Overwatch

[Drake]

Glad to hear it. I'd seen a few vids and read a few forum posts about her getting a Nerf in the PTR, so just presumed it was the case.

Since she was buffed a few patches ago she's become my most played hero, and last time I checked my stats were pretty good with her so another buff will make her even better. n.n

[Stark700]

Some changes on the PTR for S3

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overw...ic/20749698219

[Keila]

Originally Posted by Stark700

Some changes on the PTR for S3

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overw...ic/20749698219

+ They're planning to normalise the S3 SR values
+ They've just increased the reddit posts next season about 'elo hell' by 300%
+ They've just increased the elitism in the community by 200% (not that anyone pays attention to those sort of people)

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Their method of using the S2 stats to calibrate S3 stats is flawed and foolish. They admitted that S2 was poorly representative of actual SR, but they're still using it? IMO, every season should be a fresh start. WAY TOO MANY people are losing rank despite not only playing well but also winning more games than they lose. Myself included. I gave up on Competitive because I kept losing rank despite winning more than half my games played.

[Keila]

Originally Posted by Spectacular_Insanity

Their method of using the S2 stats to calibrate S3 stats is flawed and foolish. They admitted that S2 was poorly representative of actual SR, but they're still using it? IMO, every season should be a fresh start. WAY TOO MANY people are losing rank despite not only playing well but also winning more games than they lose. Myself included. I gave up on Competitive because I kept losing rank despite winning more than half my games played.

That isn't quite accurate.

Season 1: No data = fresh
• The problem here is that many players would have played ~ 10 matches to get a rank, maybe a few more and then stopped

Season 2: Roll-over Season 1 data (end result) as is
• This means there is 'clustering' around the Gold/Platinum ranks where people would have placed and then stopped from Season 1
• The resulting 'comparative' ±changes subsequently are accurate (as far as how the system is supposed to work) but the sheer number of players having similar rank values makes it very hard to drop/raise players (because as far as the machine knows, they're all about the same).

Season 3: Roll-over Season 2 data, deliberately 'tank' the results so the system thinks everyone is worse than they really are
• This moves the clustering from Gold/Platinum → Silver/Gold (it offsets the problem).


Important things to note about Season 3
• You are better off NOT playing games until ~ mid-way into the season.
• Everyone in the Gold/Plat range (Season 2) is going to be stuck 'grinding' their way back out at the start of Season 3 (whilst people who legitimately should be at the lower levels will remain there).
• Mid-way through (when the majority of people have grinded out and normalised the distribution it will be easier to gain levels (because you will no longer face equal teams, but teams that are significantly higher).


The biggest 'flaw' in the system is
• You get end of season rewards based on your highest rank
• Rank doesn't decay if you're under SR3000


What they're doing for Season 3 is applying what would be 'power-creep' in Hearthstone. Eventually a 'Season 1 Gold' player will be a 'Season 4 Bronze Player (for example).


Because the system is a 'comparative system' and is not 'progression based' it makes no rational sense to do a fresh start every season. As long as you succeed and win matches you were not supposed to win it will bump you up to the higher ranks with the streak system (like in Hearthstone, where you get bonus stars for multiple wins in a row).

[Stark700]

Well the Halloween event is almost over. Got 3 out of the 4 legendary skins and had to buy the Roadhog one in the end.

Spoiler:

[Tokkan]

So Blizzard accidentally leaked artwork of Sombra as part of their BlizzCon merchandise onto their store... and then promptly removed it.

It was found at this URL: https://gear.blizzard.com/media/cata...ineart_1_1.jpg

Fans who were able to catch it have since reuploaded it. One such reupload is here: https://imgur.com/a/m7jAP

It's not the only leak in the wake of BlizzCon, there is another accidental leak of what seems to be artwork for a playable necromancer class in Diablo 3.

BLIZZARD!!

[Last Sinner]

My loot boxes across Halloween Terror were generally abysmal.

However, one of them did contain Witch Mercy, which was literally the only thing I relatively wanted from the event.

Managed to do no damage to the door achieve twice. Could not be bothered trying to beat Hard because people just don't even try to survive/let you save them.

I really am not going to miss playing Ana as much as I had to in October....

[Keila]

I'm wondering about the future events and the various unlocks.

Based on the "WoW" calendar
• Dec 16 - Jan 2: Christmas Event
• Jan 22 - Feb 5: Chinese New Year
• Feb 8 - Feb 22: Valentines Day
• Apr 18 - Apr 25: Easter


I would definitely be expecting D.Va, Genji, Hanzo & Mei to be getting something for the new year event (with Lijiang Tower and Hanamura getting a theme update, like with Hollywood for Halloween).

[Stark700]

Mei will probably be the poster girl for Christmas event. She is perfect for the theme imo.

Really hope D.VA gets a legendary too. My favorite tank in the game.

[Stark700]

Holy shit, Sombra is here

Edit: her Hero kit abilities!

MACHINE PISTOL
Sombra’s fully-automatic machine pistol fires in a short-range spread.

HACK
Sombra hacks enemies to temporarily stop them from using their abilities, or hacks first aid kits to make them useless to her opponents.

THERMOPTIC CAMO
Sombra becomes invisible for a short period of time, during which her speed is boosted considerably. Attacking, using offensive abilities, or taking damage disables her camouflage.

TRANSLOCATOR
Sombra tosses out a translocator beacon. She can instantly return to the beacon’s location while it is active (including when it’s in mid-flight).

EMP
Sombra discharges electromagnetic energy in a wide radius, destroying enemy barriers and shields and hacking all opponents caught in the blast.

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/heroes/sombra/

[Tokkan]

Sombra's kit:

Machine Pistol: Full auto weapon that has short-range spread.
Hack: Temporarily stop enemies from using their abilities, can also target health packs to make them useless to enemies.
Thermoptic Camo: Cloak with speed boost, attacks and offensive abilities break it.
Translocator: Throws a translocator which Sombra can teleport to wherever it is, even if it's still midair.
EMP (Ultimate): Destroys all enemies' barriers and shields in a wide radius, also hacks every enemy within that radius.

[barcode120x]

^ So cool!

[Stark700]

[Tokkan]

Single-hero limit coming to quick play. But don't worry, you can play the "No Limits" mode in arcade if you still want an all-Reaper (or whatever) team.

[Kyral]

I'm only afraid that I can't play QP for fun or practice anymore because it's now "semi-comp" and people expect me to win or piss off.

So I guess I have to see if there are any nice arcade modes and hope I don't meet too many trolls... :-/

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Stark700

Holy shit, Sombra is here

-video redacted-

Fascinating...

MACHINE PISTOL
Sombra’s fully-automatic machine pistol fires in a short-range spread.

Appears to be an MP7 mutation (screenshot) - whether 'Sentinel-00' is a model name or what she named it is open to debate.

HACK
Sombra hacks enemies to temporarily stop them from using their abilities, or hacks first aid kits to make them useless to her opponents.

All kinds of fun... it'd be even more so if the medkit hack actually 'reverses' them instead of just making them (presumably) temporarily useless - i.e. a hacked medkit will damage you for the value it'd normally heal for. Logically, some abilities should be immune to this (i.e. Roadhog's hook, Junkrat's bear trap).

THERMOPTIC CAMO
Sombra becomes invisible for a short period of time, during which her speed is boosted considerably. Attacking, using offensive abilities, or taking damage disables her camouflage.

Section 9 called, they want their piece of kit back. See also, Reaper and his shotguns (in this case, it's the protagonist from the Marathon games wanting his WSTE-Ms back).

Sorry, couldn't help but get that in there given what they're calling it. Quite useful for setting up usage of other abilities. Possible balance tweak: mechanical opponents (Bastion and all turrets for sure; maybe Genji depending on just how extensive his augs are) can still see her no problem.

TRANSLOCATOR
Sombra tosses out a translocator beacon. She can instantly return to the beacon’s location while it is active (including when it’s in mid-flight).

For when you need to get there in a flash. Obvious Q: can a deployed beacon be destroyed by enemies?

EMP
Sombra discharges electromagnetic energy in a wide radius, destroying enemy barriers and shields and hacking all opponents caught in the blast.

I'll say it...

"The world's greatest cash card. It had better not be rejected."

Bonus points if one of the soundbites that go with this is, "God made man; GoldenEye makes them equal."

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Originally Posted by Kyral

I'm only afraid that I can't play QP for fun or practice anymore because it's now "semi-comp" and people expect me to win or piss off.

So I guess I have to see if there are any nice arcade modes and hope I don't meet too many trolls... :-/

Yep... I just wish they made a new mode in the competitve section called "Practice" or something, rather than ruin QP. It's just going to be full of try hards, and the Arcade doesn't reward XP apparently, you get loot boxes every two level or something, but caps at 3 per week - or so I saw on Reddit.

[LoweGear]

Originally Posted by Firefly00

All kinds of fun... it'd be even more so if the medkit hack actually 'reverses' them instead of just making them (presumably) temporarily useless - i.e. a hacked medkit will damage you for the value it'd normally heal for. Logically, some abilities should be immune to this (i.e. Roadhog's hook, Junkrat's bear trap).

It just prevents heals instead of dealing damage apparently.

Sorry, couldn't help but get that in there given what they're calling it. Quite useful for setting up usage of other abilities. Possible balance tweak: mechanical opponents (Bastion and all turrets for sure; maybe Genji depending on just how extensive his augs are) can still see her no problem.

Well, they do show her being invisible to Bastion in the video, and according to the playtesters she can be seen by Hanzo's Sonar Arrow and Widowmaker's ult.

[Spectacular_Insanity]

Sombra's pistol has approximately Soldier's range for damage dropoff but considerably more spread. It spreads quickly, but also reaches it's spread cap quickly, making her much more viable at medium range than Tracer. She also has a massive 60-round clip, though Tracer and Reaper will easily out-DPS her in very close quarters.

Sombra cannot channel her Hack ability when being damaged, making it impossible to solo-hack a Torbjorn turret. Reasons: She must be in line-of-sight, she must channel the entire Hack ability for it to activate, and her maximum Hack range (approx. 10m) is well within the turret's range. She will need to use a teammate as a diversion to draw the turret's fire as she channel's the hack, assuming no one is damaging her. Hack cannot be used through any kind of Barrier when the Barrier is active. But if you are, say, BEHIND or to the SIDE of Reinhardt, you can hack him and disable his shield assuming you get the entire channel completed.

Her teleporter grenade has infinite range once deployed, so you can set it down and have 15 seconds to have a quick-escape at the ready. Her teleport grenade is a PROJECTILE and can thus be eaten by D.Va's Defense Matrix and Genji can reflect it (not sure what happens to it after, though). It also bounces off of barriers and obstacles, but CAN stick to sloped rooftops.

Her ultimate's range (which is an AOE verson of Hack that also disables barriers) seems to be slightly smaller than Lucio's ult, but unlike Lucio her targets must be within line-of-sight.

Her invisibility will be broken by any form of damage or ability aside from moving or throwing her teleportation grenade. It is also not immune to Widowmaker's Ult or Hanzo's arrow abilities.

All that being said, her most powerful ability is probably her Opportunist ability to see nearby heroes through walls that have less than 50% HP remaining (that does NOT included Shields or Armor, only the white HP bar), making her ideal for harassing the backline and picking off low-HP targets trying to hide, like a low-HP Mercy waiting to Rez. Her ability to see the Ultimate status of people she hacks could situationally also be quite powerful (she can see if they have Ult or not; she cannot see percentage).

Also, it is worth noting that Sombra's Hack or Ultimate hack will shut down channeled or not-yet-activated abilities including Ultimates, but it will not disable abilities that have already been deployed (such as Junkrat's traps or McCree's flashbang if he's already thrown it). That being said, I'm not sure if Hack will disrupt Widowmaker's Ult or not once it's in progress, but logic say that it would shut down that Ult. Assuming Sombra could get close enough to WM when her ult is on to actually use Hack. Doubtful, TBH.

I can tell you guys Sombra is probably going to be my main. I know there's a million people out there saying that already, but considering how much I love Tracer's play style, I'd love to be able to play a back line harasser that is kind of like Tracer but can support the team better in a team fight. And her grenade can either be used offensively to flank, defensively to escape, or strategically to act similarly to Tracer's Rewind (as a GTFO button) but with greater precision. I also love the dexterity of the character that you can play her super-aggressively (similar to Soldier 76 or McCree), in a more support role (hacking medpacks for your team and denying them to the enemy), or an assassin-style harassment flanker.

Edit: Also, because her Hack also makes the hacked medpacks respawn 3 times faster, you can stand on top of a hacked medpack and Winston can't kill you, lol. That being said, Winston and D.Va are going to be the main counters to Sombra's antics.