Awula

Mercy and D.Va changes

Oh boy a juicy update came in the form of a small rework to D.Va and Mercy’s kit.

D.Va

Micro Missiles (New Ability)
- D.Va fires a barrage of small rockets that detonate on impact, dealing damage in a limited radius around each explosion. These can be fired while D.Va is using any other ability or firing her Fusion Cannons
Defense Matrix
- Defense Matrix’s resource meter will now deplete twice as quickly
Boosters
- Fusion Cannons can now be fired while flying

Developer Comments: D.Va’s Defense Matrix uptime has proven to be too strong, but simply reducing it without making other changes would make her too weak (and far less interesting to play). Instead, we’re adding a new ability, and giving her the ability to fire while flying. These changes give D.Va a lot of new options while maintaining Defense Matrix’s ability to shut down big enemy attacks.

Mercy

Resurrect (formerly Mercy’s Ultimate ability)
- Ability now targets a single player, instead of every player within a radius
- Radius reduced to 5 meters
- Ability cooldown is 30 seconds
- Mercy is no longer granted invulnerability while Resurrect is active
Valkyrie (New Ultimate Ability)
- Valkyrie unleashes the full power of Mercy’s Valkyrie Suit, enhancing her weapons and abilities for 20 seconds:
  - Caduceus Staff: Mercy’s healing and damage boost beams now affect all allies near the targeted teammate, and the staff’s effective range has been extended
  - Caduceus Blaster: Granted infinite ammo, while simultaneously increasing damage and fire rate
  - Guardian Angel: Increased range and movement speed
  - Resurrect: Cooldown is instantly reset when Valkyrie is activated and reduced to 10s after the initial cast
  - Hover: Mercy gains the ability to fly freely, at increased movement speed
  - Regeneration (Passive): No longer interrupted when Mercy takes damage

Developer Comments: While resurrecting downed allies is a core part of Mercy’s gameplay, the way her Ultimate functioned was causing a number of problems. It was frustrating to play against, and it incentivized Mercy players to hide away from important battles, instead of taking part in them. This version turns Resurrect into a single target ability. It’s still an important part of Mercy’s kit, but plays much better for both Mercy players and her enemies. Valkyrie, her new Ultimate, gives her the opportunity to make big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her.

D.Va has the potential to burst down 200 hp heroes at the cost of defense matrix. Her DM is no longer a crutch to use to completely negate enemy fire. She has to use it at the right time. She can fly and shoot, opening new avenues of attack and defense. She still has glaring weaknesses like her massive hitbox/crit hit box, but this change allows even more harassing power/kill potential.

Mercy’s change on the other hand is interesting. While this video is not an accurate representation of how she’s going to handle in competitive and in the pro scene, it’s still awesome.

Her new ult is Valkyrie. It enhances all her natural abilities, unlimited pistol charges, increase damage and projectile speed, resets cool down on resurrect, her regeneration is not interrupted by damage, heals/damage boost can chain off to other people and best of all she can fly. The player has full control of her movements. This ultimate gives her so many options. I can’t even begin to list. Of course, I’m not expecting people to nano boost Mercy and go all battle Mercy, but the option is there. Her resurrect ability is remapped to E. She can use it every 30 seconds, but you have to be close to the target and you are no longer invulnerable. She has more or less become an active combatant instead of playing hide and seek with the enemy. I feel this is the right step in making Mercy more viable in the pro scene and it will cause a massive decrease in rank for OT Mercy mains.

I hope they make it onto the live scene soon. It’s an interesting time in Overwatch. I can feel the winds changing. A new meta might be coming. Who knows.

source: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/21013135

Season Five of Competitive Overwatch

With only two weeks till the season end, it has been a roller coaster ride for players looking to ascend the ladder. I started out this season at around 3300. My season high of season four was around 3400. Pretty close to masters. Only a week or two ago, I found myself at 3585. I didn’t put too much time into laddering. I did just enough to keep rank decay away and when I felt games were well, I kept going.

I clocked in around 23 hours with 103 games played. I won 57 games, loss 44, and tied two games. Not bad right? There’s no secret to climbing ladder. Just find your calling and push forth. I’m a flex player with a preference towards Genji, Soldier, D.Va, and Ana. I try to play around the team and just do my best. Win or loss, I became a better player by watching pros play. With that knowledge, the only way I could develop better game sense (ult management, positioning, knowing which enemy will have ults, etc) was by playing to the point I can instinctively react to enemies on the fly. By developing my game sense, it helped me with my average mechanical skills. I’m not the best at being pin point accurate with my shots, but I know where to position myself to maximize the hero I’m playing.

Now season 5 has been an uphill battle, particularly with the teams I get queue with. Sometimes you get the dream team. Everyone can fill in different roles. There isn’t an overlap in terms of hero pools. It’s great. Then you get teams with multiple one tricks of the same hero and things start to get shaky. It’s a heated topic on the forums and Reddit. People are tired of playing with teams full of one trick Mercys, Hanzos, Widows, etc. I usually try to play around those players and just be flexible. Always try to keep your cool. The last thing I want is me bitching about the team’s poor performance or being hero countered. I power through it and try my best to turn the situation around in favor for the team. If someone really wants to one trick Hanzo or Widow, I’m like

“Ok, you can play it, but if shit hits the fan and you’re not doing too hot, can you switch?”

Something along those along those lines. I’m playing to win and they probably as well. So I try to play flex to maximize the chances of my team winning. Sometimes games are totally unwinnable. I push it aside and move on to the next game. Leavers, trollers, and DCers happen. There’s nothing you can do but push forward.

Season five to most people is a shit show. I think players want to try something new for a change. Overwatch does get stale after a while and people want to try to branch out to different heroes for easy wins, the challenge, or for fun. If you want to climb the ladder, just keep grinding. If you’re on a losing streak, kick back and do something else. I wish all the players in Overwatch much success in their competitive games.

P.S.

This post was long overdue. I apologize. I have another story I’ll post in the future of a funny ranked game in Overwatch.

Diving back to Guild Wars 2 (Brief)

Guild War huh…didn’t think I would be playing it again when I have MMOs like Black Desert Online. I bought the game when it first came out and played up to level 36, which is to say not too far into the game. I grew bored with it quickly and had no friends to play with. A friend of mine decided to buy Guild Wars 2 recently. It made me curious to see whether or not the expansion was worth buying. I decided to play the vanilla game.

PVE

The things to do in-game blow BDO out of the water. BDO lacks any real PvE content outside of the grind and exploring. Exploring in BDO is there to fill in knowledge which gives you contribution, but it’s shallow in comparison to Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 has PvE events happening all over ranging from escort quest to really annoying champion monsters. There’s also an incentive to explore the map. When you find all the nodes on a map, you get rewarded with treasure. I spent hours going through Divinity’s Reach and the starting zone finding the nodes.

Sense of Scale

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in awe of the size of a game world. Guild Wars 2 main city is massive. I feel insignificant. The sheer size of the buildings and walls makes Calpheon in Black Desert Online seem like an outpost in comparison. It might be a city wallowing in corruption, but it sure is pretty.

Closing

The game has revitalized the MMORPG genre for me. What I missed the most when playing BDO was the PvE content and the sense of adventure. Currently there are two sides to BDO: The life skillers and PvPers. I’m mainly do PvP content like node wars and the occasional outlaw killing spree, but the grind is absolutely horrid. Monster grinding for drops is absolutely abysmal and tedious. I’ve spent hours grinding pirates and all the money spots in BDO. It’s boring. It lacks a true dungeon that isn’t gated by gear and level (I’m looking at you Hystria). I’m not asking BDO to add instance content into the game. What I want is more dynamic PvE events in-game. The game feels stale doing the same grind over and over again. I’ll probably be bored with Guild Wars 2 eventually, but I’m having a blast right now.

Note
I still play BDO, but more passively now. I’m still conceptualizing the Overwatch post. I’m not sure what to write.

Gacha Surprise

A day or two after the Grand Order post, a surprise gacha came out of nowhere.

Kiara Gacha

I shouldn’t be surprised. Every gacha event in the game is a bait for another. Like Moriarty’s gacha and then the next day Proto Arthur shows up. Luckily, the three free tickets from the new missions netted me Kiara, everyone’s favorite ero-nun. All I’m missing is Meltlilith and Passionlips. I just need to believe in RNGesus and it should show…right?

On another note, I should have an Overwatch post coming soon. My last one was me begging to get invited and a year later since the game’s launch, I would like to articulate my feelings to you all my love and hatred for the game. Until then!

Fate Grand Order/Gacha Hell (Not a review)

My first real post in a while and I thought I share my love and hatred for the Mobage (mobile game) Fate Grand Order. The game is developed by DELiGHTWORKS and published by Aniplex. It’s a free to play game with Gacha summoning mechanics common in Japanese Mobage games. It’s a mechanic they used to generate income and give players a chance of rolling servants and craft essences (think of it like equipment cards) with Saint Quartz. You can buy Saint Quartz from their shop, gain it through the story/free quest, and through consecutive login rewards.

Servants are what you summon in the game ranging from one to five stars. Fate Grand Order distinguishes itself from other mobage in their servant’s viability in all aspects of the game. While other mobage games hampers player’s progression if they lack a certain unit, players in Grand Order can complete the campaign with three stars and below servants. It’s all about the synergy of your servants. Servants are classified into different classes: Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, Avenger, Ruler, and Alter-Ego. Each servant is strong and weak against other servants. Saber is weak to Archer and strong against Lancer. Lancer is strong against Archer and weak against Saber. Etc. You make a team fitting for the mission.

The summoning screen featuring a rate up servant.

The summoning rate for the game:

Servants
5* SSR: 1%
4* SR: 3%
3*: 40%

Craft Essence
5* 4%
4* 12%
3* 40%

Looks terrible right? You have three types of roll options available to you: tickets, a single three quartz roll, and a ten roll costing thirty quartz. The thirty quartz roll guarantees you a four star servant or craft essence. It’s technically the most efficient roll a player can do. The odds are always against you if you want the five star. The game has events that happen every so often which introduces limited servants. As stated on the Grand Order wikia page, “It is only available during special summoning campaigns. When no such campaigns are active, this Servant cannot be summoned.” There are many campaigns from the GudaGuda event starring limited servant like Okita Souji to the recent SE.RA.PH campaign featuring limited CEs and two limited servants Passionlips and Meltlilith. Most campaigns have welfare servants after completing the event giving the player a free servant with a maxed out noble phantasm (special attack).

The current event in Fate Grand Order featuring the welfare servant B.B

Informal qqing in progress

Now you know the gist of it. Let me explain to you Gacha Hell. When you saved up months and months of quartz to roll for your favorite servant during their rate up (during a rate up, the summoning chance is still listed as above, but the targeted servant in question is likely to show up instead of another. For example, if SSR Artoria Pendragon is the rate up and you happen to summon a five star, the player has increased odds of getting her over all other five star servants) and you get freaking Steel training Kotomine CE and zero SR and SSR after 300 quartz, you’re bound to be in Gacha Hell and despair.

THE SALT

The current event which features Passionlips and Meltlilith, I’ve spent all 150 quartz and 14 tickets trying to get one of the new Alter-Ego classes to no avail. Gacha Gods are cruel q_q.

The game is fun, but if you desire a certain servant,

The game is available on both IOS and Android. I’m going to cry in a corner as I failed another thirty quartz roll. DAMN YOU FOUR STAR CEs!

Gone for a while

So a year has gone by since I’ve posted on this blog. Lack of interest in writing and laziness contributed to this…stagnation. Any sensible person would try climb out of the pit that is laziness, but I’ve wallowed in my own stupidity.

Being unemployed hasn’t helped either. Whatever funds I had saved up in college/part-time job I had before is exhausted. The only upside is living with my parents (A stigma in some circles). So I thought I use Word Press as an outlet to vent some of this frustration.

Besides the venting, I would like to post my usual gaming content on here to tell you my progress or takes on a game. Someone’s bound to read this blog (I hope) and can relate to my predicament. In any case, I hope I can provide entertaining content in the future and try to power through my problems as an individual.