World of CHEL Skater Build Strategy Discussion

With the removal of the hidden 'bubble' and constant invisible banana peels being chucked onto the ice, the Beta confirmed Skating is the category to focus on...

Being mid 80's in Speed, Agility, and Acceleration, Snipers and Playmakers will most likely remain the meta in EASHL 3's. I'd recommend going for a 6 foot player instead of the old 5'7 guy - yes, you can still hit as the small guy, but there are many benefits to having a longer reach with the new system. My buddy and I used to roll with 2 Grinders lol, you might be able to recreate the magic by dumping everything into stick and reception. Fighting doesn't matter in this mode, you'll want to choose either poke check or hitting as your staple defense - trying to balance the two can get you into trouble with slower builds if you can't time your hits.

EASHL 6's you can basically play whatever build and position you want which I absolutely love that - I think I can actually manage some defense with my Sniper and the ability to subtract/increase makes me really think I can bring some old builds back and really fine-tune exactly how I want to play each match. You're able to play with  a small sniper here - I encourage players to look into the big bully builds of old though these will only work their best if you hang back - absolutely zero zoom for you being a pinching hero.

You might as well stick to being a small Sniper in Ones mode as well - I find there is 0 quick-step...ness to playing now and every type of build (believe me, I tried) just slips all over anyway with next to no recovery so you might as well just fire on net and hope for a random cheeser. The last few years have added great systems to the game overall, but I find they don't exactly correlate well in Ones - You should be as twitchy as possible in all aspects, not just when poking the puck; long gone are the days of threading the needle at break-neck speeds.
Two-Ways and Grinders are phenomenal in this mode when it comes to defensive but the mode itself has become so much slower, with everyone getting clogged you won't have enough time to burst out in front of the net.

Threes Eliminator you obviously want at least one Power Forward. You don't get penalties for smashing people outside of the play so just dump everything into strength and body checking - With how some of the traits work, you can nearly max out your rage hulk and almost guarantee wins. This mode is wacky and allows for snipers to take -5's in their shots and defensemen to take all their awareness away - I think this is the mode to go absolutey crazy

In NHL 21 I only used two builds which both suited my style of play.  I play 6’s only.  

A 5’7, 169 lbs Sniper for RW and after successfully killing so many penalties and playing effective defensively with this build I decided to create another Sniper build for my RD with a few tweaks.  I increased my height to 5’10 and weight to 185 lbs for this one.  I generally used the same traits and specialities for both.  Booming slap shot, back checking and PK specialist and sometimes one timer instead of PK a for my RW Sniper.  

These two builds allowed me to keep pace and not get beat by the opposing small Snipers which so many often used.  I don’t often throw hits and don’t need to to play effect D so I didn’t need the hitting and strength although these builds were weak while holding the puck which I try not to do too much.  I’m more of a quick pass, get open, pass, shoot, one timer player anyway.  I had no issues with passing either whether it was in the offensive zone or quick and long breakout passes to my forwards.   Defensively I didn’t have many issues with either build.  It was like using a hybrid between the Puck Moving and Offensive Dman builds. My biggest strength was my slap shot.  I could rip both slap shots and one timers pass goalies from anywhere in the offensive zone. 

For NHL 22 I’m basically going to try to recreate both builds but with the customization back and the other new aspects I’ll tweak this build to add to my areas of strength and decrease/improve my areas/categories of weaknesses.  

Would be interested but you can’t finish a game with it glitching out.

This is my bread and butter DMan build right now, though I am going to tweak a couple things I think

Well, it's a week later and I have changed this build a couple times already LOL. Tried making a more offensive DD but I peeled that back yesterday and ran with pure defensive build again.

My Zone ability is the same (Bouncer) but I put the In Reverse back skating Superstar ability on. I can't recall if my other Superstar is Quick Pick or Stick Em Up. Will post a screenshot tonight. My new build is an absolute beast on defense.

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@IceLion68 wrote:

Well, it's a week later and I have changed this build a couple times already LOL. Tried making a more offensive DD but I peeled that back yesterday and ran with pure defensive build again.

My Zone ability is the same (Bouncer) but I put the In Reverse back skating Superstar ability on. I can't recall if my other Superstar is Quick Pick or Stick Em Up. Will post a screenshot tonight. My new build is an absolute beast on defense.

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@IceLion68 

Interesting build. I may have to give this a shot. Is it still working out for you?

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@EA_Aljo wrote:

@IceLion68 

Interesting build. I may have to give this a shot. Is it still working out for you?

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I’ve been tweaking it a lot and am probably making a dramatic change tonight. Will post my new build tomorrow 🙂 

My newest build based on some research…

Winning more puck battles and a lot more difficult to get the puck from

I should also say that given the questionable effectiveness of the net battles mechanic, I am switching bouncer for quick pick tonight and seeing what happens