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Overwatch World Cup Top 4 thoughts
Nov. 3rd, 2018 11:21 pmI could have started homework for my phlebotomy class and started cleaning up the house, but instead i stayed in my pajamas and watched the end of the Overwatch World Cup before going out for drinks with my sister and brother-in-law. In my defense, it was cold and rainy and a good day to sit in and watch something trivial.
( cut for match results )
Some scattered thoughts about compositions used and the general state/balance of characters and meta in high-level play:
-The recent change to Lúcio's Sound Barrier (grants 750 shield HP instead of 500) felt extremely oppressive. Ofc the purpose of a defensive ult is to keep your team from wiping, but the increased HP has changed the way Barrier is used in a subtle way. The old barrier was used reactively against high-burst ults, but due to its short duration and cast time it was not as reliable as Transcendence. Now it seems to be used most often in situations after ults are expended to deny any advantage the enemy team might get from using ultimate combos or committing to a deep push and instead of feeling like a clutch save for your team, dropping the beat feels like a death sentence for the other team and just feels...unfair?...in a way the old Barrier did not. 750 HP, even though it decays, is an enormous amount of HP to burn down in a single fight and that's not even considering Sound Barrier usually comes on top of Rally and its 100 armor HP. I think the old Barrier just needed a cast time reduction or should have charged faster instead of what exists now.
-All of the support characters saw substantial playtime in the Cup, even though there's been a lot of complaints by...certain segments of support players...who feel the number of nerfs Mercy and Brigitte have received have made them substantially worse. Which is nice! I'd actually say out of all the supports it's Moira who is the weakest at high level play because she does not offer much outside a metric ton of AOE healing and the lowest DPS in the game and Ana and/or Mercy offer utility outside healing (sleep dart, nanoboost, res, damage boost) and have better synergy with the off-supports as well. But her kit's still really strong in ladder/solo queue play.
-It doesn't look fun to be Reinhardt but it looks super-fun to be Winston. Mobility helps a lot i guess.
-McCree was used to great effect by several teams on Control-type maps and I have no idea why he's become so strong in this specific situation so suddenly (he's generally been a poor pick against 3/3 comps which is what is most commonly run on control maps) This is probably why i've never been higher than platinum in competitive mode.
-Wrecking Ball appeared to be the counter-of-choice for double-sniper comps but didn't get very consistent results...still seems like the best counter out of all the tanks for snipers at high leves since D.va and Winston can get burned down so quickly when trying to contest snipers.
-Tracer's in a bad spot :( At least no one on ladder plays as a team so she's still strong there lol.
( cut for match results )
Some scattered thoughts about compositions used and the general state/balance of characters and meta in high-level play:
-The recent change to Lúcio's Sound Barrier (grants 750 shield HP instead of 500) felt extremely oppressive. Ofc the purpose of a defensive ult is to keep your team from wiping, but the increased HP has changed the way Barrier is used in a subtle way. The old barrier was used reactively against high-burst ults, but due to its short duration and cast time it was not as reliable as Transcendence. Now it seems to be used most often in situations after ults are expended to deny any advantage the enemy team might get from using ultimate combos or committing to a deep push and instead of feeling like a clutch save for your team, dropping the beat feels like a death sentence for the other team and just feels...unfair?...in a way the old Barrier did not. 750 HP, even though it decays, is an enormous amount of HP to burn down in a single fight and that's not even considering Sound Barrier usually comes on top of Rally and its 100 armor HP. I think the old Barrier just needed a cast time reduction or should have charged faster instead of what exists now.
-All of the support characters saw substantial playtime in the Cup, even though there's been a lot of complaints by...certain segments of support players...who feel the number of nerfs Mercy and Brigitte have received have made them substantially worse. Which is nice! I'd actually say out of all the supports it's Moira who is the weakest at high level play because she does not offer much outside a metric ton of AOE healing and the lowest DPS in the game and Ana and/or Mercy offer utility outside healing (sleep dart, nanoboost, res, damage boost) and have better synergy with the off-supports as well. But her kit's still really strong in ladder/solo queue play.
-It doesn't look fun to be Reinhardt but it looks super-fun to be Winston. Mobility helps a lot i guess.
-McCree was used to great effect by several teams on Control-type maps and I have no idea why he's become so strong in this specific situation so suddenly (he's generally been a poor pick against 3/3 comps which is what is most commonly run on control maps) This is probably why i've never been higher than platinum in competitive mode.
-Wrecking Ball appeared to be the counter-of-choice for double-sniper comps but didn't get very consistent results...still seems like the best counter out of all the tanks for snipers at high leves since D.va and Winston can get burned down so quickly when trying to contest snipers.
-Tracer's in a bad spot :( At least no one on ladder plays as a team so she's still strong there lol.
