Does Diving Catch combo well with Strip Ball (and NoS)?

[Piousman]

It is customary on Necro/Undead teams to build one Ghoul that is a Ball hunter: Wrestle/Strip Ball/Tackle.

I was thinking the other day whether giving it also Diving Catch would be a significant benefit. I am thinking that since he is likely to pop the ball loose 2/3rds of the time, then he would also have the chance to pick it up 5/8 times (depending on the scatter).

On a doubles Nerves of Steel would truly Augment this tool-set.

The major counter that I see is that with Wrestle he may loose the ball soon himself. Moreover, if he blitzes the ball carrier, and then picks up the ball, that denies someone else on your team from doing that, if it would have bounced free. Of course, you are not forced to use DCatch...

- Piousman

[klauser]

Interesting idea. It's certainly rather situational and might not be worth the skill slot, but it could be ton of fun. I will try it on with a Wrackle-SB Catcher on my Woodies team.

[Gaixo]

I'm pretty sure that a stripped ball counts as a bouncing ball, and you can't use Diving Catch to get one of those.

[greymurphy42]

I don't think it would work. The skill description says:

In addition, the player can attempt to catch any pass, kick off or crowd throw-in, but not bouncing ball,that would land in an empty square in one of his tackle zones.

[Piousman]

Bummer!

There goes my other thought of using a ball carrier paired up with a DC Ghoul, to get a poor-man's Dumpoff.

[mattgslater]

Yeah, that would kind of break Pro Elves.

[Smeborg]

I have found that for Pro-Elf Catchers, the killer combo is Dodge/Wrestle/Tackle. Combined with their starting AG4/Catch/NoS, I have lost count of how many times they have caught the popped ball.

EDIT: I continue my post which was rudely interrupted by an emergency trip to the vet (don't worry - all well).

By analogy with Pro-Elves, I would say that the combo Wrestle/Tackle/S-Ball plus (say) Catch, with NoS on doubles could work well for Ghouls. This type of combo works well for me with Pro-Elves when I build all the Catchers along these lines. In this way, there is often one or two of them around to catch the bouncing ball even when the blitzing Catcher has used Wrestle. So I suggest it might work better for Undead (3 Ghouls at least can take the combo) than for Necros.

Diving Catch is largely an offensive skill, thus does not appear directly relevant to this combo. But Catch and NoS are very much part of the combo. Pro could also be added (or substituted for Catch) IMO, since it increases the blitz-power. So does Leap, although this may not be to everyone's taste for poor little Ghouls!

Hope that helps.