Gaming
The helpful, and sometimes not so helpful, types of players on every team.
Overwatch has been out for a couple of months now and by almost all accounts is the best team shooter we’ve seen for a long time. The gameplay is as polished as you would expect from any Blizzard title, the roster of characters is as wide as Winston’s shirt measurement at the chest, meaning there is a lot to learn and the meta is still being formed, which results in some crazy strategies across all levels of play. The competitive scene is already finding its feet and pulling in strong viewer numbers, and Blizzard has already started teasing more content and some much needed balance changes. Overall the first few months of Overwatch’s post launch life have been a resounding success.
Like many of you we’ve managed to clock in way too many hours in Overwatch already, but still feel like there is a lot to learn, especially with a new hero, Ana, on the way. But what we have noticed during our playtime already are certain types of players, ranging from the most helpful team-mates you could ask for, to people who amaze you with their gung-ho spirt and utter lack of willingness to co-operate. Here are 10 of the most common types of Overwatch players to watch out for.
Eyes on the prize
This player comes in two main sub-forms. One will play normally, but always will try to get onto the objective, but the other will disregard any other priorities or pleas for help, and effectively commit suicide to get the payload another metre closer to the end. The former is generally quite useful, as advancing the objective moves you closer to that sweet win, but the latter can be infuriating as often getting an inch closer to victory is not worth the downtime of dying and having to run all the way back to the action.
Jack of all trades, master of none
One of Overwatch’s key mechanics is the ability to switch characters mid-game. It allows you to adapt to what the other team is doing and try to counter their plays. Mr Versatile here realises this and will switch characters multiple times per match. Usually this is a good thing, as picking something to counter the opposition's strategy can instantly halt a push and turn a game, but on occasion he takes it too far, switching out a full ultimate charged up on Symmetra before dropping the teleporter. Cheers for that.
The attention-seeking sniper
It's no secret that people really like to snipe in first person shooters. Back in the early days of YouTube, sniper montages in CoD were all the rage, with no-scopes and other impressive plays earning you serious kudos. It seems like a lot of the people that made these videos have transferred to Overwatch, as there are a very high amount of people who play Widowmaker and Hanzo exclusively. A good sniper is always useful, but some of these players take it to the extreme trying to whip out the amazing jumping, 360 shots, all day every day. Which is a bit like watching anyone who isn’t Steph Curry try to nail a three pointer every time he gets the ball past the halfway line in a basketball game, only to see it fail to even make the rim, let alone the backboard. Thankfully Widowmaker’s weapon can't do no-scopes, otherwise these players would be beyond unbearable.
Nurse Nightingale
Unlike seemingly every MOBA ever, Overwatch has a surprising amount of people who are happy to play supports, but Florence here almost exclusively plays Mercy and Lucio. Easily the two best team healers in the game, a well played Mercy or Lucio can secure a victory by keeping their team alive and in Mercy’s case, even bring them back from the dead. The nurse realises just how important they can be and will forgo the heavy damage dealers in favour of keeping their team healthy, which if you ask us makes them the most lovable type of player in the game. Kudos to you.
The ultimate waster
Though a first person shooter, Overwatch shares one trait with MOBAs: ultimate abilities. These powerful skills can, if used well, change a fight and possibly even the outcome of the game, they should not be used lightly in most situations. However some players think it is acceptable to use them as soon as possible, perhaps because they like to seize the moment, or just because they’ve never played as Bastion before and simply want to watch the world burn, objective be damned. Now, it doesn't take a genius to work out that if four enemies just died it probably isn’t the best idea to use your Hanzo ult while they respawn. There are exceptions to this rule, but by and large, please stop wasting your ult.
Needs an ear trumpet
Blizzard has announced that Overwatch already has 7 million active players, which is an astonishing feat. What’s even more remarkable is that at least 6.9 million of these players are either hard of hearing or have their output volume down much lower than input, and as a result feel compelled to yell into their mics. The Ear Trumpeteer will scream everything, whether that be instructions that must be followed to the letter or rhetorical questions about why you didn’t follow them into a clearly unwinnable situation. Don’t bother to reply or voice any dissent however, because they won’t hear you over the sound of their own braying ego.
The wannabe pro
Overwatch may be the new kid on the eSports block, but there have already been a number of tournaments and slowly but surely some kind of pro meta has been formed. McCree, Lucio and Widowmaker have established themselves as the top picks, with the likes of Mercy, Reinhardt and Winston also seeing regular play. The Wannabe Pro only picks these heroes, because they are convinced they will soon be playing in the big leagues and need to get the practise in.
The lone ranger
Overwatch is a team game. Without some sort of basic coordination between team-mates things will not go well, which is why the lone ranger can either cost you a game, or win you it, in the extremely unlikely event that the opposition gets lumped with this Man With No Name rather than you. Unsurprisingly, they like to go off alone, often as a hero that can on occasion make it work such as Tracer, Genji or even McRee. Sometimes this works out and they pull off a triple kill after sneaking behind the opponents, but more often than not they go for the glory and end up dead, respawning lightyears away from you. Helpful.
The cheese strategist
The cheese strategist is here to have fun. Like everyone they want to win, but if that comes at the cost of fun then victory just isn’t worth it. Their primary way of keeping themselves entertained is to try and coerce their team into running some crazy strategies, such as the five Soldier 76, one Widowmaker strategy that Cloud9 pulled out at Agents Rising. Other favourites include quadruple (or more) Winstons or just six Tracers. Few are likely to win the game, but they sure are fun to play.
Walking Wikipedia
With only a few weeks on the market there are still a lot of mechanics that many Overwatch don’t fully understand yet. But Wiki here is the one player who knows everything and will tell you if they see you doing something questionable. Often they don’t mean it in a bad way – they genuinely want to help improve your game knowledge, because not everyone knows the fine details of Zenyatta’s orbs – but every now and again they try to explain why using Widowmaker as a close range run a gun type hero is a great idea and we all just laugh in their face. Good one.
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