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Blizzards newest game, Overwatch, officially launched last month and within a week of release, already had seven million players. Whats more, this is a game that went the traditional sales route rather than the increasingly common free-to-play one, meaning that all those players plopped down a minimum of $40 to play Blizzards newest IP.Even before launch, there were a healthy number of professional Overwatch tournaments, populated by some of the biggest teams in eSports. With Overwatchs audience growing and Blizzards focus on increasing the competitiveness of the game -- as seen by the games just-released Competitive Mode -- theres an opportunity for Overwatch to flourish as an esport. Any spectator sport, whether its hitting a ball with a large stick or dispensing an animated fighter with a Shoryuken, quickly develops its own internal strategies and trends as the players become more experienced and the sport becomes more refined. In gaming, we refer to this as the meta, an endlessly evolving state that forms the backbone of tactics employed in the game.The Defense heroes, in Overwatch, play an undersized role in competitive Overwatch relative to how theyre used in pub games. Offense is the name of the game when it comes to elite players, and given the number of King of the Hill maps that are played, its not surprising to see the Defense heroes take a bit of a back seat. Why? King of the Hill, at an elite level, is an offense-focused mode. Yes, a team that captures the point is technically the defender, but given the layout of most King of the Hill maps, which is decidedly non-linear at the center point, turtling and defending a point is typically a losing strategy. So in tournament Overwatch, Defense heroes essentially become a specialist class, heroes that have some use, but are never the backbone of a teams lineup.WIDOWMAKERBEST MAPS: Dorado, Route 66Widowmaker can be deadly when she has clear sight lines, especially considering in most of the occasions she has that direct vision, the other player is at a disadvantage in retaliating instantly, something you cant say for another linear hero such as Bastion. So if you need to guard a specific area at a particular point during the match, a skilled Widowmaker can be a valuable defender.Theres a catch, of course. Widowmakers strengths also essentially make her a fairly predictable character. Once you know a map well enough to know where those best sight lines are and you know the other team has a Widowmaker, you also have excellent guesses where she is and what shes doing. While the Grappling Hook allows her to escape to a degree, escaping, given how specific her general use is, is just as good for the other team as killing her in many cases. In a King of the Hill match, Widowmakers tunnel vision leaves her helpless against Reapers and Tracers.HANZOBEST MAPS: Kings Row, HanamuraThe other sniper (for now, at least). Hanzo has excellent mobility and is good at stopping large, slow targets (Roadhog) or the turret classes. The big problem for Hanzo, however, is that hes a far more inconsistent hero, even for a skilled player, than Widowmaker is. Widowmaker has weaknesses, but her sniper rifle is a hitscan weapon, and for a sniper, hitting what you want is obviously a highly desirable thing.Hanzos chief benefits just dont usually provide much trouble for an elite player. The Scatter Arrow is unpredictable, the Dragonstrike gives ample warning, and top players arent just going to run into a choke point black ninja-style so that blind arrows kill them one-by-one. Even with a predictable location such as a payload, tourney players arent just going to stand in a clump around the cart waiting for Hanzo to spam them.JUNKRATBEST MAPS: Hollywood, DoradoWhen you need to defend a very specific area, Junkrats one of the most powerful heroes in his game. Hes a non-linear hero in that his Frag Launcher grenades can come in at all sorts of different angles and caroms and they can do their damage blindly, something a hitscan hero can not do. And in a more claustrophobic map, Junkrats ultimate has a good chance of reaching a group of bunched heroes.What prevents Junkrat from being a staple is that rather than have opposing heroes hes weak against, he has several that are nearly hard counters to him, meaning that when a Junkrat is getting value on a map, theres a time limit until someone switches up to one of those counters. Theres very little Junkrat can do against Pharah; while an amazing Junkrat player could theoretically hit Pharah with a grenade with some regularity, if Junkrat is in a position to hit Pharah, Pharahs in a much better position to hit Junkrat. Widowmaker can also easily hit Junkrat without being in any danger at all and Reaper can just ignore a lot of Junkrats choke point domination.BASTIONBEST MAPS: Volskaya, HanamuraTheres no hero with more of a separation between how pros use him and how regular players use him than Bastion. If youve played any Overwatch, youre well-used to Bastion dominating pickup groups that are poorly coordinated and getting a lot of Play of the Game highlight reels.In competitive, its a different story. Bastions almost never played simply because a skilled player can deal with Bastions fire far more easily and the relatively low skill cap of Bastion means that a skilled Bastion cant play that much better to compensate. Bastion has some -- very limited mobility -- but when hes dangerous, hes immobile (except when hes using his Ultimate) and that leaves him flankable.For Bastion value, you essentially need to have Bastion in a position where hes unlikely to be flanked, like behind a corner or in front of a wall, and in a situation in which the teams pretty static -- Reinhardt is an excellent Bastion protector -- but if hes protecting Bastion, hes not moving and protecting others.TORBJORNBEST MAPS: Anubis, VolskayaThe other artillery character, Torbj?rn also suffers from a lack of use in tournament play. Hes a bit harder to flank than Bastion since he can watch the turrets back from a position in which he can also repair it, and he can move on if his turret dies. But the upside of Torbj?rn is a lot less, simply because the damage per second can match Bastions.Torbj?rn does have situational value in that he has different weak/strong heroes than Bastion does, which gives you some flexibility if you decided you do want a fairly stationary turret character. Genji, a terror to Bastion, is a lot less threatening, with the reflect less effective against the turret. If youre up against a good Reaper and/or Tracer, Torbj?rn suffers the same issues that Bastion does.MEIBEST MAP: HanamuraIf youre a big fan of Mei, Id advise you not watch too many tournaments. Mei has been one of the bottom-tier heroes in competitive play going back to the very start of the closed beta. Her most useful skill, her Ice Wall, is good at slowing down the other team, but theres another thing thats also good at slowing down the other team: killing them.With so many characters with mobility and the Ice Wall only lasting for 4.5 seconds, the utility is limited at high levels of play. The Cryo-Freeze is a nice skill, in that it makes her invulnerable and heals her, but the problem is that it only heals Mei. The other team most likely would prefer her to remain alive rather than the player switching to a more useful Offense hero.I actually enjoy playing Mei a lot in pub games, but without a buff, new maps/modes that reward her various freeze abilities, or a powerful new hero for whom Mei is a significant counter, dont look to see her much at elite levels. Replica Italy Jerseys . Q: Team Canada announces their Olympic roster three weeks from today. Who is general manager Steve Yzerman watching? 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ORLANDO, Fla. -- The NFL received a high grade for its racial hiring practices and a C+ for its gender hiring efforts in 2016, according to a diversity report released Wednesday.The annual report by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport gave the league its seventh consecutive A on racial hiring practices and a combined grade of B for hiring minorities and women. The second straight C+ indicates the NFL still has a long way to go in improving hiring opportunities for women, but it is a dramatic improvement from two years ago, when the numbers were abysmal.The NFLs greatest gains in both categories have come at the league office level, while the teams have been slow to become more diverse.The league itself is setting a kind of model for the teams that the teams havent fully followed and embraced, said Dr. Richard Lapchick, the report card author.Lapchick, who is the director of TIDES, said the NFL received a C+ in gender hiring again largely because of its continued efforts to improve the hiring of women in decision-making roles following the Ray Rice domestic case.The league took a lot of heat when Commissioner Roger Goodell initially suspended Rice for two games, then reversed direction and indefinitely suspended the former Baltimore Ravens running back after a video showed Rice delivering a punch that knocked out his fiancee in an Atlantic City elevator in 2014.I think the NFL has really paid attention to how much better they would be if they had more senior women to advise the league office and the commissioner, Lapchick said.The biggest gains for hiring women has come at the league level, where there are now 35 women at the vice president level, up from 31 last year and 21 in 2014. Cathy Lanier, the former police chief in Washington, D.C., was named the NFLs senior vice president for security in August.That was such an out-of-the-box hire, Lapchick said. That is a position that has historically been held by men in all off the leagues, so I think that was a real statement on the part of the (NFL).ddddddddddddhe number of people of color in the league office who serve at the vice president level or higher rose from 21 in 2015 to 24 this year. But at the team general manager level, it went from seven a year ago to five in 2016.For the second year in a row, the NFL has six men of color who are head coaches. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Lovie Smith in the offseason, but the Cleveland Browns hired Hue Jackson, keeping the number the same. The all-time high came in 2011, when eight out of the 32 coaches were men of color.But there is some concern the numbers will not increase, as the percentage of assistant coaches of color dipped from 37.9 percent in 2015 to 31.9 percent in 2016. African-American coordinators dropped from 15 to 14 in a year. Coordinator-level jobs are normally where NFL teams look to find head coaches.In the last four years, 21 of the 22 first-time head coaching hires have gone to white men. New York Jets coach Todd Bowles is the only first-time minority coach to be hired during that span, which some say is an indication that the Rooney Rule is no longer giving minority coaches the opportunities it was intended to when implemented.While the league received an overall A for its racial hires, the lagging head coaching numbers along with the dip in the number of assistant coaches, coordinators and general managers is indication the NFL still has work to do.In the coaching ranks, the Buffalo Bills became the first team to hire a woman as a full-time coach when they named Kathryn Smith the quality control coach for special teams this year. The Bills last year also had Kim Pegula, an Asian-American woman, join the ownership group.---AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and AP NFL Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/AP-NFL Jerseys Wholesale NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys From China Nike NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys Store Wholesale Jerseys China Jerseys NFL China ' ' '