First off before jumping into the core problems of your logic, I am going to point out one big problem that, and other lower-ranked Zaryas often have: not using right click enough. Her secondary fire is one of the most powerful parts of her kit and yet it is one of the 3 big problems that lower-ranked Zarya players have (positioning, not calling out bubbles, and not using secondary fire enough). If you are not getting a lot of value out of your secondary fire you need to fix your Zarya play.
Now onto the core problem. I did not ignore that Zarya went from a top tank to bottom 2, but considering that when the game launched there were 5 tanks and 4 of them gained damage her also gaining damage is not really going to be an asset. The reason she lost status has nothing to do with her damage. Double shield is simply better and on maps where you want mobility Zarya is a 2d character and DVA is not so Ball/DVA is better.
So yes she gained damage (again verifiable when you compare damage per 10 now versus 5 years ago and it being WAY higher and I already explained why) but so did everyone else (except poor Winston) and there is more to viability than simply doing more damage because Zarya should be gold damage in any game she is in.
Back then we had less barriers, less armor, and less healing in the game than there is now.
Because we had less heroes that brought all those things into the game.
So your example was not as good as you think it was.
Orissa, Sig, Bap, Brig, Moira, Ball, Doom, were not in the game yet.
So the actual power creep that made 76’s damage not as significant was actually the release of those heroes.
125 damage is nothing to scoff at. other pinpoint projectile competitors do around 70-75 damage (so yes Hanzo is powercreep in everything - not just SA)
solider, cassidy, tracer, hanzo. 4 examples of damage creep
Bap? yes but not what your saying, amplification matrix is the problem
with the size that it is and the rate it builds at 100% is too much
Sigma no, Its not really a lie to say anymore sigma has been gutted.
he lost any fluidity and is now a clunky mess
sure he is still strong but were comparing him to the worst role in the game aka other tanks
the only good tank right now is Dva.
she is the only one who feels good to play too.
cites a comp designed to counter damage creep
ignores 20 damage solider with spread revert
storm arrows shooting faster
visor no falloff
etc
Like I said , there were less barriers, shields, less armor, less healing and less life saving abilities in the game back when 76 received the first damage buff.
It is powercreep in the context of current game where his projectile “competition” has 50 less damage per shot and with the current shields which have been nerfed by a lot. An ability doesn’t have to be buffed itself to become powercreep, it can happen when you nerf stuff which is supposed to counter it
I mean the only real net buff here to her damage is the drain rate from 2.0 to 1.8. It’s not really a massive deal compared to the loss of 20 DPS and 10 less energy per bubble and beam width no longer scaling with energy.
Also her secondary fire is definitely worse because of less radius.
I know this is going to be an uphill conversation when you do not understand why double shield came to be (fun fact it had nothing to do with DPS heroes as most metas are shaped by the top Tanks unless the balance state is really messed up) but I will try anyway.
First lets talk Cassidy. He is the furthest thing from powercrept. Cassidy launched with 70 damage fan and was broken. Later on he had 30m falloff and was broken and then he had a .42 firerate and while not broken was stronger than now. Basically Cassidy is as far removed from powercreep as your argument is from being cogent.
I could talk about Soldier having traded in bloom for recoil or Tracer having only gotten a range buff after Blizzard introduced heroes (and kept doing it after Brigg) that made it so she could not function at a close range as she got by in early OW due to there be niches of heroes that were not in existence, but lets get to the more interesting topic: Bap.
Amp is a problem with Bap as it relates to his damage but it is not the problem. A good Bap is doing as much damage as healing (and he does a lot of healing). The nickname Bap76 exists because it is almost unbelievable how much damage he is capable of, as a ranged Support with a lot of healing. It is something that drastically boosted the damage going out in the game.
Next up lets talk Sigma. You are right that Sigma is far weaker now than when he launched but that is because when he launched he was, without question, the strongest hero in the history of OW. We have had 70 damage roll, S2 DVA, Moth Mercy, reworked Hanzo, launch Brigg, and Sigma was stronger than all of them. So yes he is weaker than that (one would certainly hope so) but he is far from weak. When you compare it to the launch state of this game it is still more damage than you would expect from the Tank role.
Basically when you look at this games history: healing has gone up a fair bit, DPS from damage has gone up a little bit, DPS from Tanks has gone up a lot, and DPS from Supports has shot up leading to a very bursty game. When addressing that burst though I tend not to look at the smallest violators. Complaining about DPS being stronger is like trying to pull over the guy doing 70 while 2 guys doing 120 speed right by you.
Complaining about DPS being stronger is like a cop trying to pull over the a sports car doing 70 while a truck and a family wagon are doing 120 speed right by you.
