Overwatch’s annual Archive event has started its final week of being in 2020. As with the previous weeks, instead of having a new story mission to play like in years past, new challenge missions have been implemented to change up past missions. After Uprising and Retribution were the first two weeks of challenge missions, Storm Rising receives two new challenges called Blood Moon Rising and Storm Raging.
Related: Overwatch Archives Retribution Challenge Missions tips and tricks
Blood Moon Rising
Blood Moon Rising locks out all heroes who are not in the damage category and severely lowers the healing of normal healing abilities. The only way to regain reliable health in this mode is by putting out damage on enemies, so you are going to want characters good at avoiding damage while putting out plenty of their own quickly in a pinch. These recommended heroes include Tracer, Genji, Hanzo, and Soldier: 76, but also heroes good at putting out easy damage like Bastion, Symmetra, Torbjorn, Ashe, and Reaper.
There isn’t much here for not recommended heroes as your skill to take cover and heal yourself while taking down enemies is going to be the main deciding factor in beating this or not. Mostly, though, you’re going to want to avoid characters like Mei, Pharah, and Doomfist because they won’t be particularly useful in fights against tougher enemies and can’t get away quickly while in trouble, but in the right hands aren’t absolute throw picks. In all honesty, Blood Moon Rising is probably the most straightforward challenge mission in this event, and shouldn’t take too long to complete for most players.
Storm Raging
In Storm Raging, some enemies will be enraged, and killing them will spread the rage to surrounding enemies. You’ll know they are engaged by a red glow they are giving off, which will increase their damage and defense against your attacks.
This mission allows all heroes to be chosen again, and picks this time are not as crucial as each players tendency to aim down the proper enemies. Since rage will spread to enemies, you want to take out the heroes not enraged first. Failure to do so can draw out easy battles and cost your team to go down a few times from sudden boosts in power from them.
Recommended heroes include those who can pick off those not enraged heroes quickly but also can put out more damage on the ones who are enraged. These include Bastion, Orisa, Baptise, McCree, Widowmaker, Zenyatta, Soldier: 76, Zarya, as well as Ashe and Hanzo, to some degree. Smart players can also make good use of Lucio to help their teammates get out of sticky situations fast.
For not recommended heroes, you want to avoid Torbjorn and Symmetra since they do not have as much control over who they focus their damage on. D.Va can be a good choice for regular combat, but the moment she throws in her self-destruct ultimate and accidentally makes stronger enemies enraged is the moment the fight gets tougher and can completely turn the balance of the battle away from you. Other heroes not great for this mode include Reinhardt, Mercy, Pharah, Moira, Tracer, Genji, Doomfist, Briggite, Sombra, and Winston.
