Kel'Thuzad is available on the ptr

This guy seems like he was worth the wait. Not only does he look cool but he's one of the coolest Warcraft characters ever. He's an important character in classic Warcraft lore. He has two raids in World of Warcraft and set Arthas on the path to become the Lich King. In addition, he was one of the original Undead units from Warcraft 3. Here I'd like to go over his abilities which mostly seem like skillshots. You can test him out on the ptr right now if you have the gold to purchase him (15k) but he will probably be released sometime soon on the live servers. He's already been on the ptr for a while at this point. I'm just going to cover the abilities for simplicity's sake.

His trait is Master of the Cold Dark
Quest: Gain 1 Blight every time a Hero is Rooted by Frost Nova or hit by Chains of Kel'Thuzad. 
Reward: After gaining 15 Blight, the cooldown of all Basic Abilities is reduced by 2 seconds. 
Reward: After gaining 30 Blight, gain 75% Spell Power. 

This looks like a great trait mainly because of the 75% spell power. I bet once you get that you can insta-kill many heroes in the game easily. The cooldown reduction isn't all that great to me but the spell power is something that is really powerful. 

Death and Decay (Q)
After 0.5 seconds, launch an orb that explodes upon hitting an enemy, dealing 150 damage to enemies in the area. The explosion leaves behind a pool of decay that lasts 2 seconds, dealing 70 damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies.

So this appears to be a skillshot that does good damage. A good bread and butter attack for general use, wear and tear, and finishing blows.

Frost Nova (W)
Create a nova that explodes after 1 second, dealing 212 damage to enemies inside and Slowing them by 35% for 2.5 seconds. Enemies in the center are Rooted for 1 second.

This is an attack that you'll probably want to use a lot once you get close to enemies. It helps a lot with your trait so I'm guessing you're suppose to use this a lot of heroes, probably combo-ing it with q and e abilities. You could frost nova someone thus rooting them, then death and decay shot them, and possibly throwing out the chains of kel'thuzad attack too. A basic combo seems like frost nova then death and decay. 

Chains of Kel'Thuzad (E)
Launch a chain, dealing 97 damage to the first enemy Hero or Structure hit. For 4 seconds after hitting an enemy, Chains can be reactivated to launch to an additional enemy, pulling both enemies together and Stunning them for 0.5 seconds.

I'm not sure if it works the same way but this kind of reminds me of Roadhog's hook from Overwatch. Actually reading it again I know it doesn't work the same way, as this attack stuns multiple enemies if they are both chained. Interesting attack but it seems very situational, ie team fights mostly.

And his Heroic abilities aka ultimates
Frost Blast (R1)
Launch a meteor of ice at an enemy Hero. Upon impact, the meteor deals 100 damage to its target and 275 damage to enemies in the area. All enemies hit by Frozen Tomb are Rooted for 1.5 seconds.

This seems like the ultimate I would go for every time with this dude. It's got a lot of dps and it roots people too! Too good to pass up, that's for sure.

Shadow Fissure (R2)
Create a fissure anywhere on the Battleground that explodes after 1.5 seconds, dealing 440 damage to enemy Heroes in its area.

This also looks like a good choice but the fact that its probably only going to hit a certain particular area means I wouldn't go for it too often unless the enemy team was bad at positioning and I noticed in particular that it was so. But a fissure does sound awesome!

Alright so that's gonna do it for Kel'Thuzad's abilities. He seems great! I've seen gameplay and it seems like you have to hit pretty much most of the time to get the most use out of his trait and just in general to play like really well. If you can't land skillshots the majority of the time then its going to be difficult playing him. At least it seems that way. We will have to wait and see what he's really going to be like once he hits the live servers.

For the Lich King! 

Overwatch PTR patch 1.7

Here I'd like to talk about some of the changes on the latest ptr (public test region servers) patch. There were major changes to Roadhog, Ana, and Sombra..

Roadhog's hook has been adjusted further. In the last patch they changed (nefed, but made more consistent) Roadhog's hook so that it would hook people right in front of him when he successfully hooked but it was the persistent line of sight from the position of Roadhog that was getting on peoples' nerves. People could hide behind a tree and the hook would automatically break. Blizzard decided it was too much so they're not making that extreme of a change to the hook anymore.

If part of somebody's body is seen during the hook, it will still hook them. It's not gonna break the hook. They're adding a heavy slow when hook applies. Also, they fixed it so that Roadhog can't hook you, spin 180 degrees and drop you off a cliff.

Applying a hook won't work against people you can't see. That's the major thing to take note. If you hook someone they will still be reeled in. Blizzard wants us to feel like when you get hooked, that its fair. This looks like a step into the right direction.

Ana saw a big nerf. The last patch reduced biotic grenade's healing (on allies) increase from 100% to 50%. On top of that the grenade only has a 4 second duration instead of 5. This is a way to combat the current tank heavy meta. Ana is a big part of this tank meta and weakening her might change things up a lot. This might bring Mercy back into play for competitive more so than Ana. However, I will still be playing Ana a lot. 

Sombra got a buff, yay! In the last patch we saw her hack time take 0.8 seconds instead of 1 second, and the cooldown of hack has been reduced to 8 seconds from 10 seconds. This means Sombra can hack a health pack, run away, and then hack an enemy player in combat. Hacking health packs and players has become easier.

I'm super happy about the Sombra hacking buff because Sombra is one of my favorite dps characters. I have 5 hours of play time with her and most of it was wins. She plays like spy from Team Fortress on steroids. It will be fun playing her when this patch goes live. Which will be sometime soon. .

I can't help but feel like the ptr is Blizzard's way of having us players test the game for them for free but it is refreshing that they're changing things about the game that the player base doesn't agree with like Roadhog's hook. 

Smell ya later Overwatch agents

One shot, one kill

Lately, I've been getting really into first person shooter games. I've always known they existed but I was never particularly interested in them. Like at all. Ever. Until recently. I heard about Overwatch coming out and I played a bit of the beta at my friends house. Because I couldn't play the beta at my house I instead turned to a free to play game called Team Fortress 2. That was the turning point.

Team Fortress 2 is a class based objective shooter similar to Overwatch (mostly just in aesthetics) except its been around since 2007. The game has a lot of history and a true legacy as a computer game on Steam. I used to play other fps's like Cod: Black Ops 1 and 2 back when I didn't have a computer and instead gamed on an Xbox360. However, I was never really that great and never put in the time or practice to get better because I wasn't playing it because I enjoyed it. I played it because I had a lot of friends online that played. And boy were they good! 360 no-scope headshots all day. They were great players.

Anyways, so I've tried a lot of different fps's but none of them really clicked for me until I played Team Fortress. Something about the game just draws me in to play more. Not to win games or to be the best. But to improve at the game and know that I've gotten better. Skill shots and stuff like that are all apart of it but the satisfaction comes with knowing that you've improved by leaps and bounds.

I started out playing the medic just like how I started playing Overwatch, using the support healers but now I've moved on to playing snipers. In Overwatch I favor Hanzo's bow and arrows over Widowmaker's sniper rifle. In Tf2 you can also use a bow and arrow. Boy, is that thing fun! It's a blast getting insta-kill headshots with the bow. The sniper rifle is fun too but I like the pull and release of the bow, there's something realistic about it even though I'm just hitting a keyboard and maneuvering with a mouse. It has some real weight to it if that makes sense. The same thing could be said for Hanzo in Overwatch. He's a powerhouse character who seems unstoppable if left unchecked. Usually the other team must have a Widowmaker or another Hanzo just to deal with him. Part of the fun of playing snipers is sniping other snipers. It's a real treat that never gets old. Sometimes its a race of who shoots who when the other guy is reloading. Good times.

Now that I've dived in headfirst into the fps gaming pool I'm starting to play other shooters that I've owned but neglected because I wasn't too into the genre before. I've even started playing Counter Strike: Global Offensive, another great fps made by Valve,the guys who made Tf2. I'm interested in giving some of the other fps's I own on computer another shot. Games like Titanfall, Battlefield 4, Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex First Assault, and single player games with an emphasis on shooting. Games like Half Life, Bioshock, Deadspace, Skyrim ('cuz of the bow), and Fallout all look super appealing to me now. Time to finally start playing all those Steam titles that I haven't touched yet or just haven't played all that much.

It's been a real treat playing sniper. It's definitely more my play style than going in the middle of the fight. I'm more of a chill guy who lays low in the back. Not quite camping but not rushing into the thick of it either. If you never particularly liked fps games perhaps you should give them another shot. Maybe you just need to find the right one. They are definitely worth it for all the fun and satisfaction. One question I'd like to ask is are we in a new era of fps games? It seems so. I like the sound of that.