https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/career/pc/GreyFalcon-11737#competitive
I was looking at comp.
The goal is to ideally make it so Sigma doesn’t need to be played by the equivalent of Symmetra-onetricks like yourself, or paired with another barrier tank.
And that he should be useful as a main tank with an offtank.
Instead of basically being an offtank.
I’m a Symm one trick, huh?
You’re a Sigma specialist.
And while you can make him work, that’s kinda like saying Symmetra has been balanced for the entire history of Overwatch, because there have always been people like Steevo that can get to Top500 with the hero.
I play Orisa, Sigma, Winston, and Ball all a ton. I’ve just recently the past season and a half been picking up Sigma. I wouldn’t say I’m any more well versed using him than people who played the heck out of him in double barrier meta.
I played Winston and Ball most during the double barrier meta, so if I can make Sigma work now that he’s “garbage”, then I think I’m correct in thinking that Sigma players and tank players in general just never learned how to use him without an Orisa.
I’d say that’s a reasonable guess anyway
But is it good to design a hero that the vast majority of the playerbase can’t get any value out of when played as a main tank?
Especially when for most people the game feels like BarrierTank options are very limited.
I mean, if one understands how to use Sigma and how to work with a Sigma whenever he is your main tank, it works
Sigma isn’t designed in a way that players can’t use him. He dropped into the live game and immediately became part of a dominant meta where he was the off tank. People never learned how to use him as a main tank and just assume that’s what Sigma is supposed to be.
Besides, your proposed changes don’t even move him more into a viable position anyways. You’re proposing to cripple his personal defense in favor of his barrier. That’s just gonna make people use him as the off tank exclusively since your main tank is supposed to be withstanding heavy punishment.
I don’t think Rein has the kind of SelfPeel of a Defense Matrix and an unmatrixable Flashbang.
That said, I think I should probably post something up to that removes Sigmas self-damage.
That’s true, but he does have a shield that is stuck to his face, so it evens out.
Rein also doesn’t have a 200hp selfheal.
That depends entirely on who’s shooting how much into Sigma. Furthermore, if he gets stunned before that finishes, Sigma gets squat besides the damage being blocked prior.
Well, I guess another option is the could just make Orisa into a main tank, and keep Sigma as this strange hybrid he is now.
At least that would cover Bunker, Deathball and Dive.
75 x 3 = 225
3 Hits to kill a squishy.
90 x 3 = 270
3 Hits to kill a squishy.
I see no issue with this.
No. We should not make it even easier to kill Tanks.
Sigma has no armor. You want his total HP to be 300?
That puts him in the line of fire of Widows for being one-shot.
It also means he can’t survive Pulse Bomb.
No thanks.
The change needed is to apply shields to his HP quicker. It will be NEEDED if you lower the duration it can eat damage.
Less CC is welcome in my books, but, I don’t understand this change.
He’s meant to have utility.
Accretion is his utility.
Widow headshot + 5 tickle damage.
Widow headshot + damage boost of any kind.
Pulse bomb.
No thank you.
Again, are you trying to kill the reason they’re picked?
Fortify is a massive boon to Orisa.
If you’re going to nerf it by 50%, you need to buff the cooldown to be lower or increase its effectiveness.
All buffs.
Buffs that take away skill (easier to escape situations you’re feeding in, and making the process of aiming a land-combo redundant, because now the minimum damage is 30).
Man you REALLY love Dive, huh?
N-No.
They have variety in their utility.
That’s why Tanks are picked.
Tanks aren’t meant to be fat DPS or massive shield-bots.
If you’re a shield-bot on Reinhardt, we have words for you- “EZ” being one of them. “Thrower” being another.
Ah yes, buffing their barriers- gutting their utility to 50% effectiveness.
No- just…no.
If D.Va’s downtime in matrix due to her 1-sec cooldown is abusable easily (which, it is)- then you should already understand that lower duration is nothing but a nerf, and a large one at that.
Sincerely, one of the few remaining Main Tanks.
I figure this would make it so you could buff their barriers and their firepower, without worrying about Orisa+Sigma being uncounterable.
As for the Widow thing, I’ll probably want to toss in something which gives Widow a maximum 250 headshot damage, but with same charge timings for a 200hp kill.
As for Utility, and SelfPeel, I figure that should be more of an OffTank thing.
This is a low-elo issue.
In the competitive scene, it’s not a problem.
If someone is Sub-Diamond, they can lose the majority of their games and still climb to Diamond via self-improvement because of the Personal Performance based SR system.
If they are Diamond or above, they need to work on winning the game.
That can be achieved with Double Off-Tank, which was actually META for a solid week due to hero bans. (Sigma+Zarya, Sigma+Hog).
“Barrier Tanking isn’t fun enough”.
This- is not a thing.
“Barrier Tanking” is not a concept.
Tanks are not meant to be damage soaks, if you try to be one- you’ll end up treated like most Hog players, like a feeder. Because you are accomplishing little.
We are also not meant to get eliminations.
We are meant to be scary enough that you back off, which secures an increase of Space for one team- leading to more angles for their DPS/Supports to take safely. The Main Tank has the defensive capabilities to survive pushing into an enemy team. The Off Tank is there to be the major threat, alongside the DPS, that functions as the Main Tank’s backup.
For example: You do not bumrush an Orisa, when there’s a GM Roadhog behind her.
You do not rush a Reinhardt when he has less than 50% of his shield, if his Zarya has 100 Energy, and yours has 20. She will melt you.
@PowerPlay is correct.
Your changes appeal to DPS players, not to Tank players.
You would likely make more Tank players leave with these changes.
That is not welcome.
I know for a fact that Orisa and Sigma brought multiple friends of mine into the Tanking role, where they remain. Previously being pure Support players or pure DPS players.
If you buffed up barriers and firepower, and left their selfsustain the same, it would be an every ELO issue.
Exactly.
Thank you, glad we’re in agreement.
Tanks don’t need DPS and Barrier buffs.
They were never uncounterable.
It was difficult, sure. But so was GOATs.
You could counter GOATs with an extremely coordinated Dive, or with poke-based compositions such as Hammond+3DPS (Or 4 DPS).
It was just easier to mirror. So people did.
Orisa’s shield is destroyed in one Roadhog clip, or one Junkrat clip, or one Pharah clip. Etc,.
Sigma’s shield is meant for utility and peel, for holding a very specific angle.
He’s not a Main Tank. He can function as one just like how Ball can function like an Off Tank. They are not designed as such.
The goal is not to attract DPS players to the role of Tank by making Tanks function closer to DPS.
The goal is to increase the attractiveness of Tank by adding new Tanks into the game that have their own unique playstyles.
Orisa introduced Bunker.
Hammond introduced more variants to Dive.
Sigma worked well with Bunker, and with a hyper-aggressive Brawl.
Reinhardt was the O.G. (and remains the only) Brawl Main-Tank.
Winston was the O.G. (and only) Dive Main-Tank.
That’s how you attract new Tank players.
New styles.
New kits.
I think it’s easier to fix queue times by attracting DPS players to the Tank Queue, and also subtract DPS players from the DPS Queue. (This has twice the impact of attracting another Tank player.)
And the Tanks that can use their barrier, and shoot at the same time, would be ideal for that.
And by making it so that that Tanks don’t provide nearly as much SelfPeel, they are going to have a giant counterable weakness if they don’t have an OffTank.
Similar to if your team doesn’t have an OffHealer.
I do need to work on a Widow solution though.
That’s your opinion for the best approach.
If you believe that to be the case, why not do both at once instead of completely reworking Orisa and Sigma’s functionality?
Blizzard supposedly has roughly 6 heroes in development right now. Most of them being Tanks and Supports.
Baptiste can attract DPS players, while remaining heavily in the Support category.
I was extremely excited for Mauga.
Miniguns, a half-dome shield on his front (which may have reflective properties?)- potentially with a resource meter…?
That seemed very interesting to me, and the synergies that could sprout from it.
We don’t need to butcher Orisa and Sigma further to reduce queue times.
Blizzard has known it would be an issue for over a year.
They were working on Role Queue for over a year.
Programming and coding take time.
Ingenuity and creativity take time.
Bug-testing and doing internal tests take time.
Getting streamers and pros in to try out new heroes on the Blizzard headquarters, so that they can point out any serious game-breaking balance disruptions, takes time.
And what if you have two Off-Tanks?
Sigma and Zarya works.
Sigma and Roadhog works.
D.Va and Roadhog works (surprisingly well).
What would discourage them from running that, making Main Tanks like myself even rarer?
The way I see it, balancing existing heroes is pretty much the only way to improve things.
Echo is likely the last hero we’re going to get until about November. Which is where I suspect Overwatch 2 will launch.
That’s 7 months away.
And yes balancing is difficult.
I’m pretty keenly aware of that, considering balance ideas I post on the forums keep ending up in game.
Particularly with Roadhog, Mercy, Mei and Junkrat. And the whole technique that allows for rapid patching and the experimental mode.
And yes, I think I know a thing or two about Role Queue design. Considering I had a similar design to what they ended up going with 2 months before it came out, complete with “Quickplay Classic”.