Hey Animated World!
Last Wednesday we said goodbye to Season 3 of Overwatch Competitive Play! Season 3 ran from the end of November to Mid February, ending the same time as the Year of the Rooster Event. My oh my, in that (give or take) three month span did ALOT happen. Some bad, more good, and plenty of learning. Coming off a bit of a rough Season 2, I was excited to get a nice fresh start at Season 3. We had gone through a bit of a rough Season 2, but used it to learn quite a lot for Season 3.
Placements:
I decided to play all my placement matches as Mercy. Coming off a Season that Mercy became my second go to character, I wanted to continue improving my play with her. I ended up going 6-4 (W-L) in placements which wasn’t too bad. However, my Season 2 ending SR rank really hurt me and I ended up being placed at 2170SR Gold Rank. It was a little shocking, I was expecting to be placed in Gold, but not as far low. It hurt a bit though because I was ranked lowest from our group of friends. I switched my goal for the beginning of the Season was to get back into Platinum. I decided to keep Mercy in my arsenal of heroes to play, however went back to my #1 D.Va for a bit. I managed to climb up to around 2400s and I felt as a group we were playing way better than Season 2.
One Really Bad Night:
The lowest point of my Season 3 came soon after getting into the 2400s SR. I played two matches with our group and lost both matches. All my friends decided to call it a night, but for some reason I kept playing in Solo queue. I’m really not sure why I continued playing. That night I think I went something like 2-10 (W-L) and dropped all the way down to 2000SR. Right on the brink of being Silver ranked. I was pretty down about it. However, I did have a running joke with one of my friends. After kicking myself in the back of the head till I couldn’t anymore (how I usually handle any situation) I settled back into my positively. Joking around I remember telling one of my friends I play with, “Hey it’s just going to make the story of getting Diamond this year that much greater. A whole 1000 points.” Hehe, little did I know at the time..
Rise:
Over the month of December and early January we fixed ALOT of things we were doing wrong. We were calling out enemies, combing ults, and MOST IMPORTANT using team chat. I cannot stress how important team communication is. Even though we usually run a 3-4 man stack, having the communication with the people not in our party was key to a lot of victories. We even managed to make some new buddies from it! I finally found myself back in Platinum(2500SR) at the end of December. My goal then shifted to see how far in Platinum I could get and not to drop down to gold for the rest of the season. I thought, alright now the real Season starts. And man, did it when we hit January. All the sudden we were cooking with hot oil.
The first two weeks of January was probably our best span as a team, we easily went something along the lines of 40-10-9 (W-L-T). All the sudden I even felt like I was starting to play Mercy at a Diamond level and definitely playing a Diamond tier D.VA. I’ll admit, I was hot with D.VA during this span. Also one of my friends was on fire with Ana as well. I found myself sitting the highest I’d ever been at 2930SR, now thinking hey Diamond isn’t so far away anymore. We were hot, but a nice little bit of humble pie hit us soon after.
Plateau, Nerf, and Chinese New Year:
Mid January, we kind of hit a Plateau. Looking back it was probably the best thing that could happen to us. After having a near flawless start, we were kind of riding our high horses. We needed a little bit of humble pie, that got served to us in a big way.
Mid January we slumped for about a week or two. We just could not get a streak of wins going. On top of this, the big D.Va nerf finally hit during the Chinese New Year Celebration. Needless to say I was not a big fan of it. I tried to still play D.Va confidently, but it took me a while to adjust to the drastic change of 400HP/200Armour (it was 200HP/400Armor beforehand, armor decreases at a lesser rate than HP). I dropped to around 2670SR during this timespan and was beginning to focus more on staying in Platinum than reaching Diamond.
“Pressure Makes Diamonds”:
I had one match that turned around the Season for me soon after. It’s actually animated’s YouTube channel if you’d like to see it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzxJhCPzT-4&t=261s). I was trying out playing Soldier 76. I have not played very much DPS in this game since release so I’m not confident in picking DPS heroes. I didn’t do bad, but I didn’t do good. I switched to Lucio after going down 1-0 on a control point. Yup, that didn’t help much and we were now down 2-0. One of my friends (usually our shot caller) tells me to go D.Va. In my mind I’m like oh boy here we go, as I still hadn’t fully adjusted to the nerf. Well it is safe to say, that game was vintage animated D.Va play. Being down 2-0 you go into a game thinking, ah we’re probably going to lose, but here is one last effort. Then it was 2-1, ok we got one lets see what happens. Then it was 2-2. You could tell we were all like, “alright let’s do this.” We ended up winning the game in a 3-0 comeback, however most importantly I finally got my confidence back playing D.Va in competitive.
You have to realize, this was a character I’d invested over 100hrs of playtime with. I was extremely happy I proved to myself I could readjust and still play her at a competitive level. You can clearly hear my friend and I screaming “What Nerf?!” at the end of the game. 😀 That game was the boost I needed just in time to make one more run at Diamond sitting in the 2700s.
Now I won’t go into full detail on this because I already wrote a post on it. If you’d like to read exactly how it happened this is the post (https://animatedit.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/pressure-makes-diamonds/). During a random night of Overwatch we started winning which had me edging closer and closer to Diamond. What seemed like my reach goal was now within obtainable reach. Sitting at 2967SR I thought if we win, I think it’ll be enough. I locked in Mercy, we won the match, and I saw the SR number stop just at 3000SR! Finally, I was Diamond! Now the goal was to stay in Diamond for as long as I could.
Pressure-less Gameplay:
You know surprisingly, once I hit Diamond, I never dropped out. Granted my highest was only 3075SR so I was still considered low Diamond. However, my attitude changed a lot once I hit Diamond. No longer was the pressure on every single match. I was actually going into games having a good time, making some small placed jokes here and there. If you want to see the comparison watch the D.Va video from earlier in this post then watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpEwO7WFSio&t=5s). YOU CAN CLEARLY HEAR THE DIFFERENCE. I decided soon afterward to make a smurf account to practice other heroes. I’ll talk more about that in my Season 4 Preview post because this is getting a bit lengthy!
“As you reach your goals, set new ones. This is how you grow.”:
Overall I had a very successful Season 3. Although my goals changed quite a bit, my main goal and reach goal were made. Stay in Platinum once I get back in Platinum. Hit Diamond if possible. Like I said in my Season 2 review, Season 2 was rough for us. But it was a much needed learning curve we needed going into Season 3. It showed quite a bit. At the end of Season 2 we had 1-Diamond, 2-Platinum, and 3-Gold ranks. At the end of Season 3 we finished with 1-Masters, 2-Diamonds, 3-Platnium ranks. I’m super excited with how Season 4 went. That being said, there is a lot to be proved in Season 4. 🙂
That’s all for this sketch! Season 4 Preview is next followed by the Top 10 Anime males! Stay tuned!
-Animated
animated 