There are some heroes like S:76 which are meant to help new players learn how to play the game, but aren’t good enough at anything in particular to not be weaker than some other hero in a role for a comp. Soldier can’t be near the meta, because he’s a generalist with no really unique abilities. He would outdo a specialist in some function to actually be good enough to be played at high levels. Same goes for Moira, although it’s harder to say the same for tanks because they’re all pretty unique.
Soldier may never be actually good in OWL, but he still needs to exist as an additional jack-of-all-trades option and a reliably not-bad pick for newbies who need to figure things out.
Yet he’s good enough to be played at the GM level and win for many.
I believe Kabaji coined his nickname of “legs” (due to his sprint) and I’ve seen other DPS players play him.
You are right, at the the top level where people are playing for money and fame he’s probably not the best pick – but he’s not totally useless either. No game like this really has every hero being a top tier pick to be fair.
Checked the thread again, I think I found 3 people in favour of 1-3-2, including you. I still wouldn’t call that heavy objection. If you look at that heavily liked pro post, there are tons of comments against 1-3-2, this time heavily liked.
I’d actually say it’s good design. Soldier has a bit of everything, so new people can try out different things like hitscan, projectiles, flanking, etc. without completely just being useless and having to switch if they aren’t good at it. Of course, he also encourages people to specialize by not being really good at any of them, so they have to choose.
Nah I disagree. Easy to learn hard to master but if they’re not viable at the top then there’s something that needs fixing. It’s not necessarily even something wrong with him but something else in the game whether it’s healing, shielding, fall off, etcetcetc.
Again, there’ll almost never be a time when things get properly balanced (in part cos they keep releasing new heroes, well… keep) but that is what I think a balancing team should strive for.
Someone asked where opinions against it are the vast majority, I showed it. Changing the subject and calling me silly won’t change that. From all we can tell (and that includes Blizzard’s own statement, who of course have better insights), the majority doesn’t seem to like it.