KarQ answers your Hot Overwatch 2 Questions - October 2023 

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As someone who pings a lot, people do not ping nearly enough

Did you know if you used an ability you can hold the ping button and press the ability again to tell your teammates the exact cooldown.

Imagine losing a 1 on 1, pinging as soon as you die, then a few seconds later that hero shows up in the kill feed. It's a sweet feeling. Also, if you're lower tier and there's an enemy in the backline you're dueling with (or that just killed you), a teammate might peel for you or you might save them from getting surprised from behind and save their lives.

I think a big problem with mercy as a design (especially with recent nerfs) is that it is hard to tell mediocre ones from really good ones. Like when a mercy is doing consistently good, it’ll go unnoticed cause it’s not seen as a “big impact” yk? And the things she can do to make those big impacts are extremely risky and easily punished. I.e. going for rezzes, making good movement plays, or stalling with good movement. And there is so much stigma around the character and the player base that the notion that most mercy players are skillless or brain dead has become so popularized.

The idea that "They've just played enough to get to masters" is hilarious. How many people have played this game for SEVEN YEARS and the biggest ranks are still gold/plat. Advice for everyone, try and work with your one-tricks, no matter who they are playing. Supporting someone who's got the passion is better than shooting yourself in the foot without even trying to work together. Had a game with a lore accurate Ramattra and the DPS who sat on payload (defense) complained that he was too aggressive, but the Ram was the one ACTUALLY doing something. SUPPORT your teammates, that's what gets wins!

Any DPS player who carries games with a Mercy one trick on their team gets damage boost the whole game. Once they see you popping off, they turn you into a monster. A dps player saying that Mercy is useless can only mean one thing.

I love the comparison to comp anxiety to starting a new job. Perfect analogy and I haven't heard that one before but I will DEFINITELY be stealing this when talking to other OW players.

1:05 One thing that really helped me was swapping interact and ping, so binding ping to f and interact to g, because you rarely use interact but you (should) use ping all the time. I think that should be the default even if it breaks the muscle memory that most players have.

So I'm a support player that is always jumping between GM and Masters (that refuses to play mercy). The person saying that Mercy is always result in loss is a hot take. There are definitively games you'll lose due to Mercy players lack of flexibility, but the same goes about any other players lack of flexibility or playing the wrong hero against a comp. It's just unlucky. Instead of focusing that others are playing a bad pick for your or against the enemy comp, think rather "How can I enable them" or "How can I help them enable the team". I see people so often blame other players or hero picks (I'm guilty of the last one quite a lot, but only after the game has concluded, and I keep it to myself. Never lash out on the team.), but if you at least during the game remember that it's a team game, and try to play accordingly, you can turn it around. You can't change what heroes others play, but you can affect how they play it. Stay positive, and don't flame or blame them, as that will not only have a negative impact on them, but yourself and your entire team as well. Communication can go a long way, and it's important to be nice in comms, mercy players are flamed a lot, unjustified if you ask me, as a lot of the time people single them out and are upset all game about the pick, rather than focusing on the game itself. You can't change how or what others play, only how you play. So rather than thinking "That mercy made me lose the game" you should think "What did I learn from having a Mercy on my team in this game, and how can i adapt it to next time?" as it will most definitively be a next time with like 30% of the support player base being mercy OTP's *copium* Also, can I just say Mercy makes the game so boring cause of dmg boost, which you see a lot of... >

Tank diff for me is like saying "i have gold damage or elims" in overwatch 1. The person saying it is usually just as bad as the rest of the team and just trying to push the blame on someone else. Yeah sometimes you got a bad tank or something but so many times the whole team only has a couple kills in a whole round and one person on the team that cant handle getting outplayed goes stright to tank diff, or that the other team is hacking

Its also funny to me so many GM players will say "focus on yourself" in Master. But when they get M3 support in a GM game theyll immediately say ggs. Its all perspective and GM players do that shit too.

Ive lost tons of games thanks to mercy one tricks too, but its usually because the other team has an amazing mercy that diffs our supports and their dps almost never die. In diamond a good mercy halfway takes over while few people on my team can take her down consistently

in my games (granted mostly unranked) Mercys just love to stick their staff up the tank's ass and just forget that she can damage boost or even heal anyone else. This isn't a big problem until the other support picks something like zen or brig and we struggle with healing. In these cases I just pick Mei and heal myself all the time

I play at max volume, no music. You can hear EVERYTHING that goes on. I ping like a mofo. I hear footsteps from one way, and I ping the area. Granted it's mostly because I unplug my mic so I don't get toxic in vc, and ping is the only way to communicate mid fight

In regards to Lifeweaver being low skill floor, I think he's actually in a bit of a weird and interesting spot. His primary healing is the low-skill part mostly. It is is incredibly easy and the most reliable healing in the game. At the some time, he has a lot of potential skill expression with his abilities that gives him a higher skill ceiling than one would expect. And, honestly, I think that's a good thing. He's easy enough the new and lower-skilled players can still play him and do relatively well while higher skilled players can squeeze much more out of him than you'd expect

" I don't really feel anything" - me too brother

already another episode? man time flies...

Don't conflate aim skill with all type of skill. I would not call Brigitte a low skill hero, even though whipshot is the only ability that requires aim, there is a lot of skill involved in managing your distance with enemies to proc inspire and stay safe, along with keeping your other support or fringe dps teammates alive.

When playing ranked in any game a lot of players get anxiety from it. This is where having the mentallity of not caring about your rank can help a lot. When the stress of losing a certain rank lingers on your mind, it can easily impact your performance. There's a video from Ceelows (granted it's about Street Fighter) and I feel he covers this topic very well and in depth.

Regarding the Reaper versus Reaper mirror. I think that's largely based on an attempt to improve on a bad situation as well as a lack of originality. So many mirrors these days. And it tends to kick in literally after one death for some ppl

I thought peel was to "peel" enemies off of you, not to "peel back" to help backline.

Pinging came naturally after coming back to Overwatch from Apex. It's cool to know that the ping system is a lot more complex than simply pointing out an enemy's position.

For the record. Whenever I've got a Mercy with no elems and no dmg I know it's going to be a tough game.

As a mercy main there is a difference between a main and a one-trick, you have to learn other characters cuz ur gonna get stuck in a specific rank that you won’t be able to get out of.

For the low skill discussion; Bastion's a problem right now in lower ranks and I think they'll nerf him a lot, either his damage or his survivability. High rank players just reposition when he's in turret form, but lower tiers he'll take down a couple teammates and (and you if you don't get out while he's turreting). It's his new survivability that makes him oppressive. KarQ is spot on about Torb, his turret is much weaker and he takes more skill with his gun. Lifeweaver barely does damage, if you die to a Lifeweaver your positioning is the problem. Moira's weak, just attack her and she'll likely fade out pretty quick. Reaper's been the same forever, just don't let him flank you and shoot him if he's going after your tank. His range is nothing.

22:36 this one is the primary reason I haven’t really grown from comp despite playing for a while. I get way too anxious. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one.

First question about the ping, I get the exact sake vibe, even in other games like apex. Players rarely ping other stuff (apex it's just alerting the presence of enemies in the area and loot pings, rarely anything more). I wished players did use their ping systems more in games. Little do players actually know how helpful they can be ESPECIALLY IF YOU DONT HAVE A MIC.

Play something that loves a pocket. Makes the mercies happy and you will do better in the game as a result.

how do people ignore ping ? its like when your mom calling out your name and you must answer or pay attention to...it just CANT BE IGNORED

Great Video!!

Two things 1: pinging is so important and you learn this really fast as sombra pinging where the enemy goes or where a cheeky flanker is can solo carry a game with you doing nothing. And 2, supers rein is passive not due to reins current play style, reins actually WAY more aggressive now if you watch people like flats. The current issue is supports are basically dps. Remember when they tested 1/3/2 and tanks were literally just…afking because if they tried to do anything they would just be deleted….well welcome to season 7. If super played any other tank he would play the exact same style because that’s the ONLY way tanks can survive right now. People don’t like to admit when their role is broken.

I've always been afraid of comp cause obviously, personal performece (hence why i play quickplay so much more), but have recently started trying to back into comp. Honestly for me, i just try to think of the comp game as any quickplay game i play ( the adjusted UI for comp doesn't help at all)

I ping so much in OW2 that I try it in other games out of muscle memory. I can't imagine not using the hell out of this feature.

I live for pinging! Especially as Sombra and I can relay info while invis

1:08 Ping is broken tho. Most of the time it doesn't even ping the correct person and half the time it doesn't work

Did you ever make your ping video? You mentioned it a lot, but I never saw it come through. Please include console pings!

As a mercy main, I think it’s my duty to Ping.

I want that ping video!

Holy moly. The ping sound changes depending on the health of the target. It’s all I can do to get people in my games to “look up” 😅

13:34 not gonna lie I didnt think i'd ever hear KarQ say this

Lhcloudy and Antoncoco Reinhardt are stellar

The three main compositions are dive, poke and brawl? What's the rush comp then? Is it just an alternative name for one of the main comps (maybe brawl?) or is it a non-main comp?

Just curious @Karqives. If we add (lets say) 200HP to tanks. How do you think it would affect the game? My theory is that they would still have the same potential, but are a bit more durable. Thoughts?

That mercy post feels so true. She's 1-tricked so often & with her high pick rate, you know she'll be in games where mercy is a bad pick. If you're running her when there aren't really any good pocket targets, she's probably not the best. This usually leads to more heal botting & if you pick mercy for heals, just swap. There are so many other supports who can heal more effectively

The misogyny around Mercy one tricks vs any other kind of one tricks is crazy

The Mercy post screeeaaaams sexism

I'm new to Overwatch and I was wondering, How do I counter Hanzo? (Who are the best characters to fight Hanzo)

Something I hate with ping is that there’s an insanely common bug I see nearly every game where if you ping, it shows that the enemy is like halfway across the map. It delegitimizes the entire tool of ping imo, because I can rarely trust it.

Toronto, Canada. Those are “Maple” leaves

Controversial opinion probably, but I actually think Bastion’s OW2 design hit the mark quite well in terms of giving him a broader range of skill expression and more nuanced counterplay. The fact that his wheels mode is on a timer means that there’s a wider range of things you can do to mitigate his damage potential, as simply wasting his time and attention can dramatically reduce his damage output. Bastion might be a bit overtuned at the moment, but I also think that choosing to buff his bouncy bomb was a great choice. It gives him more consistency, since it’s available in both forms, and it has a lot of features/aspects that a player could invest in learning to maximize. The mobility is cool, and he can bounce it around corners to catch enemies in cover, and he can use it to knock enemies into the air for easier shots or to push them into a teammate’s ult, and it rewards accuracy with the sticking feature. Also, now that people are playing Bastion more, the community is finally actually developing the use of his ultimate. It’s easy to avoid if the Bastion uses it naively, but players are learning to make use of the full 10s and use the high threat of each individual artillery shell to strategically manipulate enemy positioning, which I think is pretty cool. OWL playoffs had some really amazing big-brain Bastion ults that were really fun to see (I thought Mer1t’s were especially good).

17:08 it’s all about money and getting the other people from more traditional online shooter games to come over to overwatch and play without a massive amount of time spent on the very diverse and lengthy overwatch learning curve to get efficient at the heroes and the gameplay mechanics overall….so making the easier to pick up and play heroes a prominent role that a newer player to overwatch can get into in a shorter time thanks to some familiarity with “traditional” shooters so they don’t feel fully fish outta water and can even have quite a bit of success thanks to the tuning and also what was the thing I feared the most when the free to play model was announced-which has been prominent in the developers ongoing Efforts ever since-is the dumbing down of overwatch which to me is stripping it of its soul…largely fueled by the need to maximize the f2p player base and maintain impressive finances for the long planned sale of the company that finally is done…maybe it will have an impact on this going forward post acquisition….but I’m not holding my breath…. I still love you OW 🤕

I love how a lot of people wanted a ping system and then they add it and no one uses it

you caan also ping ur cooldown hold the abillity u want to ping and press ping button

In the last couple weeks I had multiple games when I was a tank it was all in qp just saying but still my supports played lucio mercy when I was tank its ggs most of them they didn't switch for most the game too

I changed my controls because the default control scheme is ass. They added pinging with Overwatch 2, long after I had already reworked my controls to get rid of the useless chat buttons. And honestly, I’d much rather have a control scheme that isn’t ass, than the ability to ping shit.

Question does anyone know where to go to ask these questions for KarQ to review?

Aint no way those first two players are Diamond and GM4... So much Plat Chat.

I magically became master from plat after not playing comp for years

"Noone magically ends up in masters" yeah idk man, i constantly have masters mercy players that are bronze 5 tank and support, and have negative game sense and kinda just die a lot and flame the team. Console ladder is a different beast.

Spotifiy diff

It's hard to not get negative when ur on tank and have a mercy or moria on ur team when the other team has 2 supports who do everything. Like all the other supports can heal and dmg simultaneously and they're way more flexible then those two.

10:07 I can see the absolute physical disgust on this guy's face from controlling his restraint when saying all of that 🥴 It highlights how far you can antagonize people by simply playing the, "it's all on you, and your efforts" card, just to not catch heat from opposite opinion, when the issue is right in front of you, and covering it becomes an insult to intelligence. Amazing.

So peel = help someone?

Bruh, one of my most recent games was lost because our Bastion died to a Cass and didn't ping him. His high noon wiped all of us squishies out because no one had time to react and then they immediately won. It was at the end of Eichenwalde on the back balcony.

about first question: this one makes me mad - opponents have widow, our teammate died from her headshot and didnt ping her after their death...

As always non mercy players think they know how to play her better than people who do. If y’all would look at what pro mercy players like niandra and skiesti say and do you’d know she gets more value from damage boost than using her pistol except in very specific situations. Mercy is not a character that is supposed to do much direct damage herself that’s literally how she was designed. She only has her pistol for those very specific situations where she can get value from using it. Not every support needs to be a dps that can heal some are specifically designed just to support and enable without doing a lot of damage themselves like mercy and lifeweaver.

Yes always ping someone when you atack someone and especially if you want help and need heals it's way easier to understand where they are and how to help you or try to get them after you die to them I always ping when I die people who use ping are soooooooooooooooooo nice to play with And about supers playstyle staying alive as Reinhardt is better then going agro cause then you will die and take all of their attention for a SHORT time if you take most their attention for all the time it's better also montage is the best moments you have the very aggressive Bowie playstyle which work with a rein comp good comms and looking at THE WHOLE MATCH to know when to go very aggressive

You missed out big time on not dropping a journey parody-Don’t stop…. p…iii….inging!

bruh everytime i play winston my team tells me to switch.

It pissed me off since as a support player, even though i did literlly everything i could and be an absolute menance to the enemy tank, rarely we get Support diff comment

I’m a Lucio guy. So me personally I hate seeing mercy on my team every game🤣. But that’s just me.

i ping because of the BR games i played before OW2

i mean this respectfully, you have a very attractive voice

Honestly i hate playing mercy now, i get called boosted and shit. I play with friends that are a little higher than me but still close i am M1 and they are G3 is that boosting and people do recognize us since we basically play with the same people in the higher ranks lol

For Mercy the "Or played so much they end up in Masters"... You played the game so much you ended up here as well. Duh. That was so narcissistic to say, like "oh I play so well to get here but the person I don't know was 100% boosted to here, I wasn't though lol why are they here I lose because of him because I'm a Bronze minded player"...

Its diffarencial or whatever you spell it

10:30 "no one accidentally ends up in masters" Actually i disagree. I ended up in masters and i dont consider myself that good.

Set up autoclicker, set it to ping key, auto pings anything you're looking at!

The thing with mercy is that getting good with her, means nothing towards your skill at every other hero. You have to relearn how to play the game when swapping heroes lol; the skill just won’t transfer over the same way it does for the rest of the roster. For instance, good dps players can be just as good at tank and support, because it’s very similar, with minor changes. Do I enjoy getting dps players on support? Never, because they dps more than they actually support, and 90% of the time it costs us the game while they ego the team cause “well I’m 30-2 on bap!” While only using immo for himself, flanking with ult, etc etc and wondering why his whole teams dead LOL; but still, my point is that skill transfers over better from dps to support, whereas no skill transfers over from mercy gameplay to Ana or bap gameplay

I know this isn't the hot take episode, but the whole thing about "low skill" characters generating too much value isn't real. I look at the players saying that the same way I look at people in fighting games that say that about certain characters. Just bitter and unable to adapt. Also not to offend anyone, I love me some overwatch, but the mechanics of these characters are nooot that complicated. The type of thing that gets you to climb is universal things like strategy, game sense, movement, ult tracking, etc. Those "low skill" one-tricks arent getting to high ranks without that.

They should ban diff honestly. It's literally just a toxic term that create delusions.

I love saying "support diff" (I'm a support player) it always triggers the enemy team and it's hilarious lol

i do have to agree partially with the mercy statement in the beginning because I've grinded to masters 2 support and diamond 2 dps and diamond 4 tank and constantly whenever i have a mercy roughly half of them seem boosted or just completely bad. i know some people might just have a bad game but its just frusterating to have a one trick mercy that their next best option is to go moira because they can't aim or play anything else that would be significantly better in a situation. At the end of the day I just move on and go next and I still end up ranking up I just always question how the mercys got so high rank when they play the same as when i played in silver/gold lobbies

It's not super fair that everyone else needs to accommodate the Mercy rather than Mercy adjusting. You can insert Lucio easily for Mercy, but would much rather have Lucio

i mostly lose a match ..due to lack of healing .. if im lucky .. 1 of the 2 healers will heal .. and sometimes i get a match where they never heal the tank . like NEVER

I mean mercy otp I see overwatch league and contenders players avoid mercy players I even seen jake avoid a lot of them 😂

Hey KarQ, pls use dark theme when showing full white websites.

Karq where are you from?

The issue is that mercy is kinda useless compared to bap or ana or kiri, so mercy is just a detriment.

Skill-to-value curve: Exhibit A: Mercy Total bot hero with a lot of upside.

Simple solution to the Mercy issue: just don't let her be so easy. Give her skill shot abilities so the Mercy one-tricks are forced to develop their aim.

In low elo mercy’s will stay mercy even if there’s no one to damage boost lmao it’s so annoying this one game our mercy was damage boosting rein cause we had junkrat and sym I just kept laughing, we lost obviously

7:30 take a stats class bro wtf It wouldnt be 0%, it would just be reliably under 50%

The thing with Mercy is her kit is designed to be part of an edating duo, which is really detrimental to the game. You take any random person (definitely not of a specific gender) playing Mercy because any semi competent player can play Mercy, and an ok DPS and they instantly become a force to be reckoned with because of Mercy's high survivability on her own and then just pocketing the DPS making both of them hard to kill without coordination or one shots. And then when you add rank to it, it's just two players in ranks they don't belong in because they're codependent on their epookie bear. Overall, I think Mercy is an issue because of how many Mercy "mains" are really just one tricks that occasionally play other supports (and just heal bot on them) and how much survivability she has with a 2 second Guardian Angel cooldown, rez, and Valkyrie being one of the hardest abilities to play around because of the insane mobility and constant health regen.

Nah I gotta disagree with KarQ, every mercy otp game is almost guaranteed loss in my mind. Even in GM I always found Mercy players have the least game sense, a GM Mercy has the game sense of like a Silver Soldier. They’re fucking clueless, oblivious, just awful to have. Anyone who one tricks is always a problem, even the best in the world at a character lose games because they refuse to swap when the going gets tough but god damn Mercy players just suck at everything

lets be honest, all mercy have to do is positioning and prioritize who to heal and which to get boosted, other healer maybe except moira maybe take more skills than that, like for said a bap, baq bring so much value it literally can carry u the game in term of contribution to the team, not just a left right click hero with good positioning, all hero need good positioning and awareness, not just mercy sure u can play mercy all u want, but one trick pony are just pathetic and selfish, wont learn new hero and instead farming off just that one hero no matter the comp, and expect other people to play around ur hero, aint that fucking selfish? not unless u have a fucking top500 dps in ur party and ur just boosting him and get carry, well at least that dps still carry the game, but solo queue as a one trick pony mercy? good if it work, but hell when it doesnt and ur losing,yet doesnt want to switch off to other healer "no one accidentally end up in master", ohh i would agree if it just going thru solo queue hell matchmaking, but people do reach master boosted by other, either paying to get boosted or had pro player friend to play with, and mercy is one of the hero that are easier to rank with, when u are boosted, cant get to master by playing dps when u are only good at positioning,awareness and good decision making ONLY do u? hitscan require u to be good at fps game and projectile require u to be good at predict and lead the shoot but if ur a bad dps, u dont get to blame mercy as u are suppose to carry the game, u are the reason u lose the game,and u have no right to do so, but if its a tight game, changing off mercy to other healer would be a game changer in some situation obviously not all hero are built to be completely fair and square and well balance, when u are playing a lower tier hero, u have to make up with it with what u have, and sometimes, it wont be enough, because OP hero are OP and tier list/patch/buff/nerf existed for that reason

Its diffarencial or whatever you spell it