hypertechex

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My Thoughts on the OW2 1st Beta Wave

The 5v5 format is certainly a step in the right direction. It seems like each player has significantly more impact in the fight than in Overwatch 1, yet there is plenty of room for strong team play. The pacing of the game feels very engaging. Removing 1 player on each side makes the game significantly more accessible for newer audiences. I play in a competitive team, and we have had a blast with the beta so far.

The UI is great for the most part, and the scoreboard is a lot better than the medal system. My only complaint is that the UI that shows incoming damage is way more distracting than it needs to be. It covers way too much of the screen and is very disorienting for a game like Overwatch.

I have experienced a bug where the timer on health packs do not show up. There's also an audio bug where sometimes if Sojourns Railgun Secondary Fire goes near an enemy player, then on the enemy side the audio of the shot is significantly louder than it should be.

For the individual hero changes, I think Sojourn is well balanced for now. Mei seems decent but she appears to be significantly less fun to play due to one of her two main appeals (freezing and the wall) getting restricted to an ultimate. I believe at this point, with tanks having a lot of the crowd control abilities as well as Meis kit being innately fitting for a tank playstyle, that Mei should be reconsidered for the tank role as opposed to remaining a damage hero. The tanks seem to have their own place in the game except Roadhog who gets his value from an easily counterable ability on a long cooldown (long for the standards of it being his only impactful ability), and with ultimates being harder to get, Roadhog suffers even more due to him having a niche ultimate with a long generation time to boot. Speaking of long generation times, I think it is certainly healthier for the game to make it more difficult to use ultimates often, just keep an eye on heroes who get a majority of their impact from their ults and everything should be fine.

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How to Play Echo

Tri-Shot: Tri-Shot will act as your pre-initiation or midfight tool. You can use it to poke at enemies at range or follow up a burst cooldown if your initial damage was not enough. This attack provides consistent damage to single targets and is best used with a tap-fire for best accuracy.

Sticky Bombs: This will be your initiation tool against unsuspecting (likely non-tank) targets. It is important to not precede this with other offensive cooldowns or else your target will have time to react. When you land this cooldown, you will need an immediate follow-up which will come from either you or a teammate.

Flight: This ability will get you set up in the right position to jump your target or challenge an airborne target. Make sure to use the freedom of the cooldown’s mobility along with the geometry of the map you are playing on to conceal your pathing until you are ready to strike. For the best mobility options, it is recommended to use your Flight on hold rather than toggle in the options menu.

Focusing Beam: This cooldown is quite plainly your primary follow up to your burst damage. Alternatively, you can use it to burn through enemy shields for your team if there is no target to finish off.

Duplicate: With this ultimate, you want to assess which heroes on the enemy team am I comfortable playing, which hero on the enemy team will give your team the most value in this situation, and which hero on the enemy team will give you the most value in this situation. Don't be afraid to also use this as a "get out of jail free card" when you find yourself in a poor state that you can realistically bounce back from.

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What I would change about every Overwatch Hero heading into Overwatch 2: Support

Ana: A lot of supports are already in a good place or are heading there based on Overwatch 2 Beta patches. Ana exemplifies the fun of playing a support hero that doesn't just heal. The only change I would make to Ana is to lower her healing capabilities (numbers, fire rate, or reload time).

Baptiste: Baptiste isn't very strong in Overwatch 2. To change this, I would give the Immortality Field a significantly larger radius as movement in this game has become a larger factor than in Overwatch 1. I would also consider increasing the radius of his Biotic Launcher secondary fire (although not by much), and his Regenerative Burst to compensate.

Brigitte: Brigitte has received so many changes since her release, resulting in her role within a team being placed as a Support bodyguard. I don't believe this is healthy for the game because Support players shouldn't rely on someone to pick a hero to protect them from dives. I say Brigitte fits the Damage role better than anything else with some adjustments to her healing numbers, damage numbers, and offensive utility.

Lucio: With the new support passive ability that lets support heroes regenerate HP, Lucio does not have much of a need for his crossfade ability aside from the area-of-effect healing it provides. I believe replacing his healing with a new supportive utility that also benefits himself may be a good change.

Mercy: Mercy's issue is that she relies too much on other damage heroes, she needs some utility that encourages individual playmaking. As to what that would be, I don't know. Maybe using resurrecting an enemy death inflicts an anti-heal curse on the last teammate that interacted with them could work? Point is she needs something new that isn't centered around another player.

Moira: Similar to the point I will make about Zenyatta, the utility given to this hero is just the right thing to add to round her out as a good support hero. But what I do want to see from her is her Fade Jump be higher, and more forgiving with the jump timing.

Zenyatta: I don't think there is anything to change with this hero after adding his Snap Kick passive ability. It provided just the right self-preservation utility to round out his kit. No changes needed.

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What I would change about every Overwatch Hero heading into Overwatch 2: Damage (Part 2)

Pharah: Pharah's ultimate can afford to be given a little bit of movement. Maybe letting her hover and move horizontally at a slow speed would make her not feel like a complete sitting duck when using her ultimate ability.

Reaper: Reaper was originally designed to counter most Tanks and flank the enemy backlines at close range. Since then, they have changed him to compete with Cassidy as a mid-range duelist. His effective range needs to be readjusted to fit his original playstyle more, because now in this new format, he is in a place where he essentially takes over the "Main Tank" role in a team setting. This is why I believe it is healthier to return him to his original purpose as a Tank counter. His audio cues for teleporting should also be removed so that backline heroes rely on awareness to fend off the Reaper rather than him yelling his position to the whole lobby.

Sojourn: Honestly, with the live changes they made to Sojourn within the first Beta wave, they made a really fun and balanced hero. No changes needed.

Soldier 76: The only change I would make would be to reduce his primary fire damage by a small amount.

Sombra: I believe her new Opportunist passive ability may be a bit too strong after the more prominent characters receive inevitable nerfs. I would reduce her damage multiplier from 150% to 145% (maybe lower).

Symmetra: Blizzard needs to sort out their rules on using map geometry for creative pathing before I begin to talk about this character. Her entire concept is shut down by Blizzards own mixed messages on promoting exciting competition (as we have seen recently with Florida Mayhem's "Illegal Maneuver"). If that will never be resolved, then I suggest just starting from scratch with this character for her next rework.

Torbjorn: To make him better (and more fun), I would say bring back his Level 3 Turret for when he uses his ultimate. Torbjorn would use his ultimate and, if on the field, his turret would transform into its level 3 form (maybe not as strong however). If it is not on the field, he can have time to place it down as I would see that a separate duration for his turret would work well.

Tracer: This hero has almost not been changed at all through the course of Overwatch 1 and Overwatch 2 (currently in Beta testing phases), and for a good reason. This hero has a balanced design that always makes her a reliable hero in the game whilst she never becomes overpowered or unplayable even if she is favored in a certain meta or underperforming in others. Tracer is possibly the most balanced hero in Overwatch. No changes needed.

Widowmaker: Widowmaker has an outstandingly weak ability in her Venom Mine. It acts as an alarm for when someone passes through a small area, but why take the time to place it when it will likely break anyway when you could spend those moments paying attention to where the enemy team is going for an easy shot? I have two ideas. Make the venom mine harder to break so it is slightly more consistent at getting the value it was intended to get or give her more than one use of the Venom Mine, so players are incentivized to cover more ground and communicate with the team the position of the enemy.

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What I would change about every Overwatch Hero heading into Overwatch 2: Damage (Part 1)

Ashe: I think perhaps giving Ashe a shorter cooldown for her Coach Gun, or giving it more launch distance may help a lot. Other than that there is not much else to be changed with this hero.

Bastion: Bastion suffers from being incredibly easy to hit and disrupt due to his lack of mobility. Maybe letting his Frag Grenade curve around corners may help with hid difficulty with initiation and lack of overall speed.

Cassidy: His Sticky Grenade is certainly more of a placeholder of Flashbang rather than an actual ability. I wish Cassidy's Flashbang did more of a brief blinding/deafening effect so that it can force self-preserving cooldowns (which I feel should have been the intention of the Flashbang before it was used as an instant-kill combo ability). Maybe not this idea exactly, but something along those lines should do.

Echo: Echo (although particularly strong in Overwatch 1) is in a balanced state within the 5v5 format due to less farming of the 2nd tank. No changes needed.

Genji: With talks of giving him a 2nd charge to his dash, perhaps they should reconsider their original concept of having continuous damage upon a strike. Giving him more combo potential wont just make him more balanced than his overpowered or underpowered state he constantly falls in, but also make him more fun to play overall.

Hanzo: The only thing I can say about Hanzo is that he feels too linear. he is clearly meant to pressure the enemy backline by spamming them and that’s it. I believe it would benefit him to have either a new arrow option to act a secondary utility to give him something that doesn’t just contribute to spam, or lean into his movement capabilities more and figure out a new movement option for him.

Junkrat: Although underpowered in this new format, his kit is too unique in this game and he can still be used in niche scenarios. For this reason, I do not have any changes I would make to Junkrat

Mei: One of Mei's two defining traits was taken away in the new rework to avoid giving crowd contol abilities to a damage character. I say lean into the crowd control and rework her into a Tank. They could give her more options of constructibles like her Ice Wall (maybe Ice Stairs? I don’t know LOL), and make her Endothermic Blaster secondary fire not do critical damage. That way they retain the appeal of her kit without breaking the lines between Tank and Damage too heavily.

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What I would change about every Overwatch Hero heading into Overwatch 2: Tanks

D.Va: In her Ejected form, I feel like it is too difficult to regain your mech during periods of downtime specifically. Say your team has just won the fight, but you were just ejected from your mech. Your only options are to find a spot to jump off the map to respawn, or if thats not available, farm your ultimate in the middle of the next team fight ergo not contributing anything to the team. Maybe a fix would be rather than firing at the enemy to regain your mech, have a set meter that regenerates your ultimate passively without the need to fire to gain progress.

Doomfist: All that needs to happen is probably more consistency for his primary fire, and a buff to his ultimate. He is surprisingly fair and fun with this new rework.

Orisa: Orisa's new rework just does not flow together well enough without a buff to one of her new abilities or a complete redo of one of them. Maybe giving the Javelin Throw more frequent utility or Giving Javelin Spin two charges would be a step in the right direction. Also I feel like her ultimate should regenerate health upon use or gradually throughout the ultimate. Reinhardt: Honestly nothing major is needed for this hero. Just get rid of the instant-kill range of his ultimate altogether. Other than that, probably a few tweaks to damage numbers, health, armor, or Barrier Field health will work just fine.

Roadhog: This hero is entirely reliant on an 8-second cooldown ability that lets it, on a rare occasion, get a kill. In those inevitable 8 seconds of downtime, he just has to try not to give enemies ultimate charge. For some reason, his only interesting mechanic is tied to an ability that works against his team. I am referring to Take a Breather (and the unique super armor mechanic that it wastes). This character needs a COMPLETE rework in order to make any progression, and I hope they make use of the super armor mechanic in a creative and fun way that not only helps the player, but also their teammates. Also, if his ultimate is kept (which is going in a good direction so far), give it a longer duration and a cancel.

Sigma: This hero is perfect for the new 5v5 format. No changes needed.

Winston: Winstons new secondary fire, although helpful, doesn't feel rewarding to use. Maybe a higher burst damage, or damage over time effect could be added. If he needs to be nerfed in other areas to compensate for this then so be it.

Wrecking Ball: He needs something to set him apart, not be innately better, than other mobile tanks. In his current state, all that he has to help with this is his Grappling Hook and Piledrive abilities.

Zarya: I think Zarya's Particle Barriers need a longer duration. I feel like its too easy to wait out the cooldown and then engage. If there were a choice between waiting out a longer cooldown that buys the other team valuable time or getting rid of the protection to give the enemy more damage to work with, I think that would give the hero a bit more leverage over the other team regardless of their choice. Other heroes just outright have leverage out of spawn so this feels necessary.

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I ranked all the Damage heroes based on how fun they are to play (from my perspective).

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The new skins in the Overwatch Anniversary Remix Volume 2 event are mostly looking better than the Volume 1 event. My favorites have to be Neon Cat and Poison Dart. The only one that doesn't look great is Noxious which seems like the laziest recolor of both volumes, but when the skins are this good, I don't mind having one weaker skin. Also, the surprise drop of the new Kickoff Clash Reaper skin, Luchador, was a great idea to tie in to this new update.

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Dallas Fuel vs. Los Angeles Gladiators has to be one of the closest matchups this quarter.

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Got to play in my first tournament in the Overwatch 2 Beta! As much as I enjoy it, I'm not quite used to the new 5v5 system yet. Didn’t do too well, but I'm hoping that when Overwatch 2 content becomes more frequent then I will be better prepared next time. 

[hypertechex]

Hi! I'm HyperTechEX, and I love the game Overwatch. I have 1,800+ hours on the game, and have been playing competitively since 2018. Here is where I will post my thoughts on Overwatch content, Overwatch League matches, game balance, as well as some (relatively) personal updates. I will also be talking about the latest information regarding Overwatch 2 and the public betas that lead up to the final release. I hope you enjoy!