Junkenstein's Revenge

The new Brawl is a co-op mode where players fight against hordes of zombie robots. Sounds pretty great right? It has a similar vibe to Team Fortess 2's Mann vs Machine mode. The Junkrat Frankenstein skin has a pretty strong Tf2 vibe too. 

Players are limited to just four characters-McCree, Ana, Hanzo, or Soldier 76. This is a great combination of characters for fighting off hordes. McCree can use Deadeyes to take out hordes of "zomnics" and Hanzo can take care of the heavy dps "zombardiers".

You have to last seven minutes against a sea of enemies and you can't let them get through doorway defense points. The key is communication. They added an extended interface that helps keep track of ultimates and allies' health and stuff. Pretty neat of Blizzard to do that. You're gonna want a mic for this one.

"The brawl demands a lot of coordination and constantly tosses new challenges in your direction. Things go from bad to worse any time a boss shows up. Deadlier opponents drop into the map including “Junkenstein’s Monsters” (a reskinned Roadhog) or the dangerous “Reaper” (Reaper reskin, if you couldn’t guess) and they will do their best to kick your ass. High health pools and dangerous ultimate abilities make these foes more than mere AI bots; when left unchecked, they can really bring the pain." (Kotaku)

The mode is basic and doesn't bring anything new to the table but its still pretty damn cool. Ideas like this makes me wonder if they are ever going to add a co-op gamemode for Overwatch. How about an Overwatch moba mode like Battleborn? Or Overwatch with a League of Legends style. Something like that would be cool.

Halloween in my video games, nice. 

A New Hero Sooner Rather Than Later

Jeff Kaplan, Director for Overwatch posted a lengthy update about some changes coming to our favorite hero shooter. In addition to some balance changes to Junkrat and Widowmaker, he also said there are two new characters in development-one of which is going to arrive "sooner rather than later". This is awesome! I really hope its Sombra because we've been waiting for a while on that one and the whole arg (alternate reality games) about it has gotten quite stale.

Kaplan also mentioned some of the changes are currently on the PTR-public test realm servers. These changes include an increase to Widowmaker's scope speed, changes to Junkrat's trap (which don't allow Genji to dash out of it), and Junkrat's ultimate charges faster too. Pretty nifty changes. I definitely see Junkrat and Widowmaker being more high priority picks with these changes.

A lot of people have been talking about Symmetra lately and Kaplan addressed the issue.

Kaplan says "the type of changes we want to look at with Symmetra might take a bit longer than the Widowmaker change. "People ask what she's going to be on the other side of her design iteration," he continued. "It could be changes to some of her mechanics, and just changing her overall feel through numbers and cooldowns, but we're going to look at some other changes and explore some other things as well, that might be more dramatic in terms of design vision for her."    

The community wants her to have healing qualities-healing turrets, teleporters, and weapon but the community definitely ain't gonna get what they want in that regard. Kaplan said they have no interest in turning her into a healer.

"We know she has been categorised as a support player, but that doesn't necessarily mean, to us, that she needs to be a healer," he said. "If that means we have to move her out of the support category, we'd rather do that than completely shift the character's design to something she was never intended to be."

Kaplan also mentioned that four maps in design stages and that some may be applied to new game modes.

The update video can be viewed here.

This is quite a lot of good news. It's great to see the game getting so much love and attention. It's only been a few months but Overwatch has given the player base so much in terms of gaming, entertainment, and dare I say it-love. People love Overwatch. Its a beautiful thing. Jeff Kaplan is a gaming visionary to me. I see him the same way I see Gabe Newell and Valve. The fact that he's constantly changing and updating the game means a lot to me and the players. They're building much more than just a great product, they're building a family so to speak. A video game family.

Anyways, this is all great news. I'm mostly excited about the new hero and who it could possibly be. It might not be Sombra even though we've been getting all this arg stuff for ages. It could be some other lesser known hero in the lore that brings something new to the table. 

Sick.

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!