Knight wrote:

1,000,000+ watching a CS:GO tournament. Unbelievable. 1.3 mill to be precise.

Holy moly. According to Wikipedia that's the equivalent of the entire population of Estonia. More than Luxembourg and Montenegro combined.

Here's the game for anyone who wants to watch it. It'll probably be removed pretty quickly but should be on Blizzard's official OWL site soon enough. Some spectacular solo and team plays here, Pine getting a flanking Widowmaker 4 kill on Junkerton, Saebyeolbe's Tracer in the 99/99 melee on Oasis City Centre, London's stalls and holds in the latter games, and Birdring on all of Dorado.

Edit: Yup, gone.

Ah, nice. Caught up on YouTube but good to know they're there.

It's a fucking great game too

Overwatch League has been pretty epic in Stage 2. Seoul, who were dominant in the early games, finally coming up against the other top teams and taking losses. London losing against teams they really shouldn't lose to then beating the best. NY just awesome throughout. 

Last night had some really interesting games. The Seoul vs London match-up didn't disappoint, but San Francisco and Philly delivered some big surprises. SF's Danteh is showing himself to be one of the best Tracer's around right now, and Philly, holy shit! Their roster came under scrutiny pre-season as being a bit light, but two young DPS they'd been holding back finally turned 18 and got to play. Snillo and EQO dismantled Dallas. Snillo's hitscan was phenomenal and EQO, I don't know where to start. World class Genji, maybe even better on Widow. I've never seen anyone play Widow like that, close quarters, scared of nothing. 

This is the EQO Widow map, he switches to her a couple of mins in. And yeah, spawn camping is rare at this level.

stormyskiesahead wrote:

Also been watching some of the Rainbow Six Pro League after Swirl's posts. Brilliant stuff. Bought the game.

Oooh, nice! PS4?

If so, I’d be happy to team up when we get the chance.

The latest update really fucked it for the group I play with. Why they gave dedicated servers to For Honor and not Siege is utterly baffling

Lion is the drone guy? From what I've played I think he's pretty tame tbh. Finka is far more powerful - Lion gives you a huge warning so unless the user times it with a reinforcement breaker or a Fuze, the defenders just turtle up.

Finka gives the defenders no warning and turns a straight 1v1 into something far more risky for the defender, I've lost count of the times I've been sure a player should be dead, only to watch the kill cam to see they're out of the exchange with 10-30hp at the end - don't even talk about using it with people like Blitz. I've had some succes with Lion on my team but mainly I feel he's just too easy to counter play. As someone who plays a lot of Kapkan, I have found that I can use Lion's drone as bait on defence too, luring people into my traps by purposefully running when the sweep pops.

At my level at least. Dunno about ranked or professionals. I assume they'll nerf both somehow, but Finka to me appears like the better of the two by some margin.

Finka and Blitz is a disgusting combo

Tempy wrote:

Lion is the drone guy?

I don't think so - he reveals everyone on the opposing team as red outlines. I.e., he's temporary wall hacks with a cool down. Quite a few matches I've watched have boiled down to 'Lion activates his ability, attackers win'. It seems at the moment the pro attack line up is "Lion plus four other people". My gut feeling is when a character is a guaranteed pick something about them needs tweaking.

EDIT: A quick Google suggests that yes, he's the drone guy - a drone is the fluff for his ability.

Childintime wrote:

Not really up with the new operators, tbh - gotta rectify that before jumping back in.

Blue Swirl's Totally Accurate Operator Guide (from most recent to least)

Operation Chimera
Finka (attack, cough) - adrenaline boost (+20 health with a countdown timer, usable on self and others - also boosts things like movement rate through barb wire, recoil, etc.)

Lion (attack) - temporary wall hacks.

Operation White Noise
Vigil (defence) - can render himself invisible to cameras (including those on drones). This ability is susceptible to operators with anti-electronics gubbins. E.g., IQ can track him, Thatcher's grenades disable it.

Dokkaebi (attack) - can make defenders' phones vibrate, revealing their location. If she finds a dead defender's phone, she can access the CCTV network - including Valkyrie's.

Zofia (attack) - concussion grenades.

Operation Blood Orchid
Lesion (defence) - invisible poison mines (no, srsly).

Ying (attack) - flash grenades. She's immune to them, but her team mates aren't.

Ela (defence) - concussion mines.

Operation Velvet Shell
Jackal (attack) - can track opponent's footprints.

Mira (defence) - can put two-way mirrors onto reinforced walls.

Operation Red Crow
Hibana (attack) - think Ash 2.0. Has a gun that can blow up walls.

Echo (defence) - has a flying drone that can disorientate enemies.

Operation Skull Rain
Capitao (attack) - has a crossbow that fires a variety of bolts with special effects.

Caveira (defence) - can move silently. If she downs an attacker, she can interrogate them and temporarily reveal the opposition's position.

Operation Dust Line
Blackbeard (attack) - has a ballistic shield on his rifle that (until broken) renders him immune to head shots.

Valkyrie (defence) - can place extra CCTV cameras around the map. (A darling of the pro scene, where the "information game" is king.)

Operation Black Ice
Buck (attack) - has a shotgun that can blow holes in non-reinforced walls.

Frost (defence) - basically has bear traps.

Vanilla R6S (we probably all know this, but hey, I'm on a roll)
Thatcher (attack) - EMP grenades.
Smoke (defence) - poison grenades.
Mute (defence) - disrupts electronic devices with what looks like pimped out wifi routers.
Sledge (attack) - has a sledge hammer.

Ash (attack) - wall-demolshing grenade launcher.
Thermite (attack) - has super-duper demolition charges.
Castle (defence) - has super-duper wall reinforcements.
Pulse (defence) - can track heart beats.

Doc (defence) - has a 'health gun'. Can also self-revive if downed.
Montagne (attack) - has a massive fuck-off shield.
Twitch (attack) - has a drone that is unable to jump, but does have a taser strapped to it.
Rook (defence) - brings a bag full of armour.

Tachanka (defence) - brings a turret.
Fuze (attack) - has a grenade launcher that is mounted to a wall and fires into the room on the other side.
Kapkan (defence) - laser-tripwire activated mines.
Glaz (attack) - has a scope that can see through smoke/high lights enemies.

Jager (defence) - deploys an anti-grenade gizmo. (Though it's not a hard-counter for Fuze.)
IQ (attack) - can track electronic signals.
Bandit (defence) - can electrify reinforced walls.
Blitz (attack) - has a shield with a built-in flash bang.


Just for the purposes of conversation, I tend to favour Kapkan, Doc, Thatcher, Twitch, Mute, Ying, and Lesion.

It also strikes me the way the operators have developed - you go from "has a sledge hammer" to "has nanomachines that make her do things better". Now we've got a DLC called "Chimera", it can't be long until we have an operator that can fly or some shit, and the fluff behind it is "because aliens".

Tempy wrote:

I'm surprised it's so effective on higher players - though I imagine it's down to what the other four players are.

I guess it helps that they're communicating all the time and are activating his ability at the key moment. But I've seen a fair few matches end within seconds of him using his radar. And he does seem to be a guaranteed pick for teams on the attack, and that screams "nerf bat incoming". Then again, it might just be a question of learning to counter him. Everyone though Lesion was going to be super broken, but he's about to get a buff, iirc.

I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with two Lions - one for the PvE stuff, and one for the PvP stuff, each with slightly different ranges/durations on their ability. Though, having said that, the PvE mode is only running for March, so...

Tempy wrote:

They're both going to get nerfs because that's how Ubi does balance patches for Siege - make them OP, everyone buys them, nerf them down at some point because it's easier to nerf drown than buff.

Sounds about right to me.

The final week of Overwatch League's Stage 2 is starting on Twitch.  

LA Gladiators and Philadelphia Fusion are up first and both are playing so well right now. Gladiators are trying to secure a place in Sunday's playoffs and a chance at a chunk of that $125,000 prize pool, whilst EQO for Fusion had the best Widow plays I've ever seen last week. This is gonna be a good 'un.

Edit: Hmm, two maps in and this is a really weird game. Such odd plays from both teams. Almost looks like a QP game.

Somewhat relevant... A new venue for playing gams' really well:

https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/red-bull-gaming-sphere-london-announcement

@stormy

There was only one winner when it went to 2-2, Philly looked broken. For as well as they’ve played recently, Carpe and EQO were dominated by Libero in the Widow battle. SBB zoned the opposing Tracer and Jjonak started getting some ridiculous picks too.

If Philly wanted to use Widow/Tracer then I’d have liked to have seen Snillo come in for more maps but then they have so much less versatility so it’s a tough one.