Moira’s Fade: It could become a problem in the future if and/or when Brig and Bap are addressed… Can’t care that much. Enjoy it, my fellow high ground Moiras.
Wrecking Ball’s Grapple: “Spin to win” is limited to 6s which doesn’t change anything for Ball meta-wise. Ball is among the best tanks because of his mobility, self sustain cooldown and excessive CC. Still it addresses a problem for metal ranks so good change since it at least does something positive for someone, although last time I saw a tank live a full 6s under fire was when my game froze.
Torb’s Secondary Fire: An increase in his overall DPS that mostly affects large hitboxes. It puts even more pressure on 1/3 of players in any given lobby, moving Torb closer to a tank buster while also reinforcing the meta around Ball, Sigma, Hog - because of their self sustain CD - and also Dva for her armor, DM and mobility to just get away from such short range tank busting stuff.
Reinhardt’s Shatter: It’s more burst damage in which the downsides are offset by tanks’ large hitboxes and lack of range. Yes it is buffing a tank but it doesn’t mean tanks won’t suffer for it. 7 damage Hog was buffing a tank and that was bad too. In the end any addition in damage, specially short range burst damage, means tanks will have to take the brunt of it and suffer the most, even if it is from other tanks.
Cassidy’s Roll: This strikes me as trying to force Echo, Tracer and Ball out of the meta. Those heroes are very strong indeed but Roll isn’t the answer. The change itself doesn’t matter too much, it’s a cute funky QoL that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if Cass wasn’t already a problematic hero in other areas and the counter-point that Echo and Tracer are just too strong and should simply be toned down.
To explore the issue further, Cass presents 3 concerns which unrelate to this change:
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His fall off starts at 20m, he has a short range when compared to other hitscan and thus the global hitscan nerf affected him a lot more which left him a bit without tools in the medium+ range. Roll does nothing for this potential issue, all it does is affect Doom and Ball.
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Fan The Hammer: Buffed to 50 damage during GOATS meta, currently it does a maximum of 300 damage in under 0.7s, and can be combined with Roll for a maximum of 600 in the span of just about 1.8s. It’s also quite “spammy” since its downtime is 1.5s from cooldown and nothing else. This ability limitation is range and accuracy, two things that are completely offset by tank’s lack of range and gargantuous hitboxes, making it one the major tank busting abilities that present similar characteristics (the other being Storm Arrows and Echo’s entire kit).
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Flashbang. A huge 3m radius with a travel distance of 7m, meaning it can hit at a maximum of 10m distance in area. Combined with the aforementioned FTH and it’s just part of the tankbusting problem as well as the excessive CC problem. Similarly, its limitation (range) is also offset by the tanks’ lack of range.
Hanzo’s Storm Arrow: Making it bounce, therefore giving it a work around cover, even though none of its potency has been decreased, is making not just tanks, but everyone’s life miserable. Storm Arrows puts out a maximum of 350 damage in about 1s and it can be chained after a primary shot for a very consistent, massive spike of damage easily over 400 points, maxing at 475 in just over 1.75s with fully charged primary shot. That’s before any critical hits and with no range limitation. Its “downside” - one may argue - is offset by tank’s large hitboxes and now further offset by bounce. All that makes Storm Arrows the single most potent and problematic tank busting ability in the entire game and now it has barely any downside whatsoever.
There’s already a term for random Hanzo shots, you “got spanzoed” by those seemingly random arrows, at least with those one could claim the victim should have been in cover. Storm Arrows now take that away.
Overall this patch reinforces the need for tanks to have cooldowns that actively increase effective HP: Adaptive Shield, Grasp, Take a Breather and Fortify. Strengthens, however slightly, already very strong heroes into being just more annoying specifically to tank players without affecting any of the important issues around them.
That, I’m afraid, has been the overall theme of multiple patches for a long time now. Balance changes consistently make tanks more and more frustrating. This patch is just the same mistakes we’ve seen in for years all over again: Not touching any real issue, forcing tanks into an increasingly stressful gameplay experience, while still potentially creating even more issues for the future with unnecessary increases in power.
In the end I want to quote the man himself, AndyB, who said in regard to the feedback on latest dev-driven experimental in which some of these changes were already tested:
“Feedback from Tank players has been highly critical of this Experimental Card. General sentiment is that the increase in damage for Torb, Cassidy, and especially Junkrat are highly detrimental to their play experience with some pointing to this as further evidence of tanks being low in priority for the dev team.”
That is feedback previously submitted to the dev team. This patch is even further evidence that tanks are low priority for them, afterall changes that are highly detrimental to their play experience go live even when there’s very little potential gain to be had with no palliative whatsoever being offered. Tank players are not important.