AW Defense Tactics - Stubborn

J0eySn0w

After last AW season, this is my take on “stubborn defense-tactics(DT)”
I stepped away from AW and a friend persuaded me to come back as he was looking for good players. I’m not the best player out there neither am I the worst. I play tier 3 AW and responsible for clearing a side of the boss island/group. I’d like to think that I have a decent knowledge of the game.

1. The stubborn DT prohibits you from using certain key features and techniques of the game that defines a good/skillful player. It specifically requires you to take hit on the block either well-timed (ideally for stunnable matchups) or regular hits on block to remove indestructible on your opponents. When you evade or dodge (dex or no dex) any attack of your opponent this indestructible is activated. Which is really silly to come-up with an idea like this! You Kabam decides winners in competition by determining who comes out with the most health and damage dealt to opponent and time of course, meaning playing and winning without getting hit or the least amount of hit (includes blocking) is a sign of a good player yet you strip that choice from your player base with stubborn DT. One could argue to use intercepts, yes but it’s impractical to use intercept an entire fight without triggering dex and indestructible. For stun immune nodes you’re likely to take a multiple hits (combo) to the block if you intend to get rid of this indestructible (One of the worse is facing Doom with such a huge block penetration).
Stark Spidey was and is one of my favorite champs and because he has low health and weak blocking, I had to really practice on playing perfectly (by controlling opponents power meter, baiting sps, intercepting, etc) basically not getting hit not even blocking. Same goes to Stealth Spidey and champs like them.

2. In an attempt to help deal with this DT, Attacker Tactics (AT) has been introduced but sorry it’s not working in my opinion. The 30% max perfect block chance isn’t enough nor reliable to make it worth the pain. 50% like MS(souls) sounds fair to me...50-50. This may be too much I don’t know but stripping away skill and techniques from most players isn’t fun at all. Try winning against a difficult opponent when you’re down to 5-10% health, a skillful player can pull it off but add stubborn to it and that chance is almost stripped from you. You’d need RNG in your favor with perfect block and try not to trigger dex...smh

3. Unless I don’t know how to deal with or fight against stubborn DT but parry & hit or block & hits isn’t skill at all nor fun. I’d appreciate if someone show me the best way to deal with it. I have soloed some difficult fights but wasn’t fun. Stuff like these is why AW isn’t fun for most people and many are doing it grudgingly, others for commitment and friendship.

Lemme know your thoughts and if Kabam should review stubborn DT. I personally would like it to be removed and replaced with something more fun that encourages a more fluent playstyle not robust.

Lvernon15

I really don’t like the design of being forced to take damage near enough no matter how well you play, and I would like to see it changed to be something else, another way to remove the indestructible or something that doesn’t require taking damage, or hugely boost the attacker tactic to be like 100% perfect block

J0eySn0w

Lvernon15 said:

I really don’t like the design of being forced to take damage near enough no matter how well you play, and I would like to see it changed to be something else, another way to remove the indestructible or something that doesn’t require taking damage, or hugely boost the attacker tactic to be like 100% perfect block

I agree, if they can come up with an alternative to remove the indestructible like either the block or an intercept so that skill is encouraged. The whole game play with stubborn is about taking block hits. I’m trying not to accuse them of money grab but it looks like that. Upon all the creative room this game offers, who would possible think of this as being fun and entertaining.
I really wish someone could have led a boycott when this stubborn tactics was introduced. Like all the ally decides not to use it. Probably not too late.

Thicco_Mode

I'm nowhere near tier three aw but it does seem a bit silly to have to block, especially when so much of the game incentives you to do otherwise. of course, you can say just git gud, but there is a reasonable limit to that

Lvernon15

Thicco_Mode said:

I'm nowhere near tier three aw but it does seem a bit silly to have to block, especially when so much of the game incentives you to do otherwise. of course, you can say just git gud, but there is a reasonable limit to that

Yeah, I mean face a doom, there is no way to avoid taking a bunch of damage, you either eat a special or block a special to not trigger it, which is a death sentence, and even just taking a blocked hit to remove it is quite a lot of damage

Thicco_Mode

Lvernon15 said:

Thicco_Mode said:

I'm nowhere near tier three aw but it does seem a bit silly to have to block, especially when so much of the game incentives you to do otherwise. of course, you can say just git gud, but there is a reasonable limit to that

Yeah, I mean face a doom, there is no way to avoid taking a bunch of damage, you either eat a special or block a special to not trigger it, which is a death sentence, and even just taking a blocked hit to remove it is quite a lot of damage

yeah you either block a special and take damage to avoid a dex or you dex a special and block and take damage from basic attacks. and then people like doom who basically ignore your block and others with unblockable make it difficult

danielmath

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

J0eySn0w

danielmath said:

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

Wonder which tier you play. Flow was bad went introduced but at least you can use power control champs or non-crit champs to deal or manage how much power they get. And with attacker tactics now, you have one additional tool to help manage flow.

It’s not just about the block damage which is bad, but the robust and rigid playstyle it encourages parry hit and maybe back draft if AI cooperates for stunnable matchups. For stun reflection nodes, forget it you cannot even benefit from attacker tactics and your best bet will be intercept of take a combo to the block and then retaliate unless you use a stun immune champ yourself like NF in his second stage.

We’ve been dealing with it, doesn’t mean if it’s bad we should continue to deal with it and not ask if something could be done about it. At the end of every war the items used and boosts use doesn’t make sense. It feels like our guys are not skillful and that’s far from the truth but the game design forces us to do it.

Thicco_Mode

J0eySn0w said:

danielmath said:

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

Wonder which tier you play. Flow was bad went introduced but at least you can use power control champs or non-crit champs to deal or manage how much power they get. And with attacker tactics now, you have one additional tool to help manage flow.

It’s not just about the block damage which is bad, but the robust and rigid playstyle it encourages parry hit and maybe back draft if AI cooperates for stunnable matchups. For stun reflection nodes, forget it you cannot even benefit from attacker tactics and your best bet will be intercept of take a combo to the block and then retaliate unless you use a stun immune champ yourself like NF in his second stage.

We’ve been dealing with it, doesn’t mean if it’s bad we should continue to deal with it and not ask if something could be done about it. At the end of every war the items used and boosts use doesn’t make sense. It feels like our guys are not skillful and that’s far from the truth but the game design forces us to do it.

I'm 99.35% sure he's in tier one. he's in one of the top alliances

danielmath

J0eySn0w said:

danielmath said:

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

Wonder which tier you play. Flow was bad went introduced but at least you can use power control champs or non-crit champs to deal or manage how much power they get. And with attacker tactics now, you have one additional tool to help manage flow.

It’s not just about the block damage which is bad, but the robust and rigid playstyle it encourages parry hit and maybe back draft if AI cooperates for stunnable matchups. For stun reflection nodes, forget it you cannot even benefit from attacker tactics and your best bet will be intercept of take a combo to the block and then retaliate unless you use a stun immune champ yourself like NF in his second stage.

We’ve been dealing with it, doesn’t mean if it’s bad we should continue to deal with it and not ask if something could be done about it. At the end of every war the items used and boosts use doesn’t make sense. It feels like our guys are not skillful and that’s far from the truth but the game design forces us to do it.

I’m in tier 1, and stubborn is much easier then flow imo

J0eySn0w

danielmath said:

J0eySn0w said:

danielmath said:

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

Wonder which tier you play. Flow was bad went introduced but at least you can use power control champs or non-crit champs to deal or manage how much power they get. And with attacker tactics now, you have one additional tool to help manage flow.

It’s not just about the block damage which is bad, but the robust and rigid playstyle it encourages parry hit and maybe back draft if AI cooperates for stunnable matchups. For stun reflection nodes, forget it you cannot even benefit from attacker tactics and your best bet will be intercept of take a combo to the block and then retaliate unless you use a stun immune champ yourself like NF in his second stage.

We’ve been dealing with it, doesn’t mean if it’s bad we should continue to deal with it and not ask if something could be done about it. At the end of every war the items used and boosts use doesn’t make sense. It feels like our guys are not skillful and that’s far from the truth but the game design forces us to do it.

I’m in tier 1, and stubborn is much easier then flow imo

Then you mate have a good handle on stubborn. The fact that we face stubborn most of the time means many considers it to cause the most trouble. I think half the guys that use flow tries to throw the opponents off as many expect to face stubborn. I maybe wrong just my thoughts cos I’d do the same. In fact we’re coming up with an alternative defense list for flow with this goal. What happens is sometimes we have the attackers we’d use against flow on defense.

danielmath

J0eySn0w said:

danielmath said:

J0eySn0w said:

danielmath said:

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

Wonder which tier you play. Flow was bad went introduced but at least you can use power control champs or non-crit champs to deal or manage how much power they get. And with attacker tactics now, you have one additional tool to help manage flow.

It’s not just about the block damage which is bad, but the robust and rigid playstyle it encourages parry hit and maybe back draft if AI cooperates for stunnable matchups. For stun reflection nodes, forget it you cannot even benefit from attacker tactics and your best bet will be intercept of take a combo to the block and then retaliate unless you use a stun immune champ yourself like NF in his second stage.

We’ve been dealing with it, doesn’t mean if it’s bad we should continue to deal with it and not ask if something could be done about it. At the end of every war the items used and boosts use doesn’t make sense. It feels like our guys are not skillful and that’s far from the truth but the game design forces us to do it.

I’m in tier 1, and stubborn is much easier then flow imo

Then you mate have a good handle on stubborn. The fact that we face stubborn most of the time means many considers it to cause the most trouble. I think half the guys that use flow tries to throw the opponents off as many expect to face stubborn. I maybe wrong just my thoughts cos I’d do the same. In fact we’re coming up with an alternative defense list for flow with this goal. What happens is sometimes we have the attackers we’d use against flow on defense.

We face only stubborn, nobody runs flow in high tier anymore. There’s only a few fights where stubborn makes a difference, in most fights you don’t even notice it

Monk1

I play t2 and stubborn is much more fun than flow, as you can use any champ and the counter is just adapting play style a little.

I can tell you must not play serious wars as if anyone in my ally entered a fight at 10% then they would not be staying long. Just heal you champ and take some minimal damage off parry to drop the indestructible - pretty simple stuff

Lvernon15

danielmath said:

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

Certain fights it’s physically impossible to not trigger it without taking damage. I’m not necessarily arguing it being harder, I just heavily dislike the design of it which means you’re taking unnecessary damage almost no matter what, not triggering it is generally done by blocking more, removing it is also blocking

danielmath

Lvernon15 said:

danielmath said:

It’s much easier then flow was, most fights if you play well stubborn will never trigger, and taking a blocked hit isn’t the end of the world

Certain fights it’s physically impossible to not trigger it without taking damage. I’m not necessarily arguing it being harder, I just heavily dislike the design of it which means you’re taking unnecessary damage almost no matter what, not triggering it is generally done by blocking more, removing it is also blocking

I guess so, in the sense that you won’t finish most fights with 100% health that’s true

danielmath

They also nerfed most of the hard interactions before last season started and nerfed more this offseason so there’s really very few tough fights left

J0eySn0w

danielmath said:

They also nerfed most of the hard interactions before last season started and nerfed more this offseason so there’s really very few tough fights left

The designs and playstyle it require isnt fun at all. One of the fights I hate is facing Doom. Full health and boosted, he solos but not a fun fight. It’s almost like a suicide and you’d have to heal backup if you plan to use him again. I hope the design encourage more fluidity and creativity.