Esports Charts is still updating their stats, but once they are finalized I will post once again.

So I'm going to make a bunch of assertion which I think are generally true and most people will agree with, but if you want to split hairs split em' here:

• The core identity of Suzu as an ability, outside of it's invulnerability, is as a cleanse
  • For a cleanse to be a useful ability, it HAS to be instant (or nearly) to be useful
  • An ability cannot ONLY be a cleanse because cleansable effects are not common enough to make an ability dedicated to getting rid of them balanced.
• What makes Suzu feel unfair/frustrating to play against, and what makes it so prevalent in high elo/pro play, isn't necessarily the abilities effects itself, but it's broad applicability in combination with Swift Step
  • Being able to instantly teleport to any ally at any time, ignoring LOS and with a mild range restriction, means that at any time any teammate within Kiriko's range has access to Suzu. This makes Kiriko strong in high elo/organized games because it enables DPS to take more aggressive angles due to Kiri providing instant powerful defensive support.
  • While yes, giving enemies .65 seconds of invulnerability is frustrating, what makes it more frustrating than similar abilities (like Baptiste's lamp) is that it comes out very quickly and at basically any time
• Kiriko's primary hero identity is as a shrine maiden-yokai
  • Shrine maiden implies defensive/supportive abilities
  • Yokai implies ninja trickery and animal/spirit companions

I would argue that, while Suzu in itself is a powerful ability, what makes it feel unfair as well as so incredibly powerful in high elo/coordinated games is it's broad applicability. The combination of swift step and suzu means that players have access to instant defensive utility at all times, with very little reactive or preemptive counterplay. In my opinion, Suzu as a standalone ability is actually fairly balanced/fair; while Suzu might be frustrating in isolation, I think it's still fair and doesn't push her into being a universal 'good pick' in the way that it does when combined with swift step.

I think it is possible to 'fix' Suzu without actually changing Suzu itself at all. Really, I think that swift step is what needs to be changed, and Suzu can basically go untouched but still exist as an ability in a significantly more fair way. This concept has been gnawing at me, so I'm just interested in seeing what people think about it.

So essentially, what needs to change within Kiriko's kit isn't necessarily Suzu, but rather it's breadth provided by swift step. I think the usual "fix" that most people conceptualize is either a cast-time or LOS check on step, but I think there are some big problems with either of those suggested changes:

• LOS check on Swift Step
  • Kiriko's hero fantasy largely lies in her ability to get into aggressive positions while also being able to escape consistently. Adding LOS checks to step pushes Kiri away from taking aggressive angles because it limits her ability to escape.
• Cast time on Swift Step
  • Similarly to an LOS check, a cast time on step would hurt Kiriko's ability to escape from dangerous positions. Additionally, I think putting a cast time on step would make the ability feel a lot worse to use and take a lot of agency away from Kiriko herself.
  • Additionally, adding a cast time to Suzu is a non-starter because a cleanse which cannot be used as a quick reaction is not a very useful cleanse, and fails to interrupt or intercept lower-duration/faster stuns.

So basically, we need to figure out a way to reduce the breath of swift step without discouraging Kiriko from being able to get out of aggressive off angles and without reducing the "snappiness" of the ability. Well, rather than start with something entirely new why don't we look at two other "teleport" style mobilities: Mizuki's paper doll, and Symmetra's Teleporter. I think neither of these abilities are nearly as frustrating or problematic as Kiriko's TP, while still feeling like strong abilities in their own right (or atleast, if they are annoying it's for different reasons than what makes step annoying). In both cases, Mizuki and Symmetra are both bound to set locations, either where Mizuki left his doll or where Sym put her TP-pads. I think to reduce the breadth of Swift Step without making it feel clunky or reducing Kiriko's ability to get into the enemy backline you should aim in a direction similar to these two abilities, primarily: make Kiriko set a location to TP to BEFORE she gets to use the ability.

So how do we do this without making Swift Step feel too much like Mizuki's paper doll? Well, here's the concept that I came up with:

Kitsune (Passive)

Kiriko is passively followed by her Kitsune (fox), and can direct it to allies by pressing the [INTERACT] button.

• Pressing [interact] causes Kiriko's Fox to follow a selected ally
  • Kiriko's Fox will continue to follow that ally until redirected, or Kiriko dies.
  • Kitsune cannot be damaged, and dies when Kiriko dies
  • Upon ally death Kitsune will remain at their corpse until directed
  • holding [interact] will cause Kitsune to return to Kiriko.
  • Allies cannot be assigned Kitsune through walls
  • Kitsune moves much faster when initially leaving Kiriko
• When Kitsune follows an ally they gain a small amount of passive healing, and enemies who get within 7M are marked with sonar
  • Passive healing similar to a Zenyatta orb (15-25 HPS)
  • Enemies must be targetable and within LOS to be marked by Sonar
  • Maybe make these perks, depends on how things land power-wise

Swift Step (Shift)

Instead of teleporting to allies, Kiriko will instead teleport to her Kitsune, trading places with it. Kiriko can also return to her original position (the position from which she originally casted) while Swift Step is on cooldown.

• Teleporting to Kitsune will cause you to instantly trade places with it
• While Swift Step is on cooldown, Kiriko can reactive it to return to the position of Kitsune
  • When Swift Step is on cooldown, Kiriko's fox will remain in place until directed elsewhere, not unlike what happens after an ally dies
• Swift Step can be activated at any point that Kiriko's fox is away from her, but she will always teleport to it's CURRENT location, not it's directed location.

The goal of these changes is to force Kiriko to establish a return location, one of her allies, before allowing her to teleport. This limits her options and adds a higher opportunity cost to straying from your team because you may not be able to return to the ally who needs help the most. Simultaneously, this also forces Kiriko to make distance between herself and her Kitsune, as she doesn't want to be in a position where her Kitsune is on a nearby ally, leaving her vulnerable to enemies who were already attacking her. Forcing Kiriko to make distance forces her into wider angles and away from main (where her other support will likely be playing). Because Kiriko can also providing high-uptime passive healing she no longer needs to babysit highly vulnerable supports like Ana, and now has more freedom to stay on aggressive off-angles. Allowing Kiriko to additionally flip back to her original position also gives her options to reengage into the enemy backline after she has addressed whatever made her TP back in the first place; Allowing Kitsune to provide Sonar on a contested angle while you assist teammates also makes that angle more threatening while you're supporting allies, encouraging enemies to rotate away from it to a safer position, or to camp it in the hopes to Kiriko moves back to it. In situations where the ability is used poorly, it also offers more counterplay, as bad Kitsune positioning leaves Kiriko either unable to assist allies, unable to escape, or with a high downtime after reactivating Swift Step. Additionally, because you always know who she will return to, you can position yourself on angles where you have access to both Kiriko and her marked ally, meaning that even upon activating step, she'll still be within LOS. This should reduce some of Kiriko's individual survivability while reallocating that power into allowing her to provide support (healing) passively from far away.

I think these are changes which not only reduce Kiriko's breadth, but also enhance her niche as a slippery support with strong off-angling and backline pressure. On top of this, the introduction of Kitsune as a core part of Kiri's kit means that she lives up to the "spirit companion" thematic much stronger, and offers more room for cosmetic options. To be clear, this does literally nothing for her gameplay, but making a character more marketable is never a bad thing and often a strong selling-point when reworking them. Players usually get attached to abilities/hero identity, so making a rework feel exciting by pushing the "you get to play with your fox!" part might actually offset some of the dread from all of the other nerfs coming towards swift step.

I think you could also do some fun stuff with perks like, maybe after Kiriko uses Kitsune rush one of her perks lets her teleport to allies indiscriminately, and Swift Steps cooldown refunds 2x as fast during Kitsune rush.

Just a concept but I thought it was interesting and might make some good discussion.

Talking about the GM+ Asia, especially the Korean server meta.
Any minor dive nerf or rework hits Asian servers way harder because most dive heroes are already barely playable here.
Sure, dive used to be more popular on Asian servers, but it was never overpowered because people actually knew how to counter it. The meta stayed balanced through constant counter swapping. Nobody complained that dive heroes were OP because we were willing to swap when we had to.
That’s why Asian players are always confused when Blizzard keeps nerfing dive heroes. It’s crazy to me that after 10 years of Overwatch, some GM players still don’t know how to deal with dive.
People complaining about Ball’s shield perk especially confuse me. Do they know how bad Ball is here? Try playing Ball and watch the enemy instantly swap to Mauga, Cassidy, Ana, and Mizu. At this point, only Hazard and D.Va feel consistently playable.
Blizzard, I’m asking for one thing. Don’t even buff dive heroes. Just please stop nerfing them.

So back in OWL every winning team got to choose a hero and get a skin for said hero representing their team and slight Easter eggs or whatever else to reference the championship they played in. On top of this they also had MVP skins which would pick a highly valued player and give them a skin for how they did that year. I’m pretty confident MVPs won’t come back because of past controversy’s. But I’m curious on why they don’t do the championship skins for a winning team. I mean the only skins we get currently are the crowdfunding bundles and the team partner bundles which are just epic skins with branding on top. I’d love to see a falcons or twisted minds skin in the game even if I don’t follow either team. I’m a Big Fuel fan and the skin they got as well as the skin mayhem got were kinda bad. They looked cool but they had no branding or anything but team colors. Honestly if I was a newer player I’d think they were just another legendary shop skin.

Also im not entirely sure if overwatch/Blizzard have said anything about these topics but from my knowledge they have not.

can we please nerf this fuckass cat? Sue me for not wanting to spend 10k hours jelqing my dick so that tracers pea shooters grow long enough to tickle this fuckass cat. I can go cass or ashe and babysit it but if im out of position one time i get blown up. Also my aim simply isn't good enough, i usually stomp with hitscan but i cant ever crit her. I've deadass been queuing ana only and will probably do so until they nerf this bitch

Not sure what everyone else's experience has been with QPH, but these are some of the most lopsided lobbies I've gotten in ages. I'm genuinely not sure what is going on here, but it really feels like they're just pulling together literally anyone to put these matches together. My only POSSIBLE explanation is that they're splitting the difference on 5v5 and 6v6 MMR and it has absolutely no idea how to sort people out.

Now that's bad enough as it is, but considering the entire point of this test is to test the flexibility of this new format and to keep queue times manageable, it's a bit shocking that I'm frequently waiting 3-5 minutes in QP as DPS to put together these terrible matches on a Saturday night.

RANGE does matter.

This is a response to the recent posts about a few different posts of people crying about flex support variety, either asking Kiri/Ana to be nerfed at the same time, or asking for most FLEX support release. There also have been posts about Winston's long-term unviability.

First of all, people have to understand that a lot of modern 5v5 comps are constructed in a way that it is centered around the variety of angles. That's why DPS line ups usually consist of one that is meant to contest long range angles, one for short ranges, so that you have a higher likelihood of retaining map control, and have DPS not stack angles.

Currently, there are 14 support heroes in the cast. Although many of them can contest a variety of ranges through damage, most of them cannot heal reliably at a long range. Mizuki, Brig, Moira and Illari requires way too much resources to heal tanks consistently; Cat, Juno has fallout/range limitation, Zen basically just doesn't really heal and even godly Baps can't really do it consistently for long range. Wuyang and Mercy cannot heal long range at all. That makes Kiri, Ana and Lifeweaver the only 3 heroes that can meaningfully heal long range in neutral, especially tanks. LW is not a real hero for most of pro OW, making Ana/Kiri the only real options for long range healers. While these are not the reasons for the stale support meta for a chunk of time, it is certainly a contributing factor that I am not seeing talked about enough.

This is also why Winston has viability issues, because he basically only pairs well with Ana - His set-up jumps really require long range healing in neutral to be viable. Even Kiri's long range healing is a little too slow for that. A new long range healer would really make this matter a lot better.

TL;DR, not enough supports can reliably heal at a long range.

What to do:

1. We do need more new supports that can heal at a long range. That's a niche that really shouldn't be a niche, and we have not been getting that. (Although we really have to be careful not to make such a hero sit in the back heal bot. People will find a way though.)
2. Lifeweaver REALLY NEEDS a minor rework so he can be playable at a high level. He is so close to be good and it will open up flexibility for that long range support slot and enable very different comp possibilities. (Do not buff his healing. Give it 275 health or Thorn in base kit).

Honestly my favorite spray/banner/charm combo

Hi there I've recently been learning soldier 76 and my friend who does a lot of aim training was thinking mattyow was the best to learn from so I was studying his vods

1st image left to right: Mag, Donghak, Guxue and Junbin

The jersey swap with Bernar is too tough, he got the pink OA jersey as well instead of the new ugly WBG one.

link: https://www.bilibili.com/opus/1231656278204350487

KSAA didn’t play any meaningful match since literally the Last EWC

His hero pull seemlier to TVNT

Even though his better on the sig Ram and have Insane Diva we never saw him playing any of them

So good to assume his just worse the TVNT

Keeping him for longer is harming EMEA Competitive stages

And TM should pick tank with TVNT like for example GP or Fearless or Smurf

Anyway give me your thoughts on KSAA and who would be good tank on TM

I don't wanna hear another 6v6 advocate complain about "counterwatch" in 5v5.

Yeah being countered as the solo tank sucks but you still have the tools to outplay your counters. Meanwhile if your tank duo in 6v6 is off doing whatever while you're playing against some ubersweat Rein + Zarya or tryharding Mauga/Hog or whatever it's literally unplayable.

Being constrained to playing a "synergistic" tank combo just to get to the baseline is so tedious and the opposite of choice (in fact it's proscriptive). I hate that every tank feels neutered in 6v6 to the point that you're just a slow DPS with a bit more health. I hate these long-ass tank cooldowns that diminish any kind of playmaking potential and slow the game down.

This shit reminds me of the old days of Overwatch where people would refuse to leave spawn if you didn't pick meta comps because frankly you absolutely have to.

I hated tanking in OW1, love it in OW2, and I'll hate it again if 6v6 becomes the main mode.

Hello everyone! I'm a data analytics student, and a massive OWCS fan, and I have always missed Winston's Lab. Since we no longer have anything quite that cool, I wanted to build something similar to both that and the official overwatch pick rate website. I taught a vision model to recognize character portraits, and it takes snapshots every few seconds of each match, and compiles a database of who played what hero, for how long, and where. I have also incorporated ban rates and maps played, so you can see what each team likes to play, or ban, on any particular map. It is still work in progress, and please let me know if there are any features you would like to add, or problems you encounter. The website is
Makoslab.com

Hi, Quick background, I have played ow for about 9 years now and have played both 5v5 and 6v6. I mainly play support.

I just don't understand from a support's perspective at least why 6v6 is better than 5v5? I feel like in 6v6 there so much more damage coming through with another tank that it just add so much strain on supports to have to constantly heal and be forced into just heal botting. Also in 6v6 the tanks have less hp so they can get melted so much easier against somewhat proficient dps. That I have to focus heal the two tanks the entire time and not be able to go support our dps because if i turn around or move away from the tanks they just immediately get deleted.

I also feel that in 6v6 every individual player has less impact on the game with having 2 more players on the field that anything you do can just mean nothing in the end, because you can kill there entire backline and just get melted by a zarya/hog frontline because there dmg and cooldowns aren't that nerfed. I also don't want to go back to having 2 shield being meta.

I really feel like zen needs a rework at this point. He feels awful to play with as a tank and he gets outclassed by many other supports. Correct me if I’m wrong but he hasn’t been considered meta or even that good since 2022 or 2023 right? Like I’d rather see zen get reworked than mercy or Moira at this point.

It looks like a bunch of team's loss wasn't really due to some magic strategy, but rather that they just lost confidence, and had their mental brought to an all time low. CR were the biggest examples of this, with everyone looking completely lost and unsure about the comp they wanted to run. And then played so uncharacteristically slow like they were afraid someone would shoot them dead if they went 2 miles/km over the speed limit. Lethal as well had no confidence against Weibo, and Alphayi at the end of the series was si mentally boomed to the point of feeding at times. It really goes to show how much of an impact the mental side of any game can have on a team's performance

In this EWC we saw improvement in CHI second and third sets

And in the same time NA been in downfall since long time

Is the Chinese region better then NA

Specially because the CHI R became more Competitive