It’s to prevent stupid as hell zerging to defend last cap, and quite frankly good. The amount of annoyance the stupid litter rat’s presence made the game frustrating.
51 Likes
as a ball main
yes it hurts
and it sucks that they didn’t revert his kb nerf
but its not the end of the world
he is still the fith fastest hero running out of spawn (faster heroes being Lucio, Tracer, Doomfist and Reinhardt though Rein depends on the map if you can get a full pin)
with all this said though
I will take this nerf
for the 2 buffs
1 of them is small and just makes me happy
the other one is pretty big
instant cast on shields yes please
and a 2 second duration increase also yes
I said this on reddit but I feel this is the devs realizing that they way overnerfed ball and trying to compensate for it. I understand they really don’t want to revert the kb nerf he got but if they ever want him to truly compete with winston as a dive tank then they eventually will have to.
3 Likes
The CD sucks out some of the fun of the hero and that’s a reality.
This whole year the “rat” has been getting nerf after nerf while other braindead heroes have been getting buffs that weren’t needed at all.
Some rat nerfs were needed like double booping but the KB nerf was AWFUL.
The minefield change is more of a nerf for skilled hamster players because we can no longer go for minefields on corridors or cielings to get mercys, genjis or whatever.
I like the shield buff but they will probably nerf it back so Ball will stay with 2 nerfs. Why do I think they will nerf it back?
Well, well, to begin with the shields were also nerfed not long ago so this “buff” is kind of a compensation buff and still if you’re removing a 0.X cast time on his shields why don’t remove it on HIS ULTIMATE? So silly.
People just complain about this hero. And he gets hated as hell like no one ever has and the devs show they hate it too by nerfing him. Other heroes are way more pwerful and won’t get touched. In fact, they get buffed.
Mei i better at stalling points.
Lucio has better movility and a way better boop on a 4 second cooldown.
Brig is just Brig.
Hog is unkillable now does crazy damage and now prevents ult charge too this should be a passive for all tanks not just the Pig.
Cree still doesn’t get his Sun radius flashbang reworked.
Doomfist gets a buff that rewards players wasting his ult to spam CC abilities like crazy.
And Tracer remains the same, she’s not broken at all right?
4 Likes
I dont think the 2 extra seconds is a small one, smaller than the instant cast time? Maybe, a small buff? not really, the amount of times i´ve had to left s potential kill due to shields dropping on low health or the times i´ve died trying to get out of the fight because the duration ended… its going to be a big one but not as noticeable as the cast time
As for the grapple, 5 seconds does feel like a lot but i dont mind, it messes up muscle memory on spawn pretty hard but now we will just have to learn the most optimal grapple spot at base ball speed after 5 seconds.
1 Like
the minefield buff buddy
pay attention to the patch notes
1 Like
I just don’t think this is a good change for him.
as a rule of thumb, this will confuse new players. adding on a weird condition for certain abilities with no rhyme or reason makes zero sense. imagine being new to overwatch and realizing “well THIS ability is on cooldown off spawn, and THIS ability…” etc. there’s no reason and it complicates things. people are gonna think this is a bug
also just in general this doesn’t make him fun to play. now you have to awkwardly wait to rollout, whether with stalling or just in general.
4 Likes
Oh, my bad, forgot about that one,i thought you were referring to the shield duration, honestly didnt have enough time to try it out.
1 Like
“this ability is on cooldown at the start” “this one is not on cooldown” hmm yes confusing
1 Like
point went miles above your head.
the idea is that its arbitrary and blizzard could do stuff like this for other abilities with no rhyme or reason, and then all of a sudden there’s a ton of abilities that randomly are just on cooldown, in a game where they all started off not like that.
it’s a slippery slope and an arbitrary balance decision that will confuse new players.
are you a new player??
1 Like
speaking of point that went above your head my comment a sarcastic way of pointing out that there is nothing arbitrary or confusing about these changes if you’re a new player you won’t give a damn if an ability is on cooldown since you would just assume its how its meant to be, never questioned in the first place the only exception would be players that haven’t played in a while
my point is people don’t go around questioning why some guns have more ammo than others or why the cooldown on some abilities is longer
4 Likes
if they are gonna do this then all the other heros should play by the same rules… no junkrat mines at start , no moira fade, no doomfist cooldowns no nothing…
Only picking on wracking balls is just wrong!
1 Like
They should do it for all movement abilities tbh.
2 Likes
The three large buffs are amazing and the grapple nerf doesn’t affect anything past respawning
I mean, it is 5 seconds of not doing your thing. I’d be upset if I couldn’t use Rein’s shield for 5 seconds on spawn.
2 Likes
It is part of his tanking to be speedy, just makes him feel dead, especially with spawns that are often spawncamped, gotta wait 5 seconds to zip out.
You still leave spawn faster than other heroes, it’s not that bad.
5 Likes
Hell, half the spawns you don’t want to use grapple right away anyway since you’ll end up running into a wall before you actually get out.
This will effect KOTH the most since those exists are just a straight grapple as soon as you spawn but the whole point of that mode is stall stall stall to 99% at least then win one fight.
I don’t main WB anymore so my skills on him are not as sharp but I know exactly how and when to swap to WB to be able to stall and the 5-10 sec it takes for him to return after a death is massively OP when half the other tanks can take double that time if not 30-40 sec for the slower guys.
It’s not even comparable honestly. Grapple is overwhelmingly the best mobility tool in the game and it’s on a very short CD.
I don’t like that my fav tank that I have 500+ish hours is getting more nerfs but I’m not going to sit here and pretend his ability to return after a death in almost no time isn’t OP.
I dread dying on Orisa when things heat up because death means I have to either heavily risk I wont be able to return to regroup or have to swap and lose my Ult charge just to have a fighting chance. I could die 2 times over on WB before Orisa would return from her first death.
5 Likes
I think your post is mostly right, but this is a stretch. There’s plenty of better mobility tools, some that teleport you, some that makes you invincible while reloading your gun, some that allows you to literally fly away.
Then there’s balls that enables you to linearly grapple in a predictable pattern that can be countered by anyone who cares to.
1 Like
You aren’t seriously comparing a stalling Junk, moira and doom to a stalling ball are you?
3 Likes
That’s the thing that makes you not want to play him?
Not the piledriver nerf? Not the mines spreading out more? This?
Alrighty I suppose