The Overwatch Base of Operations - Victory through Unity!

[Valicious 572]

TEAM MONOWATCH HEAVEN

 

Wanna play with fellow MHers? Here's a handy Google Docs spreadsheet.  Add your battle.net ID.

 

Main - FAQs, Tips, and Misc - Maps - Heroes - Competitive Play

 

Cinematic Trailer

 

Gameplay Trailer - GameplaGameplay Trailer 2

 

Quote

Soldiers. Scientists. Adventurers. Oddities.

In a time of global crisis, an international task force of heroes banded together to restore peace to a war-torn world:

OVERWATCH.

It ended the crisis and helped to maintain peace in the decades that followed, inspiring an era of exploration, innovation, and discovery. But after many years, Overwatch's influence waned, and it was eventually disbanded.

Overwatch is gone… but the world still needs heroes.

 

Overwatch is Blizzard's 6v6 team based shooter, similar to Team Fortress 2, out on PC, Xbox One and PS4. Each platform will have its own servers and queues, so you will not be able to play with or against anyone playing on another system. There are 21 unique heroes across 12 maps where you are attacking or defending points, escorting or stopping a payload, a combination of the two, or capturing points in a round-based King of the Hill mode. New Heroes and Maps will be added as free content updates.

Lore
The game takes place many years after the Omnic Crisis, a war between Humanity and sentient robots, Omnics, has ended. Overwatch, starting as a task force created to end the Crisis, ballooned into a massive organization that lasted long after the war, helping to guide the world into a new golden age. However, after many years of free reign and no oversight, factions within Overwatch began to splinter, leading to an unfavorable view by the general public. Blackwatch, the black ops faction of Overwatch, came to light and their actions led to the eventual shut down of the agency. Many years later, things are starting to creep out of the shadows, leading many Overwatch agents to question their current status.

Comprised of a refreshingly diverse cast of characters and locations, the game will have an overarching story, even if its not presented in the way Blizzard normally does. They have currently announced an online comic series, a self published printed graphic novel series and animated shorts similar to the cinematic trailer posted above. The online comics will generally focus on one or two heroes, the graphic novel series will focus on the original Overwatch task force and their first mission, and each animated short is currently planned to be a contained mini-story. They showed a small Behind the Scenes video at Blizzcon 2015 if you're interested in learning a little more about the shorts.

 

Setup

Shorts:

Cinematic Trailer Winston, Widowmaker, Reaper and Tracer
Recall Winston, Reaper and Tracer
Alive Widowmaker and Tracer
Dragons Hanzo and Genji
Hero Soldier: 76

 

Domics:

Train Hopper McCree
Dragon Slayer Reinhardt
Going Legit Junkrat and Roadhog
A Better World Symmetra
Mission Statement Pharah
Destroyer Torbjorn

 

Progression and Cosmetic Items
Progression is account based, will be 100% cosmetic with no power gained, and there is no Hero leveling. Each game will earn you account experience, and each account level will get you a Loot Box. The quickest way to summarize the system is if you're familiar with Hearthstone's pack and Collection setup. Each Loot Box will contain 4 items which will be something from the following:

Profile Icons

Hero Skins

Emotes

Sprays

Voice Lines

Victory Poses

Highlight Intros

Credits

Any duplicate items will automatically be turned into Credits, which can be spent to unlock specific items if you're luck isn't rolling that specific skin or spray you want. 

 

One of the coolest cosmetic unlocks are the Highlight Intros, replacements for your Play of the Game intro scene.

 

Streamers and Videos of Note
If you're looking for raw, unedited gameplay, here's some suggested streamers to keep an eye on and videos worth checking out.

A_Seagull He's a very skilled player, previously playing TF2 competitively. He plays primarily offensive heroes, though does dabble in other roles. Very interactive with his chat and does not have, nor currently plan to get, a facecam.

 

Unit Lost - Great British Gaming has a fantastic youtube channel with guides for each hero, map, and general gameplay tips.

I'd recommend adding OneAmongstMany to your list of recommended viewing. He's been doing some really cool videos on the heroes and looking at the game from a competitive standpoint for a while now. He also has a twitch stream.

http://www.twitch.tv/kudochop is another good person to include, he's maybe the best Hanzo player right now, and has been getting started on some scrims lately.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Valicious

[Valicious 572]

Main : F.A.Q.s, Tips and Miscellaneous : Maps : Heroes : Competitive Play

Bastion's wrecking my team, how do I-

 

If I need to know exactly what {Hero X}'s {Ability 1} does, where can I find out?
If you're looking for specific numbers on almost anything to do with the Heroes, there's Overwatch Infinity which has all sorts of information worth looking at. Check out the What Symbols Mean tab, since they clarify damage falloff, ability to headshot, attack speed and other important bits of information using specific symbols under the numbers. If you want just raw numbers and information on more than heroes, take a look at the OverSheet which links to spreadsheets focused on heroes, maps and a number of others.

How can I mute a player in my match? / How do I leave voice and/or chat channels?
Pressing P in a match will bring up the Groups menu, where you can toggle the various Voice and Chat channels on or off, as well as individually mute people in the game.

 

What does Endgame Voting do?

The only mechanical thing it does is add the player to your Preferred players list. The matchmaker will keep this list in mind while assigning games and try to put you in games with players on the list.
Otherwise, it's a positive enforcement tool. Did you do well? Great! Here's a callout for your peers to let you know if they think you did well too.

What do these colors on my health bar mean?

There are three main types of health in Overwatch.

Plain white is standard Health. It will not regenerate on its own. You can only get it back by getting healed, picking up health packs, standing by the payload (10HP/sec) or returning to a spawn point (100HP/sec).

Light blue is a Shield. In addition to the methods for restoring Health, Shield points will begin to quickly regenerate (~20-25/sec) if you have not taken damage in the last three seconds. Some characters have an innate shield, like Symmetra and Zarya, but most do not.

Yellow is Armor. Armor will reduce damage taken while it remains. Like health, it will not regenerate on its own, though you can get it back in the same methods as Health. For attacks that deal 10 or more damage, Armor will reduce it by a flat 5 points. For attacks that deal less than 10 damage, Armor will halve the damage. For example, Tracer normally does up to 240 damage in one second before having to reload, 6 damage per round with 40 rounds. Armor will reduce that to 120, 3 damage per round. Goon Lady Naga put together a spreadsheet that shows armor reduction against every Hero, along with a quick way to see just how effective it can be.

There are also two secondary types of health.
Orange is Armor provided by Torbjorn's Armor Pack. It works exactly the same as regular armor, except in that it can only be restored by picking up another Armor Pack.

Dark Blue is a Shield provided by Lucio's Sound Barrier ult. It behaves opposite the way a normal Shield would in that it is quickly lost over time (100/sec).

What do those numbers next to my Eliminations mean? / What is that bar beneath my health?

The numbers with a flame icon you see attached to things like eliminations, objective contributions and healing are On Fire points. They contribute to the On Fire bar under your health and once you reach the point marked by the triangle you will have a fiery halo around your character portrait on the Score screen. Being On Fire has no mechanical benefit, though it is a factor to consider when choosing a target to focus on. On Fire points will decay rapidly, so you cannot stay On Fire the whole match just from a single good ultimate. When attached to an Elimination, the number is the percentage of damage you contributed to killing that player.

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There are a lot of audio cues in Overwatch, and it can be confusing at times picking out the more important ones. To start with, you'll want to learn all of the heroes Ultimate cues. You will likely pick them up over time, but if you want clean examples, you're having a hard time figuring out who's who, or can't distinguishing between enemy and ally cues, Learn Overwatch has a couple videos worth checking out.

Part Two

 

I'd also highly recommend checking out his footsteps videos as well.

Part Two

 

Rocket Jumps allow you to make higher and longer jumps than you normally can, allowing for greater mobility. Junkrat's mine is the easiest one to use, by design, and worth messing around with a little if you're not familiar with rocket jumping from another game. Next is Pharah;

 

These two videos are worth checking out once you're a little more confident in your aim. The first goes over each Hero's hitbox for being headshot by Hanzo, with a little bit of Widowmaker. The second goes over other projectile-based weapons, as well as moving enemies.

Part Twp

 

There are some hero-specific options under the Gameplay menu worth taking a look at. This video goes over who has them and what they do.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

On the Media page of the Overwatch Battle.net site are Reference Kit .pdfs. They have detailed information if you're looking to recreate any of the heroes with cosplay, fanart, or any other situation you'd like to have the exact color of D.Va's mech. This includes closeups of the character, their weapons, detail shots of things like decals and tattoos, color information and more.

 

Edited July 1, 2016 by Valicious

[Valicious 572]

Main : F.A.Q.s, Tips and Miscellaneous : Maps : Heroes : Competitive Play

Maps
There are currently 12 different maps located around the world. They are one of four different game modes: Assault, Escort, Assault/Escort, or Control. All four modes are very objective focused, and there is no Deathmatch mode aside from the Skirmish mode which you may be placed in while searching for a match, or available in Custom matches. While time based, the modes also have overtime, where a team has a grace period to continue their assault as long as they hold their objective. Once they lose the objective, they have a very short time to regain it or else they will lose the round.

Each map has its own unique layout, and has many side paths and alternate routes in addition to the main path. Many of these require a hero to use a unique movement ability to get around, above or under the enemy team. Exploration and experimentation will pay off in huge returns, as will learning the location of health packs and sight lines. There are also many easter eggs referencing the world of Overwatch and Blizzard's other properties hidden throughout the world, including arcade machines, banners, news tickers, newspapers and more.

Assault
The first game mode is Assault. This mode has an attacking team go after two points, in succession, while the defending team must prevent them from doing so while a timer ticks down. To capture a point, there must be at least one attacking player within the point and no defending players. There are marks indicated at one third and two thirds along the capture indicator, denoting checkpoints. If the attacking team reaches one of these marks the capture will go no lower than that even if they do not hold the point. Capturing the first point will also give the attacking team additional time to capture the second.

Temple of Anubis

The Temple of Anubis is located beneath the Giza Plateau. Situated at the base of a technological pyramid, AI experiments are being conducted here under the protection of Helix Security Systems. It holds a secret vital to the security of the region, sought by many.

 

Hanamura

Located in Japan, Hanamura is a suburban area that features temples and a large castle. Full of tourist traps and beautiful scenery, few would suspect it was here that the criminal Shimada Clan based their operations. There are rumors that despite being dismantled by a wayward brother of the clan under the employ of Overwatch long ago, the clan may yet endure.

 

Volskaya Industries

Hit first and hardest by the Omnic Crisis, Russia held it's own against the omnics with little help from Overwatch. Among the proud ground troops, they also employed gigantic human-piloted mechs called Svyatogor built by Volskaya Industries. With increased aggression from the nearby Siberian omnium the company has increased production of the mechs, drawing unwanted attention towards itself.

 

Escort
Second, we have the Escort maps. Escort maps have an attacking team lead an object along a fixed path within a time limit. There are checkpoints along the path that give additional time, prevent the payload from going backwards any farther, and occasionally provide a new spawn point for both teams, moving the attacking team forward and the defending team back. The payload only moves while there are players from the attacking team nearby, with up to 3 affecting the speed of the payload. If any of the defending players are within range along with any attacking players, or if there are no attacking or defending players nearby the payload stops. After a short time without any nearby attacking players the payload will slowly move backwards to the nearest checkpoint.

Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Watchpoint: Gibraltar stands on the Rock of Gibraltar, and used to be an Overwatch outpost. Previously shut down, it is now occupied by Winston who intends to bring the Overwatch communication network back online. He needs help getting the satellite drone to the rocket located at the launch point.

 

Dorado

Dorado, Mexico is set high above a sweeping bay. Powered by gigantic ziggurats, the city celebrates yearly the day they were freed from omnic oppression by Overwatch. The street gang Los Muertos holds sway along many of the city's back streets, and see themselves as the last remaining Mexican government left over from the Omnic Crisis.

 

Route 66

Route 66, though long abandoned due to the popularity of the USA's Transcontinental train system, still exists as a testament to an older time. Now a section along the Deadlock Gorge is the current target for the Deadlock Gang's latest heist.

 

Assault/Escort
Assault/Escort maps are a hybrid of the previous two game modes. They all start with an Assault point to control an object, followed by the Escort section of the map. Otherwise the mechanics are identical for the independent parts of the map.

King's Row

King's Row is a high class neighborhood in the heart of England. Omnics here are denied the same rights as humans, and treated poorly. Prior to the Crisis, the omnics had their own city built beneath the surface of King's Row, and now there are people that want to eliminate the omnics using an EMP device, escorted right to the omnic's doorstep

 

Numbani

Numbani is a utopian city situated on Africa's western coast. Humans and omnics both live in Numbani in peace, working together to create a First World Africa. The city itself speaks to what the two people can create when working together, and is one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world. The city is putting on a display which includes Doomfist's gauntlet, and asks for assistance in protecting the gauntlet from forces that wish to use it for their own purposes.

 

Hollywood

Even in the United States of America, relations are rocky between humanity and omnics. In Hollywood itself you can find them working together, but not necessarily happily. Hal-Fred Glitchbot, an omnic director who has They Came From Beyond The Moon among his many works, needs a protective escort across a handful of movie sets on the way to his trailer.

 

Control
The final game mode is Control, which features a King of the Hill style objective. Both teams are attacking a single point in a best-of-three format. Each map has three distinct points to fight over, and will require different strategies for each. Capturing a point only takes a few seconds, but you must then hold the point to gain victory for the round. If the enemy team gains control of the point, you retain your progress but must recapture the point in order to continue. You do not need to have a player remain within the point after capture in order to gain victory, but each point has many avenues of vulnerability so you must be aware of the enemy team's position. Overtime in this mode will pause the enemy team's progress at 99% if you are capturing or contesting the point when it would tick over to 100%, but you must fully capture and hold the point in order to progress your own track.

Lijiang Tower

Lijiang Tower, built in the center of a Chinese metropolis, is home to Lucheng Interstellar, one of the leading companies behind China's space industry. China being one of the top players in the space industry, Lucheng Interstellar is a very profitable company and makes for a tempting target for many seeking money, power or just corporate secrets.

 

Ilios

Situated on a small island of the Aegean Sea in Greece, Ilios is a perfect vacation destination for those looking to relax in a small town on the Mediterranean Sea. Among the usual natural attractions a seaside town provides also lies ancient ruins to explore that contain many artifacts to find, and fight over.

 

Nepal

Home to the omnics that sought to meditate on the nature of their existence, Nepal is a breathtaking destination for many omnic and human pilgrims. Zenyatta, once a member of the order of omnic monks before seeking enlightenment through spreading his ideals rather than self-meditation, once tutored Genji here, helping him come to terms with his new cyborg body.

 

Custom Games
You can create your own matches with a rather large set of options using the private lobby system. It includes the following general options:

Map Options

• Map Rotation
• Return to Lobby
• Map Availability

Hero Options

• Hero Selection Limit
• Role Selection Limit
• Allow Hero Switching
• Respawn as Random Hero
• Hero Availability

Team Options

• Team Balancing
• When it balances

AI Options

• Add AI, selecting their heroes and difficulty

It also allows for HP, cooldown and ult charge modifiers, and a few other miscellaneous options.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Valicious

[Valicious 572]

Main : F.A.Q.s, Tips and Miscellaneous : Maps : Heroes : Competitive Play

Heroes
The meat of the game, heroes are the characters you play. There's 21 of them, and each is very different from the rest. They each fall into four different roles, depending on their intended team contributions and design goals. It's a good idea to avoid having multiple of the same hero, and having a wide variety of roles is important. The hero selection screen will provide tips to help you round out your team, including things like no/too many tanks, low damage, etc.

Every hero has basic abilities that they can use, limited by a cooldown. There is generally a movement related ability and a role related ability, though this isn't a hard set rule and there is a lot of variation. Every hero also has an Ultimate ability that they build towards slowly over time and by dealing damage or healing a team mate. These are very powerful, often leading to key moments in taking or defending an objective, if not outright leading to victory or defeat.

Clicking on each hero's name will take you to their Overwatch page which has their background and further information, and their picture will take you to their Ability Overview video.


Offense
Offense heroes are the damage dealers. Their job is to take out the enemy team, allowing the rest of your team to focus on completing your objective.

Genji

Ability Overview

Genji does well playing carefully, hanging back and throwing his shuriken before dashing in to finish off lower health heroes. His dash allows him a large amount of mobility as it allows him to go in any direction he's facing, including up or down. His average health and reliance on a middling cooldown ability for escape makes him easy to kill if he dives on a prepared player.

 

McCree

Ability Overview
With his Flashbang stun grenade, McCree excels at taking down any individual hero on their own, even the tankier ones. Alt-firing, rolling and alt-firing against a stunned hero does a ridiculous amount of almost guaranteed damage, but he needs an accurate player to make the best of his abilities. He also doesn't have much in the way of area damage or denial, aside from his ultimate which can be canceled if there are no targets, allowing you to retain half of the charge.

 

Pharah

Ability Overview

Pharah's rocket launcher has good splash damage, allowing her to finish off enemies as they retreat behind cover. Additionally, her mobility provided by her jump jet lets her get to places most heroes can't, and even fly for short distances. She can also use her Concussive Blast as a movement aid, using the knockback to quickly push herself in a direction in addition to knocking enemy heroes out of position and off cliffs. However, she moves slowly while flying and her Barrage ultimate forces her stationary, so she can be easy to pick off by any decent ranged hero.

 

Reaper

Ability Overview
Reaper excels in short range engagements. His dual shotguns work excellently, as long as you can manage to focus their spread on one player. His Wraith Form allows for an easy disengage, but isn't worth using to get into a fight unless you know you're going to be able to walk out unmolested. His Shadowstep ability is best used to get to an ambush point where you can drop from above or surprise from around a corner. Enemies can see it, so it requires careful use or else you'll be ambushed instead.

 

Soldier: 76

Ability Overview

Soldier: 76 is a simple hero. Don't mistake that for weak, however. His rifle is very accurate when fired in bursts, and the rockets do well to supplement his damage. The same can be said for Sprint: A simple ability but very useful. He is slightly slower than the fastest heroes, but has more base health and his Biotic Field gives him more sustain as well. His aim-assist ultimate requires line of sight and cannot seek around obstacles, so hiding behind cover and around corners are key, and he can be easily outmaneuvered by the more mobile heroes.

 

Tracer

Ability Overview
Tracer is the fastest hero in the game due to her Blink ability, and very mobile for a character that's stuck to the ground. Her blinks and Rewind are useful for confusing the enemy in addition to providing mobility, and her ultimate is able to take out any hero. However, she's exceptionally weak with no self-sustain outside of her Rewind, and a player able to predict her movement will be able to take her out with little issue.

 

Defense

Defense heroes are focused on stopping the enemy team in their tracks, usually through some form of area denial.

Bastion

Ability Overview
Bastion's Sentry configuration is among the highest sustained damage output in the game, and the increased health and extra armor makes him relatively durable. Additionally, he can revert to Recon configuration quickly and has a self-heal on a short cooldown, allowing him to retreat and heal fairly effectively. His Tank configuration ultimate is excellent for clearing an area as well. His Recon configuration is very much stuck to walking, and he's completely immobile in Sentry configuration in addition to gaining a weak point on his back where you deal 300% damage, so flanking and catching a Bastion off guard will quickly free up his firing line.

 

Hanzo

Ability Overview

Hanzo is a non-traditional sniper. His arrows have an arc and travel time, so he needs a player able to adjust for and predict enemy movement. His scatter arrows are excellent at getting around corners and picking off heroes behind shields. His ultimate works excellently as area denial as well, if not outright wiping the enemy team. Even with his wall climbing ability, he's still fairly weak and must charge his shots in order to do any significant damage. Moving erratically will let you get close, and once there he's much less of a threat.
 

Junkrat

Ability Overview
Junkrat is the best hero for locking down one point. His trap can be paired with his mine to wipe out weaker heroes, and his Frag Launcher lets him sit around the corner and pick off any heroes that survive the blast. He's also deceptively mobile thanks to being able to use his mine for jumping. His ultimate lets him force heroes to scatter or risk being taken out, but it can be destroyed at range safely. Players more aware of their surroundings may be hard for Junkrat to deal with, since all of his abilities can be countered just by being careful.

 

Mei

Ability Overview

Mei can literally stop players in their tracks with her Blaster, and following up with an icicle from the same weapon is often fatal. She's excellent at dealing with the more mobile characters, and very survivable due to her slightly above average health and Cryo-Freeze. Ice Wall is also excellent for a wide variety of purposes, and her ultimate shuts down an area like few other abilities can. Her freezing abilities are limited to close range, and her long range option is on a delay in addition to having travel time, so staying mobile and at range will allow you to deal with her. She also has no quick movement options, and the only mobility she has is through her Ice Wall. While it may be hard to kill her, she's fairly easy to chase away.

Torbjorn

Ability Overview

Torbjorn's turret can be quickly moved and set up since it requires no scrap and relatively little time to get to level two, and the armor packs are useful for giving his team that little bit of extra survivability needed to win fights. Torbjorn himself is also a danger with his weapon. However, Torbjorn cannot level the turret while repairing it and it will not upgrade to tier three during his ultimate unless it's already at tier two, so damaging the turret while he's setting up in a new position will allow you to prevent him for getting too entrenched. If the turret is already set up, it's susceptible to being outranged by some heroes, flanked by more than one hero at a time and can't deal with the highly mobile ones.

 

Widowmaker

Ability Overview

Widowmaker is a traditional sniper, with a scoped hitscan weapon. Her alternate fire also allows her to hold her own in close quarters with its full-auto firing. She can use her grappling hook to get into the perfect sniping position and can set up venom mines to cover her flanks. Her Infra-sight is also exceptionally useful to her team, but she does broadcast using it just like every other ult. Be careful coming out of cover while it's up, and try to lure the enemy into a fight more advantageous to you than them.

 

Tank
Tank heroes are built to take damage and protect their team. They're the ones to lead the charge and disrupt the enemy team, making fights go in your favor rather than your enemy's.

D.Va

Ability Overview

D.Va is the most mobile tank, thanks to her boosters that allow her to quickly fly for a short time. She also does excellent damage up close, and Defense Matrix is able to completely shut down many ultimates in addition to regular abilities. Her own ultimate is also the largest and most damaging explosion in the game, and will maintain momentum if you activate it during a rocket boost. Additionally, she has two health bars thanks to having a pilot mode once her mech is destroyed, and her pistol does respectable damage and quickly charges another mech. She's exceptionally weak outside of her mech, and lacks any abilities whatsoever making her reasonably safe to hunt down and kill a second time. Her mech, while having the most armor of any character, is weak to being focus fired and it's ult can be easily negated by getting something between you and it.

 

Reinhardt

Ability Overview

Reinhardt's shield has an unparalleled ability to block incoming damage for a sustained period of time, and his charge > melee combo is able to take out almost any hero as long as he can slam them into a wall. His Fire Strike also penetrates shields, such as his own, and his hammer hits in a large arc in front of him. The knockdown of his ultimate is also great at catching teams clumped together. His shield takes a while to recharge its health, and the charge puts him in awkward positions if you're personally well positioned. His Fire Strike is also relatively slow, and as his only ranged option puts him fairly weak at a distance.

 

Roadhog

Ability Overview
Roadhog is one of the tankiest heroes in the game. While he lacks shields or armor, he has the highest base health in addition to a hefty self-heal. His Scrap Gun is excellent from close to middle range, and the hook is great at forcing an enemy hero into a terrible position, if not outright death with a hook > shot > melee combo. His ult is also good at clearing areas in front of him. Lacking any shields he has no regenerating health, and without armor he has no innate damage prevention. He also has no mobility, so heroes able to move quickly or do quick bursts of damage are ideal.

 

Winston

Ability Overview

Winston's weapon has the ability to lock on to any heroes in front of him, removing the need for aiming and providing damage to everybody within range. He can also jump a surprisingly long distance, and can force people to get close if they want to kill him thanks to his shield projector. His ult will also quickly knock every enemy off a point, and serves as a pseudo secondary health bar since it resets his health. His weapon's range is very short, and has no way to truly force people to get close if they can just run away. His ultimate also doesn't do a lot of damage compared to other ults, being more focused on knocking heroes away from objectives.

 

Zarya

Ability Overview

Zarya is able to put a decent shield on both herself and allies for a short time, and her weapon can put out a lot of damage thanks to it getting more powerful the more damage absorbed by her shields. It's also able to do decent splash damage with its alternate fire launching explosives. Her ult is key in setting up team-wide kills for many other ults, and repositioning the enemy team in a worse position for them. Her weapon does minor damage if it isn't charged by her shields though, so keeping a light touch on your trigger around her helps. A few mobility abilities can also be used to escape from her ultimate, so if you get sucked in try using one to get out. Abilities like Reinhardt's shield and Mei's Ice Wall are also useful since you know where the enemies will be focusing.

 

Support
Support heroes are built around keeping their team mates alive and in the fight, with a bit of utility thrown in for good measure. You'll always want at least one on your team, but not too many since they usually bring lower damage.

Lucio

Ability Overview

Lucio is fairly unique in that his abilities are auras rather than focused or placed on heroes individually. He can switch between a speed buff or a health regeneration buff and can boost the effectiveness of either. His weapon does okay damage at range, and he has a great bit of close range burst in comboing melee > alt fire. His ult is also crucial in providing the needed survivability to push an objective. His auras force the team to clump up in order to not waste a hero spot, and the health regeneration provided is relatively small. The ultimate wears off fairly quickly, so if the enemy is unable to capitalize on it it's quickly no longer an issue.

 

Mercy

Ability Overview

Mercy has the highest single target healing in the game, able to sustain her target through most forms of non-burst damage. She is also able to increase the damage her target does by a significant amount. Her wings enable her to catch up with any hero, and she's even able to stay in the air for a short time. Her pistol does okay damage, and a skilled Mercy player will be able to hold her own until her teammate is able to help. Bringing fallen team mates back into the fight proves to be as useful as it sounds. She has no innate movement ability aside from getting right up to a friendly hero, so taking out the more mobile enemies will force her to the ground. She also moves slowly while gliding, making for an easy target. It does take time to switch from her staff to her pistol, so surprising or bursting her down works well. Taking her out quickly will significantly weaken the enemy team.

 

Symmetra

Ability Overview

Symmetra brings a lot of utility to any team. Her teleporter is excellent for overwhelming or holding a point, and she can put up multiple sentries in a small area. She can also place small shields on allies that regenerate, giving them a permanent health boost until they die. Her weapon will also lock on to one enemy at a time at a fairly short range, doing more damage the longer it's locked to someone, and her charged shot will go through non-health bar shields. She can only have 6 sentries up at a time, which are very fragile, and the teleporter has a limited number of charges and is also easily destroyed, finding it should be a priority.

 

Zenyatta

Ability Overview

Zenyatta is able to put a significant health regen boost on a friendly hero, and able to increase the damage an enemy takes. While they have a travel time, they cannot be dodged once they're on flight towards you. His health being largely shields he is also able to quickly regenerate his health outside of combat, in addition to becoming completely invulnerable and healing friendly heroes with his ult. He can also charge his shots to do large chunks of damage, peeking in and out of cover to pick off enemy heroes. He has low health and mobility, easily taken out by even body shots, and no self-sustain during combat. Both orbs will be removed on his death and after a few seconds of being out of sight, and while hard to counter he will often position himself awkwardly to use his ult.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Valicious

[Valicious 572]

Main : F.A.Q.s, Tips and Miscellaneous : Maps : Heroes : Competitive Play

TEAM MONOWATCH HEAVEN

 

Wanna play with fellow MHers?  Here's a handy Google Docs spreadsheet.  Add your battle.net ID.

 

With the introduction of competitive play, I'd like to put together a team to train with and climb the ranks.

 

TEAM 1

Valicious#1906

 

 Competitive points are earned after each match win, and they can be used to buy exclusive cosmetic rewards.  The only reward available right now is a Golden Gun, but they are certainly pretty.

 

Edited July 1, 2016 by Valicious

[Zeus 7997]

Great post @Valicious~ Very informative and there's even some background information I didn't know about. We stress that this is PC only. XB1 / PS4 players feel free to create your own teams.

 

I'm SILVERxLOTUS on Battle.net. Currently ranked 47 on competitive. I can play a little of everyone but I end up falling into tanking and support roles more than DPS roles. I have a few videos on my personal YouTube channel of me being above average at this game if you're interested. If you party up with us a mic is nice. It's much easier to coordinate than with typing.

[Valicious 572]

@Zeusand I did a thing.  It was the most fun we've had in Overwatch yet

 

[Zeus 7997]

Overwatch patch 1.1.0 just hit! And with it comes Ana. I'm so excited to play as her @Valicious when are we doing competitive again?

[Valicious 572]

@ZeusI'm down whenever you are.  I'd like to get a 6-man group like last time.  Random pubbies are a cancer in competitive.

Just message me on facebook.  Same goes for anyone.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Valicious

[Flame-X 441]

I finally bought the game thanks to the $30 sale for the standard version.

 

My battle.net ID is cyberxspeed#1484

[Valicious 572]

Had a match today on Oasis.  Score was 2-2, 0%-99%, we held it in overtime for over 14 minutes then finally capped the point.  Another 5 minutes of overtime and we finally won.

 

Symmetra shield generator does work

[Peace Heavy mk II 7200]

Finally broke my career high elo :')