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Lost Heroes Qualified for $10.000 Battleborn Tournament – Interview

Battleborn eSports Lost Heroes
Battleborn eSports Lost Heroes

To lead up to the Choctaw Festival of Gaming there was an online qualifier on February 11th. Here seven teams were able to obtain a sponsorship deal for this big Battleborn tournament. Besides having their trip paid for they also are getting a studio tour at Gearbox Software. On Match 3rd till 5th the Choctaw Festival of Gaming will contain a Battleborn tournament where teams have a shot at the $10.000 prize pot.  One of the participating teams during the qualifier was Lost Heroes.  They fought hard and were able to place 2nd in this tournament. After the qualifier, I contacted the team’s Social Coordinator, Luck_Mod, for an interview about the Battleborn competitive scene.

Interview Lost Heroes

  • MM: Once again congratz on the placement for the Choctaw tournament, you guys must be excited. But for those who don’t follow the competitive scene who are the Lost Heroes?
  • TheMechaPanda: Initially, the three of us (Cranky, Mecha, & Silver), who know each other from real life, immediately took an interest in Battleborn since the very first trailer and planned on purchasing the game at release. As we played together, we witnessed other decent Battleborn players in the community. We saw Luck on another team at the time and met Hermit in the meltdown queue. Then, after coming back to our beloved Battleborn from a long break and catching news of the qualifier, we decided to form Lost Heroes and enter the tournament.
  • Luck_mod: I kept in touch with my rival, Mecha, and she extended an invitation to their team for this tournament. I’m glad I accepted.
  • MM: What motivated you guys to enter this competition?
  • Luck_Mod: Having the trip paid for and the tour of gearbox on the line, it was hard to say no to at least trying to compete. I think we all agreed that it was fully paid trip or nothing and we would probably be done with competitive Battleborn if we didn’t place in the qualifier.
  • MM: Obviously you guys did well by qualifying, but how do you guys feel about the tournament and the competitive Battleborn scene, I saw some tight matches and a few where teams got steamrolled?
  • Luck_Mod: From what we’ve seen of the PC team, the PC players are more serious about improving themselves and striving to push the characters to their limit. I can only hope that PS4 players will see the dedication and seriousness that the PC team exudes and try to follow suit. With a smaller player base, there is a larger difference among the top 20-30 players than in any other game and it really shows in the tournaments.
  • TheMechaPanda: The tournament contained varying degrees of skill level, but PS4 players definitely need more experience and practice, as the PC team outskilled most, if not all of the teams present. More than just dedication and seriousness, the Battleborn competitive scene needs to see a greater influx of players interested in playing competitively before the scene can become something permanent and self-sustaining.
  • MM: This is the largest sum of money Battleborn players have ever competed for, so how have you and your team prepared for such a large-scale event?
  • Luck_mod: We’ve been trying to organize scrims with other teams or we do 2v2 single-lane matchups and have our fifth player spectate and critique the gameplay. It would be nice to see more players try to stick to regular practice schedules for both our sake and theirs.
  • MM: Where do you guys stand about alternating between game modes, because in previous community tournaments, it was always 1 game mode and now you are playing both Meltdown and Incursion?
  • Luck_Mod: As the sole incursion fan on my team, I like the addition of mixed matches. I don’t think it takes more skill, but different skill, and further tests a team’s ability to react and prepare for different situations.
  • MM: What do you guys think of the change to Meltdown by adding the finale to this game mode?
  • Luck_Mod: At the highest level of play, it really doesn’t add much to the Meltdown experience, regardless of what it looks like to viewers. Either your team held the lead before the Finale and you will win by timeout with a higher score or you will be the superior team and be the one to score your bot. A come from behind victory is incredibly rare, especially depending on which map is played.
  • TheMechaPanda: In all honestly, I feel as though the new finale sequence negatively affects meltdown. Scoring an ultra minion becomes nigh impossible due to how quickly the ultra bots spawn. Even if a team wipes out the opposite team, the ultra bot still may advance to the enemy grinder because of map design and reaching the newly spawned enemy ultra bot. Finale does not change the outcome of the initial phase in most cases, so really, what is the point?
  • silverNITEHAWK2: The addition of finale was completely unnecessary and unwarranted. Equally skilled teams may only be a few points apart after twenty minutes of play, but the losing team is instantly put into a much more disadvantageous position once the finale starts. The first wave of the finale phase is especially punishing to the losing team and kills any prior comeback momentum. This leads to most games being decided when the finale begins and makes the entire last ten minutes of the game worthless.
  • MM: What do you feel is the optimal way to approach Battleborn as a competitive game?
  • Luck_Mod: I think what Battleborn needs at this point to be a competitive game is more players and some balancing issues sorted out. With a variety of maps, game modes and play styles available, they should all meet a certain level of fairness and viability in design and gameplay. Once there is more consistency in Battleborn, then we can talk about expanding the competitive scene.
  • MM: What would you consider the current meta?
  • TheMechaPanda: The current meta, although many PS4 players do not utilize it, has completely shifted away from waveclear and more towards a game of killing. Playing objective, as in waveclearing, becomes so difficult, that killing the enemy team without even worrying about the minions is a much easier and viable strategy. Melees with cc especially shine in this department with no real hard counter to them, since waveclear fails to be as useful.
  • silverNITEHAWK2: The meta seemed to gravitate heavily towards chaining CC effects to score kills and put the enemy team at a disadvantage in numbers and levels. Since melee characters have the majority of the CC, they are currently some of the most prominent battleborn in the meta. In addition, constant spawning of elite minions in Meltdown via builder’s gear sets is also popular in the current meta.
  • MM: In the qualifier, you were able to use your own gear load-outs, with the exception of legendary items. With the big tournament, there will be a limited gear pool available. How do you guys feel about that, do you think you will be able to create quality load-outs?
  • Luck_Mod: The gear selection for Choctaw is far too limited for the variety of strategies you can use for each character. It seems that Gearbox is pushing for the melee/cc meta by having more melee-oriented gear included in the list. The lack of sustain items in regen and healing received as well as the lack of LLC shield items is disheartening and discourages different approaches to the current meta.
  • TheMechaPanda: The selection of gear seems as if it could have been randomly selected, creating a horrible list of gear. If Gearbox selected the gear they think is tournament fair, why does that not include every single piece of gear, excluding legendaries? Gear should already be balanced and qualified for competitive play, or else the gear should not be in the game in the first place. Quality loadouts are out of the question.
  • silverNITEHAWK2: The tournament-provided gear includes some of the worst items in the game and also omits entire classes of items and an entire faction’s items. In addition, melee gear seems to be favored, especially in terms of economy-managing items. Overall, the limited selection will result in less depth and personal choice when creating load-outs, and I don’t support that result.
  • MM: During the qualifier, I| saw a lot of cheap gear, is that a more common strategy? As a veteran Borderlands player, I quickly look at more epic gear.
  • Luck_Mod: The rarity system in Battleborn is very different from any other game. It shouldn’t be seen as a quality level, but more of a stat type. Rarity does not equal quality in this case as there are some uncommon or 0-cost items that give you as much of an advantage as epic items for a fraction of the cost. Additionally, the game is designed to have faster matches and emphasizes the early game, so cheap or free gear is more reliable than expensive gear that you may not be able to acquire. There have been many times that I have seen 3 Legendary load-outs with one or even zero items activated by the end of the match.
  • TheMechaPanda: Due to the nature of older changes to Meltdown and Battleborn, those being minion strength increasing and the nerfs to waveclear/aoe, inexpensive gear has turned into an extremely important factor in winning Meltdown. Inexpensive gear, or even builder sets, allows a team to constantly buy elite bots almost every wave from the very beginning of the meltdown game. Elite bots are incredibly strong now, not only are they a pain to destroy, they also wreck the group of regular minions and even deal significant damage to players. A team without at least one low-cost builder set will surely lose against a team that brings a builder to take advantage of the elite bots’ strength.
  • MM: What advice would you give to any Battleborn players looking to play at a higher level?
  • Luck_Mod: Practice, Practice, Practice. And when you think you are having too easy of a time, find other players that feel the same way and play each other and keep practicing. You only get better by playing people of equal or greater skill so you might as well grow together.
  • TheMechaPanda: Quickmatch is not the best place for improvement, as sometimes the matches can be too easy. I am not sure how worthy the other queues are, but most likely they are the same. The best way to improve is to critique yourself or have others spectate you in scrims against decent players that you know are skilled too.
  • MM: Thank you for this interview is there any place where people can go to keep up-2-date with you guys?
  • LuckMod: As the team’s Social Coordinator, you can catch our practices and matches on Twitch, follow @luck_mod on twitter, discuss Battleborn at the r/Battleborn Reddit as /u/luckmod, chat on discord to Luck_mod#7053 or on PSN as Luck_Mod. I like to be consistent.
  • MM: Good luck with the big tournament!
  • Luck_Mod: Thank you very much for having us.

The Choctaw Festival of Gaming will be held on 3 till 5 march and will be streamed on the VersusGameplay and Gearbox Software Twitch channels. Also check out the interview with Dunk Squad, who are the other team that managed to qualify for this Battleborn tournament.

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I'm a Content Creator by day and a BattleBread Baker at night. I'll provide you with your recommended slice of entertainment! I'm a Gearbox Community Badass and a proud member of the official Borderlands & Tiny Tina's Wonderlands Creator Team (2K Games / NextMakers).

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