The fall of Caustic?

[u/artmorte]

Doesn't seem too long ago when Caustic was the most-picked Controller in pro play or at least somewhat tied with Wattson. Now Caustic seems to be hardly picked at all, at least in EMEA (which I follow the most).

As an on-and-off Caustic player through the years in ranked, I think the current version of his gas is pretty bad. It's only damage, enemies are not properly slowed down and it's easy for everyone to see in the gas. I'm on board with the visibility change, but the gas not slowing down enemies is a big negative. An enemy taking 10 or 20 gas damage does not really compensate for you playing a large hitbox character and most enemies understand to leave the gas before taking excessive damage. (He's still good for holding a building that you can gas up completely, though).

I was just wondering are my observations about the gas being a 100% damage-based threat the reason why Caustic's popularity in pro play has fallen through the floor or is there another explanation?

[u/karbasher-]

I think the biggest change was nades/explosives being able to dissipate the gas, the hemlock noob tube can basically one tap caustic ult now, much harder to do that against wattson or Cat

[u/csoups → u/karbasher-]

They really need to rebalance the ultimates so they behave like ultimates. The fact that an alternative fire mode on a ground loot gun that replenishes every 30 or so seconds can take out an ultimate is ridiculous imo

[u/karbasher- → u/csoups]

yeah iirc the hemlock is supposed to revert to burst fire at some point, if the noob tube goes as well it would be helpful for both bang and caustic

[u/BarracudaUseful333 → u/karbasher-]

thing is that it's throwables too that cancels it out - i think making caustic ult not as OP and making it not counterable is fair.

[u/Mysticmadlegend]

Theres too much counter play for gass now.

[u/Demcmz]

Gas still takes your momentum away no?

[u/artmorte → u/Demcmz]

Excessive momentum, but you're able to strafe normally.

You used to get a 1-2 second window when the enemy hit your gas and got properly slowed down by it and that gave Caustic a decent advantage if he was there to shoot the enemy. Enemies taking one or two ticks of damage is worse than the slow, imo.

The ultimate feels especially bad to use, because enemies are able to leave it pretty much instantly. Of course it gives area denial for a bit, but the benefit of that is very situational.

[u/-InconspicuousMoose- → u/Demcmz]

Yeah I was gonna say just yesterday in mixtape I basically hit a midair brick wall by grappling over a caustic trap lol

[u/nairxx02]

As I see it ( at least in Americas as that is what I mostly watch ), it is mostly due who counters who. Crypto hard counters Caustic. It usually takes 1 or 2 games for Crypto to get banned. Then there's Alter. People usually takes Wattson to counter Alter. Once Alter is banned, people usually take Wraith which Wattson does counters as well. As soon as Wattson is banned, then there is either Baby Comp or Path + Catalyst. That usually means for 6 rounds, there is hardly a round to insert Caustic. Personally, I think he is still great but it just so happens that there is hardly a round to take him.

[u/banner_crafter → u/nairxx02]

its actually a lot simpler than this.. wattson is the best controller character in the game (by a huge margin) but she is countered by crypto. once crypto is removed, wattson can be and should be played until she is banned

[u/No-Lengthiness-20 → u/nairxx02]

Cyrpto doesn't hard counter caustic. Caustic was actually the go to counter to crypto because your ult doesn't get dissipated by it and it's easy to fully reset a building in seconds. Cat just came up as a better counter to seer meta which is why she's played game 1 and not caustic

[u/Hechue12]

I think caustic will come back into the meta now that it seems blood is becoming meta with a lot of teams trying blood comps out in scrims this week. Caustic gas uncloaks you and it’s much more obvious when you break a barrel then when you shot a Watson fence in my opinion

[u/realfakejames]

EMEA is a feed face fuck fest, not surprised they don't play caustic there. He gets played in NA once Wattson gets banned, she is just a better player right now with her gen that zaps everything and keeps people from being naded out of their spots they're playing

[u/HandsomeOrangeCat]

Caustic is first picked often in first match because of Crypto.

Crypto completely nukes Wattson defenses while Caustic barrels get popped but still offer a defense. And obviously Caustic can throw his ult to delay the push even more.

So Caustic still has it's uses but only until Crypto is ban.

Though for EMEA example, people like to first pick OP Seer comps. A control legend is not mandatory for this though it is nice to have a safeguard for your Alter portals.

[u/No-Lengthiness-20 → u/HandsomeOrangeCat]

Caustic has kind of fallen out of popularity in favour of cat game 1 because cat's abilities don't get countered by seer

[u/Zoetekauw → u/No-Lengthiness-20]

Neither do Caustic's, no?

[u/dorekk → u/Zoetekauw]

I don't think Caustic gas stops Seer scan...

[u/The_Yoshi_Man → u/dorekk]

I’m pretty sure it does cause Seer scan removes Bang smoke so I think it also removes caustic gas but I’m not 100% sure

[u/jayghan → u/The_Yoshi_Man]

It does remove it. Did it in game the other day to avoid death haha

[u/Glittering_Gur4999]

Caustic is good at 1v1ing teams not good at holding a spot in a “siege” where multiple teams are trying to take your spot. Cat can rebuild doors, her traps are harder to shoot, ult is actuslly good for rotation. Even wattson fences take longer to destroy.

[u/Kupfermaennchen]

To keep it very simple, last split, People played Alter Caustic Crypto game one, this split, there are more Seer Crypto Alters, and against seer crypto, cat is better, so for Teams who want instant console, Cat Crypto Alter is better. That makes him played less in general. And that is actually the main difference to last split (as in S29 S2, Not Split 1 of PL), where he was 10th most played legend and second most played controller. because he wasn't banned once either. (Most picked not banned legend). Now, with PL, we also have more fuses, which is very strong against him. And also, rampart was buffed to a big extend, so after a wattson ban, she is rather played

However, he is still the 16th most picked legend across all regions and was played at least once in 23/24 sets, only apac-N Day 5 had not one appearance. he also is the third most played not once banned legend. He is just, for comp, outshadowed.

I don't think the problem is, that he only does damage (Also, he still slows). Its a combination of the Hemlock + Other controllers being buffed (Rampart) + certain legend interactions against strong legends further buffing other controller (Cat). Once the hemlock return to the normal form again (When that eventually happens), he will be a lot stronger again.

[u/suppose123]

Short answer: Seer and Cat got buff, hemlock got nerfed, and the weapon meta change.

[u/ThickBootyEnjoyer]

It's just the patch cycle. New patch comes out, characters get buffed and nerfed. Play rates change accordingly.