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Her favorite thing is the Overwatch League; her second favorite thing is pretending iced coffee is a meal. She specializes in educational content, patch notes that (actually) make sense, and aggressively supporting Tier 2 Overwatch. When she's not writing, Liz is expressing hot takes on Twitter and making bad life choices at Target.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mizlizrichardson\/","https:\/\/x.com\/mizliz_"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/lizrichardson1"}]}},"raw_content":"This article is brought to you by\u00a0StatBanana, the best Overwatch strategy tool. Every Overwatch team needs a level-headed support to succeed. For the San Francisco Shock, that steadfast presence has always been Grant \"Moth\" Espe. During the Shock's three trips to stage finals through the second season of the Overwatch League, Moth acted as shotcaller. The team eventually won the stage two championship and earned a place as one of the most successful teams in Overwatch League history. During the opening week of stage four, as role lock took over the league, Moth talked with Dot Esports about how the role of support has changed. He also touched on his role as main support in the 2018 Overwatch World Cup and how things could change during this year's tournament. Do you think role lock will benefit the San Francisco Shock? How?\u00a0 Moth: For us, it\u2019s really changed the meta away from Rein and Zarya. Those are two of our big comfort picks with [Matthew \"Super\" DeLisi] and [Jay \"Sinatraa\" Won]. So, that\u2019s changed up our starting lineup, but it\u2019s also given us a lot more flexibility. We have an amazing DPS line and now, because the DPS are dependent on the map, we can switch people in and out. There\u2019s good and bad to it. We lost some comfort picks but we got some comfort picks back for other players.\u00a0 How has the role of main support changed with role lock?\u00a0 That\u2019s a good question. It\u2019s really different from how main support\u2019s ever been in Overwatch. In pretty much every previous meta, main support meant you played only L\u00facio that meta or you played only Mercy that meta. That\u2019s how it\u2019s always been. But this patch, you can\u2019t flex one of your DPS onto that third support, which would be Brigitte or Baptiste or sometimes Ana. A lot of the time it\u2019s the main support\u2019s role to play those heroes now. This is the first time you\u2019ve seen a lot of main supports playing Baptiste, Mercy, and L\u00facio depending on the map instead of just one. That\u2019s really cool. I just started playing Baptiste and Brigitte seriously like, last week. [Laughs] So, it\u2019s taking some getting used to. But it\u2019s a lot of fun and it\u2019s a challenge. It\u2019s exciting. You\u2019re also the team\u2019s shotcaller. Has role lock changed that role as well?\u00a0 I think that\u2019s also changed a lot because last meta was GOATS. GOATS is totally dependent on strategy, teamwork, and coordination. But this patch is a lot of double sniper and a lot of dive; it\u2019s a lot more dependent on mechanics, on your DPS players playing the right angles and popping off. So for me, if I\u2019m playing Mercy in double sniper, there\u2019s not as much strategy. There aren\u2019t as many macro calls. It\u2019s more positioning and setting up the right angles. For dive, it\u2019s the same thing. It\u2019s all about setup and it\u2019s less about macro planning. GOATS was a ton of, \u201cyou engage here, you disengage at this angle when these ultimates are used, you ult at this tempo.\u201d There was a ton of planning that was involved in every fight. \u00a0 What\u2019s the Shock\u2019s mentality been like in stage four?\u00a0 I think this stage, for us... there are no stage playoffs and there\u2019s a totally new starting roster. We\u2019re trying out a lot of new players in different positions on different maps. A lot of this stage is more about just figuring out the meta, getting all of our new players stage time, and getting them used to the stage in preparation for season playoffs. We just want to make sure we solidify our seeding for season playoffs. We want to make sure we get at least that third seed solidified so we have a good position going in for map picks or whatever the seeding advantage will be for season playoffs. You were on the 2018 USA Overwatch World Cup Roster. How do you feel about all the new schedule changes and role lock being instituted into the competition?\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure yet, but we\u2019ll see how it is this year. Last year, the group stages were a lot of fun. It\u2019s hard to tell right now. As for the role lock, I don\u2019t know. Last year when we went into the meta, I don\u2019t think we understood very well on Team USA. We figured we didn\u2019t have to practice GOATS a ton and we could just win out with a lot of DPS comps, 2-2-2, and dive. 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We don\u2019t get that often here [at the Blizzard Arena], but it\u2019s an amazing experience playing in front of a home crowd. That\u2019s definitely what I\u2019m most excited for next year.\u00a0","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/26162556\/2019_S4W4D2_0577_Grant-Moth-Espe_Ben-Pursell.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1722"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=163259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Moth: <\/strong>For us, it\u2019s really changed the meta away from Rein and Zarya. Those are two of our big comfort picks with [Matthew “Super” DeLisi] and [Jay “Sinatraa” Won]. So, that\u2019s changed up our starting lineup, but it\u2019s also given us a lot more flexibility. We have an amazing DPS line and now, because the DPS are dependent on the map, we can switch people in and out. There\u2019s good and bad to it. We lost some comfort picks but we got some comfort picks back for other players. <\/p>

How has the role of main support changed with role lock? <\/strong><\/h4>

That\u2019s a good question. It\u2019s really different from how main support\u2019s ever been in Overwatch<\/em>. In pretty much every previous meta, main support meant you played only L\u00facio that meta or you played only Mercy that meta. That\u2019s how it\u2019s always been. But this patch, you can\u2019t flex one of your DPS onto that third support, which would be Brigitte or Baptiste or sometimes Ana. A lot of the time it\u2019s the main support\u2019s role to play those heroes now. <\/p>

This is the first time you\u2019ve seen a lot of main supports playing Baptiste, Mercy, and<\/em> L\u00facio depending on the map instead of just one. That\u2019s really cool. I just started playing Baptiste and Brigitte seriously like, last week. [Laughs] So, it\u2019s taking some getting used to. But it\u2019s a lot of fun and it\u2019s a challenge. It\u2019s exciting.<\/p>

You\u2019re also the team\u2019s shotcaller. Has role lock changed that role as well? <\/strong><\/h4>

I think that\u2019s also changed a lot because last meta was GOATS. GOATS is totally dependent on strategy, teamwork, and coordination. But this patch is a lot of double sniper and a lot of dive; it\u2019s a lot more dependent on mechanics, on your DPS players playing the right angles and popping off. So for me, if I\u2019m playing Mercy in double sniper, there\u2019s not as much strategy. There aren\u2019t as many macro calls. It\u2019s more positioning and setting up the right angles. For dive, it\u2019s the same thing. It\u2019s all about setup and it\u2019s less about macro planning. GOATS was a ton of, \u201cyou engage here, you disengage at this angle when these ultimates are used, you ult at this tempo.\u201d There was a ton of planning that was involved in every fight. \u00a0 <\/p>

What\u2019s the Shock\u2019s mentality been like in stage four? <\/strong><\/h4>

I think this stage, for us… there are no stage playoffs and there\u2019s a totally new starting roster. We\u2019re trying out a lot of new players in different positions on different maps. A lot of this stage is more about just figuring out the meta, getting all of our new players stage time, and getting them used to the stage in preparation for season playoffs. We just want to make sure we solidify our seeding for season playoffs. We want to make sure we get at least <\/em>that third seed solidified so we have a good position going in for map picks or whatever the seeding advantage will be for season playoffs. <\/p>

\"\"
Photo by Robert Paul via Blizzard Entertainment<\/figcaption><\/figure> <\/div>

You were on the 2018 USA Overwatch<\/em> World Cup Roster. How do you feel about all the new schedule changes and role lock being instituted into the competition? <\/strong><\/h4>

I\u2019m not sure yet, but we\u2019ll see how it is this year. Last year, the group stages were a lot of fun. It\u2019s hard to tell right now. As for the role lock, I don\u2019t know. Last year when we went into the meta, I don\u2019t think we understood very well on Team USA. We figured we didn\u2019t have to practice GOATS a ton and we could just win out with a lot of DPS comps, 2-2-2, and dive. We thought we\u2019d just adapt to GOATS on the fly. This year, maybe role lock will give us a better understanding of the meta in advance and it could be good for us. It\u2019s hard to tell right now. <\/p>

What was your favorite part about being on the World Cup roster last year? <\/strong><\/h4>

Even though we lost, it was still a great experience. I\u2019d never been to BlizzCon before. It was still amazing to represent Team USA that year. I think I didn\u2019t play my best in season one overall; my Mercy was pretty average, I think. I worked really hard during the offseason to do my best in tryouts and get that spot. Just having that recognition and the opportunity to go to BlizzCon and play on that huge stage… it was still a great experience.<\/p>

What are you most excited about when you play in San Francisco in 2020?<\/strong><\/h4>

Definitely the fans. We played in San Francisco for the California Cup during the offseason and having a home crowd was amazing. We don\u2019t get that often here [at the Blizzard Arena], but it\u2019s an amazing experience playing in front of a home crowd. That\u2019s definitely what I\u2019m most excited for next year.  <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shock’s steadfast support explains how his role has changed and what fans should look forward to. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1722,"featured_media":164894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gamurs_wordpress_blocks_hide_tags":true,"_is_affiliated":false,"dotesports_deal_href":"","dotesports_featured_video":"","_notify_users":1,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[376],"invoiceable_action":[],"internal-label":[],"article_type":[],"coauthors":[{"id":1722,"display_name":"Liz Richardson","user_login":"lizrichardson1","user_nicename":"lizrichardson1"}],"class_list":["post-163259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-overwatch","tag-san-francisco-shock"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n

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Her favorite thing is the Overwatch League; her second favorite thing is pretending iced coffee is a meal. She specializes in educational content, patch notes that (actually) make sense, and aggressively supporting Tier 2 Overwatch. When she's not writing, Liz is expressing hot takes on Twitter and making bad life choices at Target.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mizlizrichardson\/","https:\/\/x.com\/mizliz_"],"url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/author\/lizrichardson1"}]}},"raw_content":"This article is brought to you by\u00a0StatBanana, the best Overwatch strategy tool. Every Overwatch team needs a level-headed support to succeed. For the San Francisco Shock, that steadfast presence has always been Grant \"Moth\" Espe. During the Shock's three trips to stage finals through the second season of the Overwatch League, Moth acted as shotcaller. The team eventually won the stage two championship and earned a place as one of the most successful teams in Overwatch League history. During the opening week of stage four, as role lock took over the league, Moth talked with Dot Esports about how the role of support has changed. He also touched on his role as main support in the 2018 Overwatch World Cup and how things could change during this year's tournament. Do you think role lock will benefit the San Francisco Shock? How?\u00a0 Moth: For us, it\u2019s really changed the meta away from Rein and Zarya. Those are two of our big comfort picks with [Matthew \"Super\" DeLisi] and [Jay \"Sinatraa\" Won]. So, that\u2019s changed up our starting lineup, but it\u2019s also given us a lot more flexibility. We have an amazing DPS line and now, because the DPS are dependent on the map, we can switch people in and out. There\u2019s good and bad to it. We lost some comfort picks but we got some comfort picks back for other players.\u00a0 How has the role of main support changed with role lock?\u00a0 That\u2019s a good question. It\u2019s really different from how main support\u2019s ever been in Overwatch. In pretty much every previous meta, main support meant you played only L\u00facio that meta or you played only Mercy that meta. That\u2019s how it\u2019s always been. But this patch, you can\u2019t flex one of your DPS onto that third support, which would be Brigitte or Baptiste or sometimes Ana. A lot of the time it\u2019s the main support\u2019s role to play those heroes now. This is the first time you\u2019ve seen a lot of main supports playing Baptiste, Mercy, and L\u00facio depending on the map instead of just one. That\u2019s really cool. I just started playing Baptiste and Brigitte seriously like, last week. [Laughs] So, it\u2019s taking some getting used to. But it\u2019s a lot of fun and it\u2019s a challenge. It\u2019s exciting. You\u2019re also the team\u2019s shotcaller. Has role lock changed that role as well?\u00a0 I think that\u2019s also changed a lot because last meta was GOATS. GOATS is totally dependent on strategy, teamwork, and coordination. But this patch is a lot of double sniper and a lot of dive; it\u2019s a lot more dependent on mechanics, on your DPS players playing the right angles and popping off. So for me, if I\u2019m playing Mercy in double sniper, there\u2019s not as much strategy. There aren\u2019t as many macro calls. It\u2019s more positioning and setting up the right angles. For dive, it\u2019s the same thing. It\u2019s all about setup and it\u2019s less about macro planning. GOATS was a ton of, \u201cyou engage here, you disengage at this angle when these ultimates are used, you ult at this tempo.\u201d There was a ton of planning that was involved in every fight. \u00a0 What\u2019s the Shock\u2019s mentality been like in stage four?\u00a0 I think this stage, for us... there are no stage playoffs and there\u2019s a totally new starting roster. We\u2019re trying out a lot of new players in different positions on different maps. A lot of this stage is more about just figuring out the meta, getting all of our new players stage time, and getting them used to the stage in preparation for season playoffs. We just want to make sure we solidify our seeding for season playoffs. We want to make sure we get at least that third seed solidified so we have a good position going in for map picks or whatever the seeding advantage will be for season playoffs. You were on the 2018 USA Overwatch World Cup Roster. How do you feel about all the new schedule changes and role lock being instituted into the competition?\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure yet, but we\u2019ll see how it is this year. Last year, the group stages were a lot of fun. It\u2019s hard to tell right now. As for the role lock, I don\u2019t know. Last year when we went into the meta, I don\u2019t think we understood very well on Team USA. We figured we didn\u2019t have to practice GOATS a ton and we could just win out with a lot of DPS comps, 2-2-2, and dive. We thought we\u2019d just adapt to GOATS on the fly. This year, maybe role lock will give us a better understanding of the meta in advance and it could be good for us. It\u2019s hard to tell right now. What was your favorite part about being on the World Cup roster last year?\u00a0 Even though we lost, it was still a great experience. I\u2019d never been to BlizzCon before. It was still amazing to represent Team USA that year. I think I didn\u2019t play my best in season one overall; my Mercy was pretty average, I think. I worked really hard during the offseason to do my best in tryouts and get that spot. Just having that recognition and the opportunity to go to BlizzCon and play on that huge stage... it was still a great experience. What are you most excited about when you play in San Francisco in 2020? Definitely the fans. We played in San Francisco for the California Cup during the offseason and having a home crowd was amazing. We don\u2019t get that often here [at the Blizzard Arena], but it\u2019s an amazing experience playing in front of a home crowd. That\u2019s definitely what I\u2019m most excited for next year.\u00a0","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/26162556\/2019_S4W4D2_0577_Grant-Moth-Espe_Ben-Pursell.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1722"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=163259"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=163259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}