Media Overwatch by Blizzard

[Xenoburger_]

What the ****.

I still have PTSD from hearing "It's high noon..." in the beta.

 

[Scareb]

I desperately want to get a full team of Mccree's going now. I've gotten torbjorn, soldier 76, and symmetra but not mccree. That wold be awesome and so annoying lol.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

I clearly haven't been playing enough—never had a whole team of anyone. We had four Reinhardts once though; it sucked.

 

[Scareb]

I've done Torbjorn twice. The attackers never made it onto the first point. Symmetra was interesting, especially when you had a line of teleporters and enough sentries to make it seem like a rave or concert. The 76 we actually did twice. My team played 76vas both offense and defense. We slaughtered them as attackers. Defense was a little trickier but we won a second time. Then I got booted because too many people quit the server from the other team.

 

[Scareb]

I ****ing hate Lucio now just because of his floor is lava achievement. I've lost count of the number of times I've gotten 2 kills only to have someone kill me. Makes me wanna put my controller through my TV.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

I don't know how skillful you are with Lucio already (i.e. you may already have this down), but wall-riding sets decent players apart from really good ones, and (in unranked play at least) people handle it very poorly. If you learn to nail that on your way to the achievement, you will cause the enemy a lot of frustration.

 

[CallMeTheDoctor]

I saw one guy do it on ilios. He kept wall riding the well in the lighthouse section, and he'd ride very close to the top and kill someone and keep doing that over and over. Not sure how he didn't die right away from that.


I gave up on achievements as a few of this require pure luck.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

Yeah, the 'use your ult on 4 people' type achievements often do, but sometimes they foster good skills with your character. Off the top of my head, I really like The Floor Is Lava (for reasons described above), Storm, Earth and Fire, and Special Delivery. Storm teaches you a great Reinhardt combo and Special Delivery makes you learn how to stick people with your explosive as Tracer, both useful skills.

Some are also just plain fun. I got 'Mind like a steel trap' for Junkrat without trying; I was just messing around with mine placement and knocked someone into my trap. Felt awesome.

 

[Scareb]

I only have 5 achievements left. Lucio's floor is lava, both of zenyatta's, the fifty unlocks and the glitched lockout/lockdown one.

I've gotten pretty good at wall riding with Lucio, especially after remapping my controller. It's just frustrating that people have caught on to his environmental kills with soundwave and most walls are set up that they aren't flat, they have stuff on them that interrupts a solid wall ride.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

my word man. That's incredibly impressive; I haven't made a dent in the achievements. Nice!

 

[Scareb]

That or its really sad that I have that much time on my hands hahaha

 

[Scareb]

I've recorded clips of all my quad kills and debated making one big video of them in case people want pointers and whatnot.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

Please do!

 

[geekjosh]

How's competitive going for everyone?

Saving up those 300 points is going to take a while for sure. Matches are way too long imo for very small rewards when you win.

 

[Scareb]

Not bad, it can be really hit and miss for teams. I started at 51, gone as low as 47 and i'm back now to 50. I do like it though because people are a lot more focused on winning as opposed to playing for kills. I basically use the quick match feature when I wanna blow off some steam and just fart around with other characters. Plus working on my achievements.

On a different note, I haven't been able to make any multi-kill videos because the xbox preview program has screwed with upload so editing the videos is impossible and I don't want to upload each video individually to youtube. This one is an exception though, I got this a couple days ago.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

How's competitive going for everyone?

Saving up those 300 points is going to take a while for sure. Matches are way too long imo for very small rewards when you win.

I don't know exactly how this works, but you will be getting the bulk of your comp points at the end of the season, based on seasonal performance. So it's better to keep your rank up than focus on easy wins for CP. Besides, I know a few of us will walk in with the collector mentality and want all the gold weapons, but Blizzard will specifically design against that. They want gold weapons to indicate serious skill with a character, so you should only be able to afford one or two max per season. They will also be releasing new exclusive weapon skins each season, so that way it keeps reflecting how good you are. Let's say a new season starts, and you see a player with a set of the latest camo straight out of the gate. You now know they had enough CP lying around to afford it immediately, which could indicate good performance last season.

I'm hovering around 49-51; have not yet gone outside that range. I do wonder of Blizzard penalise you too much for losses, but we will see as they adjust the system going forward.

Honestly, I'm enjoying competitive mode on PC but dislike how some folks are suddenly taking the game way too seriously, and how comp seems to have made quick play no fun any more. So far every quick game I've played since comp launched has been way too easy, so it's no longer a nice way to learn new characters, and that leaves me stuck playing the few I know I am good at in competitive.

 

[Trengence]

As someone who plays heroes of the storm nonstop for the last year, which also got a competitive mode, the Overwatch games are a nice 7 minutes each or quicker instead of 23 movies per game like in HOTS

 

[InebriatedGnome]

7 minutes sounds fast for competitive--most of my games are at 15 or more. You're totally right though; it's a welcome break from MOBAs.

 

[geekjosh]

New character Ana Amari (Pharah's Mom) gameplay and origins video!





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HERO BALANCE UPDATES


General

Self-healing abilities now charge ultimate abilities. As a result, some heroes’ ultimate costs have been adjusted (see below).

Bastion

Configuration: Tank
Ultimate cost increased by 10%

D.Va

Defense Matrix
Cooldown decreased from 10 seconds to 1 second
A new resource meter has been added. This meter will deplete while Defense Matrix is active and then recharge when it’s not in use.
Defense Matrix takes 10 seconds to reach full charge from empty
At a full charge, Defense Matrix will last for 4 seconds
Defense Matrix will now remain active as long as its assigned hotkey is held
Defense Matrix has been reclassified as an alternate fire and is now bound to RMB (by default)
An option to “Toggle Defense Matrix” has been added under Options > Controls > D.Va
Self-Destruct
Ultimate cost decreased by 15%
Explosion delay reduced from 4 seconds to 3 seconds
Explosion no longer damages D.Va (the player who activates it)

Developer Notes: D.Va isn't being selected as often as our other tanks, and we feel a lot of that stems from the underperformance of her damage absorption abilities. So, we've reconfigured her Defensive Matrix, making it more flexible and giving players the ability to use it more often. We’ve also given Self-Destruct a little more oomph, because it felt slightly underwhelming when compared to many of Overwatch's other ultimate abilities.

Lúcio

Sound Barrier
Ultimate cost increased by 10%

McCree

Peacekeeper
Now maintains full damage at longer distances, but will deal less damage at extreme ranges

Developer Notes: While the game does feel better following the nerf to McCree’s close-range damage in a previous patch, it left him a little too weak. So, we're increasing his effective distance, making his range similar to Soldier: 76’s. This should hopefully give players another option for dealing with pesky long-range damage dealing heroes like Pharah and Hanzo.

Mercy

Caduceus Staff
Damage Boost
Bonus damage increased from 30% to 50%
Effect will no longer stacks with bonus damage provided by another Mercy
Resurrect
Ultimate charge cost increased by 30%
Movement is no longer prevented during activation
Guardian Angel instantly resets upon use

Developer Notes: Mercy's ultimate is one of the most powerful abilities in the game; however, players would often fly into the fray and die while using it. With this update, Resurrect will now take a bit longer to charge, but Mercy will be a lot safer when activating the ability in the middle of combat. In addition, we always intended Mercy’s Damage Boost beam to be her primary method for dealing damage, but it often felt so weak that you were better off pulling out your blaster. To help address this, we've slightly increased its potency.

Roadhog

Whole Hog
Ultimate cost increased by 45%

Soldier: 76

Heavy Pulse Rifle
Spread recovery will begin after a short delay (rather than instantly)
Tactical Visor
Ultimate cost increased by 10%

Zenyatta

Base shields increased by 50 (now 50 Health/150 Shield)
Orb of Discord and Orb of Harmony
Projectile speed has been increased from 30 to 120
Transcendence
Movement speed is now doubled upon activation
Healing amount increased from 200 to 300 health per second

Developer Notes: While Zenyatta has never had the healing abilities of Lúcio or Mercy, he made up for it by dealing more damage. However, his lack of mobility and low health has meant he’s struggled to find a place in many games. To increase his effectiveness, we've made several changes, the biggest of which is an increased shield pool. This will allow him to go head-to-head with more enemies. The Orb of Harmony and Discord changes are also a quality of life change, helping Zenyatta move his orbs around and apply their effects more quickly. And lastly, we’ve increased Transcendence’s healing throughput. This ultimate was designed to be the most effective against sustained, high-damage fire and least effective against short, high-damage bursts (like D.Va’s or Junkrat's ultimates). But, due to the amount of healing it provided, there were times when it was possible for even sustained fire to overcome Transcendence’s output. We’ve made the heal powerful and also allowed Zenyatta to move around more quickly while it’s active.

 

[InebriatedGnome]

Oh my god. The balance changes are so exciting; I'm looking forward to trying out Zenyatta after the patch. Downloading the test realm right now, so I can have a shot at playing Ana