I originally ignored Overwatch, simply for being a team shooter. But MMOs turned into totally non-competitive “community theaters” and PUBG got into the weird position where developers intend it to be a competitive game but the community doesn’t care, while Blizzard works hard to turn Overwatch into a competitive e-Sport (more about that in a later post).
So the game is both competitive and not (necessarily) a pinpoint shooter. I hate poinpoint shooting, because it needs nothing but mechanical practice and it’s a skill not transferable to real life, hence simple programs, the autoaim cheats beat all players in it.
Overwatch has 26 heroes, each having one or two guns (firing modes) and 3 abilities, typically a mobility, a CC and an ultimate. As mentioned, many heroes have abilities and guns that do not need good aim, so the player can focus on making decisions on the battlefield instead of playing autoaim. Among these heroes one shines out:
She is a healer, with her weapon “firing” is a healing link. It activates on the target nearest the center of the screen, so aiming is only needed if multiple friendlies are around, but after the link is established, you can turn away. There is a secondary weapon, a pinpoint shooter, but there is little point using it outside of extreme situations, as the link can be switched into damage increase mode and boosting a friendly damage dealer provides more DPS than the sidearm. One ability is flying towards a friendly, the “CC” is resurrect, the ultimate is simply “better everything” + flying.
She is a match made in heaven for me, so I’ll play Overwatch for some time. There is already an important find with her but a bit more data is needed to post.
Hm… Paladins is a similar game that is basically free. It has an item shop, but it is not necessary for faster advancing.
So far, I did not see anything that Overwatch does way better than Paladins which would be worth purchasing it.
Anyway, why are you attracted to Overwatch? Is there a ranking system people care about? I mean, won’t the reactions of others be the same (as usual): “I play for fun, not statistics…”
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@Smite: yes it has a ranking system, very similar to League of Legends and there people care.
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Mercy is a great choice for letting a low skill player contribute and influence the result of close matches but, excluding the occasional clutch rez and high level play, she can feel like an F1 monkey.
Mercy makes a good team better, but she cannot carry a team to victory when the group finder gives you morons. For that situation I like tanks. 5 casuals + ZaryaDob gives the casuals someone to follow. They act like a semi-useful mob with an outside chance of winning instead of moronic solo-killers that die in moments.
I like Zarya’s easy to aim laser and decent self-heals but Winston is also a good starter choice because of his AoEs.
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@Smite:
Overwatch is more popular. Not necessarily by player count (you can never compare a b2p and f2p game’s player count) but by hype and coverage. If Gevlon would not care if a game is popular or not he would be long playing with dwarffortress 🙂
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Dorf Fortress best fortress. The ultimate sandbox. I admit I do play with the lazy noob pack because I hate ascii graphics.
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You also have Reinhardt for tanking. Generally you should probably learn more than one character in ow (but not too many – hard to be really good then).
For supports, Lucio can be good, but to really get the most out of him you need to be able to move him. Brigitte may be a good choice – she is likely limited in where she can shine, but when she’s good she looks real good.
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I look forward to your posts on OW. I would caution you against sticking to a single character(“one-tricking”) , not because the character is bad, but because you will eventually run into other players on your team who only play the same character as you. Two players on the same team who only play one character is often effectively a 5v6 (either you or the other person is totally incompetent at ‘filling’, thus being useless to the team).
Other characters to consider: Moria (arguably a better character than mercy, nearly as good healing with notable auto-aim damage output); if both support roles are taken you can play junkrat as dps (technically requires aim, but spamming and denying chokes is just as important, if not more so, than direct hits); and for tanks Reinheart/orisa are shield tanks that require little aim (choke spamming again) and are more about timing abilities and absorbing incoming damage.
Filling what is needed competently is probably the best way to rise through the ranks, the ‘5v6’ double-one-trick situation is more common than you might think and just being able to fill multiple roles and avoid it will net you a positive winrate.
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Very interested to hear that you want to try OW. Apart from Mercy, Reinhardt and Winston, there is also Moira (main healer who needs very little aim, currently very powerful), Orisa (main tank who has a gun, but is more about spamming into chokes, probably the most powerful tank until high ELO) and Symmetra (autoaim and turrets, really a supporting DPS, but is difficult to play on attack). If you want to get serious about the ladder, pick any two of them and get comfortable playing them. You need to be lvl25 before you can join ladder anyway.
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I’ll echo what Trees says. Overwatch does have heroes which can “hard-counter” other heroes, and switching to a different hero can help in those situations. Also, someone might lock Mercy before you, so you’ll have to pick something different. You should learn how to play a few heros, even if you spend most of your time on one. If you plan to go Mercy, I would suggest learning up another healer, a tank, and two damage characters. That way you have something to fall back on if another player picks Mercy, or two players pick supports before you.
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Reading all following links to Titanfall I wonder if you evinced any interest in it. A game that rewards thoughtful movement and positioning against rxn time seems right up your alley.
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What all those comments say isn’t wrong, but face reality – in 90% of all games a team will need a second supporter player, and after the recent patches I think Mercy is available often enough.
Overwatch still shares the most problems LoL has though. It’s a team game, so you need your teammates to perform better in sum than the opponents, especially if you play support. And even if you win and climb, as in LoL, people will say ‘you got carried lul, play a champ with skill which requires aim and kills people’.
Besides that I am quite interested in what your posts will be about OW.
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