Who is Thorin?

Worse than Josef Fritzl, KKK and Hitler combined. He is responsible for all the evil in the world incl. but not limited to animal cruelty se asia, glomal warming, women's rights in middle east, syrian genocide . He filmed Godfather 3 and probably made you flunk your math test too.

+he said some mean things about polant

His start seems to be very valid.
I think that if I would watch it all he would lose the "playing to your opponent weakness".

But the start is nice because he does mention the "that player only did that move because in that situation against that opponent it would work". (which does contain the above... But I doubt he realizes it himself)

Some very insightful stuff, would love to see him cast more games - he seems to have a knack for the quake duel meta game.

Although I'm not entirely convinced by his theory about perfecting your own strategy. Quake (Live) seems to favor very limited spectrum of playstyles.

The question you have to ask yourself here is this. Innovate or imitate?

Both rapha and cypher were arguably cooller fanboys and based their gameplay on imitating his style before developing a more thoughtful and a more aggressive approach respectively.

What about the likes of strenx for example? His aim was one step ahead of the competition and he worked on it, but his results improved when he inherited a more calm, different style that imitated the current winners.

Then comes the style clash, which is very important in a game like quake. All in all a very good vid, hope thorin releases more quake related vids

He downplayed rapha's skill, and his talent. I've watched many rapha demos and in some cases his aim has been paticularly sub-par, but generally his rockets and rails have been excellent. Rapha's movement is also better than most other high-level players. Thorin's point is still quite valid though, but I don't really see his raw skills or 'talent' as being any less than other players.

Have you seen rapha's quake 4 gameplay? He isn't exactly talented when it comes to aiming.

Yeah, but we're talking about quakelive and I'm pretty sure, Rapha was only like 14 when he played quake 4.

Rapha has really improved his aim. He's still a real situational sort of guy, but that's more smart play rather than he can't really go toe-to-toe with most guys in his class nowadays. He can instantly hit some tight trace when someone opens themselves up to it.

I think he got punished by that enough, and had to sweat it enough, that he really started looking at fixing that part of his game, despite his successes making that seem unnecessary. So...I'd say Thorin's kinda right...if this was 6 years ago...explaining these two players successes when they came on the scene.

But his overall explanation is wrong, because they've all expanded their styles, rather than really stagnated and become rote.

Thorin's actually kinda a moron, and rarely knows what he is talking about. So I'm sure he probably lifted alot of these opinions from somewhere else.

His tirade about everyone making a big deal out of the CS:GO pro cheat debacle, when it 'probably' isn't that big a deal, and the aimbot 'didn't provide a huge advantage, anyway', is pretty hilarious.

"Thorin's actually kinda a moron, and rarely knows what he is talking about."

well that escalated quickly

Thorin's just had nothing to do with quake at all recently, I don't think that means he's a moron. rapha's aim probably peaked around qcon 2013ish i'd say, by which time thorin probably wouldn't have been following quake events properly.

I take more of an issue with him saying that cypher was a better quake 4 player than toxjq, but yeah...

On top of that he wasn't even talking about their current form but rather gave a prime example of players using their best skills to conquer a tournament.

while Cypher it's clearly perfect to the point he is making, Rapha is a borderline example since he plays as close as "the right way to play the game" as anybody else in my opinion.

Are you saying there is one "right" way to play the game?

yes i am saying some plays have better EV than other and therefore can be considered as "right plays" in this context.
In my opinion Rapha contributed with many little innovation in quake that became (or should have) standard plays afterwards.

My point is that you can't really say a player key to success was playing to his strenghts if he just pushed the standards of a game to the next step, because he found the next best way to play the game.
He did not raise to the top just because he played solely to his strenghts but because he came as close as figuring out the game as it gets for his time.

My point is, I'd rather say he found A better next step.

his analysis of cypher (especially with that range thing) was quite accurate. But rapha's success was due to not only just right decisions but also some creativity that he developed: like choosing odd moments to do damage to event the most cautious / aware players, amazing plan + execution to get control back in a seemingly hopeless situation.

thanks for sharing this gem : )

That was a good analysis but I think Thorin was a bit oversimplistic when he basically said that every other player other than rapha was basing their game on aim only. I mean cooller an aimwhore ? Rapha beeing a bad aimer/fighter ? Anybody remembers rapha vs strenx on toxicity at DH ? He basically wiped the floor with strenx with 90% rail and insane LG.

I'd say cooller was never the aimwhore. His playstyle was that of a boa constrictor, building a sick cycle of items that would leave the opponent with nothing that cooller didnt agree on giving away (agent is his padawan). Rapha would be the positional guy. He is quake's all times best positional player in my opinion with an escape plan 24/7. I've got to agree on cypher beeing the natural sick talent with a fluid style that can do basically all he wants in the game. Av3k is the agressive beast who's going to bully you around with his massive presence and super pressure (evil is his padawan).

tldr;

cypher - extremely gifted alround talent
rapha - positional mastermind
cooller/agent - boa constrictor item specialist
av3k/evil - bullies with an aggro style
strenx/k1llsen/toxic/stermy/ - monster combat skills and aim specialists (slower approach)

This is my general understanding of those players' skillsets and specializations but you could imagine other subdivisions with those players. EG, I tend to think strenx has possibly the slowest approach of all of them and this can be explained by the fact that he not only plays on his strengths (good LG and SG skills, good timing, ra and mh will never clash...) but he also tries to detect and work on his opponents' usual patterns. K1llsen thinks less about his opponents patterns and items than he thinks about dealing damage to them and plays almost exclusively to his strengths (insane aim), etc.

What about DaHang? Nobidy ever say anything about him and how he plays even though he have made it far in many tournaments.

Dahang falls in the av3k/evil category in my opinion.

Dahangs medium range rockets are really good.

I always thought of him as a control oriented player but from what i have heard he rushes too much.

'boa constrictor'
I propose a drinking game. Every time someone describes coollers playstyle as a boa constrictor, we chug one down.

Ayone widme gais?

Instead of 'aiming' the right expression is basing their game on dealing damage.

I still agree with you on that part, that it's an over simplification to say all good players are aim / fights / damage based. Just correcting the expression here.


However, I think Thorin is right on that in QL in particular top players play very similarly when compared to how many styles there were in Q3 and in other games too. Seems like in QL only a couple of styles are optimal and serve for winning tournaments consistently, while some styles don't work as well as they used to in Q3 or in Q4 nd some styles just aren't used by anyone nowadays; forgotten. There's a variety of reasons for that, which rendered completely +forwarding or +backing useless.

Actually if you remove cooller in particular from the equation* thorin is not all that wrong about top players. All top players besides him really really really like dealing peek and spam damage and taking risks when compared to the Q3 days, even sacrificing picking items sometimes. Yes some are more comfortable on certain positions and using certain weapons, but the "metagame" is the same across all players.
In the end in QL as a whole the style that dominated in competitions is the one where you are focused on the enemy more than on your items, which is a mindset change. Or simplified, more pew pew less pacmaning. For example cooller plays an outdated style..
*Lets face it cooller is kind of forgettable in QL so thorin maybe just forgot about his existence. Rapha and cypher completely dominated the game, cooller didn't won anything international/major in QL and most of his matches aren't memorable when compared to other more flashier players due to how he plays (that is unless you are a cooller fanboy).


As for cypher, at this point I wouldn't call him this unbelievable talented guy or anything similar. Cypher most likely is the very most experienced player in the game, more than cooller even considering the amount of grand finals and of active years, and he wasn't born with those rockets: those are practiced and he must have put lots of hours thinking about how, from (distances) and where to shoot them like no one else has.

Cooller just HAS to be considered one of the best quakelive player right after cypher and rapha. From 2009 to 2011 he consistently placed between the 1st and 3rd place at every major tournament and it was a time where quakelive had arguably its most big tournaments and the most fierce competition on lan with the likes of strenx, avek, killsen, stermy, dahang... all giving their best.

Granted he only won the iem european finals in his whole ql career but he bested cypher twice at IEM grand final, falling only very closely to rapha in the grand finals in both editions (afaik) and that was easily the most sought after trophee in QL at the time in front of dreamhack, eswc and even quakecon.

If you say cooller is forgettable in quakelive so is everyone else outside rapha and cypher.

And I was giving pointers that the playstyles are very easily recognizable from one top player to another, unlike thorin mentioned. In the end any of these playstyles can work but cypher and rapha were just a head above everyone else in something I'd call the champion mindset factor. In the end they seemed to always win but not many titles were walkovers for them until they met in the finals. I still remember cooller vs rapha at IEM finals being close as ever and as much as a little mistep made the difference between walking away with the first place or go out as a 2nd place. Same goes with cooller vs cypher at quakecon finals where cypher had to pull the craziest shit I've ever seen out of control on aerowalk...

I know I know since I'm a cooller fanboy too, but what I mean is that Thorin might have said what he said because he just forgot about cooller.

He forgot about cooller because his QL career wasn't as memorable as those from other players. After all people tend to only remember the champions, not the second place, and QL was all rapha and cypher (95%+ of tournaments). Also other players are flashier than cooller is, like strenx, killsen, avek (the only player besides rapha and cypher than won more than one major lan), etc. etc.

dunno... I just listened to the talk and cooller was mentioned several times.
Somehow that makes me think that thorin didn't forget him?

But anyway.... Both of you have things which I would describe as very strange beliefs.
And tbh my initial thought about the talk (few comments up) was pretty straight on. Thorin seems to think only about "the players own skill" and not so much about the opponent... Which is why he also reaches some strange conclusions about rapha.

It's fair to say that a player's playstyle is based on individual strength and not on the individual weaknesses of his opponents.

That is until you hear Rapha say he plays to his opponent

I would argue that there are adjustments to each opponent but these are within his playstyle. His playstyle in a broader sense persists even if he plays an opponent for the very first time.

It's complicated. And there are a lot of nuances.
But I would say that you're wrong.

The complications and nuances would be because of the word playstyle.
Because it is a style of play, but since it depends on the opponent it's hard to actually put it as a singular term. It's much more "emergent".

It's the same nuance which thorin (and some other professional players) don't get.
It's hard to explain though... I wouldn't really know where to start.
It's much more like a feeling or intuition which you develop as you start to truelly understand the game.
It is partially captured by the line "that player only did that move because in that situation against that opponent it would work".

Imo the term playstyle does not depend on the opponent at all. It is the general approach of a player to the game not the approach to a specific opponent. Of course if you talk about playstyle it is always simplifying but without this simplification it would be impossible to categorize different players and everyone's playstyle would be described as 'playing the opponent'. Again if there was a lan in europe (:( ) and a new player would attend and imagine there is no information about him, the way rapha approaches this guy will be very much similar to other players. And this similarity is not coincidence it is what you call playstyle.

nice argumentation.

Origional claim:
It's fair to say that a player's playstyle is based on individual strength and not on the individual weaknesses of his opponents.

My reply:
It's more complicated

You:
"Imo the term playstyle does not depend on the opponent at all. It is the general approach of a player to the game not the approach to a specific opponent."

Tada discussion over, it's magic. Let's just say that "I believe something from which the premise is an imediate concequence" or perhaps better "imo I'm right" everytime someone disagrees.

I would still think that your view on any duel game is extremely limited with this mindset.
You don't play against the game. The game is only a platform. You play against the player.

At the top level all players all "know the game" (well..... arguably.... I would like to place some exceptions but hey let's not go there :D). What sets people apart is not how they play the game, it's how they beat the opponent.

I don't see a flaw in my argumentation. I defined playstyle and elaborated why i defined it this way. That's all there is to it. It's perfectly consistent with my initial claim. You are allowed to disagree.

I already said that the term "playstyle" isn't really the best there is... It's way too loose / has no real definition.

After which you just say: well I define it in a way that fits me and by some mirracle! Tada I'm right!!! My previous post is obviously a direct concequence of how I defined it later on.

Although you're perfectly able to do this, this doesn't change the difference in our origional views. Where you think that somehow the way in which you play does not depend on who you're playing against. While imo it does.

You're a mathematician right? It shows in the way you construct your arguments.

Well I do like math. I'm more a computer scientist though (which is fairly similar).
I construct arguments based on logic... I wouldn't know how else you can even have any valid argumentation.
I would hope that everyone presents logical argumentation for their points.... Otherwise theres no sense in arguing.

(There are certain "logical arguments" which have a basis in ethics / morals / etc. as well btw... Which are not really based on logic, but I don't assume that we will get into those parts while discussing foundations of playstyles ;))

You tend to present things in absolutes, zeroes and ones, that's what I meant. Just something I noticed.

Well I have tremendous difficulty making others understand how I view things when I write stuff down the way I would actually say it.
However I have little problems in making machines do whatever I want them to do.
So I figured I might as well write posts in a way similar to programming.

I'll see how it goes ;)

No, those were the people he was "arguing" against

Let it go bro

Well i am giving it a try obviously you dont like my definition. However, you have not been able to point out where exactly it is flawed. A playstyle has something to do with repetitions of patterns and because these patterns are mostly independent of opponents, there is a signature for each player. So yeah i'm right deal with it, lol.

This has gone full pedantic mode. W/e i never claimed that the way you play does not depend on the opponent at all. But your playstyle does not and you should choose your playstyle according your own strengths. Agent mostly bases his playstyle on item control, rapha on positioning and evil on surprise and execution. Evil can not play like rapha and rapha cannot play like evil because they don't have the same skillset.

This is what thorin is talking about. What you are talking about is that the same players may adjust their game given the opponent. But they only do it within the borders of their skillset.

Btw original*
Also dont tell me i'm wrong its a matter of opinion.

First of all the word "playstyle" isn't actually defined anywhere. (At least not in any better way than "the way in which a player plays a game")

So you can't really claim that "A playstyle has something to do with repetitions of patterns and because these patterns are mostly independent of opponents, there is a signature for each player.".
Like I said in my original post if you want to use "playstyle" to describe these things you'll run into a lot of nuances and complications.
And the word actually infers a feeling of 'singularity' which would make the actual way in which I used to play very strange.

So the thing I don't like is the reasoning where you just "define what a playstyle is" which fits your beliefs.
It's hard to argue anything if people don't agree on the words ;)

But the actual thing is that some players (mainly myself, but I recognise a lot of my plays in how rapha plays) can end up doing the exact opposite in certain games in the exact same situation. Only because the opponent has certain views about the game.
And those things can be very subtle... Really the idea that some move is bad / good is very up for debate. Simply because the bottom line is: Does it work?

If you rocketjump up to some item... Fail the jump... Land just infront of the opponent, who has the wrong weapon out (because he expected you to land the rj) and you rape him because of that.... Then it's a good move.
If you miss-time an item which your opponent assumes that you picked up on time. Realise your mistake.... See the opponent at a place where he couldn't have seen your mistake -> it's a good move. You can use that to your advantage.

Now I am not saying that I made mistakes like this. I'm just giving a few examples.
I did however do several 'moves where the commentator went: "omfg this is so retardedly stupid what a big mistake ---> ow wait, the nmy didn't realize hahaha omfg ---> how can that ever happen?"'. And meanwhile I was fully convinced that I would pull it off.

Rapha can do similar things, except the shoutcasters then think it's a good move because rapha is rapha.

----
edit: I'm not saying this to say that I pwned ass. I'm saying this to make you think about the game in a different way.
I can't speak for rapha ofcourse, which is why I take myself as an example. Is much easier as I can explain anything my own way of thinking during a game :D. Talking about others would bring in much more nuances ;D

So if i were to say rapha has a very positional playstyle and evil's playstyle is more aggressive. This is completely wrong and useless because it expresses singularity?


'If you miss-time an item which your opponent assumes that you picked up on time. Realise your mistake.... See the opponent at a place where he couldn't have seen your mistake -> it's a good move. You can use that to your advantage.'

No you got lucky. The word mistake gives it away. A good move has to be intentional. (My definition again)

I agree if it is intentional it can be a good idea to break the rules.

Edit: rules gives another thing away. Namely that there is some sort of unwritten theory attached to duel metagame. So if your gameplan is to surprise your opponent with unpredictable moves, it depends on the individual opponent but it also is likely that what surprises one experienced dueler, surprises many others aswell.

No, it's not completely wrong and useless, because in those lines you are talking about a specific (although the specificness is not extremely well formed) aspect of their playstyle.

There are certain parts of playstyles which are generally understood (although also often missunderstood tbh).
However as a whole, the term playstyle is very vague.

For instance would you say that aim is part of a playstyle?
I would guess that you would say no to that (I might be wrong with that guess btw). However if you ask any random noob out there "how do you play an FPS" he'll say "I aim with the mouse and move around shooting people".
So the definition of "how one playes a game" is obviously for a large part aiming.
Also if I would ask you if there are aim heavy playstyles you would probably say yes and point to strenx / evil.
So the terminology is vague.

Just like you said: "I would argue that there are adjustments to each opponent but these are within his playstyle. His playstyle in a broader sense persists even if he plays an opponent for the very first time."
How can you make adjustments to your choices that don't affect the playstyle?
Sure you can make several different defensive plays from the same possiiton and still be described as a defensive player.

But then how would you label those adjustments?

Also if I'm passive as fuck against rapha but agressive as hell against Av3k. Would that mean that I changed my playstyle?
Or does it just mean that I think that those choices would optimize my chance of winning?

I wouldnt consider aiming part of a playstyle just like collecting weapons and killing the enemy is not. But more specifically relying heavily on aim or having substantial high usage of particular weapons.

The reason i said it is fair to say that a playstyle is based rather on individual strength is because adjusting to this extent to each player is not what i witness following the ql duel scene. You are right It is entirely possible and 'playstyle' in itself can be misleading.

I seem to be fairly good at assuming things ;)

Anyway the reason why you analyse stuff like this is similar to thorin's way of thinking. "Each player should find a playstyle that fits him" (where playstyle could be a fairly missleading term).

But if you were to find multiple demos of Rapha which have similar situations but different opponents. You'll see that especially after and before fights he'll take different routes depending on the opponent. (at least I know I did)
And the reason for that is simply that you expect the opponent X to do action Y. Which makes you want to counter Y.

It is however somewhat difficult to see this because these decisions are not spectacular. It's simply about how you enter and leave fights.
Like is said in the video, "Rapha always had an escape plan already in his head". Well all good players do (except possibly a few ;p), but most players make more mistakes on where the opponent is... And thus their escape plan fails. (Or they get caught in crappy places)

Quake isn't really about the fights, it's about what you do in between ;) (or well it used to be.....)

Ok thought about it. The fact thatyou agreed that a statement like 'rapha has a more positional style... ' has some truth to it, tells me that there is some kind of raw approach of a player to the game. However, players also adjust to the opponent. But there is no way to determine whether playing to your strengths or playing on the opponents individual weaknesses is what makes you win games. It is a matter of opinion.

Good that you thought about it. But imho you don't reach a valid conclusion.

As it's not really a matter of opinion. It's much more situational.
For instance let's assume that rahpa factually has a more positional style than other players.
Then this style doesn't necessarily make him better / worse than someone else who has a less positional style. (otherwise people would camp a lot more at favorable positions)
As the one who has a lesser positional style can move around the map faster (in general) and can obtain other benefits as well.
So to "play positional" has downsides and upsides to it. So it is about finding a balance that works.

However, I think we can agree, there is not "a single style" that wins all games against all opponents.
Even if you were to perfect a single style (which players like Evil and Strenx are doing) there will be downsides.
Similarly finding "correct choices" is not as simple as knowing what worked in situation X against player Y. Because player Z might be able to counter your choice. (due to skills/choices that Z has/makes which Y does not)

What rapha does (more than other players) is see the upsides and downsides of certain playstyles, and then he tries to make choices which enable him to counter that best.
This type of play also has a lot of downsides and upsides. But rapha will make a different choice in the above XYZ example if he's playing against X than when he's playing against Y. Meanwhile players like evil / strenx will (imo most likely) make the same decision all the time everytime.

Now if "playstyle" is a valid way of describing this... I don't know...
Also at times rapha doesn't actually have the skills necessary to take advantage of his correct choices (which is one of the major downsides of this way of playing). While Evil & Strenx can take full advantage, because they simply always make the sane choices (the ones they are most comfortable with according to their own strengths).

What i mean when i talk about positional play is that rapha values a positional advantage a lot and is continuosly trying (succeeding) to get one. And this is where he outclasses everyone. So if we were to analyze all of raphas demos we might come to a conclusion but as you said there are players like evil who are likely to make the same decision against most opposition, because their execution is better than everyone else's. So which way of playing is more succesful? It is a matter of opinion.

It's an esports... Like in any other sport, the guy that wins is right.

But the point I wanted to make is that rapha can have a positional advantage not because "he plays in a certain (positional) style" but rather because he "addapts to the opponent".

So the way in which he plays the game (probably) involves him thinking a lot about what his opponent will do, rather than anything else.

I ll write more later got stuff to do now

in 2013, i asked thorin "who was the best player ever"? and he said, "cooller - i think he would have won more ql finals if the games were still 15 minutes long"
no way he forgot about him

all true

really good analysis

Thorin put it that way only to highlight Rapha as someone who brought a completely different style to Quake's metagame.
I believe he's right - not that aim was the most distinguishing factor among top players back then, but combat skills and the ability to deal damage certainly were.

As for Cooller, he actually *is* the original aimwhore. In his prime he had probably the best lg of them all and -with Unkind and Lexer gone - undoubtedly the best rockets. Im not gonna even get into his dodging, because Id sound like a complete fanboy.
Simply put, he had superb fighting skills and abused them as much as he could. It may seem that Avek and Evil developed some kind of a new thing with their aggressive lg pushes off the spawn, but thats all just 2003 Cooller really.
While I agree his ability to lock down the map and manage item cycles is very specific for him, Im kinda disappointed how quickly people forgot what Cooller used to be and that he ended up with this 'chokes opponents/pacman' label. Its as stupid as that 'doing the Jibo' remark, because Jibo used to be an excellent fighter and an aimwhore aswell.

I also agree with Thorin about Rapha. While he isnt a bad fighter by any means, he has the worst combat skills of the whole top8/top10. Thats why he came up with his own approach and based his whole game around items and positioning. Even though he had some great moments (that ever-mentioned 90%-rail toxicity), there were many, many more of those where he completely failed to execute and lost the game just because of that.
You can see that when you compare him to Cooller in a situation where they need to make a frag. They both have a similar idea how to do it: they work hard for a couple of minutes playing an item-oriented game. The goal is to prepare this one opportunity where they will outstack the opponent by at least 100 or 150 - even the rusty QL version of Cooller almost always executes and gets the frag, while Rapha usually fails.
Rapha's game is all about denying these kind of situations and having the upper hand without fighting too much. He is truly exceptional, but mostly because he shuts down other people's styles. He also had a tremendous impact on how Quake is played today - the quality of item play literally skyrocketed compared to the pre-Rapha era.

Tl;dr / In conclusion - what Thorin said sure makes sense, especially from a historical perspective.

tbh from a historical perspective this is not really true.

The earlier quake scene had a LOT more of this way of thinking / mentality.
It just got "out of fashion" when the laser-mice became good and the addition of stable internet (ADSL over dialup) started to allow players to win games based on execution.
Earlier quake didn't really have this level of execution, and as a concequence it was a lot more about reading the opponent.

Although now (with the great executioners) a single "good read" can turn around a game in an instant. While earlier this would simply tip the table slightly.
So both have their merrits... But in between (let's say early cable internet / decent laser mice) quake was dominated by players who had awesome execution.

The early quake scene revolved around figuring the game out and improving in the basic aspects.

Anyway, what I wrote was connected only to the competetive scene.
Im aware there were different types of players and styles, the problem is these never got really accepted as a part of metagame since their "founders" simply werent good enough.

Hmmm, well the really really early quake scene is even before my time ;)

But when Q3 was released there was already a large competitive scene with players who all knew the basic aspects. (As they are very similar to Q1 and Q2)
Ofcourse it took people a while to adapt to the new maps, other audio system, slightly altered movement, other weapon (balance) etc. ... But the aproach/view from (especially) Q2 players was that the game revolved more around making smart choices rather than perfecting your execution.

And most effort really went into trying to outthink the opponent.

The overall level might've been slightly worse, as playing back then was also limited by "pc-time" and "dialup-costs". Where often households would have 1 pc and 3 kids all wanting to use it. And parents didn't want to pay the phone bills etc. ;)

But most of this "execution stuff" came around 2003~2006.
Maybe CZM started that, with his insane clockwork timing and sick aiming on instant hit weapons ;)

There are no good laser mice. Therefore your entire argument is invalid. Obv

I simply can not agree with that because I never considered rapha to be a bad fighter and he's been very consistent on his LG, RG and RL damage output with very good accuracies.

To me, saying rapha gave quake another dimension is true but only because he didn't solely rely on his aim and execution. He topped everyone (but cypher, arguably) by giving the positional game another dimension. If you've ever played at the top of this game you'd know that perfect positionning isn't enough to win 50% of quakelive's lans over the span of 6 years. His positionning and reading of opponents just isn't enough if you're dealing 10% lg less and 20% rg less. Atleast not consistently.

I'm not agreeing with thorin because he makes it look as if rapha acknowledged he couldnt aim for shit and decided that he could win every next single lan by his metagame only. No, I believe he was (is) amongst the best quake has ever seen in terms of metagame and reading the game, but that simply isn't enough to completely dominate the scene.

It's not like cypher, cooller, avek, dahand and the likes have like a 2/10 rating on positionning. These guys have easily got a 9. All of them.

Other than that I agree with you to some extent and I hope I expressed myself clearly although beeing slightly drunk and quick to write :)

often drunk you are :)

well said, once more :)

and don't forget dodging, where rapha is also exceptional

True, true, i was never much of a cooller fanboy but i will not deny that he is the most complete and most fundamentally sound player in quake bar none.

Damn, I miss rapha !

Someone bring him back.

http://www.qlranks.com/duel/player/rapha

Rest in peace.

Welcome to another thread overrun with Weird by Weird

GG NO WEIRD

Ya he had really good logic again i agree. Weird wins again.

Thorin should perhaps watch some Quake games instead of repeating after ESR trolls circa 2009-2010. Rapha's aim bad? Cypher rushing when out of control? C'mon.

I was expecting all the time for him to say that agent is normal and with stable mind...