For Context: I have 8 games played as Doctrine which roughly around 1-2 hours of play time and more than 10 hours of playing against him.
Look and Feel
I love his look and sound design.
So far, I don’t have any problem identifying him in a chaotic team fight.
Overall, he feels very smooth to play as. Especially his primary fire.
His SFX feels distinct from the rest of the cast.
His Ult though is visually clutter. And, the range is really hard to get a feel for since it’s much larger than the ult’s orb itself and also moving. Good QoL change might be to add some form of area range similar to Brig, Lucio and Mizuki.
While clearly strong, I don’t feel any frustration playing against Doctrine so far, even as a diver.
Balance
His damage output even without infuse/invigorate might be too strong. He has the same range as Illari with almost the same TTK on 250 hp. I can easily have similar damage output and heal as Illari, the heroes who I have 56 hours of play time and 61% win rate. Not to mention that Doctrine brings much more utility to his team and a much better ultimate. If he will be released as he current is, I don’t think there is any reason to pick Illari over Doctrine. (The only thing I feel like Illari can do better than him is solo angling with self sustain in some map). I think nerfs to his base damage, ammo, and/or fall-off range are warranted.
His ultimate is strong and satisfying to use, but I feel like the 8 seconds decay to the “reduced max HP” might be a bit too long especially for the ult, that as far as i know, only has barrier and cleanse as a counterplay. 8 seconds is just a very long time to capitalize on even after disengagement. Nerfing to 7 seconds might be worth exploring.
His major perk “Transfusion” is just too strong right now. With this perk, I don’t have any issue managing infusion resource anymore. In fact, I can almost spam it.
On the other hands, his other major perk “Cost of Life” is just way way way too weak for a 25 hp cost. the 20% increase can easily be accomplish with more frequent infused primary fire from “Transfusion” anyway.
Invigorating Drones might need its healing cut. For an ability that can potentially breaks lots of TTK, it might be too strong to include 120hp passive healing in the ability too.
So far, I enjoy playing Doctrine a lot. He is smooth and fun to play. Lots of his number might be over tuned right now though. My biggest concern with him is that in 90% of the situation, He is better than Illari in everyway - similar damage, simlar heal, easier to play and much more utility.
I got him to level 8 and I agree with a lot of these points. Not sure what Doctrine’s projectile size is but I feel like he’s easier to hit targets with. Illari’s main benefit is her pylon but other than that Doctrine is the way to go.
Better mobility/escape Healing isn’t crippled because of a destroyed placeable object Single resource pool for healing and damage Comparable damage and easier to heal flying targets
I can’t remember what the perks were but I always chose the same two unless the damage my team was receiving was too bursty. Normally i’d pick the non-drone option for the minor perk and Transfusion for the major perk.
Illari may need some adjustments to make her stand out more as an alternative choice.
Didn’t play him that much but he seems mostly fine , his numbers are on the strong side which i think is fine for a new hero, you want to give some grace to the community learning him
TTK is consistent with Illari and all other Supports. Damage is pretty tightly tuned here.
Ultimate is debatable. I don’t think it’ll be all that useful once players get used to it. It just falls into another abstract Support ultimate without a clear understanding from the get-go.
Duration could probably use some fine tuning. I agree about readability too.
Most you’ll get is 6 seconds on cooldown, which is actually pretty fast. That’s a Helix Rocket on two charges, or a Firestrike.
Cost of Life is actually pretty good on the healing end, but it’s harder for the average player to read or understand. Mathematically, the numbers check out, but players like spamming skills as often as possible, so Transfusion is likely to be more popular.
There’s always some number tuning they can do, too. Don’t look at this as being permanent, and keep posting feedback on it.
Nah, 6 seconds is 20 healing per second, that’s pretty low for a 15 second cooldown. More concerning is the attack speed buff, but it’s also pretty specific on who can use it better, and most Tanks will benefit from it unless you’ve got really accurate Damage-role allies.
This is not substantial enough for a lot of heroes. You need to hit break points.
Better mobility/escape