Right after these 4 are the snipers, which are still stronger overall from previous buffs, and their nerfs brought them in line with how the supports are currently balanced(i.e. powercreep); it’s the same for DF and Sombra. That’s 4/6 of the reasonably meta characters. Against the occasional Brigless comps that look a lot like early S4, you’d expect the straight buffs to McCree, 76, and Mei to make them marginally competitive, but we’re not seeing that due to those 4 DPS powercreeping to match the supports.
The biggest change feels more like “hero inertia.” Once a high-skill hero becomes “meta,” it becomes a lot harder to become unmeta. I’d argue that current widow isn’t a ton stronger than 12sec widow (ie. not enough to justify the statistical increase). However, once heroes like Genji, Tracer, Hanzo, Doomfist and Widow become meta, they now have a playerbase who have the skills necessary to use their high skill cap to their advantage… so they don’t shrink back to their lows before.
Compared to the old Widow, new version has 2 sec faster Grapple, wall-hack on mine, 2 her best counters nerfed (D.Va and Genji), Mercy changed into ultimate pocket and Brigitte hard-countering whole dive comp.
New Widow is a lot stronger relative to the roster compared to the old Widow.
What about Junkrat? He isnt that good in high tiers.
Also buffing him would help lower tiers because he counters Brigitte.
However I do see people asking for a Junk nerf again which is a never-ending cycle.
We had no official numbers since the one I linked above (and you put in your post). Third party sites always have skewed data because they require voluntaries donating their data to the data pool.
If you are using third party data, you should compare the evolution of the numbers with their own data from the past. It’s still not a precise data (especially compared to Blizzard’s data), but you are comparing apples to apples.
Ok, if widowmaker’s pickrate increased something like 50, 60, 70, 80%, that would make sense. But her pickrate increased almost 200%*.
2 seconds of faster grapple is a good buff, but not amazing. It gives the divers 2 extra seconds to dive on widow. Regardless of the cooldown length, if you dive widowmaker /w her cooldowns, she will escape… and won’t have another grapple for the duration of the fight. It does somewhat limit her trick-shots though. The wall-hack on mine is situationally useful, but not very impactful in the grand scheme of things.
Also, D.Va didn’t even have micro missles back then, so she was arguably a worse counter for her. Not to mention that the D.Va and Genji nerfs weren’t all that significant in terms of power (esp. in the diver vs. widow matchup).
The Mercy nerfs did affect widowmaker significantly against a dive, but can still keep widow alive against a single flanker. In addition, Mercy’s rez remains unchanged, which still synergizes extremely well with widow.
And no, Brigitte does not hard-counter the dive comp. Dive vs Deathball vs Bunker almost entirely depends on the map + preference now. You run dive on maps like Gibraltar and run deathball on maps like Control center.
Fair point. Same as D.Va for me or Zarya for many hitscan players. However imagine what Roadhog’s pickrate would be if his aesthetics were similar to D.Va (say, D.Mon) instead morbidly obese shaved chest-less oaf.
Yes their is healer powercreep.
Right now except moira all healers needs nerfs.
I mean Goats don’t run dps (even hanzo is not that played) because healing right now is out of control.
And I see people saying dps powercreep ?
Nah only for Hanzo the two other Doomfist and Widow are good because healers powercreep gut nearly all of their counters
It’s 300 burst heal, and technically 10 less damage compared to the days you are thinking of (she used to have 80, then 60, remember?).
I agree with your point still
What I’d actually like though, is a new form of antiheal. It doesn’t have to be 100%, like bionade.
I pretty much agree wirh you but this is something no one can claim.
Once Mercy was nerfed to 50HPS it’s highly possible Ana and Lucio would’ve become more popular even without the buffs to their ultimates.
When you quote pro statistics you’re essentially saying you know of a couple of people who can play a bit of Mercy and do okay. Even Bastion has one or two players in GM who main him and do okay.
While pro tournament statistics can be useful, I suggest you don’t base your evaluation entirely on a small and highly selective sample that is hardly applicable to player base.
This is a burst damage and burst heal meta. Heroes like Soldier, Genji won’t stand a chance against the amount of healing that is currently standard. Nano usage went from “let’s nano blade” to “my rein is low”. This added to Brigitte’s armor pack results in 6 men needed to shutdown one player, be it a Doomfist or a Sombra they are even harder to kill.
I think the amount of burst healing should be tuned down, 300 hp is overkill for a squishy hero and for a tank it’s just enough for them to win the fight. Similarly Brigitte can save any squishy every 6 seconds.
I’m just pissed off because Lucio can’t heal as much as he used to. I couldn’t care less about the speed boost, that should have been nerfed again after cutting its range and speed boost cap. Make Lucio a real healer again
FTFY
That damage buff was the most important change. Do you understand how terrible 60 damage was leaving an attacker at 10-20hp before they killed you? It was infuriating. Only until after the second Halloween event where many people had to play her and realize “wow, 4 shots per 200hp enemy is complete bs and takes way too much time”.
The nano boost heal and the 4 extra shots are the extra changes, but don’t even consider that fixing that terrible nerf that was absolutely bs was not a required buff.
Also shooting trough heroes is a QOL and I like that qol. It was a very good qol imo and if people don’t like it, they should have a toggle. But not get rid of it.
If Ryujehong still thinks Zenyatta is better right now, I don’t really know what to say. He’s not being run by any of the World Cup teams and Ryujehong himself has been more successful on ladder with Ana compared to Zenyatta.
No, it didn’t. It brought them to the same level as Tracer and Genji, two heroes who were actually nerfed from before the Mercy rework to now.
McCree is extremely divable, 76’s counter-Dive ability is done better by other heroes (Brigitte) and Mei is actually fine on a few maps. The only one of those DPS that was good before was Soldier, and he is bad now because the support powercreep totally nullifies his DoT, and he is very bad against armor.
This is all so factually true, cannot be disputed. Solid argument and definitely convinced me, But, I like that the class has been bumped up. I think the class needed it. Support players have enough impact to carry now, what a great change in dynamic from all games everywhere. I love that you don’t need to be DPS to carry your way up the ladder, you actually have a chance as a support. (still no hope as a tank though).
Ryujehong and Tobi had no trouble carrying on Lunatic-Hai playing support. Jjonak never had any trouble carrying on Zenyatta even though Zenyatta never got the powercreep buffs.
finally a good support and make a big difference…in the past a good dps and decided the game
Moira has been nerfed since release and is currently weaker than her original state
Mercy has been nerfed many times over and is currently the weakest she has been for a long time
Lucio has received a buff recently and yet he is still the least picked healer, he is actually quite niche
Ana has received a buff recently and that has made her competitive instead of being trash…she is the third most picked healer from gold and below, most picked from plat up
Brig - despite the fools calling her op only lucio has a lower pick rate…shes also niche