u/Adventurous-Lie7929

I'm Archon and I almost never see Return Fire. The only time I remember seeing it was on a Celeste. I've heard it's actually a pretty common situational item in high MMR though. I main Graves and I've been wondering if I'm sleeping on this item. Is it actually that good, or is it only worth buying in very specific matchups?

I want to get better at melee and, especially, parrying in Deadlock.

I play a lot of Graves, and I feel like I always mess up the timing against melee-focused heroes. Abrams isn't too bad because he's slower, but Billy and other melee-heavy heroes give me a lot of trouble.

My biggest issue is that when I get hit by a heavy melee, it takes me a split second to process what just happened, and by then I've already missed the parry window. On the other hand, when I try to predict it and parry early, they just wait for my parry animation to end and punish me.

I recently heard a tip that made a lot of sense: don't throw heavy melees straight at someone who's already looking at you. Instead, try to catch them while they're distracted or hit them from the side or behind. I've been trying to build that habit.

Calico is a different story. My problem with her isn't even melee. She shows up out of nowhere in cat form, dumps her entire combo on me, and I'm dead before I can even react. 😂

So, how did you guys improve your melee/parry timing? Was it just experience, or is there anything that really helped you get better?

I'm Brazilian and I always end up confusing the English hero names because I'm so used to the Brazilian Portuguese localization.

Shiv = Adaga

Haze = Bruma

Lash = Chico

Wraith = Espectra

Paige = Gina

Graves = Mortícia

Some of these aren't literal translations, they're proper localizations, and I think they're pretty fun. I was wondering if other languages also changed hero names this much or if it's mostly a Brazilian Portuguese thing.

Ever since his recent buffs, almost every match I play (I'm currently Archon) has a Shiv that completely takes over the game. If one team has a good Shiv, the match feels almost decided.

What surprises me is that I barely see anyone talking about this her. Am I missing something? Has everyone just accepted that Shiv is overtuned?

It's been several days since the buffs, and I'm honestly surprised he still hasn't been nerfed. Playing against him just isn't fun.

I don't see many people talking about Graves here, so here's a little appreciation post.

She's become my favorite character to play. I love her design and playstyle. She's definitely on the squishy side and can be unforgiving, but that's exactly what makes her so rewarding. Every good game with Graves feels earned.

Any other Graves mains here?

I play Graves, and Calico is by far the melee character I struggle with the most. If she gets close to me, I feel like I die almost instantly.

In general, I have a hard time against melee-focused characters, but I can usually deal with Billy and Abrams without too much trouble. Calico, though, just melts me so fast that I barely have time to react.

Do you guys have any tips for this matchup? Is there something I'm missing, or is it just supposed to be this difficult for Graves?

Why can't Graves destroy Venator's traps? It has never made any sense to me. Every other character can break them except her. Whenever I play against a Venator, I always end up getting caught in the traps because I just can't destroy them. I have to keep pinging my teammate to come over and break the traps for me.