Overwatch thread

[apsham]

Gah - shit changed drastically again? I was going to give the free weekend on XB1 a shot but I'm somewhat tired of these living, breathing games that are constantly tinkering in pretty big ways.

[DFF]

I have a friend who is on the cusp of pro quality, and he's explained a lot about the inner balancing to me and he quite likes the majority of the changes.

Personally, I'm fine with a lot of those nerfs tbh. Zarya is still insane in the right player's hands (particularly if you're playing against a lazy Junkrat - the boost from the shield can be quite high).

It's all a balancing act. On the 76 change, to me that's where someone like Sombra comes in. Invisibility to give you the drop on him, hack him so he can't self heal and anyone with a half decent attack power can take him out (If the Sombra is good, they can use her teleporter to move her out of the way once she's hacked him, and attack him from a different angle). A good Genji could probably take soldier out too. Every character has an a character they are considered weaker against - it's just learning to get good at each and reading each situation in game and adapting on the fly.

[Quom]

15 hours ago, DFF said:

I have a friend who is on the cusp of pro quality, and he's explained a lot about the inner balancing to me and he quite likes the majority of the changes.

Personally, I'm fine with a lot of those nerfs tbh. Zarya is still insane in the right player's hands (particularly if you're playing against a lazy Junkrat - the boost from the shield can be quite high).

It's all a balancing act. On the 76 change, to me that's where someone like Sombra comes in. Invisibility to give you the drop on him, hack him so he can't self heal and anyone with a half decent attack power can take him out (If the Sombra is good, they can use her teleporter to move her out of the way once she's hacked him, and attack him from a different angle). A good Genji could probably take soldier out too. Every character has an a character they are considered weaker against - it's just learning to get good at each and reading each situation in game and adapting on the fly.

You don't see Junkrat that often (especially at higher levels). If you're balancing a character it shouldn't be 'well this niche pick that is selected less than 5% of the time in pro-play will actually make them decent'. And they are definitely balancing based on pro play. It's the only reason Lucio was nerfed, because in a team environment he was nearly always selected, but they're missing it's the speed boost that makes him a must run, not his healing. 

Zarya isn't playable because of the buffs to Soldier and D.Va (who is now basically the ugly child of Reaper and Winston and fills both roles with one character). They melt through her and it's the same with Reinhardt. Soldier at distance is just going to keep shooting her (whether her shield is up or not). You're going to kill her before she gets close enough to damage anyone outside of lucky grenades. Same with Reinhardt. Soldier's high, constant damage (as well as D.Va being able to shoot it because it's so large) damages it so much faster than the previous McCree meta. This was shown in the EnvyUs vs. Rogue match yesterday where D.Va and Soldier totally negated the Zarya and Reinhardt.

I'd argue Roadhog is now a better counter to D.Va than Zarya since he can pull her in and he and his team can get her out of the suit before she can respond. Beyond which Zarya is really going to struggle to dislodge any of the other characters to justify her spot due to her range issues and her damage only being valuable if she's high energy and no longer being as sustaining (due to Soldier being able to lay in spam damage whereas McCree really had to pick and aim and focus targets). Zarya has kind of moved from being her own character (low-medium damage but the ability to stay alive forever because of her shields and getting rewarded and becoming dangerous when she protected a teammate). Now to me she fills a similar role to Roadhog but she does less damage but has the benefit of shielding a teammate (which I think is now more valuable than her own bubble, if Soldier is focusing you, your bubble isn't going to save you most of the time).  

If the Soldier is being played by even an average player then he shouldn't be standing anywhere that Sombra can hack him. He is a supplementary support (due to him offering spot heals) so he should stick close to the team. You can't hack whilst you're cloaked, you can't cloak or hack when you're being hit. Basically if you can manage to get into the mid-line of a team (where Soldier should normally be) in a team-fight - drop cloak, hack and escape then you were going to win that fight anyway because the Soldier is terrible. In a pinch Sombra can take out 76, but it's much the same way Tracer can, you drop your teleporter, flank him, deal your damage and if shit goes tits up then you teleport out. The only time the whole cloak and sneak tactic really works is if you have EMP.

Genji is countered by D.Va since she basically fills the same role as Winston (but with Defence Matrix on top). I also don't think Genji is a hard counter to Soldier. People were running McCree to counter Genji and Soldier has better range than McCree. The only time it dips into Genji's favour is if he closes into point blank range which can still be dangerous for him since Helix Rocket does 120 damage if it hits. I don't really know that Soldier has a solid counter right now besides a McCree with good aim (or another Soldier). For nearly everyone else they're only a counter in certain situations Roadhog with hook up (or the perfect length to right click), Reaper/Reinhardt/D.Va if you can get super close, Widowmaker if you can stay far enough back (or Hanzo if you can stay safe) etc. There's no one Hero that on paper has a clearly defined advantage over him.

I disagree with the idea that people have characters they're weak against. It's technically true. But in reality it's more a game of entire team compositions than counter picks. Especially since a lot of the counters (as above) are more 'this Hero counters this Hero in this situation'. Like Reaper is considered a hard counter to Roadhog but at any kind of distance Roadhog will kill him every time if you hit his hook.

 

 

[DFF]

Symmetra has had massive changes on he PTR. Her manual, individual shields are gone. Replacing it is a photon barrier. Imagine 'casting' reinhart's shield in a certain direction and you'd be along the right lines. I watched a couple of streamers using it and it seems that it negates all damage (except enemy symmetra's alt fire which simply passes through). Once cast, the barrier moves in a straight line until it either leaves the map or hit a solid wall, at which point it is destroyed.

She also now has two ults. The first is the usual teleporter. The second is a shield generator that gives everyone within a fairly large radius a decent sized shield. This is permanent, so long as the generator is up.  

[Quom]

The shield generator is massive, especially if you can put it in spawn at Anubis and have it work. I could see it potentially making capping the second point on Eichenwalde even more painful, as well as the final point on Volskaya and Hanamura.

Plus being able to lay out all 6 turrets and the new shields on the teleporter and shield generator. It's going to make it hard to get into her microwave to take out the teleporter before you die.

I actually really like the idea of heroes having times/maps they make sense on and would like to see more of it rather than the current meta where there are generally 6-10 super strong characters and everyone else being a niche pick (then every couple of months nerfing and buffing the shit out of them to change things up a bit). She did lose her synergy with Torbjorn though (shields over the armour he gave people). I loved that odd couple.  

[RPS]

Anyone still playing on PC? 

[DFF]

The winter event has started. I've not played a game on one of the maps yet, but I've seen the seasonal skins, and some of them are terrific (big shout outs for the McCree "Scrooge" and Zenyatta "Nutcracker" ones).

[Quom]

Bask in my brilliance. 2-2 in competitive, about to lose in OT. Oh wait what's this? It's Quom with his mother fucking golden hammer killing the entire enemy team by himself. The pose is from throwing my back out carrying us to victory.

 

Edit. I have no idea why there's so much blank space around the gif and have no idea how to remove it.

[RPS]

Adding you to my friends list when I'm home @Quom Pooh.

[Your Mom]

Anyone still play this? The GOTY edition came out and I mean it looks so fun but are players nice to people like me who aren't the best at these? Or is there a place where us sucky players can pair up?

[apsham]

15 minutes ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

 are players nice to people like me who aren't the best at these?

They aren't nice to people who ARE the best at these.

I played from launch until the first new character came out and when I wasn't playing with friends, I didn't really find it all that fun at all. People are highly picky about what character builds that they play with and some are very, very opinionated. On one hand it feels really good to prove them wrong by playing well and helping the team win but in my experience it was a pretty common thing to happen - not every match but usually every play session.

You can play unranked and let it roll off your shoulders as it would normally be better there, but you still get assholes every now and then. I eventually stopped playing not fully because of this, but it was part of the reason.

[GoGo Yubari]

39 minutes ago, The Chiksrara Special said:

Anyone still play this? The GOTY edition came out and I mean it looks so fun but are players nice to people like me who aren't the best at these? Or is there a place where us sucky players can pair up?

Having played on XBox One, nobody ever talks or communicates at all beyond maybe some passive-aggressive sound bites sometimes, which is exactly how I like it. I can't imagine it's that much different on PS4.

[RPS]

I play on PC. I do not play competitive, because a) I do not have the time to GET GOOD and b) I don't have the time to play with the alleged toxic community that competitive has fostered. I don't know if comp is that toxic, but I hear it is. 

For quick play (basically like competitive but no rankings but your win/loss is still calculated) and arcade (zany game modes), I encounter the rare toxic player. But I usually shut them down pretty fast. Like if I see someone complaining about a player or telling people to switch, I (and many others) call them out immediately. 

That said - Overwatch is easy to be good at if you are not amazing at traditional FPS. Like every type of role (DPS, Tank, Healer) has variety. Lucio, Torb, Mercy, Rein, Symmetra, Mei, Junkrat and Winston are characters who do not require significant amounts of accuracy to be effective. Also characters like Rein, Mei, Orisa and Winston are characters who are all about shield deployments and positioning to be super effective. 

If you do pick up the game and want tips on what characters are great to start off as, let me know .

[En Dub]

I have the game on PS4 and absolutely love it. I've not run in to too much toxicity, but I also don't invite it with team chat unless I'm in competitive and even then, if someone gets obnoxious I just mute them on the next death. The game is a ton of fun and blizzard is just constantly releasing new free content for it, special events, skins, characters, maps, new modes. 

[Maxx]

Play it with Quom on PS4 alllll the time.

[thatshortguy]

Much like Destiny, I sincerely love playing the game with friends and sincerely despise it with strangers or solo.

[DFF]

The new character, Brigitte, looks pretty great! 

She is a sort of support / off-tank / tertiary healer. Her main attack heals her and any allies within a certain radius (something like 80HP over 5 seconds). She can also throw out Health packs every 6 seconds. If an ally overheals, it isn't wasted - it becomes armor. She has a knock back ability that top end players are going to be awesome with (requires precision). Her ult gives herself greater speed and gives everyone an armor bonus. 

[Maxx]

She looks like a much needed addition after Moira, and Blizzard's subsequent refusal to do something about her absurd range.

[RPS]

I tested her out in the PTR. I feel like she will get a nerf before she goes live. 

Who do you main Maxx, DFF?

[apsham]

She looks like everything that I would main if I were still playing Overwatch, damn.