Gyro Chat GYROS RULE (ps innova archon something something)

[zj10021]

hey so I got a champ archon as a throw in to a trade and I have to say, I like it. Definitely like it more than the star which was really hard to throw properly. This thing doesn't like being thrown hard but a smooth throw with a touch of hyzer will produce a great little s shot.

The thing is junk in the wind though.

I really liked the champion archon I had. but when I lost it, it really wasn't worth replacing. nice disc but it overlaps with a lot of what I already had

 

[Frank Delicious]

It does overlap with the beat wraith/destroyer I carry but I took them out and am just using this for right now to give it a bit more of a test.

 

[Jesse B 707]

Sucks, no glide

 

[discspeed]

I've lost a little faith in Dave D's designing lately. He was the man for so long, but the last few years I just don't follow what he's been trying to do. PLUS discs? Weird ass Star Katanas? Groove? Kite? Why can't he make a Vulcan stability disc with some Lat64 type glide? The Archon is a less gyroscopic, less stable Wraith. How is that innovative? It seems his only good work lately has been thrown to Dismania and maybe Millennium (Quasar seems nice, Astra is shit). WTF Innova?

 

[JR]

I've lost a little faith in Dave D's designing lately. He was the man for so long, but the last few years I just don't follow what he's been trying to do. PLUS discs? Weird ass Star Katanas? Groove? Kite? Why can't he make a Vulcan stability disc with some Lat64 type glide? The Archon is a less gyroscopic, less stable Wraith. How is that innovative? It seems his only good work lately has been thrown to Dismania and maybe Millennium (Quasar seems nice, Astra is shit). WTF Innova?

Quasar is way too much for me for anything but left hooks under max D when new so i think it is best as a headwind driver and for big arms. Not so nice for most players. I haven't thrown in yet in serious headwinds but in moderate winds with a few shots it seemed solid. I know that the Kite is underappreciated and the huge soft dome restricts thumb placements but it is a good flier once thrown well and so many other discs can't fare in anything but rear winds as well. Not just Innova. Kite is killer in rear winds Comet? Pffft. Kite is faster and glides even more=is longer but it wants more power because of the harder fade. Non Star Katanas are ok for what they are. Star sucks till the end of time. The quality really varies and the whole line up is overcrowded since eons ago. Businesses probably thrive only because many need to test out the new stuff. If only replacement discs were sold things would change in the revenues of all disc manufacturers.

 

[discspeed]

I've lost a little faith in Dave D's designing lately. He was the man for so long, but the last few years I just don't follow what he's been trying to do. PLUS discs? Weird ass Star Katanas? Groove? Kite? Why can't he make a Vulcan stability disc with some Lat64 type glide? The Archon is a less gyroscopic, less stable Wraith. How is that innovative? It seems his only good work lately has been thrown to Dismania and maybe Millennium (Quasar seems nice, Astra is shit). WTF Innova?

Quasar is way too much for me for anything but left hooks under max D when new so i think it is best as a headwind driver and for big arms. Not so nice for most players. I haven't thrown in yet in serious headwinds but in moderate winds with a few shots it seemed solid. I know that the Kite is underappreciated and the huge soft dome restricts thumb placements but it is a good flier once thrown well and so many other discs can't fare in anything but rear winds as well. Not just Innova. Kite is killer in rear winds Comet? Pffft. Kite is faster and glides even more=is longer but it wants more power because of the harder fade. Non Star Katanas are ok for what they are. Star sucks till the end of time. The quality really varies and the whole line up is overcrowded since eons ago. Businesses probably thrive only because many need to test out the new stuff. If only replacement discs were sold things would change in the revenues of all disc manufacturers.

Manufacturers do need to make new discs, but in the past Innova has usually released something that is in some way better than what came before it. This does not hold true with most their releases in the past 4 years.

The Quasar has a purpose in Millennium's lineup and was badly needed. The Astra is a star Katana top, so it sucks just as bad. The problem with the Kite vs. other flippy discs is that it's too fast for a mid, so it's not accurate on shorter stuff, and it's not consistently stable enough in the fairway driver slot.

 

[JR]

I've lost a little faith in Dave D's designing lately. He was the man for so long, but the last few years I just don't follow what he's been trying to do. PLUS discs? Weird ass Star Katanas? Groove? Kite? Why can't he make a Vulcan stability disc with some Lat64 type glide? The Archon is a less gyroscopic, less stable Wraith. How is that innovative? It seems his only good work lately has been thrown to Dismania and maybe Millennium (Quasar seems nice, Astra is shit). WTF Innova?

Quasar is way too much for me for anything but left hooks under max D when new so i think it is best as a headwind driver and for big arms. Not so nice for most players. I haven't thrown in yet in serious headwinds but in moderate winds with a few shots it seemed solid. I know that the Kite is underappreciated and the huge soft dome restricts thumb placements but it is a good flier once thrown well and so many other discs can't fare in anything but rear winds as well. Not just Innova. Kite is killer in rear winds Comet? Pffft. Kite is faster and glides even more=is longer but it wants more power because of the harder fade. Non Star Katanas are ok for what they are. Star sucks till the end of time. The quality really varies and the whole line up is overcrowded since eons ago. Businesses probably thrive only because many need to test out the new stuff. If only replacement discs were sold things would change in the revenues of all disc manufacturers.

Manufacturers do need to make new discs, but in the past Innova has usually released something that is in some way better than what came before it. This does not hold true with most their releases in the past 4 years.

The Quasar has a purpose in Millennium's lineup and was badly needed. The Astra is a star Katana top, so it sucks just as bad. The problem with the Kite vs. other flippy discs is that it's too fast for a mid, so it's not accurate on shorter stuff, and it's not consistently stable enough in the fairway driver slot.

It gets progressively more difficult to improve on older great molds once the old stuff is good enough. Quasar is needed for Mill and so would be a straighter warp speeder that is not flippy. Which means i don't think i will buy an Astra based on the feedback here.

Your, not the, problem with the Kite is bag building philosophy. I fully agree that it is a tweener disc and as such does not suit so well to those using the usual suspects in the putter/FW/distance driver slots. However; the Kite being a tweener does work in a different philosophy of bag building with suitable partners that may also not be that common. If you have a putter that is long also as a driving putter or use an understable putter for putting and a beefier long one for 300'ish and then have a long mid or a Z Stalker or Kite or both and then PD and if needed a max D driver you don't get overlap. Because from long putter to driver each disc is a tweener and while one could argue that they are too long for what they are traditionally named roles one could also argue that tweener discs are actually a method of clubbing down constantly. Many have commented that the Stalker and the PD don't suit traditional bags because of overlap to regular discs. When it is undeniable that Z Stalker copmpetes for the straightest driver spot with the Leopard and the PD is super versatile and nose angle insensitivity for such a fast disc s great topped off with the great powering down capability (Beast is close here too being straighter than most PDs) so what is not to like about them? Stalker + PD is a great combo. To muddy up things Star Dart could be used too.

Naming roles is artificial. The flight lines and distance determines how a disc should be used and with which discs it should be partnered with. I don't think that 300' with a Dart is that massive and it is too fast as a putter so an Ion would be great as a putting putter for everyone who don't have clean throws in drives with them. 300' Ion shot ain't that massive either. Going from there to a straight mid such as Z Buzzz and understable mid/FW with the Kite is just fine because the stabilities are what you need to cover each shot because beefier shots can be accomplished with a powered down PDs. You could substitute the Buzzz with the Stalker when combined with the Kite. For control and traditional FW distances Stalker/Kite combo works well. PD can change so much in flight manipulation and power changes that it can handle at least some traditional flight lines in traditional FW driver distances while also handling distance driver duties. Some don't carry anything faster than a PD and while there are merits and demerits in this approach one can get by with such a choice. Bag weight goes down for sure and disc familiarity increases. Confidence boost in a workhorse FW/distance driver can't hurt either.

So your game is what you make of it and traditional roles and discs can be an effective approach but if you don't mind throwing hard with generally less fading discs a tweener setup with multiple tweeners can be made to work just fine. For those of us that mash a lot more drives in field practice than in rounds throwing hard is often more accurate than fluffing shots. And taking off power of traditional FW drivers make them fade plenty for tight fairways. Guess what i'm faced with here? So your courses also play a role in your bag design and winds etc. There are more than one way to make well working setups. It is considerably more difficult to mix these approaches successfully. There are plenty of overlap issues.

 

[thechamp]

I really think Innova has just been tweeking their original bevel edge disc from 30 years ago. Innova drivers may have reached the end of the line unless they try something new, which Dave D. seems pretty reluctant to do.

 

[discspeed]

I really wonder how differently I'd feel about Innova's releases if I didn't have Lat64/Westside to compare them to. I'd like to think I'd be more into them, but maybe not. I've always liked Innova. I enjoyed throwing every speed 9-12 they have made prior to the damn Vulcan top. They all seem to push the limits of speed, glide, and varying stabilities. Out of the speed 13 discs, only the Boss flies like an Innova disc to me. It is the only one that has glide to match it's speed. I believe Innova hit a bit of a wall in terms of being able to mold Boss-like discs with their plastic blends. The Boss has a lot more weight in it's top/wing than the other speed 13 drivers. So essentially Innova is making their discs less gyroscopic. This means the discs do not hold their glide/spin/speed late into to flight or lock onto straight lines like their more gyroscopic discs do. Instead of using some polymer science to figure out some new plastic blends that allow large volume molds (like Discraft had to do with the Nuke I'm sure, it's got a lot of mass in the top/wing), they seem to have went the lazy route and made a really skinny top to fit with their current blends (an idea I think they took from Lat64 Halo). This trades gyroscopicness/glide for a little speed out of the hand. I think this is why Innova's new drivers suck, especially compared to more gyroscopic drivers like the Nuke/Sword/Flow.

 

[Frank Delicious]

The new Innova discs make them lots of money so Dave D doesn't really see a reason to stop what's working.

 

[discspeed]

I suspect the bags of Innova's team members are going to show what their good discs are, as they always have. I don't see much of what has been put out by them in the past 4 years getting many throws by their top guys.

 

[Peot]

I suspect the bags of Innova's team members are going to show what their good discs are, as they always have. I don't see much of what has been put out by them in the past 4 years getting many throws by their top guys.

I think there are two important points here. The first is that what discs make the bag of Innova pros is wholly irrelevant to the majority of Innova's market. The second is that most pros have been playing disc golf for a long, long time, and I'm sure a lot of them stick to the guns that brought them this far. (I do know that Josh Anthon threw a Boss on one of the holes at Pro Worlds, at least according to the announcer on the live feed). I mean, Nate Doss still throws Pro D Hawks.

I don't think any of this is news to you. But Innova has a pretty vast market share, and them pumping out flashy discs that people will drop money on is completely in their best interest.

 

[Frank Delicious]

If the pros don't use the newer, actually good disc, they are gonna get left behind. Really though it should be telling that the distance drivers you see in most pro bags are destroyer, wraiths, nukes, forces and surges.

 

[discspeed]

I suspect the bags of Innova's team members are going to show what their good discs are, as they always have. I don't see much of what has been put out by them in the past 4 years getting many throws by their top guys.

I think there are two important points here. The first is that what discs make the bag of Innova pros is wholly irrelevant to the majority of Innova's market. The second is that most pros have been playing disc golf for a long, long time, and I'm sure a lot of them stick to the guns that brought them this far. (I do know that Josh Anthon threw a Boss on one of the holes at Pro Worlds, at least according to the announcer on the live feed). I mean, Nate Doss still throws Pro D Hawks.

I disagree with your first point, my first evidence being that Ken Climo discs have traditionally outsold other Innova models probably 2 to 1. There is also a trickle down effect. Local people who play tournaments and spend time on DG social media pay a lot of attention to what the pros are throwing. These guys(us essentially) are often the best players at the course on any given day for noobs to marvel at since noobs never see the touring pros. The noobs pay attention to what they(we) are throwing and spend their money accordingly.

Frank's quote below is very true when it comes to distance drivers. There are no big arm Innova/Discraft pros who have ignored discs like the ones Frank mentions below.

If the pros don't use the newer, actually good disc, they are gonna get left behind. Really though it should be telling that the distance drivers you see in most pro bags are destroyer, wraiths, nukes, forces and surges.

This is absolutely true. Innova's last few releases are not as good as the Wraith and Destroyer, especially for anyone who values consistency and has any kind of arm. It's also why I think it's smart for Discraft to use the OS-SS marketing because recreational players can throw less stable stuff, but feel like they are using the same discs as the Discraft pros are.

 

[Peot]

I suspect the bags of Innova's team members are going to show what their good discs are, as they always have. I don't see much of what has been put out by them in the past 4 years getting many throws by their top guys.

I think there are two important points here. The first is that what discs make the bag of Innova pros is wholly irrelevant to the majority of Innova's market. The second is that most pros have been playing disc golf for a long, long time, and I'm sure a lot of them stick to the guns that brought them this far. (I do know that Josh Anthon threw a Boss on one of the holes at Pro Worlds, at least according to the announcer on the live feed). I mean, Nate Doss still throws Pro D Hawks.

I disagree with your first point, my first evidence being that Ken Climo discs have traditionally outsold other Innova models probably 2 to 1. There is also a trickle down effect. Local people who play tournaments and spend time on DG social media pay a lot of attention to what the pros are throwing. These guys(us essentially) are often the best players at the course on any given day for noobs to marvel at since noobs never see the touring pros. The noobs pay attention to what they(we) are throwing and spend their money accordingly.

Frank's quote below is very true when it comes to distance drivers. There are no big arm Innova/Discraft pros who have ignored discs like the ones Frank mentions below.

If the pros don't use the newer, actually good disc, they are gonna get left behind. Really though it should be telling that the distance drivers you see in most pro bags are destroyer, wraiths, nukes, forces and surges.

This is absolutely true. Innova's last few releases are not as good as the Wraith and Destroyer, especially for anyone who values consistency and has any kind of arm. It's also why I think it's smart for Discraft to use the OS-SS marketing because recreational players can throw less stable stuff, but feel like they are using the same discs as the Discraft pros are.

Is the sale of KC discs a causal or correlated event, though? Do you think Wraiths, Teebirds, Eagles and Rocs sell well because they are KC signature discs, or because they're Wraiths, Teebirds, Eagles and Rocs? These are (some of) Innova's most successful molds because they are well-designed, consistent flyers, and are used by the champ accordingly. But I think Innova would sell these no matter what.

As to Frank's point, I certainly don't disagree at all. Pros definitely need to add newer discs- particularly ones that fly well. All I was trying to say is that I mostly agree on your point that Innova's new discs are nothing special. There are plenty of discs in their lineup that do what an Archon does- and probably better. So why bother with the switch? Discs like the Nuke, Force, Wraith et al are discs that fit a brand new role that, prior to their design, didn't really exist (at least in the scope of each company's individual lineups). The fact that most pros haven't added a ton of new discs is just a result of the stagnation in innovation and the influx of nothing special. But then again, couldn't Innova guys add PDs to their bag? Have they? I don't really know.

 

[discspeed]

Ken Climo made the Roc, Teebird, and to a lesser degree the Wraith more than it is the other way around. It will be a long time (if ever) before one man wins 12 World Championships. Were Air Jordans great shoes, or was it Michael that was selling them?

I know Will Shusterick and Paul McBeth are PD fans...

 

[Frank Delicious]

Lots of the local innova pros around here are throwing the PD2 now. The PD seem to be less useful for them since a longer control driver is used less for guys who can throw eagles and teebirds 400' although they are definitely messing with them.

 

[jubuttib]

I know Will Shusterick and Paul McBeth are PD fans...

Naturally Will is, he's team Discmania. =)

And as far as I know Paul putts with P2s.

 

[JR]

I filmed a very nice throw by McBeth with a C PD -merlot colored one.

 

[Apothecary]

cool story bro.