FM vs BM and Assassin.

[Celibi]

Hello.

I'm a noob Force Master-- at least when it comes to PvP. I do *relatively* well against all matchups, minus the two that are mentioned in the title. 

 

My problem with Blade Master is, well, their Perma Block. I understand "guard break, use Q or E to get behind them", but that doesn't save me a lot of the times, even if I can disable their defense (which is hard because they can see snowball coming if they're quick enough), they have 4-5 dashes to get to MY back. And then, of course. There's the rest of the match. I could understand if there was maybe a longer CD on the classes block, but since I'm a FM, and everything I have is projectile, any BM that's quick enough can see what's coming and deflect it, thus stunning me. It's not as if I run into combat, slamming my tits on the keyboard and hoping something happens, no.

 

I actually try and wait out the block (like I would a seed shroud or ice flower), but it is next to impossible, because for BM's, it's so quick. If anyone could give me the slightest bit of advice to deal with this class as a Force Master, I'd be grateful.

 

Moving onto Assassin, this matchup actually recently got a little bit easier for me. Like all classes with counters, I just needed to be careful. Still, it's fairly hard to fight them. I Impact spam to attempt and hit them out of stealth, and most times, the impact will *sort of connect. Sadly, due to Assassins having higher evade in stealth, Impact doesn't always connect. If I try and play patiently, I also lose (most of the time, I'd say there's a 70/30 chance against me) simply because they'll just stun lock me to death. I don't know too much about Assassin skills, does hitting them (other than their counter) trigger stealth? Many Assassins I face stay invisible for 70% of the fight. 

 

 

[KatHead]

On 4/14/2016 at 7:02 PM, Celibi said:

, slamming my tits on the keyboard and hoping something happens

Ouch !

 

The best advice I can give you is to obtain a padded bra, everything below this may or may not be helpful. 

 

BM is hard for you guys and the only matchup that brings a smile to my face (sorry). You already know your win conditions, which is killing a bm if you can land a snowball (they are now helpless and 6 seconds is enough) or catching a bm without ss and getting behind them and killing them when they are defenseless and chilled / frozen. Now that HM Block is on the scene I would think you would need to watch out for it a bit as it removes 1 of your win conditions (move behind) because of the 3 free iframes. I just got it so I am unsure if it will be as good as parry block, but I think it should be on the same level of good (annoying af to play against). 

 

The FMs that give me trouble are very good at spacing, they do not sit at max distance throwing crap halfway across the arena. Why ? It is way to easy to see and identify projectiles at that range. BMs have so many gap closers we jdgaf about max range. Ideally you wanna be a safe distance outside of the bms range but close enough to dramatically shorten projectile travel times. This is something you will have to learn, because you gain nothing from max range play but if you get to close you lose advantage as well. Parry stun is extremely short, but annoying as all get out ( I understand ). You dont wanna be close enough for the chilled bm to walk into range off of a parry stun. A BM has two common ways to remove chill and get after your skirt and that is ss (8 second cd, will almost always 5 point into ground or air combo out of this) and cyclone (most of the time 9 second cd for free iframe, but could be 6 against fms). DO NOT HAP HAZARDLY USE F ROLL, when you roll it makes the game so much easier for bms. We have access to 2 - 3 second dazes that can be extended by 2 seconds while in draw stance (the cool looking stance). Wasting roll will absolutely cause you to tab or die.

 

The FMs that give me trouble are kite masters that protect there tab and f roll as if the game depends on it (because it does). They have patience and use there healing and kiting tools to prolong the fight as long as possible. Since this fight favors bm, you need them to make more mistakes than you (a good bit more). 

 

I wish I could help you more, but I really dont know what to tell you. I havent lost to a fm since the week after launch. You should scour youtube for info on this matchup and try some skirmishes against them, this is your worst matchup so if you can get to a 40% win percentage in this matchup you are well on your way to whatever rank you wanna be.

 

 

[Avalyn]

The fight actually still favors FM.

 

Problem I see from FM's is they don't know their combo. LEARN IT. The only difference I see from most FM and those turret warlocks in terms of playstyle is that FM's actually run around. They literally just throw random crap at their opponent and hope it doesn't parry. That is just pure badness. If you catch your opponent with a guard break and you have no clue what to do, what good is it?

[Teffy]

47 minutes ago, Avalyn said:

The fight actually still favors FM.

 

Problem I see from FM's is they don't know their combo. LEARN IT. The only difference I see from most FM and those turret warlocks in terms of playstyle is that FM's actually run around. They literally just throw random crap at their opponent and hope it doesn't parry. That is just pure badness. If you catch your opponent with a guard break and you have no clue what to do, what good is it?

Full of bullshit post.

Helpless for 6 sec? Yeah that only if the bm is newbie and know nothing about hes class.Good BM will just go full offensive if you cancel ther block - SS > PEnta slash,Flock of Blades or the other one(forgot skill name)on ther V and full combo you.All you can do is freeze yourself or or try to iframe as we don't have mele block in next few months...

If BM is not stupid if you manage to sneak behind him and daze him,they`ll insta tab and there ,your attempt to combo them is gone.

If you want to win as FM very skilled BM you have to be one of the few top fm's per region,and even they lose to BMs often.

 

For FM winning BM is like climbing glass wall...

 

As for Sin I myself socket Impact with 16m range and 3 points snowball.All you have to do is take them once from hide and wait the moment they attempt to counter so you can cancel it and freeze them,and thats your moment to blown them.

[Farrangis]

If you see a BM using HM block, you dont have to worry about parry stun. So that's one less thing to worry about.

 

Sad but true, FM is the only class in game that BM can sh*t on easily without much effort. However, in exchange, BM has many disadvantage against other class that we need to make literally little to no mistake to win rather than face rolling like fighting against FM. --cough-- cough---- summoner, sin and destroyers --cough

[Els]

From a BM point of view (1950 rating last season EU Region). I think you will need to learn the class pros and cons.
And to learn FM combos, once you catch your opponent, you must be able to deal a lot of damage in this short time.

We have many gap closers
Rush (2, Basic Stance) : Stun 2 sec, 30 sec CD --> Frost Sheath, Second Wind, Backstep T2
Raid (2, Draw Stance) : Refresh CC duration up to 2 sec, 24 sec CD
Five Point Strike (3, Draw Stance) : Dazes 2 sec per hit, knockup if you're dazed or stunned, 45 sec CD --> this one, if it's spec for knockup, you'll just have to take it, unless you have frost sheath on.
Those 3 are always up.
Then we have Shoulder Charge, dazes for 2~3s, 24s CD, 10% max hp heal, 3m range. --> Frost Sheath, Second Wind, Backstep T2, Roll (if you get hit without frost sheath, it's better to roll I think, so you keep your second wind / backstep for a possible tech chase).
But we can spec it to turn it into a charge, increases CD to 36s, but no longer heal.
Soaring Falcon is usually spec to pull, 24s CD. This does not CC you, depending on the CC we use after, some takes a bit of time and you can try to Q/E to avoid them.

Block lasts longer than the CD, so it can be used non-stop. 

Parry Block lasts for 2s, but only the first 0.5 sec is a parry (that will stun you if you hit the BM during those 0.5s).
The other parry lasts for 4s, but does not parry. With HM skill, we can trigger a 3 hits shield on 45s CD (if i'm not mistaken).

Phantom Grip bypass defense, so abuse it.

 

Backstep can be specced to switch to draw stance, so be careful of Backstep --> five point strike.

 

Our Q/E requires a target in melee range to be used, it removes Snares, so don't stay too close I guess. 
Other than that, our only way to get out of a freeze is to use backstep (8s CD).

Well there's Flash Step, but it requires us to crit during Draw Stance.

During our V (Flock of Blades / Blade Call), we can use a set of skills during 12 secs. One of them is Warding Spirit, it gives us an aura that blocks all projectiles for 10 secs. You'd better use frost armor and wait.

The best for you is probably to use a ice build, since Chill prevents us from using charge skills. Freeze does prevent us from moving, charging, and turning. 
Spec backstep to be usable during stun/daze, so if we charge and stun you, you can backstep and it freezes us.
Not sure if you should pick Frost Armor on 1min CD or 3 min CD.
Frost Sheath is nice I think, I'm not sure if i should proc it or wait 3s. 

Not sure which Second Wind you should use, T4F2 seems annoying, charge disables, slow, knockback 11, and knockdown 2sec, so it will makes us roll and increase the distance, since charge are disabled, we have to use backstep to remove this debuff, and use another gap closer to come back at you.

Some FMs I met are very annoying, they're like stalling the fight with Frost Armor / Frost Sheath, and when i catch them they use backstep / second wind, plus some ice skills, preventing more charges, so I have to SS, to remove it. Also, they heal a lot with their ice skills.

 

[Enhance]

On 4/14/2016 at 3:02 AM, Celibi said:

Hello.

I'm not by any means good force master - decent at best - but I'll share my perspective on those fights.

 

First of all, as the guy above said, padded bra is a must. If you can get a rubber keyboard for more comfortable head slam, then you'll also have easier time coping with losses.

 

Now that you got that out of the way, BM:

It took me some time to figure what can I possibly do against them to avoid losing before landing a single attack, since there's not enough blademasters in queue to practice against.

Offensive against blademasters, of course, comes to dealing with their block. That means either of two ways - either block break, or freezing them in place and walking behind them.

- First one, block break snowball: Many blademasters you'll fight won't keep their block up for long - they know you can use block break snowball. They would just tap it for the parry frame a few times and then dash/disable you. Usually they stop the block by moving slightly, so a simple way to cancel that is to freeze them (how to freeze in second part). Once you got that down, you can toss the snowball and do your impact freeze shenanigans. They'll probably use second wind on that, and you have 36 seconds to get them back into your combo.

- Secondly, phantom grip, rule of thumb: don't get it resisted. If you cast your phantom grip as they do their SS or on an iframe it's a huge waste. Phantom grip breaks the block and lets you get behind them and freeze relatively easy (with glacial beam or normal attacks while they're knocked down from grip). While phantom gripped, blademasters can use Flock of Blades - 1 minute cooldown, but pushes you back(unless you resist) and gets them out of grip. If they don't have it, celebrate Christmas, as their tab escape is likely specced to daze. If you cast short fuse and meteor before that, you should have it in the bag.

- Speaking of short fuse and meteor: both pierce block/parry. It's a great way to inflict Burn and ridiculous damage, so if the BM used his flock of blades (whether in your grip or as part of his combo), you could try tossing short fuse (left path) and meteor, then phantom grip hold them inside the area. Again, don't get ahead of yourself and get your phantom grip resisted.

- E/Q + instant Glacial Beam followup is very hard to block, and usually comes unexpected. Unless you're fighting a really good BM, they probably won't have the time to react. That gives you both stun and freeze, which means that they either use their tab or you get more stuns and possibly aerial.

- Block break aerial bolt bash - if you spec your Aerial Phantom Grip 2 points down, your Bolt Bash in aerial will disable their block for a while. Which is handy for your follow up as they fall down. You can get aerial up pretty easy if you spec your Second Wind to right path (daze), and use it during their combo if they stand next to you. Unless they resist it (i.e. they Q E Q around your lying body), and make sure you don't waste it on a resist,  they'll get dazed next to you. Then they'll either roll (catch the roll with your Dragonchar daze and you're set for an aerial) or try to wait it out, in which case you can do LMB-Tab(knockup!)-Z-RMB-4 and  go on with the combo (granted your Tab and Z are specced for aerial).

- During aerial, they can't block. I'm sure you're aware, but just in case remember that you can toss an Inferno and/or Short fuse for free while they're having fun flying.

- The only way for them to escape freeze is charges, SS, and random magic resistance blessing from god of bns (???? I guess, because they don't seem to regard freeze sometimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thugw8ZSgYk). They can't charge you unless you're in front of them, and SS has cooldown - short as it may be, but it has a cooldown. While it's tricky to freeze them when they're spamming their block, you have several skills to aid you, like Ice Coil (frost Z) that pierces block/parry (you can pretty much spam it whenever it's off cooldown. Free damage and chill), Frost Fury middle branch (in case you crit with Z) gives you free 3 chills that pierce block and don't get parried if you're specced to Frozen Soul, SS specced 2 points, frost armor middle branch, Q/E+3. And, very notably, FROST ORBS. Those babies are your bread and butter (unless the bm has the protection of bns god - see video above). BM attacks you and freezes, which can (quite often) mess up his combo and you won't have to waste your roll or tab to stop it. Not to mention that at this point you can just get up and walk behind them like nobody's business. Either way, once you've caught them without SS in freeze and stand behind them, you just go absolutely bananas.

Note, however, that if they have their Tab available, you should NOT stun them. Do inferno, meteor shower, short fuse, frost dragon, LMB RMB, but don't stun or daze - if you do, they'll just cast their tab/roll and get free resists, and you don't want that.

(I believe that's all).

 

Defensively:

- Watch out for charges. rush/raid can be evaded with Q/E if you see them coming, but it's kinda hard. Five-point strike will knock you up (haha, knock you up, get it.) unless you frost sheath/frost armor. If you dodge an incoming attack with E and you realize it's a 5-point strike, mash the V button. If you dodge 5-point strike knockup that's a lot of damage avoided.

- Frost orbs, praise lord for frost orbs. Try to always keep them up unless you're dashing out free damage with dragonfrost.

- Don't use your F/Tab to escape every CC. If you're just lying on the ground and BM is next to you just spamming his LMB, you can just wait it out. The damage isn't that horrible, and if you press F you'll get caught in another knockdown or raid, if you press tab you'll be vulnerable. Unless, of course, he Lightning Draws and starts flickering you. Then gtf away from there - with F or SS or even tab if necessary.

- Note when they call flock of blades - remember it's your 1-minute window to phantom grip. But it also gives them some time to dish out large damage, so you're often better off just going into frost armor and waiting it out (and don't waste your attacks on Warding Spirit, you can see it in their status bar). Try not to use your tab before flock of blades, if possible, since if you get caught in their combo with blades around you're very likely to be dead within next ten seconds.

- They might try to time their 5-point strike with you leaving your frost armor/sheath, so be prepared.

 

Of specs, you obviously want the snowball, aerial grip 2 points if you're confident in knocking them up (haha, knocking them up, get it.), glacial beam. I also like frozen soul, frost fury middle branch, 2 points meteor shower, 2-3 points short fuse. If I expect it to be a long fight I get middle branch frost armor, if I expect it to be pretty quick I use the right branch. As for tab, I haven't experimented with the middle branch, but you don't need left branch as they have no grips or grapples. Right one seems good enough.

 

 

---- That's it for blademasters. Assassins, gladly, are a better matchup than BMs.

Unless you have already played assassin, I recommend you do - or at least check their skills. Leveling up an assassin alt opened my eyes on the ways to counter them and their weaknesses. I'll list some here.

- Most importantly, chill disables dashes. This is the best thing ever for you, since applying Chill on an assassin is pretty easy with your ice coil (z) and pretty much anything, unless you get countered and stealthed and CC chained.

- When they're stealthed, try casting impact a bit in FRONT of where they're going to compensate for ping. If you see "evade! evade!"  you're doing good, if they fall out of stealth you're doing great.

- Successful Decoy(the counter) puts you behind the enemy. Might seem like a convenience, but it's probably the decoy's greatest weakness. If you fall for a decoy, turn around and press 1. If you had any ice orbs on you, you also have a good chance of stunning them since they might've gotten frozen from proccing decoy (sorry not sorry, assassins)

- You'd think the frost fury (frozen soul) would get countered easily by Decoy, since it's 3 attacks in a row, but the funny part about it is that it creates frost orbs AND still does chill. So if you got Decoy'd out of frost orbs, turn around and 1 for pretty much guaranteed stun, unless they react and backstep it off.

- When sin is in stealth, he can do several bonus things, notably:

-- jump and stun/blind you, restealth. Pretty big cooldown on that, do E or Q in reaction to avoid it.

-- throw a little harmless shuriken at you. Or so it would appear, but it actually marks you with Wind Rush, letting them teleport to you and daze you any time they want. Best way is to dodge it - and your Divine Veil resists it completely. Most assassins start the fight by stealthing and doing that thing, so all you have to do is get in frost mode and C (mobile veil). If you're affected by Wind rush, you can also spam F (even if it's not doing anything), and as soon as they get close to you and daze you you'll roll back (and probably confuse them.)

-- attack you with his lightning crash, the lightning zaps that do quite a lot of damage in melee range. Try not to die and try to knock them out of stealth. If you have frost orbs, it's going to be easy unless you remain stationary.

- When assassin does his decoy, he has a skill activated to teleport to you and kick you in the head with daze. Expect it, and counter it with q/e/f.

- When assassin does his decoy, you can toss a snowball and stop it for free, then go nuts with your damages.

- Assassin can escape your stuns and knockdowns when his Lotus of Escape is up, so make sure not to get too many things resisted.

- While you phantom grip an assassin (e.g. out of their smokebomb), they'll often use their Tab escape - leaving a flashbang behind. You can react to them leaving your phantom grip by pressing Q/E and dodging the flash, and you'll be standing right in front of their face (except they'll be stealthed), so you can start spamming your 1.

- Once the assassin used his tab, he can't escape phantom grip. Burn+hold in meteor for free damage.

- Your divine veil resists Turning Leaf (the skill where assassin swaps places with you and stuns). Sweet.

- If an assassin casts turning leaf then dashes to you and starts to stab you in a CC chain, you can press SS to freeze him and get behind him. They'll probably use their own SS or do Decoy, react accordingly. If they don't - free damage.

- If you spec your frost armor 3 points  middle branch it becomes a great tool against assassins. When you feel threatened (assassin in stealth, your tab/f escape on cooldown, you're marked with wind rush) you can cast frost armor. Assassins sometimes like to get advantage of it by going behind you and dashing at your back (which grants them stealth). As soon as they've done that, unfreeze - it freezes them in place and moves you behind them. Again, sweet situation.

- Decoy has a large window when it's unavailable after casting. If you toss a Glacial Beam after decoy you'll be forcing them to either tab escape or eat some damage.

- Watch out for assassins' counter while they're knocked down.

 

 

And quite importantly - practice. They'll remain invisible the whole match only if you let them. Once you learn to NOT fall for their counters and knock them out of stealth, they suddenly become quite easy to deal with (at least at silver where I'm at, obviously.)

 

 

 

 

 

p.s. holy shit this turned out lengthy. I bow respect to you if you actually read it.

[Avalyn]

When did I say anything about completely helpless?

 

I said to learn your combo. There is a common misconception at lower ratings that you can tab whenever you want vs FM, and that's just wrong and yet true at the same time because most FM's don't learn their combo and can't punish you at all. Not only do FM's not know how to bait tab and use it because of that, they also don't know how to bait other things like SS and V and 5 point strike.

 

If you freeze them and ice counter, you have a whole 45s where they can't do that on you anymore. There's a lot of things you can do. If you disable his block and burn the SS and the BM has no raid either, they are stuck in draw stance and cannot switch to basic stance which is extremely crippling. Or even just doing a double freeze is very crippling. You can also learn patterns when BM will usually block, like if they have no SS and get stuck in ice again they will most likely want to trigger cyclone and that is when you can snowball.

If you use divine veil and then freeze when they get close to you, you can waste the V when they try to knock you outside.

 

The best players all know how to theorycraft and make their own rotations by thinking outside the box. You clearly aren't going to get anywhere like that.

[Zerecas]

FM are favored in this fight? You serious?

FM learning combo has got nothing to do with it, you assume the BM/ Sin doesn't know their own combo?

BM's air combo is easy af compared to FM's. 6 seconds defensive off is only good for a second when they can pull you up after block is disabled or just instant rush to you.

[Avalyn]

The BM/Sin is going to know their combo or they won't get past bronze. FM can get pretty far just by throwing random shit around but guess what, that doesn't work against a BM/Sin.

 

FYI air combo is not a "combo" for BM. If you've never seen a BM combo that's because you're not supposed to be able to combo an FM - they have double ice + veil + double escapes which is more than enough to stall for time and always have an escape up. 

 

Like I said, you're supposed to bait their SS and then freeze them to bait a block and guard break. If you simply throw a straight up guard break at them obviously they're going to 5 point strike you. If you're too slow you can ice counter for safety and even if you get hit by 5 point strike that means it's on CD for 45 seconds and you have a very large window where you can go for the SS bait again. 

I'm trying to spoon feed some serious game changing knowledge to FM's here and you're still repeating the same things I just told you how to fix. Why don't you just keep getting wrecked by BM then since you like it so much.

 

Even the supposedly brain-dead summoners know better than FM's. I've seen summoners pull off the bait SS/V + guard break and root to 100-0 me rather than going for the cat grapple.