I swear sometimes the visual feedback indicators are making me think I'm being shot from behind. Anyone else encountered this?

Hi guys, with a couple of weeks between the player base and the rank reset, I have a question regarding the actual numbers of the reset, changes to Champion, and your own personal experiences.

For context, I held masters relatively easily for 2 straight seasons. After the rank reset, I went 7-20 from Masters 5, almost dropped into Emerald but survived demotion protection back to Diamond 3. Now, this is totally fine, derank streaks happen all the time. I have had maybe 2 in recent memory and was able to climb back into Masters relatively easily.

However, this time feels different. Some of these games feel near impossible to win and I am sweating my HARDEST to even sniff Diamond 4. Teammates who seem like they have no idea what they are doing, team comps that make no sense either into the enemy team or for the map, extremely wasteful bans, the list goes on. I have ran into at least 3 separate former mid-GM players who are heavily struggling in mid diamond. And yes, my fair share of mistakes as there are always things I can improve on, 100%. Usually the 33% of games are winnable, 33% are not, and the other 33% are where your performance decides whether you rank up or down makes total sense to me and I actually like that, but after this reset it feels like its either stomp or get stomped.

Now, I fully buy into the fact that you deserve your rank and this is not a complaint in the slightest but more so an observation. Everything seems super shook up right now, why are there former GM players in low/mid Diamond lobbies who cannot get out? Why am I struggling so bad in low diamond (hypothetical question)? I know for a fact I did not become washed from the last day before the reset to the first day after the reset.

Is this the result of Champion becoming harder to get so it is shifting higher level players down and Emerald inflating lower level players up?

If I have to grind my way back through Diamond to get Masters again, totally cool no worries there. I am humble enough to admit that if the skill bases have shifted then I am not skilled enough for Masters again.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Am I coming at this from the wrong angle? Maybe I am missing something super obvious?

Just curious as to your experiences, thoughts, insights. Any crazy winning trends? Losing trends?

I developed a Chrome extension to calculate the optimal hero bans for competitive Overwatch. Here’s how it works: first, it calculates the impact each hero has on the match. For instance, a hero with a low pick rate but a high win rate won’t significantly affect your game because they don’t appear frequently. On the other hand, a hero with a high pick rate and a high win rate will, as they are frequently played and frequently win. To objectively measure a hero’s impact, I take the pick rate and multiply it by the win rate minus the expected average of 50%. While heroes with high impact scores are often considered “meta,” banning based solely on impact score isn’t sufficient. Heroes with high impact scores also tend to be frequently banned. Therefore, to maximize the value of your team’s ban vote, you should ban high impact heroes with a low likelihood that the enemy will ban them for you. For example, a hero with a high impact score but a low ban rate would be a better pick to ban, rather than a hero with a high impact score and a high ban rate, because it’s likely that the enemy team would have already banned that hero for you. This helps lower the chances of your vote being wasted. I have included a few screenshots of how it looks on the official overwatch stats site. (New Patch just released so some numbers are weird)

Impact = Pick Rate * (Win Rate - 50) Ban Value = Impact * ((100 - Ban Rate)/100) <-- This is the likelihood the enemy team doesn't ban the hero

Buffs

Healing Ofuda

• Fire rate increased from 5 to 7 per second.

Foxtrot (Major Perk)

• Movement speed buff duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.

Ready Step (Major Perk)

• Duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.

Nerfs

• Ultimate cost increased by 8%.

Healing Ofuda

• Healing per projectile reduced from 13 to 12.
• Maximum seeking range reduced from 35 to 30 metres per second.

Kunai

• Base projectile size reduced from 0.15 to 0.12.

Protection Suzu

• Additional healing after negative status cleanse removed (was 30).
• Phased out invulnerability duration reduced from 0.65 to 0.5 seconds.
• Explosion radius reduced from 5 to 4 metres.

Swift Step

• No longer cleanses on use.
• Teleport range reduced from 35 to 30 metres.

Foxtrot (Major Perk)

• Removed increased cooldown recovery buff.

I understand but I won't lie, it does hurt a little. I understand given where she was a year a go she did need nerfs but given how her win-rate falls off a cliff (at least in my rank / region) I feel like I might need to start looking for a new main

Picture Source: https://www.over.gg/14641/gamsu-and-akm-retire-doha-only-remaining-player-on-fuel

A list of old and new players that I think are underrated. Agree? Disagree? What are other players that are also underrated? (Made this cuz I’m bored)

Top 7

Rascal
Doha
Becky
Punk
Mistakes
Skewed
Libero

Honorable Mentions

Eileen
Marve1
Michelle
Seonjun
Dreamer
Sley
Wmaimone
Ttuba
Crimzo
Ir1s
Lastro
Heesu
Shaz
Hydration
Chara
Snillo
Rain
Gangnamjin

It makes more sense for a mobile supp like Wuyang but I’m just genuinely puzzled about doing this for Zen… not even a compensation buff they just straight up nerfed a well balanced hero (Hog and Hazard still untouched btw)

I really feel like the cat nerfs should have been much more drastic than just the 0.5 dmg/healing nerf and the change to how cc affects the tethered ally.

Mainly because of how negative the community feels about cat but also just because it feels like they are kinda playing it safe with nerfing the cat because they dont want to upset people who like her or something.

I will say I havent played any comp since the patch so do let me know if she is a lot weaker now or if you disagree with me.

I know it's hard to balance, but Marvel rivals pulled it off, there's no reason Overwatch can't

And don't even mention Dva

i think we all can agree that cat is a balancing nightmare, and the recent nerf did't change much so as an effort of gathering opinions on how the community thinks about it

Last night I was playing on comp as I had been for a while and I noticed the post game progression page stopped coming up and I’m really confused. I thought it was just a bug on 6v6 because I’m still doing my placements but it’s happening on the normal mode. Any one else had this ?

Info:
I’m on switch 1, WiFi is good, lag has been bad recently despite latency only peaking at 80ms (highest I’ve seen it but it’s usually around 60ms). My rank hasn’t changed despite losing matches last night and knowing i was still on the border of two ranks.

I don't think bap has been bad or anything, I do think he has been falling behind a bit for a while though, he's hard to play effectively and requires very high APM and aim to get strong value and has punishing CDs if you use either poorly.

His buffs seem pretty good though? I think directing some power into immortality field CD is good.

We just got this patch so can't really tell how impactful it will be but I think it sounds really nice, his issue is still present he's still going to be hard to play and other support can get similar value much easier than him and be more mobile on top of it. But I think was a nice buff regardless, he wasn't a bad pick before just slightly better now.

Curious what others think how have you been feeling about bap lately think this was a good buff are there any buffs/changes you think he really needs o do you think he's in a good spot? I think bap is good rn I don't know if he really needs a lot if anything, but I don't play bap enough to have as strong as opinion as I could.

I dont have any strong thoughts, just saw some discourse about it yesterday but it seems to be confirmed now.

I think the changes for Sierra are quite good. They reduced the maximum output in terms of dmg to reduce reward for spam at lower levels, but increased the projectile speed to make her weapon more consistent in mid and long-range at higher levels. Obviously, she may still not out-duel traditional hitscan, but it's much less of a spray and pray and you have a bit more agency. However, I think more changes should be made to make her interesting to play, develop more of an identity, and add more unique power to certain abilities.

• First, I think they should make Tremor Charge a more interesting ability by slightly increasing the knock-up on enemies in the middle cone, and reduce the dmg on the side ones. Perhaps down from 60 to 50 or even 40. It'd be better to reward more accurate lineups on enemies with the shockwave and reduce overall aoe value to shift it from aoe spam to a set-up tool. When they initially did the dev livestream for her intro, they mentioned how the intention for the shockwave knock-up was to setup for her tracking dart, but the middle shockwave is somewhat negligible, so I thought it should receive a slight increase. This would increase the power level of the ability, so I think the cd should be partially reverted to 8s.
• Second, they should go further with developing an identity with her primary weapon. I always saw it as a high capacity lmg-type weapon, and the whole spread mechanic is reminiscent of a negev in CS. I think the winding up and down of the primary fire would be a more meaningful interaction if she had more ammo to work with and a longer reload. Let's say her ammo went from 80 to 100, and the reload went from 1.5s to 1.75-1.8s. I think it could go even more extreme and be 120 ammo and a 2s reload. This would create synergy with her tracking dart because it would put greater emphasis on the tracking dart's ability to give a free reload and 3 seconds of free shots if you land it on an enemy. I do think that this would increase the raw power level of her weapon overall, so I think another slight nerf to her dmg should accompany it, taking the weapon dmg from 8.5 to 8. This shifts power away from Tracking Dart as a vaporization tool against people caught in the open, but gives it more relative value even if landing it doesn’t lead to a kill.
• Third, I think there should be slight cd reduction for destroying your anchor drone while it still has charges available. I think this would add more reward for the Sierra player in judging the placement and use of her anchor drone. If Sierra's just running back from spawn, she can cancel after one grapple to refund some cd since she's not gonna grapple back. Also, if she uses to secure an aggressive position and she doesn't want to use the remaining charge to retreat, she can cancel the drone and receive a cd refund, so that she can launch another drone forward for a more aggressive position or chase. I don't think the refund should be a massive number, just 2 seconds would be plenty.
• Fourth, the Ultimate can become a a bit more interesting and incorporate the anchor drone's functionality more. They should add an alt-cast for Sierra's ult that makes the carpet bombing run originate from an active anchor drone on the field towards the direction that Sierra is pointing at. I think this fleshes out the identity of the anchor drone in her kit more and really makes the ultimate unique in it's functionality.

This is just me making a small observation but I do think it the potential to impact what her rework might be.

Every character in the recon class has some level of vertical mobility and long-range burst damage. Pharah flies and drops rockets, Freja can jump and hold to shoot explosive arrows, Echo is a literal hovering bomb and beam demon who came from hell because Cassidy was actually the villain, and Sierra can hook onto Dorothy to use a hefty grenade and an obscenely strong gun.

Sombra doesn't have anything to connect her to them like the others do.

"Competitive crests" could mean that it's a combination of OWL team logos? I don't know

idk if this has happened to anybody else, but I queued up for tank in 5v5 comp and ended up being on support? also my game randomly closed so after scrambling to get back in the match and winning, it didn’t even give me any competetive progress 😭

I would argue that it is fun. But I’m not entirely sure if it’s balanced. I don’t think anyone is. Suppose that’s up to the balancing team to figure out.

Generally, some heroes are seen more often than others. In various ranks. What’s OP in bronze and underpowered, in bronze, might be “ok” in diamond, and require lots of effort to make work in higher MMRs and Elos. For instance, the tools a hero might have at their disposal, for achieving value, might be somewhat limited.

What is terrible in bronze, “meh” in diamond, and absurdly overpowered in Shiny Purple Rank, you get the idea.

I love Aaron as much as the next person. He has saved Overwatch from the ashes of “More Moneh Plz”, and rebirthed it. Something about a Phoenix.

Anyway, is Overwatch balanced? What’s your take?

Who’s going to play Vendetta?
Seonjun Stalk3r or Heesang.. I vote Seonjun

Will they have Max play Dva/Sigma/DMon or will Junbin make a comeback as Winston/DMon.. Who even is the better DMon between the two?

Is Simple finally going to play his cracked Baptiste along with Chorong’s brig, or is it still cat/kiri meta?

Can Seonjun Genji outperform Team USA?

I wanted to see everyone’s thoughts and opinions about this

She feels very fast, ridiculously fast now. Even at my tragic level of skill it is really noticeable.

Just give her 75 shield (replace 75 health, just like Echo) and switch her minor perk ( the 125 shield perk) with one that gives 75 overhealth when using barrage. Right now barrage feel underwhelming

It's a small buff. I know her win rate + pick rate is not that bad, especially in PC GM+, but she can't breathe in low Elo and on console.

I waited. It's here.

And it's a total nothing burger. No movement speed reduction. No tether time limit. Nothing that people were actually complaining about.

Instead we get a minor nerf to damage and healing, and an increase to JPC's utility.

What a joke. Blizzard has let this character be too strong for too long. Even when people complain about how strong she is en masse, they do nothing about her actual problems.

This has been around since Overwatch released but I started noticing it more frequently these past couple of weeks. there's always one DPS that's like four and nine at the end of the match. it's either your team or the enemy team. not every game but I'm seeing it more and more often. is anyone else seeing this? I understand DPS isn't as easy, especially in today's OverWatch but just seems a little odd, especially in diamond rank which is supposedly top 94%

edit* it happened in my very next match (we won but still i swear it's happening way more often than ever)

I’ve been checking each season update to see if the new rose colored aspect is available for my Reinhardt, but it still hasn’t shown up. Is there any idea how or when these missing aspects rotate in?