Currently, armor works 2 different ways:
-If you’re hit for 10 damage or more, the damage is reduced by 5
-If you’re hit for less than 10 damage, the damage is reduced by half
With this way armor works, it seems strange that taking more damage reduces the benefit of armor, especially when most damage heroes do more, if not much more, than 10 damage. Another strange thing is that a (hypothetical) hero with 300 armor will take the same amount of damage from, say, a widow headshot as someone with 299 normal HP and 1 armor. This essentially means that 299 of that armor is completely and utterly useless against widow’s shot.
I propose to change how armor works to make it consistent across all amount of damage, reducing all damage taken by 50% or maybe 40%. The armor a hero has will reduce the amount of damage taken by half until it is gone. For example, if you have just 150 armor points and get hit with a widow headshot, you take 150 damage. If you have 100 armor points and get hit by a widow headshot, you take 200 damage; the damage is reduced by half until the armor is gone, then the rest of the shot does normal damage.
It may seem that this is unfair or overpowering, but, considering not many heroes have armor and most of the heroes that do only have a small amount and are tanks anyway, it wouldn’t be very overpowering at all. This change would primarily change the way tanks take damage, allowing them to survive the ever-increasing amount of damage in the game. Also, this would make Brigitte more of a support, as her ult will be very useful to her team and her armor pack will be able to save people from more things if used preemptively.
3 Likes
I like this change, and it would make widow less overbearing (cant forget when a super charged widow one shot me as a full health orisa 
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Yea the change will make tanks more tanky. This way you no longer have simply 400-600 ish HP as an orisa (main tank), but a constant 600 cuz of the armor. Also makes d.va more of a tank.
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This’d kill pretty much the entire damage roster as well as Hammond (though he’s already dead), and would be a massive buff to Brigitte.
Piledriver would do a measly 50 damage. Grapple Hook would do 25.
Symmetra’s orbs would do 60 damage vs. armour. Her gun would do 30 damage per second.
Dragonblade would only do 60 damage, or 25 damage on dash.
Poor Soldier would only do 9.5 damage per shot.
McCree, oh God, he’d do 35.
You’d need to get constant headshots in order to even play the video game on either of those heroes.
Reinhardt’s hammer would instantly become a squeaky toy in the presence of armour, dealing a mere 37.5 damage.
You’re basically asking for every damage hero to be removed, and for the time to kill to be massively, MASSIVELY increased.
You’re also asking for Brigitte, Widowmaker and Hanzo to be the only viable heroes.
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People already complain about goats, this would basically double the effective hp and healing done.
All of a sudden Reaper would legit be a tank buster at least. Rofl.
This. Nothing would die and the dps roster would be pointless to play
I think you’re forgetting than 5 damage is already taken away from each of those. Also, that this damage would be on tanks primarily, unless you happened to have a brig.
37.5 damage is a huge difference when compared to 70 damage. 50 damage firestrikes vs. 95 damage firestrikes are another example.
Brigitte would do 17.5 damage on her PRIMARY WEAPON’S ATTACK, compared to 30 damage per hit against armour.
That’s how it’s supposed to work. It’s meant to soak up rapid fire damage, but high damage shots can “pierce” it. It’s fine how it is.
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They have armor which reduces their damage already. Also, they have only half their hp at most that is armor. And they are tanks anyway. So their health pool would be increased by like 25% at msot
The “inconsistency” is the point of armour. It’s supposed to be that way - that its strong against one kind of damage and weak against another - so it has ways around it. Flat reduction is broken.
However there is a rather significant design flaw. Armour is a tank thing. The current iteration of armor is most effective against low damage projectiles… then why are all the supposed “tankbusters” using shotguns? The literally weakest source of armour breaking damage. The best Armour breakers are currently snipers and Reinhardt with his massive hammer. That makes it that “tankbusters” like Reaper or Hog are impotent against armored tanks while those are extremely vulnerable to getting sniped. And their giant hitboxes don’t help either.
I would swap it around to fit the roster as we have it. Make armor resistant to big blows and weak to a lot of small ones. That way Reaper is the tank buster and not a Widowmaker.
Reverse the effect of armor. Big damage = big mitigation, makes Hanzo and Widowmaker not so powerful anymore. 
Just make all fire damage do double damage to armor, makes a way to “counter” armor the same way heavy-hitting heroes “counter” armor now. Though reversing the functionality of armor would be an interesting idea, i’ll have to think on that. It’ll also kinda stop how 300 armor and 1 armor/299 HP function the same in many instances.
If they were to change Armor, I think it makes more sense to just flip how the threshold works. So instead of halving damage under a certain point then taking off 5 above that value, it should just halve (or reduce by a third) damage above a threshold value.
So, let’s just say we use 50 as our threshold, and 50% as our reduction. Any individual hit dealing greater than 50 damage would have its remaining damage halved against armor. A Widow headshot, then, would deal 175 damage (50 + 250/2), but a Soldier would deal damage as normal (assuming all of the target’s health is Armor)
You could probably play with this to find an ideal value (i.e. 25 and 33% might work better, IDK). I think it’d be more fair overall, though, since it devalues burst damage while keeping it quite strong but also not destroying sustained damage.
if we reverse the functionality, how will damage below 50 work
My assumption is that damage would not be affected. But the point at which it shouldn’t be affected is kinda what I said with playing around with values to see what works
In doing this, brig would need a serious nerf with regards to her ult and repair pack, but I always thought it should work more along these lines personally.