when i first read it, aaron worded it very weirdly and got me confused. it took me until just now to realize what it meant so i’ll explain it here
basically, what armor does right now is give a flat 30% damage reduction until the armor pool is depleted. this stacks with other damage reducted abilities, like; Fortify, Ramattra Block
this means that both the armor and ability would stack making the hero incredibly difficult to kill, and which it was never intended to be that way stated by aaron. if my math is right, orisa could have a 70-80% damage reduction total with her armor pool being up. that’s why to many she seems incredibly hard to kill when her supports are literally pumping into her because the damage reduction stacks.
the new change now strictly caps all damage reduction for a hero to be at 50%, just like the global speed boost cap is at 70%. that’s why orisa’s fortify got buffed, and why people are saying it will directly change the way rams block works. most likely putting it at a 50% damage reduction cap which is most likely an indirect nerf to his block.
BUT I MAY BE WRONG!!! so take it with a grain of salt, if i am wrong, this explains it better and probably more accurately
There has been a damage reduction cap in Overwatch for a long time. After Bastion’s Ironclad change in Overwatch 1, they capped damage reduction at 50%. I never really thought about the armor 30% reduction actually stacking on top of that, but it does make sense why some tanks feel absolutely untouchable during their damage reduction abilities. It’ll make the gameplay loop for some tanks much more predictable but keeps them from feeling absolutely unkillable.
From the patch notes Orisa is going to be as good or better and Ram will be worse because why have a fun tank like Ram be decent when you could have a terrible tank like Orisa running the show?
i just realized this’ll create an interesting mechanic with Orisa where you’ll first use your armor to tank some of the damage and once that armor runs out, then you’d pop Fortify. If you pop Fortify with armor intact you’ll effectively lose the value her armor has.
it makes it about the same as it always has been… it always was a 50% reduction, it was a literal miscalculation for it to bypass the 50% cap limit. armor tanks can now receive actual balance changes without being unstoppable monsters because of them being able to bypass the cap.
it’s much healthier for the game, and makes nanoboost less frustrating. so hey, it’s a nerf to ana!
ram isn’t any better?? all ram is is just a block bot and has a ridiculous ultimate. he’s incredibly frustrating to go against especially as i main brig and reinhardt so i may be a little biased there but still
at least with this he can get actual changes to make him less of a block bot and more proactive
They’re just a small indie company dude, you can’t expect them to get everything perfect right away in Overwatch 2, the game that took several years to develop from an existing IP with dozens of heroes already existing.
It’s not a strict cap they’re doing. When they changed armor in Overwatch 2 they actually didn’t integrate it with the previous cap, meaning something like Ana Nano on an armored target would reduce damage from a hit by another 30% after the initial 50% reduction. It’s why they bring up ram, cause armor + block resulted in an 82% reduction rather than intended 75%. All they’re doing is so that armor counts in the calculation, not hard capping every resistance to 50%. Otherwise I’m pretty sure Doomfist would be unplayable.
Thats the confusing thing. On one hand block was advertised to block more than 50% and now they mention Ram block in regard to respecting the 50% dmg reduction cap.
