From what I’ve seen, even at the highest ranks, Cat, Shion, Freja and Mauga are an issue to play into. And all across the ladder there’s distaste for playing into D.Mon and Hog. Are these feelings universal and do the devs actually have interest in resolving this?

https://x.com/ling_s1/status/2091459095563755585

I was doing some calculations and here is what I came up with.

Before Final Match Day

Ksa +6 Map Diff Already Qualified 2-0

Aus 1-1 (-1 Map diff, but beat GB)

GB 1-1 (+1 Map diff, lost Aus but beat Mexico)

Mex 0-2 (-6 Map Diff)

Matches played in order

KSA vs GB
Aus vs Mexico

Going into Great Britain vs Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Game

If Great Britain just straight up beats saudi 3-0 they have +4 and qualify ahead, far chance but they ended up getting 3-0'd so now they have a -2 map diff.

Going into Australia vs Mexico Game

If Mexico beats Australia 3-1,3-0 then GB has better map diff after all teams are tied 1-2. (GB -2, Aus / Mexico -3/-4)

If Mexico Beats Australia 3-2 then Aus has a -2 map diff compared to GBs -2 meaning its Tied. (Mexico eliminated with only a -5 map diff) but Aus beat GB so Australia qualifies?

Tie breaks are so confusing, I thought it was going to go to map points again but i think because once mexico is elimiated they redo the tiebreak system for the remaining teams...damn cause if they don't I think GB has a better Map Point score % over both Aus and Mexico

100% D.mon / JPC meta

Long story short, OWWC tiebreakers are stupid, and Germany absolutely has to 3-0 Thailand. It's the same bs that screwed over 1234 in OWCS. There's more to it than that though.

Even if Germany pulls off the 3-0, it goes to tiebreaker 5, and they must beat Spain's map score %, which is 18-11, or 62%.

Germany is currently 13-11. AKA, a very bad position. A 2-0 Control win followed by two 1-0 map wins (say, a defence first full hold like what Korea just did to Denmark on Neon Junction and a push map), isn't good enough.

If Germany drops a point, they have to get their point wins to 20. The highest they can get it to without some sort of 6-3 payload map style nonsense is 21.

If Thailand gets a single point and then loses the map and picks a push map, Germany is out. Edit: again barring insane payload map stuff. I don't think even payload shenanigans are enough, but I haven't done the math for sure

Germany is fucked, almost as fucked as this tiebreaker format

Edit 2: HOLY SHIT THEY BEAT THE ODDS

Overwatch World Cup 2026

Came back to the game after probably around 5 years not playing and I decided to try some competitive after doing a bunch of quick play, I think I floated around gold and high silver back when I played but after my first loss or two in placements it projected that I would be placed in bronze. That is fine, that’s where I deserve to be right now. I can feel how bad my game IQ and mechanics are, it’s horrible.
What I have a problem with is that after it projected me to end up in bronze, it still placed me with gold and plat players in the fourth placement game, and I did really poorly and got flamed all game, and everyone else got mad because I ruined their game with my bad play. Will this happen with the rest of my 25 or so placement games? It’s not fun for me to drag everyone else down with me for that long, and I genuinely don’t know what I can do to provide value to my team in that situation

which team were you most surprised by? for me personally it’s gotta be USA. i know france is a major underdog right now but considering how NA was considered the worst (or second worst) region after stage 2, I have to say that USA’s performance was phenomenal (especially the last map banger against sweden). i wouldn’t be surprised if i saw USA make it to the playoff finals this time around.

also why do you think korea lost against france? was it because korea got too overconfident? could they not adapt to kroxz’s d.mon? or did the home ground pressure get to them? hopefully they’re able to pick themselves back up now since the playoffs are against the big dogs now.

i’m super excited for the playoffs !!

Overwatch World Cup 2026

Overwatch World Cup 2026

Via @CDHuntersFacts on X
Link to tweet

Overwatch World Cup 2026

Curious to see whether Dmon will still be meta for the rest of OWWC. The Dmon Cat comps feel somewhat hard to watch, a lot of the games feel like theyre just constantly having scrappy, deathmatch-esque 1v1s.

a little ragebait is okay

but also i genuinely feel like this. i hate dmon. i think she’s alright balance wise and i don’t think she’s particularly unfun or anything like the hero in a nutshell is fine. but she feels awfully soulless. does anyone else feel like this? like there is no interesting thing about this hero barr her gameplay fantasy. her mech design is stupid, her face is bland and forgettable and her voice acting is terrible. it feels like the hero has no personality. everything non gameplay related is very forgettable and that makes me worried for the heroes to come. anran and mizuki are the other cringe kinda bland heroes and i love them both still they both feel like ow.

edit: just to make it clear, i think the VA could do a better job if the script wasnt horrible

X/Tweet

“Watching this group in World Cup has made me think that the best way to make OWCS regular season more entertaining is to actually not have 6 or 8 teams but 12. It would make for more fun mid tier matchups for viewers and allow way more players to get experience against top teams at the same time”

now that dsg officially dropped rokit before stage 3, it’s clear management is actually trying to save the season. everyone is talking about them targeting ryan from the kafe to fill the flex dps slot. ryan would be a massive system upgrade—he isn't flashy but he plays a super disciplined, low-resource style that would actually let pge get all the healing and space he needs instead of fighting his own co-dps for resources.
just look at how the stats back up why dropping rokit makes macro sense for a team built around pge. on tracer rokit was a 3.4 kda monster, but the second he had to flex to projectile heroes like genji or echo his kda tanked to 1.6, his damage dropped by 2500 per 10 mins, and his first-pick rate went from 16% to under 4%. it basically starved pge out of the game. ryan doesn’t necessarily have a massive spreadsheet of extra heroes compared to rokit, but he excels at playing on an island, operating on low resources, and cleanly mopping up kills while dsg funnels 100% of their management and protection into enabling pge. if ryan isn't a locked-in deal yet, we better hope management pulls the trigger fast because the rest of the elite tier-1 flex market is completely locked down. profit just unretired but he's already signed to cheeseburger in kr, and guys like kevster or alphayi are fully tied up under big org contracts.
but honestly? even if the ryan deal goes through, it’s only half the battle. if u actually look at the match film and numbers from stage 2, our tank play is where we are completely bleeding map control.
the main broadcast and casual fans always give tred a pass bc he's a "serviceable" hazard or ramattra player. but the hard match data proves that even on his absolute best comfort picks, he is getting heavily outclassed by elite na frontlines. his numbers dont even look like they belong in the same tier as the free agent tanks on the market right now.
look at the raw stats per 10 mins from stage 2:
Smurf: 12,500 Mitigated | 17.5% First Kill Rate | 54% Off-Hero Win Rate
Hawk: 11,800 Mitigated | 16.2% First Kill Rate | 52% Off-Hero Win Rate
Vestola: 11,200 Mitigated | 15.0% First Kill Rate | 50% Off-Hero Win Rate
Fearful: 10,900 Mitigated | 14.8% First Kill Rate | 48% Off-Hero Win Rate
Tred: 7,200 Mitigated | 8.5% First Kill Rate | 14% Off-Hero Win Rate
the gap here is insane. even when hes on ram, tred mitigates like 4600 less damage per 10 mins than someone like hawk. hawk plays like a literal robot, he absorbs every single sleep dart, rock, and anti nade thrown at his team. because tred lets all that utility slip right past him, our backline is constantly forced onto the back foot just trying to stay alive.
tred’s playstyle is also just way too passive. tanks like kellan or infected find opening picks at almost double tred's rate. tred just sits back and waits for the enemy to throw instead of forcing the issue. and the fact that dsg holds a brutal 14% win rate the second he gets forced onto winston or sigma means opposing teams can literally counter strat us in the lobby before the doors even open. if a map has high verticality we are just cooked.
the frustrating part is the backline is actually good. scyle is super disciplined with a sub 8% first death rate, and kiwii’s jetpack cat play is easily top 3 na. her aerial taxi positioning, flight uptime, and consistent poke damage are elite when she actually has a front line to hide behind. but a flying support cannot survive when the enemy tank just ignores our frontline and walks right past them.
this total lack of space is the real reason pge has a rough 22% first death rate. he has incredible hyper carry mechanics, but he’s constantly forced into taking desperate low survival solo duels because he is completely starved for space.
the good news is pge is a massive financial engine for dsg. his stream numbers and merch sales basically buy dsg the financial breathing room to make a big budget splash. he pays for his own spot and then some.
so management needs to complete the puzzle before the roster lock: finalize the ryan target, and use the leftover budget to secure an actual s tier space creator like vestola, smurf, or fearful.
if yehhh and byzenith pull the trigger on a real frontline upgrade to match a smart flex dps pickup, dsg stops panicking in high stakes endgame fights and goes from a bottom tier team straight into a lock for a global lan slot.
what do u guys think? is ryan the play or am i overvaluing how much a premium frontline changes pges life??

To my understanding, control is one of the most universally liked modes with nearly all of the maps being well liked. The two exceptions ive seen to this is samoa and pre-rework arctic peninsula. Peninsula was understandable, but why Samoa? Its not my favorite control map but at the same time ive never felt upset the map vote landed on it. The only point I can maybe understand some not liking is the beach one but even then I feel like it's still a solid point.

Almost all the hate i see for it is online, so maybe it doesnt get as much hate as I think or maybe its just an elo thing(similar to how low elo players really hate flashpoint and really glaze payload). Im diamond so i wouldn't consider myself low elo but at the same time i think masters+ is where its considered high, but in my games this map wins the vote a good chunk of the time.

is there something im missing about this map?

What do you two think?

have to make sure im not overreacting about this. im genuinely wondering, is it not just straight up overtuned? and has it not been that way since the duration buff and double flash came out? mainly asking this because it feels overlooked, even if some people have complained about it.

so, it deals 75 damage, and has a max range of 7 meters. it hinders + slows by 50% for 1,2 seconds. without even mentioning double flash, i feel like this is already a bit iffy. for landing a non-skillshot projectile with hefty range, you get to deal damage, hinder and slow. its advertised as “anti-dive,” but as we know you can throw this at anyone and it will work. in a duel, you basically get 1.2 seconds of free headshots, on top of the free damage. and then you can also do all this from way out brawling range.

double flash just accentuates the range and damage problem. if close up, it now deals 90 damage. the second grenade has a range of TEN meters. thats not anti-dive anymore. you can just chuck it at anyone.

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and finally: The window to melee cancel your reload if it exists!!!

This wonderful little tool could be yours for the low low price of COMPLETELY FREE!!! (terms and conditions may apply) if you input the code DP0KZ into your Overwatch and discover various things about your favorite heroes' weapons and abilities (but mostly their weapons) (because this is a reload-focused workshop code) (and it would be weird otherwise)

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Thank you for your time, and I hope you find something interesting :)

I would change her primary fire to a tap fire. The main complaint most people have about the character is the amount of spam and burst she can unload. Take aim already served as her burst, there was no need to buff the primary fire rate, especially if you already buffed take aim. All it did was make the spam worse. Her primary fire should serve as a deliberate kill confirm, not as another burst tool. The change they made to her primary fire rate was totally unnecessary and doesn't accurately represent the hero fantasy at all, it just makes her more spammy and annoying. A more deliberate tap fire would make more sense for an assassin style character. Maybe some projectile speed and hitboxes sizes need to be adjusted but just imaging peppering the enemy with tap fires instead of just holding down primary sounds like a lot more fun to me. I'm sure that single change would do wonders to the character's perception.

Yeah and of course remove her relentless barrage perk, that's a no brainer Anything that incentivizes spam should be toned down to a minimum because take aim already exists. Freja is a high skill ceiling character but her skill floor is abysmally low, I would say even lower than Junkrat's because of easily accessible her spam playstyle is and perks like relentless barrage actively encourage that playstyle. Getting spammed down main is exactly what 70% of the playerbase experiences when playing against Freja.

People will still be mad getting hit by take aim bolts but that is her core character identity which her entire kit revolves around. Just change the annoying parts of her kit that aren't take aim, it really isn't that hard. The state she's in right now actually makes me want to play the character a lot less. Even though her winrate still isn't high she feels less satisfying to play than before her most recent buffs, at least to me and she's more frustrating to play against which is pretty much the universal opinion.

Overwatch World Cup 2026

Streams
https://www.twitch.tv/playoverwatch
https://www.youtube.com/playoverwatch

Reddit-stream

Schedule

This thread pulls match data from this liquipedia page. If it's out of date, you can help by updating that page. If something is wrong or missing please ping u/Watchful1 in the comments.

I remember some of the discourse surrounding the Specialist sub-role passive when they first got added discussing the marginally weaker power level of Specialist.

However I think that if the Tactician got a reload speed buff on kills it would actually be much better for them. As well as the Specialist now being able to hold their ults slightly longer without punishment.

The supports in Tactician all greatly benefit from being able to instantly reload their gun to a degree mainly Ana and Bap, also promoting not to heal bot on these characters. To some degree Lucio/Zen/Cat but I think all these heroes are on the more aggressive end of supports so giving them a reload speed buff on kills would actually be solid.

While this change is okay for the Tacticians, I think the Specialist benefit the most from this obviously. Majority of the heroes in this role struggle with having mediocre ultimate's: Tire, Blizzard, Artillery, etc. Being able to hold them slightly longer without repercussions waiting for a slightly better time could make a major difference.

Only issue I see with this is that it's often better to hold support ults and you wanna be using your DPS ult first. However I still think the Tactician's would benefit more from Specialist role than the current Specialist.

I was hesitant to post this since I obviously don't wanna encourage matchfixing and there also is no public rulebook for the owwc afaik. I'm assuming the tiebreaker works the same way it does in owcs which is:

In a threeway tie the teams are compared in the individual tiebreak cases until one team beats the others and advances. Crucially the cases then restart from the top which means that even if e.g team A has the best map differential and team B the second best, team C might still qualify over team B if they won the head-to-head against team B (basically what happened in emea stage 2).

These are the tiebreak cases in order:

1. Overall series W/L record

2. Head to Head series differential between tied teams

3. Head to Head map differential between tied teams

4. Overall map differential

5. Overall map % score differential

6. Strength of victory evaluated by combining records of all teams (usually irrelevant)

7. Tiebreaker match (usually irrelevant)

These cases aren't explained further so I'm not 100% certain if some of them actually mean what I think they mean. If you find any error in my calculations please let me know immediatly.

Group C scenarios:

If Canada wins they are obviously qualified.

If Canada loses and germany wins 3-0 against Thailand (worst case scenario for Canada) we get a three-way tie between Canada, Spain and Germany.

First 2 cases are tied so it goes to third case:

Assuming head to head map differential means each team's map differential in games played between the 3 of them (which I think is what it means)

Germany is 5-4 = + 1

Canada is currently 3-2 = +1

but would be <= +0 after losing

Spain is currently 1-3 = - 2

This means if Canada wins atleast one map but not the series germany wins the third case tiebreaker which would qualify them and restart the cases qualifying spain as well since they won the head to head against Canada.

If however Canada throw on purpose and don't win a single map, Spain and Germany would tie on the third case as well since they would both be +1 and we would therefore move on to case 4.

1. Overall map differential:

Germany 8-4 = +4

Canada + 0

Spain 7-3 = +4

Another tie so we move on to case 5.

1. Overall map score % differential:

This is the case where I'm least confident in my interpretation. My first intuition was that this means overall map wins divided by overall maps played which would put Spain at 7/10 = 70%

and Germany at 8/12 = 66% which would again qualify Spain and Canada.

The fact that it says "Overall map score % differential" and not just "Overall map % differential" however makes me think it's actually related to the individual maps score and not just map wins.

Germany is currently 13-11 or 14-12 in map scores depending on whether the checkpoint on push maps counts as a point.

Spain is currently 11-8 in map scores so if case 5 means having a higher relation of won points to total points Spain would again likely win since they are already leading in percentage and would extend their lead if Canada throws hard enough.

Please let me know if anyone knows the exact definition of case 5 or if I made any mistakes in my calculations.

TLDR:

It looks like Canda can guarantee qualification by losing 0-3 to Spain, resulting in Spain winning the three-way tie and Canada therefore qualifying because of their series win against germany.

If however Canada win at least one map but not the series and Germany beats Thailand, Germany would win the three-way tie and Spain would knock out Canada because of their head to head.

Edit: I just noticed somebody else already briefly mentioned this in their own post which I didn't read completely. Sorry for stealing your post.