Blame the Nerf/Buff Cycle for Double Shield

General Discussion
1

Most players hate double shield. Here’s why we’re there again-

Dive was before double shield. During this time we saw nerfs to Echo, Ball, and hitscan. It’s not that hitscan were defining the meta, but any time they get nerfed, we see an increase in projectile heroes (Ana, Zen, Hanzo, Pharah).

Projectile heroes are notorious for their burst damage potential and lack of dmg falloff. As always, tanks are the most abused by projectile heroes. And any time burst damage is too high, we see tank players naturally resort to the most survivable tank comp- Double Shield.

These shields paired with powerful AOE supports (Brig & Bap) more or less neutralize all available burst damage in the game, outside of Hanzo and Widow. For whatever reason, the community is very obstinate about playing shield break heroes, and would rather complain than get off heroes like Ashe or Cree.

The typical response of the devs here is to nerf these AOE Supports and/or tanks. This eventually shifts the meta back to Dive/Brawl/Rush, until the various other buffs and nerfs create this CC driven meta or high burst damage heroes impacting the meta. This bring us right back to Double Shield, as it is consistently the most effective tank comp for handling CC and burst damage.

The answer to neutralizing double shield isn’t further nerfing tanks and supports who define it.

It’s reducing the CC and burst damage that drives tank players to it’s safety in the first place.

Like I said, the community would much rather not play it.

But why play Rein or Monke when you just get CC chained and then bursted out of existence?

4 Likes
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Yep. Its not that we all want to lock orisa, we just have to play double shield when we get bursted to death otherwise.

Hanzo, soldier, pharah, cree, tracer, ashe and echo dont make it any easier.

4 Likes
3

It’s because they’ve never actually addressed much why double shield is so strong, so they just tune down random numbers and think it works

8 Likes
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Well, they could have gutted every tank-like ability on non-tank heroes, or moved them into the tank role.

Then weakened the selfpeel on Orisa/Sigma.

1 Like
5

What they needed to do is give sigma a drop off somewhere in cooldown cycle, like shortening the grasp duration so he doesn’t have so much uptime.

Make immortality a damage reduction field, and revert the fortify and halt buffs but buff orisa shield to what it was before the nerfs. I’m confident that was fix double shield

2 Likes
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Crees that won’t fth against shields*

Mccree’s shield damage is nerfed a bit by the reload nerf, but still noticable and not a joke, just need a team that knows to understand that when mccree is breaking shields he will be unavailable for last hits.

7

70/shot from both him and Ashe.

Significant damage falloff from Cree.

Unless he’s fanning the hammer point blank, his shield break is garbage.

Especially when there’s projectile heroes doing +100dmg per shot with no falloff.

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I don’t think people consider a Winston + Rein double barrier comp to be a problem, but why would they consider it a problem when there are Orisa and/or Sigma involved?

I guess you answered it in your OP. These tanks have less trade-offs or less risks, they can play from range (avoiding easy close range CCs) and they can multi-task with barrier-blocking, adding advantages that makes their playstyle safer when paired with the right supports (and DPS).

It gotta be this safer style (specially in the right comp) + the fact that they lack mobility cooldowns (so they have a slower pace) that bother people to play against and as these tanks respectively.

That’s my theory.

9

You’re not wrong.

It’s only Sig+Orisa that folks get so bent out of shape about.

Rein+Monke, Sig+Monke, Sig+Rein, Orisa+Rein, Orisa+Monke-

No complaints there.

It’s how Orisa and Sigma play off of each other that is “problematic”.

10

Monkey isnt considered a shield tank, his shield has a limited duration, and he is purely short range. Rein has firestrike, and his shield has no duration, only durability.

11

I don’t disagree at all.

But when people complain about double shield they’re really just complaining about Sig+Orisa.

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Or rein, but sig orisa is currently a bigger problem.

13

Fth falloff range starts at 20m, that’s way longer than point plank.

Fth and reload full cycle is around 2.15s, does total 300 damage, makes it 139.5 dps. Higher than hanzo’s 125 per 1.25s which is 100 dps.

Even considering hanzo having a 350 total in 1s every 11s, hanzo still only have 100 + ((350/1-100)/11) = 127.3 dps with 1 cd-based ability included compared to mccree’s 139.5 with no cd-based ability included.

14

You’d also need to put Mei and Brig into the tank role. Or redesign their characters to not be AntiDive peelers.

15

Mei is not an anti-dive peeler, she is infact one of the worst heroes to deal with dive heroes.

1 Like
16

LOL solve double shield by nerfing tanks…just gonna make people play more double shield how about you nerf the cause of double shield rather than the symptoms

1 Like
17

The problem with DoubleShield isn’t the shields.

It’s the anti-Dive you can put behind those shields.

18

you can do what ever you want tanks arent playing winston until damage is nerfed not sure how you think nerfing the few playable tanks is good

1 Like
19

I think you’re misunderstanding.

If it weren’t for 5v5 reducing defensive abilities, I’d be looking for reducing defensive abilities elsewhere.

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Sigma and bap are the causes of double shield right now