The Overwatch Support Life

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Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends and readers!

It’s been a running joke for a while now. In WoW, I played a healing Priest (and the spec didn’t matter) for raids. In Heroes of the Storm, I mainly stick to heroes like Rehgar, Kharazim, or Uther if I’m playing with others. With Overwatch, I’m used to maining Symmetra, Lucio, or Mercy. All of them are support or healing roles.

During the beta weekend, I thought there’d be more players trying out a wider variety of heroes.

I thought wrong. Most teams I solo queued into had compositions like 3 Widowmakers, a 76, and 2 McCrees. These are glass cannon compositions which have loaded fire power but didn’t have a lick of staying power whatsoever. Even in games where I dominated as the 76 with 20+ eliminations or 10+ final blows, it led me to a sinking conclusion I realized right from the beginning:

Someone’s got to play support or a tank in order to secure objectives.

It’s nigh-impossible to carry your team to victory on the scoreboard alone without some sustainability from other heroes.

In that particular matchup, I activated 76’s Visor ultimate and just blew it to get as many quick kills as I could before switching to Lucio. He’s one of my more favourite support heroes to use on close encounters maps since your team will be near you to benefit from buffs. After that, the key to playing support is keeping yourself alive first and then healing the rest of your team. Lucio’s speed boost does not build up towards his ultimate, however. Make sure the healing aura is active if you’re not in the middle of setting something up.

If you’ve PvP’d in WoW or other games as a healer, you’re going to have a headstart here. Many newer support heroes tend to heal from the center of the action — which is absolutely stupid! Do not make yourself vulnerable and give the opposition free shots at you. If there’s a lull in action at any moment, look for places to hide or find cover. Behind cars or in side rooms or other objects are always a good start. Don’t give the defending Widowmaker a free shot at you.

Positioning is important. Lucio makes it a little easier because your team just has to be near you. Mercy emits an obvious beam as to where her location is. By putting yourself off to the side as you’re healing your team, now you’ve split the enemy’s focus. If they attempt to pursue you, they leave themselves open to suppression from your team. If they decide to go after your team, you’re busy healing them at the same time thereby giving them extra staying power.

Nothing says your team is limited to just one or two supports, either. Last night I was playing offense on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, and defense fielded a lineup of Reinhardt, Pharah, Bastion, two Lucios, and a Mercy. After captured the first check point we simply could not push back that line at all. Some of that was due to our team composition since I think we lacked a tank.

I’ll be streaming more often during weekday evenings so keep an eye on mattic.us!

More Overwatch thoughts to come later!

 

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BlizzCon 2015

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Let’s talk about BlizzCon. We knew we would be receiving the Warcraft movie trailer finally. I don’t believe anyone expected there to be a Legion cinematic at the same time though. I love watching the fleet of airships as they make their assault against the Burning Legion’s foothold.

Sadly, this BlizzCon didn’t come without a personal cost. A few players from my guild decided to part ways while I was at the convention. Consequently, I’ve suspended all future raids for the time being and players have the choice to explore free agency if they wish. This was a horrible expansion for me when it comes to raids. Couldn’t get much mythic headway in at all. After 8 years at the helm, we’re finished. It hasn’t quite hit me yet since I have the emotional range of a Dwayne Johnson (a Rock). My time’s being kept busy with Hearthstone, Overwatch, and Starcraft 2. I’m more disappointed with my inability to get the job done. It’s a little crushing to watch your own guild dismantle piece by piece like that. No one’s fault but my own. I haven’t decided on my future yet but my plan is to continue being the Jagr of Warcraft.

Without the mullet, that is.

World of Warcraft

  • Transmog system looks amazing, moreso of the fact that I free up a boatload of inventory space
  • Challenge modes, we were expecting a D3 announcement of sorts, but the fact that WoW is taking a page from the Greater Rift system is neat
  • Non-linear leveling! Zones scale up! This is going to put a damper in my plans to shoot for server first again since I have to figure out optimal routes and stuff now
  • Priest changes look ground-shattering. More on that to come later
  • Mythic and 20 player raids are here to stay, it looks like

Starcraft 2

  • Managed to beat the campaign on hard, working on the epilogue now
  • Coop mode is enjoyable but the difficulty is lacking especially as you progress through the individual character levels. Even brutal becomes easier to stomach
  • Delighted to hear about the first set of mission packs that will come later in the year

Hearthstone

  • League of Explorers is fun! Managed to defeat the first wing on both normal and heroic. Temple Escape is one of the more enjoyable encounters. My video guides will be up on Blizzard Watch on Sunday shortly.

Overwatch

  • Yes, I’m in the beta. Game is infinitely more fun when playing with friends than playing solo
  • Problem with shooters is that I get frustrated at myself 🙁
  • Like Warcraft and Heroes, I’m usually playing a support
  • Anyone else manage to get in? Looking for more people to play with

Heroes of the Storm

  • What? Cho’gall? Really?
  • Tracer is in the first wave of Overwatch heroes. Iconic and an excellent choice
  • Can’t wait to give the arena mode a spin

All in all, it felt like a more muted BlizzCon but then again, BlizzCon 2014 brought us a completely new game and franchise and it’s tough act to follow.

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6 Game-Changing Battlecry Cards that Pair with Brann Bronzebeard

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My annual post-BlizzCon thoughts will come a little later this week.

For now, Brann Bronzebeard joins the latest set of legendaries that come with Hearthstone’s League of Explorers adventure. While I have high hopes for the card, I’m not sure if he slots into any pre-existing deck types.

But who cares? He’s a fun card that can amplify existing cards with Battlecry! Which ones? Here’s my personal list:

Dr. Boom

Huge no brainer. What’s better than two Bomb Bots? Four Bomb Bots! You’re guaranteed a minimum of four damage that could explode on different targets. More bombs leads to more damage. I can hear that resigned sigh from my opponent now…

Iron Juggernaut

All of a sudden, Iron Juggernaut turns from a giant recyclable heap of scrap into a curiously playable card. Originally adding a 10 damage bomb, now it places your opponent on the clock with a potential 20 damage just ticking away within their deck. Those bombs are one way to get around Ice Blocks!

Quartermaster

Initially, your Silver Hand Recruits would simply get +2/+2 and turn from Silver Hand Recruits into Gold Hand Recruits. But now they’re getting an additional +2/+2 on top of that. Does that mean they become Platinum Hand Recruits? Nothing like a board full of 5/5s that give your opponent pause and just out of Flamestrike reach.

Dragon Consort

If I’m reading it right, your next dragon becomes much more affordable. In fact, cards like Nefarian or Alexstrasza cost 5 mana instead of 9 giving you more card playing options to go with it. Protect a dragon with a Sludge Belcher on turn 10. Or, turn one of those beasts into a formidable minion that your opponent needs to deal with by playing a Defender of Argus.

Loatheb

If you really want insurance, Loatheb’s a great follow up since your opponent’s spells should now cost 10 mana more. It locks them out of every spell. Free turn where they can’t respond or affect your board with spells? Yeah, I’ll take that!

Goblin Blastmage

This is one of my favourite pairings. It turns into Avenging Wrath on a stick. Instead of 4 damage, 8 damage goes flying out in any direction towards your opponent or their board.

There’s a few more excellent combinations (like Shieldmaiden and Antique Healbot), but the ones above are my personal picks. It does have a downside though. Make sure you don’t place Brann with cards like Flame Imp (ouch!), Injured Blademaster (oof!), or Doomguard (yikes!)

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Will You be Capping Valor Again?

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We all saw the news bombshell yesterday.

Valor is back with a vengeance. Points are only obtainable in Mythic dungeons or in the raid finder difficulty. We can’t double dip and snag them from normal mode bosses are higher. I’m waiting for reforging to come back in a future patch.

Couldn’t believe the announcement.

On this week’s episode of The Edge, the crew and I discussed merits of nerfs to Hellfire and when they’d be needed. I made an off-hand remark that item upgrades should be brought back because it was a much better way of nerfing content compared to flat percentage nerfs to abilities, attacks, or health. It gave players a sense of progression even though they weren’t visibly progressing. You might’ve gotten stonewalled on Gorefiend on week 1, but the raid collectively received a 5% buff due to item upgrades heading into week 2, for example.

So what’s the difference between valor points in Warlords and valor points in Mists?

In Mists, they compensated for “bad luck” whereby you could purchase items in case you weren’t getting drops from raids. With Warlords, you have Apexis crystals that already fulfill role. Furthermore, the bonus roll system and the personal loot system help tip and equalize the “bad luck” factor in your favor (At least, in theory, because I’m still missing that Intuition’s Gift trinket from Kilrogg).

I don’t know if these changes are going to be enough of a subscription reactivator on their own.

Between this and the enabling of mythic cross-realm raiding, the pool of available raiders for mythic should go up due to the reduced restrictions and to players who might now be equipped for it.

And mythic dungeons? If you weren’t running these before, are you going to run them now? The shortest path to valor points for a solo player without the backing of a reliable group is going to be in the raid finder. You can try to get lucky with a mythic dungeon group but you can work your way through the forgiving trials of raid finder to cap out. We don’t know what the valor cap is or how many points each of the activities offer.

Not expecting to see Valor stick around with Legion, though.

I’m beginning to wonder if the perceived boredom in Warlords about the lack of activities to partake in is actually a lack of meaningful (or forced) activities. Players were running ragged throughout Siege because every week was a constant re-clear of the same content just to upgrade one or two items every week. We were sick of it then but we had to do it in order to buff our characters in order to reach and defeat a boss that actually mattered.

Seriously.

A typical raid week was 3 hours of farming for valor on bosses, 4 hours to clear the 11 mythic bosses to get to Blackfuse, and then 2 hours of meaningful progression on Blackfuse which involved learning how to run away from fire beams and avoiding saw blades.

We have optional content in the game at our disposal but we think there’s nothing to do because we don’t want to do it.

I suppose the argument could be made where one could say “Players don’t have to run mythic dungeons or raid finder for valor”. That argument holds true for players largely well within entrenched in mythic raids though. For them, the barrier isn’t going to be the gear. It’s going to be the skill cap of their fellow players in the group. To the rest of the mortal heroic raiders though, the gear upgrades will lead to confirmed kills versus near-death wipes and is going to be sorely needed to give players a foot in the fabled mythic doorway.

I’m getting too old for this.

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Gorefiend: Warlords’ Guild Killer?

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I first caught wind of this when I was scrolling through the recruiting forums. With around 20 players, we’re finally poised to enter mythic Hellfire. Hellfire Assault was infinitely more engaging and dynamic compared to the normal and heroic counterparts. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to put that notch up there yet. We’re getting past the intermission phase but end up getting overrun. Our margin of error is razor thin. A little more DPS, and it’ll help us secure that kill.

Anyway, let’s get back to my original observation about Gorefiend. That dude is tough. On the forums, I’m seeing guilds that are 5/13 recruiting or players who are 5/13 looking for new guilds because their raid group folded. The game is no stranger to guild killers. Some of my personal favourites included Kael’thas, Mu’ru, and ol’ Yogg (0 light). To be fair, I don’t think for a second that Gorefiend even comes close to any of those bosses up there.

I’m not sure what it is. There’s something about this current generation of raiders that seem to want more instant gratification. The mere instant that a difficult problem shows itself, many are quick to abandon ship and look for a new guild instead of working through it. Compare that to players in classic Warcraft, Burning Crusade, or even Wrath though where players frequently stuck it out and when they did get those kills, it felt extremely gratifying. For me, no encounter post-Cataclysm has captured the same satisfying feeling of a boss kill akin to Kil’Jaeden, Archimonde (from Hyjal), or even Illidan. But maybe that’s because it often took weeks or months just to get there, learn it, and beat it.

With the availability of group finder, raid finder, and the other convenience tools, it’s simply too easy to look around for options. You don’t see those kinds of “grinders” anymore among the player population. Could be a by product of the player base getting older and not having the time to invest anymore, I’m not sure.

With the start of the new school year, I’ve had to re-think our schedule. Demographically speaking, it seems many players are concentrated on the east coast. I can’t ask people to stay up until 1 AM anymore. I made a snap call to restore our original raid times.

  • Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: 6 – 9 PM Pacific

I’m keeping the days though. I do like the idea of getting all raids done in a quick burst through the middle of the week. With the Warcraft population down to 5.5 million, I have to appeal to as many players as possible (at least, from a scheduling perspective).

Right now, we’re looking for more ranged DPS and healers. Interested? Check us out!

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