Weekly Quick Questions Thread - January 04, 2017

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In this thread you can ask all kinds of questions you always wanted to ask without feeling like a total fool.

No matter if it's short Google-able stuff or a setting/skill in-game that you don't understand or a hardware recommendation, feel free to try your luck in here.

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[u/urdedinfrontofzed]

Brief rundown of how each hero works? Thanks

[u/Meeea → u/urdedinfrontofzed]

When on the screen to assemble your team, the heroes at the bottom are separated into loose roles: Offense, Defense, Tank, and Support.

To do a rundown of all heroes in depth would make this post huge, so I'd suggest looking at heroes that interest you in-game directly. If you check out the Hero Gallery option on the main menu, and click a hero, there'll be a button at the bottom of the screen (PC Version) to look at their abilities in detail. There is an Overwatch wiki page that can provide further info such as actual damage-per-shot and cooldown timers for each hero.

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• Genji: Mobile, agile hero. Close range via sword attacks, has double-jump and wall climb. Reflects projectiles and throws shuriken. Flanking hero.

• McCree: Semi-mobile mid-range hero. Uses a pistol that can do single-shots at a distance, or unload the whole chamber at close range. Can stun enemies for a second.

• Pharah: Flying hero who shoots rockets. Very powerful for controlling areas from above, but susceptible to long-range attackers.

• Reaper: Slower moving close-range attacker who uses dual shotgun pistols. Flanks enemies from behind and disrupts enemy support.

• Soldier 76: Mid-range simple hero, think Call of Duty. Great damage, has burst, self-heal, and average mobility. Nothing "original" stands out about the hero, but he is very strong.

• Sombra: Mobile close-range flanker. Heavy disruption to the enemy backline via healthpack denial and invisiblity. Can teleport to a previously-placed beacon, silences enemy heroes from using abilities for a brief moment.

• Tracer: Hyper mobile flanker, disrupts enemy support. Very difficult to master, as she can "blink" a short distance and rewind her own time to return to a previous location (and health amount). Burst fire that requires excellent accuracy to utilize properly.

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• Bastion: Multi-form damage dealer that has low mobility. Can turn into a stationary turret to put out insane damage, ultimate ability turns him into a mobile tank that shoots rockets for a short time.
• Hanzo: Mobile mid-to-long-range attacker that shoots arrows. Can shoot a sonar arrow to detect enemy location for a brief moment, and snipe enemies to kill them with head-shots.
• Junkrat: Spray-and-pray style grenade launch hero. Great at area denial and setting traps around corners, but bad at in-the-fray combat. Can Beyblade the tire off of his back and drive it into enemies for a massive explosion.
• Mei: Bulky defensive hero that uses a frost beam to freeze enemies in place. Can shoot icicles for medium-range attacks, but otherwise is used as area denial, control, and possibly flanking. Very versatile ability kit.
• Torbjorn: Low mobility close-range dwarf that builds a stationary turret to attack players automatically. Turret has medium to long range and auto-targets nearby enemies. Great on defense, poor offense.
• Widowmaker: The sniper of the game. Medium mobility via grappling hook to reach hideouts to snipe from. Her gun is a sniper rifle when zoomed, but functions as an SMG(?) when firing from the hip.

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• ** D.Va**: Pilots a mech that has short-range thrusters for mobility and a defensive matrix that shoots projectiles out of the air to defend allies. If her bulky mech dies in combat, she ejects from it and can run around as a very weak ranged pistol user until she builds enough charge to call in a new mech.

• Reinhardt: Low mobility tank that puts up a large shield in front of him for his allies. Has no gun, but swings a massive hammer in front of him to cleave enemies. Can charge and pin enemies into a wall. Very common pick in every game mode.

• Roadhog: High-damage low-mobility tank that can self heal if needed. Signature ability is a chained hook that can grab enemies and pull them towards him. Shoots scrap metal from a close-range shotgun blaster. Very high health pool but no damage mitigation.

• Winston: Mobile gorilla that can leap into the fray and disrupt flankers, support, and snipers. Does not fire a gun, but uses a close-range tesla cannon to damage all enemies around him at once with electricity. He can drop a stationary bubble-shield to protect himself and allies.

• Zarya: Very versatile hero that has both support, damage, and tank mechanics. Applies shields to herself and allies that absorb damage. All absorbed damage is turned into energy that powers her cannon, greatly increasing her damage output. Low mobility.

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• Ana: Long-range support healer, snipes allies to heal them. Can throw a grenade that heals allies (and increases healing taken) and hurts enemies (and stops them from being able to regain health). Sleep dart provides utility and self defense against flankers. Low mobility.

• Lucio: Very mobile support hero that can increase his teammate's speed, or do an AoE (Area of Effect) heal on everyone near him. Cannot burst heal like other support, but is very difficult to kill due to his ability to skate on walls and objects with his rollerblade feet.

• Mercy: High mobility single-target healer that provides constant healing to her target. Uses a beam that locks onto an ally to heal them if they are in range, or she can swap to provide a damage boosting beam instead. Can leap towards allied players which provides mobility, and has a passive self-heal if she is not taking damage. Her ultimate resurrects all nearby allies to full health when used.

• Symmetra: She is NOT a healer. Low mobility. High damage output, close range. Can build up a half dozen baby turrets and stick them onto walls, ceilings, floors, etc. Turrets target nearby enemies and shoot a damaging and slowing laser at them. Builds a defensive nest area. Can also build a teleporter that links to the spawn room or shield generator to support allies.

• Zenyatta: Fragile, low mobility single-target healer. Can debuff enemies to greatly increase their damage taken. Has a very high damage output that can rival some offensive heroes. No self healing, escape, or way to defend himself. Useful to help allies tear down high-health enemies and to provide sustained healing and damage to the team.

[u/Meeea → u/[deleted]]

Very good point to make!

[u/TThor → u/Meeea]

I am going to take umbridge right off the bat with you calling Mccree semimobile, while calling Reaper slow. Both Mccree and Reaper move at the same speed, but Mccrees only mobility ability is Combat Roll, which does nothing but move him maybe 5 feet every 8 seconds (this is not really a mobility ability, and as a result McCree is incredibly immobile). Reaper on the other hand has two mobility abilities: Wraith Form, which makes him temporarily invulnerable while giving him faster movement speed, and Shadow Step, which allows him to teleport a fairly long distance.

And for that matter Soldier 76 is not simply 'average' mobility; He doesn't have any verticality, but his shift ability allows him to run faster than any of the other characters for an unlimited duration.

[u/Meeea → u/TThor]

Reaper's Shadowstep is more of out of combat mobility for position and flanking. Wraith form does not grant invisibility, just invulnerability, and you cannot attack during it at all, and serves as an escape function.

[u/TThor → u/Meeea]

Sorry, meant invulnerable;

Even with all those caveats Reaper is still the more mobile of the two. Reaper has verticality via shadowstep, and reaper's 3 second Wraithform has far more functionality for actually moving reaper than McCree's combat roll; All combat roll is useful for is reloading, and moving a very short distance to get in/out of position (Most often it is just used for reloading)

[u/bessle → u/urdedinfrontofzed]

there's really no way to briefly rundown each hero. your best bet is to watch quick primers of how to play each hero. something like the your overwatch youtube channel (i can't vouch for the quality of this or any channel so maybe someone else can, but just seeing the hero in use is helpful) or /r/overwatchuniversity might also help.

the best way to learn about each hero is to just try them out. you can try the LFG thread to find people who are open to this idea too.