Hot take, but you may think the faster the LB lands the better. Well I disagree strongly and this is why:
Since the damage hit registration changes, which have obviously been made to get out of the old snapshot system (like in pve) and allow for reactive gameplay so that people can block or counter specific actions, certain actions like Marksman's Spite are clearly counterable by anybody having Guard ready. This has somewhat nerfed Spite comparatively to what it could do by snapshotting in EW (you couldn't guard-react it), and it has moved it toward a more punitive decision: you use it on players that are already under Guard, so that they eat the shot once out of guard, or you use it on targets that you know cannot use Guard for other reasons.
So far so good, and Spite still took a whole 2s of animation before landing even after the changes in 7.1, until SE decided to shorten this significantly. There was literally no reason to do so, and I posit this is problematic because it generates and rewards BAD gameplay. A lot of MCHs use Spite without having any clue whether a target can guard or not, and they are often rewarded with a kill because the target they attack has their GCD spinning and cannot Guard in time. They have no way to know whether the target's GCD is about to be ready for Guard when they use Spite, or if it still has a way to go before being ready to Guard, yet they use Spite anyway, and that's what I call Gamba Spite. You're just gambling for your target not to guard because you constantly get rewarded for it out of pure rng.
This promotes bad gameplay, bad play, and it's become obvious that unlike before the change a lot of MCH players even in Crystal ranks also do that where they should clearly know better. I don't think this change was warranted at all since as explained above, since the hit registration changes you do not want to use Spite without knowing that the target can't guard anymore, which means that whether the hit takes 2s or less is irrelevant. The hit taking 2s can actually help you because you can start the shot earlier even if there is above 1s left on the enemy's Guard.
So I do believe this change was a terrible change.
Continue reading...
Since the damage hit registration changes, which have obviously been made to get out of the old snapshot system (like in pve) and allow for reactive gameplay so that people can block or counter specific actions, certain actions like Marksman's Spite are clearly counterable by anybody having Guard ready. This has somewhat nerfed Spite comparatively to what it could do by snapshotting in EW (you couldn't guard-react it), and it has moved it toward a more punitive decision: you use it on players that are already under Guard, so that they eat the shot once out of guard, or you use it on targets that you know cannot use Guard for other reasons.
So far so good, and Spite still took a whole 2s of animation before landing even after the changes in 7.1, until SE decided to shorten this significantly. There was literally no reason to do so, and I posit this is problematic because it generates and rewards BAD gameplay. A lot of MCHs use Spite without having any clue whether a target can guard or not, and they are often rewarded with a kill because the target they attack has their GCD spinning and cannot Guard in time. They have no way to know whether the target's GCD is about to be ready for Guard when they use Spite, or if it still has a way to go before being ready to Guard, yet they use Spite anyway, and that's what I call Gamba Spite. You're just gambling for your target not to guard because you constantly get rewarded for it out of pure rng.
This promotes bad gameplay, bad play, and it's become obvious that unlike before the change a lot of MCH players even in Crystal ranks also do that where they should clearly know better. I don't think this change was warranted at all since as explained above, since the hit registration changes you do not want to use Spite without knowing that the target can't guard anymore, which means that whether the hit takes 2s or less is irrelevant. The hit taking 2s can actually help you because you can start the shot earlier even if there is above 1s left on the enemy's Guard.
So I do believe this change was a terrible change.
Continue reading...