Video game design employment outlook

Clip Show 31 Gel

Clip Show 31 Gel

I strongly feel that this is not my best clip show.  My Tracer work has gotten odd, lately.  I think better, actually, but that better doesnt translate to more exciting footage.  Specifically, Im getting kind of amazing at one-V-oneing almost anyone I come across, racking up big kill streaks - but those kills dont lend themselves to a series of quick, oh-my-god-that-just-happened cuts.  Instead, my Tracer game is kind of more reliably consistent - Im doing a better job staying alive and getting work done, but that means taking less risks and playing smarter.  ...until I throw my pulse bomb at a deflecting Genji and eat my own ult.

Also Ive been wanting to use a song from my high school days for a while, so Collective Souls Gel - which was very popular, in Canada, when I was like fifteen or sixteen - will do.  But to begin,


0:00 - 0:19 : Kill the Mercy first, you morons!  Kill their Mercy!  Oh fuck, fine, Ill do it...



0:19 - 0:45 : This Pharah was doing an excellent job of owning my team on Ilios, so I made it a point to look up whenever Id cleaned out their supports.  This one was so close I kinda had to freeze, for a moment, when it happened, to let the Pharah know I was well aware of how ridiculously lucky I was to win that one.


0:45 - 1:03 : A beautiful first engagement on round 2 of a Lijiang match, Im able to wipe half the enemy team before the control point unlocks with some fancy footwork, and a willingness to look up at Pharah (whos had quite a resurgence since they buffed her hover).   Youll notice towards the end, I look up, shes right above my reticle, but I dont aim higher.  Thats because I cant aim higher, as I have reached the limits of how high you can look on PS4.  I had to wait for her to descend before I could finish her lol.

1:03 - 1:24 : Its way too easy to forget to prioritize Mercy.  I mean, you shoot at whatevers in front of you - which is any variety of foe, when youre zipping through the level a mile a minute on Tracer - but it always burns when I take out a DPS or two and just as I turn my attention to their Mercy, she pops her rez.  Oh well.  Least I got er.  And the ulting McCree.  And Hog.  I mean, all things considered it worked out pretty good.

1:24 - 1:34 : A decent PotG - that Widow was on my ass for the rest of the match, which I take as a compliment - and you cant fault the Symmetra for coming into that tiny room with Rein and I - that kind of encounter is where she does her best work.  None of them made bad choices, but... well, its a decent PotG.


1:34 - 1:38 : Felt awesome.

1:38 - 1:48 : Ohhh Junkrat was so peeved I pulse bombed him that he sent his Riptire after me, putting it in a perfect position for our Pharah to (almost) take it out while their Zarya turns her attention to me, and gets killed for her trouble.  Very nice.

1:48 - 1:53 : Felt awesome.


1:53 - 2:07 : This is the climax of about twenty seconds of blinking around that point, trying to pin down their Mercy while their Winston did everything in his power to keep me off her.  Then, I ran for a health pack, deeked back to evade their soldier and Mercy walks backwards, right into me.  Beautiful.  I mean, wiffing my pulse bomb is very un-beautiful, but whatever - got the Mercy, got on point, contributed to every kill - solid work.

2:07 - 2:25 : Similarly, I only get a little scratch in on most of these kills.  The Soldier ducks behind the choke to heal up, but getting the right angle at the right moment is what Tracers best at.  Then I get like 26% of Zen and the killing blow, 24% of Sombra and the killing blow (poor Sombra - she just ran into a pair of firing pistols), a little bit of D.Vas mech and actually most of Sym!  Coulda been worse - and a really good first teamfight before the point unlocks.


2:25 - 2:40 :  There are a bunch of little secrets for dealing with Roadhog, as hes essentially a Tracer counter with that fucking hook of his (a successful hook on me is a death sentence, as a general rule - dont ask me what happened on the Anubis clip at 1:03).  Its very rare to solo a Roadhog without the benefit of my pulse bomb, because the pulse bomb is the answer to his self-heal.  That being said, this is how you kill a Roadhog on Tracer:

You dodge the hook by blinking a second or two before you think you need to.  If you blink when you already see him winding up to throw, its usually too late.  (Because you cant wait to see the wind up animation, you pretty much have to anticipate what hell do before he does it.  Its easier than it sounds!)  Then, lay down fire from mid-range, which is kind of a blind spot for him - his primary fire is devastating at point-blank range, but at even four yards itll barely scratch you.  His alt fire does no damage until it hits 9 yards, and explodes like a flak cannon - it can one-shot me if the range is perfect - but in that sweet spot, between those two effective ranges, I can lay down big damage on him and he cant touch me unless he lands the hook.

When he heals, you have two options.  You can use the fact that hes frozen in place to land a clip on him (only a single clip, never more), and can often turn it into a clip of headshots if hes pointed in the right direction.  Or, if you estimate he had less than 100 HP when he pops his heal, your pulse bomb will one-shot him (Take a Breather heals 300HP, Pulse Bomb does 400 damage).  If he has over 100 health when he heals, you can pulse bomb him, blink out of the bombs range and put another clip into him for the killing blow.

The last important thing to remember is that the cooldown on his hook is only six seconds - so if youre trying to kill him without the pulse bomb, youll have to dodge it twice.

Again, its very rare to solo a Roadhog without my pulse bomb - but Im conscious of that handicap, and I wanted to take this one down without that crutch.  This was on the tail end of the team fight that began this match, and by the end of our encounter (dodged both hooks!), he was doing his best to run away from me.

For the rest of the match, whenever he saw me, he would freak the fuck out and taking advantage of his mistakes made for some pretty easy kills.

It was awesome.  Counter this, Roadhog.


2:40 - 2:52 : This is just a perfect shoot, blink, turn, shoot Soldier takedown.  And taking down a Soldier always feels good, when youre playin a squishy.

2:52 - 2:55 : Im doing pretty shitty at sticking my pulse bombs lately, so this was very satisfying.

2:55 - 3:00 : I really should be more wary of Reapers.  Why did I get that close to him for the kill?  He coulda one-shot me from that range.

3:00 - 3:10 : It feels good, when the enemy team pulls out a Junkrat to counter your Tracer.  It feels extra good when you kill him.

3:10 - 3:21 : This was an energetic Tracer, but I dont think she had as much experience on the character as I do.  She learned some respect pretty quick, and gave me a pretty wide berth.


3:21 - 3:32 : Again, a very bland Play of the Game for yours truly.  A double kill based mostly off some contribution to kills our Pharah got with her ult, and a well-timed rewind gets me out of Junkrats danger zone... and into a perfect position to kill him.  Pretty sneaky indeed!


3:32 - 4:03 : And lo, bear witness to two Pharah Play of the Games that blow pretty much all of my Tracer PotGs out of the water by a country mile.  Like... it really throws what Tracer is (in)capable of into stark relief.  Outside of a pulse bomb combined with a Zarya ult, theres no way to achieve a team wipe in quick succession on Tracer, while Soldier, Reaper and Pharah can all just destroy an entire enemy team, if they pop their ult when theyre positioned well.

Good thing Tracers so damn fun or I might switch DPS mains.  Finally...


4:03 - 4:45 : Much like the Roadhog at 2:25, this Reinhardt learned a healthy respect for me early in the match.  Unlike the Roadhog, he kept his head about him, prioritized me as a target whenever he could and made damned sure he punished every mistake I made.  It was awesome, but him killing me a few times and me killing him a few more times arent as cool as this footage of me killing his Mercy, then killing him, then killing his Mercy again.  I basically tied up a third of the enemy team for the first quarter of this round.

But this Rein was so much fun to fight against and made me work so damned hard for it after our introduction, here, I had to send him (or her) a message.


Aw!  See, that makes me feel good.  Thanks, Tenryu!