Overwatch: Boop!

[AsteriskAmp]

I meant that it is too weak when compared with the other sniper kits. I know that her scoped and unscoped shots do the same damage. Widomaker gets a big damage boost by sacrificing her perif. vision, Ana get's squat for putting her blinders on. Hanzo can't scope in, but he doesn't have to...get that arrow shot on a hitbox and your pretty much guaranteed a long range insta-kill. Ana might as well not bother scoping...it serves no real purpose. She can just hip fire into a group, if she hit's a friend, they get some healing, if she hits a foe, they take a little damage....

The scope... is a scope. It does what a scope is meant to do, zoom-in. Furthermore it makes your bullets hitscan, makes the healing hitbox FAR MORE GENEROUS and let's you aim at targets far away. Your scope comes up rather fast and you can come out of it before it's even fully up.

The scope let's you aim at things that are far away, that's already a big benefit. There is never a cluster big enough that you'll ever be able to just fire in a general direction. Healing and damage target prioritization is super important just in general. During team fights you shouldn't really afford to mess up aiming at the wrong ally or not helping secure a pick. Unscoped shooting has a travel time, your bullets are slower than a Mei's icicle, Zenyatta's status orb, and Hanzo's fully drawn bow and just a tad faster than Torb's rivet shotgun. Being able to focus fire and help secure picks, pile damage, support allies being focused without having to dive into their proximity and in general have more freedom in your positioning are massive tactical advantages.

Spoiler: Projectile Travel Speeds per the Wiki

Show

• Zenyatta, Orb of Harmony: 106.66 meters per second
• Zenyatta, Orb of Discord: 106.66 meters per second
• Mei, Icicle: 88.88 meters per second
• Hanzo, Storm Bow (Fully Drawn): 86.66 meters per second
• Ana, Biotic Rifle (Unscoped): 85.5 meters per second
• Torbjorn, Rivet Gun (Alternate): 80 meters per second
• Zenyatta, Orb of Destruction: 66.66 meters per second
• Zenyatta, Orb Volley: 66.66 meters per second
• Orisa, Fusion Driver: 60 meters per second
• Roadhog, Scrap Gun (Main): 57 meters per second
• Roadhog, Scrap Gun (Alternate): 57 meters per second
• Torbjorn, Rivet Gun (Main): 57 meters per second
• Genji, Shuriken: 47 meters per second
• Genji, Fan of Blades: 47 meters per second
• Bastion, Cannon: 44 meters per second
• Mercy, Caduceus Blaster: 40 meters per second
• Roadhog, Hook: 40 meters per second
• D.Va, Light Gun: 40 meters per second
• Soldier 76, Helix Rockets: 40 meters per second
• Lucio, Sonic Amplifier: 33.33 meters per second
• Pharah, Rocket Launcher: 28.5 meters per second
• Pharah, Concussive Blast: 28.5 meters per second
• Pharah, Barrage: 28.5 meters per second
• Reinhardt, Fire Strike: 26.66 meters per second
• Hanzo, Storm Bow (Minimum Draw): 26 meters per second
• Zarya, Particle Cannon (Alternate): 23.5 meters per second
• Zarya, Graviton Surge: 23.5 meters per second
• Mei, Endothermic Blaster: 20 meters per second
• Orisa, Halt!: 20 meters per second
• Orisa, Protective Barrier: 19 meters per second
• Sombra, Translocator: 19 meters per second
• Widowmaker, Venom Mine: 19 meters per second
• Junkrat, Frag Launcher: 17.5 meters per second
• Junkrat, Concussion Mine: 17.5 meters per second
• Torbjorn, Armor Pack: 12 meters per second
• Symmetra, Energy Ball: 10 meters per second

[gomipile]

I don't think you're really supposed to score headshots with her, but you are definitely a welcome addition as a bonus few damage points that might prevent a Pharah from getting a full ult off or something.

None of Ana's attacks or abilities have a headshot bonus.

[Winthur]

None of Ana's attacks or abilities have a headshot bonus.

Of course not. That's what I'm trying to say - her sniper rifle's scope isn't there for headshots. I apologise for making this sound like Ana has such a mechanic built in.

Just today I had a QP game where Ana's scope scored me 15 elims (silver medal) solely off of picking off wounded supports, out of position short-ranged DPSers (Junkrat in the open area of Hanamura 1) and dealing chip damage to whoever is closeby.

[Psyren]

Mei's right click is great practice for Ana's dart, while Ana dart is very slightly slower the shooting delay and travel speed are pretty close.

That right there is an excellent idea, and one I wouldn't have thought of. I'll give that a try.

I do wish you could scope her dart though (making it also hitscan) - I feel that would be a great buff for her without putting her out of balance.

On the other hand, if you aren't doing damage on the healing lulls you really shouldn't be playing Ana. She has lower healing rate compared to the two other main healers, and this is compensated by the biotic grenade (on enemies and allied tanks), the dart (as ult and cc) and the ability to heal and damage at a much greater distance. (Obviously comparatively, play whatever you like/want to get good at/etc. It's just not the optimal healer choice since her effectiveness is predicated on the offensive side of her kit and proper positioning much more than other healers.)

Yep, that's exactly why I play her. DPSing when not healing was my bread and butter even in my WoW days, and she excels at it even more since she's the only healer with a hitscan weapon (most of the time), AoE damage, and even better range than Zen. (Well, I suppose Soldier has those things, but hush I'm making a point here.)

[Velaryon]

It had been a while since I had any vitriol aimed at me by teammates, until yesterday.

I got called out while playing Lúcio by two teammates. They said I was trash for "not playing with the group." I was spending as much time as I could on the objective, and while I was there, I didn't go more than a few yards off it to heal anyone.

Through the whole match, I had gold objective time on the Tab screen. The player yelling at me most was playing Widow. Not that it matters too much, but I finished with gold healing, even though we also had a Mercy on our team both rounds.

The map was Lijiang Tower, if that matters. And it was Quick Play. /shrug

For what it's worth, it sounds like you did the same thing I would have. I play at or near the objective, so if my teammates are running off trying to spawn camp (which always happens when I play with randoms), they get too far for me to heal. Consoles have no chat except mics, and I only wear mine when I'm in a private party with friends, so I have no idea if people get salty about my not abandoning the objective to save them from their own stupidity.

But them I'm also the vengeful jerk who replies "Acknowledged" and then doesn't do anything when I get sick of a player spamming "I need healing!" after they ran off on their own and left me to die.

[Psyren]

Vitriol aside, the Widow player wasn't entirely wrong. On KotH maps, you should avoid sitting on the objective - it bunches your team up and generally there are too many vantage points and means of access for your team to adequately control. As long as you control the point, it doesn't matter where you fight, it will still keep counting up. Stay near it so you can all run back to delete a flanker who's trying to cap, but sitting directly on it is unnecessary.

Of course, as Lucio your job is always to stay near your team, so if the team isn't budging from the point feel free to ignore the above.

[Velaryon]

Playing too far off from the objective is a good way to get a Tracer, Sombra, or Genji capping it from behind, which forces you to either turn around and deal with them (thus reducing the number of people fighting against the rest of their team) or lose the objective. If you can establish a good holding place that's not on the objective but is near enough where you can deal with flankers without weakening your defense enough to let the rest of the enemy team through, then okay. But in my experience that tends to apply more to hybrid maps like Eichenwalde, King's Row, Hollywood, etc. where they have to capture the payload and then move it.

Most points on Nepal, Lijiang Tower, Oasis, etc. are fairly defensible on the point itself.

[Togath]

Honest question: do most people find it easier to hit distance targets when using scopes in games?
I mean, i get that's the intention behind them, but for me it always ups the difficulty.

[Psyren]

Honest question: do most people find it easier to hit distance targets when using scopes in games?
I mean, i get that's the intention behind them, but for me it always ups the difficulty.

At very long ranges, yes, the scope helps. Otherwise I agree, an accurate weapon on its own is usually enough. I land more hits with McCree than with Widowmaker.

The problem of course is that Widow and Ana need to scope for other reasons. With Widow, not scoping ruins your dps. With Ana, it allows you to keep healthy teammates from blocking your shots to injured ones or foes. In both cases, the scope makes you more effective.

[Togath]

At very long ranges, yes, the scope helps. Otherwise I agree, an accurate weapon on its own is usually enough. I land more hits with McCree than with Widowmaker.

The problem of course is that Widow and Ana need to scope for other reasons. With Widow, not scoping ruins your dps. With Ana, it allows you to keep healthy teammates from blocking your shots to injured ones or foes. In both cases, the scope makes you more effective.

Hmm... I just sort of wish you could at least do Ana-ish shots when unscoped as Widow.
Also, saw a short video and now I'm curious: can Zayra really do mini-rocket jumps using her gun's alt-fire?

[AsteriskAmp]

Playing too far off from the objective is a good way to get a Tracer, Sombra, or Genji capping it from behind, which forces you to either turn around and deal with them (thus reducing the number of people fighting against the rest of their team) or lose the objective. If you can establish a good holding place that's not on the objective but is near enough where you can deal with flankers without weakening your defense enough to let the rest of the enemy team through, then okay. But in my experience that tends to apply more to hybrid maps like Eichenwalde, King's Row, Hollywood, etc. where they have to capture the payload and then move it.

Most points on Nepal, Lijiang Tower, Oasis, etc. are fairly defensible on the point itself.

Even in KotH. If someone is backcapping it's a 5v6 fight, if defending team takes a single pick they can spare two people to go kill the flanker. Even if they respond without coordination, that flanker is getting ganked.

The objective is meant to be harder to defend on top. There are chokes just in front of it almost always. And while those have side routes, the side routes end before the objective so you can spare a glance now and then to check no one is flanking (sure the entire team could go that way, but they usually never do and if they did you just slightly readjust positioning).

Honest question: do most people find it easier to hit distance targets when using scopes in games?
I mean, i get that's the intention behind them, but for me it always ups the difficulty.

Absolutely. You can change the scope sensitivity (it's always relative to your unscoped sensibility) so you manage how much more fine control you want when scoped. I feel 1-1 scoped sensitivity works the best for me.

Because Blizzard code good and is much smart, scoped sens can't have decimals and there are different values for short and for long movements to get 1-1. 38 for short movements and 50 for long. I do 38 since if I'm doing a 180 scoped something has gone horribly wrong and I may be suffering from massive loss of peripheral vision.

Also, saw a short video and now I'm curious: can Zayra really do mini-rocket jumps using her gun's alt-fire?

Yes, not recommended at high energy but she CAN rocket jump almost all the same things S76 can.

[The_Jackal]

I think Ana's main problem is that she's difficult to play in typical QP environment of everyone except you being DPS. Genji and Tracer are hard to heal and generally healing is difficult when everyone disperses superfast, there's no grouping, and everyone thinks it's Team Deathmatch.

Healing flanker Heroes as Ana should always be at the bottom of your healing priority. You do have the hitbox advantage when healing teammates, but in general, they've got the mobility to see to themselves, for the most part, and shouldn't be taking that much damage to begin with. Tracer, for example, is a really bad healing target, because the difference in durability between full health Tracer and not-full health Tracer is fairly negligible. If they come back and hold still for you, great, if you can snap-shot them for a quick heal fine, but in general, if they're doing their job, they're out of your line of sight anyway.

Plus her scoped shots are too weak. Widow and Hanzo can kill a person at extreme range with one shot. Shoot a Widomaker (or Hanzo, or anybody else for that matter) with an Ana scoped shot, and she will be able to move before you can get another shot off.

Ana is a healer, not a sniper, but while she's at a disadvantage versus the other snipers, she's not without advantages. Of all sniper Heroes, she's the only one who can quick-scope. A uncharged Widowmaker will do 12 damage, 30 on a headshot. Ana does 60, all the time. That said, the biggest problem sniping with Ana is that you'll frequently get your shots blocked by your teammates. Regardless, you should not engage in sniper duels with Ana, that is not her wheelhouse. Your job is to hit your teammates with heals. Odds are good if you're in a stand-off position where you're scoping in to heal your team, you're in a bad, isolated position, and will quickly be murdered by a flanker. Also, if you're hard-scoping, you're also basically firing off signal flares showing your position. Ana's hipfire projectiles are much more innocuous.

On the other hand, if you aren't doing damage on the healing lulls you really shouldn't be playing Ana. She has lower healing rate compared to the two other main healers, and this is compensated by the biotic grenade (on enemies and allied tanks), the dart (as ult and cc) and the ability to heal and damage at a much greater distance. (Obviously comparatively, play whatever you like/want to get good at/etc. It's just not the optimal healer choice since her effectiveness is predicated on the offensive side of her kit and proper positioning much more than other healers.)

Ana can heal 90 health per second, BEFORE Biotic grenade, so no, she's quite capable of out-healing Mercy on a single target. Even including her reload time, she can out-sustain Mercy if she lands her shots, doing a solid 75 healing per second, and honestly, if your team can't put someone down to win the engagement in the 8 second window it takes to unload your clip, the problem is them, not you. What really makes or breaks Ana is whether you can reliably hit your teammates. Miss heals, and yes, your team will wish you were queuing on Mercy. And as for 'you need to do damage to justify playing Ana over another healer', that's just not true. For example, Mercy can out-damage Ana with her popgun. She does 200 DPS compared to Ana's 72. Sure, Ana's scope fire is more accurate, but Mercy's gunfire can pass through friendlies, which is a distinct advantage.

Vitriol aside, the Widow player wasn't entirely wrong. On KotH maps, you should avoid sitting on the objective - it bunches your team up and generally there are too many vantage points and means of access for your team to adequately control. As long as you control the point, it doesn't matter where you fight, it will still keep counting up. Stay near it so you can all run back to delete a flanker who's trying to cap, but sitting directly on it is unnecessary.

Precisely, you want to fight from an advantageous position that commands a good chokepoint or approach. Squatting on the point cedes the high ground to the other team, and you're better off commanding that high ground and engaging the enemy team as they come from spawn to re-take.

Of course, as Lucio your job is always to stay near your team, so if the team isn't budging from the point feel free to ignore the above.

This is the bigger issue. The whole point of playing a Sniper is that you're able to apply damage to the enemy team without requiring that much babysitting. You shouldn't expect much active intervention especially from a Lucio. (Sure, let me truck on over to you and leave the rest of my team without heals).

Playing too far off from the objective is a good way to get a Tracer, Sombra, or Genji capping it from behind, which forces you to either turn around and deal with them (thus reducing the number of people fighting against the rest of their team) or lose the objective. If you can establish a good holding place that's not on the objective but is near enough where you can deal with flankers without weakening your defense enough to let the rest of the enemy team through, then okay. But in my experience that tends to apply more to hybrid maps like Eichenwalde, King's Row, Hollywood, etc. where they have to capture the payload and then move it.

I've generally found back-capping and the like to be a fairly rare occurrence, even at my low SR. You definitely will note that most control points in Overwatch are surrounded by higher ground from which they can be attacked. I think the most easily defensible capture points are Nepal Village and Ilios Ruins, because the lines of sight into the point are less open than other maps, like Ilios Well or Li'jiang Tower Control Center.

Hmm... I just sort of wish you could at least do Ana-ish shots when unscoped as Widow.
Also, saw a short video and now I'm curious: can Zayra really do mini-rocket jumps using her gun's alt-fire?

Yes, Zarya can knock herself around with her alt-fire.

The main thing to remember is that a Widow headshot can do 300 fully charged, so against most normal charges, you don't need to let it charge up all the way, and in fact should practice a faster firing tempo in the practice range. In my experience, waiting til the second chevron lights up is a good threshold for deciding to fire.

[Togath]

It's less scope sensitivity(I do like it higher, when I have to use it), and more how little I can see. Plus zooming in is disorienting.

...also wait, Soldier 76 can rocket jump!? How?

[AsteriskAmp]

Ana can heal 90 health per second, BEFORE Biotic grenade, so no, she's quite capable of out-healing Mercy on a single target. Even including her reload time, she can out-sustain Mercy if she lands her shots, doing a solid 75 healing per second, and honestly, if your team can't put someone down to win the engagement in the 8 second window it takes to unload your clip, the problem is them, not you. What really makes or breaks Ana is whether you can reliably hit your teammates. Miss heals, and yes, your team will wish you were queuing on Mercy. And as for 'you need to do damage to justify playing Ana over another healer', that's just not true. For example, Mercy can out-damage Ana with her popgun. She does 200 DPS compared to Ana's 72. Sure, Ana's scope fire is more accurate, but Mercy's gunfire can pass through friendlies, which is a distinct advantage.

Ana heals 82.5 hp/s, she heals 75HP over 0.9s (the shot heals you in ticks upward quickly but not the whole thing instantly) and she does 1.1 shots per second, they are roughly the same in terms of rate so it ends up being 82.5-83.3.

However that implies the shot is healing for full and that you are shooting a single target. It also ignores reload times. While Lucio area heals means that you are probably healing at least 1 teammate at a time and potentially more (in which case he becomes the highest heals per second in the game), and Mercy can just switch to the blue beam, Ana needs to be shooting allies that have taken over 75hp to keep up those numbers. Not to mention target switching is noticeably slower with her since you have to aim. Not only that but it assumes you aren't missing shots, a single stray shot massively tanks your heals per second number.

The grenade is an amazing tool, but it has a long cooldown and it only helps the allies that were in it.

Mercy is 100dps not 200 and she has to switch weapons to do that, in practice you are better blue beaming the guy on fire or the least incompetent of your allies. Ana's advantage is the ability to chip, have a more varied set of viable positions and reasonably self defend. It's not only do damage, it's using the kit to it's full extent since most of the times Ana overall healing ends up being lower than the 2 other main healers unless the enemy team is focusing a naded D.Va all of the match. And doing damage and helping or taking picks is rather important when allies are relatively healthy since Ana has no speed boost/perpetual area heals/damage boost and why waste ammo on incomplete heals.

...also wait, Soldier 76 can rocket jump!? How?

Helix Rocket.

[Togath]

Cool! I've got to try that... even if it's not as impressive as a certain other Soldier's, it still sounds like a useful trick.

[The_Jackal]

Ana heals 82.5 hp/s, she heals 75HP over 0.9s (the shot heals you in ticks upward quickly but not the whole thing instantly) and she does 1.1 shots per second, they are roughly the same in terms of rate so it ends up being 82.5-83.3.

Gamepedia has her fire rate at 1.2 shots per second, hence our math discrepancy. I'm not sure who's right, but I'm ready to take their word for it. At any rate, either figure out-sustains Mercy's 60 hps, including factoring in reloads (~70 hps with a full unload-reload cycle). And, again, if your team can't get an edge in the window of time where you still have shots, that's on them.

[QUOTE]However that implies the shot is healing for full and that you are shooting a single target. It also ignores reload times. While Lucio area heals means that you are probably healing at least 1 teammate at a time and potentially more (in which case he becomes the highest heals per second in the game), and Mercy can just switch to the blue beam, Ana needs to be shooting allies that have taken over 75hp to keep up those numbers. Not to mention target switching is noticeably slower with her since you have to aim. Not only that but it assumes you aren't missing shots, a single stray shot massively tanks your heals per second number.[QUOTE]

Lucio heals 16.25 hps on allies in his vicinity, plus just over 12 on himself. So, to exceed Ana's 70 health per second, he's got to be healing 4 teammates, plus himself. Not impossible, but also not a gimme. Besides, burst healing is, by nature, better than AoE healing, because it tops off the people who need it. I don't mean to trash Lucio, he's great, but when Soldier can gun someone down in a second (not remotely unlikely at close range) an extra 16 health is not going to make a huge difference.

The grenade is an amazing tool, but it has a long cooldown and it only helps the allies that were in it.

True, but the same could be said for Lucio's 'Amp it up'.

Mercy is 100dps not 200 and she has to switch weapons to do that, in practice you are better blue beaming the guy on fire or the least incompetent of your allies. Ana's advantage is the ability to chip, have a more varied set of viable positions and reasonably self defend. It's not only do damage, it's using the kit to it's full extent since most of the times Ana overall healing ends up being lower than the 2 other main healers unless the enemy team is focusing a naded D.Va all of the match.

Mea culpa, that was a typo. However, as to boosting being better than shooting, not necessarily. +30% of Soldier's damage is 60 DPS, compared to 100 DPS for her gun. Now boosting has other advantages. Depending on your target, 30% of a hitscan can be preferable to 100% of your own fire. You can also boost around corners, staying safely out of LOS while your teammates peek. Finally, you can toggle between healing and boosting much faster than swapping from your weapon.

However, there are still times that it's going to be good to spam your gun. If there's a barrier blocking your team's fire, breaking it earlier can absolutely be worth the fire. If you have a long corridor you can fill with fire, you can also do a lot of work. And, of course, if you don't have anyone to fly out of harm's way to, you might not have any choice, so it's shoot or die (or possibly both). However, in any case, the reason Ana has trouble posting higher healing numbers is, IMO, because it's often difficult to be consistent with her, and that is mostly a function not of her inaccuracy, but because of your shots being body-blocked by friendlies. That super-generous hitbox on your shots can work against you, and often does. IMO, that's one of her biggest challenges, is that your positioning needs to account for having transverse options to selectively target team-members.

Look, I'm not saying shooting enemies with Ana is incorrect, one of her strengths is her ability to instantly swap between healing and hurting, while not giving up ground on Mercy for single-target throughput.

[Velaryon]

Precisely, you want to fight from an advantageous position that commands a good chokepoint or approach. Squatting on the point cedes the high ground to the other team, and you're better off commanding that high ground and engaging the enemy team as they come from spawn to re-take.

Again , I find this morre applicable on hybrid maps like Numbani than on KotH maps like Nepal or Oasis. Look at Nepal Sanctum, for example. There is higher ground on three sides, with the drop down from above on the fourth. None of it is elevated enough to make much difference. Every time my team takes the point and then tries to move off it to defend, it becomes a losing battle. Defenders now have a longer walk back from respawn. There Isn't a good choke point up there. And someone always drops down into the room behind the point and starts to cap because there's no one there.

I've generally found back-capping and the like to be a fairly rare occurrence, even at my low SR. You definitely will note that most control points in Overwatch are surrounded by higher ground from which they can be attacked. I think the most easily defensible capture points are Nepal Village and Ilios Ruins, because the lines of sight into the point are less open than other maps, like Ilios Well or Li'jiang Tower Control Center.

You must play against different people than I do then, because in my experience an empty objective is basically a guarantee that you will have a Tracer or Sombra slip back there within a minute or two.

[AsteriskAmp]

Gamepedia has her fire rate at 1.2 shots per second, hence our math discrepancy. I'm not sure who's right, but I'm ready to take their word for it. At any rate, either figure out-sustains Mercy's 60 hps, including factoring in reloads (~70 hps with a full unload-reload cycle). And, again, if your team can't get an edge in the window of time where you still have shots, that's on them.

With the amount of patches that have been centered on screwing around with healers I have no idea if even one of us might even be correct.

Lucio heals 16.25 hps on allies in his vicinity, plus just over 12 on himself. So, to exceed Ana's 70 health per second, he's got to be healing 4 teammates, plus himself. Not impossible, but also not a gimme. Besides, burst healing is, by nature, better than AoE healing, because it tops off the people who need it. I don't mean to trash Lucio, he's great, but when Soldier can gun someone down in a second (not remotely unlikely at close range) an extra 16 health is not going to make a huge difference.

The best type of healing is going to depend on context. If the enemy team is not focusing a single member of your team team heals are going to be better. The advantage of Lucio is not having to really care what team mate got shot as long as SOMEONE got shot close by. Ana has to be fully aware of which of her targets got shot and how much each tick of the healthbar represents. A Zarya chunk is VERY VERY different from a Tracer health chunk.

Mea culpa, that was a typo. However, as to boosting being better than shooting, not necessarily. +30% of Soldier's damage is 60 DPS, compared to 100 DPS for her gun. Now boosting has other advantages. Depending on your target, 30% of a hitscan can be preferable to 100% of your own fire. You can also boost around corners, staying safely out of LOS while your teammates peek. Finally, you can toggle between healing and boosting much faster than swapping from your weapon.

You need to be landing all of the shots for her DPS to match the theoretical damage, which is while possible unlikely (and if you are doing that, why the hell are you playing Mercy?!). More importantly than all of that, blue beam increases your allies ult acquisition rate.

However, there are still times that it's going to be good to spam your gun. If there's a barrier blocking your team's fire, breaking it earlier can absolutely be worth the fire. If you have a long corridor you can fill with fire, you can also do a lot of work. And, of course, if you don't have anyone to fly out of harm's way to, you might not have any choice, so it's shoot or die (or possibly both).

It really depends, if it's early in the game, damage boosting allies is still better, since it increases their ult acquisition rate (one point of damage is point of ult charge). The handgun only gets YOU ult and yours is going to be up before anyone else most likely anyway.

However, in any case, the reason Ana has trouble posting higher healing numbers is, IMO, because it's often difficult to be consistent with her, and that is mostly a function not of her inaccuracy, but because of your shots being body-blocked by friendlies. That super-generous hitbox on your shots can work against you, and often does. IMO, that's one of her biggest challenges, is that your positioning needs to account for having transverse options to selectively target team-members.

Look, I'm not saying shooting enemies with Ana is incorrect, one of her strengths is her ability to instantly swap between healing and hurting, while not giving up ground on Mercy for single-target throughput.

I think we agree on the premises and just differ on the conclusions. Ana is not a bad pure healer, heck on paper she's probably the best even if accounting for all of the technicalities of each ability. But I feel if you want to do pure healing, Ana is not the ideal character for such a playstyle. She needs quite a lot of offensive thought in mind both for positioning as well as survival. Her kit is geared towards her actually switching between healing and damaging, not doing that is just not utilizing her to her full potential, at which point why not use a hero who's full potential is exactly what you want to do, namely Mercy (since Lucio dps is retarded high right now).

[Silverraptor]

And... Doomfist is Live!

[The_Jackal]

With the amount of patches that have been centered on screwing around with healers I have no idea if even one of us might even be correct.

Indeed. I wish Blizzard would just write their website with some data-mining, so that it could update when each patch goes live. It's entirely doable.

The best type of healing is going to depend on context. If the enemy team is not focusing a single member of your team team heals are going to be better. The advantage of Lucio is not having to really care what team mate got shot as long as SOMEONE got shot close by. Ana has to be fully aware of which of her targets got shot and how much each tick of the healthbar represents. A Zarya chunk is VERY VERY different from a Tracer health chunk.

Agreed, however my point is mainly that it's the rare sort of comp that would take Lucio as a solo healer. But then, you could definitely argue that there's no support you would take as a solo healer. Ultimately, my attitude is that Ana and Mercy are equally valid picks for a single-target healer role. One is just more mechanically challenging than the other, and I wouldn't choose either one as a 'pure healer'.

You need to be landing all of the shots for her DPS to match the theoretical damage, which is while possible unlikely (and if you are doing that, why the hell are you playing Mercy?!). More importantly than all of that, blue beam increases your allies ult acquisition rate.

The same is absolutely true of anyone you're boosting. Let's take the idea case: Soldier 76. He's got a maximum sustained DPS of ~126 in optimum range, including mag-dumping and firing helix rockets on cooldown (not realistic, but whatevs). Average Soldier 76 weapon accuracy is 40%. So if you boost him, you're going to get 30% of 40% of 126 DPS, which is about 15 DPS overall. Now, Mercy's own sustained popgun damage is 80 DPS. With average accuracy (30%), she'll get 24 DPS overall. So you're doing 60% more damage with your gun, on average, than boosting the average Soldier 76. With many, many other Heroes, those figures get worse. Now there's no question that there's externalities. Boosting is automatically focused fire, and as you say, it increases ult charge rate for your DPS, which is hardly bad. However, Mercy gets more ult charge from her gun than from boosting teammates, and if you're playing Mercy correctly, IMO, you're far better off using tempo rez, unless you think the enemy team is sitting on a few ults to pull of a wombo-combo.

Look, I'm not trying to make the case that Mercy shouldn't boost, that's not it at all. I'm trying to make the case that saying Ana's offense role is more important than Mercy's doesn't quite meet the facts. Ana's sustained DPS is ~67. Yes, she's got more reach, but I think it's a misrepresentation to describe her role as 'more offensive' than Mercy.

It really depends, if it's early in the game, damage boosting allies is still better, since it increases their ult acquisition rate (one point of damage is point of ult charge). The handgun only gets YOU ult and yours is going to be up before anyone else most likely anyway.

As I said, I'm a big believer of the Tempo rez. What is the point of having a fast-charging ultimate if you're going to squat on it waiting for a 4-man wipe? Besides, most enemy teams are going to headhunt you anyway, so the sooner you get value from your ult, the better for you and your team.

I think we agree on the premises and just differ on the conclusions. Ana is not a bad pure healer, heck on paper she's probably the best even if accounting for all of the technicalities of each ability. But I feel if you want to do pure healing, Ana is not the ideal character for such a playstyle. She needs quite a lot of offensive thought in mind both for positioning as well as survival. Her kit is geared towards her actually switching between healing and damaging, not doing that is just not utilizing her to her full potential, at which point why not use a hero who's full potential is exactly what you want to do, namely Mercy (since Lucio dps is retarded high right now).

IMO, every healer has the ability and the responsibility to contribute in any way they can, and if you're leaving some part of your kit unused, you're doing less than you can. On that I think we agree. I think Mercy's boost, like Symmetra's leash, or Junkrat's nade spam, is there to present less skilled players with an option which lets them contribute without needing to immediately grasp aiming fundamentals. But that doesn't mean that her gun shouldn't be used. I also think it's very easy to over-estimate Ana's offensive potential, and far, far too easy for Ana to get scope-locked on doing damage, and overlook doing her proper job, which is healing and enabling her teammates.

Also, Lucio's sustain is 64 DPS, so it's lower than even Ana's. What makes Lucio do BS damage is boop off cliffs.

[Togath]

Playing around with doomfist, and discovered he can take the Eichenwalde shortcut;


Also, finding him awesome to play. So far, I've been using his uppercut for mobility(any damage it does certainly doesn't hurt, but that's not my priority with it), usually chaining into his downward slam, since it has a MASSIVE range. On the indoors Nepal map, he can easily jump from the spawn ramp to the main big doorway, to give an idea of range. With enough skill, he could probably go even further.
His gun seems to have slightly better range than reaper, and does roughly the same damage. Only four shots before firing, but they fire quick, and reload with time(I've found that as long as other abilities see use, there is usually plenty of time for the rounds to recharge).
Altfire(the charge) also does a lot of damage. It's a great finisher in addition to it's movement uses(though charging it does slow you down). The downward slam does fire in a cone, so be aware of that if using it to damage, but given it's range it's pretty easy to aim.
His ult also has variable timing on when it triggers(since you can detonate it early), which can be used to make the enemy team panic, or even potentially waste a sound barrier. It also renders him invulnerable for the duration, able to pass over almost all obstacles(generally, if Genji can pass it, he can too while using meteor strike), and greatly increases his movement speed too. Plus it can place him on top of walls/roofs/etc. Damage seems very heavy, and usually results in a kill if it lands(though even if it doesn't, the scare factor and movement are plenty good, and it can even be used to escape death). Think of it a bit like a RIPtire that can't be destroyed and doesn't leave you vulnerable while using it.
His passive is okay. Nothing amazing, but still a fun thing to have, and it does mean stuff like his ult or altfire doesn't leave him too vulnerable when he lands even if he's a little away from his team.
Also, sadly, it seems his quick melee is just normal strength. Still, decent finisher if you're good at using Genji's.

All in all, seems a bit like a cross between Genji and Reaper with more survivability and boop potential.
Also he has awesome skins. So that's a plus too~

[AsteriskAmp]

Indeed. I wish Blizzard would just write their website with some data-mining, so that it could update when each patch goes live. It's entirely doable.

At this point an image would be a massive improvement even (pick a non-OCR-able font to up the ante).

Look, I'm not trying to make the case that Mercy shouldn't boost, that's not it at all. I'm trying to make the case that saying Ana's offense role is more important than Mercy's doesn't quite meet the facts. Ana's sustained DPS is ~67. Yes, she's got more reach, but I think it's a misrepresentation to describe her role as 'more offensive' than Mercy.

Mercy's kit (besides being mostly aiming free) is mostly based around empowering allies than doing damage directly. The handgun does better than DPS (Genji for example has 84dps) damage but it's has travel time and requires Mercy to be in a place she really shouldn't be. You don't really have the freedom that Ana has to be doing chip and picks, the scope makes a massive difference as does the dart and the grenade (and Ana not having direct ally enabling tools besides her ult).

As I said, I'm a big believer of the Tempo rez. What is the point of having a fast-charging ultimate if you're going to squat on it waiting for a 4-man wipe? Besides, most enemy teams are going to headhunt you anyway, so the sooner you get value from your ult, the better for you and your team.

I used to have an opinion on Tempo rez but then they changed the ult charge rate several times. I think the Tempo rez has become much more situational, and much more dependent on map/comp/side. But I don't really favour any particular philosophy in that regard, support might be the most patched/tweaked thing in the game and Mercy rez might be the most controversial ult (outside of the meme deadeye became for a while).

IMO, every healer has the ability and the responsibility to contribute in any way they can, and if you're leaving some part of your kit unused, you're doing less than you can. On that I think we agree. I think Mercy's boost, like Symmetra's leash, or Junkrat's nade spam, is there to present less skilled players with an option which lets them contribute without needing to immediately grasp aiming fundamentals. But that doesn't mean that her gun shouldn't be used. I also think it's very easy to over-estimate Ana's offensive potential, and far, far too easy for Ana to get scope-locked on doing damage, and overlook doing her proper job, which is healing and enabling her teammates.

Absolutely agreed on Ana becoming headshot-less Widow being a problem, but on the other hand she doesn't really have much directly enabling tools. She can certainly heal, but she has few ways to contribute to damage or positioning outside of doing it herself. Mercy has to know when to Heal and when to Damage Boost, Ana has to decide when to heal and when to chip/snipe/nade in terms of rough general ability usage decisions.

Also, Lucio's sustain is 64 DPS, so it's lower than even Ana's. What makes Lucio do BS damage is boop off cliffs.

Lucio has 80DPS till the reload, which is about 400 damage before having to reload, the hitbox is rather generous, there is doppler when moving forward while shooting. And Lucio does it all while having full mobility and healing allies/himself or in can't touch me mode. Lucio getting silver elims is not rare in practice.

[Psyren]

I had an inordinate amount of fun last night eating inexperienced Doomfist players. It wasn't even unfair because there was invariably one on my team too. I got my first PotG as Orisa, parking my generous robot heinie on the Numbani cart and keeping it just outside the checkpoint while mowing down the enemy until the rest of my team came running back. CEASE YOUR RESISTANCE!

Sidenote, have people been hoarding lootboxes? Literally every match I played had a Doomfist or two in special skins. Didn't he just come out?

[The_Jackal]

Mercy's kit (besides being mostly aiming free) is mostly based around empowering allies than doing damage directly. The handgun does better than DPS (Genji for example has 84dps) damage but it's has travel time and requires Mercy to be in a place she really shouldn't be. You don't really have the freedom that Ana has to be doing chip and picks, the scope makes a massive difference as does the dart and the grenade (and Ana not having direct ally enabling tools besides her ult).

Okay, Genji isn't built around sustain, he's built around burst. His DPS where it counts (in your face) is 96, including reload speed and using swift strike on cooldown is a hair over 102. Yes, if he's only going to flick shuriken over middle distance, then Mercy will out-damage him. Which, if anything, shows how not every Hero is worth boosting (not that you would). However, they way Genji works is that he can slap you with 164 damage in very short succession, so what he's really meant to be doing is lurking around the flanks of the opposing team, flicking shuriken until he sees someone dented, then rush in to finish them off with a dash/fan of blades/melee combo, then zip off to safety once the target has died, or stay stuck in while the rest of his team crashes the line to exploit the pick. If Mercy's other abilities afforded her the ability jump into the enemy line of battle, blast someone, then scoot away before she was killed, then yes, she would be a better Genji than Genji. But she doesn't. That doesn't mean that her gun isn't a useful part of her kit.

When you talk about Ana's freedom to do chip damage, I don't really agree with that. It's just as important that Ana prioritize not dying and minimizing her exposure to flankers, as it is with Mercy, and given that Ana's damage can't fire through her team, who should, in almost every case, be in front of you, then there's even less purpose in aiming at the enemy team, you're just going to get your shots blocked by Roadhog butt. Look, if you have a shot, take it. Putting a few darts into Pharah to keep her out of your hair is good, take the shots you're given if there's nothing more worthwhile to be doing (like healing anyone), but your positioning should be driven by the same principles as Mercy, except in so far as Ana has no escape route, and therefore need to be more conservative, and should stay with her team as much as possible. Stand off by yourself on high ground with no friends near by using your sniper, you may as well fire your shots in Morse code saying 'kill me', because that's what you're signaling to the other team's flankers.

I used to have an opinion on Tempo rez but then they changed the ult charge rate several times. I think the Tempo rez has become much more situational, and much more dependent on map/comp/side. But I don't really favour any particular philosophy in that regard, support might be the most patched/tweaked thing in the game and Mercy rez might be the most controversial ult (outside of the meme deadeye became for a while).

Well, my practical experience on Mercy (which is not great, I'll admit) is that you're going to get dove early and often, and in low ranks, better to rez the guys with you than hold out for some 5-man miracle, because the odds of all 5 players doing in a small window drop commensurately with the team's SR.

Absolutely agreed on Ana becoming headshot-less Widow being a problem, but on the other hand she doesn't really have much directly enabling tools. She can certainly heal, but she has few ways to contribute to damage or positioning outside of doing it herself. Mercy has to know when to Heal and when to Damage Boost, Ana has to decide when to heal and when to chip/snipe/nade in terms of rough general ability usage decisions.

Lucio has 80DPS till the reload, which is about 400 damage before having to reload, the hitbox is rather generous, there is doppler when moving forward while shooting. And Lucio does it all while having full mobility and healing allies/himself or in can't touch me mode. Lucio getting silver elims is not rare in practice.

Lucio's projectile hitbox is identical to Mercy, as is his damage. He just fires 4 shots per second compared to her five, and reloads a touch more slowly. Also, eliminations is a very, very misleading statistic, especially with Lucio. He gets a lot because he's firing his gun, because there's no reason not to. It's not a coincidence that Zenyatta averages more eliminations, even though he's going to be spending more of his activity applying discord and harmony to various players. Boops notwithstanding, Lucio's DPS output is entirely forgettable.

Look, don't get me wrong, you should not be looking for opportunities to shoot as Mercy, and in most circumstances, boosting is the correct thing to do, simply because it affords you the ability to contribute to your team's offense without exposing yourself to fire. However, the same principles apply to Ana. You don't want to expose yourself to fire. You don't want to pretend you're Widow and find a perch you can fire from at the far end of the map. You want to stay with your team, and be close enough to do most of your work with hip fire, especially because those sniper trails are big tells to the enemy.

[The_Jackal]

I had an inordinate amount of fun last night eating inexperienced Doomfist players. It wasn't even unfair because there was invariably one on my team too. I got my first PotG as Orisa, parking my generous robot heinie on the Numbani cart and keeping it just outside the checkpoint while mowing down the enemy until the rest of my team came running back. CEASE YOUR RESISTANCE!

Sidenote, have people been hoarding lootboxes? Literally every match I played had a Doomfist or two in special skins. Didn't he just come out?

They hoarded gold, I'll bet. I've got over 3k, myself. There's no point in hoarding loot boxes, the box types are different. While it's possible that the new patch changed the potential contents of the lootboxes this time (because they specifically tweaked the drop mechanics), in general, stored loot boxes don't change type to event loot boxes during an event.

Yeah, quick play has a lot of bad Doomfist players, though I did see a few that had started to get their act together. I too had some high times punishing them. That big hitbox doesn't give you a big window in which to do your work, so if your game isn't on point, you'll get gunned down in a hurry. He's basically a more mobile Zarya, without any bubble, and with fewer hit points, in terms of how easy he is to hit.

[gomipile]

Plus, the devs have said that the contents of the crates are generated when they enter your inventory, not when they are opened. So if the crate was generated before a new skin existed, it can't contain that skin.

As suggested above, it's probably just that they had the gold to spend.

[Togath]

I dropped 250 on his awesome Painted skin~

[gomipile]

I dropped 250 on his awesome Painted skin~

Yeah, that epic skin is as detailed as many of the legendaries.

[The_Jackal]

Yeah, that epic skin is as detailed as many of the legendaries.

I'll eventually buy the Irin skin, but I'm going to wait til a few lootboxes have been opened using the new 'less dupes' system before I drop gold on it.

[Silverraptor]

So, I think I discovered something about the loot boxes. I had been saving them for a couple weeks when I heard about Doomfist and I had 12 by the time he was released. I then did the arcade and got 5 more and tried opening all 17 loot boxes I had. What was interesting was the change with the loot boxes where the duplicates would stop showing up so much, that the first 12 boxes, I was getting duplicates galore. So many duplicates on sprays and skins and such I already had, but then when I opened the last 5 of the loot boxes I had stacked, all the duplicates just stopped completely and everything I got was something new. So it seems that each lootbox is timestamped internally in the game associated with the patch notes of when you earned that loot box, or the loot box already has pre-generated the 4 random things you are going to get from that lootbox the moment you earn it.

Just something I observed and found interesting.