I will admit if you don't use hustle a lot you may be better off just using acceleration but I would urge any serious player to use hustle. You are at a comparative disadvantage if you don't.
Monday, September 26, 2011
NHL 12: Acceleration
Last year speed and acceleration had limited effect on the game so by the end of NHL 11 I was putting very little of anything in them. This year though speed definitely has an effect but how important is acceleration? Acceleration is an expensive attribute and eats up a lot of valuable points. Are you better off spending them elsewhere? I am going to say yes. The main reason is the introduction of the hustle button last year. The hustle button allows you to press the LS in up to three times to get an extra burst of speed. Used creatively you can basically eliminate the need for acceleration altogether. To make sure your player isn't winded from using the hustle button so much you should spend the spare points in endurance which is far cheaper than acceleration. The spares can go into agility, speed, strength or balance.
Friday, September 23, 2011
NHL 12: Less is more?
In most games typically if you have a higher number in an attribute or skill it is better. 18 strength is better than 17, level three hacking is better than level two, and higher shot power is better than lower shot power. Well in the NHL series sometimes down is up.
Shooting attributes have always been kind of wacky in the NHL series. One year having a lower accuracy was better. If you turned your accuracy up you started ringing pucks off of iron in no time. Last year the dev team said they tweaked accuracy to matter more but by the end of the year I was running a 90 wrist shot power and 80 accuracy and having a lot of success. It still seemed like the high shot power and low accuracy setup was the way to go.
Fast forward to this year. I am slowing getting points every 5 or 10 games and building up my attributes on my power forward. As I get to around 85 power and 75 accuracy on my wrist shot I am starting to score a lot more often. I keep adding points over more games and adding strength as well and before I know it I am sitting at 90 power and 80 accuracy and 90 strength. At this point I am almost back to where I was the year before and figure I should be scoring a lot. However now I am shooting too high a lot and scoring a lot fewer goals. As an example of how bad it got I managed to shoot the puck over the net from two feet outside the crease using a flat stick curve.
Needless to say I was rather irritated at these results. So I adopted a back to basics approach. I swapped to playmaker and balanced out my shots as much as possible. My wrist shot is 75 for both power and accuracy and my slapshot is 75 accuracy and a meager 57 power. With those shots* I had a great night last night even scoring a game winning goal in OT by sniping a shot over the goalies left shoulder from just outside the hash marks. One other highlight was a slap shot one-timer from around the left dot/left hash marks.
Once again EA has flipped the importance of attributes. Aside from my own experience, I am reading about and talking with other people who are even using lower power and higher accuracy with good results. So if you are like I was last year (high power low accuracy) flip those attributes around or knock them down a bit if you aren't scoring like you think you should. Sometimes less is more.
Note: This may not apply to defensemen and slapshots.
Note: This may not apply to defensemen and slapshots.
*This is basically the build I used. 5'9" 175lbs, 11 inch skates, regular flex, and second lowest stick curve.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
NHL 12 First Impressions
I have had NHL 12 for about a week now and so far I am really enjoying most of it. I have played around 70 or 80 EASHL games so far so most of my comments will relate to that mode.
At a very high level this game feels like a hybrid of NHL 10 and NHL 11. It was built on NHL 11's physics engine mixed with what seems like NHL 10's precise passing. One of the biggest issues with NHL 11 was the passing really really finicky. You could have someone with 99 passing throwing a medium length hard pass to another player with 99 hand eye and puck control and the receiving player would fumble the puck. Also, trying to aim passes was very touchy and passing out of the corners was hampered by built in "aids" in the passing system. In NHL 12 this is not the case you can pretty much wind up passes with a 75 passing and rifle them to your teammate with a 70 hand eye 15 feet away and he is going to catch it for the most part. I have noticed at times you will put the puck behind or in a player's skates with lower passing but overall the passing is far nicer. The corner problems seem completely gone as well.
The physics engine while started in 11 is far better in 12. Last year you could get run from behind very easily and now I have been hit several times from behind and not only not been knocked over but also retained control of the puck. Everything feels more organic as well. Two players can hit one another and both fall down or the smaller one can fall down trying to knock over a large brute. The tie up in front of the net move for defenders gives them another tool in the toolbox but it will be interesting to see how that develops as players get more games in. Protip: you can get out of being held by tapping LB.
Another fun improvement in NHL 12 is the ability to shoot slapshot one-timers as a forward. You could do this last year but now even with a base slapshot power and accuracy you can possibly score. It isn't guaranteed but it is a lot of fun.
Other miscellaneous odds and ends are that the poke check seems toned down, which is good in some respects and bad in others. Also, there are definitely some cheese shots (hello short side from a bad angle) but once you know how to defend them, much like any year, you can compete. The best bet there would be a human goalie but good luck finding one with the goalie card requiring separate games played.
And finally the moon sized elephant in the rink crouching in the corner taking out your entire team ... the hip check. This is the single worst thing about this game this year. They have made the hip check almost an I Win button. I hated it last year but this year it is probably 10x as bad because you can run at people and use it. Also, with base checking, strength, etc. you can knock anyone down. Here are a couple of the more outrageous examples of hip checks in NHL 12:
http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/92993483
http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/92745876
I really hope EA is paying attention to this and patches this ridiculous move out of the game. Our team is learning to avoid these idiots on the rush by cutting laterally and even just stopping but if you go into the corner with someone they are just going to use the hip check and take the puck.
Overall though the NHL 12 experience is great. It plays smoother, has a better physics engine, and the passing is amazing which is good for teams that like teamwork like ours.
At a very high level this game feels like a hybrid of NHL 10 and NHL 11. It was built on NHL 11's physics engine mixed with what seems like NHL 10's precise passing. One of the biggest issues with NHL 11 was the passing really really finicky. You could have someone with 99 passing throwing a medium length hard pass to another player with 99 hand eye and puck control and the receiving player would fumble the puck. Also, trying to aim passes was very touchy and passing out of the corners was hampered by built in "aids" in the passing system. In NHL 12 this is not the case you can pretty much wind up passes with a 75 passing and rifle them to your teammate with a 70 hand eye 15 feet away and he is going to catch it for the most part. I have noticed at times you will put the puck behind or in a player's skates with lower passing but overall the passing is far nicer. The corner problems seem completely gone as well.
The physics engine while started in 11 is far better in 12. Last year you could get run from behind very easily and now I have been hit several times from behind and not only not been knocked over but also retained control of the puck. Everything feels more organic as well. Two players can hit one another and both fall down or the smaller one can fall down trying to knock over a large brute. The tie up in front of the net move for defenders gives them another tool in the toolbox but it will be interesting to see how that develops as players get more games in. Protip: you can get out of being held by tapping LB.
Another fun improvement in NHL 12 is the ability to shoot slapshot one-timers as a forward. You could do this last year but now even with a base slapshot power and accuracy you can possibly score. It isn't guaranteed but it is a lot of fun.
Other miscellaneous odds and ends are that the poke check seems toned down, which is good in some respects and bad in others. Also, there are definitely some cheese shots (hello short side from a bad angle) but once you know how to defend them, much like any year, you can compete. The best bet there would be a human goalie but good luck finding one with the goalie card requiring separate games played.
And finally the moon sized elephant in the rink crouching in the corner taking out your entire team ... the hip check. This is the single worst thing about this game this year. They have made the hip check almost an I Win button. I hated it last year but this year it is probably 10x as bad because you can run at people and use it. Also, with base checking, strength, etc. you can knock anyone down. Here are a couple of the more outrageous examples of hip checks in NHL 12:
http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/92993483
http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/92745876
I really hope EA is paying attention to this and patches this ridiculous move out of the game. Our team is learning to avoid these idiots on the rush by cutting laterally and even just stopping but if you go into the corner with someone they are just going to use the hip check and take the puck.
Overall though the NHL 12 experience is great. It plays smoother, has a better physics engine, and the passing is amazing which is good for teams that like teamwork like ours.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Newbie Guide to NHL 12
So you just popped in your NHL 12 disc and are itching to get into some EASHL or OTP (Drop In) action but you have no idea where to spend your meager points. I will attempt to help make that decision easier.
Since you start off with very few points you need to figure out what to put them in and what can be ignored (for now). As a forward here is what I did. I think the only choice early on is playmaker. The playmaker's base stats are almost good enough without adding anything to get by. What I did on offense was crank up puck control to about 90, deking to about 90, and offensive awareness to about 90. You could drop some points from deking or offensive awareness and throw them in pass or shot accuracy but I liked this setup. Even with the base 75 passing you can fire the puck around no problem. I would ignore hand eye and shot power at this point. Defensively, if you are on wing, get your discipline to 90, then put everything else in stick check. As a center dump everything into faceoffs and throw the rest into discipline. For athletics I think the most crucial thing is at least 75 in balance so you won't fall down easily and for the way I play 75 in endurance ignoring anything else. Now if you don't use hustle a lot (you really should) you can split out the rest of your points into speed/agility/acceleration trying to keep them fairly even. I suggest being no more than 6' 195 lbs and if you want more speed go 5'9" 175 lbs. Definitely use the 13" blades early on if you want to have a hope of keeping up. Use whatever stick you are comfortable with.
With this setup you are really going to be looking to use your quickness to get into open space with the puck and feed teammates. You can tap in one timers but you are not going to be lasering the puck in from all over the ice.
On defense I suggest defensive defenseman. The offensive stats are pretty bad and your best bet is probably just focusing on shot power, passing (70s), and hand-eye. On defense I would go discipline, stick check, defensive awareness, and then body check in that order. The defensive dman has very good defensive abilities to start so you can pick off some passes and have a pokecheck that doesn't totally suck. Athletically again balance at 75 then spread your points out how you like, if you play proper positional defense you shouldn't need a really high endurance. I would say stay around 6' 195 lbs for this build and maybe use the 13" skates but those do keep you from turning well so you might want to play around. I would also say stick to one of the lower two curves for your blade on defense since you want to keep your shots lower and have plenty of room to roof it from out at the point if you want to try that.
On defense you should be able to play a positionally sound game and pick off a lot of passes, make a decent outlet pass, and occasionally fire a one timer or lay someone out.
So there is your newbie guide for NHL 12. I will have some early impressions of NHL 12 later in the week.
Since you start off with very few points you need to figure out what to put them in and what can be ignored (for now). As a forward here is what I did. I think the only choice early on is playmaker. The playmaker's base stats are almost good enough without adding anything to get by. What I did on offense was crank up puck control to about 90, deking to about 90, and offensive awareness to about 90. You could drop some points from deking or offensive awareness and throw them in pass or shot accuracy but I liked this setup. Even with the base 75 passing you can fire the puck around no problem. I would ignore hand eye and shot power at this point. Defensively, if you are on wing, get your discipline to 90, then put everything else in stick check. As a center dump everything into faceoffs and throw the rest into discipline. For athletics I think the most crucial thing is at least 75 in balance so you won't fall down easily and for the way I play 75 in endurance ignoring anything else. Now if you don't use hustle a lot (you really should) you can split out the rest of your points into speed/agility/acceleration trying to keep them fairly even. I suggest being no more than 6' 195 lbs and if you want more speed go 5'9" 175 lbs. Definitely use the 13" blades early on if you want to have a hope of keeping up. Use whatever stick you are comfortable with.
With this setup you are really going to be looking to use your quickness to get into open space with the puck and feed teammates. You can tap in one timers but you are not going to be lasering the puck in from all over the ice.
On defense I suggest defensive defenseman. The offensive stats are pretty bad and your best bet is probably just focusing on shot power, passing (70s), and hand-eye. On defense I would go discipline, stick check, defensive awareness, and then body check in that order. The defensive dman has very good defensive abilities to start so you can pick off some passes and have a pokecheck that doesn't totally suck. Athletically again balance at 75 then spread your points out how you like, if you play proper positional defense you shouldn't need a really high endurance. I would say stay around 6' 195 lbs for this build and maybe use the 13" skates but those do keep you from turning well so you might want to play around. I would also say stick to one of the lower two curves for your blade on defense since you want to keep your shots lower and have plenty of room to roof it from out at the point if you want to try that.
On defense you should be able to play a positionally sound game and pick off a lot of passes, make a decent outlet pass, and occasionally fire a one timer or lay someone out.
So there is your newbie guide for NHL 12. I will have some early impressions of NHL 12 later in the week.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
EA Sports Season Ticket the case for it
I have seen a lot of people talking about how EA Sports Season Ticket doesn't really give you any value for your money. If you just wanted to play Madden 12 early I would say sure $25 is pretty steep for four extra days of Madden. However, if you play in the EA Sports Hockey league the pass was worth it in spades. In the four days of prerelease here is what I did:
- Played 57 games online -- This got my player to Veteran level. I am not sure how to quantify this monetarily but I have always complained about not having games right before weekends and this made the weekend great.
- Unlocked $40 worth of slots/boosts for my player -- during the prerelease you couldn't purchase DLC at all so I managed to unlock quite a bit. I figure I still need to buy maybe 10 more boosts/slots but even those I get for 20% off.
Other benefits I noticed for retail are if you are into the Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) mode you get an extra 20 slots for player cards (80 vs. 60) and an extra card pack per month until February (worth $1 each). Plus you get 20% off any DLC you buy in that mode as well.
One other hidden value from the Season Ticket was making my decision to not purchase Madden 12 pretty easy. That saved me $60 right there.
So let's throw some math together on all of this.
-$25 for the Season Ticket
+$10 for getting to play NHL early (this is pretty conservative for me)
+$40 in boosts unlocked
+$4 for savings on boosts
+$60 for not buying Madden 12
+$6 for free card packs in HUT (probably wouldn't have bought them but hey)
----------
$95
That is a ton of value. Even if you throw out the Madden decision and HUT packs you are still looking at a net benefit of $29.
Update: Found out the free HUT card packs are roughly equivalent to the $1 12 card packs.
Update: Found out the free HUT card packs are roughly equivalent to the $1 12 card packs.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
NHL 11: Attribute Importance
Back before the game was released I listed the attribute descriptions for NHL 11. Those are pretty accurate but fail to deal with how useful they are in practice so after 200+ games played I figured I would pick a few that I thought were important or different from NHL 10 and discuss the levels I like to have them. New tuner sets are coming every week so my advice might change but right now I am running with this build.
In the offensive category everything is mostly like it was in NHL 10. The only two real differences to my build that I didn't envision are the 90 hand eye and the 90 wrist shot power. Eye hand has multiple uses including deflecting shots and more importantly handling incoming passes including one-timers. Having a 90 lets me corral high powered passes from my center sent through traffic. It is also important to know what kind of hands the person you are passing to has. You are not going to be able to send a bullet cross crease to a rookie grinder with any hope of him doing anything with it so you may want to adjust your strategy accordingly depending on your linemates. Wrist shot power makes a big difference, bigger than last year it seems to me. Just going from an 85 to a 90 has made my shots a lot more deadly and increasing power compared with accuracy will allow for fewer hit posts (one of the oddities of the engine). The higher power also generates more rebounds for my line to put back.
In the defensive category there are a couple of key attributes if you don't want to spend all day in the penalty box and one that I think everyone should have at least a decent amount of. Discipline helps keep you from taking penalties of all kinds. According to the description it would seem it just helps hits but since going from a 70 to a 99 it has reduced my random stick fouls a ton. Along with this having a high stick check also helps with reducing stick fouls. I run a 90 but I would say nothing less than an 85 if you can. Defensive awareness is very important it helps a lot with disrupting and picking off passes. With a low defensive awareness pucks will just fly by you like you are not there. I am running a epic 95 but I would think if you can get a 75 or 80 at least you would probably be ok. The more the better because if you are in position to pick off a puck and it just goes by you are not only probably giving up a good chance against you are also probably giving up the opportunity to turn the puck over and create a chance the other way.
For athletics this year speed is definitely more important this year than last. I would go as far to say that for your first probably two or maybe three cards you probably want to throw most of your points into acceleration and speed with spares into agility. Being able to keep up is second to pretty much nothing else in this game. Putting on the 13" blades early on can help with your straight line speed as well but will hurt your agility and likely your defensive ability if you aren't used to them. The other two big stats are endurance and strength. Endurance keeps you from tiring out so quickly over the course of a period and let's you use the hustle feature a lot more often. It is also crucial for skating at high speeds for long periods of time. I run a 90 which keeps me pretty fresh even at the end of the period not sure what you could get away with, 70 definitely was not enough, 85 might be. Strength is important because it modifies so many other things. It helps shot power, ability to hit, ability to take a hit, hold off other players, etc. I run with an 80. I am, oddly enough, only running a 67 balance (85 last year) because I think other attributes are more important this year. I fall down if I get hit hard sometimes but when I get body position on a defender they can't really push me around if I lean into them due to the strength. I would say favor strength over balance at a maybe 3 to 1 point spending level.
So there you have it a few attributes and my thoughts on how useful they are.
Friday, September 3, 2010
NHL 11: Sample Defenseman Builds
So last post we looked at some sample forward builds this time we will take a look at a few defenseman builds.
You can find a spreadsheet with the defensemen builds here.
Defensive Defenseman: First up is a defensive defenseman who can hammer people in the defensive zone but still manage to make a good first pass and has no real shot to speak of. This class has an insane cost for offensive awareness and thus will need to spend a ton of points just to get to 67 then dump two boosts in to get to 75 to have a vision cone larger than a straw. Puck control even spending two boosts is at 80 and hand eye is a very substandard 60 and you likely can't spare any additional boosts for offense. You better hope the other players on your team know how to pass the puck to you softly or you will fumble it all over the place. The hand eye is not super expensive to raise but you can't really spare the points from anywhere else.
Defensively this build is the best in the game sporting 99s in every crucial category adding 3 +5 boosts. Athletically it is going to fall behind a bit but that is to be expected as this will be a lumbering monster of a build. Acceleration, agility, and speed will be 85 each. Balance is near 80 as is strength. Endurance seems a bit low at 60 so don't plan on using the hustle feature much or at least recovering from it in a timely manner.
Enforcer Defenseman: The next build was probably the surprise of the roundup. It is the enforcer defenseman. I expected it to be completely unplayable like most enforcer builds but surprisingly it is better than the defensive class at some things. Like offensive awareness is cheaper so getting it to 75 only requires one boost instead of two. Hand eye can be 70 instead of 60. The rest of the offense is pretty on par with the defensive D with similar weaknesses but overall you have one extra boost to use somewhere else.
Defensively it is also a very strong build. It can get 99s in Aggression, body check, defensive awareness, and discipline (surprisingly) with just two boosts. Add in one more plus 5 and you have a 90 rated stick check. This is 9 short of the defensive D rating but still very very good. So you have used three boosts here just like defensive defenseman. Oh and if you want to fight your fighting rating is 80 instead of 60.
Athletically it is pretty much identical to the defensive defenseman other than a few points here and there and a big +10 strength advantage for the enforcer. Note that, as mentioned here, strength affects a lot of different abilities in game so that is pretty nice. Also you have your spare boost to throw somewhere else on the build to shore up a weak spot or maybe give yourself a 95 strength. :)
Offensive Defenseman: This is your typical puck carrying, rushing, cannon of a slapshot, jumping in late to create an odd man situation defenseman. This build has very good offensive abilities including a 90/90 slapper, 90 passing, and 90 puck control. I even added a passable 80/80 wrister for jumping into the play to tap in cross crease one timers or when you don't have enough time to uncork the slapper. You could even throw another boost or two in if you want to enhance offensive awareness or hand eye or want that wrister to be more dangerous.
Defensively this build can hit a little but is mostly going to be a poke checking positionally sound build that looks to turn the puck over and get the rush going the other way quickly. A few boosts could be spent here shoring up any weaknesses if desired. Athletically this build is sound and should skate well and have plenty of endurance for getting back into position after forays up the ice. It is a bit on the weak side though so potentially dropping a +5 in strength to boost it to 70 might help.
Two Way Defenseman: This is supposed to be a build that brings some offense but can also be a responsible stay at home defenseman as well. A hybrid between pure defense and pure offense. It succeeds mostly. It has good offensive numbers and with 4 +5 boosts you can have 90s in passing, puck control, and both slapshot attributes. Offensive awareness and hand eye are not as good and are candidates for additional boosts.
On the defensive side it is definitely a better hitter than the offensive variety but not the punishing presence that the defensive defenseman or enforcer is. A couple of +5 boosts to aggression and body check would bring those both to a very good 85 which opponents will feel. Athletically it is identical to the offensive defenseman except it has a 75 strength.
So two way defenseman has the same slap shot and no wrister with worse hands and instincts but definitely better hitting and strength than an offensive defenseman. Comparing it to a defensive defenseman or enforcer it has better offensive abilities, worse defensive abilities, but better athletics (except the enforcer's strength).
Two Way Forward as a Defenseman: I had heard some rumblings of this being a better option as defenseman so I decided to find out. Offensively hand eye and off aware are both better than the two way D, puck control will need two boosts (but hand eye and offensive awareness need none), slapper is less accurate, wrister is a wash. Mostly don't care about deking for defensemen other than throwing some points in if it is cheap. Defensively the two way forward hits harder and is pretty much on par in every other category. Athletically they are almost identical. I am pretty sure though at this point the two way forward probably has spent three fewer boosts than the two way defenseman.
That makes the case for two way defenseman pretty difficult. On the two way forward I can throw a spare +3 on slapshot accuracy and have an 88 vs. 90 accuracy negating that advantage almost completely then still have two more left to improve other areas. Looking closer it makes the case for offensive defenseman pretty difficult as well. That tradeoff boils down to really good hitting and better strength versus having two different competent shots.
So there you have it. The enforcer and two way forward were surprises to me. The offensive defenseman seems to have a very narrow role this time around. The two way defenseman seems mostly like a waste of time given the alternatives. The defensive defenseman seems oddly somewhat worse than the enforcer but that might change if you wanted a shooting build.
Obviously some or all of this could change based on differing tastes, builds, or play style. We also don't know exactly what boosts are going to be allowed where so knowing how many boosts can go to which attributes is tricky at this point.
You can find a spreadsheet with the defensemen builds here.
Defensive Defenseman: First up is a defensive defenseman who can hammer people in the defensive zone but still manage to make a good first pass and has no real shot to speak of. This class has an insane cost for offensive awareness and thus will need to spend a ton of points just to get to 67 then dump two boosts in to get to 75 to have a vision cone larger than a straw. Puck control even spending two boosts is at 80 and hand eye is a very substandard 60 and you likely can't spare any additional boosts for offense. You better hope the other players on your team know how to pass the puck to you softly or you will fumble it all over the place. The hand eye is not super expensive to raise but you can't really spare the points from anywhere else.
Defensively this build is the best in the game sporting 99s in every crucial category adding 3 +5 boosts. Athletically it is going to fall behind a bit but that is to be expected as this will be a lumbering monster of a build. Acceleration, agility, and speed will be 85 each. Balance is near 80 as is strength. Endurance seems a bit low at 60 so don't plan on using the hustle feature much or at least recovering from it in a timely manner.
Enforcer Defenseman: The next build was probably the surprise of the roundup. It is the enforcer defenseman. I expected it to be completely unplayable like most enforcer builds but surprisingly it is better than the defensive class at some things. Like offensive awareness is cheaper so getting it to 75 only requires one boost instead of two. Hand eye can be 70 instead of 60. The rest of the offense is pretty on par with the defensive D with similar weaknesses but overall you have one extra boost to use somewhere else.
Defensively it is also a very strong build. It can get 99s in Aggression, body check, defensive awareness, and discipline (surprisingly) with just two boosts. Add in one more plus 5 and you have a 90 rated stick check. This is 9 short of the defensive D rating but still very very good. So you have used three boosts here just like defensive defenseman. Oh and if you want to fight your fighting rating is 80 instead of 60.
Athletically it is pretty much identical to the defensive defenseman other than a few points here and there and a big +10 strength advantage for the enforcer. Note that, as mentioned here, strength affects a lot of different abilities in game so that is pretty nice. Also you have your spare boost to throw somewhere else on the build to shore up a weak spot or maybe give yourself a 95 strength. :)
Offensive Defenseman: This is your typical puck carrying, rushing, cannon of a slapshot, jumping in late to create an odd man situation defenseman. This build has very good offensive abilities including a 90/90 slapper, 90 passing, and 90 puck control. I even added a passable 80/80 wrister for jumping into the play to tap in cross crease one timers or when you don't have enough time to uncork the slapper. You could even throw another boost or two in if you want to enhance offensive awareness or hand eye or want that wrister to be more dangerous.
Defensively this build can hit a little but is mostly going to be a poke checking positionally sound build that looks to turn the puck over and get the rush going the other way quickly. A few boosts could be spent here shoring up any weaknesses if desired. Athletically this build is sound and should skate well and have plenty of endurance for getting back into position after forays up the ice. It is a bit on the weak side though so potentially dropping a +5 in strength to boost it to 70 might help.
Two Way Defenseman: This is supposed to be a build that brings some offense but can also be a responsible stay at home defenseman as well. A hybrid between pure defense and pure offense. It succeeds mostly. It has good offensive numbers and with 4 +5 boosts you can have 90s in passing, puck control, and both slapshot attributes. Offensive awareness and hand eye are not as good and are candidates for additional boosts.
On the defensive side it is definitely a better hitter than the offensive variety but not the punishing presence that the defensive defenseman or enforcer is. A couple of +5 boosts to aggression and body check would bring those both to a very good 85 which opponents will feel. Athletically it is identical to the offensive defenseman except it has a 75 strength.
So two way defenseman has the same slap shot and no wrister with worse hands and instincts but definitely better hitting and strength than an offensive defenseman. Comparing it to a defensive defenseman or enforcer it has better offensive abilities, worse defensive abilities, but better athletics (except the enforcer's strength).
Two Way Forward as a Defenseman: I had heard some rumblings of this being a better option as defenseman so I decided to find out. Offensively hand eye and off aware are both better than the two way D, puck control will need two boosts (but hand eye and offensive awareness need none), slapper is less accurate, wrister is a wash. Mostly don't care about deking for defensemen other than throwing some points in if it is cheap. Defensively the two way forward hits harder and is pretty much on par in every other category. Athletically they are almost identical. I am pretty sure though at this point the two way forward probably has spent three fewer boosts than the two way defenseman.
That makes the case for two way defenseman pretty difficult. On the two way forward I can throw a spare +3 on slapshot accuracy and have an 88 vs. 90 accuracy negating that advantage almost completely then still have two more left to improve other areas. Looking closer it makes the case for offensive defenseman pretty difficult as well. That tradeoff boils down to really good hitting and better strength versus having two different competent shots.
So there you have it. The enforcer and two way forward were surprises to me. The offensive defenseman seems to have a very narrow role this time around. The two way defenseman seems mostly like a waste of time given the alternatives. The defensive defenseman seems oddly somewhat worse than the enforcer but that might change if you wanted a shooting build.
Obviously some or all of this could change based on differing tastes, builds, or play style. We also don't know exactly what boosts are going to be allowed where so knowing how many boosts can go to which attributes is tricky at this point.
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