Overwatch

The Game Room
81

I picked it up because a critical mass of real-life friends have been playing it, so I can be fairly well guaranteed a party at any given moment.

It’s about as much fun as it was in beta. I still have the same problem with a lack of progression, but for the time being I’m enjoying myself.

There’s an article floating around about how they’re trying to tweak the Play of the Game hueristics to not always give it to Bastion or McCree or Reaper or Junkrat in the middle of a well-placed ult. I hope to see that happen soon, though the current setup does make things that much sweeter when I get a PotG for storming into an enclosed space with Reinhart and laying about like a robot John Henry.

82

So… is there a consistent Doper Group of players out there? Ie: I’m enjoying this game, but is there interesting in forming an OverDopers Group to play games with (as I find playing random games without friends isn’t as satisfying)?

-R

83

We’ve mostly been posting our Battle IDs on this and other threads. Is there a way to make groups on Battle.net like there is on Steam?

84

You can become all friends together, then when you see you’re on at the same time, form a group for that session. I don’t think there’s a way to create a persistent group across play sessions though.

85

BTW I just changed my battletag. I am now SingularThey#1584.

86

Alright people: what do I need to know to play this, coming from TF2?

87

Don’t be afraid to switch character depending on what you need (be advised that, should you switch, you lose your ult progress).

Mercy plays a lot like Medic.
Torbjorn (turret guy) plays a lot like Engineer (obvi).

Listen carefully. The sound is very helpful. You can hear people behind you and, more importantly, you can hear ults going off. If you here “It’s high noon” that means McCree is going to ult.

88

The ults are probably the most substantial change. There’s even a button which communicates the status of your ult to the rest of the team (with a percentage if it’s not fully charged). They’re designed such that they work great if used with player discretion, but coordinating offensive ults with the team is a common strategy to get more bang for your buck. As RandMcnally already pointed out, learning to recognize friendly and enemy ults is an important skill, so you can push or retreat accordingly.

There’s a practice vs. AI mode which puts you on a team of human players with all AI opponents. It’s a good way to familiarize yourself with a character and their abilities in a lower-pressure environment.

The addition of the Tank subset is also major difference from TF2. Tank characters are designed to absorb a lot of damage. Reinhardt is probably the easiest one to pick up. Throw up his shield on the point or the payload and your teammates will get behind it.

One more neat addition I wish TF2 had: character specific control options. If you go to the Controls menu, there’s a drop down to select “All Heroes” or specific ones. Some of the individual heroes have special options. E.g. Reinhardt’s shield, Mercy’s medigun, and Widowmaker’s sniper rifle can each be set to toggle instead of hold. For me, that made playing all three of them way easier on my wrist.

89

Ok guys. I need to know - is Overwatch worth getting into as a solo player?

Basically, I’m not really a FPS person, the only real FPS I liked was Pyro (and sometimes Demo) in TF2. It’s been a long time, though.

I’ve been watching videos of people playing overwatch, and it looks intriguing. But I’m not sure if it’s $40 to give it a try kind of intriquing, especially since I don’t have friends that I could play with, and I’ll never be able to be great at FPS (time and talent don’t favor me unfortunately).

Still… Roadhog, Symmetra and D.Va really, really intrigue me.

Talk to me. Should I take out the wallet?

90

If it were me, I wouldn’t. As I said above, I waited until I knew I had a healthy “stable” of friends to play with before picking up the game. I can’t play more than a match or two by myself before getting bored and irritated.

That’s the case for all FPS games, though, and isn’t Overwatch specific. If you have played and enjoyed any other shooters as a solo online experience (especially TF2), I think you will enjoy this.

91

I have found Overwatch to be relatively more conducive to solo play, even though the mechanics suggest this shouldn’t be so given the small teams and emphasis on objectives. Compared to Counterstrike, the need for team cooperation is much lower. This could be a function of my level. Even so, I’ve mostly played solo so far and had a blast.

92

I’ve been playing a lot more and I mostly play solo. I’m still liking it. Most people understand the core objectives, rarely do I go a match without a support, and every once and a while I"ll get a team who uses voice to great effect.

93

Ok. I just went for it, and it’s been a blast so far.

Sadly, D.Va doesn’t seem to be working out for me. It might just be a function of me being in the potato leagues, but I just don’t see her kit working. Low damage, (kinda) high health pool, high mobility, no sustain, 3 seconds of team protection… when would I want a D.va over say a Reinheart for pushing through chokes or a dedicated flanker?

I’m also sure this is because I’m in the potato leagues, but when I ult, everyone just seems to take a 5 second time out… including my own team. Like, I made some space for you, get on the point arggh

94

D.va isn’t for pushing through chokes like Reinhardt. They have very different playstyles. D.va’s role is to fly into the backline, get right up on squishies, and use her sustain to kill them before they can kill her. Then she runs away and does it all again.

She’s one of my favorites! Here’s a pretty good video explaining how to use her. I agree that her ult is problematic - everyone has learned to avoid it now and it’s pretty tough to get kills with it. You pretty much have to use it for making space, and if you get a kill that’s just a bonus.

She’s also a bit squishy at the moment, but she’s got a minor (still undisclosed) buff coming in.

The thing to remember about Overwatch is that even within the four roles, most of the characters still have very different playstyles.

95

Interesting. So I should play her more like Pyro than Heavy is what I’m hearing? I… actually really like that.

96

She’s a heavier, slower Tracer.

Zarya’s more of a support than a tank.

Winston’s more like D.Va than Reinhart.

97

I’ve been doing a fair bit of D.Va, not in the potato leagues. Heavy Tracer is pretty much it. The thrusters are extremely good mobility, and on a short cooldown. You can get anywhere, harass people, get out, grab a fat healthpack, and wash/rinse/repeat. While thrusters are on, you deal contact damage to and knock people around, so you can get people off ledges and split up clusters.

Cockpit shots are the thing to be scared of. A high DPS character puts you down fast if you’re facing them, so avoid that if you’re not blasting their face off. Know where the big healthpacks are on the maps, and abuse them heavily. The massive armor pool means you outright dominate Winston & low-power Zarya, and does alright vs Rein, so feel free to bully other tanks if they get stranded.

At close range, her damage isn’t shabby, and even from moderate range, not having to reload means it adds up fast. Getting on a perch behind the enemy team and pelting the heads of squishies is a good way of making them hide or die. You shouldn’t expect to solo kill people 100-0, but diving onto Mercy or Lucio during a fight is often a tough thing for the enemy to deal with.

She also buddies up well with other harassers. You roll with, say, Genji, and you can use defense matrix to eat the things that usually kill them, like sniper shots, scatter arrows, flashbang-fan combos, and followup shots after a hook. Devouring the occasional Pharah/McCree/Roadhog/Tracer ult is always a win too, save the cooldown if you know one’s coming up.

D.Va’s ult should not be expected to kill anything, but the saving grace is that you can activate it even while you’re already getting forcibly ejected, so it’s effectively an instant mech button that also makes the spacing you need for the calldown.

98

Zarya is absolutely a tank, she’s just a peek/artillery tank rather than claiming territory like Rein. She has as much HP in her self-regenerating shields alone as most characters have total HP, and the barrier is another 200 HP on a short CD (and CC immunity). As long as you’re able to make contact in short bursts and break it regularly, Zarya is very durable. She’s a god at busting static defenses.

99

Peek tank. That’s an interesting way to think about it. Would have solved an issue where the opposing team went 5 Torb and turreted up the first chokepoint on Anubis - just shield on, take damage, melt turrets.

100

Has everyone else here tried Symmetra? She’s actually kind of great - completely murders Tracer, Genji, Widowmaker, Hanzo, Torbjorn, Junkrat, and a whole bunch of other really obnoxious characters. Can actually go even at close range with Reaper. No, I’m not kidding - most reapers I run into just die at close range, because her left click is ridiculously powerful.

Oh, and the teleporter. The teleporter is such a nutty piece of support equipment it’s not even funny. Better on some maps than others, but if you’re playing defense, the ability to shave 30-60 seconds off the time it takes your team to get back to the fight can be absolutely devastating. :smiley:

I can’t get the hang of Zarya. I always keep dying, and can never collect enough energy for my attacks to do any decent damage. What am I doing wrong?