You answered your own question.
It is tedious and unfun for many if not most.
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Ay at least youre finding you need to do something good to see the swaps.
Before you could be doing air and theyâd still counterswap you on autopilot.
I notice it still happens with ball and dooms. Dont matter how bad they play, a sombra and/or cass will always pop their head out.
Yeah ive always loved playing Ball, the instant i roll put tho most games the dps insta swap to Sombra, so horrible.
1 Like
Isnât it the opposite? You get perks faster as the match goes on so that if you need to switch heroes youâre not completely throwing.
As for the OP, people are forcing their choices longer because theyâre chasing their perks. For some heroes this works well, for some the perks are fairly irrelevant. As people figure out which is which, youâll see more counterswapping like you used to.
Regardless, having perks that mitigate some of the heroâs weaknesses will reduce the need to switch unless itâs outpaced by perks that make counters stronger.
Yeah I feel its more this then anything else. Before perk people would start the round with some off meta pick and then swap off it didnât work, now they just go with meta comfort pick from the get go.
3 Likes
Swapping happens early against Hog. As soon as they see a Hog everyone immediately thinks to swap, especially tank and supports. 3 out of 4 of the swaps were on 1st death I believe. Before perk points have built up. But this is how it has always been - die, switch to counter hog.
I donât think this is purely because it is hog, but more because people just know which heroes counter him. If you see an Orisa or most other tanks, there isnât a well-defined set of heroes to switch to that counter them. Zen is good I guess against Orisa and so is Zarya, but you mostly donât see a knee-jerk reaction against most tanks to go certain heroes (except maybe ball and doom with sombra, and beams against DVa).
Itâs the primitive brain - HOG!! Switch Ana+Zen(or weaver these days), reaper/torb/symm/mei/pharah/âŚ, Orisa/Mauga.
Games are pretty repetitive on Hog.
One thing for Hog players - be silent before game start. If you go and jump around, fire your gun or throw your trap where the enemy will hear it from spawn, then you can expect a full counter-comp to walk out of spawn for the 1st fight. At least if they donât know youâre on Hog, youâll get 1-2mins where they havenât fully countered you and can, for that short time window, have some fun (although in 70%+ of games they probably already have Ana).
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They still do depending on which tank you are and whether you are doing well, although on tanks like Hog and Mauga the doing well part is optional - they swap on sight.
Counterswaps feel like they happen in the first death, or 2/3rds into the game (or later). Itâs basically âoh this didnât work first go, time to switchâ or âhail maryâ kind of plays.
I quite like it.
Lets be real, Ana is omnipresent even if you ARENâT playing Hog or Mauga. Tanks donât get to have fun until S16.
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Perks really havenât made any difference at all for me. Iâve played D.va successfully into Zarya before perks and after. Iâve swapped when it wasnât working for my team, before and after perks.
My last game I played, the other tank swapped 3 times and I swapped twice. He started on Zarya, I started on D.va. He switched to Hammond and was getting more value out of that. I switched to Mauga (sustain was a problem and they had a Lifeweaver). He switches to D.va, I switch to D.va. He switches back to Zarya. I dive his backline and eat his grav, we win.
EDIT:
Clash game, for what itâs worth.
Yes that sounds like the reason. Hog has clear counters and itâs effective to use them. Itâs also a set of heroes that are easy to pick up. Very unfortunate combination.
Not all perks are that impactful⌠then I still think counter swapping is still the better strategy. Having another tank would probably be better at reducing counter swap issue.
3 Likes
The manipulation works and you try to find benefit in this, thatâs insane.
Yes, because you get punished for swapping.
issue is, those people opting not to swap are seemingly losing more lol
That said, tank counterswapping seems much more aggressive early game and also lategame for the longer games when you get access to perks on all heroes. Whoâd have thought? Not surprised it seems like theyâre taking the âperks are the fix to 5v5â angle when nothing is the fix, though.
Edit: In my mind, Iâd pressed edit to add this second bit on to my previous reply; my mistake.
Skill issue.
Like, you have too much skill, forcing people to go to your counters. Play worse and it wonât be a problem anymore.
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Honestly I dont see Ana getting banned at all if its only tanks banning them.
Ironically or fittingly, the tank role being only 20% of a team (and thus the ban process) will not let them consistently ban Ana.
2 Likes
Perks are another bandaid to the mess that is their balance direction and philosophy.
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What direction or philosophy? itâs just random bs go, constantly. 
(well, with a dollop of 'these âspecific heroes must be forever meta brainlessly OP at all timesâ
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Oh no there is a very clear philosophy and direction: focus on viewership, popularity and retention, cycle who is top 1 without changing anything below that, balance the game around the useless winrate by hero stat that lets us pretend strong heroes are balanced and that weak heroes are too strong.
2 Likes
Iâm fully expecting a sym base kit nerf after this tp perk that should be base kit anyway, tbh. 
They already implied theyâre nerfing Sombraâs perks which are already hard nerfs to her lmfao