 It's day one of NBA 2K, ouch. It's day one of NBA 2K 21's launch and a lot is going on. One thing I know for certain though, is a lot of people are gonna waste a lot of time making very bad builds. Hoping by the end of this video, I can prevent you from doing that. If y'all new to the channel, man, you haven't already, come on, subscribe to the channel. Yeah, yeah, we just hit 1.5 on the way to 1.6. Also, when I mentioned my second channel link in the description, don't waste time this year. At the end of the day, you're playing the game to have fun, true. That is true. But also, let's keep in mind, guys, that when you're losing in 2K, that is not fun. Of all games to lose in 2K is the one where you just wanna whip a controller at 90 miles per hour. So let's get into it. First thing everybody noticed when they hopped on NBA 2K 21 was that shooting is incredibly challenging. Oh, and I'm getting incredibly challenging. Like, I was seeing pure sharpshooters just brick-wide open, very consistently. But if you guys remember, this year, just like it was last year, badges play a very, very big role in your build's ability to do literally everything. So before you get your badges, it's kinda impossible to tell with a build whether or not it's gonna be good at something, like dribbling or shooting, for example. Which is unfortunate when you dedicate dozens of hours just to find out if your build is even competent. So if you are missing shots day one of launch, don't freak out. You got a 75 three point shot, a 73 point shot. Keep in mind that you can now shoot with the right stick to get additional boosts. And that works by both timing and aiming your shot as we described in previous videos. But as Mike Wang just described on Twitter a moment ago, there's also another way to shoot. Mike Wang says on Twitter, shooting tips for 2K 21. Tap the left trigger at an ideal release time for a boost. If you're using the shot button, turn off the shot meter for a boost. Green releases are harder this year, be patient. Or turn off shot aiming if you want shot timing on pro stick like last year. So there's options. Just like last year you get a boost if you turn off your meter and you use a square button. But there's also a different way to get a boost using the right stick. And I'm actually gonna try and perfect this one first because a lot like 2K 17, when they tried a similar process where they gave you boost for using the right stick and both timing and aiming it correctly, it could turn out to be the most OP thing ever. They might have to nerf it again as they did in 17. All that to say, do not freak out, ladies and gentlemen, you're gonna be just fine. Hopefully you might not be. You could just be horrible shooting, right? I think they tried to make a skills gap for shooting this year. The people that mistimed their shots very, very frequently aren't gonna be seeing a high frequency of shots go in. And you know, for better or for worse, I'm surprised to see that in the park. I expected to see something like that in prime. I'm very surprised to see it in the park. And I guarantee you what's gonna happen is Mike Wang will receive pressure from some of the people that can't make shots. And he might end up folding and doing some disco tech on the sliders as he did last year. YoungDirk asked a very good question if you were paying attention. Wait, explain the left trigger. I've never heard of this left trigger for a boost situation. Mike Wang says, and I quote, either let go and center the right stick, as we know, or tap L2, LT or R2, RT. I just personally find LT, L2. God damn it, that's confusing. The easiest, the most accurate. So I don't know, that part doesn't really make sense to me, because if you, how do you aim your shot with L2? I guess you just, hey, I'm gonna try it out, Mike Wang. And I'm gonna let y'all know how it goes. I guess that'd be a good video, trying out all the different ways to shoot and test them out. If y'all wanna see that video, subscribe to the channel. So relax, get your badges, especially if you have shooting badges, get your attributes up, and practice, because there's a lot of new systems in the way you shoot and finish this year before you freak out. Now I'll let you know this right now. If you have under a 70, open shot three, and you're not impeccable at timing your jump shot, and you wanna shoot three-pointers, make another build. If you have under a 73-point shot, and you're not the super mega try-hards on the stage, you are not making consistent shots. I would be genuinely surprised to see that. And as Mike Wang said in the past, he will nerf your if he finds that to be the case. Okay, so next thing, and this is something that a lot of people just overlook because for years we didn't have to think about it, but it's strength. NBA 2K leaks on Twitter put out this post saying, some info about 2K21 defense that was answered in the Q&A by a dev. This was translated from Chinese on Google, so it could not make sense. Keep in mind, anytime you hear something like this, Q&A, Reddit, whatever, whatever, there's a chance that it's not true. Also, so it's not 100%. The question, after playing the demo version, I found the collision volume of the players in NBA 2K21 has become much more real, and the phenomenon of mold wear has become much less. Behind this, what effort has the production team put in? The answer was, many players have responded to this question. This time we added a 50 to 70 penalty area against layup animations and dribble collisions this year. In the collision this year, we hope to put the strength of the players, the strong players can easily squeeze the defender. Because in years past, there was no massive benefit for strength. Like if you were a lockdown, or you needed to do something interior, maybe you put some strength, but for the rest of us, we just minimized or kept it in the middle, we never really ever maximized it. Now, this has to be tested once everybody has Hall of Fame brick wall, once everybody has Hall of Fame pick dodger, once the playmakers have all of their badges like quick first step, because we have to be able to see can you use strength to keep defenders in front of you. So this is gonna be in the air for a week. Once more people have their badges, we can get a good sense of how important strength is gonna be. But just to put it on your radar, there is a possibility that strength can matter this year. So if you're creating a build, where you're relying on your ability to either defend or just stay in front of people or muscle people, like a post score for example, then keep this in mind. You know, as Michael said on Twitter, all these six eight center builds with low strength and high speed might be in for a rude awakening. Might is the key word. Dirk put out a post saying, I really wish I knew what strength is gonna mean something or not. I remember my first build last year had super low strength and it got thrown around like a rag doll. Dignify asked the very real question, if strength matters or a balanced pie, it's pretty solid now. Cause previously everybody was going with the all speed, all acceleration pie, me included. All right, next thing, ladies and gentlemen, and this is one that caught everybody off guard because I feel like we got some misinformation before the launch of the game, but just to clear the record. In previous years of the game, I believe in 2K19, but I know for a fact in 2K20, there was three tiers to dribbling, right? So if you had a 69 ball control or under, you were tier one. If you had 70 to 85, you were tier two. And if you had 86 and above, you were tier three. Depending on the tier you were in, you had access to a certain amount of dribbling animations. There were the basic, the normal animations. There were the pro animations, then there were the elite animations. That's how we thought things were gonna function this year. Unfortunately for everybody between 70 to 85 ball control, that's not how things function this year. There's only two tiers. Everything below 85 and everything above 85. As you see right here, it says a required ball handle is 85 for pro dribbles. There's no such thing as elite dribbles anymore. It's just pro dribbles and normal dribbles. So my pure sharpshooter, I was actively trying to find ways to make sure that his ball control was over 70. So he has access to pro dribble moves because that's how it worked last year. But this year, that's not how it works. You know, no one's really talking about it, but that's a seriously huge buff to playmakers because now they're gonna be the only builds that have access to the fun dribble moves. Keep that in mind. A lot of people is creating their builds with the interpretation that if you have between 70 to 85 ball control, you'll have some extra animations, not the case. We all got the generic animations this year unless you're a playmaker. I also wanna mention, because I've been watching a whole lot of build videos on YouTube and just people posting their builds on Twitter and stuff like that. And I'm seeing a lot of people react like, well, your build only has 52, 48 badges. That build sucks. Oh my God, yo, y'all are gonna be pissed when you create your build that has like 65 badges because you were just focusing on how many badges you could cram into your character. And it turns out your build sucks. I made that mistake last year. That's how I know it's a mistake. Bro, if you're making a three level scorer or a scoring machine, the chances are your build is horrible. I'm letting you know off rip because those builds have an obnoxious amount of badges. So you might be tempted into believing you found some kind of gem. Like I got 64, I got 61, 68 badges on this player. But when you hop in the game, you're just flat out mediocre at everything. There was a funny post I saw on Twitter. I wanna share with you guys just to give you a good idea of what I'm talking about. I put out a post when the game launched asking what builds people are starting 2K21 with. This guy right here responded saying my three level scorer and he linked this archetype. Three level scorer, keep in mind this build is gonna have a ton of badges. When you look at attributes, not only does it finish mediocre, it shoots below mediocre, it has zero playmaking, and the defense is below mediocre. This is not a good build. And someone responded to him saying a real three level power forward. And if you look closely here, like there's a whole gang of badges here. When you look at the attributes, man, this is just a flat out bad build. It has a 30 driving dunk, a 47 driving layup. It shoots mediocre, ball handling is below. Like what the fuck are you guys creating right now? The top response to that post was bro, what are the three levels? That is a two level shooter. Hey, don't get caught up in trying to find like a unique name. Like I didn't see nobody, nobody made a offensive initiator, a two level offensive, relax. Relax, man, relax. Think about how it's gonna be in practice. How you can use it in the game. For example, this is the build that I'm creating. Just, this is the build I'm beginning with. This is just a flat out sharp shooter, pure sharp. It's a very safe build to go with because I'm gonna let a lot of people make a lot of mistakes. And then in a few weeks, I'm gonna make the lock sharp build that I really wanna make. But until then I'll grind the badges on this sharp shooter, make sure he's valid and learn how to shoot is a lot different with shooting this year. But I got the mediocre defense, I got the mediocre ball handling, I got the elite level shooting and I got the below mediocre finishing. But I'm elite at something though. You need to be elite at something, God damn it. Yo, cut out all the mediocre builds this year, guys. I will sauce you on the park if I catch you with a mediocre build, promise. You have to be in the high 80s or the 90s with something, have to. And that bridges on to the next point in the pursuit of everybody just focusing on badges because they do play a magnificently large role in your ability to just about do everything in the game. Don't forget about attributes, man. Because people will start maxing out their post fade, but they got no close shot because they wanted three more extra shooting badges. Think about it for a moment now. When you do a pump fake in the restrictive area to catch somebody jumping and you wanna go up with the shot, that's a close shot, guys. When you have a 25 close shot, it's not gonna take much for the guy, especially if he has Pogo jump, whatever that badge is called, to contest and now you're breaking wide open layups, think about that. Three extra shooting badges worth it. I'll sacrifice two to three badges in shooting or playmaking as long as my attributes look them right. And for me, that looks like maxing out my block to a 57, even though I have a pure sharpshooter because there's gonna be instances where I need to click triangle and I'm kinda hoping I get the block. That means maxing out my steel so when I click square every once in a while, I might be able to poke the ball loose. But this sharpshooter build of mine only has one defensive badge. I could have got more sharpshooting badges and more finishing badges had I dropped more attributes there, but I need my guy to look right. I'm thinking about how it's gonna apply in the game, man. So don't lose track of that all in the pursuit of trying to run your badge number up, all right? And I also wanna mention guys, at the end of the day, I feel like having fun on 2K, a big part of that is winning. It's very difficult to lose a lot on 2K and also have a blast, very difficult. Like you have to have a funny, funny group of friends to do that. So I wanna sit here and tell you guys it's all about fun, just pick a build you're gonna enjoy, but you're not gonna enjoy losing. So also pick a build you think can help you win. And then also kind of pick some teammates that you know can help you win too, god damn it. You're going into these games with no rebounder. It's a tough scene for you, man. It's gonna be difficult boxing out. So yeah, yeah, if I try to find a balance, that's what I'm doing personally. Like I wanna, the sharpshooter build, I'm gonna have a great time with this. It's fun, but also it's gonna be good. Get that balance. For a lot of people they enjoy making slasher builds. Now, in my opinion, it's gonna be very difficult this year to make a good slasher build because I feel like it's gonna be very inconsistent shooting. But it's about finding a balance, man. It is fun getting them contact dunks and getting the crazy animations and then going, wow, everybody wants to experience that. Hey, I'll leave it on that note though, man. Do not make bad builds this year, y'all, because especially if you plan on getting the next gen version of game, you only have a few months, all right? If y'all new to the channel, you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. Let's get this video to 25,000 likes. Second channel link in the description. And there's some videos on the screen right now if you're bored on a badge grind. Peace.