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Blog entry by Carri Coats

Overwatch's Dedication to Being Inclusive is its Greatest Strength

Overwatch's Dedication to Being Inclusive is its Greatest Strength

Winston's second ability, Barrier Projector, creates a bubble shield that absorbs a small amount of damage before cracking and breaking. read this post from Www.Overwatchtactics.com is best used as a way to temporarily slow down or distract enemies, rather than as a pure defensive ability like, say, Reinhardt's shield. Finally, Winston's ultimate, Primal Rage, not only fills his health bar up to 1000 hitpoints, but it allows him to punch enemies for massive damage and use his jump pack every three seconds. Simply put, Winston should be used as a distraction whenever possible, and then as a tool of destruction once his ultimate meter is totally full.

Imagine my surprise when I was looking through the cast of characters and stumbled upon Symmetra, a support character who has the ability to bend and reshape light into mechanical constructs. While there are a growing number of characters of Indian descent in video games ( The Order: 1886 and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate feature a few), it’s very rare that they are featured as playable characters. I immediately took her for a spin, and after I decided to check out the complete roster of playable characters.

With Overwatch, the charming hero shooter from Blizzard, launching this week, we want to make sure that you’re as prepared as possible to help your team dominate. Overwatch’s main focus is clearly on the interplay between its dynamic characters, so in order to become competent, you’ll need to understand how every character works. Throughout the week, we’ll be publishing guides on each of the twenty-one launch heroes, three at a time, with the hopes that you’ll be able to recognize certain patterns on the battlefield.

Without a doubt, Zarya is the Overwatch hero that most players seem to completely forget about. This is actually pretty hilarious considering that she's one of the most rewarding and useful characters on the entire roster. Add in the fact that a lack of Zarya players means that there's a general lack of experience at countering her attacks and abilities, and you have all the makings of a potential monster until the rest of the player base figures her out.

While it seems like an obvious statement that good players are lethal and weak players are easy to kill, this seems most applicable to Hanzo, Genji's brother and the resident archer of the group. A sniper whose arrows do massive damage upon contact, Hanzo is the type of hero that needs a bit of practice time before one feels totally comfortable. Still, those who put in the required practice with Hanzo will find themselves mowing down enemies left and right.

Hanzo's weapon, the Storm Bow, has a damage output that increases based on the amount of tension on its string, which can be controlled by holding down the fire button. Quick shots, while weak, are certainly great for short range encounters, though it should be noted that effective Hanzo players are going to want to stay behind allies who shoot a bit more rapidly. Where this sniper becomes absolutely fatal is through his fully charged shots, which can take massive chunks off of the health bars of every enemy they come in contact with. However, this power comes at a price, as Hanzo's shots have an arc to them, so long range shots must be aimed above their targets in order to make contact.

With all of that gushing out of the way, I'd like to pinpoint the exact moment where I realized that Overwatch was a special experience, at least for me. While the PC audience is far more knowledgeable about team composition than its console counterparts (as a result of sheer time played), I found myself on a team where the other five players thought it would be a good idea to choose three Tracers and two Reapers. If you don't know anything about Overwatch, you should know that a balanced team consisting of offense, defense, tanks and supports is going to succeed far more often than one where every player is in one category. Considering that Tracer is the squishiest offensive hero and Reaper is an offensive character that isn't going to be able to do damage at range, I found myself at a loss. Generally when I'm attacking a central control point, I enjoy picking someone like Junkrat, whose bouncing grenades can cause absolute chaos. Unfortunately, this hero was out of the question, as my more casual teammates would not be able to succeed without a healer. It's for that very reason that I chose Mercy, who can beam health into any allies that she aims her staff at.

20080128-13_p122808sc-0548-515h.jpgAnother major factor in Overwatch's superior focus is its combat readability. In other words, it's far easier to recognize what's happening on the screen at any given moment and react accordingly. It's easy to figure out what powers each hero has, how they would use them in any given situation and the potential counters to each hero's strategy. The sheer amount of lunacy on the screen at any given moment does make Battleborn exciting, but it's often extremely tough to figure out the best strategy to take in a given encounter. What makes Overwatch special is that high-level play isn't hindered by its combat readability, so both new and old players have the potential to plan out their moves in the best way possible. Battleborn, for all of its chaos and excitement, doesn't necessarily do a great job communicating with the player (this can also be seen in its awkward menu system).

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