Latest news with #Freja
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Best Freja build in the Overwatch 2 Stadium: Power picks, item combos and more
(Image via Blizzard Entertainment) The Overwatch 2's new bounty hunter, Freja , has entered Stadium mode with high mobility, explosive potential, and precision-based combat. With all her unique powers and the items, the players are scrambling to optimize the high-skill kit of her, to dominate the matches. Here is how you can maximize her potential and dominate the faster-paced arena. Freja optimal power picks to ensure precision and mobility Overwatch 2 Stadium Freja Build Guide! | Best Build, Powers, Items, and Gameplay Tips The character thrives on mobility and burst damage. It makes her some Powers important. Seekerpoint is one of the musts— when the Take Aim bolt lands, Freja automatically fires 3 follow-up arrows, ensuring that constant pressure is applied. When paired with the Redux, it will reduce the cooldowns and also refund ammo when hitting the marked enemies. It will ensure higher uptime on the abilities. For crowd control, you can choose Cyclone. It turns the Updraft to the disruptive wind blast and knocks back the foes. Additionally, Lille Fælde adds the utility, converting the Take Aim airborne shots into the Bola Shots. It slows the enemies. The pick helps to create a balanced mix of sustain, damage, and battlefield control. Best Freja items combo for max impact Freja's playstyle benefits from weapon enhancements and mobility. The Portal Zipline boosts her vertical movement. It allows her to quickly reposition after the Updraft. One another strong choice here is the Slipstream Scarf. It increases the Quick Dash distance while it continues to boost the power of the weapon. For some raw damage, Eye of the Spider can deal 10% of the extra damage to the low-health targets. It is perfect to secure the eliminations. The Closer then enhances the critical hits and reveals the enemies for easier follow-ups. If facing tank-heavy teams, do have Codebreaker, as it lets Freja ignore 50% of the armor reduction. It makes the character a nightmare for the beefy opponents. For survivability, choose Amari's Antidote. It offers healing boosts when aiding the low-health allies and rewards teamwork. Also, the Booster Jets can ramp up the attack speed, ensuring Freja can capitalize on every single opening. Use the Eye of the Spider to balance all and execute the fleeing enemies, right below 30% health. Overwatch 2 Stadium mode tips for Freja build Be mobile and use Quick Dash and Updraft to evade enemies. Focus on the weakened enemies. Freja excels in finishing the low-health targets. Cycle the abilities efficiently. Ensure to combine the Revdraw Crossbow and Take Aim for the maximum burst. Watch for the dive heroes. If you are caught without the Updraft, lean towards Magnetic Maelstrom for slow pursuers. Remember, with the right build, Freja for you will become the relentless hunter in the Stadium, picking off the enemies with complete precision and agility. For the rest, remember to adapt, experiment, and dominate the arena. Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
Forbes
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Overwatch 2' Stadium Roadmap: New Heroes, Maps, Unranked, Crossplay And More
The new Overwatch 2 mode, Stadium, is a clear hit with players. In the first week that Stadium was live, 2.3 million matches were played across 7.8 million hours. Blizzard says that's over twice as much playtime as the previous most successful game mode launch week, when OW Classic hit Overwatch 2. Stadium is the most-played of the three main modes in the game right now, outpacing Competitive and Quick Play. In fact, Stadium accounted for about half of all Overwatch 2 playtime in its first week. That's an impressive start, but you might be wondering about what's next. Well, we already knew that new hero Freja will be available in Stadium when the Overwatch 2 midseason patch goes live in a few weeks. There might be balance updates and other Stadium changes then as well, if not before then. Now, Blizzard has revealed the Stadium roadmap for the next couple of seasons. Here's a quick overview of what's coming in Season 17 (starting in June), Season 18 (August) and beyond: The Overwatch 2 Stadium mode roadmap for 2025 Blizzard Entertainment There are a couple of other things Blizzard didn't mention in this list that it has revealed elsewhere. For one thing, an unranked option is in the works, and it's coming in Season 17, per the infographic Blizzard sent over. 'Since Stadium has a competitive system, it follows the rules of our core competitive mode, which doesn't allow PC and Console players to group. Since this is the only way to play the mode, we agree, and we'd like to do something about it,' game director Aaron Keller wrote in the latest director's take blog post. 'We're currently investigating what it would take to make an unranked version of the mode. This would allow groups of friends to play together and would give us the ability to make other changes as well, possibly introducing a best-of-5 format to the mode.' In a recent AMA on Reddit, developers from Team 4 said the plan is to bring new heroes that are added to the game to Stadium in their respective midseason patch. That means we should see the new Support coming in Season 18 codenamed Aqua, arriving in Stadium around September. Otherwise, there's a lot to get excited about here. Custom games and unranked option will let players try out builds away from the pressure cooker of the ranked system without having to jump into the practice arena. The new hero additions are looking spicy too. Given how dominant she is in the game overall, Sojourn could be absolutely ridiculous in Stadium. And then there's that new Payload Race mode. I don't know anything else about it just yet (and Blizzard is keeping quiet about that one for now) but those two words are sparking a lot of ideas in my brain about what the mode might entail. As for consumables, this seems like another idea Blizzard has rescued from the embers of the canceled PVP mode to bring it back for Stadium. Very intrigued about that and the Stadium trials. I'm glad to see more example builds are on the way as well. I've found those very useful so far. Meanwhile, Blizzard shared more Stadium launch-week stats with me. During the mode's first seven days, players earned 900 billion Stadium Cash – that's a lot of bounties – and picked 206 million Items to power up their heroes. The hero with the highest win rate in the first week was Lucio. As it happens, the support was also the least-picked hero in the first seven days Stadium was live. Go figure. Or go get good at wall riding. Follow my blog for more coverage of Overwatch 2, other video games and word games. It helps me out a lot! Follow me on Bluesky! It's fun there. And make sure to subscribe to my newsletter, Pastimes!
Local Sweden
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Local Sweden
Thousands of Swedish citizenship applicants told to answer additional security questions
Everyone who has applied for Swedish citizenship, both before and after tighter security checks came into force on April 1st, is being asked to answer a set of detailed additional questions. Advertisement The Migration Agency has on the request of the government tightened up the process for citizenship applications, with applicants now having to confirm their identity in person and provide more detailed information than before on their background. The changes also affect those who applied before April 1st. In March, there were more than 86,000 applications in the queue. So far, around 6,500 applicants with outstanding applications have been asked to submit additional information, a Migration Agency spokesperson told The Local. The 11-page form, seen by The Local, gives applicants three weeks to supplement their applications with detailed information on for example their career history, family and background. One question asks applicants to list every single journey they've made beyond the borders of Sweden in the past five years, regardless of the length of the trip. Another Migration Agency spokesperson told us it's "important that you fill out the forms as correctly as possible. If there are questions or things that aren't clear, the Migration Agency can ask for additional information or need to further investigate the case". When The Local's deputy editor Becky Waterton, who happens to be one of the 6,500 Swedish citizenship applicants who has been asked to submit additional information, called the Migration Agency's helpline to ask if she had to include details on every short day trip she's made from Malmö to Copenhagen in the past half decade, she was told it would be OK to include a vague statement such as "travelled to Copenhagen roughly once a month in this period for work" and then the agency could ask for more information if necessary. If you're in the process of applying for Swedish citizenship but haven't yet been sent an additional form, the Migration Agency advises that applicants who are currently waiting for a decision will be contacted with more information, and should not contact the agency directly. Advertisement The tighter security checks as of April 1st also mean that applicants now have to travel to a Migration Agency office to confirm their identity. It was initially reported there would be exceptions from the in-person identification for certain nationalities with biometric passports, but the spokesperson confirmed that those haven't yet been implemented so currently everyone has to show up in person. The Local understands that if the exceptions are rolled out, the app Freja will be used to replace in-person identification for eligible applicants. Freja is currently used to carry out digital passport checks for residency permit applicants from 22 countries. Citizenship applications are still being processed despite the tighter security checks, with 20,122 cases concluded so far this year, the Migration Agency confirmed.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- The Guardian
Four months after daughters' deaths, parents of Laos backpackers face ‘horror scenarios' amid fight for answers
The poolside bar at the Nana backpackers hostel in central Laos should have been an idyllic spot for a free happy hour on a mid-November evening. Among those staying at Nana were two pairs of best friends – 19-year-old Australians Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, and Freja Vennervald Sorensen, 21, and Anne-Sofie Orkild Coyman, 20, from Denmark. All four were drawn to south-east Asia's famed backpacking route that has for decades enticed young travellers seeking carefree, sun-drenched moments. They would never have imagined that the adventure of a lifetime would turn to tragedy. While the childhood friends from Melbourne didn't know their Danish counterparts, the young women's parents are now bound together in a fight for answers and justice. Their daughters are among six tourists – including British lawyer, Simone White, 28, and a US man – who became ill and later died in a suspected mass methanol poisoning on 12 November in Vang Vieng, where they drank what is believed to have been methanol-laced alcohol. Four months on from that night at the hostel, the grieving parents are speaking out amid fears that they will never see Lao authorities hold anyone to account for their children's deaths. The Guardian can reveal there has been a joint diplomatic push by Australia, the United Kingdom and Denmark, which Karsten Sorensen, father of Freja, says is 'brilliant'. But he, Freja's mother, and Anne-Sofie's parents remain in the dark as to whether their daughters' deaths will be included in a criminal investigation into the suspected mass methanol poisoning, as the death certificates provided in Laos make no mention of the lethal chemical. Since their daughters' deaths, the parents of Simone, Holly, Bianca, Freja and Anne-Sofie have stayed connected in a WhatsApp group, where they exchange photos and updates received from their respective national governments. 'They're really the only people that can understand what we're going through,' says Shaun Bowles, Holly's father. The families, who say the Lao government has made no direct contact with them since the deaths, have publicly criticised the lack of transparency and communication from the country's authorities, who rejected foreign assistance with the investigation. The British ambassador to Laos raised the case, alongside the Denmark and Australian embassies, with Laos' ministry of foreign affairs on 26 February, sources tell the Guardian. In a small temple on the outskirts of Vientiane, later in November, Freja and Anne-Sofie's fathers identified their daughters' bodies. Didier Coyman, the father of Anne-Sofie, says he was told no autopsy could be conducted in Laos due to a lack of capabilities in the developing country. Due to the bodies being embalmed before repatriation via Bangkok, autopsies could not be undertaken in Denmark, Sorensen says. Sorensen and his partner, Rikke, now fear their daughter's death may not be treated as part of the cluster of suspected methanol poisoning deaths due to the absence of postmortem toxicology testing. 'That is one of the horror scenarios that I have … that would not be acceptable,' he says. The death certificate for Freja, viewed by Guardian Australia, states the 21-year-old died from 'acute heart failure'. Lao authorities also concluded that Anne-Sofie died from heart failure. 'How can you explain two young women at the ages of 20 and 21, with no kind of health issues before, suddenly on the same day, having a heart attack in the same setting, the same hostel, where a number of others have been linked to methanol poisoning?' Sorensen says. 'There's no official documentation of facts underpinning that our girls passed away due to methanol poisoning.' The Danish ministry of foreign affairs says that Lao authorities have confirmed they are 'currently investigating the case'. Sorensen says the Danish ambassador in Vietnam, who is communicating with the authorities, asked the families if they knew whether any toxicology tests or autopsies had been done. 'That was then mentioned by the ambassador as being one of the risks in the investigation here, that they did not have the facts around our girls,' he says. 'You could, at any point, come up with a situation saying that, well, we have no recognition of this being methanol poisoning because there are no facts behind it. You have no claim to any kind of recognition to some kind of wrongdoing.' All six foreign tourists who died had stayed at Nana backpackers hotel but police have not confirmed if the suspected methanol poisoning occurred there or at one of the many bars in Vang Vieng. Hostel staff detained by Lao police in November were recently released, prompting calls from the Australian and Danish parents for travellers to boycott the country until its authorities properly investigate the deaths. Bianca's father, Mark Jones, believes the detainees' release suggests the investigation has come to a 'thumping halt'. Bowles says he has 'zero confidence that anything is actually being done'. Public information about the police investigation in Laos – a one-party communist state where the media are tightly controlled – has been sparse. The Lao government's only public statement since the mass poisoning vows to bring the perpetrators to justice under the law. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion In the UK last month, Simone's mother, Sue, tells ITV she believes it is 'unlikely' any individual will be convicted over her daughter's death. The families of the two Melbourne victims have sought to meet with Laos' ambassador to Australia to discuss the case, but say they have received no response to an invitation extended by the federal government on their behalf. The Lao embassy in Australia has been contacted for comment. The Australian families, who rushed to Thailand to be with their daughters while they were on life support, have now made it their mission to raise awareness about the risks of methanol poisoning as they pursue accountability. In south-east Asia, brewing bootleg liquor from ingredients such as rice and sugarcane is a cultural norm. These are sometimes mixed with methanol – as a cheaper alternative to ethanol – the key component in alcoholic drinks. Unlike ethanol, which can be consumed in small amounts, methanol is toxic to humans. Just 30ml – a single mouthful – is the lethal dose. Médecins Sans Frontières has tracked more than 14,000 suspected methanol poisoning deaths since 1998 based on information in news reports and publications. A brief by the Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade reports that illicit alcohol in Laos accounts for up to a third of alcohol consumed in the country. A Laos-based lawyer, who requested anonymity due to fears over speaking publicly, says two articles in the country's penal code can be used to prosecute someone found to be responsible for manufacturing methanol that leads to mass poisoning. It carries a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison. It is unclear if prosecutions have ever been brought under these sections of the penal code. For Bowles, 10 years in prison 'seems very soft for knowingly producing something that can take people's lives'. Jones hopes someone will be punished for the deaths and that it will act as a deterrent to those making and selling bootleg liquor. 'Every single morning, every single day, every minute of every day, we have big holes in our hearts, and we don't want that to happen to other people.' He says the families 'have got the sentence for the rest of our lives'. 'Our children have got this sentence for the rest of their lives. Our parents have had their granddaughter ripped away from them. No penalty is going to ever fix that.' Sorensen is also determined for Lao authorities to recognise the 'wrongdoing' that led to his daughter's sudden death. 'There needs to be some kind of accountability around what's going on,' he says. The group of grieving parents is committed to pursuing answers and justice for their daughters. 'I think this is what they'd want us to be doing,' Bowles says. 'If it was one of us, or if it was one of their friends or another family member, they would be on the frontline, making sure that someone was held accountable.'
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Overwatch 2's next update overhauls the game with perks and loot boxes
Blizzard is making some major changes to Overwatch 2 for its Season 15 update, including adding all new gameplay in the form of a perks system and the return of loot box rewards, on top of the new heroes and skins. Overwatch 2 has been through several changes since it left early access in 2023, many of which brought the game from the revamped structure that made it a sequel to something that works more like a free-to-play version of the original Overwatch. Perks are legitimately new, though. Now during a match you'll be given two opportunities to pick a perk for your hero. One minor perk after leveling up for the first time, which adds smaller upgrades like a passive ability or a cooldown reduction, and one major perk that can alter the play style of your hero. For example, Torbjorn can pick from turrets that stick to ceilings and walls (a frankly diabolical upgrade) or an even more powerful "Level 3 turret." As a reward for your hard work in-game, Blizzard is also adding to Overwatch 2's battle pass system by reintroducing loot boxes as another way to get cosmetics. You can earn loot boxes by completely weekly and event rewards, and you'll get one Legendary Loot Box for having the Free Battle Pass or two Legendary Loot Boxes for having the Premium Battle Pass, as well. Beyond publishing drop rates for boxes, Blizzard is guaranteeing that "a Rare or better item will drop in every single box, with an Epic item within five consecutive boxes and a Legendary item within twenty consecutive boxes." Coming a bit later in Season 16, Overwatch 2 will get an entirely new "Stadium" game mode that draws clear inspiration from competing shooters Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant. In a Stadium match you'll be placed on a team of five fighting to earn currency across seven possible rounds. In-between rounds you can spend that currency to unlock upgrades and customize your abilities as you play. Stadium will also let you pick between the traditional first-person mode or a new third-person mode, which should make it easier to aim some of the wilder abilities you can unlock during a match. See for yourself — The Yodel is the go-to source for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories. By signing up, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy. The cherry on top to all these changes are new quality of life features Blizzard plans to add this year, like the ability to ban specific heroes from a match, and vote on maps you want to play. Of course, there are also two new heroes in the works: Freja, "a former search and rescue operative turned bounty hunter" with an explosive crossbow who will be playable in a free trial weekend during Season 15 before joining the game in Season 16, and a hero currently being called "Aqua" who will land in Season 18 and can control water. Season 15 launches on February 18, while features like hero bans and map voting are coming later this year, in that order, according to Blizzard.
