Overwatch Ladder Season 21 - Week 3 Bans
Before i get into what i'm looking for with this week's bans I want to say that with this week's hero pool i'm more confident than ever that blizzard is using hero pools as i originally thought - to gather data on heroes and how to better balance the game. The issue with any experimental card or PTR data is that we don't get a lot of players playing on it and; lets finally agree, people don't try as hard in other game modes. We need to see what the best players do and how players of all ranks play when faced with specific challenges. It provides much more useful data that we can act on. They mentioned aggressive patching, we haven't seen anything that resembles that or any patches that target meta heroes, which Jeff mentioned in his developer update. My only guess is that we're going to get a large patch after all of the hero pool information is gathered. I'm hoping for the best.
It's easy to talk about this weeks bans, its targeted at hitscan but what data specifically are we looking to gain from this? Before i start, in the few days I've played this has been the most diverse set of heroes I've ever seen in top 500 games.
Phara and Ashe usage primarily. There has been a lot of talk about how these heroes don't see enough play, even on the forums they joke that to make ashe viable they'd have to nerf widow,hanzo,soldier and mccree. Well they did three of the four. With Ashe as our primary hit scan we can see how she fairs against double shield and without her dynamite getting eaten by a D.va.
We can expect the same with phara, with few hit scans available we'll see how the ashe/phara match up works and how much pressure non-hit scan heroes can put on a phara. This is great information to get when you're just about to release a second flying hero. I've always wanted a phara rework, because if you had a flying hero i would think it would be much different than what phara is. Phara is a bit too dependent on support heroes and in most duels she'll easily lose. I know she serves a different role than duels but I think a DPS hero that doesn't have a chance at dealing with other DPS heroes at all in a one on one situation won't have a place in the game. They must provide some immense utility or they won't see much play. I'll save my rework ideas for another post.
The last thing subject i want to focus on is overall play-ability of overwatch. I've seen every single hero played in these two days. (aside from bastion) Double shield is popular but I've seen a lot of dive. Even as a junkrat play I've only seen phara here and there instead of every game like everyone thought. Not to mention so many torb players, he's a bit viable now if the enemy is trying to run any type of non-hitscan flanker. Hog, ball, winston, zarya, i've seen all types of tank compositions and have won and loss with them. It's great, i know there's chaos because no one knows whats meta but i've yet to see any patch/hero pool have this effect where people are trying random shit and winning.
Another side effect - Maps that seemed terrible (horizon lunar) now seem viable with the lack of powerful hitscan. Open maps now feel open and more flanking and play in the open is viable. I remember on point two of blizzard world being on the high ground with a Bridgette and thinking, if any hit scan was in the game this wouldn't be possible. More strats can be used per map because of the major overpowered heroes are no longer in the game. Maps like Junkertown, Havana and Rialto all now see more strategies based on what the team wants to run, instead of what they have to run.
Even when losing it still felt good to play, it feels like the early years of OW.
I do have one want from this weeks data, I wish i could see the heatmaps of where player kills/deaths and most of the fighting happens. I think it would provide an immense amount of data on how the maps are played differently and would be great insight on map design and also the effect of hitscans on each map. I'll probably start a thread up on the OW forums and hopefully they see it amidst the complaints and bitching that's normally there.
It's easy to talk about this weeks bans, its targeted at hitscan but what data specifically are we looking to gain from this? Before i start, in the few days I've played this has been the most diverse set of heroes I've ever seen in top 500 games.
Phara and Ashe usage primarily. There has been a lot of talk about how these heroes don't see enough play, even on the forums they joke that to make ashe viable they'd have to nerf widow,hanzo,soldier and mccree. Well they did three of the four. With Ashe as our primary hit scan we can see how she fairs against double shield and without her dynamite getting eaten by a D.va.
We can expect the same with phara, with few hit scans available we'll see how the ashe/phara match up works and how much pressure non-hit scan heroes can put on a phara. This is great information to get when you're just about to release a second flying hero. I've always wanted a phara rework, because if you had a flying hero i would think it would be much different than what phara is. Phara is a bit too dependent on support heroes and in most duels she'll easily lose. I know she serves a different role than duels but I think a DPS hero that doesn't have a chance at dealing with other DPS heroes at all in a one on one situation won't have a place in the game. They must provide some immense utility or they won't see much play. I'll save my rework ideas for another post.
The last thing subject i want to focus on is overall play-ability of overwatch. I've seen every single hero played in these two days. (aside from bastion) Double shield is popular but I've seen a lot of dive. Even as a junkrat play I've only seen phara here and there instead of every game like everyone thought. Not to mention so many torb players, he's a bit viable now if the enemy is trying to run any type of non-hitscan flanker. Hog, ball, winston, zarya, i've seen all types of tank compositions and have won and loss with them. It's great, i know there's chaos because no one knows whats meta but i've yet to see any patch/hero pool have this effect where people are trying random shit and winning.
Another side effect - Maps that seemed terrible (horizon lunar) now seem viable with the lack of powerful hitscan. Open maps now feel open and more flanking and play in the open is viable. I remember on point two of blizzard world being on the high ground with a Bridgette and thinking, if any hit scan was in the game this wouldn't be possible. More strats can be used per map because of the major overpowered heroes are no longer in the game. Maps like Junkertown, Havana and Rialto all now see more strategies based on what the team wants to run, instead of what they have to run.
Even when losing it still felt good to play, it feels like the early years of OW.
I do have one want from this weeks data, I wish i could see the heatmaps of where player kills/deaths and most of the fighting happens. I think it would provide an immense amount of data on how the maps are played differently and would be great insight on map design and also the effect of hitscans on each map. I'll probably start a thread up on the OW forums and hopefully they see it amidst the complaints and bitching that's normally there.