Discussion: How can Haze's ult be less annoying?

[Emily Vasquez]

If you've spent a couple of matches in Deadlock you're bound to have seen it: A Haze player being gone most of the match farming only to occasionally come in and press 4 on their keyboard to easily win a teamfight because they built up Unstoppable/Ricochet/Lucky Shot in 30 minutes. To me, and plenty of others, this ult has been a pain in the ass for everyone on the receiving end, and a non-thought button press for the person playing the character, making this character the most flowchart-type hero in the game because of how simple their gameplan is, with the biggest issue revolving around how spammable and god awful it is to fight against her ult. That is if you even get a chance to.

Back then you could just get Metal Skin and possibly Return Fire to deal with it, but with there now being a buff to it to make it also deal Spirit Damage, things look more bleak for people who already despise the character as is. So I'm making this thread to ask others: How do you think Haze's ult could be rebalanced/reworked to be way less troublesome?

 

[flynnmikey07]

Just use any CC on her and she's worthless.

 

[kongkim]

There are items that counter her, but if she also has unstoppable she can be very hard to counter for a lot of heroes.
So for most non/pro players she is a really bad hero to be up against, so agree she need some balance.

A way could be to lower the radius of it so it where easier to get away, but give it a bit more duration to balance it out if set up with a stub or team fights.

 

[Dashiell]

Start buying advanced armors, every time my team sucks I see the same thing, they refuse to buy armors because they need their 1000dps items, too bad dps is 0 when dead. Throw in return fire and math does wonders since now (any gun hero) deals more dmg to themselves than to you and given that most of them don't buy armors it's easy to kill them.

Additionally if enemy can farm everything on the map it means your team sucks at taking objectives since objectives=map control=farm ability, that's something you need to work on otherwise anyone on enemy team can do whatever they want.

 

[shane909]

There are multiple items in the game to stop her ult from being effective. Also just be aware that its going to happen? This is outright a skill issue. Not requiring a game change.

 

[gibnewitems]

A Haze player being gone most of the match farming only to occasionally come in and press 4 on their keyboard to easily win a teamfight because they built up Unstoppable/Ricochet/Lucky Shot in 30 minutes.

That's at least three tier 4s. Taking the rest of her important core items into account, and not taking into account early game items that you'll sell off later for slots, you're easily looking at a minimum +40k soul value build just to have an ult that deals damage and doesn't get cancelled out instantly by the long list of cc abilities in the game. That's gonna take far more than 30 minutes to farm up, especially in higher elos, where people are really good at punishing people trying to pull off these expensive farm heavy strategies.

Back then you could just get Metal Skin and possibly Return Fire to deal with it,

You still can. Metal skin still negates the vast majority of her ult damage for just 3000 souls. It also counters the more effective and far cheaper m1 haze build, and even the meme echo shard spirit build isn't safe ever since they made it so that slept heroes can still use actives.

 

[Enju]

Just use any CC on her and she's worthless.

Use CC on the character that gets Unstoppable first or second 6200 and can use it during ultimate.

Sure. That will definitely, absolutely work.

 

[poss]

They should make her dizzy when it finishes.

She's spinning and twirling and whirling around everywhere. I get dizzy just looking at it. She should be dazed and unable to walk straight after all that.

This isn't just a silly suggestion. It adds some risk vs reward to the ult, since if she messes up the timing she can't just cancel and get away.

Everyone says it's low skill to just hit 4 and delete the team, but they're not counting all the times a Haze player hits 4 and doesn't get anyone. Or hits 4 and only gets half the group, or ends up stuck in a group with no exit.

If the feedback is consistently that Haze feels cheap and low skill, then the nerf should punish the low skill ults, not the high skill ults.

 

[HazeMaster]

Wait a minute...
How is haze ult different than any other character who can equally press 4 and kill you ?
Is Dynamo's ult different ? Haze's ult can be interrupted in many ways... when Dynamo get's you , you can't interrupt
Haze got nerfed already and is very weak in the start of the game and only helpful mid to late game .
Even her ult , in the start of the game almost can't do sht .
Lash that can get you from far away just by pressing 4 ? How are those different ?

Haze actually needs a buff cause almost everyone can beat haze up to 30min (since you mentioned it) and to get the items you mentioned in 30min is almost impossible if you only farm camps.

 

[HazeMaster]

things look more bleak for people who already despise the character as is.

You play with Ivy , Abraams ---> they can interrupt haze's ult easily and haze has to wait another minute for a refresh

You also play with Dynamo ----> ult vs ult , dynamo wins

Viscous ---> can also interrupt and easily escape in the cube

You hate on a character that you don't play with and since you don't play , it is logic that you will encounter as enemy
But when you press 4 with Dynamo and kill 2-3 guys at a time , i guess its all right...

 

[flynnmikey07]

Use CC on the character that gets Unstoppable first or second 6200 and can use it during ultimate.

Sure. That will definitely, absolutely work.

That's either so late game it's irrelevant to 70% of the game or the haze player in question won't be able to do any damage. If you actually look at high elo games, hazes don't just "jump into a team fight to kill everyone." Most of the time when they use their ult it's a finisher against a single opponent because it's that easy to counter.

 

[StaticSpark]

Firstly, remove using active items during her ult. That was singlehandedly her hardest buff ever and makes her nigh-unbeatable post 30 mins.
Second, up the spirit damage but remove (or reduce) procs. Haze builds are always just stacking debuffs and procs like ricochet and toxic bullets (along with her built in damage increase proc) which makes her ult stack way, way too much in a huge area.

Haze's main problem has always been her abilities' interactions with items giving her massive powerspikes no other character gets. Even infernus struggles to maximize ricochet's potential like haze does.

 

[poss]

That's either so late game it's irrelevant to 70% of the game or the haze player in question won't be able to do any damage. If you actually look at high elo games, hazes don't just "jump into a team fight to kill everyone." Most of the time when they use their ult it's a finisher against a single opponent because it's that easy to counter.

The idea that you should balance everything around high levels of play is absurd.

The experience of 99% of people shouldn't be determined by the ability of 1% of players.

 

[gmazonakis200370]

I guess it becomes really annoying to some people,but u kinda should posted this in Haze Feedback(I mean,u still can just make link to this post in Haze Feedback)

 

[flynnmikey07]

The idea that you should balance everything around high levels of play is absurd.

The experience of 99% of people shouldn't be determined by the ability of 1% of players.

Well, guess what, that's also how low level hazes get fed. People over extend and are picked off then wonder why the haze can one-shot their team going 15-0. Haze has been nerfed multiple times, there's a point it's a skill issue.

 

[poss]

Well, guess what, that's also how low level hazes get fed. People over extend and are picked off then wonder why the haze can one-shot their team going 15-0. Haze has been nerfed multiple times, there's a point it's a skill issue.

It will never be the case that you can make the majority of people better players by posting about it on forums or patch notes.

If the solution is ever changing player behavior, then that is still on the devs to add training, access and incentives.

 

[flynnmikey07]

It will never be the case that you can make the majority of people better players by posting about it on forums or patch notes.

If the solution is ever changing player behavior, then that is still on the devs to add training, access and incentives.

I disagree because historically games have only needed to show players what a mechanic is [i.e. the rules of a game] and not a strategy. Learning the strategies of the game are what make the game fun. Teaching yourself the strategies through creative thought is a part of the game. Keeping the strategies ambiguous build community and encourage player interaction outside of the game. There is no reason for this to be explained especially considering those are basic strategies already found in most MOBAs. It should be expected of the genre, and even without genre consideration most games already do this. It's just that most games don't rely on the type of feedback most MOBAs have - hence why MOBAs are frustrating. Most people are not built to understand it immediately, and that's ok because MOBAs not designed that way.

 

[poss]

I disagree because historically games have only needed to show players what a mechanic is [i.e. the rules of a game] and not a strategy. Learning the strategies of the game are what make the game fun. Teaching yourself the strategies through creative thought is a part of the game. Keeping the strategies ambiguous build community and encourage player interaction outside of the game. There is no reason for this to be explained especially considering those are basic strategies already found in most MOBAs. It should be expected of the genre, and even without genre consideration most games already do this. It's just that most games don't rely on the type of feedback most MOBAs have - hence why MOBAs are frustrating. Most people are not built to understand it immediately, and that's ok because MOBAs not designed that way.

Deadlock isn't just a MOBA, its also a hero shooter. Those are not designed to be frustrating, and players from hero shooters will not know or care about frustrating MOBA genre tropes. Moreover, MOBAs may be popular in their own communities, but they are impenetrable to the broader gaming scene, precisely because of those frustrations which Deadlock has largely been avoiding.

When the majority are saying a game is frustrating and leaving, the answer isn't telling them to skill up, but instead making the game less frustrating.

 

[flynnmikey07]

Deadlock isn't just a MOBA, its also a hero shooter. Those are not designed to be frustrating, and players from hero shooters will not know or care about frustrating MOBA genre tropes. Moreover, MOBAs may be popular in their own communities, but they are impenetrable to the broader gaming scene, precisely because of those frustrations which Deadlock has largely been avoiding.

When the majority are saying a game is frustrating and leaving, the answer isn't telling them to skill up, but instead making the game less frustrating.

The argument between majority and minority will never end.

Also, it's worth noting Hero Shooters are a very new genre. Casual MOBAs have been made that are far less frustrating [Like Battlerite and Supervive]. There is very likely room somewhere for a harder, more in-depth hero shooter.

 

[gibnewitems]

It will never be the case that you can make the majority of people better players by posting about it on forums or patch notes.

If the solution is ever changing player behavior, then that is still on the devs to add training, access and incentives.

seems more like a problem existing between chair and keyboard if anything.