but it IS a tejo exclusive problem. what agent can easily deny a defuse, or even a plant, like tejo's guided salvos can? its like brim smoking the bomb but it denies a defuse. that is SUPER strong especially because it does so much damage so you can't stick half and live. almost every other agent requires a lineup or at least direct LOS on the spike to confirm a defuse denial, but not tejo. thats the problem with his missiles. they are so easy to use, fast, deal a lot of damage and REFRESH every half a minute or so. that is so powerful.
But how many scenarios are you denying defuse with Tejo missiles in a way that you couldn't with any other molly? The fact that it's iPad utility that's easy to use isn't the issue, but the fact that it has low cooldown. Just make the cooldown like 50-60s and then he has to choose between using it for site hits or for stalling defuse, like any other molly.
Because he won't be able to contest space in the midround. A crucial strength of initiators is that they have things like flashes, dogs, and darts (and importantly multiple of them) so that they can re-clear space as needed.
If he had one drone and one set of missiles he will either fire them at nothing in the start of the round or save them the whole round for a site hit/exec. Both of those scenarios leave the entire rest of the round for the enemy team to go and punish you for running an agent with no utility.
It's like if Omen smokes didn't recharge because, well, paranoia is a broken ability. Why would he need more utility?
omen is such a bad comparsion because
were talking about the recharge between tejos best ability, so using omen smokes as an example doesnt work because paranoia is his best
omens tp arent as good for team fights and team play which tejo is extremely good at right now
3.omen isnt an initiator and is a smoker
riot themselves has stated they are trying to move towards a game with more thoughtful util, the fact you said "If he had one drone and one set of missiles he will either fire them at nothing in the start of the round or save them the whole round for a site hit/exec" is half of what they want. riot want people to think about how they util, but right now tejo already can spam them at the start of the round with no thought and no punishment, no other initiator has that level of of an ability they can spam.
also when teams play tejo they are already forcing themselves to play a agent like kayo, sova, or breach because tejo has no flashes so the fact he has no midround (which he still will) is negated because your gonna be playing one of the other 3 good initiators anyway. plus tejo is agressive so if your using his util at the start of the round your either faking or your hitting that site, or you have a good read the results in a kill. wouldnt you trade any of that for just his missile?
You're underestimating the fog of war in tac shooters. Even with all the abilities that initiators and sentinels have now, it's very hard to precisely pinpoint where every enemy is throughout a round. It's why there's still so many contact plays, why there's so many off-angle kills, why teams will fully run the clock down before committing to a site, etc.
Having as little utility as you suggest doesn't make it more thoughtful; it just limits creative expression. It's like what happened to Astra when she had 4 stars: she ended up having almost nothing to use outside of smoking common chokes and saving a star for counter-flood/post-plant. It made her utterly boring because most uses outside of those scenarios was a shot in the dark rather than a particularly tactical choice.
If salvo cooldown was increased to something like 60s, it solves the problem of him having it for both site hits and post-plant, without robbing his team of the ability to make plays in the midround.
Also, you said it yourself. Running Tejo forces you to run a second initiator. He already possesses a high opportunity cost by making his team unable to run double controller + senti.
gonna tackle some points u made
"Running Tejo forces you to run a second initiator. He already possesses a high opportunity cost by making his team unable to run double controller + senti." double senti was a product of skye, omen AND viper all being insane at the same time, double controller isnt used nearly as much as you think so it doesnt effect this at all. plus using breach with tejo doesnt limit anything, if anything it makes the comp stronger.
"If salvo cooldown was increased to something like 60s, it solves the problem of him having it for both site hits and post-plant, without robbing his team of the ability to make plays in the midround." honeslty a good point i'll give you this one but like i said, running him with other initiators removes this as a flaw because they pick up the slack.
3."Having as little utility as you suggest doesn't make it more thoughtful; it just limits creative expression. It's like what happened to Astra when she had 4 stars: she ended up having almost nothing to use outside of smoking common chokes" astra wasnt used not because she was bad, but because omen was so good. little amount goes both ways, i can see how it makes you less creative because of less util, but it also makes you more creative because you need to find more ways to use it effect, making you more creative in how you use it.
4."why there's so many off-angle kills, why teams will fully run the clock down before committing to a site, etc." running him with lets say breach fixes this, the stun gets people off off angles and it recharges, you then save tejo drone and if stun doesnt work it will recahrge and you still have drone if needed. lets say u run sova or fade it completely invalidates this arguement because they already handle that by themselves. also off angle kills and lack of info already happens without tejo
We fundamentally aren't agreeing on the volume of utility it takes to actually clear everything a team wants.
If it was that easy for other initiators to pick up the slack, every single tier 1 team would be running double/triple initiator with Tejo on every map, in every single game.
But the fact is that Tejo is an agent who looks a lot stronger in valoplant, before he has to take into account what the enemy does to force his utility to be used in less-than-optimal ways. This will always be the primary weakness of initiators, and it's something that's hard for us fans to see because we aren't in the pros' pov fumbling in the dark.
I do think his salvo is a little too strong, but again it's just because of the 40s cooldown. The ability itself is not so oppressive as to merit only a singular cast on an initiator who would have no other regenerating utility. Let's not forget how strong Sova dart and Fade eye and Breach stun are too.
tejo cant get info with anything other than his drone thus fade and sova are picked over him in a lot of maps, his utility is great for corners but isnt really strong enough for traps since it doesnt deal that much damange and his ult is slow, that removes all his good qualities? no, he is still a very viable initiator on all maps but not as a single initiator, his capacity to combo is probably the strongest when he has a breach with him but there arent even that many good breaches in rankeds or competitive in general being honest.
his missiles kill in 3 ticks, the same as kayo molly, nade, old breach aftershock, and even if it isnt good for traps (which it is) it still breaks util, makes two sentinels useless, gives defenders almost no where to play, does 60 per tic. and no initiator is good as a single initi. Tejo is often pared along yoru and breach so you have lots of util and flashes and a good entry. and this fix is mostly for pro play not ranked because i dont think ranked pick rates matter because lets be real bad agents are still played alot. his ult is slow but it's good for execs and post plant and kills in 2 hit.
americas pick rate
tejo 32%
fade 20%
sova 36%
emea
tejo 28%
fade 27%
sova 40%
pacific
tejo 23%
fade 32%
40%
china
fade 25%
tejo 8%
sova 47%
tejo per region is picked more than fade, hes not picked more than sova but you have to keep in mind hes been out for i think a month and not every team has practiced with him yet, china finished way sooner and had 2 weeks less than other regions to play tejo.
bro fade has been shit since a lot of time ago, tejo being picked more than her isnt even that important because its the first tourney of the year with it ofc people will try it, gekko used to be more picked too and when tejo came out people stopped playing it, people will figure out how to neutralize tejo and he will stop being as picked, gekko had 0 nerfs and is already out of meta on pro play
pretty braindead of riot ngl. They kill casual play because of proplay and the game becomes increasingly marginalised and tailored to proplay. Viper is no longer fun or used in ranked unless its a girl playing and overall just stop revolving changes around pro play not everyone is tapped into the game 24/7
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