The following are the abities that should be banned, in my opinion:
- Truculence (and Hipster). Both have the possibility of constantly knocking off opposing player’s sticks. That leads to more rng and less skill. Hitting is already strong enough.
- Wheels (and Elite Edges, No Contest). There’s enough (skating) speed in the game already. These abilities take away from the passing aspect of the game and ephasize a single player carrying the puck too much.
And these abilities (at least Wheels) - if not banned - also are a must-have, because you need to match up with the meta. To me, if any ability is so op that it’s basically a must-have to keep up, then it should be banned.
Makes the game a lot more interesting imo if we see people using different kind of builds. Having Wheels available does the opposite: it just makes everyone pick between the two remaining abilities instead of picking three.
- Big tipper. Ephasizes rng, and less skill. I know getting tip shots is a skill in itself. But this ability still puts too much focus on luck.
- Ankle Breaker. Going to need more updates on this. But IF it activates the ”panic reactions” (like it says on the description) on defending human players it should be banned. It’s the same kind of mechanic than the flying sticks with Truculence: it doesn’t promote actually being good at the game.
- Unstoppable and Big Rig (and maybe Warrior). If we ban Truculence then these abilities should be banned as well. And like with banning Wheels, banning these abilites promotes passing and team play instead of just carrying/holding on the puck.
In addition to restricting hits Big Rig is really broken as it makes you immune to poke checks while carrying the puck with the hustle protect or L2 protect.
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It might seem like a long list of bans compared to the past. But I think the big difference this year is that you can unlock any ability with any kind of build. Where as in the past for example if you wanted Unstoppable Force you had to sacrifice your speed among other things to meet the requirements for that.
edit: Also I didn’t comment on goalie abilities at all as I haven’t done any research on them. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some that should be banned there as well.