Overwatch Overview Part 1: The Tanks

Welcome back to another installment of Overwatch! So far it looks really good and I am just itching to get into the beta but the unfortunate part is there are no Overwatch beta keys at the moment. So to all those reading don't fall for any possible scams promising beta keys unless @PlayOverwatch reveals that they are giving some out. Anyways for now I'll go over what I think of each hero based on the roles played and this week I'm going over the tanks.

Now typically when you think of a tank in any game you see some big strong character who blocks damage for the team and distracts the enemy while everyone else does damage that the tank lacks. In Overwatch however each and every hero under the tank role plays differently and has their own unique flavor to add to the game. And on a really good note all the tanks have the ability to do decent damage and assist in huge plays which can often be the deciding factor in a match. I really love playing tanks but the big thing that sucks is they are not decently viable in endgame pvp which forces you into playing another character for pvp or a second spec just to pvp. Tanking 24/7 is the dream and this game allows you to do that within reason as long as the rest of the team is functional.

First up we have Reinhardt and this guy is the physical embodiment of a tank. He has the size, awesome plate armor, and a huge hammer to boot just in case anyone gets the bright idea of going head to head with him.

Gameplay wise he is capable of protecting the team for big pushes past choke points with a huge shield. He also offers utility by being a high damaging melee scrapper that can charge in and stun everything in front of him with his ultimate.

 Next up is Zarya which is another favorite of mine. She is listed as a tank and plays like an tanky support which is pretty awesome by the way and that big gun of her's has an interesting mechanic to it.

Basically the gun produces two variety of shields, one personal and one that can be cast on a teammate, and the damage that these shields absorb directly boost the damage that the gun does with some great visuals akin to a galaxy on top of the gun that gets bigger as your shots get stronger. That is my favorite part about playing Zarya, the game rewards you with doing more damage for absorbing damage with your shields. And to top it all off her ultimate is essentially a miniature black hole that gathers and traps enemies in a small cluster. It deals a ton of damage if your gun is fully charged and gives a good opportunity to nuke the other team with other ultimates and raw damage.

Ah Winston is one of those heroes that has a great amount of variance and his effectiveness just depends on who's playing him and the composition of the other team. In general this big guy has a huge leap which is used to get to high ground and to charge in to melee range to sit on the squishier of players wreaking havoc behind the front line. He also has a dome shield that has its uses either as a protective bubble to weave in and out of when jumping behind enemy lines or to protect the payload and offer some protection while pushing it.

Overall I don't have much experience with this hero because I haven't seen much gameplay from his point of view its mostly been watching people playing against Winston here and there. While I do want to play Winston to try him out, I don't exactly have an itch to play him as much as everyone else. He feels like a hero with quite the learning curve and more of an offensive utility that has a shield and a health advantage over the other offense heroes.

And last but certainly not least the waifu of the squad D.VA. When I first saw D.VA's reveal I wasn't quite sure what to think because on paper just looking at the abilities showcased she looked incredibly strong and I was worried about other heroes being able to compete. Then as time went on and D.VA was added to the beta I saw the flaws beneath the surface and how the strong mech suit fit the game.

The suit is not the fastest thing in the world and while it has amazing firepower it has some trouble being flexible and doing damage on the move which I am fine with considering the strong points. The fun part about this hero is the mech suit of course and the self destruct explosion you can do as an ultimate which is quite destructive and makes enemies run for cover or die.

Definitely a strong candidate for the tank role and in the current state of the game a team of 2-4 dva's can lock down a point defensively if you consider their machine guns on the mech suit and the ultimate that can destroy a pretty large area.


These are the current tanks in the game so far and from what I have seen will be the only ones at launch since Blizzard is not planning on releasing anymore heroes for Overwatch until after launch.

Devilian Starter Guide

The Intro:

Alright boys this Devilian guide is intended to be pretty basic and should help most get a decent start in the game. If there is interest I will do something along the lines of an advanced guide but keep in mind I am going semi-casual/semi-hardcore at the moment in this game depending on how much fun I'm having as usual.

Limited Accounts

Before I get everything started I'll discuss the whole Limited Account issue. Basically to counter all of the gold spammers and whatnot Trion Worlds has decided to implement some sort of verification system. In order to be verified you must buy something from any Trion Worlds game or just buy one of their games which is what I did forever ago with Rift. 

Yes Devilian is Free to play but having a limited account is quite the handicap. You can't send mail or trades, post auctions, or send whispers to anyone not on your friends list. It may not sound too bad now but it gets mildly annoying as you level I hear. There might be some other limitations I did not list but those are the main ones and you can check out the Trion Support article here.

Classes

The first important decision is picking a class and the choices you have are Berserker, Cannoneer, Evoker, and Shadowhunter. I suggest you to pick what you would like since they all perform decently but here is an overview.

Berserker - Pretty typical warrior dps type, deals decent damage and has self healing in some specs. Generally used as a tank/dps in current endgame at level 52. Playstyle is a nice hybrid between a Monk and a Barbarian.

Cannoneer - Ranged physical damage dealer with a sizable cannon, and in some situations can be a glass cannon. (heh) This is akin to a hunter in most games and a Demon Hunter in Diablo 3.

Evoker -  Ranged magical damage dealer with flashy spells and large AoE potential. Also has a good amount of Crowd Control skills and so far the only talented area of effect heal making them desirable in harder content. 

Shadowhunter - Not much experience with this class but it feels like a hybrid melee/ranged damage dealer. It is similar to a rogue with a chain whip, tons of mobility and moderate AoE.

At the moment Evokers and Cannoneers are doing the most damage with shadowhunter being a pretty close third and Berserker coming last/tying for third. I personally chose an Evoker as a main because I like to AoE a ton of things and being able to lock mobs in crowd control and slows til they die is pretty fun but I suppose that's the old World of Warcraft Hunter in me kiting things into oblivion back in the day.

The Leveling

Now for the fun part. Once you have your character created and complete the tutorial you will arrive in the first town Windbrook Village. I know you are itching to just go on a killing spree and level to 52 by grinding it out and worrying about the details later but you should definitely quest first in this game.

To level the fastest follow the main quest for each zone and doing the dungeon quest when it occurs. This is the base strategy until you hit the first Infinite Hunting Ground at level 26.

Each zone, starting with Kafkas Canyon, has a Infinite Hunting Grounds area which has elites that drop zone specific coins. These coins are used mostly for a set of gear unique to that zone that is of rare quality. Because of this I do recommend going to each area when it unlocks and completing the quests there which can be done a total of 5 times each and reward bonuses on the 5th completion. Finishing the quest should be enough for your weapon and maybe one or two items but grinding here past that hasn't been worth it in my opinion.

That's generally what you should do to level at a good pace and if you feel like grinding as an alternative I suggest grinding dungeons that do give pretty good exp and gear.

Small Tips

• Instant potions and HoT potions have different cool downs so you have 2 big heals if you can manage to have a stock of both
• If you have chaos elixirs and health elixirs you should definitely use them! they offer quite a boost while leveling and essentially its like having an extra piece of gear or 2
• You will get a ton of friend invites and if you don't mind having random people on your friend's list you should add them. Every day you can give out 10 friendship crates and having a large friend list increases the crates you get.
• Read all of the "learn" quests its a tutorial and you get free items for later.

And The End

 

Thanks for reading the guide, hope I helped out a few people for the general stuff and if you have any questions comment below and I will answer as soon as possible. I did not go over everything but there are better guides out there for the more complicated aspects of the end game. Biggest tip of all is to just have fun playing and take your time to learn the game. Like I said previously there is a lack of updated guides so there is a lot of improvisation.






 

Devilian, an introduction of sorts

Alright I'll admit this game caught me by surprise, I had no idea it was coming out and basically the only way I found out about it was seeing some of my favorite Diablo 3 streamers give it a shot when it released on Dec. 10th. At first glance it looks like a Diablo clone with some Pillars of Eternity mixed in but Devilian has its own twist and once you get started its quite refreshing.

The game Devilian is an Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) that, at it's base, has the same characteristics as the rest of them. Little bit of story, some classes, and the flashy killing of large amounts of bad guys in the end goal of getting better gear to kill stronger bad guys. All in all, the gear progression is the meat of games of the sort and what motivates players to play it. What makes Devilian stand out from the titans, Diablo and Pillars of Eternity, is the MMO factor which is an attractive trait to have. Yea you can play online in both Diablo and PoE but those games are generally confined to lobbies where you can just get straight to the grind.

I'm not sure how far this game will go but I am sure glad it came when it did. It feeds my hunger for fresh MMO content while World of Warcraft is between expansions and is a welcome change to the season 4 grind on Diablo 3, which was and still is a drama fest about paragon elitism but that's for another post. So far I will say I like the game and hope it does well.


With that said, in my process of figuring out the ins and outs for this game I will make a general guide to get some ideas flowing and help out those who are just starting. There is not much info guide wise to this game so I'll go over some tips that helped me while leveling.

Here is a link to the guide hope you enjoy it.

The Wonderful Overwatch Beta

Ah its great to be back in action and what better to start back up with some Overwatch hype! In case some of you guys haven't noticed the closed beta for Overwatch has been up for a little more than a month starting on October 27th 2015. Beta invites rolled out slowly each week which catered primarily to the friends and family crowd of Blizzard which is pretty typical for any new game released. I know from watching my own share of streams on Twitch.tv a lot of viewers were rather distraught that it seemed only streamers were getting keys and Blizzard was only throwing a few keys towards the random masses. However there is probably more going on behind the scenes to this.

The viewers must also realize for most streamers, that are at least even mildly successful, have a ton of connections especially those that are in the thousands of concurrent viewers. Having these connections and networking at each convention they go to leads to becoming acquaintances with community managers for multiple gaming companies and when betas like this happen they are thrown into the primary pile for invites. This is done as a free way to market their game and to get some live feedback which is pretty cool in my opinion.

Anyways, I did not get a chance to test Overwatch outside of the beta weekend in which they invited just about everyone to stress test the servers. I was invited but I couldnt play that weekend because of college stuff and it was a really busy weekend.

I did manage to watch a ton of streams and had fun watching some of the tournaments that were hosted on twitch. In this time I have made my choice of a few favorite heroes but in all honesty its just a list of favorites on paper I want to play them all! Tanks, supports, dps, builders, they all look enticing and each character has their own unique flavor. I'll add a post on the hero categories later on because there is a decent amount to cover.

Other than that the Overwatch beta is gonna be on pause for about an month starting two days ago on December 10th 2015. Its sad to see it go as I had fun watching the cleverly dubbed OnlyWatch and all of the old Team Fortress 2 streamers gaining popularity off of it due to the similar playstyle. Hope you guys liked the post and if you have any questions or just want to say hey drop a comment!

Guess Who's Back, Back again

Yea yea I know I havent really updated in awhile but I'm gonna try to get on a pretty good schedule these days. A lot has happened since the last post and these days there are tons of games coming out and I'm pretty damn excited to play as much as possible and share what I'm doing with whoever is around. I originally started this blog to keep track of where I was and to practice some much needed writing skills and to be honest writing about gaming freely really helped with that as well as not having to worry about getting a grade for it lol.

Going through all of my old posts gives me a bit of nostalgia and its fun to see what I was thinking when I started. Few strong sets of mind and pinging all over the place in an attempt at getting small points across. Alas I am not going to be too critical just gonna write and see what happens, since something is much better than nothing in most cases. Unless of course if you play League of Legends where playing 4 versus 5 is sometimes preferred over a fifth bad player mostly because of how the game works and skills but I digress.

Time to press play and rebuild as I go WE'LL DO IT LIVE BOYS STAY TUNED!!

Mists of Pandaria

Unfortunately the "epic battle" I was raving on and on about in the last post was a bit lackluster and leaned towards Stormbluff isle and strongly towards Henge of Denravi at the end leaving them the victors of the match. Eredon Terrace has dropped to world 4th and to be honest I haven't really had time to play guild wars 2 since World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria just happened to come out that same week and all spare time went to that trying to get capped on at least 1 character. I managed to do that within 5 days of only playing 2-3 hours when I could of course more time allotted for weekends since I don't have any classes or meetings.

So far in Mists I have had tons of fun just leveling from 85 to 90 as the quests were humorous and it was not just a grind fest like the other expansions. I actually did not blast music like I normally do because I did not want to miss the jokes or npc interaction between quests which felt fluid. I chose to level my Death Knight first because it was my main for essentially 2 expansions and it is what I am used to especially for massive pulls and just destroying stuff. I played using a Blood spec which was able to tank just about anything and with the new changes added on 5.0 allowed me to pull some amazing aoe damage and whenever I was in an instance for a large boost of exp and gear I was topping meters which I was not used to, this will probably be nerfed as we go on because it makes all the other dps cry apparently "TANKS ARENT SUPPOSED TO DPS QQ." personally its refreshing to see big numbers every now and then but it feels wrong sometimes to do 100k dps on a trash pack while the others are struggling to do 30k and the better ones 50k. Its only the 2nd week of the expansion and there will be balance issues that will be fixed once blizzard looks at the grand chart of raids and how the various classes compare to each other healing, damage, and tank wise.

Started leveling my monk as well and if it gets exciting enough around 60ish I might make it my main alt or possibly a main. I just love the idea of having a Pandaren Monk that drinks beer, doesent give a fuck, big enough to tank with that beer belly, and is just overall a good concept of character. Who doesn't want a drunk tank that is viable?

The Ultimate Showdown

Alright guys so the great World vs World match of guild wars 2 is happening right now, The servers Henge of Denravi (Currently number 1), Stormbluff Isle (Currently number 2) and Eredon Terrace (Currently number 3) got matched up this week for WvW and right now shaping up to be a great match. Stormbluff Isle has taken an early lead by taking Stonemist castle and keeping pressure on Henge of Denravi and Eredon Terrace in both the eternal battlegrounds and the surrounding borderlands. HoD within the last few days has been rather lackluster and has been bullied by both servers which lead to early point loss causing ET to step ahead by a few thousand points.

As of right now Eredon Terrace has managed to match Stormbluff Isle's point gain in spite of them having the almighty stonemist castle which give the largest bonus of all the keeps. What this means is they have to cling on to the castle in order to keep the points ticking in their favor. Personally I wonder what my guild leader Archaos is planning this week as we slowly choke out HoD and make gains towards SBI's lead.