With Overwatch 2, we finally got a new mode with Wrath of The Bride, where we play with Sojourn, Ashe, Junker Queen, and Kiriko as we venture through the map and face new challenges, which is a good refresher for the second-oldest event in the g

Whether I bother in competitive with support is up in the air right now. It’s still a headache dealing with angry and ungrateful teammates who splinter across the map and somehow expect to get healed all at once, but at least now I’m enjoying the role again. The rush of scrambling to a critical marker to fill up their health bar while fighting back enemies is exhilarating in a way you just don’t feel with DPS, and the key role you play in ensuring your team’s survival is a wholly unique responsibility. I doubt I’ll ever be a Mercy main again or voluntarily choose healer with my friends when Roadhog and Orisa are right there for the taking, but at least I know that if I gotta pick healer, I have someone I’ll actually enjoy play

I also finally understand why people give a shit about these characters beyond their battle abilities . I feel a kinship with Junkrat. He’s a wildcard, like Charlie in Always Sunny. He’s just a silly little guy, and I love him for it. I’m going to read up on his story before I dive back in tonight - I never thought I’d do that for any hero shooter. I couldn’t even count how many heroes there were, and Junkrat has made me hopeful I’ll find more I love, but if I don’t, I’ll happily main this wacky pyromaniac until he runs out of li

I tried her out because she was new and the daily quests keep asking me to queue for all roles which, as we know, really means support. She can shred through squishy DPS characters and heals plenty, at least enough to scratch my Mercy itch. Being able to reach upward of 9,000 healing in quick play while getting eliminations is like playing DPS with a bit more utility, and that’s what makes Kiriko so refresh

It comes with its own risks though. If you’ve played Overwatch 2 at all, you know Moira is constantly played as a DPS . They shred through enemies, rush off to get kills, and rarely come back to help the team, leaving the job to rest on one support’s shoulders. I’m busy scrambling to hit the mute button while I keep a charging Reinhardt alive as he plummets into the entire enemy team, so my shoulders are more than strained. But Kiriko hasn’t ended up like Moira - at least, not yet. The ease of being able to jump between damage and healing is similar there, but the DPS doesn’t outclass the healing to such an extent that it’s worth dropping altogether. The two are well-balanced, meaning you can easily flit between keeping D.Va alive and taking out a cheeky Widowmaker perched in the dista

You can argue that the game isn’t making you do challenges, and if you don’t like them just ignore them, but that’s also an argument against daily challenges. All of the XP or battle pass progress you earn by completing challenges could be accomplished easier and faster in ways that don’t exploit players’ time. The big studios like Blizzard and EA are going to have to use their unlimited talent and resources to create a better system than this soon, because the current daily challenge system everyone uses is lazy and predat

My old mains just aren’t fun anymore. Playing Mercy with well over 15,000 healing in lower ranks, keeping the team alive, resurrecting vital players, and helping push the payload, all while avoiding the focus of the entire enemy team, only to get a Cassidy spamming "I need healing" halfway across the map, is annoying ; __ Lucio is fun but doesn’t always work on defence maps, and Bridgette depends on the synergy with the rest of your squad. Kiriko, however, lets me stand on my own two legs in fights, easily jump to my allies with her teleport ability so I can catch Cassidy being a prick and save him, and heal as standard. The versatility is unlike any other hea

And then you get her cleanse ability which is perfect for tight spots where your healing just isn’t enough anymore. The amount of tanks I’ve saved in clutch moments in quick play with it is amazing and keeps the action going rather than leaving me helpless and doomed to sit in spectate while the overtime ticks down. Chuck in her ult that makes not only you heal and attack faster but your allies too, and she’s solidified as the best healer since Ana, but without the barrier to entry of using a sniper. I’m not very good at sniping, never mind juggling that and healing, so Kiriko is the perfect alternat

Online shooters aren’t usually my thing. Overwatch having set heroes takes away blog post from Overwatch2Tactics.com the meta and the stress of having to care about loadouts, and means you can pick to a certain extent based on personality. The reason I play as Ashe is as much because I love westerns and wry cowgirls as it is her gameplay abilities. Overwatch’s aesthetic, low barrier to entry, and quick, varied matches means it’s keeping my interest longer than other online games do. TheGamer is going to have its own Overwatch showdown soon too, so I need to keep up even if I won’t dominate the way I did on Tekken nig