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Overwatch |OT9| There is no Cow Hero

Fugu

Member
Just was taking a guess based on what you were talking about happening. I'm pretty confident in talking about the SR system because I've messed with three accounts now to see how some of it works, and I'm friends with some boosters who talk about manipulating it for profit. It's murky, but in general it's pretty easy to predict what's going on with an account and reverse that MMR issue you have. It almost always comes down to long strings off subpar stats.

Note: I am not a booster, but I have looked pretty deep into it. SR manipulation is a real thing people have figured out. Pick Torb or Sombra in a stack, farm specific stats, gain 150SR a game.
I consider one of the few plausible explanations that the game concludes that I, generally, win in spite of myself on the basis of my stats. But my, for example, Pharah play isn't going to be improved by padding my stats by firing rockets into barriers, which again comes back to the notion that the system is not perfect and is often less than adequate as a predictor or skill.

If the system went off of my win rate alone it would have pushed me a lot further upward because even at 3900 I had not reached equilibrium and was winning more than half of my games. It's not doing that, however, and it's not doing that to the extent that I'm really getting matched with/against people I have no business being matched with.

I've considered getting a smurf to see if I can replicate these results sheerly on the basis of how many commonly-held assumptions about the SR system (bias against supports, bias towards positive win rate, etc.) my current situation contradicts.
 
I think I've severely underestimated my Mercy play. Past bit I've started to play Mercy in comp and doing very well.

At this rate I might end up Mercy maining
 
I think I've severely underestimated my Mercy play. Past bit I've started to play Mercy in comp and doing very well.

At this rate I might end up Mercy maining

She really is so good, makes such a big impact at almost all levels of the game and just being able to stay alive and keep your tanks up when they are under heavy fire wins team fights, not even taking the ult into account
 

Danj

Member
Season 5 just started I see, I seem to recall somebody was saying don't do placements right at the beginning of the season, was there a reason for that?
 
I'd say what I do to this Hog here. These are The Three Methods:


https://youtu.be/c9MkvgIfSAE

1. Solo, no pulse bomb. Keep out of his effective ranges (there's a deadzone between his M1 and M2), bait the first hook and count the seconds till its cooldown's up.

2. Pulse bomb. Wait until he huffs, load him with one solid spray and bomb him.

3. By this time the Hog is so scared of you he'll pop his ult in hopes of soloing you. Tracer + her team wrecks him easily.

4. Hog switches to Soldier to counter you. Pulse Bomb him again. Why? Because it's hilarious.

I've tried baiting out hooks. My problem is it doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure if it's latency on my PC or on my vision, but what I think is happening never seems to be what the kill cam shows happened.

I've even been hooked during recall with the kill cam showing me just hanging out looking at foliage. I run the game at 120 FPS with a 20-30 ping. The game has me feeling straight up hallucinagenic at times.
 
Season 5 just started I see, I seem to recall somebody was saying don't do placements right at the beginning of the season, was there a reason for that?

Trolls / throwers. Mainly day one though. It shouldn't be as bad today or tomorrow, especially if you group with a friend or two
 

Chance

Member
I've tried baiting out hooks. My problem is it doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure if it's latency on my PC or on my vision, but what I think is happening never seems to be what the kill cam shows happened.

I've even been hooked during recall with the kill cam showing me just hanging out looking at foliage. I run the game at 120 FPS with a 20-30 ping. The game has me feeling straight up hallucinagenic at times.

Well... My secret to dodging hooks is never wait 'till you see the animation. Don't react to it - anticipate it.

You basically have to read the Hog's mind for when you think he thinks you're prime to get hooked, and then deny him that.

It's not a great answer, but if you wait 'till you see him throw back his arm on your screen, he's already landed the hook on his.
 
Well... My secret to dodging hooks is never wait 'till you see the animation. Don't react to it - anticipate it.

You basically have to read the Hog's mind for when you think he thinks you're prime to get hooked, and then deny him that.

It's not a great answer, but if you wait 'till you see him throw back his arm on your screen, he's already landed the hook on his.

Do you play Hog by chance? I've thought about trying to learn how to play him as a means to learn how to counter him.
 

Anne

Member
I consider one of the few plausible explanations that the game concludes that I, generally, win in spite of myself on the basis of my stats. But my, for example, Pharah play isn't going to be improved by padding my stats by firing rockets into barriers, which again comes back to the notion that the system is not perfect and is often less than adequate as a predictor or skill.

If the system went off of my win rate alone it would have pushed me a lot further upward because even at 3900 I had not reached equilibrium and was winning more than half of my games. It's not doing that, however, and it's not doing that to the extent that I'm really getting matched with/against people I have no business being matched with.

I've considered getting a smurf to see if I can replicate these results sheerly on the basis of how many commonly-held assumptions about the SR system (bias against supports, bias towards positive win rate, etc.) my current situation contradicts.

From what I know, if you have subpar stats but start to rise, things get weird. Things get weirder if you're in a group because that influences SR gains quite a bit. Again, I'm not saying you're bad. What I'm saying is if you're picking popular characters, switching often, and not padding stats, your MMR isn't going to go up while your SR does. MMR gets more stable with more games, SR just gets more inflated.

The best way to get out of this btw is to pick unpopular characters and boost stats on them. The most popular ones to do this on were Torb/Symm/Sombra because they can be good, easy to p[ad stats on, and you can get far above average on them.

The proof of this I've seen is people making new accounts and getting 4500SR using mostly Torb and all that. I've seen people duo queue boost using Symm quite a bit too. It's why I complain about the SR system being too easy. If you have the skill to get away with things like that, you can get crazy high. Start doing this shit while feeding that group queue Mercy main extra stats while you're at it. Queue at optimal times with large groups for good measure.
 

Chance

Member
Do you play Hog by chance? I've thought about trying to learn how to play him as a means to learn how to counter him.

He's the only tank I can't play and the tank I feared most, for months, on Tracer - but I know he's got 600 un-armored HP and I know the hook cooldown is eight seconds.

As a rule, though, you're right - the best way to learn how to kill a hero and what that hero fears is to play that hero.

For Hog, he's at his most vulnerable when he just huffed in the middle of a team fight - just like Tracer's is right after she's burned rewind.
 
Well... My secret to dodging hooks is never wait 'till you see the animation. Don't react to it - anticipate it.

You basically have to read the Hog's mind for when you think he thinks you're prime to get hooked, and then deny him that.

It's not a great answer, but if you wait 'till you see him throw back his arm on your screen, he's already landed the hook on his.

Yup, I've had some moments where as a Mei, I iceblocked in front of a teammate knowing the hook was going to come out and boom, a blocked hook.

A lot of hog players are quite easy to read. Many will fire the hook the moment the come out of the doorway.
 

LiK

Member
Hog's playstyle just doesn't fit me even tho I do okay with him whenever I get him in Mystery Heroes. He's like Genji to me. I just can't gel with his abilities.
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
From what I know, if you have subpar stats but start to rise, things get weird. Things get weirder if you're in a group because that influences SR gains quite a bit. Again, I'm not saying you're bad. What I'm saying is if you're picking popular characters, switching often, and not padding stats, your MMR isn't going to go up while your SR does. MMR gets more stable with more games, SR just gets more inflated.

The best way to get out of this btw is to pick unpopular characters and boost stats on them. The most popular ones to do this on were Torb/Symm/Sombra because they can be good, easy to p[ad stats on, and you can get far above average on them.

The proof of this I've seen is people making new accounts and getting 4500SR using mostly Torb and all that. I've seen people duo queue boost using Symm quite a bit too. It's why I complain about the SR system being too easy. If you have the skill to get away with things like that, you can get crazy high. Start doing this shit while feeding that group queue Mercy main extra stats while you're at it. Queue at optimal times with large groups for good measure.
Comp was a mistake.
 

antitrop

Member
Just remember that placements basically don't matter and you get padded SR for your first 10-15 games after placements or whatever.
 

Chance

Member
Yup, I've had some moments where as a Mei, I iceblocked in front of a teammate knowing the hook was going to come out and boom, a blocked hook.

A lot of hog players are quite easy to read. Many will fire the hook the moment the come out of the doorway.

The really scary ones are the ones who don't throw that hook, and wait until they know blink is on CD.

The Patient Hog.
 

LiK

Member
No, I'm going to put them off as long as possible, because I don't like being forced to play 7 matches a week and the decay timer doesn't start until you actually get placed.

True. I hope I reach Diamond so there's less stress on winning.
 

LiK

Member
Rein anddddddddddddddddddddddddddd someone else? Some healer person who can bring you back to life?

Winston at least?

Yea, I like your Winston too. I think you should autoswitch to him whenever you see a Genji. Good Genjis are the worst. I can't take them out with Soldier with that deflect nonsense constantly.
 

Ramirez

Member
Werent you like, M/GM last season?

I think I hit 36XX as a high last season and the previous season I flirted with GM all season.

In my final 4 matches I probably had 200 elims to 15 deaths or so and won all of them. I just do not believe personal performance factors into this stuff at all.

All I'm saying is, I'm not a borderline Plat player.
 

LiK

Member
I think I hit 36XX as a high last season and the previous season I flirted with GM all season.

In my final 4 matches I probably had 200 elims to 15 deaths or so and won all of them. I just do not believe personal performance factors into this stuff at all.

All I'm saying is, I'm not a borderline Plat player.

Good luck with solo q cuz I think you prefer to play Comp that way?
 
I think I hit 36XX as a high last season and the previous season I flirted with GM all season.

In my final 4 matches I probably had 200 elims to 15 deaths or so and won all of them. I just do not believe personal performance factors into this stuff at all.

All I'm saying is, I'm not a borderline Plat player.

lol, man

have fun climbing with the shitty gets-worse-with-each-change-decay system that's applied to diamond for some reason
 
Did all my placement matches for my alt account that got to Masters last season. 5-5. Ended last season at around 3200+. 3134 now. Fine with that. Just need to decide on what golden weapon to get.

Will do placements for my main which ended at low Plat last season. Unless I play like crazy for all 10 matches, I'm probably looking at Gold for that account once placements are over!
 
I'd say what I do to this Hog here. These are The Three Methods:


https://youtu.be/c9MkvgIfSAE

1. Solo, no pulse bomb. Keep out of his effective ranges (there's a deadzone between his M1 and M2), bait the first hook and count the seconds till its cooldown's up.

2. Pulse bomb. Wait until he huffs, load him with one solid spray and bomb him.

3. By this time the Hog is so scared of you he'll pop his ult in hopes of soloing you. Tracer + her team wrecks him easily.

4. Hog switches to Soldier to counter you. Pulse Bomb him again. Why? Because it's hilarious.
Good advice. Lol at soldier switch. Usually if I can get the roadhog to go for a heal then its a win. He just takes so dang long to kill sometimes.
 
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