Support NeoGAF

[LiK]

So I'm trying to practice some Winston since he's the only tank I ignore and I just got his sweet Sun Wukong outfit, but I'm having some trouble, espeicially with Roadhogs. Am I missing something or does Roadhog just delete Winston from the match entirely?

Unless you're getting some heals and have some backup with you, Winston will just melt from the focus fire.

 

[finalflame]

Then play with friends.

I have no fucking friends that play this game.

 

[I-hate-u]

So I'm trying to practice some Winston since he's the only tank I ignore and I just got his sweet Sun Wukong outfit, but I'm having some trouble, espeicially with Roadhogs. Am I missing something or does Roadhog just delete Winston from the match entirely?

It's a 10-0 match up run away.

 

[randome]

I too got that sweet Winston costume and tried to use him. He's a lot of fun to jump around with and make people panic but he really kinda just sucks otherwise.

 

[Anne]

Bubble blocks hook

"but they just break the bubble"

Bubble delays hook. Long enough to get your DPS onto whatever you were trying to get them onto. Which can instantly end a fight.

 

[Jellie]

I just mentioned that Winston is already good at high level anyways. It's a nice buff for good players, but I'm pretty sure the main purpose is so at lower level he gets punished way less hard.



500 per segment, so 2k. The difference is Mei can't literally jump on top of you from across the map and trap you in a bubble with wall. She's supposed to be defensive and limit mobility with it via specific geometry. Winston is supposed to be aggressive and force a decision to be made. When bubble has a lot of health the decision is almost always to get the fuck away from the bubble.



It's def a nerf. It requires more skill and saves some heroes(Zarya, Mei), limits how he can hook around certain geometry, and the larger gap is easier for other players to get between him and his victim for various reasons (example: deflect).

True regarding the difference between attacking with bubble and defending with wall. Since wall has lower HP if you attack one segment why do I never see people focusing in the centre or something.

Sniping Pharah is so satisfying.

Especially when they have to switch off her right after.

 

[SilentRacoon]

Mercy needs another ability.

She needs to be able to sacrifice herself and create a healing and dmg boost aura, she stays dead and the effects lasts until the end of the match.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I believe the only one that would go from possible to impossible is Zarya, I think you could one shot or at the very least combo her from full health post 2.0, but would now not be able to.

That's probably fine then? I mean, in Hook 1.0 there was a lot of skill involved in getting OHKs, but it was all dumb mechanical trickery (like aim flicking to make sure certain heroes got moved in close enough). If Hook 2.5 requires mechanical skill in the form of quick aiming for the head in order to guarantee OHKs, and OHK'ing any of the tanks doesn't happen anymore, that seems totally fine.

 

[antitrop]

The reaction to Winston buffs on the main subreddit are terrifying. I knew people thought he was weak but I didn't think most of the top comments were going to be "wow so Winston is still ass I guess." I keep forgetting that I'm in my own fragile bubble too ;~;

People that don't know how to play him will never be happy until he gets a damage buff.

 

[LiK]

People that don't know how to play him will never be happy until he gets a damage buff.

I want his gun to do as much damage as it does in the animated short.

 

[DevilDog]

Winston is so much fun to play and play against. I want to see more of him.

 

[mullet2000]

People that don't know how to play him will never be happy until he gets a damage buff.

To be fair I can see why people think he sucks. He's by farrrrrr my worst character, I can't play him for shit, where as I'm pretty comfortable with nearly anything else outside of Widow.

I realize that's because I haven't taken the time to learn him, but I can see why someone's reaction would be that he isn't very good.

 

[LiK]

If Winston was that great, I would see him in every game. But he's like the Reaper of Tanks now. There are better heroes in his category.

 

[Akuun]

What's Winston's role anyway? I get that he's good at jumping into the enemy team to cause a distraction, but doesn't that mean that good teams would burn through both him and his shield really quickly?

Is he also for jumping up and harassing people in entrenched positions?

I'm just not sure what Winston does that D.Va can't. Their roles seem very similar.

 

[antitrop]

I really liked Mercy as the baseline of a main healer pre-Ana release so the idea of giving her another ability always sat wrong with me on the fear of healer power creep, but we're still here with Ana being the defacto healer and having her with a heal-countering ability on top of other utility. The idea of Mercy having a cleanse ability to remove anti-healing has come up, but it just seems weird to have something that counter-acts a single ability.

It certainly doesn't sit right with me that Zarya is the only character in the game that can cleanse an anti-heal. It really seems like something more fit for Mercy, but a proposed E ability for her could also cleanse Freeze or Discord or other debuffs, not just anti-heal.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

I agree. Instead of just buffing Winston if people think that will make him a nightmare they should retool him so that he is less reliant on his team. Every time someone brings up Winston being good, it is only ever in relation to team coordination and I don't think there is any other character in the game that goes from "utterly useless" to "really good" like that.

Even a solo Widow or Sombra are more useful with uncoordinated teammates.

 

[Bumbletron]

I agree. Instead of just buffing Winston if people think that will make him a nightmare they should retool him so that he is less reliant on his team. Every time someone brings up Winston being good, it is only ever in relation to team coordination and I don't think there is any other character in the game that goes from "utterly useless" to "really good" like that.

Even a solo Widow or Sombra are more useful with uncoordinated teammates.

Eh, have you tried playing defensive Winston on Point B Anubis? Teams don't know what to do about you even in solo queue.

 

[antitrop]

Eh, have you tried playing defensive Winston on Point B Anubis? Teams don't know what to do about you even in solo queue.

Also I find that an Offensive Winston jumping over the Mei/Rein wall on King's Row has a pretty damn solid rate for instantly taking that point, especially if Defense is running Ana/Sym and monkey can put a bubble over Ana to fuck up her heals, while he zaps her.

 

[Hellwarden]

That feel when you get accidentally nano-boosted as Zen, and you're not sure if you should go balls deep or not...

 

[AbaFadi]

Eh, have you tried playing defensive Winston on Point B Anubis? Teams don't know what to do about you even in solo queue.

Surprisingly I've seen Winston work very well here actually.

 

[Anne]

What's Winston's role anyway?.

To isolate enemy team members and create a safe zone where his DPS can move through to the isolated targets. More defensively, his job is to be able to discourage fighting by threatening cramped zones with AoE damage and bubble isolation.

Let me lay down a scenario for you: Wisnton jumps on you, a 200 health hero in the backline, and drops his shield. You are dead in 3 seconds to DPS unless Winston is dead or that bubble breaks and you get help. So now it's a DPS race and Winston is probably going to lose because let's face it his DPS is rough. But let's introduce some what ifs. What if Winston jumps on you while the rest of your team is ain a team fight and you have to solo race his DPS? Can you always win? What if Winston placed his barrier in a way that still isolates you and protects himself, effectively making him have hundreds more HP? Can you beat him then?

What if Winston's DPS players use the space he created to move in on you and kill you faster?
What if that DPS was Tracer or Genji and you ate 300+ burst damage instantly while being isolated?
What if you had a discord orb on you and died 30% faster?
What if Winston had a bubble on him making him briefly immune to CC with an added 200 HP?
What if Winston's team was moving too fast for you to react to?

That's what a dive comp looks like, and all of that will happen in roughly 3 seconds or less. You die, hell maybe somebody else dies, and now you're down people and the enemy team has a small fort in your team's space.

"But Anne, good teams will just instantly focus the Winston"

Okay, let your Rein turn to look at the Winston while the enemy team dumps every offensive CD past his shield. Let your Zarya turn to help you while the enemy team just murders your Rein. Let your DPS focus on Winston + bubble while Genji or Widow or Tracer calls them out for not paying attention. Best case scenario is Roadhog gets a hook or McCree gets a flash to cripple the dive, and that's rough. You have to hold things like Ana nade and preemptively position around things like this.

"But Anne, that requires a fantasy land where people work together."

When I booted up the 6v6 team game where people have to play unique characters with unique abilities that synergize to form a better whole, I made the assumption I would have to rely on others to really maximize what I'm doing. I also had to concede sometimes they would let me down or I would get a bad read on what my team is doing and fail.

The simple truth is that Winston requires a bit of planning and coordination to work. Just a bit. Like literally "go to where I go and shoot things near me" level of coordination. And the truth is the average Overwatch community isn't quite there. Yet.

So a solution I hear tossed around is "make Winston rely less on others then" but frankly that's just shitty and bad design. Winston dives are very satisfying to pull off and show some degree of coordination. There's a skill curve and something to like work on getting better at. It's a team game. Some characters work better with a coordinated team and excel wildly when they have that. Others can excel on their own. That's just the nature of things. A character rewarding good teamwork is a good thing to have in a game that emphasizes teamwork. Making him just flat better when he is already well balanced and fun when used correctly is just going to throw off that balance and move him away form something that already works for the sake of rewarding people not putting in the effort. No offense, but this is a competitive multiplayer game, and if you aren't going to put in that effort then frankly some heroes are just going to be off limits to you because of your own skill level.

Anyways, yeah. That's Winston's role and how it works. Idk, go try and use him like that and see what happens.

 

[LiK]

That feel when you get accidentally nano-boosted as Zen, and you're not sure if you should go balls deep or not...

you always go balls deep.

 

[Bumbletron]

Surprisingly I've seen Winston work very well here actually.

Yeah, after watching Miro in Apex, I picked it up and there isn't really anything a team can do to prevent the damage as they push. They have to commit to trying to take you out on your high ground before a push, but your team will push them super hard as they stall to try that.

 

[SilentRacoon]

What's Winston's role anyway? I get that he's good at jumping into the enemy team to cause a distraction, but doesn't that mean that good teams would burn through both him and his shield really quickly?

Is he also for jumping up and harassing people in entrenched positions?

I'm just not sure what Winston does that D.Va can't. Their roles seem very similar.

In essence they both serve the same purpose, they are both there to harass and to make the enemy team shift focus onto you, the main difference being that DVA is better at getting it done and staying alive withouth the help of anyother teammates. He needs to be more dynamic, make his appearance more meaningful than just scare them off.

 

[exYle]

The Roadhog salt claims its victim.

Guess they're pretty serious about killing the 3 tank meta.

Long live 2/2/2

 

[LiK]

Long live 2/2/2

did you give up Overwatch? when do you play?

 

[Anne]

Oh yeah, Defensive Winston on like Numbani A or Anubis B can sit in a safe high ground spot and just cut off choke points with leap + bubble to completely throw off whatever push you do. That or just hold M1 over a choke from an odd angle so you can't push without conceding you're eating some damage.

Forgot that. There ya go.

 

[Akuun]

So a lot of it is based around how well you use the bubble when you drop in. And positioning/situational awareness. Gotcha.

 

[Bumbletron]

Yeah, learn from my mistakes, getting up to around 3600 again, people are starting to completely punish the bubble on land. I'm having to learn to trust that I won't instantly disintegrate. Also remember that the second you throw that bubble down, you are tethering yourself to an area, so you want to remain mobile as long as you can as people adjust to your jump so you can be as effective as possible.

 

[ivanthebearable]

So it's common opinion that Overheal in this game (even if it were tied to one character like, say, Mercy) would be absolutely awful right? As in, it would be way too useful?

 

[AbaFadi]

To isolate enemy team members and create a safe zone where his DPS can move through to the isolated targets. More defensively, his job is to be able to discourage fighting by threatening cramped zones with AoE damage and bubble isolation.

Let me lay down a scenario for you: Wisnton jumps on you, a 200 health hero in the backline, and drops his shield. You are dead in 3 seconds to DPS unless Winston is dead or that bubble breaks and you get help. So now it's a DPS race and Winston is probably going to lose because let's face it his DPS is rough. But let's introduce some what ifs. What if Winston jumps on you while the rest of your team is ain a team fight and you have to solo race his DPS? Can you always win? What if Winston placed his barrier in a way that still isolates you and protects himself, effectively making him have hundreds more HP? Can you beat him then?

What if Winston's DPS players use the space he created to move in on you and kill you faster?
What if that DPS was Tracer or Genji and you ate 300+ burst damage instantly while being isolated?
What if you had a discord orb on you and died 30% faster?
What if Winston had a bubble on him making him briefly immune to CC with an added 200 HP?
What if Winston's team was moving too fast for you to react to?

That's what a dive comp looks like, and all of that will happen in roughly 3 seconds or less. You die, hell maybe somebody else dies, and now you're down people and the enemy team has a small fort in your team's space.

"But Anne, good teams will just instantly focus the Winston"

Okay, let your Rein turn to look at the Winston while the enemy team dumps every offensive CD past his shield. Let your Zarya turn to help you while the enemy team just murders your Rein. Let your DPS focus on Winston + bubble while Genji or Widow or Tracer calls them out for not paying attention. Best case scenario is Roadhog gets a hook or McCree gets a flash to cripple the dive, and that's rough. You have to hold things like Ana nade and preemptively position around things like this.

"But Anne, that requires a fantasy land where people work together."

When I booted up the 6v6 team game where people have to play unique characters with unique abilities that synergize to form a better whole, I made the assumption I would have to rely on others to really maximize what I'm doing. I also had to concede sometimes they would let me down or I would get a bad read on what my team is doing and fail.

The simple truth is that Winston requires a bit of planning and coordination to work. Just a bit. Like literally "go to where I go and shoot things near me" level of coordination. And the truth is the average Overwatch community isn't quite there. Yet.

So a solution I hear tossed around is "make Winston rely less on others then" but frankly that's just shitty and bad design. Winston dives are very satisfying to pull off and show some degree of coordination. There's a skill curve and something to like work on getting better at. It's a team game. Some characters work better with a coordinated team and excel wildly when they have that. Others can excel on their own. That's just the nature of things. A character rewarding good teamwork is a good thing to have in a game that emphasizes teamwork. Making him just flat better when he is already well balanced and fun when used correctly is just going to throw off that balance and move him away form something that already works for the sake of rewarding people not putting in the effort. No offense, but this is a competitive multiplayer game, and if you aren't going to put in that effort then frankly some heroes are just going to be off limits to you because of your own skill level.

Anyways, yeah. That's Winston's role and how it works. Idk, go try and use him like that and see what happens.

Anne makes the best posts lol. Yeah, this is definitely a good way to play Winston.

Long live 2/2/2

2/2/2 was the best.

 

[LiK]

What a timely tweet from Glixel. Are they lurking in here?

https://twitter.com/glixel/status/830148741084672001

 

[Bumbletron]

So it's common opinion that Overheal in this game (even if it were tied to one character like, say, Mercy) would be absolutely awful right? As in, it would be way too useful?

You don't want a 700 hp winston jumping on you with an extra 600 health on command.

Also Winston is picked in higher end play and Pro tourney for a reason, he is not bad at all, and anyone saying he is should watch a few pro matches (such as from Apex) to gather his true value.

 

[Zekes!]

I haven't played Quick Play in forever, and decided to jump back in to learn some Reinhardt...

man, are people this consistently bad in QP?

 

[Blu(e)]

Someone was using a voice modulator to make him sound like a robot and was playing Genji.

These RPers man.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Doesn't seem like they're going any direction yet. Decreasing his hitbox is useful but useless, especially at higher level of play.

Winston doesn't need any help at higher levels of play. He's a solid character who gets picked a lot right now and works well with dive comps and even on D against certain comps, like zebbosai ran Winston yesterday on D.

People need to stop thinking heroes are weak just because they don't see them at their own skill tier. I'm a solidly silver/gold player (I suck at FPS and I insist on playing McCree to get better). And yeah Winston is quite rare here though you will occasionally see a guy who really knows what he's doing with Winston and you certainly feel the pain.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Like... half the cast sees less play than Winston. Some a LOT less. Winston has a really good and interesting niche right now. Kinda fun actually considering how simple his kit looks on paper, including a gun you don't have to aim!

 

[Anne]

So a lot of it is based around how well you use the bubble when you drop in. And positioning/situational awareness. Gotcha.

Sorry if that seemed like I was yelling at you since I quoted you. I'm not, I'm just yelling cause annoyed by misconceptions in general. I honestly do hope that did answer some questions though.

What a timely tweet from Glixel. Are they lurking in here?

https://twitter.com/glixel/status/830148741084672001

I mean, yeah that makes sense because in ladder the vast majority of players don't know how to play as a team well and rely on solo carry heroes. Meanwhile if you check in with higher level ladder games as well as the pro usage rates, he is picked more than half the cast and tends to stay pretty healthy. I know nobody is playing in pro games, but it is 100% possible to pull of Winston at most levels if you just know the basic idea of how to play him, which most people don't ;~;

 

[KiraFA37]

you always go balls deep.

Unless you have the nutcracker skin, then you go nuts.

 

[LiK]

I mean, yeah that makes sense because in ladder the vast majority of players don't know how to play as a team well and rely on solo carry heroes. Meanwhile if you check in with higher level ladder games as well as the pro usage rates, he is picked more than half the cast and tends to stay pretty healthy. I know nobody is playing in pro games, but it is 100% possible to pull of Winston at most levels if you just know the basic idea of how to play him, which most people don't ;~;

Know any good video guides? I wanna play him more, tbh. But I do much better with other heroes.

 

[FieryBalrog]

If Winston was that great, I would see him in every game. But he's like the Reaper of Tanks now. There are better heroes in his category.

Winston sees a lot of play at high level tournaments.

He's also fine in low level play but he really benefits from highly coordinated teamwork.

That's cool and they shouldn't change him to be a mindless solo monster.

 

[killdatninja]

Okay, so I'm going to get this out of the way real quick: the devs never explicitly cited hero stacking as to why it was nerfed.



Yes, this change occurred when stacking was a thing and Winston was running wild. At the same time, 1k HP shield was actually still really crazy on its own and people would straight up just bail and not interact with it even when there was just one out. The reason the CD is the way it is revolves around the fact that if Winston put down a shield and players thought better than to destroy it, he would be punished for doing so via the CD. When 1HL became a thing, Winston retained his spot as a really strong pick, and despite a dip in usage during a pretty fucked up meta period, he has had a healthy pickrate ever since.

The "balanced for stacking argument" just doesn't hold up at all. I think a better argument is that it isn't very clear to lower level players how to effectively use him in a more disorganized environment. A good argument is that lower level players have a hard time surviving with him because he is extremely punishing on positioning mistakes. Small buffs to make him less punished for mistakes while high level players will still punish him hard is probably what should happen. That's actually what just happened with the head hitbox change.

They never mentioned hero stacking as a reason because they never even considered hero stacking to be a problem in the first place. For the longest time, they kept skirting around the idea of 1HL, Season one started with ho hero limits until the community finally got through blizzards head that hero stacking wasn't as fun as they originally thought.

Let's not pretend he has a healthy pick rate, he's the least picked tank this season. Granted this season saw the rise of D.Va and her downfall was great for Winston (numbers were obscenely low for comp prior to nerf, I was ranked #850 PS4 Winston at barely diamond level with 15 games total with him). Let's compare the numbers: The 2nd least picked tank is Zarya [PC NA] with ~89,000 people who played her in competitive, Winston [PC NA] currently sits at ~25,000 people. I mean sure 25k people is somewhat healthy, but when the next tank on the list has 3x more players, something is up.

I love Winston, but he's a situational pick (Miro is amazing with him, but situational for him too), if blizzard is trying to make more characters viable, tweaks will absolutely be necessary for Winston. Let me ask this, if Winston got his 1000HP barrier back, would Reinhardt be a necessary tank in every single game?
Rephrasing in a different way because that's too hypothetical: Would Reinhardt's value as a tank go down if Winston had 1000HP barrier? [

Spoiler

Yes

]
Is there a reason why Reinhardt should be the only tank who has a viable barrier (that's used more than for poking or blocking 600dmg, with a long ass CD)?

Note: I'm not suggesting that he get back his 1000HP barrier, I'm just wondering why so many people think he's in a good spot when all the other tanks have a better tool set than Winston. Looking at what the pro's do with Winston shouldn't even be considered, they have some of the best supports on the planet behind them.

 

[Bumbletron]

Know any good video guides? I wanna play him more, tbh. But I do much better with other heroes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_GTOKR78bs

Like I said, Miro is the best winston. Just look up vods from Apex and watch his play for Lunatic-hai

 

[LiK]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_GTOKR78bs

Like I said, Miro is the best winston just look up vods from Apex and watch his play for Lunatic-hai

cool, i'll check it out. Guess I'll also watch some advanced techniques from some other channels.

 

[adamy]

what factors contribute to how you place in comp?

want to make sure I place as high as possible this upcoming new season

what are the biggest determining factors? medals? wins? can I still place very high if I get many losses but do very well in each game?

which roles tend to be the best in regards to placing high?

 

[LiK]

what factors contribute to how you place in comp?

want to make sure I place as high as possible this upcoming new season

what are the biggest determining factors? medals? wins? can I still place very high if I get many losses but do very well in each game?

which roles tend to be the best in regards to placing high?

Your rank from previous season and how well you do, I think. Wins and losses don't really matter much from what I've seen.

 

[FieryBalrog]

They never mentioned hero stacking as a reason because they never even considered hero stacking to be a problem in the first place. For the longest time, they kept skirting around the idea of 1HL, Season one started with ho hero limits until the community finally got through blizzards head that hero stacking wasn't as fun as they originally thought.

Let's not pretend he has a healthy pick rate, he's the least picked tank this season.

Good job shifting the goal posts? Who cares that he's he "least played tank" which is not even true after the Dva nerf. He sees a lot of play- FAR more than chars like junkrat, hanzo, torb, blah blah. He is a real role player for dive comps. He can be played on D. He's a good switch to counter enemy widow or genji. Giving him a 1000 hp bubble sounds like a great way to turn pro games into garbage. Winston isn't Reinhardt , he would still have a 6 second leap and the ability to dive the fuck outta teams, which means he gets to what, be a half assed Reinhardt sometimes while mostly being an unkillable dive initiator?

Looking at what the pro's do with Winston shouldn't even be considered, they have some of the best supports on the planet behind them.

In what universe does this sentence make any logical sense

 

[LiK]

D.va still good. Thankfully.

 

[Anne]

Know any good video guides? I wanna play him more, tbh. But I do much better with other heroes.

Not that I know of unfortunately. I would go check out high level Winston VoDs to just get the idea of how to move, engage, and manage bubble. There aren't any real mechanics to learn(outside of some jump stuff, but that's mostly minor), it's more macro level concepts that you need to be exposed to.

Note: I'm not suggesting that he get back his 1000HP barrier, I'm just wondering why so many people think he's in a good spot when all the other tanks have a better tool set than Winston.

Because no other tank in the entire game can come close to his mobility and ability to engage/disengage fights. He actually has a niche as a tank where he is basically untouchable right now. Yeah, Rein is ridiculous. We all know this. Even with 1000HP bubble, Rein would probably be played all the time still because there are certain solutions to problems only he has. That is more of a Rein problem than a Winston problem. (side note, Rein is borderline mandatory at pro play while being low pickrate on ladder too. Ladder pickrates have a lot of problems right now in general due to perception)

The low pickrate in ladder thing really has a lot more to do with a perception and skill curve issue than healthy balance. Again, it's why they are buffing him in a way that makes him easier to use at lower elo while more or less staying the same at higher elo.

 

[adamy]

Your rank from previous season and how well you do, I think. Wins and losses don't really matter much from what I've seen.

my main is Lucio. I pretty much always get gold healing and gold objective, but everything else is a mixed bag

not sure if I should stick with Lucio or Soldier for comp as I usually get more medals as Soldier