Enter the second circle of elo hell

After two days of continuous play and farming wins I made it out of the first circle of elo hell and got promoted to silver. I've got my old rank back. It's a great feeling when you're playing well and winning games consistently in solo queue. I've finally got it figured out and now people always want to play with me because they say I'm a great healer. I usually add these randos (randoms) I meet through these pubs (public games) and grind games with them. Some of them talk a lot but we communicate well as a team and win mostly every time.

So you've made it out of the first wave of elo hell but you can't rest easy on your laurels just yet. This is just the beginning. The players will get better and games will become harder to win depending on your team, comps, maps, and situational awareness.

I've learned a few tricks that help me win games most of the time. For one thing if you get a team of idiots that only want one healer, one tank, and the rest dps I always go Lucio in that situation. When we get into fights I minimize my deaths at all costs-basically stay alive most of the time to just keep healing. That's the best thing Lucio can do in this situation. Lucio is the best for this because his healing is pretty good and speed boost is just too good to pass up. During the off season I played tons of games (Quick play) where I was the only healer playing Zenyatta. That wouldn't work so well in competitive.

In other situations where there's another healer I do things differently. If somebody else rapid fire picks Lucio right away (this hardly ever happens) I will mostly always (sometimes Mercy) go Ana for the nanoboost as well as for her super amazing single target healing. If you call out your nanoboost on the mic and ping it people will get the idea and time it with their ultimates. If you position everything right you will get teamwipes and/or three or more frags (kills, eliminations) everytime. Ana's nanoboost got nerfed hard (lost the speed boost) but its still super effective in the right hands.

In those situations where somehow two people rapid fire pick healers (this hardly ever happens) I will go dps (damage per second) heroes. Lately, I've been playing a lot of Soldier 76 and Pharah. I think I'm going to focus on playing those two for this season. I think because I'm at a pretty low level Pharah can run amok on these low level teams. You just gotta find the right positioning and just rocket the hell out of them. Soldier is just a great hero in general. But generally I've hardly been playing dps in competitive.

I plan on continuing to climb the ladder and reach gold soon. If I play enough I might be able to hit plat. If not this season, there's always a season 4 to look forward to. I'm also looking forward to the Christmas patch update that will probably hit the servers sometime soon.

I'm still in elo hell, just a slightly less casual pleb version of it.

Ana NERF, Widowmaker, and Junkrat BUFF-September 22 PTR Patch Notes

Ana has only just begun to make pro Overwatch teams and now Blizzard thinks she's too strong, so they've nerfed her. The tank heavy meta really focuses on the nano boost ability and its super fast charge. They nerfed the ultimate cost by 20% which means it takes that much longer to charge up.

Ana

• Nano Boost
  • Ultimate cost has been increased by 20%
• Biotic Grenade
  • Radius has been increased from 3 to 4 meters

Developer Comments: So far, we haven't seen any indication that Ana is too strong overall, but her ultimate charges a little too fast, especially considering the impact it can have on a match. Also, her Biotic Grenades are getting a small boost to help her hit multiple targets.

Now I haven't had that much time to play PTR to test her out but I've heard from YouTubers that her ultimate charges up fast still, albeit just not as fast. For sure its a nerf but its not a super duper heavy nerf. However, this nerf was a little too fast given that this 3 tank 3 healer meta just started. I hope this doesn't get rid of this new change in the game because its a good change.

The biotic grenade range was increased. This is great! You'll be able to hit allies as well as enemies just a tiny bit further. Not too shabby. Not that much of a buff but acceptable for our favorite healing sniper mom.

Now for the buffs, starting with Widowmaker.

Widowmaker

• Widow's Kiss
  • Scoping-in animation time has been reduced from 0.5 to 0.3 seconds

Developer Comments: This change will help Widowmaker acquire new targets more quickly and speed up her reaction time in fast-paced situations.

In the past it was popular to have quick scoping Widowmakers but they ended up changing it so that you couldn't rescope until the scope animation had finished. This ended Widowmaker pretty much since then. This won't bring back the old school Widowmaker killer quick scopes but it might make her picked a bit more often.

And then Junkrat got a buff.

Junkrat

• RIP-Tire
  • Ability now activates more quickly

Developer Comments: Junkrat can be an extremely effective hero in the right hands, but RIP-Tire often felt underpowered when compared to his counterparts.

So the Rip-tire now activates more quickly. He's not seen much in pro play because he just fuels Zarya's shield and charge but his problem wasn't so much of casting his ultimate super fast. The problem is that his tire is super easy to destroy. The tire always gets shot before it gets close enough. They should've increased the speed of his tire instead. However, a buff is still a buff. This just isn't that effective for a better Junkrat. I do dig Junkrat and this is still cool.

General Updates

Static cameras are now supported in spectator mode. This is awesome for increasing the view-ability of the game (for esports). Team names can now be edited in Custom Games, which you can also pause! There was a raise in volume for Hanzo's Dragonstrike voice-line when using the wolf skins. Heroes hit by Ana's nano-boost now have a voice-line informing of who's getting the boost. And then there's a voice-line for when Reinhardt's shield drops. There's also news about potential Symmetra buffs.

We expect all this which is now only on the PTR to appear on the base game in a few weeks, like they always do. I'm a bit annoyed that they decided to nerf Ana when she's still super fresh and is just making her way into the competitive scene. I hope she stays in the limelight, at least in the professional scene. I'll still be playing her in competitive, as long as someone else is playing a healer too. There's talks about possible future Symmetra buffs so expect that in the near future. I'm also looking forward to hearing more about the Sombra reveal during October.

Get in there, you're powered up!

Ana, trolling with permasleep

Ana's sleep dart can be devastating-especially when you hit someone when they're using their ultimate. But did you know that the sleep dart can also boot players from the match? This only works with three Anas and a poor enemy team. So this won't be happening in competitive due to the one hero limit.

The way it works is that you sleep dart an enemy player and keep hitting them with successive darts until they're booted from the match for being away from their keyboard. You need three Anas for this to work and you need them to be uninterrupted for a minute or so. Highly unlikely scenario. Check this video out here and let the lol's begin.

It's a funny trick that will probably be patched by Blizzard in an update.

Since Ana got buffed she's really good! Glad to see Blizzard giving her some love.

[PC] Overwatch Patch Notes – July 26, 2016

HERO BALANCE UPDATES

Ana
Biotic Rifle
Rate of fire increased by 20%
Magazine size increased from 8 to 10

Developer Comments: While Ana has been very well received, she was showing to be a little bit weaker overall. In addition to helping her feel better to play, these changes should also increase her healing and damage output.

McCree
Peacemaker
Primary Fire
Damage falloff range decreased by 10 meters
Damage falloff amount is unchanged
As a result, even with this change, McCree’s effective range is still higher than it was at launch
Alternate Fire
Rate of fire increased by 15%
Flashbang
Recovery time (i.e. the amount of time before McCree can fire again) decreased from 0.5 seconds to 0.35 seconds

Developer Comments: McCree’s latest range increase helped him quite a bit, but it was a bit too much in the right hands. This change weakens his long range damage somewhat, but still keeps it stronger than it has been in the recent past. The other changes combine to allow him to land more alternate fire shots on targets that he has hit with Flashbang.

BUG FIXES
Heroes
Targets of Ana’s Sleep Dart will no longer instantly recover when damaged (recovery time is now 0.5 seconds)

User Interface
Fixed UI compatibility issues for ATI card
Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause Lúcio, Mei, and other models to only partially render (or disappear)

This patch makes Ana super buff. Her new fire rate puts her at over 100 healing per second. Mercy's healing per second is only 50 so Ana now has the best single target healing in the game-if she can hit her shots. Her sleep dart buff gives her more time to respond to a waking sleeping target. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be playing Ana now. There's greater room for error with her faster rate of fire. She's great now. I won a game today using her and played a perfect game with zero deaths. Got plenty of sniped headshots shots and had no problems healing everyone. I'm definitely going to be playing her a lot more-even in competitive.

McCree got a nerf. He now has a damage fall-off after around 20 meters. His full damage range is only 21 meters and then after that you get damage drop-off. We also have a change to his Fan the hammer and Flash bang combo. Fan the hammer's rate of fire has been increased by 15%-meaning you get off the shots faster. And the amount of time you can Flash bang again has been decreased. Fan the hammer is probably going to start being used more.

Blizzard just keeps updating, buffing, and nerfing characters with McCree seeing the most changes. I really like how Blizzard is changing the game as the players play but sometimes I like when games stay on one patch for a while. I liked McCree last patch because he seemed op and I enjoyed playing him. I'll have to check his style out now with these changes. The great thing about all these changes is that it shows that Blizzard is keeping the game fresh-possibly long enough to keep us entertained for quite a while.

Ana. Much skill. Much wow.

So Ana came out Tuesday and everybody's hyped for Overwatch's first post-launch hero. Well, she's great! Blizzard did a great job with the character design. The addition of Ana brings to prospect the idea of the metagame being changed. For one thing teams are now running two healers with her in toe. And the idea of a triple healing comp might not be that far fetched. We could one day see a Zenyatta/Lucio/Ana combo. I've already been in tons of teams with a Mercy/Ana comp and that worked out well. The last posts have been all about Ana and this is no different. Believe the hype.

Pro players are saying she's the highest skill cap hero in the game.

“I think she's insanely high skill cap, potentially even the highest in the game considering how many options she has, while at the same time they are pretty hard to perform (both abilities being skillshots),” Greg “Grego” McAllen, support player and Lúcio main for Cloud9, told the Daily Dot. “She adds two new mechanics to the game and I'm looking forward to seeing how other great supports use her as well." (Daily Dot)

“I could be biased, being a support player and all, but I really like her how she is, a mix of damage and healing is always nice to have,” he said, though he’s worried she may be a bit too strong. “Some may argue she needs some damage tweaks, but we will see how it plays out.” (Daily Dot)

The reaction to Ana has been strong and mostly positive. I agree with pro players in that I believe she requires the most skill to be effective. One of the toughest aspects of playing her is when to focus on healing and when to take those sniper shots and pick enemy heroes off. I feel like Ana snipes really well at medium to far range. Playing Ana isn't easy. I have about three hours of playtime with her and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

On the one hand I feel like her healing is great and on the other I feel like her sniper shots are good too despite the fact that she doesn't get a damage multiplier for headshots like Widowmaker or Hanzo. She can really do it all. But the thing is that you can't do both at the same time so depending on the player, they have to prioritize all her options. You'd think a team would want to make the player with the best aim Ana but at the same time she isn't some mass murderer weapon that will rack up eliminations or get too many play of the games.

One of the hardest things to get used to when I first started playing her was getting eliminations with no scope shots. Sometimes enemy heroes get right up in your face and your sleep dart misses and your only way of possibly escaping is to grenade yourself (thus healing yourself) and making a run for it. There are other times when a Genji or a Tracer will try to frag you and you no scope headshot them. It's awesome getting kills with Ana. When you go on kill-streaks with Ana its feels different from other heroes because she's so unique. A special snowflake and all that jazz.

Even though she just came out I feel like the hype has already died down for her in terms of how much I've been seeing her in-game. Tuesday she was in every game. Some games we all went Ana. Fun times. By Wednesday games were back with the old supports. I think people just wanted to try her out but they aren't serious about her once they realize how difficult she really is. In some ways its the same with Mercy. Only dedicated Mercy players play Mercy a lot. Its the same with Ana. She won't work unless a player really knows her kit and knows what they're doing. In some aspects she's a specialist sort of hero that not everyone will be into. I dig that because I'm a big Mercy player. Now I can be a Mercy/Ana focused player on competitive mode.

Lastly, I hope that she stays the same for future patches because I feel like she's everything I could ask for as hybrid support class. I feel that the idea for a healing sniper is more novel than the actual execution of the character design. Blizzard did something new for the first person shooter genre with this character. Not only that but she's Pharah's mum too. Although her kit isn't perfect and her sleep dart has a long cooldown she plays like a support sniper's dream. It's a joy to play her and keep a team healthy as you're delivering payloads, attacking, and defending points. I have a feeling she's going to change the pro circuit as well, giving them more ideas for more varied comps-possibly have more supports or just have one really good Ana who heals entire teams alone. Wouldn't that be something to marvel at? I think so.