You know, I decided to try this year’s challenge missions for “Junkenstein’s Revenge” and I’ve been doing very well so far: challenging missions but really satisfying to accomplish, even with randoms. UNTIL “Shocking Surprise”; this challenge is broken.
My gigantic issue is that the 2-3 Shocking Tires spawn from the bosses defeated. This is so absurd, because most of them move themselves, and often get close to the Gate, so that when they are defeated, the Shock-Tires spawn practically next to the Gate, making virtually impossible to destroy them on time. And yeah, I know there are actual strategies, like drawing the bosses away from the gate, Molt Core near the boss the moment is is defeated, but serve more as desperate workarounds for a broken mission design. Which makes the eventual victory to “Surprising Shock” unworthy to be pursued as is, given also the tiny rewards, just another loot box (if only there were 3 or more) and a spray figure.
What I strongly suggest doing instead is making the 2-3 Shock-Tires spawn from the 3 exits the “usual” Shock-Tires spawn, even if the usual Shock-Tires spawn at the same time. Meaning the very moment a boss is defeated, they would spawn from the usual spawn points.
Not to mention the premise of this challenge is liar: it insinuates the Shock-Tires randomly spawn from any enemies when in reality all extra Shock-Tires spawn from every defeated Zombardier and every boss. What about making their spawning actually random, huh?!
Nonetheless, you had the right idea, but a poor execution. I am ashamed of your testers and disappointed with your mission designers.
It’s really not that hard to kill the tires even if a Hog or Reaper dies close to the door.
Helix Rocket and Biotic Grenade are your trusty tools
Making the tires spawn from the doors would make the challenge much easier and I am glad that at least one of the 6 challenges was so hard that I didn’t finish it on the first try and actually had to come up with a rough game plan to beat it.
I read all these posts about crazy difficult this was, and while I wont say I’m disappointed, I will say misled. Don’t get me wrong this was a tough challenge, but it totally doable. Heck I got it in one try, by going Torb, and played a little conservatively. in traditional junketstein, torb can make and use 3 -4 ults before the 1st boss spawns, but that’s using them on CD. with this mode, don’t. Use them when you’ve a few of the Zombardiers about to pop, and coat a wide swath of ground with Molten Core, to finish them off, and basically melt the tires before they can really do anything. Remember Zomboardiers rarely move forward, past the 1/2 point of a map, meaning you don’t have to kill them ASAP if you’ve a good healer, and players don’t stand in the same spot 100%. Move from their mortar fire. Bosses… SAVE THE MOLTEN CORE for their near death, don’t use it as they spawn. when the boss is about 1/4 HP +/- then spray your ult starting at the boss and going towards the door. This will all but guarantee instant death for all 3 tires. Try your best to keep the bosses Away from the door so the tires have a travel time, instead of spawning on it.
Well, since you were respectful in your disagreement (something very rare too see around here too), I’ll do the same to you.
Look, I really disagree with your “the others a ‘very easy’”. Definitely not. I believe you think this way because you are presumably very good or more playing Overwatch, like, playing this for several years, very high level, veteran on Competitive Mode… in other other, an Expert. Definitely not my case, I only play on Quick Play and Arcade, as I’m not big on PvP. My point is that the previous 5 challenges looked “very easy” to you because you are too good for them, not because the challenges themselves are “very easy”; I hope you realize there is a big difference between them.
A challenge does not need to be “utterly impossible for anyone to complete” to be “broken”. Obviously there will always be dozens (the experts or those very, very persistent) who complete it first and over time, more people to complete this particular challenge, of course it is eventually doable. It is still broken, the gap of difficulty compared to previous challenges is actually too high, and for a meager reward (I would be more lenient if at least the rewards were increased or improved, as I mentioned).
I want to mention too that I assure you plenty of those people have a crew or a fixed team with friends, friends, to help them, reliable people who properly communicate* with each other, which naturally makes a challenge like this easier to complete. Not my case, I am forced to rely on randoms and hoping they are skilled and smart enough to cooperate, I am not as privileged as you might be, and I hope you can see beyond your individual perspective after this.
This time the Overwatch team went too far in establishing the difficulty of this “Surprising Shock” challenge, and I’m sincerely complaining to them about it, and hoping they will do something to adjust it into something more doable.
Thanks for sharing your successful strategy, Acanarina! I will definitely try it.
So a challenge is unworthy to pursue because it is challenging?
You don’t loose anything by not playing it, besides one extra lootbox and a spray, as you mention yourself.
If it’s too difficult for you, don’t play it, but don’t take away difficulty for others who want a challenge.
You just have to distract the bosses away before killing them and 1 person (preferably a birg or a torb) standing and defending the gate while the rest 3 are killing the boss/bosses.
I posted this in another thread, but it’s relevant here and a strat that you could try:
I actually came here to say something similar, but more along the lines of good job to the dev team. This challenge actually made me get on coms with the team to get it done, whereas all the others could pretty much be done with any hero combination.
Since I play almost exclusively mystery hero, the mystery one wasn’t an issue getting swapped every minute.
The strat that my rando group ended up using to beat it was Torb, McCree, Soldier, and Zen.
Everyone held their ults until bosses came. When the boss came we all went middle bridge (mccree went further away). McCree popped high noon, torb sprayed the door area with lava and I used visor when I heard McCree’s voice line so that I could auto target boss tires / any other tires that were already on the way.
I think the biggest part was getting the bosses away from the door before killing them.
I dropped healing well for zen torb and myself, and zen popped his ult if we were taking too much damage. No one needs to move for Junk’s solo spawn.
So… pull bosses away. All focus blues as priority and their subsequent tires. When final wave comes burn junk as fast as possible because his spam damage is too much to try and heal through.
I really hate to break it to you but you’re the only reason you can’t beat this challenge. No, you don’t need a 4 stack of gms making callouts to beat this, I’ve solo queued this mission over a dozen times without caring about communication and only lost a few times when I don’t play well enough, all the other matches I simply focus on myself and win easily even though I’m a very low rank in comp
Plus, if the rewards really are as meager as you say why not just pass it up? Nobody’s forcing you to beat it
it is 2 tires and it isn’t hard to kill bosses away from door, are grp had a brig going ham on bosses with a zen discord orb on wheel is to strong not to mention zen heal orb with brig heal she for the most part wont die.
Now i want to go play it again even though i beat it, I like mystery swap the best tho.
You cannot solo carry this mode, out of here with that nonsense. It requires at least two competent players, I would argue 3. But whatever, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were on Torb duty which has the most impact.
1 competent player with 3 randoms of pretty much any level should be enough.
For the people that do struggle, here’s a few things that might help.
Aggro Mechanics:
The bosses generally target the closest player in LoS*
(Junkrat targets randomly and mercy just follows her heal-target)
Use this knowledge to control who has aggro and move the bosses to where you want the fight to take place
AI Behavior
Usually standing completely still, will have the bosses do the same (with the occasional sidestep)
moving in a straight line away from them also makes their movement a lot more predictable as they’ll follow you in a straight line.
Use this knowledge to either tank (using sustain ults or good movement) or kite to make it easier for every1 to hit them.
Against hog, if you can make sure you are the closest player, you can tank him like this for an easy kill: https://youtu.be/VkjrEFQ7xDA
(further explanation of how it works in the description of the video)
There’s also a few spots on the ledge you can stand at to make the summoner stand completely still.
I use one of them here: https://youtu.be/G6S7c4DY2wU?t=321
Minion Management
Some ults like Molten core, Dragonstrike, or Visor are great at clearing minions, which can allow the rest to focus on other tasks.
When it comes to rip-tires, since we know they will spawn directly on Zombardier and boss kills, you can easily shoot something like Helix for a quick AOE burst and simply spam fire them as soon as they spawn.
Killing bosses inside Molten Core will easily destroy the tires as well.
You can also use Molten Core in front of the gate to work as an extra safety net if needed.
In the last fight, killing the Junkrat fast relieves a lot of pressure on every1 as they won’t have to constantly dodge nades while kiting the hog around.
After Junkrat is dead, you simply make sure to keep the zomnics clear and you’ll have all the time in the world to kill mercy and hog.
Should people start dying, simply move to the high-ground and kite around to stay alive until people can respawn.
I did it my first try. I think the rest of my team had been working it for awhile, and we definitely ended 1-2 tires from a loss, but we all focused down the tires when spawned them, worked well together, and cleared. We weren’t even on comms or anything.
