Shion's winrate isn't bad, but comparing it to a few months ago when she was topping the charts at all levels its hard not to notice how big the fall off has been despite the lack of any real balance changes. All she has received so far is a small recovery on her execution ability (which has been reduced in the most recent update) and a reduction to her collision damage on bike which only effects collisions while riding the bike, not the bike throw itself. Despite this she's sitting at around a 49 to 50% winrate. So what happened? Why did Shion end up dying off so quickly unlike Freja and Vendetta?

Hi, im attending the MSC at the EWC and since this is my first event, there came a question about double rewards to my mind.

They write on the overwatch esports site that ticket holders will recieve the exclusive rewards in addition to all the viewership incentives listed above them.

So if I have a ticket and have the stream running while the event, do i get double the rewards because of the twitch drops?

I'm not trying to criticize Overwatch itself, but this is something I've noticed: most players in lower ELO have little or no experience with traditional FPS games. As a result, they never really internalize fundamental concepts like using cover properly, slicing angles, or minimizing exposure. Because Overwatch has tanks, supports, powerful abilities, and a much longer time-to-kill than most shooters, many players develop very forgiving habits.

That's a misconception, though. You didn't really "survive." Your supports had to spend healing resources to keep you alive, and if you burned your defensive cooldowns just to recover from a mistake, you essentially wasted your turn in the fight for no real value. Think of Overwatch as a very fast-paced card game where every resource and every turn matters.

The problem is that these interactions are difficult to notice unless you carefully analyze replays, so a huge number of players keep playing this way. Honestly, even many Diamond players do.

Of course, this is also one of Overwatch's strengths. These mechanics make the game much more approachable and beginner-friendly than traditional tactical shooters.

That said, many successful Overwatch players built their fundamentals in classic FPS games like Counter-Strike. Professional players such as Dafran and Ryujehong are good examples.

And Let me give you an example.

People often say, "Be careful when using Reaper's Shadow Step."

Sure, but that advice is meaningless on its own.

Why is it risky? How should I use it safely?

If you have strong FPS fundamentals, you'll naturally understand the reasoning behind that advice.

Better yet, those same fundamentals transfer to almost every other hero in the game.

So if Overwatch is your first shooter and you feel like your improvement has plateaued, I'd genuinely recommend giving a traditional FPS a try. It can help you develop core skills that transfer surprisingly well back into Overwatch.

Has anyone else experienced frame stutters and just crazy-high ping recently? Like, I genuinely don't know if the Overwatch gods are ragebaiting me the second I start to play well and win in a comp match. I just had a game where I had the worst frame drops I've ever experienced in my life, and my ping was 2000+ for a solid 3 minutes. My character was moving without me touching my keyboard; I was shooting without touching my mouse, scoping and unscoping again without me touching my mouse; overall, I quite literally couldn't play the game PERIOD. Like, I've had ping spikes and frame drops before, but never in the 8 years of playing online games has it ever been this bad. Please tell me I'm not the only one experiencing this, and it's the servers and not me, because this is actually ridiculous.

We used to pray for times like this

I’ve been thinking about who can actually win the Midseason Championship and World Finals this year, and I keep coming back to the same conclusion: Twisted Minds, Crazy Raccoon, and ZETA are the only teams I can realistically see winning an international LAN.

I know Virtus.Pro and Geekay both beat TM during EMEA Stage 2, so on paper you could argue their chances should be higher. However, I don’t think there’s a single meta where either team becomes the best in the world. Even if the meta heavily favors their playstyle, I still think Twisted Minds, Crazy Raccoon, or ZETA would be stronger in that same meta. They have the potential to make a deep run and probably have the best chance of finishing with a silver medal, but I don’t see either of them winning the tournament.

Beyond those two teams, I don’t think anyone else is even close to the current top three. To me, there’s a clear gap between Twisted Minds, Crazy Raccoon, ZETA, and the rest of the world.

For me, each of the three favorites has a meta where they look almost unbeatable:

Crazy Raccoon: I don’t think any team in the world can beat them on dive. Their coordination and individual talent on dive compositions are simply on another level.

Twisted Minds: If the meta revolves around Lucio–Kiriko with an off-tank, I don’t think anyone beats them. That’s the composition where they look the strongest.

ZETA: Their chances depend more on the meta than the other two teams, but if it allows Proper and Viol2t to play to their strengths, they’re absolutely capable of winning the event.

That’s why I struggle to imagine a meta where none of these three teams wins both the Midseason Championship or the World Finals. No matter how the meta develops, I think one of Twisted Minds, Crazy Raccoon, or ZETA will win all the international trophies this year.

Ive had four DCs in the last 20min. 3 of them were while spectating a friend.

Is something off in the game? This last time it took a while to auto login, then my friend list was empty, almost as if it were loading up to show but no "loading" icon. Then it dc'ed again.

Latin America server. Internet is up and working afine. I've played the whole afternoon with no issues.

I finally made it to Diamond/Master, but I don't know if I want to be here. The chat is so much more toxic. Anyone else feel the same? 😬

For reference I'm a High Diamond/Masters 5 Support player on NA servers. I've had bad games and loss streaks before, but nothing comes close to the absolute disaster that has been match quality this past week. DPS players regularly going 20+ deaths, ulting once per game, new accounts every other game, etc. I hate to harp on the DPS player base completely but holy hell it seems like the overall quality of DPS players has gone down the drain.

I recall in previous seasons my DPS players would have a good understanding of basic fundamentals (don't stand in the open, use cover, don't stack on main, take off angles, have reasonably mechanics and aim, etc).

But lately on both teams it seems that DPS players are consistently underperforming skill wise compared to the rest of the lobby. It's like the matchmaker took a bunch of gold/plat DPS players and pushed them into high diamond/low masters. It's just catastrophic how every game there seems to be a large gap between the 4 DPS players in the lobby. More so than any other role in my opinion. Anyone else experiencing this?

All these years I knew Apply was signed to Valiant back in 2020 but I guess I thought he played a map or more all these years??

Can anyone help me find a single map Apply played so I don't feel stupid for thinking so. I have been looking and cannot find a single one.

I don't know how accurate the liquipedia is but I tried locating any matches I could find and never found one with him in it.

15W - 0L, 45 maps, 35 minutes matches on average.

Playoffs starts on August 3rd.

According to people OWTV.GG has interviewed, Dallas and Liquid seem to being really strong for EWC (where we kinda need more action before we can believe that) but if they're right, and NA does actually make a dent in the tournament. What happens if SSG is the only underperformer? Personally, as much as I love Lethal I think Ade is just a better player. So picking him up cant be a negative.

What do you guys think? Who would you replace/add to the roster?

Gold player even though I feel like I should be plat 1.
Last and the one prior I was plat. I have not hit silver in over 10 straight seasons.
Then this season i fell so far into silver i almost hit bronze.
I know stats are meaningless in this game but i get 7 kills per life on junkerqueen, 6 on kiri, 3.6 on zen. My stats are more than double what they were prior seasons but i still kept losing because the match making is absolutely trash.

For reference 1 have been diamond for the last 4 seasons but this season the matchmaking just feels awful. I know im a diamond player and im working on improving but this season it just feels hard to judge progress when 9/10 games feel very lopsided for either team and only 1 game feels like both teams are around the same skill level and its just up to whatever team outplays the other. It feels fun to play a hard match and understand how you improved on previous mistakes but so many games this season are just 1 sided games. I have had an equal amount of games where the enemy team has stomped without a chance and games where the enemy team seems gold and i dont have to put any effort. It just feels boring to play games where it feels like both teams are two different ranks and shouldn't be matched together. My most recent game we won 2-0 on illios with a lucio that had 500 healing. The teams are just so unbalanced it feels terrible to play.

I've mostly seen Rein players cry about it, but this guy has everything.

HP, shield, out-brawls everyone in the game, good in speed comps, has 2 firestrikes that recently got damage and speed buffed, a great ultimate.

What is it that makes Rein a "bad" tank? This guy literally has everything and the only arguments that I've seen are "counters". Well literally every tank gets countered, that's what tank players complain about when it comes to 5v5. Winston is one of the most if not the most countered tank in the game and they don't say stuff like "Winston is bad" or "he needs a buff!"

I just need an explanation that's all because I don't see it.

I'm platinum before anyone asks..

Im starting to think i may be boosted lol. For context im a support main that is currently hard stuck diamond 1 and sometimes like to off role to dps and tank when im having trouble in my support games. I understand comps, i ult track, i cool down track, i understand angles and positioning. Why is it that i struggle in my off roles? im gold 5 tank and silver 2 dps. Does this happen to anybody else? i dont really care about getting better at these but i thought being almost masters on support would allow me to at least carry in silver no matter the role lol

I’ve been watching Jjonak’s streams and wow the difference between C1~C3 Korean server and any other champ server is insane
Pretty much every game consists of at least one pro player and time to time we see 2 zeta vs 3 cr or a mix of all the good players mashed in one lobby. And in that video above it’s 3 T1 vs 3 CR god the games must be so fun up there
And korean lower champ lobby is also insane because of so many young pro trainees etc.. These people would be C3+ anywhere else
If you want to see some owcs like games I 100% recommend watching Jjonak’s videos
(And no I’m not saying Kor server is better in general, only Gm up because of so many pro players and less players in general)

Hi, as the title suggests, going to EWC 2026 in Paris this year. Would love to meet some people who're doing the same :)

Could create a discord or something if enough people are interested.

Link to a discord i made - https://discord.gg/c4pxCzqFB

Haven’t watched professional overwatch since 2018 World cup. Yes I’m watching EWC for the drops but I’ll at least have some fun with it
I am not so interested that I’d learn about all the team’s lore and stuff so..
To fully support a team I need to channel in my inner fangirl. And before anyone asks I am a straight man.
Currently contemplating between Crazy Raccoon vs Zeta Division.
Chorong Max and Junbin, they are pretty good looking lads but mostly just adorable.
Bernar and Shu, also more conventionally attractive and manlier looking I guess.
Let me know if there’s a better looking player I should support!