Silent nerf of Weapon X

Weapon X no longer gains rage charges through basic attacks once he hits 10 of them. He can only gain them by being hit and by using specials at that point. He also doesn’t gain rage charges through basic attacks when in berserk, and so berserk drops off very quickly. This is a major difference in his offensive output.

Comments

Buttehrs

Kabam doesn't do silent nerfs. It's probably a bug. Did you report itnyet

Lovejoy72

Weapon X no longer gains rage charges through basic attacks once he hits 10 of them. He can only gain them by being hit and by using specials at that point. He also doesn’t gain rage charges through basic attacks when in berserk, and so berserk drops off very quickly. This is a major difference in his offensive output.

Was he supposed to gain them with his basic attacks? I don’t see it? They changed him in the update to stop him gaining rage when OTHER champs abilities fail. Or something in that vein.

o_o

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏

Lovejoy72

Here’s your deal. He gains rage mostly based on his failed bleeds. After 10 rage, they stop failing. After the update, he just stopped getting them from other sources he wasn’t supposed to.

mbrace

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏

Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.

laserjohn26

Kabam doesn't do silent nerfs. It's probably a bug. Did you report itnyet

mbrace

Weapon X no longer gains rage charges through basic attacks once he hits 10 of them. He can only gain them by being hit and by using specials at that point. He also doesn’t gain rage charges through basic attacks when in berserk, and so berserk drops off very quickly. This is a major difference in his offensive output.

Was he supposed to gain them with his basic attacks? I don’t see it? They changed him in the update to stop him gaining rage when OTHER champs abilities fail. Or something in that vein.

I said “through his basic attacks”, not from them. He picks up charges by failed abilities while using basic attacks until 10, and then he doesn’t at all after that. The only way to gain charges from there is with specials and getting hit.

Lovejoy72

Weapon X no longer gains rage charges through basic attacks once he hits 10 of them. He can only gain them by being hit and by using specials at that point. He also doesn’t gain rage charges through basic attacks when in berserk, and so berserk drops off very quickly. This is a major difference in his offensive output.

Was he supposed to gain them with his basic attacks? I don’t see it? They changed him in the update to stop him gaining rage when OTHER champs abilities fail. Or something in that vein.
I said “through his basic attacks”, not from them. He picks up charges by failed abilities while using basic attacks until 10, and then he doesn’t at all after that. The only way to gain charges from there is with specials and getting hit.

Then what’s the problem? His bleed accuracy goes up to 100% at 10, and he’s not supposed to get anymore after that. Whats the bug? That’s him as described.

ahmynuts

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.

I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over

Rustyoneil

I’ve been using him for about a year now, and that’s how I thought he was supposed to work. Once he gets past 10, I added them by spamming SP1s. I must have been missing something over the past couple months

mbrace

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over

It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.

mbrace

I went back and found the old champion spotlight. 10+ charges was in fact the point that the bleed chance went to 100%. So this wasn’t actually a silent nerf, because he was just bugged before. Making him match his tooltip is just the Mole-Man treatment, except with far less outcry about this correction. I think rank down tickets are warranted if they were for MM for the same type of correction, especially when the mistake persisted since his release years ago.

There was something in the December update notes about Weapon X mistakenly gaining charges when the opponent’s abilities fail, and maybe the opponent not purifying the bleeds immediately was registering as a failure. Otherwise, it’s not very clear why the charges would continue to accrue after 10+, almost on hit.

Lovejoy72

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.

The update states they stopped him gaining rage from other abilities failing (outside his kit). Are you sure that isn’t enough to account for change?

ahmynuts

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.

What does that have to do with it being after working hours

mbrace

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.
The update states they stopped him gaining rage from other abilities failing (outside his kit). Are you sure that isn’t enough to account for change?

While I don’t know exactly know how this registers, that’s probably all that changed. However, the impact is big. I think Weapon X was even gaining charges when the opponent failed to not take on a bleed, if that makes any sense. So it was the same up to 10 (50/50 either direction), and then it was 100% chance that the opponent fails to not bleed after 10, and this was giving 1 charge for every single hit after 10 rage and while berserked as well. This is misleading, because he was like that since release. We assume that the way he performs is the way he was meant to perform when it goes on that long. It also affects rank up decisions.

Lovejoy72

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.
The update states they stopped him gaining rage from other abilities failing (outside his kit). Are you sure that isn’t enough to account for change?
While I don’t know exactly how this registers, that’s probably all that changed. However, the impact is big. I think Weapon X was even gaining charges when the opponent failed to not take on a bleed, if that makes any sense. So it was the same up to 10 (50/50 either direction), and then it was 100% chance that the opponent fails to not bleed after 10, and this was giving 1 charge for every single hit after 10 rage and while berserked as well. This is misleading, because he was like that since release. We assume that the way he performs is the way he was meant to perform when it goes on that long. It also affects rank up decisions.

On all that, I agree. Most of us can’t connect all the words to performance on champs, esp with newer champs and LOTS of words. So we rank up on feel and outcome. And this is a more expensive than normal champ, I think. If the impact is this substantial, it would have been considerate to have more discussion, and some sense of scope.

mbrace

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.
The update states they stopped him gaining rage from other abilities failing (outside his kit). Are you sure that isn’t enough to account for change?
While I don’t know exactly how this registers, that’s probably all that changed. However, the impact is big. I think Weapon X was even gaining charges when the opponent failed to not take on a bleed, if that makes any sense. So it was the same up to 10 (50/50 either direction), and then it was 100% chance that the opponent fails to not bleed after 10, and this was giving 1 charge for every single hit after 10 rage and while berserked as well. This is misleading, because he was like that since release. We assume that the way he performs is the way he was meant to perform when it goes on that long. It also affects rank up decisions.
On all that, I agree. Most of us can’t connect all the words to performance on champs, esp with newer champs and LOTS of words. So we rank up on feel and outcome. And this is a more expensive than normal champ, I think. If the impact is this substantial, it would have been considerate to have more discussion, and some sense of scope.

Yes, that’s the thing. It looks so innocent in the patch notes, but it actually is a huge change. Few of us completely understood how the champ worked before with the “failed abilities”, and so this correction is unclear on the surface. With ascension dust decisions, if I knew this was going to happen, which I wouldn’t have even understood until having this conversation, I certainly wouldn’t have ascended him. I ascended him based on current performance and under the assumption that the tooltips explained his performance accurately. Weapon X is especially complicated in terms of how all of those abilities come together. As far as I knew, he was working exactly as described. The “opponent fails to not bleed” that was giving charges before is a bit counterintuitive, and this amounts to one of the weirdest long-term bugs I’ve ever seen. Anyway, this was a subtle correction with a huge impact, not a silent nerf. It was damn close to being silent though, and it effectively ruins the champ when compared to before. So I’m not that sorry.

Lovejoy72

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.
The update states they stopped him gaining rage from other abilities failing (outside his kit). Are you sure that isn’t enough to account for change?
While I don’t know exactly how this registers, that’s probably all that changed. However, the impact is big. I think Weapon X was even gaining charges when the opponent failed to not take on a bleed, if that makes any sense. So it was the same up to 10 (50/50 either direction), and then it was 100% chance that the opponent fails to not bleed after 10, and this was giving 1 charge for every single hit after 10 rage and while berserked as well. This is misleading, because he was like that since release. We assume that the way he performs is the way he was meant to perform when it goes on that long. It also affects rank up decisions.
On all that, I agree. Most of us can’t connect all the words to performance on champs, esp with newer champs and LOTS of words. So we rank up on feel and outcome. And this is a more expensive than normal champ, I think. If the impact is this substantial, it would have been considerate to have more discussion, and some sense of scope.
Yes, that’s the thing. It looks so innocent in the patch notes, but it actually is a huge change. Few of us completely understood how the champ worked before with the “failed abilities”, and so this correction is unclear on the surface. With ascension dust decisions, if I knew this was going to happen, which I wouldn’t have even understood until having this conversation, I certainly wouldn’t have ascended him. I ascended him based on current performance and under the assumption that the tooltips explained his performance accurately. Weapon X is especially complicated in terms of how all of those abilities come together. As far as I knew, he was working exactly as described. The “opponent fails to not bleed” that was giving charges before is a bit counterintuitive, and this amounts to one of the weirdest long-term bugs I’ve ever seen. Anyway, this was a subtle correction with a huge impact, not a silent nerf. It was damn close to being silent though, and it effectively ruins the champ when compared to before. So I’m not that sorry.

That stinks man. Un-ascending champs after large changes, that’s something I haven’t considered up to now.

mbrace

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.
What does that have to do with it being after working hours

You said it was MY problem, as if I was the only one who has this champ or was ever going to care if they changed/“corrected” him. No, I don’t expect them to respond at about 3pm in west coast time (6pm EST in my post), granted I work much later than that, but I hope that the community eventually cares how this “fix” was rolled out and how Kabam just subtlety made the change.

mbrace

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.
The update states they stopped him gaining rage from other abilities failing (outside his kit). Are you sure that isn’t enough to account for change?
While I don’t know exactly how this registers, that’s probably all that changed. However, the impact is big. I think Weapon X was even gaining charges when the opponent failed to not take on a bleed, if that makes any sense. So it was the same up to 10 (50/50 either direction), and then it was 100% chance that the opponent fails to not bleed after 10, and this was giving 1 charge for every single hit after 10 rage and while berserked as well. This is misleading, because he was like that since release. We assume that the way he performs is the way he was meant to perform when it goes on that long. It also affects rank up decisions.
On all that, I agree. Most of us can’t connect all the words to performance on champs, esp with newer champs and LOTS of words. So we rank up on feel and outcome. And this is a more expensive than normal champ, I think. If the impact is this substantial, it would have been considerate to have more discussion, and some sense of scope.
Yes, that’s the thing. It looks so innocent in the patch notes, but it actually is a huge change. Few of us completely understood how the champ worked before with the “failed abilities”, and so this correction is unclear on the surface. With ascension dust decisions, if I knew this was going to happen, which I wouldn’t have even understood until having this conversation, I certainly wouldn’t have ascended him. I ascended him based on current performance and under the assumption that the tooltips explained his performance accurately. Weapon X is especially complicated in terms of how all of those abilities come together. As far as I knew, he was working exactly as described. The “opponent fails to not bleed” that was giving charges before is a bit counterintuitive, and this amounts to one of the weirdest long-term bugs I’ve ever seen. Anyway, this was a subtle correction with a huge impact, not a silent nerf. It was damn close to being silent though, and it effectively ruins the champ when compared to before. So I’m not that sorry.
That stinks man. Un-ascending champs after large changes, that’s something I haven’t considered up to now.

Indeed it does. Thank you for helping me to figure out what was really going on between the tooltip and the patch note. It’s a weird thing that was happening before apart from anyone noticing it, and it’s super disappointing that Weapon X just won’t be as good anymore. I’d like to say that I learned my lesson and will be reading all tooltips carefully and comparing to actual performance before rank-ups in the future, but that’s a bit ridiculous. I’d prefer that Kabam just not allow these errors in the first place and not leave it on the players to notice them.

Lovejoy72

You went from “nerf or bug?” to “definitely nerf” in just over an hour 👏
Kabam didn’t seem to care about it when I said it might be a bug.
I wouldn't give a sh*t about your problem either if my workday was over
It will be everyone’s problem. Whether he was performing differently due to not following the tooltip properly, or whether it was changed, he was the same for years until this update. However, I don’t believe he was going to 100% chance of bleed at 10+ charges before. It was when he was in berserk that the percentage changed. If I’m correct … yes, that is a silent nerf. Part of the change in feel was probably that I would come into berserk with more charges before, and so it seemed longer than it does now. It might seem like splitting hairs with 10+ vs. berserker rage for the bleed percentage, but it actually feels much different now and is less damage output overall.
The update states they stopped him gaining rage from other abilities failing (outside his kit). Are you sure that isn’t enough to account for change?
While I don’t know exactly how this registers, that’s probably all that changed. However, the impact is big. I think Weapon X was even gaining charges when the opponent failed to not take on a bleed, if that makes any sense. So it was the same up to 10 (50/50 either direction), and then it was 100% chance that the opponent fails to not bleed after 10, and this was giving 1 charge for every single hit after 10 rage and while berserked as well. This is misleading, because he was like that since release. We assume that the way he performs is the way he was meant to perform when it goes on that long. It also affects rank up decisions.
On all that, I agree. Most of us can’t connect all the words to performance on champs, esp with newer champs and LOTS of words. So we rank up on feel and outcome. And this is a more expensive than normal champ, I think. If the impact is this substantial, it would have been considerate to have more discussion, and some sense of scope.
Yes, that’s the thing. It looks so innocent in the patch notes, but it actually is a huge change. Few of us completely understood how the champ worked before with the “failed abilities”, and so this correction is unclear on the surface. With ascension dust decisions, if I knew this was going to happen, which I wouldn’t have even understood until having this conversation, I certainly wouldn’t have ascended him. I ascended him based on current performance and under the assumption that the tooltips explained his performance accurately. Weapon X is especially complicated in terms of how all of those abilities come together. As far as I knew, he was working exactly as described. The “opponent fails to not bleed” that was giving charges before is a bit counterintuitive, and this amounts to one of the weirdest long-term bugs I’ve ever seen. Anyway, this was a subtle correction with a huge impact, not a silent nerf. It was damn close to being silent though, and it effectively ruins the champ when compared to before. So I’m not that sorry.
That stinks man. Un-ascending champs after large changes, that’s something I haven’t considered up to now.
Indeed it does. Thank you for helping me to figure out what was really going on between the tooltip and the patch note. It’s a weird thing that was happening before apart from anyone noticing it, and it’s super disappointing that Weapon X just won’t be as good anymore. I’d like to say that I learned my lesson and will be reading all tooltips carefully and comparing to actual performance before rank-ups in the future, but that’s a bit ridiculous. I’d prefer that Kabam just not allow these errors in the first place and not leave it on the players to notice them.

It’s sad, one day you’re going in as the wolverine from age of Apocalypse, and the next day you’re going in as the limo driver from the beginning of Logan.

mbrace

No worries. I’ll just get Onslaught and try to forget about Weapon X forever. Just wish I had my materials back to pour into Onslaught when I get him, lol.

Lovejoy72

No worries. I’ll just get Onslaught and try to forget about Weapon X forever. Just wish I had my materials back to pour into Onslaught when I get him, lol.

That’s actually super appropriate. During the onslaught arc is when wolverine has his adamantium skeleton pulled out by magneto, which was his ultimate nerf.

Demonzfyre

Kabam doesn't do silent nerfs. It's probably a bug. Did you report itnyet
Aa

Neither silent nor a nerf. Try again. I'll just give you the answer- Bishop.

mbrace

Kabam doesn't do silent nerfs. It's probably a bug. Did you report itnyet
Aa
Neither silent nor a nerf. Try again. I'll just give you the answer- Bishop.

I know. If I could change the title to something else, I would, but you must have read almost nothing above. After figuring out what the patch note actually means in relationship to Weapon X’s abilities, it became clear to me that opponent failing to avoid a bleed was actually adding a rage charge every time it happened. So a charge was added on every hit after 10+. With that gone, Weapon X actually really sucks on offense now. So it was a “quiet fix”, which fundamentally altered his performance after being the other way for years. You don’t see anything wrong with expecting players to carefully verify that the champ is performing as intended based on the tooltips? Wasn’t there a Mole-man controversy along these lines? His performance was misleading, and tooltips can be generally difficult to understand. Kabam knows what was intended a lot more than we do from the descriptions, and they need to get the champs correct at launch. Wasn’t Weapon X released in 2020? This is BS that it just now got randomly fixed.

Emilia90

Kabam doesn't do silent nerfs. It's probably a bug. Did you report itnyet
Aa
Neither silent nor a nerf. Try again. I'll just give you the answer- Bishop.

Not a nerf but it’s kinda stupid at this point that they haven’t fixed it and continue to ignore all the threads pointing it out

mbrace

To be honest, maybe there needs to be another thread on the bigger issue, which is a potentially unsettling trend. If Kabam were to just outright nerf a champ, especially a trophy champ that can actually perform, and one that players would be highly inclined to soak resources into, the community would raise hell. However, if Kabam could just go back to the descriptions and find themselves a loophole in interpretation, then they could claim, even after 3 years of missing it, that they are just “fixing a known issue” to match the descriptions. What does everyone truly believe in their heart really happened here?

To make matters worse, surely Kabam knew this was coming earlier than the cyber deals from last week. Yet, Weapon X was included in the selector that you can get if you purchase every real money unit deal. Kabam did not want to mention this until now in the update. I think some accountability is due.

Drago_von_Drago

To be honest, maybe there needs to be another thread on the bigger issue, which is a potentially unsettling trend. If Kabam were to just outright nerf a champ, especially a trophy champ that can actually perform, and one that players would be highly inclined to soak resources into, the community would raise hell. However, if Kabam could just go back to the descriptions and find themselves a loophole in interpretation, then they could claim, even after 3 years of missing it, that they are just “fixing a known issue” to match the descriptions. What does everyone truly believe in their heart really happened here?

To make matters worse, surely Kabam knew this was coming earlier than the cyber deals from last week. Yet, Weapon X was included in the selector that you can get if you purchase every real money unit deal. Kabam did not want to mention this until now in the update. I think some accountability is due.

This has happened before and seems like it will happen again. I don’t think it’s intentional. Weapon X wasn’t game breaking before, there’s no reason to intentionally reduce his usability.

It seems like this is just another example of poor communication. It happened with Mole Man and just this year we saw it with Zemo/Kraven and the “root fix” and the Gambit relic fix.

Devs fixing bugs is great. Devs fixing bugs that players aren’t aware are bugs and negatively impacting champs with no warning is not good.

mbrace

Man, if Weapon X wasn’t gamebreaking, then just leave him alone. I thought he was awesome for offense, because I could keep him in berserk for 30 seconds. Now it’s like 5 seconds. He was worth many wins in BG by throwing him at the likes of NF and KP defenders. It would have made more sense to just update the description: “gains 1 rage when … one of his abilities fails, or an opponent’s ability fails”. The idea should be to keep the game balanced and not piss players off. It would still be balanced if they just updated the description.

laserjohn26

Kabam doesn't do silent nerfs. It's probably a bug. Did you report itnyet
Aa
Neither silent nor a nerf. Try again. I'll just give you the answer- Bishop.

Lol. Sure. Still trying to push that narrative. I'll show the official kabaam employee giving us the official information. You will just say he didn't know what he was talking about.