Heavy Medal Sucks

Heavy Medal is an awful mechanic, and has been the sole, stupid reason I've both won and last too many games. So many games are decided upon the melee using their LB on the person with 3+ stacks in the last few seconds of the match, then picking up the medals and running away.

The mechanic sucked to begin with, and to know that the changes are only getting MORE detrimental are very disheartening. This mechanic does not belong in PVP, as it punishes you for getting kills, and when paired with something like the melee LB, makes it so teams with absolutely no skill can beat teams that get ahead of them.

Honestly, the idea that medals need to be picked up is pretty bad to begin with. If you insist on keeping this gimmick in the game mode, just distribute the medals evenly across team members.

Yes it's a terrible mechanic. Me as a tank with 6+ stacks, full hp in defiance, vegeance and thrill getting Yolo'd on by a melee is stupid.

I can see its purpose to keep matches competitive, allowing the losing team a chance to come back and adding a strategy element in the distribution of medals.
I think the problem with a debuffed player getting KOed by melee LB is just how ridiculously overpowered melee LB is. Healers and DPS roles even get encouraged to use vitality accessories so a melee cannot wipe them out in 1 hit.
I would either make melee adrenaline weaker, or make it very significantly weaker but changed to a conal aoe instead of single target.

Well the match times moving to 8 minutes now should help a bit but I still think that is a bit too long. Most matches are over by the 5 minute mark (or should be). Most of the matches after the 5 minute mark is just wasted time with hit and runs or hail mary rushes. The problem that they know is tanks even 1v4 are too strong. Too many matches have had all but the tank swept in the first fight and the tank hold on long enough for their team to respawn and delay the match. Just like in any competition it's not over until it's over the the percentage chance that a team has at that point is so low that it's just a waste of time for everyone. Just get it over with and move on to the next match.

Problem is that you can be winnig the whole match and a melee can just lol run in and lb whoever is holding the highest stack of coins.

Heavy metal should not effect lb damage

Why wouldn't you take on a more defensive positioning if it's near the end of the match and you're the key to the current victory?
I can understand the frustration of losing your medals at the last moment, especially as a tank. But there are means to stop this.
Being out of the way, or simply not taking all the medals on yourself. I'm seeing a lot of Ninjas taking coins. Quick movement speed without sprint, and the ability to hide and chill out in a corner somewhere holding your medals. There's no reason a tank should take everything now!

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Originally Posted by konage

Heavy metal should not effect lb damage

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This 100%, both LBs become significantly overpowered when cast on someone with heavy medal, easily turning the tide of the entire match in the matter of seconds. Also Man Dudez, isn't that the point of the overall tank damage nerf in conjunction with the vit changes? For tanks to not lose sight of being tanks even in PvP? It takes about 5 seconds to respawn, if a tank wasn't able to delay death for that long I wouldn't call them tanks at all. Heavy medal's increase to 15% along with the lower threshold is a very weird and unexpected change and im not too positive it will enhance the gameplay of the feast at all.

An easy counterplay to heavy medal is to not overly stack medals on a single player. In 4v4, you need 600 medals between 4 players to win. It takes a single player having 270 medals to get as high as 6 stacks. By all means, a tank in tank stance even with 3 stakcs (225 medals) is incredibly hard to kill, especially if the healer is still alive. The only time that it's even feasible to burst down a tank with the enemy healer's up (as you would burst a DPS in the first minute) is if they have such a high stack to begin with.

Yeah, a great spread of medals is always the for sure win strat. Stacking them on one player, even a tank, is kinda shortsighted. Then again, I've sat at the 300+ medal mark on my WAR with 30 secs left, popped Defiance, Thrill/Thrill, and Vengeance and swapped tank positions to hang with the Healers, Mythril Tempest under my finger waiting for the dog pile xD Bring it ;D

I often see people ignore medals entirely - even when they are in a position to safely pick them up. Other than that...more players just need to learn how to play defensively. Even if that means retreating to their base and not letting someone on their team get nuked in the last couple of minutes during a match.

I don't understand the problem. This change makes even tanks think twice about absorbing all the medals and becoming an invincible repository for medals, which slows the pace of the game down and basically locks in a win once a WAR or PLD has 300+ medals. You just aren't going to kill them as it is unless you stunlock both the tank and the healer simultaneously, which makes it difficult for a losing team to make a clutch play to overtake and win.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Why wouldn't you take on a more defensive positioning if it's near the end of the match and you're the key to the current victory?
I can understand the frustration of losing your medals at the last moment, especially as a tank. But there are means to stop this.
Being out of the way, or simply not taking all the medals on yourself. I'm seeing a lot of Ninjas taking coins. Quick movement speed without sprint, and the ability to hide and chill out in a corner somewhere holding your medals. There's no reason a tank should take everything now!

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Where talking about solo queue here. Even at a defensive position, in a close game with coins spread you can easily burn some down with heavy metal+ full swing and a melee lb.

Heavy medal is really bad even more so now, after patch 3.22

I thought it was an unfair mechanic but with the new damage increase it's just dumb.

It's so bad now that you pretty much want to start your games losing. I lost count of how many times i lost a match today last minute because of this change.

If you can properly distribute the medals, everyone should end the match with 150. Although the 175 threshold (which can happen if you kill the same person twice where they drop 25 medals) is a bit too much on non-tanks; it's a whooping 30% and that's a death sentence to non-tanks.

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

It's so bad now that you pretty much want to start your games losing. I lost count of how many times i lost a match today last minute because of this change.

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It extremely hard to even out stacks in solo play.

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

It's so bad now that you pretty much want to start your games losing. I lost count of how many times i lost a match today last minute because of this change.

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I agree I've seen lots of games where the teams are losing that they will turn it around by saving CD till the end and just blowing up a player or two

With the 8m timer change, it times up perfectly that the team that's winning in the beginning would gather enough medals to get roflstomped by the losing team, and then the timer would time out. Before the winning team could at least pull it back but now there's no time.

While it does suck to see the losing screen when you and the ranged dps are both 100k damage over the other team and have still lost..the mechanic is definitely a good thing. It punishes lazy dps who don't wanna do their share and put all responsibility on the tank. As well..it encourages the attacking of more targets insteada just 'target heals allday' -repeat. (Unless its a blm...then you could have negative, -20 medals and still must be sat on..yaaaa~ :) It seriously adds a tactical element that forces you to actuaslly consider your actions insteada just brainless fighting. Definitely adds an element of excitement to it when it gets down to crunch time and you see the enemy coming into your camp and you have 5-6 stacks lol.

It brings no strategy. Anyone besides the tank that has two stacks has to play defensive throughout the match. Giving the losing team a 30% damage advantage is huge. Unless you can 08-24-150 their team straight out it best to have your tank pick up 1 stack and just turtle the whole match.

I was somewhat okay with Heavy Medal as it was released, but the current update is not a good one at all. Allows too much rubberbanding in a match all for the sake of giving the "losing team" an advantage. Shortened culling time is equally foolish.

To me, the better team should win. And if teams are generally evenly matched (talking light party queue) then the game will go back and forth as the players dictate, it doesn't need such extreme Heavy Medal to basically guarantee it.

I was able to get in a few matches last night as Warrior, in both 8v8 and 4v4, I had instances where my medal stack was up to 6, one time 9, and I still had no problem keeping alive properly using my CDs and clinch timing on Thrill of Battle/War. Also tried out BLK(new changes=Fun again :D) and had a match where the Opposing Paladin had 9 stacks with <60 secs left and we couldn't kill him(I even got off a RS powered T3/F3/Elearrow/Fire4/tc'dT3/Scathe). I think the heavy medal would decimate a non tank, but it is at least working for good players who play tanks.

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

I think the heavy medal would decimate a non tank, but it is at least working for good players who play tanks.

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This whole change makes no sense to me. They claim it's supposed to stop Tanks from hoarding medals, but if you make medals give the same damage adjustment to all roles, it just makes tanks hoarding medals even more advantageous. I myself have had 9 stacks without a problem by successfully using cooldowns and tactics combined with being healed. By distributing the damage stacks across the team, you make a healer's job much more difficult than having to heal a single target.

Play right. you got 135% debuff dont go balls deep. dont be grabbing all the medals. teamwork not solo play.

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Originally Posted by ShaluaLie

Play right. you got 135% debuff dont go balls deep. dont be grabbing all the medals. teamwork not solo play.

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It's not about being punished for overextending or being overly aggressive, it's that you're being punished for -winning-. It has created a meta where a team will get a slight lead, then go sprint back to their spawn point and turtle. I fail to understand how that creates fun and engaging gameplay. The opposing team then comes into the turtle, usually with melee LB to insta-gib-skill-kill someone in seconds, then pick up the medals and all run back to their own spawn to then take their turn to turtle up.

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Originally Posted by Renault

then pick up the medals and all run back to their own spawn to then take their turn to turtle up.

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This was the meta since day 1. It just took a few people a while to catch on.

The tanks crying that they can no longer hold obscene amounts of medals or that they are being 1 shot by melee limit breaks while having tons of stacks just makes me laugh. I have never liked the inclusion of limit breaks in pvp since it's cheesy, and thank god they ditched battle high/fever for Feast that's another lame mechanic, but considering the defensive capabilities of tanks were developed around PVE raids and the dmg that the high end raid bosses will deal to said tanks (bosses who's burst dmg can exceed the output 2 dps can muster in the same timeframe) it's pretty stupid to think they wouldn't add some kind of mechanic to account for this in PVP.

Melee LB should probably not be affected by damage modifiers (positive or negative) other than possibly Shield Wall.

Not that Shield Wall (or defensive cooldowns, or Adlo/Noct..) are very good against it, because it finishes calculating damage a solid second before you hear it.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

This was the meta since day 1. It just took a few people a while to catch on.

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This guy gets it. they are just balancing classes so its more even. and so far its been funner seeing more ppl use other classes than Pally Ast Drg Smn.

Medal adjustments helped with just a tank holding all the medals now you gotta split it between ppl otherwise it turns into the turtling thing even then ppl will turtle its a collect the medals thing and when the timer gets close to the end you obviously arnt gonna be stupid enough to run back out and risk a loss. smart play not go balls deep the whole match.

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Originally Posted by ShaluaLie

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I just find it funny to be honest. The heavy medal change actually helps deal with turtling, as before the changes smart play lead to you either forcing the enemy to your base, being forced to theirs, or looking for a hidden player stacked with medals only to chase them around walls for the last two minutes of a match. It's still like this, and was like this on release.

It just took some players a while to realize that when you're up in points there's really no reason to bother trying to kill the other team. You're already in the lead and the match has a time limit, the only thing you need to do is prevent the opponent from getting adrenaline, and prepare for the eventual Melee LB near the end.

Alot of the matches I'm in everyone ignores adrenaline crate too. I'm usually the only one attacking it and get it almost every time.

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Originally Posted by Dimitrii

Alot of the matches I'm in everyone ignores adrenaline crate too. I'm usually the only one attacking it and get it almost every time.

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I can mirror this experience. A lot of people don't seem to realize how important it is to deal more than 50% damage to the crate.

Exactly if you're in the lead why chase. they gotta come to you not the other way around. get lb while they run. rebuff. get ur cds. then go ham again.

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Originally Posted by Renault

It's not about being punished for overextending or being overly aggressive, it's that you're being punished for -winning-. It has created a meta where a team will get a slight lead, then go sprint back to their spawn point and turtle. I fail to understand how that creates fun and engaging gameplay. The opposing team then comes into the turtle, usually with melee LB to insta-gib-skill-kill someone in seconds, then pick up the medals and all run back to their own spawn to then take their turn to turtle up.

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i call this pussy play

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Originally Posted by Cynric

This was the meta since day 1. It just took a few people a while to catch on.

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It has been only made more potent by the changes. I'm aware this strategy has been around since the beginning, but in some cases it was just worth it to continue pushing if you had the lead and end the game earlier. Now, even a great team can be killed by extremely less skilled players just because of the game's mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Renault

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It was never worth it to push to the other side at the cost of a win. All that does is end the match sooner. The closest you wanted to push before was mid for adrenaline. The only reason to push into the opposing teams base is, A ) They are up on medals, B) You want to deny them blue/red buff, C) Killing someone low health to end the match or D) their healer/tank is just that bad.

It's risky and dangerous to push when you're in the lead except to deny buffs and it was this way before the buff. Even before the buff I didn't see any issues killing tanks with multiple stacks of heavy medal. The biggest change for me was I as a Monk can only pick up so many medals myself now.

Turtling has not been made more potent. How can an increase in damage dealt to you make a strategy of sitting inside your base more potent? If anything it should be easier to deal with turtles now than before.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

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The heavy medal change puts the winning team at a bigger disadvantage at the next bout regardless of turtling or playing aggressively. It's not a countermeasure to turtling as much as it's just trying to make it so pug groups have a shot at bringing it back.

If anything, I believe the change does not belong in the light party bracket. The players themselves and the more organized tactics should dictate where the game goes, not the Heavy Medal.

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Originally Posted by Atreus

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Now see here's the difference. I never said what it was especially for, just that it made turtling a little less viable. Especially if you're turtling with all the medals on one player even if their a tank.

I can agree with you though. It's an odd change and is probably aimed at helping newer players and comebacks. I don't feel like its necessary. Though they mentioned possible changed to the amount of medals needed to win as well. This worries me a bit, but we'll see.

It definitely gives the winning team a disadvantage though.