Overwatch Torbjörn

[Vlad 411]

This thread is for comments about our Torbjörn guide for Overwatch.

[demonardvark 556]

The attack verses defense viability section. I feel some paragraphs might be better moved around. There is a snipit of it that specifically talks about placing the turrets on the payload. Then there are a few paragraphs about why turrets are hard to use in attack mode. Then it goes back to talking about placing turrets on payloads being a dangerous choice. Should not that paragraph be moved higher and placed in the payload section? So (sadly this will be big XD)

In our opinion, Torbjörn is very weak on Attack, particularly on Point Capture maps, where we recommend never choosing him. On Payload maps, attacking with Torbjörn is also problematic, unless the player is very skilled, and Torbjörn has the support of a coordinated team. Indeed, for him to viably work when attacking on Payload maps, the following must be true.

Your team should have a highly mobile line-up capable of flanking the other team and creating space for Torbjörn.

You have time to set up a turret on the Payload.

The enemy team should have heroes that prefer to skirmish rather than to execute full-on team fights.

In such a situation, a Torbjörn turret placed on the Payload can go a long way, especially when Torbjörn receives support from a hero like Zenyatta.

Aside from this situation, which requires a good deal of coordination (unlikely to be found at most levels of public matchmaking), Torbjörn is a poor choice even on Payload maps. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, you will have a very hard time making good use of your turret on Attack. Setting up your turret requires that you first place a level 1 turret, and then hit it with your hammer 5 times while it is at full health for it to upgrade to level 2 (and it needs to be level 2 in order to present a threat to the enemy). Setting up a turret in this way in a location that is actually in line of sight of your enemies is very difficult, however, as they will most likely start shooting at you and your turret as soon as they see you. Therefore, you are unlikely to even manage to upgrade it to level 2. If, on the other hand, you set it up out of defenders' line of sight, it will probably never see any action at all, since no one will push forward towards it.

Even if you do manage to set up your turret in a good location, as soon as your team makes some progress (by pushing the Payload forward, for example), the position will become irrelevant and you will need to re-place your turret, which brings all the above challenges with it again.

Do not be tricked by the seemingly appealing idea of placing your turret on the Payload, thus allowing it to move forward as your team advances. Placing your turret in such an exposed location will ensure that it is very quickly destroyed (even if you somehow managed to upgrade it to level 2).

changed to something more like 

In our opinion, Torbjörn is very weak on Attack, particularly on Point Capture maps, where we recommend never choosing him. On Payload maps, attacking with Torbjörn is also problematic, unless the player is very skilled, and Torbjörn has the support of a coordinated team. Indeed, for him to viably work when attacking on Payload maps, the following must be true.

Your team should have a highly mobile line-up capable of flanking the other team and creating space for Torbjörn.

You have time to set up a turret on the Payload.

The enemy team should have heroes that prefer to skirmish rather than to execute full-on team fights.

In such a situation, a Torbjörn turret placed on the Payload can go a long way, especially when Torbjörn receives support from a hero like Zenyatta.

Aside from this situation, which requires a good deal of coordination (unlikely to be found at most levels of public matchmaking), Do not be tricked by the seemingly appealing idea of placing your turret on the Payload, thus allowing it to move forward as your team advances. Placing your turret in such an exposed location will ensure that it is very quickly destroyed (even if you somehow managed to upgrade it to level 2).Torbjörn is a poor choice even on Payload maps. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, you will have a very hard time making good use of your turret on Attack. Setting up your turret requires that you first place a level 1 turret, and then hit it with your hammer 5 times while it is at full health for it to upgrade to level 2 (and it needs to be level 2 in order to present a threat to the enemy). Setting up a turret in this way in a location that is actually in line of sight of your enemies is very difficult, however, as they will most likely start shooting at you and your turret as soon as they see you. Therefore, you are unlikely to even manage to upgrade it to level 2. If, on the other hand, you set it up out of defenders' line of sight, it will probably never see any action at all, since no one will push forward towards it.

Even if you do manage to set up your turret in a good location, as soon as your team makes some progress (by pushing the Payload forward, for example), the position will become irrelevant and you will need to re-place your turret, which brings all the above challenges with it again.

its a small difference but I think it flows a little better and keep like ideas together. Also, in some ways though it seems to contradict itself? It says that it can work but then the highlighted paragraph denoted that it can't.  Let me know what you think. (if you don't like the idea or i just sound stupid we can just delete this post XD)

[Vlad 411]

On June 2, 2016 at 1:32 PM, demonardvark said:

The attack verses defense viability section. I feel some paragraphs might be better moved around. There is a snipit of it that specifically talks about placing the turrets on the payload. Then there are a few paragraphs about why turrets are hard to use in attack mode. Then it goes back to talking about placing turrets on payloads being a dangerous choice. Should not that paragraph be moved higher and placed in the payload section? So (sadly this will be big XD)

In our opinion, Torbjörn is very weak on Attack, particularly on Point Capture maps, where we recommend never choosing him. On Payload maps, attacking with Torbjörn is also problematic, unless the player is very skilled, and Torbjörn has the support of a coordinated team. Indeed, for him to viably work when attacking on Payload maps, the following must be true.

Your team should have a highly mobile line-up capable of flanking the other team and creating space for Torbjörn.

You have time to set up a turret on the Payload.

The enemy team should have heroes that prefer to skirmish rather than to execute full-on team fights.

In such a situation, a Torbjörn turret placed on the Payload can go a long way, especially when Torbjörn receives support from a hero like Zenyatta.

Aside from this situation, which requires a good deal of coordination (unlikely to be found at most levels of public matchmaking), Torbjörn is a poor choice even on Payload maps. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, you will have a very hard time making good use of your turret on Attack. Setting up your turret requires that you first place a level 1 turret, and then hit it with your hammer 5 times while it is at full health for it to upgrade to level 2 (and it needs to be level 2 in order to present a threat to the enemy). Setting up a turret in this way in a location that is actually in line of sight of your enemies is very difficult, however, as they will most likely start shooting at you and your turret as soon as they see you. Therefore, you are unlikely to even manage to upgrade it to level 2. If, on the other hand, you set it up out of defenders' line of sight, it will probably never see any action at all, since no one will push forward towards it.

Even if you do manage to set up your turret in a good location, as soon as your team makes some progress (by pushing the Payload forward, for example), the position will become irrelevant and you will need to re-place your turret, which brings all the above challenges with it again.

Do not be tricked by the seemingly appealing idea of placing your turret on the Payload, thus allowing it to move forward as your team advances. Placing your turret in such an exposed location will ensure that it is very quickly destroyed (even if you somehow managed to upgrade it to level 2).

changed to something more like 

In our opinion, Torbjörn is very weak on Attack, particularly on Point Capture maps, where we recommend never choosing him. On Payload maps, attacking with Torbjörn is also problematic, unless the player is very skilled, and Torbjörn has the support of a coordinated team. Indeed, for him to viably work when attacking on Payload maps, the following must be true.

Your team should have a highly mobile line-up capable of flanking the other team and creating space for Torbjörn.

You have time to set up a turret on the Payload.

The enemy team should have heroes that prefer to skirmish rather than to execute full-on team fights.

In such a situation, a Torbjörn turret placed on the Payload can go a long way, especially when Torbjörn receives support from a hero like Zenyatta.

Aside from this situation, which requires a good deal of coordination (unlikely to be found at most levels of public matchmaking), Do not be tricked by the seemingly appealing idea of placing your turret on the Payload, thus allowing it to move forward as your team advances. Placing your turret in such an exposed location will ensure that it is very quickly destroyed (even if you somehow managed to upgrade it to level 2).Torbjörn is a poor choice even on Payload maps. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, you will have a very hard time making good use of your turret on Attack. Setting up your turret requires that you first place a level 1 turret, and then hit it with your hammer 5 times while it is at full health for it to upgrade to level 2 (and it needs to be level 2 in order to present a threat to the enemy). Setting up a turret in this way in a location that is actually in line of sight of your enemies is very difficult, however, as they will most likely start shooting at you and your turret as soon as they see you. Therefore, you are unlikely to even manage to upgrade it to level 2. If, on the other hand, you set it up out of defenders' line of sight, it will probably never see any action at all, since no one will push forward towards it.

Even if you do manage to set up your turret in a good location, as soon as your team makes some progress (by pushing the Payload forward, for example), the position will become irrelevant and you will need to re-place your turret, which brings all the above challenges with it again.

its a small difference but I think it flows a little better and keep like ideas together. Also, in some ways though it seems to contradict itself? It says that it can work but then the highlighted paragraph denoted that it can't.  Let me know what you think. (if you don't like the idea or i just sound stupid we can just delete this post XD)

Thank you very much for this suggestion. I wasn't very happy with the way the section ended up (obviously, it made sense initially, but then received several reworks), but your suggestion helped a lot.

[Guest skyping with ur dad]

Molten Core does NOT heal the turret up to maximum. 

It just adds health for the duration.

[Valks 2,375]

6 minutes ago, Guest skyping with ur dad said:

Molten Core does NOT heal the turret up to maximum. 

It just adds health for the duration.

I just tested this in-game, as follows:

• My turret was at 150/300 HP.
• I activated Molten Core.
• It went up to 800/800.

I was not hammering the turret, repairing it, anything. I only activated my ultimate. There is definitely a heal involved.

[demonardvark 556]

14 minutes ago, Blainie said:

I just tested this in-game, as follows:

• My turret was at 150/300 HP.
• I activated Molten Core.
• It went up to 800/800.

I was not hammering the turret, repairing it, anything. I only activated my ultimate. There is definitely a heal involved.

I can confirm this is accurate

[Guest Kanakotka]

I'm this fellow, but i won't make an account for a single post -> http://masteroverwatch.com/profile/pc/eu/Kanakotka-1437/heroes/14

Most of those games are Torbjörn on attack, as i play him almost exclusively on attack.

First off, one thing: Molten core does not fully heal the turret, and i've witnessed this ever so many times. For instance, my turret has been at 66 health, and when i pop the ulti, it was on 666 health. I assume it adds 550 health and heals for 50, but i'm not a 100% on that. I can also confirm that the turret was not being fired upon at that moment, not that there is a combination of attacks that easily explains away a very specific 154 damage, and none after.

 

Also, i'd like to address your painfully wrong section in 3.1.1

Whether or not it is your opinion that Torby is weak on attack doesn't make that true, especially not so for capture points, it just takes skill and understanding of where his strengths lie, and how and where that turret is most effective. Take Lijiang Tower for instance, all three points of the maps have a number of highly effective turret placement spots. Torbjörn does not need a co-ordinated offense on the point to be effective, he needs a distraction. A push on the point will do fine, as will an ult that cannot really be ignored by the enemy team (Mei, Soldier, Winston et.c.). A turret in the right place makes a world of difference, whether or not that turret is alive for a long time.

While it is true that Torby can be shut down in such a situation, it often only happens when your team is being crushed down anyway. In most cases when playing Torbjörn on offense, i pull gold objective kills, eliminations and damage, though it is highly dependant on team compositions. A good Pharah or Hanzo can outdamage a busybodied assault Torby.

Even discussing placing the turret on the payload as a viable tactic is absolutely ridiculous. It is the worst possible choice, and only works if your team is stomping the other team to the curb anyway. It's viable in the exact same situation that it is viable for a Bastion to setup on the payload, and playing Torby on attack has very similar requirements. A turret in an unexpected location is practically the sneakier equivalent of a Bastion, even if the damage put out by it is leagues apart from what Bastion can do.

Torby, as all builders in similar games are very map dependant. For instance, he has little place in Egypt, as while he can be effective on the first point, the design of the second point makes setting up a challenge, even with the fast capability of setup using his ult speedboost.

However, he works absolute wonders in King's Row, Dorado and Gibraltar as an offensive powerhouse. His existence basically shuts down any hope of Genji getting to the backline of your team, while notably suppressing sideline characters such as McCree, Reaper and Tracer that would often circle around back.

Torbjörn can also make the push happen. His ultimate is not something to be ignored, and allowing him to set up in King's Row A point or the second checkpoint in Dorado basically guarantees victory over the objective, as he sets up very swiftly when the ultimate is triggered.

[Vlad 411]

23 hours ago, Guest Kanakotka said:

I'm this fellow, but i won't make an account for a single post -> http://masteroverwatch.com/profile/pc/eu/Kanakotka-1437/heroes/14

Most of those games are Torbjörn on attack, as i play him almost exclusively on attack.

First off, one thing: Molten core does not fully heal the turret, and i've witnessed this ever so many times. For instance, my turret has been at 66 health, and when i pop the ulti, it was on 666 health. I assume it adds 550 health and heals for 50, but i'm not a 100% on that. I can also confirm that the turret was not being fired upon at that moment, not that there is a combination of attacks that easily explains away a very specific 154 damage, and none after.

 

Also, i'd like to address your painfully wrong section in 3.1.1

Whether or not it is your opinion that Torby is weak on attack doesn't make that true, especially not so for capture points, it just takes skill and understanding of where his strengths lie, and how and where that turret is most effective. Take Lijiang Tower for instance, all three points of the maps have a number of highly effective turret placement spots. Torbjörn does not need a co-ordinated offense on the point to be effective, he needs a distraction. A push on the point will do fine, as will an ult that cannot really be ignored by the enemy team (Mei, Soldier, Winston et.c.). A turret in the right place makes a world of difference, whether or not that turret is alive for a long time.

While it is true that Torby can be shut down in such a situation, it often only happens when your team is being crushed down anyway. In most cases when playing Torbjörn on offense, i pull gold objective kills, eliminations and damage, though it is highly dependant on team compositions. A good Pharah or Hanzo can outdamage a busybodied assault Torby.

Even discussing placing the turret on the payload as a viable tactic is absolutely ridiculous. It is the worst possible choice, and only works if your team is stomping the other team to the curb anyway. It's viable in the exact same situation that it is viable for a Bastion to setup on the payload, and playing Torby on attack has very similar requirements. A turret in an unexpected location is practically the sneakier equivalent of a Bastion, even if the damage put out by it is leagues apart from what Bastion can do.

Torby, as all builders in similar games are very map dependant. For instance, he has little place in Egypt, as while he can be effective on the first point, the design of the second point makes setting up a challenge, even with the fast capability of setup using his ult speedboost.

However, he works absolute wonders in King's Row, Dorado and Gibraltar as an offensive powerhouse. His existence basically shuts down any hope of Genji getting to the backline of your team, while notably suppressing sideline characters such as McCree, Reaper and Tracer that would often circle around back.

Torbjörn can also make the push happen. His ultimate is not something to be ignored, and allowing him to set up in King's Row A point or the second checkpoint in Dorado basically guarantees victory over the objective, as he sets up very swiftly when the ultimate is triggered.

Hey!

Thanks for your post. I appreciate the detailed feedback that you offered.

With regards to Molten Core healing the turret, I'm updating the guide right now.

However, with the viability of Torbjorn on attack, I am sorry to say that I'm simply not convinced. I've played him a fair amount (though not as much as you, at least not since Overwatch launched), and I can say that my findings are just not the same as yours. I'd love it if you could clarify some of your points, perhaps, and ideally provide some videos of your successes so I can understand what is happening. Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to be able to remove that part of the guide and instead just add offensive Torbjorn strategies.

Regarding Control maps, you mention a number of "highly effective" spots. Can you give some examples of these? I'm legitimately curious. Of course Torbjorn can set up a turret if the other team is distracted, I don't think anyone can dispute that. But so what? What do you really achieve in doing this? How often does your turret placement (and your own body) end up being as effective as you could have been by simply playing a different hero who could, of course, also have taken advantage of said distraction.

Don't get me wrong, I've gotten 4/5 gold medals as Torbjorn on Control maps, but let me tell you that in the majority of the cases that was either against a team that we were overrunning anyway, or during a game that resulted in a loss for my team. In almost every case, I felt largely useless throughout and somewhat of a liability to my team. I just can't get over how extremely tough it is to set up a turret and even upgrade it to level 2 against a team of competent enemies (when the point is being continuously contested, not when the other team is wiped), so he really feels like a winmore hero on Control maps for me.

As for playing him on attack on Payload maps, I only mentioned setting up on the Payload because it's what a lot of new players do, and as you say, it's bad. However, I've yet to see any examples of Torbjorn being an "offensive powerhouse" in all the games I've played (don't think I've lost to a team that was attacking with Torbjorn... ever?). Videos would once again be appreciated.

I also question your claim that Torbjorn shuts down Genji, Tracer, McCree or Reaper, since all of those heroes (except maybe Reaper) pretty much destroy your turret without breaking a sweat.

Please don't see my reply as a means to try to shut down your argument; as I said, I'd love to be convinced, but at the moment I'm not.

[Guest Kanakotka]

I'll shoot some videos next time i'm playing, though they won't be very high quality (720p at most) as i'm currently running a budget card. Attack torby is a strong, but rarely utilized tactic and probably stems me from doing similar things with TF2's engi.

Torbjörn has a lot of similarities with offensive Bastion play. It's a niche tactic, and i find a lot of players often question it. It does require a strongly bound together team that's capable of making a push, so basically you can substitute a flanker such as McCree for Torbjörn on an offensive team comp.

The thing about the turret is that it is 100% accurate, guaranteed damage. Even a level 1 turret will put guaranteed 28DPS downrange (double for level 2) as long as it is alive. If you're 100% accurate with Torbjörn's rivet gun (which is not going to happen even at semi-close distances) this is 140~180dps by comparison(with lengthy reloads), not count headshots or alt-fire. A lot of characters like Tracer, Genji and occasionally Reaper rely on people not having the reflexes capabilities of catching them on their hit-and-run dips to the frey, and the turret's presence makes hit-and-run tactics very punishable. It's a similar case with Pharah; while she's a threat to the turret, the turret is a guaranteed threat to her. It's giving her the awful choice of spending time focusing on the turret, or going for the intended targets.

On further notes, the turret is difficult to focus on when you are fighting other people, or forced to fire on them. Being in sight of a level 2 turret is almost Winston levels of damage(not counting jump pack), without the pause of reloading, or a large hairy scientist to fire upon.

The 28-56DPS 100% accurate from the turret coupled with Torbjörn's own make him one of the most damaging characters out there. He is, however, not in any way someone who can survive against most characters. Most Roadhogs i can gib with a pair of well placed headshots, and the same holds true for the vast majority of Reinhardts and Winstons, but any snipers, soldiers, junkrats and Pharahs in the fray are the largest threats by far.

You shouldn't discount the damage of a level 1 turret in a pinch either. Given that Torbjörn can instantly deploy it (including quickly spinning around and placing it behind his big body) and it needs no babysitting or hammer strikes to get its 150 health form up. Most fights against Tracers i've won by placing down the turret, giving them the uncomfortable choice of shooting the turret, or the Torbjörn himself. The turret can also block significant damage portion of McCree's fan the hammer, and other such attacks if you have the reactions to pull manouvers like that off. On defense, neither of these can really be used viably, as your level 2 turret should be up at all times.

Don't get me wrong though, placing the turret is not easy on offense, and you will lose a lot of the turrets you try and place, but the 8 second cooldown gives you repeated attempts within a short window of time. In Payload maps, you can find coverspots behind the payload in most cases, usually most successful spots are at any point the payload is entering a bend in its track, discounting the multitude of flanking or "blanket coverage" locations i can think of.

Reaper can shut down an exposed turret very quickly, but Genji, for instance, will take a lot of effort to manage to topple a turret, as unless he gets firing aid from your own team with a deflect, he has to focus on the turret for a long time to get it down. Again, with Tracer, McCree, Genji and Reaper the turret is giving them a highly uncomfortable choice of dealing with the turret, exposing their flanking attack which was intended as a surprise attack, or trying to attack the team with the turret bearing down on them.

As a person with loads of hours of Genji in the closed and open beta, i can, but i really do not want to deal with enemy turrets. Dealing with them leaves me highly exposed, it takes a long time, and i am guaranteed to hurt myself considerably in the process. After shutting down a level 2 turret and fetching health, it's more likely than not the turret has been fully replaced, unless the Torbjörn guarding it was dumb enough to get killed.

[Guest Kanakotka]

I didn't have the chance to play Lijiang, but in my somewhat limited time, i played a few rounds and recorded a couple of them.

These will be completely raw, relatively poor quality video to keep my FPS up, commentary of what and why in annotations.

I had to wait for a long time for the Gibraltar match, so it probably found a much lower level/mmr match that i usually get, based on how people played in that, but it still outlines some of the inner workings of attacking with Torby. Neither of the 2 are in any way example cases, and i do a lot of dumb mistakes in both.

Also the jittery mouse is probably caused by the low fps of the recording coupled with the high sensitivity of my mouse.

 

[Guest HeartBass]

Hello,

I'm not sure if you already noticed but, if you place your turret on a healing spot, the healing spot will heal the turret if the turret don't have full life and if the healing spot cooldown is reset :O

Not sure if it's important, but i assume this information can be useful :O

[Damien 1,514]

1 hour ago, Guest HeartBass said:

Hello,

I'm not sure if you already noticed but, if you place your turret on a healing spot, the healing spot will heal the turret if the turret don't have full life and if the healing spot cooldown is reset :O

Not sure if it's important, but i assume this information can be useful :O

Do you mean like the healing from Soldier: 76?

[Orthios 271]

4 hours ago, Damien said:

Do you mean like the healing from Soldier: 76?

I think he means the health packs.  If you place your turret on a health pack spot it will consume it when it gets damaged or when the pack respawns if it's damaged.

[Guest Kanakotka]

8 hours ago, Orthios said:

I think he means the health packs.  If you place your turret on a health pack spot it will consume it when it gets damaged or when the pack respawns if it's damaged.

I can confirm this to be true. It does not work with armor packs (it'd probably be broken if it did), or with Soldier's or Lucio's healing fields. I think it's some sort of an oversight, just like Torby being able to gather armor when he's dead (which will be fixed next patch).

[Damien 1,514]

Oh, that's super nice!

[Guest Passive scrap]

Torbjörn also generates scrap at a certain rate passively without picking up scrap. I didn't find this anywhere in the guide and should probably be added to his passive: Scrap Collector.

[Shine 144]

On 2/12/2017 at 11:31 PM, Guest Passive scrap said:

Torbjörn also generates scrap at a certain rate passively without picking up scrap. I didn't find this anywhere in the guide and should probably be added to his passive: Scrap Collector.

 

Torbjorn has gone through a change in that regard objectively recently. He used to only be able to collect scrap from fallen enemies while now it does generate over time. This is simply a matter of the guide being a bit outdated. Rest assured in the knowledge that these sorts of things will get fixed over time.