Toby is being played wrong 90% of the time

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#1

Anyone saying Toby is bad is playing him wrong. You need to take the 2 second stun on Arc Mine contact helix. Land it, boom shields gone and you proceed to rock them with Railgun for easy hits. Anyone who isn’t a tank is most likely going to die shortly after that stun wears off.

I’ve ran into this kind of Toby maybe 2-3 times out of all the times I’ve seen him. It has yet failed to absolutely demolish people. It also allows you to play very up front and aggressively with Toby instead of potshotting and being worthless in the backline. It especially takes melee players by surprise.

Try it out if you haven’t and you want to like Toby.

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#2

I disagree. I’m not a good Toby myself but I play with some excellent players and two of them are great with Toby, neither take the stun and both often have top player and minion kills when they do use Toby. I’ve discussed Toby with both of them to learn how to play him better myself, both recommend slow over stun.

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#3

You’re playing bads, lol.

Everyone takes Toby stun who isn’t clueless, but it does nothing to change the core flaws with the character (over-reliance on a weak shield for any DPS at range, huge hitbox, crit spot at center of mass, terrible ultimate).

If you’re playing up front and aggressively against competent enemies, you’ll feed like no one else can feed. Hitbox the size of Montana without the sturdiness to match. Mobility in bursts but not enough sustained mobility to really float around the front lines and escape. A slow-firing primary weapon that does beastly DPS under the right circumstances, but less reliable when you’re jumping, strafing, and generally playing like a front-liner.

No, the arc mine stun is great, and is good for both pressuring and defending, but Toby is one of the few characters with no damage drop-off or ballistics attached to their ranged attacks, and has nearly-hitscan projectiles from behind his shield.

You do far more work for your team keeping range, using the shield as much as feasible, clearing waves with arc mines, and using the mine stun for clutch attacks on over-extended enemy Battleborn.

There are far better brawlers and skirmishers than Toby, and just because you have a stun doesn’t mean you should be dragging your house-sized butt into the fray.

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#4

Every time I’ve seen a toby, they are in the back line, and are top scoring. In Meltdown, Toby can shut down an entire lane down himself. Just yesterday, a Toby was doing that on my team and went 12 & 2 with 80+ minions.

#5

I should clarify that I didn’t mean Toby is up in the front line but just not hiding way way way in the back at the mercy of LOS. You can be mobile and still crank out damage closer to the front and the mines are suprising stuns and helps your team secure a kill far better than a slow.

#6

if you’re playing toby in the front against a good team You are gonna have a bad time.

1 Like
#7

Idk.

I think of toby’s slow on arc mine like thorn’s blight. In terms of clearing waves there is no better choice. All I’m trying to do as Toby is control the lane: Kill minions, pressure alanis and mikes and marquis, and clean up kills/influence fights from range. In that order. In between taking down waves ill move to thrall camp and maybe the stun helps here? But still no because the thrall charges you to the same point before turning around so why no put your shield and slow mine there? Makes crits much easier.

I’ve only been hit by Toby stuns by players using it as a defensive tool, like I’m a melee charging them and they stun me and run.

More utility is offered with slow.

I think a better indicator of Toby skill is their movement on map, their positioning, timing for sentry attacks, awareness of enemies, and retreat capabilities(escapability).

Meltdown maebe a different story though. Enemies seem more aggressive and more likely to come at you in close quarters so perhaps a stun is more efficacious there.

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#8

Toby’s mine has great range on it. You can pop it from one sniper nest to the other on Overgrowth. I don’t think even Galilea’s shield throw has that much range. Not great against other snipers as they will see it coming, but you can nab a tunnel visioning melee attacker with the stun from a safe distance and vaporize them.

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#9

Arc mine stun is a good bail-out skill. If someone tries to dive your sniping position, or tries to gank you while you’re moving around… bam, stunned and punished. But it’s not something you should be striving to use.

The slow mine is much better for regular use. It chews through minion waves and pairs wonderfully with the increased AoE helix and Toby’s lore gear. Dropping two huge slow fields is brutal.

It just comes down to play style. Do you want a slightly weaker power that is useful more often? Or a slightly stronger power that’s incredibly useful, but much less often?

And really, that’s just good design. Kudos GBX.

2 Likes
#10

I love putting a point to were the mine pulls enemies towards it, works well when you have an orendi or/and Alani in your team of course if you have communication with them, keeps the enemies huddled in for shadow pillar and geyser.

#11

I think there are different ways to play Toby. I went 10-2 as a Toby sniper and had a blast doing it. The only issue was the enemy Marquis who was sniping from the dreaded reason they needed to fix the Overgrowth map. I can say Toby’s quick melee is perfect for close combat though. I think Toby (like several other characters) have multiple playstyles.

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#12

Hey Buddy how is it going? I was the Toby player who messed you up.
Here’s proof:

image
Rekt1.PNG1890×999 1.15 MB

Yeah I have been really successful building stun on Toby, but I wouldn’t say that is the correct way to play him. You should build slow for Toby. Toby is meant for CC not 1v1ing. I’ve just been doing a troll build on Toby.

Feels good to know someone else recognized my Toby on the BB Forums

Well as Toby says, “Hey you did your best. That’s Awesome!”

#13

Haha, amusing. I wouldn’t call anything with a 2 second stun a “troll build” though.

Also my team was pretty awful and Echelon is probably a rail gun paradise with those choke points :smiley:

1 Like