Overwatch

People are actually using Zenyatta competitively now?

edited 28th Jul '16 5:07:23 PM by FullMoon

Quite a lot, since he no longer dies if you look at him funny.

Plus the recent patch gave Ana such a boost to her rate of fire, Widowmaker basically only competes if she's regularly getting headshots. Which is harder against professional players what with all the jumping around.

edited 28th Jul '16 5:11:10 PM by Ghilz

Yes, his discord orb basically shuts down a single enemy and his damage is unparalleled atm.

Even before his buff Zen could do ridiculous damage in the hands of the right person.

He's been improved quite a lot, and Transcendence's movement speed bonus and healing upgrade make him even more invaluable. That, and the fact that Orbs of Harmony and Discord have also received a massive boost in projectile speed, makes him actually better than Mercy in some respects. If I recall he's actually been picked more than Mercy as a secondary Support to Lucio in recent pro games.

He is.

He's the 2nd most picked hero after Mc Cree right now based on the most recent tournament data. Which going from a 0% to a 93.55% is one hell of a leap.

And Mercy is starting to fall off recently given the strength of Lucio/Zen pairings.

So defensive heroes are being underplayed? Does that include someone like Junkrat? (Who could very well be the most movile defensive hero)

Yes - in tournaments and competitive. Junkrat is the most played defensive hero, but still gets only 4.74% playtime on tournament. Which makes sense. what niche does he fill? Pro players dont bunch up around the point. Everything he does, Pharah can do better in terms of AOE (Though Mc Cree's been making her life difficult too). And in direct damage, Mc Cree and 76 have him beat. Junkrat shines against the likes of Bastion and Torbjorn's turrets. And well, no one plays them, so... On his own he's fine, it's just that the state of the game is such he can't really bring anything.

edited 28th Jul '16 5:23:28 PM by Ghilz

Where are those new tournament stats?

This is the latest bunch of data from the the past week, labeled the "7 Day Meta" because of the rapid changes that McCree got. It's interesting to see how far Pharah fell because of the buffs that Zen and McCree got. With Orb of Discord and McCree'sthen large range, she stood no chance against that, dropping from 64% to 2% usage.

edited 28th Jul '16 5:31:01 PM by ITNW1989

Huh, I wonder why Genji has been seeing more use, I'm guessing it's because of the Zenyatta increase?

Yep. With an Orb of Discord Genji can basically shred anyone into pieces with his ult. It's also why McCree is so well-played right now; despite his nerf with his falloff range he still devastates anyone alongside Zen.

the new "Pick Every Game" Roster is basically Mccree, Zenyatta, Lucio from what I can tell.

Genji is a good pick against McCree and enemy Zenyatta, and he also benefits from Zenyatta's buffs. So when they became more common he gained in popularity.

I'd not be surprised to see, baring some change, Mercy to drop even more. Except for her ultimate (which can be a game changer), everything she does... Zenyatta can do better, by virtue of not being locked doing one thing (healing, boosting dmg, or attacking). Zenyatta can do all three at the same time, he's not got a giant yellow line going "HEALER IS HERE PLZ KILL" and his DPS is insane.

edited 28th Jul '16 5:54:01 PM by Ghilz

I'm guessing we'll be seeing a nerf to Orb of Discord or they might lower Zenyatta's health to something like 175.

And now that Ana's buffed I can only imagine Genji is gonna become even more popular because Nanoboosted Dragonblade is just insane.

Ana's still new so I wouldn't put too much weight on her tournament stats just yet.

So, I guess hypothetical theorycrafting time?

I know most of us probably aren't top-tier tourney players (I can't even run the game, so it's still Onlywatch to me) but we can at least theorize on what could be done to make defense heroes more useful at higher levels.

Without making them nightmares for lower level players.

Here's some tournament stats with playtime for each character.

Yeah, it's part of the issue, since so many of the defense heroes are so effective against more casual players.

edited 28th Jul '16 5:56:39 PM by Ghilz

it's more that Lucio/Zen combo is just SO GOOD. Ana is good, but not THAT good.

So far the only hero to be consistently good competitively seems to be Lúcio

You mean Mc Cree? He's so omnipresent he reshaped the entire meta. Unless you mean the one hero whose spot doesn't change too much? Well yes, but Lucio's long been known to be great and the best support hero in general. He's in that sweet spot of "Clearly better than anyone else his class, but not so good he's obviously broken so Blizzard will patch him".

edited 28th Jul '16 6:11:35 PM by Ghilz

McCree when he was first nerfed took a huge hit in usage, Lúcio is the only character so far who's always at least A tier.

Granted they never did much in regards to Lúcio other than making Sound Barrier take a little longer to charge.

Always wondered if anyone tried Nano-Boost + Amp It Up Speed+ Mercy Damage Increase + Harmony/Discord Combo.

Bet if they tried that on Reinhardt, Genji, or Reaper, they could shred a whole team solo.

Well, good to know the characters I like are all in the garbage tiers.

Probably not likely to get into competitive then since I just know I'm going to be pushed to pick heroes that aren't Defense if I try that. I'd rather stick with quick play in that case.

And that's why I never gave any shit about any form of Competitive Mode.

Except Hearthstone, because no one is going to call shit on me if I play with a shitty deck.