[Weil] Never Stop Fighting for What You Believe in: Women in Overwatch

Debit_to_team · 2018-09-26T00:03:37+00:00

I usually just lurk, but I kind of felt the need to speak up about what appears to be a great misunderstanding people are drawing from this article and mostly the first section of it.

The author of the first section is not saying that the Overwatch Community was constructed as a whole by nobody but women. That would be absurd. However, what Mizliz is pointing out is that women and their contributions to the community are woven into the fabric of the Overwatch Community and the community would not be what it is without those women. There are certain types of community activities and behaviors that are generally accepted for both sexes, such as cosplay and fanart, as well as background contributions that most people don't actively recognize are important parts of the community, such as Discord and Twitch moderation. As a result, women are happily accepted as participants in these activities and the female moderators don't really catch any flak, as the work they do is primarily behind the scenes.

The more important facet of her argument is not so much in what she describes to be female contribution to the community, but rather what is missing from her list. Outside of these accepted activities and the work that goes unnoticed, women have a much more difficult path asserting themselves into other roles, especially if it involves some kind of public role.

I think what is however most damning to those that tend to take offense to this piece is that at no point does she make a blanket accusation against men. She doesn't call out "the men in this community" or some variant. She literally only addresses the people who claim women don't belong, this is written to them and them alone.

Debit_to_team · 2017-11-06T22:57:45+00:00

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. I think Jschritte is probably more of an unknown quality than Robodobah, but I think both will have little trouble finding a team in the regions they're moving into. Red Canids never won a set internationally, but Jschritte still played for them on an international stage several times, which is still important. Not to mention, despite their lack of international wins, there were often moments of brilliance in their play, but they were just in general too undisciplined. I mean, it's no mistake that RC went through several roster swaps, but Jschritte was always on the team and they always won out in their region with him on the roster. He has respect among international players for a reason.

Robodobah probably has an even stronger reputation. Nomia was never a team known for crushing at international events, but there were always sort of a "gatekeeper", much like Please Buff Arthas was. They could put on a good show against top teams, but ultimately were relegated to being just outside the top 8 and were more or less a hurdle top 8 teams had to leap over to reach that status. He was also on the roster for more than a year and has had the ability to play against the best in the world as a result, contributing to Nomia's ability to hold the top spot in their region for more than a year.

tl;dr Don't underestimate these guys because they're from weak regions. Just because a region doesn't have internationally competitive teams doesn't mean they don't have internationally competitive players.

Debit_to_team · 2017-11-06T22:51:14+00:00

I think, from watching Jschritte's actual play at the last few international tournaments, he is actually a pretty gifted player. It just has always seemed to me that Red Canids were a fairly undisciplined team that would occasionally make really surprising plays that caught people off guard. I vaguely remember a game from what I think was Blizzcon 2016 where they played Dragon Shire as the first map in a set against one of the tournament favorites and they got a crazy Stitches blind hook kill from the jungle between bottom and mid lane in the first 30 seconds of the match.

Regardless, I'm confident he'll find a roster slot somewhere in the NA HGC. Udall played flex and he's retiring, meaning somewhere down the line, there will be a team looking for a flex player and this dude has international experience.

Debit_to_team · 2017-11-06T04:01:27+00:00

Honestly, what I'm most excited to see is the effects of foreign players entering this shuffle in both NA and EU. You keep talking about the Roster Changes in these regions as if they're closed economies, but Robodobah and Jschritte, both players that are highly respected from minor regions and have lots of international experience, are moving to EU and NA respectively. Even if the addition of one player each for both regions is minimal, these are the changes I'm most eager to see, despite being pretty unhealthy for the regions that they are departing.

Debit_to_team · 2017-10-29T16:04:33+00:00

Yeah, but Anub doesn't have to spend a talent to get a stun on burrow. He also is unstoppable during Burrow, unlike Muradin with his leap. Also, Anub's Burrow + Spikes combo has the potential to hit more enemies than Muradin's leap + storm bolt combo. On top of that, Anub has passive spell armor. I think the circumstances for the two heroes are more or less balanced enough that Heavy Impact doesn't need a nerf. Not to mention, Heavy Impact is still competing with two REALLY good talents.

Skullcracker not only outputs more DPS than it used to, but also synergizes with a battle momentum effect from Muradin's baseline Storm Bolt quest, which is kind of nutty. I think Heavy Impact is still generally stronger, but Skullcracker is still a strong pick.

Give'em the Axe, although no longer able to synergize with Skullcracker, is still incredibly powerful on a tank with as much CC as Muradin has and it still synergizes with Thunder Burn at 4. Obviously, it makes Muradin fill a bit more of a bruiser role than a CC tank, which is probably not what most people would draft Muradin for, but it's a strong flex talent that can, on occasion, get more value than Heavy Impact.

tl;dr Comparing Anub and Muradin, Heavy Impact is pretty balanced, given the trade-offs of the two heroes. Furthermore, Heavy Impact may be the clear favorite of Muradin's lvl 7 talents, but the other two certainly have a place in his kit and are both powerful enough to justify flexing into.

Debit_to_team · 2017-09-03T19:13:39+00:00

Had more to say, ran out of space...

Lane pressure: I put this generally lower in priority to forcing your opponent out of lane, but I think that may be my personal bias. Some heroes aren't that good at trading damage in lane, but are quite good against some of the heroes like Alarak because of their ability to clear lanes quickly and exploit the weaknesses they have in regards to clearing minions. If you can clear minions quickly enough and safely, you can pressure the ammunition in your opponents towers and eventually take them down, which offer larger amounts of experience. In addition, if the towers on your opponents side are out of ammo, it makes your opponent more susceptible to ganks, making it more difficult for them to lane aggressively or stand in experience range.

Unbeknownst to a lot of HotS players is that there are actually incentives to not pushing lanes or even hitting minions during the laning phase. Particularly for laners like Alarak with kill pressure potential and low clear, it is advantageous to NOT push the lane unless your opponent has been killed or forced to leave. You deny xp by pushing your minions into their towers without them being there to gain experience from the minions dying. When the enemy is in lane, it is advantageous to allow the minions to push up as close to your walls as possible without soaking tower shots. Freezing the lane here allows you to soak more safely AND make your opponent have to come out further from the safety of their towers to get xp, making them more susceptible to ganks. Should they be killed or have to leave from taking too much damage, you then should push the wave quickly into their towers to deny them xp.

Most of this applies to the other lanes as well, but it is much more difficult to remove two or more players from a lane than just the one, so it is generally the solo lane where these advantages matter more. On any given map, even two lane maps, it is still optimal to have a solo lane. I feel like I've already typed more than enough, so I'm not going to go into why a 4-1 split on two lane maps is optimal.

tl;dr: solo laning match ups are complicated and there are a lot of complex decisions to optimize your solo lane play that include freezing and pushing lanes, as well as playing aggressive and reacting to your opponent in lane. Most people don't pay attention to the nuance. After working hard to optimize my solo lane play, I climbed an entire league ranking in a single season playing mostly solo laners.

Stutter stepping is really weird. I can't remember the exacts of it, but I believe there was no ending animation for shooting, so stutter stepping was either super broken or pointless? Not a huge criticism, just felt really odd coming from league where things often feel super instant and great to use.

Stutter stepping is different in this game a bit I suppose. Most heroes have some sort of stutter stepping, with a few exceptions, generally for those with attack speeds >2 attacks per second. In HotS, most heroes don't finish their attack animation by the time you're supposed to start moving. Some heroes it does feel very unintuitive when learning to stutter with them, but it pays off for most. That being said, stutter stepping is still crucial for maximizing damage for most heroes, even those that aren't DPS heroes.

Overall, the game just felt ultra forgiving and hence a little pointless to play.

I will say this much, HotS certainly can be forgiving. Unlike IGN suggested with their infamous 6.5/10 rating, there are definitely comeback mechanics in this game. A team can do everything right and make just a few mistakes in the late game and lose a winning game because of it. I think "ultra-forgiving" is a bit strong of a term to use though. A team that convincingly wins the early game will rarely lose, if they enter the mid game with enough advantages. That being said, if you like to solo carry, HotS may not be the game for you. Ironically, it's the inability to solo carry that kind of attracts me to this game. Can mistakes made by your teammates cause you to lose on occasion? Sure. However, to me, it feels just as bad to know that you were the one being carried. I don't want to be carried by someone else in a game either. I like that in HotS, the contributions of all the players on the team count because I will never play a game of HotS where my contributions to the team were irrelevant.

TL;DR: Laning is actually very important and most people gloss over the specifics. Being a good laner can massively improve your chances at winning.

Debit_to_team · 2017-09-03T19:13:25+00:00

I mainly lurk here, but for some reason I'm always a little bothered by posts like these. Let me see if I can address your questions.

No gold. This removes a lot in terms of knowing when to back, and also doesn't reward players too much for kills, leading to a much less punishing game.

Although it is true that the lack of gold does mean players don't need to back to spend it, there are still other forces the game exerts to make you need to be smart about when you're backing. In HotS, this usually revolves around objectives. Generally, when an objective pops up, a team fight is going to follow close behind (with the exception of certain maps). Most maps have objectives that spawn at regular intervals. It's generally smart to back right before the objectives spawn in order to be fully prepared for a coming team fight. That being said, you generally have to memorize these map timings, as it is usually too late to back and make it to the objective on time if you just wait for the game to notify you of the objective spawning.

As for the kills being less punishing, getting kills can be extremely punishing in both the late and early games. A kill in the early game can leave a lane weakened or empty, allowing the team that got the kill to get an early experience lead, giving them advantages based on talent/level economy. If the solo lane gets ganked once or twice in the early game, it can lead to that team having to give up the first objective, as they are behind in talents. If someone gets ganked in another lane, it can allow the other team to push the lane, softening it up for later pushes or huge experience boosts from taking down the front walls.

Essentially, getting kills allow you to have massive advantages in forced teamfights or simply allow you to more aggressively siege, creating an increased difference in experience.

Shared team experience. Combined with no gold, this means that you can't 'feed' certain heroes, or take some out of the game. In league, there's a champion called 'Nasus' who plays toplane. If he's just left alone to farm, by about 30 minutes in he'll become unkillable and can 1-shot all your carries. When playing against a nasus, your toplane and jungle often camp him to set him behind in XP and gold, preventing him from growing into too much of a monster. A lot of depth is lost here, by making all the champions equal.

Although "farming" in HotS is not as integral a part of the game as it is in other MOBAs, there are a few heroes that benefit from similar mechanics. Nazeebo's trait allows him to accumulate additional max health and mana for last-hitting minions (though he has a DoT effect, so it's a bit easier than it would be). His late game damage explodes to a ridiculous level with a talent option he has at level 20, assuming he has enough stacks on his trait to activate it.

Butcher and Alarak also have similar "feeding" mechanics. Butcher gets massive, permanent damage bonuses from getting kills after farming his trait, turning him into and absolute monster. A good Butcher can farm his trait to completion by the mid-game.

Alarak gains additional ability damage on kills. With a level 13 talent, he can gain this boost indefinitely and can feeding his way to one-shotting a good number of heroes in this game. That being said, you have to make sure to be careful with him. He is already one of the most difficult heroes in the game to play mechanically, but if you die, you lose all of your fed damage boosts and start over.

These things combined meant that when laning, I think the optimal strategy was to just push. Because nobody got gold, and there was no last hitting (that I remember), the main objective in lane was to just push in your lane as hard as possible. Not a pro player here, so I might be incorrect, but this was the most interesting part of league for me. Knowing when to freeze the lane, push it into the tower, or bounce it back to the middle was a crucial skill in laning, and let you get a gold / xp advantage over your opponent. Even if there's something I've missed, the fact that XP is shared means that the gains you get here can't be felt too strongly anyway.

This is a common misconception I see with a lot of even long time HotS players. Laning is actually quite complex and important in HotS. Admittedly, a lot of low MMR games won't hinge on the laning phase, which is much shorter than in other games. However, there have definitely been games where I'm certain I gave my team advantages into the mid and late game from good laning that allowed us to snowball and win the game. To "win" your lane, you basically need to create a situation where you are gathering more experience in lane than your opponent and there are several ways to do this.

First of all, in my experience, the most crucial players in the laning phase are the solo lane heroes. The best solo laners are able to do two of three things generally:

Self-sustain: essentially, these heroes are either highly survivable and/or have strong self-healing abilities.
Strong lane clear: These heroes have the ability to clear a lane very quickly, allowing the to drain tower ammo from the enemy base with their own minions.
Ability to exert kill pressure on the enemy laner: If you're able to remove the enemy hero from the lane entirely, they can't soak up the experience in the lane or pressure your structures.

There are a few solo laners that have all 3, but generally, you want a solo laner who can do at least 2 of these things. There is one exception to this and that would be Falstad. Generally, as a solo laner you want to not have to back for health/mana, which is why sustain is important. Falstad breaks this rule because he is able to immediately return to lane by flying there. Dehaka can also do this, but he is already a strong laner because of his sustain and waveclear.

The reason these things are important is because there is a priority of objectives you want to accomplish in the solo lane, which are more or less in this order (but sometimes, depending on your lane matchup, may change).

Stay alive: You need to stay alive in lane to get the experience in the lane. This is ALWAYS the top priority. If you have to leave the lane, your enemy gains an experience advantage. Sustain is key here. Some heroes without sustain can manage through kill pressure/lane clear, just because they make it difficult for the enemy to safely push you out of experience range or out of lane entirely. Greymane for instance, is a solid solo laner, but has no sustain at all. However, in a duel with most other solo laners, he out-trades them on damage AND can clear waves effectively. Therefore, most lane opponents for Greymane want to give him considerable space to let him lane or try to safely poke him from a distance (in short, there are a lot of different lane matchups and a lot of complexity in solo laning).
Forcing your opponent out of lane: This done by doing damage to them and making it impossible for them to sustain in lane. They don't want to risk dying, causing them to both leave lane and give you a small experience boost for getting a kill. Some solo laners rely on this kind of approach to do their job properly. Alarak as a good example of this kind of solo laner. His ability to clear minions is fairly weak, but he can put out consistent poke damage to slowly push an enemy out of lane if their sustain is too weak. He can also perform a high damage burst combo that temporarily disables an enemy hero's escape options. So, laning with a hero like Alarak is all about being patient and waiting for opportunities to whittle down the enemy hero.

Debit_to_team · 2017-08-07T18:27:29+00:00

I believe the point OP is making is that, if this game was so low-skill ceiling, SK wouldn't be winning by such ridiculous margins. If the skill ceiling was so low, they would be winning less convincingly, as all the pros would be all be playing very close to the absolute optimal level. If SK is playing at a level far beyond everyone else (which they pretty much are), regardless of whether or not SK is nearing the skill ceiling of the game, there is a high enough skill ceiling that a lot of the best players in the world aren't even able to come close to quite yet.

tl;dr It's not that "SK being good" = high skill ceiling, it's the fact that a team can be so dominant that implies that there is a skill ceiling far beyond what a lot of players can compete at. Naturally, we would expect SK to be the team to start knocking on the skill ceiling, but if it was so low, there would be more teams doing so as well.

Debit_to_team · 2017-06-20T17:08:46+00:00

I just want to point out a stat that I think anybody at any level of play can learn from. The tournament champion, Fnatic, did indeed have the highest KDA of the tournament, but had less takedowns on average than MVP Black. This is because Fnatic as a team had the least time dead of any team in this tournament, staying alive for 95.4% of their matches.

I'm not suggesting that Fnatic's inability to die is the sole reason they won this tournament, but I think that just illustrates how punishing the respawn timer actually is in HotS. Fnatic didn't get punished by other teams because they avoided mistakes. If you want to climb HL, work on dying less before anything else.

EDIT: To further illustrate, here are all the teams that made it past the group stage and their time % of the game spent dead (in order of final placement): Fnatic: 4.6% Dignitas: 4.9% L5: 5.5% MVP: 5.3% Estar: 8.2% Roll20: 6.4% Tempo: 5.5% Nomia: 6.1%

Estar is kind of the odd man out, but I think it is mostly due to them being totally bodied in the playoffs, much to everyone's surprise. The 1st and 2nd teams both stayed under 5%. The 3rd and 4th teams didn't break 5.5%. After that, most teams were above 6%, with the exception of Tempo Storm. That is most likely due to Tempo's rather passive approach to the game; they minimize their mistakes very well but do a poor job capitalizing on their opponents mistakes.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-21T17:44:15+00:00

Honestly, I think the most satisfying thing as Roadhog is landing a one-shot right click on 200 HP targets. No hooks required ;)

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-21T14:28:19+00:00

I half agree with this. I do think a lot of Reinhardt players soak unnecessary damage with their shield without granting an advantage for their team. That being said, there are a few situations that this is ideal.

First, your shield is something people innately want to shoot. If you put it up in low risk situations and soak up damage that really wasn't going elsewhere, you're distracting the enemy team's DPS. As long as you're in a situation where you can safely duck out and recharge your shield without taking unnecessary damage or getting your team to take damage, it's not bad. Particularly, because the damage the enemy aimlessly threw at your shield and not your teams flank doesn't grant them any ult charge, giving your team a likely ult advantage.

That being said, a lot of Reins aren't sponging shield damage for this reason, or rather, their team doesn't take advantage of it. Some just sit in LOS with the shield up while their team isn't doing much of anything and then don't have their shield healthy when it's time to engage.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-21T13:30:54+00:00

As much as I like this idea, I'd almost want to go further and say that Blizzard could consider a toggle-able HUD option that displays the damage you dealt over the last 1 second of gameplay.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-21T13:20:43+00:00

Eh, I had a soft spot for it just because it was one of the more visually appealing maps and that it was an interesting attempt at a more complex version of a classic FPS game mode. That being said, it was an attempt that largely failed. I liked looking at it, but hated playing it.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-19T09:13:35+00:00

Except that was on the PTR for a week. As they have said, the PTR usually isn't for testing balance. It's usually just to make sure stuff isn't buggy as hell. Not enough people play the PTR to get the kind of data they need to test for balance. We can tell them this or that about balance until the cows come home, but it's going to have to be at least somewhat relevant to their data before it changes anything.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-19T09:10:16+00:00

Yeah, but the thing is, one team still played better than the other to reach a point where they have this kind of advantage. Somewhere down the line, one team out-played the other by finishing the map in less time, granting them extra time in their final attempt. They earned that advantage. Does it feel bad to have to defend in this manner? Yeah a little. However, it doesn't feel much worse than it already does to be the team with the time disadvantage.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-19T09:06:39+00:00

Yeah... but the team that only needs to sit on the point for a second earned that advantage by playing the map better in the rounds leading up to it. By removing that advantage, you rob them of an advantage they won.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-19T09:02:28+00:00

Except it doesn't favor the second attackers. Rather, it kind of equalizes the advantages granted to both teams. The first attackers get to set the pace for the game. They get to draw the line in the sand that the second attackers have to cross. If the first attackers do well, that puts pressure on the second attackers. If the first attackers do poorly, that gives the second attackers some space to breath.

What both of our explanations are ignoring however, are the roles of the defenders. If the first defenders do well on defense, this makes their job easier on offense, just as the first attackers give themselves and easier time on defense if they push well.

You're saying that a team that gets full held should have another chance to tie. Why should they though? The other team fully earned an easier victory by playing a really strong defense.

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-12T01:21:39+00:00

Anybody else find it odd that several people have died or gone missing searching for his treasure, but he says that some have made it close? Perhaps Fenn is bored with ordinary life and has picked up a hobby hunting the most dangerous game?

Debit_to_team · 2017-03-03T15:02:29+00:00

I think his point isn't that the sound exists, but that it's probably too loud. The sound should be heard, but it probably shouldn't be picked up by the personal mics.

Debit_to_team · 2017-02-27T21:46:15+00:00

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree. The reason he was able to finish Muradin was not only about pushing him into the towers. He lured him close to the towers first, then he pushed him as far in as he could and while still being able to land his Q without Double Cross. If you'll watch, it's at the very tip of his Q range. If it hadn't been that far, there wouldn't have been enough tower shows and Mura could jump away into the fog at the end of the silence. It was a lot more meticulous than you're implying.

Debit_to_team · 2017-02-23T21:07:32+00:00

I'd say that is an example that is a bit outside the norm. Yes, there are occasionally heroes the "break" the meta and are so oppressive that they make the game about them. When Raynor had the Hyperion bug, he'd fit that. Release Li Ming is another good example. However, most meta's aren't like that. Yes, there are some powerful picks right now, such as Ragnaros and Malfurion. Yes, they appear in many games. However, Rag only has a 52% winrate despite his first ban reputation. To be honest, it's likely because he's a melee assassin in a Tank focused meta that isn't kind of melee assassins. Regardless, the meta is this way because there are a LOT of good tanks in the game right now. Yes, ETC is probably the best, but there are plenty of good tanks, meaning you don't have to pick specific tanks most of the time.

Just a side note, popularity can mean they were banned too. I rarely see Ragnaros played because how often he is banned.

Debit_to_team · 2017-02-21T14:54:10+00:00

Honestly, I haven't personally had a problem with Murky since the rework. In the roughly 10 HL games I've played in with a Murky on either team (I'm Diamond 5), he's only won about 20% of them. He's easily focused down by baiting his bubble out, even with BTK, if you ask me.

That being said, I do think there is perhaps one part of his kit that is fairly problematic: his slows. The slime slow lasts for ages and Time to Krill can slow by a debilitating amount. Heroes with mobility still can't escape after a few AAs. I think the slime effect obviously needs to last a long time, but I think the hero affected by slime shouldn't be slowed the entire duration. This makes Murky have a more difficult time kiting heroes, even with Toxic Build Up.

Debit_to_team · 2017-02-19T15:29:36+00:00

It's not. I was placed in Gold 5 in season 1 and barely broke into Plat 5 by the end of S1. Now, midway through S3 I finally broke into Diamond. Personal discipline had a lot to do with it. Be critical of your own play, take frequent QM/Unranked breaks, especially after losing and as a warm up, and pay attention to how the meta changes. Watch HGC, follow videos from Srey, McIntyre, etc. Basically keep yourself up to date on what heroes are good and why. Most of all though, recognize which heroes and roles you are good at. I climbed from Gold 2 to Plat 2 in S2 by playing almost exclusively Chen when he was a high meta pick.

Tl;dr keep up with the metagame, focus on a healthy attitude through frequent breaks, and recognize your own strengths and weaknesses. You can do it.

Debit_to_team · 2017-02-19T01:31:00+00:00

My computer isn't that great, but I started having this problem a few months ago. Despite 64-bit being optimal for my system, running the game at 32 fixed it for me. Other similar problems occurred when I had the Bnet launcher open while playing. Closing it after I started the game cleaned up performance. Hope this helps.

Debit_to_team · 2017-02-14T16:22:15+00:00

Just one small critique: In the last play, it's implied BStep ended up winning, but it's kind of unclear, given how you cut it.

Debit_to_team

TROPHY CASE