the importance of mobility in this game always jumps out at me when I'm on bastion. It's just a death wish to stay in any one place too long. I'm basically always moving on any character just so I'm not an easy target for the sniper I don't see. I've wasted too many people who are like "you know, maybe I can stand still here for 5 seconds" not to be paranoid myself.* You can bunker down to some degree, but man you'd better be a good shot.
It's fine not to prefer hyper-mobility as a meta though of course.
*I'm not an amazing widowmaker, but my number one thing to do with her is zip up to the same ledge a red widowmaker is on out of her field of view and snipe her. One guy left the game after he saw the kill cam. Like, I was 5 feet behind his head. It's so cruel but it feels so good. Unless someone does it to me, in which case it is injustice and unnecessary.
This is a great point. I'm worried about mobility creep too, but it's time to accept that very few OW heroes can get away with no mobility options. It's just the nature of the game now. As mobility creep goes, a movement speed steroid for Torb is probably the healthiest minimum they could have managed.
Giving him an area denial ult is a pretty cool step as well. I was gunning for a normal skill a bit like what they gave him in ult form so I'm super-duper happy. Area denial / spam creep is it sown danger, but such skills are also great counters to mobility and death ball / goat style comps. So throwing more area denial on a hero already about area denial is very smart IMO. Putting it on an ult? Even smarter: it limits the inherent spamminess of the area denial.
Mobility creep takes many forms - consider Bastion, Symmetra and now Torb. They've all been reworked from zero-mobility to low-mobility. Basically the devs have acknowledged that mobility is something almost everybody needs, and now there's no going back.
Anyway it's fine, that's just the way the game has evolved. Torb is really fun, although Overload is probably a little OP. His ultimate is basically a variant of Wrecking Ball's ultimate. You can spread it out to shut down a similarly large area, or you can selectively target a few different chokes at once. Definitely has teamwipe potential, though it might be a little niche.
It's also worth pointing out that over half of the original cast of characters (13 out of 21) had mobility as a core part of their kit out of the gate (Rein and Reaper less so than the others) so it's not as if mobility hasn't been a fundamental part of their design philosophy from the beginning. It's true that mobility has been emphasized more as the game has gone on (due as much to map layout favoring the ability to take high ground as anything else), but it's not nearly at the level of, say, how big a part of the game CC has become. (For comparison, 4 of the 7 new characters have some form of mobility, while 6 of the new 7 have strong CC options, most of which are the most powerful in the game.) With how much CC there is in the game now, the ability to move and escape is pretty dang necessary.
I don't think they can really put the genie back into the bottle in terms of the mobility creep. Not having it is one thing, having it taken away would be disastrous. Probably the only reason I'm still playing this game after two years is because I'm a Lucio addict. He's had a few reworks that have made wallriding more effective/accessible and if they had gone the other way and nerfed his movement, I might not be still playing and if I was (because addict) I'd be lamenting the lack of movement.
I don't mind anti-movement hero skills, though! Everything should be counterable, and movement skills are no exception. I like trying to play around a Sombra or McRee or Brigitte, baiting skills and engaging at opportune moments. More heroes with legit anti-movement skills or reworking existing skills would be fun to play against.
Mcree with an area of effect slowdown (caltrops thrown in an arc?) would be a nice upgrade over his flashbang, for example.
The only thing I like about that ult is it's relatively skill-based in terms of where you're throwing it, compared to OG MC.
But it just feels like a variation on Hammy's ult - except it might be way better. Each Ham mine does 130 - that's this thing's base if you touch it, 190 if it's armor. And it seems to just keep on doing that the longer you touch it. So way more damage over less time, you can slop it into a grav from 20 yards away and it has the bonus against armor. It's Aimed Hammond Ult +++.
So yeah. Not really inspired. And might get nerfed. I also wonder what kind of fuckery it is when Blizz introduces a hero that adds to the game's whole armor thing before completely removing the Original Armor Guy's armoring. That feels like a bum deal for Torb, and I'll both miss his armor and be glad to see it go.
I'd always kinda' hoped they'd lean into the builder thing with Torb in interesting ways. Like, his turret now only upgrades to level 1, but the turret itself exists as a Rein-sized shield that'll absorb 300 damage, can block D.Va ult, etc. Huge hitbox, lower DPS but higher base health. Allow Torb to be more tactical, a bit like a Mei. Give him an interesting ability instead of Valkyrie For Dwarves. Which, by the way, is just another goddamned cooldown ability that can completely negate Tracer's ult! His own little Fortify/Projected Barrier to eat 150 damage, or 300 if it's coming from Reaper, Sombra, Tracer, Winston, Moira, Symmetra or Soldier.
Bleugh.
NuTorb is just "the basic turret's still solid and we're encouraging you to get good with his gun." Or in my head, he's a less interesting character. I'm sure duelling someone with the whole Overdrive thing will be an interesting proposition, but it definitely makes Torb less special.
Also, I'm sick and feeling loopy, but I tried mystery FFA, got my butt kicked twice, got top 3 and top 2, and 2 potgs - Reaper and Hanzo >.< The way the levels are changed and health packs/ cover disappears behind blocked doors for deathmatch really messed with me. Like, repeatedly. So doin' well felt pretty amazing ^.^
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Torb can't pull people into his own ult, though. And Hammond more easily and more quickly can cover an entire point with his.
Zen and Ana exist so no mobility Heroes can work they just need something worth that trade.
This is true.
Now that I think about it, the only class with hella mobility creep had been dps. Sure Hammond and Moira, but counterpoint, Brig and Orisa.
Meanwhile: Doomfist, Sombra, Junkrat buffs, Symm rework, Hanzo rework, Widow's grapple cd buff, Robjorn, and now even McCree and Pharah.
It makes sense I guess. Healers can get away with sitting in the backline and tanks can control a space at walking pace. But dps? They gotta be quick to get anything done.
Zen and Ana exist so no mobility Heroes can work they just need something worth that trade.
Zen also got a mobility buff! The only characters in the roster with no movement skill who have never received a mobility buff are Orisa, Zarya and Ana. Roadhog and Bastion have no movement skill but they both got mobility buffs post-launch.
Zen and Ana exist so no mobility Heroes can work they just need something worth that trade.
Zen also got a mobility buff! The only characters in the roster with no movement skill who have never received a mobility buff are Orisa, Zarya and Ana. Roadhog and Bastion have no movement skill but they both got mobility buffs post-launch.
The best kind of correct.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
Zarya has a tiny bit of mobility. She can rocket jump with her alt fire. It doesn’t get you much height, but it's useful once in awhile. I mostly just use it to get back from spawn a little bit quicker.
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
edited September 2018
The game keeps resetting auto wallclimb to on for all of Junkrat, Gengi, and Hanzo. This is upsetting because autowallclimb is poop from a butt that serves only to be self-CC and you don't know it's on until it gets you killed.
NuTorb is just "the basic turret's still solid and we're encouraging you to get good with his gun." Or in my head, he's a less interesting character. I'm sure duelling someone with the whole Overdrive thing will be an interesting proposition, but it definitely makes Torb less special.
Yeah, it seems like they made him more effective but less unique. But I think his new ult has a distinct place from Hammond's minefield - kind of similar to how Junk and Dva's ults accomplish the same thing but at different ranges.
I gotta confess I got a bit annoyed at the response to my post. I will detail why because I feel it merits explaining, but briefly, and behind a spoiler, because long-winded aggro sucks and I've done a lifetime's worth of it.
Of course stats and data are important? They're how OW judges you. It's not like someone is watching you play. My self-gathered data produced a scoring mechanic that correlated 75% with OW's over/under so that was a good, although not perfect, way to evaluate my performance.
Seems weird to indicate I'm not playing as a part of the team when 40% of my time is in healer.
I accept that DPS might be 'least useful' at high levels but that's not the case at silver, when all the evidence shows we won more often and more conclusively when I played DPS.
Winning and losing usually seems to be due to things entirely beyond my control. My performance is about 50/50, ie I overperform in roughly half my wins and half my losses. This often (not always) is reflected in the deviation from the norm for OW's -/+ post-match point system per point 1, but I almost never feel like I am really influencing whether we win or lose the game - because of idiots, Widows (seriously, in Silver?), leavers, poor team comp, angry morons, enemy smurfs, &c. Honestly, I'm lucky to just get a functional game at this level, let alone wins.
It's really simple. The extremely short version is this:
But - even though I may feel somewhat... wronged? on an emotional level, I appreciate they were still legitimate offers to help and I don't want to be excessively churlish.
So, here's a round from me. It's not a carefully-selected one, I literally just logged on and played. We were getting smashed but then the game seemed to even out so I started recording. It ultimately happens to be a win, but I feel it's reflective of my general DPS performance. It was preceded by a good heal game which we lost, but unfortunately I wasn't recording. If you want another one I'll do another one. Either way: from this video, please let me know what you think I'm doing wrong.
Edit: Maybe just the Hanzo bit. On second thoughts I should have cut our attack round as they started getting leavers, although on the other hand this is super common in silver!
Flippy_D on
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
1) You're uncomfortable with moving and aiming. You're regularly using your strafing to aim rather than your mouse. This is a bad habit that I do as well, and it's really important to break it as much as possible. You get some good flicks, but watch how often, as Hanzo, you are leaving the crosshair exactly in place and trying to match your pace with another player to hit them. As you get higher in rank, this becomes more and more difficult to do. Note there are several times where you Storm Arrow into thin air because you're trying to reposition solely with strafe.
2) Hard to judge from just one match, but I think your positioning wrt your team probably needs work. This is one of those difficult to judge skills (and is never measured by stats), because if you outclass your opponents you can often get away with playing a very loose formation, but if you don't, you'll get punished for it.
3) Bastion is a viable pick, but his turret form should be used sparingly (exception being once you're on the cart). A Protect The President strat is fine for silver/gold, and tbh even plat and diamond, but a non-mobile Bastion is a sitting duck to a lot of characters, whereas once you get decent at aiming on the move, his battle rifle mode is actually quite good. More importantly, this reinforces the point I made about moving and aiming, because if you watch your crosshair when you're stationary, you're doing a much better job of tracking enemy movement with the mouse.
There are also a couple of moments where you aren't turning while being attacked from behind that make me feel you might not be comfortable with having your mouse sensitivity this low. The difficulty with raising it is that your flicks are pretty decent right now and that would screw with the muscle memory.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you exactly, and certainly I always want to be more accurate, but isn't 31% accuracy with Hanzo pretty top-drawer?
Take your point about it not working out so well at higher levels though, too. And sorry, I definitely think it's valid feedback and will take it on board.
Agree totally re: Bastion. At low silver though it often works a charm.
I'd say the accuracy % depends. Since the game has infinite ammo it becomes one of those "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take so just fire in the general direction of enemies at all times" kinds of things. I really dislike OW's infinite ammo but you gotta make of it what you can. I've never really cared if my Lucio's accuracy is 30% if I am just pouring wubs downrange to try to suppress long range characters.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
I am fairly cautious about using accuracy as a measure of absolute aim. The games I play with GM friends have had my accuracy much lower (like 10-20%), because I'm playing against dps players who are much better at movement in general, and they are using highly mobile heroes like Genji and Doomfist successfully, who are harder to aim at. So I feel that while 30% is certainly no bad thing (and like I said, your flicks seem good), it's very much contextual to the level you're playing it.
That isn't a great game to judge. If you're looking for advice, it's best to use a close game. You kind of steam rolled the other team for most of that.
However, one thing definitely popped out at me. Why did you hang out at the spawn door at the beginning of attack? The only way you'll get picks there is if the other team just plays poorly. It worked out because the other half of your team pushed back the one or two defenders who were too far forward, but it was just kind of a waste of time.
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
edited September 2018
The one thing I'd chime in with is that if you feel powerless about your contributions winning or losing a game, you're thinking too small-scale. Ranked ladders in games like OW and MOBAs are marathons; if you get caught up in how the number goes up and down after every game you'll just go crazy, because that's not how you're supposed to think about it. I'd even advise not paying attention to how your ranking changes over a session of playing, only look at it weekly if you have to and just focus the day-to-day on improving your own play. If you play enough games (and in these systems, "enough games" is always going to be "a lot of games"), if you're really better than your station, the scales will tip in your favor.
Edit: And seeking advice on your replays is a good step on that "focus on improving your own play bit", natch. I won't comment on the video because I am, in fact, bad at this game :P
Just went 12 and 0 with Lucio in Mystery Heroes on Oasis. Dayum.
Edit: then 10 and 10 on Gibraltar defense (still MH). Attack was an okay fight till they stonewalled us halfway through the second point, and it was all over with 28 seconds on the clock as we respawned. We got Moira (me), two Brigittes, a Lucio, a Tracer and a Soldier and we pour so much healing into one little doorway as they flood through it, it was effectively a Trance in that hallway for a moment, and we were unkillable. Soldier goes on a 20-odd killstreak tear, and Moira takes me all the way home.
MH lessons: I should play more support >.<
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I gotta confess I got a bit annoyed at the response to my post. I will detail why because I feel it merits explaining, but briefly, and behind a spoiler, because long-winded aggro sucks and I've done a lifetime's worth of it.
Of course stats and data are important? They're how OW judges you. It's not like someone is watching you play. My self-gathered data produced a scoring mechanic that correlated 75% with OW's over/under so that was a good, although not perfect, way to evaluate my performance.
Seems weird to indicate I'm not playing as a part of the team when 40% of my time is in healer.
I accept that DPS might be 'least useful' at high levels but that's not the case at silver, when all the evidence shows we won more often and more conclusively when I played DPS.
Winning and losing usually seems to be due to things entirely beyond my control. My performance is about 50/50, ie I overperform in roughly half my wins and half my losses. This often (not always) is reflected in the deviation from the norm for OW's -/+ post-match point system per point 1, but I almost never feel like I am really influencing whether we win or lose the game - because of idiots, Widows (seriously, in Silver?), leavers, poor team comp, angry morons, enemy smurfs, &c. Honestly, I'm lucky to just get a functional game at this level, let alone wins.
It's really simple. The extremely short version is this:
But - even though I may feel somewhat... wronged? on an emotional level, I appreciate they were still legitimate offers to help and I don't want to be excessively churlish.
So, here's a round from me. It's not a carefully-selected one, I literally just logged on and played. We were getting smashed but then the game seemed to even out so I started recording. It ultimately happens to be a win, but I feel it's reflective of my general DPS performance. It was preceded by a good heal game which we lost, but unfortunately I wasn't recording. If you want another one I'll do another one. Either way: from this video, please let me know what you think I'm doing wrong.
Edit: Maybe just the Hanzo bit. On second thoughts I should have cut our attack round as they started getting leavers, although on the other hand this is super common in silver!
Yeah this video being a win, and with very short usable footage (before the leavers) doesn't make for great vod reviews, but I'll mention the few things that comes to mind:
1. So you're hard strafing with your aiming. It was working for you, but while strafing like that may make it easier to land your shots now, it will also make it easier for players to shoot you. My aim is trash though so I can't be super helpful to improve.
2. Your first ult was kind of wasted as that fight was pretty hopeless. Not going to say it's a huge problem as it was overtime, and the occasional hail mary can be forgiven cause "fuck yeah!" when it works. Realize though, the odds of it working were pretty slim.
3. When you come back, you push too far forward without your team. Somehow you end up surviving this with like 3 hp, but a better team would have killed you for it. In an alternate timeline where your enemy wasn't terrible and killed you, that could have led to them rolling through second and winning the whole damn game.
In that situation if you wanted to get some to take some early shots without your team, you would have been far better off taking the high ground right and shooting out that high window across from the door that just opened for the payload, I think the pros call this window "heaven", don't ask me why. That high ground can't be reached by characters without vertical mobility, it provides far more cover for your retreat if you need to, it's closer to the mega health pack, and someone like D.Va looking to push into you won't have their team behind them to back them up and could easily over extend themselves trying to chase you.
4. Both your ults were straight at the cart. Don't know if you always do this, but for me, if i hear a Hanzo ult, and I don't know where it's coming from. I just assume it's going straight at the point. They were both kind of in overtime or near it, so maybe that's why, but normally, ulting a weird/unexpected angles that can surprise enemies or cause them to split allowing your team to fight with a numbers advantage for a few seconds will work better.
5. Pirateship with Bastion is a legit Junkertown strat. Not sure why you stood at the door for so long, usually it's good to setup on the cart asap to give the enemy less time to counter it. It does work far better with Orisa instead of Rein though, and with mercy pocketing bastion, but whatev's it's Silver.
Brutal J's 3rd point that he makes is something I end up harping on quite a bit, and I hadn't read his post when I made my recording. You give multiple opportunities for the enemy team to make plays on you for free. In this case they suck and fail to do so, but you want to clean up those mistakes so that you're not getting punished for it against more competent teams.
I don't really have a problem with tossing out ults like candy in this match, because against the comp they're running you're going to get a lot of ult charge anyway, but you go for cute ults a couple of times, when you would've had more value out of just maintaining your high ground control and shooting normally. And just generally a tendency to undervalue your high ground control and give it up for free.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Brutal J's 3rd point that he makes is something I end up harping on quite a bit, and I hadn't read his post when I made my recording. You give multiple opportunities for the enemy team to make plays on you for free. In this case they suck and fail to do so, but you want to clean up those mistakes so that you're not getting punished for it against more competent teams.
I don't really have a problem with tossing out ults like candy in this match, because against the comp they're running you're going to get a lot of ult charge anyway, but you go for cute ults a couple of times, when you would've had more value out of just maintaining your high ground control and shooting normally. And just generally a tendency to undervalue your high ground control and give it up for free.
Pretty spot on there. If people posting vods becomes more of a thing, I'll probably have to actually record audio and give out more detail like this.
One thing i'd note is that dps that have incredible reflexes or have a high k:d ratio but do not know where there team is or what the team is doing don't often feel like they are contributing. In watching the video and the reviews it wasn't explicitly said but being aware of your own team is often as important as what the enemy team is doing. There was a comment about jumping down to your healers instead of going for the full health pack as well as helping the rein out against the dva attack. I guess the question to ask is "is my surviving by running to a health pack as important as sticking with my team to take down this enemy?"
Why did you hang out at the spawn door at the beginning of attack?
Wouldn't have done quite so much normally. Looking at the footage again I can tell you, though:
- Was apprehensive about rushing in when I didn't know their full comp
- I knew there was a fight happening to the right; Rein had set up in front of me with better view, and I assumed that because he wasn't moving forward, it wasn't safe to
- You see me move with Rein when he starts to walk but then Hanzo appeared so I went back to turret to try and kill him quickly
- Then I thought there was a fight just beyond the cart and that I could cover them better by staying in turret for a moment longer
Maybe that's not good reasoning. Maybe it wouldn't even have mattered if I died out the gates?
The one thing I'd chime in with is that if you feel powerless about your contributions winning or losing a game, you're thinking too small-scale [...] if you get caught up in how the number goes up and down after every game you'll just go crazy
Man I was going crazy because I had a losing streak of some 14 games! I started gathering data to try and feel a bit more like I at least knew what was happening. It actually helped a lot.
Aiming stuff
I'll try to be more fluid. I've always sniped like that since TF2 - in fact, I adopted the approach in TF2 and it improved my play, ironically. I was pretty fearsome in that game...
Ult use / "Both your ults were straight at the cart."
Ult management is something I do struggle with. Two particular things:
a) Because I almost always output high damage I tend to build ults quickly, and so I don't like to sit on them too long waiting for a perfect moment that never comes, and
b) I sometimes delay switching off classes because I'm at 80%+ ult, which almost always feels like a mistake but I don't know what the wisdom on this is...
In terms of actual deployment, you're right that I fired that off because it was in overtime and they were at the gates (also why I kept attacking and harassing, to keep them tangled up whilst my team came back). I do also believe in weird angles and using it for area denial etc.
You would have been far better off taking the high ground right and shooting out that high window across from the door
I have always just dismissed that as way too exposed, but I'll try it next time.
When you come back, you push too far forward without your team. Somehow you end up surviving this with like 3 hp...
You give multiple opportunities for the enemy team to make plays on you for free. In this case they suck and fail to do so, but you want to clean up those mistakes so that you're not getting punished for it against more competent teams.
And just generally a tendency to undervalue your high ground control and give it up for free.
This is probably the main thing I need to improve: my positioning. I don't know what distance I should maintain. I typically use skirmish tactics, trying to keep in the sweet spot whilst also shutting down flanks and supplying oppressive cover. I don't die that often, but when I do it's often when I get caught in the middle of a fight, or when there's a good Genji or Tracer harassing the back. Staying high-distance with Hanzo just feels like a much more rookie, ineffective approach, but am I wrong about that?
Kana
Appreciate you recording this but will have to watch it later...
Second thing:
Here's another round, and a very good example of how an 'I feel powerless' loss might go.
On attack, I die once, in a stupid way, right at the start, then only once more in the entire game which is when we finally lose. But otherwise I feel like I'm providing positive, skirmishing support and playing the objective most of the time, except on the last stretch where my effectiveness wanes as the team is scattered and I'm really just harassing/picking people off and trying to build ult (which I then don't use very effectively, I admit, but I'm not sure it would've made a difference).
On defence, it's a shitshow.
- I fuck up at the start by whiffing a wall-climb (unusual, partly from external distractions...)
- By the time I'm back, they've cruised through to first point, everyone is dead as I try to help Bastion, then I get suckered into kill-or-be-killed and have no real path to retreat so just try to keep them off the objective.
- On my next return, trying to support Moira, I run straight into ults and someone, no names mentioned Bastion, keeps charging up Zarya to full power. Again I try to stall them, but I get ulted and die.
- Next spawn, we've held them a little but we're still totally scattered and I get cornered. Barely escape, but then they have ults again and I get mowed down by another fully-charged Zarya.
- Switch to Junk to try and do more area denial and get a few kills but it doesn't really work, our team is kept permanently off-balance and I eat another ult, then a headshot, then they have more ults and we lose.
Now, I would say I played pretty alright on attack and helped drag the team forward, but the way we absolutely crumpled on defence is very familiar. I don't think I played well on defence fwiw but also don't feel like I had a huge amount of opportunity to do so. I guess looking at this video the one thing I might've done was not gone forward after spawn, but it was always trying to help someone who was already there - it feels shitty to just let them die.
One thing i'd note is that dps that have incredible reflexes or have a high k:d ratio but do not know where there team is or what the team is doing don't often feel like they are contributing. In watching the video and the reviews it wasn't explicitly said but being aware of your own team is often as important as what the enemy team is doing. There was a comment about jumping down to your healers instead of going for the full health pack as well as helping the rein out against the dva attack. I guess the question to ask is "is my surviving by running to a health pack as important as sticking with my team to take down this enemy?"
Depends on the outcome. Depends on how much you trust those healers to throw some hp your way, or how sure you are you can contribute something worth trading a death for.
I go for health packs a lot.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
One thing i'd note is that dps that have incredible reflexes or have a high k:d ratio but do not know where there team is or what the team is doing don't often feel like they are contributing. In watching the video and the reviews it wasn't explicitly said but being aware of your own team is often as important as what the enemy team is doing. There was a comment about jumping down to your healers instead of going for the full health pack as well as helping the rein out against the dva attack. I guess the question to ask is "is my surviving by running to a health pack as important as sticking with my team to take down this enemy?"
Depends on the outcome. Depends on how much you trust those healers to throw some hp your way, or how sure you are you can contribute something worth trading a death for.
I go for health packs a lot.
You also play a lot of Tracer and she kind of needs to go for health packs.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
edited September 2018
Okay, more on the aiming. Pretty sure what's screwing you up here is Storm Arrow. You're wanting to fire as many as fast as possible, and because you're primarily flicking to aim your other shots, you're using the strafing to aim Storm Arrow and some normal shots, because you can't flick shots when firing in that quick a succession. So try either firing Storm Arrows more slowly and flicking it, or practise your tracking (with mouse, not strafe) while Storm Arrow is up. When you're taking a normal shot, actually flick or aim normally. Your hit percentage from the Attack round is much better in that video when you flick.
Secondly, on positioning. In the last video, I actually felt that if you'd hit the two dps at close range when you contested the cart at the start, you could've won that, so while Kana disagreed, I was okay with that push. In this video [on defence, trying to stop cart reaching first checkpoint] with just you and a very badly positioned, turreted Bastion against most of the enemy team, you had no hope. Committing further around the corner got you killed and the pick wasn't worth it. So, 1) beware of overcommitting on a pair of corners that don't have an easy LoS break on falling back (Zen, Rein and Soldier were easily able to get around your cover and catch you in the open). 2) Have an idea of how many enemies you'd have to kill to successfully contest a point. 2-3 squishies should be max for a close commit if you're almost alone; far better to stay back, harass and wait for a team regroup at that point. I'll tie 3 into the next part.
So on respawn, you push forward, but your teammates die around the corner. At first you get the right idea, and back off, but then you stop and let the Zarya push into range of you. Rein's charge doesn't help, but this is symptomatic of both of you trickling in, and you not respecting what is now hostile territory properly. So 3) try and get your team to regroup after a death, rather than trickling in one by one. 4) Try and build a mental map of what is hostile territory, and don't push hard into it solo unless there are only very light enemies you're really confident you can outplay.
Positioning again afterwards, you drop down onto the stairs with Bastion. You have no fallback into friendly territory here without pushing forward into contested territory. So you're reliant on your team winning the territory contest, and when they don't, Zarya pushes in on you and you have literally nowhere to go. So this is close to point 1) again; try and mentally make sure you're using positions that have a fallback if you get pushed.
I don't know if you play Junkrot regularly, but if you do, his real power is a one-two hit on squishies. Don't throw landmines willy-nilly; save at least one so that if you get a hit on a squishy with your primary fire, you can immediately follow up with an airburst for the kill. Maybe @surrealitycheck can link some old rounds of his Junkrot play showing more or less what you're aiming for if you're playing him.
I just had a moment where the players on my team were so toxic that I endorsed the enemy team over my own. There's a first time for everything I suppose.
I didn't love it but they were just better and actually organized.
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This is a great point. I'm worried about mobility creep too, but it's time to accept that very few OW heroes can get away with no mobility options. It's just the nature of the game now. As mobility creep goes, a movement speed steroid for Torb is probably the healthiest minimum they could have managed.
Giving him an area denial ult is a pretty cool step as well. I was gunning for a normal skill a bit like what they gave him in ult form so I'm super-duper happy. Area denial / spam creep is it sown danger, but such skills are also great counters to mobility and death ball / goat style comps. So throwing more area denial on a hero already about area denial is very smart IMO. Putting it on an ult? Even smarter: it limits the inherent spamminess of the area denial.
Tentative props Blizz!
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
Anyway it's fine, that's just the way the game has evolved. Torb is really fun, although Overload is probably a little OP. His ultimate is basically a variant of Wrecking Ball's ultimate. You can spread it out to shut down a similarly large area, or you can selectively target a few different chokes at once. Definitely has teamwipe potential, though it might be a little niche.
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I don't mind anti-movement hero skills, though! Everything should be counterable, and movement skills are no exception. I like trying to play around a Sombra or McRee or Brigitte, baiting skills and engaging at opportune moments. More heroes with legit anti-movement skills or reworking existing skills would be fun to play against.
Mcree with an area of effect slowdown (caltrops thrown in an arc?) would be a nice upgrade over his flashbang, for example.
But it just feels like a variation on Hammy's ult - except it might be way better. Each Ham mine does 130 - that's this thing's base if you touch it, 190 if it's armor. And it seems to just keep on doing that the longer you touch it. So way more damage over less time, you can slop it into a grav from 20 yards away and it has the bonus against armor. It's Aimed Hammond Ult +++.
So yeah. Not really inspired. And might get nerfed. I also wonder what kind of fuckery it is when Blizz introduces a hero that adds to the game's whole armor thing before completely removing the Original Armor Guy's armoring. That feels like a bum deal for Torb, and I'll both miss his armor and be glad to see it go.
I'd always kinda' hoped they'd lean into the builder thing with Torb in interesting ways. Like, his turret now only upgrades to level 1, but the turret itself exists as a Rein-sized shield that'll absorb 300 damage, can block D.Va ult, etc. Huge hitbox, lower DPS but higher base health. Allow Torb to be more tactical, a bit like a Mei. Give him an interesting ability instead of Valkyrie For Dwarves. Which, by the way, is just another goddamned cooldown ability that can completely negate Tracer's ult! His own little Fortify/Projected Barrier to eat 150 damage, or 300 if it's coming from Reaper, Sombra, Tracer, Winston, Moira, Symmetra or Soldier.
Bleugh.
NuTorb is just "the basic turret's still solid and we're encouraging you to get good with his gun." Or in my head, he's a less interesting character. I'm sure duelling someone with the whole Overdrive thing will be an interesting proposition, but it definitely makes Torb less special.
Also, I'm sick and feeling loopy, but I tried mystery FFA, got my butt kicked twice, got top 3 and top 2, and 2 potgs - Reaper and Hanzo >.< The way the levels are changed and health packs/ cover disappears behind blocked doors for deathmatch really messed with me. Like, repeatedly. So doin' well felt pretty amazing ^.^
It made it even worse.
This is true.
Now that I think about it, the only class with hella mobility creep had been dps. Sure Hammond and Moira, but counterpoint, Brig and Orisa.
Meanwhile: Doomfist, Sombra, Junkrat buffs, Symm rework, Hanzo rework, Widow's grapple cd buff, Robjorn, and now even McCree and Pharah.
It makes sense I guess. Healers can get away with sitting in the backline and tanks can control a space at walking pace. But dps? They gotta be quick to get anything done.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
Zen also got a mobility buff! The only characters in the roster with no movement skill who have never received a mobility buff are Orisa, Zarya and Ana. Roadhog and Bastion have no movement skill but they both got mobility buffs post-launch.
The best kind of correct.
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Yeah, it seems like they made him more effective but less unique. But I think his new ult has a distinct place from Hammond's minefield - kind of similar to how Junk and Dva's ults accomplish the same thing but at different ranges.
I gotta confess I got a bit annoyed at the response to my post. I will detail why because I feel it merits explaining, but briefly, and behind a spoiler, because long-winded aggro sucks and I've done a lifetime's worth of it.
But - even though I may feel somewhat... wronged? on an emotional level, I appreciate they were still legitimate offers to help and I don't want to be excessively churlish.
So, here's a round from me. It's not a carefully-selected one, I literally just logged on and played. We were getting smashed but then the game seemed to even out so I started recording. It ultimately happens to be a win, but I feel it's reflective of my general DPS performance. It was preceded by a good heal game which we lost, but unfortunately I wasn't recording. If you want another one I'll do another one. Either way: from this video, please let me know what you think I'm doing wrong.
Edit: Maybe just the Hanzo bit. On second thoughts I should have cut our attack round as they started getting leavers, although on the other hand this is super common in silver!
2) Hard to judge from just one match, but I think your positioning wrt your team probably needs work. This is one of those difficult to judge skills (and is never measured by stats), because if you outclass your opponents you can often get away with playing a very loose formation, but if you don't, you'll get punished for it.
3) Bastion is a viable pick, but his turret form should be used sparingly (exception being once you're on the cart). A Protect The President strat is fine for silver/gold, and tbh even plat and diamond, but a non-mobile Bastion is a sitting duck to a lot of characters, whereas once you get decent at aiming on the move, his battle rifle mode is actually quite good. More importantly, this reinforces the point I made about moving and aiming, because if you watch your crosshair when you're stationary, you're doing a much better job of tracking enemy movement with the mouse.
There are also a couple of moments where you aren't turning while being attacked from behind that make me feel you might not be comfortable with having your mouse sensitivity this low. The difficulty with raising it is that your flicks are pretty decent right now and that would screw with the muscle memory.
Take your point about it not working out so well at higher levels though, too. And sorry, I definitely think it's valid feedback and will take it on board.
Agree totally re: Bastion. At low silver though it often works a charm.
However, one thing definitely popped out at me. Why did you hang out at the spawn door at the beginning of attack? The only way you'll get picks there is if the other team just plays poorly. It worked out because the other half of your team pushed back the one or two defenders who were too far forward, but it was just kind of a waste of time.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
Edit: And seeking advice on your replays is a good step on that "focus on improving your own play bit", natch. I won't comment on the video because I am, in fact, bad at this game :P
Edit: then 10 and 10 on Gibraltar defense (still MH). Attack was an okay fight till they stonewalled us halfway through the second point, and it was all over with 28 seconds on the clock as we respawned. We got Moira (me), two Brigittes, a Lucio, a Tracer and a Soldier and we pour so much healing into one little doorway as they flood through it, it was effectively a Trance in that hallway for a moment, and we were unkillable. Soldier goes on a 20-odd killstreak tear, and Moira takes me all the way home.
MH lessons: I should play more support >.<
Yeah this video being a win, and with very short usable footage (before the leavers) doesn't make for great vod reviews, but I'll mention the few things that comes to mind:
1. So you're hard strafing with your aiming. It was working for you, but while strafing like that may make it easier to land your shots now, it will also make it easier for players to shoot you. My aim is trash though so I can't be super helpful to improve.
2. Your first ult was kind of wasted as that fight was pretty hopeless. Not going to say it's a huge problem as it was overtime, and the occasional hail mary can be forgiven cause "fuck yeah!" when it works. Realize though, the odds of it working were pretty slim.
3. When you come back, you push too far forward without your team. Somehow you end up surviving this with like 3 hp, but a better team would have killed you for it. In an alternate timeline where your enemy wasn't terrible and killed you, that could have led to them rolling through second and winning the whole damn game.
In that situation if you wanted to get some to take some early shots without your team, you would have been far better off taking the high ground right and shooting out that high window across from the door that just opened for the payload, I think the pros call this window "heaven", don't ask me why. That high ground can't be reached by characters without vertical mobility, it provides far more cover for your retreat if you need to, it's closer to the mega health pack, and someone like D.Va looking to push into you won't have their team behind them to back them up and could easily over extend themselves trying to chase you.
4. Both your ults were straight at the cart. Don't know if you always do this, but for me, if i hear a Hanzo ult, and I don't know where it's coming from. I just assume it's going straight at the point. They were both kind of in overtime or near it, so maybe that's why, but normally, ulting a weird/unexpected angles that can surprise enemies or cause them to split allowing your team to fight with a numbers advantage for a few seconds will work better.
5. Pirateship with Bastion is a legit Junkertown strat. Not sure why you stood at the door for so long, usually it's good to setup on the cart asap to give the enemy less time to counter it. It does work far better with Orisa instead of Rein though, and with mercy pocketing bastion, but whatev's it's Silver.
Brutal J's 3rd point that he makes is something I end up harping on quite a bit, and I hadn't read his post when I made my recording. You give multiple opportunities for the enemy team to make plays on you for free. In this case they suck and fail to do so, but you want to clean up those mistakes so that you're not getting punished for it against more competent teams.
I don't really have a problem with tossing out ults like candy in this match, because against the comp they're running you're going to get a lot of ult charge anyway, but you go for cute ults a couple of times, when you would've had more value out of just maintaining your high ground control and shooting normally. And just generally a tendency to undervalue your high ground control and give it up for free.
Pretty spot on there. If people posting vods becomes more of a thing, I'll probably have to actually record audio and give out more detail like this.
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- Was apprehensive about rushing in when I didn't know their full comp
- I knew there was a fight happening to the right; Rein had set up in front of me with better view, and I assumed that because he wasn't moving forward, it wasn't safe to
- You see me move with Rein when he starts to walk but then Hanzo appeared so I went back to turret to try and kill him quickly
- Then I thought there was a fight just beyond the cart and that I could cover them better by staying in turret for a moment longer
Maybe that's not good reasoning. Maybe it wouldn't even have mattered if I died out the gates?
Man I was going crazy because I had a losing streak of some 14 games! I started gathering data to try and feel a bit more like I at least knew what was happening. It actually helped a lot.
I'll try to be more fluid. I've always sniped like that since TF2 - in fact, I adopted the approach in TF2 and it improved my play, ironically. I was pretty fearsome in that game...
Ult management is something I do struggle with. Two particular things:
a) Because I almost always output high damage I tend to build ults quickly, and so I don't like to sit on them too long waiting for a perfect moment that never comes, and
b) I sometimes delay switching off classes because I'm at 80%+ ult, which almost always feels like a mistake but I don't know what the wisdom on this is...
In terms of actual deployment, you're right that I fired that off because it was in overtime and they were at the gates (also why I kept attacking and harassing, to keep them tangled up whilst my team came back). I do also believe in weird angles and using it for area denial etc.
I have always just dismissed that as way too exposed, but I'll try it next time.
This is probably the main thing I need to improve: my positioning. I don't know what distance I should maintain. I typically use skirmish tactics, trying to keep in the sweet spot whilst also shutting down flanks and supplying oppressive cover. I don't die that often, but when I do it's often when I get caught in the middle of a fight, or when there's a good Genji or Tracer harassing the back. Staying high-distance with Hanzo just feels like a much more rookie, ineffective approach, but am I wrong about that?
Appreciate you recording this but will have to watch it later...
Second thing:
Here's another round, and a very good example of how an 'I feel powerless' loss might go.
On attack, I die once, in a stupid way, right at the start, then only once more in the entire game which is when we finally lose. But otherwise I feel like I'm providing positive, skirmishing support and playing the objective most of the time, except on the last stretch where my effectiveness wanes as the team is scattered and I'm really just harassing/picking people off and trying to build ult (which I then don't use very effectively, I admit, but I'm not sure it would've made a difference).
On defence, it's a shitshow.
- I fuck up at the start by whiffing a wall-climb (unusual, partly from external distractions...)
- By the time I'm back, they've cruised through to first point, everyone is dead as I try to help Bastion, then I get suckered into kill-or-be-killed and have no real path to retreat so just try to keep them off the objective.
- On my next return, trying to support Moira, I run straight into ults and someone, no names mentioned Bastion, keeps charging up Zarya to full power. Again I try to stall them, but I get ulted and die.
- Next spawn, we've held them a little but we're still totally scattered and I get cornered. Barely escape, but then they have ults again and I get mowed down by another fully-charged Zarya.
- Switch to Junk to try and do more area denial and get a few kills but it doesn't really work, our team is kept permanently off-balance and I eat another ult, then a headshot, then they have more ults and we lose.
Now, I would say I played pretty alright on attack and helped drag the team forward, but the way we absolutely crumpled on defence is very familiar. I don't think I played well on defence fwiw but also don't feel like I had a huge amount of opportunity to do so. I guess looking at this video the one thing I might've done was not gone forward after spawn, but it was always trying to help someone who was already there - it feels shitty to just let them die.
Thoughts?
Depends on the outcome. Depends on how much you trust those healers to throw some hp your way, or how sure you are you can contribute something worth trading a death for.
I go for health packs a lot.
You also play a lot of Tracer and she kind of needs to go for health packs.
Steam: MightyPotatoKing
Secondly, on positioning. In the last video, I actually felt that if you'd hit the two dps at close range when you contested the cart at the start, you could've won that, so while Kana disagreed, I was okay with that push. In this video [on defence, trying to stop cart reaching first checkpoint] with just you and a very badly positioned, turreted Bastion against most of the enemy team, you had no hope. Committing further around the corner got you killed and the pick wasn't worth it. So, 1) beware of overcommitting on a pair of corners that don't have an easy LoS break on falling back (Zen, Rein and Soldier were easily able to get around your cover and catch you in the open). 2) Have an idea of how many enemies you'd have to kill to successfully contest a point. 2-3 squishies should be max for a close commit if you're almost alone; far better to stay back, harass and wait for a team regroup at that point. I'll tie 3 into the next part.
So on respawn, you push forward, but your teammates die around the corner. At first you get the right idea, and back off, but then you stop and let the Zarya push into range of you. Rein's charge doesn't help, but this is symptomatic of both of you trickling in, and you not respecting what is now hostile territory properly. So 3) try and get your team to regroup after a death, rather than trickling in one by one. 4) Try and build a mental map of what is hostile territory, and don't push hard into it solo unless there are only very light enemies you're really confident you can outplay.
Positioning again afterwards, you drop down onto the stairs with Bastion. You have no fallback into friendly territory here without pushing forward into contested territory. So you're reliant on your team winning the territory contest, and when they don't, Zarya pushes in on you and you have literally nowhere to go. So this is close to point 1) again; try and mentally make sure you're using positions that have a fallback if you get pushed.
I don't know if you play Junkrot regularly, but if you do, his real power is a one-two hit on squishies. Don't throw landmines willy-nilly; save at least one so that if you get a hit on a squishy with your primary fire, you can immediately follow up with an airburst for the kill. Maybe @surrealitycheck can link some old rounds of his Junkrot play showing more or less what you're aiming for if you're playing him.
I didn't love it but they were just better and actually organized.