Sadly, players (old and new) think they are that good for not buying even a single defense item or reflex block. They all go glass canon and when they die, they ping you like it’s your fault they died. 
first vg world problems…
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Their efforts to reduce toxicity by removing various pings (
I am looking at you) are misguided and ineffective, as people simply ping something else instead. (It seems to be the health and energy one now.) And of course, now it is harder to communicate general advice (such as a recommendation to buy defense) or indicate that enemies are missing in a certain area, as examples.
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Defense isn’t worth the slot atm in 9/10 cases. Defense was nerfed so hard it is useless.
Slumbering Husk is about the only item worth it right now. Reflex block if you are getting caught out of position a lot as failsafe.
You don’t need defense except SH when you know how to move…
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We need a “Insert Toxic Comment here” ping
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I’d be happy if people would just buy a reflex block and learn how to use it, tbh.
Useful for melee heroes yeah…
But the defense nerfs make buying it very unattractive.
Many heroes have their own build in Rb…
For the sake of personal research and general interest I just played a match as Catherine.
I am generally quite good with her but man O man…
You get blown to shreds with 40+stacks fountain and armour with bubble up.
Defense is useless. Heck traditional captains are useless. I’d much rather have a triple SSw Glaive who brings a fountain than a full on captain.
Catherine was nerfed for no reason.
Defense is deleted from the game…
I had won almost all of my games thus far and have been a captain main for a long time…
My two worst games were with Lorelai and Catherine both are obsolete in 5v5…
I’d say it’s less that Cath is useless and more that she’s been pushed towards her niche. She’s become even more of a AOE silence bot that specialises in teamfights, rushing echo before fountain and giving channeled abilities the middle finger. What you should be doing with her is getting a silence before either hitting warhorns and diving with your team or hitting warhorns and CCing the enemy to death with your team. She has a single target stun to give her a role early game (which is to rush echo and stun the enemy twice for a gank) which is dirty and unethical. Because of this, I suggest you try it. Otherwise, she’s pretty bad though. In this pretty cancerous early game jungler meta-ish thing that’s forming, Cath struggles to keep pace, and when late game teamfights often involve quick pickoffs, her ult is pretty ass.
So basically, just pick Ardan.
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Ok…
30chars
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The only ping I want is, “Stop stealing my lane CS!”
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I actually made a thread or two about this on Reddit and it got blasted by snark and downvotes, as the argument was you could just recommend a defense item, thus making the ping redundant. Some folks on Reddit unfortunately wouldn’t hear it, but, personally I genuinely think reading the suggestion to purchase defense items has a greater impact than just outright recommending an item.
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Also recommending an item has to be done via shop window and blocks your screen…
What do you expect? When you have low tier players you’ll get funky builds.
Defence has taken a nerf, but I’d still experience etc to see an aegis on all carries. The reflex block is needed to avoid stuns and silenced in nearly all circumstances. Armour however just seems a wasted item now, it limits you; what I mean by that is it doesn’t bring additional health or reflex block abilites.
Isn’t this leading to ultimately having NO PINGS ??? removal of so called “toxic pings”… The entire ping system is toxic…
It’s not even that the ping system itself is toxic. It’s the neutral tone of text-based communications and the fact that, for some reason, most players (in my experience) seem to interpret everything as either an ill-willed criticism or sarcasm.
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Defense is still worth every penny depending on the playstyle. If you’re range, getting caught out of position without a MJ/AS could be the difference between life and death, even with capt. protection, while skill can dodge other range attacks. Dive-Roamers still need AG. As melee, I go double defense on almost every hero but that’s just me: rather soak more dmg than do more dmg. 5v5 makes having your own defense even more important IMO.
Recommending defense to a player is fine, but few people actually listen. My take is that it’s just ego, which gets worse as they die. A “Retreat!” ping would be really useful, especially if they added a dynamic like “Retreat to:” and you could ping a location/objective. Even better if it added dynamic auto text when you did so, like “Retreat to: Bush!/Retreat to: Turret!”
In fact, there’s an idea: dynamic pings that notice location/situation that you place them in and change accordingly. Would solve almost every communication complaint IG.
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I don’t know what tier you are, or what is expected at your level of play experience, but the item shop is a highly intimidating place for beginners.
I use reccommended items (for now). However, the “Buy Defense Item” ping would happen. And then I’m looking for that same symbol in the shop. I have the money to buy the item, but I can’t buy the item? That is weird…is that a bug? Why are they pinging me repeatedly?
Oh, we lost a turret! (Quickly runs back into the battle)
I couldn’t buy the item because they require components. You have to buy the first component, then the next one, and the next one. Hence, T1, T2, and T3 items.
So I said, “Okay, to the google!” I googled a list of ALL the available items in the shop. I might as well go to med school. Let alone, what item goes with which hero…the learning curve in this game is pretty high. After the fifth or sixth, “Buy defense items,” ping, I started pinging, “We need vision.”
“Buy defense items.”
“We need vision.”
Was this the most mature way to handle the situation? No, it wasn’t. However, after that match, I turned off recommended items and bought ALL defense items. For Celeste. It did not go well.
I turned recommendations back on and said to heck with items. Now, what I have been doing is reading the items that ARE recommended for heroes I play. It takes a few seconds, and I don’t always get the chance, but it is a place to start.
I’ve also been reading a bit on broken myth, but these things take time and they’re not as cut and dry. It isn’t like you have specific items for each hero. You can put anything you want on any of your heroes, you know?
Also, “Buy Defense Items,” is so vague. Which one? Is there one in particular that will satisfy everyone? Or am I supposed to know ALL defense items, what they do, and what to use in every given situation?
I’m not a mind-reader and I’m more than happy to educate myself, however, there have been moments where I’ve wanted to just throw my staff at my teammates and yell, “What do you want from me?!?” I’m out here, I’m dropping stars, I’m not engaging the enemy, (unless I have to)…what do you expect me to do when I’m defending the lane? Abandon our turret to go shopping? I mean…it was a very frustrating ping.
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I enjoyed reading your take @LadyPhoenix74. I know your response was about the buy defense ping, but you’ve given me pause as to dealing with players in my rank ( forever stuck because I spent my first 9 months playing getting pro in blitz instead of playing rank 
)
I have a really bad habit of trolling players who don’t listen to my pings but try to ping me back like they know what they’re talking about, while they keep going negative, but reading your response makes me remember how difficult the learning curve of this game really is, not to mention items are constantly changing. I remember one of my first matches was with a semi-pro friend who knew how to chain-lock extremely well with Flicker’s A+B. By that time I had picked Skaarf as my main and was doing alright with him in matches, learning how to build. I didn’t understand the brutal utility of aftershock yet or that someone like skaarf didn’t need brokenmyth. And I had yet to understand boots (understand them now, still hate to pick them in many situations).
I went in so confident, and got destroyed by Flicker’s damage. I didn’t understand that his aftershock was chipping away at everything and his clockwork was utterly destroying me, and that was a practice match. I can only imagine if I had went in a ranked with him.
It makes me realize even more that there really needs to be better community tutoring for new players. The academy isn’t enough, and there’s so much that’s not there, like what items sync with what. It would be amazing if all the different VG websites like this forum, vg fire, vainsocial, all of that was integrated into one site.
I can only imagine being a new player and getting pinged and not understanding. Luckily, I had someone irl teach me some stuff and I learn fast but your response made me want to hold off and just take the loss, rather than troll people back in my rank.
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I am so happy to hear that I opened your mind and expanded your pont of view. There are so many forums that will downvote my experiences into oblivion just because they don’t like what I have to say.
Its easy to forget that you might be matched with players with less experience or who simply get carried to their particular tier, or players who have been top tier for so long, they forget what it is like to be new.
I genuinely appreciate your ability to be open minded. Also, I really wish some of those, “Buy Defense Item” pingers would send an FR and say, “This is what I mean when I ping this,” or “Just so you are aware, that is what this ping means.”
For the longest time, I didn’t realize the enemy team couldn’t see your pings, and was hesitant to use the running man when heading to a bush or trying to sneak around.
Perhaps, everyone could write a basic “New Players Guide” on how to ping properly, and a basic outline of the item shop. A simple, “Blue items do crystal damage, yellow is defense, and red is for melee heroes.” Granted, it isn’t that simple, but it would give new players a place to start.
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Blue increases your skill damage,
Red increases your attack capability
Yellow helps you survive
Even though some heroes have wp ratios it is still a good rule of thumb. Red isn’t just for melees though… Saw ringo kestrel gwen skye etc… All use wp…
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