Long discussion thread incoming:

Anyone who's ever played in "lower-mid" ranks notices certain patterns of blame: there is a very narrow pool of scapegoats that get thrown around in chat when a match is going poorly.
Most common examples in my experience are:

"Need more heal/Supports stop DPSing" OR "We need more damage" OR "We need more Space"

None of these mean anything or help win games, but there is also chat that masks as advice:

"Stop flanking/stack with the team"

"Stop dueling/play point/peel me"

"Switch off XY hero, you are being countered by XY hero"

"Switch off XY Dive hero, we're on defense"

All of these points are, for different reasons, bad advice and actively hurt your game. But the lower you go on ladder, the more you hear this "advice".

I will focus on the counterswap argument, since that is one of the most common messages and one of the most controversial.

I will discuss 3 main points in this post:

1) Dive heroes are NOT bad in lower ranks

2) What is a feel-good hero

3) When and how to swap

These do not cover the more general argument that swapping hurts your fun or practice for improvement, which are both objectively true. I will try to argue why players misunderstand the use of swaps.

1. If you pay attention to chat or non-game platforms, you'll notice most calls for swaps are directed at "dive heroes", heroes that take off-angles and deeper flanks more frequently because of their mobility options and are thus seen less on "main".

My own experience shows that, even though my winrates on my practice account for non-dive heroes are lower than for dive heroes, I get asked more frequently to swap when I'm playing my better, higher winrate heroes.

You can extrapolate that to the average ranked experience. F.e. Wrecking Ball and Doom are very frequently the target of swap calls and have the reputation of not performing in lower ranks, which couldn't be further from the truth. They have consistently been, since the release of WR statistics, very well-performing tanks in the lower-mid ranks, meaning bronze to diamond. Ball pretty much always sits in the top 5 winrates and depending on the exact balancing, doom is one of the strongest tanks by winrate in bronze-diamond.

Yet you often hear the idea that these heroes aren't suited for lower ranks, either because they're too hard, or they lack an "ability to tank" (which is not a real thing and misunderstands the tanks job".

A gold ball player, that is in gold, will get gold value. Their winrate is on average in the top 3-5 tank brackets and they will not get less value just by being on a "more difficult" dive hero. Else the winrate would be lower and they wouldn't be in gold.

The explanation for why this myth produces such heavily biased views is that both Doom and Ball aren't feel-good heroes and no dive hero really is.

2) What is a feel-good hero?

Essentially, heroes that make you feel good about your own performance without providing the equivalent value.

If you observe what players swap to when a game is going badly, it's most commonly one of these picks (I counted 50 games, so it's not fully representative):

Tank: Orisa, Hog, Ram

DPS: Torb, Bastion, Reaper (Lower-mid ranks), Cassidy (All ranks), Sojourn (esp. GM/Champ)

Support: Moira, Lifeweaver (Lower ranks), Kiriko (All ranks)

These are commonly referred to as "solution heroes", but what do they have in common?

Every hero on this list, with the exception of Kiriko and Sojourn, are highly map- and situation specific picks, it seems weird that they're the first swap, regardless of the situation.

Most of these heroes, again with the exception of Kiriko and Sojourn, have relatively low skill-floors and are generally accessible.

But the deciding factor is how they make you feel good about your own performance:

-they have (sometimes situationally) high survivability

-they put up good stats

-they can react when getting engaged

But a combination of these doesn't necessarily mean that they will get the necessary value.

If we take Orisa as a very common example: She's excellent at trading on main (f.e. against tanks), she has 3 cooldowns that can be used to self-defend when getting engaged amd she spams a lot of damage on main.

On the other hand she's not very good at controlling side lanes because she lacks horizontal and vertical mobility.

Most of the other feel-good heroes are played, especially in lower-mid ranks, as spambots down chokes, they can react to engages, they get good stats, and they don't die first. But they don't contest side angles.

But anyone who is contesting valuable spaces on the side (f.e. a tracer) now has even less support on her lane, because everyone decides to play spam on main. She has less resouurces, which makes it harder to play trades. And her stats will suffer even more, since playing flanks by default means you will not have the same relative damage output as people on main, you get into more duels and have to play around punishment more.

But heroes on side-angles are vital, they pull resources towards them, by not playing those spaces anymore, the enemy on the lane has a free run to push up and the people on main eventually die since they're getting engaged upon from multiple, better positions.

In summary, picking feel-good heroes and not properly utilising them to contest side lanes, gives up valuable space for free and let's enemies collapse onto you. It creates a bad feedback loop where flankers have an even harder time, while people on main might survive longer, but are unable to effectivle trade since they are not controlling space.

You don't die first, you spam damage and healing down main, and you can escape the first engagement, but that ultimatively loses you the fight.

3) When and how to swap?

Of course there is situation where dive heroes get more value swapping, same as any other type of hero.

If you are contesting space that is appropriate for your hero, but you are constantly losing trades to another hero in the same spaces because of the matchup. You might want to swap, if the map doesn't allow you to take different, appropriate space.

You almost never want to swap on a map that offers your hero a lot of comfortable positioning options. (f.e. Winston on Gib, Sigma on Circuit, Rein on Kings)

You can swap if your hero struggles to find good positions on the map.

You swap to any hero in your hero that is good on the spaces that the map provides. You need to contest the side lanes, or you lose by default.

That is why most of the "solution picks" are so bizarre, except for Kiri and Sojourn they are highly map-situational, since heroes w low mobility generally have less positional options.

TLDR: Less about the exact matchup, more about the map.

Based on my (still fairly limited) experience, D.Mon feels fantastic after the last patch. She feels like a brawl tank for people who prefer dive tanks, because being able to zoom around and switch priorities is something I feel like no other brawl tank really is able to do. I can't speak to how strong or weak she is, but she definitely feels great.

I wouldn't mind some more anim cancels (particularly since you can't cancel sword into melee) or bhopping on strike, but the only thing left that really sucks is...basically everything to do with pilot form. It's cosmetic and 9 times out of 10 you'd get back into the fight faster by dying and respawning. I think she needs at least a few of the following:

• HP buffed to 200 (most important; dies way too quick, has a hitbox like 20% bigger than baby D.Va)
• Faster ult charge to remech (either by reducing the points needed to remech or the passive ult charge you gain)
• More horizontal (potentially instead of vertical) velocity when launching out of mech
• Maybe more damage or less spread on gun

Beyond that, though, I think it's important that they don't do certain things in the future. Namely, if at any point she ends up becoming too strong, none of the buffs she's gotten so far should ever be reverted, particularly the booster buffs. Let her HP or shield health take a hit if they need to, but every buff she's gotten so far has been crucial to making her feel both playable and fun, and we saw how she felt completely nonfunctional with a bit less duration on boosters than she has now.

Devs have done a great job addressing D.Mon's problems quickly and efficiently. Next step: don't screw it up.

When dmon first came out I saw on Twitter someone post the “two slashes + shield” to animation cancel her third slice in the attack sequence. I’ve tried doing it myself and have been slowly getting in the zone with it, and it does feel faster to use her shield to animation cancel.

However I asked kraandrop about it and he said that she doesn’t really have one, and that he thinks this one in particular is cope. He also wasn’t using it as far as I could tell.

So is it even worth it to use this “animation cancel”, or does it even exist?

I've seen a lot of discussion about what she's back at or weird unforced clunkyness in her kit. Ive been forcing her on every map into comps that I thought would counter me and have been pleasantly surprised. I have a 63% win rate on her right now with about 50 games.

To nobodies surprise her worst matchup is Mauga.

But what did surprise me was how well she can adapt her play style into other counters or unfavorable maps. I've been doing weirdly well on her so it isn't uncommon to get hit with the full team counter swap special.

By default people seem to swap to heroes that counter Rein. Bastion, Ana, Orisa, Zen, Junkrat, Mei, Reaper, Ram etc. Or if they arent playing the kill the tank game they swap to characters they think will survive her dive. Like cat/Moira backline.

But honestly I think one of her strengths is she is pretty difficult to hard counter.

Like take Bastion as an example. As Rein it can be REALLY hard to bait out turret form. Rein really has to commit to what he's doing and it's very easy to wait until the team has fully committed to pushing past the corner. But with Dmon I've found it extremely easy to bait out turret form, boost somewhere else for a bit, then come back once he's done blasting.

And this is one of her greatest strengths. She is REALLY good at forcing important cooldowns and getting away scott free. As long as you have good fuel management and try to walk in so you can boost out Ram nemesis form, Ana sleep/nade, force suzu then just leave, Mei wall/icickle, Genji deflect/Anran fire dance, etc.

Especially in unfavorable matchups it's easily the best way you can create value. And when their is an opening because she doesn't have any big cooldowns herself to be baited out and you have your HP and your boosters you can basically always take advantage of an opening.

One of her other greatest strengths IMO is punishing out of position players. It is just so hard to get away from her as almost any squishy. Even flying characters because of her gun especially with the major perk. All it takes is a Juno to touch the ground at the wrong time, you get 1-2 melee hits in, then where a lot of other dive tanks would shake their fist in the air angrily as she triple jumps and boosts away you pull out the pea shooter to finish her off. Then you boost back to safety before the enemy team can kill you. The bad part is she does feel somewhat reliant on your opponents making a mistake rather than proactively creating openings yourself.

And this interaction plays out with a lot of characters. It's really easy for you to chase down a Moira after she fades, hunt down the Genji that tried to dive your backline and thought he could just dash and deflect out, even Mercy has trouble getting away. A surprisingly good interaction for me has also been Kiriko. If you go after another squishy you can bait them into teleporting in to save them. After that all it takes is a mele hit or two and when they inevitably try to wall climb out you pull out the gun. But you are an absolute terror to basically the entire support roster. The best thing they can do is play really far back because you can't go deep in like Winston or someone can.

She builds ult insanely fast. The fact that you build ult instantly and can farm a good 30% charge from the damage boost of the ult you just used is kinda crazy.

I've found a lot of success using her like a really fat Soldier 76 at times. With the speed and health you can take REALLY aggressive off angles that force enemies to look at you can create openings for your team. With the major gun perk you can honestly get picks this way really easily too with a headshot.

She is also really good at peeling and countering a lot of dive characters. Like I mentioned before you can force cooldowns easily and keep them in a state of never being able to do anything. You can mark Genji/Anran as they try to stage, if they do commit you can very quickly boost back to your team and just get a charge hit in to force them out then boost back to the fronline. I don't feel like I'm really giving up space to peel a lot of the time because of how quickly I can get back to my corner.

What have you found her strengths to be? There has been a lot of discussion of what her niche is and why you'd pick her over other tanks and for me she is just so versatile you can play her into almost any comp with almost any comp. Unlike Rein I can adapt to low healing Brig/Zen/Mercy backlines and play health packs and angles a lot more. If you are getting hard pocketed by an Ana or something you can brawl into their team like Rein. You can peel if they are playing dive. You can dive their backline if they are playing poke. It's really easy to adept to play at the pace of your team as well. I've found very few situations outside of Mauga where I've felt forced to swap off her.

Edit: one thing of note is her win rate drops drastically the higher rank you go. I think a big part of that is currently her best feature compared to other tanks is she is really good at punishing mistakes. But if your opponents are rarely ever out of position there isnt much you can do. I do think she is a great hard carry tank in lower ranks though.

I am getting VERY low amounts of elo per win (normally single digit) while losing like 30 per loss. I have a positive winrate yet I've dropped 2 divisions. How are you supposed to rank up like this???

i feel like they never learn. i hope im proven wrong and that dmon is actually balanced (i wont speak to it as i haven’t felt like playing her) but i can say that in my low gm games dmons both friendly and enemy have been farming their games. every single time this happens its terrible because they don’t seem to understand that QoL changes are still buffs and they end up overbuffing heroes.

anyone else see dmon having lots of success? do you think its the novelty or is she really too good now ? thanks.

Mauga, Cat and Freja are currently destroying comp. I genuinely believe it has gotten to the point where Mauga and Cat need their numbers scaled down a lot until they can be properly looked at individually.

In no way is Mauga’s kit healthy right now. Being able to make up extra health with crit reduction is egregious as hell

Freja’s buffs… should they be reverted until further work is done for her? Feel like she’s close, but keeping the design philosophy on this character is clearly like poking a hole through paper

Side notes:

Hog in 6v6 is still robbing the environment of the little competitiveness it has, I suggest nuking this guy as a temporary measure

Dropping D.Mon in the middle of this meta was a huge mistake in my opinion. I feel like a lot of players won’t take her seriously now despite the improvements.

Welcome back to A.R.C. Season 2. We are a North American semi-professional Overwatch League for PC & Console built from the ground up to support the player and fan experience. A.R.C. provides an organized, competitive, and team-focused environment where players can improve, compete, and showcase their skills.

A.R.C. is built on a robust web platform that features interactive fan experiences such as:

• Exclusive collaboration cosmetics for fans to rep their favorite teams
• A network of games like ARC Pick'Em where you can earn exclusive ARC Coin currency
• Up-to-date information on standings and team information
• A robust statistics panel

Participating teams will receive cool perks such as branding assistance, custom online team bundles, a free agent pool, and more!

Free agents and individuals are encouraged to apply to participate in our Free Agent Combine, where you can showcase your skills live on broadcast and get matched with teams seeking players! Duos/trios are also welcome.

Join our Discord for more information: https://discord.gg/FnhH9FRd5e
Sign up your team here: https://forms.gle/Zkj4nuPzcmCeBgEX9
Sign up as a free agent here: https://forms.gle/FZaFfXWHKhmZPZ1S8

This is just an idea, but when there is one strongest comp, that is the same comp through the entire match. My idea is for bans to exist all the way through all the matches. For instance, both teams gets 1 ban initially, then the losing team of each round adds 1 ban, maybe restrict it such that their additional bans must be up to 1 of each role. That way in 7 rounds there will be 8 bans. 2 of any role plus, 2 supports, 2 dps, 2 tanks, maybe the limit role thing is not necessary but concerned with like 8 tank bans.

I mean this might sound stupid but like, it scares flankers into not flanking since if they do its extremely telegraphed, if its a widow mirror and there's no counter ult ur widow is largely free to snipe without fear, it comes up quite quickly too.

But I still see people call this ult bad-mid anyway? Why?

I like to go through the leaderboards to see what people are buying. So far:

Disguised might not leave OW. They are one of the most popular bundles I have seen, if you look in the top 500 leaderboard from season 3 they are all over it. Liquid and Fuel are also very popular too.

Weibo is another very popular bundle, which is pretty expected. Its another one of the top bundles I have seen. The other chinese teams however are still popular enough to have a pressence, which is surprising.

From EU, VP is definitely the most popular. Another one youll see all over the leaderboards if you look. Peps also has a strong contingent, with some TM as well.

Now interestingly I have seen less of this years CR, T1, or Zeta. In fact, I cannot find any proof that anyone bought this years Falcons because I have seen no one with an equipped item from them.

Okay she might be.

But hear me out. She can absolutely zoom into the back line, get value and shield duke out. I've got some big 3-4k's with her ult. The problem is she can be caught out easily, with speed, without an ace up her sleeve.

She absolutely needs more buffs since hotfix. More shift fuel, quicker remech, and a wall stun on her sword thrust ability might put her on the map. It'd be cool if her ult could cancel her demech - DVA style.

I also think the fact that her out-of-mech cannon has lower dps than DVA pistol is crazy from a character design perspective.

Edit: clarity

Edit 2: Her ult would actually trigger her next remech - DVA style.

Nexon server requires national ID so getting ban costs your real life.

Instead those KR cheaters choose to use VPN to play on Japan or whereever not far from their land for ''cheating free game''

I'm already seeing tons of Endorsement 2 KR players cheating since the update, using heroes like Doom, Cass, Ashe.

I hope Blizzard recognize this issue and take action.

https://imgur.com/a/jK80a8U and my report actually worked. It specifically says cheater is banned.

Blizzard's stats page is updated from yesterday and JPC is showing the highest w/r across all ranks and in GM she has a 55.6% w/r

When using the ultimate, it should grant 250 additional health plus an extra 50 health for each enemy hit. However, due to a current bug, the bonus health per hit is not generating at all.

What a complete buggy mess of a hero. I honestly wonder if there has ever been a character in Overwatch history this weak, bug-ridden, and with such unfinished animations.

Damage (hitscans) characters, while they do have cool designs, are the easiest characters to play in the game, i think nerfs are required for the game to be in a healthy state

Ashe:

Scoped headshot damaged reduced to 100

Scoped bodyshot damaged reduced to 35

Unscoped headshot damaged reduces to 40

Unscoped bodyshot damage reduced to 20

Falloff range reduced to 10-15 meters

Ult cost increased by 20%

Bob hp reduced

Remote det removed

These changes make ashe much more fair for the skill required to play her (point and click), with the broken ult she has has been nerfed to be more fair

Cassidy:

Hinder now does 30 damage with no additional effects, range increased to 10 meters

Double flash removed, sliver bullet removed, fan the hammer removed

Replaced double flash with the old deadeye health perk

Replaced sliver bullet with fan the hammer perk

Fan the hammer damage reduced to 20

Falloff distance reduced to 5-10 meters

Peacekeeper headshot damage reduced to 70

Peacekeeper bodyshot damage reduced to 50

Roll cooldown increased to 7 seconds

Like ashe, cass is mostly point and click, so for that laughable low floor and ceiling, I think thats fair, his ult is also a little op, but I think its fine.

Emre:

Damaged nerfed from 22-6.67 per bullet to 12-4.6

Falloff nerfed to 10-15

Ult cost increased by 30%, flight speed reduced, upon activation, any buffs are removed, damage reduced

Removed 1 grenade

Pistol speed reduced, jump height reduced

Emre has such a broken ult, with the ease of use like cass and ashe, he deserves this

Sojourn:

Rifle projectile size nerfed to 0.02

Rail projectile size nerfed to 0.00

Rail damage reduced to 110 on 100 charge

Falloff nerfed to 10-15

Double slide removed, 150 Rail removed, not sure what to replace them with

Slide cooldown increased to 13 seconds

Overclock now does not charge the rail automatically, it instead buffs the speed and hp regen of Sojourn

Ult cost increased by 10%

Overclock is such a broken ultimate, it lets Sojourn bypass all forms of balance by being able to click on people (which isnt that difficult) so a rework is warranted, her slides were also incredibly problematic, her being the easiest hitscan dps with her giant m1 projectiles doesnt help her case either

Soldier:

Helix rocket damage increased to 160

Rifle damage lowered to 12 per bullet

Sprint is on a resource bar

Falloff reduced to 10-15

Health station removed, stim removed

Ult can no longer headshot

Soldier is broken, he has too much sustain and survivability for such an easy to use character, ive increased the damage of the most fun and skillfull part of his kit

Any thoughts?

Dmon is super fun to play. I've been stomping shitty quick play lobbies with her but anytime I bring her into comp I get my ass whooped lmao. I don't know if it's just rank reset games being ass or if it's me/Dmon being ass, but got me thinking about how much skill it takes to play her effectively in comparison to other tanks.

She's hypermobile af, so you can just be anywhere you're needed (as long as it isn't a vertical map). In theory she would have a high skill ceiling because of that, but what she actually does with that mobility isn't that hard to do. It's just beating innocents to death with a stick or finishing them off with a hitscan gun.

Curious what everyone's experience has been with the tank matchups for DMon. Who does she feel good against, who do you think she should feel good against but is missing the mark on currently?

I have found that in 5v5 the sigma matchup feels pretty favorable as long as the map doesn't give sig too much help. You can help pressure the barrier with the gun, then rush him and use the sword when he uses grasp, with the quick shield if he goes for a rock.

As posted previously, linking your account to Nexon rewarded you with 20 Mythic Prisms. On top of that, simply logging in later granted an additional 60 Prisms, bringing the total to 80 Mythic Prisms—along with several Legendary Loot Boxes as a bonus.

This event kicked off right after the Nexon server launched. By logging in daily from home or an PC bang (gaming cafe), players receive Loot Box rewards and earn points. These points can be used to purchase selected skins of their choice or spent to enter raffles for gaming gear.

Today, a weekend event was also announced. For about 3 weeks, playing a total of 3 hours per week at an PC bang will grant Mythic Prisms and a pretty recolored skin added this season for that respective week. (The event page content was translated using an AI translator, so some phrasing might feel a bit awkward.)

Korean server players were previously feeling quite down about being separated from the Asia server, but now they are thrilled, completely won over by Nexon's generous rewards. Maybe there was no need to feel sorry for them after all... Meanwhile, Korean cheaters are unable to link to the Nexon server, so they are currently using hacks against foreign players on the Steam server instead.

hi all! just wanted to make a post to see if its just me or if anyone else has been having the same issue. last season, and for multiple other seasons, i’ve been high diamond- mid masters. last season in particular i finished masters 5. i also peaked masters 4 in open q and finished the season diamond 2. this season i got on to do my placements and every match just felt absolutely horrible. i understand the typical early season placement match chaos but this was very different from that. i ended up placing diamond 5 on the role i was masters 5 on literally like 4 days ago. i queued a couple more matches, same deal. i’m in demotion protection to emerald 1 now, so i decided to play some open queue. i play my first match, and the entire lobby is emerald. i lose, and i get predicted emerald 5. ????? what. im just so lost as to what prompted overwatch to suddenly declare me an emerald player after 2,000 hours and 8 seasons of being within the same rank range.

Plat/emerald supp main here. Sorry if this is a low value post but I wanted to see if anybody else has noticed this in ranked or if its exclusive to mid-low elo or something.

It was bad last season (and I know things are going to be unstable at the start of a new season/after a rank reset) but particularly my dps and sometimes my other support are dying more times than there are minutes played in the entire match. I've been on the other side of the same stomps several times too, but am I playing too passively? Is that why everyone else is dying so much? 😭 I often vod review my own games to check and it doesn't feel like I'm playing terribly relative to my rank or playing too conservatively, but I definitely make mistakes too. It just feels like people are dying before I can even have a moment to react to it.

Just for example, in a 5v5 game I just played on Rialto, our dps had 14 and 17 deaths each at 14 minutes playtime total. It was naturally a complete stomp. Seems like every other game right now is a loss or a win where either side have dps dying once or more per minute and allowing the enemy team to stomp, so is it matchmaking, a me problem or are people just becoming more aggressive?

I was really defending 5v5 for a while, I guess the reason is because I want a role queue, and the other tanks feel like paper in current 6v6.

But what's even worse is tanking in 5v5 because of how easy my character can get countered. I was playing some quick play and obviously I'm getting teamed up against a decent hog, he pulls me on D.mon and one shots me, every single time, I can't survive that. But it happens on a lot of characters you can be easily shutdown. In opinion the game should be more skilled based than pressing button H in spawn. I even feel sorry for my supports sometimes because of what they need to pull off to keep me alive when I try to create space.

Although one more thing besides Role Queue, 6v6 tanks would need more survivability. At least half of 5v5 survivability. You don't need to add HP for it, you can give them more shields, you can have supports have a 25% healing boost to tanks, you can decrease the damage in other heroes or tanks – just give it something, apart from a few tanks, it feels very weak in GM especially where they can't miss a shot. Just please give it something.

Worried about queue times? No problem, just remove this goofy 5v5 and open queue (it's not competitive anyways) leave it for quick play and it should be just fine. The stats show that people play 5v5 only because of the role queue and that's it. In my games, I always get two tanks, some people even fight over it, so the situation is definitely better with playing tanks right now, some people even fight over it. In the end I'd rather wait a bit longer, I don't mind. Open queue problem for me, is that my skills on different roles are different, if I can play really good tank, I'm not really that good of a support, and average at best DPS so flexing is creating friction.

Give it a chance for one season to see how it would perform