Well I finally got the best kill of the game or whatever it’s called. I tend to play as Pharah, D.VA or Junkrat most of the time. Since it’s usually about capturing/defending areas I tend to like to just spam areas with a lot of players with explosives and that’s when I usually do the best.
Patch is reportedly today at midnight GMT. I for one welcome our new Bastion overlords.
I’ve only played a bit since the patch but this seems really shitty what with the new Bastion.
[quote=“Ikatono, post:124, topic:291, full:true”]
I’ve only played a bit since the patch but this seems really shitty what with the new Bastion.
[/quote]As usual with any buff or nerf, people are acting as if it’s the end of the world.
But, they are pulling back some of the changes - most likely candidate is fiddling with the self-repair, since Kaplan himself was playing with the Bastion changes and had a situation that he would describe as “Unfair” where a better tracer player failed to beat him as bastion in Recon mode when they should have.
Also, new Hero is now live on PTR, it’s a Tank hero called Orisa, a Robot built by 11-year-old genius Efi Oladele. Abilities are a Self-fortify to reduce incoming damage, an outgoing shield for teammates, a “halt” ability that’s sort of a combination between roadhog’s hook and Zarya’s graviton surge, and her ult is a thrown object that damage-boosts allies within line of sight.
Bastion seems fine from what I did in my ranking matches last night, I didn’t play him but enemy Bastions were about the same to counter and deal with.
[quote=“panfriedmarmot, post:126, topic:291, full:true”]
Bastion seems fine from what I did in my ranking matches last night, I didn’t play him but enemy Bastions were about the same to counter and deal with.
[/quote]That’s pretty much the case, it’s not too major as changes go - It’s basically just a buff to recon mode so that he’s not basically a free kill when caught out of turret mode, a little nudge for ammo, and increasing the toughness of turret mode some to encourage co-ordination or flanking when trying to take him down.
The repair is the biggest problem, because it basically allows him to out-repair a lot of damage sources, including ults.
Also, because I forgot to include it before, the Dev update video for Orisa -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWqhXWRaMmU
Nah, he’s pretty fucked as it is. It’s not like it’s unfixable, but it desperately needs changes. The fact that Bastion is mobile (and way more so now) means he should have to actually move sometimes instead of tanking everything.
My take on the Bastion mess:
If you’re not a tank and can survive Ults it’s time to think about walking some of the buffs back.
I liked some of the buffs to Bastion (making Recon more mobile, for example), but his new durability made Bastion an insta-pick.
Orisa is interesting, feels like a grab-bag of the other tanks. Winston’s shield, Zarya’s Grav sphere.
Be interesting to see what Doomfist is all about.
That’s been my biggest issue with it, I’ve had him soak up basically an entire whole hog at a range of like 2m. The combination of the repair, armor, and reduced damage makes low damage per hit rapid fire burst things largely ineffective. I think bringing back the interrupt to the heal could be enough to fix that. Adding some more ways to knock him out of sentry mode would be nice.
This might also be a situation of Bastion being balanced on a higher level of play, where teams are able to move around him and can work together to eliminate him, and is overpowered on a lower level of play, as his newfound tankiness makes it difficult to counter-pick.
Then again, it could be like D.VA’s ult, where one could easily team wipe before the community figured out how to avoid it.
[quote=“Burritoad, post:130, topic:291”]
I think bringing back the interrupt to the heal could be enough to fix that. Adding some more ways to knock him out of sentry mode would be nice.
[/quote]I agree on the interrupt(since the only other heros with uninterruptable self-heals, those heals are either stationary(hog) or close to(76’s heal spike allows a little juking, but not much room in that circle). All others are either an instant(Biotic grenade) or a passive(all passive heals).
But I’m not sure what else would justifiably pull bastion out of turret mode, except for Graviton Surge, and maybe Orisa’s new pull ability, though I’ve not seen or played it, so I can’t really take a firm position on that. Lucio’s blast doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t even move him in turret form, nor does junk’s concussion mine. As it stands, you’ve already got rein’s charge, hog’s hook, and Sombra’s hack(at quite a range and any angle, too) that knock him out, with two of those three physically moving him.
[quote=“clockian, post:131, topic:291”]
Then again, it could be like D.VA’s ult, where one could easily team wipe before the community figured out how to avoid it.[/quote]That’s what I’m betting it is. Apart from the heal, I’d be suprised if Blizz made any big rollbacks before a month or so has passed, because they know as well as anyone that any big change like that tends to be greeted with cries of “Overpowered!”(if a buff) or “Made X completely useless!”(If nerf) by the community, until they figure out how to counter it. After all, they’ve been dealing with that shit since long, long before overwatch came about.
Had a quick bash on the PTR, just galloping around in the test range - feels pretty good. I might try a few matches later on, but I can see her being a pretty useful tank.
I don’t know if it was actually a “this happened, then this happened”, but I hope it’s not really going down at blizzard like that. One dude, getting killed one time should not a patch make.
1 Like
[quote=“Starfox, post:135, topic:291”]
I don’t know if it was actually a “this happened, then this happened”, but I hope it’s not really going down at blizzard like that. One dude, getting killed one time should not a patch make.
[/quote]That’s the much simplified version of his opinion. In the actual post, he makes it clear that’s just his personal feelings(that it can be unfair in SOME circumstances), not the driving force or deciding factor on any of the changes.
He also talks about Perceived vs Actual meta - basically, people often think the Meta is one thing(Eg, Ana and Lucio are the only viable healers for competitive, and mercy is never played) but the data will often say otherwise(Mercy was the 5th most played hero Overall). Which is a nice, interesting little side note on the whole thing.
Also got a chuckle in the opening paragraph:
Back when I was working on World of Warcraft, I used to say that if we mailed 500 gold to every player, the community would find some way to be upset about it… because change is bad.
Don’t they publish actual pick rates?
[quote=“Starfox, post:138, topic:291, full:true”]
Don’t they publish actual pick rates?
[/quote]As far as I know, they only published them from the beta. All other stats I can find are from third party sites(eg, Overbuff and Master Overwatch) basing it on the stats from their userbases, but collectively they only track tens of thousands, maybe a 150-200K at the absolute most out of the 7 million or so players worldwide, while Blizzard tracks everybody, for obvious reasons. Some sites use more specialized data, like only counting the picks from particular leagues.
Huh. Guess that’s what I was remembering.
I’d be interested to see pick rates from like 20th, 50th, and 95th percentile regular players, and then pros.
[quote=“Starfox, post:140, topic:291”]
I’d be interested to see pick rates from like 20th, 50th, and 95th percentile regular players, and then pros.
[/quote]Funnily enough, Pros picks are one of the ones that are readily availiable - after all, you can find their names pretty easy, and even if there wasn’t already sites looking at pro stats, you could pull them up easily enough on the stat sites with their usernames. The rest, though, that’s going to be bloody difficult, and I doubt blizz would be forthcoming. They’re pretty notorious for playing their cards close to their chest.