This is for the people that haven’t seen it yet. This perfectly addresses the problem on why Orisa and Sigma were so dominant. The shield nerfs only destroyed both heroes while Rein, the only tank with a strong shield remaining, rose up. Buffing the shields to what it was (or partially to what it was at least) will bring them back to the main tank slots.
Now, in order to make them not a must pick again, GreyFalcon suggested excellent ideas to nerf their alternate abilites to protect them so other tank synergies have a change to break through the double shields. Nerfing Fortify and Kinetic Grasp makes them much more vulnerable to other tank synergies, while not completely making them obsolete.
What this brings us: More people will find Orisa and Sigma to be more enjoyable, which means more players will play tank, which means less queue times for DPS and Supports. Roadhog will be a lot more viable again as Halt & Hook is more efficient due to Orisa’s shield getting buffed. Now, we’ll have a lot more viable tank synergies, which makes the game not a “No Rein No Win”.
What I still want:
The only thing I’d still request, is for Sigma’s cooldown to start when Barrier key is pressed, not when the barrier is actually activated. This pushes him closer to the main tank status without making him mandatory to work with an Orisa or Rein.
Well, they main idea is it doesn’t matter how strong the barrier is, if you can just dive/speedboost past it, and Orisa and Sigma are vulnerable at close range.
And that makes it more worthwhile for Orisa and Sigma not to be in the same team composition, and to have an offtank instead, that can Peel for the main tank.
Rein and Winston are Sigma’s biggest counters, he replaced Reinhardt when the crusader got banned but has been useless against him.
The issue is that Orisa beats Winston and Rein, she’s designed too. Why play an off-tank like Roadhog when he’s a liability and overkill and you can play Orisa instead?
But Orisa can’t just be trashed either, she needs to be viable too.
But anyway, as for Sigma, I don’t understand how you see how he’s doing in the current meta and think, “this guy is too strong in close range”
You should just post in that topic then. It grinds my gears when people create an additional topic just to link a previous topic. That’s literally not how forums are supposed to work.
Because I’m not looking at the current meta, I’m looking at the possibility of Sigma having a 1100HP Barrier, that can regen 500 barrierHP using the kinetic grasp.
Bringing back the barrier portion of DoubleBarrier as strong, or stronger than it was when Sigma was first released.
I don’t think that helps him though. Sigma is like Pharah: good against some heroes, trash against others. He doesn’t need a stronger barrier, he needs help with his his more major problems like all the hard counters that make him impossible to main.
You could give Orisa more barrier though, lord knows she needs it.
But as for Sigma, he could use more base hp or something like that.
It’s not only fire power that could make them more similar to DPS. Mobility could too.
Anyways I think @Rocktopus has a good point, Sigma already suffers in close range, Orisa is the one who can stand a close range attack, Rein and Winston need peeling, but because they are a close range threat. The close range is either a weakness and a strength for them.
The problem here is that he’s already super vulnerable at close range. Sigma’s good at keeping people away from him because the moment you cross that 10 meter threshold he becomes more vulnerable than a freshly opened clam. Without Orisa to halt people away all you really need to do is press m1 with Rein then laugh as the dutchman dies.
I get that giving heroes weaknesses is important but Sigma is so weak to Rein its like Mei vs Hammond. When it comes to buffs, I’d start there.
On the other hand, it would be nice if Kinetic Grasp didn’t feel like the worst ability in the game 9 times out of 10.
I dunno, I’m just throwing buff ideas around.
I don’t think we have to worry so much about Sigma potentially becoming too good in close range: he’s got the slowest abilities in the game, he’s a lot like Symmetra that way.
As long as they don’t compeltely try to remove the distinction between main tanks and off tanks, they need to choose either one for both orisa and sigma.
I would argue orisa should be a main tank again, so buff the shield, but nerf halt and fortify. As a bonus they could look into giving her a new ult… it’s so boring as it is.
Sigma could be either honestly. If they make him an off tank they need to nerf the shield even more, maybe buff grasp. If they make him a main tank, they could maybe entirely remove the stun but massively buff the barrier.
Shields should just be removed, they have done nothing more than stunt Blizz’s creativity when it comes to designing tanks, and has only ever created unfun situations. There is nothing fun about a shield.
500HP would be the best buff Sigma could get right now without breaking him.
It makes Rein take two more swings to kill him, which is enough time to get a healer onto him and pocket him to make him as tanky as Rein gets when pocketed by a healer.
It makes the matchups against Zarya and Winston much better since their consistent damage takes that much longer to take you down, buying you time to get your cooldowns back up so you can try to burst them or force a retreat.
It makes Doomfist less of a backbreaking counter since he can’t basically oneshot your main tank any more, same goes for Mei since 100HP could be the difference between escaping through a broken wall pillar or dying from being focussed down.
Doesn’t make him any better against the matchups where he’s already decent or good (when he’s paired with another shield, for example, his max HP isn’t really a concern), but it means that he can be the lynchpin of a team with a support backing him up. Like he was always supposed to be.
I think it’s a mostly excellent idea. I think shields should still exist in some sort of different fashion. Something perhaps similar to DM where it is up for only a limited time.
The thing that’s stopping them from doing that is that they will, out of necessity, have to nerf the one-shots. That means either removing crit ability or severely reducing the base damage of Widow, Ashe, Hanzo, 'Cree, and some others. Pharah’s rockets will have to be re-nerfed in their explosion radius and/or damage. Most hitscans would either have a much longer refire time or much lower damage. Hog would probably need his hook outright removed, or nerfed to half-range. All this and more.
People often don’t understand that the only reason those things are allowed to exist, is because players have the option to mitigate the worst parts of it. With little to no barriers, none of that stuff can be kept in the game, lest it degenerate down to literally nothing but that like any other COD game.