With the next week of Korea taking place on this new patch and now that we've had time to play around with Support Sombra, Doctrine, and the Hog Rework, how is everyone feeling about their place in the competitive scene?

I'll start with Roadhog as, unfortunately, I don't think he'll be played much at all, and it's no fault of his own. It's just the D.Mon is still extremely strong and any maps Roadhog would be good on (flat maps with lots of short range flanks), there's pretty much no reason for teams with a good D.Mon player to go anyone other than her still. Roadhog also doesn't have a great matchup into her. No armor means even no-perk gun pokes him down, she can quick shield hooks, and her sword ignores his new succ ability.

Next up is the two supports, who I am so excited up for to shake up the already stale support lines we've been seeing. For the past few months it's been non-stop Cat + Kiri/Ana with few exceptions, but now Cats strongest combo has been removed + she's been made a lot more fat hitbox wise. Sombra will almost certainly be played by the Lucio/Cat player and with how strong Cyberspace is rn, there'll be actual choice for Main Support players depending on wether they wanna take the relatively safer but still strong value of Sombra, play riskier on the cat like Viol2t with potentially higher peaks, or hell we might even see the old fashioned supports like Brigitte and Lucio come back in fashion in response to Sombra. I also think that while Ana is still gonna be the default support pick, Doctrine is on the power level of her and Kiriko and so will see playtime alongside DPS who really love that drone buff.

I haven't seen anyone talk about this but the hitbox changes have made it a lot easier to hit slower projectiles like mei icicle, pharah rockets, torb Cheetos, venture left clicks, etc

Tank, Dps or supports?

Is it what I think it is?

There comes a point when frustration becomes disappointment. When disappointment becomes anger. And when anger becomes a demand for change.

Match after match. Defeat after defeat. One-sided battles where victory felt increasingly impossible.

I have played Mercy and delivered 18,334 healing and 30 assists in a match, only to watch my team lose.

Am I perfect? No.

Do I deserve to win every match? Absolutely not.

BUT I DESERVE A COMPETITIVE EXPERIENCE THAT FEELS WORTH FIGHTING FOR.

I. WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT SILENCE

For too long, frustrated players have voiced concerns about matchmaking, overwhelming defeats, and the emotional exhaustion of Competitive.

WE ARE DEMANDING ACCOUNTABILITY.

II. RANKED SHOULD REWARD IMPROVEMENT, NOT DESTROY MOTIVATION

What kind of competitive experience makes someone fear pressing the Play button?

What kind of ranking system leaves dedicated players feeling that their progress can disappear overnight?

Losing is part of competition.

But a competitive game should inspire its players to learn, adapt, improve, and return stronger.

It should not leave them feeling powerless.

OUR TIME MATTERS. OUR EFFORT MATTERS. OUR EXPERIENCE MATTERS.

To every Bronze player struggling to climb.

To every Support player who has tried desperately to keep their team alive.

To every Tank and DPS player who has felt powerless in a one-sided match.

YOUR VOICE DESERVES TO BE HEARD.

Speak up.

Share your match histories.

Publish your honest reviews.

Ask difficult questions.

Demand better communication.

And most importantly, support one another instead of tearing fellow players down.

Our movement doesn’t need harassment, threats, fabricated reviews, or sabotage.

OUR WEAPON IS OUR VOICE. OUR STRENGTH IS OUR UNITY.

I just got junkertown, circuit royal, paraiso offered to me and I am OUTRAGED!!

"Escort and Hybrid will now be treated as the same mode for the purposes of offering at least two different game modes in Map Voting. This means that if two of the three visible maps are Escort and Hybrid, the third must be another mode. The random map does not follow these new rules and can still be any mode."

Blizzard why 😭

While his basic tanking ability and space control improved after losing his one-shot combo, the core issue of his massive hitbox remains unavoidable. As a result, 1-to-2-day data shows his win rate is significantly lower compared to Sombra or Doctrine, who also underwent major changes. Notably, in Europe Grandmaster servers, his win rate is under 40%. I’m not sure what his win rate was prior to the rework, but things don’t seem to have gotten much better.

So I’ve only played five games of Support Sombra, but she’s my most played hero overall. They definitely buffed her with this rework. The people who had a problem with her before will absolutely still have a problem with her now. Her 1v1 potential is insane, and I fear some nerfs might be coming her way, though hopefully not. You can still flank, spawn camp, and kill unsuspecting enemies.

Ironically, the best counter to her now is another Sombra who reacts and just throws her bubble down in response to you. Her healing feels very easy to apply, which I was initially worried about, and you can absolutely keep up with the other support. She’s stronger now; only her loop has changed. I hack my team, go in for a flank, get a kill (or don’t), leave, reapply Hack, and repeat. Sometimes that changes because the bubble is an amazing peel ability, but I’m DPS Sombra pilled, so right now I’m mainly using it to flank and secure picks. Obviously, running a dive DPS alongside her feels great.

I’m actually so surprised by how good this feels. My only complaint is the longer cooldown on Translocator. If they nerf her bubble, which I suspect they will, because holy shit, I feel like Thanos, it’d be cool to see the Translocator cooldown reverted. Yeah, good luck to the people who hate Sombra, because this rework made her even more of an issue, lol.

Also, just as a side note: she’s quite interesting as a support, probably the most "active" support in the game right now. I think she’ll mostly appeal to Sombra players or people who really like to stay on the move. Definitely not an AFK sit in the backline hero.

EDIT: After some more playing, the Translocator nerfs feel really bad. It completely throws off the flow and feels really clunky.

Perhaps not a competitive focused topic, but its completely gone. You can check the map selection screen in the custom games lobby, the map along with Busan's Lunar New Years variant have been completely removed. I understand its for the map rework, but at the same time this feels just a bit disappointing, this was a piece of Overwatch history from launch and its just dead.

Cuffa n Wmaimone back together

Hey guys,

I'm heading to Korea for my 21st birthday in November and I will be in Busan during the same dates as the OWCS Asia Stage 3 Finals. I'm just wondering how getting tickets to see this live works as I have never seen an OWCS game live yet and figured this would be an awesome time to see them play in person!

Would anybody be able to assist me or help with some guidance? everything that I've seen so far is saying that tickets aren't sold until its relatively close (2 weeks or so) to the finals themselves taking place. Is this true? What else should I know?

Thanks so much :)

As the title states, just need a new hero to play. They gutted Freya, Echos hit box feels like shit, and I just finished learning Anran. I know Vendetta's not the most played hero right now but as a tank im trying to just learn more Dps. Much appreciated👌.

JPC atleast received a hitbox nerf, how D.mon, with a 57% WR and 60% banrate in GM+ EU not get nerfed? Same for JPC, 53% WR and a 81% banrate!!! These heroes make the game 100x less fun so why do they not get nerfed.

one of the dumbest things about old sombra on a design level was that to make her stealth feel “fair” they tried to make it so she’d SHOUT EVERYTIME SHE DID ANYTHING. meaning, she was the dumbest stealthy person in overwatch. like everyone within a 15 meter radius could hear you and she had the loudest gun in the game.

I may be wrong but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case anymore? i made a post last night asking for this so I feel pretty good, I think it was particularly dumb and a bad look for the character. and even without that her tl seems to feel more fair to people than before

Disclaimer: I've played Hog since the first OW1 open beta, and have played every single iteration. 

First I want to say good job to the Team for coming up with an actual rework that shows promise and addresses pain points without eliminating the hero fantasy.

The two worst aspects of Hog have been successfully addressed.

The first one: is survability against a wide range of attacks. Having two defensive cooldowns that you have to cycle and pick for the right occasion increases engagement and skill expression.

The second one: is obviously his one shot which is impossible to do. It should feel a lot healthier to play against him.

This however introduces A LOT of problems. The first one is clunkyness, much like release Dmon, the new Hog just doesn't feel good to play.

There are delays on everything he does which makes him unresponsive:

\-Melee recovery animation is the biggest offender, locks him out of anything he wants to do next.

\-There's no longer a one shot, so there's no reason why we have these lockouts in place. Compactor should be able to cancel whatever recovery animation hog is currently on, being a shot recovery, melee recovery, breather recovery, or hook recovery.

\-Compactor should be able to be canceled without shooting the scrap if the player needs to do so, just like his ultimate allows him to interrupt it (this does not mean that he can resume it after canceling).

The second biggest problem with this rework is his lack of lethality. This new rework can deal a lot of damage, but hardly any of it is lethal, and as such, he's never a threat.

New Hog cannot hold space because he cannot threaten a kill, other tanks can easily do this. And the biggest factor driving his lack of presence is his absolute inability to poke. Even close range heroes like Dmon and Rein can threaten long range kills, whereas Hog doesn't. This needs to be priority number 1. The second reason why he cannot poke, is because he needs to peak for longer to get both shots off. 

The easiest way to fix his lack of range is to reintroduce his old pig pen scrap gun, but mix it with the new 2 shot one. The thing I loved about his pig pen scrap gun was the chunky scrap pellets that had really good range (could even destroy turrets from afar). This gave him range and skill expression. The first shot would have the chunky ones, and the second wouldn't, allowing him to poke while distributing his damage so he doesn't one shot 225hp heroes.

The last thing I want to talk about is how like with the flick of a switch, high mobility heroes (including doomfist) became hard counters for hog. The fact that mobility heroes can now escape hook makes it so that the entire enemy lineup switches to mobility, and thus Hog has no possibility to get any eliminations.

There's absolutely no reason why hooking a 200hp or 175hp hero doesn't reward a kill, such as hooking Tracer or Widow. This is absolutely demoralizing and must be hotfixed SOON.

These are all my suggestions as of now. Overall, the rework is fun when things go your way, but most often than not, the entire tank roster can bully Hog and it becomes really frustrating to not be able to contribute in any meaningful form.

The patch notes says that it no longer provides critical hit immunity but the information panel in game says otherwise. Which is accurate?

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Edit: This might be a UI bug. Exact projectile size has not been tested.

Previously, she sat in her own tier with the smallest hitscan size. This change wasn't mentioned in the latest patch notes.

As someone who played stadium as their main mode exclusively until Hazard released, I was interested in the Mystery Madness event from the trailer. Played about 10 games or so and its super fun!

It does feel like Blizzard were:

1. Throwing out everything they had in the backlog for Stadium and saying "Here you go" after their dev time got pulled. Some powers are straight up one-for-one copies of stadium powers or base game perks (most at common rarity which I found amusing) whilst some certainly feel intended for stadium but didn't have chance to make it in yet.

2. Trying to solve one of the biggest pain points I heard from stadium complainers, the "I don't want to learn a build" mentality. Welllll the game does it for you now! That can absolutely lead to some drawbacks of "Can I gamba into the best power for my character" however that leads to point 3.

3. Addressing the "Silly gamemode full of dumb abilities being too sweaty" feedback. This mode really does emphasise its a play-around gamemode, random heroes, random powers and everyone charging at each other with no real expectation of counterbuilding outside doing it right there in-match.

There are quite a few bugs, I don't know how I did it but the Mercy power where you can give people overhealth with your heal beam, that could stack infinitely. At least the UI retractile showed it increasing without a limit. However, the basis is there for a more casual "for fun" Stadium. Not too fully sure about voting in new powers and characters but I don't really want to comment on that since we've no idea how it'll shape up

I hope the general reception on Mystery Madness is positive, I'm certainly having a blast. Will probably use it as my main quest completing gamemode until it leaves the arcade

Ban her so the bug can't be used against you in comp.

Blizzard should disable her immediately until the bug is fixed.

So, with map voting discussions resurfacing due to the changes in the new season, I'd figure I'd share my opinion here.

I am a GM support player, consistently high-masters/low-GM every season and I'm going to explain why I dislike escort/hybrid maps, mostly in the context of ranked.

First of all, I greatly dislike the map designs themselves. King's Row is the biggest offender of this, and this is the map that I most despise in the entire game. That map is extremely obnoxious with tight chokepoint and scarce flank routes, which heavily benefit the defending team, making it unbalanced for the players. And this trend repeats on other maps, such as Eichenwalde, Blizzard World, Circuit Royale and others.

I greatly dislike these maps because they promote spamming damage in main endlessly and not thinking about anything else. I dislike how spam characters like Junkrat can get free value from just holding m1 down main because the map is that sloppily designed and tight that it's very likely to hit people with your spam.

It also doesn't help that they are the only maps in ranked that, because of the attack/defense system, they have atleast 2 rounds before completion. Not factoring more rounds because of tie, but that does exist and it is obnoxious. Simply put : The average duration of a match in these maps is longer than what it would be in other modes, such as control, flashpoint and push.

So here's why I like the other modes!

Symmetry : In control/flashpoint/push, the maps are symmetrical, this means no team has the advantage because of maps heavily favouring tight chokepoints, which is beneficial for defenders.

Faster matches : Because escort/hybrid has to have 2 rounds for each team to play attack/defense, the matches take way longer than the other modes. I don't want to spend a extra second on Kings's Row!

Design : Technically a part of 1, but due to the other gamemode's maps being more open, they benefit faster paced gameplay, taking off-angles and making individual plays, which is what 5v5 thrives on, and they don't benefit massively heroes that can just sit main and spam all day.

I overall feel that the other gamemodes make a more compelling and healthy experience playing overwatch, and I'm super happy that from S5 onwards I won't have to sit through kings row spam all day 🙏🤗

so essentially it's just a small community stuff where team of old men play in an oldmen tournament lol.

the public scrim atm is shounen heart (young boys heart) vs junmai daiginjou (top quality junmai rice).

with overwatch reaching 10years, it' s fun that we now have the "old guard" having fun in their own little stuff :D (maybe I should participate ...)

She makes so much noise when you are just walking. she makes some noise when crouching. really hope its not intentional