u/NakedGhost3234

I am no carry main by any means, but I do play the role occasionally and always go for a melee pick if I end up over there. With all these negative takes I've been seeing about melee carry on this subreddit recently, I've decided to share my perspective on the issue.

I exclusively play melee heroes in this game. I have given ranged a try in the past, mostly in ARAM mode and also in standard from time to time, and I just can't get a hold of it. I never got used to the different crosshair position, I'm somehow missing all of my lasthits, 1v1s feel like the enemy has double the range on their basics, and in prolonged fights I tend to lose overview of the situation because I'm far too close to the enemies to be comfortable with. And worst of all, it's just not fun for me to play as a ranged character.

If this sounds like a skill issue, that's because it definitely is. Still, I won't be investing hours of my limited time into the least enjoyable aspect of this game only to become a mediocre Twinblast player while still hating every second of laning phase whenever I end up in safe lane as him.

At first, playing melee characters in the safe lane was something I did out of neccesity: When I started playing Predecessor, I mostly stuck to (lifesteal) hybrid and physical heroes with the occasional Offlane match inbetween. I didn't select the safe lane role voluntarily, but without a role queue, I inevitably ended up playing it sometimes. I still had no idea how to play ranged, so I just picked a hero I knew how to play and tried to play safe. Which happened to be Boris 80% of the time.

After a couple of games as safe lane Boris, I actually started to like the way the lane played. Counterbuilding, wave management and micro outplays in 2v2 feel more important. There's less interference from jungle, mid or off, and I don't need to be as aware of the map as in offlane or as a support. Safe lane on the first Daybreak versions was even better, it actually felt like an isolated island and the outcome of laning phase entirely depended on the skill of my opponents and me.

Build variety feels much better in the safe lane than for offlaners or mages. If you're playing mid, you go for maybe one scaling item, one damage item, maybe tainted sceptre, oblivion crown and caustica every time. As a offlane, you start with tank item and finish with more tank items to accomodate your opponent.

Itemization as an safe lane has felt far more flexible than that. Due to the focus on 2v2 with the enemy laners, item choices are more impactful than in every other role I've played so far. I've had success playing safe lane Boris with an auto-attack focused build (Lotus kill buff+ innate damage buff, Splitter, Storm, Plasma Blade, Draconum, Void), Chrono Swipe damage (Vermis Cauterize + , Sub Surface, Onixian, Vyzar, Draconum) or even as a magic bruiser (Exarch heal + delayed fate, Prophecy, Plasma Blade, Cursed Ring). This much build flexibility doesn't exist anywhere else.

And since it's a quite common take that melee safe lane is inherently unfun for everyone involved or people are only doing it because they want to have an hard laning phase: The most successful and enjoyable matchups for me have been carries and supports, and I've lost my fair share of games to a competent Murdoch or Sparrow. I don't play melee safe lane because I want to get an easy advantage over some helpless squishy in the earlygame, I play melee safe lane because I like how the lane plays but don't want to get into the ranged playstyle.

I was scouring this sub while playing Rampage and at the draft screen I saw Krix Predator blessing and my brain made the connection.

Enjoy my friends, I've not had this much fun with MOBA in a long time!

With the roster increasing combined with courageous balancing; when are we going to get 3x bans per team in ranked? Up to 1.13 the game was stable enough to warrant 2x bans per team as there weren't too many problem characters but with Eternals and a slew of other additions there are heroes that can be far too overwhelming under the right circumstances. We need more bans to compensate these aspects of the game please!

EDIT: there's actually people in this community that don't want this so their precious meta heroes are safe. Don't be like these people

Ever head of an eternal that gets made invalid from an 800g tier 2 item? Yes.... that's Marrow! Why opt for a lifestealing / omnivamping eternal when someone can get a blight item after 3-4 minutes go by then you're made to suffer the rest of the game? She has good blessings but it's not enough! We need an incentive to pick her in competitive play please!

Can you make her passive negate blight effects (I won't go as far to say completely nullify it) like say 50%-75% ? So a blight item de-regen would be from 45% to become 22.50% - 11.25% respectively? Or something along those lines.... that would be cool and actually a good reason to pick her on healing heroes that would otherwise want to negate enemy item picks of blight.

I would also suggest on top of this that Greystone's augment 'Tainted Oath' is the exception (like a strong Blight) and that would also incentivise him to be picked in competitive also? I dunno just a thought

Heroes are locked into their default eternal in custom builds and in every build for that matter and can't be changed even if you try to. It only changes and gets actioned when you're in the draft after choosing your hero but that's annoying AF. Fix or lose players ffs

Please let us have a tab or something that lets us choose a build for the hero we've picked in the draft phase. This allows someone to select a build and eternal they have made beforehand and selecting the build would auto select the eternals and augment during the draft alleviating any grief before the match starts.

With the above in mind please let us make more builds instead of being locked at 3x for each role. Make the 3x limit be for builds to be published for others so it doesn't get too bloated but for my own account and me alone I should be able to make dozens that fit any given situations. I have like 20 builds for Boris and my brain can't hold anymore lol