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I heard somewhere that long posts are good regardless of the arguments, so I'm back. Also I'm unfortunately still a defender so don't try to think I'm a goal hungry forward. Sounds pretty fucking OP to me. Would even perfectly explain the ridiculousness of the saves goalies have been making in NHL 26. Right now there is a huge problem of goal scoring opportunities being really inconsistent or even consistent in being saved by goalies regardless how they're playing the situations. For example, you have a two on one attack, pass for a one timer in the slot, thats going in maybe 20% time even if the goalie is sucking his own thumb in the net. Personally I think that if there is plenty of open net it should be a goal almost every time. So even Finsere said it, increasing skill ceiling is what an aspiring competitive game should do. In regard of attributes, in HUT in a similar situation, you can green time that one timer with blue 1T trait with 90 shooting abilities and goalies without traits make that save more than they should. So it definitely is possible in CHEL if you actually make the save. Also personally I think if goalies are able to save everything if positioned well, thats game breaking. So you should be able to straight up challenge the goalie from a good scoring positions with pretty high percentages. Especially you should be able to score almost everytime when the goalie is out of position. Means that bad defending is punished more -> it is rewarding to try and build good chances. Right now it really isn't rewarding at all to make 5 instant passes leading to an open net chance just to be saved by a goalie looking at someone beautiful in the crowd. -> Just shoot or just force passes and let luck take the wheel bingbangboom 1-0 letsgo fun game. Also because Sere threw out some numbers without any thought, red sponge gives you +75% controlled save ability. And if three traits active at the same time you could get more than +50% reaction time, +25% save accuracy, +25% save ability. And these numbers are actually available now, not like his 50% reaction reduction which nobody uses because it still isn't in the game in CHEL. Everybody is now using 15% reduction. And he is using elite sponge instead of using elite post to post, what I guess he has by the level of his CHEL dude and his words in the other post. This one might the furthest reach I have seen in a while. So just because on average there are more goals per game -> there are less undeserved saves. I'm not saying you are wrong, I didnt play at the start of NHL 24 and was still trying to open up my monitor during spring 24. But this argument just makes no sense. For example, more goals could mean that defenses are playing worse -> more chances -> more undeserved saves. Or did you look at the shot totals, shooting percentages. From what I have been talking, 100% of people have agreed with me that in 26 there are more bullshit saves than in 25. Maybe its just me and lack #luck. I like these bans and like the fact that you are making decisions on your own without trying to please everyone. Personally I don't have anything against the demographic way on these but also think that's not going to lead to the best results. My only question is after all these bans, what is the reason to not ban everything. What do the remaining traits give that makes them good for the game. There aren't that many of them so we can go one by one. Second wind: wtf even is this, nobody has ever even entertained such an absurd idea. "So okay what if we make it that when you have no stamina you actually have stamina even full stamina"... I want what that guy is having. Is next a teleport for defenders so if a forward gets a breakaway you can teleport to save the situation. Warrior: Probably going to be on many builds. Makes you harder to hit in a game where it is really easy dodge hits and bumps already if you are playing with your thumbs and not your feet. You stand up after a hit really fast, dont lose any energy. Quick pick: Helps once in while if you are positioning yourself like a blind donkey, if you are actually playing where you should be, activates once every other night so just useless and really random. Stick em up: Everybody and their mothers are crying about pokes with or without it, usually because they are too good but now because they are too bad. My personal free advice to this is L2P. (just a joke, even if I'm the most arrogant guy around.) But seriously its the same as last year, it helps a bit but you can just play without it and you'll be completely fine. Born leader: … Just a cool idea but actually absolutely nothing in real competitive gameplay where there aren't shots and hits flying everywhere. Shooting traits: Personally I like these just keep these (but only golden, more belove), more ways to punish actual bad defending and not just score by throwing the puck on the net, towards the net, in front of the net, play some pinball, bingbongbang and LETSGO 1-0(just repeat the same joke until it's funny). I understand this is never going to happen because the level of defending in this scene already causes 10 goals a game but if you wanted a competitive game, this is the way. Maybe the level of defending would even go up cause mistakes would actually be punished. just trust me bro Ankle breaker: Touch right stick, defender maybe falls. I think this sounds good. Said nobody ever. Passing traits: There are so many automatic saucers that if you want to pass the puck, there's no way you are going to use these. Just adds randomness without any reasonable benefits. Goalie traits: Already went through this in the first paragraphs. So maybe it's time for #banthemall, I would say at least ban all elite(red) traits and maybe even the blue(all-star) ones. For example red beauty backhand gives you 100% power and accuracy which is just hilariously OP. For me just allowing golden shooting traits (or even blue ones)would lead to most competitive and rewarding game. You couldnt score any ridiculous goals with just them but if the defense is breaking you can actually punish it without goalie traits saving everything. You could say this is bullshit for goalies but it's even more bullshit for goalies to work your ass off to make great saves and keep up with the play and position well, just to see opponents goalie listening to payphone playing with a blindfold saving everything. As for gamer, I think you guys should try to be more active about messaging elite teams to try and test out different ways of doing things. Like this week #banthemall, next week just golden traits or without the red ones. So we would actually have some real info of how the game feels with different "settings". We could do it ourselves but I might not be the most liked guy around for good reasons so I just can't bother because I think elite teams are too lazy to test stuff out by themselves.

Agree, after these bans which are totally fine to me, bigger builds are maybe going to be new meta because of higher speed and balance + power so why there needs to be perk which help avoiding bigger "normal" hits. And if the meaning after these bans was make people to use different style of builds, now its going to be like everyone is using elite warrior. That should be banned including gold, blue and elite versions.

Ban them all, make a shitty game even a little bit better. - Variety on making builds (or at least they wont look the same as they have for the past 4 years). --> cant rock with 70ish wrist shot and quick release if you want to score - Eliminates some of the most ridiculous types of animations that help you retrieve the puck or get in a better position caused by traits, which cant be expected by the opposition --> game becomes less "rng" (more competitive), more realistic - there aint 6 superhumans running around the ice playing their own game --> team game, playing together matters, again more realistic For sure, this will result in a few "ea goals" as you have to find new ways to score instead of trusting the old traits which names have just been changed. Well they are bound to happen each year, as so many things before even getting to a scoring opportunity are caused by some random code (puck pickups, pass receptions...). One would most likely state that banning all traits will cause all teams to collapse in front of the net, well what changes? Teams are already doing that. As much of I hope ban them all which actually made those domestic leagues the most enjoyable part of the year, at least ban the warrior trait. Game loses all meaning when you hit skater having it, and they actually recover from the ground faster than you do from that animation -> breaks the game

Moderator note: The below has been translated with ChatGPT to make it available to more readers. You can find the original text in Finnish in the Spoiler section below. It’s too complicated to explain properly in English, so I’ll just explain it in Finnish terms. But here’s how I’ve understood goalie perks, and what’s been tested in the “Between the Pipes” server (the world’s largest goalie server with about 2,250 members): there are 3 out of 5 perks that activate on every save — Sponge, Dialed In, and Recharge. Since only one perk can visually appear on the screen at a time, what you see is the goalie’s highest currently active perk. In practice, that’s usually either the red Sponge or Dialed In, since most goalies have one of those unlocked. If a goalie has both active, Sponge has priority to be displayed on screen, but Dialed In also activates in the background. The same goes for blue and gold goalie perks — they activate in the background even if they don’t show on screen, especially Recharge. Because there are so few red perks available for goalies, practically every goalie uses either red Dialed In or Sponge. But that’s just because there aren’t many options — not because those perks are necessarily overpowered. Most players haven’t grinded the season pass far enough to unlock red Post to Post, which is considered meta in North America and gives a significant boost to lateral saves. So even though those perks activate on every save, it doesn’t mean the save happened because of that perk. When Sponge activates, it just indicates that the save was a “controlled” one — meaning the goalie covered the puck quickly or handled the rebound well. When Dialed In activates, it simply means the game has temporarily boosted the goalie’s save ability by 6%. The same logic applies to skaters: even if you score with a wrist shot and Quick Release activates, that doesn’t mean the perk caused the goal — it just means it triggered. You could shoot into an empty net and Quick Release would still activate, but the goal obviously wasn’t because of it. In other words, banning Sponge alone wouldn’t eliminate those “undeserved” saves — it would just lead to more of EA’s nonsense goals. Sponge isn’t even close to the best goalie perk in HUT, in my opinion. The current Sponge is the same as in NHL 24 and 25, just slightly stronger. And as I calculated earlier, NHL 26 is nothing compared to NHL 24, where goalies were making completely undeserved saves left and right — which is clearly reflected in the goals-per-game average. Even though there were fewer of those undeserved saves in NHL 25, they still happened all the time, and it’s never been about perks — it’s the game engine. If there really were a magic fix for it, believe me, I’d be all in. But I think people will be disappointed if they expect that banning red Sponge will suddenly stop those undeserved saves.

Thats the nice idea but unfortunately we have seen it like that doesnt work. So many under level teams has used wrong password. There should be some kind of report system like teams are able to report teams and their players who are using wrong password, first they will get warning from that and if that happens again then whole team and players would be banned for next Sportsgamer tournament

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Everything I have previously said about the Xfactors in EASHL still stand: they don’t work as intended in EASHL. They were added to the game to differentiate superstar players in other game modes. Having them in competitive 6v6 makes absolutely zero sense.

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As my colleague wrote above. This is not HUT where it works completely differently and it has a logic like that. Here everyone has the opportunity to play for themselves, their own thoughts, their own fingers, their own decisions in situations. Team game. If you want advantages, you have to play other games. "Advantages" have nothing to look for in CHEL and a lot of people prefer the game without them because they want to play hockey. And with Advantages, it's definitely not hockey

I wouldn't mind having atleast actual ECL teams instead of 6 drunk russian guys with 500ms ping

Just want to highlight that I ran @FINSeRe's post through AI to give it an English translation. A great post about the goalie perks and how the perks might be given false credit for saves. Check it out if you previously skipped it due to the language barrier.

I guess this is more of a bug fix than a nerf, the ability still gives a considerable stamina boost (even if it is only a one time thing now) I think it can be directly compared to wheels tbh - when it activates, you get a boost in stamina which equals a boost in speed in practice. It's also a very odd game mechanic, where you're incentivised to actually use all your energy when you're already low on energy? So to gain energy you can just use more energy lol. It's just not realistic in the slightest. (And ankle breaker imo is just stupid, because it makes defenders fall over for no reason)

Red Sponge is op. It sucks shots in open net situtations on the glove. Bad positioning makes you save open goals. Being bad should not be rewarded.

In ECL Elite Winter '24 there was average 5,11 goals per game. In ECL Elite Spring '24 this average was 4,78 goals per game. In ECL Elite Winter '25 there was average 5,78 goals per game. In ECL Elite Spring '25 this average was 5,53 goals per game. In Krike Cup (on-going) there are 9 Elite teams who have scored average 6,25 goals per game in a pretty serious 1 350 € buy-in tournament. So goal scoring is actually going up every version and players even have new X-Factor "Quick Release" that reduces goalies reactions by maximum of 50 %.

Great ability bans!

How do you fight against a red Warrior on defense? 😆 This is the attacker meta, red abilities should all be banned, many can unlock Quick Release/Second wind/1T, before the season..

It's the most easy way to have a fair, equal and objective competition, for players and goalies

Ban them all. The most competetive and fun way to play the game.

Ban them all

Wait if all these are banned, how aren't second wind and ankle breaker? 🤔 They seem pretty broken to me, not even saying they're too good but they lead to very inconsistent situations...

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^ Excellent post.

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How is it OP actually? It boosts your cover speed and ability to make controlled save. So without Sponge you would still make those saves only difference being that you have bigger chance of giving rebounds. I do agree that being bad shouldn't be rewarded and increasing handicap is a good thing, but IMO Sponge isn't even strongest X-Factor for goalies.

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"Ban them all" isn't very constructive in my opinion. It can be your genuine opinion, but we would love to hear the thoughts behind it. The plan is not to ban them all, so it would be more helpful to discuss which X-Factors drive you mad and why.

Ban all red abilities

Best option for me it’s……: ban all maybe ahaha

Community vote would've been the best way to decide these right?

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I think this thread speaks for itself quite clearly - it is subjective to players as to which perks are ”op” and which are not. Therefore I think the logical conclusion is to either ban all abilities, which I think worked well last year when it was tried, or not ban anything. All middle ground is more or less dependent on who is asked, or who can make their voice the loudest.

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I totally get why people want to ban Truculence. But what I find ironic is that some of the same people who scream for this to be banned, have no problrm running around with "Unstoppable", exploiting a clearly broken game mechanic to reverse hit anyone even close - straight into oblivion. In NHL26, all tools for defencemen have been radically nerfed, so what are we supposed to do? Poke-checking is a joke. You can literally have your stick go straight through the puck without disrupting it, despite having high stats in poke-checking. Lifting the stick is even more broken, regardless if you are in a perfect position or not. It's totally random. And even if you have 90 defensive awareness AND quick pick ability, passes more often than not go straight through you despite being in the passing lane. I even see saucer passes go right through me when facing opponent from 10-15 metres away. Laying down or kneeling also only works half the time. As if the defensive part of a defenceman's job isn't ruined enough, they managed to ruin the one-timers from the blue line too. And you could argue that my shooting is bad, which would be totally fair. But everyone I talk to and watching high-end defencemen in the game, they also struggle mightily with getting clean shots off. This game is just becoming forward's soft dream more and more every version. Like a friend of mine said: "This game is made for forwards". I never use Truc, but if forwards have all these tools, we at least deserve one. Allow the golden Truc. That's my take, unless they patch this abortion of a game and make the defensive tools more effective. / whiny defenceman

I completely agree with the points about the tools available for defensemen—it’s really tough to be effective on defense right now. If you get too close, you risk getting reverse-hit and leaving open space behind you, or the forward can quickly flick and burn you on the other side. On the other hand, if your player is too big, they’re usually too slow and can easily get walked around by a forward with Wheels. All situational ofcourse. If you don’t have Wheels as a defenseman, you’ll get burned almost every time by a forward with Wheels and full stamina on the counterattack—unless you position yourself very early, and even then it’s tough. Playing as a defenseman is extremely punishing, while playing as a forward doesn’t seem nearly as costly. Even if you manage to steer the forward to the outside and into the corner, you’ll still have trouble blocking passing lanes. A forward with 85 passing can force a pass through you, even if you have 90+ defensive awareness and position yourself face forward towards the puck carrier. Stick lifting has been nerfed into the ground and even removed as a trait this year. Stick checking has also been nerfed; even if you get your stick on the puck, a speedy forward will almost always recover it. You have to swing your stick to poke the puck away, but that’s also very difficult. I found that Elite No Contest is pretty strong, atleast it gives you a chance to win the puck. Still, a forward with Big Rig or Unstoppable makes life even harder. I haven’t tried the Quick Pick trait enough to give a solid opinion.

where is goalie ability bans? 🤔