#overwatch role requeue | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

flexmains · 7 years

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i was invited to join a gold/plat team for hunters of artemis and i’m actually so excited 0:

a) cool fckin’ concept and discord

b) i have literally wanted to zen so much, but when i play with the dead inside server, i hate to say that there was literally no one i trusted to tank when we did placements except for fromaj on dva, which was a godsend, so i ended up playing winston and orisa a lot.

but now i’m a starter on the roster for one of the teams and i’m locked into support only and they actually WANT me to play zen bc they said i was fragging out sometimes during tryouts and...........

that makes me... feel happy, actually nndbmmndmnm ; v;

and now i’m gonna have a plat 2-2-2 team ALL the time when i practice and i’m just genuinely so excited??

one of the gm coaches watched us during tryouts and gave us all feedback, and ????? oh my god, it was super insightful and it all made sense as good advice that i’d never particularly worded in my mind before and i was....... so glad T 3T

i also joined w.ow (women in ovw), and they’re gonna practice less as structured comp teams maybe and more like “practicing doing callouts and coordinating and working as a team” practice, so i’m. basically ready for the next few months of life. all i need is for one of these legal assistant applications to go through and i will. be set for the next month. and if the pay is good enough, i’ll pay my mother back for the polisci class i dropped after graduation last year and then...... i’ll save up a fund....... to get a cat.

but tmrw i start practice with hunters and next week with w.ow and i’m.............. super excited i wanna GIT GUD at my favorite game

tryouts were rough bc we were trying out for specific roles, so we always ran 1 healer 1 tank 3 dps and one rando. a hanzo was throwing during our dive comp test round, so the coaches flamed him in match chat and told us to requeue, which was immensely funny, actually. i kind of tanked, but i........ messed up ALL MY DVA BOOSTS and winston leaps and it was....... bad.

but tbh, i love playing zen so much and i’m so glad this team wants me to practice with them T ___T there are literally so many admins of the server on this team too dbfndbfnmbd I GUESS MURDERING THEM IN FFA BEFORE TRYOUTS WORKED? i feel.... warm and fuzzy. this is exactly what i was hoping to rekindle my interest in overwatch and help me divest it from weird old memories and i dbfndbnfdbfb i recognize why i placed in gold, but i do think with practice i can earn a plat sr, and i finally found a team that’s even more into comp and mechanics and everything than i am and i’m :’D

i also went back again to my school for a pre-law dinner thing, which was...... horrific, but in a good way, i guess. i talked to all those lawyerly alums after standing awkwardly in a corner upon realizing i knew not a single person in that dining room... and it was fine... it was definitely nice talking to them about their specific paths, and it definitely settled my nerves about applications, but i still wonder..... what i’m gonna do with it...

i feel like i believe that if i fell in love with what i could do, i’d really make myself learn public speaking to finally get to shout all these pent-up frustrations and thoughts as coherent sentences... and i’d love it. it’s dumb, but i also wanted to do this ovw team thing because of the communication thing and speaking up and knowing when to listen and when maybe it’s okay for me to bark something with the intention of getting someone else to listen to me and help me out :’D

how malleable is my personality? i like when i kind of dissociate myself from my fears and decide sometimes that there are some people whose opinions of me i just don’t care about, and i try to mold myself into presenting my personality differently...... but i guess rn i still err on the side of sitting aside and listening rather than speaking B’)

i just feel like i don’t know enough to talk, you know? i don’t deserve that voice yet... but if i just edjumacate myself enough...... the right time to share what little i do know will come up. hopefully.

this is all because i saw a shelter profile for a cat named jude who has the sweetest face and most beautiful photos and i want to adopt him so badly, but the time...... is not now...... ; ___; and that fucking breaks my heart, because he sounds and looks like my dream cat.......

#rllntnd #these used to be short posts.... once. i'm sorry they're so long bndvfnbdvnfdb

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purplekoop · 11 months

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So like. I think people already figured out where I was going with this.

Ashe B.O.B.

Role: Tank Health: 500 (250 normal, 250 armor)

So when I implied that I'd be turning "Ashe" into a Tank, I think at least somebody saw through me there. Obviously there's a number of thematically appropriate ways to bulk up one of the existing non-tank heroes into a tankish stature, but Ashe is probably the farthest removed of any of the cast from the kind of biological or mechanical shenanigans I've been relying on for tankifying the cast so far. Luckily, I didn't need to, because B.O.B. is right there, and I feel like playable B.O.B. is what people have wanted since late 2018 anyways. So, here we are.

B.O.B. is a character design who I think needs no substantial changes to fit as a playable Tank. He's big, he's made of metal, and that's enough justification for me. In the lore he's actually specified to have his chassis fit with extra armor plating, so it makes sense then that he can take a hit better than other "civilian class" Omnics like Zenyatta.

There is one thing I feel would need to change about B.O.B. though for him to fit as a playable hero: he probably needs a voice. This is for technical reasons more than anything. Overwatch as a game very much relies on audio cues to communicate a lot of information, with things as obvious as ultimate voice lines and automatic callout voice lines to things as subtle as the sound of your weapon changing when you're running out of ammo. The only hero who doesn't talk is Bastion, but I doubt another hero who uses non-verbal sounds to communicate wouldn't work as well in addition to Bastion. It'd be a bit confusing to discern what beebly-boops are coming from who, especially for new players. This is also (at least presumably) why Roadhog talks a lot more in-game than he does in the supplementary media, where he tends to only admit one or two lines per story compared to only being slightly less chatty than other heroes in actual matches. Of course, the very obvious and inherently agreeable solution here is to give B.O.B. a very stereotypical posh british butler accent. Between that and at least one of his abilities, I'm imagining a personality somewhere between Alfred from Batman and Dudley from Street Fighter.

But alright, enough yapping already, time to get into the Big Omnic Butler's kit. In general, B.O.B. would be a more aggression-focused tank that plays better in offensive scenarios, but still offers his team with substantial protection while impeding the enemy.

His simplest ability is one we're used to and terrified of already in game: his Arm Cannons. I actually had to do some in-game testing to see how the animation for his firing actually works, so I'll explain how it'd work for the playable version. The Arm Cannon is a 6-barrel rotating weapon, as you can see here.

Each pair of barrels will fire two hitscan shots one after the other rapidly before switching to the next pair via rotation in a seamless fashion with no downtime between rotations. However, the weapon's fire rate will speed up as it spins up, making continuous fire build up to an increased DPS. However, the spread of bullets will also increase as the spinning speeds up. The cannons also don't need to manually reload, instead relying on an overheat system like (normal OW2) Orisa, which will cause the weapon to malfunction for just shy of two seconds. The bullets also have damage falloff that favors close-range usage harder than most hitscan weapons. While this weapon can headshot, it has a reduced 1.5x multiplier instead of the standard 2x, making precise aim less mandatory. This weapon excels at laying down suppressive fire with minimal downtime, especially at close range, but has a risk-reward element in balancing the spin-up speed and the overheat mechanic. Also worth noting that for the sake of simplicity, B.O.B. only has a right-hand Arm Cannon, unlike his non-playable counterpart who swaps hands whenever he switches targets.

B.O.B.'s first ability is... admittedly something I made up for the sake of him functioning better as a protective defender style of tank, Portable Barricade. B.O.B. tosses down a device that extends into a rod-like shape with small wheels on the sides, then projects a barrier upwards. It's a rectangular barrier not as wide as normal Rein's but just about as tall, and it does barrier things like the normal game ones. However, Portable Barricade's unique trait is that after 1 second of being deployed, it will roll forward in the direction it was placed at about half of the normal forward move speed for players. This, obviously, is meant to encourage it be used for advancing pushes instead of holding ground, though the initial one second before it starts moving should give players on both sides time to react to its presence. The Barricade has about 1,000 HP, and will last after either rolling ahead for 6 seconds or if it collides with a wall and can't move any further. If it rolls to a ledge, then it will remain in place on that edge for the remainder of its duration. The ability itself has a somewhat long cooldown that starts as soon as it's thrown out.

This next one should feel a little more familiar: Running Upper. B.O.B. takes a split second to ready for a dash, then runs ahead at high speeds with his left arm ahead, and his right arm ready to swing an uppercut at any foes he collides with. The logistics of this ability are also pretty similar to Reinhardt's Charge, though the startup period is more brief. You still run ahead much faster, but your turning speed is restricted. B.O.B. also takes half damage from the front while charging, but this does not block any other effects of that damage. The uppercut itself functions like you expect still knocking any enemies near the impact range upwards, though its damage is reduced from 120 to 80. The duration of the dash is shorter than it is for the non-playable B.O.B., and it can be cancelled early by pressing the ability input again, causing B.O.B. to dig his feet into the ground to grind to a stop. It also will collide with other "Charge" abilities, such as Doomfist punch and another B.O.B.'s Running Upper, causing both players to fall to the ground briefly on collision. Just like the non-playable version of the maneuver, this ability is a versatile tool for both traversing the map faster and setting up for some potentially lethal team combos.

B.O.B.'s last normal ability is an homage to part of his iconography that isn't actually showcased in-game: Sign Swing.

B.O.B. manifests a convenient road sign to pull out of hammerspace, then swings it from right to left like a baseball bat. The swing is similar to a big Rein hammer swing (I sure am comparing these guys a lot huh), dealing 75 damage but in a slightly farther range than the hammer. The swing also does heavy knockback, launching enemies it hits flying a good distance in the aimed direction. This alone makes it a solid ability for swatting aggressive enemies away, but it has one more feature: any projectiles hit by the swing will be deflected back as B.O.B.'s own attack! The logistics of this are just like Genji's deflect, though the timing is significantly tighter to pull off due to the minimal time this deflection is active for, making it much harder to pull off a deflect on hitscan attacks, but not impossible.

His ultimate ability though, as you might've predicted, brings this role reversal to its logical conclusion: Burnout. B.O.B. calls in a favor from his long-time charge, and from the skies drops a series of dynamite-loaded crates. 5 crates drop in total, which B.O.B. can manually call drop points for by pressing Primary Fire during the ult's initial duration. The crates will explode after a few seconds, but B.O.B.'s entire team can speed up the detonation by firing at them, creating powerful explosions that ignite enemies caught in their blast, and even leave behind a lingering fire that can rapidly damage and ignite enemies who walk through it (though weaker than normal Torb's Molten Core). However, they can also damage other exploding crates, causing chain reactions where as soon as one crate blows, the entire battle field can be set ablaze. (honestly this ult is the concept I'm the most iffy about for this kit, but I like it fine enough)

So that's B.O.B. as a playable Tank hero! A faithful bodyguard through and through, he defends his team with both directly defensive abilities as well as means of tossing around the enemy if they get too close to his team for comfort, or he can just gun them down directly in tandem with those abilities.

Overall pretty proud of this one! Like Ashe is as a damage hero, I wanted B.O.B. to be a pretty straightforward tanky bruiser, with simple abilities that can be used creatively with a good deal of skill expression. I love the idea of B.O.B. teeing up an enemy into the air with his uppercut, then hitting a home run with them with Sign Swing. I don't think a flanking Genji (er. in this AU's case, I guess flanking Zenyatta?) would be too eager to dive back in for round two after that. The comparisons to Reinhardt were also me reaffirming his role as one of the more conventional tanks of this requeued roster. I have the vague goal of making sure that the broader niches of the roster are still cohesively filled even in this sweeping reiteration of the cast.

So who's next? Symmetra is another easy one that I've already made the bulk of a concept for, but I could also continue the Deadlock theming and do Cassidy as a support. Aside from the ultimate and maybe wanting one extra ability, I've already got most of that one figured out.

Outside of Role Requeue though, I actually would be down to figure out kits for other non-playable characters in the main canon! There's a couple that come to mind now, but the only ones I'm thinking of would I think fit best as supports, maybe one DPS, so I'm all ears for extra suggestions for the sake of variety. Not doing Mauga because like. That's literally just asking to be outdated and make me look like a silly doodoo head when I get it wrong. I'm gonna look like a silly doodoo head and get details wrong when we actually get teasers of his kit at Blizzcon anyways but I wanna save being wrong for the appropriate time.

#overwatch #overwatch role requeue #role requeue #overwatch au #overwatch role requeue au #ashe overwatch #ashe #b.o.b.#bob #bob overwatch #b.o.b. overwatch

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purplekoop · 9 months

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Yeah the joke writes itself.

Moira

New Role: Damage Health: 225

I'm sparing the backstory section again because I don't have anything super compelling or distinct in mind. The best idea I have on that front is that Moira's research is more focused around studying entropic decay by subjecting others to it, then drawing upon the power of decay itself. Instead I can first explain Moira's main defining change in this requeue: her weapon.

This should be familiar to anyone else who's savvy about looking at old hero concepts like myself, but Moira in this AU now carries a long two-handed weapon, based on this concept art. It was originally considered to be how her abilities worked in the normal game, but was instead traded out for her using her hands directly to heal and harm.

Here though, I think the addition of the weapon would be important to make her role more visually apparent.

So let's start by getting into what that weapon, which I'll be calling the Necrotic Cannon, actually can do. The cannon has two firing modes, with both resembling her normal counterpart's. However, instead of a healing spray, the primary fire sprays a horrific chemical compound that eats away at matter, organic or inorganic. Similar to Mei's frost spray, the weapon rapidly fires limited-range projectiles that have a sort of conical area of effect. Each projectile deals modest damage on hit, but also inflicts a small portion of Decay. Decay is a debuff unique to Moira's kit, functioning as a damage over time effect with similar properties to burn inflicted by (main game) Ashe and Mauga, dealing 20 dps. However, Decay builds up over time relative to how many times the victim takes damage from the primary fire, up to a max of 6 seconds. The buildup of Decay is visualized on the victim's health bar, shown as a wispy purple effect over the health it will deplete. Like other DOT effects, picking up a health pack will cleanse all Decay instantly. The Necrotic Cannon has 150 ammo, and a slightly longer than average reload animation.

The cannon's alt fire, which I'll also call Entropic Beam, is a unique supplementary attack designed to combo with the primary fire. Similar to her normal succ secondary fire, it's a hitscan beam with limited range and no ammo requirement. However, the lock-on attribute is gone, requiring more precise aim. In addition, it has the unique property of only working on enemies with a buildup of Decay. Damaging decaying enemies with this attack will also speed up the time it takes for the decay to pass. In exchange, the damage per second here is high, much faster than simply spraying. In addition, you also heal relative to the damage you deal, making Moira's close-range combat style more sustainable if you can weave between attacks competently. You also can't use both attacks at once, so alternating and switching between aim styles is the key to using Moira well here.

Moira's ability 2 is another ability that interacts with decay: Necrotic Orb. While the name may also be familiar to some, its effects are simpler here. Shoot out an orb of necrotic energy, which bursts on impact with an enemy, enemy barricade, or terrain. The explosion does a small burst of 50 initial damage, and also applies 1.5 seconds of Decay, with both the initial burst and decay duration doubling on a direct hit. Decay from either the orb or the cannon can stack, up to that same 6 second limit. This is a simple ability for doing damage at range and also starting fights while spooking a group of enemies. Has an 8 second cooldown.

Ability 1 predictably is another remix to part of her standard kit: Phase Launch. Moira briefly becomes intangible (for about 0.5 seconds), then launches herself in the direction she's facing. The motion is similar to a Winston leap, though more momentum forward rather than arched upwards. The ability is more limited in how you can move and how useful it is for intangibility to account for it being used more aggressively than defensively with the change in role. Its cooldown is also increased to 8 seconds. Honestly these changes aside from the cooldown change feel the most arbitrary, maybe normal Fade would fit this kit just fine, but I'm not sure.

No name changes for this last one though: Coalescence. Moira sets the Necrotic Cannon to full power, creating a powerful piercing beam that applies both the primary and secondary effects at once. The beam causes rapid buildup of Decay, does high damage to Decaying enemies, and heals Moira based on the damage dealt. The beam has limited range but can damage any enemies in its path, and bypasses barriers, though is blocked by terrain. While firing, you can fly freely through the air, but have reduced movement speed. You can use Phase Launch while the ultimate is active, stopping the beam briefly while intangible, but not other abilities. The ultimate lasts for 6 seconds, but can be disrupted by stunning effects.

So that's Moira! Again, the jokes write themselves about how not much really needed to be changed to make her a DPS, this is probably gonna be the simplest Support to Damage conversion even with other damage-happy supports like Illari and Kiriko being added more recently. Seriously, her entire kit is intact, just not the exact execution of each ability. That said, I think the whole Decay mechanic both fits Moira's character and also gives this kit the spice it needs to not feel boring "W+M1" spray spam. I don't know if I made it obvious that this basically turns Moira into the roster's Pyro, though the exact mechanics of decay and the composition of the kit are more based on Velenna, my War Bots character who's incidentally somewhere between Moira and Pyro in a lot of ways. This isn't exactly like Velenna though, since the combo-based alt fires are relatively distinct, their secondary means of applying DOT debuffs are very different, and also just more contextual factors like the fact War Bots doesn't have ultimates but does have alt weapons make them distinct enough.

But yes, at long last, I got off my butt and did one of these. Today was a bit rough in terms of productivity, so unless I stay up tonight or make time out of thin air tomorrow, it may be a bit again until next time, especially since the next couple I have in mind are still gonna need some work. Until next time though, whenever that may be, hope you enjoyed!

#overwatch #role requeue #overwatch role requeue #overwatch au #moira #moira overwatch

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purplekoop · 1 year

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Alright while I'm thinking about it (and in lieu of having the willpower to draw any of it right now), I'm just gonna dump all the semi-solid ideas I have for Role Requeue right now.

The only two heroes I said much about in particular are Tracer as Support, whose time powers are altered slightly to allow her to recall the damage her allies take, and Reaper as a Tank, who's been turned from spooky gaseous ghost man into a big nightmarish part-liquid man.

The only other "officially recognized" of the hero changes so far is Widowmaker as a Tank, as suggested by @daylightcommand3, now is transformed from a mere sniper into a spider-themed cyborg with massive cybernetic spider legs to move around and add to her frame, and the ability to ward off enemies with web-based abilities.

As for the other uh... 35 heroes...

Well, not getting into everybody in just one post, both for the sake of readability and (primarily) because I don't have everybody figured out yet. But, I'll hit the highlights I have figured out.

Let's start off with the obvious ones. Doomfist as a Damage hero. Because like. If it was fine for the five or so years that's how he was, it's fine for this AU. As much as I'd love to entertain the idea of that gauntlet somehow being used to heal people, I'm gonna take the easy out where I can. There's enough fun concepts to toy around with for the other nearly 40 characters, one lame answer is gonna be fine. No major story changes for him either, if his backstory was already considered to work fine as either a DPS or a Tank, then that's okay for my low standards to be lazy.

As for other forgone conclusions, there's a trio of Damage heroes that were already envisioned as Supports in one stage of development or another: Symmetra, Sombra, and Echo.

As long-time fans of the game know, Symmetra was a Support for the first few years of the game's life, but with a catch: she was the only Support in the game's lifespan to never have a direct means of healing teammates. She launched with an ability to marginally increase the health of allies, which was traded out for an ability similar to an automatic version of Sigma's barrier. However, when the game was updated to include a built-in "looking for group feature" (which has since been removed as of OW2 due to. reasons.), the character select screen got some changes to match the changing perspectives of what the playerbase saw in each role. The arbitrary distinction between "Offense" and "Defense" heroes was axed in favor of a simple "Damage" role, and Supports were now all expected to have some means of directly and consistently healing allies, so she was reworked more significantly ever before or since into her Damage role. Symmetra was let back ever so briefly into the Support role as part of an Experimental card update with changes suggested by a select few major community members. Support main streamer ML7 was given the Support role to suggest changes for, and in the most drastic change of the whole update, was moved into the Support role, with the one major change that her turrets were changed to heal allies instead of damage enemies. This concept didn't go too far for Symmetra, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this didn't go to inspire a certain new support with a healing deployable. The fact that there's also a Support who's a former Vishkar student who uses hard light and has repositioning utility now also makes the concept of Support Symmetra in the real game feel... slightly redundant, but hey, while we're dreaming here, might as well indulge myself.

Sombra and Echo meanwhile have only ever been in the Damage role (er. "Offense" in the case of Sombra at her release), but were both at least considered to be Supports at some time or another in their development. With Sombra there's some vestigial remnants of it in her gameplay design, as with Hack she was built to be more of a "disabler" than the assassin she was retrofitted to be in Overwatch 2. With Echo though, the main thing that has me move her to Support is more just her visual design. Her personality and shape language just scream "kind helper", and I'm convinced the only reason she's a Damage hero is because they thought Duplication was "too cool" of an ultimate to be "wasted" on a support, or at least would encourage too aggressive of play to fit that kind of playstyle (I know I'd be a little mad if my co-healer went on the flank to turn into a Reinhardt and drop from the sky onto the enemy backline while leaving me to heal the other 3-4 people on our team). Either way, the rest of her kit has always felt kind of bland to me, and while I can appreciate it now it still feels like a bit of a waste for a character that can hypothetically do uh... anything?

So yeah, those three are just no-brainers for me. I've already made somewhat thorough concepts for them as Supports that I'm likely going to touch up to fit to my newer higher standards. I don't have any major visual or story changes for them either. Again, if I had it my way they'd already be Supports in the current real game, that's how close I think they are to just working as-is.

Again, this is largely a gameplay-focused AU, as unique of a thing that is to see (at least on this site). The story changes are largely meant to be in service of explaining the gameplay changes, because as someone who's honestly not thaaaaat invested in the story side of things (at least by tumblr.com standards) but feels at least moderately qualified to discuss the gameplay part of the... game, it's just what's easier for me to wrap my head around. It's also I suppose closer to how most official heroes are designed in the first place, which satiates my irrational desire for "professionality" or whatever you'd call it.

This post is already getting long so I'll just wrap up this one with more of a... I guess "concept" that makes this AU kind of awkward?

See, full confession here: Damage is my least favorite role by a somewhat considerable margin. Largely because I suck at the super aim-intensive characters, or because my skillset just works better when I have the kinds of buffers built in to the characters who specialize specifically in not dying, but it's also because I kind of just think they're boring, at least in a design sense. There's something special to how Tanks or Supports are designed, but I don't really feel it as much with Damage heroes. Part of the issue is that while the other roles have to balance unique objectives on top of dealing damage (unless you're like. Lifeweaver, he can be helpful enough without dealing damage or damage boosting). Meanwhile Damage heroes just gotta. Deal damage. I mean, their kits are slightly more geared towards confirming kills and being aggressive on their own, but I dunno, it just doesn't have the same "magic" to it. Then again, probably just a skill issue.

But uh, yeah Damage is kind of easy in this AU, because you kinda just. Take away parts of their kit.

Another weird thing about the Damage role here is that because there's 17 Damage heroes, 11 Tanks, and 10 Supports, that means there's a lot of Damage heroes going out from there and into the other roles, but not as much going into the Damage role (considering some Tanks are going to Support and vice versa), which ironically makes the issue of there not being enough Damage heroes in the final roster. I've got some fun ideas for Damage "requeues" (sure we're going with that as the official term for these reworks), but just a heads up that some of them might not be as interesting as others.

Anyways yeah, that's just me getting out some of the basic reworks and more general concepts, next post from me should be briefly going over some of the actual ideas I have. wooooooooo back to back long posts

#overwatch #overwatch role requeue #role requeue

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purplekoop · 11 months

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Welcome to role requeue tech Support, how can we help you?

Sombra

Role: Support Health: 200

No lore dump for this one because... well, like I said before, I don't think Sombra needs any substantial changes to her design or backstory in order to fit as a support! This is an opinion once shared by the actual devs, considering she was originally envisioned as a support character before being reiterated to the hacking assassin playstyle we saw enter the game back in late 2016, with the other aspects of that old concept being saved and eventually implemented into who we now know as Kiriko. Personally though, I always thought Sombra would've made more sense as a support the whole time, especially back when OW1's support roster was so comically small. I made iterations on a concept for her to be reworked into a support for the real game, but in the current state of OW2, with a much more robust Support lineup and Sombra's newly reworked playstyle being the best she's ever felt, I don't really feel that need anymore to see Sombra be changed to a Support in Overwatch itself... but luckily, that old spirit is perfect to help me with this alternate reality version of the game where she's been here (in the support role) all along.

Admittedly, while I always knew I wanted Sombra to be a support the day I came up with this AU, the exact details of her kit eluded me until recently. Ironically, her recent rework making her arguably more damage-focused than ever gave me the creative nudge needed to complete the concept for this new kit. Let's get into that now, shall we?

This Sombra mirrors her current iteration pretty closely actually, with all of her current abilities having a mirror here, including her primary fire, Machine Pistol. While not something that feels super obvious for a support, I don't really have any better ideas for what'd be her means of self-defense. Sombra isn't as much of an active direct healer, since I want to avoid the entire Support cast just being "shoot to heal" like most of the healers added since OW1's initial release. While obviously not as potent as the DPS counterpart, her SMG remains a rapid-fire hitscan weapon that can do some decent damage in a pinch. Like Lucio, Sombra should never really have much downtime where she isn't shooting.

So what is her main healing mechanic then? Well, that brings us to her first activated ability, and it's a doozy: Hack. Hack is used similarly to how you're familiar with. Hold secondary fire over a target, and Sombra will hack them in about half a second. What hacking does is... complicated. For one, you can still hack health packs like before, though now healing dealt by a hacked health pack will contribute to your ultimate charge, though possibly at a reduced rate. You can also hack non-player entities to deactivate them temporarily.

However, Hack now has two charges. Why? Because now you have almost double the possible hack targets.

Hacking can now be performed on allies, boosting their capabilities briefly. For the next 6 seconds, the hacked ally will have increased move speed, increased reload speed, and increased ability recharge speed, as well as be healed for 25 hps. If the ally takes damage however, their healing rate is halved to 12.5 hps for the next two seconds. Hack is Sombra's most readily available means of healing, but its additional benefits may provide more direct benefit.

However, Sombra can still hack enemies, which provides unique effects. The ability lockout aspect... I can't decide if it should stay at all, but if it does then it's reduced to 0.5 seconds, just enough to cancel active abilities. For the full 6 second duration though, Hacked enemies still are visible through walls, but also have an additional attribute: any damage dealt to them will heal the attacker by up to half of the damage dealt! This lifesteal debuff mechanic is Sombra's most potent means of healing allies, but still isn't her last.

For either variant of Hack though, there's a small cooldown before you can apply it to a target after it wears off, about 2-4 seconds. Hacking enemies also takes slightly longer than allies, but taking damage during the hack only cancels it and disables the ability for a second.

Sombra's other team support ability is... and brace yourself for this clever name, Antivirus. I'm a genius, I know. Similar to her new Virus ability, Sombra throws a glowing cube of data straight ahead through the air. However, on impact with terrain or an ally, the cube explodes, providing a burst of positive benefits to allies in the blast radius. Antivirus will cleanse allies of debuffs, including Hacks from enemy Sombras, though not provide a period of invulnerability like (normal) Kiriko's Protection Suzu. Instead, it also provides a small burst of 50 healing, and also gives allies a healing boost buff, doubling the healing they recieve for the next 3 seconds. Pair this up with Hacking an ally and you double the healing output to a whole 50 healing per second! Unless they take damage though, then it gets hacked back down to 25. The projectile has no effect on enemies, but can be blocked by enemy barriers or other anti-projectile abilities. Antivirus, similar to its main game counterpart, is best comboed with Hack for best results, and allows Sombra to have bursts of high healing output to bail allies out of a dire situation.

To bail herself out of a tight spot though, that's where Translocator comes in. The ability functions just like its current iteration: throw a device, then warp to it, cleansing yourself of debuffs and providing a moment of intangibility while you travel.

Translocator has a bonus aspect that should be familiar to some: for a few seconds after the translocator activates, you become invisible to enemies, and gain a personal move speed boost. However, taking any action besides reloading will end the invisibility early, as will taking damage. Going close to an enemy also reveals you, but doesn't end the stealth on its own. Yeah, Stealth isn't an automatic passive here, instead it's just a bonus effect of Translocator. This isn't a new idea actually, this is just how Sombra works in the Trials of Sanctuary PvE mode, and presumably other PvE modes as well due to the potentially broken implications of permanent passive invisibility against AI opponents. While I don't think it's imbalanced in a PvP setting for normal Sombra, I feel like it'd be a bit much and a bit unneeded for Support Sombra. Still useful for making a clean getaway, but this Sombra doesn't need to make the same ambush plays from nowhere that the DPS version does. It also encourages Sombra to be more active with her team while making her more vulnerable to the enemy in a way that feels fair. Just feels more appropriate in general.

Her Ultimate is similar in concept to EMP, in that it hacks all possible targets at once, but only affects one team still. The difference is that it's your own team instead. System Boost causes a massive stream of data to pour out of Sombra, energizing herself and all nearby allies. For eight seconds, all allies in range, including Sombra herself, gain the boosts granted by an allied Hack, meaning bonuses to reload speed, ability cooldown recharge speed, movement speed, and passive healing. The data tendrils also have a bonus effect: any healing gained from damaging a hacked enemy will also be granted to any allies in the chain. A teammate connected to the System Boost dealing 100 damage to a hacked enemy will cause everyone connected by the chain to be healed by 50 HP. Sombra herself during the ultimate will also gain a bonus recharge boost to Hack specifically, doubling its cooldown speed. Note that Hack doesn't work on allies already connected to the chain, so go ham on hacking enemies to pump up the total healing the team receives.

This isn't as simple of a Support ultimate as "you have 1000 HP for a second" or "you get healed so much the only lethal things are one-shots", but I like the team element and skill expression this adds over simpler ultimates. It's kind of like a mix of Kitsune Rush and Rally in a way. I wonder if it'd be overpowered, but there'd be ways to dial it down if necessary.

So that's Sombra as a Support! I feel largely satisfied with this, it gets a little complicated at parts but I like the idea of a character that really requires resource management and target priority. She has multiple ways to heal, but can't heal consistently on her own since all her options rely on a cooldown, and hacking allies directly is relatively weak healing compared to lifesteal. She also has strong utility available from hacking allies, but again, this is limited by its cooldown. I think fine-tuning Hack's availability, like increasing it to three charges but reducing its duration or something, would be the main adjustment to this concept I'd make for balance. Hard to get a grasp on something like this without getting to actually play it. Other than that I'm decently proud of this one. Also this is the first Support kit I've actually written out! Still need to actually write out Tracer's kit, since I've only mentioned the basics in the initial post. Might do that next, but might also do another easy one next. I'm thinking "Ashe", that's gonna be another fun one.

#overwatch #overwatch au #overwatch role requeue #role requeue #sombra #sombra overwatch

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purplekoop · 9 months

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idea for role requeue: similar to how you did BOB in place of Ashe, maybe you could do Mina in place of Echo? Maybe the explosion came from the other side and she used the salvaged tech to be a hero. Plus I've wanted to see her fight since I found out she was one of the founders of the team.

Ooooohhh... I actually hadn't thought of that, but to be honest I think I'm content with going forward with Echo still being the hero, just reworked.

The main reason is that I've had Echo as one of the "easy mode" requeues in my head for a while, since I think her normal design could work literally unchanged for a Support hero, like Sombra and Symmetra. I mentioned it in a recent post about one of my War Bots characters, but I find Echo's current gameplay design really lacking in cohesion, both with itself and with Echo as a personality and design. "Hyper mobile aggro assassin" doesn't fit with how Echo acts or looks, she's extremely gentle-natured and cares for others, and her visual design is similarly gentle and pleasant. It's a similar issue to Mei's ruthless killer role in-game compared to her as a character, but less excusable since Mei was the fifth or so Defense hero while Echo was the 16th or so Damage hero back when the Support role was very much starving for options.

So Echo herself being the hero for this AU is sort of me settling a personal score I've had with the game, to put it one way. Making the hero I think she always should've been. Of course, this contrasts a bit with other heroes in this AU, such as B.O.B., who's the playable hero both because of the novelty and because it was easier to make a kit out of him than Ashe herself as a Support or especially a DPS.

Admittedly, I think I'd also like to see a take on Liao's kit, I think she's a cool character who's sadly both dead in the canon's present day and also wasn't revealed as part of the story until right before Overwatch's biggest dark period in terms of new activity, so she's kind of never had much of a spot to shine. Neither has Echo really, but at least she's playable. I just personally wanna go with this direction in my ""official"" take on the AU, but obviously anybody else can do what they want too!

I do have another planned swapping of who's playable in a human-robot pair of NPC and playable hero, it's just not gonna be Echo and Liao. By process of elimination, I think you can figure out who it's gonna be. In fact, they'll probably be next after I do Cassidy (whose notes are ready, I just need to reformat them into a post) and D.va (whose kit is... vaguely formulating in my head still, but is close). That next one though is definitely gonna need some brain effort, I'm still piecing together the mechanics in my head, and they're still missing some crucial abilities. Cassidy can be soon though, I just need to sit myself down for it. I've been getting back into a normal routine after the haze of the holidays, and my attention span has been going to War Bots faster because... yeah that's just what happens. Healing Cowboy coming soon though!

#asks #overwatch #overwatch au #role requeue #overwatch role requeue

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purplekoop · 1 year

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Keeping it going, the first requeue to walk the path of Damage:

Zenyatta

New Role: Damage Health: 200 (all normal health)

An Omnic wanderer who found himself among the Shambali Monastery, Zenyatta lived a peaceful existence hopeful for the rest of his troubled kind to find peace as well. However, the peace inside himself was disturbed when his former master, Mondatta, was one of the many casualties during an attack by the terrorist organization Talon, during what was meant to be a speech of his to ease tension between humans and omnics. Seeing that sitting idly by would do no good to the world, Zenyatta took to travelling it, using his monk training to defend the defenseless he encountered on the way, taking destiny into his own hands.

This reiteration of Zenyatta takes his role as a monk into a direction I think more familiar to TTRPG players, where he has a more hands-on approach to combat... well, and feet-on, as in feet on the ground. In perhaps the most controversial part of this whole AU, Zenyatta now walks along the ground, in fact having an above-average walking speed similar to Tracer and Genji in the normal game. He takes a battle-ready martial arts stance, ready to take on foes with an almost entirely new kit.

His primary fire should look familiar to that of another Shambali student: Force Strikes. Using both arms in a successive series of punches and palm thrusts, Zenyatta deals high damage in close range, but also fires faint bursts of energy that do reduced damage at a slightly further range before dissipating completely past that point.

His secondary fire is more similar to what he has normally, a chargeable attack called Focus Pulse. (I'd call it "Focus Blast" but that's a pokemon move already) Hold to charge a blast of energy, and unleash it with both hands. This projectile has infinite range, but its speed and power increases with charge. However, its cooldown also increases, scaling from 3 to 6 seconds depending on how long it was charged.

Zenyatta retains his Snap Kick passive, acting as a way to launch enemies with above-average melee damage that can be combo'd as a quick followup to his normal attack, or put an enemy in ideal range to take a Focus Pulse. However, his first ability is also Snap Kick. It has passive and active versions, like Junker Queen's Jagged Blade. As an ability, Zenyatta launches forward with his foot outstretched. When he collides with an enemy, he bounces the other way, while the enemy is launched in the direction he was travelling. Snap Kick can be aimed to fly in any direction, and covers a decent distance. It can still hit and bounce off an enemy as long as Zenyatta hasn't yet landed.

As a potential bonus passive that I don't think is necessarily essential to his kit, he also has Wall Step. Jump while near a wall to latch onto it, slowly sliding down after a second, then jump again to launch into the direction you're facing. No more than one wall-latch before landing though, so no total Super Mario shenanigans.

For his second ability, he once again takes a page out of his fellow Shambali student's playbook, with Counter Step. Channeling glowing energy into his arms, Zenyatta holds them up and braces for any attack. If he gets hit from the front while in this stance, the attack will be nullified, and Zenyatta can quickly dash a short distance out of the way, completely immune to harm for the duration of the dash.

For his Ultimate, Zenyatta takes a technique we're familiar with, and takes it in a new direction: Transcendent Flurry. Sprouting ethereal extra arms on his back, Zenyatta unleashes a rapid flurry of his normal blows. For the duration of the ultimate, Zenyatta's Force Strikes fire faster, and will increase in speed for every hit that connects. In addition, the strikes deal full damage even with the weaker energy bursts, and Focus Pulse reaches full charge instantly while keeping its shortest possible cooldown. While not a free kill button, it could have potentially devastating effects in the hands of a skilled player. Just keep in mind that Zenyatta is far from invincible while in this form, and in fact gains no defensive buffs.

Oh yeah, visual design. While Zen himself wouldn't physically change at all, his outfit would change slightly, just to reflect his more combat-focused nature. More notably, his orbs wouldn't orbit his neck anymore, instead being worn over his shoulder, only glowing when charging a Focus Pulse. Aside from that, I wouldn't see much need to change him further. Going from floating to walking is enough of a change to visually convey what this version of him is all about.

So yeah, that's Zenyatta! I think this is a fun one, and I'm happy that I was able to sneak in some homages to the playstyles of both his pupil and his spiritual brother, as well as just going ham on the whole martial arts monk theme. Maybe it's a biiiit far off from his existing kit, considering the conspicuous lack of orbs here, but if I could sign off on Widowmaker's even more drastic requeue in confidence, then I think it's fine.

Not sure who's next, but I've got a couple really drastic reworks in mind that could be. Arguably the most drastic ones, considering that they may not even be the same characters.

#overwatch #overwatch role requeue #role requeue #zenyatta #zenyatta overwatch

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purplekoop · 1 year

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Time for the first of Overwatch 2's new heroes to get a requeue, with this one possibly being a surprise!

Sojourn

New Role: Tank Health: 500 (400 normal, 100 armor)

I'm skipping the backstory this time because... well truth be told, I'm not super read up on the ins and outs of Sojourn's normal backstory, and what I do know from her Origin Story video and cinematic doesn't really give me any great ideas for how to twist it. Instead, I'll go over the broader concepts for her visual design changes and then her kit.

The most obvious problem with making any hero into a Tank that wasn't one already (or vice versa) is size. Being a role all about being the center of attention in a team fight, taking a lot of damage and being able to shrug it off, Tanks have to be bigger than the other characters for balancing reasons. Of course, there usually has to be some "reason" a character larger enough than the average to justify a tank-sized health pool, which Overwatch actually accomplishes in a number of ways to make each Tank stand out from the rest. Reinhardt's a big dude in power armor, Roadhog is a big dude but with a hefty gut to soak up hits instead, Junker Queen is tall and buff but not as wide as the big guys, and Zarya is below average in height compared to the others, but carries around a massive gun that adds some bulk to her silhouette. There's also the more obvious ones, like mechs and big robots, but even between them there's variety in the execution.

Which... makes things hard here, since taking a character not designed to be a Tank and fitting them into the role arbitrarily goes against that design convention I respect so much. Doomfist is the one character that was originally made to be a non-Tank, then was assigned the role retroactively with OW2. This worked out for a few reasons, such as his kit already having more crowd control mechanics than typical for a Damage hero but perfectly enough for a Tank, but the other reason is that he was already a decently big guy, and that massive gauntlet certainly added to his bulk. He did get a slight increase in size (which I guess makes him so far the only hero to get a height retcon), but it was a pretty natural transition otherwise.

So that philosophical preamble in place of a backstory aside: how do we make Sojourn fit as a Tank.

In the initial post where I sorted each hero into a new role, I tried to think about what characters had traits that I could extrapolate into fitting a different role. For some characters this was based around existing gameplay mechanics, like Mei and Reaper already being more durable and defensive than other Damage heroes. For others, I tried to have a little foresight and think about how I could tie other traits, like narrative or aesthetic theming, into fitting the new role.

Admittedly, Sojourn was a bit of a toss up between the two possible requeue options. Her specialty is supposedly that she's a tactician, but this is a trait that her gameplay doesn't really convey outside of her being a competent fighter. Not to bully DPS again, but it's arguably the least "tactical" role of the three. I flipped back and forth on where to put her, but ultimately decided on Tank because I feel like I had the best ideas on what to do with it, both visually and functionally.

So, okay, for real now, what's the plan here.

Visually, my idea is... not the strongest I think, but it's fairly simple. Sojourn's body is very heavily cybernetic, and her weapon is a railgun... apparently. I know sci fi tech can do what it wants, but if you know what a railgun is in real life, then you know it's not exactly a handheld deal.

Her redesign is pretty simple, just bulking out what's already there. Her railgun now is much bigger, comparable in size to Zarya's particle cannon. To support this extra weight, her cybernetics are exaggerated to be much larger and more apparent, bulking her up overall and bringing her from about 5'10" (on the taller side already) to about 6'6" (around Zarya's height, though similar to some non-Tanks like Moira and Lifeweaver). The cybernetics also wouldn't quite as seamlessly be hidden away in this design like they are normally, with more of her arms and legs being clearly tech rather than having skin-colored covering. Her outfit would also have more clearly visible armor plating to go along with her armor health.

With that finally established, let's go into her kit:

Her primary fire is still, of course, the Railgun. As it is normally, it fires high-speed energy projectiles in rapid succession. However, it'd get some small adjustments to fit slightly better as a Tank weapon, namely a slight decrease to fire rate and a damage falloff penalty, but increased clip size and having greatly reduced spread.

We'll save her secondary fire for later and instead go over her other abilities, starting with her passive ability, Power Dash. This is a midair jump ability, similar to Hanzo's Lunge or Lifeweaver's Rejuvenating Dash. Using the thrusters built into her legs, Sojourn dashes a short distance in any direction based on her aim and movement. The dash can even be angled vertically to dash upwards. While the movement is brief, any enemies she collides with during the dash also take a small amount of damage and are knocked back in the dash's direction.

Speaking of adapting her old abilities into new roles, her second ability Disruptor Shot is now replaced with Disruptor Field. Sojourn's wrist opens up to reveal a blaster, as usual, but the projectile fired instantly creates an spherical energy field that travels ahead slowly, weakly damaging enemies caught in it, but more importantly destroying projectiles, with nearly identical behavior to Defense Matrix. The energy orb will shrink as it absorbs damage however, making its damage-denial capabilities finite, though the damage it can absorb is nonetheless quite high, and is more limited by properly aiming and timing the field to maximize its effectiveness. The field itself also technically counts as a projectile, and while it phases through barriers and enemies, it still can be absorbed or deflected. If two of the orbs from opposing Sojourns collide, they both instantly delete each other, regardless of their condition prior.

But Disruptor Field is only her supplementary means of denying damage. Her main defensive ability (in the ability 1 slot where Power Slide was) is Energy Guard. Sojourn has her Railgun change shape into an energy shield, which she holds up to protect herself from incoming fire. The shield only blocks damage from the front, similar to Doomfist's Power Block or Ramattra's Nemesis Form Block. However, unlike those abilities, Energy Shield has a unique factor limiting its effectiveness. The shield completely negates damage for the first few seconds it's active, but the percentage of damage it nullifies is reduced over time as the ability is active, with taking damage from enemies speeding up the rate the damage reduction is decreased. As the shield gets weaker, the more vulnerable it is to being reduced even faster. The shield's effectiveness is displayed on a meter near your crosshair, similar to Reinhardt's barrier. When the meter is reduced fully, the shield "breaks", causing the ability to go on cooldown for several seconds. This can be avoided however, as the ability can be cancelled early, causing the shield to be lowered to recharge. This still incurs a short 1 or 2 second cooldown, but rewards more careful usage of the ability by increasing its overall uptime if managed properly.

...Alright, that was a lot of words, but the reason why I made the ability this way is for her secondary fire, the Railgun charge shot.

Blocking damage with Energy Shield charges the railgun, similar to how landing damage with her primary fire does the same normally. The more damage is negated, the more the railgun is charged, on a scale of 1 to 100. This makes blocking damage with a fully in-tact Energy Shield more effective than blocking the same attacks would with a lower charge shield, as the damage Sojourn takes herself doesn't go to charging the Railgun.

Finally, firing the charge shot using the energy you've gathered from blocking attacks. The charge shot is her secondary fire, and fires a hitscan beam that does damage relative to the charge. This should sound familiar, but there's a few differences. You actually have to charge the shots by holding down the fire input before releasing to actually fire the railgun shot. However, the amount of energy you spend on the charge shot doesn't have to be all of the energy you currently have. You can hold the shot to spend all your energy in one big blast, or hold the input for less time to fire multiple long-range hitscan shots in rapid succession. A full-power 100% charged shot has a unique upside though: it can actually pierce enemy players and barriers. Unlike normal game Sojourn though, the charge shot can't score headshots.

Now for her ultimate... I don't have a better name for it, so I'm sticking to "Overclock", but its function is very different. Sojourn shifts her railgun into a third mode, shaped like a defensive manned turret with the shield out but the gun still aimed and ready to fire. While in this stance, Sojourn blocks all damage from the front completely for the entire duration of the ultimate, but her movement speed is significantly reduced. Damage blocked goes into powering a single, superpowered shot of the railgun, which pierces enemies and barriers no matter what, but the power and width of the beam can increase dramatically depending on the damage that was absorbed beforehand. The beam can be fired at any time while the ult is active, but doing so early naturally limits the amount of time it can instead be used to soak up damage and in turn power up the resulting shot.

So yeah, that's Sojourn! More of a gameplay and concept based one this time, but the kit idea finally clicked with me and I wanted to share it sooner than later without making myself come up with a backstory first. I had fun both twisting Sojourn's existing kit with all her existing abilities present in some way, adding new mechanics (with some inspired by other games like Disruptor Field being very blatantly just Engineer TF2's Short Circuit, or the new ult basically just being Ink Vac from Splatoon 3), and tying it together into something that'd hopefully be fun to play. I mean... not like it's gonna be playable, Workshop doesn't allow for some of the mechanics like projectile deletion, and I don't think it'd fit into my original hero shooter game concept in quite the same way, but hey, I like to do my best even in only daydreams.

Another one down after I got hit with a burst of motivation earlier today! For the next one, I think I'm finally gonna bite the bullet and finally de-Tank somebody for once. The two I have in mind for next are both gonna be interesting, and will probably be among the most drastic visual overhauls of the whole AU. For one they might even feel like a completely new person!... Possibly literally!

#overwatch #overwatch 2 #overwatch role requeue #role requeue #sojourn #sojourn overwatch #overwatch au

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purplekoop · 1 year

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Alright gonna make a bit of a format for the individual heroes, starting with one of the first "requeues" I thought of:

Mei

New Role: Tank. Health: 500 (100 of which is armor)

Part of an Antarctic research team lost to a freak snowstorm, Mei-Ling Zhou was the sole survivor out of her crew due to a malfunction in the cryo-stasis chambers they hid in to weather their dire situation. However, Mei was not totally unharmed by incident. The malfunction in her pod, while miraculously sparing her life, left her body in a severely weakened state, barely able to survive outside of her stasis pod's life support systems. With the help of the base's survey drone, Snowball, she managed to get a signal out to the recently recalled Overwatch. In critical condition, she was found resting in her pod by the rescue team finally sent to recover her. While stabilized thanks to Tracer's time-rewinding healing powers, Mei was left in a troubled situation in an even more troubled world. With threats like Talon and Null Sector on the rise, and the environmental anomaly that was her original mission still unsolved, she could hardly stand sitting by idly while the world remained in turmoil. With this in mind, Mei approached Winston with an interesting proposition...

Now, Mei has taken to the fight inside an armored cryo-suit, keeping herself safe while also allowing her to defend her allies and those in need, all while Snowball has her back as ever.

Mei's Cryo Suit increases her size significantly compared to her normal appearance, standing at about 6'8" instead of her usual 5'3". Her health has been increased to compensate, and her abilities retain their defensive nature to keep herself and teammates alive.

Her primary fire, now upgraded to Endothermic Cannon, acts very similarly to its current in-game iteration, but now has a bit more of a conical area of effect, making it more effective at slowing down multiple enemies at once. Her secondary fire however is receiving a small damage nerf, from 75 to 60, as to make it less lethal at longer ranges. It retains its critical hit capabilities, as well as the recently added Snap Freeze mechanic to increase its damage in tandem with her primary fire, but this makes it less of a sudden burst of damage on its own while not totally neutering her ranged effectiveness.

Her first ability Cryo-Freeze is now replaced with a slightly different self-defense tool: Cryo Shielding. Putting her arms in a defensive position and covering her entire suit in a layer of dense ice, Mei gains 200 overhealth and immunity to debuffs, cleanses any debuffs she had on activation, and slowly heals while the ability is active, but can't attack and has greatly reduced movement speed for the duration. The ability can be manually cancelled early just like Cryo-Freeze, but if the overhealth is depleted, then the ice armor breaks and the ability ends early.

Her second ability is still Ice Wall, and it's largely the same as before, but to ease some of the frustrations and reinforce its role as a defensive ability, the wall is now much more thin, to the point where it can't be used as a walkable surface when placed underfoot. It still acts as a physical object, but now there's only three wall segments with increased health instead of five.

Finally, her ultimate, Blizzard, is... unchanged. Yeah to be honest, it's already kind of a perfect Tank ultimate. It's a big area denial/crowd control/team setup ult, which is what most Tank ults are anyways. Shame about the name though...

So yeah, that's Mei. The fun part of her rework is the visual overhaul to make her "tank-sized", her abilities are already largely fitting for a tank, but uh. Yeah 5'3" ain't gonna cut it. Actually was surprised to learn the other day she's one of the shortest heroes, that caught me off guard a little. Maybe a little tacky that my solution was just to make her basically Mr. Freeze, but it felt like a logical twist on her backstory like what I had with Reaper... who I turned into basically Venom, okay there might be a pattern here.

Also Mei here is one of the designs I actually want to design the most, the cryo-suit is one of those things I think would make more sense with a visual rather than just an explanation. Again, just saying "it's like Mr. Freeze" gets the gist across, but I'd add a bit more nuance. Mei's a very "cutesy" character with a distinct look to her tech and outfit, so keeping that thematic identity intact while also making her enough a sizeable presence to fit as a tank is something that I think would make for a fun visual.

So yeah, that's Mei's role requeue! Next up on the agenda is the first "new" Damage hero, which... honestly isn't gonna be much of a change of pace for him, outside of the ability to walk.

#overwatch #overwatch 2 #role requeue #overwatch role requeue #mei #mei ling zhou #mei overwatch

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purplekoop · 11 months

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(@daylightcommand3 Responding in a separate post because that seems a little easier)

See to be honest, I did consider something like this early on, something like Ashe basically wearing B.O.B. as a suit kind of deal, but I figured that'd be a little silly and impractical, especially when the simplest solution of "just make a whole kit for B.O.B. by himself" felt like it'd be more fun anyways. I feel a little guilty essentially benching Ashe (who, I should clarify, isn't a character I dislike, both as a character and a playable hero) but I feel like at least giving her a role in the new ultimate was appropriate enough, even if she doesn't make a physical appearance herself like B.O.B. does for normal Ashe's ult.

This is definitely by definition the most drastic change from the base character that I have in mind for Role Requeue (considering it is quite literally changing the character to someone else), and it's the kind of cheeky thing I don't plan on doing again outside of one more hero, which I'm not totally certain on but might be less uncanny than the other option I have in mind for them. If you need help figuring out who I mean, it's turning a Tank into a Support. For everyone else though, I'm at least keeping them the same person, even if wildly different in one way or another from usual.

#overwatch #overwatch role requeue #bob overwatch #b.o.b.#b.o.b. overwatch #role requeue

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purplekoop · 1 year

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Role Requeue Status Update

So, as mentioned in my last post, I figured it'd make sense to elaborate on where my thoughts are with the Role Requeue AU, a project mostly focused around gameplay changes (with some lore changes to help explain some of the more drastic overhauls) to refit every existing hero into a brand new role!

Let's start out with a recap of the existing reworks, either the ones I've made myself or those suggested by others (which is so far a list of... one):

Tracer: Support. The poster girl of the main game was the first character I used to explain this AU's concept. While she hasn't gotten a formal post detailing her new kit, I explained most of my ideas in the original post. Her trip in the slipstream ended up with her gaining the ability to rewind not just her own condition through time, but also the ability to share this with others, healing wounds by rewinding the body to a state before the wound.

Reaper: Tank. The second character detailed in the initial post, the menace known as Reaper is being reimagined from a whispy specter to an almost liquid mass of a being, draining the life of his victims to be a resilient menace. Like Tracer, I didn't actually detail his kit, and I'm actually struggling slightly to do so, so expect his own post later too.

Widowmaker: Tank. Complementing Reaper with Overwatch's most iconic duo of longest-standing villains, Widowmaker is also given a major character overhaul to make her a terrifying type of tank. While I had her marked down as a Tank in the initial post with a vague idea in my head to take inspiration from a scrapped character from official concept art, @daylightcommand3 came in with a basically perfect kit to match the concept, imagining her using long cybernetic spider legs to move around, and web-based abilities to ensnare her prey and defend her team in the process. As far as I'm concerned for now, their post on her is as good as "official" for the AU.

Mei: Tank. Hey can you tell my favorite and least favorite roles yet. In seriousness, I don't think this one's much of a shock. Taking her already defensive playstyle up a notch, Mei is now outfitted with a cryogenic power armor suit to give herself the durability and stature needed for the Tank role. This was the first one to get an official separate post, detailing her entire new kit, so she's functionally "complete" outside of artwork.

Zenyatta: Damage. A more hands-on (and feet-on-the-ground) approach to Zenyatta's already damage-heavy playstyle, Zenyatta is now a melee-ranged fighter, with a variety of abilities letting him to get some damage in from a distance, get in close, finish off a target, and get out safely. The most drastic rework yet, but one I'm still fairly proud of. While his visual changes are less drastic than Mei's, I'd still like to give him some art eventually.

Sojourn: Tank. Last character to get a formal post as of now, and the first OW2 hero (let alone post-OW1-launch hero) to boot. With more high-power cybernetics to bulk up her build, and a bigger, badder Railgun she's now built to weild, Sojourn's effectively taken Zarya's role of "big lady with big gun who takes big damage and hits back with aforementioned big gun powered up by said big damage". While her post had more to do with the concept design process and lacked any real lore changes, I don't exactly have drastic story changes in mind for her besides "she buff now", so once I get a design out for her I'll be relatively content with where she's at.

And that's... six. Look I swear I have more ideas than just turning DPS into Tanks. Granted, I have more DPS I want to turn into Tanks, but that's besides the point here.

Let's go over some minor reworks first, ones that won't require major visual overhauls. I mentioned these in what was basically my second post on the AU, but here I'll keep things more focused:

Doomfist... is awkward. I mean, the devs beat me to the punch (ha) on this one, he's one of two characters who've been officially "requeued", and unlike the other rapidly approaching instance of this, I agree with them on the change. So... I'm at a crossroads of how I wanna be lazy. Do I just use old Doomfist's kit, requeuing him from Tank back to Damage, or do I accept his current kit as a requeue from Damage to Tank that happened officially a year before the AU itself. I like Tank Doomfist more than DPS Doomfist, both on a thematic level and a gameplay level (mostly in terms of fighting against him), so uh... current compromise is that he's a tank still, but he has Rising Uppercut instead of Seismic Slam. Somebody wins here.

Symmetra is the other hero who's changed roles in the actual game, and while her history in both roles has been tumultuous (as explained in that other post), I have a relatively solid idea for how I'd change her kit to make her actually work as a proper Support. I'll detail this later, but just know for now that it doesn't require any major design or lore changes. Maybe a minor design change would be fun, making her main color yellow like in her initial art would be fun, but her light blue is pretty iconic to her now so I'm not sure.

Sombra, a hot topic lately who looks like she goes to hot topic, is the subject of the game's most recent major rework. So recent in fact that it's going live in literally a day from now. Her new kit definitely gives me ideas for how I'd tackle the Support iteration of her I've been considering for a while, but not by too drastic a measure. Again, no visual redesign or lore changes planned.

Echo is the last one of this bunch, another of the lovely ladies who I think should've been Support this whole time. Echo's a very funny hero to conceptualize reworks with considering her literal defining character trait is, like a certain silly little jester, doing anything. This is another one I've considered ideas for in the past, and while it definitely needs work I think I was on the right track. Once again, no story or design changes, she already looks and acts so damn much like a support it actively makes me a little mad.

So that's another easy four, only three of which I think really warrant posts of their own. 10 down, which is only about 25% of the cast jesus okay

Moving swiftly on, now I'm gonna go over the rest of the cast I have ideas for, starting with the (former) Tanks:

D.va: Damage. Considering my main issue with putting Tanks into other roles is size, D.va is an obvious first choice for a Tank to rework. Just make her not be in the mech and bam, already halfway there. Spoiler alert but D.va is probably gonna be one of the next few ideas I make a post for, and might be the first to get art to explain her new look! I'm excited for this one.

Orisa: Support. On the other hand, Orisa is a seven foot tall robot. I have... a couple ideas on how I plan to address this, but given she has effectively two whole kits to pull ideas from, the abilities themselves won't be the issue. Design... might be a little weirder, so another one that kind of needs art to explain.

Junker Queen: Support. While JQ is almost certainly the skinniest tank as is, it pains me to admit that she'll probably need to get shrunk a little bit to fit any other role. While it'd be easy to convert her aggro playstyle into pure DPS, I think it'd be both more fun and more thematically appropriate to make her into a Support. Considering this was the role I expected her to end up in for years, it's gonna be fun going back to those old ideas with the context of her existing kit. I have some more design changes to fit this new role, including a new weapon and some more "regal" attire, at least by Junkertown standards.

Ramattra: Support. Again, Ramattra's Omnic form is one of the smallest tanks as-is, so a minor shrink and the removal of Nemesis Form should already bring us halfway there. This is another one that feels thematically appropriate, and again, was kind of what I was expecting with the "Null Sector guy" that was teased all the way back in early 2019. Definitely leaning into his "mage" design inspirations here, and I'm not even sure I'd want to change his design all too much, but I'm not too certain how I want his kit to work yet. We'll see though!

Wrecking Ball: Damage. Listen, Ball is already a DPS that just sucks at killing things and is slightly better at not dying. sometimes. Hammond is also the smallest playable character outside of the mech, so just... give him a smaller mech. This is just gonna be D.va again but I like him less.

Roadhog: Damage. This one I'm not too certain on, but like... it's Roadhog, he's gotta be a DPS, right? He can't be a support at least. I don't like the idea of shrinking him in general, but according to one conspiracy theory I remember from before the 5v5 reveal, it's something that was officially considered. This might end up being more of a rebalance than a full-on rework, but I'm withholding further judgement until we see what his actual rework coming in a month or so is gonna be like, that might jostle the brain juices.

That's all the Tanks I really have ideas for, the rest I'm struggling with, mostly because of the size issue. I'm also torn between Damage and Tank for some of the remaining ones, but I'll get into that more later.

Now though, time for the Damage heroes I have ideas for:

Bastion: Tank. I mean... come on. He used to literally turn into a tank. He's on par in height with some of the tallest existing tanks. The only issue is... I don't exactly know how to make him play like a tank? All his current abilities are pure damage, and the "tankiest" part of his kit are his passive and his old self heal, which while potentially useful parts of a tank kit, don't exactly make a complete tank package. This one's gonna require some basically brand new abilities, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

Ashe: Tank. Somebody might get where I'm going with this one, but uh... yeah, I'm gonna have fun with it. Probably the most drastic playstyle overhaul of the whole AU, which shouldn't be surprising when I see how I handle them. I think I have most of this kit planned out too, and it actually shouldn't require any new design work, so expect this one relatively soon.

Cassidy: Support. Yeah this one's actually gonna be another fairly minimalist one, my main idea is to trade his weapon with a similar feel but obviously with healing capabilities. His overall niche would actually be pretty close to Ana's, which I'm sure is gonna make some lore fans happy. I'm also stealing his mechanics from one of the supports from my original hero shooter concept, War Bots, just trading out one utility ability for Combat Roll being largely unchanged outside of how it interacts with his main weapon. Oh, and deadeye, War Bots doesn't have ults so I gotta figure out a replacement for that. Also possibly expect this one pretty soon.

Torbjorn: Support. This is another one like Bastion (fitting enough I suppose) where the broad idea is there, but I don't know the execution. He's also like Echo in the sense that his broad character archetype means he can do basically whatever, so it's just figuring out what engineer capabilities he needs in order to work. This might be another one where I steal from a War Bots character fairly heavily, since that cast also features a support who's a fire-themed mechanic. This one might not be too hard either all things considered.

There's some more I left out so far, but we'll get to them later with the other stragglers that are in TBD limbo, but for the rest of my semi-solid ideas let's wrap up with the Supports.

For this one though, I'm gonna do a sort of lightning round deal, since I honestly haven't thought about these ones too much.

How fast of a lightning round?

Lucio, Ana, Moira, Baptiste, Kiriko, Illari: Damage. Yeah. Look, we need more Damage heroes, and the guys with guns are the easiest to work with. I don't have much to say about these, since like... it's damage. Just dumb down their existing mechanics to do damage instead of healing... I mean not with Lucio, but that's the gist for the others. I have some fun ideas for Moira (who I also considered for Tank but I fear that'd overlap with Reaper too much), but again, there's not much to say about these.

Lifeweaver: Tank. I mean it's Lifeweaver, "damage" is the last thing that comes to mind with him. He's also got the most health and height out of any of the current Supports, plus his abilities are already primarily defensive and protective. I'm not sure on specifics for his kit, but the general idea visually is to bulk him out with some extra thematically appropriate armor to give him a bit more width, but to be honest he's already borderline tank sized, so there's not that much extra he needs.

So yeah, that's everybody who I have at least some half decent idea for. Let's look at the stragglers:

Reinhardt: ...look, Reinhardt is my favorite character of the cast, it makes my stomach not feel right to consider him as anything else but the big german-engineered block of meat and metal I've loved all these years. If I can give any character a free pass to not rework at all, it's him. It just hurts my heart too much to consider him getting shrunk down enough to work in either other role.

Sigma: Similar to Rein but with less emotional investment. In theory I could see him work as a Support or maybe DPS, but I'm just not sure what direction to take him in. I wouldn't be as sad to see him shrunk a bit, most of his tanky bulk comes from his shoulder pads and the fact that he's floating, plus to be honest the fact he's so excessively shredded canonically is a little jarring, so there's slimming down you could do to make him work, I just don't know for what role and how.

Winston: Fun fact, Winston is above average in size for a gorilla, even before Primal Rage! So sizing him down a bit isn't too unrealistic, but again, I don't know what direction to take him. Support could be interesting, the last War Bots support could be used as inspiration given their shared electrical aptitude, and it fits his personality better than DPS, but I'm just not too sure, especially considering the overall lower amount of DPS in this roster right now. Ironic, I know.

Zarya: Again, lacking great ideas, and I'm torn between DPS and Support for her. She has big gun and big muscles, but her bubbles allow her to be a lot more of an "enabler" Tank normally, so I might want to extrapolate on that. I'm leaning Damage though because again, kind of low on those so far, so she's probably just ending up with a (relatively) smaller gun and new abilities to replace her bubbles. She still might end up a relatively big and tanky DPS, like Bastion is normally, but it's the best idea I got even if it's not perfect.

Genji and Hanzo: I'm grouping these up because my initial suggestion was to swap their roles as Damage heroes with each other, but... to be frank I have no clue where I was going with that. With Genji I could see a melee tank playstyle, and for Hanzo there's some possibilities for a supportive archer playstyle, but again, there's just a major imbalance in Damage heroes relative to the main roster at this point.

Junkrat: So like. he's gotta be Support, because I don't think he's got the staying power to fit as a Tank. Honestly could be interesting, and the kit could lean a lot more into the "tinkerer" theming that I like about Junkrat normally, though that could overlap with Torbjorn now. Eh, they both constantly emit fire normally, I guess it makes sense they overlap a little.

Pharah: Another splodey person, this one flies. Honestly her above-average height and armor makes it so Tank is the obvious choice, I just struggle to think of defensive abilities that'd make sense for her. I might copy my own homework here again, though this time for my notes for how I'd turn the TF2 mercs into Overwatch heroes. I'll elaborate more later but I put Soldier (TF2) as a tank there, which I might take some of that design and put it into Pharah here.

Soldier 76: I feel like he could be the replacement for Baptiste in this roster, with healing rockets instead of healing grenades, and biotic field instead of regenerative burst, but that feels... too easy. Maybe. I dunno, probably overthinking things. I think the way to make this feel interesting is with his characterization, which... I guess is also what makes Baptiste interesting.

Brigitte: I know Tank seems obvious for her, but... I dunno, I'm not ruling out Damage yet? The main reason I say that is because if Rein is my free pass to keep, then Brig would just be a semi clone of him. If there's room for another melee-based DPS, then I think Brigitte could fit just fine there too.

Mercy: full disclosure I just want to entertain the idea of Big Mercy. That appeals to me deeply. Damage probably makes way more sense but uhhhhh. I dunno, lemme have this. maybe. I dunno I'm not sold either way yet.

So that's everybody so far. Updated tier list to reflect the changes:

And here's a less conservative list, putting people where I'd put them just based on gut instinct and cutting out my indecisiveness.

So that's 12 Tanks, 13 DPS, and 13 Supports. A better split than the actual game right now, almost perfectly even between the three roles. I ain't shrinking Mauga either so hey, perfect 13/13/13 split, I solved Overwatch.

Again, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I'm wide open! Feel free to tag me in your own post or submit them to my ask box and I'll be sure to respond ASAP!

Hoping to get out one of my ideas soon, so stay tuned folks!

#overwatch #overwatch au #overwatch role requeue #role requeue

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