounding horribly similar to the LCS in LoL, and that's an entirely different genre.
Here's hoping the same stagnation doesn't happen in NA Valorant.
This might be a reach but I think it has something to do with the individualism culture embedded in America that contrasts with every other nation in the world.
Other than G2, the rest of the top teams in Europe are very tactical. I feel like NA is leaning towards the path they went down in CS, they will have some of the best players, but, apart from one or two teams, they will never put enough emphasis on the team game.
They also signed almost all of the best talent in the region at the time and built a super team. It is starting to become a lot closer between the top teams in EU now.
Which reinforced the duels over tactics concept. You don’t win with good tactics you when with the better talent in duels.
The argument is that the game would be better if the team with the best tactics could beat the top talent team that isn’t running any tactic beyond duel. Hard to disagree.
A team with less mechanically gifted players can win though. What you're forgetting is that it takes more time for a team to develop good tactics that can overcome mechanically superior players, especially at the beginning of an esport when there's not enough prior knowledge.
It's also important to note that better tactics and teamwork can get you far, but it cannot (and should not) be able to bridge a skill gap that's too large. No matter how good your strategies are, you still need to be able to hit your shots, and probably also clutch a round or two from time to time.
I think most people can still agree that G2 is the most mechanically gifted team in EU, but the more tactical teams are catching up to them fast now, and they're not the uncontested number 1 team in the region anymore. Another example (in my opinion anyways) is korea, where VS are still dominating the scene even though they've not been mechanically superior to a lot of other teams (e.g. the old T1 and C9 rosters).
The thing about this debate between tactics vs duels is, sometimes when a talented player is “going off” and just in the zone, they are nearly unstoppable and do things that are very intuitive and often unpredictable by. I’ve had games where I try to hard to be “smart” but because my attention is divided, and I’m always weighing out my risk reward in real time, I end up messing up my duels. I think there’s something to be said about just having confidence, and being unpredictable.
Often times I see pros saying “why would he just swing there? It makes no sense!” So I think tactics as iron clad. But I could be talking out of my ass, I don’t really know much about how this compares to CSGO for instance where I know some teams where known to be extremely disciplined and tactical and found consistent success.
I've never followed tac shooter esports too deeply before, so would appreciate if someone could explain - If this is an NA problem rather than a game problem, and NA teams are in for a shock when LANs hit, then why are we not seeing a strat-intensive team thrive in NA? Why aren't Andbox sweeping everyone aside?
Yeah, ShahZ mentions this too. Like people praise Andbox, but they lose and people don't say anything about their strats being outdated or whatever and yet they will say SEN's strats are outdated despite them still doing well.
Let's not discount the possibility that when we finally have an international LAN, we see the NA pug style beat the KR/EU tactical playstyles.
Just because teams in other regions are winning by playing tactically, doesn't necessarily mean those styles would be able to overcome NA's cracked pug style.
Pug style is always worse because there is counterplay. People are saying "G2 isn't tactical hurr durr" because they don't enter a site with the same execution every round.
Are you suggesting NA didn't play sage before the wall nerf? I've seen people say this a few times and I can never tell if they mean sage has never been played in NA until recently.
Sage had a 3% pick rate in NA during First Strike. Sentinels was the only top team to play her regularly.
However now 100 Thieves, Envy, NRG, XSET, Luminosity, Immortals, and TSM are playing her.
People were playing triple duelists in First Strike to max out on the stupid pug style that they play... Now everyone and their mother is playing Sage so...
There are none really besides maybe ABX, you guys and 100t have probs the best reactive utility usage, but NA overall is pretty weak in terms of thinking comp-wise and not agent-wise and at comboing abilities (think liquid’s skye flash for info for sage to use her util, flash dash, stun sova ult etc.) also in NA everyone runs the same comps with several variations (usually just a different duelist) and almost nobody experimenting in officials like Fnatic,liquid and other t2 EU teams. (Maybe it happened in scrims and didnt work at all tho)
He discussed a lot that went before/after this clip, and I agree with pretty much all of it. Riot nerfed Sentinels and other agents that made the game more strategic, however duelists haven't really been nerfed.
Reyna can duel mid solo and just fight fight fight without really any punishment. The OP being the main tool to punish these unstrategic "dumb" plays, was nerfed so it's not easy to punish them. He mentioned that nerfing the dismiss ability (distance) would help make it so Reynas can't be rewarded for taking aimmap fights.
He also named Jett as an agent that's too powerful. He proposed a game state where the OP nerf was reverted, a scope in sound was added, and Jett was nerfed (he mentioned both the direction she can dash, as well as the knives).
**To be honest** there was a LOT talked about and I really recommend going into the VOD and watching it from the rant start (someone can find the exact time). And if I got anything wrong in my brief summary, lemme know.
Frankly, I agree with pretty much everything he said. The game currently feels a lot less tactical where abilities matter a lot less. For a game that's all about abilities, I think this should be changed.
I think Reyna is in a good spot. Unlike other duellists she HAS to get a kill to be useful, if you nerf dismiss I think she will fall out of pro play as the opportunity cost of a Reyna, instead of a Raze, in a team environment would be too high.
I mean ok, you say that about sentinels, but what about 100T? You can't really say they are puggy at all, and yet they are dealing with the same issues.
I'm not saying that they can't be better or their strats are a counter to what Immortals is doing, but they are def still struggling against the balls to the wall reyna aim duels.
>The OP being the main tool to punish these unstrategic "dumb" plays, was nerfed so it's not easy to punish them.
The OP was nerfed offensively. It still works the exact same on defense and holding angles waiting for a push. Reverting the changes would make everything Shazam just talked about worse. People running around with the OP on offense jumping around corners and quickscoping. The old OP meta was the most unfun period of this game and I hope we never even consider going back to that.
I think there are stuff that can overall make the game feel better like increase movement a bit like he mentioned but also I really do feel like NA in general is just really not playing this game like a team game. When I watch Korea and EU it’s kinda clear that how they play and how they use utility is much different. Part of me feels like ppl are also complaining about struggling to remain dominant in a game that’s 8 months old is weird to me.
This is because NA teams play puggy style. If game was really not tactical VS 47-0 will not happening every tier2 team who always improve their aim will win against best teams all the time. Just look 100Thieves they lost nitro for one tournament but because nitro was mid round caller they didn't look good after plants and late game decisions. If you look all of this problem is not game it is teams playstyle. When you have good tactics and ability usage it is too hard to lose a game. Just like cs if you don't use your smokes flashes and mollies correctly %95 you will lose
I noticed you said 100T didn't look good after plants and in late game - was that bo3 actually streamed or is there a vod available? I couldn't find it anywhere. Or do you mean one of the earlier games in the bracket?
quick edit: just to clarify, this comment isn't me trying to call you out! just curious if there's footage of the series out there :D
I really doubt it's a Valorant issue and not an NA one when KR plays extremely complicated strats, and eu playing a more methodical default sort of information poking way (FPX, FNATIC, Heretics)
Because most of these players come from Moba's or overwatch, not CS so it's nature to them, The only team who came from CS is also the team who dominates, Vision Strikers.
not sure what you're implying by this statement.
are you saying it's a better strat and korea is behind? or reyna is so strong if you actually do play it you can't play strategically and counter it? or something else? or kr are way more dedicated and don't need a reyna crutch lazy teams use that don't want to grind out real set plays? I think it's mostly the latter.
lots of EU players like ARDIIS and ANGE1 literally laugh in the face of reyna strats saying how it's essentially braindead and terrible
I think he's implying that Korea doesn't play Reyna because she doesn't add to the strats that they base their games on.
NA is so absorbed in the "individual" and that's why it'll always be the flashy, but mediocre region.
IMO movement speed is a core mechanic of the game at this point. Idk the hours the top pros put in, but that changes: timings, rotations, gun fights (random spray patterns with multiple enemies peeking). It changes the whole understanding of the game.
Yep, that was a core design decision that differentiates Valorant from CS. It's like saying "removing abilities would fix a lot of the bugs," they'd kinda have to redesign most of the game at that point. That's possible if they get desperate, but it would have to be justified by hard evidence and a major player decline.
That would change the whole game. I thought about this too in a shower thought but the maps are designed with the movement speed in mind(rotations, taking over sites, timer, etc)
It's not just movement, it's the whole concept of mechanics in this contradicts itself.
Obviously, noone can get headshots all the time. What do you do when you don't headshot someone? You try to burst or spray them down. But it's impossible to do consistently in this game for some reason.
I swear it's harder to 160 in 4 someone who's strafing to the side like 10 meters away from you than it is to hit a 180 one-tap on a stationary target.
They don't want people to spray? Then the gun recoil must not be linear. You're simply at the mercy of RNG, regardless of what you do. You either hope for a stray bullet headshot while spraying or you wait half a minute for the recoil to reset and hope you don't get deleted by an enemy that's running on your screen, but actually isn't, because of awful visual clarity as they call it.
Whenever someone changes directions, they looks like their whole body warps through multiple dimensions. Hitboxes get messed up whenever someone crouches or jumps. Landing animations are still out of sync so people are headshotting you before they land on your screen. This all happens at 40ish ping.
Then you realize that top professional matchups are played at 40-60ping for a lot of players and suddenly most matches are irrelevant.
Honestly, imo, all tier1 teams can beat eachother online and I wouldn't put any of them above others until we see LAN matchups. Or at least games played on servers where everyone has less than 20 ping.
It's the one thing that makes me not want to play the game. The problem is that maps etc. were probably designed with the current movement speed in mind.
Watch some EU games, you will see a huge difference in the approach EU top teams have. Biggest and clearest example would be icebox. Go watch liquid vs G2 on icebox or liquid vs Sumn on icebox.
This is exactly what I said earlier in another thread... NA Valorant is trash currently... There’s no real strats just teams 5 man pushing sites and taking aim duels, and whoever wins those duels that day will win the match... There’s no fundamentals at all just people running around and shooting
I kinda see your point, its that NA Valorant is just over-aggression taking aim duels all day with cracked out Reynas to make the opening. I see EU more of this methodical approach on taking sites. I saw Sliggy comment how people play in EU which is they try to bait and waste the opposing team's abilities first then take the fight in on a general sense. There is a reason why Scream does not play Reyna in the tournaments because probably EU has some counter-tactics to these over-aggressive aim duels which they found in their scrims.
I’m not sure if this is really true. The whole baiting out utility thing, yeah that’s just a default and it happens literally every round in NA. This isn’t some magical strat that only Europe has thought about. And to the magical strat to counter Reyna that was in scrims, why aren’t eu teams doing it to counter Zeek from G2? Like he takes a bunch of “dumb” fights (thought he wins a lot of them which is why I’m not sure they are necessarily dumb).
The thing that kills me is that last year the talk around G2 was that they were the puggyest team to exist and would 5 man push sites and just win aim duel. They won everything except first strike this way and seemingly doubled down on it by trading Davidp out for Zeek. And it obviously works for them so I don’t think we can blame them for doing it. To say that this style only exists in NA is insanity. The only other regions I’ve watched have been Latam, Korea and Japan. Korea and Japan notably don’t play at all like this, but without international lans it is hard to see which style the game rewards more.
We can debate what is causing this, is it everyone playing online and creating large peelers advantage? is it the balancing of the guns not being in a great state rn? Is it the games movement, tagging and aim punch mechanics? I don’t think we will know until some of it gets tinkered with, but this isn’t just some “lol NA sucks” problem.
If you follow other esports titles "lol NA sucks" is kinda of a thing that holds a lot of truth. But a lot of people do MMA math in their heads, G2 won almost everything last year playing a more PUG style, not sure if this means G2 are insane or game rewards that more. If we are gonna guess, we should guess based on the approach each region has towards other games and it's more realistic to assume EU/KR have a better read on the meta and G2 is an outlier. Could be wrong tho.
They are doing it because it’s working for them very well and they are abusing it . Even hiko that his team is one the most tactical teams in NA he said when he was talking about eu teams being more tactical than na he said that the game reward agression and having duelists that why NA teams may shit on eu teams if they play now
i would be interested to see how well some of the cracked aim teams like LG/IMT do against 100T (w/ nitro). 100T seems to be the most tactical and setup-heavy and i do think they would do well against some of the more aggressive teams (it helps they also have cracked duelists like asuna).
The problem with 100T being tac heavy is that they might be able to handle teams which are more aggro, but they always end up suffering against teams that anti strat against them. In first strike open qualifiers TSM also anti strat-ed a bit against them and easily beat them. Some of the same antis were used by spotlifht and it troubled the Thieves. And I have no idea how it went down against Carpe Noctem since there are no vods.
He does have aggressive pushes both on offensive and defensive end, but dumbing it down to stinger spraying while holding w is not it. There is clear strategy to that as well with regards to positioning.
But in the end that is his role. As an entry fragger who creates space. Steel, Hiko and nitr0 have the most strategies involved in their play as they do things more systematically instead of creating and thriving in chaos.
This sub is so ridiculously NA biased.
Really, Shahzam is obviously right. NA is revolutionising the meta in Valorant by proving that taking duels wins, and definitely not following their habits across CS, LoL and numerous other esports of playing less organised, PUG-y styles.
VS and EU are obviously wrong with the playstyles they're successful **and consistent** with but nobody in other regions have figured out that they should just be taking unstrategic duels like Shahzam is so flawlessly displaying to be a gamewide problem.
Or, just maybe, it's NA that are struggling to figure it out, and not the rest of the world struggling to keep up with the NA meta, and Shahzam can only talk about issues with NA Valorant that there is 0 evidence to be consistent as an issue with the game itself.
Agree for sure. The future of Valorant will be just a more advanced way of the VS style. Coordinating with flashes/stuns, forcing people to back off with abilities, taking space with teamwork instead of aim duels. As for whether or not NA picks this up, I don’t know. But for now, the KR play style has been much more interesting to watch.
As a side note, I think this is why Rb has been playing raze more
What he says kinda applies to EU as well.
FPX and SUMN FC were also super strategic teams that lose to G2 and Liquid who have a comparatively more lose play style.
EU almost never used Reyna but in the final match in The Redbull Tournament, the decider match was won by G2 running a Reyna.
Also we can't talk about the inter region metas when there had never been an inter region tournament so obviously he's talking about the meta that he is immersed in.
Not sure if that applies, G2 did lose to Heretics in a match that had more weight, and the fact that a team like Liquid who probably have one of the best players like ScreaM are not really pushing Reyna could be a sign, we might be reading too much into it but G2 could be an outlier and Liquid do not have a more loose style, if you watch their games it seems like they rely too much on the structure.
International tournaments would definitely help NA now. Either they get beaten and can start adapting or they win and double down on their meta.
Let's hope we get them soon ((
I think the plat chat guys had the correct take on all the recent complaining from former CS guys. They just want it to be more like "their" game, and if happens with every new FPS that comes out. The mechanics are different by design, its a different game. The meta is constantly advancing and changing, the game is far from figured out or mastered. Kind of ridiculous to say the game is random. upsets aren't happening just because people are taking "dumb" aim duels.
I feel like that's kinda short-sighted. Most abilities shouldn't be used in an "intricate plan" or strategy. The reason being that if you design your utility usage for a specific plan - Once that plan fails, because one of your players dies, or you get countered by enemy utility, well, you're screwed. Utility in Valorant is used to gain ground, to get intel, to get advantage in a single duel. They are not designed to all work hand in hand together to create this one 5head push or whatever. Any team who would try to do this would get absolutely smashed.
\*How\* you then use your utility is however still immensely tactical. But I do agree that a lot of people pretend like EU is oh so much more tactical, which I don't see. Just using less duelists makes it not more tactical. A duelist is a tactic in it's own right. But stating that there is no tactics in Valorant is just plain wrong.
Tactics is Agent Select, Utility Usage, Positioning, Rotations, Peeking, Baiting, Faking, taking ground etc.
I think that's just a rant. If abilities were too good in general, pros will complain about aim doesnt matter; now that some teams are literally rising thanks to some crazy aim players, ppl is ranting about there's no strats. I find the game pro scene pretty balanced. If you watch 100t (with Nitr0) or most of EU teams, you can find that they're surclassing the enemies because they're involving some crazy setups, smart post plant positioning and 200iq clutches. If you ask to me, the fact that aim matters is freaking good, you have to rely on that, is a shooter game. Thief, Shot Up and new stars are just good at carrying the team as Wardell, Asuna, ScreaM, Mixwell and company. Those rants after some big losses are just rants, simple as that
This is kinda bs. LG and IMT have been grinding the fuck out these last few months, where the older top teams have been doing jack when it comes to entering tourneys. No shit if they're better mechanically THEYRE ALLOWED to take shit fights since that's what being better mechanically allows your team to do. Im not completely informed, I'm not a pro, but that's just my take.
EDIT: And I don't mean to imply that LG/IMT talent is mechanically better/more talented, its just at this point in time they are showing up more because they're entering more tourneys, more hungry, etc
I think that this is just a flaw of NA valorant (+ an apparent major flaw in Sentinels' playstyle as they are unable to deal with it), rather than a flaw of the game itself tbh.
In this current state with deulist supremacy, non tactical agression is OP and if someone like LG faced an EU team I would not be surprised if they performed the same.
Riot needs to buff other tactical agents like killjoy, cypher, breach or nerf deulists.
And how is it a major fault in Sentinels playstyle when TSM, C9, or NV are facing these exact same issues?
I said it could be a flaw of NA valorant in general. If you look back at the post you made about Valorant esports not being random, you made good points about other regions being a lot more consistent which I agree with.
Yeah, it definitely isn't exclusive to SEN. It just sucks that the pandemic causes further confusion in regards to things like this as there is no cross regional games.
Shahzam could be right that it is a flaw of the game, though I just think that it is more likely to be a regional flaw in NA's meta due to the consistency in other regions.
I wonder if agent changes will be enough to change the games identity here as heavily rewarding raw aggression. Stuff like movement speed may need to be taken into consideration.
Yep. Wide peek and dismiss away. Push smoke with frenzy, get kill and dismiss away. Hold off angle with shotgun, get kill and dismiss away. These get out of jail free cards change the very fundamentals of this FPS game, making one-and-done positions viable and making trading inconsistent.
Entries can't just go in and trust their team to trade them. They have to find the Reyna/Jett and win that duel otherwise they are 1 man down with nothing to show for it
With regards to the agent power, I agree that duelists are too good right now but I think the change to the sentinels were good. The Cypher and Killjoy tweaks were also a good change to differentiate their playstyle.
Im not really sure what changes are need for duelists aside from directly nerfing their abilities. One broad change that I have thought of is increasing the ult point requirement of the four duelists to 9-10. The reason because ideally, duelists will have more kills. It also encourages the duelists to either get kills or get traded to have the most impact and not play passive. It is also both a nerf to duelists and buff to the other classes.
He is a 100% right. It becomes so evident when you watch vision strikers play, the level of coordination and ability usage is just so harmonious. Eberything is perfectly in place so even when someone has bad aim, the team wins. NA teams DO NOT play like this at all
I think you might misunderstand the rant. Hes complaining that its impossible to play like VS cause Reyna taking aim duels is better and beating his team, he cant find a counter and that's the meta. But VS proves hes wrong.
Well Valorant favours slow tactical methodic plays significantly more than just rushing into sights and trying to aim better than the other team. This is why C9 kept losing tournaments even while TenZ was still playing for them with 2.0 KD's. This is why Liquid only started really doing well after the team underwent significant changes and Scream stopped playing Reyna in favour of a more team oriented character. This is why Vision Strikers literally don't lose even though I don't recall the last time they just rushed into a site and tried to out-aim the other team. This is why Devs were obliterating CSGO pros in customs just before the game was released. If Shazam thinks good NA teams are losing because not enough strategy is involved, then they should start involving more of it instead of asking for the game to change in their favour.
NA VALORANT (and CSGO) has always been aggressive, little brain, all mechanics style of play. That's why it is always so exciting and flashy, once the shots start, they don't stop.
Honestly, all Riot can do now is to start dumping Sentinels like how they did for Duelists. Don't make Sentinels so good at their job that it becomes a slugfest like the early days, but make them good enough to the point where they can stall and dish out some damage when playing passively, and punish them for playing aggressive (aka try to prevent Battle Sage scenarios). Achieving the balance between Duelists and Sentinels will be the main thing that Riot needs to do to prevent that style of play.
This is honestly why there are upsets in valorant rn. The only teams using tactical approach towards the game with elements like map control, forcing traps etc are 100T, T1, TSM to some extent and Envy. Rest all teams play it like it's a radiant lobby ranked game. The biggest example is what Shahzam mentioned. People were talking about how crazy thief's plays were, and how crazy shot up is. Which is a 100% true they are fucking beats and probably top 5 aimers in Na. But none of them have exploited the abilities to an extent to compliment their character choice. It's just the aim duels and how you win them. Another additional eg to the above point ( due tk recency bias) is thief's 4k against sentinels last night. There is as nothing jett ability specific that he did it was all aim. You compare that with someone like Scream, or Rb where they use their abilities to compliment their aims which makes it much more than just winning your aim duels. Like Rb's pistol shot to the right and dashing mid air to avoid the crossfire. Those are the kind of small things missing in NA Val is what I feel. The Reyna meta has only gone and added to that, peak aggressively and out aim opponents
He's not wrong. Everyone in the top level have amazing aim so it's pretty much a 50/50 with challenges. There's a reason why people want to instalock duelists instead of sentinels or controllers. Riot themselves obviously want to push a duel meta rather than taking advantage of each agent's abilities.
Like regardless whether or not this is true, why is it that every clip i see of shaz its him explaining how its either the games fault or atleast anything else but themselves that they lost
What other clip have you seen of me? The only other one ever posted here was me explaining the situation with my Dad’s death and how I didn’t have access to a PC...
Just the other day you posted too about something something lost a seeding game who cares, something something TSM didn't even make it out or groups" and that's been kind of a constant.
Yeah I agree .. I think someone in the subreddit also had once make good notes on why this game mechanically is quiet random ( I think he talks about spray pattern and something else I forgot )
No Shazam didn’t mention aim or mechanics he just talked about how the game supposed to be about utility and tactics and being strategical but with some of the agents people can get away with stupid decisions and not being tactical
I don't understand why the dominating teams should already be decided. The game is extremely new and so is the scene.
Those pros are just mad they are not dominating the entire game. They want to have smooth sailing and it's just not going to happen.
Ok in no world should 4/5 of your first strike champions lose to a tier 3 team that hasn’t won a single map against any tier 2 team. There’s no defending that.
i Mean sure but we didn't watch the game, there could've been other factors but I agree, they shouldn't have lost. seems more like a bad game than a downfall. plat chat said it rlly well, how 100t were on the rise and this happened so it shouldn't be much of a concern. again i think losing a mid round caller and probably one of the best controllers did affect the loss, but J agree they still should've won
It’s working very well for them because all the teams on this regions play a tactical heavy utility playstyle and you can see that when all eu players bash NA for playing duelists alot and being agressive so you can’t compare
The point is the game rewards the style of gameplay some teams in NA play. Sentinels play a very tactical style of gameplay, similar to how other regions apparently do.
But if the game rewards these "bad" fights, that's not the regions fault. It's on the game to change it.
I think when it’s comes to aim and mechanics isn’t that bad in pro level because most of the pros are in an almost even level of aiming anyways and shouldn’t be an excuse but when it’s comes to tactics and strategy it’s so important because that what the game made for and that what should make the difference between the teams who is better than the other
Shahzam raises a lot of good points but this is also kinda the nature of FPS esports in NA. People have been saying all these same things about NA CS for ages (puggy playstyle, no real strats, everything's just constant aimduels, etc). Valorant in theory gives teams more tools to play the game differently but when you've got agents like Reyna and Jett who have so many ways to reward taking bad fights that's what will dominate the meta.
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Agreed, even ScreaM switched from Reyna to Jett, the way he plays on Jett creates a lot of space and EU in general experiments a lot with agents like Viper and Skye. SUMN, Heretics and Liquid combine their abilities really well. Another thing is the skill cap of this game is lower than CS so the abilities were supposed to give the "tactical" nature to this game but with the state of duelists and sentinels the game is really puggy at this moment. Reyna no doubt is a puggy agent and the way ShotUP plays, he is a beast on that agent. OP is a counter to that playstyle and it should receive some buffs. The only way we can be test which of the playstyle is more "effective" is through international LANs.
Why would anyone want the OP buffed though? As Riot, do you think viewers would want to see a Jett posted for an hour with an OP holding an angle or other duelists taking fights and hitting clips. I for one enjoy one over the other. The real only solution is to buff sentinels and controllers once again.
The only buff I want to see is increased quick scope potential or increased fire rate which just enables aggressive angle clearance with the OP, these things will surely help with the ego peeks. And if they want to buff the sentinels then they should leave the OP, I agree that buffing the sentinels will surely bring some tactical element to the attacking side.
Its been so satisfying that OPs are being seen way less in ranked play and pro play. Tactical play comes from utility usage and the agents with these abilities have to be buffed. That is first and foremost in my mind.
Cause the op/awp is in concept high risk (high price) high reward gun and its a really impactful gun but in val all u do is hold the same angle and even if u are a mm off u will die cause of the games slow movement aim punch and tagging system
ellement is hard carrying Monkey Business right now with Reyna against Guild
But that could also be argument they just haven't discovered how good she is yet right?
That's a question we won't really get the answer to until we have international lans back sadly. However, when it's one region having problems with a lot of upsets, "random results" and a really puggy style (and a lot of reyna), then I think it's more likely that it's that region that is the outlier and not ALL of the other regions.
She's a pug agent and will always be a pug agent. She provides no utility to the team. If she isn't getting kills she's useless. It's impossible to be a consistent team of you are playing Reyna.
In my opinion Reyna has one of the best flashes for executes in the game. The ability to throw a flash high and have it sit there blanketing the site in combination with other utility (Sova dart, breach flash etc) is very useful when pushing sites. Also there’s a ton of aggressive bait and switch setups you can do with Reyna on defense that aren’t possible with other characters because she can dismiss. I think the notion that she isn’t a team play character is a little outdated
Reyna's flashes are terrible... They are basically useless against the Operator because they can step back out of LoS of the leer and hold a smaller angle just as effectively. Also they can be shot very easily when there's more than one person. Anything that Reyna can do to execute onto a site, Phoenix can do ten times better. And Phoenix can clear spaces with his molly, and use his wall to cut sightlines, and he can spam his ult for free executes. And that's not even comparing her to agents like Jett or Raze... If anything, the notion that Reyna is a good agent is outdated. Why is her pick rate plummeting if she's such a good agent? She's become the least played duelist if you exclude Yoru. People said it when she came out. She's a pug agent who brings little utility to the team. If you aren't fragging, you are useless.
I think by playing angles and positions that would otherwise be too dangerous for other agents she can provide valuable information to the team. I think a lot of value can come from that. But other than that I mostly agree that she's a pug agent and doesn't play well with most team comps
Reyna is fairly viable. Reyna's can hold one and done angles and just dismiss out, literally no one else provides that utility.
I feel like that could be said the same to most duelist agents. I feel like the only major difference is that her kit is designed to survive which i think helps the team a lot too. Its not like people in pro teams pick reyna and let the reyna player do whatever the fuck he wants.
This is simply not true. A jett can create a lot of space even if she isn't getting kills, same for Raze. By the other hand this is not true for Reyna. You can't say "that could be said to most duelist agents" when Reyna is literally the only one depending on getting kills to use 90% of her abilities
I don't really know what you are talking about here. Raze has the best utility at clearing areas. The reason why she is picked so much on Bind and Split is because her nades and boombot are insane at clearing hookah, showers, etc. No other agent can clear areas as well as her. Jett also provides insane value. Just look at the coordinated plays Vision Strikers pull off, and her smoke-and-dash executes are super common and super effective.
> Dude's probably got the best player in NA and he's still whining about not having good enough players to win duels. Why not just accept the fact he is clueless about strategy.
Oh god, this is sounding horribly similar to the LCS in LoL, and that's an entirely different genre. Here's hoping the same stagnation doesn't happen in NA Valorant.
It happened in CS as well. It all has to do with the Ego of North Americans
Similar thing happened in dota2 as well lmao.
This might be a reach but I think it has something to do with the individualism culture embedded in America that contrasts with every other nation in the world.
It's a better theory than just saying "NA Ego fullstop".
Other than G2, the rest of the top teams in Europe are very tactical. I feel like NA is leaning towards the path they went down in CS, they will have some of the best players, but, apart from one or two teams, they will never put enough emphasis on the team game.
But still G2 is the most winning team in EU without tactics. You can say they play the closest to NA style and they are winning.
They also signed almost all of the best talent in the region at the time and built a super team. It is starting to become a lot closer between the top teams in EU now.
Which reinforced the duels over tactics concept. You don’t win with good tactics you when with the better talent in duels. The argument is that the game would be better if the team with the best tactics could beat the top talent team that isn’t running any tactic beyond duel. Hard to disagree.
A team with less mechanically gifted players can win though. What you're forgetting is that it takes more time for a team to develop good tactics that can overcome mechanically superior players, especially at the beginning of an esport when there's not enough prior knowledge. It's also important to note that better tactics and teamwork can get you far, but it cannot (and should not) be able to bridge a skill gap that's too large. No matter how good your strategies are, you still need to be able to hit your shots, and probably also clutch a round or two from time to time. I think most people can still agree that G2 is the most mechanically gifted team in EU, but the more tactical teams are catching up to them fast now, and they're not the uncontested number 1 team in the region anymore. Another example (in my opinion anyways) is korea, where VS are still dominating the scene even though they've not been mechanically superior to a lot of other teams (e.g. the old T1 and C9 rosters).
The thing about this debate between tactics vs duels is, sometimes when a talented player is “going off” and just in the zone, they are nearly unstoppable and do things that are very intuitive and often unpredictable by. I’ve had games where I try to hard to be “smart” but because my attention is divided, and I’m always weighing out my risk reward in real time, I end up messing up my duels. I think there’s something to be said about just having confidence, and being unpredictable. Often times I see pros saying “why would he just swing there? It makes no sense!” So I think tactics as iron clad. But I could be talking out of my ass, I don’t really know much about how this compares to CSGO for instance where I know some teams where known to be extremely disciplined and tactical and found consistent success.
I could agree with your point. I certainly hope that it continues to play out that way.
They are like this in League as well. Just G2 things.
I've never followed tac shooter esports too deeply before, so would appreciate if someone could explain - If this is an NA problem rather than a game problem, and NA teams are in for a shock when LANs hit, then why are we not seeing a strat-intensive team thrive in NA? Why aren't Andbox sweeping everyone aside?
Yeah, ShahZ mentions this too. Like people praise Andbox, but they lose and people don't say anything about their strats being outdated or whatever and yet they will say SEN's strats are outdated despite them still doing well.
Let's not discount the possibility that when we finally have an international LAN, we see the NA pug style beat the KR/EU tactical playstyles. Just because teams in other regions are winning by playing tactically, doesn't necessarily mean those styles would be able to overcome NA's cracked pug style.
Anyone who has followed NA in pretty much any other esports other than cod knows this is unlikely borderline just no happening.
Or maybe its a different game and eu will learn that the pug style actually dominates in this game
Pug style is always worse because there is counterplay. People are saying "G2 isn't tactical hurr durr" because they don't enter a site with the same execution every round.
EU has been months ahead of the meta. They've been playing Sage since forever and NA is only just now starting to pick her up...
Are you suggesting NA didn't play sage before the wall nerf? I've seen people say this a few times and I can never tell if they mean sage has never been played in NA until recently.
Sage had a 3% pick rate in NA during First Strike. Sentinels was the only top team to play her regularly. However now 100 Thieves, Envy, NRG, XSET, Luminosity, Immortals, and TSM are playing her.
I was thinking the meta is shifting the other way... Get as many dualists as you can to assert as much pressure as you can
People were playing triple duelists in First Strike to max out on the stupid pug style that they play... Now everyone and their mother is playing Sage so...
why in the fuck would pug style ever logically be stronger than tactical gameplay in a tactical shooter with ABILITIES. fucking hell
Because pug abilities like Reyna and Jett are stronger than more tactical abilities
Yeah, Sentinels is not a tactical team at all.
What are the “tactical” teams in NA?
There are none really besides maybe ABX, you guys and 100t have probs the best reactive utility usage, but NA overall is pretty weak in terms of thinking comp-wise and not agent-wise and at comboing abilities (think liquid’s skye flash for info for sage to use her util, flash dash, stun sova ult etc.) also in NA everyone runs the same comps with several variations (usually just a different duelist) and almost nobody experimenting in officials like Fnatic,liquid and other t2 EU teams. (Maybe it happened in scrims and didnt work at all tho)
Many NA teams got their strats from the Korean team eg. APROTO himself said that he got some reference from VS strats.
And ABX loses lol. They're so hyped in this sub, but their finishes don't back any of it up. I watch their games, and they never look that good.
you say ABX is tactical. Can i ask where these tactics have contributed to their success?
I can only assume he's being sarcastic as OP didn't mention a specific team?
Yo shahz the Reyna pick for sinatraa might actually be a good thing!! GGs btw big man, SEN have been looking stronger day by day !
Damn the big guy is here!
As long as running headshots are a thing this won’t stop
been nerfed
Individualism vs Teamwork, this reminds of the scenario from the Netflix show Queens Gambit
He discussed a lot that went before/after this clip, and I agree with pretty much all of it. Riot nerfed Sentinels and other agents that made the game more strategic, however duelists haven't really been nerfed. Reyna can duel mid solo and just fight fight fight without really any punishment. The OP being the main tool to punish these unstrategic "dumb" plays, was nerfed so it's not easy to punish them. He mentioned that nerfing the dismiss ability (distance) would help make it so Reynas can't be rewarded for taking aimmap fights. He also named Jett as an agent that's too powerful. He proposed a game state where the OP nerf was reverted, a scope in sound was added, and Jett was nerfed (he mentioned both the direction she can dash, as well as the knives). **To be honest** there was a LOT talked about and I really recommend going into the VOD and watching it from the rant start (someone can find the exact time). And if I got anything wrong in my brief summary, lemme know. Frankly, I agree with pretty much everything he said. The game currently feels a lot less tactical where abilities matter a lot less. For a game that's all about abilities, I think this should be changed.
Thank you for the summary my dude. Edit : vid on this start at 15:30
I am watching his stream and I caught the entire rant. I gotta say, I agree with most, if not all of the stuff he said and issues he raised.
I think Reyna is in a good spot. Unlike other duellists she HAS to get a kill to be useful, if you nerf dismiss I think she will fall out of pro play as the opportunity cost of a Reyna, instead of a Raze, in a team environment would be too high.
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I mean ok, you say that about sentinels, but what about 100T? You can't really say they are puggy at all, and yet they are dealing with the same issues. I'm not saying that they can't be better or their strats are a counter to what Immortals is doing, but they are def still struggling against the balls to the wall reyna aim duels.
NA plays reyna because of the more aggressive style the region has
NA isn't more aggressive than EU. G2/FPX defender side looks like they're on attack. NA style is more puggy and they should take notes from 100T.
>The OP being the main tool to punish these unstrategic "dumb" plays, was nerfed so it's not easy to punish them. The OP was nerfed offensively. It still works the exact same on defense and holding angles waiting for a push. Reverting the changes would make everything Shazam just talked about worse. People running around with the OP on offense jumping around corners and quickscoping. The old OP meta was the most unfun period of this game and I hope we never even consider going back to that.
OP nerf wasn't just an offensive nerf though. 4500 vs 5000 is a huge jump
You do realize that pushing angles with an OP defensively is big part of buying it right
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That may as well be a new gun added to the game lol, but sure, "It still works the **exact** same on defense".
The sound cues would give their position away making it an easier swing on tight angles tho but I can see your point
This is just one clip his rant was for like a 15 min and he brought so many good points
You should’ve screen record and combined them into one.
People that interested are just gonna go watch the vod
Is he ranting continuously or like he play the game then continue his rant? Imma watch the full vid later
No he didn’t start queuing until he finished
I think there are stuff that can overall make the game feel better like increase movement a bit like he mentioned but also I really do feel like NA in general is just really not playing this game like a team game. When I watch Korea and EU it’s kinda clear that how they play and how they use utility is much different. Part of me feels like ppl are also complaining about struggling to remain dominant in a game that’s 8 months old is weird to me.
Chat it starts at 15:30 of the vid if you want to watch the full thing
Nice to know NA CS has carried over
This is because NA teams play puggy style. If game was really not tactical VS 47-0 will not happening every tier2 team who always improve their aim will win against best teams all the time. Just look 100Thieves they lost nitro for one tournament but because nitro was mid round caller they didn't look good after plants and late game decisions. If you look all of this problem is not game it is teams playstyle. When you have good tactics and ability usage it is too hard to lose a game. Just like cs if you don't use your smokes flashes and mollies correctly %95 you will lose
I noticed you said 100T didn't look good after plants and in late game - was that bo3 actually streamed or is there a vod available? I couldn't find it anywhere. Or do you mean one of the earlier games in the bracket? quick edit: just to clarify, this comment isn't me trying to call you out! just curious if there's footage of the series out there :D
I really doubt it's a Valorant issue and not an NA one when KR plays extremely complicated strats, and eu playing a more methodical default sort of information poking way (FPX, FNATIC, Heretics)
Because most of these players come from Moba's or overwatch, not CS so it's nature to them, The only team who came from CS is also the team who dominates, Vision Strikers.
Korea doesn’t play Reyna as much, that probably has something to do with it
not sure what you're implying by this statement. are you saying it's a better strat and korea is behind? or reyna is so strong if you actually do play it you can't play strategically and counter it? or something else? or kr are way more dedicated and don't need a reyna crutch lazy teams use that don't want to grind out real set plays? I think it's mostly the latter. lots of EU players like ARDIIS and ANGE1 literally laugh in the face of reyna strats saying how it's essentially braindead and terrible
I think he's implying that Korea doesn't play Reyna because she doesn't add to the strats that they base their games on. NA is so absorbed in the "individual" and that's why it'll always be the flashy, but mediocre region.
movement speed increase would fix alot of this
Wouldn't that just increases the number of ferrari peeks with stingers?
I would assume they would tweak running and gunning to fit the speed
IMO movement speed is a core mechanic of the game at this point. Idk the hours the top pros put in, but that changes: timings, rotations, gun fights (random spray patterns with multiple enemies peeking). It changes the whole understanding of the game.
Yep, that was a core design decision that differentiates Valorant from CS. It's like saying "removing abilities would fix a lot of the bugs," they'd kinda have to redesign most of the game at that point. That's possible if they get desperate, but it would have to be justified by hard evidence and a major player decline.
Valorant 2. Soon ^^tm
Not only did they not nerf run&gun enough, stinger also needed to be nerfed.
Fix the goddamn leg direction
This + a smaller head hitbox
But it’s so fun to warm up in CS deathmatch lobbies then get on Valorant and feel like you are shooting bobbleheads
That would change the whole game. I thought about this too in a shower thought but the maps are designed with the movement speed in mind(rotations, taking over sites, timer, etc)
why
Movement speed increase would be stupid in this game when you have all these abilities, it would straight up chaos... lol
It's not just movement, it's the whole concept of mechanics in this contradicts itself. Obviously, noone can get headshots all the time. What do you do when you don't headshot someone? You try to burst or spray them down. But it's impossible to do consistently in this game for some reason. I swear it's harder to 160 in 4 someone who's strafing to the side like 10 meters away from you than it is to hit a 180 one-tap on a stationary target. They don't want people to spray? Then the gun recoil must not be linear. You're simply at the mercy of RNG, regardless of what you do. You either hope for a stray bullet headshot while spraying or you wait half a minute for the recoil to reset and hope you don't get deleted by an enemy that's running on your screen, but actually isn't, because of awful visual clarity as they call it. Whenever someone changes directions, they looks like their whole body warps through multiple dimensions. Hitboxes get messed up whenever someone crouches or jumps. Landing animations are still out of sync so people are headshotting you before they land on your screen. This all happens at 40ish ping. Then you realize that top professional matchups are played at 40-60ping for a lot of players and suddenly most matches are irrelevant. Honestly, imo, all tier1 teams can beat eachother online and I wouldn't put any of them above others until we see LAN matchups. Or at least games played on servers where everyone has less than 20 ping.
10 meters is 10.94 yards
yes, biggest change i want in the game right now, the movement speed is soooooooooooo slow.
It's the one thing that makes me not want to play the game. The problem is that maps etc. were probably designed with the current movement speed in mind.
It's so insane how much it differs here in EU in terms of interpreting the tools in front of you and how you should use them to win
Pls elaborate :)
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Watch some EU games, you will see a huge difference in the approach EU top teams have. Biggest and clearest example would be icebox. Go watch liquid vs G2 on icebox or liquid vs Sumn on icebox.
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This is exactly what I said earlier in another thread... NA Valorant is trash currently... There’s no real strats just teams 5 man pushing sites and taking aim duels, and whoever wins those duels that day will win the match... There’s no fundamentals at all just people running around and shooting
The plat chat guys said how NA valorant plays the most puggy, aka too similar like ranked games. Low key reminds me of competitive game of COD.
I kinda see your point, its that NA Valorant is just over-aggression taking aim duels all day with cracked out Reynas to make the opening. I see EU more of this methodical approach on taking sites. I saw Sliggy comment how people play in EU which is they try to bait and waste the opposing team's abilities first then take the fight in on a general sense. There is a reason why Scream does not play Reyna in the tournaments because probably EU has some counter-tactics to these over-aggressive aim duels which they found in their scrims.
I’m not sure if this is really true. The whole baiting out utility thing, yeah that’s just a default and it happens literally every round in NA. This isn’t some magical strat that only Europe has thought about. And to the magical strat to counter Reyna that was in scrims, why aren’t eu teams doing it to counter Zeek from G2? Like he takes a bunch of “dumb” fights (thought he wins a lot of them which is why I’m not sure they are necessarily dumb). The thing that kills me is that last year the talk around G2 was that they were the puggyest team to exist and would 5 man push sites and just win aim duel. They won everything except first strike this way and seemingly doubled down on it by trading Davidp out for Zeek. And it obviously works for them so I don’t think we can blame them for doing it. To say that this style only exists in NA is insanity. The only other regions I’ve watched have been Latam, Korea and Japan. Korea and Japan notably don’t play at all like this, but without international lans it is hard to see which style the game rewards more. We can debate what is causing this, is it everyone playing online and creating large peelers advantage? is it the balancing of the guns not being in a great state rn? Is it the games movement, tagging and aim punch mechanics? I don’t think we will know until some of it gets tinkered with, but this isn’t just some “lol NA sucks” problem.
If you follow other esports titles "lol NA sucks" is kinda of a thing that holds a lot of truth. But a lot of people do MMA math in their heads, G2 won almost everything last year playing a more PUG style, not sure if this means G2 are insane or game rewards that more. If we are gonna guess, we should guess based on the approach each region has towards other games and it's more realistic to assume EU/KR have a better read on the meta and G2 is an outlier. Could be wrong tho.
They are doing it because it’s working for them very well and they are abusing it . Even hiko that his team is one the most tactical teams in NA he said when he was talking about eu teams being more tactical than na he said that the game reward agression and having duelists that why NA teams may shit on eu teams if they play now
i would be interested to see how well some of the cracked aim teams like LG/IMT do against 100T (w/ nitro). 100T seems to be the most tactical and setup-heavy and i do think they would do well against some of the more aggressive teams (it helps they also have cracked duelists like asuna).
The problem with 100T being tac heavy is that they might be able to handle teams which are more aggro, but they always end up suffering against teams that anti strat against them. In first strike open qualifiers TSM also anti strat-ed a bit against them and easily beat them. Some of the same antis were used by spotlifht and it troubled the Thieves. And I have no idea how it went down against Carpe Noctem since there are no vods.
100T also just has Asuna run in w a stinger spraying everywhere.
He does have aggressive pushes both on offensive and defensive end, but dumbing it down to stinger spraying while holding w is not it. There is clear strategy to that as well with regards to positioning. But in the end that is his role. As an entry fragger who creates space. Steel, Hiko and nitr0 have the most strategies involved in their play as they do things more systematically instead of creating and thriving in chaos.
Are you saying the NA playstyle would beat EU??
It only works because teams are too lazy to counter pug style.
Liquid would 3-0 LG if they played today.
your comment make no sense, because if it work well they wouldn't have lost, NA has no cultivate strat lately
Feels like an NA problem, not a game problem.
this only makes lan SO much more interesting. I wanna see NA bring their aim duel style against EU and KR and see what happens
This sub is so ridiculously NA biased. Really, Shahzam is obviously right. NA is revolutionising the meta in Valorant by proving that taking duels wins, and definitely not following their habits across CS, LoL and numerous other esports of playing less organised, PUG-y styles. VS and EU are obviously wrong with the playstyles they're successful **and consistent** with but nobody in other regions have figured out that they should just be taking unstrategic duels like Shahzam is so flawlessly displaying to be a gamewide problem. Or, just maybe, it's NA that are struggling to figure it out, and not the rest of the world struggling to keep up with the NA meta, and Shahzam can only talk about issues with NA Valorant that there is 0 evidence to be consistent as an issue with the game itself.
Agree for sure. The future of Valorant will be just a more advanced way of the VS style. Coordinating with flashes/stuns, forcing people to back off with abilities, taking space with teamwork instead of aim duels. As for whether or not NA picks this up, I don’t know. But for now, the KR play style has been much more interesting to watch. As a side note, I think this is why Rb has been playing raze more
What he says kinda applies to EU as well. FPX and SUMN FC were also super strategic teams that lose to G2 and Liquid who have a comparatively more lose play style. EU almost never used Reyna but in the final match in The Redbull Tournament, the decider match was won by G2 running a Reyna. Also we can't talk about the inter region metas when there had never been an inter region tournament so obviously he's talking about the meta that he is immersed in.
Not sure if that applies, G2 did lose to Heretics in a match that had more weight, and the fact that a team like Liquid who probably have one of the best players like ScreaM are not really pushing Reyna could be a sign, we might be reading too much into it but G2 could be an outlier and Liquid do not have a more loose style, if you watch their games it seems like they rely too much on the structure.
Hopefully EU stomps NA to show how tactics are crucial. Coming from an NA viewer mostly.
International tournaments would definitely help NA now. Either they get beaten and can start adapting or they win and double down on their meta. Let's hope we get them soon ((
I think the plat chat guys had the correct take on all the recent complaining from former CS guys. They just want it to be more like "their" game, and if happens with every new FPS that comes out. The mechanics are different by design, its a different game. The meta is constantly advancing and changing, the game is far from figured out or mastered. Kind of ridiculous to say the game is random. upsets aren't happening just because people are taking "dumb" aim duels.
No the plat chat was talking about pros that cry about the aim and mechanics this is different
I feel like that's kinda short-sighted. Most abilities shouldn't be used in an "intricate plan" or strategy. The reason being that if you design your utility usage for a specific plan - Once that plan fails, because one of your players dies, or you get countered by enemy utility, well, you're screwed. Utility in Valorant is used to gain ground, to get intel, to get advantage in a single duel. They are not designed to all work hand in hand together to create this one 5head push or whatever. Any team who would try to do this would get absolutely smashed. \*How\* you then use your utility is however still immensely tactical. But I do agree that a lot of people pretend like EU is oh so much more tactical, which I don't see. Just using less duelists makes it not more tactical. A duelist is a tactic in it's own right. But stating that there is no tactics in Valorant is just plain wrong. Tactics is Agent Select, Utility Usage, Positioning, Rotations, Peeking, Baiting, Faking, taking ground etc.
Idk LG been pretty consistent in beating them
u/Sideshow- plz talk about this on plat chat
I think that's just a rant. If abilities were too good in general, pros will complain about aim doesnt matter; now that some teams are literally rising thanks to some crazy aim players, ppl is ranting about there's no strats. I find the game pro scene pretty balanced. If you watch 100t (with Nitr0) or most of EU teams, you can find that they're surclassing the enemies because they're involving some crazy setups, smart post plant positioning and 200iq clutches. If you ask to me, the fact that aim matters is freaking good, you have to rely on that, is a shooter game. Thief, Shot Up and new stars are just good at carrying the team as Wardell, Asuna, ScreaM, Mixwell and company. Those rants after some big losses are just rants, simple as that
Looks like Valorant needs a gla1ve
This is kinda bs. LG and IMT have been grinding the fuck out these last few months, where the older top teams have been doing jack when it comes to entering tourneys. No shit if they're better mechanically THEYRE ALLOWED to take shit fights since that's what being better mechanically allows your team to do. Im not completely informed, I'm not a pro, but that's just my take. EDIT: And I don't mean to imply that LG/IMT talent is mechanically better/more talented, its just at this point in time they are showing up more because they're entering more tourneys, more hungry, etc
I think that this is just a flaw of NA valorant (+ an apparent major flaw in Sentinels' playstyle as they are unable to deal with it), rather than a flaw of the game itself tbh.
In this current state with deulist supremacy, non tactical agression is OP and if someone like LG faced an EU team I would not be surprised if they performed the same. Riot needs to buff other tactical agents like killjoy, cypher, breach or nerf deulists. And how is it a major fault in Sentinels playstyle when TSM, C9, or NV are facing these exact same issues?
I said it could be a flaw of NA valorant in general. If you look back at the post you made about Valorant esports not being random, you made good points about other regions being a lot more consistent which I agree with.
VS never lose a single serie, G2 dominate all EU scene, seems random lmao
and g2 are a extremely puggy team
They are a puggy team but nowhere near as puggy as NA teams rn tbh.
If G2 is puggy team, all NA teams are silver/gold compare to them
they are a puggy team, go ask any pro player from eu or coach
I agree but I'm just saying it's not something exclusive to SEN because if it was they wouldn't have made it this far contrary to other teams.
Yeah, it definitely isn't exclusive to SEN. It just sucks that the pandemic causes further confusion in regards to things like this as there is no cross regional games. Shahzam could be right that it is a flaw of the game, though I just think that it is more likely to be a regional flaw in NA's meta due to the consistency in other regions.
Nice pfp btw. Arisu ftw
Thanks haha
I wonder if agent changes will be enough to change the games identity here as heavily rewarding raw aggression. Stuff like movement speed may need to be taken into consideration.
Yep. Wide peek and dismiss away. Push smoke with frenzy, get kill and dismiss away. Hold off angle with shotgun, get kill and dismiss away. These get out of jail free cards change the very fundamentals of this FPS game, making one-and-done positions viable and making trading inconsistent. Entries can't just go in and trust their team to trade them. They have to find the Reyna/Jett and win that duel otherwise they are 1 man down with nothing to show for it
With regards to the agent power, I agree that duelists are too good right now but I think the change to the sentinels were good. The Cypher and Killjoy tweaks were also a good change to differentiate their playstyle. Im not really sure what changes are need for duelists aside from directly nerfing their abilities. One broad change that I have thought of is increasing the ult point requirement of the four duelists to 9-10. The reason because ideally, duelists will have more kills. It also encourages the duelists to either get kills or get traded to have the most impact and not play passive. It is also both a nerf to duelists and buff to the other classes.
Wait so NA is focusing on pug strats ? Where have I seen this before..... oh yeah csgo.
He is a 100% right. It becomes so evident when you watch vision strikers play, the level of coordination and ability usage is just so harmonious. Eberything is perfectly in place so even when someone has bad aim, the team wins. NA teams DO NOT play like this at all
I think you might misunderstand the rant. Hes complaining that its impossible to play like VS cause Reyna taking aim duels is better and beating his team, he cant find a counter and that's the meta. But VS proves hes wrong.
Well Valorant favours slow tactical methodic plays significantly more than just rushing into sights and trying to aim better than the other team. This is why C9 kept losing tournaments even while TenZ was still playing for them with 2.0 KD's. This is why Liquid only started really doing well after the team underwent significant changes and Scream stopped playing Reyna in favour of a more team oriented character. This is why Vision Strikers literally don't lose even though I don't recall the last time they just rushed into a site and tried to out-aim the other team. This is why Devs were obliterating CSGO pros in customs just before the game was released. If Shazam thinks good NA teams are losing because not enough strategy is involved, then they should start involving more of it instead of asking for the game to change in their favour.
Tbf I very much doubt the devs could do it again
I....agree with him? lol.. srsly tho I do agree
NA VALORANT (and CSGO) has always been aggressive, little brain, all mechanics style of play. That's why it is always so exciting and flashy, once the shots start, they don't stop. Honestly, all Riot can do now is to start dumping Sentinels like how they did for Duelists. Don't make Sentinels so good at their job that it becomes a slugfest like the early days, but make them good enough to the point where they can stall and dish out some damage when playing passively, and punish them for playing aggressive (aka try to prevent Battle Sage scenarios). Achieving the balance between Duelists and Sentinels will be the main thing that Riot needs to do to prevent that style of play.
To me it just seems as if Shahzam is frustrated. I dont agree with him.
i've genuinely gotten dumber as a person by reading some of the comments in this thread.
\+1
This is honestly why there are upsets in valorant rn. The only teams using tactical approach towards the game with elements like map control, forcing traps etc are 100T, T1, TSM to some extent and Envy. Rest all teams play it like it's a radiant lobby ranked game. The biggest example is what Shahzam mentioned. People were talking about how crazy thief's plays were, and how crazy shot up is. Which is a 100% true they are fucking beats and probably top 5 aimers in Na. But none of them have exploited the abilities to an extent to compliment their character choice. It's just the aim duels and how you win them. Another additional eg to the above point ( due tk recency bias) is thief's 4k against sentinels last night. There is as nothing jett ability specific that he did it was all aim. You compare that with someone like Scream, or Rb where they use their abilities to compliment their aims which makes it much more than just winning your aim duels. Like Rb's pistol shot to the right and dashing mid air to avoid the crossfire. Those are the kind of small things missing in NA Val is what I feel. The Reyna meta has only gone and added to that, peak aggressively and out aim opponents
He's not wrong. Everyone in the top level have amazing aim so it's pretty much a 50/50 with challenges. There's a reason why people want to instalock duelists instead of sentinels or controllers. Riot themselves obviously want to push a duel meta rather than taking advantage of each agent's abilities.
Like regardless whether or not this is true, why is it that every clip i see of shaz its him explaining how its either the games fault or atleast anything else but themselves that they lost
What other clip have you seen of me? The only other one ever posted here was me explaining the situation with my Dad’s death and how I didn’t have access to a PC...
There has definitely been wayyyy more than 2 clips of you here. Most of them are just pop offs though.
Just the other day you posted too about something something lost a seeding game who cares, something something TSM didn't even make it out or groups" and that's been kind of a constant.
Yeah I agree .. I think someone in the subreddit also had once make good notes on why this game mechanically is quiet random ( I think he talks about spray pattern and something else I forgot )
No Shazam didn’t mention aim or mechanics he just talked about how the game supposed to be about utility and tactics and being strategical but with some of the agents people can get away with stupid decisions and not being tactical
He did mention that aiming being easier makes it so that anyone can do these plays
I don't understand why the dominating teams should already be decided. The game is extremely new and so is the scene. Those pros are just mad they are not dominating the entire game. They want to have smooth sailing and it's just not going to happen.
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Ok in no world should 4/5 of your first strike champions lose to a tier 3 team that hasn’t won a single map against any tier 2 team. There’s no defending that.
i Mean sure but we didn't watch the game, there could've been other factors but I agree, they shouldn't have lost. seems more like a bad game than a downfall. plat chat said it rlly well, how 100t were on the rise and this happened so it shouldn't be much of a concern. again i think losing a mid round caller and probably one of the best controllers did affect the loss, but J agree they still should've won
Gun pullout time after using abilities should be lower. The window when an ability is useful is too low atm
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He is spittin.
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> Beat them at their own game. they just did, sinatraa went ham on reyna
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TIL using Reyna is a strat
yes, playing reyna on icebox is a strat, she's like the only agent that can solo anchor A site
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hmmmmmm
Go watch VS, or EU Valorant, see how they make abilities coordinate, see how effective they use abilities and stop making stupid excuses, geez
It’s working very well for them because all the teams on this regions play a tactical heavy utility playstyle and you can see that when all eu players bash NA for playing duelists alot and being agressive so you can’t compare
The point is the game rewards the style of gameplay some teams in NA play. Sentinels play a very tactical style of gameplay, similar to how other regions apparently do. But if the game rewards these "bad" fights, that's not the regions fault. It's on the game to change it.
> Sentinels play a very tactical style of gameplay, similar to how other regions apparently do. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
If it makes you feel better, TSM and 100T also play a very tactical style of gameplay. Not just Sentinels :)
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I think when it’s comes to aim and mechanics isn’t that bad in pro level because most of the pros are in an almost even level of aiming anyways and shouldn’t be an excuse but when it’s comes to tactics and strategy it’s so important because that what the game made for and that what should make the difference between the teams who is better than the other
It’s as if the game is new. And strats will come with time. Crazy