Not a complaint, but a question. Why are there so many abilities that block projectiles/hitscan, but not beams (and, similarly, no abilities that block beams, but not projectiles/hitscan). Is limited blocking just part of the identity of beam attacks?
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Beams are not projectiles, so they can’t be blocked.
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Pretty much. Why is that? Who knows, but it’s definitely common theme that beams aren’t blocked.
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What if there would be a character with prismatic reflection? They could reflect any beam attack back to the enemy but nothing else. So basically a reverse-Genji.
Beams are too niche to bother with abilities like that. Only couple heroes have it. It’s like making dedicated hero to block melee attacks… why? To screw Rein players? XD
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I guess it’s as much the identity of beams as much as beams being unable to headshot, having a sharp fall-off, and usually being attached to some sort of gimmick.
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Beams don’t have fall-off but have limited range. But why they bypass certain abilities when other weapons don’t? Reaper has much shorter range than Zarya yet he can’t shot D.Va matrix.
Being gimmicky also isn’t an answer because Moira and Winston have non-conditional beams.
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I would actually laugh if you could parry a melee weapon attack with another melee weapon
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Imagine if any hero could parry melee attacks if they time correctly their melee. Maybe nanoblade wouldn’t be so powerful anymore XD
Overwatch and Dark souls spinoff
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Bleh, that’s what I meant.
They can’t headshot and they have that limited range.
Those two beams still have their gimmicks. They’re both low damage, with Winston’s doing more damage the more enemies are in range and Moira’s giving her juice back and being fairly easy to land.
I guess the common theme of beams then is limited range and no headshots. But Zarya and Sym deal so much damage once full charge that it doesn’t really matter they don’t headshot.
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it’s because Geoff Goodman absolutely hated dva and came up with new ways to gut her and new ways to hard counter her every single month throughout overwatch’s existence. if another tank was op? he would soft nerf the other tank and hard nerf dva too just because. he decided every single hero in the game needed their boops buffed by about 500% one patch, and in the same patch, he decided dva needed to lose her boops ENTIRELY. like it’s literally impossible to boop anyone off the map with dva if they just walk back to the ledge, she does zero knockback so walking midair just cancels it.
now he’s gone, but his legacy lives on. devs still have not fixed her. she still rezzes at less than 25% health, which is an autolose against any other tank also running mercy. she still can’t crouch for some reason. she still has the largest critbox of any hero in the game for zero reason. she still melts to zarya and absolutely does not have the armour to tank beams. every single new hero has had either a beam or some other way to bypass DM, and every single new ult has been uneatable by DM except now illari this many years later finally an eatable ult.
basically, geoff goodman despised dva, and i’m still waiting for proof we’ve moved beyond that balance out of spite approach to her.
I also think it’s just a core part of the damage type but only the devs really know.
Most beam users have lower damage or low initial damage (at least during their inception in ow1) and have lower range. Like, Sym to me was a character that felt purely defensive. Her shorter range, charge time and cooldowns gave me a “get away from me or die” because she couldn’t exactly chase anyone down with the 5 meter noodle beam and a right click that you could emote in front of and still dodge. So that piercing damage reinforced that.
Similar with Mei freeze and her icicles.
Sounds like everyone has a similar take on beams; appreciate it. I was waiting for someone to chime in with “you moron, you forgot that Sigma actually eats beams if you shoot them directly into his bunghole.”
Maxtrix functions like most conventional missile defenses nowadays.
It calculates the approach of a projectile and activates a counter projectile to collide with the incoming attack to neutralize it.
It’s effective however it has it’s weakness: heavy, continuous fire.
Beams fit that description.
As for Grasp…uh, Gamma Rays?
Dude, nothing dies in this game already. If you can’t deal with beams, try to find H button on your keyboard – that’s the game.
My guess would be, because Beams have limited range.
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I think we can have such ability when beams can head shot…
From across the map… To instantly kill a person…
Until then it is part of the balancing that you have to get right in their face to hit them with a beam attack, that can’t critically strike.
Shields block beams, no?
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There should be a “mirror” hero that has Genji-like deflect for beams