Overwatch

[The Amazing Avian]

A 12 year old's favorite website his mommy can't find out about

 

 

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Anyone else loving Sombra? Her ability to hack health packs has proven to be absolutely insane, at least for me. Maps like King's Row, Gibraltar, and Ilios all have large packs near the objective, and hacking them gives your team such an advantage in the skirmishes leading up to team fights, not to mention hacked packs being used helps charge your ult, which is insane powerful in team fights due to completely negating Lucio's ult, as well as making Zarya, DVa, and Reinhardt vulnerable to your DPS.

 

Not to mention how many times I have just ruined genji in 1v1. The moment he is hacked he has lost, and you can usually get the first half second of cast time done before he sees you.

 

Her machine pistol is startlingly good DPS (now I understand why people like playing 76) but her real draw is in just how much advantage she gives your team by disabling enemy resources.

 

(Also, though you can't hack away Mercy's ability to heal, you can stop her from using guardian angel, isolating her from her team and making her an easy kill)

[DereResonating]

Overwatch isn't a website, it's a game. I'm not sure you even know what it is at this point.

Porn

[Toffee.]

I funking ADORE how Sombra plays.

Mainly- I've always played Junkrat as some kind of weird infiltration character- now we have Sombra who is literally just that, and I'm having the time of my life just utterly ruining teams and watching the rest of our teams just have easy times pushing the Payload.

 

And really, you don't even need to give a funk about if you die as Sombra or not, since her high speed and incredible mobility leterally let her scale large areas in such a short amount of time.

 

funking hell.... She is such a fun hero.

[Atypical-Abbie]

Surprised I got it so early on, but here we are, now I have both of her trophies, which means I can actually start hacking with more care. Speaking of which, my gameplay may be bad here, still getting the hang of her. Picture of me getting the trophy: https://twitter.com/Zaziuma/status/801052674921824256

 

[Atypical-Abbie]

I slightly panicked, but knowing that I would kill myself if I turned around I focused it outward, then got this gem:

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

I played about 7 hours of Overwatch today, and, I kid you not, all of those matches were Defeats. Not a single Victory on any map. Even low-level players are completely trash and don't know how to play the game. It's like when anyone faces a Reinhardt, they just derp and have no idea how to take care of him. I swear, people are funking stupid.

 

That being said, I did play a bit of Sombra. She's quite good, as I expected, but she needs more oomph. Her EMP hack is cool and all, but if no one is there to follow up with it, it ends up just being a waste of an ult. There just...needs to be something more. That being said, I love harassing people by picking on them, then recalling back to a hacked health pad if I ever take damage. I think I went 21-1 as a Sombra today.

 

Also played a bit of Genji. Despite by disposition towards him, I'm actually okay with him. Have to have high sensitivity for those dash attacks but other than that, he's solid. I won against D.Va in 1v1 so....he was either really bad or I just happened to be really good.

 

I've also started playing Hanzo a bit more. Just mainly trying to get the feel of aiming. There's a world's difference between trying to aim with McCree and then going back and trying to aim with Hanzo. Also, his Scatter Arrow is complete bullshit. Even when playing him, I felt incredibly cheesy by just aiming at my feet in a last-ditch effort and then completely killing someone because I didn't have time to aim. It's...bad. Hanzo is bad. Also, multiple times when I was playing, I would get headshot behind a pillar.

 

D.Va is uber broken.

 

Let's take a moment to talk about the bane of my existence: Eichenwalde. If the enemy team has even a slight amount of intelligence on Defense and you're on Attack, good luck getting past that funking archway. Unless you're Pharah, Winston, or D.Va. And even then, there's gonna be counters for all of those different heroes. 

 

I funking hate Soldier. I see him in every match and people who, again, don't know how to aim, can just spam RMB and do sheet-tons of damage. They need to decrease his damage back to what it was used to. No one is gonna pick him in competitive anyway, why do they even bother buffing up people who will never get picked in competitive?

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

first off, dva isn't broken. She is hard countered by sombra TBH.

 

Also, soldier DOES see competitive play, as a secondary healer. Furthermore, considering the cooldown on helix rocket, it isn't exactly "spammed"

 

As for sombra, her emp basically just wins team fights, since it completely cancels stuff like sound barrier and Reinhardt's shield. Yes, it requires team based play. This is a team based game. That is a good thing. Not to mention she can beat any tank reliably, save zarya.

[Atypical-Abbie]

Since I have played Sombra for more than I have Hanzo for the entire time I have played Overwatch, here are my thoughts on her: I like her, at first, I was worried because she seemed to do very little damage, but it's actually not as bad as I thought, you can take out most characters pretty easily, besides tanks, though hacking them and doing damage can bring Reinhardts and D.Vas down if, and Roadhog can be too at times, though it's more risky I feel, since his shot still is quite powerful regardless of the chain or not. She should not try to take down enemies if they're in a group of 3 or more, that's just bad news, you'll get in some shots, then everybody will turn on you and you're dead, always have a teleport up in case you must take out a healer or something like that. Learning that she can hack multiple health packs at once without the other disappearing is also a game change, and what's interesting is that you can pretty much just stay at a health pack while killing a guy, and they won't have a chance, since it respawns so fast, I wonder if that's something they'll look into in the future. Also, here's my first Play of the Game with Sombra:

 

For the record, we got that Genji too, but it was not PotG worthy I guess.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

A hacked large health pack can out-DPS Winston.

 

Sombra fights (particularly on Ilios and Hanamura, since they have health packs so god damn close to the point) are 100% determined by who controls the pack.

 

Honestly, I think she should be able to hack health packs that have been hacked by enemy sombra, because a decent sombra on defense can obsolete a skilled one on attack, especially on maps like Numbani or King's Row.

[Atypical-Abbie]

A hacked large health pack can out-DPS Winston.

 

Sombra fights (particularly on Ilios and Hanamura, since they have health packs so god damn close to the point) are 100% determined by who controls the pack.

 

Honestly, I think she should be able to hack health packs that have been hacked by enemy sombra, because a decent sombra on defense can obsolete a skilled one on attack, especially on maps like Numbani or King's Row.

Possibly, I don't think it's that big of a deal, since the hack isn't permanent, and it's not easy to keep hacking it over and over again, and you probably also want to not be super predictable on where you are hacking either.

[The Nyx Avatar]

Well, I've just gotten the game yesterday (along with the PS4 to play it). So far, while I have tried out some characters already, I keep coming back to Mei, Tracer, Reaper, and D. Va (sometimes Mercy if I see the lack of a healer or tank/defense).

 

Who do you guys usually use?

 

And do you recommend any characters that I should try out more often?

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

I play Sombra on occasion, and I have to say she's way better on Defense than Attack. Because on Defense, you have time to walk up to the big health pack, hack it, and then get safely back in your team's backline while an Attack Sombra has already lost out on 1 health pack. I noticed this specifically on Hollywood, how there's two big health packs right next to each other, and if you're a skilled Sombra, you can hack both of them, essentially locking down the enemy team's advancement. I found it to be pretty fun, but right now, she seems to be better on Defense than Attack. Which doesn't make sense because she's classified as an Attack hero.

 

 

 

And do you recommend any characters that I should try out more often?

 

Reaper, Sombra, Hanzo/Widowmaker if you want to learn how to snipe, McCree if you want to learn how to aim properly, Zarya if you want to be that support tank (Zarya you need a lot of practice with), Tracer (you need a lot of practice with her as well), Mercy because if you learn how to play Mercy you'll know how to play all healers in essence, Ana because she's currently the best healer right now.

 

Honestly, you should attempt to play all of the characters and get into knowing their toolkits so that you can easily counter them when need be. For example, you don't want to be that one joe-schmoe who completely derps when a Reinhardt puts up his shield and then says to himself "Uhhhh now what do I do? Oh, I guess I'll just whack the shield while standing in front of four different people letting them shoot me as bullets can travel through Reinhardt's shield."

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

if you learn how to play Mercy you'll know how to play all healers in essence

I hate to be that guy, but this isn't really true at all.

 

Mercy essentially does one thing: Resurrection. It is quite likely the strongest ult in the game, held back by an otherwise mediocre kit. Playing mercy is absolutely focused on working to charge that ult, as pulling it for 3+ is absolutely insane. Otherwise, her abilities are lacking. Her damage boost is awkward, her healing is slower than Ana, and guardian angel does nothing but facilitate the rest of her kit. Proper Mercy gameplay isn't much like anything else in Overwatch, as it based on using guardian angel to hop from teammate to teammate, topping off their health and charging your ult for a team fight.

 

Lucio, on the other hand, does not taken active role in healing. His AOE heal is incredibly slow, and even when he amps it up it is inferior to even that of Mercy. That said, he is the only steady AOE heal in the game, so he is crucial on most teams for his ability to negate chip damage. The rest of his kit, speed boost, knockback, and of course the sound barrier, favors a tightly packed team gaining advantage in a team fight, with his mobility helping him avoid death. His ult is incredibly powerful, but he still provides amazing utility without it, unlike mercy.

 

Ana is really good at healing. Really really good. Her single target heal outdoes mercy by 15 per second, not to mention that her biotic grenade heals for 100 and doubles any further healing, making her primary heal for an insane 150 per second. This beats everything short of transcendence. The rest of her kit, sleep dart and nanoboost, favor a strategy where she remains close to the tank (the classic strategy being Reinhardt, though with the removal of the speed boost I can imagine dva or winston providing equivalent utility) so that they can continuously heal and build up ult. The ranged nature of biotic rifle allow it to heal distant enemies without largely dividing your focus, or flirting around like mercy. Sleep dart further protects the tank, by saving them from ultimates like whole hog, death blossom, or deadeye.

 

Finally, Zenyatta. Unlike the other healers, he also fills a role of secondary DPS. Orb of discord, combined with long range projectiles with the ability to headshot and a chargeable burst fire give him a damage output far beyond any other support hero. His focus is not on healing. His orb of harmony is useful, and obviously should be on someone at all times, but his primary objective is keeping his orb of discord on whichever enemy present the most immediate threat. Honestly, when I play Zenyatta, I am constantly pressing the button for it, so that it is on whomever I am hitting. Teammates notice the orb, and unless they are terrible, they will get the picture and melt through whomever you are targeting.

 

 

tl;dr: mercy doesn't play like any other healer in Overwatch, because each other healer provides their own specific utility that vastly warps their play style.

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

Every healer does have their own toolkit, but that wasn't the point of the post. The point is if you want to learn to play as a healer first, Mercy would be the best because she's easy to float around and heal other people when a big giant "CRITICAL" appears on your HUD. If you're playing as a Mercy, it would be your responsibility to fly over and provide healing to them, which Mercy does best. But once you get more comfortable into getting into the healing aspect of the game, and how to properly take care of your team, then move on to other healers. So, yes, once you know how to play Mercy, you know how to play all other healers, at least a little bit.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

The point is that the others aren't healers first. They all are utility that also can heal.

 

Well, except Ana. But Ana is funking weird.

 

Also, Nyx, I legit had tons of fun with that previous post of mine, so if you want me to explain the playstyle of any other heroes for you, I would be glad.

 

Unless that hero is Mei. I have never used Mei outside mystery heroes and 1v1.

[The Nyx Avatar]

The point is that the others aren't healers first. They all are utility that also can heal.

 

Well, except Ana. But Ana is funking weird.

 

Also, Nyx, I legit had tons of fun with that previous post of mine, so if you want me to explain the playstyle of any other heroes for you, I would be glad.

 

Unless that hero is Mei. I have never used Mei outside mystery heroes and 1v1.

Well, I'd to better understand the playstyle of Widowmaker, Reaper, Pharah, and Sombra . I've only touched upon those four a little, but would like to better know how/when to use them, as I want to utilize them more often.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Widowmaker is a sniper, that much I'm sure you knew. Her gun is really god damn good, and has the highest effective range in the game by far. She excels on maps with long sight lines, notably King's Row. Her widow mine displays on your HUD when it is triggered, so placing it in your blind spot/flank while sniping gives you a warning when an enemy is coming to ruin your day. In SMG mode, her gun is a little weaker than sombra's but still totally respectable, and her grapple gives her enough mobility that flankers aren't really the biggest concern. If you press the jump button just before reaching your grapple destination, you will be launched into the air so that you can show off and get mlg airscopes. Watch out for Winston, he will funk you the funk up.

 

Reaper has guns that deal a shitload of damage. However, their spread is stupid so they are only particularly effective a close to point blank range. He has a respectable health pool, and his ability to heal from fallen enemies and enter wraith mode give him incredible survivability. Watch out for Genji, Sombra, or any hero that can 1-2 shot you at range, since they make your survivability meaningless and you are just stuck with guns with sheet range.

 

Pharah is complicated. On the ground, you have sheet mobility,and are basically a sitting duck. In the air, you have no cover, and are basically a clay pigeon to McCree. Use her knockback to clear points or give yourself horizontal momentum while in the air, and save tour jumpjet for emergencies. Justice doesn't rain from above. It rains from an unexpected angle at the choke point.

 

Sombra is great. Her hack is incredibly fun once you learn priority targets. Tracer, Reinhardt, DVa, Roadhog, Genji, Reaper, the list goes on. If you can land a hack on a hero that would be significantly affected by it, do it. If you see a health pack, hack it. Health packs charge your ult, and your ult is really good in a team fight. And don't be afraid to engage at medium distance. Her gun is quite good when landing headshots.

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

Widowmaker is all about making sniper lanes happen. You can use her LShift (her hook) to maneuver herself to various locations and set up sniper points. She functions better on Defense than an Attack hero, but she can be effective on attack as well because of her assault rifle mode. You can use her E (her mine) to alert you of people who would be trying to come up to you trying to get rid of your sniper lane (at least, that's always how I've used it). Her ult is good in all situations, as enemy information is a very powerful ally. It stops flanks, backliners, harassers, and others. In a game as fast-paced as Overwatch, information is very crucial to success, especially if your team is coordinated.

 

Reaper's a flanker. He gets behind enemy lines and harasses tanks. He can get up close and personal with tanks and deal massive damage to them, then escape out of situations with LShift. And, he is self-sustaining because he can heal himself after each kill. His ult is the ultimate group killer, and if you can set up correctly, you can decimate the enemy team with just one press of a button. Pharah flies around. If you've ever played Quake, she functions similarly to Quake gameplay. You keep herself flying with RMB, then jump higher with LShift. Her E spreads out enemies, pushing them, so it's very easy to get environmental kills with her. Her ult takes a lot of skill to use, as it draws a lot of attention to you, but if you combine it with a movement-stopping ult, like Zarya's ult or Reinhardt's ult, you can decimate a lot of foes. Same with Reaper.

 

Sombra is best played as a Defense hero, and her main function right now is to hack Health pads at the beginning of the game. Knowing where all the 250 health packs are in a match and hacking them will give your team a significant push or bolster their defenses. The best way to use her effectively is to throw down her Teleporter with E, run to a health pack, hack it, and then teleport back to where you threw down your Teleporter before the 15 seconds are up. Since the cooldown on her Teleporter is relatively small, it can be used repeatedly in a variety of situations. Don't try to use her hack on enemies, as getting the jump on them only to get mowed down by the very thing you hacked isn't worth it, so save your hacks for Health packs. Her invisibility is great for getting around and picking off enemies who are close to dead, highlighted on the screen. If they are below 50% health, then they'll light up. And she does a lot of burst damage, so she can pick off a variety of half-dead targets easily. Her ult is a group-wide hack. It's especially useful but the one problem is that it's affected by LOS, so if everyone is spread out, it's not quite as effective. But shutting down abilities, shields, and ults can be game-changing, especially if your team is there to follow up. A Reinhardt ult synergizes well with Sombra's ult.

 

Hope this helps a bit. 

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Don't try to use her hack on enemies, as getting the jump on them only to get mowed down by the very thing you hacked isn't worth it, so save your hacks for Health packs.

Not to sound condescending, but I think you are doing something wrong. Her translocator, combined with the speed boost while invisible, make her an adept flanker. Obviously you don't just charge a group, but her hack only has a 1 second cast time, and after that she can 1v1 most heroes. I recommend hacking from the higher vantage points on Ilios, Numbani, or King's Row. Hacking enemies is a very very big part of sombra gameplay. Obviously, some heroes aren't worth trying to hack, but unless you are just standing right in front of them holding alt-fire it is absolutely viable.

 

Honestly just watch a bit of Zaz's gameplay. Hacking health packs is good, but it is only a fraction of her utility to a team. At higher mmr, health packs become progressively less relevant as teams become more cohesive and actually have healers (namely Lucio and Ana) that are doing their job.

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

Her hack though is ultimately kind of useless on enemies. You can't use it in actual combat because the tiniest bit of damage will interrupt the hack, if you cloak and try to hack while there's splash damage, the tiniest bit of damage will take you out of invisibility and leave you vulnerable as people mow you down. If you try to hack while invisible, it takes you out of invisibility and then therefore leaves you vulnerable. A skilled player will always be scanning around for Sombras, and if for example, a Roadhog gets the jump on you while you're trying to hack them, it doesn't end pretty. 

 

Also, I've never found Sombra particularly useful on KoTH maps because there aren't many vantage points to really use her.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

You don't use the hack when you are already in a fight. You use it to start the fight. 1 second isn't too long. If you are trying use it in a situation where you would be taking damage, that's your own mistake TBH. And landing hack on something like DVa or Reinhardt makes them easy for your teammates to beat, even if you have to Teleport away once it lands.

 

Focus on improving your skills, finding situations in which hacking is useful, rather than just writing it off. People initially thought Lucio's amped speed boost wasn't useful outside of covering ground to reach the point, but now it is one of the biggest draws to the hero, giving an amazing advantage in team fights.

 

A mindset like that does nothing but prevent you from improving as a player.

 

Also she is very good on both Ilios and Lijiang. I haven't played as her on Nepal yet, but I expect her abilities to have less utility there.

[The Nyx Avatar]

Widowmaker is all about making sniper lanes happen. You can use her LShift (her hook) to maneuver herself to various locations and set up sniper points. She functions better on Defense than an Attack hero, but she can be effective on attack as well because of her assault rifle mode. You can use her E (her mine) to alert you of people who would be trying to come up to you trying to get rid of your sniper lane (at least, that's always how I've used it). Her ult is good in all situations, as enemy information is a very powerful ally. It stops flanks, backliners, harassers, and others. In a game as fast-paced as Overwatch, information is very crucial to success, especially if your team is coordinated.

 

Reaper's a flanker. He gets behind enemy lines and harasses tanks. He can get up close and personal with tanks and deal massive damage to them, then escape out of situations with LShift. And, he is self-sustaining because he can heal himself after each kill. His ult is the ultimate group killer, and if you can set up correctly, you can decimate the enemy team with just one press of a button. Pharah flies around. If you've ever played Quake, she functions similarly to Quake gameplay. You keep herself flying with RMB, then jump higher with LShift. Her E spreads out enemies, pushing them, so it's very easy to get environmental kills with her. Her ult takes a lot of skill to use, as it draws a lot of attention to you, but if you combine it with a movement-stopping ult, like Zarya's ult or Reinhardt's ult, you can decimate a lot of foes. Same with Reaper.

 

Sombra is best played as a Defense hero, and her main function right now is to hack Health pads at the beginning of the game. Knowing where all the 250 health packs are in a match and hacking them will give your team a significant push or bolster their defenses. The best way to use her effectively is to throw down her Teleporter with E, run to a health pack, hack it, and then teleport back to where you threw down your Teleporter before the 15 seconds are up. Since the cooldown on her Teleporter is relatively small, it can be used repeatedly in a variety of situations. Don't try to use her hack on enemies, as getting the jump on them only to get mowed down by the very thing you hacked isn't worth it, so save your hacks for Health packs. Her invisibility is great for getting around and picking off enemies who are close to dead, highlighted on the screen. If they are below 50% health, then they'll light up. And she does a lot of burst damage, so she can pick off a variety of half-dead targets easily. Her ult is a group-wide hack. It's especially useful but the one problem is that it's affected by LOS, so if everyone is spread out, it's not quite as effective. But shutting down abilities, shields, and ults can be game-changing, especially if your team is there to follow up. A Reinhardt ult synergizes well with Sombra's ult.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

One thing I should clear up is that I'm playing the PS4 version.

Widowmaker is a sniper, that much I'm sure you knew. Her gun is really god damn good, and has the highest effective range in the game by far. She excels on maps with long sight lines, notably King's Row. Her widow mine displays on your HUD when it is triggered, so placing it in your blind spot/flank while sniping gives you a warning when an enemy is coming to ruin your day. In SMG mode, her gun is a little weaker than sombra's but still totally respectable, and her grapple gives her enough mobility that flankers aren't really the biggest concern. If you press the jump button just before reaching your grapple destination, you will be launched into the air so that you can show off and get mlg airscopes. Watch out for Winston, he will funk you the funk up.

 

Reaper has guns that deal a shitload of damage. However, their spread is stupid so they are only particularly effective a close to point blank range. He has a respectable health pool, and his ability to heal from fallen enemies and enter wraith mode give him incredible survivability. Watch out for Genji, Sombra, or any hero that can 1-2 shot you at range, since they make your survivability meaningless and you are just stuck with guns with sheet range.

 

Pharah is complicated. On the ground, you have sheet mobility,and are basically a sitting duck. In the air, you have no cover, and are basically a clay pigeon to McCree. Use her knockback to clear points or give yourself horizontal momentum while in the air, and save tour jumpjet for emergencies. Justice doesn't rain from above. It rains from an unexpected angle at the choke point.

 

Sombra is great. Her hack is incredibly fun once you learn priority targets. Tracer, Reinhardt, DVa, Roadhog, Genji, Reaper, the list goes on. If you can land a hack on a hero that would be significantly affected by it, do it. If you see a health pack, hack it. Health packs charge your ult, and your ult is really good in a team fight. And don't be afraid to engage at medium distance. Her gun is quite good when landing headshots.

What does her hacking ability in turn do? What occurs to an opponent once they're hacked?

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

One thing I should clear up is that I'm playing the PS4 version.

Widow mine is R1. Grapple hook is L1. Jet booster on Pharah is x or L2. Jump jet is L1 I believe. Knockback is R1 I believe.

 

Ngl I can't remember most of these without a gamepad in hand. In any case, don't be afraid to remap controls. I completely remapped tracer and it helps a sheet ton.

[Not-so-Radiant Arin]

What does her hacking ability in turn do? What occurs to an opponent once they're hacked?

They can't use abilities. If someone has Shields, they are set to 0 (so Zenyatta and Zarya are affected most by this, it also prevents shields like Reinhardt's shield from being deployed), and if someone is in the process of ulting (I think Roadhog, Zenyatta, and a couple of others, not sure off the top of my head) it stops their ult.