Board 8 > Reminder that it's the last month to play Overwatch 1

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zarya is straight up a broken character right now. I remember people worrying how solo-tanking would make her useless and just sad laugh. I feel dirty every time I switch to her, especially since it never doesn't work out and completely turns any losing game around.

Well I think those concerns were before she did a bagillion damage, even without any charge, and when she only had 1 bubble on an 8 second cooldown.

They just need to lower her damage a little bit and she's probably fine.

Ive meant to ask. What is it about zarya that makes her feel so oppressive compared to OW1? (Keep in mind I havent played since orisas release lmao)

Her self bubble and ally bubble used to share the same cooldown. So in OW1 she'd need to make a decision to shield herself or shield an ally.

Now she has 2 bubbles charges and she can use them on herself or allies. It has a 2.5 second duration with a 10 second cooldown.

So during a fight she can bubble herself 3 times in 10 seconds which means you basically have to ignore her as she's charging at your team or risk putting her energy at 100 which just makes her even scarier. Sure she's not bubbling anyone else on her team in that scenario but she's causing too much damage to ignore too.

skullbone posted...

Her self bubble and ally bubble used to share the same cooldown. So in OW1 she'd need to make a decision to shield herself or shield an ally.

Now she has 2 bubbles charges and she can use them on herself or allies. It has a 2.5 second duration with a 10 second cooldown.

So during a fight she can bubble herself 3 times in 10 seconds which means you basically have to ignore her as she's charging at your team or risk putting her energy at 100 which just makes her even scarier. Sure she's not bubbling anyone else on her team in that scenario but she's causing too much damage to ignore too.

so as support if i see zarya I should just pick ana and try to sleep her

Yes but the new support Kiriko can AOE cleanse sleep and she can cleanse Ana's anti-heal nade too.

So no actually.

Sleep dart - 15 second cooldown
Kiriko AOE cleanse - 14 second cooldown lol

Yup. Technically speaking Sleep Dart is the only status that can affect Zarya (her bubbles cleanse everything else) but that's not really going to do a lot of good. You're still not going to be able take her out with it most of the time even if it sticks.

All other status is worthless against her. Most of the CC has been removed from the game, and she has the tank passive ability now that reduces that anyway. She has the highest potential damage out of all the tanks, and her beam passes through most defensive abilities that aren't barriers (which have largely been removed or weakened). Zarya came out a real winner in the new meta.

Grand_Kirby posted...

Sleep Dart is the only status that can affect Zarya (her bubbles cleanse everything else)

Wait, her bubble gets her out of charge/grav/earthshatter now?

MacArrowny posted...

Wait, her bubble gets her out of charge/grav/earthshatter now?

I didn't count those as statuses, I was separating those from Crowd Control abilities because I felt they had different uses (in theory stuff like anti-heal, Discord Orb, and burning can limit an tank's ability to hold a position safely, but Zarya just ignores all that). But even those specific abilities are not all great against her as well.

Charge had a damage nerf so it's not very threatening against tanks. Zar can bubble before getting hit, or bubble afterwards to escape with only few scratches.

Earthshatter is decent if it lands, but a good Zarya can block it.

Grav is probably the strongest against her, assuming she doesn't have both bubbles available to last through it, but if the answer vs. Zarya is more Zarya then that presents problems on its own...

Speaking of Zarya she makes Total Mayhem virtually unplayable because she's just invincible there

I need to get better at timing kirko's invicibility charm against junkrat's ultimate. I always wait just a moment too long.

hombad46 posted...

Speaking of Zarya she makes Total Mayhem virtually unplayable because she's just invincible there

yea, winston was broken before but he still had counters and weaknesses.

Her bubble has NO cooldown, basically

the only way to win is to physically move her with Doom or Rein

Well the latest Halloween teaser confirms my fears. Trash tier rewards of sprays/icons for anyone who isnt wiling to help Bobby buy another yacht. Most rewarding Overwatch experience my goddamn ass this is a fucking joke. Even gacha trash reward more than this game is willing to lol

playing a bunch of ow2 is making me wish Id played more of OW1 in the last couple months

i should have made sure I had all the good stuff unlocked before the system got so much worse

I have all the seasonal skins from how much I played OW1. Wild to think maybe my account could be worth a fortune to someone with the prices Blizzard charges for cosmetics now. I think somebody said it would cost 15-20 thousand dollars to have all the OW1 stuff

So I ended up in a broken game tonight. Spawned in the third attack spawn of Hollywood but the doors were closed and the timer wasn't moving

that happened to me too, and alot of other people

"Unspecified" is what it was called

Well the event is out. It aint much of one at all either. 24 challenge events tied to it to earn whatever tier cosmetics (sprays/icons), a few voice lines and some BP because there isnt already enough of that somehow I guess. 2 shops skins and nothing else whatsoever to earn outside those challenges. There was more effort put into the event stage itself, but I think I actually prefer OW1 Junkenstein because this one also has more fluff of non-combat to pad the event out. If this is the standard for what was the best seasonal event OW2 has literally no hope of a healthy player base in the future

swordz9 posted...

what was the best seasonal event

I like Junkenstein but I'd say the Archives events were generally better. Not that I expect them to get any better treatment

I liked Halloween the most for the skins. They are generally the best received event skins in the game from what Ive seen too since its like the one event that never fails to have cool stuff. Sadly it looks like the only thing OW2 cares about is its Shop. Slow ass balance changes, bugs up the ass that take forever to be fixed or just get ignored, but hey the shop is always there and thats all they clearly care about. What an upgrade over the first game

The new Bride of Junkenstein event is actually pretty cool! I like how they were able to fit so many different elements into the map, and it requires a variety of different strategies to clear it.

But otherwise yeah, the Halloween event blows. Having nearly all the new skins be shop-only is terrible. I wouldn't have even minded if the majority of the stuff was in the shop, but they could have thrown at least one free skin (that's not the apology skin, or the Twitch-only skin). I would have liked something like "event coins" or something that could gained to purchase like even one legendary at the most. I would have been fine with that. I personally don't have a problem with them monetizing things, the game IS a product that's meant to make money, but I always viewed the seasonal events as celebrations, and there should have been SOME of the cool skins given away for it.

i just paid money for witch kiriko

i am sorry

The new Halloween event is fun but I don't feel a desire to play it again like I did with the first one. But I mainly played the first one for free Arcade wins in OW1.

if youd told me a couple months ago that the second gold weapon Id buy would be for Orisa I would have thought you were crazy

but here I am, two wins from having 3000 competivr points and Im somehow an Orisa main now

The Overwatch League playoffs have started, with the Finals on the 4th.

https://overwatchleague.com/en-us

You can earn in-game rewards for watching with a linked Blizzard account on the OWL website or on the Youtube channel.

https://overwatchleague.com/en-us/2022/playoffs?playoffs=perks

Every team in the OWL is exactly the same:

Winston
Lucio
Kiriko
Reaper
Sojourn

Sure the diversity wasn't much better in OW1 but there was a little bit of diversity right?

Yeah, this meta is kind of... lol. They said they don't want to make huge balance changes until new seasons launch, but... maybe they should rethink that.

Also, sneak peek at the new hero is going to be during the OWL finals tomorrow.

New hero revealed, its like an evil tank Zenyatta guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd_SPOkaZZ4

The grand finals was fantastic. As close as it gets, went all the way to map 7, which was an absolute nail-biter.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/9/8/AABtbFAAD2gi.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/8/4/AABtbFAAD2gU.jpg

isn't that Bap's homie?

Nah, it's the guy at the end of the Storm Rising cutscene:

https://youtu.be/7WwliXKFcr8?t=51

Gonna stream the OW2 event while its still up if yall wanna swing by or play

the new mode was cute, it was basically a taste of the story mode that will be released in the future, it had objectives, it was spanning, it was moving, it had some stuff off the beaten path, it had little quests, etc. Not bad!

I'd been busy, so it took me a while to watch the Overwatch League finals, but damn that was a good game.

I know it's kind of lame that the hero picks weren't diverse, but at the very least watching good Sojourn, Lucio, and Winston play is a lot more entertaining that watching GOATS.

Neat blog post about the Genji Mythic skin. I know there were some criticisms over the comments that it took months to design, but it's clear they put a lot of work into it.

https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23875434/

I have to say the skin is honestly really cool. I like the customizable aspect of it, and because it has three color options there's a ton of variety in the skin. It's just a shame I never play Genji. I hope one of my mains is next to get one. I wonder what characters will get the priority to get Mythics...

genji has flower nipples

Once you see you can't unsee

Lol yup.

It kind of narrowed my choice of skin patterns down to two options because of that.

yeah I unlocked that skin today and noticed the nipple situation

how did they let that happen

Overwatch 2's new Executive Producer dropped a blog post. It's not very in-depth, but the issues people have brought up are talked about: https://overwatch.blizzard.com/en-us/news/23875435/

Big takeaway for me; it's confirmed future events will have earnable skins. And changes to the Battle Pass are being worked on.... but, the details are vague, and it's planned for Season 3 and beyond.