“Attack speed boost” means faster fire rate for bullet weapon, faster tick rate for laser weapon, faster charge rate for charging weapon.
In terms of game healthiness, I believe it’s great to have synergies between heroes but it’s not healthy when heroes are inseparable; because synergies provide options, but inseparability cause guilty when it comes to form a team composition.
So new created synergies,
- Mei - Faster Icing
- Symmetra - Faster Tier3 upgrade
- Reinhardt - Some fast melees in area 85dmg are no joke
- Doomfist - Faster max damage punch
- Soldier 76 - Might be top tier in the right
hand
There is so much more actually, you name it.
What problem is solved?
Nanoblade.
The current state of Genji is not healthy in long terms because his ult is balanced around the existence of Ana’s ult; Using one slash or two on most heroes is a HUGE huge difference which makes two abilities are mostly inseparable.
By changing the damage boost to attack speed boost, that’s still actually a needed synergy for Genji to faster executing his 2 slashes.
But what this change has brought is to open up rooms for the Devs to buff Genji. One change that is guaranteed is a longer ult duration (let’s say from 6s to 8s) because it no longer needs to be compressed for the pro players (who can generate A LOT of values during that 6s).
So in lower elos, or the so called general players will have more room to create more impacts when they pick Genji.
I actually think “Pharah/Mercy” is also in the inseparable tier, but I currently do not have a great solution for it. Echo/Mercy is comparatively healthier.
*EDIT,
One thing I forgot to mention is how this change also sharpen the uniqueness of Mercy and Orisa.
The damage boost from those two heroes are relatively more important and can be stacked with Ana’s attack speed boost; so you may imagine people in future actually pick Mercy and Orisa BECAUSE OF their damage boost.
Mercy may sometimes be considered as an easy hero, but people mind will change once they see how a good Mercy can follow up Genji’s ult in this attack speed patch.