Overwatch Thread: UPRISING PvE, HotS Promotional Event 2.0, and New D.VA Skin!

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

With that McCree, you're fine. As Lucio, you shouldn't break off of your main force to heal someone. Keeping three or four in range of your song is much more important than running over to "save" one person.

With D.Va, she can use her thrusters and launch her ult at range. If you couldn't hear her, she was probably at pretty long range where she used her thrusters, then immediately popped her ult. Let me tell you, it's a bitch when she does it over the gate at the first checkpoint in Dorado.

Regarding memorizing the maps, just learn the routes through where most people are going for now. Look for obvious landmarks and chokepoints, like the huge gate in Hanamura; find the health packs, so you can retreat more effectively; and try to find at least one way around all of the chokes you come across. It's not always possible (like the gate in Hanamura; there's only two ways past the gate, but multiple flank routes from there to checkpoint A), but if you're facing a Symmetra or Mei, or a team that's relatively good, it can mean the difference between your team pushing through and getting car washed.

[commandercool]

Roommate and I played for like three hours together earlier. He played Lucio or Mercy, I swapped around but mostly played Mei. I think I might be best with Mei in general right now, although nothing beats Pharah with the right team composition and map.

Got two different Play Of The Games just going on headshot sprees with Mei's icicle launcher. It's surprisingly amazing. For some reason I still have that problem where when I freeze someone with her snow gun I accidentally cryo-freeze myself instead of finishing my victim off with a headshot occasionally though. I just get the buttons scrambled in that situation and I'm not sure why.

A similar thing happens with Winston where I just can't wrap my head around the fact that his leap is a special move rather than an alt fire for his gun. For some reason I keep instinctively hitting alt fire and then being surprised and either dying or letting my target escape when no jump happens. Still haven't really wrapped my head around Winston yet, he seems to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time more often than not, but when he is set up just right he can really fuck up whole teams which is nice.

And to top off our session I got that Deadmaus frog skin for Lucio with the glowing eyes from one of my loot boxes, which is one of the ones I really wanted. Happy to have that. Now I just need a nice skin for Winston and I'll be set for all of the characters I play.

[commandercool]

Had a string of great games in 3v3 elimination just now with a team that I kept re-teaming with. I was playing Mei. Fourth game in one of the other guys immediately locks in as Mei before I can do anything. I'm like "This is weird given that I've been doing great as Mei, but whatever" so I switch to Lucio. Moments into the game this guy uses that ice wall glitch I've heard about to glitch himself and the other guy into the ceiling and turtles until the game ends in a draw. Second game, same thing. Third game, same thing. Just keeps drawing games over and over and over.

What the fuck? If you're going to be cheating trash why do it WHEN YOU'RE ON A WIN STREAK?

Well, reported. Fuck this,

Edit: Wait, is there seriously no way to report cheaters on PS4? WHY? What the fuck? Apparently this glitch has been ongoing for 6+ months and hasn't been patched out AND players aren't punished for using it? What the fuck, I thought Blizzard was supposed to be the cool company who was on top of this shit?

[O4rfish]

Blizzard console backwater is like GungHo NA backwater.

[Helepolis]

Year of the [CENSORED] Rooster event for Overwatch.

A skin for Mei which isn't recoloured.
Several new skins, emotes, victory animation, emote etc for heroes.

UI is also significantly updated. Especially during the match the kill display on top right corner is more clear and easier to read.

Taunt/Emote wheel has been adjusted

One of the biggest nerfs fixes, Roadhog's hook: Targers will no longer be pulled if they get behind an obstacle during the latching animation of the hook.
 

[commandercool]

Was so excited to buy that Mei skin, and it turns out it's three times more expensive than any other item. Are event skins always 3000 gold, or is this new? I suppose at the rate I've been getting gold I could actually afford it before the event ends, but I doubt I'll keep being this lucky.

Haven't been having a ton of fun lately, mostly because I've been trying to get my arcade wins and having a weirdly hard time of it. Capture The Rooster is abysmally terrible (had seven draws in eight games) and in Mystery Heroes I keep getting ridiculously uneven teams where my team is outleveled by 600+ levels over and over and over.

Meanwhile I've been trying to learn Zarya. She's really tricky to play. The timing on her barriers is ridiculously short to the point that I've had a bunch of games where even when I was activating barriers on myself and others who were actively mid-combat I would still only get a tiny bit of energy for entire games. Although I guess if my barriers are preventing people from attacking that's still sort of valuable, and I'm sure I'll figure the timing out a bit better the more I play.

[Tea Devil]

Was so excited to buy that Mei skin, and it turns out it's three times more expensive than any other item. Are event skins always 3000 gold, or is this new? I suppose at the rate I've been getting gold I could actually afford it before the event ends, but I doubt I'll keep being this lucky.

Event-only items are three times the price of items in that category of the same rarity. So sprays are 75, epic skins are 750, etc.

Capture the flag seems not super well thought out? The market map is fine for it, but the control tower is really way too small to pull it off. Cramped quarters are a blessing though. It is a good event for a Junkrat main. Concerned about whether I can get D.Va's skin though. Mercy's highlight is really nice too.

[hyorinryu]

Meanwhile I've been trying to learn Zarya. She's really tricky to play. The timing on her barriers is ridiculously short to the point that I've had a bunch of games where even when I was activating barriers on myself and others who were actively mid-combat I would still only get a tiny bit of energy for entire games. Although I guess if my barriers are preventing people from attacking that's still sort of valuable, and I'm sure I'll figure the timing out a bit better the more I play.

Yeah, the times kinda short, but Zarya's fairly tanky herself, so you can afford a few seconds being shieldless. Her weapon also does more damage the more damage you're shield absorbs, so there's that too.

Event-only items are three times the price of items in that category of the same rarity. So sprays are 75, epic skins are 750, etc.

Capture the flag seems not super well thought out? The market map is fine for it, but the control tower is really way too small to pull it off. Cramped quarters are a blessing though. It is a good event for a Junkrat main. Concerned about whether I can get D.Va's skin though. Mercy's highlight is really nice too.

Yeah, 3k makes buying skins a pain in the ass. At least it's not summer games where we couldn't buy anything event-related at all. I think if they only doubled or made it 1.5x, that'd be more fair.

[Silent Harmony]

If I remember correctly event cosmetics are 3x more expensive for the same reason that Summer Games was lootbox-only: to give a sense of rarity and prestige to them. Also keep in mind every event loot box is guaranteed to have at least 1 event cosmetic, so if you play enough (especially the arcade) it's easy to get most of the expensive items for free. For instance the only Winter Wonderland Legendary skin I failed to get was Nutcracker Zenyatta, and I didn't spend a dime.

Haven't played in a while, and with work firing my co-worker and forcing me into 6-day weeks the last couple of weeks I really am behind on Lunar Festival loot.

[commandercool]

Capture the flag seems not super well thought out? The market map is fine for it, but the control tower is really way too small to pull it off. Cramped quarters are a blessing though. It is a good event for a Junkrat main. Concerned about whether I can get D.Va's skin though. Mercy's highlight is really nice too.

Did you see the dev video on the game mode? Blizzard basically said (bragged, almost) that they didn't put much effort into this game mode. They seem to have a "we don't have to try at all if it's in Arcade" attitude going on that's not greeeeat.

They rushed it out the door because people demanded it, then said they might balance it later if it's popular. But it's severely handicapped against becoming popular, so who knows.

I feel like having only one flag that both teams fight over would eliminate the constant ties, but it might not be different enough from normal game modes. Once again, and I find myself saying this A LOT, Overwatch is just making me wish I was playing Splatoon. Splatoon's Capture The Flag variant was super elegant and would probably work nicely in Overwatch.

Yeah, the times kinda short, but Zarya's fairly tanky herself, so you can afford a few seconds being shieldless. Her weapon also does more damage the more damage you're shield absorbs, so there's that too.

Yeah I understand the principle behind it, but even when I'm using barriers while actively being shot at it seems like people just instantly stop shooting and move on to something else. Which makes actually powering up my damage hard and makes Zarya easy to ignore because she's not that threatening. Being able to force enemies to ignore my stronger allies for a moment is valuable though.

[Amraphenson]

Zarya works best against characters with non-hitscan projectiles: junkrat spam, firestrike, pharah rockets, soldier helix rockets, support guns in general, etc. She also counters Junkrat ult, Mei freeze (ult or primary fire), and D.Va bomb; if it's a single hit, it won't spill over into your HP no matter how strong of a hit it was. Walk into corridors being spammed on purpose with your shield up, shield flankers, and in general watch out for the enemy team going all in on your teammates. Think of her barriers less as a tanking tool and more of a peeling tool.

[Rotten]

Any of you seen the new Tracer highlight intro Lion Dance?

Pretty nice.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

You can also use those barriers offensively; just as your lead element is about to break into the enemy defenses (a Tank or somesuch), get a barrier up on them. If the enemy keeps firing, the leader will last a little longer and you get charge; if they stop, that's a few seconds your lead can use to go deeper into the defense and get ready to keep pushing.

If your team has a Reinhardt, check to see if the enemy team is trying to plink down his shield. If they are, use the barrier on the Reinhardt. Free charge, because your barrier has priority over his.

[commandercool]

Ooh, I didn't know Zarya's shield had priority. That's neat. Worth knowing for enemies too.

I had heard she could rocket jump with her alt fire. Is that true? Best xase scenario I feel like I can get like an extra couple of inches out of a jump but I very well could be doing it wrong.

[Aba Matindesu!]

Ooh, I didn't know Zarya's shield had priority. That's neat. Worth knowing for enemies too.

I had heard she could rocket jump with her alt fire. Is that true? Best xase scenario I feel like I can get like an extra couple of inches out of a jump but I very well could be doing it wrong.

Yep.

[commandercool]

Just had one of those "One more bad experience and I'm fucking quitting the game" sessions. 17 games, lost 16 of them. I know I'm not like, good at FPS, but I understand the fundamental concept behind the game and my stats were okay throughout most of it, so I can't imagine I'm so abysmally, ridiculously horrible that I singlehandedly lost all of those games for all of those teams. But I must have, right? There is NO other way that could have happened. "My being there" was the only common factor.

Also, last seven loot boxes have all been three white drops and one blue. Just sprays, sprays, sprays, sprays, sprays, sprays. Thought maybe I was going to be able to afford that Mei skin after all in three weeks' worth of events, but absolutely not at this rate. Haven't pulled a single event skin yet out of 11 boxes, and it's been since last Tuesday that I got an amount of gold that wasn't five.

Ugh.

[Aya Reiko]

Also, I think during events the drop rate for legendries, including non-event legendries, is significantly increased.

[Spotty Len]

Also, I think during events the drop rate for legendries, including non-event legendries, is significantly increased.

Oh yeah? So I am even less lucky than I thought, nice!

[commandercool]

Ugh... Likewise...

orz

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

In the four boxes I got this event so far, I got one Legendary. It was one I already had.

I just had a match on Lijang Garden CTF where I got all five golds on my team as Zenyatta. I mean, sure, I'm aggressive as fuck (even against enemy Roadhogs, usually to my detriment) and the only healer on the team. You'd think the McCree (who got the sole cap with my assist) or Roadhog would at least have one gold between them, though.

Also, I'm kind of surprised there's not more Winston picks in CTF, especially since it's almost pathetically easy to defend a flag with Symm/Torb. Had to learn some running combat as Winston in the cramped Control Tower because of all the turrets.

[commandercool]

Alright, time to open four boxes. I better get something good! Ooooor I could go 11 nothing boxes in a row, that'd be fine too.

First box: 150 gold, it's a start
Second box: Three white+one blue, but at least my blue was 50 gold
Third box: Got the event Mercy skin (which is a purple), So my first event skin, like 15 boxes in.
Fourth box: Gold item! Reinhardt's event skin. Not what I wanted, but it's something.

Well... Better. Definitely better.

[Aba Matindesu!]

So I got two legendaries...

...both of which were Red Mei. So of course I was super happy the first time, not so much the second. At least I got the Bastion exclusive, too.

[commandercool]

Project Learn Zarya is going reasonably well. Although (at least at the skill level I play her at) she CAN'T carry even a little bit, so when I see those "every single defense character on attack" team comps I KNOW I'm fucked. I could switch to Lucio like usual and do like, SOMETHING, but... I wanna play Zarya! And I know we're fucked regardless in cases like that, really...

Project Get Mei Skin, meanwhile, is not going well. White and blue drops, white and blue drops, white and blue drops. Really paddin' out my spray arsenal...

[Aya Reiko]

Tracer is getting a Nendoroid figure.

WANT!  :]

[commandercool]

Still finding myself getting forced to play Lucio most of the time because nobody else will, but I've been playing Zarya and Mei a lot when I can and they're both going real well. Snowballing with Zarya is fun as hell.

Speaking of healing, how should I react when I'm playing Lucio and someone on our team switches to Mercy? Should I take that as a slam/trolling mechanism from some jackass Mccree who wandered off by himself and died and is mad at me for not chasing him all over the map at the expense of our team to keep his health up, or is that a valid choice? I seem to lose those double-main-healer games a lot, but I'm not sure if that's because two main healers is a huge liability or if games where we're getting crushed tend to make people want to double up on healers. I know this is probably situational by game, but it comes up surprisingly often and I'm never sure how to react to it.

Maybe I should start learning Zenyatta... That might be more tolerable when I get forced into playing a healer over and over since he can also do other stuff, although he doesn't seem like he's really an acceptable primary healer on too many different team compositions. He does have the coolest skin in the game (his Ra skin) too, so that's another check in his column. Aside from prioritizing your orb targets and general aim is there anything especially challenging about playing him? I imagine positioning is extremely important given his awful mobility and defense, but beyond that he seems straightforward-ish.

[O4rfish]

At diamond rank, the assumed comp is 2-2-2: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 2 dps.  Enough so that if there's (for example) Reinhardt Roadhog Lucio Mercy McCree and you, and if you think the team specifically needs an Ana, the polite thing is to ask Mercy to switch to DPS so that you can play Ana.  It is considered a faux pas to switch from one of the three categories to a different one without asking a teammate to reciprocate (unless it's the very end of payload or something).

At higher-than-diamond ranks, people either communicate more or trust their teammates more.  At lower ranks (or in quick play), you can't rely on your teammates to communicate at all, or to have the skill to play more than one hero. 

[Zerviscos]

I am utterly disgusting myself.

[commandercool]

I just won a quick play control point game with a team of low-level randos against an opposing team consisting of one random low-level guy and a group of five, one of which was level 400-something and one of which was level 500-something (first time I had ever seen the silver border, and I had to look up what it meant). I have to assume they were trying out new characters and just goofing around or something, because I definitely killed both of them (they were an Ana and a Reinhardt) a number of times and we ultimately won by quite a lot. I don't assume that means I'm super good or anything, but it sure was a surprise to see how theoretically outmatched we were.

Edit: Being Zarya may be even more thankless than being Lucio. So many allies getting Play Of The Game because I set their ultimate up with my Graviton Surge and bubbled them while they used it...

[O4rfish]

Quick Play is not the place to have people appreciate you.

[Ionasal kkll Solciel]

So Season 3 just ended.

I forgot to finish my placements.