too many unskilled ults

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I think everyone just needs to have different expectations about the type of game this is. A ton of the outplay potential in this game is tied directly to cooldowns, timing, and coordination rather than movement/juking/aim.

There's a tonne of skill regarding the ults. Sure, clicking the button and getting kills doesn't always require skill, but it's much more than that.

Firstly, reacting to them is a massive deal. Sometimes you get a fraction of a second to react to an enemy ultimate so that you're not caught by it. You hear a "High Noon" shout, and you have to first identify where it's coming from, and then hide for cover or kill the McCree. The McCree has to decide when to actually fire his ultimate. If he gives too much time then people will get behind cover but if he waits he may be able to take out another person.

Pharah ult is a press Q to deal damage, but where you use that ultimate is incredibly important. A widowmaker can take an ulting pharah out almost instantly meaning the ult does no damage, but we all know how incredibly powerful a well placed Pharah ult can be. I've seen Reaper ults go to complete waste while others decimate an entire team.

Even Widowmaker's ult has an element of skill to it. WidowMaker herself probably benefits the most from having the wallhack on, but maybe you've just spawned and you have to decide if you would rather give your ult to your team. You need to know what they are doing and if it's going to be useful or not. The decision can be game changing.

A Mercy ult, while overpowered is stupidly difficult to time. If you resurrect too early, some more team members may die but if you resurrect late, players may have expired already, not to mention you can die before you res. If the enemy gets a better resurrect than you do, your team is done for.

Knowing exactly when to use your ults separates good players from bad ones and using your ultimate to its maximum effect separates good players from great ones.

The problem is, people think that the greatest skill in a game comes from aiming, which simply isn't what a game should be because in reality, aiming isn't actually very skillful itself. It's a single mechanic that people have refined over the years. This game is very well rounded. You NEED to be able to aim, but you also NEED to have perfect positioning and you NEED to have top cooldown management. Your decision making needs to be flawless and you have to constantly work with your team and be aware of what they are doing.

Honestly, if you're worried about the lack of skill required in this game, then you're only focusing on a single aspect of it. You're not winning this game simply by moving your mouse onto a player slightly better than your opponent does, it doesn't work like that I'm afraid. This is why this game has the potential to become one of the best and challenging games in eSports to date. Be excited.

/thread?

ya, cooldowns management and positioning will play a big part going forward. I would compare the mechanic of "aiming" to "last hitting" in dota. You need to know how to last hit to play the game, but the game isnt solely determined by last hitting.

i really think you should lose half your ult charge or even the full charge when you die. i think if you lost it all people would resort to spam farming damage but i don't think that if a mercy dies at the start of a fight they should be able to respawn and global ult the rest of their team back to life, that's stupid.

mercy respawning with 100% looks bullshit but a lot of people are defending it, maybe coming from a moba perspective. respawn timers in mobas are an important mechanic though, and that hasn't really been worked into overwatch yet

I have to agree with Arx on this one. It looks like a lot of the ults are not so much based on aiming skill, but more on mechanical skill(positioning and timing). The only thing i have a slight problem with is Soldier 76's ult; i think it would be nice to if he had to stand still or something.

Positioning and timing are not mechanical skill (semantics, i guess, but still)

Arx: good post but I think brownymaster already explained that he understands the different types of "skill" that come into play, he'd just like to see more technical/mechanical skill. I think many TF2 players feel the same about this. Not just about ults, but about many weapons/mechanics in the game right now. That's why they're TF2 players and not MOBA players. It's just a matter of preferring a certain style of game.

Btw, mechanical skill is not just aiming but also movement and dodging, and the ceiling is defined by the allround depth of "direct" control you can have over your character and your abilities.

And yeah, the game would definitely be more interesting (and force players to think more about their positioning and timing) if you'd lose ult on death (or a certain %). Death just needs to be more punishing overall.

I think Mercy ult should have like, a 5 second cast time and if she's killed while channelling, she doesn't get her ultimate back at 100%. They made an interesting change making is so that the res only occurs at the end of the cast, meaning you can kill her and prevent the resurrect.

Maybe if she started channelling and you had 5 seconds to find and kill her, it would balance out her ult. Just a thought.