I don’t get how it’s fair that you can run pretty much all the Damage heroes on any map and not get flamed for it when certain Damage heroes are reduced to being used on one map/not used at all and everyone seems perfectly fine with it.
“Niche” is not okay, it never was. Stop being selfish. At least support a rework for Bastion and Symmetra in the future so they can be played in all situations like every other Damage hero can.
It’s so messed up how normalized this mindset is, if not disturbing. It’s like the community has a giant bias against Bastion and Sym, which I absolutely guarantee you is the case. Again, selfish.
I remember when during the pro ExC the pros straight up said that a hero being niche is fine. Its just so selfish. The 8 players there were one tricking a role or weapon type so they don’t even know how a niche hero feels like.
I think a niche is completely fine especially for damage heroes. There are 17 damage heroes in the game and not all of them can be the best. In a game with heroes who have unique kits, some are bound to only fit a niche.
In Symm’s case, I think she has a good niche. She is one of the best heroes on some maps that fit her but will get outshined by better damage hero choices on most maps. This is evident by her low pick rate but high win rate. I would consider some tweaking to make the hero a little bit more fun to play, which would get her pick rate higher without tuning her to be too good in her niche.
Bastion is a completely different story. He is often unfun to play with and against. But sometimes bastion games can be fun too. In my opinion, bastion should get a rework or he can be kept like he is right now. There is a small portion of the player base that loves Bastion and I don’t want to take their hero from them especially if there is no guarantee he would be in a better place after the rework.
I have two other points that I think are at least semi-valid. Overwatch has many heroes and playing more of them should be rewarded by being able to play those niche heroes when their time comes and being able to switch off those niche heroes when there are better options. Also like Amanda already said, you can most definitely play those heroes in almost any situation and find success if you are good enough.
niche is only fine if the niche hero in question is proportionally stronger in their niche for how narrow it is, i.e. strength in niche actually strong enough to compensate weaknesses outside of the niche. otherwise the hero is by definition weak and there’s no point in making the hero have such a niche. additionally, if a hero’s niche is so narrow that they can’t reasonably be stronger in their niche while being fair (e.g. needing like >=100% winrate in their niche to balance out weaknesses), then blizzard f’ed up hard and they need to expand their niche/deflat and make them more general.
The former of “proportionally stronger in their niche for how narrow it is” is not sym atm.
her winrate rn in gm for the past month and past 3 months struggles to be in top 10 and the top 10 has a decent amount of generalists in there (if not far more general than she is). like if she is really only played on certain maps only (because “niche”) to justify how low her pickrates are, then it doesn’t make sense why her winrate lacks high skewness in being higher.
this is further especially the case if you further try arguing unpopularity to justify her excessively lower pickrates. because if she’s unpopular, it means less chance of mirror matchups, and thus her winrate should be spiking up even further. (side note: don’t forget popularity is positively correlated with the hero being powerful).
but it hasn’t.
So the resounding question is why is that the case?
And a likely answer is that she’s simply bad.
And when you start comping her kit vs others, esp in terms of how often she can get uptime for herself to do her job vs how often others can get uptime for their respective jobs, the answer of “sym simply being bad” seems more and more likely. I could and legit have written essays of analysis of sym’s kit, but to spare you the details and proofs: amongst the cast, she legit has low sustain, low effective range (yes, even when including orbs), low burst AND low mobility.
The intent behind there being so many heroes is for you to be able to pick and choose from among them to deal with the situation in front of you
There’s NOTHING anywhere that says they should be completely interchangeable or have equal pick rates and what not
That’s entirely a community desire which is fueled by people who play “favorites” and feel hurt because they don’t think “their” hero is getting a “fair” deal
And they’re “right”…they’re not…because it was never meant to be fair
Yes, their own among many players. Genji, McCree, Ashe, you name it. These heroes can be played anywhere but some heroes are not, that’s the problem. And the community is perfectly fine with letting these heroes fade into obscurity because of a blatant bias. People hated Bastion at launch and I don’t think anyone has ever liked Sym, so they remain obscure and players use their “niche” as an excuse to keep them bad.
Let me play my hero without getting flamed. Please. I don’t think it’s that unrealistic of a demand. I should have the right to play my hero without being spam reported like any other player.
Blizzard posted the amount of Bastion players that were killed after the beta ended. You’re telling me that the majority doesn’t have a bias? Aite fam.
Well I ain’t flaming anybody (and nobody else should either)…and by all means play whatever you want…like that’s a whole ‘nother issue altogether in the OW community
But it a still doesn’t change things as far as the niche thing…there’s nothing wrong with niche heroes…there’s just a desire for them to not be because we have favorites…that’s the only reason the topic exists
Niche is a bad concept and only used as an excuse to keep heroes bad.
Niche would only work if every hero would be niche. But niche heroes in a game full of generalists doesnt work.
Either the niche heroes are just as good within their niche as generalists. Then they serve no purpose. Because why ever pick the niche hero then if it serves in less situations and you got more practice and more use out of the generalist?
So in order to give them purpose, you would have to make them better than generalists within their niche. Which in turn makes them feel OP or unfair to play against. The player playing the niche hero feels its unfair not being able to play their hero all the time, while the opponent player just hates seeing your hero at all.
we’re all bias, ultra niche heroes are just as bad for the health of the game as generalist who can be played anywhere against anyone, which is why i hate so much the change made to mccree’s health, or most dlc heroes added since launch
Bastion is a relic design wise in the general direction where the game is going right now, an omega level specialist hero, i wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a massive change toward becoming a generalist too when ow2 land, like every other heroes, death of ow is what it’ll be.
Nah, I prefer Nichestion. He is better not being a common pick. He also should be unique, he is the only transformation hero in the game.
I play Doomfist Bastion and Junkrat. I prefer Bastion’s current state over some generalist states that would just make him another one of the broken hitscans.
i personally think that all heroes should be balanced with a niche in mind. the problem with overwatch’s balance is that too many heroes work well in too many situations imo.
that is why i find characters like sym a lot more interesting then someone like cree. we need more characters like her and bastion imo.