this post is exactly about the title, the stupidest most idiotic free value dps in the game, when will they fix this braindead character???

ive recently climbed to low-mid dia elo playing support, which is admittedly not very good however every single day its just been widowmaker fucking EVERYWHERE, i know this is a popular character choice the more you climb but shes like a virus, i just had three games all of which had widow players; be it smurfs or even people in higher diamond, there is just no true counter for this bitch except a good widow of your own, if anyone says otherwise theyre mentally stunted, ive never felt more useless and miserable than when playing against an enemy widow, u genuinely cant do anything because the moment u peak the widow u WILL die without a doubt, its so oppressive and i honestly have no clue how they allow widow to be able to run lobbies like this

whats worse is that when ur team tries to dive the widow their supports will obviously realize the win condition and literally sit inbetween her fucking asscheeks for the whole game, i dont think ive ever played more miserable comp games than when the enemy teams have a widow and our team doesnt have a dps that can outduel her on widow

if you have any tips for playing around her at this rank where the widows WILL hit her shots, id greatly appreciate it, i know that ur meant to hide behind cover religiously so please tell me ANYTHING i can do on support to contest that sniping piece of shit sitting in narnia. Thank you!!

I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion at this point, but I absolutely dislike the long term effects of most of the Season 9 changes besides universal regen. It feels like most of this year the balance team has just decided on a patch by patch basis what heroes are allowed to have their old TTK back.

The goal to reduce burst damage has had a big effect on the solo agency of each player in the lobby unless you are on Widow at the moment. Blizzard has said that the average TTK is faster now but I do not understand that. Yes, you hit more shots but most of the breakpoints take longer to kill a player and many of those shots that you actually hit feel undeserving. The DPS passive on tanks is currently irrelevant. Tanks taking less headshot damage is unfun to play against because you can't interact with them. Support ults still dictate the flow of the game too much because it is so difficult to solo kill anything without crazy burst damage.

I wish there was a way within custom games to turn off the new projectile sizes to compare and contrast. If you go back and watch OW1 gameplay, the TTK looks faster against all heroes and roles and the hitboxes are also smaller. Hopefully within one of the quick play hacked experiments they test old health pools and proj sizes.

Which one is better for tracking and better precise aim?

I've played the game since 2017 but have never ACTUALLY followed league, wc, or contenders, only know of a few great pros. Was finally going to get into it but league is closed and owcs is the new thing, which seems a lot more open form and unanchored. Are there any viable (they win matches at least occasionally) teams i could root for from colorado/washington?

I've seen posts way back when ppl asked for team recs in owl and people could put together brief synapses of some main teams, is that possible now or too convoluted? lmk if this is a repeat post, the only other similar one i saw was from before the first main dallas event even happened

https://preview.redd.it/s2zg4esk1iyd1.png?width=1190&format=png&auto=webp&s=b43af1bd0fe739ee69a7f1e9881a75d1abae06ba

Aside from his ultimate, I enjoyed playing Mirrorwatch Zenyatta. I'd even prefer it if these changes made it to the main game. Current Discord's flat damage vulnerability isn't fun for tank, and its cooldown feels clunky to use as Zen. Meanwhile, the implementation of critical damage introduces an extra layer of skill. Would love to know everyone's thoughts on this.

Hey all, today on my stream at 2:30 PM EST, we're going to be doing a "Town Hall" on what Sombra's identity should be, and what the best iteration of Sombra should look like.

It won't just be my ideas- we'll be discussing with Questron, Realth, and other Sombra mains!

The purpose of the discussion is to answer three questions:

1. To what level should the hatred/frustration vs. Sombra should be factored into facets of her identity (she won most hated hero in a 10k+ result poll I ran in my community awhile back)?

2. What’s the best version of Sombra we can get without ruining her identity and without frustrating everyone else?

3. What does Sombra need to match this vision?

Looking forward to seeing you there!

https://www.twitch.tv/spilo

When the dart gun spinning animation came out, some people complained that Ana can spin the dart gun to fool enemies. Has anyone actually gotten fooled by the dart gun spinning animation though?

As a Zen enjoyer, this question doesn't apply to me. So to all the Genji, Reaper, Mei, Zarya, etc enjoyers, have you ever been fooled by the dart gun spinning?

I’ve been slowly working my way through the old avast costream vods and have made it up to the 2022 playoffs. I know avast attended this event and thus did not costream so I was wondering if there were vods from others I could watch through.

E-sports haven't been profitable for years and the league is dead and buried with the teams never coming back, so why on earth would the old OWL skins be reinstated for overwatch 2 designs? Idk if the stopping of token selling will also mean they aren't sold anymore period, but just...why?

TL;DR: for sombra to be as healthy as possible, she needs a speedy stealth with a timer, no virus, deployable translocator, and a lackluster emp

sombra is a hero that’s always going to be harder to counter by low rank players. turning around, listening to audio queues, staying together, knowing when to chase her, etc. Sombra will never ever be healthy in a game where she is powerful at lower ranks.

sombra 2.1 was, by all accounts, a garbage hero. you needed lots of coordination and communication to be able to do anything. this is a GOOD thing. if sombra can’t be countered by lower ranked players, then she should also be unable to get a lot of value from them. she was virtually NEVER played in low ranks before ow2. she fulfilled her fantasy of the “invisible hand” that pulls the strings, like someone mentioned, her true archetype and fantasy is a hero that has a LOT of options and the power should come from game sense and teamwork and being able to make the right choice. but she was meta in OWL

the reason? it has to be because of the high skill ceiling when you have coordination right? wrong! even then, sombra just couldn’t really keep up in most comps. except for two big reasons:

1. she was walmart brand tracer. couldn’t run two tracers, might as well run the closest thing
2. emp was one of the most game deciding ultimates in pro play.

i guarantee you that if we had current emp (which is still good, just not game breaking) + current hard counters like kiriko and beat drop (remember back then you would instantly delete the shields from beat drop, nowadays you can beat before emp and still get value from it) we would’ve barely seen sombra in pro play. but she would’ve been good at higher ranks still, and usable by the few sombra mains in ladder.

im not saying revert everything back, but keep in mind she had a lot of knobs to tune. imagine this sombra:

• invis on a cooldown, 75% speed boost, 6 second duration, with the massive detection radius of passive stealth

• hacking health packs from invis with a little cd

• infinite, destructible translocator. doesn’t even need to be infinite, could be back on a timer but with the interact to destroy and the instant cooldown

• no virus, hacking a player instantly pulls you out of invis. 1.5s silence, 5 second opportunist passive. regular cd when cancelled by taking damage.

• emp back to the slop it was a few months ago, 1.5 silence and a small % damage, but with OG cast time.

TLDR: The macro view of Sombra in OW1, was high agency, and low impact. This fundamental principle, the freedom of choice, is what made Sombra interesting and engaging to play, allowing for mindgames and outsmarting your opponents. Initial OW2 reworks rightfully took a bit off agency, and added a bit to impact, skewing Sombra, but still maintaining that fundamental principle. This season’s rework flips it upside down, by taking away Sombra’s agency, and giving her high impact, which is wrong. That’s why Sombra feels so alien to play. Balancing shouldn’t come at a cost of destroying a hero identity.

EDIT: made a graph for you.

I was sitting on this for a while, trying to figure out what the problem is, and, I want to open a discussion for this topic, because of how many conflicting takes there are.

• perma stealth is necessary vs. perma stealth is the core problem
• hack should be a skillshot vs. hack should stay as is
• Sombra should be more like tracer vs. Sombra should have her own gameplay loop
• Sombra deals too much damage vs. Sombra doesn’t contribute enough
• this new Sombra is the right direction vs. this new Sombra is the worst rework in history of OW and has to be reverted

Let’s focus on the macro view.

I have a question. What was Sombra’s core identity, back in OW1? I’m talking about the version with perma stealth, translocator as a placeable object, and 5 second silence. I think a lot of people would answer one of these: saboteur, assassin, opportunist, enabler, necessary evil, invisible c***, flanker, scout.

I think, the core identity of Sombra back in OW1, was jack-of-all trades. Every player had different recommendations on what to focus on while playing Sombra. Every player had a slightly different gameplay loop when engaging the enemy and working with their teammates. You could see that on places like r/OverwatchUniversity, where everyone gave different advice.

• Current state of the round/match: do I play objective, or away from objective?
• Current state of the objective: can I backcap? if it is payload, can I just touch to stop it from backtracking for 10s? or can my tanks handle that?
• Current team comp: do I help escorting teammates from spawn, or can they handle it themselves? do I have a dps that pairs well with me, or do I work alone? can I enable my tank by hacking the enemy tank on engagement?
• Current enemy comp: is there a target I can bully, or do they suppress me? Is there an enemy that can directly counter my teammate’s ult, that I can shut down myself?
• Current ult lineup: is there an enemy ult coming up that I can counter, or a friendly ult I can combo with?
• Current map phase: is this part of the map rewarding flanking, or high ground, or staying with the team?
• Current team tactics: is this Winston diving a lot, or playing more defensively? Do I peel for my sups because they are struggling, or can I play on my own?
• Current enemy tactics: can I contest enemy flanker, or are they playing it safe? Is their tank likely to push, which I can punish, or are they playing defensively, and I have to engage with my tank?

And you might think, “well, a lot of heroes have to consider these questions,” but only a handful of heroes can consider all of them.

This is what was so unique about Sombra. Being able to stand still, think, adapt to the current state of the game, and act with high agency (that is, having high amount on control), but low impact (that is, unless there is a follow up, 5s hack is useless, her damage alone was low and peeling was permanent). The reason there are so many conflicting ideas about Sombra, is because each player has a different play style and mindset, unlike one-dimensional heroes like Cass who has low agency and high impact. The tactical aspect and freedom of choice was Sombra’s unique identity.

The transition to OW2 skewed Sombra more towards the assassin play style, but it still maintained much of her previous values. I think it was a wrong decision to skew Sombra towards simply more damage, but I have to admit, after the, “translocator being no longer placeable,” change, the version of Sombra we had up until the current season, was the healthiest version of Sombra ever (though, I do miss throwing my translocator as a distraction, AKA playing fetch, but that’s offtopic). Sombra’s agency was not as great as in OW1, but it was good enough, and we could secure more kills ourselves to counterbalance what was lost from OW1.

Permastealth, 5s silence, or deployable translocator were never core values to Sombra. Those were just tools, enabling us, to act with agency in great variety of ways that is unique to each player.

The issue with the present rework, is that it targets that tactical, adaptability values, that made Sombra unique, and cripples our agency, while increasing the impact.

• High Impact: Land hack+virus+shoot means that the target is dead. It’s the most lethal combo in the history of Sombra reworks.
• Low Agency: 5 second stealth which forces Sombra to engage at the end of its duration, but actively punishes early engagement, because you get stucked without a away out.

Clunkiness of translocator/stealth crumpled into the same ability aside, this sudden flip of Sombra’s fundamental values is the issue. Turning Sombra from high agency and low impact to low agency and high impact is the issue.

Reinforce stated in his video that Sombra76 doesn’t rightly capture the current state of the Sombra, rather, Sombra now feels like a Reaper, and he is right. Sombra’s unique identity, which I described above, was downgraded to a one-dimensional character, like Reaper, by restricting her freedom of choice.

Questguy stated in his video, that this is the future of Sombra. It’s because he is already thinking of Sombra as a one-dimensional assassin hero, because that’s the direction Sombra was skewed into by the release of OW2. That’s wrong, because Sombra was never just an assassin. That’s just one of several possible mindsets. People saying this is the right direction are wrong, because this direction is fundamental opposite to what it was just a season ago.

If the issue is Sombra spawn camping, or Sombra coming out of stealth to burst down unsuspecting support, then the solution shouldn’t involve erasing her unique identity. That’s what Sombra players always gravitated to, even if they did not realize it, because everyone had their own playstyle, because Sombra’s high agency, allowed it.

Now, I can’t help but to dedicate the last paragraph to my own personal take on what Sombra should be. This is separate from the main thought of this post.

I think Sombra should have been a support. Yeah, controversial take, because most people these days imagine Sombra as an assassin and have that fantasy. But as I explained above, I don’t think that’s capturing the whole idea of the hero. Freedom of choice and adaptability are the defining values for Sombra, and if people are complaining about Sombra dealing too much burst damage and getting away with it, then maybe, Sombra’s focus shouldn’t be on dealing damage. My idea was always a two-state support like Lucio, where while visible, Sombra is a healer, and while invisible, Sombra is a saboteur, and let her be an alternative to Zen. Low heals, debuff, and some potential for damage. This is how we can restore the high agency and low impact value, without Sombra feeling opressive to play against, because now she is support, not a dps who kills you out of nowhere.

But you know, that’s my unrealistic Christmas Wish.

I noticed that the main reason I feel anxiety during my games is the possibility of losing to someone who will make me feel like shit for it.

Does winning really give you the right to be a jerk and humilliate the loser? I feel like people who are successful (in most things, but gaming is a really bad case with streamers' and pro gamers' attitude, and they serve as the main example for the rest of the playerbases unfortunately) often lack humilty and are openly arrogant and disrespectful to people they deem "inferior" for being in "metal ranks" for example.

They use terms like "plats" like they were talking about mentally challenged and utterly disgraceful people. They tell you that you should uninstall and that you will never be like them, like they belonged to a superior race just for being successful, something that is highly tied to luck anyway.

So, with all of this being said, do you think disrespect is justified even if there is an astronomical skill gap? Do the people who are supposed to be an example for the rest of the community have the right to be condoned for their god complexes simply because they are very skilled? I just hate when terrible people are given the spotlight and put in a pedestal.

While they didn't give a date for the "Limit 2" test, the "Kingmaker" test is in the season 13 "midcycle", so the assumption was that Limit 2 would be early in season 13. I'd say either this weekend or next. There has been no communication in the last few days that it's this weekend, but they've surprised us with stuff before.

I'm aware we'll know this evening one way or the other, but it seems like slow news days recently on this sub, so why not speculate?

Some ideas I had for some changes that could be made going into year 2. Let me know any thoughts anyone has :)

Match formats across all regions - NA & EMEA are already matched, but I think KOR and the rest of APAC should be merged into that format also.

(Have all regions playing in the same format, ie. same number of matches, same number of teams competing etc.)

Increase the number of international tournaments from 1 + Playoffs to 3 + Playoffs.

• Host one in Europe, and have 4 EMEA teams, 2 NA teams and 2 ASIA teams.
• Host one in NA, and have 4 NA teams, 2 EMEA teams and 2 ASIA teams.
• Host one in Korea, and have 4 ASIA teams, 2 EMEA teams and 2 NA teams.

Stage 1 -> EMEA international Stage 2 -> NA international Stage 3 -> KOR international Stage 4 -> Season Playoffs.

I also think, to avoid any region bias, there should be a LAN before season playoffs to decide which teams go through.

Host a double elimination tournament consisting of the top 4 from EMEA, top 4 from NA, and top 4 from ASIA, and play them all against each other. The top 8 qualify for playoffs, and the rest go home. This also acts as a seeding decider.

Let me start by saying at the moment I play on console but am thinking about making a switch to PC, but the competitive community has gotten so toxic it’s crazy. I am cool with the normal “ez” “diff” and all around trash talk I expect that in any hyper competitive game, but I just had a support throw because our tank said who they were voting for in the election, in the supports defense the tank was definitely dropping some racial slurs and needless to say deserves a ban (will blizzard actually do it … probably not) but the thing that baffles me is why is this even an issue, I feel like the competitive community is spiraling into a toxic cesspool that will probably eclipse even LOL. I guess my main questions are has anyone else noticed that the community has nose dived ? Is competitive on PC any better ? I’m not complaining about you’re garden variety toxicity or even straight throwers I get that happens at every rank on every competitive mode in any game but OW2 is starting to really stand out in my eyes as getting up there with the worst of the worst.

Doing my dps placements, the first game I won I was predicted plat 1, the second game I won I was still predicted plat 1. I’ve just won my third game and I’m still predicted plat 1. What is going on? I thought as you won games you would progress through ranks during placements.

asking cause idk how the grind from dia to masters is currently post the Great Reset. I've been peaking dia2/3, getting back there after every loss streak, i vod review, play daily 4/5 hours, 2 mains and have a good mental. Is it doable? 😭 i wanna keep my expectations realistic. I remember people saying before the reset masters to gm is like bronze to diamond, and from what people are saying masters currently is like GM before the reset so

edit THX guys :D

Any console winston have any luck climbing with him or any advice for playing him in T500. I've had very mixed success trying to win with him in solo q consistently on console (especially compared to when play him pc where he feels much easier to play into his counters). Theirs alot of Dva and ximmers on console ladder and as much as I want to min max him and see how far can't get it's really discouraging since there's only like 10 players with him as their most played in the upper half of T500 and maybe at most 3x that if you include people that him in there top 3.

Honestly, I am kind of tired of Blizzard treating its community like babies. I don't care if some person on my team was seen as "toxic" and now is forcibly muted. I want to be able to decide for myself if I want to hear what they say.

I think communication abuse reports should still lead to mutes (imo, never suspensions or bans except in extreme cases such as repeated hate speech / slurs, but I'm sure people will disagree with me here). However, if I have a teammate in my game who is muted, I should be allowed to unmute them at will. I think that's still a fitting punishment and gives me agency over my own experience. Everyone has a different threshold for what they see as "abusive" chat, so why not let me decide for myself? I don't get bothered if someone flames or calls me trash or w/e, I want to hear their callouts.

We have a *mandatory, on by default* profanity filter yet people get suspended for profanity. We have automated, AI-reviewed actioning that's solely based on numbers. We have a community who, especially at higher ranks, KNOWS you can get just about anyone suspended with enough comm reports. Anyone who has been in like the higher half of the SR pool has seen the classic "Player X called me this slur, report please" when you get a onetrick or something in your game. If someone says something you dislike, we have the option to mute text and voice. I want to decide for myself who I do and do not hear.

This whole system has gone way overboard and is why I am terrified to ever type or speak. I have seen some ridiculous cases of suspensions/closures over normal-to-slightly-heated communication, and as a "niche" hero main, I know I will get targeted.

TL,DR - comm abuse should only lead to mutes not suspensions unless extreme, and let me unmute my muted teammates if I wish

Before i say anything, what im gonna say WILL be taken the wrong way by people regardless of how i word it, but i have zero intentions for that and it is a genuine question.

How many top 500/pro AFAB women that play dps (specifically hitscan) are there?

before you downvote let me explain:

i’ve been playing this game from a very young age and i’ve always wanted to get better and make it to the top. when you’re a male playing an fps game, you have SO many people to look up to and inspire you because they’re just like you. since i started playing young i was influenced and told by many people that since im female i couldn’t ever compare to someone who’s male simply because i am a …woman. yes it’s a terrible mindset, i know. but when you’ve been told you couldn’t be as good as a man + evidence supporting that (way higher percent of pro male players compared to cis women) across your 3000 hours of playtime, it feels near impossible to think otherwise and that’s why im making this post.

i want to be able to watch other women that are good at this game and have the same goals that i do, so if anyone knows afab female hitscan players that i can watch please let me know

edit: i just wanted to say thank you to those who are being understanding and answering my question, it means a lot to me!!

edit: i took some advice/feed back on how i could change some of the wording in this post because i definitely came off as ignorant and uneducated! i’m sorry for any of the harm i’ve caused, and im grateful for the responses i’ve received!

I’ve been watching overtubers for a while now, and most of them have names that aren’t super odd. Flats being a reference to SpongeBob, DaFran being a portmanteau of his name (Daniel Francesca), XqC being the last letter of his name and his location (Felix, Quebec). But the only thing I can think of for Emongg is a niche character from Shrek Super Slam, called G-Gnome. Any insight would be very appreciated

Ive been playing sombra a lot today after the changes and having an absolute blast. the reduced translocator cd from last patch in combination with the huge reduction of downtime window between stealth and unstealth makes sombra feel incredibly fast paced and fun, especially using translocator to dodge abilities since the new windows can basically mean that you dont stop shooting between stealth and unstealth.

the only issue Ive been having is running out of ammo in engagements, but I think a slight reload speed reduction or an ammo refund mechanic on a virus hit / stealth activation could be huge

As title says, they had the OW1 team skins + the contenders and OWL skins for OW2 in the store so far, what are the chances we see the OW1 ones come back before the sale ends? It’s free money for blizzard right? Surely they do it. 😁😁