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purplekoop · 6 months

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So like. I think people already figured out where I was going with this.

Ashe B.O.B.

Role: Tank Health: 500 (250 normal, 250 armor)

So when I implied that I'd be turning "Ashe" into a Tank, I think at least somebody saw through me there. Obviously there's a number of thematically appropriate ways to bulk up one of the existing non-tank heroes into a tankish stature, but Ashe is probably the farthest removed of any of the cast from the kind of biological or mechanical shenanigans I've been relying on for tankifying the cast so far. Luckily, I didn't need to, because B.O.B. is right there, and I feel like playable B.O.B. is what people have wanted since late 2018 anyways. So, here we are.

B.O.B. is a character design who I think needs no substantial changes to fit as a playable Tank. He's big, he's made of metal, and that's enough justification for me. In the lore he's actually specified to have his chassis fit with extra armor plating, so it makes sense then that he can take a hit better than other "civilian class" Omnics like Zenyatta.

There is one thing I feel would need to change about B.O.B. though for him to fit as a playable hero: he probably needs a voice. This is for technical reasons more than anything. Overwatch as a game very much relies on audio cues to communicate a lot of information, with things as obvious as ultimate voice lines and automatic callout voice lines to things as subtle as the sound of your weapon changing when you're running out of ammo. The only hero who doesn't talk is Bastion, but I doubt another hero who uses non-verbal sounds to communicate wouldn't work as well in addition to Bastion. It'd be a bit confusing to discern what beebly-boops are coming from who, especially for new players. This is also (at least presumably) why Roadhog talks a lot more in-game than he does in the supplementary media, where he tends to only admit one or two lines per story compared to only being slightly less chatty than other heroes in actual matches. Of course, the very obvious and inherently agreeable solution here is to give B.O.B. a very stereotypical posh british butler accent. Between that and at least one of his abilities, I'm imagining a personality somewhere between Alfred from Batman and Dudley from Street Fighter.

But alright, enough yapping already, time to get into the Big Omnic Butler's kit. In general, B.O.B. would be a more aggression-focused tank that plays better in offensive scenarios, but still offers his team with substantial protection while impeding the enemy.

His simplest ability is one we're used to and terrified of already in game: his Arm Cannons. I actually had to do some in-game testing to see how the animation for his firing actually works, so I'll explain how it'd work for the playable version. The Arm Cannon is a 6-barrel rotating weapon, as you can see here.

Each pair of barrels will fire two hitscan shots one after the other rapidly before switching to the next pair via rotation in a seamless fashion with no downtime between rotations. However, the weapon's fire rate will speed up as it spins up, making continuous fire build up to an increased DPS. However, the spread of bullets will also increase as the spinning speeds up. The cannons also don't need to manually reload, instead relying on an overheat system like (normal OW2) Orisa, which will cause the weapon to malfunction for just shy of two seconds. The bullets also have damage falloff that favors close-range usage harder than most hitscan weapons. While this weapon can headshot, it has a reduced 1.5x multiplier instead of the standard 2x, making precise aim less mandatory. This weapon excels at laying down suppressive fire with minimal downtime, especially at close range, but has a risk-reward element in balancing the spin-up speed and the overheat mechanic. Also worth noting that for the sake of simplicity, B.O.B. only has a right-hand Arm Cannon, unlike his non-playable counterpart who swaps hands whenever he switches targets.

B.O.B.'s first ability is... admittedly something I made up for the sake of him functioning better as a protective defender style of tank, Portable Barricade. B.O.B. tosses down a device that extends into a rod-like shape with small wheels on the sides, then projects a barrier upwards. It's a rectangular barrier not as wide as normal Rein's but just about as tall, and it does barrier things like the normal game ones. However, Portable Barricade's unique trait is that after 1 second of being deployed, it will roll forward in the direction it was placed at about half of the normal forward move speed for players. This, obviously, is meant to encourage it be used for advancing pushes instead of holding ground, though the initial one second before it starts moving should give players on both sides time to react to its presence. The Barricade has about 1,000 HP, and will last after either rolling ahead for 6 seconds or if it collides with a wall and can't move any further. If it rolls to a ledge, then it will remain in place on that edge for the remainder of its duration. The ability itself has a somewhat long cooldown that starts as soon as it's thrown out.

This next one should feel a little more familiar: Running Upper. B.O.B. takes a split second to ready for a dash, then runs ahead at high speeds with his left arm ahead, and his right arm ready to swing an uppercut at any foes he collides with. The logistics of this ability are also pretty similar to Reinhardt's Charge, though the startup period is more brief. You still run ahead much faster, but your turning speed is restricted. B.O.B. also takes half damage from the front while charging, but this does not block any other effects of that damage. The uppercut itself functions like you expect still knocking any enemies near the impact range upwards, though its damage is reduced from 120 to 80. The duration of the dash is shorter than it is for the non-playable B.O.B., and it can be cancelled early by pressing the ability input again, causing B.O.B. to dig his feet into the ground to grind to a stop. It also will collide with other "Charge" abilities, such as Doomfist punch and another B.O.B.'s Running Upper, causing both players to fall to the ground briefly on collision. Just like the non-playable version of the maneuver, this ability is a versatile tool for both traversing the map faster and setting up for some potentially lethal team combos.

B.O.B.'s last normal ability is an homage to part of his iconography that isn't actually showcased in-game: Sign Swing.

B.O.B. manifests a convenient road sign to pull out of hammerspace, then swings it from right to left like a baseball bat. The swing is similar to a big Rein hammer swing (I sure am comparing these guys a lot huh), dealing 75 damage but in a slightly farther range than the hammer. The swing also does heavy knockback, launching enemies it hits flying a good distance in the aimed direction. This alone makes it a solid ability for swatting aggressive enemies away, but it has one more feature: any projectiles hit by the swing will be deflected back as B.O.B.'s own attack! The logistics of this are just like Genji's deflect, though the timing is significantly tighter to pull off due to the minimal time this deflection is active for, making it much harder to pull off a deflect on hitscan attacks, but not impossible.

His ultimate ability though, as you might've predicted, brings this role reversal to its logical conclusion: Burnout. B.O.B. calls in a favor from his long-time charge, and from the skies drops a series of dynamite-loaded crates. 5 crates drop in total, which B.O.B. can manually call drop points for by pressing Primary Fire during the ult's initial duration. The crates will explode after a few seconds, but B.O.B.'s entire team can speed up the detonation by firing at them, creating powerful explosions that ignite enemies caught in their blast, and even leave behind a lingering fire that can rapidly damage and ignite enemies who walk through it (though weaker than normal Torb's Molten Core). However, they can also damage other exploding crates, causing chain reactions where as soon as one crate blows, the entire battle field can be set ablaze. (honestly this ult is the concept I'm the most iffy about for this kit, but I like it fine enough)

So that's B.O.B. as a playable Tank hero! A faithful bodyguard through and through, he defends his team with both directly defensive abilities as well as means of tossing around the enemy if they get too close to his team for comfort, or he can just gun them down directly in tandem with those abilities.

Overall pretty proud of this one! Like Ashe is as a damage hero, I wanted B.O.B. to be a pretty straightforward tanky bruiser, with simple abilities that can be used creatively with a good deal of skill expression. I love the idea of B.O.B. teeing up an enemy into the air with his uppercut, then hitting a home run with them with Sign Swing. I don't think a flanking Genji (er. in this AU's case, I guess flanking Zenyatta?) would be too eager to dive back in for round two after that. The comparisons to Reinhardt were also me reaffirming his role as one of the more conventional tanks of this requeued roster. I have the vague goal of making sure that the broader niches of the roster are still cohesively filled even in this sweeping reiteration of the cast.

So who's next? Symmetra is another easy one that I've already made the bulk of a concept for, but I could also continue the Deadlock theming and do Cassidy as a support. Aside from the ultimate and maybe wanting one extra ability, I've already got most of that one figured out.

Outside of Role Requeue though, I actually would be down to figure out kits for other non-playable characters in the main canon! There's a couple that come to mind now, but the only ones I'm thinking of would I think fit best as supports, maybe one DPS, so I'm all ears for extra suggestions for the sake of variety. Not doing Mauga because like. That's literally just asking to be outdated and make me look like a silly doodoo head when I get it wrong. I'm gonna look like a silly doodoo head and get details wrong when we actually get teasers of his kit at Blizzcon anyways but I wanna save being wrong for the appropriate time.

#overwatch #overwatch role requeue #role requeue #overwatch au #overwatch role requeue au #ashe overwatch #ashe #b.o.b.#bob #bob overwatch #b.o.b. overwatch

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