If Reaper has to be out of wraith, and Sombra has to be out of stealth, and Mei’s iceblock only lasts a few seconds, why should ball have a foreverhook, enabling him, through shields and sheer HP to perpetually stall point captures with the “skill” (laughable) of one grapple and spinning in circles?
It is time to put a max duration on his grappling hook. Everyone else who point stalls is vulnerable and doesnt do damage plus KB while point stalling as an AE condition of just being there.
Before the ballheads chime in…of course I know how to deal withbhim, but no other character requires a counterswitch to keep from pointstalling, point stalling is a net negative in this game, especially on 2cp maps, and there is no legitimate upper end use of spinning in a circle for longer than say…10 seconds with Ball that would suffer if he were given a duration timer on grapple.
My suggestion would be to make his rope cuttable, this I feel is good for both sides.
Making his rope cuttable would allow any hero to deal with a stalling ball. Yet it would also not weaken ball outside of payload stalling. Since I do not expect anyone to cut his rope while he is using it for travel or in the air.
Plus this would also mean CC being used on ball is still worth it but not a must anymore. Since cutting his rope still means he can roll, making it less ideal than CC. Yet if you can get CC it would still be better.
We can go that way but TBH I quite enjoy messing with the enemy as a living wrecking ball. I also feel a long duration is useful for getting out of tight spots, ambushing and flinging yourself across the map.
He is difficult to stop, that’s for sure. But even for average players, I simply find a lot of people just don’t know what to do when they see a ball stall, even if it’s just spinning. They panic or act desperately burning their abilities, and when the stall is apparent, more often than not, don’t switch mental gears and get stuck tunnel vision on non-important characters, non-stallers or non-ranged threats (the usual uncontested at range at critical moments are Ana, Widow; aside that aren’t targeting the most effect stallers).
For example, some people don’t know their boop or can pause the momentum of a spinning ball. They don’t predict the direction of his incoming roll or exit (no body blocks, no walls, or health pack block). They aren’t keeping track of his grapple cool downs, they boop or cc randomly hoping to knock him off a ledge or something, without reloading themselves, but he just gets back up or escapes.
And of course no team work. That is probably the greatest thing this game suffers, team work. No one wanted a team based game anymore and the updates and ow2 direction reflect that. No one wanted to tank cause its ‘boring’, or shoot at shields, no one wants to hear toxic players so they don’t communicate, no one wants strong support to help, no one wants cc to stop mobility, etc. So, honestly, a lot of players are now incapable to stop the character like that because they don’t know how to or refuse to coordinate, which is amplified by the solo player direction this game has been going towards.
But also, I view the character is a great obstacle for a lot of mid-high level players, though not quite top rank usually. In the same way a Bastion or Torb kinda is a gate-keeping wall for lower ranked players. I think for some players they’ll always find these characters challenging to overcome.
Map dependent. Ball stall for overtime is good. Touch and run. No continual pressure needed on point. Spinning works usually in certain maps. Hanamura point A. Lijang Tower Gardens.
This is actually a terrible idea, and would be one-sided/detrimental to Ball. We’ve had nerfs to our Shields, Slam, Minefield, knockback, and Hook since release, at this point the playerbase needs to learn how to deal with Ball instead of complaining about him. He has (hard) counters in every role.
Destructible Hook would remove his control/agency and have him roll off at speed in a random direction, with you needing to show your critbox to stop. We’re one of the fastest things on the map and a tank, it makes total sense you should have to spend an ability to move us, as we’re already using our escape ability to spin. The only way I see it working is if breaking the Hook/rope resets its cooldown, which kind of defeats the purpose.
There are already heroes that break Hook, play them if you’re having an issue with Ball, and do it before it’s final overtime and you’re as desperate to win as he is.
Past that, if Ball is spinning on point, you can either be outside or inside his damage radius (still on point) and do damage to him. He can’t shoot you and spin at the same time. Even if you’re both just stalling infinitely, you should get reinforcements before long. You don’t personally actually have to kill him to win, if you are the better team. If one Ball stalling loses the game for you, that’s usually a bigger issue than the singular Ball. As mentioned, if just one person swaps to counter before OT, Ball should not be a problem.
I recently stood on the center of volskaya point 2 and matched his spin. Even with my pew pew he found it annoying enough to stop and shoot at me. Not really a solution, but it was funny.
Na I don’t have an issue, but Blizzard clearly does. Blizzard has mentioned that they are looking closely at Ball, which generally bad news. So if they keeping seeing spin to win that means more nerfs.
I should warn you that Blizzard balances in two ways, either they make things useless or make things clunky and unfun. Hell they already did that will the Ball spawn change.
Plus a cuttable rope would not be that bad compared to what Blizzard could do. I guarantee your rope will rarely be cut while you are hanging or traveling. I only see it getting cut if you are specifically spinning on the payload. Even you said Ball is very fast so it will still be a chore to actually get the rope to cut.
CC is still way better to handle ball than cutting his rope anyway. This just adds more weakness to it without directly nerfing the ability itself.
And again, who is this “us”.
He’s just annoying to deal with, can you blame them? Even with the the hook nerf Blizzard’s response to ball can be summed up as “he wastes too much time”.
Sometimes they don’t nerf things because its OP, they do it because it slows things down. Hence why we get a lot of tank nerfs.
Reaper literally becomes invincible when wraithed. That’s why he can’t.
Sombra literally becomes invisible when stealthed. That’s why she can’t.
People were already complaining about Mei’s stalling. They will go back to complaining about Mei’s stalling when she’s played more.
Ball is a huge target and you can counter his stalling by standing still and pressing the shoot button when he passes your crosshair. That’s why he can do it forever. Not to mention THE STUNS.
Any more questions?
Time we put a max number on the amount of low effort posts allowed on this forum. If I ran it, I’d start with zero and remove every post like this.