New hero in Overwatch – Brigitte

Posted on March 2, 2018March 2, 2018 by When Duty Calls

Brigitte is the new hero in Overwatch. She specialized in armor, could heal allies by dropping repair kits for them and by attacking enemies with her whip. She could deal damage in a small cone in front of her, just like Reinhardt. She is armed with a small shield, with which she could cover her self or allies.

Brigitte BIO

Real Name: Brigitte Lindholm;
Age: 28 years;
Base: Goteborg, Sweden;

Brigitte is such a person who always rushes into the heart of battle, to save those who needed her help. She is the youngest daughter of the Torbjorn. Only she decided to learn engineering craftsmanship, and her father helped her in everything he could.

Her godfather is Reinhardt, and also he is a teacher of this young woman. As a squire, Brigitte had many duties, but the main one was to maintain Reinhardt’s armor in good repair. The device of the armor of the class “Crusader” was known to the girl long and wide because the last version of the design was developed by her father. However, in due course she had to look more and more frequently for Reinhardt himself and to suppress his excessive enthusiasm, for the years of battles had not passed for him without a trace.

Briggite’s Abilities

Engineering skills of Brigitte make her an unbending hero of a support class. She is capable of holding a position, treating allies and supplying armor at the same time. Her main weapon is a chain, a wide swing which can hit several opponents at a time. “Whiplash” allows Brigitte to toss the chain forward, which damages enemies in the distance and pushes them away. Thanks to the passive “Vigor” skill, every stroke of Brigitte treats allies nearby.

The ability “Personal Barrier” unfolds before Brigitte an energy shield that absorbs a share of the damage and protects the allies behind her. When the barrier is raised, Brigitte can use the Shield Strike and lunge forward, which will stun the first enemy on the way. The engineer’s skill allows her to create repair kits that instantly heal injured allies and provide armor of companions with a maximum of health. Gathering strength, Brigitta can apply the superpower “Shared collection” – this insistent appeal gives allies near armor and increases the speed of movement of Brigitte, which allows her to lead the comrades into battle.

Overwatch Winter Wonderland 2017 | New Skins, Game mode and other

Posted on December 18, 2017February 14, 2018 by When Duty Calls

Overwatch Winter Wonderland | New Year in Overwatch

At the 12 December 2017, in Overwatch, the new event starts – Winter Wonderland. In this year with the new hero skins, the good old event “Operation blizzard” will come back with the second event – “Yeti Hunter“.

Papa Jeff Kaplan recorded another “News from the developers” in which he described in details of all new enhancements on “Winter Wonderland“.

Handzo will receive a new legendary skin that is based on the comics series of the game.
Roadhog and Junkrat will receive two legendary skins as well.
Winter variations of the popular maps are back. King’s Row and Hanamura will be painted in white during the event.
Operation Blizzard is back not only in Ecostation: Antarctica, but also on the winter’s version of the Black Forest.
For all Mei lovers, developers add the new game mode – Yeti Hunter, where a squad of five Mei will hunt Winston in the Yeti skin.
In the new game mode, Winston must hide from Mei and collect meat, that will charge his Primal Rage. While the Primal Rage is active Winston turn the game and turn into a hunter himself.

Overwatch – First Anniversary

Posted on May 24, 2017 by When Duty Calls

Anniversary of Overwatch

Yesterday, on May 23, the Overwatch turned one year old! This is a great joy for all the fans of the session FPS games and for the developers themselves. Blizzard decided to celebrate this day with their fans and added new maps and items to the game.

Three new arena maps in Arcade mode, more than a hundred new awards including 11 legendary skins and new dance emotions for EVERY hero of the Overwatch game. This is the largest update on the number of added content, and you can get it all from the new containers – the anniversary containers of Overwatch. According to the established tradition, you will receive one free box when you enter the game from May 23 to June 12, 2017. You can also buy holiday containers, but only until the end of the festive season.

New items in anniversary containers

In the game were added next items:

25 graffiti (1 each hero + 1 festive)
48 replicas (2 for each hero)
11 legendary skins
24 dance emotions
Emotions “Sitting” and “Laughter” for Sombra and Orisa (are not festive content)

New legendary skins for Overwatch:

Pharra – Beduin
Soldier 76 – Cyborg: 76
DiVa – Cruiser
Tracer – Graffiti
Hanzo – Cyberninja
Mei – Beekeeper
Zarya – Cyberian
Bastion – Dune Buggy
Genji – Sentai
Symmetra – Oasis
Lucio – Jazzy

New maps

New maps were added for the game modes 1×1 and 3×3. To win in these modes, you just need to destroy all the opponents.

Necropolis

Ana Amari has in the necropolis not only her secret shelter but also an advanced observation post. A lot of peaks for observation, narrow alleys for sudden attacks, all this was created only for one purpose – to determine the best of you. Only do not fall into the pit.

Castillo

Castillo is an old port in Dorado Bay, it is here that the Calaveras Bar is located. This bar is famous for its visitors, and they can not be called as good guys. Also nearby is the base of the famous group of Los Muertos and the refuge of Sombra. Use the vertical advantages of this map if you want to defeat the opponent.

Black forest

Not far from Eichenwalde is a long-abandoned battlefield, which is the last refuge for a lot of Bastion type omnics. But today this quiet place will again be lit up by flashes of gunfire and poisoned by spilled blood. Destroy enemies while they are moving along the trails from the castle to the forest and use wooden balconies to move among the map.

Check my other articles about various FPS games:

Overwatch: New event info was leaked

Posted on April 13, 2017April 9, 2017 by When Duty Calls

Through the X-box live interface leaked the first picture of the new skins for Overwatch’s heroes that were created for the new event. As we suppose before this event will be take base from from the e-comix “Uprising”, and new skins will receive such heroes as Reinhardt, Mercy, Tracer and Torbjorn.

New event as we think will be chained with the Overwatch’s lore and will have some PvE ingame mod. As we can see the plot of this event will be tied with the Omnic terroristic group named as “Zero sector”. And our heroes will confront them at the Kings Row.

By the way, if you still do not read this comix, then we highly recommend to read it. You can find Uprising comix at the official Overwatch’s website. Or at this link.

Overwatch: Sound effects

Posted on April 10, 2017April 9, 2017 by When Duty Calls

Voice features Overwatch

Some developers who are responsible for the sound and atmosphere of the Overwatch answered a few questions from users of Reddit. The Blizzard development team works very well with the community. They regularly release videoblogs, where they told about an update. And everything was telling by Jeff Kaplan himself. One of the last of such works was the AMA on the Overwatch subreddit. Developers who are engaged in sound answered several questions about the Overwatch. Also you can find all voice actors that works under Overwatch.

Anna’s voice

Forum user Skyponyyt asked: “how long have you worked on the voice acting of Ana?”

Blizz_PaulLackey answers: “from training to production prior to shipment takes about 12 weeks. This time includes preparation, and then while game designers will release new hero model. Then we give the character sounds for testing. It only remains to optimize character, make emotions, surface interaction and voice recording.”

Genji’s sfx

AeroRespawn asked a question: “How was Genji’s blade sound in the Highlight was recorded?”

Blizz-PaulLackey answered: “we just took 2 swords, and then beat them by each other to make them resonate, and after we just play it backwards.”

12 various voice actors for each Overwatch hero

Rechan asked: “This game have a record number of languages. How many translators working on one character? “.

ScottLawlor responds: “I won’t say exact numbers, but I’m sure that Overwatch is localized into 12 languages, so that means that we have 12 different actors for each character. But there are exceptions, for example a Widowmaker has one the same actress that speaks in both English and French. If you watched the short films on YouTube, you can notice it.

SnugglesFabric asked: “How does the dialogue system works? And how many people are working on this?”

ScottLawlor responds: “our writer Michael Chu makes nearly 100% of the dialogues in the game, but the team sometimes have a good idea. One of the coolest things that we have done with our dialog system is a “specialization” rows. For example, there are “stinging” string that can be heard when you kill someone. Most of these general lines (refer to any old/category), but Mike could easily add a criteria for which rows will be related to spot: If the action will happen on a certain map or with a specific character. For example is a replica of the Tracer “death comes“, when she mocks at Reaper after his assassination.

Wow_so_rpg asked: “for what the character was more fun to do sounds?”

Blizz_ScottLawlo replied: “for me it was a Tracer’s blink. By the way, this sound was one of the first sounds in the game.”

Other news about Overwatch:

Overwatch: Heath bars

Posted on April 9, 2017February 14, 2018 by When Duty Calls

In the Overwatch’s world, we have health, shields, barriers and even additional armor that increase your’s maximum Hp pool. 5 various options and each of them are different from each other, but all of them try to reach one goal – to keep you alive.

Health Points in Overwatch

Health points are the easiest of all health bars in overwatch because it follows the all basic rules of video games. All heroes have a base amount of health points, that is shown up in the white color in the user’s interface. Each vertical bar equals to 25 health points, and if yours hp reach zero, you’ll just die.

Health points can be restored by the healers, or by picking up first aid kits, that are spawning on various places on the map. Little medkits have cylindrical form and heal by the 75 points, but large medkits restore 250 hp. All these kits have a respawn timer that equals to 10 sec.

Armor in Overwatch

Armor is shown in the interface, but in the yellow color. Some characters have armor from the start, and any champion can get an additional 75 point of armor by picking up a Torbjorn’s armor kit. To create this kit he need to collect 50 pieces of scrap, and this made this ability the most useless in the whole game. Sad but true. This is true because all Health bars can be restored by healers (but in twice slower then healt points) or just by picking up a healthkit. Torbjorn’s armor can not be restores after destroying. Well of course, you can restore it by picking up another armor kit.

Besides the fact that armor can be restored, it’s role is in the keeping your hero safe. Firstly – armor is the first thing that damaged while you hero is under attack. Your health bars reading from the right to the left, and this means that all that you have beside health points will be destroyed first. Also armor decrease all incoming damage by 5 points, but if the damage is less then 10, then it will be decreased by half (200 damage – 5 =195 damage in armor, 6 damage / 2 = 3 damage in armor).

Shields in Overwatch

Shield is third and final form of healt bars in Overwatch. They displayed in the user’s interface by the light-blue color. Shield points are equal to the health point, but the as in the armor case are positioned in the right side of your’s health bar, so they will be damaged in the first. Some heroes have shields from the very beginning, but Symmetra’s ultimate – Shield Generator add additional 75 points of shield to all allies in the radius of 50 meters. Sheild can not be restored by healers, and this is a great problem to such heroes like Zenyatta, Zarya, Symmetra. Medkits also can not restore shields.

But the bright side of all this, that shield are self restoring points. All you need to hide for a short period of time, and your regeneration process will be started immediately.

Barriers in Overwatch

Well this is not really a health bar, but i just can not ignore them. Barriers do not affect any other health bars, but the prevent damage of all heroes that stands under it’s protections. The brightest example of the barrier – Reinhardt’s shield. Barriers just absorb enemie’s damage. All barriers have their own healt bars and after they reach their limit, they will just be destroyed.

At the moment we have 3 barrier types in the game:

Frontal – As Osyra or Reinhardt’s shields that prevent damage from the one side.
Dome – Winston’s shield barrier that have a dome form.
Bubble – Zarya’s bulle that covers an ally hero in the bubble that prevents 200 damage.

Overwatch: 3 duets to defend the point

Posted on November 28, 2016November 28, 2016 by When Duty Calls

Best defensive combo in Overwatch

If you decided to choose such combination of heroes, then your enemies will be disapointed, because then can not easily win the point. And we all know what happened when enemies can not win games – they lose them, and this is mean that your team win!

Winston and Zenyatta: Transcendence shield.

Best description to this duo – “soft defense“. Your comand can use it from 1st of 2nd point on the map. Winston is a heavy tank that have a huge shield. And Zenyatta’s Transcendence allow him to live much longer and charge his ultimate in furious battle. This defensive duo unite team and awake their team spirit. Best defense – good offense.

Bastion and Symmetra: Turrets on line.

Only weakness of Bastion – flangs. While he in turret mode he can not just change his position and he left his flangs open. And right here Symmetra comes. She start a perfect synergy with Bastion by placing her sentry turrets to defend him.

Also when Bastion’s and Symmetra’s ultimates are ready they can push front line further on. Bastion will clean the way and Symmetra place an Teleport fo reinforcements.

Torbjorn and Mercy: We can just build them anew!

This is a hardcore defence. You literally just say to enemies “We are not going to leave this place ever!“. Turret of Torbjorn is a perfect defensive weapon that will spot every enemy before you ever seen them. And Mercy – super strong support that heal her team, and can revive them in a moment even if they all die in battle. True power of this combo – ability to “reload” the battle if something goes wrong. Torbjorn with his overheated turret can defend point alone, while Mercy is Flying to the fallen allies to rise them again.

But any attempts to push front will be tradical. If Mercy will be killed, then it almost means that the team is Doomed.

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Overwatch: Can Symmenta be saved?

Posted on November 23, 2016February 14, 2018 by When Duty Calls

The Indian architect with a fancy name at the moment has the most unenviable position in the game. Despite the fact that the percentage of winrate of Symmetra has always been higher then all the other characters, and she is chosen often enough in the professional and amateur games, she is – the most highly specialized character in Overwatch, which dramatically loses its value depending on the mode , maps and stages of the match.

How blizzard can save Symmetra?

In a recent address to the players Jeff Kaplan, general producer of Overwatch, said that they are aware of the problems of Symmetra and they are going to change her in the near future.

Meticulous players found in the files of the game, several new Indian replics, in which she reports that “10 charges left” and warns that she is ready to “strengthen shields.” It is unclear what exactly it means. Perhaps Teleport charges will increase to 10, and maybe she will have some new ability that can be used a limited number of times. Strengthening shield can also mean that one button will impose symmetra’s shields, and then temporarily “blow” them from 25 to, for example, 100. Then, the shield will be blown back as the “sound barrier” Lucio.

We know that the developers do not like to clone abilities, so it is unlikely that they will introduce something so similar to barriers of Zarya and Lucio, but the other options it is difficult to imagine.

Before Halloween update players on the forums have started to dream about how it would be possible to change the character, Jeff Kaplan is clearly aware of the most popular proposals, so he thought it necessary to say, that the Symmetra will not heal any one, in any form. Symmetra is not a doctor, and she will never be. Well, sad, ideas about healing turrets were curious.

Fantasizing on what would change this arrogant woman into a more universal character, it is quite interesting, but first you need to understand the disadvantages of its current set of abilities.

Symmetra’s Teleport

It is the main advantage and the main curse. If we imagine that each character has a fixed set of “coolness points“, then the teleport is too expensive, and the two basic ability and her basic attack have no points to became better. Any other abilitie will make that Indian too powerful.

If the enemy team has a sensible Genji or Tracer and they saw the first red ball flying at them at the beginning of the match, they realize their mission. Listen carefully as some of the allies did say “enemy have a teleport”, then – go into the rear, ignoring the object and capture enemy fire, rummage all the most obvious places for teleport, find it and destroy it. If they succeed, their team gets the advantage. If in the fear of the enemies Symmetra begins to put teleport away from the point, in less obvious places, it has reduced its value as the amount of time that it saves reduced. In the cargo mode you can sometimes not even look for a teleport, because it will be destroyed each time you capture a control point, so simply drop off cargo and not to worry about the enemy reinforcements.

Greatest rebalance of Overwatch since the release

Posted on November 18, 2016 by When Duty Calls

For a few weeks developers of Overwatch test some changes in balance on PTR (Public Test Realm), and they saying that not all of them will go on live servers. At 15 november all these changes go on live servers. Blizzard add 1 new hero – Sombra, and new game mod – Arcade.

All this new nerfes and buffs will completely change game and heroes Meta.

Change log in brief:

all ultimates now charges for 25% longer
No more “all D.Va” teams in quick games. 1 pick for a team just like in competiteve matches.
D.Va now feels much more cooler.
Pharah became stronger.
Soldier now can kill someone.
Nano boost from Ana will not increase movement speed no more.
Added new hero – Sombra.
Added new game modes.

So let look at these changes more closely:

D.VA

Now she has 600 units of health (was 500), movement speed while she fire is increased, and many people talks that Blizzard stealth buff her attack power in mech. If you meet her and she fly right up to you, then you will be probably dead, before you can run away.

Pharah

Those egiptian fall out from professional meta, when developers give to McCree ability to shoot at any range without lose of damage. Blizzard now try to bring her back from dead by some buffs like:

Jet pack now by 35% more powerful
Minimal damage from her missles increased by 13%

Soldier 76

Damage from each bullet increased from 17 to 20, and bullet spread increased from 2.2 to 2.4.

And that realy useful, now Soldier 76 can kill enemies and deal a good overall damage. And maybe he can challange McCree for a spot into competetive matches. 13% damage increase is not feel as some big deal, but in game this little buff can turn the game.

Torbjorn

Our little boy now changed, his hammer attack speed increased by 25% but damage decreased to 27%. And now you do not need to run on battlefield to find some metal scrap, now scraps start to generate automaticly and you can protect your team without any risk.

Zarya

She was nerfed, but many people suggested that this nerf only make her stronger. Now 1 barrier charge her cannon only at 40% no at 50% as before, and amount of gaining energy was reduced by 20%. This is unpleasant, but this is not enough to knock her from the throne.

Also her beam now start to deal damage right after it hit the hitbox of enemy, without strange delay as before.

This buf greatly increase damage from her beam, and now she can deal with small heroes like Genji, Traces, Sombra.

Widowmaker

Blizzard decided to increase speed of charging of her rifle by 20% and this is a giant number. Now she start to appear in competiteve matches more often, and now teammates stop whine when they see her in pick.

Mercy

Her selfheal now activates after 1 sec delay (was 3 sec), and now when ultimates charged by 25% slower her main ability (ressurection) may be even better.

Mei

Her ultimate charge rate was slowered by an additional 15% (yes 25% from all nerf and then again 15%) so now you can not use your ultimate 2 times per 1 teamfight. But the main power of this hero is in iceicles and ice walls, so we will still see that hero in competiteve.

Lucio

With each patch Blizzard tries to knock down this dj from his Healer Throne, and again they are not succseded. Nerf of his active ability by 10% is not a such great nerf. But if blizzard will continue to nerf this guy, some day he will leave his throne.

Ana

She was a mother of 3-3 formation (3 tanks absorbs damage, and 3 healers charge their ultimates on tanks) due to her Nano boost on Reinhardt. Now with nerf of Nanoboost Reinhardt (and all tanks) are not the best options. It is a chance that without additional movespeed he just can not catch any of the opposite team. So with this buff formation 3-3 now with high probability will be dead.

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Why it is worth to buy Overwatch

Posted on November 8, 2016 by When Duty Calls

New king of team FPS genre? Meet – Overwatch

Multiplayer shooters live for as long as they can maintain the interest of the audience, it is critical to gain the attention of gamers and hold it. Not all games can do that, but Overwatch, Blizzards debut in the genre of the team FPS, inspire us with great hope.

Until now, the king of the genre of team shooters with different character classes was Team Fortress 2, which is 9 years old, hard to belive to that. And tens of thousands people still play it every day – and I was among them.

The first step to winning the TF2 audience was its widespread availability. But it was enough just to try it and it will dispel all doubts – it was intuitive, rich, bright and extremely addictive shooter game that is not a bit bored and it was possible to spend days and weeks playing that game. I’ve played enough in TF2 (more than four thousand hours), and of all the games in the past many years, only one seriously could covet the throne of shooter from Valve – Overwatch.

And there were many candidates. Yes, but where are they all? Does anyone now remembers Battlefield Heroes? APB (2010)? Brink? Primal Carnage? Loadout? Even large and hyped multiplayer shooters from industry giants, like Titanfall and Evolve, became “extinct” shortly after release: almost no one plays in them. However, there are much reasons to believe that in the case of the Overwatch that will not happen again.

King is dead all hail the king

Blizzard managed to create an incredible buzz around the game. Open Beta of Overwatch gathered more participants than any other, and Blizzard beat past record from Ubisoft – Tom Clancy’s The Division, and winged with hype around the new “Star Wars” Battlefront. Unlike Valve with TF2, Blizzard did not have to impose their game to the public – the people themselves flew at her, biting own elbows while waiting for Overwatch release, and then just after release servers was immediately dropped, but Blizzard was ready for almost anything.

People will remain in the game – just for the reason for which many blamed Overwatch. It is not free-to-play, and people that are willing to pay $ 40-60, by default a lot more interested in it than one who ran to “play game or two” in the shareware game simply because it does not cost anything.

The absence of other game modes, except multiplayer, ensures that all who have bought the game are interested in it and not in something else.

Finally, Overwatchs user base will not be fragmented. Blizzard has promised that all the characters, modes and arenas will go free in the future, which means that all the players will always be on a par.

Try to read my other articles about FPS games:

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