Honestly any change that isn’t making Odin a permanent form is just gravy for me. I want to be in an Odin mech, not be in a mech sometimes.
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I think the suggested changes are interesting, making tychus an incredibly heavy handed hard counter to comps that utilize armor. Definitely a niche that has yet to be filled in hots despite how much armor and percentage based damage is floating around. Never did feel like simply doing % damage was a good counter to armor either, it only really acted either too slowly or it was just not sufficent against things like crystal aegis at level 20 on something like a valla or uther giving 50 armor to something like a sylvannas.
I do disagree with some of the talent and ability ratings, I definitely feel as if laser drill could easily be a B and thor is not a must pick, but I see the reasoning behind it.
Solid thread post
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I can’t imagine Tychus without his Drakken Laser Drill, honestly.
He’s one of my favourite heroes too, and I almost never pick the Odin, think it’s a matter of taste.
Drakken placement… well, yes, it’s not automatic and sometimes it takes 3 clicks, but once you do and if you manage to hide it well… works wonders for me. Great zoning and dmg.
Good post tho and great ideas. But don’t remove the Drakken!
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i always take it on BoE because that upgrade is excellent in both burning the immortal and defending against it.
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@OP
When you consider In the rhythm and Q range as bad talents (and then for whtever reason rate lvl16 talent higher than grenade), I know you don’t really play tychus at all.
In the rhythm has been, is, and will always be the default antitank (hence simply default) choice (TBA is OK, but that’s not why you pick tychus).
The default lvl13-16 would be healing+grenade (antitank), but if there are certain mobile heroes (e.g., ming, tracer, or any other hard to reach backline), Q-Q is the only correct way to go (E build ming gets out of range without the lvl13 talent).
I’m not a fan of not taking lvl20 odin, but sizzling and bob and weave are both very powerful talents too.
With a couple niche exceptions, tychus’ entire talent tree is actively used and quite balanced. Saying that there’s “no talent diversity” is a very blatant lie and again shows lack of tychus experience.
Learn to play tychus before even trying to make suggestions. You just wasted hours of your time that could have been used to actually play tychus instead.
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It actually bugs me an awful lot that Tychus was given the Odin as a Heroic because it all but guaranteed that we wouldn’t be getting a Thor hero. It’s awfully hard to separate the two, though…
Honestly, I don’t think the new Tychus would be that much of a heavy-handed counter to anyone except Garrosh (and even then, it’s not like Garrosh doesn’t have methods of dealing with the big blue goon).
Which ratings do you disagree with, aside from the Laser Drill?
Thank you!
Once upon a time, I was the same way. When I play Tychus I want to play Tychus, not ride around in an “Odin”. However, the changes to his Attack Range and sustain made my old Rhythm/Laser build demonstrably worse than Bigger/Odin, and now whenever I give the old build a shot (or even just Bigger/Laser), it feels like I’m playing a handicap.
This perfectly illustrates my issues with the current Drakken, though.
- The placement is such a pain. I remember once upon a time when I could self-cast it reliably and it was basically like having an extra charge of Run and Gun because it shunted Tychus out of the way.
- You have to hide it. Drakken Laser Drills are massive mining tools that are basically siege equipment, they shouldn’t have half as much health as a Bunker.
The range is good and the damage is good, but I feel like it’s just not enough - and I say this as someone who used to swear by the Laser Drill all the time.
Technically I’m not advocating for its removal 
That’s a pretty reasonable use case, I will admit. I personally prefer to take Odin or Sizzlin’ Attacks because they’re more reliable in a Teamfight, though.
Alas, my ruse has been discovered - I only partake in Tychus casually!
The Bigger They Are… has such massive mechanical and statistical advantages over In The Rhythm that I cannot possibly understand how you would think this. Please explain further.
Are you going to share why you think this, or are you just going to make statements with no backing?
“Actively used”? Maybe, but not by skilled players. Picking Diamond and Master on HOTSlogs, the following talents have a sub-20% pickrate:
- Combat Tactician (9.1%)
- Master Assassin (18.4%)
- Concussion Grenade (7.1%)
- Spray ‘n’ Pray (15.3%)
- Lead Rain (8.8%)
- Focusing Diodes (15.2%)
- Bob and Weave (16.9%)
That doesn’t say “quite balanced” to me.
We’ll agree to disagree.
I mean, he’s only my highest-leveled hero. I don’t know what more you want from me.
It doesn’t.
- It’s extremely susceptible to blinds (you can be 100% sure those blinds will go to you the moment you press that button, if you play TBA).
- Your damage is significantly “reduced” if any other damage comes towards your target (since you will stop at 35% no matter what). Your teammate ming is not just going to stand around for 3 seconds and wait until you finish your minigun and then finish it off.
- You don’t have enough damage to finish a 35% tank. Not to mention, he will get a heal once your minigun is done.
- It’s useless against Garrosh (who is normally completely destroyed by tychus).
- I could go on, but I think 4 is enough.
TBA is good for killing squishies (especially 1x1), not tanks.
P.S. If you have a 7-sided khara or malthael in your team, sure then TBA is the better choice no matter what (you’d just have to make the combo work). But that’s a very specific situation, not general rule.
You say those talent tiers have no options and yet you list only 1 option of each as bad. Not to mention >5% can still be great niche talents (e.g., I can definitely think of uses for concussion, especially for some1 who is used to playing a lot of morales and is good at pushing ppl exactly where he wants them to go).
That doesn’t mean you know how to play him. Especially if you haven’t even actually tried the other talents… You know how to play 1 build, but you have absolutely no experience to talk about build viability.
That reminds me of those lvl2k mings who played only E build for 5k games and think they know ming (Ok, I may have seen only 1 real-life example of that). Hint: they don’t.
And anyway, my conclusion that you don’t know tychus was based on your actual post and suggestions, not your level or experience.
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Btw, master assassin would be the best choice with lvl20 sizzling attacks. It’s just 15 takedowns, even by lvl20 is quite unrealistic in any high level game. But in games where 30+ takedowns are common, it’s definitely not a bad talent.
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Tychus is susceptible to Blind in general. This isn’t unique to TBA (although you are correct in pointing out that, proportionally, Blinds have a greater effect on TBA in comparison to a Minigun significantly extended by In The Rhythm).
Except that Minigun is not the only tool Tychus has for dealing damage. You’re acting like Overkill and Frag Grenade don’t exist and I’m not sure why.
Just because Tychus is effective at attacking tanks doesn’t mean he should be focusing them. And, even if he is, you’re again acting like Tychus’s other abilities don’t exist (and neither do his teammates).
What?
I won’t argue that it has reduced effectiveness against Garrosh, but
- That’s 1 hero out of 86 that TBA has reduced effectiveness against
- “Reduced effectiveness” and “useless” are definitely not on the same level, this isn’t Fueled By Torment granting Mal’Ganis a net gain in health when hit by Li Ming’s Disintegrate or Tassadar’s Basic Attacks (and even then, it’s not like Garrosh is incapable of being blown up at that level of health even with his 30+ Armor)
I’m not even remotely convinced, so please keep going.
TBA isn’t good for killing anything. Its primary purpose is severely wounding, which you can then use your other abilities (or allies!) to perform cleanup.
You’ll have to explain this one to me. Why does TBA “combo” with those abilities specifically?
Nah.
“Clear winners at every tier” and “drastically reduced build variety” are very different statements from “there are no options at these tiers” - especially when I went over reasons why you might want options that are not the “clear winners” or how they might be useful.
See above statement about how I went over reasons you may want to choose given talents, even going over the very example you cited:
Relevant portion bolded for your convenience.
If I can’t prove that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to Tychus after showing my Level 72 Tychus with a 60% winrate, I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince you. For that matter, if I’m measuring you by the same standards that you’re measuring me, there’s no indication that you know what you’re talking about either, so now I’m wondering why I should listen to you despite your assertion. What evidence do you have that you know better?
I feel like you and I are talking about different posts at this point. Did you miss the part where I said I used to use In The Rhythm all the time? Or maybe I’m at fault, and I missed the part where I stated that I have never tried other talents before (spoilers: I did not claim that at any point).
If you disagree with me? Fine. Everyone has different viewpoints, so I can deal with that. But this whole “you don’t know what you’re talking about” thing you’ve got going on holds no water unless you’re willing to prove you know better.
If you’ve got Master Assassin complete and you took Odin at 10, Big Red Button is the better option by far. I mean, yeah, a completed Master Assasin does give Tychus that extra attack per second for Sizzlin’ Attack synergy, but the ability to deal damage safely (and over a much wider area) is ultimately more valuable.
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You should first try playing TBA yourself then. I can see only in the rhythm on your hotslogs profile. Isn’t it weird to be advocating for a talent you’ve pretty much never even played?
I’ve just put out a broader and more realistic picture out here so that people don’t accept your completely narrow and wrong impression as the only correct truth.
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I do, and I have been.
Probably because I don’t upload my replays to HOTSlogs. My HOTSlogs profile (which I didn’t even know I had until now) is likely made out of replays uploaded by other users and is less accurate than most for that reason.
Isn’t it weird how you still act like you know what you’re talking about despite having no evidence to prove it?
You have failed to address or respond to any of the other points I made in my previous post.
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I have years of experience arguing with Kith. You’re obviously well out of your element in making an argument. Perhaps let someone else take up that profession lol.
@Kith - Solid points well constructed all around, as from the point of view of someone who literally hasn’t played hots in a year or more. I’ll see if I can get AH to look over it - he plays this cancerfest more than I do.
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Good job! Minus the numbers i agree in everything. I hope this become a reality in the future.
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encountering squish on the forums today was not what i expected
Looking forward to it! I’m always down for more feedback.
What numbers do you have an issue with? There are quite a few different types. 
If you’re playing games where you have large minigun durations from in the rhythm and people are letting you hit that, you’re not in a game that matters anyway. Obviously the enemy doesn’t know how to handle you regardless of talents.
The value of TBA isn’t just the increased damage, but the fact that it happens in such a short span of time, reliably, and happens more often.
Also the complaint that your allies can reduce your damage by…doing damage to the enemy?.. Seems silly. Yeah they’ll be brought below the 35% threshold and you may not get as much DPS but the enemy is still dying faster. So unless all you care about is your own stats this shouldn’t be a problem. This is also preferable, because sustained damage is a lot easier to heal and guard against.
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Whoever made your collage of ‘Medium to long range’ gunners is clearly bad at TF2.
The Heavy is terrible at long range and mildly annoying at medium.
His optimal range is close to medium-close.
Vulcan Raven was also a short range boss, but that was more due to the isometric perspective.
And Fallout’s minigun is also terrible at long/medium range. It’s got a longer effective range than a shotgun, but not by much.
And your 40k Terminator assault cannon is for close-medium range combat. It’s actually one of the shorter ranged heavy weapons.
While the actual use of the weapon system is for long range, games tend to make it incredibly inaccurate as balance. Limiting it to short range killing and medium range annoyance.
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There are plenty of heroes which have far more lower used talents. And in some cases 20% is an acceptable pick rate aswel (niche talents exist).
Tychus realy only has a few problems regarding talents, and thats why certain talents are getting underpicked aswel.
First of all however, his kit as it is, is already well designed, the abilities are clear, they synergize with each others and even the ultis are well balanced against each other. And its logical they are, tychus has been OP with this kit before, it shows the baseline is good. No changes are needed here.
And there is a major reason why no abilities are being extremely visible, and thats because of minigun, which is simply his trait. And a very strong one on that. It makes his kit complete.
But back to the problems:
The first problem is the ITR + TTS synergy, a synergy that was a major reason to pick tychus. And it has been changed into a counter synergy instead. Its the reason why ITR and TTS no longer have an S rating. It simply was the goto talent combination. His rework killed this entirely instead of nerfing it to an acceptable state.
Yet it could have been quite simple: TTS always triggers after 3 seconds, or at intervals of 3 seconds with each later interval being weakened (ie. 2nd trigger is 50%, 3rd is 25%, 4th is 12.5% etc). It gives the healing, but still provides a gap to attack through. And is always going to be usefull.
With this synergy being returned we however would create talent issues later on. And thats because Neosteel Coating is then going to become significantly weaker as thats currently a much more recommended talent when going for ITR. But even in this case, if you have a proper healer, its going to remain strong. It might become a niche, but a strong one regardless.
Only spray and pray is going to be a weak choise. But for this one we could introduce a major buff: spray and pray adds 1 base range. This gives tychus his older range (from the times where he was OP) but still takes away his self sustain. He cant get both. And in this case, it remains level 13 worthy because you dont want this to synergize with the other 2 anymore.
And now up to the next talent: Bob and Weave
Although this one was buffed with the extra range, the range is given too late to tychus. The range however makes him equal to many other assassins again. And the mobility increase allows tychus to position himself much better.
With that, its a talent that has a clear niche: any hero which doesnt have a gap closer is going to have a pain facing a tychus.
And note: The 15% for level 20 talents is a quite high value. and it just proves it by competing with Focusing Diodes. They take about 30% away from the other talent options, but as you stated both dont go below 20%, its very likely that both other talents are near the 40% range. A 1/3 pick rate compared to the highest pick rate in a talent tier is an excelent pick rate.
And this tells me that a 20% pick rate isnt too bad. i rather focus on talents that go below 15%.
Combat tactician however is indeed a talent i would consider useless. Simply because to get the real value out of it, you need to be level 20 and take Bob and Weave. You are better off getting the globe quest and gain extra mobility that way. And the only problem is that to get the advantage to dodge more often, you need to AA, which is often at a range where dodging doesnt happen as often due to the quick responses required from the player.
So here is the first talent i call truly useless.
Now looking at the next <15% talent i havent talked about: Concussion Grenade
Knockback is nice, but extra range on a decent damage ability (especialy past lvl 16) on a hero which already has range issues is simply just better. This talent is on the wrong tier and would better belong on level 1. And at that point it can synergize with level 4 allowing more reliable knockbacks to happen.
Its not a bad talent in its idea, just placed incorrectly.
Lead Rain is a talent i dont realy see having a lot of uses except in the case of maybe lunara (but why would you attack her as tychus in the first place?). The problem is that at this time in the game your team already should have enough CC to lock down a target for you.
And on this i have no idea how to fix it other than just removing it and trying to come up with a new talent here.
But yeah, thats only a few talents that need a rework, and a few talents that need to be moved.
And specificly here… this game has multiple skill levels, and not all talents have to suit the higher skills. If a talent benefits the player much more on lower skill levels, it can be fine. If a talent would have a 60% pick rate on gold, but 10% in diamond+, maybe the diamond+ talent is simply too difficult to use for gold players?
Sometimes options are only there to allow diffirent skill levels to adjust better towards their skill level.
For example on medivh, if you play at silver, you realy dont want to use the portal talents too much, your teammates wont use them effectively. It can be fine.
And your statement about it feeling clunky, i think its part of how he should play. Not all heroes have to be the same. For some lunara feels clunky, and for others valeera does. Players can vary a lot, and i personaly cant tell that tychus feels clunky.
The current tychus is also not a hero that is ment to be used as solo laner (and blizzard did a good job at removing that capability from him), he benefits most when his teammates can pull enemies towards him. And thats when he can burst out some very dangerous damage. And thats his key feature. Allowing some talents to take back some of his solo laning capabilities can be fine, but it has to go at a cost somewhere.
Tychus is one of the heroes which has a fairly balanced talent tree, a tree where most talent tiers dont have a talent with an over 80% pick rate. And 2 very clear ways to build (ITR + Nanocoat or TBTA + TTS), which both also make the tychus player capable to play in a very diffirent way.
And because this post became massive, here a TLDR of the changes i think would work:
- Remove combat tactician
- Move Concussion grenade to level 1.
- Remove Lead Rain
- Move bob and weave to level 16 (and if spraynpray is altered, reduce its range bonus)
- Add a new level 20 talent.
- Alter TTS in such way that when having extra ITR stacks, it doesnt hinder the healing part (after 3 seconds healing should always take place).
- Give spray and pray +1 additional range on his AA.
TF2 has a diffirent mechanic in place that forces players to go for close range:
Damage ramp up and fall off. The 0 point being 256 units away. Anywhere closer allows damage to be boosted by 50%, further away (up to 1024 units) being a damage reduction to just 25% damage.
Thats why the heavy is poor at long range.
And its a poor example when comparing to this game because this game doesnt involve range dependant damage on most heroes (hanzo’s R is one of the few exceptions).
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It just bugged me that of all of the characters and games in that collage I am familiar with, none of them actually fit the medium to long ranged gunner archetype they claimed. Even without damage falloff Heavy is a poor choice for medium or long range, you can see it when he’s kritzed. He’s just too inaccurate.
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But thats simply because thats how tf2 is designed, TFC showed that long range gunner types are horrible to face, its simply not fun.
Compared to other classes (ignoring the sniper and abassador spy), the heavy is still the hero which has very reliable long range damage. Much better than the soldier or demo which have travel time in their projectiles. And especialy when kritzed its noticed. At 1500 units away the heavy can still take down a player quickly even though he misses most of his shots. 40 damage per shot (the crit damage) which can hit 3 times per second means a soldier still dies in 2 seconds.
It was even noticed that much that in MvM they gave the heavy a 75% damage reduction to tanks (although left open the damage on chief bosses, where again the heavy is nearly OP again).
The heavy was that op that most classes recieved weapons to hinder the heavy by either forcing knockback, stuns, or allow the medic to be hindered so the medic wont stick to him anymore.
Note that the old big pharma talent was a 20 streak and relatively easy to perform in the hands of a decent heavy. It was reduced to 10 after a while.
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At the range where soldier’s travel time becomes an issue Heavy isn’t hitting 3 times a second, he’s hitting once a second. If that. 3 times a second is medium range, where soldier is casually oneshotting half the classes. And that 3 hits a second means he’s missing over 90% of his bullets(10 ammo per second, 4 bullets per ammo).
Plus it’s only 27 damage a crit. 5 seconds to put down a sleeping soldier. To compare, a pistol is 45 damage and is actually capable of accurate fire at that range.
Heavy’s tank damage wasn’t reduced because of his effective range, it was reduced because he can sit there and let the sweet point blank damage ramp up give him the highest dps in the game. Bosses have the advantage of shooting back, a heavy hugging them will die in seconds if not aided.
But that’s a long tangent, the fact of the matter is Heavy Weapons Guy is not a medium to long range gunner and his inclusion as an example is just incorrect. As are many if not all the other examples. Miniguns in video games are nearly universally made grossly inaccurate to balance the more dakka the players want. It’s that or reduce the fire rate(Doom’s approach) which is just less fun.
Tychus is simply following the normal gaming conventions for carried rotary weaponry. Huge damage at short range.