I got a lot of comments focused on the quality of my rushed post instead of the discussion, so I'm redoing it.

Counter-buying is mainly a tool used to maintain a lead. It's a defensive action, so obviously it's used for defense. That's why, under general guidelines, it's better to use defensive actions while already ahead to maintain your lead rather than force it further and take a higher risk of losing it.

On the opposite end, when you're already down in souls, it's better to try and make plays. This doesn't mean fully give up on counter-buying; it just means if you're getting slammed by a Haze, building a bunch of Bullet Resist isn't automatically going to mean you can beat her 1v1 or gain an advantage over simply staying alive slightly longer.

Of course, there are cases where defensive items while behind are important, but only when they're incredibly strong defensive options. Slapping a bandage on a torn-off limb isn't going to do anything, the same way buying something like Battle Vest isn't going to stop a Drifter from melting your face off. On the contrary, a stronger option like Cursed Relic for a carry or Spell Breaker against a bunch of spirit burst damage makes sense.

In even games, counter-buying is a lot more complicated. It depends on game knowledge and whatnot, but just think to yourself: "Who is currently messing up me or my team?" or "Who counters my character, and what item can I buy to limit that?"

For an example of counter-buying when someone is messing up your team:

The Lash is hitting amazing ults on your team, and no one is buying Counterspell, Indom, or Unstoppable. Buy Knockdown and watch out for his ult.

For an example of counter-buying when a character just counters yours and how to mitigate it:

You're playing Rem or Kelvin against a Pocket who maxed ult. Your character isn't doing ANY healing as long as your team is afflicted, so maybe buy a Divine Barrier.

The amount of "just buy indom or unstoppable" here and in-game like you'd win if you just bought them is bonkers to me. The biggest culprit is when your team keeps getting Lash ulted, "shoulda bought indom".

Sure, you can buy indom, so you can watch half your team get thrown into the enemy team. And you better hope they don't have rusted barrel/arctic blast/slowing hex/curse/disarming hex or the rest of the laundry list of CC abilities that will take your indom cooldown for the rest of the fight. Unstoppable won't even save you from double Ivy stone form, or refesher Lash/Dynamo, Abrams charge/ult or echo haze dagger.

And let's look at this from a resource standpoint, your entire team could buy indom. Now you've used 40k out of 100-150k of your resources to counter 1 ult or CC combo. And they've spent their resources building more damage. Not to mention you might be wanting dispel for infernus/mirage/haze/escalating exposure. So say goodbye to 1/3 of your net worth just to realize you lack damage and don't contribute to team fights.

I'd wager if you're the team forcing counter buys you've already won. Embrace circle and CC meta or you lose

source

Wtf is this 😭

Shiv redraw of the ‘Better Man’ poster. I think it’s fitting for him.

I have been trying to figure this our for a little while. I know WHAT to buy against certain heroes, but my issue comes with the WHEN. I know it won't be a catchall answer, but some general guidance would go a long way to help.

I main lash if that helps.

El-Ectric

since its a physical object it should function like billy's or lash's ult: works within line of sight, breaks if it touches a wall. i don't know how you can objectively justify a rope going thru everything like a spectral force, and said rope having infinite length? in that case maybe vindicta‘'s ult should be able to pierce through everything. at least she's a ghost, she can probably walk through walls if she wants.

A little challenge for myself to try and port another game character into deadlock as seamlessly as possible. The goal was to make V1 is a slippery pest who is very annoying but also not awful to kill while keeping the general identity of V1 intact. The main loop would be ganking during teamfights and dueling. I imagine they play similar to haze, holiday or giest as a get in get out burst spirt. Dont put too much onto the numbers of the stats either cause I kinda winged it based on the wiki. I also tried to integrate them a little into the lore, I cant draw but they would be a scrap golem like Bebob and have a traffic light as a head.

Now I completely understand why you all would want a visual update, but I cant imagine why you would want the characters kit changed as a Sinclair player.

Vexing Bolt is literally the best early game poke tool that literally kills most of the roster in 2 bolts with decent execution.

Assistant is easily the best movement tool in the whole game and it also makes your Vexing Bolt Damage engine even stronger.

Rabbit Hex is literally the single best mid boss contest tool in the game and is also an extremely strong cc/ teamfighting ability, that when combined with echo shard, can single handedly win team fights.

And do I even need to explain why he has the best ult in the game?

Sinclairs only downside in his kit is that he doesnt have any combos or a gun build. But otherwise, you can literally build any item, any way on sinclair and get value. He is probably the best pos 5 in the game if there were a draft. I feel like theres no way to rework sinclair without both stealing his identity and making him weaker, so why do so many sinclair mains want him changed directly?

https://x.com/moragopus/status/2079761860409102379
this thread is a gold mine

This picture of Vegeta is killing me

I'm gonna be straight up with y'all, I've only ever played a couple matches of this game. I don't fully understand what's going on here aside from the fact that he's playing as Seven, but I thought this was cool.

I'm very proud of him.

Good job boyfriend.

“Remove Echo Shard” this

“Echo shard is fine skill issue” that

Nobody wants to be stunned 30 million times in a row, no matter how much cumulative / subsequent cc resist you get it will not be enough to make it feel less like crap.

Even stacking counter items isn’t really enough most of the time, like okay you got unstop and spell breaker but echo shard still kinda nullifies the use of these items by allowing the strongest cc abilities to be cast twice (aka easy to reapply / easy recovery if you miss / etc etc things people find annoying)

This is the problem with echo shard. It WILL be used on hard cc and immunity abilities, and it’s been proven time and time again that nobody likes to fight that

This combined with the fact that they KEEP adding heroes with incredibly strong cc (graves / silver / celeste / need I go on) has created an environment where either the abilities themselves need to be reworked, the recasted ability needs to be less powerful (reduced duration / damage, whatever)

OR the easiest option besides just giving it a stupid long cooldown; say enough is enough and stop allowing people to stack up on the most annoying and crutchy effects in the game

I love echo shard Seven but I’m willing to lose that since I know how infuriating it is on the receiving end lol

EDIT; [u/Spa](u/Spakal2)[c](u/Spakal2)[kal2](u/Spakal2) has the best idea imo, which is to remove the scaling and passive benefits that echo shard provides

so taking it early in the game would be a massive stat loss since it would be purely for the extra use of an ability and wouldn’t provide you with the 6.4k spirit investment scaling like other items

*I couldnt find the original artist who drew the image in the background (even after reverse search) so it would be very cool if someone can say his name.

Do we know if Mrs. Shelly is sick with a mundane illness? What if she was cursed in some way, and Bebop using his wish to "Cure Mrs. Shelly", ends up being wasted because she's cursed and not "sick" in the traditional sense?