It’s only been a few weeks since
Winter Wonderland ended, so…time for the next Overwatch event! Chinese New Year is just around the corner, and we’re
celebrating with new skins, emotes, and more sprays than any sensible person
would know what to do with!
Before we get to the Year of the
Rooster content, there’ve been some more permanent changes to both the UI and a
few of the heroes. Starting off, you can now equip 4 different sprays, voice
lines and emotes at once, choosing which one you want to use thanks to a handy
wheel. You can still only have 1 spray on the battlefield at a time, but this
allows you to be more expressive and have more to do while waiting for the
doors to open and the match to start. The kill count in the top right hand
corner of the screen has also been tweaked. It looks better than ever, and the
coolest part is that it now detailed exactly what abilities were used to take
down the fallen player, with Ultimates being displayed more prominently than
regular attacks. It’s really cool.
Several changes have come to the heroes
of the game as well. For starters, the healing on Ana’s Biotic Grenade has been
significantly decreased, making her fall in line more with the other healers in
terms of overall healing strength. D.Va has seen a very large rework,
decreasing the amount of Armor on her mech while also increasing its health.
She’s a lot easier to take down now, but as a D.Va main I am concerned she’s
become too easy to beat. I can safely
say she’s not nearly as bad as she was before she got her Defense Matrix
update, but now she plays similar to Winston in that she should be primarily
used for swooping in, doing some damage and causing a ruckus, and escaping
before the mech is broken. Experienced D.Va players may want to rethink their
strategies in getting kills and maneuvering around the map. Finally, Roadhog’s
hook has been changed, making it now that targets land directly in front of Roadhog
depending on the direction he was facing when he grabbed them instead of
landing whichever way he was pointing in the end. Also, if the hero leaved
Roadhog’s line of sight the ability ends. This will likely lead to us seeing
less clips of Roadhog hooking players across time and space from Route 66 to
Point 2 on Ilios.
On the buff side of things, there’s
only Sombra, who’s gotten a few changes that make her a little more viable. It
now takes less time to hack an enemy, and the cooldown of her hack has been
dramatically reduced. This allows her to be more viable as a Support or Defense
hero (I still don’t know why she’s grouped in the Offense category), disrupting
the battle from the shadows and causing chaos.
Onto the actual event itself, there’s
plenty of new Chinese New Year themed loot to go around! Just as with Winter
Wonderland, every character gets 2 sprays and a voice line, with some lucky
heroes getting skins, emotes and more.
Being the hero actually from China,
Mei has been given the most goodies this time around, boasting 2 Legendary
skins, a new Emote, and a new Victory Pose. This has propelled her into being
the Overwatch hero with the most
cosmetics in the entire game. D.Va also received a really cool Palanquin themed
skin (that looks far better in-game than the promo image made it look!).
Finally, the remaining Legendaries are inspired by the Chinese fable “Journey
to the West”, giving Winston, Reinhardt, Roadhog and Zenyatta the appearance of
the characters from the story. Winston and Reinhardt both look really cool,
whereas Roadhog and Zenyatta…don’t. Roadhog’s might actually be a contender for
Worst Legendary in the game as far as I’m concerned.
Rounding out the epics, Ana, Bastion,
Junkrat, Mercy, Symmetra and Tracer all get some neat Chinese themed recolours.
My personal favourite of these is Bastion’s, as it turns his little bird friend
Ganymede into a rooster. Whoever came up with that, I applaud you. Junkrat also
receives a new emote, and Mercy, Roadhog and Tracer all get some really cool
looking Highlight Intros.
Last but not least, it wouldn’t be an Overwatch event without a new Brawl, and
Year of the Rooster doesn’t disappoint. For the first time ever, Overwatch has received the ever-popular
Capture the Flag mode, called “Capture the Rooster” here. Taking place on one
of the 3 points on Lijang Tower (here decked out with Chinese lanterns and
lightable fireworks), it’s exactly what it says on the tin: get to the enemy’s
base, steal their flag and run home before they catch you. It’s fine for what
it is, but I can already see that players have figured out ways to make point
capture near impossible. Symmetra is a near necessity to have in this mode, as
her entire build makes it incredibly easy for your team to be positioned well
and have enemies be killed nearly instantly after entering the base. Add in either
Bastion or Torbjorn, and you’ve got yourself a bad time. Granted, this can be
negated through a board clearing ultimate like D.Va’s or Hanzo’s, but very
often I’ll see teams that group in an unbreakable circle around their flag,
making it inevitable that you’ll either draw or lose. Capture the Rooster is
really fun if both teams decide to play fair, but if you find yourself unable
to reach the flag at all, it can be a bit of a slog.
All in all, Year of the Rooster isn’t
quite as good as Winter Wonderland was, but it still brings enough new content
to the table that makes it an event that’s not to be missed. I’ll leave you
with a quick reminder: if there’s a skin you really want, remember to save your
gold until one of the last few days of the event (it ends February 13) just in
case you find that particular skin in the loot box. Nobody likes double
Legendaries, so even though that Mei skin looks really nice, patience is a
virtue.
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