Here's how to play the latest multi-player FPS craze to hit the e-sports scene in the Philippines.
Overview
Developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment last year, Overwatch quickly gained a loyal following among amateur and professional players. Facebook groups were established, teams were founded, tournaments organized and cosplays were held among others. Popular e-sports vloggers Ako si Dogie and GLOCO Gaming even devoted a channel for any Overwatch-related content for their viewers.
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| My Warrior Spirit Burns: Overwatch Tournament organized by E-Sports Alliance and G-7 Cyber Cafe |
Last August and October 2017, two tournaments were held at G-7 Cyber Cafe Sanciangco co-sponsored by Blizzard South East Asia and NVIDIA GeForce Philippines. It was fun though not as jam-packed compared to DOTA, CS GO and other e-sports games held weeks prior.
I could say this is just pretty normal for a game that is relatively new compounded by the fact that it's not free-to-play. Yes, Overwatch needs some good moolah before you can download it to your desktop.
Not saying that only few can afford, though sometimes that is the case, it just that learning curve will always take its due course especially on a new game format that's unique only to Overwatch (the flashy graphics had me nauseated at the beginning).
After the tiresome cleaning errand, G-7 Janitor sneaked in at the VIP section of G-7 Cyber Cafe Sanciangco to play and understand the game, share his findings for you to see if this game is worth every moolah you spend for games.
Hero Classification
Like any other MOBA or team games, Overwatch characters are called heroes and heroes have different attributes in the same rock, paper, scissor countering fashion as with other e-sports games. Overwatch has 26 playable heroes to date. These heroes are divided into four separate groups--offense, defense, tank, and support.
Offense heroes are mobile and deal high amounts of damage. But they have relatively small health pools. They excel at harassing enemies as well as pressing the objectives. Defensive heroes specialize in locking down specific areas and protect critical goals. They generally are capable of dealing high amounts of damage and form the back line of their team.
Tanks have the most significant health pools of all the heroes and are often also equipped with abilities that allow them to protect their allies from incoming damage. However, their larger player models make them an easy target for the enemy. Finally, support heroes assist and buff their team through a variety of abilities. They are, however, are poorly matched in 1v1 fights and need to be protected by their team.
While these roles give you a general idea of the characteristics of each hero, they are by no means absolute. Each hero is capable of fulfilling a variety of different play styles. You can also change between heroes throughout the match and finding the correct theme composition is absolutely critical.
Each hero in overwatch is extremely unique and they're all equipped with their own set of weapons and abilities. Most heroes in Overwatch have a one basic attack, two standard abilities and one ultimate ability although there are exceptions.
Each hero also has melee attack which deals 35 damage. Most abilities also have a cool-down which must be reset before they can be used again. Ultimate abilities, however, must be charged before they can be used.
Ultimate charge is gained slowly over time and also by dealing damage or healing allies. Your ultimate charge is also not lost on death.
Health, Armor and Shield
Depending on what hero you'll play as you spawn with a varying combination of these three elements, additional shields and armor can also be acquired from certain hero abilities. In combat, these three functions in layers with shields being removed first, then the armor before damage is dealt directly to your health pool. Once your health reaches zero, your hero dies.
Shields are represented by the blue area on your health bar and they function in the very similar manner to health. However they also regenerate after not taking damage for 3 seconds. Shields can also be replenished through healing from allied heroes or from health packs. Once your shield are depleted, damage is then dealt to your armor. Armor is designated by the yellow area on your health bar and takes damage at a reduced rate.
Depending on the source of the damage, armor will remove around 5 damage from each attack. Meaning it is extremely effective against fast firing heroes like Tracer and less effective against large single instance damages like Widowmaker. Armor can also be broken down into two types which are natural armor, which consists of armor heroes spawn with and given armor from abilities Torbjorn's armor pack. Natural armor can be healed. Given armor can't.
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| Widowmaker |
Finally, once your armor and shield are depleted, damage is dealt directly to your health pool. Health designated by the white bar functions just like it does in any other game. It can be healed by both health packs and supporting hero abilities but it will not regenerate on its own with the exception of Mercy.
Team Composition, Counters.
Regardless of skill, the team that starts with intelligent team composition and then continues to adapt those hero choices throughout the game, will almost always come out on top. Your team should generally try and consist of a diverse spread of hero roles with at least one healer and one tank on each team.
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| Winston, Genji and Bastion |
Pay attention to the tip section of the hero selection screen, and if your team is missing a key hero role, consider filling that yourself. You should also change and adapt your team composition throughout each game in response to the enemy team's hero choices.
While it does take some time to learn, each hero both counters and can it turn be countered by other heroes, just like a game of scissors, paper, rock. Let's take a look at Genji, Bastion and Winston as an example. Genji is a powerful counter to Bastion as his high mobility allows him to flank behind and attack Bastion's vulnerable core, while he can also reflect Bastion's high damage cannon back at him for an easy kill.
Meanwhile, Winston is a great counter to enemy Genji. His lightning cannon can't be deflected and his leap ability lets him chase Genji down before he can escape. And finally Winston's large hitbox makes him an easy target for Bastion who can eliminate the high HP hero in a matter of seconds. This is just an example of the many scissors, paper, rock relationships which exists between heroes in Overwatch.
Learning these counters and changing heroes to counter the enemy teams will give you an incredible edge to win your games.
Headshots and Health Packs
Two other important game play elements which are key to winning your fights in Overwatch are head shots and health packs.
Like many shooters, Overwatch has a head shot function and scoring a head shot will deal double damage and will also trigger a unique head shot hit sound. Almost all weapons in Overwatch are capable of scoring a headshot. From Widowmaker's sniper to Tracer's pulse pistols with some obvious exceptions like Pharah's rockets. While dealing bonus damage through headshots will help you win your fights, it is also equally important to try and stay topped up on health at all times.
When there are no supports around, health packs are the best way to stay popped up on health throughout the game.
Health packs have a set spawn location in every map with small health packs restoring 75 HP and large health packs restoring 250 HP.
These packs will respawn a short time after being used and knowing the location of these packs is extremely important especially when playing flanking heroes.
Game Modes
Overwatch has four core game modes--the escort, assault, hybrid and control maps. In escort, the attacking team attempts to push a payload to a final capture point while the defensive team attempts to hold them back until the time expires.
The payload will move whenever allied heroes are around its speed will increase for additional hero within its range up to a maximum of three. In assault, the attacking sets out to capture several objective points in a certain order.
Points are captured by standing near to the objective area. Meanwhile the defenders must try to keep the attacking team off the objective and stop points from being captured until time runs out. Some maps combine both escort and assault to create a hybrid map in which the attacking team must first capture an objective point after which the payload is released and they must push it through to the final capture point.
And finally, control maps have three stages in which teams fight to control a single stationary point for a set amount of time. These maps are played as a best of three or as a best of five in competitive mode. Both point capture and payload and hybrid maps have a setup time at the start of each round during which the attackers cannot leave spawn and defenders can prepare for the enemy attack.
Ultimate Saving
One of the most common mistakes made by both beginners and experienced players alike is to save their ultimate skill, waiting for that perfect scenario where you can wipe out the entire enemy team.
While ultimate skills are extremely important and certainly shouldn't be wasted, they can also be charged relatively quickly. Don't hesitate to use your ultimate skill even if the scenario isn't perfect. Most classes are able to charge their ultimates in less than a minute. A frequent regular use will have a much more disruptive impact on the enemy team than getting a single and great team wipe once throughout the game.
Focusing Supports
Another key factor in winning your fights is focusing supports. Support heroes in Overwatch have incredibly powerful team buffs and ultimates. Most of them, however, are extremely easy to kill when isolated. In the heat of battle, it is almost a good idea to focus supporting heroes first before turning your attention to their allies as eliminating those key buffs from the fight will often mean the difference between domination or getting dominated.
Seize the strategic advantage
It is also important to change heroes if your current character simply isn't working. Sometimes that will mean losing some already built-up ultimate charge, but having a more appropriate team composition should always be your number one concern.
Optimizing your in game settings to fit your personal play style is also a must. While many in game setting are very much a matter of personal preference, it is almost always advisable to have your in game kill feed turned on as well as having your FOV (Field of View) set to the maximum of 103 as both these settings will give you much more awareness in fights.
And finally, always remember that Overwatch is a team game. Attempting to run in and capture the game objectives alone will always result in you being sent straight back to the spawn room.
Communicate with your team. Coordinate objective pushing, ultimate combos and team composition and your win rate will sky rocket.
More to follow.
