Doomfist is now live on the ptr

Doomfist is finally out in Overwatch (on the public test realm server, only available on pc) and I gotta say he is one bad ass mother fucker. He's a big, buff, black dude (African, from Numbani I think), with a giant gauntlet weapon. He's been teased since before Overwatch was even officially announced. In Overwatch's first trailer Widowmaker and Reaper were fighting with Winston and Tracer over his gauntlet. Apparently it has the power to level a skyscraper. It sure feels like it does when he hits you. He hits hard and kills fast like how every good dps should.

Doomfist's new real is Akande Ogundimu and he's got some cybernetic enhancements (like Genji). Blizzard writes, “In addition to dealing ranged damage with his Hand Cannon, Doomfist can slam the ground, knock enemies into the air and off balance, or charge into the fray with his Rocket Punch. When facing a tightly packed group, Doomfist leaps out of view, then crashes down to earth with a spectacular Meteor Strike.” (pc gamer)

Overwatch lore says he's the biggest of the baddest villains in the game and that he's in charge of evil characters like Widowmaker and Reaper, who are apart of the organization Talon.

I can't help but be a little disappointed (heartbroken maybe?) that Terry Crews didn't get the part as voice actor for Doomfist. However, Sahr Ngaujah does a fantastic job at keeping Doomfist serious without being over the top. It's a fantastic feeling hearing those African tones in one of the most popular first person shooter games ever. It's quite something. Never thought I'd ever see something like this as a black gamer so that means a lot to me. Sure we had Orisa and she has an African accent but its much different coming from a robotic voice. With Doomfist we have an actual black man and he's already one of the coolest and possibly going to be a game changer and he's already on the ptr. Pretty cool.

Here's the full description of Doomfist's abilities: 

• Main fire: Hand Cannon
• Short-range weapon with spread. Reloads Automatically
• Alt fire: Rocket Punch
• Hold to charge then release to launch forward and knock an enemy back. Damage increases if the enemy hits a wall
• Shift: Rising Uppercut
• Knock an enemy into the air.
• E: Seismic Slam 
• Leap forward and smash the ground. 
• Ultimate: Meteor Strike
• Press Q to leap up into the air. Move the targeting circle, then press fire to strike the targeted area. 
• Passive: The Best Defense
• Dealing damage with abilities creates temporary personal shields.

Basically he jumps around, punches, and slams everybody. From what I've played on the ptr he's probably one of the strongest dps characters in the game. Easily one of the strongest. He can kill you so easily and I think that's going to make him a must pick once he launches. His kit is so simplistic its like a kid designed him. However, using that kit and utilizing a melee character in a ranged run and gun game is where the complexity begins. I feel like I am really bad with him at the moment but I think with more time I'll get the timings of his attacks down. Like I said it seems simple but once you realize you're a melee character against gun users you learn how to play differently.

He's live now on the ptr, check him out! 

Overwatch duplicate drop rates drastically reduced (on the ptr)

Ever open a ton of loot boxes excited as all hell only to find that every item is just a duplicate? Welcome to loot box hell. Well, Blizzard has finally addressed the issue and the duplicate drop rates have been drastically reduced. Because duplicates give you credits (which we need for skins and or in game items) Blizzard is increasing the credits we can get from loot boxes. "We'll make sure that your credit intake will be at least the same, if not more," game director Jeff Kaplan said in the latest Developer Update video. (pc gamer)

This is great news! One of my missions for Overwatch is to eventually unlock every item in the game and getting dupes all the time was always a drag. I'm somewhere near level 350 now so I've been there, done that. These are some impressive changes but honestly it should have come a long time ago. This was something that the guys at Blizzard should have thought about and fixed somewhere near the beginning of the launch of the game. But as they say, c'est la vie. 

 There's also a new option that allows for you to permanently save your highlight videos. This all live on the ptr right now.

Doomfist and Summer Games in the next patch?

So apparently there was an error log found on Battle.net forums and reddit from the latest ptr patch that references Doomfist and another Summer Games event. You can click on the picture and see that it references both. The entire Doomfist arg was kind of a blunder to me. Kind of similar to Sombra but with Sombra it was at least interesting for a little while. Doomfist has just been referenced over and over again and then there was that thing where Terry Crews was supposedly seen at Blizzard possibly voicing Doomfist. Yeah, that would be really great but nothing ever came out of all that arg hunting and Terry Crews stuff. Perhaps in the next patch we will find out? Patch 1.13 will probably have Doomfist and a Summer Games event. Check it out in the next couple weeks.

Death of a healer main

So I've been playing a lot of Overwatch and I thought I'd share my experience with you all. I'm at a pretty moderate (but low) level in Overwatch. I'm Silver rank with about 1600 sr (skill rating points) but I've been just 50 points shy of Gold rank (2200 sr) during my first or second seasons. For a couple seasons I didn't even play competitive and now I'm back at it. I've always played competitive as a healer, usually playing Ana, Mercy, Zenyatta, or Lucio with the occasional Symmetra if I feel like I can pull a rabbit out of a hat for a win. But I've come to the realization that in Silver healing is just not worth it. If I wanna win games more I gotta dps (play assassin characters) myself and get those elims for the team. So far it's been working out surprisingly well.

I think I'm gonna give up playing healers in Overwatch for a while. At least until I get to platinum or higher. The main reason for this is because other people that play dps at this level just aren't good enough. They don't play the game enough to really know how the characters work or how to work best and effectively with a team. Sometimes you have a team that likes to spread out, well you gotta act accordingly. Other times you got a team that stays together through it all, and you gotta act accordingly for that too.

So yeah, dps has been really working out for me. Right now my roster includes McCree, Soldier 76, Pharah (been using her a lot, she wrecks hard in low elo), Mei (she also wrecks hard in low elo because she's hardly ever picked), and Reaper (because of the buff and because I hate Winstons). I'm thinking about adding Genji and Sombra to this list too because I feel like with my skills I could really do well with those characters. For a while I was practicing dps a lot in Quick Play to work on my aim with all these characters but now I'm using that training in real competitive matches.

I still get losses but now when I lose I don't feel the same way as when I was healing. Usually I still do great even when I lose, its a different kind of loss, not as bad feeling in a way. I'm thinking Sombra could become like my main because I like how she has so many tools at her disposal and how she's like a poker (just runs in, shoots a bit, and then runs out). I feel like I could excel in that play-style. As for right now though I'm happy being on the frontlines with the team getting elims and paving the way to victory.

I still play the occasional tank here and there but now with competitive my attitude is that you gotta pick your character fast and everyone else fills after that. It was the same with my healers. If I really wanted to play Ana or Mercy I had to pick them super fast after loading game screen. The thing is that most people just fill roles so if you just pick what you want super fast chances are you'll get to play whatever character you want.

The game's become more of a "play what you want" game for me whereas before I was being strict and reducing myself to saying "ok, I gotta play a healer because I'm a super good healer and we won't win without me healing". That's a fair assumption to make because in silver I've seen some of the worst Mercy's and Ana's ever but at the same time even if they're a bad Mercy they're still getting some healing done. And if I'm dpsing there's a higher chance of victory. So it's not a bad trade off.

So yeah, there it is everyone. The death of a healer main. Rip. It was fun. I'll be back to Ana and Mercy when I'm higher up the ranks. Until then I'll be tearing it up in low elo.

New hero Orisa is live on the ptr

So Overwatch's 24th hero is now live on the ptr and you can try her out right now. She's a female omnic hero named Orisa that has a lot of utility. Here I'll explain her abilities.

Her basic weapon is the fusion driver. It's an automatic projectile cannon that delivers sustained damage. She is slowed while she fires it (like D.Va). There are 200 rounds in the magazine and it takes 17 bodyshots to take out a 200 health hero and 9 head shots to take them out. The farther away she is the more she will miss when firing. If enemies are close to you the gun will kill them pretty quickly. It is a projectile after all.

Her first skill is hault, which is her alternate fire ability. She launches out a graviton charge that can be detonated and then it will slow enemies and grab targets within line of sight (that are 7 meters away from location). It pulls targets towards the epicenter of the explosion. It's a crazy good ability from what I've seen in matches so far. That fact that it pulls people towards it is like Zarya's gravaton surge ultimate. Very nice.

Her second skill is protective barrier. Its a stationary barrier than can block enemy fire. It has about 900 health and its got a 12 second cooldown. It lasts for 20 seconds unless its destroyed. This is such an amazing ability. Its basically like a smaller weaker mini Reinhardt shield. So good!

Her third skill is fortify. She reduces damage she takes and she can't be affected by action impairing effects. It looks like it might reduce damage up to 50%. It makes her immune to things like Pharah's knockback and Mei's slow.

Her ultimate is supercharger. It releases a device that increases damage for allies by up to 50%. The enemies can destroy it and it only has 200 health points. You must protect it at all costs to get that full 15 seconds of damage boost.

I really like this new tank hero. I'm not a fan of tanks in Overwatch and I only play Reinhardt and Zarya when my team needs a tank. Now I'll be adding Orisa to that list as well. She has so much utility and she can do so many things. She reminds me of a mix between Zarya and Reinhardt but with a D.Va-esque weapon. They didn't really reinvent the wheel when it came to the creation of this character but I can see how they came up with something unique.

I am a little surprised at the actual look and style of Orisa. She has four legs and looks well....African. She looks African because she was created by Efi, an African child prodigy from Nimbani. But I think they could've done a much cooler stylistic and artistic design than what they came up with. I'm not a great artist or anything but Orisa looks a bit strange. I don't know, maybe its just me?

But her look doesn't matter. What does matter is that she has a cool kit and playing her feels fun and different from the other characters. In this aspect Blizzard has delivered once again another great hero.

You are advised to cease your resistance. 

Blizzard hints at new hero

In a blog post Blizzard hinted at a possible new hero. The post is an interview with a character. Her name is Efi. She's a child prodigy from Numbani who's very famous for her genius in robotics and science and she recently won a genius grant.

There's various hints throughout that mean she might be involved with the next new hero. She mentions that she built drones to help around the house and help her folks. This means she might be some kind of summoner.

Later she mentions she wants to build a robot that can help keep us safe. So she could be a summoner and they can potentially be omnics that follow teammates and heal them. They might shield them, they could boost or buff them like Mercy's staff, etc. Things of that sort.

She was asked what she was going to do with her grant money and she said,"Oh! I have an idea." Which means she's going to build a robot.

Obviously this all speculation but the concept of a support summoner hero is magical. But because she's a character that is only 11 years of age means that she wouldn't be a playable character. If its not Efi herself that's the new hero it could be a giant robot omnic that's the actual next hero.

This is exciting news! And she's African, how very diverse!

*sings* Do you wanna build a robot? 

Overwatch Competitve Season 3 ending tomorrow

So the current Overwatch competitive season ends tomorrow. For everyone that doesn't know Overwatch has a competitive ranking system that begins and ends within a certain period. Then there's a break, and it resumes once again in about a 3-4 month cycle. I don't know how long the off season break will be but I believe Jeff Kaplan (director of Overwatch) said in a video that this time it would only be about a week long.

There's so much to say about this last competitive season. I'm super disappointed that I couldn't rise above and break out of my low rank (silver) into higher (was hoping for platinum, would've even settled for gold) ranks. In the beginning of the season I met some cool people and there was a time when I was only about 200 points away from gold-but then gold got snatched away from me. The trolls, the leavers, and the generally just bad players kept me from winning many games but honestly I can't blame it all on them. I played poorly myself. And for that I only have myself to blame.

One thing I'm planning for the next competitive season is only playing with certain people for competitive. I'm not going to play with my friends that barely play Overwatch (therefore aren't good enough in my opinion, too risky to risk losing ranking points), and I'm going to stick to small groups (think 2-3 man parties instead of full 6 stacks). When I stuck to 2-3 man parties I was able to win a lot and rank up fast. I want to continue that strategy.

I have a goal for the next season to hit gold super fast if I don't get it within my placements. My long term (and more extreme) goal is to be able to win most of my games in solo queue playing healers (Mercy, Ana mainly). This is a super difficult goal and it might take me over a year but I want to be able to do it. I don't consider people good at Overwatch unless they can win most of their games in competitive in solo queue in their most picked role (damage, tank, healer).

Competitive has given Overwatch the competitive edge that other games don't have. I adore Team Fortress 2 but competitive in that game is just bad. It's breathed new life into competitive gaming for me and it's given me more confidence when it comes to one-upping people and just general rivalry. I'm a super cocky son of a bitch now. Haha, just kidding. But the game will give you a stronger backbone once you're done dealing with the trolls and the testosterone filled cockiness. I'll be spending the off season time practicing my Zenyatta in Quick Play.

Good luck and see you next season!

Bastion Has Changed Significantly (on the ptr)

Bastion has received some significant changes, most of which are buffs. Lets break it down!

• Configuration: Sentry
  • Deploy time decreased from 1.5 seconds to 1.0 second
  • Bullet spread increased by 50 percent
  • Bullet spread is always at maximum (it no longer increases as the weapon is fired)
  • Magazine size increased from 200 to 300
  • Headshot damage multiplier has been removed
  • No longer deals critical damage
• Configuration: Recon
  • Bullet spread decreased by 25 percent
  • Magazine size increased from 20 to 25
• Self-Repair
  • Can now be used while moving
  • Now bound to secondary fire (formerly Ability 2)
  • No longer interrupted by taking damage
  • A new resource meter has been added that deplete while Self-Repair is active and recharges when not in use
• Configuration: Tank
  • No longer grants bonus armor
• Bastion has a new passive: Ironclad
  • Bastion takes 35% less damage while in Sentry or Tank configuration

Developer Comments: The goal of these changes is to move some of Bastion's power from Configuration: Sentry to Recon, while keeping its sentry mode a strong option, especially versus tanks and barriers. Overall, Bastion should feel stronger and more flexible with these changes.


So as you can see Bastion will be doing much, much better in ranked play if these changes go through next week. He will basically be a tank busting robot version of Soldier 76 maybe? That might be going too far but these buffs are very significant.

Usually when people play Bastion he's easily countered and killed, leaving tiny robotic bits scattered. Usually he dies super fast as he's healing himself or getting healed by a healer. Sometimes when I play him I feel like going into turret mode is suicide. Now he can do self-repair while moving! His new passive Ironclad grants armor while in Sentry or Tank mode, very significant and will make him stay alive much longer. His Recon and Sentry mode have received significant buffs. The only thing I can really see as a big nerf for this ptr patch is that Headshot multiplier has been removed and no more critical hit damage in Sentry mode. All in all that's not a bad trade for a longer surviving Bastion that shoots better, gets passive armor, and can heal while moving.

As Widowmaker says,"Magnifique".

Overwatch Getting Server Browser

Jeff Kaplan, Director of Overwatch put out a new video recently that outlined the new server browser that Overwatch is getting. It's currently being tested out on the ptr and I can't wait to try it out. For most fps veterans on the pc a server browser is something that should always be there. The fact that Overwatch launched and didn't have one until now is a bit baffling. Even for me despite the fact that I've only been playing first person shooters seriously (competitively) for almost a year.

Some things you can do on the server browser:

• Turn on/off individual hero abilities
• More customization on hero ability cooldown times
• Change payload speed
• Change capture speed on control points
• Allow/disallow individual heroes
• Enable/disable flag pick-up time
• Change CTF so a team’s flag has to be back at their base in order to cap the enemy flag
• Increase Pharah’s missile speed

Sounds pretty sick, right? Also, I should mention that Capture the Flag will become a permanent custom game mode. This is a huge step into the right direction for Overwatch. The game has become very stale and I think I speak for us all when I say that Sombra was a bit disappointing. I hope they can buff her up some and make her more viable in ranked play as well as release some new heroes and maps. I know they give us a lot of stuff for free but they should create more stuff at a faster speed. Perhaps the same speed they put into creating new Heroes of the Storm characters? They release new Heroes content super fast. Feels like its every eight weeks.

Anyways, this server browser will keep Overwatch alive probably forever. It'll become like Team Fortress where the server browser has kept it alive since 2007, astounding! It's going to be fun playing custom matches with friends and randoms alike. I would really love to have all Mercy pistol battles. 

'Bout time Blizzard

Overwatch competitive guide (updated)

So I decided to write an updated guide for Overwatch competitive ranked mode. Here we go.

First of all, figure out your role before you even begin to play ranked. And stick to that role until you're really good at it. I started playing first person shooters seriously with Team Fortress 2 (with a friend) right before Overwatch came out (I couldn't get into the beta, damn you Blizzard). I mained Medic in tf2 (Team Fortress) until I got super good as a healer. Then when Overwatch came out I mained healers. I played all of them decently but noticed I was especially good with Mercy because the skills from tf's medic shined through in the transition. Mercy and Medic play similar, although I do think Mercy's pistol is better than the Medic's syringe gun. So the first and most important thing you need to do is find your role (mine was healer), learn it well, and stick to it.

Okay, so you've figured out what you like to do (dps, tank, or heals) and you're decent with some heroes. Now if you want to win consistently you need to play the same couple heroes you're decent with until you're super good with maybe two or three of them. For me I've become super good as Ana and Mercy. Once I realized that I shouldn't be playing Zenyatta and Lucio as much I found out that I can win a ton more games consecutively and consistently. Nothing wrong with Zen and Lucio but if I really want to win I should play Ana or Mercy. So if you want to increase your chances of winning every game stick to your absolute best characters every game. However, there are times when you should stray from this idea. For example, I know that if an enemy team has a Pharah and they're rocketing away at me when I'm Ana I should probably switch to Mercy (better maneuverability), Lucio (I can guesstimate her spacing prediction and shoot her out of the sky w/ sound gun), or Zen (if I'm feeling ballsy I can discord her and rely on my team to kill her). That's just one example. Other times you should play characters you don't play as often if your team would be a better composition. However, if your will to win is strong I recommend sticking to your absolute two-three best characters every match.

Next, we have the eliminations talk. No matter what you're doing (even being a healing main like myself) you're going to have to get some elims. Most of the time you take points or objectives by getting a pick (a kill), moving your entire team in, getting another pick, and repeating until you take the point or objective. That's what happens in most games. As a healer you can deal a lot of damage to enemy players when your team doesn't need healing. I've found that Mercy's pistol can kill fast in the heat of battle when the enemy team won't suspect it. In addition, you can get so many kills sniping as Ana from a safe distance. If you're dpsing eliminations is your main objective. You need to get elims often enough that your team can move in closer and closer to the point/objective without dying or getting pushed back. As a tank you need to get a lot of elims as well. It's super important! However, don't forget to stop dpsing when you need to and keep healing if you're the healer. So many healers forget there's a balance between healing, shooting, and repeating. Also, if you're Mercy remember to damage boost often. So many Mercys focus on just healing they forget that the damage boost gets you a lot of assists.

Lastly, you must think about your attitude and general outlook of the game, match, whatever. You need to know outright that you're not going to win every game and that your friends will definitely make you lose games. You will make your friends lose games. You have to remember that this is a competitive gaming experience and that if you can't handle losing then maybe you should play Quick Play or some other game. You're never going to become better than Koreans until you get massacred by them at five in the morning (California time) when they're playing at night in Korea. There are times when players get super upset, talk shit, throw games, etc because they can't handle the competitive aspect of this game mode. It's not for kids and its not for adults that act like kids. If you take any advice from this listen up to this next statement. You will have a much better competitive gaming experience if you remember that each match is a learning experience. And if you use that knowledge to your benefit you will continue to keep becoming a better player.

Also, remember to lighten up! It's a freakin' game after all!

China passes loot box law

Loot boxes are a thing in many video games. You level up and you earn boxes or you can buy them for a set fee. Inside you can find many a in-game items. For example, in Overwatch you can get character skins, emotes, sprays, etc. Right now we have no idea what our odds are of getting items we want as its usually always random.

Well, China passed a law that's going to be a game changer. Starting May 2017, developers will have to start disclosing the probabilities of what could be inside the boxes in games like Overwatch, Counter Strike, and Hearthstone. 

Here are the stipulations (as translated by NeoGAF user chillybright):

2.6 ...Online game publishers shall promptly publicly announce information about the name, property, content, quantity, and draw/forge probability of all virtual items and services that can be drawn/forge on the official website or a dedicated draw probability webpage of the game. The information on draw probability shall be true and effective.
2.7 Online game publishers shall publicly announce the random draw results by customers on notable places of official website or in game, and keep record for government inquiry. The record must be kept for more than 90 days. When publishing the random draw results, some measures should be taken place to protect user privacy.

This doesn't mean that we will be able to choose what we get in our loot boxes or see the probabilities because this law is only going to apply in China. However, that doesn't mean that it couldn't reach the Western hemisphere. This could be huge for developers and us gamers who feel like loot boxes are kind of a crap shoot gambler's audition. It is kind of messed up when we put in time into a game and we don't get the items we want out of these loot boxes.

This looks like a good step in the right direction for gamers and loot boxes. Hope it comes to the West.

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.

Season 3-Elo Hell or just the right spot?

Tonight I'd like to discuss Season 3 of Overwatch and the fact that a lot of people feel like they've been gypped when it comes to their Season 3 ranking.

First, I'd like to talk about my own personal experience. I played all my placement games yesterday and I won eight out of ten games. I somehow got placed into bronze league (scrub league) despite the fact that I was gold last season and silver in season 1. Now, I've seen plenty of videos that try to explain that Blizzard is purposely placing people lower than usual because last season too many players placed too high and into gold and platinum. But even after playing ten of some of my best competitive games ever I get bronze? You can bet I felt gypped.

But all is not lost. Earlier today I did a marathon session and went from 1250 to 1450 in a mere two-three hours. Forty-nine more points and I'll break into silver. I plan on doing that tomorrow morning but here's the kicker, I'm possibly stuck in elo hell.

What is elo hell you ask? "What it actually seems to mean is the level at which people feel they can't at all rely on their teammates. What they use it to mean is the level that they're better than but can't get out of "'cause of those baddies"." (Shinnyshin, League of Legends forums)

Basically I'm placed at a level where the players are so bad its very difficult to climb the ladder in solo queue. I've been playing solo queue since the launch of the game because I don't have many friends that play as often as I do. Thankfully, I was able to go up by some 200 points today because I'm a fantastic Lucio and Ana player. I had a lot of people friend me because I'm great at healing and they wanted me to play with them to ensure wins. This ended up helping me a lot because I found that its a lot easier to win games when you're working with people you know who have communication skills (always using a mic).

For example, part of the reason I won most of my games today was because I played Ana a lot and whenever I had my nanoboost I called it out on my mic and asked if anybody had their ultimates. I timed my nanoboost with dps and tank's ultimates and it resulted in teamwipes most of the time. Although Ana's nanoboost has gotten more difficult to setup it is still an effective teamwiping tool in the right hands.

The fact that I've been annihilating pretty easily seems to show that I'm a lot better than bronze. But because I'm in bronze I will probably lose more games because of elo hell. Part of me thinks this is what Blizzard wants in a way. They want us to think we're better than the rank they gave us as an incentive to keep playing more and climb the ladder to the highest spot you can. That's the point of having seasons, to challenge ourselves in this way during a specified period of time.

So is it really elo hell or is it just the right spot? 

Overwatch Wins Game of the Year

Overwatch took the high honor of becoming Game of the Year at this year's The Game Awards. It beat Doom, Inside, Titanfall 2, and Uncharted 4.

When he accepted the award, Blizzard’s Ray Gresko said, “While we’ve been very happy with how the game has been received, we’re also extremely proud that this game and the world that we’re building has a message and it’s a message about heroism. It’s a message about diversity. It’s a message about a bright and positive and hopeful future. And these are all things that we really believe everyone needs a little bit of right now.”

Overwatch to me is one of the best games of our modern gaming era. I, myself enjoy the game as much as I enjoyed Starcraft II, Diablo II, Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, Smash 4, Project M, Melee, numerous Final Fantasies, and Marvel Vs Capcom 2.  All those games are top notch.

What makes the game so great is that this is about heroes (and villains to a lesser extent), a more hopeful future, it brings more diversity to gaming, and it brings people together through the interactive multiplayer. They've created a masterpiece at Blizzard and the fact that they can bring joy to many people in what is seen as a dark period of history is downright amazing. Kudos to them.

The Game Awards’ other winners were:

• Best Mobile and Handheld Game: Pokemon GO
• Best Family Game: Pokemon GO
• Games For Impact Award: That Dragon Cancer
• Best Independent Game: Inside
• Best Multiplayer Game: Overwatch
• Best Esports Game: Overwatch
• Best Action-Adventure Game: Dishonored 2
• Best Action Game: Doom
• Best VR Game: Rez Infinite
• Best Fighting Game: Street Fighter V
• Best RPG: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Blood & Wine
• Best Strategy Game: Civilization VI
• Best Sports/Racing Game: Forza Horizon 3
• Best Game Direction: Overwatch
• Best Art Direction: Inside
• Best Narrative: Uncharted 4
• Best Esports Team: Cloud9
• Best Esports player: Marcelo “Coldzera” David (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive)
• Best Performance: Nolan North, Uncharted 4
• Trending Gamer: Boogie2988
• Most Anticipated Game: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Overwatch Christmas event coming soon

So some stuff on the ptr suggests a Christmas event is coming soon. There's Christmas music files as well as new hero voice interactions. There's possibilities of a a bunch of great Christmasy skins like a Ana Ms. Claus, sexy Christmas Mercy skin, Reinhardt Santa, elf Torbjorn, Soldier 75 Dad Jumper, etc. This update will probably show up within the first week of December.

In this video here he explains that there's probably going to be some sort of a new arena mode based on some Athena voice-lines. Hopefully it will be a pve mode, something that replaces Junkenstein's Revenge. If it's an arena it seems like its going to be a pvp mode but we already have enough pvp modes in the game. I'm hoping that it's some sort of pve mode where you fight raid bosses and perhaps there will be like World of Warcraft mechanics like don't stand in the fire and stuff like that. But it would have to be based around Christmas. A Christmas raid type of thing would be sick!

I got most of the Halloween skins (except for Mercy's sexy witch skin and "my servants never die!" voiceline) and I plan on getting most of the Christmas skins as well. I really hope they have some great Zenyatta Christmas skin as well as Mercy and Ana as those have become my mains. I used to play Lucio a lot but now I just leave him to other players. 

Christmas is just around the corner!

Welcome the new Symmetra, Nummetra

So a new patch hit the ptr today and it completely changed the way Symmetra works. She has an ultimate change, she now has two ultimates! Once her ultimate is full she can use either the teleporter or the shield generator. This puts a strong shield on all teammates in a substantial radius. As long as everyone's within the radius everyone will get it. Her regular shield ability has been removed. She has a new shield ability called photon barrier. It moves on a projected path. It's a shield projectile! It's been compared to Reinhardt's barrier so you know its pretty strong. Very cool new abilities. An ultimate alternate and this photon barrier.

The turrets have been completely reworked. The max holding charge for six. She can place all turrets before the match starts and also she can quickly replace them if they're destroyed. Her primary fire distance has been slightly increased. Barely.

These are some major big changes to Symmetra. She can become a character that is needed in every comp.

Symmetra is definitely a lot better now. The community was crying out for Symmetra changes and for a while we didn't get them. But today it finally happened.

I hopped on the ptr today and sure enough everybody is playing Nummetra. Every match I played (this was Quick Play) Symmetra got play of the game doing some insane killing spree with turrets and her laser. Her projectile shield (photon barrier) is so strong and cool looking. It looks like a bubble shield projectile. It can absorb a ton of damage. In fact, when I tried continuously shooting at it I couldn't tear it apart. It seems very powerful indeed.

I feel like Nummetra could become a thing. Comps could be running Ana/Symmetra as supports, Mercy/Symmetra, or Lucio/Symmetra. With Sombra in the mix the game has certainly become very exciting within the last week. By now we can all say that Overwatch is a game that is constantly evolving and changing. Nothing stays the same for a long period of time.

Side notes to mention is that there is now a stay as party system after a match. This is perfect for solo queue players like myself. Now when I win a match with a team I like I can choose to stay as party and we can group up to play more. Great tool! In addition, there's an unlockable "boop" voiceline for Sombra. Lastly, players can play custom games for 3v3 elimination and 1v1 mystery duel.

Welcome to Symmetra hell.

Overwatch Has Changed A lot

Hello ladies and gents. I'm back! I was afk for a couple days and I actually tried going to sleep early and waking up early. I liked it! Anyways, let's have a deep disscussion about Overwatch.

Overwatch has completely changed with the last patch and I feel like its affected the game in a bunch of major ways. The biggest and most obvious change is the increased ultimate ability cost by 25%. The game has a much better pace to it now than it did before. Before teams could teamwipe enemy teams by just building up their ultimates really quickly and if they had great communication they could use all their ults at the same time and win engagements everytime. Basically the team that had better communication would always win because their ults would be timed better.

Now, ultimates are much more important and timing for them has to be perfect for the teamwipes. In addition, shooting in the game feels a lot more important.. Shooting has become important in a first person shooting game! How exciting!

Soldier 76 is like god tier right now. He does something like 150 more dps (damage per second). The only dps better than him right now is McCree and I would argue that unless you're a pro McCree you should play Soldier instead. He can melt through Reinhardt shields pretty quickly if he's defended well too. He's definitely going to become a must pick in this new meta.

Pharah got a nice buff with 35% lift thrusts so she's in the air all the time now. Pro Pharahs will rain death from above and do fine but I also think that she still has the same problems she had before in the sense that Zenyatta can discord orb her, Soldier can shoot her down, Ana/Widow/Hanzo can snipe her, and McCree can just pistol her at medium range. She's great but she has so many weaknesses I just don't see her coming back even at my level of play.

Now, for Sombra. Sombra is an interesting concept put in Overwatch. I love her kit, her voicelines, her skins, the fact that she's a cute latina hacker, etc. She's freaking great. But honestly I don't think she will become a part of the meta and I don't think she will become popular in the pro scene or even at my level of play.

I'm saying this because that's what I'm seeing in the game right now. I've seen pro players play Sombra and even I've played better with her on my good games. Obviously we still have a lot of learning to do with her and her kit but her damage is so low why would anyone prefer Sombra over say Tracer/Genji/Reaper? The other flankers do a much better job of killing. Sombra is more of a poking and finishing hit kind of hero. She can be played aggressively but we haven't seen any fantastic Sombra plays where she's killing everyone on the enemy team like say a Tracer, Genji, or Reaper.

What's the problem you ask? The main thing is that her gun is very weak. Not only that but the spread is kinda all over the place because its an smg. I like the fact that she can hack health packs but if you're constantly running around hacking healthpacks sometimes you aren't going to be there for your team. I notice that Sombra players like to go off on their own a lot. Her stealth is good but you can still be spotted and shot at even when you're running super fast. Her ultimate sounded bad ass and overpowered at first but in practice I haven't seen anything too special from emp other than a cancelled Lucio ultimate and a Reinhardt shield cancellation. Lastly, she goes down like a wet paper nap. Very much glass cannon.

With all these problems its easy to see that Somba will have a hard time getting into the pro scene, even my current level of play. Nobody is running Sombra for competitive at my level. I was actually shocked at first because I've been playing everyday since the new patch and I've only seen her in one comp game. I think they can tweak her in future patches and make her better.

Honestly they should do what they usually do. Buff a character so strong that everybody plays her and then nerf her hard so that she can fit into the meta when everybody likes her. Blizzard does this with all their heroes and I bet they'll do it again with Sombra. They did this with Ana and it worked like a charm. 

In conclusion, Overwatch will never be the same game again. I like to think that the game has changed for the better but sometimes I miss the old days, which were only like a few months ago. Sure, every team is running Lucio still but comps are becoming more diverse (at least at my level) and Blizzard is trying new things like Sombra. Not everything is good but at the same time its great that the game is getting updates and still going strong. I'm still getting into games within 30 seconds during the day. That's pretty neat.

Hack the planet.

Official Sombra art leak

So we were all wondering if that last leaked picture and information about Sombra at the end of the summer was real. Looks like it was. Based on that picture and this new official leaked (intentional leak) art of Sombra she looks pretty much the same down to the cool, sexy cyber punk haircut to the foxy clothes. What's new in this photo is what she's doing with her hands-this sort of purple energy is flowing from her hands into these robots. 

Let's speculate. I've been doing it for months during this entire Sombra arg (alternate reality game). She might have the ability to be a summoner. She could summon robot minions that attack enemy players or something. She might be able to hack turrets, Reinhardt's shield, and stop abilities from working for a certain period of time. Things like that. 

I'm kinda hoping that she's gonna be a summoner of some sort. There was this vampires vs humans game called Nosgoth (it was 4v4 pvp game) and it had a summoner. That summoner was so freaking fun in that game! It would be cool to see Blizzard do something similar for Overwatch. I do know that a character like that in any game is difficult because its hard to balance. Usually summoners are either pathetically weak in games or they are ridiculously over powered. We'll have to wait and see what abilities she really will have.

It's believed that Somba will be announced at BlizzCon, which is only in a few days-I'm greatly looking forward to it. I've kind of taken a break from Overwatch because I'm disillusioned with competitive mode because of bad teams and having a hard time ranking up. It really is elo hell as other players have put it. Sometimes its fun though. I still enjoy playing the game but I've mostly been playing Heroes of the Storm as of late. 

One more thing about Sombra. People were thinking her ultimate would be her being able to control that giant omnic robot on Valskya Industries, that huge one in the background. Pretty cool idea. I hope it turns out to be true. 

Again, we'll have to wait. September and October were pretty slow months for Overwatch and pc gaming in general but it looks like some interesting things will happen soon. Also, we can't forget that they're going to make ultimates take longer to charge up, meaning more fire fighting and maneuvering and less reliance on ultimate abilities. That patch is on the ptr (public test realm) servers but hasn't made it to the base game yet. But it will in due time. 

Wish I could be at Blizzcon this week instead of being at work :'(

Fairness coming to competitive season three

So Blizzard has announced that Season 3 competitive mode starts December 1st. Season 2 ends November 24th, which means there will be less time in between the break than we had last time. They completely overhauled Competitive mode for Season 2 but its still not perfect, despite completely changing everything about it. A lot of players have cried ELO hell, the idea that once you're surrounded by shit teammates there's no escaping your low rank. This is where I've been at in Overwatch for pretty much all of Season 1 and most of Season 2.

The beginning of Season 2 for me was pretty good. I was almost gold but I just didn't put in enough time because I'm too busy working, hanging out with friends, and teaching them guitar moves. Once they learn the basic more we're gonna start writing songs for our band. Even though I'm a great guitar player its still difficult teaching people from the very beginning. "This is a C chord..." More on that later in another post.

Anyways, for Season 3 they aren't completely changing everything like last time but they are making some major tweaks. In a forum post principal designer Scott Mercer explained that they want to change things in two ways. First, they want players to quickly get into matches with players of equal skill. And second, they want it to feel like a fresh start. Kinda conflicting ideas but we'll have to wait and see what happens. He went on to say:

“Another area of Competitive Play we’re trying to improve for Season 2 is how we distribute everybody into their Skill Tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, etc.) based on their SR. When Season 2 started, we had WAY more players in Gold and Platinum than we initially intended, and way fewer in Bronze and Silver. This was the result of how we calculated your initial SR for Season 2. We tried to partially reset player SR at the start of Season 2, but the results were not as we expected. Instead, below-average players started Season 2 at a higher SR than they should have been given their performance in Season 1. This meant that as they played in Season 2, their SR would often drop to a lower value, which didn’t feel great. It also meant that there was a much wider variation of skill in the Gold and Platinum tiers than we wanted. This is something we want to avoid in Season 3.”

In the end Blizzard has decided to go with fairness over everything else. Skill rating will be lower at the start but we'll have higher than normal skill rating gains.

The new skill rating system is already effect on the ptr, which has a bunch of other changes that I've written about here.

I'll try out all this stuff on my day off tomorrow. Lately, I haven't had as much time for gaming because pesky work gets in the way. If only I didn't need money to buy games, but now I don't have time to play the games I buy. Quite the conundrum I'm in now.

Troll Picks Are Inevitable

According to Overwatch's director Jeff Kaplan troll picks are inevitable. He said "we will absolutely do our best to make sure all of our heroes are viable and that none of them end up left behind as "troll picks."

"A lot of us like pro sports and tend to think of those games (soccer, football, hockey, basketball) as 'timeless'. But if you follow those games closely, the leagues have had to make minor tweaks to the games to keep them fun and balanced over time," Kaplan wrote. "It's a weird analogy, but it is very similar to hero balance in a game like Overwatch. In those pro sports, players and coaches evolved their ways of thinking about the game that required the game itself to change at times."

"Both Torb and Symmetra are being looked at right now. We want to try to improve them in ways that makes them more fun to play, more enjoyable to have on your team and try to make sure they are not infuriating to play against," he continued, addressing a complaint that those two heroes in particular are "flagged as 'useless'" by the community. "We wrestle with the issue that players get very upset at us when they perceive 'the meta is stale' and certain heroes are not viable. Yet it's also very disruptive to the playerbase for us to make changes. It's a bit of a Catch-22 but we do our best to responsibly look at all heroes all the time and make sure nothing is terribly unbalanced or worse, un-fun." (Kotaku)

Some troll picks make games unwinnable. I do think Blizzard needs to do something to address the issue of troll picks because it happens surprisingly a lot in competitive mode. You'd think people would stick to quick play for trolling but nope they go to competitive and derp off there too. Some examples would be someone who keeps going Hanzo or Widowmaker on attack or when nobody plays healer. When nobody plays healer the whole team is just trolling at that point.

I think the best troll characters are Genji, Reaper, Tracer, Widowmaker, and Hanzo. The snipers get picked surprisingly a lot on attack. I find that to be pretty trollish behavior. Then the guy would say something like Hanzo is my best character.

Overwatch definitely has its trolls. Mostly in the voice chat put it does go hand in hand with their character picks as well. Blizzard has done their best to allow everyone freedom within the game but really its beyond their control in many aspects. At this point its community property.

Genderbend Reaper is so edgy XD