Overwatch - Brigitte used FLAIL!

For those of you with problems regarding the Anubis chokepoint: https://www.twitch.tv/a_seagull/v/64896969?t=3h51m59s

I've been doing that every game since I spam super mobile characters. I really love playing attack on Anubis now just because of this, and there are a lot of hidden flanks in other maps if you take a bit to explore. In terms of favorite maps, I really like Dorado, Lijiang, and Ilios, but my favorites in terms of aesthetics are Hanamura, Numbani, and Hollywood.

I do agree with the final push of Dorado's being a bit hard, but it's manageable if you coordinate your team to save ults for that point it's easy to win. There's the additional flank from the back, so you can send a Tracer/Genji around the backside and then start a fight that way. It's probably harder with the general level of skill being fairly low right now, but I'm sure it will pick up.
 
Played a couple of more matches today. Got to say this is the best fun I've had in a long time, well done Blizzard. I got over my fear of Bastion and started killing 5-10 players per round which is nice, 67 is the man for me, healing, long/medium range and then a very good ultimate power.

So a couple of notes, the Egyptian round is the best place to choke attackers by far, high places give you immense advantage and knowing the exact capabilities of your player (medium, close, long range, etc.) helps a lot.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
I average 8-15 with mei. The trick is to flank with her or poke at long range. The amount of snipers I've taken out with long range shots is incredible.
 
Just found this thread. while I haven't gotten into the Beta, I'm still going for the competitive scene here, as it has potential for large pots and has a fresh player pool to take pros from. (I thankfully think I made up for the lack of beta as much as I could this weekend, managed to spam enough to get to level 18.) Here's my general thoughts on the heroes so far:

Bastion:
Honestly has a really hard time when competing with Trobjorn, although easily the more fun option. Needing to choose between healing and attacking is the big thing, as Tobjorn's turret can still get healed while under fire, providing a lot more pressure onto the attackers. Sure, Bastion has the higher DPS, but it's generally not worth it. Its ultimate also seems interesting but has a large risk of leaving Bastion in a terrible positioning, as it almost seems to encourage overextending, and usually ends up with a dead bastion or a wasted ult. You pretty much need to guarantee a team wipe to make it worth it, which isn't going to happen against a competitive team. I'm predicting it to get a lot of use in pubs, but to be relatively rare bar a few special map-specific instances in competitive games.

D.Va:
Probably one of my favorite heroes currently. She's really hard to truly understand, as she has high mobility and obscene health but only has good damage close-range - even at mid-close range, she only does enough to pick off weakened opponents. People describe her as a "disruption tank", but I think that's only half the story.
The big thing I've noticed, is that you need a REALLY good D.Va and a cooperative team for her to work well, otherwise you're going to be better off going Reaper. She's built for closing distance and high short-range damage, and the ability to get the hell out of dodge if needed, both offensively, defensively, for retreating purposes, and for conservation purposes (getting ejected from Robot Chicken helps here). She also works beautifully with punishing potential pushes, and being able to provide offensive pressure for a counterpush, as well as being generally annoying enough to be worth targeting over everyone else, therefore holding all the criteria for a competent tank. She deals with 1v1s incredibly well with just about everyone bar a prepared Tracer and a sentried Bastion, and can boost away from any scenario that goes wrong. She especially does well against Snipers, as she can block their shots, get to their vantage points easily, and melt them incredibly fast.
However, D.Va has an immense risk of overextending herself, although she's capable of getting out of it well, and frankly good D.Va players know when to abuse that. Since she has obscene health, draws a just-as-obscene amount of fire, and no health regen, as well as her low health outside her mech, a Harmony Orb does insane wonders for D.Va, and is easily one of the best recipients, although all the tanks are good at such.
Finding a niche for D.Va, though, is hard. She's built more like a goodstuff than "I can do this and others can't!" She has her defense matrix, but no shield, and although reliable, is short and a decent cooldown, meaning you usually don't want to waste it. Her ult's also a hard one to use successfully, as in practice it just disperses the opposing team rather than actually killing anything, although sometimes you can catch a Junkrat or McCree off guard. The second best tank in my eyes, and will probably be popular in competitive.

Genji:
Overwatch's Cheese character. I haven't played Genji that much at all (read: I haven't), but from my experiences playing with/against Genjis, he acts like an Espeon, in that he gets much more powerful with each boost than everyone else. Specifically, Harmony Orb and Symmetra's shield. High mobility, able to close a lot of distances like D.Va, high damage if you know how to use him. Lackluster with no boosts but easily one of the best if your team composition caters to him.

Hanzo:
Honestly, he's a worse Widowmaker with more utility. While Widow's the better and more reliable Sniper, Hanzo can get people behind walls, can still provide limited wallhacks relatively frequently, and has an amazing objective-clearing ultimate (or spawncamp-across-the-map PoS if you wanna be THAT guy). And his arrows are still hard to dodge - realistically, people won't be able to respond fast enough. Unlike TF2 and the Hunstman, these arrows are FAST. Honestly, it comes down to the map, team composition, and the general preference of the player. Hanzo's the more defensive sniper with an offensive ult, and Widowmaker's the more offensive sniper with a defensive ult. Although, Hanzo doesn't have Widowmaker's mobility, so it'll probably be seen less on offensive builds bar the first point. KotH caters to both equally.

Junkrat:
More spam, more damage per pipe, ability to trap, long-range AoE ult, whee! High skill ceiling, but easily a top DPS class once you get good at him. You need to learn how to hit pipes, though, and need to keep in mind that Riptire has a good chance to be a complete flop against competent teams. Not much else to say here, viability depends on how good the player is. Bad player, terrible hero. Good player, top tier. Popularity will probably increase as the competitive scene improves.

Lucio:
The lowest damage-outputting Support (At least Mercy has a damage beam), so while he's good, it's only in certain scenarios. Specifically, where his AoE's will be useful. Specifically, any scenario with a competent team and a focused objective. Read: Everywhere. He's good. Really good. But you need a real bangin' team (and team composition) to make up for his lack of damage. Unpopular in pubs, a common sight in competitive is my prediction.

McCree:
While it's a close fight for the first three slots, McCree manages to take the spot for #1 damage dealer in the game. Bastion-level DPS with a close-range fan, and a high damage-per-clip with a full 12 shots in ~3 seconds with two full fans and a roll. I don't know the specific numbers but I'd ballpark 75 per shot, and with no damage falloff, meaning a high damage output even at long range. Extremely strong dispatcher with his flashbang, and his ultimate is easily one of the best in the game, with the charge conservation, the zoning capabilities, and the potential ability to simply shut down teams at times. Will have an almost ubiquitous presence in the competitive scene, although since he has low utility outside his ult (which by itself is damage utility), you're not going to see more than one on a team.

Mei:
I've had little experience with Mei so take what I say with a grain of salt, but she seems to have a hard time figuring out what her role is. She's built like a tank, but has only 250 health, she can only disrupt at close range, and while she can heal, she can't do anything and at the whims of the opposing team. She can do a surprising amount of damage, but it's hard to aim, long range, and requires a charge time. Her ultimate is great though. So basically, she's a short range disruptor that doesn't have the bulk to survive close range outside of 1v1, her recovery from such an endeavour to disrupt requires the rest of her team to bail her out from a strong possibility of a 1v6, and while she can control chokepoints well, competent teams will always be able to circumvent or even take advantage of it, even against a good mei. Honestly, her wall and her ultimate are the only things keeping her somewhat viable, and they just don't see it being enough. I'd say a low competitive usage, with the exception of certain maps or parts of a map. Either that or the wall/ult IS enough to keep her viability. I guess I'd have to use her more.

Mercy:The bog-standard Medic hero, left click get heals. Has a hard time competing with Zenyatta, as Zen can both long-range heal and increase damage vs. a single target, while Mercy requires movement to the person getting healed in question, which is much more dangerous, and boosts one ally's damage against whoever they're attacking, as opposed to increasing the entire team's damage against a single target, AND has to choose between the two. The only thing keeping Mercy afloat is her ultimate, and it's a big one. Unlike Zen's, which is geared towards mitigating pushes and assisting his own team's push while requiring the team to stay within his healing radius, Mercy provides pressure by mitigating all progress the opposing team has accomplished. Defensive pushes need to deal with extra damage, and when they finally win, they need to do the entire thing AGAIN. Offensive pushes become suicide missions, all the more lethal since heroes aren't afraid to overextend and die, and after a few have fallen, the revival of the suiciders put an insane amount of pressure on the defense. Overall, it becomes the better ultimate to deal with pushes, and almost always RELIABLY results in a success. I predict Mercy being a common off-pick to deal with stalemates or on certain opening pushes, but probably not going to be a staple.

Pharah:
This is a hard one. She's reliable, but not reliable. Hard to hit, but easy to hit.
Let me explain. Being up in the air, it's harder to aim at her, but it's also harder for her to dodge or to get behind cover. Her rockets do a decent amount of damage, and she has a decently sized clip, but the rockets are slow and can be potentially dodged. Her ultimate is strong - AFAIK the damage number is 1800 - but she's 100% immobilized and the opponents can just take cover or get shielded, or another ult can just cancel it out. Her concussion blast is near useless, in all honesty. She's decent on Mercy builds, though, especially offense - protects Mercy by being up in the air and even bodyblocking, damage-boosted aerial rockets take out Trobjorn/Bastion like no tomorrow, and a healed aerial Pharah is hard to take down. She's good - and fun - in pubs, but she'll have less and less showing competitively as time goes on bar specific builds.

Reaper:
The infamous pubstomper: high constant damage, teleportation, temporary invincibility, room-clearing ultimate. Heals when he gets a kill, always seems to be behind you, always seems to get away, always seems to outdamage you. Looks like a solid A rank, right? Well...
His damage is as close-range as D.Va's, if not closer, and he doesn't have the health to back it up. His only extra mobility is teleportation, which helps for flanking, but that's about it - doesn't help with closing distances with targets. And what's keeping you from just following him when he goes into Wraith form?
He looks like an offense hero, but I actually say he's best suited for DEFENSE. Always with the group, lets the targets come to him, opponents trying to move forward gives him strong flank opportunities, bunching around the payload/objective makes for an easy ult, more likely to get 1v1s, can just Wraith form into the rest of his team, can help clean up defensive aftermath REALLY well with healing from souls and his consistent damage output. He's still a slave to his positioning, and some maps simply don't work out for him. He'll see use depending on the map and how open it is or how many small areas there are, since he's near useless at anything other than close range. Probably the highest B in my VR.

Reinhardt:
Welcome the BEST TANK IN THE GAME. High defenses, decent mobility, strong damage if you give him the chance, good heckler, and the godlike shield. Honestly, it's the shield that makes him. It mitigates all damage to him and everyone behind him, singlehandedly enabling and disabling entire pushes and requiring the opposing team to deal with him before they can even attempt to do anything. Unless, or course, your team doesn't understand the aspect of STAND BEHIND THE REINHARDT. a.k.a every pub ever. So your shield protects nobody, you're wasting time, you've now overextended yourself (at least you can usually GTFO fast). But this is about competitive. Will be an incredibly popular pick just for the ability to reliably mitigate damage whenever and wherever. Just watch your positioning. If in a pub, watch for random charging Reinhardts since nobody seems to want to utilize him. Also keep in mind that any competent competitive team should be able to get past Reinhardt, with either flanking or by overloading his shield with damage, which is really hard to do. And he's near useless without his shield. So it's not going to be up all the time, and competent players know that and can take advantage of it, so it's not the end-all-be-all I made it sound like. Still going to be the defualt tank competitively IMO.

Roadhog:
Welcome to the WORST TANK IN THE GAME. Of course, unless the opposing team is uncoordinated, a.k.a every pub ever. His high health and self-healing make him an ult-building MACHINE for the opposing team, actually hurting his own team, and his hook will be near-useless in an organized setting. His ult can also be easily mitigated in terms of damage, the knockback less so. While he'll be good - and popular - in pubs, he'll almost be a no-show in competitive unless a team really wants his damage, or against certain competitive teams (Read: players).

Soldier: 76:
The most reliable and versatile hero. Good mobility, AoE heal, strong reliable damage at all but the longest ranges, strong single-target nuke, and a no-bullshit ultimate (that also mitigates reloading!). While not tanky, isn't frail and the healing helps. Gives a lot of versatility to team compositions. You still need good aim to have usable damage though, and your ultimate can be lackluster at times. Average competitive popularity, since he's pretty much just there to glue compositions together.

Symmetra:
Unlike other supports, symmetra doesn't heal, or deal with pushes. Her sentries are incredibly annoying, but frankly not that useful unless they're all together. Her shields are only an extra 25, so they usually aren't worth much. And her damage, while strong, is incredibly unreliable. She does, however, have a teleporter. And it's strong. Incredibly strong. Overwatch has naturally low respawn times, and the teleporter has no cooldown between teleportations, so it can help put an insane amount of pressure on the opposing team. That alone is what makes her, and it's enough. Will probably be a very popular sight on defensive team compositions in the beginning of matches, and will probably stick through until it's near the last point.

Trobjorn:
Simple stuff. Fast, easy turret that autolocks onto stuff, shuts down Tracer hard (the only real thing to do so), the armor can help out pretty much every hero a LOT, and good luck winning a push against an ulted Trobjorn. Will see a lot of usage pretty much everywhere. There's the obvious defensive builds, offensive builds can place it on the cart, the turret can potentially shut down the point in KotH, or just hold the line on Offense, etc.

Tracer:
Highest mobility in the game, incredibly annoying to deal with, and if you have good aim and can get in close, she can do a good deal of damage as well. She's mostly only good for high single-target damage, though, and she sucks vs. armor. Pulse bomb charges fast and has a strong chance for more than just one kill if you play it right. Will be seen a lot on offensive builds, and especially KotH.

Widowmaker:
The classic Sniper. What Widowmaker has that other snipers in other games don't is mobility, and why she works incredibly well. She can get near anywhere, oneshot everyone bar tanks and bastion, and of course the infamous wallhacks. Good on both offense and defense, incredibly good at picking off opposing support classes, can single-handedly enable or disable pushes based on who she targets, and above all, reliable. Decent close-range damage too. Though Hanzo has a more destructive ultimate while still providing wallhacks, and the ability to hit around corners and just clear large groups of people in general. Will probably be seen as much as Hanzo, and snipers in general will be popular.

Winston:
Reinhardt gives Winston a big run for his money, as his shield is more mobile and reliable, as well as being able to heckle at a long distance. However, Winston is good at blanket-protecting a specific area, almost always the payload although other objectives work, from every possible angle, while Reinhardt can only cover one. This includes from up above. Winston can also actually DO stuff once his shield is down, as opposed to Reinhardt who needs to hold it the whole time. TBH, winston's ult isn't really that powerful, but good in 1v1s and a fantastic distraction when you need it. Will probably be seen on Payload Offense every now and then depending on the tank player.

Zarya:
Now here's a real pickle. Zarya is a tank, but she has no mobility, and her only supporting capabilities involve making someone invulnerable from damage for a whopping 2 seconds (wow!), one of those people being herself. Now, two seconds isn't a lot of time. Not much is going to be accomplished unless an ultimate is involved, by the shielded or the opponent. And it only helps one person at a time before it goes on cooldown. And then there's the problem about damage: Zarya's damage is incredibly poor without charge. And to get charge, she needs to get opponents to shoot the invincible people with her shields. That are only up for two seconds apiece. And that people can just decide not to shoot. Again, not much happening unless you manage to get a double absorb from an opposing Ultimate or something. But people do have a somewhat slow reaction time, and won't immediately stop shooting the shielded person, so you're going to be able to absorb a bit, but usually not enough. So Zarya's usually not going to be able to put out much damage across the course of a game, as she usually needs half charge to be an actual recognizable threat. Her ultimate, however, can potentially get paired up with other ultimates to basically guarantee they get killed, which is pretty nice, especially with allies like D.Va and Pharah, where people can just run away from their ults most of the time and be fine. Although it's also easily countered by an opposing supportive ult a lot of the time anyway, like Zenyatta's. Probably not going to get picked up much at all competitively, although she will get picked up. Because if she gets enough charge, holy shit. There's a reason she used to be considered the best hero in the game. (Cool Trobjorn counter, too.)

However, it is possible to make them shoot at a shielded target, but it's usually not worth it, since it usually means they're OK with it and therefore the opponents are still getting the better return off of it, such as still shooting due to other low-health heroes being behind them. So generally lackluster, unless you can trick the opponents into getting you charge. 100 charge zarya is an insane monster of a hero to face against and is easily the strongest single hero you can possibly face in the entirety of Overwatch. I swear her damage output rivals Bastion's.

Zenyatta:
Probably the best support. While he has low mobility, everything in his arsenal bar his ult is long ranged, so he doesn't need it a lot of the time. Discord orb basically says "fuck you, u gon die" to whoever you put it on, and can actually let Zenyatta 1v1 damage classes long-range if he so chooses. As for Harmony, there's two ways to play it: Reactive and Composite. Reactive plays like a Mercy, see hurt guy, patch them up. See new hurt guy, patch them up. See Tracer leaving to flank, give for the journey. Composite is based off of team composition, hence the name, where Harmony Orb is almost always on one specific member, such as Genji. Composite will probably be the more popular variant in competitive. Discord can be played both ways, either putting it on the most immediate threat to yourself (which, since you're in the back lines, is probably in the line of fire of others), or by leaving it on an opposing Hero (usually a Tank) to help pressure opposing team builds, by making a strong spot quite weak. Transendence is also one of the best anti-pushes and anti-ults there is, as the insane healing factor outheals almost every possible damage output you'll practically see in a push (read: Practically. Bastion probably isn't gonna be in the push). Of course, competent opponents will just target one single member at a time, but you're still mitigating a lot of potential damage, and it's usually too little too late for the opponents. Will be seen a lot, a competitive staple on every kind of build.

Note that all heroes are competitively viable, and most are good.
So, my predictive (and probably very wrong lol) VR:

S
McCree
Reinhardt
Zenyatta

A
D.Va
Genji
Hanzo
Junkrat
Lucio
Soldier: 76
Tracer
Widowmaker

B
Mercy
Pharah
Reaper
Symmetra
Trobjorn

C
Bastion
Winston
Zarya

D
Mei
Roadhog
 
that messed with me a bit since I rebound my Ultimate to E lol. And my zarya argument still applies to Genji's deflect, but Genji probably has a harmony orb on him so all the progress you've made in killing him is now gone. It's also a lot harder to see than a bigass shield, so even in competitive play it's completely plausible to attack a reflecting genji. It's not as strong an offensive option as pubs make it look like though.
 

Ampharos

tag walls, punch fascists
is a Community Contributor Alumnus
Talenheim you missed D.va's biggest asset: the ability to push people off the map and spiraling into the bottomless abyss. Only reason to play her.
 
Why do that when Reinhardt exists? D.Va pushes on impact, doesn't drag. Rein can also charge for longer. D.Va has vertical mobility and flexible movement though.
 
Just found this thread. while I haven't gotten into the Beta, I'm still going for the competitive scene here, as it has potential for large pots and has a fresh player pool to take pros from. (I thankfully think I made up for the lack of beta as much as I could this weekend, managed to spam enough to get to level 18.) Here's my general thoughts on the heroes so far:

Bastion:
Honestly has a really hard time when competing with Trobjorn, although easily the more fun option. Needing to choose between healing and attacking is the big thing, as Tobjorn's turret can still get healed while under fire, providing a lot more pressure onto the attackers. Sure, Bastion has the higher DPS, but it's generally not worth it. Its ultimate also seems interesting but has a large risk of leaving Bastion in a terrible positioning, as it almost seems to encourage overextending, and usually ends up with a dead bastion or a wasted ult. You pretty much need to guarantee a team wipe to make it worth it, which isn't going to happen against a competitive team. I'm predicting it to get a lot of use in pubs, but to be relatively rare bar a few special map-specific instances in competitive games.

D.Va:
Probably one of my favorite heroes currently. She's really hard to truly understand, as she has high mobility and obscene health but only has good damage close-range - even at mid-close range, she only does enough to pick off weakened opponents. People describe her as a "disruption tank", but I think that's only half the story.
The big thing I've noticed, is that you need a REALLY good D.Va and a cooperative team for her to work well, otherwise you're going to be better off going Reaper. She's built for closing distance and high short-range damage, and the ability to get the hell out of dodge if needed, both offensively, defensively, for retreating purposes, and for conservation purposes (getting ejected from Robot Chicken helps here). She also works beautifully with punishing potential pushes, and being able to provide offensive pressure for a counterpush, as well as being generally annoying enough to be worth targeting over everyone else, therefore holding all the criteria for a competent tank. She deals with 1v1s incredibly well with just about everyone bar a prepared Tracer and a sentried Bastion, and can boost away from any scenario that goes wrong. She especially does well against Snipers, as she can block their shots, get to their vantage points easily, and melt them incredibly fast.
However, D.Va has an immense risk of overextending herself, although she's capable of getting out of it well, and frankly good D.Va players know when to abuse that. Since she has obscene health, draws a just-as-obscene amount of fire, and no health regen, as well as her low health outside her mech, a Harmony Orb does insane wonders for D.Va, and is easily one of the best recipients, although all the tanks are good at such.
Finding a niche for D.Va, though, is hard. She's built more like a goodstuff than "I can do this and others can't!" She has her defense matrix, but no shield, and although reliable, is short and a decent cooldown, meaning you usually don't want to waste it. Her ult's also a hard one to use successfully, as in practice it just disperses the opposing team rather than actually killing anything, although sometimes you can catch a Junkrat or McCree off guard. The second best tank in my eyes, and will probably be popular in competitive.

Genji:
Overwatch's Cheese character. I haven't played Genji that much at all (read: I haven't), but from my experiences playing with/against Genjis, he acts like an Espeon, in that he gets much more powerful with each boost than everyone else. Specifically, Harmony Orb and Symmetra's shield. High mobility, able to close a lot of distances like D.Va, high damage if you know how to use him. Lackluster with no boosts but easily one of the best if your team composition caters to him.

Hanzo:
Honestly, he's a worse Widowmaker with more utility. While Widow's the better and more reliable Sniper, Hanzo can get people behind walls, can still provide limited wallhacks relatively frequently, and has an amazing objective-clearing ultimate (or spawncamp-across-the-map PoS if you wanna be THAT guy). And his arrows are still hard to dodge - realistically, people won't be able to respond fast enough. Unlike TF2 and the Hunstman, these arrows are FAST. Honestly, it comes down to the map, team composition, and the general preference of the player. Hanzo's the more defensive sniper with an offensive ult, and Widowmaker's the more offensive sniper with a defensive ult. Although, Hanzo doesn't have Widowmaker's mobility, so it'll probably be seen less on offensive builds bar the first point. KotH caters to both equally.

Junkrat:
More spam, more damage per pipe, ability to trap, long-range AoE ult, whee! High skill ceiling, but easily a top DPS class once you get good at him. You need to learn how to hit pipes, though, and need to keep in mind that Riptire has a good chance to be a complete flop against competent teams. Not much else to say here, viability depends on how good the player is. Bad player, terrible hero. Good player, top tier. Popularity will probably increase as the competitive scene improves.

Lucio:
The lowest damage-outputting Support (At least Mercy has a damage beam), so while he's good, it's only in certain scenarios. Specifically, where his AoE's will be useful. Specifically, any scenario with a competent team and a focused objective. Read: Everywhere. He's good. Really good. But you need a real bangin' team (and team composition) to make up for his lack of damage. Unpopular in pubs, a common sight in competitive is my prediction.

McCree:
While it's a close fight for the first three slots, McCree manages to take the spot for #1 damage dealer in the game. Bastion-level DPS with a close-range fan, and a high damage-per-clip with a full 12 shots in ~3 seconds with two full fans and a roll. I don't know the specific numbers but I'd ballpark 75 per shot, and with no damage falloff, meaning a high damage output even at long range. Extremely strong dispatcher with his flashbang, and his ultimate is easily one of the best in the game, with the charge conservation, the zoning capabilities, and the potential ability to simply shut down teams at times. Will have an almost ubiquitous presence in the competitive scene, although since he has low utility outside his ult (which by itself is damage utility), you're not going to see more than one on a team.

Mei:
I've had little experience with Mei so take what I say with a grain of salt, but she seems to have a hard time figuring out what her role is. She's built like a tank, but has only 250 health, she can only disrupt at close range, and while she can heal, she can't do anything and at the whims of the opposing team. She can do a surprising amount of damage, but it's hard to aim, long range, and requires a charge time. Her ultimate is great though. So basically, she's a short range disruptor that doesn't have the bulk to survive close range outside of 1v1, her recovery from such an endeavour to disrupt requires the rest of her team to bail her out from a strong possibility of a 1v6, and while she can control chokepoints well, competent teams will always be able to circumvent or even take advantage of it, even against a good mei. Honestly, her wall and her ultimate are the only things keeping her somewhat viable, and they just don't see it being enough. I'd say a low competitive usage, with the exception of certain maps or parts of a map. Either that or the wall/ult IS enough to keep her viability. I guess I'd have to use her more.

Mercy:The bog-standard Medic hero, left click get heals. Has a hard time competing with Zenyatta, as Zen can both long-range heal and increase damage vs. a single target, while Mercy requires movement to the person getting healed in question, which is much more dangerous, and boosts one ally's damage against whoever they're attacking, as opposed to increasing the entire team's damage against a single target, AND has to choose between the two. The only thing keeping Mercy afloat is her ultimate, and it's a big one. Unlike Zen's, which is geared towards mitigating pushes and assisting his own team's push while requiring the team to stay within his healing radius, Mercy provides pressure by mitigating all progress the opposing team has accomplished. Defensive pushes need to deal with extra damage, and when they finally win, they need to do the entire thing AGAIN. Offensive pushes become suicide missions, all the more lethal since heroes aren't afraid to overextend and die, and after a few have fallen, the revival of the suiciders put an insane amount of pressure on the defense. Overall, it becomes the better ultimate to deal with pushes, and almost always RELIABLY results in a success. I predict Mercy being a common off-pick to deal with stalemates or on certain opening pushes, but probably not going to be a staple.

Pharah:
This is a hard one. She's reliable, but not reliable. Hard to hit, but easy to hit.
Let me explain. Being up in the air, it's harder to aim at her, but it's also harder for her to dodge or to get behind cover. Her rockets do a decent amount of damage, and she has a decently sized clip, but the rockets are slow and can be potentially dodged. Her ultimate is strong - AFAIK the damage number is 1800 - but she's 100% immobilized and the opponents can just take cover or get shielded, or another ult can just cancel it out. Her concussion blast is near useless, in all honesty. She's decent on Mercy builds, though, especially offense - protects Mercy by being up in the air and even bodyblocking, damage-boosted aerial rockets take out Trobjorn/Bastion like no tomorrow, and a healed aerial Pharah is hard to take down. She's good - and fun - in pubs, but she'll have less and less showing competitively as time goes on bar specific builds.

Reaper:
The infamous pubstomper: high constant damage, teleportation, temporary invincibility, room-clearing ultimate. Heals when he gets a kill, always seems to be behind you, always seems to get away, always seems to outdamage you. Looks like a solid A rank, right? Well...
His damage is as close-range as D.Va's, if not closer, and he doesn't have the health to back it up. His only extra mobility is teleportation, which helps for flanking, but that's about it - doesn't help with closing distances with targets. And what's keeping you from just following him when he goes into Wraith form?
He looks like an offense hero, but I actually say he's best suited for DEFENSE. Always with the group, lets the targets come to him, opponents trying to move forward gives him strong flank opportunities, bunching around the payload/objective makes for an easy ult, more likely to get 1v1s, can just Wraith form into the rest of his team, can help clean up defensive aftermath REALLY well with healing from souls and his consistent damage output. He's still a slave to his positioning, and some maps simply don't work out for him. He'll see use depending on the map and how open it is or how many small areas there are, since he's near useless at anything other than close range. Probably the highest B in my VR.

Reinhardt:
Welcome the BEST TANK IN THE GAME. High defenses, decent mobility, strong damage if you give him the chance, good heckler, and the godlike shield. Honestly, it's the shield that makes him. It mitigates all damage to him and everyone behind him, singlehandedly enabling and disabling entire pushes and requiring the opposing team to deal with him before they can even attempt to do anything. Unless, or course, your team doesn't understand the aspect of STAND BEHIND THE REINHARDT. a.k.a every pub ever. So your shield protects nobody, you're wasting time, you've now overextended yourself (at least you can usually GTFO fast). But this is about competitive. Will be an incredibly popular pick just for the ability to reliably mitigate damage whenever and wherever. Just watch your positioning. If in a pub, watch for random charging Reinhardts since nobody seems to want to utilize him. Also keep in mind that any competent competitive team should be able to get past Reinhardt, with either flanking or by overloading his shield with damage, which is really hard to do. And he's near useless without his shield. So it's not going to be up all the time, and competent players know that and can take advantage of it, so it's not the end-all-be-all I made it sound like. Still going to be the defualt tank competitively IMO.

Roadhog:
Welcome to the WORST TANK IN THE GAME. Of course, unless the opposing team is uncoordinated, a.k.a every pub ever. His high health and self-healing make him an ult-building MACHINE for the opposing team, actually hurting his own team, and his hook will be near-useless in an organized setting. His ult can also be easily mitigated in terms of damage, the knockback less so. While he'll be good - and popular - in pubs, he'll almost be a no-show in competitive unless a team really wants his damage, or against certain competitive teams (Read: players).

Soldier: 76:
The most reliable and versatile hero. Good mobility, AoE heal, strong reliable damage at all but the longest ranges, strong single-target nuke, and a no-bullshit ultimate (that also mitigates reloading!). While not tanky, isn't frail and the healing helps. Gives a lot of versatility to team compositions. You still need good aim to have usable damage though, and your ultimate can be lackluster at times. Average competitive popularity, since he's pretty much just there to glue compositions together.

Symmetra:
Unlike other supports, symmetra doesn't heal, or deal with pushes. Her sentries are incredibly annoying, but frankly not that useful unless they're all together. Her shields are only an extra 25, so they usually aren't worth much. And her damage, while strong, is incredibly unreliable. She does, however, have a teleporter. And it's strong. Incredibly strong. Overwatch has naturally low respawn times, and the teleporter has no cooldown between teleportations, so it can help put an insane amount of pressure on the opposing team. That alone is what makes her, and it's enough. Will probably be a very popular sight on defensive team compositions in the beginning of matches, and will probably stick through until it's near the last point.

Trobjorn:
Simple stuff. Fast, easy turret that autolocks onto stuff, shuts down Tracer hard (the only real thing to do so), the armor can help out pretty much every hero a LOT, and good luck winning a push against an ulted Trobjorn. Will see a lot of usage pretty much everywhere. There's the obvious defensive builds, offensive builds can place it on the cart, the turret can potentially shut down the point in KotH, or just hold the line on Offense, etc.

Tracer:
Highest mobility in the game, incredibly annoying to deal with, and if you have good aim and can get in close, she can do a good deal of damage as well. She's mostly only good for high single-target damage, though, and she sucks vs. armor. Pulse bomb charges fast and has a strong chance for more than just one kill if you play it right. Will be seen a lot on offensive builds, and especially KotH.

Widowmaker:
The classic Sniper. What Widowmaker has that other snipers in other games don't is mobility, and why she works incredibly well. She can get near anywhere, oneshot everyone bar tanks and bastion, and of course the infamous wallhacks. Good on both offense and defense, incredibly good at picking off opposing support classes, can single-handedly enable or disable pushes based on who she targets, and above all, reliable. Decent close-range damage too. Though Hanzo has a more destructive ultimate while still providing wallhacks, and the ability to hit around corners and just clear large groups of people in general. Will probably be seen as much as Hanzo, and snipers in general will be popular.

Winston:
Reinhardt gives Winston a big run for his money, as his shield is more mobile and reliable, as well as being able to heckle at a long distance. However, Winston is good at blanket-protecting a specific area, almost always the payload although other objectives work, from every possible angle, while Reinhardt can only cover one. This includes from up above. Winston can also actually DO stuff once his shield is down, as opposed to Reinhardt who needs to hold it the whole time. TBH, winston's ult isn't really that powerful, but good in 1v1s and a fantastic distraction when you need it. Will probably be seen on Payload Offense every now and then depending on the tank player.

Zarya:
Now here's a real pickle. Zarya is a tank, but she has no mobility, and her only supporting capabilities involve making someone invulnerable from damage for a whopping 2 seconds (wow!), one of those people being herself. Now, two seconds isn't a lot of time. Not much is going to be accomplished unless an ultimate is involved, by the shielded or the opponent. And it only helps one person at a time before it goes on cooldown. And then there's the problem about damage: Zarya's damage is incredibly poor without charge. And to get charge, she needs to get opponents to shoot the invincible people with her shields. That are only up for two seconds apiece. And that people can just decide not to shoot. Again, not much happening unless you manage to get a double absorb from an opposing Ultimate or something. But people do have a somewhat slow reaction time, and won't immediately stop shooting the shielded person, so you're going to be able to absorb a bit, but usually not enough. So Zarya's usually not going to be able to put out much damage across the course of a game, as she usually needs half charge to be an actual recognizable threat. Her ultimate, however, can potentially get paired up with other ultimates to basically guarantee they get killed, which is pretty nice, especially with allies like D.Va and Pharah, where people can just run away from their ults most of the time and be fine. Although it's also easily countered by an opposing supportive ult a lot of the time anyway, like Zenyatta's. Probably not going to get picked up much at all competitively, although she will get picked up. Because if she gets enough charge, holy shit. There's a reason she used to be considered the best hero in the game. (Cool Trobjorn counter, too.)

However, it is possible to make them shoot at a shielded target, but it's usually not worth it, since it usually means they're OK with it and therefore the opponents are still getting the better return off of it, such as still shooting due to other low-health heroes being behind them. So generally lackluster, unless you can trick the opponents into getting you charge. 100 charge zarya is an insane monster of a hero to face against and is easily the strongest single hero you can possibly face in the entirety of Overwatch. I swear her damage output rivals Bastion's.

Zenyatta:
Probably the best support. While he has low mobility, everything in his arsenal bar his ult is long ranged, so he doesn't need it a lot of the time. Discord orb basically says "fuck you, u gon die" to whoever you put it on, and can actually let Zenyatta 1v1 damage classes long-range if he so chooses. As for Harmony, there's two ways to play it: Reactive and Composite. Reactive plays like a Mercy, see hurt guy, patch them up. See new hurt guy, patch them up. See Tracer leaving to flank, give for the journey. Composite is based off of team composition, hence the name, where Harmony Orb is almost always on one specific member, such as Genji. Composite will probably be the more popular variant in competitive. Discord can be played both ways, either putting it on the most immediate threat to yourself (which, since you're in the back lines, is probably in the line of fire of others), or by leaving it on an opposing Hero (usually a Tank) to help pressure opposing team builds, by making a strong spot quite weak. Transendence is also one of the best anti-pushes and anti-ults there is, as the insane healing factor outheals almost every possible damage output you'll practically see in a push (read: Practically. Bastion probably isn't gonna be in the push). Of course, competent opponents will just target one single member at a time, but you're still mitigating a lot of potential damage, and it's usually too little too late for the opponents. Will be seen a lot, a competitive staple on every kind of build.

Note that all heroes are competitively viable, and most are good.
So, my predictive (and probably very wrong lol) VR:

S
McCree
Reinhardt
Zenyatta

A
D.Va
Genji
Hanzo
Junkrat
Lucio
Soldier: 76
Tracer
Widowmaker

B
Mercy
Pharah
Reaper
Symmetra
Trobjorn

C
Bastion
Winston
Zarya

D
Mei
Roadhog
These rankings are very subjective and a lot of things could be changed but I won't go in depth I do recommend http://www.planetoverwatch.org/ for some insight in to the meta for the past 10 weeks and how it has changed overtime. Highest prize pool was $5,250.00 for a tournament so far.
 
These rankings are very subjective and a lot of things could be changed but I won't go in depth I do recommend http://www.planetoverwatch.org/ for some insight in to the meta for the past 10 weeks and how it has changed overtime. Highest prize pool was $5,250.00 for a tournament so far.
I didn't even know they were doing true competitive games in closed beta. Holy shit. I'm farther away from the competitive scene than I thought. I put all my eggs in this basket, I hope it doesn't become another unreachable dream like CS:GO is, with a skill ceiling to high to even try and reach without having no life.

Well, ranking heroes based off competitive usage isn't a good way of doing it, as we all probably know here. But it does frankly give a good /sense/.

I wasn't even aware Zen could orb through walls, I thought it was line-of-sight since the beginning. Even then, I don't really see it being big enough. He's still long-ranged for everything, so his mobility doesn't even really matter, and his health was always so low even when he was considered S. Did people just hide in a corner and orb through the wall ?_?

Also, my rankings were literally based completely off of my Beta experiences, so I think it's pretty good for such a low amount of experience. Will definitely study this website a lot in the future, if not try to stay ahead of it.

In the meantime, I have a killer PC to replace my shitty lenovo Y570 laptop that I might be able to finish before release. That will hopefully help.
 
Zenyatta's orbs lasted until his death. Now they are nowhere near as effective as they once were. Given that he only has a one-man heal and he is the squishiest hero in the game, Lucio is almost always a better choice. You don't pick 5 champions that do the most damage in League of Legends, nor do you pick 6 Pokemon that have Blast Burn / Hyper Beam / etc. Lucio's aura is just ridiculously good and his heal boosts everyone within range. Additionally, the speed he gives is unique and is super helpful on KotH maps (well, any map in general, but especially good on KotH). Zenyatta's damage is super good, but that's all he has going for him since whomever you tag can just go hide in a building. Mercy provides the resurrection and Lucio is all-around better at supporting, so Zenyatta is hard-pressed to find a place in the current meta.

And yeah, GosuGamers has been streaming competitive Overwatch in the beta. Most teams right now are made of ex-pros from other games, but I'm sure the scene will expand down the road (like when the game is actually released).
 
Sorry, misread the article. I thought it said you could place orbs through walls, but now you can't. I now understand the line of sight mechanic. Yeah, zenyattas hella dead.
 
The skill ceiling of this game is lower than other fps the concepts of each hero are easy to understand but to master a hero is the hard part you also have to be good at multiple heroes because if blizzard balances things right, no hero will remain at the top and the top tiers will be changing rapidly and you need to adapt to new metas by being flexible due to dynamic hero switching being so crucial in overwatch. So yes it will have a skill ceiling but not as high as csgo.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
is a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Pokemon Researcheris a Smogon Media Contributor
Orange Islands
Played right up until the Beta ended almost 2 hours after it said it was going to end. The guys I was playing with were pretty cool too, everyone was chatting and messing around for some of the match. No one wanted to leave in case we could not get back in!

Played some awesome games as DVA last night. I initially thought she was pretty terrible, but as I got into the game and learnt the maps she became a really nice character for me. I'm still unsure if I'll buy the game, but the promise of more maps and characters is kinda alluring. I didn't get a chance to properly play a bunch of characters because I wanted to keep the team as balanced as possible...
 
Well, in pubs, you can pull off practically every character well and potentially just dominate the game. And yeah, needing to wait until the 24th hurts.

I'm just hoping that I still have a practical chance at getting into the highest level of play, with the competitive scene starting so early, sponsorships already out, and not being able to get access to closed beta. I might be too little too late. I guess I'm just relegated to theorycrafting, spectating, and practicing my aim on TF2 for now.

Speaking of aim, is a sensitivity of 8.5 in/360 decent? I was using 50 cm/360, but it was built for CS:GO and way too low for a mobile game like overwatch, so I switched back to a sensitivity I used to use when I mainly played TF2. Also getting used to 16:9 after defaulting to 4:3 will be hard.
 
I use low sensitivity in overwatch just because its what i was used to playing tf2 you gotta get used to the sensitivity sliders though. I think that if you put the effort in you can go pro tbh anyone can it will take a lot of determination and practice though. There are calculators to convert source / quake sensitivities to a rough overwatch sensitivity. Not completely accurate but it should work for the most part.
 
Well, my problem with the 50 cm/360 was that I literally didn't have the mousespace for a clean 180 and any needed followups afterward, only reason I deviated from 8.5 in was since I almost never needed to do so in CS:GO, so I went for the lowest sensitivity I could get while still feeling comfortable.

So the next two weeks for me will be mostly getting used to 16:9 and 8.5 in again.

Also, since D.Va's my favorite hero so far, I can't help but notice how her lack of shields is the big compromising factor for her - her defense matrix just doesn't cut it - and to try to find a way to fix it while still making sense, although it's 100% not happening.

I was thinking something channelable - the matrix could be held up indefinitely with no cooldown, like Rainhardt's shield, but it drains a power bar. When the power bar's gone, the matrix goes down, like Rein's shield. And when she's not using it, the power supply goes back up. (tl;dr energy pool. Matrix up, pool goes down. Matrix down, pool goes up. Pool at 0, matrix goes down.)

It'd be interesting, since it would be more limited in the time it can stay up, but it can potentially block more damage, which could be helpful vs. stuff like Protect the President cheeses and double bastion defenses, where Rein's shield can't hold up. I think it'd balance her out real well. But then again, this is only theorycrafting on my part since I feel like it. More trying to exercise my grasp of Overwatch's balancing capabilities than anything else.
 

Shame That

TAKE IT ALL OR LEAVE IT
is a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Also, since D.Va's my favorite hero so far, I can't help but notice how her lack of shields is the big compromising factor for her - her defense matrix just doesn't cut it - and to try to find a way to fix it while still making sense, although it's 100% not happening.

I was thinking something channelable - the matrix could be held up indefinitely with no cooldown, like Rainhardt's shield, but it drains a power bar. When the power bar's gone, the matrix goes down, like Rein's shield. And when she's not using it, the power supply goes back up. (tl;dr energy pool. Matrix up, pool goes down. Matrix down, pool goes up. Pool at 0, matrix goes down.)

It'd be interesting, since it would be more limited in the time it can stay up, but it can potentially block more damage, which could be helpful vs. stuff like Protect the President cheeses and double bastion defenses, where Rein's shield can't hold up. I think it'd balance her out real well. But then again, this is only theorycrafting on my part since I feel like it. More trying to exercise my grasp of Overwatch's balancing capabilities than anything else.
just saying but that sounds really imbalanced. D.Va's shield can absorb most projectile ulti's atm (e.g. Phara, McCree) and if you could activate and deactive shield without a cooldown then a good D.Va would be able to completely stop half a team's ults with ridiculous consistency. that sounds like it rewards good play but in reality the reaction time required is very similar to her current shield, you just aren't punished with downtime after blocking one hero's ulti. if you're saying to make it the same as Reinhardt's (limited amount of dmg absorption) then D.Va's shield loses a core part of her niche and she becomes totally outclassed as a defensive champion, especially since her shield covers so much less area than Reinhardt's.

i think she's pretty well balanced atm, she just doesn't suit as specific a role as other tanks like Reinhardt (objective control) or Roadhog (eliminating carries) do. she's more like a tanky Tracer, capable of getting to the backline of enemies with high close-range damage and a defensive ticket out if it gets awry. just have to view her as more of an offense hero with tank qualities, just like symmetra is a defense hero with support qualities.
 
I think with a lot of characters people perceive characters like D. Va as bad because they are playing them in the way that they are not suited for. The biggest example that comes to mind is everybody's perception that hanzo is a worse widow maker. The issue here is that hanzo's optimal play style is not that of a long range character but rather the character shines the brightest in a mid range setting. I think it is just going to take a bit to find all of these character's most optimal playing styles.
 
I think with a lot of characters people perceive characters like D. Va as bad because they are playing them in the way that they are not suited for. The biggest example that comes to mind is everybody's perception that hanzo is a worse widow maker. The issue here is that hanzo's optimal play style is not that of a long range character but rather the character shines the brightest in a mid range setting. I think it is just going to take a bit to find all of these character's most optimal playing styles.
The thing about this is why not just use widow who is arguably just as good as Hanno in medium range while being better in long range he is simply a worst widow because of this she also has an arguably easier time in close range as well so in reality what you get with hanzo is a worse guy at range while being a bit more mobile and having a mini widow ult with less cool down.
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
Hanzo is a utility defensive sniper with a hard offensive ultimate.


Widow is a mobile offensive sniper with a hard defensive utility ultimate.

The two try to fill different niches.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top