On the road to Masters in Overwatch.

FPS

My goal for the end of season 4 in Overwatch was to hit diamond. I busted my ass off for far too many games and legit, the last night of the season I hit Diamond at exactly 3000 SR. It felt like it was such a faraway goal that I would never hit but once I did I knew I could hit it again and again.

I ended up placing in low 2800s for season 5 and eventually was able to hit 3214 for my season highest. Unfortunately, work took over for awhile and I ended up hitting decay. That kind of destroyed my SR for awhile and I just maintained in the 3100s. Eventually, I lost a few games and ended up in low Diamond so I just let my account decay entirely to 3000 while I played on my alt. SURPRISE! That account also hit Diamond.

So this season I was determined to place as close to Diamond as possibly. With one caveat. I was going to do it by only playing Zenyatta. Oh, and the only other difference was I would be stuck solo queueing because my duo partner from s4/5 was back to working and not playing Overwatch anymore. I ended up placing around 2950 (I legitimately won 1 out of my 10 games…) and the next two games got me into Diamond.

Currently sitting at 3170 although my high is 3172. My struggle right now is that I’m not maining Mercy this season. I went full on hardcore Zenyatta and while I have had a lot of awesome games… the few games where I have had to play Mercy I realized the disgusting SR I gain playing that hero versus Zenyatta.

Last week I had hit 3166 while Zenyatta. I lost the next match and dropped down to 3142. The next match I was stuck playing Mercy (and solo healing probably) and ended up winning that match. My new SR? 3172. Most of my Zenyatta wins net me around 20 SR while my Mercy wins are around 30 SR. I’m finding it real hard to not just cave in to be a Mercy main to hit my goal. I really wanted to hit Masters playing as Zenyatta only but fuck man, this shit is HARD.

TL;DR About to give up being a Zenyatta main so I can cheesemode to Masters as Mercy.

When all else fails, go BattleMercy.

FPS

In Overwatch I usually play more competitive than I do quick play just because I tend to like the frustrations and intensity that those matches typically have. When I need to warm up, I’ll play quick play but that’s about it. Buuut… since the Winter Wonderland event is ending on the 3rd, I figured I’d try to grind a few levels in quick play to get a few more boxes.

Quick Play is atrocious if you solo queue. You’ll get on teams that go all DPS so you either heal or tank. I’ve tried to insta-lock Ana and figured seeing a healer would inspire people to pick around that in terms of tanks and another healer. No. No that is not the case at all. Tonight I was getting 4-5 premades that would go a mixture of defensive and offensive heroes, and if it’s a tank it was Dva. Seeing a Widow/Junk/Hanzo/Torb on attack made me swap off Ana and go Sombra.

But then I had a better idea. So instead I picked in Mercy but I wasn’t going to heal. I was just going to use my pistol since it does a surprising amount of damage ;). But no seriously, it was the safer pick to go. Sure, I could go Lucio but that’d be healing them if I kept my aura up and we won’t want that. I didn’t want to go Zenyatta because his mobility is non-existent. Ana could be obvious but with a 10 clip gun, I just said no. And mobility was another issue if the sleep dart is on CD.

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Battle mercy pisses off my team but you know what, I’m killing people, healing out of combat, and I have Angelic Flight to get the hell out of dodge. It’s awesome because people expect Mercy to automatically shove her caduceus up their asshole to heal. I have awoken a monster in me.

I’ll only do this if I’m stuck “solo” healing otherwise if I have a receptive team, then I’ll just go with my usual Ana pick.

Redragon Perdition Mouse Review

Periphials

For the last years I have been using gaming-specific mice that have side buttons. I started off with the Razer Naga and after a couple of years I swapped over to the Logitech g600. I have my qualms with both of them however the reason for a new mouse was simple. My g600 was simply too heavy to use with FPS games (specifically Overwatch) and I felt like that was really starting to hinder my performance in the game.

I was looking at buying a separate mouse for FPS since I still wanted to keep my g600 for MMOs since I utilize the side buttons a lot. I was shopping around on Amazon and was about to settle on the Logitech g402 but randomly I stumbled across a review website that also included some budget mice.

So I caved and decided to try out the Redragon Perdition mouse since it had a bunch of options that might make it a “better” FPS mouse in comparison to my heavy g600.

  • It had weight options to make it heavier or lighter.
  • Side buttons which meant I could still keep F8 as a keybind for PTT.
  • It was similar in design to the g600 which meant it would feel comfortable in my hand.
  • It wasn’t too hideously designed. It’s simple and to the point.
  • While the textured finish on the plastic was initially a turn off, I realized I preferred this. The Razer Naga had a matte finish and it did not hold up well with the oils from my skin. You could really see the wear and tear. The Logitech g600 had a glossy finish but the wear and tear wasn’t as obvious. This textured finish might actually bode well.

So what the hell, I ordered it in black and it just came in earlier today. Setup is beyond easy. I downloaded the software to be able to remap buttons and fine tune my DPI (it’s at 1100 DPI right now) and so far it’s actually really precise. I took out all of the weights to make it lighter and it’s a significant difference from the g600. Even with all of the weights inside the Perdition, the g600 was still almost twice as heavy.

The mouse definitely has really good sensitivity and precious so far and now it’s just a matter of testing it out in Overwatch and CS:GO to see how it fairs with actual gameplay. I might include a video of sample gameplay later on, so look for that edit.

Now there’s just time to see how long this mouse holds up with daily wear and tear. My first Razer Naga only lasted a year before I replaced it with another Naga until I eventually gave up on the brand a few years ago for Logitech. My g600 is still in working condition but has some wear and tear on the cord and noticable feedback issues with the left/right mouse wheel clicking but nothing that affected me too greatly.

Mage solo farm spec for Starfall Prophecy

General, Guides
This guide is valid for Rift 4.0 and is written for characters at Level 70.

Introduction

One of the best things for the Mage class since Storm Legion has been the introduction of Harbinger, a melee-based soul. It has made leveling and farming very easy and with lots of survivability to boot. The reason why it is such a great soul is that it has the best synergy with Chloromancer and it’s Lifegiving Veil healing.

It has been the go-to farming and solo build for number of years however it has currently been “amplified” by the addition of Starfall Prophecy expansion’s Legendary talents.

Continue reading “Mage solo farm spec for Starfall Prophecy” →

The Icekicker: Frostkeeper Healing for PVP

General
This guide is valid for Rift 3.7 and is written for characters at Level 65.

Introduction

Frostkeeper is a Mage tank healing soul that specializes in direct healing unlike the Chloromancer soul which heals from its damage. However, it isn’t just a “single-target” healer–it specializes in being able to heal two targets at once and can keep a third minutely shielded when you allocate 32pts into the soul. It is a perfect healer for PVP because you’ll be able to heal two players at once.
Continue reading “The Icekicker: Frostkeeper Healing for PVP” →

Overwatch is really well done.

FPS

I somehow got closed beta access to Overwatch last year in October but never got around to trying it out. No one I knew had access so I wasn’t too excited to try it out solo. The day I decided to install it and try it out was actually the last day for closed beta and access had already been removed. Well, a couple weeks ago Blizzard finally opened closed beta back up again so I went in deep.

It has been awhile since a game that isn’t Rift has drawn me in enough that I can’t stop thinking about it. The last FPS I played was CS:GO and I kind of lost interest in it after a friend and I stopped talking. I have hopped in to play here and there but it’s a game that is just that, for me to maybe hop into if I’m really bored. Kind of what I used to do with COD4.

Anyway, I have been obsessed with Overwatch. I love that there’s real no forced progression for leveling like I felt with the newer iterations of Call of Duty (Blackops 1/2, MW3). Level up, get a loot box and open it up to see what you’ve got.

Last game I pre-ordered was Black Ops. I am pre-ordering Overwatch and won’t regret it one bit.

Mechanical Keyboard obsession

Periphials

Ever since I purchased my mechanical keyboard (MX Blues) last year, I have been pretty obsessed in general with them. I already know my next purchase is going to be a 60% (Leopold or Ducky) as well as a Leopold Numpad to go along with it (since a lot of my work involves numpad usage!)

But until then I have been scouring the internet for weeks as to what I wanted to do about the keycaps. Right now the keycaps on my Rosewill are already starting to fade off, mainly just the A and W but it’s enough that it’s irritating me. Since last night, I decided I would finally make the plunge into buying keycaps. I was torn between buying Blank White PBT keycaps or the KEYCOOL Rainbow keycaps.

Eventually I decided on going with the blank whites after I saw a thread on /r/mechanicalkeyboards where someone had dyed their caps CMYK using Poly iDye.

Now I am super ecstatic to get the keycaps delivered so I can dye them! I think I’m going to go with Turquoise for my modifiers and possibly Pink or Yellow for my base set.