Overwatch drabble

Before I start, I want you to know:

  • I play on console, in particular the XBox One.
  • In terms of hours played I am still quite a rookie.
  • I call myself bronze-tier to be conservative. I only did placements once in season 16, and I placed low silver, by a hair.

So I picked up OW again after many months. I stopped shortly before Sigma and role queue was introduced due to changes in my habits and the loneliness of solo-queuing on console, in Asian servers. It was a period when OW felt like it was dying (20+ minutes queuing for quickplay.)

Then I didn’t pick up the controller again because, to be honest, OW is something of a destructive habit for me. I don’t just pick it up and put it down after 1-2 hours. It bleeds into Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night sessions with beer, often ending at midnight at earliest, or after a losing streak when my friends start to lose interest and excuse themselves. It’s a refreshing thing to do when I feel like I’ve lived the last few weeks a bit too regimented, but for the life of me I have trouble moderating it.

So I picked up the controller again while Ben and Pat were playing and I told them to expect nothing from me. In spite of myself, I noticed what I hope are improvements in my general play:

Game sense

  • My game sense is so much better. I am a bit calmer after the first weekend and don’t constantly shriek or shout “f–k me” on the party chat.
  • As Lucio or Mercy, I die less frequently due to being solo-killed because I’m better at reacting to enemy fire and ducking into cover. In capture maps I find myself on fire a little more often as Lucio just because I survive team fights better and stay alive longer.
  • I started OW with Mercy. Lucio began to overtake her because I didn’t have a good sense of who to use. My thought process was—payload map: Lucio; capture map: Lucio; attack map: Lucio. Defense map with shield tanks: Mercy. Needless to say, this thought process lacked the flexibility and consideration for team comp.
  • Now I start paying attention to how my teammates are behaving or dying:
    • If I find that I’m always separated from my teammates and keep dying without healing anyone, or my teammates keep getting picked before I can even reach them, then I switch to Lucio.
    • Conversely, if I find that we consistently lose team fights or all keep dying on the point I switch to Mercy to enable my teammates more.
  • Map sense isn’t good. Pat had a good laugh when he saw me Valk during overtime defense in Paris and proceed to get lost in one of the rooms instead of getting to the point. However, I have much more sense now to seek alternate routes especially when the enemy team seems fixated on the choke. This worked well for Orisa. See below.
  • I have a much better sense of when a team fight is lost. I stop healing and retreat (a bit hard when you’re Mercy and have only one teammate left to GA to. Especially when it’s like McCree or Ana.)
  • My aim is better and I kill more people (assists) even if they’re halfway across the map. I press the trigger far less frequently whereas I used to just blindly shoot at the choke. I realise this is a bad thing to do because it gives away your position and it’s always good to have the element of surprise before a team fight.

Mercy

‘Victory Goddess Mercy’ by chibi-oneechan. DeviantArt. My current Mercy skin.
  • After watching a VOD review of a diamond-tier Mercy, as well as a video by a Mercy player, I got wistful and wondered how I could use Mercy more to enable my teammates
  • As I said, I watched a VOD review by SVB of a diamond Mercy, and what I noticed is that she stuck to Pharah and spent almost no time pocketing tanks like Orisa. This was counter-intuitive for me because I was taught a play style of pocketing your shield tanks (bunker comp). Apparently you don’t always stick to shield tanks, especially when they don’t seem to know how to make space, inversely, when they overextend. Both are just feeding.
  • Blue beam pa more. Niandra shared that her default is the blue beam and switch to heals only when there’s damage sustained. To heal when there’s nothing to heal is a missed opportunity for ult charge.
  • Valk to push instead of being used reactively. I got a shot caller endorsement in attack on Anubis as Mercy , which I think is due to my using the blue beam more and Valking at the last push which helped my teammates establish themselves on the point. Switched to blue beam as soon as everyone was safe, which I think helped clean up the team fight.
  • Pat told me the next step is to learn Mercy jump consistently.
  • I didn’t know that you can use jump to rise and crouch to descend during Valk. All this time I would furiously pan my camera skywards and landwards during Valk.
  • I seldom rez now since I’ve identified the many times it would be a waste—when a team fight is lost, when a team fight is won, and when a teammate gets picked alone by some rando flanker. I think the best time to use rez is during a team fight and during overtime. Due to this my rezes are often risky and fail. But when they succeed the payout is wonderful.

Lucio

‘Lucio’ by Raichiyo33. DeviantArt. My kingdom for a Lucio skin.
  • Lucio is my first love. Sometimes I feel guilty using him in boop maps because I feel like I’m depriving a potential boop master from picking Lucio. I wall ride much more frequently and, in a similar vein to Mercy, only switch on healing when a team fight starts or damage is sustained.
  • I thoroughly enjoy booping people, not for environmental kills but to disorient them or waste their cooldowns. D.Va boost to the point? One boop and suddenly she’s unable to contest and she’s de-meched. Moira ulting? Boop and half her ult is wasted. Roadhog hooks me? Deny him the kill. Rein charges in? Punish him by denying him his bearings. I try to do this with Doomfist but they recover a bit quickly with uppercut.
  • Booping for environment kills makes me tunnel vision and play recklessly. I don’t do it unless an opportunity is sitting right in front of me.
  • Before, I would use sound barrier proactively to start a push. Recently I’ve used it more often to survive a D.Va bomb. Twice I’ve caused an enemy D.Va to kill no one with her ult, even though she got a clear shot (for example, middle of the point in Busan). Each time Ben has called it nice. I only do it because I cannot seem to duck for cover whenever it’s high noon or when D.Va ults. (How do you react in those 2-3 seconds??)

Healers

  • I try to be more aware of the second healer. Are they primary? Are they outhealing me? If so, then I can spend less time healing and give my team more utility. When I see a Soldier or Reaper I also mentally note that they don’t need me as much as my other teammates do.
  • I admit role queue made me a bit insecure and I hate not having gold healing, lol. I also get far fewer endorsements because before role queue I was often the only healer in my team and it was disproportionately appreciated.
  • It’s refreshing to have someone else have your back. When I notice yellow crosses on my screen, or that I’m silver in healing it means I can rely on the other healer and peel away from the point / choke to assist my teammates who are flanking.

Foray into tanks

One-trick players get so much flak but I know players like SVB who peaked at GM / Top 500 just from playing tank primarily. When he tried placements in DPS he was squarely gold and rose to platinum rather quickly, despite his admitted weak aim. This is because he carried a mature game sense, which helped him play DPS a bit decently.

Anyway, I felt it was time for me to flex into another role. DPS was out of the question since it really isn’t my play style. I asked Ben which tank to start with, and he said Orisa. (I had half-expected him to say D.Va because I consider her a beginner character due to her survivability and high mobility.)

I thought that Orisa would be a rigid character since you could not possibly fit her kit into all maps, but I was wrong.

Orisa

  • Like I mentioned, I think my game sense is better because I was surprisingly doing well and winning games during my first few matches as Orisa. I even got endorsements a few times.
  • I find her primary fire extremely satisfying. It feels odd playing out of support and not dying at your first contact with a DPS or off-tank, or a DPS support. And actually killing people consistently.
  • Her cooldowns still catch me off-guard and many times Ben tells me to drop the shield when I can’t.
  • When I see three teammates all contesting the point, I put up a shield for myself and harass enemy DPS off-point to deny them good positioning. Also to pick them, if I don’t panic.
  • When an enemy player comes into close contact I’m as good a dead. I can’t react quickly to kill them and I suppose my hitbox is huge.
  • What I’m doing right is I make space. I don’t sit around at the choke which is what I used to come to expect from Rein and Orisa during attack in bronze hell. It’s interesting how singular enemy teams think sometimes when everyone is focussed at the choke and I sort of get into the backline and be annoying for a few seconds before I die, but buying those seconds for my teammates to break through choke. I feel like this isn’t the best use of Orisa’s kit, but oh well.
  • I find halt unsatisfying because its AoE is so small and its disruption so short.
  • I haven’t gotten the hand of fortify and the few times I used it well and got a ‘nice’ from Ben or Pat it was because I panicked and pressed the wrong button. A third of the time I mix up and use fortify instead of dropping a shield.
  • My support instinct is so strong that when an enemy D.Va dropped her ult on the point in Nepal my first instinct was to hide behind the pillar, and my teammates died.

So yeah, I’m typing this on a Monday morning because I’m still riding the high of the blur that was the weekend of Overwatch and cooking beef bourguignon between matches. I can’t wait to pick up the controller again.

Thoughts? Feeback? Tell me below.