NHL 23: A D-man perspective
I've been playing NHL as a D-man as far back as I can remember. I play mostly 5v5 and 6v6. I've been lucky to be on Top 10 teams for the last four years with experience in LG, XHL, and 6HL. I've also...
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Defense is just so boring, frustrating, and completely unrewarding this year. All I feel like I can do in 6s is collapse in the defensive zone and throw out random poke checks or hope a pass hits a skate.
- DSS got nerfed to the point where it's just not worth using at all because it slows you down so much. And even if you poke the puck, the puck carrier picks it up again over 90% of the time without losing stride or slowing down.
- Stick lifts are guaranteed penalties.
- Bumps just don't work anymore.
- Hits either get shrugged off or result in taking yourself out of the play as well and not getting control of the puck.
- Passes still get forced through/into the crease with relative ease.
Very few games end up with realistic scores. It's rare if neither team has fewer than 5 goals. It's just a sad mess.
I think I can safely speak for everyone when I say we don't want the position to be OP, just playable. Issuing a single nerf/buff and calling it a day creates a nasty snowball effect that a yearly title simply can't afford (especially games like NHL that don't receive many, if any updates post-launch).
By messing up defensive speed, you've exacerbated the speed and acceleration stat reliance since 19 and compounded the Truculence meta from last year - Of course, hits in general are in a weird spot with all the slippage and bouncing/shrugging them off on both sides.
@TTZ_Dipsy wrote:I think I can safely speak for everyone when I say we don't want the position to be OP, just playable. Issuing a single nerf/buff and calling it a day creates a nasty snowball effect that a yearly title simply can't afford (especially games like NHL that don't receive many, if any updates post-launch).
By messing up defensive speed, you've exacerbated the speed and acceleration stat reliance since 19 and compounded the Truculence meta from last year - Of course, hits in general are in a weird spot with all the slippage and bouncing/shrugging them off on both sides.For the first time since 14 I find myself not even wanting to play any more. I'm kinda mentally/emotionally checking out of the game. I am grinding - or I should say TRYING to grind, since half the time the game is bugged such that nothing counts towards unlock progression - to unlock everything in hopes I can create a build that actually is effective at some semblance of playing D. But this is truly the least fun I have had playing this game.
For the first time in forever, I think D is in an even worse place than G?
Does anyone have any tips/builds that seem to be helping?
I have actually resorted to taking all points out of stick checking since its basically utterly broken - and dumping them into hitting/passing/def awareness
I also noticed that quick pick seems to be the only gold outside of truculence that seems to be making a difference. Of course I dont have that unlocked on DD yet so I am playing build classes I wouldnt normally (e.g. TWD) in order to try out the golds that I do not have unlocked on other builds.
