Playstyle Analysis: Mechanics and Strategy on King's Row

This article series will cover a very important example of two different approaches to interpreting Overwatch: an FPS where mechanical skill dominates and a MOBA where positioning, timing, and strategy lead to victory.

LuxuryWatch Red characterize the MOBA approach, whereas Barcode is full of some Overwatch heavyweights like Mendokusaii and Clamp. This is a battle to see if mechanical skill can negate strategy or if brains can beat brawn in our beloved game.

The engagements are going to be analyzed to provide insight as to why a push succeeded or failed. This time we’ll be taking a look at King’s Row where LuxuryWatch Red attacks into Barcode’s defense. Youtube videos will be included for the reader's convenience at the start of each engagement discussed. Start and end times are provided as well so one may watch the indicated times and then read the analysis.

Team Compositions

LuxuryWatch Red

Barcode

Immediately we can see that LWR is going for a diving composition with the Winston, Genji, and Zenyatta picks. Nothing groundbreaking, except that with Mercy and Zenyatta on the enemy team dive comps don’t have the pick off strength they used to. With heavy sustain from Mercy and Zen, you’ll need more than a few divers to secure picks or have extreme target prioritization.

Barcode is going for a nonstandard composition consisting of a Roadhog and Mei. This alludes most likely to trying to get quick picks by walling off and splitting LWR, with Roadhog hooking a target and picking them off. It’s a great theoretical approach that requires two key pieces to remain alive: Roadhog and Mei. The Mercy and Zenyatta provide heavy sustain to the tanks and the idea is made clear: sustain long enough to get picks with the Roadhog and Mei combination.

First Point

First Engagement: 2:00 - 2:22

The first engagement of the map starts with the Winston diving and Mendo’s Mei immediately blocking off the rest of LWR.

The first death happens around 2:07 with Nano’s Genji falling to Clamp’s McCree. We can see around 2:03 when the ice wall goes up Nano dives the backline. The issue here is that AwesomeGuy isn’t with him attacking the same group. He’s still in the front with Pine attacking the enemy tanks and front line. Nano dies alone - as expected without any support. The ice wall blocking LOS means a harmony orb is unlikely to find him in time.

Mendokusaii’s devastating icicle catches Beom as we see his personal barrier get quickly destroyed and he is deleted around 2:08. I think Beom’s positioning here is a bit questionable as he is in the middle of the point and doesn’t have any cover. Without a Reinhardt, Zarya isn’t quite tanky enough to be out in the open at high level play by herself. The personal barrier can buy you a moment to get behind cover, but you always want to try and play around some cover or corners. This can let your shields regenerate in case your healers have been killed. The Winston barrier may have provided a false sense of security for Beom, but you can see from around 2:05-2:09 Beom takes two hits of heavy damage and doesn’t move towards cover after the first. We can see that Pine is in a great spot and is able to use the car as cover. If Beom hadn’t fallen early this fight could have gone differently.

The next kill happens when Steel is caught hopping around by Pine, who easily finishes Steel off with help from Starkie’s discord orb and quite a few of his teammates. This happens right as the Mei wall goes down around 2:09. I’m not sure why Steel is up ahead when we can see the iconic rectangle and LegitRC’s Mercy beam in the back by the Arch and the Hotel. In a sense, Steel runs distraction and Barcode hold through this push, but I feel as though trading 600HP of ult feed isnt worth it. Right clicks from behind Reinhardt’s shield or more hooks would have been much preferable.

With two crucial deaths and only one pick on the Hog, LWR decides to retreat. You can see from Pine’s positioning that retreating is something LWR is well practiced in. He uses the cover to escape from the car to the statue without dying. Unfortunately, with all of Barcode pushing up Mendo picks him off with an icicle as Pine peaks out from the statue. The retreat was important because it prevents further ultimate feed. We are used to engagements that end with one team fully wiped or a single person escaping with most of the NA and EU engagements. This prevention of ultimate feed certainly adds up over time.

Second Engagement: 2:40 - 3:28

The next engagement is stopped by some crucial hooks from Steel but panders out quite a bit. Each side is giving way until a resurrection from Barcode hard stops LWR.

At 2:41 AwesomeGuy jumps to the frontline with a Zarya barrier. However at 2:45, Steel lands a crucial hook onto Pine’s McCree. This already smells like defeat for this push with no significant damage being done to Barcode. The next hook lands on a half health Beom who is immediately destroyed. The crucial thing to note here though is that LWR immediately begins to back off as soon as Pine gets picked off. Unfortunately for LWR, with a Roadhog and a Mei it’s hard to disengage safely on King’s Row.

The third notable hook here lands on Nanohana who is just clearly out of position. There is no reason to be out and able to be poked when you can safely hide by the large health pack. Unfortunately, Steel uses the Left Click melee combination incorrectly after hooking Nanohana. You can see that he melee attacks Nanohana first and then shoots. However, the deflect is now up and Nanohana is drilling damage back into the tanks of Barcode. This is pretty important because Wonderfuls is up front trying to follow up. Steel begins to back off after he gets extremely lit, but it’s too late for Wonderfuls as he has soaked in a lot of damage. As Reinhardt, he has no defense to the Tesla Cannon from AwesomeGuy who has jumped back in to help Nanohana.

It’s also important to note here that Pine has switched to Reaper most likely to deal with Steel. I am certain this is a reaction to Steel's crucial hooks. It might be somewhat of an overreaction but it makes sense. Barcode doesn’t have any divers or flankers. Reaper’s close range damage is a bit better against Barcode’s composition and King’s Row’s tight spaces. Clamp also has a Reinhardt shield to cover him to take safer shots, so the McCree vs McCree engagements are already unfavorable for Pine.

As LWR pushes in to reengage, Whole Hog catches out Pine and kills him at 3:11. This is interesting because I assume wraith form would prevent that from happening. From Nanohana’s POV you can see Beom has entered the engagement late and after Pine’s death. With the death of Wonderfuls previously, it was a 5v5 so it seemed like LWR could engage. I think that with spawn advantages, waiting for Beom would have been the right decision. The barrier and extra damage could have killed Steel in his Whole Hog or maybe given Pine a second of safety to activate Wraith form.

Nanohana around 3:14 finds LegitRC’s Mercy in the hotel and pulls DragonBlade to secure a kill on her. Slasher kills Arcane’s Lucio right before Nano and Starkie kill Barcode’s Mercy. Slasher has blown transcendance to save her, but was too late. Steel picks off Starkie’s Zenyatta and Clamp finishes off Nanohana to put a hard stop to LWR’s push.

In summary this push was the result of in-the-moment decisions by LWR which turned out badly. I believe that with LWR’s methodical approach, this engagement was quite messy and not well reasoned. If Beom was close behind, I think it would have been worth waiting just a bit to let him come back and then engage. The engagement was not a waste as Barcode blew Transcendance, Whole Hog, and Deadeye. Mei is not close to her ult at all. On LWR’s side both support ults will be up. A sound barrier engagement with transcendance reserved for the Earthshatter attack from Wonderfuls will give LWR a huge advantage. There is little downtime as LWR jumps right back in.

Third Engagement: 3:28 - 4:20

Pine kills Steel and then goes down to Mei’s icicle as LWR decides to engage. It looks like he is standing still and takes two shots to the head, so I’m not sure what happened there. Winston jumps in with Zarya barrier, catching Wonderfuls and Mendo out. Wonderfuls falls quickly as he is unable to back out, and Mei then dies as she’s off alone. However, LegitRC's resurrection comes in and AwesomeGuy falls to Clamp. Steel kills Arcane’s Lucio right before Nano kills Steel - Steel isn’t caught in the res. Graviton then is used to catch the resurrected Barcode team, but the Blizzard from Mei comes out. Starkie uses transcendance to protect his team. This is crucial and well done on Mendo’s part to prevent LWR from getting utility from the Graviton and, as a bonus, it brought out the transcendence. I don’t agree with Starkie's Zen ult whatsoever as it's basically used to cover LWR’s escape and Beom is still killed. Mendo actually goes full aggro and kills Starkie and Nanohana anyways to further emphasize the wasted ults on the side of LWR.

I think this is a clear example of when retreating doesn’t happen at the right time or in the right way. In this case, it would have been better to just die fighting on point and take the loss of the wasted graviton. Now slasher is at 65% for transcendence and Starkie used his to no benefit. The only saving grace at this point for LWR is a DragonBlade with sound barrier. This banks on Nanohana finishing out his ultimate charging before Slasher gets transcendence.

Last Engagement: 4:40 - 4:55

This is definitely the case at 4:41 for the final engagement, as Pine kills Clamp’s McCree and LWR uses sound barrier and DragonBlade with Slasher still sitting at 78% ultimate charge. While Barcode is distracted by the angry Japanese Pine follows up with a kill onto Steel. LegitRC goes down to Nanohana’s Genji and that seals the deal. Slasher finishes charging transcendence just a few moments too late, but he does finish off Nanohana before falling himself to Pine.

Streets Phase

First Engagement: 5:20-5:55

At this point, the steamrolling begins. The cart is pushed with 3 people on it, and the messy engagement from the side of Barcode begins. Reinhardt and Mei push up and Mei ultimate is used as Wonderfuls charges forward. This opens up the backline to AwesomeGuy, Nanohana, and Pine as they destroy Mercy who has res, CLAMP, and Steel falls as well. The push from Barcode was not coordinated at all. With both support ultimates from the side of Barcode, giving up a bit more ground to ensure a full regroup and favorable positioning for the Mei ultimate would have been crucial to stopping the payload’s progress. In a sense, they engaged too early for the Mei Ultimate to be effective. If they had engaged when the cart was in the narrow hallway, Steel could be behind them blocking escape routes and picking people off. Slasher falls first as Nanohana and Awesomeguy dive in, and both supports go down for Barcode and the fight is lost quickly after.

Second Engagement: 6:14-6:50

Something to highlight around 6:10-6:19 is a big mistake by Pine. He peeks out several times and gives away his position. If he had waited for intel instead of trying to scout himself, he may have been able to further steamroll the side of Barcode. As he is spotted Mei is able to icewall him away for the engagement by the checkpoint.

The only reason Barcode still fails to hold is due to sloppy positioning and clear lack of just knowing what to do. This is effectively a 4v6 in favor of Barcode with Pine walled off momentarily. The issue is three of Barcode turn to check for Pine coming out of the set of tunnels to the right, when they should have hard engaged on the four remaining members of LWR. The biggest problem is that BOTH of the DPS players and Roadhog were the three Barcode players that turned away. Slasher’s positioning way out in front lets him get picked by a combination of Nanohana and Starkie.

Wonderfuls has also gone down to Beom as he seems to have been the only one hard engaging on the remaining four as he should have been. LegitRC uses Res, but a Graviton Death Blossom combination seals Barcode’s fate with three more kills. Had Roadhog and Reaper been focusing on killing the 4 remaining members of LWR, Beom would have certainly perished. Steel attempts to salvage the situation with Whole Hog to push Pine’s Blossom away, but both transcendence and DragonBlade have been used to secure the point. Mendo delays long enough to charge his ult and throw it as he dies. He most definitely planned to switch off of Mei for the last portion of King’s Row. Simply just good juking and play from Mendo to charge his ultimate and zone LWR for just a few more seconds.

Underground/Factory Phase

First Engagement: 7:10-7:30

Looking at the ultimates for both sides we see that Barcode has absolutely nothing with Earthshatter being the closest ultimate. LWR has sound barrier up and a chance to close the map entirely. The previous engagement from Barcode managed to pull out LWR's Genji and Zenyatta ultimate. If had LWR saved them (which they probably should have saved dragon blade) then Barcode would be thoroughly at a disadvantage. It is, however, reasonable that LWR invested that many ultimates because it is always worth it to capture a point. It brings you closer spawns! Having to walk all the way to the next checkpoint for attackers is terrible because the defense has spawn distance advantage in most cases.

Pine immediately teleports onto high ground to deny Barcode free access. This is important to note because post-engagement LWR is doing whatever they can to secure favorable positioning for the next engagement. Pine does not have ultimate. Sometimes when Reapers don’t have ultimate you will see them idle around the payload after an engagement. LegitRC has also switched to a Lucio instead of Mercy. This is likely from having low ultimate charge and not getting enough value. With enemy flankers it can be difficult for Mercy players on a team that hasn’t been playing together long enough to quickly respond to protect her. AwesomeGuy goes to switch off to a DVA perhaps in a response to Mendo’s Reaper pick. This is an okay choice and gives LWR further high ground dominance and tons of damage negation potential in team fights.

We see LWR knows the engagement is coming as Wonderfuls pushes forward. Without a Reinhardt shield on LWR's side, Wonderfuls has a picnic with a huge Earthshatter. Very, very surprisingly he has to back off. We then see Pine and Nanohana close in from behind. Most likely, the DPS of LWR dropped onto the rest of Barcode and picked off Clamp. This led to them backing up at the same time Wonderfuls was continuing the engagement. This is clean execution from LWR and a lack of commitment and communication from Barcode. No one on Barcode has high ground control power besides Mendo’s Reaper, which likely led to Nanohana and Pine being undiscovered.

Steel also fudges a major hook onto Pine at 7:17 by shooting off in another direction after hooking Pine. Sound barrier is casted from LWR as they have a clear, map winning advantage now. Normally, Reapers are great against tanks. Roadhog just used his hook, so why didn’t Pine kill Steel? This is a key difference in approach for LWR. Pine goes straight for the backline and Slasher. He quickly peeks left to ensure Slasher has positioning himself quite alone and vulnerable, then easily picks him off. Beom finishes off LegitRC. With Slasher dead, Pine switches to Steel’s Roadhog and finishes him off. Had Slasher had ultimate it could have caused problems for LWR. This prioritization from Pine is very crucial.

Essentially, Roadhog without a Reinhardt or team support is just an ultimate battery against a healthy enemy team further protected by a sound barrier.

Second Engagement: 7:30 - 8:05

Pine teleports to block off the right side defenders spawn to allow the cart to get more push. He fights Mendo’s Tracer and Clamp’s McCree as AwesomeGuy goes for the left door. Steel has also switched onto Winston. A Lucio has now joined in the fight against Pine and Pine goes down to Clamp. Mendo has made his way into the backline and Barcode is pushing LWR back.

I think that the issue here was that LWR went to block doors way too early. Mendo went straight for the backline and LWR was sandwiched with the loss of their Reaper. DVA was blocking a spawn door and unable to block damage for the squishy part of LWR's team. The retreat from LWR was unsuccessful as they all fell and is another example of not knowing when to retreat and when to die fighting or suicide.

Retreating works depending on your positioning. If you try to run away when the walk back is as far as it is in this engagement from 7:30-8:00, you’re simply not going to make it. You retreat when you're at a disadvantage and the offense is going to be pushing up to hunt you. You end up feeding ultimate charge as youre focused on running. Therefore you usually aren't doing too much damage to get any ultimate charge yourself. In fact, there are 2 awesome suicide pits that LWR could have used instead. This prevents ultimate feed and also prevents staggered deaths. I think that LWR’s retreating tendency is a good start but is by no means polished in this match.

Last Engagement: 8:18 - 8:40

Coming into this last engagement, the clear answer is to use DragonBlade to bait out Slasher’s ultimate. Then, use a Graviton to finish things off with a Death Blossom combination. Awesomeguy is also back on Winston.

Essentially what happens is Barcode positions badly and LWR capitalizes. Steel is immediately killed by Pine which opens up Nanohana to use his DragonBlade to bait out the Zenyatta ultimate. Barcode gave up tons of ground to LWR and they should have been positioning where Wonderfuls is when Steel is picked. Instead they are way in the back and when Slasher uses ultimate he is unable to save Wonderfuls. Wonderfuls is by the payload and is killed by Pine and Awesomeguy. The important thing to note is the trust LWR has. Beom continues forward to throw his Graviton, ignoring the vulnerable Wonderfuls. Often times you see everyone on a team go for the focus kill instead of trusting their teammates to handle things. It just shows good coordination on LWR's part. As Wonderfuls dies we see the Zenyatta ultimate Aura come too late to save him. Starkie uses Zenyatta ultimate as well, seemingly after Mendo sticks him with the Pulse bomb. Unfortunately, Mendo dies to his own bomb. Pine wraith forms without need most likely due to the Pulse bomb audio cue. The Graviton trapped members of Barcode are cleaned up by Nanohana and AwesomeGuy anyways, so no Death Blossom combination was needed.

We see Steel, who was killed early in the last engagement, come out and hesitate. He then misses his jump and the cart reaches the end.

Conclusion

This match was characterized by mistakes from both sides. While LuxuryWatch Red would win pushes from coordination and clean execution, Barcode would win off of key plays from one of their members. We also see that LuxuryWatch Red is mostly good at disengaging, but it wasn't always cleanly done or the right decision. Barcode clearly shows conflicts of interests and a lack of coordination at several key points which cost them engagements. However, they would also turn things around with mechanical skill - characteristic of a relatively new team. The next analysis will be of LuxuryWatch's defense against Barcode's attack. LuxuryWatch continues to show coordination and execution prowess and Barcode shows moments of mechanical brilliance. The answer to which approach is superior - MOBA or FPS - will be clear in the next issue.

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