Elf in matches

Saw this coming from miles away, valid point though. The earth element spam is ridiculously annoying, and effective in some cases there's no denying that. It can be easily abused to limit any class's mobility and potential to capture.
Add a poll to the thread.

 

I completely agree, everytime this happens I point it out but it is just not restricted for some reason.

 

I would like to see it be restricted like medic webs are. More than two consecutive earth element shots should be considered spam, and a warning should be issued. Wouldn't be too hard, and would fix an annoying problem.

 

This would be a good change.

BUT This thread feels a bit redundant since the mods are already working on an elf rework and the last update outright removed earth element.

 

If there in fact is a rework with earth element removed then there will be no need for this, but as of now this is more than relevant and a VERY needed rule in official matches.
Just ask ADV after their Annihilation match

 

You guys understand that it’s not that hard to dodge earth elements. Also that’s all elf defense can do, and putting one on defense is basically trolling as long as you
1. Don’t rage
2. Don’t troll
3. Understand how to play effective offense

 

It’s not very easy to dodge an elf with earth element when it knows what it’s doing, especially when you’ve already been hit with it and are stuck and unable to move. Elf can do a lot more on defense than earth spam; pure element is extremely effective when a player knows how to aim well, and its mobility allows it to roam all over the place and harass the offense. I also think it’s important to notice that no one is suggesting that elf can’t ever use earth element, just that you shouldn’t be able to spam it. I don’t think an offense is more or less effective based on whether or not it can avoid being earth spammed.

EDIT: There is a rule in MMR about elf spamming but it hardly does anything to stop earth spamming, so I believe a new operational definition should be applied to the term and the rule should be changed so prevent earth spamming entirely.

 

There’s maybe 10 people in the entire community who can consistently more than 50% of the time land an earth element on me. If that’s not true for you then learn how to go sideways. That being said there is probably about 50 ninjas who can do more damage to me than one elf can. The only reason someone whips out elf defense is because you don’t understand the game enough to play against it.

Everytime there is a strategy that is tough to beat you can’t just ban it.

 

It’s not that it’s tough to beat it’s that it’s annoying. Dwarf and engineer are banned from matches for the same reason. Egg spam and web spam rules are there for the same reason. For as long as competitive ctf has been around the teams continue to try to weed out cheap and annoying tactics not because it’s difficult to play against, but because the game is more fun without it. I think you’re putting more emphasis on insulting the skill of other players than you are on the actual issue. So far you’ve mostly just provided a extended version of “git gud”

 

If parts of the game are so annoying and unfun to play against that they are banned from competitive matches, they shouldn't remain in the game in the first place. Many of these problems are only made worse when more less-skilled people are playing, as is the case on the public servers.

 

I’m not telling anyone to ‘git gud’, but would you rather play against Miskey or whoever’s elf defense , or a really good ninja. Because there are more ninjas than elf defenders. Not to mention there are so few maps elf is viable. If you can’t use earth element then why does elf even have it? This strategy is not annoying, it’s innovative, but it’s also really hit or miss. It basically takes a defender away because other than earth and sometimes wind it pretty useless on defense. Some people choose to create strategies, and others choose the get autoclickers :shrug:

 

There is not one defensive elf that has ever given me real problems via Earth Element. It's overall goal is similar to a mage and less effective imo.

 

Again with the ad hominem responses. Anyone knows how to play effectively would know that elf has many more assets than wind and earth element on defense. It also has a huge range of midfield and offensive capabilities. If you want to talk about something other than elf in matches go ahead and pm me.

 

I’m 100% referencing elf in matches in anything I have said. Except the auto clicker comment but on the real I would rather play against elf defense than a good ninja because with a good ninja, they can so many different things, but elf can only kind of shoot at you. Take a tunnel route, split up your offense. It’s not super hard.

 

Call me biased af, idgaf, but if you are unable to have a ninja sitting on that elf than it's your fault for not responding to a threat like people react to an archer with ninjas. Elf spam is only useful on one map in the entire game, and it happens to be Skyworlds (Blackout isn't even that good). Honestly there are way more defensive ninjas, heavies, soldiers, archers, assassin and pyros combined, than defensive elfs, due to 2 teams(Anni/TBF) actually using an elf defense on Skyworlds ATM. Also if it was so broken and OP, why don't you try to use it?

 

I've never supported the argument that something should be banned from competitive matches solely because it's annoying. If it's annoying and overpowered then sure, but this isn't the case with elf/mage/necro/ninja capping. Classes like dwarf and engineer are banned in matches because they present legitimate gameplay issues, problems that aren't easy to avoid and can be incredibly strong.

The thing that gets me the most with the aforementioned classes/strategies is that all of the teams that don't play them want them banned. First off, if the classes are so annoying, strong, and require no skill, how come you're not able to use them effectively? Hell, it's a competitive match, you do whatever you can within the rules to win. Maybe if players put time into elf/mage/necro/ninja capping they'd learn two things. They'd learn how situational they all are, and maybe they'd actually learn how to counter them.

Ignorance and refusal to learn how to play against something doesn't make it overpowered. If something is annoying but not overpowered you just need to get better at playing against it, and the best way to do so is by learning the limits of the class by playing it yourself. Ban **** that breaks the game, don't ban **** that makes you rage because you're not willing to counter it.

 

So far so good. I completely agree.

So why isn't archer banned then?
Because it certainly is annoying. Also the only unblockable instakill in the game. There's quite a few reasons why it could be, and sometimes is considered as overpowered. So... Would you actually ban archers?

I'd personally debate for archer to still be allowed because it is vital to keep 'overall balance' of other certain classes on certain maps...

Guess which class is obviously very easy to avoid... Mage. No freeze spells or anything.
Anyway I'm getting lost, didn't want this to be about mage tbh.


So where am I even going at...
Apparently archer, although quite annoying and also somewhat OP, isn't banned while Engineer as an example is. I'd personally argue that Engineer is banned because it does too much with literally close to zero effort. Its effect on the game is huge compared to the effort. But what if it was needed to keep some sort of balance, just like archer? Would it still be banned too?

Same goes for elf earth element. CTF worked without it for quite some time. Current CTF could work effortlessly without Elf too, it isn't too much of a gamechanger, maybe that's why there's not a lot of players playing it.
Point is: You can't compare archer and elf in this case.
Why is medic web spam restricted? Why ninja's eggs? It's certainly annoying. Overpowered though? It may provide a slight advantage maybe (also highly situational, who would have thought that). If medic's 5 webs were really overpowered, why not simply limit them to three and let them regen faster?
Elf can limit a player's mobility to the point that he can't move for like 8 seconds (which is possible with elf I think), what makes it any different from medic's webs which limit mobility too? Limiting medic's 'only' way to do anything else than sword-fight and heal and not limiting one of elf's 5 abilities which is very much comparable to the medic's ability... medic's webs nor elf's earth are vital to the game's balance like archer is.
I'm honestly too tired now to write the conclusio...

Let's not forget... In this example the threat was 5 blocks from spawn but that doesn't matter at all right.

 

Archer, similar to elf, is borderline useless on some maps and very strong on others. Archer does balance out other classes by being such a potent recovery class on maps like blackout, which is a seen quite a bit in matches, so I see your point there. That being said, archer as a class is heavily limited, but none of its mechanics or abilities are.

It's the slowest moving projectile in the entire game.

Engineer imo is banned because teleporters & cake would not function well at all in a ctf match and would cause many glaring issues, as we've seen in the past when engineer was allowed for a short while. Instead of limiting every aspect of the class, it's banned. If engineer was 100% needed to keep the game balanced of course it would be allowed, but that's not the case, and likely won't be anytime soon so I don't understand why you're making that point. Archer is unique in that aspect.

The whole "ctf worked without it..." paragraph is just a fallacy. That's not at all a valid argument. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/44/Appeal-to-Tradition

Web spam and egg spam are definitely overpowered. Both can be used to completely stop recovery on any map with small tunnels, which happens to be a good bit of the maps ingame=, as well as those picked in matches. There's a reason everyone stopped medic/ninja capping in matches once webspam/eggspam got banned.

Elf cannot perma-root a player, and if you think it can you're incorrect. Everyone thinks it can because they don't know how to play against it correctly, but that's not a problem with the class, that's a problem with the players not wanting to learn.

This whole argument is flawed. Limiting or banning something because it isn't vital to the game's balance is a terrible idea. There are hundreds of examples that you could bring up for any class/tactic/etc showing how in that situation the class is just annoying, and isn't vital to gameplay. The reason elf/mage/medic/ninja are currently limited the way they are in MMR is because we felt that those specific examples presented gameplay issues within matches. Not everything that's troublesome for a player is an actual issue.

You were trying to spawn shoot for a good portion of that map & had a ninja on me for a while, who forced me to drop a few times. Poorly executed targeting is not the issue here. If that ninja actually killed me, or you hit a shot when your offense came in then you might have capped. Yeah, I know there's the whole "you're elf you can block my arrows" argument, but guess what I can't do while shifting & blocking with my sword in my hand or fighitng a ninja, pull back my bow to use my elements.

 

wouldnt it just be better to have it so u know basically also male stop crying im 12 btw