Overwatch has been stuck in time because Blizzard won’t nerf Tracer, the poster child of the game.
People like to argue by saying that " Brigitte and Moria killed the game" But I think the Tracer has.
Moira and Brig specifically were added because the skill crowd complained that Blizzard couldn’t nerf Tracer because of “skill” and that every hero in dive was individually balanced. So Blizzard introduced counters exactly as the skill crowd demanded.
Introduce Brigitte and Moria. Two support heros that could fend for themselves and protect their teams.
Two heros were made because the developers are reluctant to nerf certain heros like Tracer.
Funny enough this one hasn’t been reverted yet.
Be careful what you wish for because nerfing Tracer sure looks like the better choice with hindsight.
Makes people question why bother making heroes if they only want 7 deemed playable.
For a game that was advertised about countering to win, it looks like if you complained enough about counters then you win in the long run.
She has 150 health, her blinks move her in whatever direction in a straight line, the same distance, each time. She’s only super deadly in close range, and even then, she has to have good aim, and even then the spread makes it inconsistent af.
The only Tracers who pose an issue are the top tier players, the rest are so predictable they get 1 tapped by Ashe. So what exactly are you complaining about?
How have you people played this game for so many years yet still have an issue with her?
I don’t have an issue with dealing with Tracer, but I do sort of gravitate towards that mindset.
We literally had Brigitte released to help counter dive, and more specifically counter her because they were adamant about not nerfing her and balancing around her.
Yet, we’re back in the problem; Tracer is going uncontested and anything that contests her or gives her trouble ends up shafting everyone else harder. And this is in GM which is the rank (outside of OWL) that has the most influence on balance.
It’s full circle. Brig was created the way she was for Tracer, and now that she’s been made ineffective, Tracer is back to dominating. I feel like that’s sort of an indication that Tracer is the problem and shouldn’t be treated as the paragon of balance as the dev team wants her to be.
I mean even Seagull points it out as well, and I and others have long said hypermobility is the original sin in Overwatch. So, we end up with kits designed to deal with it that in turn, create their own problems. Two characters that have created the most annoyance outside of Sigma, Moira and Brig, both came from trying to solve a problem indirectly instead of addressing the problem directly.
The biggest issue is Blizz underestimated how well people could use this hypermobility and outfitted Genji and Tracer with spam attacks. Spam, coupled with highly evasive kit creates issues to the point she dominated the highest tiers for quite some time. Tighten her spread, shorten the distance (maybe).
shield bash is mobility
she has 200HP, 25 of which being ARMOR, the thing that cuts tracers damage in half??
Her shield is 250HP, on a support character of which their roster shouldn’t have an external shield in the first place
with the inception of brig they made a character that effectively counters the backline heroes. Great, it needed to happen.
What they ended up creating to fight that beast was an even more grotesque and bloodthirsty beast.
People still dont understand that brig is a jack of all trades. She can multitask and do some many things at once with little mechanical skill and a lot of positional leeway. All these thigns she does are all strong as well. the only thing emphasized in her kit is having very strong awareness and game sense, she doesnt need to have key positioning or mechanical skill like ana, zen and baptiste. she doesnt need to learn a lot of idiosyncratic skills like lucio. She does a lot more for less.
she suffers in anything below like 3300 because of the lack of cohesion. Brig is a force multiplier and an enforcer and the more people that play around her the stronger she gets. her value curve not linear. She is forgiving in some aspects which causes some of her players to just coast on her and not learn fundamental aspects to how other supports should be utilized. Then those that actually tap into what she can do and the natural increase in apm as rank increases means these brig players suddenly see huge spikes in results because she becomes incredibly strong when people actually start going out of their way to save you and dont position in stupid places. it doesnt take a support player to know you cant outheal stupid. Even then she does that well because her repair packs, not nearly to the same degree as days of yore, sure.
She isnt a no brain hero like people think, being limited in range automatically shoehorns you into playing a certain way. Shes an entry hero that needs teamwork to thrive and you dont get much in most of the games population…that isnt the fault of brig she just happens to be a victim of reality. The compensation for it meant that she did all of it and did all of it and more in ranks when every advantage begins to matter. She functions the opposite way she should and its why low rank players and high rank players dislike playing with and against her.
The damage is done though, im pretty certain that even with a rework, she will still see the ire of all sorts of players. before anyone bring up the “REEE ENTITLED DPS PLAYERS REEEEE” keep in mind that brig also made tracer and genji and the likes even harder to deal with and enabled them more than zen or mercy could. You guys remember 300 hp tracer? i do.
Shes a sunk cost. we either keep seeing nerfs or we get a rework that makes brig into something different. with only her visual design being the only constant. Its sad but no hero should ever have had that much power to begin with so its sad when inevitable nerfs come.
A lesson blizzard hasnt learned in 20 years.
It’s the same thing with Widow who should have been reworked a long time ago.
The devs play the game and abuse the broken heroes as well but they could easily shrug off their main being OP as them just knowing a lot more about the game so of course they would perform well on them.
The devs writing “oppressive” and “feeling bad to play against” in the patch notes as valid reasons to nerf other characters proves Tracer and a few others should have been reworked/nerfed a while ago yet because of favoritism, they haven’t.
People will come on here and say feelings aren’t a reason to nerf a character yet a character/ability feeling too oppressive and/or unfun to play against are reasons stated in balance patches created by the devs, themselves.