Overwatch: Nerf This (Thread)

[The_Jackal]

OVERWATCH
YOU KNOW, THE WORLD COULD ALWAYS USE MORE HEROES
May 24th Release
Launch Details (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20119623)

Main game page: http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/

Game is $40 for the full game with all 21 heroes, $60 gets you the Origins Edition which will include all the in-game goodies for other blizzard games + 5 unique skins for the various heroes. Preorder here: http://us.battle.net/overwatch/en/buy/

There will NOT be Mac support but there will be console versions for XBox One and PS4. There have not yet been any announcements regarding the future monetization model beyond the base game.

WHAT IS OVERWATCH?
From Blizzard's website:"Overwatch™ is a team-based shooter where heroes do battle in a world of conflict."

What that means: Overwatch is predominantly a first person shooter. It's not a MOBA. However, it has taken a few queues from MOBAs, as the diverse roster of characters (21 different heroes as of launch) has a lot of personality to it. Beyond that, each character is equipped with a suite of abilities rather than multiple gun options as in most shooters, although a few characters do have multiple fire modes. At the end of the day though, Overwatch is a first person shooter through and through.

VIDEOS
Link to official youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClOf1XXinvZsy4wKPAkro2A

GORGEOUS Blizzard cinematic trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqnKB22pOC0
Theatrical Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBIwGKDwnWY


And five animated Shorts!
Recall (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB5zlHMsM7k)
Alive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U130wnpi-C0)
Dragons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w2-3Dn9PGg)
Hero (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPRRupAM4DI)
The Last Bastion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to8yh83jlXg)

Gameplay trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dushZybUYnM
Gameplay trailer 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEYp1RTvllM

Comics
Train Hopper: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/mccree-train-hopper

Dragon Slayer: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/reinhardt-dragon-slayer

A Better World: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/symmetra-a-better-world

Mission Statement: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/pharah-mission-statement

Destroyer: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/torbjorn-destroyer

Legacy: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/legacy

Old Soldiers: https://comic.playoverwatch.com/en-us/ana-old-soldiers

Battletag Collection
legoshrimp#1722
AgentPaper#1193
Firedaemon#1486
Draken#1736
Ozryk#11320
NeoVid#1862
LeSwordfish#2954
Huttj#1478
Rosstin#1609
Daedalus#1347
Firedaemon#1486
NeoVid#1862
Adaon#2254
Geno9999#1674
MightyThews#11597
Veebeebee#1383
TheDjinn#1903
Dmon#11117
BoomWolf#1169
Sirtimid#11484
SorenKnight#1269
Sasaisen#1466
Beardedgeek#2355


8/25 Top post format ruthlessly copied from ChaosOS
7/21 Ana comics added
5/23 Added new battletags, Torbjorn comic
5/21 Updated OP with newest videos, comics, and launch details
5/3 Started the catalog of GITPers
4/29: Added "Alive" "Recall" and the Theatrical Teaser to the Videos and added a Comics section

[The_Jackal]

Old thread is at 51, I posted the new one, apologies to ChaosOS for ripping off his top post template.

[Pendulous]

I don't know why, I'm just not a fan of the comics. But the animated shorts are awesome, and I wanna see more featuring characters that haven't got any attention or much story. Also, we still haven't really gotten a present-time story, other than "Reaper is evil for some reason".

Would love to see some form of single player mode that tells a lot more story.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Huh. Forgot to add my battletag. TheDjinn#1903

[The_Jackal]

I don't know why, I'm just not a fan of the comics. But the animated shorts are awesome, and I wanna see more featuring characters that haven't got any attention or much story. Also, we still haven't really gotten a present-time story, other than "Reaper is evil for some reason".

Yeah, I'm also somewhat unmoved by the comics, though to be fair, I also didn't particularly like 'The Last Bastion', for pretty much the same reasons I'm not wild about Bastion, he's pretty much a direct rip from Laputa (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092067/). To be fair, it's hard to fill out a 22+ character roster without borrowing something, but Bastion, to me, goes a bit too far. Reaper is another 'inspiration not included' Hero, IMO.


Would love to see some form of single player mode that tells a lot more story.

And HOW. Really, I'm hoping that they can take the success of Overwatch and use it as a justification to take another swing at Titan. No MMO, just small-m multiplayer coop with some story-based campaigns. I'd pay cash money for that, and I'm sure many others would too.


Huh. Forgot to add my battletag. TheDjinn#1903

Added.

[NeoVid]

Reaper is another 'inspiration not included' Hero, IMO.



I dunno, some of the inspirations for Reaper seem pretty obvious. (http://buizilla.tumblr.com/post/144215347838/suppyguppy-captainthundernuts-suppyguppy)

[Velaryon]

I'm curious to see what from their most "balance" patch (I use quotes because it's becoming increasingly clear to me that Blizzard has no idea what they're doing when balancing this game) makes it to the PS4. I'm hoping the nerfs to Genji do, along with buffs to Mei.

I'm quite surprised to see people talking about Genji being bad - clearly you all must be PC players because he's far from it on consoles. I think this is going to be a case where they need to balance him separately in the different versions of the game. I don't play competitively, but I cannot remember the last time I played match where there wasn't at least one Genji, usually on each team.

Torbjorn also needs some love - they keep nerfing him over and over when only the very first nerf was (arguably) necessary. The 30% drop in damage was not a terrible idea (though extending that same nerf to Symmetra's turrets absolutely was a bad idea), but there have been a couple of stealth nerfs as well. First they slowed his hammer's swing speed which makes him take longer to build turrets, then recently people have discovered that his turret doesn't come out of Molten Core with full health anymore. That last one may be more of a bug fix than a nerf, but the fact remains that he's still not much of a threat anymore. I'd like to see him get a bit of a rework.

[Anteros]

I'm curious to see what from their most "balance" patch (I use quotes because it's becoming increasingly clear to me that Blizzard has no idea what they're doing when balancing this game) makes it to the PS4. I'm hoping the nerfs to Genji do, along with buffs to Mei.

I'm quite surprised to see people talking about Genji being bad - clearly you all must be PC players because he's far from it on consoles. I think this is going to be a case where they need to balance him separately in the different versions of the game. I don't play competitively, but I cannot remember the last time I played match where there wasn't at least one Genji, usually on each team.

Torbjorn also needs some love - they keep nerfing him over and over when only the very first nerf was (arguably) necessary. The 30% drop in damage was not a terrible idea (though extending that same nerf to Symmetra's turrets absolutely was a bad idea), but there have been a couple of stealth nerfs as well. First they slowed his hammer's swing speed which makes him take longer to build turrets, then recently people have discovered that his turret doesn't come out of Molten Core with full health anymore. That last one may be more of a bug fix than a nerf, but the fact remains that he's still not much of a threat anymore. I'd like to see him get a bit of a rework.

Genji isn't bad at all right now. In fact, he's one of the strongest characters in the game. He'll be much weaker when the new patch comes out though. He still won't be as bad as characters like Torb/Bastion/Sym though.

I haven't played console, but I'm surprised that they haven't reverted the nerf to Torb since they put in the single hero restriction. I know on PC he's completely useless unless the player has godlike accuracy (and even then they'd be better off using another character). I can't imagine it's that much different for console.

[INoKnowNames]

I wouldn't say that Tobleron's worthless on PC. Annoying as hell to fight on certain maps (Anubis and Gibraltar come to mind with some particularly salty memories). Then again, I'm of the opinion that there's no one who's particularly useless in Overwatch. It feels like Smash 4 in that even Bad Characters can be surprisingly difficult to fight and underestimated at your own peril. I'm also of the mindset that Mei is a sociopathic murderess and everyone who likes her can all go burn freeze, so there's that to discredit me further.

So, with all of that incentive to not add me to your Rein-hardt-deer games (someone make a pun like that when it comes time for a Christmas thread), Dmon#11117 would like to know if he can be added to the roster, and potentially send out messages to be added to ya'lls, too.

As a note, I'm surprised there's so much internet hate over Tracer's accent (or maybe I just look in weird places; I commonly hear about that whenever I talk about her online or while playing). I find her to be a character I desperately wish I could play well, just because I freaking -LOVE- her personality and have found her accident and bubbly-nature to be funny and amusing as heck. I'm like that little boy from the main short who was super excited about everything. I also still can't stop watching Dragons every now and then. Because the Ult demonstration was ****ing radical. Poor murderbot can't compete with giddy happiness and absolute hype.

Also, a question: When exactly will the Playtest Update go live (assuming it hasn't already)? I don't know why I want to steer clear of time not spent earning those Lvl up boxes whenever I play, but, I mean... gotta collect all the shinies!

[The_Jackal]

I wouldn't say that Tobleron's worthless on PC. Annoying as hell to fight on certain maps (Anubis and Gibraltar come to mind with some particularly salty memories). Then again, I'm of the opinion that there's no one who's particularly useless in Overwatch. It feels like Smash 4 in that even Bad Characters can be surprisingly difficult to fight and underestimated at your own peril. I'm also of the mindset that Mei is a sociopathic murderess and everyone who likes her can all go burn freeze, so there's that to discredit me further.

Absolutely. This is one of the big reasons I'm decrying the impulse to balance the game against the e-sports scene: Because even the tiniest advantages get exaggerated out of all proportion. In quick play, Mei still has a better overall win rate than McCree. Does that mean McCree is bad, or that Mei is great? No.


So, with all of that incentive to not add me to your Rein-hardt-deer games (someone make a pun like that when it comes time for a Christmas thread), Dmon#11117 would like to know if he can be added to the roster, and potentially send out messages to be added to ya'lls, too.

Added.


As a note, I'm surprised there's so much internet hate over Tracer's accent (or maybe I just look in weird places; I commonly hear about that whenever I talk about her online or while playing). I find her to be a character I desperately wish I could play well, just because I freaking -LOVE- her personality and have found her accident and bubbly-nature to be funny and amusing as heck. I'm like that little boy from the main short who was super excited about everything. I also still can't stop watching Dragons every now and then. Because the Ult demonstration was ****ing radical. Poor murderbot can't compete with giddy happiness and absolute hype.

Tracer is not that hard, just practice. She's more about map knowledge and understanding of the enemy's positioning than anything else. You have to know when your enemy is spread out and distracted, so you don't run into a deathtrap, and you'll want to have the health pack locations and flanking routes in your head, so you can approach from unexpected angles.

[Psyren]

The offense-only brawl is fun, but of course it grossly favors attack. With how squishy the offense heroes are, 76's ult is brutal, plus he can heal his team too.

[Anteros]

Absolutely. This is one of the big reasons I'm decrying the impulse to balance the game against the e-sports scene: Because even the tiniest advantages get exaggerated out of all proportion. In quick play, Mei still has a better overall win rate than McCree. Does that mean McCree is bad, or that Mei is great? No.



You don't have to balance by pro games, but when roughly half the cast is completely useless even in above average pub games, it's a problem. Especially as overall player skill will only improve over time. These heroes are only going to get less and less useful.

[Velaryon]

I haven't played console, but I'm surprised that they haven't reverted the nerf to Torb since they put in the single hero restriction. I know on PC he's completely useless unless the player has godlike accuracy (and even then they'd be better off using another character). I can't imagine it's that much different for console.

Well, the one-hero limit was only for competitive mode and that's disappeared until the next "season." Speaking of which, what is the point of making seasons in a video game? There's absolutely zero reason why they need to remove a mode from the game only to bring it back in a month or two. It's silly. I mean, I don't play it anyway because I don't want to deal with the jerks and the longer matches, and I don't care about golden guns, but what's the sense in taking it away for the people who do enjoy that mode?



Absolutely. This is one of the big reasons I'm decrying the impulse to balance the game against the e-sports scene: Because even the tiniest advantages get exaggerated out of all proportion. In quick play, Mei still has a better overall win rate than McCree. Does that mean McCree is bad, or that Mei is great? No.

I agree. If it were up to me, I'd say they should balance around the average player and ignore the esports scene entirely. But then I have never been able to take professional video gaming seriously as a thing that exists or should exist, so I'm obviously biased.

[NeoVid]

Well, the one-hero limit was only for competitive mode and that's disappeared until the next "season." Speaking of which, what is the point of making seasons in a video game?

I'm assuming it's because the seasons were a massive success in Diablo 3, so Blizzard's going to try it with all of their games.

[huttj509]

I'm assuming it's because the seasons were a massive success in Diablo 3, so Blizzard's going to try it with all of their games.

And Hearthstone.

Basically it's to give an end. A goalline. You finish the season, you get rewards based on the highest rank you got that season, and the next one rolls out soon, with new rewards, and a new chance to try to set a high water mark for the rewards at the end.

[DaedalusMkV]

Hey, so I've been playing Hearthstone a bit more lately, and have come up with the following deck, drawing inspiration from a few decks I found online (but not the tempostorm meta report for once). The basic idea is to be a paladin midrange-control deck with Nzoth, dragons, and Reno forming the core elements. So far, it seems to be doing OK, but I'm only at rank 20 so that's not saying much. I think it might be too greedy, but I'm not sure what to take out and put in to help keep things under control early on. Any suggestions? I will note that I don't have Cairne or Chillmaw, which would be obvious additions otherwise. I also don't have Forbidden Healing, but I may end up crafting that soon since it seems quite good.



A Light in the Darkness
Doomsayer
Equality
Faerie Dragon
Loot Hoarder
Aldor Peacekeeper
Blackwing Technician
Brann Bronzebeard
Nightbane Templar
Barnes
Consecration
Infested Tauren
Keeper of Uldaman
Refreshment Vendor
Truesilver Champion
Twilight Guardian
Azure Drake
Blackwing Corruptor
Dragon Consort
Solemn Vigil
Drakonid Crusher
Ivory Knight
Reno Jackson
Sylvanas Windrunner
Guardian of Kings
Lay on Hands
Ragnaros, Lightlord
Tirion Fordring
Ysera
N'Zoth


I think you might be in the wrong thread, friend. Perhaps the Hearthstone thread is better suited to your purposes?

[AgentPaper]

I think you might be in the wrong thread, friend. Perhaps the Hearthstone thread is better suited to your purposes?

Welp, not sure how I messed up that badly, haha. Looks like a mod already took care of it though.

[Landis963]

Speaking of the new season, when does the patch for Season 2 drop?

[Guancyto]

I agree. If it were up to me, I'd say they should balance around the average player and ignore the esports scene entirely. But then I have never been able to take professional video gaming seriously as a thing that exists or should exist, so I'm obviously biased.
Streamed tournaments (and dedicated Overwatch streamers who play at top-end more often than not) are basically a constant stream of free advertising (no pun intended). You don't necessarily need to balance the game around them, but making sure that your free advertising looks good is a smart business decision.

[Aux-Ash]

I agree. If it were up to me, I'd say they should balance around the average player and ignore the esports scene entirely. But then I have never been able to take professional video gaming seriously as a thing that exists or should exist, so I'm obviously biased.

The problem is that the techniques and tactics used in pro-play see a degree of trickling down into normal play as well. The pro-players will find every exploitable weakness, every little trick to make their play a little easier and start using that, and us that watches them will start trying to emulate. The top of the ladder will figure it out first (sometimes it's even them that come up with it and the pro-players adopt it) and then it'll start trickling down the ranks and then eventually into quick-play.

That's why Blizzard reluctanly agreed to make competitive One-hero limit. Because it was boring to watch 0HL on an E-sport level, it was no fun at all to play against and multiple winstons and tracers started showing up in normal games.

Same applies to Genji. His devestating combo (shurikens-swift strike-melee for a amazing 148 hp damage, compare to his 120 per strike with dragonblade) was discovered on pro/high level play and was starting to trickle down. On that level it might have been practically neccessary in order to play at max effectiveness, but at lower level... once someone there learns it they'll be virtually unstoppable.

That's why Blizzard have to take the pro-scene into account when balancing, because there's a lot of us watching and trying to learn. But, they also have to take the lower levels into account. Therefore we're unlikely to see much in the way of buffs for Symmetra, Bastion and Torbjörn, despite being almost completely absent on the pro-scene, as the three heroes are rather easy to counter with a little communication (which is why they dominate so badly at lower levels).

[Velaryon]

I agree there's a definite trickle-down effect in gaming strategies, but I would argue that Blizzard only needs to act when and if those game-breaking tricks become commonplace in the average Quick Play game.

For example, I agree that they don't need to buff Bastion because he still kicks butt in the average match. Sure, he's probably got one of the lowest pick rates in competitive play because he's got an unbelievable number of counters and he's utterly foiled by good team communication.

On the other hand, Symmetra, while she does lose effectiveness against a coordinated team, totally needs some adjustment. Nobody was complaining about her turrets being overpowered because you have to blunder into about 3 of them at once to take any meaningful amount of damage, and a hard sneeze will destroy them. Literally the only issue with her turrets was that people found a way to place them in one stage (I want to say Dorado but I'm not sure, it's been awhile) where the turrets themselves were almost impossible to destroy but could still shoot players as they passed under a bridge. And that was more a level design problem than an issue with the turrets themselves.

Now that she got an unnecessary 30% damage nerf, the turrets just tickle enemies as they walk by, casually look around for the source of that buzzing noise, and pop them one by one. Symmetra can still get turret kills with them, but only if she or someone else is nearby doing actual damage to the enemies while the turrets are lighting them up.

Symmetra's alt fire is useless because the projectile moves so slow that even Bastion has time to change out of turret mode and slowly stomp out of the way. Her shields are a very small boost that's good only because they can be given out near-instantaneously with no cooldown. Her ult is fine, as long as she places the teleporter well, and her primary fire is awesome, but all of her other abilities are weak. She's probably the single character most in need of a rework now, but she will probably never get it. The only character who gets less love is Widowmaker, who got a nerf that may have been needed on PC but was not needed on consoles, and has been pretty much forgotten about ever since.

[The_Jackal]

I agree there's a definite trickle-down effect in gaming strategies, but I would argue that Blizzard only needs to act when and if those game-breaking tricks become commonplace in the average Quick Play game.

For example, I agree that they don't need to buff Bastion because he still kicks butt in the average match. Sure, he's probably got one of the lowest pick rates in competitive play because he's got an unbelievable number of counters and he's utterly foiled by good team communication.

On the other hand, Symmetra, while she does lose effectiveness against a coordinated team, totally needs some adjustment. Nobody was complaining about her turrets being overpowered because you have to blunder into about 3 of them at once to take any meaningful amount of damage, and a hard sneeze will destroy them. Literally the only issue with her turrets was that people found a way to place them in one stage (I want to say Dorado but I'm not sure, it's been awhile) where the turrets themselves were almost impossible to destroy but could still shoot players as they passed under a bridge. And that was more a level design problem than an issue with the turrets themselves.

Now that she got an unnecessary 30% damage nerf, the turrets just tickle enemies as they walk by, casually look around for the source of that buzzing noise, and pop them one by one. Symmetra can still get turret kills with them, but only if she or someone else is nearby doing actual damage to the enemies while the turrets are lighting them up.

Symmetra's alt fire is useless because the projectile moves so slow that even Bastion has time to change out of turret mode and slowly stomp out of the way. Her shields are a very small boost that's good only because they can be given out near-instantaneously with no cooldown. Her ult is fine, as long as she places the teleporter well, and her primary fire is awesome, but all of her other abilities are weak. She's probably the single character most in need of a rework now, but she will probably never get it. The only character who gets less love is Widowmaker, who got a nerf that may have been needed on PC but was not needed on consoles, and has been pretty much forgotten about ever since.

I find Symmetra to be unremittingly awful. The utility of her kit is inversely proportional to the IQ of her opponents.

[Psyren]

Symmetra's alt fire is useless

It's actually not, it's a decent zoning tool. Just spam them at the enemy, some will hit and your Teleporter will charge in seconds. Against an enemy Reinhardt in particular, you'll be getting plenty of kills.

I agree her turrets didn't need a console nerf though (and wouldn't mind a buff overall) and her E just needs to be scrapped and redone.

[Landis963]

It's actually not, it's a decent zoning tool. Just spam them at the enemy, some will hit and your Teleporter will charge in seconds. Against an enemy Reinhardt in particular, you'll be getting plenty of kills.

I agree her turrets didn't need a console nerf though (and wouldn't mind a buff overall) and her E just needs to be scrapped and redone.

I wouldn't mind seeing her E switch to some kind of shield pylon, where she places it down and players can shoot it or something to gain a set amount of shields. Something that isn't quite so much busy work.

[NeoVid]

The utility of her kit is inversely proportional to the IQ of her opponents.

I think you've just hit on the real reason why Symm has the highest win percentage!

[Anteros]

It's actually not, it's a decent zoning tool. Just spam them at the enemy, some will hit and your Teleporter will charge in seconds. Against an enemy Reinhardt in particular, you'll be getting plenty of kills.

I agree her turrets didn't need a console nerf though (and wouldn't mind a buff overall) and her E just needs to be scrapped and redone.

As long as Zarya exists it will be pretty bad. Giving an enemy Zarya 100 free charge constantly is a bad idea, and Sym's bubbles are basically slow moving charge stations for her.

[Yuki Akuma]

I have just discovered that Torbjorn's hammer does the same damage as Reinhardt's.

Which is really weird if you think about it.

[Manticoran]

As long as Zarya exists it will be pretty bad. Giving an enemy Zarya 100 free charge constantly is a bad idea, and Sym's bubbles are basically slow moving charge stations for her.

Yeah, but so are Reinhardt bolts if the enemy Zarya is good, so like... Whatever?

[Anteros]

Yeah, but so are Reinhardt bolts if the enemy Zarya is good, so like... Whatever?

Rein has a lot of other utility that Symettra lacks. Unlike Sym, his bolts aren't his only way to be useful until he has his ult (the turrets are so bad they don't even count). They're also a lot more unpredictable and harder to jump on. Unless the Rein is a big big dummy.

[AgentPaper]

As long as Zarya exists it will be pretty bad. Giving an enemy Zarya 100 free charge constantly is a bad idea, and Sym's bubbles are basically slow moving charge stations for her.

I mean, Zarya can't be everywhere. Just try not to shoot them towards where she is. Symmetras orbs aren't an incredible weapon, but they're a good way to contribute when you don't have something better to be doing (IE: turrets are up, teleporter is up/charging, teammates are shielded, nobody close to hit with your left click). You opponent doesn't need to be bad if you're shooting them at the right spots, they'll either run into it around a corner, or back into it, be forced to move where it is, or simply miss the orb in the chaos of combat and hit it by mistake. And of course it works great to counter Reinhardt, Bastion, Torbjorn, and possibly even the odd Widomaker. It's also decent burst damage against low-HP heroes like Tracer if you know they're coming and can charge up beforehand.

[huttj509]

Having played round on the PTR, I really, *really* like the new competitive ranking system. Points go up, points go down, but it doesn't show anyone else your points, just your tier (bronze silver gold platinum etc). It shows average ranking for each team, but nobody gets highlighted as "the low guy" unless they're a tier down from most of the rest of the team (500 points per tier, about 4-5 wins in a row has been getting me to tier up).

Especially with not being able to downtier.

It also makes going up a tier a *lot* more satisfying than going up a rank felt.

[boomwolf]

Add the tag BoomWolf#1169

Also, anyone knows when new map and/or champs hit?
I was sure 23rd this month was Sombra release, I was wrong.

Am I correct that there is no hint of new champs in the PTR yet?
Sure a "stealth release" of sombra could be thematic, but its probably a bad idea.

[Psyren]

As long as Zarya exists it will be pretty bad. Giving an enemy Zarya 100 free charge constantly is a bad idea, and Sym's bubbles are basically slow moving charge stations for her.

You mean heroes have counters in this game?? Unpossible!!

By the time they switch to Zarya to take you on, the Teleporter should be down and you've served your purpose. Or if they started with Zarya instead of Rein, they'll have a lot more trouble actually pushing onto the objective. Or if they had both, that's one less flanker to worry about. Balance and all that.

[The_Jackal]

Add the tag BoomWolf#1169

Done.


You mean heroes have counters in this game?? Unpossible!!

By the time they switch to Zarya to take you on, the Teleporter should be down and you've served your purpose. Or if they started with Zarya instead of Rein, they'll have a lot more trouble actually pushing onto the objective. Or if they had both, that's one less flanker to worry about. Balance and all that.

You don't need a dedicated switch to clear out a Symmetra turret nest, just anyone with some decent AOE, Even McCree's flashbang and Ana's biotic grenade. Also, there's no rule you can't roll with two tanks.

[Anteros]

You mean heroes have counters in this game?? Unpossible!!

By the time they switch to Zarya to take you on, the Teleporter should be down and you've served your purpose. Or if they started with Zarya instead of Rein, they'll have a lot more trouble actually pushing onto the objective. Or if they had both, that's one less flanker to worry about. Balance and all that.

Why do you have to be passive aggressive about it? Just say you disagree.

Sym is easily countered and gambling the other team doesn't have a Zarya is a good way to lose the game. Especially on defense where you really only get to wipe one time.


Done.



You don't need a dedicated switch to clear out a Symmetra turret nest, just anyone with some decent AOE, Even McCree's flashbang and Ana's biotic grenade. Also, there's no rule you can't roll with two tanks.

I cant even remember the last time I had a team without 2 tanks in competitive. Two tanks, two supports, two DPS is pretty much universally accepted as THE comp.

Even Lucio boop clears out a turret nest, and there is always a Mccree and Lucio and almost always a Zarya.

[Manticoran]

And despite all of that, last I checked she still has one of the highest win rates in the game, and I've seen her regularly used at least around rank 60 last season, which was apparently the top 6% of play?

She clearly isn't good on a competitive level, but I'm pretty sure none of us are playing on a competitive level, so whatever.

[Necroticplague]

And despite all of that, last I checked she still has one of the highest win rates in the game, and I've seen her regularly used at least around rank 60 last season, which was apparently the top 6% of play?

She clearly isn't good on a competitive level, but I'm pretty sure none of us are playing on a competitive level, so whatever.

Symetra has a good win rate because she's a point A character. Once the first point get's taken, then you switch to someone else, because there won't be enough time to set up all her turrets again. Thus, when you lose the round, it goes down on record as a loss for some other character. However, when you win the round, because you stopped them at the first point, it goes down as a victory for her. Thus, her winrate will look much higher on records than is indicative of her actual usefulness.

[Psyren]

You don't need a dedicated switch to clear out a Symmetra turret nest, just anyone with some decent AOE, Even McCree's flashbang and Ana's biotic grenade. Also, there's no rule you can't roll with two tanks.

I was assuming that they already had two - Reinhardt + Other (usually D.Va or Winston these days.) If they switch one of those to Zarya that's usually a good thing for defense.


Why do you have to be passive aggressive about it? Just say you disagree.

Sym is easily countered and gambling the other team doesn't have a Zarya is a good way to lose the game. Especially on defense where you really only get to wipe one time.

I'm not trying to be snarky but I AM disagreeing, and saying why. Yes, Zarya is a good counter to Symmetra. No, the fact that heroes have counters is not a reason to blacklist them completely.

[Anteros]

I was assuming that they already had two - Reinhardt + Other (usually D.Va or Winston these days.) If they switch one of those to Zarya that's usually a good thing for defense.



I'm not trying to be snarky but I AM disagreeing, and saying why. Yes, Zarya is a good counter to Symmetra. No, the fact that heroes have counters is not a reason to blacklist them completely.

Not every hero is as easily or completely countered as Sym. She has the same problem as most other defense heroes in that picking her is always going to be a gamble, compared to just picking another character who can contribute no matter what.


And despite all of that, last I checked she still has one of the highest win rates in the game, and I've seen her regularly used at least around rank 60 last season, which was apparently the top 6% of play?

She clearly isn't good on a competitive level, but I'm pretty sure none of us are playing on a competitive level, so whatever.

I think people keep confusing competitive with professional. All you have to do to play competitive is queue for it during the season.

I never see her in 60+. Very very rarely on han or kings row point A but that's it.

[Manticoran]

I never see her in 60+. Very very rarely on han or kings row point A but that's it.

Welp, I do. *Shrug*

[Psyren]

Not every hero is as easily or completely countered as Sym. She has the same problem as most other defense heroes in that picking her is always going to be a gamble, compared to just picking another character who can contribute no matter what.

Very well, I disagree. Hope that suffices.

[Velaryon]

I think you've just hit on the real reason why Symm has the highest win percentage!

All joking aside, the real reason Symmetra has the highest win percentage is...


Symetra has a good win rate because she's a point A character. Once the first point get's taken, then you switch to someone else, because there won't be enough time to set up all her turrets again. Thus, when you lose the round, it goes down on record as a loss for some other character. However, when you win the round, because you stopped them at the first point, it goes down as a victory for her. Thus, her winrate will look much higher on records than is indicative of her actual usefulness.

...this. Everything about her kit says "use me at the beginning, and switch to someone else if our team can't lock down the first objective." It takes forever to set up her turrets and only a moment to destroy them. Her ultimate's usefulness continually decreases the less distance it's saving your teammates. There's almost no reason at all to have a teleporter when you're defending point B in Temple of Anubis or Hanamura, or when the payload has traveled most of the map in Numbani or King's Row. And in a map like Lijiang Tower, if you've lost the point and need to reclaim it, Symmetra is quite possibly the worst choice in the entire game for that task (with the possible exception of Widowmaker).

Symmetra usually doesn't eat the loss because most people have switched off of her before the match is over. I'll bet Bastion has a low win rate for the same reason - he's a character that you see more and more of as you close in on the end of payload maps, so he'll take a lot more losses when teams actually push to the finish line.

The only way we could get meaningful win % statistics for characters would be if you got a win or a loss for every character you used in a match. Or perhaps every character you used more than... I dunno, 30 seconds or whatever would be a good minimum, so that it doesn't count if you pick a character and immediately change your mind, or when you backfill into a match that's literally in the process of ending as you join.


You mean heroes have counters in this game?? Unpossible!!

By the time they switch to Zarya to take you on, the Teleporter should be down and you've served your purpose. Or if they started with Zarya instead of Rein, they'll have a lot more trouble actually pushing onto the objective. Or if they had both, that's one less flanker to worry about. Balance and all that.

The thing about that is, you really don't need to switch to a specific counter to deal with Symmetra, at least on consoles. Winston clears her turrets almost before they can start shooting at him. Zarya can get a free charge out of Symmetra's glacially-slow-and-easily-avoided alt fire. But such characters are not at all necessary to foil Symmetra.

A Soldier 76 charging through the side room and running into 2 or 3 turrets has more than enough time to stop, aim individually at each turret,and shoot them off the wall before he even has to think about dropping his healing thingy. And that's with console controls where it's not as quick as clicking the mouse on the thing you want to shoot. Her turrets are a complete non-issue to the enemy unless they are ignored for an extended period of time, and they don't even work as a meaningful distraction because they're broken so quickly.

Symmetra gets a teleporter up really fast because she has a quick natural charge rate, gets a couple percentage points from her turrets before the breeze of someone running past them causes them to break, and her primary fire melts anything that gets close and doesn't kill her in 1-2 seconds. But her ult is also less useful now because most people all know the good teleporter spots now and it gets broken much more quickly on average than it used to.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Edit: I did some research, and the below is actually what OverWatch already does. With that in mind, I suspect their win rates are actually fairly indicative of how characters are really played.

---------

f you really wanted the closest thing to an accurate win rate you can have in this game, you'd really have to weigh their statistics by the total time they were played in a game. So if you played Tracer for half the game but lost, the Tracer stat would count that as a 0 out of .5 games. If you won, it would be a .5 out of .5 games.

This method would largely avoid skewing data for characters selected mainly at the end of games.

[Anteros]

It does still skew the stats to favor heroes who are more played on point A though.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

It does still skew the stats to favor heroes who are more played on point A though.

...I fail to see how, save that point A is the most played point. Which is fine -- it's like how a super late game League of Legends hero would have a lower winrate, because most games wouldn't GET to that point. I'm not sure that's necessarily a problem: it just means the character has an application that is better at a certain place or time that may be more common.

[Anteros]

...I fail to see how, save that point A is the most played point. Which is fine -- it's like how a super late game League of Legends hero would have a lower winrate, because most games wouldn't GET to that point. I'm not sure that's necessarily a problem: it just means the character has an application that is better at a certain place or time that may be more common.

Because if you switch off Symmetra after losing point A she's only getting half of a loss or whatever time. While if you win as her she's getting 100% of a win.

[boomwolf]

...I fail to see how, save that point A is the most played point. Which is fine -- it's like how a super late game League of Legends hero would have a lower winrate, because most games wouldn't GET to that point. I'm not sure that's necessarily a problem: it just means the character has an application that is better at a certain place or time that may be more common.

Because in LoL you don't change heroes mid-game

Playing a late-game oriented hero is a choice there, you choose to try to hold on the early in order to assure late dominance.

In overwatch however, you can always start of with "early" hero picks, than switch to "late" pick as the game progresses, whenever such designations really exist.

And some, like symmetra, and truly dedicated to one time in the game. If you only count the win/loss for whoever was the LAST champion, getting screwy results liky symmetra never losing is easy. If you use the first than you get results not nececerally related to the preformace (and its easy to start one and then switch to cheat the system into counting another hero). pick the longest played and you disregard any "tactical usage" picks, etc.

As long the system that determines what heroes actually win can take into account the fact heroes change, its really hard to gather information about who's overpowered or underpowered when it comes to situational picks. Only game-long champions will provide any useful data.

[Keltest]

Symetra has a good win rate because she's a point A character. Once the first point get's taken, then you switch to someone else, because there won't be enough time to set up all her turrets again. Thus, when you lose the round, it goes down on record as a loss for some other character. However, when you win the round, because you stopped them at the first point, it goes down as a victory for her. Thus, her winrate will look much higher on records than is indicative of her actual usefulness.

Its not just about setting up the turrets, pretty much the entire reason to run Sym is for the teleporter. That can definitely be a game changer. The turrets are very much unhelpful even under optimal circumstances. But at point B your respawn is so close to the point already that theres no need for a teleporter, so all you have is a defensive support whos only legitimately dangerous at close range and who's actual support ability is minimal.

[BRC]

Its not just about setting up the turrets, pretty much the entire reason to run Sym is for the teleporter. That can definitely be a game changer. The turrets are very much unhelpful even under optimal circumstances. But at point B your respawn is so close to the point already that theres no need for a teleporter, so all you have is a defensive support whos only legitimately dangerous at close range and who's actual support ability is minimal.

I think Symm should really be classified as a Defense character, rather than Support, since that's what she is.

Don't underestimate her turrets. The trick to using them is to remember that they won't usually kill anybody on their own, unless you get all six in one place. You use them in places where the enemy is already busy/being shot at, so the time it takes to clear the turrets becomes fatal.

Her other use is her right-click, which serves to help discourage enemy advancement, and can go through Reinhardt shields.

Personally, I think they should just class her as Defensive, take away her ability to give people Shields (The 25 extra health is rarely worth much), and make her faster/tougher, so she can use her particle beam more reliably.

[Keltest]

I think Symm should really be classified as a Defense character, rather than Support, since that's what she is.

Don't underestimate her turrets. The trick to using them is to remember that they won't usually kill anybody on their own, unless you get all six in one place. You use them in places where the enemy is already busy/being shot at, so the time it takes to clear the turrets becomes fatal.

Her other use is her right-click, which serves to help discourage enemy advancement, and can go through Reinhardt shields.

Personally, I think they should just class her as Defensive, take away her ability to give people Shields (The 25 extra health is rarely worth much), and make her faster/tougher, so she can use her particle beam more reliably.

I think if they replaced her current shield ability with an AoE turret or something that she can deploy that automatically shields people in range (with a cooldown on a given target before they can be shielded again) then she might be better as a support. 25 extra health isn't a whole lot, its true, but if it could be maintained fairly effectively in the middle of a battle without Symmetra being put in danger, it could still be helpful.

[BRC]

I think if they replaced her current shield ability with an AoE turret or something that she can deploy that automatically shields people in range (with a cooldown on a given target before they can be shielded again) then she might be better as a support. 25 extra health isn't a whole lot, its true, but if it could be maintained fairly effectively in the middle of a battle without Symmetra being put in danger, it could still be helpful.

Yeah.

Even if you can track down everybody at the start to give them shields (Not always doable, especially since you need to get to the chokepoint ASAP to set up turrets), shielding people mid-battle is sporadic at best.

Setting up some sort of Shield Dispenser would be nice.

[ChaosOS]

Symmetra needs a rework, back in beta when she shielded for 50 hp she was a real support but since they nerfed it to 25 she's a defense hero. I like the idea of a "Shield Projector" that automatically hands out 50 HP shields periodically (Maybe with a duration, to encourage putting it near the front lines?)

[Psyren]

One nice change they made is the "No Support Characters" tooltip has been modified to "No Healers" - and will now still warn groups even if someone picked Symmetra. So Blizzard at least seems cognizant of the fact that Symmetra doesn't fit in well with the other Supports.

Whether they ultimately move her to Defense or not, I'm hoping her E gets redone. The D.Va changes prove they're at least willing to look at that, and given how little her current E matters at all levels of play, I see it as a great way to improve her competitive profile without unbalancing her in casual.

[Anteros]

Yeah, her E used to be a lot more useful when Widow had the 150 damage body shots since it allowed characters like Zen and Tracer to survive a hit. Since they rebalanced Widow and Zen it feels like it rarely makes any difference at all.

[Necroticplague]

I think that expanding on her role as a defender (she basically is) and an architect might be an interesting direction for her to go in. Maybe something where she can build a projector that creates a moderate square (say....half a rein shield in area) of wall or floor, so instead of running around shielding everybody, she rigs up the battlefield ahead of time with convenient platforms or cover.

[Artanis]

Changing gears a bit...

The votes have been tallied, and the World Cup teams have been announced (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20252894).


My thoughts:

-Apparently, when you have fans vote for their favorite players, YouTubers tend to get a bunch of votes. Who knew? :smalltongue:
-As a total math nerd, I find it interesting how Team Vietnam's top two both had over 80% vote share, but Team Costa Rica had nobody over 14%.
-Wait, HuK is an Overwatch guy? I guess that explains why I haven't heard much about him in regards to StarCraft of late.
-Chinese fans apparently all just voted for iG.Fire. That bodes well for their chances of winning, I suppose.

[Psyren]

I wonder when the "most played" is counting from. All time? It would explain the utter lack of D.VA, because she sucked so badly at the beginning, but her pickrate with these guys has to be much higher now.

And now I'm probably going to watch some Talespin Mei videos.

[Velaryon]

Her other use is her right-click, which serves to help discourage enemy advancement, and can go through Reinhardt shields.


You mean her alt fire that shoots slower-than-a-narcoleptic-turtle orbs that even turret form Bastion has plenty of time to move away from? You have to fire them basically point blank or fire masses of barely-charged orbs to have a chance of hitting anyone with them. Her primary fire is way more useful, and is only limited by its short range. But boy oh boy, is that primary fire good. I was playing defense on King's Row tonight (one of the few matches that didn't end in disconnect, because Blizzard's servers are garbage lately. I don't buy their DDoS excuse one bit), and we had something like four D.Va's on the attacking team. I burned most of them down in about two seconds by just staying behind them and keeping my beam on them. They'd pop out of their mech, and then die almost instantly when my beam found them.

Unfortunately we still lost, because they managed to gang up on me, and were very good at tracking down my teleporters and destroying them. But I finished with gold in eliminations and objective kills, and silver in damage.

The turrets, on the other hand, got me maybe 2-3 kills total, mostly by latching on to other people's kills without making any meaningful contribution to those kills. I stagger them far enough apart that they can't easily be splashed all at once, but close enough that they can concentrate fire from at least 3 turrets at once. Doesn't matter, they're still useless.

[Psyren]

Her Orbs are for lobbing at a choke or flank entrance in a ceaseless stream. Either you hit, or you've successfully zoned their entire team and cost them precious time. And again, they work particularly well on Reinhardt, who has trouble seeing them and whose shield not only fails to protect him from them, it fails to protect anyone behind him too.

Yes, her primary fire is superior, particularly against slippery targets like naked D.Va. But the orbs have much longer range, so you can use those without running past the choke and putting yourself in unnecessary danger (likely dying before you can get your teleporter up.) By all means switch to her primary if an enemy pushes in though.

[BRC]

You mean her alt fire that shoots slower-than-a-narcoleptic-turtle orbs that even turret form Bastion has plenty of time to move away from? You have to fire them basically point blank or fire masses of barely-charged orbs to have a chance of hitting anyone with them. Her primary fire is way more useful, and is only limited by its short range. But boy oh boy, is that primary fire good. I was playing defense on King's Row tonight (one of the few matches that didn't end in disconnect, because Blizzard's servers are garbage lately. I don't buy their DDoS excuse one bit), and we had something like four D.Va's on the attacking team. I burned most of them down in about two seconds by just staying behind them and keeping my beam on them. They'd pop out of their mech, and then die almost instantly when my beam found them.

Unfortunately we still lost, because they managed to gang up on me, and were very good at tracking down my teleporters and destroying them. But I finished with gold in eliminations and objective kills, and silver in damage.

The turrets, on the other hand, got me maybe 2-3 kills total, mostly by latching on to other people's kills without making any meaningful contribution to those kills. I stagger them far enough apart that they can't easily be splashed all at once, but close enough that they can concentrate fire from at least 3 turrets at once. Doesn't matter, they're still useless.

The point of the Orbs isn't to get Kills, it's to stall the enemy.

The time they spend dodging the constant river of Death Orbs is time they're not pushing the point. Once they get close, you use the Beam.

But, if you're constantly rushing in to use her beam, your head full of dreams of shredding down tanks in seconds, you're just going to die. Symmetra is pretty squishy considering how close she has to get before she can start dealing damage with her primary fire.

[The_Jackal]

The point of the Orbs isn't to get Kills, it's to stall the enemy.

The time they spend dodging the constant river of Death Orbs is time they're not pushing the point. Once they get close, you use the Beam.

But, if you're constantly rushing in to use her beam, your head full of dreams of shredding down tanks in seconds, you're just going to die. Symmetra is pretty squishy considering how close she has to get before she can start dealing damage with her primary fire.

Yes, everyone understands that all the alt-fire is good for is zoning people. That doesn't make them good or effective. What kind of gameplay is that? You're basically lobbing boulders down a hallway hoping that someone runs into them? It's not a constant river, either. You can either send a high damage ball every 2 seconds, or lose a third of your DPS throwing undercharged shots. Even fully charged, it's 62.5 DPS, assuming you hit with every round, which is beyond unlikely since everyone who doesn't blunder around a corner into one will have ample time to get out of the way. Mercy's popgun and Ana's sniper fire all do far more damage, and they're among the lowest damage heroes in the game. As for 'time taken dodging' slowing the enemy, that's a joke. None of the main approaches to the objectives are close enough quarters to cost a meaningful amount of time to sidestep your blue orb. The only remotely relevant approach I can think of in any map is the side tunnels near point A on Numbani. Everywhere else, your only hope is to clip someone who's distracted by someone actually dangerous, and hope that that actually dangerous player has already dented them enough to let the ball finish them off. Because otherwise, the best you're going to hope to do is feed ult to their healers.

I've got 136 hours played in Overwatch. I've been killed by a Symmetra orb twice.

[Psyren]

Mercy's popgun and Ana's sniper fire all do far more damage, and they're among the lowest damage heroes in the game.

Except Symmetra's orbs don't stop when they hit an enemy (or a Rein/Winston shield) so her total damage done tends to be much higher than either of those two. Lucio can deal with several members of his team (or all of them!) losing 125 simultaneously on their way through a choke, but the other three are likely to get frantic.

Her orbs' usefulness is measured not by their dps, but by their burst. Not many attacks can do 125 all in one go with barely any aim and still be peeked around a corner; of the few that can, none ignore barriers except hers. She can lob them at an oncoming force from relative safety and minimal risk to herself, while her turrets also enable her to hold down a choke/flank solo.

[Velaryon]

Except Symmetra's orbs don't stop when they hit an enemy (or a Rein/Winston shield) so her total damage done tends to be much higher than either of those two. Lucio can deal with several members of his team (or all of them!) losing 125 simultaneously on their way through a choke, but the other three are likely to get frantic.

Her orbs' usefulness is measured not by their dps, but by their burst. Not many attacks can do 125 all in one go with barely any aim and still be peeked around a corner; of the few that can, none ignore barriers except hers. She can lob them at an oncoming force from relative safety and minimal risk to herself, while her turrets also enable her to hold down a choke/flank solo.

Hitting even one person with Symmetra's orbs, even at a choke point with other people shooting at the same enemy, is already fantasically unlikely. The fact that the orb could conceivably hit more than one person (which is so unlikely that if we calculated the odds it would have to be in scientific notation), is really not an argument that the orb is any good. There is no choke point in the game small enough that people have to group that close together. And time spent dodging the orbs? Give me a break. They come on so slowly that you don't even have to break forward momentum to avoid them, you just angle off for a couple of steps and you're clear. You're more likely to get a team kill by yourself with a Winston ult than you are to seriously threaten multiple targets with Symmetra's alt fire.

[Anteros]

You mean her alt fire that shoots slower-than-a-narcoleptic-turtle orbs that even turret form Bastion has plenty of time to move away from? You have to fire them basically point blank or fire masses of barely-charged orbs to have a chance of hitting anyone with them. Her primary fire is way more useful, and is only limited by its short range. But boy oh boy, is that primary fire good. I was playing defense on King's Row tonight (one of the few matches that didn't end in disconnect, because Blizzard's servers are garbage lately. I don't buy their DDoS excuse one bit), and we had something like four D.Va's on the attacking team. I burned most of them down in about two seconds by just staying behind them and keeping my beam on them. They'd pop out of their mech, and then die almost instantly when my beam found them.

Unfortunately we still lost, because they managed to gang up on me, and were very good at tracking down my teleporters and destroying them. But I finished with gold in eliminations and objective kills, and silver in damage.

The turrets, on the other hand, got me maybe 2-3 kills total, mostly by latching on to other people's kills without making any meaningful contribution to those kills. I stagger them far enough apart that they can't easily be splashed all at once, but close enough that they can concentrate fire from at least 3 turrets at once. Doesn't matter, they're still useless.

You should never even be able to kill one DVA with it honestly. If you both just shoot each other you'll lose that fight every time. Plus, the DVA can just fly away any time your primary builds too much charge.

Ultimately, she's just a bad hero. Which I think is partially by design. Her ult is so useful that if you make her kit good outside of it she's going to be overpowered. She needs some kind of buff, but she's never going to be a hero that you pick on point B and actually contribute with.

[The_Jackal]

Except Symmetra's orbs don't stop when they hit an enemy (or a Rein/Winston shield) so her total damage done tends to be much higher than either of those two. Lucio can deal with several members of his team (or all of them!) losing 125 simultaneously on their way through a choke, but the other three are likely to get frantic.

The only circumstance in which you can reasonably expect them to hit two targets is during Zarya's ultimate. They move too slowly to not be trivially dodged. I will grant you this: They'll make a Reinhardt/Bastion duo shift their position. I'm not sure what else good they are.


Her orbs' usefulness is measured not by their dps, but by their burst. Not many attacks can do 125 all in one go with barely any aim and still be peeked around a corner; of the few that can, none ignore barriers except hers. She can lob them at an oncoming force from relative safety and minimal risk to herself, while her turrets also enable her to hold down a choke/flank solo.

And that would matter in a circumstance where anyone can't trivially sidestep them and proceed to pick your teammates. If you want someone to zone a chokepoint, Junkrat does the job about three times better, and even Junkrat is a non-factor in high-level competitive play. Finally, safety is a non-merit in Overwatch. Your safety comes from killing your enemies so your teammates have a numerical advantage. You can be safe, stay off the objective, peck at the enemy team and never die, and still lose every game.

[Psyren]

Hitting even one person with Symmetra's orbs, even at a choke point with other people shooting at the same enemy, is already fantasically unlikely. The fact that the orb could conceivably hit more than one person (which is so unlikely that if we calculated the odds it would have to be in scientific notation), is really not an argument that the orb is any good. There is no choke point in the game small enough that people have to group that close together. And time spent dodging the orbs? Give me a break. They come on so slowly that you don't even have to break forward momentum to avoid them, you just angle off for a couple of steps and you're clear. You're more likely to get a team kill by yourself with a Winston ult than you are to seriously threaten multiple targets with Symmetra's alt fire.

It's not the choke itself that makes people group up, it's Reinhardt's shield.

"Give you a break" - look, clearly we're all just entrenched at this point and there's nothing to be gained by continuing. You believe the odds require scientific notation, I don't, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[thracian]

For what it's worth, I've never been hit by a charged orb. I don't think I've ever been hit by an uncharged one, but it's possible one might have hit me without me noticing. They don't do very much after all.

[Anteros]

I can only think of one time I've been hit by one, and I'm pretty sure the Sym was lagging because I was quite far away from it when I took the damage.

[chainer1216]

I have about 30 hour on Reinhardt, my next highest time played characters are at ~11 hours.

As Rein I have died to more fully charged orbs than i care to admit. While i have my shield up i move so slowly that a well aimed shot can be difficult to dodge, but more than that i have to think about those behind me, do i drop my shield to ensure a dodge? Doing so leaves me open to other characters and exposes my teamates as well. Hell even dodging the orb while my shield is up makes me move so far to the left or right that i'll most likely expose one or two behind me, so in the end i often just have to grit my teeth and bare it.

Being on that side of things i feel the balls utility is greatly underestimated, its not something that will get you a PotG or a card at the end of the game but with proper use of it you can direct the path your enemies, which is a very powerful ability especially if you are coordinating with even one other player.

[Keltest]

I have about 30 hour on Reinhardt, my next highest time played characters are at ~11 hours.

As Rein I have died to more fully charged orbs than i care to admit. While i have my shield up i move so slowly that a well aimed shot can be difficult to dodge, but more than that i have to think about those behind me, do i drop my shield to ensure a dodge? Doing so leaves me open to other characters and exposes my teamates as well. Hell even dodging the orb while my shield is up makes me move so far to the left or right that i'll most likely expose one or two behind me, so in the end i often just have to grit my teeth and bare it.

Being on that side of things i feel the balls utility is greatly underestimated, its not something that will get you a PotG or a card at the end of the game but with proper use of it you can direct the path your enemies, which is a very powerful ability especially if you are coordinating with even one other player.

Agreed. I don't usually get killed by the orbs themselves, but by my reaction to them. Most often I see it at the choke points on point A on Volskaya or Hanamura where the defense has everything set up. It either forces Rein to break his cover or gets some sweet sweet teleport charge going (or both).

[Aux-Ash]

I've actually scored plenty of kills and even given entire pushes pause with those orbs, they're not to be underestimated. The key is that their primary purpose is for zoning or to funnel people into ambushes. Yeah, there'll be the odd Zarya that grabs it to charge her shield (however, if that means Zarya won't have the shield for the big fight a few seconds later that's an orb well spent). But most others will actively try to dodge it or even hesitate before they approach. So it's great to send down through narrow funnels (like at Numbani), at corners people are going to round (like on Voloskaya), or at a Reinhardt (since the support behind him might not see it until too late). I also find it rather effective at finishing Winston off as it'll pass through his shield unhindered.

Plus... and this is why it's so increadibly valuable: You don't actually need to kill with it... you just need to cause damage to build up your ult charge as quickly as possible. And firing this orb down the choke while the enemy are poking or pushing is a reasonably safe way of doing so.

[mythmonster2]

Patch and competitive season 2 came out early! Patch notes here (http://eu.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/17613282653), but it looks like it's the same as the latest iteration of the PTR.

[NeoVid]

Finished my placement matches, which had a shocking lack of ahole players on my teams. Which probably contributed to my positive record. I'm now ranked 2526, juuuuust barely high enough to be at the very bottom of Platinum. As soon as I saw that, I instantly started to be grateful for this season's mechanic of not being able to drop in tier.

More importantly, I'm now only 1900 competitive points from unlocking my first gold weapon. Uh, yay, that'll take no time at all...

The gold weapon I want most is Roadhog's, and after a moment of thought, I decided I need to start a petition to Blizzard to make the golden scrapgun fire jewelry.

[thracian]

I came here just to post that I have officially been hit by my first Symmetra orb. Only took a dozen hours to get hit by one.

[Anteros]

I think I'll give it a while before I do my placement matches. It'll give the ragers and super try-hards a chance to filter out, and also give me a chance to acclimate to the new patch.

[Landis963]

I think I'll give it a while before I do my placement matches. It'll give the ragers and super try-hards a chance to filter out, and also give me a chance to acclimate to the new patch.

Same. I'm trying to expand my hero repertoire on the same (specifically into the sniper category), and I'm not good enough with any of them to consider taking them into comp. Actually, on that note, are there any sniper drills I can practice on the target range or something?

[Anteros]

Same. I'm trying to expand my hero repertoire on the same (specifically into the sniper category), and I'm not good enough with any of them to consider taking them into comp. Actually, on that note, are there any sniper drills I can practice on the target range or something?

You can do a bot match with all enemy Ana bots. Put them on the hardest difficulty so they constantly strafe, and turn on head shots only so they can't kill you. Target practice all day.

You can also use other heroes that can't headshot like Pharah or Zarya if you want to mix it up. Make sure you put a friendly both or two on your own team as well so you can stand back without them capping.

[thracian]

Make sure you put a friendly both or two on your own team as well so you can stand back without them capping.

Can't you set custom game mode to skirmish?

[Anteros]

Can't you set custom game mode to skirmish?

Maybe? I'm not sure. My method works fine so I never really experimented with it.

[Landis963]

You can do a bot match with all enemy Ana bots. Put them on the hardest difficulty so they constantly strafe, and turn on head shots only so they can't kill you. Target practice all day.

Where is the upvote button when you need one? Thanks. :smallsmile:

[Pendulous]

Yeah. Repertoire seems to be my main issue. I can say that I'm good with three characters. D.va, Junkrat, and Lucio. And on Lucio, I have a bad habit of trying to get too offensive. I have a somewhat significant amount of experience with Soldier, Mei, and Reinhart, and a little bit of Mercy. But in serious situations, I only feel confident with the first three.

[Landis963]

Yeah. Repertoire seems to be my main issue. I can say that I'm good with three characters. D.va, Junkrat, and Lucio. And on Lucio, I have a bad habit of trying to get too offensive. I have a somewhat significant amount of experience with Soldier, Mei, and Reinhart, and a little bit of Mercy. But in serious situations, I only feel confident with the first three.

I consider my main three to be Dva, Lucio, and Soldier. I can also play Winston, Symmetra, and Tracer passing well (although I keep derping off of ledges or into walls as Tracer), and I'm getting some practice in on Zenyatta whenever I'm in comp and someone's already picked 2 tanks and a Lucio (such players/teams do in fact exist). Junkrat works well in a pinch, as does Bastion, but sniping or picking Mei? Hah, no. Likewise, I'm not good enough with Mercy to really get into the meat of her kit.

[Pendulous]

Oh, and Torby. I love playing him, but I rarely get a chance to.

I don't like the new map. Way too easy to spawn camp on defense, and then if you get the payload, you have to go a long way.

[Keltest]

my mains are Reinhardt, 76 and Zarya. I am a very aggressive player, and I find 76 and Zarya allow me to be that way without getting killed (as much), while Reinhardt slows me down enough that I don't (usually) find myself neck deep in enemy team without getting, say, charged by the other Reinhardt. Ive also been practicing D.va just because defense matrix is that useful, but that tends to be a reactionary pick more than one I would choose to start the game with.

[Anteros]

I like pretty much everyone except Mccree, and I still play him a decent amount just because he's the most consistent attack hero in the game by a large margin.

The only characters I completely avoid are the defense ones. Torb, Sym, Bastion, etc. I used to avoid Hanzo, but he's good now. Mei is probably my favorite out of the bunch, but I only get to play her in quickplay.

Overall favorites or "best" characters have to be Rein, Tracer, Mei, and Zenyatta.

[Velaryon]

Does anybody have some advice for strategy in Eichenwalde? (Keep in mind that I'm a console player). The early part of the stage is like a flanker's paradise, with countless buildings to dart in and out of, so I've been using Tracer on both attack and defense. The problem is, I'm not actually very good with Tracer. Mostly what I end up doing is running around harassing people but not actually accomplishing very much. I distract one or two people for the amount of time it takes them to chase me down and kill me (except Hanzo - every single Hanzo gets constant headshots on me now even though I'm constantly moving). I score some kills, but not as many as I should be.

There's got to be other ways to approach this stage. Any suggestions? I'm most comfortable with D.Va, Mei, Soldier 76, and to a lesser degree Pharah, Lucio, and Mercy. Honestly the only characters I don't play at all are Ana, Genji, Widowmaker, and Zarya because I'm terrible with them.

[Keltest]

Does anybody have some advice for strategy in Eichenwalde? (Keep in mind that I'm a console player). The early part of the stage is like a flanker's paradise, with countless buildings to dart in and out of, so I've been using Tracer on both attack and defense. The problem is, I'm not actually very good with Tracer. Mostly what I end up doing is running around harassing people but not actually accomplishing very much. I distract one or two people for the amount of time it takes them to chase me down and kill me (except Hanzo - every single Hanzo gets constant headshots on me now even though I'm constantly moving). I score some kills, but not as many as I should be.

There's got to be other ways to approach this stage. Any suggestions? I'm most comfortable with D.Va, Mei, Soldier 76, and to a lesser degree Pharah, Lucio, and Mercy. Honestly the only characters I don't play at all are Ana, Genji, Widowmaker, and Zarya because I'm terrible with them.

The biggest thing ive noticed while playing is that the enemy can and will attack you from all sorts of bizarre locations unless you take steps to keep them locked down. This is easier for the defenders because the attackers need to escort the payload for most of the map and therefore cant necessarily afford to split up all over the place to come at you. The group I play with does have trouble fighting that kind of strategy because we tend to favor both shorter range characters and have difficulty coordinating while were split.

Anyway, I think its critical that you have somebody with fairly long range damage no matter which team your on so that you can react to a flanker getting in an odd place.

[Necroticplague]

Well, on the defensive side, if you're at the part that's a flanker's paradise, you're too far forward. There's a bridge on the path to the point that pretty much everyone has to go under or over (pharah ,winston, and d.va might be able to get away with jumping over the houses on either side instead, have to check). That's where the defence should be focused on. A bit further back on defence, the tower in the middle of the castle offers an excellent vantage point of pretty much the whole route up until the second gate.

Offensively, that first bridge is still key. If you can muscle you're way through that, you pretty much got it for that part. Obviously, a typical Deathball is good for busting through. once you got the cart moving, someone with good long-range is recommended, due to the very long sight lines on the second portion of the map.

The third part, though it has some side passages, is usually just something that devolves into a massive, chaotic slugfest. Just pick whoever you have the best aim with, and stick close the cart while firing.

[Psyren]

Best Supports: Lucio on King of the Hill and Mercy everywhere else.
Best Defense: Mei and Symmetra.
Best Offense: Reaper and 76. Some Pharah.
Best Tanks: D.Va primary and Zarya secondary. Some Winston.

Best Overall: D.Va, Mei and Symmetra.


I came here just to post that I have officially been hit by my first Symmetra orb. Only took a dozen hours to get hit by one.

A_Seagull demonstrating proper technique. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCwUdDtdPP0)

[Anteros]

Even he admits that she's the worst character in the game though.

[AgentPaper]

A_Seagull demonstrating proper technique. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCwUdDtdPP0)

Yeah, that's a good example of how to use her orbs. The key is to realize that the slow speed of her orbs can be a strength as well as a weakness. Rather than trying to use them like normal projectiles, aiming them at a target that you know you can hit, you should instead be firing them relatively blindly down lanes that you know that the enemy wants to traverse. By doing so, you prevent them from being able to use those lanes as freely as they normally would be able to, having to stop and wait for an orb to pass, or move out of it when they'd rather be staying in there shooting. Or you hit them and deal a hefty chunk of damage, which is also good.

Would her alt-fire be better if the projectiles moved as fast as most others? Probably. But ignoring how useful they can be because they could potentially be better is simply foolish.

[Psyren]

Even he admits that she's the worst character in the game though.

She's the only character in the game without a meaningful E ability so I'd agree, she gets that title by default. But the earlier "scientific notation" hyperbole has been shown to be just that.

[Keltest]

She's the only character in the game without a meaningful E ability so I'd agree, she gets that title by default. But the earlier "scientific notation" hyperbole has been shown to be just that.

well, D.Va doesn't even have an E anymore. It was folded into her alt fire. So that's a poor standard as well.

[The_Jackal]

Yeah, that's a good example of how to use her orbs. The key is to realize that the slow speed of her orbs can be a strength as well as a weakness. Rather than trying to use them like normal projectiles, aiming them at a target that you know you can hit, you should instead be firing them relatively blindly down lanes that you know that the enemy wants to traverse. By doing so, you prevent them from being able to use those lanes as freely as they normally would be able to, having to stop and wait for an orb to pass, or move out of it when they'd rather be staying in there shooting. Or you hit them and deal a hefty chunk of damage, which is also good.

Would her alt-fire be better if the projectiles moved as fast as most others? Probably. But ignoring how useful they can be because they could potentially be better is simply foolish.


Yeah, that's a good example of how to use her orbs. The key is to realize that the slow speed of her orbs can be a strength as well as a weakness. Rather than trying to use them like normal projectiles, aiming them at a target that you know you can hit, you should instead be firing them relatively blindly down lanes that you know that the enemy wants to traverse. By doing so, you prevent them from being able to use those lanes as freely as they normally would be able to, having to stop and wait for an orb to pass, or move out of it when they'd rather be staying in there shooting. Or you hit them and deal a hefty chunk of damage, which is also good.

Would her alt-fire be better if the projectiles moved as fast as most others? Probably. But ignoring how useful they can be because they could potentially be better is simply foolish.

Nobody's arguing that not shooting her alt-fire is better than shooting it. Her problem is that her alt-fire is terrible, easy to avoid, and basically requires a corridor to leverage into any kind of a threat. Yes, Seagull got a lot of damage done in that fight, but it wasn't his alt fire doing it, it was his outstanding turret placement and his excellent teammates who held their defensive line and avoided dying stupid, so they couldn't just blow in through the choke, hose down her mini turrets, and kill everybody. His turret placement was excellent, but the opposition didn't coordinate AT ALL, trickling through different entrances throughout the game, half the team staying back and poking instead of supporting their teammates.

Seagull's technique and map awareness is definitely good, but you're joking if you think he couldn't have done as well or better on a different Hero. IMO, that video is just a demonstration of the conditions in which Symmetra gets here win rate: Holding a tight chokepoint versus uncoordinated pugs who feed themselves into the slaughterhouse.

[Keltest]

Nobody's arguing that not shooting her alt-fire is better than shooting it. Her problem is that her alt-fire is terrible, easy to avoid, and basically requires a corridor to leverage into any kind of a threat. Yes, Seagull got a lot of damage done in that fight, but it wasn't his alt fire doing it, it was his outstanding turret placement and his excellent teammates who held their defensive line and avoided dying stupid, so they couldn't just blow in through the choke, hose down her mini turrets, and kill everybody. His turret placement was excellent, but the opposition didn't coordinate AT ALL, trickling through different entrances throughout the game, half the team staying back and poking instead of supporting their teammates.

Seagull's technique and map awareness is definitely good, but you're joking if you think he couldn't have done as well or better on a different Hero. IMO, that video is just a demonstration of the conditions in which Symmetra gets here win rate: Holding a tight chokepoint versus uncoordinated pugs who feed themselves into the slaughterhouse.

Except another hero doesn't bring the teleporter, which is absolutely massive. Symmetra is a niche hero, agreed, but within that niche she performs really, really well. If she didn't, you wouldn't see her at all. Another hero might be able to do the job that her alt fire does better, but the alt-fire is just a side benefit of picking her, because youre after the teleporter.

[Landis963]

Except another hero doesn't bring the teleporter, which is absolutely massive. Symmetra is a niche hero, agreed, but within that niche she performs really, really well. If she didn't, you wouldn't see her at all. Another hero might be able to do the job that her alt fire does better, but the alt-fire is just a side benefit of picking her, because youre after the teleporter.

Another side benefit of picking Symmetra: pseudo-vision on the flank points (another reason why she's picked so often for Assault point A and then quickly dropped otherwise). I got favorable comments for my Symmetra performance during a Quick play match because I didn't try and pack all my turrets into one room on Volskaya. Of course, such "vision" is useless without communicating it to the rest of the team.

[Psyren]

well, D.Va doesn't even have an E anymore. It was folded into her alt fire. So that's a poor standard as well.

I wouldn't complain if she got one either actually. She doesn't really need one, sure, but I'm against unused buttons in general.



Seagull's technique and map awareness is definitely good, but you're joking if you think he couldn't have done as well or better on a different Hero. IMO, that video is just a demonstration of the conditions in which Symmetra gets here win rate: Holding a tight chokepoint versus uncoordinated pugs who feed themselves into the slaughterhouse.

A random pug at Seagull's level would likely cream most of us. He was playing solo there, and Competitive to boot.

"He could have done better on a different hero" misses the point. The assertion made in this thread is that people never saw the orbs hit or used as a zoning tool in a high-level match. Seagull did both, so I linked it. (He also has Mei videos for that set of naysayers.) A futile effort most likely, but maybe someone lurking will appreciate the visual aid instead.

[Anteros]

She's the only character in the game without a meaningful E ability so I'd agree, she gets that title by default. But the earlier "scientific notation" hyperbole has been shown to be just that.

Because of one example of a pro player being not completely useless on her against random pubs? You're being silly.

[Manticoran]

Because of one example of a pro player being not completely useless on her against random pubs? You're being silly.

...Except she's CLEARLY usable. If she's still usable at Seagull's level, unless you think any of us are better than Seagull, it follows that she is usable at our level as well, as it's not like there's a whole lot of "Aim perfectly at all times" that McCree has or anything in her kit.

We're not arguing that we're going to see her in a bunch of pro games. But holy crap she's *fine* at the very least at games below Seagull's level(And there isn't much above Seagull's level at this point).

[Psyren]

...Except she's CLEARLY usable. If she's still usable at Seagull's level, unless you think any of us are better than Seagull, it follows that she is usable at our level as well, as it's not like there's a whole lot of "Aim perfectly at all times" that McCree has or anything in her kit.

We're not arguing that we're going to see her in a bunch of pro games. But holy crap she's *fine* at the very least at games below Seagull's level(And there isn't much above Seagull's level at this point).

All of this.


Because of one example of a pro player being not completely useless on her against random pubs? You're being silly.

If I may use vernacular here - "no, u."

[The_Jackal]

...Except she's CLEARLY usable. If she's still usable at Seagull's level, unless you think any of us are better than Seagull, it follows that she is usable at our level as well, as it's not like there's a whole lot of "Aim perfectly at all times" that McCree has or anything in her kit.

We're not arguing that we're going to see her in a bunch of pro games. But holy crap she's *fine* at the very least at games below Seagull's level(And there isn't much above Seagull's level at this point).

Ah, the 'expert interface' argument. Well, it's specious. The whole purpose of the MMR is to match you with players of your approximate skill level, so the notion of a pro-level players farming random puggers is an outlier most players will not experience. Yes, Symmetra's ample weaknesses can be somewhat mitigated with good turret placement, and there's no question that her ultimate can be fiendishly useful in the right circumstances, but my assertion still stands: Symmetra is not a character you can take control of a game with. It's a character whose performance is the MOST dependent on your teammates and your opponents. The teleporter is the purest expression of this: If your teammates using the teleporter can't get a kill, all your ult is doing is charging enemy ults faster. Turrets require teammates in position to exploit the distraction, so that if they focus on turret cleanout, they're taking unopposed fire from your team. Orbs are good only for zoning, hitting someone is largely a matter of blind luck. Even her left-click is dependent on the opposing team not running afoul of a Reaper or D.va turning her face into meat. Her strength is fundamentally dependent on the opponents' weakness.

[Psyren]

Ah, the 'expert interface' argument. Well, it's specious. The whole purpose of the MMR is to match you with players of your approximate skill level, so the notion of a pro-level players farming random puggers is an outlier most players will not experience.

The point is that "random puggers" at Seagull's level are still likely to be more dangerous than the same at our level, defanging your dismissal of them. Yes, there are outlier cases where he will get matched opposite weaker people that have no business playing against him, but he had no way of knowing whether that would be the case when he picked her, and did so anyway.

Again, for the record, I wouldn't object to Symmetra buffs at all. I think there's room for improvement, particularly where her E is concerned. But I also find hyperbole as laughable and worthy of ignoring as Seagull himself does at the beginning of the video when people were literally telling him they were offended that he picked her in a Competitive match.


Yes, Symmetra's ample weaknesses can be somewhat mitigated with good turret placement, and there's no question that her ultimate can be fiendishly useful in the right circumstances, but my assertion still stands: Symmetra is not a character you can take control of a game with. It's a character whose performance is the MOST dependent on your teammates and your opponents. The teleporter is the purest expression of this: If your teammates using the teleporter can't get a kill, all your ult is doing is charging enemy ults faster. Turrets require teammates in position to exploit the distraction, so that if they focus on turret cleanout, they're taking unopposed fire from your team. Orbs are good only for zoning, hitting someone is largely a matter of blind luck. Even her left-click is dependent on the opposing team not running afoul of a Reaper or D.va turning her face into meat. Her strength is fundamentally dependent on the opponents' weakness.

What you're describing - a support that relies on good teammates to do well - is a feature, not a bug. Not at all trying not to be snarky here, but that is what "support" means :smalltongue: Mercy can't carry a bad team (one that spreads out, overextends, and otherwise fails to protect her) either, though at least her ult is useful on Objective B. Healing and Rezzing a bad team also does little more than charge enemy ults.

"Orbs are good only for zoning" - you say that like it's somehow a bad thing, but when one team's job is to run out the clock, zoning and stalling are useful strategies too. And when the enemy ignores them and charges in anyway (particularly when they think they're safely behind their advancing Reinhardt) we saw exactly what happened in the video, where SG charged his teleporter mere seconds after the match began.

"Turrets require teammates in position" - Of course they do, and chokepoints exist to naturally encourage that. Seagull used his to help lock down the flanks very close to his team so that they could focus on the main choke.

[thracian]

Am I reading the League of Legends forum from 2012? These arguments are all exactly the same.

[The_Jackal]

Am I reading the League of Legends forum from 2012? These arguments are all exactly the same.

It's almost as if Overwatch has many archetypes and mechanics inspired by MOBAs.


The point is that "random puggers" at Seagull's level are still likely to be more dangerous than the same at our level, defanging your dismissal of them. Yes, there are outlier cases where he will get matched opposite weaker people that have no business playing against him, but he had no way of knowing whether that would be the case when he picked her, and did so anyway.

Not according to how they were ranked. It shows everyone's competitive rank at the outset of play. So if they WERE on Seagull's level, they either had a bad run of luck in the placement matches, or they'd been tanking their MMR for reasons passing understanding.


Again, for the record, I wouldn't object to Symmetra buffs at all. I think there's room for improvement, particularly where her E is concerned. But I also find hyperbole as laughable and worthy of ignoring as Seagull himself does at the beginning of the video when people were literally telling him they were offended that he picked her in a Competitive match.

I'm not engaging in any hyperbole. I've already expounded amply on her strengths. My objection to her has less to do with her power and effectiveness, and more to do with the inflexibility and reactivity in her kit, and even in the Seagull video, you can see instances where he's hampered by her feebleness, in particular where she sees the Tracer flanker and laughably starts lobbing orbs in the general direction of where she might come, because of the EXACT PROBLEM I'M COMPLAINING ABOUT.


What you're describing - a support that relies on good teammates to do well - is a feature, not a bug. Not at all trying not to be snarky here, but that is what "support" means :smalltongue: Mercy can't carry a bad team (one that spreads out, overextends, and otherwise fails to protect her) either, though at least her ult is useful on Objective B. Healing and Rezzing a bad team also does little more than charge enemy ults.

The problem, I suspect, is in your adherence to the Blizzard thesis that just because she's categorized with the other supports, that she is one. Much in the same way that Roadhog is not a tank, in spite of being in the tank category, Symmetra is a support only in name. She's a defense hero. She's got far more in common with Torbjorn than she does with Mercy or Lucio. I will concede that good communication with her team will make her Sentry turrets more useful for providing situational awareness, but in my opinion, that's not good enough, and her current residence in the basement of the meta (https://www.overbuff.com/blog/2016-09-06-overwatch-hero-tier-list-and-meta-report-season-2-meta-boogaloo) reinforces my assessment, not yours.


"Orbs are good only for zoning" - you say that like it's somehow a bad thing, but when one team's job is to run out the clock, zoning and stalling are useful strategies too. And when the enemy ignores them and charges in anyway (particularly when they think they're safely behind their advancing Reinhardt) we saw exactly what happened in the video, where SG charged his teleporter mere seconds after the match began.

It IS a bad thing, when compared to literally anyone else's fire mode which can accomplish the same thing, as well as possibly prevail in battle on an open map. Even Junkrat's grenades can, through sheer volume of fire and good prediction, hit an aware target in an open affray. Anyone can spam fire down a hallway in hopes that someone will run into it.


"Turrets require teammates in position" - Of course they do, and chokepoints exist to naturally encourage that. Seagull used his to help lock down the flanks very close to his team so that they could focus on the main choke.

Look, I'm not trying to argue that any Hero is an island to themself, I'm just offering that Symmetra's kit is not very powerful, relatively easy to counter/circumvent, and these factors account for her non-existent pick rate in the tournament scene. She's good because your opponents are bad. When your opponents are good, she's bad. I'm not even sure why this is a very controversial statement, the same thing could be said of Bastion and Torbjorn, two other heroes that mulch uncoordinated teams, and are absent from the pro-scene.

[Anteros]

...Except she's CLEARLY usable. If she's still usable at Seagull's level, unless you think any of us are better than Seagull, it follows that she is usable at our level as well, as it's not like there's a whole lot of "Aim perfectly at all times" that McCree has or anything in her kit.

We're not arguing that we're going to see her in a bunch of pro games. But holy crap she's *fine* at the very least at games below Seagull's level(And there isn't much above Seagull's level at this point).

Did you see the part where his whole team begged him to not pick her? That's because she's not actually viable at that level at all. Unless you happen to be a pro player and 5X better than everyone else in the game.

[Psyren]

I'm not engaging in any hyperbole. I've already expounded amply on her strengths. My objection to her has less to do with her power and effectiveness, and more to do with the inflexibility and reactivity in her kit, and even in the Seagull video, you can see instances where he's hampered by her feebleness, in particular where she sees the Tracer flanker and laughably starts lobbing orbs in the general direction of where she might come, because of the EXACT PROBLEM I'M COMPLAINING ABOUT.

Right, because a Lucio or Reinhardt could have done so much more to stop a Tracer getting past them too. Not every class needs to be good at everything.


The problem, I suspect, is in your adherence to the Blizzard thesis that just because she's categorized with the other supports, that she is one.

Actually no, I was being facetious - I do think (and have said repeatedly, including in the last thread) that she belongs more in Defense. But the basic idea of heroes that work at their best with other heroes is not unique to the Support category either.

And yes - yet again - I agree that she's weak in the pro meta. No one wants that to change more than me. But I'm not going to treat her like she has leprosy, rickets and polio in the meantime, nor do I want to play exclusively in games that mirror the pro meta anyway.



It IS a bad thing, when compared to literally anyone else's fire mode which can accomplish the same thing, as well as possibly prevail in battle on an open map. Even Junkrat's grenades can, through sheer volume of fire and good prediction, hit an aware target in an open affray. Anyone can spam fire down a hallway in hopes that someone will run into it.

Can "anyone" do that through an advancing Reinhardt barrier, or teleport dead teammates back to the front in moments for that matter?


Look, I'm not trying to argue that any Hero is an island to themself, I'm just offering that Symmetra's kit is not very powerful, relatively easy to counter/circumvent, and these factors account for her non-existent pick rate in the tournament scene. She's good because your opponents are bad. When your opponents are good, she's bad. I'm not even sure why this is a very controversial statement, the same thing could be said of Bastion and Torbjorn, two other heroes that mulch uncoordinated teams, and are absent from the pro-scene.

"Symmetra is weak" is not controversial. What's controversial are statements like "her alt fire is useless" (it's not), "her usefulness is inversely proportional to her opponent's IQ" (not unique to her), "you need scientific notation to calculate the odds of hitting" (you don't), and so on.

[Yuki Akuma]

Every time I'm on Defense in Hollywood or Hanamura and someone picks Symmetra I do a little dance. Her teleport is SO GOOD on those maps, you guys.

[Keltest]

Every time I'm on Defense in Hollywood or Hanamura and someone picks Symmetra I do a little dance. Her teleport is SO GOOD on those maps, you guys.

Ive lost attack games on those maps that were otherwise a done deal because of that freaking teleport.

[Psyren]

Every time I'm on Defense in Hollywood or Hanamura and someone picks Symmetra I do a little dance. Her teleport is SO GOOD on those maps, you guys.

Also King's Row. Dorado has a decent number of tight chokes and flanks ahead of Point A as well.

Route 66 and Numbani, not so much; I usually go for Torbjorn, D.Va, or Mercy/Lucio on Point A there.

I... haven't played enough Eichenwalde yet to see how she handles there :smallredface:

[Velaryon]

"Symmetra is weak" is not controversial. What's controversial are statements like "her alt fire is useless" (it's not), "her usefulness is inversely proportional to her opponent's IQ" (not unique to her), "you need scientific notation to calculate the odds of hitting" (you don't), and so on.

My scientific notation comment was made specifically in reference to the possibility of hitting multiple targets with one orb. Either you missed that part or you're arguing against a straw man. I'm at work so can't watch the Seagull video right now, so I don't know whether it applies to this particular argument. But even if it does, Seagull is so far above most players that even someone like me who doesn't pay attention to or care about pro gaming at all has heard of him. That he can do something doesn't mean that others can.

Yes, it's technically possible to hit two or more targets with the same orb, but not at all likely. It requires not one but two (or more) people to have such poor reaction times that they can't avoid something that literally moves slower than anything except maybe a D.Va holding down her fire button. It would take a situation like a Reinhardt coming through a choke point while shielding, and having someone so close behind him that they can't see anything in front of them, and the orb coming in at the correct angle.

Since we started on this tangent, and particularly since it was mentioned that Reinhardt sometimes has trouble getting out of the way without dropping his shield, I've been using Symmetra's alt fire more. I will confirm that it works vs. Reinhardt in that circumstance, and that you can occasionally also get someone who isn't paying attention. Once I even had a Tracer blink right into it and give me a free kill. But that's maybe one orb in ten, being generous. Most of them sail harmlessly past, without providing any significant delay to the opponents who have to move around them. There just aren't that many corridors that are so narrow they have to wait for the orb to pass.

Anyway, I've revised my argument from Symmetra's alt-fire being entirely useless to just being mostly useless, except in very specific situations. Since we're all in agreement that she needs some love from Blizzard, is there really a point to arguing over just how useful/useless her alt fire is?

[Psyren]

My scientific notation comment was made specifically in reference to the possibility of hitting multiple targets with one orb. Either you missed that part or you're arguing against a straw man. I'm at work so can't watch the Seagull video right now, so I don't know whether it applies to this particular argument. But even if it does, Seagull is so far above most players that even someone like me who doesn't pay attention to or care about pro gaming at all has heard of him. That he can do something doesn't mean that others can.

Yes, it's technically possible to hit two or more targets with the same orb, but not at all likely. It requires not one but two (or more) people to have such poor reaction times that they can't avoid something that literally moves slower than anything except maybe a D.Va holding down her fire button. It would take a situation like a Reinhardt coming through a choke point while shielding, and having someone so close behind him that they can't see anything in front of them, and the orb coming in at the correct angle.

I did, but even then it's still hyperbole because Reinhardt and chokepoints. Lob orb at doorway (through your own Rein, if you've got one), and then it hits him and at least one guy behind him who can't see the orb coming because they're confidently placed behind what they think is an impenetrable barrier. Seagull demonstrates this at the very start of the video by going from 5% to 60% ult charge from a single orb, which would require hitting at least three people with it, never mind two. You can even see that his turrets haven't fired yet in that time, so it all came from the orb.

And that's the key - yes, an orb is easy to dodge if it's floating leisurely down an empty lane at you with absolutely nothing else going on. But when half your vision is blocked by your own tank (who's bulk/barrier can't protect you from it), and there's Zenyatta spheres and Hanzo arrows and Junkrat spam and god knows what else falling all around you, the orbs hit more often than you seem to think. Klutzy opponents/scrubs are not mandatory for this to happen - this is a chaotic game.

Seagull's skill is not that much of an outlier in this case because he's not getting matched against tyros (and he used her in Competitive to boot.) Even skilled players are trained to cluster behind their Reinhardt when approaching the choke. So even far less skilled players like myself (and possibly Manticoran/Yuki/Keltest et al) are going to be matched against even less skilled opponents than he was.

None of this makes her perfect or even good, but not useless either.


Anyway, I've revised my argument from Symmetra's alt-fire being entirely useless to just being mostly useless, except in very specific situations. Since we're all in agreement that she needs some love from Blizzard, is there really a point to arguing over just how useful/useless her alt fire is?

For the record, I did try to drop it back on page 2. It was other folks (yourself included) who wrote replies to me directly after that :smalltongue:

But yes, I do agree she needs love from Blizzard. Some of what I'd like to see:

- Reworking her E; perhaps it gives larger shields but they decay over time like Lucio's sound barrier and need her to refresh them. This would make her a "healer" in the Dragon Age Inquisition sense, providing her team temp HP barriers like Solas et al.

- She can either move her Teleport around once placed to keep flankers guessing (spending a charge or two from it to do so; still better than having it destroyed) - or, it can start charging again while it's active (albeit much more slowly - maybe 75%-90% slower), so that destroying it gives you a good chance of punching through the Defense team, but she does at least have a chance of recovering from a destroyed one without starting completely from scratch.

- More turrets: I'd want to buff her allotment from 6 to 8 or so. Let her increase her coverage of a choke, moderately control two flanks at once, or have a true microwave room she can hold better than Roadhog. I'd also let her place them further away/higher up to better annoy Pharah, Reaper and Genji.

- Faster charge for her alt fire - more full power orbs in the air would improve her zoning and dps immensely.

[The_Jackal]

I did, but even then it's still hyperbole because Reinhardt and chokepoints. Lob orb at doorway (through your own Rein, if you've got one), and then it hits him and at least one guy behind him who can't see the orb coming because they're confidently placed behind what they think is an impenetrable barrier. Seagull demonstrates this at the very start of the video by going from 5% to 60% ult charge from a single orb, which would require hitting at least three people with it, never mind two. You can even see that his turrets haven't fired yet in that time, so it all came from the orb.

And that's the key - yes, an orb is easy to dodge if it's floating leisurely down an empty lane at you with absolutely nothing else going on. But when half your vision is blocked by your own tank (who's bulk/barrier can't protect you from it), and there's Zenyatta spheres and Hanzo arrows and Junkrat spam and god knows what else falling all around you, the orbs hit more often than you seem to think. Klutzy opponents/scrubs are not mandatory for this to happen - this is a chaotic game.

Seagull's skill is not that much of an outlier in this case because he's not getting matched against tyros (and he used her in Competitive to boot.) Even skilled players are trained to cluster behind their Reinhardt when approaching the choke. So even far less skilled players like myself (and possibly Manticoran/Yuki/Keltest et al) are going to be matched against even less skilled opponents than he was.

None of this makes her perfect or even good, but not useless either.



For the record, I did try to drop it back on page 2. It was other folks (yourself included) who wrote replies to me directly after that :smalltongue:

But yes, I do agree she needs love from Blizzard. Some of what I'd like to see:

- Reworking her E; perhaps it gives larger shields but they decay over time like Lucio's sound barrier and need her to refresh them. This would make her a "healer" in the Dragon Age Inquisition sense, providing her team temp HP barriers like Solas et al.

- She can either move her Teleport around once placed to keep flankers guessing (spending a charge or two from it to do so; still better than having it destroyed) - or, it can start charging again while it's active (albeit much more slowly - maybe 75%-90% slower), so that destroying it gives you a good chance of punching through the Defense team, but she does at least have a chance of recovering from a destroyed one without starting completely from scratch.

- More turrets: I'd want to buff her allotment from 6 to 8 or so. Let her increase her coverage of a choke, moderately control two flanks at once, or have a true microwave room she can hold better than Roadhog. I'd also let her place them further away/higher up to better annoy Pharah, Reaper and Genji.

- Faster charge for her alt fire - more full power orbs in the air would improve her zoning and dps immensely.

Now that we're at the 'what would make Symmetra suck less', I'd offer:

1) The ability to reactivate the teleporter with your ult button after it's been exhausted (but not if it's been destroyed). That way she can stay on the line and keep contributing, instead of going on walkabout every time she reaches full charge.

2) On a related note, the automatic 'they have a teleporter' announcement should only happen when they FIND the teleporter, as opposed immediately after it's deployed. The enemy team should already know a teleporter is coming when they see sentry turrets, the opposing flankers don't need a 'go spawncamp now' warning.

3) Marginally tougher turrets, and a slightly quicker recharge time, so you can crank out six new ones without too much of a delay. Right now you can blow up turrets with a McCree flashbang. Basically, anything more dangerous than a hairdryer will remove them instantly.

4) Faster cycling alt fire with a projectile more in line with Junkrat's grenades, slightly slower than Zenyatta's fire. You can tune down the amount of damage so that her cyclic DPS isn't too insane, her alt fire definitely hurts in the unlikely event that it hits.

5) AOE application of her shield, basically, like how Lucio's ult works. Hit button, everyone in range gets a boost to shields. Boosting the shield to 50 points would also not break the bank.

Bottom line, I don't think Symmetra needs a complete rework to make her a contender, just some tuning to her kit.

[LeSwordfish]

I wrote up a whole article on "how to fix symmetra", actually. It's here. (https://leswordfish.wordpress.com/2016/06/26/fixing-symmetra/) I think I made a few bad assumptions for that post - I've seen her be played devastatingly since, but the core points stand: Not only is her best ability tied to her ultimate, her sheilds are boring makework, and her turrets are very situational, but she doesn't really fulfil the awesome fiction of "building things out of light."

[LooseCannoneer]

I would personally replace the E with a droppable Rein-like barrier. Not as much health on the shield, definitely, but being able to have, say, 3 walls down would be very helpful in team fights, plus they can be used to block the turrets for a short time.

[mythmonster2]

As someone who does enjoy playing as Symmetra (in no small part because I got her Devi skin, possibly one of my favorite skins in the entire game), my main problem with her is just that her toolkit is the most passive out of anyone in the game. You put a shield on someone once after they respawn... and that's it. You put down a turret... and that's it. Even her ultimate, although powerful, is drop it and forget it. There's not much that can be done about the turrets; it's just how they work. However, maybe some way of making shield-giving more active, like shielding someone who is already shielded giving extra temporary health, could help. There are many suggestions for her teleporter as well, but I've never really found one that strikes me.

[The_Jackal]

As someone who does enjoy playing as Symmetra (in no small part because I got her Devi skin, possibly one of my favorite skins in the entire game), my main problem with her is just that her toolkit is the most passive out of anyone in the game. You put a shield on someone once after they respawn... and that's it. You put down a turret... and that's it. Even her ultimate, although powerful, is drop it and forget it. There's not much that can be done about the turrets; it's just how they work. However, maybe some way of making shield-giving more active, like shielding someone who is already shielded giving extra temporary health, could help. There are many suggestions for her teleporter as well, but I've never really found one that strikes me.

Yeah, that's my objection as well. She's a functionary Hero. Until you're stuck in with your photon beam, there's really not much to do. Throw up turrets, zone choke points with right-click, occasionally refresh a shield or plunk down a teleporter.

[Velaryon]

She's a lot like Torbjorn in that respect. He builds his turret, whacks it a few times to level it up, and then either goes looking for people to shoot or just sits there until his turret needs repair (sadly, a lot of Torb players choose the latter). And then after some people die he scavenges some scrap and throws down some armor packs. Torb is the only one who gets play of the game where he's not actually doing anything.

[Draconi Redfir]

As someone who does enjoy playing as Symmetra (in no small part because I got her Devi skin, possibly one of my favorite skins in the entire game), my main problem with her is just that her toolkit is the most passive out of anyone in the game. You put a shield on someone once after they respawn... and that's it. You put down a turret... and that's it. Even her ultimate, although powerful, is drop it and forget it. There's not much that can be done about the turrets; it's just how they work. However, maybe some way of making shield-giving more active, like shielding someone who is already shielded giving extra temporary health, could help. There are many suggestions for her teleporter as well, but I've never really found one that strikes me.

Symmetra death ball:

Load map with basketballs.
Put three turrets as many turrets as you can fit on the basketball.
Carry the basketball with your gun into the front lines.
???
Profit!

[The_Jackal]

She's a lot like Torbjorn in that respect. He builds his turret, whacks it a few times to level it up, and then either goes looking for people to shoot or just sits there until his turret needs repair (sadly, a lot of Torb players choose the latter). And then after some people die he scavenges some scrap and throws down some armor packs. Torb is the only one who gets play of the game where he's not actually doing anything.

Torbjorn's sidearm has a great teal more utility in a pitched battle than Symmetra. He's got a shotgun alt fire which, while it may not compare favorably to Reaper's weapon, can still put the hurt on many offensive heroes, and his primary fire, while somewhat hard to aim, still hits just as hard as McCree's primary fire. His armor mechanic is also very easy to use. You just go where the fighting is hot, and pick up scrap and drop packs. In short, his tempo is a lot more active, and he gets to spend a lot more time firing his weapon and contributing directly, rather than just positioning spawnable objects and lobbing orbs in the general direction of the foe.

Anyone just babysitting their turret as Torbjorn is doing their team a disservice. I agree his turret shouldn't really contribute to his PotG, it's just not interesting to watch.

[Anteros]

I hadn't played for about two weeks and finally got back around to the game last night...and I'm getting steamrolled every match. I guess I need to "git gud" again, but I just don't have the free time. :smallfrown:

[Psyren]

I hadn't played for about two weeks and finally got back around to the game last night...and I'm getting steamrolled every match. I guess I need to "git gud" again, but I just don't have the free time. :smallfrown:

Whenever I have a losing streak I just hop on Lucio for awhile. I pretty much only get the healing medal but it usually does the trick.

[Anteros]

The problem is less that I'm on a losing streak and more that my aim has gone to crap. Right now with school, clinicals, and work I just don't have time to play more than a game every few days.

I just need to get used to sucking I guess. :smallbiggrin:

[Pendulous]

Played competitive for the first time. Went 3-6-1 in my placement matches. ended up with 2022, whatever that means.

I'm going back to quick play. At least there, I don't have to deal with people telling me to stop playing the game, being afk and chatting and not picking characters, and people leaving causing the game to end. I don't play games to deal with humans. People suck. I can play quick play and still get better, and I have plenty of other characters to get better with. It's less serious but I still expect people to try to play the game, and I don't have idiots whining that I'm not doing something or another because blah blah whatever.

At least there's no real reward for it. I can keep leveling and getting the wrong cosmetic items in quick play, and sometimes even have a little fun.

[Anteros]

Played competitive for the first time. Went 3-6-1 in my placement matches. ended up with 2022, whatever that means.

I'm going back to quick play. At least there, I don't have to deal with people telling me to stop playing the game, being afk and chatting and not picking characters, and people leaving causing the game to end. I don't play games to deal with humans. People suck. I can play quick play and still get better, and I have plenty of other characters to get better with. It's less serious but I still expect people to try to play the game, and I don't have idiots whining that I'm not doing something or another because blah blah whatever.

At least there's no real reward for it. I can keep leveling and getting the wrong cosmetic items in quick play, and sometimes even have a little fun.

The "reward" for playing competitive is that you get to play with other people who are trying their hardest to win. If that doesn't appeal to you then there's really no reason to bother. I like it over quickplay because the games are more structured and organized. A lot of times in quick play you'll lose a game because your team just doesn't care enough to work together.

That said, it definitely brings out the toxicity in people. You can always turn off the chat if it bothers you though. People who flame their teammates in games are silly. It's a matchmaking system, so unless you're on the top fringe, the people you're getting matched with are just as good as you are. When you flame a teammate you're basically flaming yourself.

I just don't let it get to me and kinda laugh at how angry they get over a video game.

[Psyren]

The other advantage to Competitive is that right now, it's the only way to get the "unique heroes" rule. This avoids the "6 D.Va Overtime" issue that sometimes happens in QP.

[Necroticplague]

That said, it definitely brings out the toxicity in people. You can always turn off the chat if it bothers you though. People who flame their teammates in games are silly. It's a matchmaking system, so unless you're on the top fringe, the people you're getting matched with are just as good as you are. When you flame a teammate you're basically flaming yourself.

Yeah. Have to say, being able to look at who you play with is very sobering for a view of your own skill. You think 'holy crap, I'm surrounded by morons.....and these guys are as good as me. Crap, what am I doing wrong?'. Especially now that I'm starting to hover around one point, which indicates that's probably where I should be (around 1800, for any curious).

[LeSwordfish]

Is there no way to get the shiny gold weapons but win hundreds of games in a couple of months? Do "Comp Points" last between seasons?


People who flame their teammates in games are silly. It's a matchmaking system, so unless you're on the top fringe, the people you're getting matched with are just as good as you are. When you flame a teammate you're basically flaming yourself.

We may be numerically equal skill, but i'm not the chucklehead playing torbjorn on attack.

[Keltest]

Is there no way to get the shiny gold weapons but win hundreds of games in a couple of months? Do "Comp Points" last between seasons?



We may be numerically equal skill, but i'm not the chucklehead playing torbjorn on attack.

I nearly lost a game on Dorado to a team with two of those. Nobody could get close enough to the payload to kill anyone else with all that turret damage, and focusing the turrets on the payload got you killed by the 6 people guarding them.

[Necroticplague]

Is there no way to get the shiny gold weapons but win hundreds of games in a couple of months? Do "Comp Points" last between seasons?

Nope, nothing but winning a whole s***ton of games. Fortunately, the relevant points do carry over, so all your points from last season are there for this season, and all the points you get now will be there in the next season.

[Balmas]

I tried competitive, playing almost exclusively as Mercy or Lucio. 3 wins and 7 losses somehow put me at 2200ish, which feels off, but whatevs. Currently sitting at 4-9 and 1990ish.

As far as competitive goes: I like that people are honestly trying to win. That means that people are usually more willing to listen to one another, to actually think about team composition, and to not feed the enemy ultimate by running in one at a time. When you get a good team, one that's willing to think about others and work together, it's a dream. (THE dream, I should say, is to have a six-man stack that knows each other and can actually keep track of who does what.)

On the negative side, that also means that people are much more committed to winning, and of course everyone thinks that they have the one true means of winning. Salt flows freely in competitive, and I'm not too proud to note that I'm the saltiest support imaginable. Competitive is much more stressful than regular games, both because of the effort to win and because of the comments of your own teammates.

As a result, I've been playing mostly Quick Play games in the past week or so for a number of reasons. First is that I level faster in quickplay, which means more loot crates. Second is that it allows me to hone my skills in a less stressful environment. And, of course, it means that occasionally you can get the occasional games where you have two Reins, three Bastions, and a Mercy all sitting on the payload.

********

As for skills--I think I have most of the mechanical ones down. I'm ace with projectile weapons thanks to years and years of playing Soldier and Demo. My hitscan skills admittedly need work; I can track relatively well as Soldier 76 and D.Va, but I've never had the twitch aim skills to play McCree, Tracer. (Genji is right out.)

The bigger problem, as I see it, is that I need to play enough to improve my gamesense. I understand the mechanical workings, but I'm still working on getting to know when it's best to engage, disengage, to flank. I have the barest understanding of what heroes counter which, like Winston being good for fighting low mobility squishies, Zarya and sometimes Tracer for close-range heroes, and Roadhog for high-mobility harassers and picking medics. Still, I feel like there's so much for me to learn and improve on. So, I'll be working on that for a while. :smalltongue:

[LeSwordfish]

I nearly lost a game on Dorado to a team with two of those. Nobody could get close enough to the payload to kill anyone else with all that turret damage, and focusing the turrets on the payload got you killed by the 6 people guarding them.

This was on a CP map, though - he just set up before the hanamura gate and babysat his turret while we tried to put enough damage through the doorway to kill a Rein/Bastion combo.


Nope, nothing but winning a whole s***ton of games. Fortunately, the relevant points do carry over, so all your points from last season are there for this season, and all the points you get now will be there in the next season.

Ah, yes... all the points I got last time, where I forgot to play at all for three months. Good to know for the future, though - I want those shiny gold D.VAcannons.

[Anteros]

Is there no way to get the shiny gold weapons but win hundreds of games in a couple of months? Do "Comp Points" last between seasons?



We may be numerically equal skill, but i'm not the chucklehead playing torbjorn on attack.

If that chucklehead is able to keep up with your ranking despite playing Torb on attack, he must have some other advantage to compensate.

[The_Jackal]

If that chucklehead is able to keep up with your ranking despite playing Torb on attack, he must have some other advantage to compensate.

Yeah, by playing Torbjorn on attack. It's pretty well known that supports don't get as much personal rating compared to heroes that do a lot of damage, and playing Torbjorn all the time is an easy way to get a bunch of passive frags and damage to pad your stats.

[Anteros]

Yeah, by playing Torbjorn on attack. It's pretty well known that supports don't get as much personal rating compared to heroes that do a lot of damage, and playing Torbjorn all the time is an easy way to get a bunch of passive frags and damage to pad your stats.

Supposedly they fixed that a few weeks back.

[Velaryon]

Anyone just babysitting their turret as Torbjorn is doing their team a disservice. I agree his turret shouldn't really contribute to his PotG, it's just not interesting to watch.

Agreed on both counts, which is why it's a shame that about 9 out of 10 Torb players I see do exactly that. At least I don't run in to too many (anymore) who never make armor packs for their team, but most of them still seem glued to the turret, which means they don't travel far, they don't move the turret around, and they don't start dropping armor til midway through the match or later because their being so stationery means they aren't picking up as much scrap.

I myself am probably guilty of staying by my turret more often than I ought to, but even then I venture out to get scrap, I move out and try to sneak up on people who attack my turret, and so on. Or at least I did, before I got bored of Torbjorn and also tired of Blizzard nerfing him over and over again on consoles (including at least one unannounced nerf to his hammer speed).





We may be numerically equal skill, but i'm not the chucklehead playing torbjorn on attack.

Or the team's second (or worse yet, third) sniper.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Played competitive for the first time. Went 3-6-1 in my placement matches. ended up with 2022, whatever that means.

For some context 50% of players are ranked 2336 or less.

You can keep track of the rating distribution here (https://overwatchtracker.com/insights/skillrating).

I've had a pretty decent experience with my ranked games, although with having placed around 2400s I haven't had too many people unwilling to compromise for the comp. I went up to the 2500s mostly due to good team mates and have fallen back down to 2454 which we'll see if I can maintain, but it seems to be a relatively good place for me to be sitting.

[Anteros]

Or the team's second (or worse yet, third) sniper.

The new Hanzo and Ana both work best at mid range now, so multiple snipers isn't the death sentence it used to be.

[Balmas]

You know, if I could make one change to the loot box system, it would be this: when you open a box, you're guaranteed to find new items. Right now, the box system seems designed to rewards an operant conditioning system, where the more effort you put in, the less reward you get back out.

I mean, I don't think I'm asking for too much. Even if you had a system with no duplicates, it'd still take you over three hundred loot crates to get every item. So to do that, you'd need to be either super dedicated to the game, or shell out something like $260 on loot crates. Certainly be less frustrating for people actually playing the game. :smalltongue:

[BRC]

You know, if I could make one change to the loot box system, it would be this: when you open a box, you're guaranteed to find new items. Right now, the box system seems designed to rewards an operant conditioning system, where the more effort you put in, the less reward you get back out.

I mean, I don't think I'm asking for too much. Even if you had a system with no duplicates, it'd still take you over three hundred loot crates to get every item. So to do that, you'd need to be either super dedicated to the game, or shell out something like $260 on loot crates. Certainly be less frustrating for people actually playing the game. :smalltongue:

Kind of?

Right now, the more boxes you have, the more chance of a duplicate, which gets turned into credits you can use to buy the specific things you really want. So, in a way, the current system can be seen to get people closer to the specific unlocks they want, rather than having to chug through all the sprays and user icons.


Really, it's User Icons. Take out the User Icons, the system become 200% better. I DON'T NEED TEN THOUSAND USER ICONS BLIZZARD! I ONLY USE ONE! AND I BARELY NOTICE IT!

[Psyren]

The new Hanzo and Ana both work best at mid range now, so multiple snipers isn't the death sentence it used to be.

Indeed - I attacked Volskaya as Ana alongside Hanzo. People muttered about the "too many snipers" warning at the beginning, but we ended up winning easily. Ana's range and hitscan coupled with her ability to self-heal makes her phenomenal at peeking static defenses.


You know, if I could make one change to the loot box system, it would be this: when you open a box, you're guaranteed to find new items. Right now, the box system seems designed to rewards an operant conditioning system, where the more effort you put in, the less reward you get back out.

That's really only for completionists though. If they removed duplicates, they'd likely have to take out the currency system to compensate, in which case I really would have to be cycling through nearly every other damn thing to get the few cosmetics I really want. Whereas with the current system, once I've bought what I was truly hankering for, everything after that is a bonus.

Having said that, I agree - there are too many extraneous ones like portraits and generic sprays. At the very least, duplicates of these should award more currency.

[SorenKnight]

Right now, the more boxes you have, the more chance of a duplicate, which gets turned into credits you can use to buy the specific things you really want. So, in a way, the current system can be seen to get people closer to the specific unlocks they want, rather than having to chug through all the sprays and user icons.

Yeah, but in my experience most duplicates will only give back something like fifteen credits.

[The_Jackal]

Yeah, but in my experience most duplicates will only give back something like fifteen credits.

IMO, the entire cosmetic collection system is a kind of 'opt-in injustice'. Yes, there are some cool skins we like, and sure, cosmetics actually do matter, and if I had my druthers, they would not offer boxes for $ and tune the reward system accordingly. But that said, we live in a universe in which developers want to make money. So, if there's some overprivileged kids with no sense of perspective who want to subsidize ATVI's revenues, and thereby indirectly continue to fund development of cool games, I can live with it. Call it a necessary evil in an imperfect, uncivilized world. If micro-transactions and people being irresponsible with their allowance means I get to play this awesome game, so be it. Would I prefer that everyone just front-load, say, $10 more dollars to the cost of the game? Yes, I would. That would be a much more equitable and arguably fun universe.

Now, the Summer event boxes are an entirely different matter, those were handled in a spectacularly cynical fashion: A limited window engagement in which the only feasible method of getting the skin you wanted was to cash-dump at the Blizzard store. That BS is utterly insulting, and I earnestly hope they back-port the ability to buy event skins with coin.

[SorenKnight]

IMO, the entire cosmetic collection system is a kind of 'opt-in injustice'. Yes, there are some cool skins we like, and sure, cosmetics actually do matter, and if I had my druthers, they would not offer boxes for $ and tune the reward system accordingly. But that said, we live in a universe in which developers want to make money. So, if there's some overprivileged kids with no sense of perspective who want to subsidize ATVI's revenues, and thereby indirectly continue to fund development of cool games, I can live with it. Call it a necessary evil in an imperfect, uncivilized world. If micro-transactions and people being irresponsible with their allowance means I get to play this awesome game, so be it. Would I prefer that everyone just front-load, say, $10 more dollars to the cost of the game? Yes, I would. That would be a much more equitable and arguably fun universe.

I don't necessarily disagree with you on this, I just wanted to point out that the most frequent duplicates are the small stuff like sprays and player icons, so the duplicates don't add nearly as much currency as direct drops of currency do.


Now, the Summer event boxes are an entirely different matter, those were handled in a spectacularly cynical fashion: A limited window engagement in which the only feasible method of getting the skin you wanted was to cash-dump at the Blizzard store. That BS is utterly insulting, and I earnestly hope they back-port the ability to buy event skins with coin.

I agree with this a hundred percent.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Is it just me or did Blizzard drastically reduce the Competitive Point rewards... it seems as though I'm getting single digit quantities for my games... I want my golden Reinhardt hammer damnit!

[The_Jackal]

Is it just me or did Blizzard drastically reduce the Competitive Point rewards... it seems as though I'm getting single digit quantities for my games... I want my golden Reinhardt hammer damnit!

I don't think they actually made any changes to the competitive system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system), it's just that as time goes on, the information the game uses to rank you versus your competition gets larger and larger, and it's getting better at getting everyone into an appropriate stratum. Basically, the system is designed to produce matches in which your victory is a 50/50 chance. If the system is too generous with ranking increases, then it's going to gradually get worse at ranking you appropriately, as your atomic rating gains and loses start matching you against players that are far better/worse than you, depending on how you did during the last game.

The point being, the objective of the competitive rating system is not progress or growth, but equilibrium, so yes, at some point you're going to find yourself pretty well matched, and barring consistent improvement in your play, your rating should stabilize. FWIW, this is why I don't really think much of ladder formats in general, because players confuse the rating system with a reward system. The objective of any MMR system is to supply you, the players, with a competitive match, appropriate for your level of skill. A reward system, IMO, should do exactly what the loot boxes do: Give you treats for showing up. Blizzard could (and should, imo) keep the MMR ranking hidden, and if they want to make a pro-scene for eSports (a questionable premise, but one Blizzard's marketing department has embraced wholeheartedly) they can simply invite players based on the MMR ranking that they know.

[Arcane_Snowman]

I'm not referring to my rank, I'm referring to the points with which you purchase the Golden Weapons. It seems as though I'm getting a ridiculously minuscule amount per win.

[Manticoran]

I'm not referring to my rank, I'm referring to the points with which you purchase the Golden Weapons. It seems as though I'm getting a ridiculously minuscule amount per win.

You get 10 for a win, 3 for a draw. It takes 3000 to get a golden weapon. Previously, you got 1 for a win, and there were no draws. It took 300 for a win. So... Nope, basically should take 300 wins now, except now some things are now draws instead of the win/loss?

[Velaryon]

The new Hanzo and Ana both work best at mid range now, so multiple snipers isn't the death sentence it used to be.

Well, I kinda sorta agree. Hanzo's buffs make him probably a little too good right now. As for Ana, it took awhile but there are starting to be some competent Ana players on PS4. We still don't need both of them at the same time, and Widowmaker is still an active detriment to the team 19 times out of 20 on consoles.

Even if they're good, that's still one (or two, or three) people who generally don't get on the objective. You'd be amazed how many Widow players won't even try to contest the point in overtime.



Kind of?

Right now, the more boxes you have, the more chance of a duplicate, which gets turned into credits you can use to buy the specific things you really want. So, in a way, the current system can be seen to get people closer to the specific unlocks they want, rather than having to chug through all the sprays and user icons.


Really, it's User Icons. Take out the User Icons, the system become 200% better. I DON'T NEED TEN THOUSAND USER ICONS BLIZZARD! I ONLY USE ONE! AND I BARELY NOTICE IT!

My only problem with the loot system (other than not letting us get the Summer Games stuff with currency or at least special event currency) is that duplicates give such a tiny fraction of their value. I saved up 1000 credits and bought D.Va's legendary gaming emote... and got a duplicate in my very next loot box. It was worth 200 credits. IMO duplicates should be worth at least half of their full value, if not full. As is we get what, 20 percent? Maybe 25 on some items? That's BS.

[Psyren]

Well, I kinda sorta agree. Hanzo's buffs make him probably a little too good right now. As for Ana, it took awhile but there are starting to be some competent Ana players on PS4. We still don't need both of them at the same time, and Widowmaker is still an active detriment to the team 19 times out of 20 on consoles.

Even if they're good, that's still one (or two, or three) people who generally don't get on the objective. You'd be amazed how many Widow players won't even try to contest the point in overtime.

Snipers generally perform worse on console so that's not saying much. On PC having them both, even on attack, is plenty viable. (As for getting on the point, snipers do this the way any long-range hero would - pick off the enemy, move in when the coast is clear, then cover the most likely points of respawn/entry once they're there. A bad player - one who avoids the point in OT for example - is going to be bad regardless of kit.)


My only problem with the loot system (other than not letting us get the Summer Games stuff with currency or at least special event currency) is that duplicates give such a tiny fraction of their value. I saved up 1000 credits and bought D.Va's legendary gaming emote... and got a duplicate in my very next loot box. It was worth 200 credits. IMO duplicates should be worth at least half of their full value, if not full. As is we get what, 20 percent? Maybe 25 on some items? That's BS.

I agree that the more palatable solution would be to increase the payout from duplicates and reduce that from the currency rewards themselves. But unfortunately Blizzard will never do that, as it flies in the face of how Skinner Boxes work. Feast-and-famine are the mechanics that condition the kind of gambling compulsion they like to see, not a steady drip :smallfrown:

[LooseCannoneer]

They could add credit rewards to Quick Play.

[Psyren]

They could add credit rewards to Quick Play.

In a way they do, via the godawful XP system.

[The_Jackal]

In a way they do, via the godawful XP system.

What does the rate of credit accrual really affect, other than the number of games you'll need to play before you can collect everything? It's my understanding that XP required to earn a level (and a box) is linear past level 23. Sure, we'd all love to get 500 gold per match instead of 50, but personally, I've got nearly 1k saved up and have kind of run out of things I think it's worth spending on. If I'm going to criticize anything about Overwatch's 'collectibles', it's that most of them aren't worth collecting at all, ie: all sprays, most skins, heighlight intros, etc. In other words, I'm less worried about the rate at which I earn rewards than there are few rewards worth saving up to buy.

PS: Add an option to wear random skins or use random emotes/voice lines already.

[Anteros]

Widow's problem is that she's very situational. She can still be powerful in the right situations, but you have to be willing to switch off if she isn't working out.

Fortunately it's very easy to tell if you need to switch off of her. If you aren't able to sustain a kill rate of at least 2 people in the amount of time it takes an enemy to respawn and get back in the fight, then you need to swap off of her.


As for hats, I'm with Jackal. I don't really care about hats in general, and there's nothing I care enough to spend my coins on as it is. I'll never collect everything, but since 99% of the possible drops are garbage it doesn't matter to me.

[The_Jackal]

Widow's problem is that she's very situational. She can still be powerful in the right situations, but you have to be willing to switch off if she isn't working out.

Totally disagree. Widow's problem is that she's balanced with people like Kephrii in mind, with preternatural aim. For mere humans, headshots are not routinely reliable against anyone but the most witless opponents. While I don't advocate giving her the old 150 base damage back, I do think she needs some help akin to what Hanzo got, either increasing her hitbox, or reducing her charge time, so she can get follow up shots more readily. She's also TERRIBLY vulnerable to flankers. I'd like to also see either a boost to her widow mine, or a cooldown reduction on her hook, or possibly both. Right now, Winston gets over 2 jumps to her hook, and Genji can climb up to her more or less at will.


Fortunately it's very easy to tell if you need to switch off of her. If you aren't able to sustain a kill rate of at least 2 people in the amount of time it takes an enemy to respawn and get back in the fight, then you need to swap off of her.

Which isn't exactly conducive to actually getting better with her, unfortunately. Also, with her fire rate being so poor, her kill rate is pretty much dependent on cooperation from either your teammates (finishing off body-shot enemies) or the enemy (standing around getting killed). Based on my own stats I'm a kind of mediocre Widow, only with average accuracy but below average heatshot percentage. And that's really what makes or breaks widow: Do you have the insane aim to bring off headshots with any regularity. Most people don't.


As for hats, I'm with Jackal. I don't really care about hats in general, and there's nothing I care enough to spend my coins on as it is. I'll never collect everything, but since 99% of the possible drops are garbage it doesn't matter to me.

Part of the reason I'm so ambivalent about the cosmetics is that I quite honestly feel that the best looking skins for each hero are the default ones (I may have uttered this before). The palatte swap skins are, in particular, really uninspiring, as they mostly don't look very good.

[Necroticplague]

Part of the reason I'm so ambivalent about the cosmetics is that I quite honestly feel that the best looking skins for each hero are the default ones (I may have uttered this before). The palatte swap skins are, in particular, really uninspiring, as they mostly don't look very good.

That's my general opinion on it, too. Only the most expensive skins are interesting enough to justify any costs, and even those sometimes look a bit shoehorned in.

(side note, would totally go for a 'nevermore' or 'plague doctor' skin in his original color scheme, prefer the black and red to the homogenous purple).

[Dienekes]

On Widow: Well, yeah, she's a sniper. She seems to play just like every other sniper from every other FPS I have ever played in. Meaning she's lackluster to useless right up to the point you reach that level of play where the very concept of action-sniping becomes one of the most overpowered things in the game. I don't really see anything changing that, which doesn't also make her frustrating and annoying to play against once you get to that level where she shines.

Which, hopefully, I'll never get to. There's nothing as un-fun in a shooter as facing a very good sniper.

[Anteros]

Totally disagree. Widow's problem is that she's balanced with people like Kephrii in mind, with preternatural aim. For mere humans, headshots are not routinely reliable against anyone but the most witless opponents. While I don't advocate giving her the old 150 base damage back, I do think she needs some help akin to what Hanzo got, either increasing her hitbox, or reducing her charge time, so she can get follow up shots more readily. She's also TERRIBLY vulnerable to flankers. I'd like to also see either a boost to her widow mine, or a cooldown reduction on her hook, or possibly both. Right now, Winston gets over 2 jumps to her hook, and Genji can climb up to her more or less at will.


She's a sniper. If she gets flanked she's supposed to die. Right now, she's just a very situational pick. Due to the nature of her kit (standing back and getting picks from complete safety) she is very good at attacking point A, where it takes the enemy 20+ seconds to return to the fight. As long as you can average a kill every 10 seconds or so with her, she's pulling her weight. As you push closer to the enemy spawn, the time it takes to get back in the fight drops dramatically and she's useless unless you can get a kill every 5 seconds or so. Situational.

[Velaryon]

Snipers generally perform worse on console so that's not saying much. On PC having them both, even on attack, is plenty viable. (As for getting on the point, snipers do this the way any long-range hero would - pick off the enemy, move in when the coast is clear, then cover the most likely points of respawn/entry once they're there. A bad player - one who avoids the point in OT for example - is going to be bad regardless of kit.)


I play on console and every post I have made in this topic is from that perspective. It may be perfectly okay on PC, but on consoles having multiple snipers is the single surest way to guarantee a loss for your team. Hanzo has been buffed enough that you can implicitly read a "does not apply to decent or better Hanzo players" into most of my statements on this topic, but there are still a lot of terrible Ana players on Playstation 4, and the vast, vast majority of Widowmaker players are terrible as well. 99% of the time, if you have a Widowmaker on your team and you're not playing in high-ranked competitive mode (I don't play competitive so I'm making a generous assumption that there are good Widow players there), you are effectively at a 5-to-6 disadvantage vs. the other team. If you have more than one sniper, it only gets worse from there.

With regard to your statement about snipers and getting on the point, that's all well and good in normal situations if you're a good enough sniper to do it. But when the clock is running out or you're in overtime, you need to get off your butt and physically on the point, and I can count the number of sniper players I have ever seen do that in this game on the fingers of one hand.

[Artanis]

Part of the reason I'm so ambivalent about the cosmetics is that I quite honestly feel that the best looking skins for each hero are the default ones (I may have uttered this before). The palatte swap skins are, in particular, really uninspiring, as they mostly don't look very good.

Hear hear. I'm ambivalent at best on pretty much all of the non-default skins, and I actively outright dislike all but about 3 of the Legendaries. They could remove custom skins from the game entirely and I wouldn't be bothered one bit :smallsmile:

[Psyren]

On Widow: Well, yeah, she's a sniper. She seems to play just like every other sniper from every other FPS I have ever played in. Meaning she's lackluster to useless right up to the point you reach that level of play where the very concept of action-sniping becomes one of the most overpowered things in the game. I don't really see anything changing that, which doesn't also make her frustrating and annoying to play against once you get to that level where she shines.

Which, hopefully, I'll never get to. There's nothing as un-fun in a shooter as facing a very good sniper.

Case in point. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV6ZQ_1u7fA)

(Widow footage: Kephrii)


I play on console and every post I have made in this topic is from that perspective.

I'm aware, but the guy you were specifically quoting/responding to plays on PC and was speaking from that perspective.



With regard to your statement about snipers and getting on the point, that's all well and good in normal situations if you're a good enough sniper to do it. But when the clock is running out or you're in overtime, you need to get off your butt and physically on the point, and I can count the number of sniper players I have ever seen do that in this game on the fingers of one hand.

Yes, I know how overtime works :smalltongue:

The issue is that the only one with fast downward movement is Widow - Ana and Hanzo have to just run over there normally, and they'll typically be up on a perch somewhere right as OT starts (trying to pick off the enemy.) So even if they do the right thing and try to pile on the objective they simply may not make it in time.



Part of the reason I'm so ambivalent about the cosmetics is that I quite honestly feel that the best looking skins for each hero are the default ones (I may have uttered this before). The palatte swap skins are, in particular, really uninspiring, as they mostly don't look very good.

Your personal tastes aside however - If Blizzard themselves felt this way too though, they wouldn't have built their entire monetization model around the non-default ones. (Nor for that matter would they have sunk resources into skin-specific alterations - new audio cues and more complex textures/shaders for some skins - which means more art time, VA time and coding time just for a different "hat.") Clearly they believed that the desire for that specific skin, and thus likelihood of people shelling out to get their hands on it, justified the extra resources. In short, that they have inherent value above and beyond the defaults.

And quite apart from the aesthetic of this skin vs. that skin, there's the simple value of self-expression by looking different. Maybe I'm ambivalent on White Mercy vs. Gold Mercy, but if I see one 9x more often than I see the other, I become increasingly likely to want even that cosmetic change of pace.

Or to put it in Jim Sterling's terms - cosmetics are indeed content, and content has value. The fact that they don't alter gameplay is of little relevance. Certainly it helps that never unlocking these won't affect the game balance, but that doesn't mean they should be gated off either, and I fervently hope that the Summer Games Box debacle is a decision they never repeat.

[LeSwordfish]

I could take or leave the custom skins, but the default emotes are utterly dire and i'm very happy to utilise other ones.

[LooseCannoneer]

In a way they do, via the godawful XP system.

Well, kind of. But the XP system gives you a chance at a good amount of credits, or you can get 20. 20 credits isn't really a reward for 7-8 games. Getting 5 credits per win would make me very very happy. Hell, I wouldn't care about the dupes if they give credits for wins.

[The_Jackal]

She's a sniper. If she gets flanked she's supposed to die. Right now, she's just a very situational pick. Due to the nature of her kit (standing back and getting picks from complete safety) she is very good at attacking point A, where it takes the enemy 20+ seconds to return to the fight. As long as you can average a kill every 10 seconds or so with her, she's pulling her weight. As you push closer to the enemy spawn, the time it takes to get back in the fight drops dramatically and she's useless unless you can get a kill every 5 seconds or so. Situational.

If 'flanked snipers are supposed to die' is your stated assumption, you're effectively advocating that a pure sniper has no role in the game. I should note that Hanzo does not have this problem being able to move vertically at will, just the same as Genji, enjoying a full field of view when firing, and having the devastating scatter arrow which can one-shot any flanker with a well-placed shot.

IMO, There is NO SUCH thing as complete safety from Pharah, Winston, and Genji, and on certain maps, Tracer. These characters are all far too mobile, and it is simply not possible to guard against all possible approaches. At best, your Widow mine is an early warning system for your most vulnerable flank. It's certainly not dangerous enough to deter flankers from attacking you. Your only hope is that, with the benefit of early knowledge of impending attack, you can hose a flanker down while you move to cut them off from a nearby health pack, which will completely negate the damage of your mine.

I'd argue that any of the 'situations' in which you'd be well served picking Widow on attack, you'd be better served picking someone else. Roadhog to hook and pick enemy defenders protecting their choke, Junkrat to flush out prepared enemy positions, Pharah to crush Bastion/Torb's, Winston/Tracer/Reaper/Genji to flank to the objective and distract the enemy team from defending the choke. Heck, Mercy, Zenyatta or Ana can all peek enemy turrets with about as much success as Widow, at the same cross-map distances. Even Mei can just throw a wall in front of a prepared enemy position, and let your team breach a chokepoint untouched. On defense, the wallhacks can help your team prevent surprise flanks and bring off savage ambushes, but on offense? You already know where the enemy is going to be. Those defensive positions are determined by the map, and they are far more advantageous for the defender.

I like Widow, she's my favorite Hero, aesthetically (barring her horrible posture), and I want her to be effective. But in her current state, she is unequivocally in the garbage tier (https://www.overbuff.com/blog/2016-09-15-overwatch-hero-tier-list-and-meta-report-new-metas-come-in-threes). When the professional players, guys with amazing skills and preternatural aim, pick her in less than 5% of the time, then you know something is seriously wrong. If anyone ought to be able to take advantage of Widow's arguably amazing potential, it would be these guys, and yet they're leaving her on the shelf.


Your personal tastes aside however - If Blizzard themselves felt this way too though, they wouldn't have built their entire monetization model around the non-default ones. (Nor for that matter would they have sunk resources into skin-specific alterations - new audio cues and more complex textures/shaders for some skins - which means more art time, VA time and coding time just for a different "hat.") Clearly they believed that the desire for that specific skin, and thus likelihood of people shelling out to get their hands on it, justified the extra resources. In short, that they have inherent value above and beyond the defaults.

And quite apart from the aesthetic of this skin vs. that skin, there's the simple value of self-expression by looking different. Maybe I'm ambivalent on White Mercy vs. Gold Mercy, but if I see one 9x more often than I see the other, I become increasingly likely to want even that cosmetic change of pace.

Or to put it in Jim Sterling's terms - cosmetics are indeed content, and content has value. The fact that they don't alter gameplay is of little relevance. Certainly it helps that never unlocking these won't affect the game balance, but that doesn't mean they should be gated off either, and I fervently hope that the Summer Games Box debacle is a decision they never repeat.

No argument whatsoever. I'm not a fan of F2P/microtransaction models, period. I mostly feel it's a cynical method of weaseling money out of people with poor fiscal discipline. To paraphrase Jim Sterling, it's not a coincidence that they use the same terminology (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Whale+(gambling)) for their ideal customers that casinos do. The only difference is that the table stakes are smaller. One of my long-standing objections to the microtransaction economy is because cosmetics stop being a (perfectly valid) reward system for play, and start supplanting gameplay as the focus of the product. Simply put, the developers add fewer maps, heroes, game modes, etc., and such, in favor of more emotes and funny hats.

PS: Saying that lootboxes is their entire monetization model isn't quite fair, they did charge folks for the base game. It's not League of Legends or Hearthstone.

[Anteros]

If 'flanked snipers are supposed to die' is your stated assumption, you're effectively advocating that a pure sniper has no role in the game. I should note that Hanzo does not have this problem being able to move vertically at will, just the same as Genji, enjoying a full field of view when firing, and having the devastating scatter arrow which can one-shot any flanker with a well-placed shot.

IMO, There is NO SUCH thing as complete safety from Pharah, Winston, and Genji, and on certain maps, Tracer. These characters are all far too mobile, and it is simply not possible to guard against all possible approaches. At best, your Widow mine is an early warning system for your most vulnerable flank. It's certainly not dangerous enough to deter flankers from attacking you. Your only hope is that, with the benefit of early knowledge of impending attack, you can hose a flanker down while you move to cut them off from a nearby health pack, which will completely negate the damage of your mine.

I'd argue that any of the 'situations' in which you'd be well served picking Widow on attack, you'd be better served picking someone else. Roadhog to hook and pick enemy defenders protecting their choke, Junkrat to flush out prepared enemy positions, Pharah to crush Bastion/Torb's, Winston/Tracer/Reaper/Genji to flank to the objective and distract the enemy team from defending the choke. Heck, Mercy, Zenyatta or Ana can all peek enemy turrets with about as much success as Widow, at the same cross-map distances. Even Mei can just throw a wall in front of a prepared enemy position, and let your team breach a chokepoint untouched. On defense, the wallhacks can help your team prevent surprise flanks and bring off savage ambushes, but on offense? You already know where the enemy is going to be. Those defensive positions are determined by the map, and they are far more advantageous for the defender.

I like Widow, she's my favorite Hero, aesthetically (barring her horrible posture), and I want her to be effective. But in her current state, she is unequivocally in the garbage tier (https://www.overbuff.com/blog/2016-09-15-overwatch-hero-tier-list-and-meta-report-new-metas-come-in-threes). When the professional players, guys with amazing skills and preternatural aim, pick her in less than 5% of the time, then you know something is seriously wrong. If anyone ought to be able to take advantage of Widow's arguably amazing potential, it would be these guys, and yet they're leaving her on the shelf.


If Genji/Winston/Etc is spending 20 seconds to chase across the map to get to you, then he's not helping his team and it's fine. Especially if it's point A where he has to go through your team (and likely die) to do it. Choke points work both ways.

You don't get picks in a professional game the way you do in pubs. People are actually organized and disciplined. It's a completely different game.

[Velaryon]

Yes, I know how overtime works :smalltongue:

Which puts you ahead of most snipers, apparently.


The issue is that the only one with fast downward movement is Widow - Ana and Hanzo have to just run over there normally, and they'll typically be up on a perch somewhere right as OT starts (trying to pick off the enemy.) So even if they do the right thing and try to pile on the objective they simply may not make it in time.

What does that say about the usefulness of sniper characters at the later stages of the match?

[Anteros]

Which puts you ahead of most snipers, apparently.



What does that say about the usefulness of sniper characters at the later stages of the match?

Widow is bad at the end, but Hanzo and Ana should be close to the point already. They should be no worse at contesting than something like Mccree, and we can all agree that he's top tier.

The real problem is players who try to play Ana and Hanzo as long range snipers. These characters aren't actually snipers. They're mid range brawlers who can snipe in a pinch.

Instead of playing correctly, you get Hanzo sitting on a roof, plinking damage all game, never closing, and thinking he's still contributing because "I got gold damage bro". Despite the fact that he's actually useless.

[Psyren]

What does that say about the usefulness of sniper characters at the later stages of the match?

I'm actually not sure - after all, you're viewing this through a console lens, where snipers are far more useless even at high levels of play. It's the same game, yet not.

On PC, a good sniper who is too far to contest a point can still do a great job of clearing it for their team single-handedly. (And to Anteros' point, we really only have one sniper currently who should be at extreme range most of the time.)

[Necroticplague]

Frankly, if Ana and Hanazo are snipers, i think Zenyata should be classified as one, too. He had the same turret-busting capacity, about the same effective range.

[LeSwordfish]

In my experience from Team Fortress 2, a good sniper can slaughter the enemy team, but is pretty solidly neutralised by an equally good sniper on the enemy team. Particularly for widowmaker, who has enhanced mobility, I can see a top-tier Widowmaker pick remaining viable until the enemy also picks widowmaker and devotes themselves to shutting you down.

[Anteros]

So, looks like we've got an Ana nerf and a Widow/Junkrat buff incoming.

Ana's ult is going to take longer, but the grenade range is being buffed to compensate. Junkrat ult startup time is reduced. The most important thing is that Widow can scope almost twice as fast. That'll be huge.

[The_Jackal]

If Genji/Winston/Etc is spending 20 seconds to chase across the map to get to you, then he's not helping his team and it's fine. Especially if it's point A where he has to go through your team (and likely die) to do it. Choke points work both ways.

The only way Genji or Winston take 20 seconds to chase down and Kill Widowmaker is if they stop to read a book in the middle. Winston's Tesla gun will drop Widow from full health to floor covering in 3.3 seconds, less if they land a jump or melee hit somewhere in there.


You don't get picks in a professional game the way you do in pubs. People are actually organized and disciplined. It's a completely different game.

Without question, but my point is that the conditions under which Widow is arguably the most suited to excel, (ie: organized team with good positioning and a high skill cap player), she's the least picked. She does not get better relative to easier heroes, as the player quality drops.


Frankly, if Ana and Hanazo are snipers, i think Zenyata should be classified as one, too. He had the same turret-busting capacity, about the same effective range.

Eh. Zenyatta doesn't have the burst potential of either. Ana does 75 per shot, and is hitscan when scoped in. Sure, Zenyatta can land a 120 damage headshot on a discorded target, but in practice, that's by virtue of flinging zoning fire in the general vicinity of the enemy and them running into it. That said, I kind of agree that Ana really isn't a proper sniper, but that's because she needs to stay close to her team for protection. An Ana who's out on her lonesome has only her sleep dart to keep her from being eaten alive. However, your point about Zenyatta's effectiveness in role, you're spot-on, and this underscores my point: Zenyatta's sustained DPS is nearly as strong as Widow's, and he brings the added functionality of his orbs, plus a far more powerful ultimate.


In my experience from Team Fortress 2, a good sniper can slaughter the enemy team, but is pretty solidly neutralised by an equally good sniper on the enemy team. Particularly for widowmaker, who has enhanced mobility, I can see a top-tier Widowmaker pick remaining viable until the enemy also picks widowmaker and devotes themselves to shutting you down.

TF2 sniper doesn't have to charge up their shot, though. That means they're far less scope-locked, and can maintain more situational awareness and get more opportunity shots.

[Psyren]

The Ana change makes sense - she's the only healer with an offensive ult, but she had the same advantage other healers do of being able to double-dip (i.e. charge it from both damaging enemies and healing allies, and even from healing herself) resulting in a pretty fast charge. She also has an easier time doing the former than Lucio and Mercy - unlike Lucio she has a hitscan weapon with much longer range, and unlike Mercy she doesn't have to swap out her healing weapon to do dps.

[LeSwordfish]

TF2 sniper doesn't have to charge up their shot, though. That means they're far less scope-locked, and can maintain more situational awareness and get more opportunity shots.

TF2 sniper charges to get damage. If you're taking no-charge shots, its either 50hp bodyshots (not much damage) or 150hp headshots (can 1hk weaker classes) - remember the tf2 sniper also has to reload between every round.

[Pendulous]

Yay. Time to test out the new settings for controller scrubs like myself.

[The_Jackal]

The Ana change makes sense - she's the only healer with an offensive ult, but she had the same advantage other healers do of being able to double-dip (i.e. charge it from both damaging enemies and healing allies, and even from healing herself) resulting in a pretty fast charge. She also has an easier time doing the former than Lucio and Mercy - unlike Lucio she has a hitscan weapon with much longer range, and unlike Mercy she doesn't have to swap out her healing weapon to do dps.

I don't think it's so much that Ana's methods of charging are profoundly better than other healers. After all, Mercy can build ult with boosting or popgun or heals, and Lucio can build ult just with standing and firing in the general direction of the foe. I think it's more a matter of Ana's ult is far more powerful and synergistic than the other supports. Nano-boost Reinhardt is TERRIFYING, and very difficult to stop. IMO, if you get Nano-boosted and can't drop two enemies, that's proof positive that you're terrible and should consider euthanasia. I'm glad to see they more or less read my mind regarding Widow. I would have preferred a reduction in charge-up time as well, but this is a start.

[Necroticplague]

I don't think it's so much that Ana's methods of charging are profoundly better than other healers. After all, Mercy can build ult with boosting or popgun or heals, and Lucio can build ult just with standing and firing in the general direction of the foe. I think it's more a matter of Ana's ult is far more powerful and synergistic than the other supports. Nano-boost Reinhardt is TERRIFYING, and very difficult to stop. IMO, if you get Nano-boosted and can't drop two enemies, that's proof positive that you're terrible and should consider euthanasia. I'm glad to see they more or less read my mind regarding Widow. I would have preferred a reduction in charge-up time as well, but this is a start.

Frankly, realizing how hilariously powerful her ult was is why I started playing her. I realized that, on offence or king of the will, a properly timed Boost can completely smash though most fortifications/defensive lines. Heck, one time ended up clearing a point after I Boosted a lucio on accident (was aiming for the D.va next to him).

[The Hellbug]

Heh, perhaps the most catastrophic play I was ever part of came from an Ana missing her ult. I'm Reinhardt, and I'm on a headset with our Lucio, Ana, and Hanzo, less than 30 seconds left at Volskaya point 2. Lucio, Ana, and me all have ults, and Ana is about to send me in when she misses and hits our Hanzo. Both of them are like 'oh, we're done for, boys' but then our Lucio yells something about only having one shot at this anyway and ults right as I charge in after him. Get the legendary 5-man Rein ult and then Hanzo OHKOs everyone on the ground with Ana ult. It was hilarious.

[SorenKnight]

The most important thing is that Widow can scope almost twice as fast. That'll be huge.

Yup. It seems to me that one of the big reasons that Widow isn't good is because Mcree rewards the same hitscan accuracy, but with better awareness and overall survivability.


IMO, if you get Nano-boosted and can't drop two enemies, that's proof positive that you're terrible and should consider euthanasia.

Can we not make jokes about suicide?

[Psyren]

I think it's more a matter of Ana's ult is far more powerful and synergistic than the other supports.

Pretty sure I covered this when I said she has the only offensive ult among the supports. This is the core problem that her fast charge time was exacerbating.



Can we not make jokes about suicide?

Yar.

[The_Jackal]

Pretty sure I covered this when I said she has the only offensive ult among the supports. This is the core problem that her fast charge time was exacerbating.

My contention is that I don't think her ult charge rate is profoundly faster than other healers. The only edge she has no Mercy is not switch delay between heal and harm, and she's got, imo, no real edge on Lucio or Zen, as they're both able to build ult through damage and healing concurrently. Ana's ultimate is just a) very strong and b) hard to counter and c) non-reactive (Mercy, Zen and to a lesser extent Lucio have ults which are best held for a specific circumstance. Nano-boost is an ult you can use to initiate a pick or a teamwipe).

[Anteros]

Ana ult does objectively charge faster than the others though. If you look it up, she's near the top in charge speed while the other supports are at the bottom.

[The_Jackal]

Ana ult does objectively charge faster than the others though. If you look it up, she's near the top in charge speed while the other supports are at the bottom.

Do you mean her passive charge rate, or the amount of charge she receives per point of healing or damage? Cite your source, please.

[Velaryon]

Does anyone have a link to the notes for the next patch?

I'm glad to see Widowmaker getting a buff, although I'm not at all sure increasing her scope speed will be enough to make her viable on consoles. It certainly can't hurt though, so we'll see what happens.

As for Trashmouse getting a buff too, that I'm less happy to hear. He's probably the second most annoying character in the game to me (after Genji), so anything that makes more people pick him makes me a little sad.

[The_Jackal]

Does anyone have a link to the notes for the next patch?

I'm glad to see Widowmaker getting a buff, although I'm not at all sure increasing her scope speed will be enough to make her viable on consoles. It certainly can't hurt though, so we'll see what happens.

As for Trashmouse getting a buff too, that I'm less happy to hear. He's probably the second most annoying character in the game to me (after Genji), so anything that makes more people pick him makes me a little sad.

The last set of changes are for the PTR (https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20294485), not live. It's yet to be seen whether or not they're adopted for live.

As for Junkrat, he's objectively weak. While he's very annoying (because of all the indiscriminate dumb kills he'll get through sheer volume of fire and dumb luck, he's actually really bad at killing enemies in open battle. IMO, he's at his best when he's helping his team clear an opposing team off a point, like on KotH maps and capture points. But even there, good attack characters should best him in most engagements; just keep your distance and focus on dodging his grenades. I don't expect this buff to make much of a difference in his potential, after all, it doesn't increase rip-tire's damage, charge rate, or area of effect, it only shortens the distance between when he pushes Q and the tire spawns. Also, now that players are more experienced, getting the whole team kills is much more rare, and getting the tire shot down is much more common.

This isn't to say that if you play Junkrat, it's not easy to lead your team in eliminations and damage done, it's just that the impact of those statistics is less than the raw numbers might indicate. This is especially true on offense, where the defending team will have a shorter trip from their spawn to the point, so regularly blowing up a couple of defenders may rack up impressive looking stats, but doesn't have much bearing on who wins the game. This is also why I think you see lots of terrible players stack up Trashmouse: You look good while being bad.

[Pendulous]

King of the Hill matches are my favorite places to play Junkrat, ESPECIALLY Lijiang Tower. Shooting into open windows into the control points is fun. Yeah, he's kind of random, but there IS some skill to his shots.

As far as the Rip Tire change, it's not enough. You completely lose control of Junkrat while using it, making him completely vulnerable. Even hiding, someone might find you. An increased activation speed doesn't help that. The Rip Tire itself is too weak. The damage drop-off at range isn't enough to kill anyone, and the "fatal range" is way too low. It's too easy to gun down or otherwise avoid. All the while somebody is probably wasting your immobile body.

I did have a game last night where I was D.va (my best), and I saw someone go over to our ult-ing Junkrat, so I charged into them and killed them before they could kill our grenadier. I felt good about that.

[Anteros]

Do you mean her passive charge rate, or the amount of charge she receives per point of healing or damage? Cite your source, please.

Are you not able to just Google things yourself?

http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Ultimate_ability

[Necroticplague]

Are you not able to just Google things yourself?

http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Ultimate_ability

I don't think that page is completely up to date. According to that page, Ana doesn't get any charge from healing, which I know from experience is false.

[The_Jackal]

Are you not able to just Google things yourself?

http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Ultimate_ability

Being a person who's got some important things to do in my life, I don't generally make it a habit to make other people's point for them.

[Keltest]

Being a person who's got some important things to do in my life, I don't generally make it a habit to make other people's point for them.

I find it hard to believe that your schedule is so full that you can spend time arguing on an internet forum but not spend the extra 20 seconds necessary to google some readily available information.

[The_Jackal]

I find it hard to believe that your schedule is so full that you can spend time arguing on an internet forum but not spend the extra 20 seconds necessary to google some readily available information.

Then call it inclination. My point is that when I present an argument, I include the sources for the factional assertions I'm making to support my argument. I don't make snarky remarks at others with the incredibly rude and intellectually puerile let me google that for you (http://lmgtfy.com/). As it happens, I did do some searches for ult timings and numbers, but my first couple of hits didn't dig up hard data, so rather than make an excursion looking for information that someone else allegedly had, I asked the poster to do what I do as a matter of course: furnish data to support assertions.

[Chambers]

Me: Why do we have 2 Widows? (Route 66, Defense)
Team: Silence during the entire match

After the match (we lost, huzzah!) one of the Widows was trashing me because I was complaining about the dual Widows, said I was jealous of his competitive rank. I had a good laugh.

Edit: I don't care at all that his rank is higher, it was hilarious that he was silent the entire match and then blamed me for the loss.

[Anteros]

Being a person who's got some important things to do in my life, I don't generally make it a habit to make other people's point for them.

It was literally the second result for "overwatch ult charge rate".

I won't waste any more of your precious time that you're using to argue about video games with strangers. It's obviously far more important than mine.

[huttj509]

It was literally the second result for "overwatch ult charge rate".

I won't waste any more of your precious time that you're using to argue about video games with strangers. It's obviously far more important than mine.

http://overwatch.wikia.com/wiki/Ultimate_Ability lists Roadhog, Mei, and Bastion as getting 0% charge for healing.

This was changed in a recent patch on PC. The same patch, in fact, that Ana was released, casting doubt on the numbers for the whole table.


Edit: Oh, hey, my second result on a google search was a different source than yours. Kinda makes it tough to compare numbers and info when different sources disagree, huh.

Edit 2: http://overwatch.wikia.com/wiki/Ultimate_Ability BTW has Ana charging a little faster than Lucio, a little slower than Zennyatta, and notably slower than Mercy.

[Anteros]

Edit: Tired of arguing.

[huttj509]

So you're linking a source that you say is clearly wrong at a casual glance, and then saying it's hard to tell which one is accurate? :smallconfused:

Just go in a lobby and heal 80 damage with Lucio and then 80 with Ana. It's a clearly visible difference.

I'm saying the phrase "just google it" is a horrible way to compare info. I'm saying that when the wiki is wrong, expecting people to know which of multiple sites is correct is silly, and when judging whether the ults charge at different rates, trying to go into training and do a quick check is not trivial.

Just now I went into training. Healed some bots to try to gauge meter gain.

Ana: looks like 1% every 2 seconds passive gain
Shot seems to give 7% on a damaging hit, 6% on a healing hit
Grenade seems to give 8% per target fully healed, 5% per target damaged.

Lucio: 1% per 3 secs passive gain
Shot (burst of 4) gives 6% if all headshots, 3% if all bodyshots.
Passively healing 2 targets gave ~1%/second charge, while the "burn it up" burst heal gave ~13% over the course of ~3 seconds.

Mercy: 1% per 3 seconds passive charge.
A single pistol headshot gives ~3% charge, bodyshot looked close to 1.5%
Damage boosting was a notable charge rate increase, but couldn't quantify as the bots shoot in bursts.
Healing charge rate was huge. 2%/second? Something like that.


So given those 3 heroes, different rates of fire, different rates of healing, who gains charge objectively faster?

Oh, and compiling that took me half an hour in the practice range. Not really viable for "just go in a lobby" to see the difference clearly.

Cross referencing numbers from http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/L%C3%BAcio and http://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Ana for healing numbers (see what I did there, providing links to where my numbers are coming from?), Healing 75 health with each would be...

Lucio: 3 seconds of healing Crossfade (non-boosted) on 2 targets (using 2 since that's what my data on the practice range was from), which looks like ~3% Ult meter.
slightly less than 1 second of boosted healing on two targets (4% for 1 second, so at least seems comparable to numbers from the non-boosted)

Ana: 6% charge from a single sniper shot, which does 75 healing, seems to be consistent with the charge gained from the grenade (1/3 more healing, was ~1/3 more charge).

So 75 healing from healing alone gives Lucio ~3-4% charge, and Ana 6% charge, and Mercy (very roughly) 3% charge? (math on charge per second was rough to collect, 60 hps, so charge per sec * 1.25 gives 2.5% charge after healing 75 health).

So I do agree that Ana seems to gain ~30-50% more charge per point of healing than Ana or Lucio, but especially given the discrepancy in sources it's not easy to tell unless you take the 40-50 mins to collect the data and do the math (unless there's some more precise numbers on damage, healing, and charge gain somewhere in the UI that I'm missing).

[Psyren]

There's a much easier route than all of this bickering and trying to self-test. Namely, assume that when Blizzard decides to nerf something, that they have done all this math themselves already. Sometimes they go too far (e.g. overnerfing McCree and Widow) but the attempt to change something in the first place is generally based on empirical data/metrics.

[Guancyto]

Trust authority rather than either empirically verifying the issue OR arguing without evidence based on what "feels" right
I'm going to have to revoke your American citizenship, sorry.

Yes, even if you didn't have any in the first place. :smalltongue:

[Anteros]

There's a much easier route than all of this bickering and trying to self-test. Namely, assume that when Blizzard decides to nerf something, that they have done all this math themselves already. Sometimes they go too far (e.g. overnerfing McCree and Widow) but the attempt to change something in the first place is generally based on empirical data/metrics.

Did you play WoW? I trust Blizzard on balance issues about as far as I can throw something that I can't throw very far at all.

[The_Jackal]

Did you play WoW? I trust Blizzard on balance issues about as far as I can throw something that I can't throw very far at all.

Seconded. When you've got a decade old game like WoW, and plenty of open-source simulation tools which will show you quite clearly the damage potential of a particular character or talent spec, yet they can still release a character stable whose output looks like this (http://www.noxxic.com/wow/dps-rankings/), you know they're not paying attention.

Game developers, as a rule, don't consider balance a launch requirement. If a game is bug-free and feature complete, they will ship it, regardless of how totally, absurdly broken it is. I give Blizz a lot of credit for TRYING to balance their games, many other studios don't give balance and tuning the time of day (Hello there, Bethesda Softworks!) but their primary overriding goal is, like any company, making money, and imbalances don't hurt their bottom line like missing ship dates does.

[Psyren]

I'm going to have to revoke your American citizenship, sorry.

Yes, even if you didn't have any in the first place. :smalltongue:

I do in fact. The test wasn't even that hard :smallbiggrin:


Did you play WoW? I trust Blizzard on balance issues about as far as I can throw something that I can't throw very far at all.


Seconded. When you've got a decade old game like WoW, and plenty of open-source simulation tools which will show you quite clearly the damage potential of a particular character or talent spec, yet they can still release a character stable whose output looks like this (http://www.noxxic.com/wow/dps-rankings/), you know they're not paying attention.

Game developers, as a rule, don't consider balance a launch requirement. If a game is bug-free and feature complete, they will ship it, regardless of how totally, absurdly broken it is. I give Blizz a lot of credit for TRYING to balance their games, many other studios don't give balance and tuning the time of day (Hello there, Bethesda Softworks!) but their primary overriding goal is, like any company, making money, and imbalances don't hurt their bottom line like missing ship dates does.

Your second point is exactly what I meant. They know what's up - it's just the "getting around to fixing it" part, and the "pulling the right levers to fix it" parts where they stumble. But the impetus for that decision - the data and metrics - they have that in abundance, and far more of it than we ever will. They know everyone's true pickrate, not just for the pro scene and competitive matches, but for Joe Schmoe Quickplay too across the MMR spectrum.

I do agree that yes, they may also be guilty of wanting to get something out "into the wild" that could have stood a bit more in-house tuning first, in order to meet deadlines. It's annoying, but I do think that's roughly the right priority. (WoW though requires a bit more consideration in this regard due to each class being a significant timesink.)

Sure they move slowly - like any large software company, they have a bureaucratic process and safeguards for managing changes to a live system, and yet another bureaucratic process for communicating their plans to the public - but I don't think it's fair or accurate to equate that with not caring or not being aware.



Some Symmetra news - apparently some new datamined audio files from Symmetra were leaked a couple of days ago. The three new lines have her saying the following:

"Ten charges remaining." (Note: Her current Teleporter, the most likely subject of a line about charges, has only 6.)
"I will augment your shields."
"Shields boosted."

Could her E be getting an adjustment at last?

[LeSwordfish]

I saw the point that the "Ten Charges Remaining" might well be Blizzard future-proofing themselves for the teleporter, (so if they do want to increase, they don't need to record more lines), rather than any serious plan to increase it to ten now.

[Guancyto]

Revoked, then!

Re: having more metrics than we can possibly accrue, Blizzard has a persistent problem with taking their huge collection of data and thinking it means anything.

Now, Overwatch has far less moving parts than WoW, and balance tweaks for it are probably the easiest thing to measure numerically.

But "Blizzard knows best because they've got tons of data" is exactly how we got the garbage fire that was Warlords of Draenor. :smalltongue:

(Also how the Soviets almost started a nuclear war with their trust in supercomputers, but that's a little more serious business than we're worried about here!)

[Necroticplague]

Some Symmetra news - apparently some new datamined audio files from Symmetra were leaked a couple of days ago. The three new lines have her saying the following:

"Ten charges remaining." (Note: Her current Teleporter, the most likely subject of a line about charges, has only 6.)
"I will augment your shields."
"Shields boosted."

Could her E be getting an adjustment at last?

I don't know, those voice lines sound like they could just be for using her E on people who have shields already (zenyata, zarya, zymetra), instead of the standard lines that make a bit less sense if they already had shields.

[Psyren]

But "Blizzard knows best because they've got tons of data" is exactly how we got the garbage fire that was Warlords of Draenor. :smalltongue:


It's not though - Draenor's garbage fire had nothing to do with data at all. (Or not game balance data at any rate - rather, they were looking at the same data the Dragon Age Inquisition and Eve Online guys did, with Facebook and Mobile games taking off, and thought "WoW needs more of that.") They weren't even wrong - Legion has kept some of that - but the execution vis-à-vis Garrisons was horrible. Legion's missions are already miles ahead just by having mobile integration and class fantasy built in.

Rather, while I agree Draenor's missteps were numerous, I think they had more to do with the fundamental formula of the game than the more surface-level, symptomatic and perpetual/recurring issues of endgame balance. They were after all collecting data and rebalancing classes even during the game's height (Wrath and Cataclysm) and didn't get it perfect then either, but its popularity was still miles ahead of Draenor. Balancing everybody in a raid tier isn't going to save endgame when a large chunk of your base wants to do something (anything) besides raid and sit in their Garrison all day.


I saw the point that the "Ten Charges Remaining" might well be Blizzard future-proofing themselves for the teleporter, (so if they do want to increase, they don't need to record more lines), rather than any serious plan to increase it to ten now.

Apparently the line is new though (the datamining was done on the latest PTR files.) If it was just future-proofing, wouldn't it have been in the game files before now?


I don't know, those voice lines sound like they could just be for using her E on people who have shields already (zenyata, zarya, zymetra), instead of the standard lines that make a bit less sense if they already had shields.

You can't use her E on people that have shields (from her) already though. So these lines make sense if they're planning to implement some kind of stacking mechanic.

Currently, shielding a target that has shields natively already (e.g. Zenyatta or Zarya) results in the same voice lines as shielding someone who doesn't (e.g. Lucio or Reaper.) "You are shielded" "Shield matrix established" "Everyone is protected!"

And I'll say the same thing I said to LeSwordfish: these audio cues are new on the PTR . So I guess I'm left to wonder - why would they go to the trouble of recording new lines for an old mechanic?

[Guancyto]

Usage data is how we got WoD. "People spend a ton of time rare hunting on Timeless Isle" and "people sped a ton of time raiding Orgrimmar" + "people spend a ton of time on facebook games" + "we have the unspoken and unexamined assumption that because people spend most of their time on these things, they actually like them and will like an expansion of almost nothing but them" = Warlords of Draenor.

Sort of like taking high-end pickrates as gospel in Overwatch (something I'm pleased to see Blizzard has to an extent avoided). Nonetheless, "don't worry about it and trust authority" raises aaaall my hackles. :smalltongue:


And I'll say the same thing I said to LeSwordfish: these audio cues are new on the PTR . So I guess I'm left to wonder - why would they go to the trouble of recording new lines for an old mechanic?
Possibly because someone pointed out it was silly for Symmetra to be telling Zenyatta or Zarya, "you are shielded!"

Can't you just see Zarya going, "you don't say"?

(The attention to little details like that is one of the things that make Overwatch great, imho)

[LeSwordfish]

Apparently the line is new though (the datamining was done on the latest PTR files.) If it was just future-proofing, wouldn't it have been in the game files before now?


Not necessarily. They've got the Symmetra VA in the studio to record her Ana Ult line, more time and flexibility than they had at the original recording, and they know they're gonna make some change soon - why not record a bunch of spare lines just in case?

[Psyren]

Sort of like taking high-end pickrates as gospel in Overwatch (something I'm pleased to see Blizzard has to an extent avoided). Nonetheless, "don't worry about it and trust authority" raises aaaall my hackles. :smalltongue:

"I loaded up a practice session and shot a few robots, so this is totally how things work" raises mine. Not to mention "the professional meta behaves this way so such-and-such is god/garbage and Blizzard should exclusively balance around that level" - which is a discussion we finished having only a few pages ago.



Possibly because someone pointed out it was silly for Symmetra to be telling Zenyatta or Zarya, "you are shielded!"

Can't you just see Zarya going, "you don't say"?

(The attention to little details like that is one of the things that make Overwatch great, imho)

Yet they're fine with her saying that to Zarya now and have been since beta. it seems to be an odd thing to waste time and money re-recording for something so trivial. But I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[LeSwordfish]

In this case, it could well be as simple as "We've got Symmetra's VA booked in for three hours today. Anything we need to make her say?" Not that what we're saying is guaranteed, of course - just a note of caution against "her teleporter will go up to ten and her shields will be redone!!!" rumor-mongering.

[The_Jackal]

"I loaded up a practice session and shot a few robots, so this is totally how things work" raises mine. Not to mention "the professional meta behaves this way so such-and-such is god/garbage and Blizzard should exclusively balance around that level" - which is a discussion we finished having only a few pages ago.

Maybe we haven't finished having it. IMO, There's got to be a happy medium between balancing against the professional meta, and balancing against the median level of play. But in order for that to be true, then Blizzard has to accept that some characters will NEVER be adopted into the professional meta. Heroes like Bastion and Torbjorn will never penetrate the pro meta, because of how non-responsive they are. When you've got reflexes and aim like IDDQD, Seagull, and Kephrii (not name a few), you're NEVER going to pick a hero like that in a match where money is on the line.

In less contentious news, I finished (finally) my Season 2 placement matches, and was ranked 2001. I solo queued through the whole thing, though, and I think I've got room to climb, as a couple of my placement match squads made some abysmal comp decisions. Once placed, I've not yet dropped a match yet, and I actually had a KotH match with Mei where I got 71 elims and 14 deaths, which is a personal best. I've just started messing with Mei, and she's AWESOME on King of the Hill. She can peek, she can stall for your team, she's terrifying in one on one matchups, and good wall usage can fatally disrupt teams, and of course her ULT is probably the best point clear in the game.

[Psyren]

Maybe we haven't finished having it. IMO, There's got to be a happy medium between balancing against the professional meta, and balancing against the median level of play. But in order for that to be true, then Blizzard has to accept that some characters will NEVER be adopted into the professional meta. Heroes like Bastion and Torbjorn will never penetrate the pro meta, because of how non-responsive they are. When you've got reflexes and aim like IDDQD, Seagull, and Kephrii (not name a few), you're NEVER going to pick a hero like that in a match where money is on the line.

I don't agree with NEVER, but I do agree that some characters will (and probably should) be highly niche picks at best. Junkrat for instance got picked at the ESL finals by TviQ (and they won!), because he's just that good with the grenade spam and trick shots, plus his crazy trap/mine placement.

So yes, I'm okay with some heroes being so inconsistent that they almost never see play - but there's still potential for one person who really groks their kit to shine, and then they get the added bonus of catching the other team completely off guard with such a "suboptimal" choice. Much like Kelphii playing offensive Widow even when there's no defensive one that needs taking down. I personally think Blizzard will have done their job if at least one person is capable of running the subpar characters like Symmetra, Torb and Bastion at the tournament level. Even if it's one person among hundreds, even if it's for a few minutes, even if they don't get higher than top 16, I personally would consider that a win.

I compare it to Magic The Gathering's meta. Wizards once made what people thought was the most useless rare in Standard history (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=one+with+nothing) at the time - only for it to end up getting sideboarded at Nationals, to everyone's surprise.

And yes, Mei is bae.

[Sylian]

Every week Overbuff post an analysis of hero usage in certain Overwatch tournaments. I compare the data with my experience from Competitive games in Diamond level and post my own comments. I add the old week's numbers in parenthesis. As you may already know, Overwatch Open was this weekend, with a whopping $300.000 prize pool!

https://www.overbuff.com/blog/2016-10-03-overwatch-hero-tier-list-and-meta-report-overwatch-open-deep-dives

The Attack, Defense, and KotH stats are approximations.

Lúcio

Overall: 95.04% (94.9%).
Attack: 94% (100%).
Defense: 94% (85%).
KotH: 100% (100%).

Comment: Lúcio fits nearly any comp, so it's not very surprising to see him used nearly all of the time at top level play.

Zarya

Overall: 83.08% (77.09%).
Attack: 82% (77%).
Defense: 77% (62%).
KotH: 99% (100%).

Comment: Zarya is an incredibly powerful hero, providing bulkiness, damage, barriers, and an amazing ultimate.

Ana

Overall: 77.27% (21.31%).
Attack: 78% (30%).
Defense: 88% (26%).
KotH: 49% (0%).

Comment: Ana is currently a very powerful hero due to a number of factors. Her healing is really strong and she can amplify Lúcio's healing even further, her ultimate can be hard to deal with (funnily enough, one of the best counters to Ana is Ana) and charges quickly, and her sleep dart can decide fights. Oh, and her biotic grenade can make a huge difference, especially in countering Zenyatta's ultimate. With that being said, she's arguably the hardest support to play, and if your teammates aren't careful they might accidentally wake up sleeping targets prematurely.

Zenyatta

Overall: 18.14% (68.1%)
Attack: 7% (52%).
Defense: 5% (67%).
KotH: 52% (92%).

Comment: The surge of Ana and the decreased use of the triple support comp meant that either Lúcio or Zenyatta would have to drop. Lúcio synergizes incredibly well with Ana and is super good overall, so Zenyatta dropped. Zenyatta is still a good character (especially on KotH) and if you don't play Ana you should probably go with Zenyatta.

Reinhardt

Overall: 65.91% (60.99%).
Attack: 73% (75%).
Defense: 83% (85%).
KotH: 27% (4%).

Comment: Not only does Reinhardt provide a really powerful shield and a great ultimate, he's also a pretty good target for Ana's Nanoboost. He has some flaws on King of the Hill, but he can sometimes work together with an Ana.

Genji

Overall: 24.63% (48.2%).
Attack: 30% (55%).
Defense: 18% (32%).
KotH: 29% (55%).

Comment: The prevalence of triple tank comps and comps with Reaper have made other Offense heroes fall off a bit in tournaments. Genji seems to have fallen off in Diamond Competitive play as well, although I still see him from time to time, with mixed results. A good Genji can do really well, although he faces competition with other heroes (such as Reaper and McCree).

McCree

Overall: 23.90% (44.1%).
Attack: 23% (44%).
Defense: 35% (65%).
KotH: 6% (24%).

Comment: McCree is still a really strong character, although he didn't benefit from the rise of Ana (or tank comps, for that matter).

Reaper

Overall: 55.16% (29.2%).
Attack: 54% (26%).
Defense: 54% (32%).
KotH: 56% (31%).

Comment: Reaper has long been a pretty good hero, but the rise of Ana helped make him the #1 Offense hero, since a Nanoboosted Death Blossom can be absolutely devastating.

Tracer

Overall: 45.51% (32.5%).
Attack: 44% (24%).
Defense: 25% (11%).
KotH: 89% (76%).

Comment: Aside from KotH, where Tracer has always been a powerful hero, Tracer has been somewhat hit or miss in the meta. My personal opinion is that a good Tracer can do a lot of work, but a bad Tracer won't be very useful, and at Diamond level, the average Tracer won't do as well as the average McCree or Reaper (on non-KotH maps, anyway). Still, she has a lot of potential, and she's one of the better picks against (and together with) Zarya.

Winston

Overall: 39.62% (44%).
Attack: 37% (26%).
Defense: 25% (26%).
KotH: 76% (96%).

Comment: Winston is a good KotH tank. Outside of KotH, he's somewhat niche. He struggles to deal with Reaper and Roadhog, and picking him instead of Zarya or Reinhardt is questionable. He can work quite well on 3 tank comps, though, and as a decent Genji-counter (or if Widowmaker is a problem, which almost never happens at Diamond level or tournament level).

Roadhog

Overall: 20,20% (24.57%).
Attack: 19% (31%).
Defense: 26% (33%).
KotH: 12% (8%).

Comment: Roadhog has three major issues. Firstly, it is easy to get ultimate charge off of him, due to his large health pool with no armor. Secondly, his ultimate isn't that great. Thirdly, and most importantly, he's not Zarya or Reinhardt. By playing Roadhog you either have to play 3 tank meta or give up on Zarya or Reinhardt (or Winston on KotH). With that being said, a good Roadhog can still perform really well.

Mercy

Overall: 4.85% (21.3%).
Attack: 7% (26%).
Defense: 1% (50%).
KotH: 0% (4%).

Comment: Mercy is too reliant on her ultimate. Good Mercy ultimates can turn the game, but aside from that, her kit offers less than other supports (I consider Symmetra more of a Defense hero). Furthermore, she doesn't synergize all that well with the other supports. Her main niche is together with Pharah, and even that is risky.

Hanzo

Overall: 4.85% (10.2%).
Attack: 9% (26%).
Defense: 0% (3%).
KotH: 1% (0%).

Comment: My experience with Hanzo in Diamond, post-nerf: He's not bad. Other heroes might be better in certain situation, but don't go flaming the Hanzo player for picking Hanzo; he's a lot better after the buffs.

Mei

Overall: 31.79% (8.33%).
Attack: 25% (7%).
Defense: 55% (13%).
KotH: 4% (0%).

Comment: Mei is probably the most underrated character in the game. That's not to say that I believe her to be secretly a top pick or anything, but she used to be one of the worst heroes in the game, and then she got a buff. Over time, more and more players have picked up Mei and a good Mei can really make a difference (and a bad Mei can really mess up walls). Personally, I believe that her best niche is on Defense, which the data seems to support as well.

D.Va

Overall: 3.53% (7.41%).
Attack: 2% (11%).
Defense: 5% (7%).
KotH: 0% (2%).

Comment: D.Va has two roles that she does really well: Stalling and dealing with Bastion. Aside from that, she's the worst tank in the game, and generally not worth picking.

Pharah

Overall: 4.54% (5.04%).
Attack: 7% (17%).
Defense: 4%(0%).
KotH: 0% (4%).

Comment: Pharah generally isn't that good unless she has a Mercy on her team (although a good Ana can make up for some of it), and she really struggles against certain heroes, such as McCree. With that being said, she's not bad, but her flaws make her a risky pick in most Diamond games (and tournament games as well, given those usage stats).

Junkrat

Overall: 0.69% (4.1%).

Comment: Junkrat has some niche use at point defense A, but he's generally easy to deal with and fuels support ultimate charge and Zarya's energy.

Soldier: 76

Overall: 0.75% (3.3%).

Comment: He's not bad, but other Offense heroes are generally better. McCree, in particular, is kind of like a stronger Soldier: 76.

Widowmaker

Overall: 0.34% (1.9%).

Comment: Widowmaker can work if you're really, really good with her. She has a lot of flaws and doesn't offer a strong ultimate in addition to being hard to play, so she generally won't work.

Torbjörn

Overall: 0% (1.4%).

Comment: His turrets are not very good and he's somewhat of a sitting duck.

Bastion

Overall: 0.43% (0.1%)%.

Comment: Bastion, at a Diamond level, almost never works. Ana can sleep dart him and make him an easy kill, Zenyatta can Discord Orb him and make him vulnerable, and other heroes have ways of dealing with him too (ultimates generally work well against him).

Symmetra

Overall: 0.12% (0.1%).

Comment: While Symmetra can work on point A Defense, she's incredibly risky. You give up a strong support ultimate (generally, I've never seen anyone run two supports + Symmetra) in order to get a teleporter tha only sometimes works (it gets destroyed too easily). You also give up healing. Overall, Symmetra is underpowered and generally not worth picking.

Summary:

Most used Attack heroes (50%+): Lúcio, Zarya, Ana, Reinhardt, Reaper.
Other Attack heroes (25%+): Tracer, Winston, Genji, Mei.

Most used Defense heroes: Lúcio, Ana, Reinhardt, Zarya, Mei, Reaper.
Other Defense heroes: McCree, Roadhog, Winston, Tracer.

Most used KotH heroes: Lúcio, Zarya, Tracer, Winston, Reaper, Zenyatta.
Other KotH heroes: Ana, Genji, Reinhardt.

[Anteros]

What you're saying mostly mirrors what I've been saying for a while, so I largely agree. I do think Widow has a place on point A attack, but other than that I agree with you.

[Psyren]

Comment: Reaper has long been a pretty good hero, but the rise of Ana helped make him the #1 Offense hero, since a Nanoboosted Death Blossom can be absolutely devastating.

Also the three-tank meta

[Velaryon]

Every week Overbuff post an analysis of hero usage in certain Overwatch tournaments. I compare the data with my experience from Competitive games in Diamond level and post my own comments. I add the old week's numbers in parenthesis. As you may already know, Overwatch Open was this weekend, with a whopping $300.000 prize pool!


This brings to mind a question I've had for a very long time about the competitive video gaming scene: who is paying these prizes, and what are they getting out of it? Basically, what makes the pro gaming scene profitable? It doesn't attract huge crowds like sporting events, so how is it profitable enough for tournament organizers to offer a six-figure prize?

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

This brings to mind a question I've had for a very long time about the competitive video gaming scene: who is paying these prizes, and what are they getting out of it? Basically, what makes the pro gaming scene profitable? It doesn't attract huge crowds like sporting events, so how is it profitable enough for tournament organizers to offer a six-figure prize?

I'm not the biggest expert, but, while it doesn't draw huge crowds, it has two useful effects.

Firstly, it's a loss-leader: it may lose money, but the interest in keeps in the game helps retain customers. Take League of Legends -- each time a Pro game happens where a particular character or skin is showcased, it's likely to make people more interested in buying that character and/or skin, or make players interested in going back to the game, where they have incentive to purchase micro-transactions.

In Overwatch's case there are microtransactions, but Blizzard's biggest selling point is the incredible cross-promotion it does. Each time you log into Battle.net you see ALL their games on the left, so the more time they can get you to play Overwatch the more chances they have to get you into one of their other games as well.

Secondly, companies still do advertise. While the market may be small, it's also one that spends money freely on the right product: having your high-end Headset, Keyboard, Mouse, or Computer used by the pros is a solid use of your cash, as it puts it in front of your PERFECT target demographic...a demographic that often wants the newest, most cutting-edge thing.

[thracian]

It doesn't attract huge crowds like sporting events

I'm not sure about Overwatch numbers since I don't follow the scene at all, but for major international tournaments in League of Legends and DotA2 they are regularly selling out large stadiums within minutes of tickets being available.

[Psyren]

To add to that second one, there is more general product placement as well - things like Mountain Dew and Gatorade and Doritos and Vans etc. They are athletes, even if they spend all their time sitting down, and there are folks out there who aspire to be pros and will do X because the pros do it.

As for eSports not having the best viewership, Extra Credits had a great episode on that. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKGDealc3eE)

[Artanis]

Secondly, companies still do advertise. While the market may be small, it's also one that spends money freely on the right product: having your high-end Headset, Keyboard, Mouse, or Computer used by the pros is a solid use of your cash, as it puts it in front of your PERFECT target demographic...a demographic that often wants the newest, most cutting-edge thing.

Another example is the GSL (one of the two big StarCraft 2 tournaments in Korea) being sponsored by Afreeca, the service that carries the stream.

"Hey, StarCraft is awesome! And it's on Afreeca! You should check out the other stuff on Afreeca sometime!"

[The_Jackal]

This brings to mind a question I've had for a very long time about the competitive video gaming scene: who is paying these prizes, and what are they getting out of it? Basically, what makes the pro gaming scene profitable? It doesn't attract huge crowds like sporting events, so how is it profitable enough for tournament organizers to offer a six-figure prize?

It has decent funding for the exact same reason that professional golfers make such good money: Because the sponsors are advertising to an affluent audience that's willing to spend good money on high-margin products. In effect, from Razer or Intel's perspective, it's a advertising venue that has a relatively strong conversion rate. An average baby boomer sending email will be perfectly happy buying a $15.00 generic mouse. I'm a gamer geek who will buy a $75.00 gaming mouse. Some fraction of the money I'm spending on that gaming mouse is going back into prize pools for eSports.

[Anteros]

The biggest tournament (money wise) is probably Valve's TI. They give the players a prize that consists of 25% of what the players put towards the tournament. The prize pool this year was 20 million, which means that Valve received 80 million dollars from their players to host the tourney, gave the players 20, and pocketed 60 million.

Not a bad racket, especially when you consider that they outsource a huge amount of the actual production work to the willing fanbase for pennies.

[Psyren]

Jeff Kaplan stuff today: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9bF6wyCDU4)

- He talks briefly about what's already on the PTR (e.g. the Junkrat and Widowmaker buffs), no surprises there.

- They're overhauling Symmetra; Jeff describes the changes as "dramatic" and as such they likely won't be ready until mid-November at the earliest. In particular they're not happy with how situational she is (i.e. only viable as a point A defense, only on a few maps, and even then not great.)

- They're not at all interested in making Symmetra another healer (neither her weapon, nor her turrets/teleporter), and are even prepared to move her out of the Support category to avoid confusion if necessary.

- Two new heroes are pretty close to being ready. One will be ready before the year is out (likely Sombra) while the next one won't be until sometime next year.

- They have one new map that is very close to completion (they're so confident that it works from a gameplay standpoint that they've started adding art assets to it.) Another will be a year out.

- They are testing 4 new game modes. Not all of these will see the light of day.

[Pendulous]

Jeff Kaplan stuff today: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9bF6wyCDU4)

- He talks briefly about what's already on the PTR (e.g. the Junkrat and Widowmaker buffs), no surprises there.

- They're overhauling Symmetra; Jeff describes the changes as "dramatic" and as such they likely won't be ready until mid-November at the earliest. In particular they're not happy with how situational she is (i.e. only viable as a point A defense, only on a few maps, and even then not great.)

- They're not at all interested in making Symmetra another healer (neither her weapon, nor her turrets/teleporter), and are even prepared to move her out of the Support category to avoid confusion if necessary.

- Two new heroes are pretty close to being ready. One will be ready before the year is out (likely Sombra) while the next one won't be until sometime next year.

- They have one new map that is very close to completion (they're so confident that it works from a gameplay standpoint that they've started adding art assets to it.) Another will be a year out.

- They are testing 4 new game modes. Not all of these will see the light of day.

Sweet. We can only guess that the other hero is the next Doomfist, or maybe that Liao person who I believe was in the original group. The closest thing might be new skins though. Looking forward to that more than most things right now.

I still say Junkrat's tire needs some form of survivability buff. Or make the radius of the explosion bigger.

I hope the new map for the "preexisting game mode" is King of the Hill. I like those maps more than others usually.

The new weekly brawl sucks. I thought it would be a cool opportunity to be kind of forced to try different heroes. What actually happens is you get some crazy terrible comp, and your opponent just bowls over you so you change characters constantly. Swear to you this happened. Started on attack. We had three tanks and no healer. Opponent started with a tank, healer, Bastion, Torby, and Symmettra, so a ton of turrets with a regular comp against random heroes. We got destroyed. Other game, our team ended up with three Ana's. Why? Because it's apparently a lot less random than you think.

That being said, I got some practice with Zenyatta. I thought before he was super hard to deal with, keeping everything up at once while still attacking. Being situational about so many things makes my brain hurt. BUT, I think I like him a little more now. Keeping Harmony Orb up is hard when I have a hard time targeting who I want to target though.

[Keltest]

Sweet. We can only guess that the other hero is the next Doomfist, or maybe that Liao person who I believe was in the original group. The closest thing might be new skins though. Looking forward to that more than most things right now.

I still say Junkrat's tire needs some form of survivability buff. Or make the radius of the explosion bigger.

I hope the new map for the "preexisting game mode" is King of the Hill. I like those maps more than others usually.

The new weekly brawl sucks. I thought it would be a cool opportunity to be kind of forced to try different heroes. What actually happens is you get some crazy terrible comp, and your opponent just bowls over you so you change characters constantly. Swear to you this happened. Started on attack. We had three tanks and no healer. Opponent started with a tank, healer, Bastion, Torby, and Symmettra, so a ton of turrets with a regular comp against random heroes. We got destroyed. Other game, our team ended up with three Ana's. Why? because it's apparently a lot less random than you think.

That being said, I got some practice with Zenyatta. I thought before he was super hard to deal with, keeping everything up at once while still attacking. Being situational about so many things makes my brain hurt. BUT, I think I like him a little more now. Keeping Harmony Orb up is hard when I have a hard time targeting who I want to target though.

the thing about riptire is that it easily has the potential to completely wipe out a team if it gets in close to them. Making it easier to do that without requiring the entire target team to know where its coming from and shooting it down just to guarantee that it doesn't close on you is... touchy. If they made it tougher, at the very least I think it would have to be a bit slower so that people can still react to it.

Personally, I think a better solution is to give him some of his charge back if it gets killed. Nothing huge, maybe like 25%, but enough that it isn't a total waste if it gets shot down.

[Necroticplague]

Personally, if I was gonna add a fix on the tire, I would go with "explodes when killed". That way, you can still get some value out of it by being alert (since there's a big difference in damage if it blows up 10-15 feet from you vs. on top of you), but it's not an ult completely wasted if it gets shot down.

[Anteros]

Sweet. We can only guess that the other hero is the next Doomfist, or maybe that Liao person who I believe was in the original group. The closest thing might be new skins though. Looking forward to that more than most things right now.

I still say Junkrat's tire needs some form of survivability buff. Or make the radius of the explosion bigger.

I hope the new map for the "preexisting game mode" is King of the Hill. I like those maps more than others usually.

The new weekly brawl sucks. I thought it would be a cool opportunity to be kind of forced to try different heroes. What actually happens is you get some crazy terrible comp, and your opponent just bowls over you so you change characters constantly. Swear to you this happened. Started on attack. We had three tanks and no healer. Opponent started with a tank, healer, Bastion, Torby, and Symmettra, so a ton of turrets with a regular comp against random heroes. We got destroyed. Other game, our team ended up with three Ana's. Why? Because it's apparently a lot less random than you think.

That being said, I got some practice with Zenyatta. I thought before he was super hard to deal with, keeping everything up at once while still attacking. Being situational about so many things makes my brain hurt. BUT, I think I like him a little more now. Keeping Harmony Orb up is hard when I have a hard time targeting who I want to target though.

I like random heroes. It's no arcade mode, but give it a few more tries before you write it off forever.

The problem with durability on the tire is that you can't buff it enough to make it matter at higher levels without completely throwing it out of balance on lower levels.



Personally, if I was gonna add a fix on the tire, I would go with "explodes when killed". That way, you can still get some value out of it by being alert (since there's a big difference in damage if it blows up 10-15 feet from you vs. on top of you), but it's not an ult completely wasted if it gets shot down.

It would turn Junkrat into a "jump into the enemy and press Q to suicide bomb them" hero. Thematically appropriate, but I'm not sure about the balance.

[Dienekes]

Personally, if I was gonna add a fix on the tire, I would go with "explodes when killed". That way, you can still get some value out of it by being alert (since there's a big difference in damage if it blows up 10-15 feet from you vs. on top of you), but it's not an ult completely wasted if it gets shot down.

This was my thought as well. But I would make it a bit more complicated with something like:

If the wheel is killed it deals a 1/4 to 3/4 damage depending on the distance away from Junkrat, or time before explosion, or something.

This gives an actual motivation for the enemies a reason to blow up the bomb early (as if they needed one), and prevents Junkrat the suicide bomber.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

This was my thought as well. But I would make it a bit more complicated with something like:

If the wheel is killed it deals a 1/4 to 3/4 damage depending on the distance away from Junkrat, or time before explosion, or something.

This gives an actual motivation for the enemies a reason to blow up the bomb early (as if they needed one), and prevents Junkrat the suicide bomber.

Problem with this is that it's almost impossible to communicate visually, which makes it hard to determine how much damage you'll take from the wheel if you can't see Junkrat. That's not good design.

If you wanted a fix like that, I'd probably just say "tires arm after X travel time." They'll have no red glow when not armed, and a red glow when armed. An armed tire explodes for full damage if detonated, and half damage if shot down: still enough to kill several characters if they're within range. Perhaps make a tire detonated before it arms deal slightly less damage as well, just for added clarity.

[Dienekes]

Problem with this is that it's almost impossible to communicate visually, which makes it hard to determine how much damage you'll take from the wheel if you can't see Junkrat. That's not good design.

If you wanted a fix like that, I'd probably just say "tires arm after X travel time." They'll have no red glow when not armed, and a red glow when armed. An armed tire explodes for full damage if detonated, and half damage if shot down: still enough to kill several characters if they're within range. Perhaps make a tire detonated before it arms deal slightly less damage as well, just for added clarity.

I don't think it'd be that hard to show, with something simple like: normal wheel color (1/4 damage), flashing red (1/2 damage), full red and smoking (3/4 damage).

But I will admit, your way is simpler and does the same thing.

[Psyren]

My fix to the tire would be to have it drain ult over time rather than all at once. That way, if it gets popped instantly upon spawning Junkrat will have a decent amount of ult left over and can fire off another one fairly soon. This also rewards both low-skill tire play (going straight for the enemy, easiest for them to counter, saves meter) and high-skill tire play (looping circuitously around them for a trick shot, hardest to counter, has the most chance of taking out multiple enemies but doing so will cost you valuable meter.)

[Velaryon]

Thanks for the replies to my question about esports funding. Given that I'm exclusively a console player (except for Minecraft, and even that I haven't touched for awhile), there are a lot of things that didn't occur to me such as the interest that tech companies would have in promoting their super expensive gaming equipment via the pro scene. I still think esports are silly, but then I think much the same about other sports as well, so I suppose it really isn't that different after all.



I still say Junkrat's tire needs some form of survivability buff. Or make the radius of the explosion bigger.

<snip>

The new weekly brawl sucks. I thought it would be a cool opportunity to be kind of forced to try different heroes. What actually happens is you get some crazy terrible comp, and your opponent just bowls over you so you change characters constantly. Swear to you this happened. Started on attack. We had three tanks and no healer. Opponent started with a tank, healer, Bastion, Torby, and Symmettra, so a ton of turrets with a regular comp against random heroes. We got destroyed. Other game, our team ended up with three Ana's. Why? Because it's apparently a lot less random than you think.

Mystery Heroes is my favorite brawl. In fact, it's the only one I've ever played more than once or twice. The others are mostly just normal games with restricted character choices. Mystery Heroes is unpredictable chaos and that's a ton of fun for me. No dimwits making poor character choices and refusing to switch. Nobody trying to stack annoying characters. Everyone understanding that you get what you get and you just have to play the best you can. That said, I will sometimes leap to my death if I'm on a character I really hate and the match isn't about to end. Give me Zarya or Genji once and I'll try to do my best. Give them to me three times in one match and I'm going to mulligan.

With regard to Junkrat's rip-tire, I'm not sure that it needs a change at all. Yes, it can be completely shut down if someone is able to destroy it, and that might even be part of why he has almost no impact at high-level play. But almost every ult has a way to be shut down. Trashmouse doesn't even have to expose himself to danger to kill with his ult, unlike every other offensive ult in the game. You can't shoot him down to shut down his ult, unlike McCree, Soldier 76, Reaper, Bastion, etc. The tire can already jump and climb walls, so you have lots of options to come at people from unexpected directions.

If you make it so it blows up anyway if you shoot it, then it needs to have a WAY smaller explosion or else there's no point in even shooting it down. Most characters can't outrun it, Mei can't wall it off unless there's a ceiling to keep the tire from climbing over, it can go right through shields. The only idea I can see that might work is Psyren's where if you lose the ult you aren't completely screwed, but if that change is made then it should be applied to other ults as well.

[Pendulous]

With regard to Junkrat's rip-tire, I'm not sure that it needs a change at all. Yes, it can be completely shut down if someone is able to destroy it, and that might even be part of why he has almost no impact at high-level play. But almost every ult has a way to be shut down. Trashmouse doesn't even have to expose himself to danger to kill with his ult, unlike every other offensive ult in the game. You can't shoot him down to shut down his ult, unlike McCree, Soldier 76, Reaper, Bastion, etc. The tire can already jump and climb walls, so you have lots of options to come at people from unexpected directions.

If you make it so it blows up anyway if you shoot it, then it needs to have a WAY smaller explosion or else there's no point in even shooting it down. Most characters can't outrun it, Mei can't wall it off unless there's a ceiling to keep the tire from climbing over, it can go right through shields. The only idea I can see that might work is Psyren's where if you lose the ult you aren't completely screwed, but if that change is made then it should be applied to other ults as well.

He doesn't have to expose himself to danger, yes, but he is completely immobile and uncontrollable while his ult is active. No other ult in the game is like that.

And no, not every offensive ult exposes the hero. Soldier just continues to do what he does, shoot people. Genji's ult makes him more mobile because each kill is still refreshing his dash. Tracer's ult is a dash and splash, and she's rarely in danger when using it. I'll gladly argue for her ult needing rework too. bastion gains armor during his. Hanzo's ult goes through literally everything, through the entire map. Torby's ult encourages him to go out in the open, but he's also tougher during it. Reinhardt is already exposing himself as is the nature of his character, and his ult is a super quick multi-stun.

That brings me to D.va, and the reason I separated her is because I find it to be the closest comparison. Except, there is no comparison. Her ult is more useful in every way. Yeah, you can't control it once you "throw" it, but there's no need. The blast radius is insanely large compared to Rip Tire and does more damage. Even if you don't get any kills with it, you still feel like you did something, because it spreads the enemy out and forces them to regroup. Also, it's a self heal. I find myself using it just to get a full heal for myself when needed. She's not really in much danger when she uses it either, because during the time she's out of her mech, the enemy is scrambling away to avoid the blast.

I should also note that there is some kind of bug, unless intended, that makes the Rip Tire do less damage when in the air. The damage also has a seemingly high drop off at range. I've had Tracers, Reapers, and whoever else survive just by being a few meters away. It also doesn't seem to climb very far, as I've had trouble getting on top of walls that Genji and Hanzo could easily climb on.

Again, it's the only ult in the game that is external and can be destroyed. It's the only ult in the game that makes you lose total control of your character. And it's not even the best damaging or the biggest radius.

[Anteros]

Who cares? Junkrat is fine in his niche. He's the hero you pick when you want to fill an area up with explosions, and he does that well. I'm not against a buff for the hero, but it's not extremely needed either.

[Keltest]

Who cares? Junkrat is fine in his niche. He's the hero you pick when you want to fill an area up with explosions, and he does that well. I'm not against a buff for the hero, but it's not extremely needed either.

I think you might be overestimating the amount of utility "filling an area up with explosions" provides. He's mostly good for destroying Reinhardt's shield and mildly annoying the people behind it. His shots can disrupt people at medium and long ranges, but he cant really hurt them so much without getting closer because his grenades are so easy to dodge at long range. and when he gets closer, people start shooting him, which he doesn't really have a response to.

[Anteros]

Yes, he's bad most of the time, and not really a viable pick in high level gameplay. Which still leaves him better off than half the roster.

Blizzard balance.

I've just accepted that the game is poorly balanced and half the characters are always going to be less useful.

[Necroticplague]

Speaking of his role as 'filling the place with explosions' actually reminds my of what I think would be a better ult: making it so that, for a bit of time, all his frag grenade shots drop little cluster grenades, like his passive, plus some stat boost to make spamming easier. something like this:

11/5:Junkrat slaps an even more volatile payload into launcher, granting him increased ammo capacity and causing his shots to create submunitions for the next 8 seconds.
yes, I know australia doesn't celebrate guy fawkes day much anymore, but the reference seems fitting enough, especially since Junkrat gets part of his name from the man.

[Psyren]

I'm happy with many characters being niche picks most of the time, as long as the potential is there for a skilled player (e.g. TviQ) to use one of those niche picks at the highest-level play and catch the enemy team off-guard. So yes, Junkrat is weak, but if he can show up at the finals of a tournament then he doesn't need much, maybe just a couple of tiny QOL tweaks.


Speaking of his role as 'filling the place with explosions' actually reminds my of what I think would be a better ult: making it so that, for a bit of time, all his frag grenade shots drop little cluster grenades, like his passive, plus some stat boost to make spamming easier.

I'd personally say something like that (weapon mods) should be a buff from another character entirely, like a new support or defense class.

[The_Jackal]

Yes, he's bad most of the time, and not really a viable pick in high level gameplay. Which still leaves him better off than half the roster.

Blizzard balance.

I've just accepted that the game is poorly balanced and half the characters are always going to be less useful.

I'm more or less in agreement with Anteros on this one. I don't think it's possible to stay true to Junkrat's concept and still make him anything more than a counter pick in the professional scene. That's simply because when you're playing against opponents with hitscan heroes with great aim, you're going to get wrecked, more often than not, lobbing slow-moving projectiles. If your definition of balance is that every Hero sees a roughly equivalent pick rate in tournament play, the game is going to suffer from some serious homogenization.

Junkrat's kit is fine. He lobs explosives around corners and into tight spaces, and give teams a tool to flush out heavily dug-in campers, like that hutch near the first point in Volskaya. Without Junkrat, 2 Reinhardts and 2 Bastions will turn that spot into a fortress. Does he have the best ult? Of course not, it's pretty bad. But that doesn't mean that Junkrat himself isn't strong in his niche. Lots of enemies don't have any good answer to Rip-tire, and as for dying when you ult, that can happen to lots of Heroes. At least Junkrat can still keep piloting his tire if he gets killed.

[Pendulous]

Maybe people should stop thinking of balance in terms of "what the top players are doing", and look at a more generalized statistic?

[Velaryon]

He doesn't have to expose himself to danger, yes, but he is completely immobile and uncontrollable while his ult is active. No other ult in the game is like that.

And no, not every offensive ult exposes the hero. Soldier just continues to do what he does, shoot people. Genji's ult makes him more mobile because each kill is still refreshing his dash. Tracer's ult is a dash and splash, and she's rarely in danger when using it. I'll gladly argue for her ult needing rework too. bastion gains armor during his. Hanzo's ult goes through literally everything, through the entire map. Torby's ult encourages him to go out in the open, but he's also tougher during it. Reinhardt is already exposing himself as is the nature of his character, and his ult is a super quick multi-stun.

You have a point with Hanzo, I forgot about him. Of course, his ult is incredibly slow moving and easy to get out of the way, unless you're in an enclosed space or don't see it coming (which is where the going through walls comes in handy, I suppose). As for the others, when I said they were exposed I meant that they were out there where they could be shot. I didn't mean all of them were as bad as McCree who is a sitting duck while doing his ult. Sure, Junkrat is immobile while ulting, but the trade-off for that is that he can put himself in a secluded or hard-to-reach place before using the rip-tire.

I don't play a lot of Junkrat, so I have to ask: does his ult suffer from the same problem as D.Va's where literally any cover, even just standing behind a stop sign, will completely protect you? Because if so, that's something they should fix, preferably for both characters.



Maybe people should stop thinking of balance in terms of "what the top players are doing", and look at a more generalized statistic?

Absolutely. The game should be balanced around the median player. The pro scene should be an afterthought.

[Anteros]

Maybe people should stop thinking of balance in terms of "what the top players are doing", and look at a more generalized statistic?

Doesn't that just give us even less reason to buff Junkrat?



Absolutely. The game should be balanced around the median player. The pro scene should be an afterthought.

No, absolutely not. In any game with 7 million players the median player is going to be bad. If we balanced by the median player we'd be nerfing Bastion and Torb and buffing heroes like Genji and Mccree. The game would be completely unplayable at higher levels.

It makes more sense to balance around high level play, because the people who play the game the most are going to get better over time and adapt to pro metas. You don't want to balance around the people who play one game every 2 weeks.

[Velaryon]

Doesn't that just give us even less reason to buff Junkrat?



No, absolutely not. In any game with 7 million players the median player is going to be bad. If we balanced by the median player we'd be nerfing Bastion and Torb and buffing heroes like Genji and Mccree. The game would be completely unplayable at higher levels.

It makes more sense to balance around high level play, because the people who play the game the most are going to get better over time and adapt to pro metas. You don't want to balance around the people who play one game every 2 weeks.

Balancing around the pro meta creates the opposite problem - that's when you end up with characters who are severely OP in average play, but they don't get touched because it isn't a problem on the pro scene. If they didn't take the average player into account, we'd still have Genji's never-ending ult allowing for easy team kills.

[Anteros]

You don't balance exclusively around the pros. You look at them, but you also look at upper tier competitive games, only looking at lower tier games when something is extremely obviously broken.

At least that's my preferred method.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

You don't balance exclusively around the pros. You look at them, but you also look at upper tier competitive games, only looking at lower tier games when something is extremely obviously broken.

At least that's my preferred method.

This gets into problems where the game can become rough to play for your average player though, which, while fine for certain game genres, is terrible for a game meant to be approachable to the average player.

As a result, a lot of games these days (League of Legends, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, etc.) are balanced around a mix of things:


Character performance at low skill / low experience.
Character performance at high skill / high experience.
Character use statistics.
Character win rates (filtered by character familiarity).

In short, if a character is a problem at any of these there is probably SOME tuning required, but you can adjust characters in multiple ways. It's relatively easy to target a buff at decreasing top-level performance without harming (or even while helping) low-level performance, for example. You don't want characters useless or super strong at any level, although variance will exist (Tryndamere will always be a pub-stomping League character, for example, because his best counter is well-utilized crowd control and proper positioning). You don't want characters who are unapproachable, although having characters whose win-rate increases with character experience isn't a bad thing -- as long as it remains within the bounds of reason.

In short, it's a LOT more complicated than "balance around X skill level," and targeting a specific skill level has the chance to disrupt the game for more players than it improves the game for.

[Anteros]

EveRyan single game you used as an example balances primarily around competitive high level play.

Also Dota 2, which is probably the most balanced one of all.

[Pendulous]

Lots of leaks. Sombra's appearance, and Halloween skins and comic https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/56ih53/sombra_design_identity_halloween_brawl_leaked/

[Necroticplague]

Huh. I'm actually surprised Sombra is a hero. The current step in the ARG (amomentincrime.com) made me think the whole deal with her was to be opening the first new game mode since the game came out: some kind of mann vs. machine Second Omnic Invasion mode, since it's the 'sombra protocol' that's 'transmitting information to active omnics'. Kinda figured it was an AI, or typical human anthropomorphizing in speech being used to refer to a computer program (though I guess the distinction between those two is arbitrary).

Although, on a hilarious note, the top of that leaked image seems to imply something similar, if completely unconnected, as the halloween event (the part where it mentions zomnics and dr. junkenstein).

Actually remember a dr. junkenstein (as the image calls it) spray being found by data mining the game a week or two ago. Saw it somewhere on youtube.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

EveRyan single game you used as an example balances primarily around competitive high level play.

...have you read their in-depth balance notes? There is VERY often talk of beefing up performance in lower level play on all of those games, and Riot, at least, has specifically said they balance for ALL levels. It's been documented, so I'm not sure this statement of yours holds water. :p

[Psyren]

Huh. I'm actually surprised Sombra is a hero. The current step in the ARG (amomentincrime.com) made me think the whole deal with her was to be opening the first new game mode since the game came out: some kind of mann vs. machine Second Omnic Invasion mode, since it's the 'sombra protocol' that's 'transmitting information to active omnics'. Kinda figured it was an AI, or typical human anthropomorphizing in speech being used to refer to a computer program (though I guess the distinction between those two is arbitrary).

She has a hero file on the table in Gibraltar just like 76 though. That suggested to me that she was a person.

I honestly doubt they're adding Horde Mode anytime soon. A co-op or story-ish mode would pull many players out of the QP and competitive queues and make the PvP matchmaking take that much longer. I wouldn't expect a PvE mode to be added until the game starts to show signs of decline, as that would be a big draw to not only revitalize lapsed players, it would pull in many new ones who would enjoy Overwatch except for the fact that they dislike PvP.

[Sylian]

If they didn't take the average player into account, we'd still have Genji's never-ending ult allowing for easy team kills.Genji was an issue at pro level and high SR Comp games as well.


Absolutely. The game should be balanced around the median player. The pro scene should be an afterthought.Punishing people for actually getting good at the game would likely kill it. Once you get good at the game it becomes broken, since it was balanced around the median player. It'd also likely kill the tournament scene.

Junkrat feeds Zarya energy and the supports ultimate charge in exchange for an ultimate that's not really that good and will be destroyed most of the time, or net 1 or 2 kills at best (generally). As long as Zarya is as prevalent as she is I doubt Junkrat will be all that viable, unless he gets some significant buffs.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Punishing people for actually getting good at the game would likely kill it. Once you get good at the game it becomes broken, since it was balanced around the median player. It'd also likely kill the tournament scene.

Which is, again, why you attempt to balance for multiple levels simultaneously, which is definitely possible and commonly done. :smallbiggrin: