Warrior General Games

I want to revive this debate, of which I've heard two very different views on its effectiveness for CBs and LBs. I've seen builds with very different levels of Cover Tech be quite effective against the pass, so there may be merits to both sides. However, I want to try to unpack why this might be the case and see if anyone has really watch this skill closely.

A.) On one side, the Cover Tech skeptics think it's either very overrated, and in some cases, even puts the defender in a WORSE position than they'd otherwise be if a receiver makes a successful fake or the QB successfully pump fakes. The theory, as I've heard it, is that the effectiveness of fakes on the defender and the separation gained by the receiver is just much worse when the defender is pretty much glued to the receiver (ie high Cover Tech). Many of these dot builders also add that the reaction time gained from high enough Man Awareness makes up for the lack of closeness to the receiver from low Cover Tech--and some even say the initial gap between receiver and defender when the ball is thrown ACTUALLY makes it easier to snipe interceptions in some cases. In these builds, Cover Tech might be as low as the base of 11-12, or they might be taken up to about a minimum of 25-30.

B.) On the other side of the coin, Cover Tech advocates are often on teams whose entire secondaries with fairly high Cover Tech and they take advantage of the gains from a REALLY good (in theory) special ability, with Gold in Cover Expert (+12 Quickness, Conditioning, Cover Tech, and +15% max running speed). In a lot of cases, having the +12% Quickness and +15% max running speed allows these CBs to have lower base sprinting and quickness levels, which we all know are really expensive skills to upgrade, and this allows them to allocate those SPs elsewhere in the build.

Is there a middle ground between these two?
- Could having higher balance make up the difference for people who don't like Cover Tech, so players aren't caught out of position so badly?
- Or, is relying on Cover Expert actually a liability in cases where it prevents On an Island from helping out with pass deflection bonuses?
- Do the same rules apply for LBs as apply for CBs in what makes for a good pass defender?
- Is it time to rethink builds in an era of GLB2 where Sure-Footed is so amazing?

What does everyone think?

*Michael Jackson eating popcorn*

really good questions

sure-footed is the best skill for mobility based players you can have, the balance regain is way beyond anything you can achieve by piling on more balance and quickness.

It is absolutely a necessity on CBs anymore, I'd say for any position where mobility is so important. The only people who shouldn't be investing are those who's build require them to keep footwork under 50.

And even then, maybe consider reworking the build, the sudden acceleration burst it can provide is insane and shows how 'off' balance is in game.

Because I've tested 10->80 balance on a HB, just adding 5 points each time and playing 6 games between to see improvements on a 'finished' build besides those points. Mobility stopped improving at 45 balance, something about this skill transcends normal balance regain.

Originally posted by Raid
Because I've tested 10->80 balance on a HB, just adding 5 points each time and playing 6 games between to see improvements on a 'finished' build besides those points. Mobility stopped improving at 45 balance, something about this skill transcends normal balance regain.

Not to throw shade, but your incremental test of Sprinting resulted in 93 being complete garbage and 94 being the maximum possible speed, while there's less than a 1% difference between the two.

Yes, Surefooted is generally stronger than pure Balance, but saying Balance stops doing anything after 45 is like, just flat out wrong. Whether it's worth the SP cost or not, it's simply untrue that it stops doing anything after 45.

Originally posted by Corndog
Not to throw shade, but your incremental test of Sprinting resulted in 93 being complete garbage and 94 being the maximum possible speed, while there's less than a 1% difference between the two.

Yes, Surefooted is generally stronger than pure Balance, but saying Balance stops doing anything after 45 is like, just flat out wrong. Whether it's worth the SP cost or not, it's simply untrue that it stops doing anything after 45.

I'm saying purely in the improvement from play to play mobility, you get better break tackle ability with higher totals. I saw noticably sharper cuts as I kept investing, but somewhere arounf 45-50 they just stayed the same. I still invest past 45 on all my builds.

Sorry, should have clarified more.

Also, was saying that 94 is when speed gets really good at the meta, and the gap between 93-94 is notable. 95 was the 'hardly different than 100' number. For some reason, it just seems to work out that way - maybe it's just that is the magical number to beat inside linebackers with 75 sprint to the edge, but it just works. If you go much lower you have to start making the room yourself instead of being able to break tackles with speed.

i think the math works out that 55 sprinting with level 3 closing speed is 101 sprinting effectively

Originally posted by ThePh33P
i think the math works out that 55 sprinting with level 3 closing speed is 101 sprinting effectively

No, just no.

It gives 20% increase, 55x.2= 11 so add 11 to the 55 and that is your sprint. Or just do do 55x1.2

Base sprint is 175 I believe

(175+55)*1.2 = 276 where base max is 275

I also made the mistake of thinking the player skills were percentile based. But being value based allows for way more consistent play. It's probably why sure footed is so good as I believe base balance is naturally high. My guess would be 100-150

Originally posted by ThePh33P
Base sprint is 175 I believe

(175+55)*1.2 = 276 where base max is 275

I also made the mistake of thinking the player skills were percentile based. But being value based allows for way more consistent play. It's probably why sure footed is so good as I believe base balance is naturally high. My guess would be 100-150


Wrong game?

Nope just saying how the mechanics work. At least for sprinting. It's possible that closing speed only effects the sprint you add to base but it would be very difficult to tell much of a difference if that were the case.

For coverage tech not seeming to be important I would guess that the base value is decently high on CB at least so really even if you put 100 points into you may only be getting 40-50% increase in skill performance compared to starting cover tech

Originally posted by Xars
Wrong game?


No he's right, CD confirmed this when I was bitching about speed before.


The number we know adds on top of 175 to get the real number we run at. 1 sprinting is really 176 'speed' in the game, and 100 sprinting is 275 'speed'

Originally posted by Corndog
Since I'm tired of doing this, the equation for max velocity is 175 + Sprinting. You can do the math from there about how 95 is the maximum possible speed and 93 is literally unplayable.

Of course there's other factors like energy, morale, balance, chemistry, play diversity, play knowledge, SAs, and probably other things I forgot to mention, but we are apparently ignoring all other factors in this conversation so...



I dunno if the %s work off the max velocity or the sprinting number, but he's not wrong about how the mechanic works.

Originally posted by ThePh33P
For coverage tech not seeming to be important I would guess that the base value is decently high on CB at least so really even if you put 100 points into you may only be getting 40-50% increase in skill performance compared to starting cover tech

Alternatively, Coverage Technique counters something that nobody builds for. Pass rushing skills would also be useless if nobody ever passed.

Originally posted by Corndog
Alternatively, Coverage Technique counters something that nobody builds for. Pass rushing skills would also be useless if nobody ever passed.

?

Isn’t head fake on like every WR

And don’t most routes include a ‘change of direction’

Originally posted by o The Boss x
?

Isn’t head fake on like every WR

And don’t most routes include a ‘change of direction’

Every WR? Not really

A lot of the successful teams don't really have a meaningful investment into skills that would matter for cov tech.