Vigilante, Happy & Cole Cassidy - This Week in Overwatch 10/25/21
JUSTICE IS SERVED, VIGILANTE-STYLE*
*pending league approval
Fresh off back-to-back Korean Contenders Grand Finals appearances with Talon Esports, flex support Vigilante Is heading to the Overwatch League as the newest member of the Justice. He showcased a deep hero pool, playing Baptiste, Ana, Moira & Zenyatta at a high-level last season.
“Vigilante is a young player, but his biggest advantage is that he is quite bold in playing, very flexible, and can still grow further,” Assistant coach Chilhwa said about the signing. “I thought he was one of the most valuable players in KR OWC.”
blurb by Jake Brodsky
THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN*
*pending league approval.
We’re thrilled to have a brand new mechanical menace slotting in at hitscan DPS for us in Overwatch 2. Happy has proven his merit with Guangzhou and Houston, is making his way to DC to show why he is amongst the most highly coveted DPS players in the league.
“Happy is so talented and one of the most passionate players I’ve ever met,” assistant coach TyDolla said. “When I pick dps they need to have the sharpest aim, and flexible hero pool as a hit scan, but he has both and he has eager to win!.”
Expect Happy to suit up as a number of heroes for us including Ashe, Soldier 76, Hanzo & the newly named Cole Cassidy.
Cassidy, formerly Cowboy, was renamed due to its ties to a former Blizzard employee. The full statement can be seen here.
blurb by Kyler Apgar and Jake Brodsky
“To make the new Overwatch better — to make things right — he had to be honest with his team and himself. The cowboy he was rode into the sunset, and Cole Cassidy faced the world at dawn.”
OWL FREE AGENCY: WEEK 2
Across the league, teams are gearing up for the next OWL season. Last week, we highlighted some of the early roster moves teams made. Since then, teams have started to make aggressive signings as more players land on the market.
Since last week, we’ve seen a Super re-signing that puts an incredible amount of emphasis on the hyphen plus Jonak & Smurf finding new homes in Seoul.
Still, the most daring moves may have come from Houston, who picked up Pelican, the Rookie of the Year, in a buyout from Atlanta. To join their new core of Pelican, Piggy and Dante the Outlaws signed both IR15 & Lastro, two of the top veteran flex supports available.
Elsewhere, Paris made the extremely cool choice to run their tryouts on 5v5 using a custom Workshop code. They say they plan to release it, along with patch notes in the next week or so if you’re itching to get your hands on an approximate version of OW2.
blurb by Kyler Apgar and Jake Brodsky
Experimental Patch Notes
The game devs over at Blizzard are digging into their bag once more. On October 21st 2021, Overwatch experimental patch notes were released, allowing players to test the waters for some very interesting concepts.
Experimental patches are always a great community engagement tool, that also allows the dev team to play with character adjustments without the risk of fully implementing them into the game. This time around, they’ve put Torbjörn, Cassidy, Moira, and Junkrat into the mix.
The consensus around Moira’s experimentation seems to be mostly positive, her orb speed is being reduced in order to increase her dwindling damage and healing output. All of the DPS characters listed are receiving some pretty significant buffs as well. Torb’s Overload ability has primarily been used for defensive purposes only, the devs are reducing the cooldown in order to encourage more offensive use. Cassidy’s ultimate is being sped up to do more damage more quickly, as well as being enabled to use his roll ability in mid-air. Junkrat is getting a close-range damage buff, up to 150 (RIP Tracer mains), but is reducing damage at long-range in order to encourage forward movement from Junkrat players.
Players seem to be worried in a meta that already isn’t favorable to tank characters, that buffing already effective DPS characters will further disincentivize picking tanks. One thing is for sure, if you haven’t picked up Cassidy yet, you may want to start loading up your aim-trainer. See you in the servers.
blurb by Kyler Apgar
Hear From The Halloween Terror artists
Last week's release of Overwatch’s Halloween Terror event treated players with the return of Junkenstein’s Revenge and the release of eight new frightening skins. From a menacing clown to an eerie Draugr, the Overwatch team certainly dialed up the terror for this year's collective of spooktacular skins. Fans of Overwatch were treated to the insights of how concept artists Daryl Tan and Mortern Skaalvik fabricated some of these monstrous creations.
Coffin Bastion undoubtedly contests for most creative concept amongst the numerous Halloween-themed skins Overwatch has ever released. Daryl Tan, concept artist for Coffin Bastion, notes the struggle he faced when transforming everyone's favorite bird-loving robot into a mere walking coffin. Tan was initially only given the basis of ‘coffin’ when getting started on idealizing the skin.
To give Bastion a sufficiently spooky makeover, Tan blended overt graveyard ornamentation with other subtle details: a gravekeeper’s lantern perches atop an oozing sarcophagus that has been chained shut to keep its undead inhabitant from escaping. Gone are the polished gears and metal plates of an omnic, replaced by quilted casket lining, wood, and stone embellishments reminiscent of mausoleum exteriors. There’s even a skeletal hand bursting from a coffin attached to Bastion’s forearm. And Tan’s favorite detail? The way Bastion’s submachine gun has been transformed into a tiny open casket, complete with a crosshair headstone. “Designing that made me chuckle a couple of times to myself as I was drawing it,” says Tan.
These concepts were ultimately scrapped in favor of a vampire hunter theme. Leave it to the gallant Brigitte to be the one that protects us from this year's horrifying creations. This gothic vampire hunter, equipped with various skulls and a green shadow, is not one to have bad blood with.
Inspiration for Brigitte’s outfit and other trappings came from a variety of places. While a mantled duster (with plenty of straps and buckles, of course) and a pair of combat-ready boots are staples in every vampire hunter’s wardrobe, Brigitte needed something to set her apart from other slayers. The addition of accoutrements like pauldrons, a skull-adorned backpiece, and a few dashes of ghastly green both preserve her in-game silhouette and add a fierce aura to her attire. “For a lot of the patterns and hard surface designs, we referenced Gothic furniture and architecture,” cites Skaalvik. “There is just something about dark wood and decorative patterns that looks haunting to me.”
blurb by Jason Lopez