Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Xars

- YAC Attack SA modified to provide more potential value
- Prime Time SA modified to include a Catch in Traffic modifier



Combined with the Thread the Needle SA, the YAC attack SA upgrades just broke Zone. The PT CiT effect is just overkill.

It'll take a while for people to revamp their builds, but it's coming.

If you don't understand the above, you're way behind the curve.

Originally posted by Xars
Combined with the Thread the Needle SA, the YAC attack SA upgrades just broke Zone.


I mentioned this to Darth Vader this morning. His response:

Originally posted by Cybertron
I mentioned this to Darth Vader this morning. His response:

How many times have I had to school you on how to build?

I find it funny that no one gets it yet.

Clearly any Offensive buff is going to improve results against both Man and Zone.

But it's amazing to me that people don't understand why Zone has been successful recently and why these changes really kill it.

Originally posted by Xars


Clearly any Offensive buff is going to improve results against both Man and Zone.


Of course....but I don't think this change will "break zone". Now trips...that came pretty darn close to breaking zone.

Originally posted by Xars

But it's amazing to me that people don't understand why Zone has been successful recently and why these changes really kill it.

I obviously haven't played in the last few season, so don't know exactly all the changes to zone, except it produces more interceptions. I am guessing these changes will help the WR hold on the ball when getting the crap knocked out of him. If they hold on to the ball when Vader pops them, then yeah...I am worried. We will find out soon enough.

Originally posted by Xars
Combined with the Thread the Needle SA, the YAC attack SA upgrades just broke Zone. The PT CiT effect is just overkill.

It'll take a while for people to revamp their builds, but it's coming.

3* PT is already mainstream, shouldn't take any revamping to any competent builder.

Originally posted by Xars
But it's amazing to me that people don't understand why Zone has been successful recently and why these changes really kill it.

If you think these changes benefit man more than zone you're crazy. YAC Attack still fires for a short period of time - and now the time is conditioned on carry awareness? We don't even really know what the buff is. 1 btkl vs man is a potential score. 1 btkl vs zone is not.

And don't take this the wrong way, I'm a fan of a YAC Attack buff, more WR variety is needed, but this ain't enough to be breaking anything.

- Elusive rushing fake abilities now give energy and morale bonuses and penalties similar to power rushing abilities when successfully faking a defender

This is by far the biggest and most impactful change.

Prime Time doesn't fire often enough to really break anything.

YAC Attack is a bigger threat cause it can potentially activate more often, but I'm not entirely convinced it breaks zone. People might start taking it over catch in stride.

People who take Head Fake will still take Head Fake, and People who take Slot Machine will still take slot machine. Same with First Strike.

If anything needs complaining about it's Thread the Needle. It hurts the best thing about zone, it's ability to generate interceptions. If anything breaks zone it's this.

Originally posted by o The Boss x
If you think these changes benefit man more than zone you're crazy. YAC Attack still fires for a short period of time - and now the time is conditioned on carry awareness? We don't even really know what the buff is. 1 btkl vs man is a potential score. 1 btkl vs zone is not.

And don't take this the wrong way, I'm a fan of a YAC Attack buff, more WR variety is needed, but this ain't enough to be breaking anything.


I disagree and I think you're the one who will exploit it the most. BTW, I thought your O play calling against Kentucky was excellent. It's also why I'm so confident in the results.

So there's first layer analysis and then second layer (derivative if you will).

All Zone plays are designed with 2 or 3 deep zones. As such all Zone plays are week against Inside Runs if you're covering the WRs properly. Sure you can overload the Middle and over recent seasons that hasn't hurt much because you can cover the edge because Zone generated more pressure (Sacks/Hurries) while providing decent coverage on short passes.

Your Hawaii team averaged 6.1 yards per play on Inside Runs against Kentucky. Exclude 1WR (BigI) plays and you're at 8.8. That's against the best Zone D team. Kentucky averaged 4.3 Inside, 9.9 Outside and 2.4 Passing. They were only effective against you on the Outside. Your O was effective across virtually everything they did except have big gains in the Passing game to offset the Sacks.

Now, CiT rolls are buffed through Thread the Needle and PT (which yes everyone was taking). Most underneath zone passing plays are CiT rolls more often than they should be.

In short, now you can flood an underneath zone, make the CiT roll (which Zone was receiving a benefit it really shouldn't have had) brake the CB tackle with YAC, break the FS/SS tackle with PT and be gone. All while pounding out Inside Runs at a high clip.

Against Man, sure you'll break tackles and get TDs, but you also will with Zone and Man doesn't have the Inside Run problem.

From a building perspective:

You build CiT WRs with either high Confidence or high Strength. Up til now Confidence was the key choice because it correlated well with PT through high caps on Rec Consistency and CiT. Now you can go both Confidence and Strength and have high CiT, Consistency and Power Rushing.

If you're not convinced, just look at how you used 3WR TRIPS in that game. You effectively ran outside by overloading the Weak side. Now look at how WR Cross plays out against his Zone. Look at how open WR1 is (or would effectively generating a CiT roll due to the Cross) and how out of position the FS is to make a play.

Tick 27: Against 3-4 Tiger https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/780469/1977974
Tick 29: Against Nickel Sink https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/780469/1978249
Tick 30: Against 3-3-5 Sink https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/780469/1978238

Here's his TRIPS passing against you.

Tick 27: https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/780469/1978376
Tick 29: https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/780469/1978672
Tick 33: https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/780469/1978414

The FS is in the same relative place in all of the plays above. Break any tackle and the WR is gone with only the FS left - for both Man and Zone.

If the 4WR TRIPS playbook gets flushed out better with Rushing plays (it's missing some Dives, Slams and Off Tackles), it's also going to be a Zone nightmare. I'm surprised people haven't been requesting the missing rushing plays in that formation.

I guess we'll see.

Originally posted by ThePh33P
- Elusive rushing fake abilities now give energy and morale bonuses and penalties similar to power rushing abilities when successfully faking a defender

This is by far the biggest and most impactful change.

We don't know the levels of the changes. Of course, it's possible but Elusive Rushing doesn't rely on Energy nearly as much as Power Rushing does. So it's a buff but no one knows how much. Power Rushing (and tackling a Power Rusher) relies very heavily on the Energy-Toughness cycle whereas Elusive much less so.

Originally posted by Xars
I disagree and I think you're the one who will exploit it the most. BTW, I thought your O play calling against Kentucky was excellent. It's also why I'm so confident in the results.

Exploit YAC Attack? Nah man, I'm out

Originally posted by o The Boss x
Exploit YAC Attack? Nah man, I'm out

I agree. It remains to be seen whether YAC Attack will be all that common. Maybe some people will take a silver YAC Attack now that it's powered by reception awareness, but I don't see many people taking it to Gold just for the receiving grip. Zones aren't common enough.

Thread the Needle is the SA that will hurt, but the CiT buff hurts man and zone equally.

Where Thread the Needle hurts zone more is the interception debuff at the Gold Level. Zones focus on interceptions in a way Man defenses generally don't.

Originally posted by darkwingaa
Prime Time doesn't fire often enough to really break anything.

YAC Attack is a bigger threat cause it can potentially activate more often, but I'm not entirely convinced it breaks zone. People might start taking it over catch in stride.

People who take Head Fake will still take Head Fake, and People who take Slot Machine will still take slot machine. Same with First Strike.

If anything needs complaining about it's Thread the Needle. It hurts the best thing about zone, it's ability to generate interceptions. If anything breaks zone it's this.

Rather than people taking it instead of Catch in Stride, I wonder if they might take it in addition to it. YAC Attack obviously rewards high balance since it instantly refills the whole balance pool and encourages power running interactions. Having high balance naturally lends itself to running Catch in Stride, and it's even more synergistic considering YAC Attack teams will design their passing game around passes with a high completion %, same as CiS teams. The overlap between both SAs having high balance and focusing on the same play calls probably means they are complementary, rather than competing, though there is the caveat that both cannot fire on the same play. Despite that, I think it would still be worth because the proc rates are low enough (nobody is taking 100 receiving awareness) that there is very little overlap lost in activation chance.

That being said, does anyone actually run YAC-based teams? I'm fairly new so I genuinely don't know, but I fail to see how these patch changes invalidate zone from a conceptual standpoint. Regular teams that slot YAC Attack into their builds gain a bit of grip and a very strong balance refresh on maybe a few catches per game, but the power running seems mostly inconsequential on a WR. The flat power running bonus is ok, but the % increase is only useful if you invested into power running... as a WR. Having to also invest into high receiving awareness on top of that just seems like it would hurt more than it helps, since power running and rec awr are generally only relevant on a small minority of plays. I can see how making a deep catch and powering through a lone safety can punish zone, but safeties are generally incredible tacklers and any WR who specializes in rec awr and power running enough to make this work is likely to be too deficient in something else... Dunno, I'm open minded but just my 2c

Originally posted by Kvothe27
Rather than people taking it instead of Catch in Stride, I wonder if they might take it in addition to it. YAC Attack obviously rewards high balance since it instantly refills the whole balance pool and encourages power running interactions. Having high balance naturally lends itself to running Catch in Stride, and it's even more synergistic considering YAC Attack teams will design their passing game around passes with a high completion %, same as CiS teams. The overlap between both SAs having high balance and focusing on the same play calls probably means they are complementary, rather than competing, though there is the caveat that both cannot fire on the same play. Despite that, I think it would still be worth because the proc rates are low enough (nobody is taking 100 receiving awareness) that there is very little overlap lost in activation chance.

That being said, does anyone actually run YAC-based teams? I'm fairly new so I genuinely don't know, but I fail to see how these patch changes invalidate zone from a conceptual standpoint. Regular teams that slot YAC Attack into their builds gain a bit of grip and a very strong balance refresh on maybe a few catches per game, but the power running seems mostly inconsequential on a WR. The flat power running bonus is ok, but the % increase is only useful if you invested into power running... as a WR. Having to also invest into high receiving awareness on top of that just seems like it would hurt more than it helps, since power running and rec awr are generally only relevant on a small minority of plays. I can see how making a deep catch and powering through a lone safety can punish zone, but safeties are generally incredible tacklers and any WR who specializes in rec awr and power running enough to make this work is likely to be too deficient in something else... Dunno, I'm open minded but just my 2c

No one really has had success building a YAC oriented receiver for the reason you mentioned. Power Rushing is just way too expensive. The level of investment needed to reliably break tackles is immense, and it takes away from the WR's ability to catch a contested pass. You can't put your power rushing skills to use if you can't secure the pass in the first place.

Even if you catch the pass, oftentimes the CBs aren't exactly weaklings. Many teams build their CBs to have a reasonable chance of tackling a power back. If the CB can tackle a power back then they can also tackle a Power WR.

It just doesn't lead to a winning formula.

Originally posted by Kvothe27
Rather than people taking it instead of Catch in Stride, I wonder if they might take it in addition to it. YAC Attack obviously rewards high balance since it instantly refills the whole balance pool and encourages power running interactions. Having high balance naturally lends itself to running Catch in Stride, and it's even more synergistic considering YAC Attack teams will design their passing game around passes with a high completion %, same as CiS teams. The overlap between both SAs having high balance and focusing on the same play calls probably means they are complementary, rather than competing, though there is the caveat that both cannot fire on the same play. Despite that, I think it would still be worth because the proc rates are low enough (nobody is taking 100 receiving awareness) that there is very little overlap lost in activation chance.

That being said, does anyone actually run YAC-based teams? I'm fairly new so I genuinely don't know, but I fail to see how these patch changes invalidate zone from a conceptual standpoint. Regular teams that slot YAC Attack into their builds gain a bit of grip and a very strong balance refresh on maybe a few catches per game, but the power running seems mostly inconsequential on a WR. The flat power running bonus is ok, but the % increase is only useful if you invested into power running... as a WR. Having to also invest into high receiving awareness on top of that just seems like it would hurt more than it helps, since power running and rec awr are generally only relevant on a small minority of plays. I can see how making a deep catch and powering through a lone safety can punish zone, but safeties are generally incredible tacklers and any WR who specializes in rec awr and power running enough to make this work is likely to be too deficient in something else... Dunno, I'm open minded but just my 2c

Taking YAC and CiS is only going to cause one or the other to fire since they are both activated upon the catch. Of course, there might be a rare exception but I wouldn't build for that.

CiS fixes Balance and provides Speed. YAC fixes Balance and provides Power.

No one builds Power WRs because it wasn't just 'only expensive'; it was ineffective at that expense. Even CiS had little use because the WR can't break free from the CB enough.

With respect to Zone, why people don't run TRIPS heavy plays against them is beyond me. With Man you can match up the TRIPS and have the FS over the top. With Zone, you're short a defender. While the FS is positioned over the top, you need the FS there.

While people build CBs to tackle Power Backs, CBs don't tackle Power HBs alone (at least not well). The idea is to gang tackle. But a CB alone down field has to make the tackle.

In short, Offense has been Power HB with high Confidence WRs making lots of CiT catches. Now, you can go Elusive HB with Power WRs. Or mix and match the two.

Once someone does it well, it'll become obvious. You won't be able to build Zone CBs and think that one Zone CB can cover two WRs - which is effectively what happens now due to Routes and Pressure from Tiger plays. High Confidence WRs with win CiT rolls and High Strength WRs will break tackles.

Man isn't going to improve by any means, but it will degrade less.

Everyone keeps thinking that one change is massive and that's where my thinking comes from. It's the combination of recent changes. With Thread the Needle, LogZilla is already surpassing all of my previous Passing numbers at this stage. And now PT is buffed and YAC can fire more often. Offense can now attack anywhere on the field with a high CiT or high Power WR/TE against any matchup it wants.