Important but not as important as a good setter or two good outside hitters. Out of 2 OH and a RS, if I had to pick one to be weak it would be the RS.

For blocking if you put him between your best blocking OH and best blocking MB they will help carry him.

For attacking put a weak attacking RS next to your best attacking OH. If you look in Support (link at the top) then Setting you'll see that a lot of the time the setter will pick "beat OH/RS"  and he will favour the better one over the weaker. The RS will still get attacks but hopefully less than the OH.

If you or anyone doesn't get why I say next to him I'll explain in a Forum post. I think this is suggested below where you enter orders anyway but not why.

Thanks for the heads up Steve - I've never looked at the Support pages before.  Look like they could be really useful but my brain has done a Homer Simpson at the sight of all those numbers.

"... find myself with not one decent RS for next season..."

Erm, didn't you outbid me for an RS with a ridiculously huge bid?

The Pandas have been without a decent RS for a few seasons. We have had decent OHs and MBs so probably been protected unintentionally by me looking at what the Head Tomato said.

Roger, maybe I could rewrite/edit some of them so less mathematical. Maybe something like "the higher the SRV skill, the better the chance of an excellent serve" etc. 

However I think the Setter numbers, where it gives the chances of each player, are important.

Don't feel the need to do so on my account Steve. I'm happy with the Strategic Tips on the Orders page and a bit of trial and error.

"...the higher the SRV level, the better the chance of an excellent serve...". 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 

Steve, how about a video?

I muffed up my RS a couple seasons back and never really recovered... but maybe it wasn't the fault of the RS based on this thread!

I wouldn't have a clue where to start with that, Roger.

I also muffed my RS with a below average 3* walkon but my troubles started with a poor setter. Thankfully Dohm is coming on well.

Muffed?

Interesting word :)

I think luckiy I have always been blessed with good RS players. I am just perpetually cursed with Setter issues!

but nice to get  that RS advice from Steve. 

In the NC final Steve's Tomatoes had an SL 17 RS ATK, I had an SL 18 RS ATK.  Playing alongside the same or better OHs.  They had 4 attacks between them in 4 sets.  My guy had just one attack all match.

I think you can hide a poor RS away, quite easily.  By the end of the season I had (finally!) noticed how few hits my top RS was getting and switched him into the teams with a weaker OH and hide away my Freshman RS when the best OH were playing.

That's a crazy stat, James. I looked at my other games this weekend and in one game my RS had 9 attacks and OH 13, and in the other it was 2 and 26 respectively.

What I have realised is that if the RS and OH the Setter have the same ATK the OH is chosen as the better. This only matters because the defender depends on the attacker - something I hope to talk about soon.

all this goes to show is that the game outcome is a lot more complex than could be imagined. Most of the time I just rely on my gut instinct so tomorrow I had better try a more analytical approach!

Agreed, Vick. This thread is a reminder that I'm only scratching the surface of possible tactics.

I'm glad I came back to this thread. Some really interesting stuff. I'm in the same boat with Vick and Jason here!