Fatzilla- I ran that situation was DVa last night. Was definitely hit by the tire explosion and unable to block it.

I feel like Blizzard dropped the ball big time with Ana. Having a support character that mimics an atypical heavy damage dealer is too much for this player base to wrap it's tiny minds around. Having 2 or 3 Ana's on one team that are just out to get kills is getting a little old.

Played a game last night with dual Ana's... And we won. Actually seemed to be getting a bunch of heals/buffs.

Or maybe the other team just really sucked.

The worst is getting on competitive and folks are merely trying out different characters.

The other thing I've noticed is that Pharah is becoming worthless due to the recent changes. The fact that DVA can blow up her shield at will to protect teammates, McCree can shoot long distances again, Ana's Hanzo-like bullet radius, and Zen's speed on Orb of Discord is really screwing her survivability. Hoping they buff her damage because she is so easy to kill now.

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The other thing I've noticed is that Pharah is becoming worthless due to the recent changes. The fact that DVA can blow up her shield at will to protect teammates, McCree can shoot long distances again, Ana's Hanzo-like bullet radius, and Zen's speed on Orb of Discord is really screwing her survivability. Hoping they buff her damage because she is so easy to kill now.

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Yup, noticed the same thing and have almost completely stopped used Pharah.

that's the difficulty of running a hero based game unfortunately. it's almost close to impossible to keep them all viable

Not sure y'all will find this as funny as I did, but thought I would share it anyway.

Today there was a Torb POTG where he was literally put to sleep by Ana during the POTG. Was LOL funny.

Still feel diva is worthless. I never feel in danger when she's around.

Ana is a wonderful concept except support players don't want to snipe and sniper players never want to support.

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Still feel diva is worthless. I never feel in danger when she's around.

Ana is a wonderful concept except support players don't want to snipe and sniper players never want to support.

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Her grenade is a game changer when used right. Same with sleep dart. Iv stopped numerous ults already with it. Shes very powerful as a supplemental heals like zen is.

Did some D.Va testing in a custom map after my earlier post, defense matrix does not absorb explosive damage, but it will absorb the projectiles before they land. She will also absorb Junkrat's traps if they hit the matrix before hitting the ground. Defense matrix has no effect on riptire, pulse bomb explosion, or another D.Va's suit explosion. I need to check to see if the matrix will absorb the pulse bomb before it sticks.

D.Va works great as a front line tank now. Her matrix absorbs infinite damage, and just holding it up for 1-2 second bursts mitigates a tremendous amount of damage. A lot of the high end teams are running D.Va and Reinhart together on defensive maps because they can completely mitigate combo stacking.

Regarding Pharah, frankly she needed a counter after they nerfed Widowmaker. Competitive games were being dominated by Pharah players and Genjis. Now Pharah has to play as a flanker to be effective, which is fine IMO. That leaves Soldier76, McCree and Reaper as the front line offensive heroes, and Reaper has the ability to also play as a flanker.

Some tips for playing Ana: (1) when aiming down site, at mid range, allies inside the triangle will be hit by your heal, at long range, allies touching the cross-hair will be hit by the heal. That means you don't have to be pinpoint accurate to heal your allies. (2) Her ult builds incredibly fast. If you are staying at mid range focusing on healing tanks, she will build her ult in less than a minute. Ana's ult on a Reinhardt is incredibly powerful. (3) She is a healer, focus on keeping your teammates alive, and only shoot at the enemies when nobody needs to be healed. She also works best when paired with Mercy or Lucio, because her lack of mobility can cause a lot of problems. I feel like she and Zenyatta basically fill the same role.

No, her ult is a minor nuisance at best.

Like many other things, her ult requires some coordination, and people simply do not communicate in this game.

Played some games with TexAgs folks over the weekend. Nice to finally get some communication going.

It took me 6 games I believe to get a win in competitive after going 8-2 in placement.. Went from 51 to 46 real quick

I played a quick match with 5 Ana and me as D.Va.

We won. I went 42 and 0, with like 20 solo kills.

You can build that ult pretty fast, and when flankers crash on you, they are complete toast now. You used to have to use the suit like a torpedo, but now you can usually get a kill with it, which brings your suit right back.

She is an absolute beast, most vulnerable to a good tracer or reaper.

After my placement matches, I've played more than 6, lost all of them. Haven't played comp since.

Heck yeah dude, dumpling player icon is the way to go. I go back and forth between which is a better icon, the dumpling or the scooter.

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Heck yeah dude, dumpling player icon is the way to go. I go back and forth between which is a better icon, the dumpling or the scooter.

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Peanut Butter and Lizard Face or GTFO

So this is off topic but related to Blizzard. My buddy who plays with me sent this over. Some guy earlier this month was playing HotS and made a bunch of vulgar threats to people. He also went on Blizzard's Facebook and threatened to show up with an AK-47 and other "tools".

Lots of pages, but I found this oddly interesting. I can't believe this idiot thought nothing would come of this. Don't **** with Blizzard, y'all!

https://www.scribd.com/document/319017946/Cebula

Well, the McCree god-mode didn't last too long. The small patch today nerfed his damage fall off range by 10 meters (from 30 to 20). They also buffed Ana's rate of fire and increased her magazine capacity to 10.

McCree was insane

After playing a few rounds, he is still very strong, just doesn't pick off the Pharah/Widow/Ana at the back of the team in two hits any more. The rate of fire increase on fan the hammer also allows him to kill Tracer/Reaper a bit more consistently after hitting them with the flash bang. This feels like a much better balance, because he isn't the pure counter to every non-tank class any more.

The balance of the game still isn't quite right.

Flankers and offensive heroes still hard counter defensive heroes far too much for defensive heroes to be every picked. Pharag, mcree and soldier go both ways better than bastion, mei and snipers.

Junkrat still head some maps and situations where he's great in close quarters. Butt it feels like there's never a good reason to take the others against high mobility and long range damage dealers.

Some of it is map dependent. There have been times when I am defending and the initial battle happens and I realize I have chosen poorly because the beginning of most escort maps is much more wide open and easier for long range attackers. However, as the payload advances through the winding paths full of choke points, it balances things nicely IMO.

yeah i think you just have to focus on certain sections of the map based on your team comp for escort types

It has nothing to do with map type. Mcree, Phara, and soldier 76 do a better job of defending a point than defending heroes, between aerial superiority, mobility, consistent long range damage, brutal burst, and fight deciding ultimates.

Bastion was OP for a good oh, 2 days before people learned how to counter and beat a stationary turret.
Mei is godawful annoying 1v1 and can kinda sorta maybe beat a flanker every once in a while if she can freeze them, but she's never going to reliably be able to stop a coordinated assault.
The snipers....if Widow is viable, then she's godlike. Same with Hanzo. I think the latest nerfs mean there's a time and a place for them, but for every reason to take hanzo or widow, there was three extra reasons to take mcree.

Had two disconnects today during competitive resulting in losses of course. Anyone else having issues today? Have fiber through suddenlink and rest of internet is working fine.

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It has nothing to do with map type. Mcree, Phara, and soldier 76 do a better job of defending a point than defending heroes, between aerial superiority, mobility, consistent long range damage, brutal burst, and fight deciding ultimates.

Bastion was OP for a good oh, 2 days before people learned how to counter and beat a stationary turret.
Mei is godawful annoying 1v1 and can kinda sorta maybe beat a flanker every once in a while if she can freeze them, but she's never going to reliably be able to stop a coordinated assault.
The snipers....if Widow is viable, then she's godlike. Same with Hanzo. I think the latest nerfs mean there's a time and a place for them, but for every reason to take hanzo or widow, there was three extra reasons to take mcree.

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While I agree with this, it's mostly only true at higher levels or for people who can fully utilize most characters to their potential.

If you're not in the top 20% of players and you have way more practice on Junkrat than Pharah, for example, you're probably better off picking Junkrat if you want to win, even if Pharah is the "correct" pick.

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I wish more people would understand this. I hate when people try to use the pro Meta at average game levels. An example is Symetra. I play her occasionally on defense because people at my level are fairly ******ed and will walk right into her turrets consistently while not killing my teleporter. But she's useless in the pro meta.

I generally agree, but it just seems there are a few heros that are completely useless right now. I think Symmetra is approaching that level. If the enemy team has a D.Va, rushing the first point is so ridiculously easy to take (of course it does take an ounce of coordination so that may be too much for some teams) making Symmetra useless.

D.Va is probably my favorite hero to play, but she is flat out broken right now. There is no discretion in when to use the defense matrix. I think putting the matrix on a two second cooldown would fix her perfectly.

I also think Hanzo is at that useless level. After they nerfed the hitbox sizes for projectiles, he went from situational to useless.

On another note, I am at level 16 on PC, so hopefully I can get to 25 this weekend. Feel free to add me: Uplift#11403. I got to rank 69 on console, so I want to see what I can get to on PC.

I do just as well with Hanzo as I did before and I am by no means a top tier player.