28000 posts is a lot but honestly 19 posts/day average is low compared to some other people on this site lol. the most degenerate of them probably average 30 or more

with the amount of hate and politics in these threads the past few days it really would seem like there are no mods around

yes

what bothers me most is the amount of dead accounts conveniently reviving just spread hate this championship. these people have definitely never felt the touch of a woman. all they see is someone being successful or getting a gram of attention and they feel the need to log on and spread hate about them because they have nothing else to do. cringe asf. not to mention the cherrypicking and generalization going on is crazy.

in the end, these GC players are earning their bag and playing Valorant at a level higher than 95% of people on this website, myself included. if you can't handle underrepresented people being successful, consider working on yourself instead.

oh my

most full grown adults would not be able to handle that much hate lol

she's either very resilient (good) or she has a great support system. even better if both

you search "world cup" and you get 34 pages of individual threads

at this point it might as well be considered bait

valorant is full of harry kanes

mako is to valorant what harry kane is to football

everyone knows he's extremely talented and deserves the accolades, but has zero trophies to back that up

mods are sleeping again letting this thread last for 3 hours. the OPs intention is obviously there, but no one is surprised that it's fallen apart like this.

there's still time to escape

so which rage baiter is she........ gotta be one of the 100T/SEN glazers right

In your neighborhood... like... a residential street? Where children sometimes play in?

At least in the US, cyclists and motorcyclists have the same rights as a car on most roads (basically any road that isn't a highway, since bicycles are banned on highways). In residential roads it's especially so because you can have kids biking. On my end, I live in a place where a) bikes are banned on sidewalks (was given a warning by a cop once... they somehow actually cared about that), and b) there's a lot of street parking, so biking "on the side" is literally impossible -- not to mention dangerous since I once got hit while biking by someone opening their door without checking their mirror (no injuries thankfully).

Rather than road raging at someone cycling on a street, either a) leave earlier so you're not in such a hurry, or b) just wait the little amount of time it takes to find an opening to safely pass them lol. It's not that deep. Whatever time you lost being stuck behind that cyclist is literally nothing. And don't get me wrong -- I get angry very easily when I'm driving too, but at the end of the day you probably lost like 2 minutes at most.

Unless by "middle of the road," you're referring to that person lane-splitting. Then that's actually just stupid.

neon is stupid to play against, but she's not game breaking -- just stupid. when people found out how powerful chamber is, you had two chambers in every game. if your team didn't pick a chamber and the enemy team did, it was basically GG.

and i somewhat agree with CanadaMan -- gigabuffed Iso was a million times worse than current Neon, but the devs were at least smart enough to not let him ruin the game for months on end.

The worst patch ever was the one that released the agent named Chamber

least delusional liquid fan

Chamber 6-point ult would make me cringe to my core

The rest I understand. I'd prefer if Neon kept two slides if it meant that stupid sliding accuracy was removed.

The sage heal buff feels a little too strong tbh. Just buffing her regular heal would be enough honestly.

The other two changes I fully agree with. I don't understand why Rito believed that Skye needed to have her birds not regenerate because they were "too strong", just for Gekko to have basically the same thing with no repercussions. And Neon slide accuracy is top 3 most stupid mechanics in the game.

I don't think Neon is as oppressive, but there's a layer of bullshit to her playstyle that make her incredibly unfun to play against. That layer is the sliding accuracy.

Having high accuracy while you're 1. in motion (sliding), 2. going very fast (sliding speed), and 3. having a harder to hit hitbox (slide makes the character model smaller to hit) is just really stupid. Imagine if raze had full accuracy while blast-packing, or Jett being able to shoot her gun mid-dash (which if we think about it, Neon slide is the same except slower and less forgiving).

Chamber's pre-nerf kit was probably the most oppressive kit in the game's history (at least IMO), so current Neon doesn't come close. Neon just tilts me more because of that layer of bullshit where I get headtapped from a Neon in mid-slide. It feels like it should be RNG but no, it's the intended part of the kit. It's just not fun and I hope she gets that part of her kit (and only that part of her kit) nerfed soon.

i disagree on primmie getting 1% of the hate. i'm quite sure that if primmie doesn't perform this season this website is just going to dogpile on him because of the glazing he's been getting. i've mentioned this multiple times in the past.

the rest is all true, and again, it's not even yay's fault -- it's that people are glazing him like he's still prime Messi or Ronaldo and that whatever team he joins is going to win everything despite multiple instances of that not happening. if he performs this season under an "actual" system (quotes because it's still EG), then good for him. but if he doesn't, the dogpiling is just going to continue because of the baiters on this site saying EG is going to sweep VCT just because he's on the roster

for the record i'm not a yay hater by any means. do i have trauma from chamber meta? yes. do i think he's overrated right now? yes. but he doesn't deserve the amount of hate he gets here.

90% of the yay hate is actively caused by yay glazers, and not yay himself

we're talking about a particular group of people that think that just because he's in tier 1, he's going to win everything.

it happened when he joined C9 with everyone saying C9 was a superteam, it happened with dsg with everyone saying dsg was auto-winning ascension, and it happened with bleed with many saying they're somehow a contender for APAC. even now that he's joining EG people are immediately saying that EG is a contender when we don't know jack shit about how the season is going to go. it's a similar level of glazing that is making primmie a target of negativity right now.

has yay contributed a little to his reputation? sure. the drama in bleed didn't help, neither did whatever happened at dsg. but for the most part, it's not been him causing this amount of hate to pour in.

either way, this website is an echo chamber of baits and stupidity 90% of the time. outside vlr, it's not that serious.

I recently finished the show myself, I do recommend

what you explained is the definition of a skill floor lol. you have to be good in the first place to provide what little value she offers, while anyone can pick cypher, place a trip down, and get more value.

even if the agent sucks rn (which i agree), people think that the skill floor is just being able to heal teammates, which doesn't actually do jack shit 90% of the time

for every one sage with a brain, there's three that think they're grim (they are silver and will fuck up half their walls), and there's six that think they're helping the team by healing (they're actually feeding and giving free ult points)

i think the biggest issue is that sage's kit is so objectively simple that players think the skill floor is a lot lower than it actually is

Love the mindset. Best of luck to you, then o7

I remember a couple of years ago vlr put out a post saying they were recruiting writers. I imagine you can reach out to the mods or enigma to show them you're interested in officially writing for the site?

1. agree to an extent (the extent being Being a Normal Person). They don't have to be PERFECT, but there's a limit too.
2. agree, except the parasocialism. fuck that
3. it really depends on the org, honestly. Like if someone told me that they really like 100T then I get it, since that org is huge and exists outside of esports. Same with something like FaZe even if FaZe is basically dead.
4. Slightly disagree because this is still their livelihood. Especially with the Americas teams having to live in such an expensive city it's important they get a liveable salary (which is a LOT if you're living in LA). But orgs are broke and esports is not a money printing machine like the NFL or the Premier League so if a player is honestly expecting to be paid like an athlete then that's just stupid.
5. Disagree, because it's just part of banter. Other athletes have nicknames and they're sometimes still called their government name. It's not parasocial unless it's an actual obsession/problematic. If it's just jokes then it's fine.
6. Technically OP's hot take has now come true with Bob qualifying to NA Challengers with Blue Otter through premier. We'll see how she performs!
7. I also agree, though I understand if they want the revenue from streams. It's when the streaming becomes their personality that it becomes a problem. They start to focus more on pleasing an audience than winning.

My hot take is that agent bans should be introduced as a test for future pro matches and maybe even the beta client. They can try it out during Off//Season events or Challengers if they want to try stuff out in regular season. Just something simple like each team is allowed one/two agent bans per map or per series. I think it would force greater variety in team comps for certain maps and make one-tricks learn other agents. Imagine Viper getting banned on Icebox/Breeze, or Jett getting banned so a cracked Jett player can't op, or Sova/Kayo/KJ getting banned on Ascent. Or imagine how different the meta would've been if 2022 Chamber/Fade was a permaban. I'm not saying that agent bans WILL work as a system but I do think at least trying it out would be a fun change of pace.

the day this website dies will be the day the world finds peace

This would be fire. I'd rather have that than 2 betting links on every match page

had to look in my inventory and remember that the 2022 Champs phantom exists lmao, I haven't used it since the 2024 one came out

I've bought every Champs gun and the most recent Champs knife. They're all just very clean

2024 Champs phantom, 2021 Champs vandal

If I'm not feeling them -- 2022 Champs phantom (or glitchpop), 2023 Champs vandal

vlr + anything is the worst combination of all time

his essay will be released before bedtime today

My flair changes pretty often but I tend to support most teams from LATAM-N because I'm Colombian and this region has pitiful representation in tier 1.

In tier 1 I like SEN because I like a lot of their players from even before they joined SEN (especially zekken. I was a huge zekken fan back in his XSET days)

Honorable mentions are KOI (just because I want to see them succeed for once), and DRX (MaKo deserves an international trophy before he retires please)

The overhyping around Primmie will ultimately lead to Primmie receiving equal or greater levels of hate as Yay/Boaster if he doesn't perform this season. He's a great player and awesome to watch but people are touting him as the GOAT after only a handful of tier 1 games, which I think is delusional and is only going to make things worse if Talon don't make Champions this year.

That's what I was assuming as well. This would make them more quality-of-life changes than actual buffs, since they're changing stuff so the sound cues do their actual job lmao

For those confused with the Gekko changes... I saw them as a nerf overall.

The dizzy flash now hits more reliably (whatever that means) and now affects the minimap (which makes it work more like a normal flash) -- these would be buffs with no other changes, but the .5s active time might be big. It'll be a lot easier to avoid it without having to shoot it, given how short that time was anyway (literally a 33% decrease).

The wingman cone is a buff but we know that concusses only work like 40% of the time anyway so whatever. Not sure what the visual thing is

The thrash orb increase is obviously a nerf. I always felt it was incredibly easy for a solid Gekko to farm ult so this will at least slow them down.

The pickup time nerfs are probably the biggest thing. Not only does it take Gekko longer to pick up his critters, but now they simply don't last as long on the ground. That'll make it easier to punish a Gekko that throws util like candy because there's less time to pick stuff up and also you're vulnerable while picking up for longer.

It's definitely not a giganerf like when they sent chamber to the farm, but I think this is one of those "wait until we see if it actually changes anything" changes.

the kind that uses microsoft stuff (Box, Outlook, etc)

Gmail is allowed but any "online storage" websites like Drive are blacklisted. It's probably a secrecy thing, because then theoretically anyone can access confidential information, screenshot/copy, and then keep on Drive

The flash being his new rechargeable ability makes him a LOT more team oriented now. You can throw a flash to help entry and not worry about "wasting it" assuming you capitalize on it and get two kills.

Still won't be good enough for a solo entry but he'll definitely see more use as a second entry IMO. Might still be the worst duelist but he's a lot better just with that change alone

honestly rewatching the video, it might be the case. reyna overheal would probably function the same way too -- rather than purple health it just becomes temporary shield health. it makes more sense since shields don't actually reduce the damage you take like CS armor/helmet and instead serves more like extra health

I fully thought the new shield was just a UI change for the overheal text, but I have no idea how Phoenix fits into this since he never had an overheal mechanic. Unless the new Phoenix changes allow him to overheal now?

yeah it's annoying at first but i would rather the new users be forced to wait a while between posts vs the trolls/baiters spam the shit out of the website and then just make a new account to spam with if they get banned

Yes to prevent new account spamming

I think for 0 stars you had to wait like two minutes between posting anything

Switching his molly and flash is actually such a simple yet good change honestly

Phoenix flash is often considered one of the best in the game, and a recharge on kills lets you use it more on-the-go without worrying about wasting it. You can throw it to entry sites, get two kills, and use it to stall defuse (example). Meanwhile the molly is easy to avoid and not nearly as useful an entry tool compared to the other duelists.

The wall change is also a good change. Overall, big W for Phoenix players

The spreadsheet can confirm this (I can't access it myself because of my work blacklisting Google Drive links)

If I were to guess he's considered an NA import considering he is Korean-American and he played in NA until this year.

edit oops mortadelo beat me to it

It was maybe my favorite final that entire year, especially seeing PRX pull out Astra-Breach-Yoru-Neon on Breeze, which at the time had almost never been seen on the pro stage since the meta was (and still probably is) Viper-Sova-Jett-Cypher

Knowing Rito they're actually going to make this happen for the 5 year anniversary. Except it won't be map art and instead a capsule of sprays and buddies and maybe a mid gun skin. And it'll cost $50 USD. Oh and you can't buy anything individually you HAVE to buy the whole bundle

Either that or trembo vs keznit

I'm glad you mentioned this. I work at a company that builds CT machines and clear imagery is incredibly important. There's a tradeoff when it comes to getting scanned: either you keep the radiation dose low and have a noisy image, or you up the dose and make the image clearer. Of course, too much radiation is bad for you, so we want the dosage to be low. But a noisy image can make a doctor completely miss something, which is bad if not even worse.

During training I was given two images of the same organ that had different noise levels. The clearer one showed some stuff that would indicate a tumor, and the noisy one did not. Image quality can literally determine whether you will find cancer in your system or if it will stay hidden until it's too late.

The benefit of AI here is that it's allowing us to improve the image quality through training the AI while not having to increase the dosage. The AI can read the noisy image and basically fill in the gaps to make the resolution better.

It's super interesting stuff.

You're basically describing 2G

only Zap and pryze have any semblance of T1 experience (both were on Keyd Stars for a few months pre-franchising). The rest are having a true rookie season I'm pretty sure