Game Changer - Global ultimate cost increased 12%

We need to discuss this balance change and how it affects the game afterwards because it’s going to be a game changer, at least for me.
I have played on PTR and so far these are my thoughts:

  • Engagements feel more strategic and skillful

Right off the bat you can definitely feel that teamfights are no longer a race of who gets ult first and wipes the floor with it. Teamfights are meaningful, engaging and actually feels like a shooter instead of a first-person MOBA.

  • Ultimates feel like actual Ultimates instead of abilities on a long cooldown.

  • Heroes that rely heavily on Ultimates to win teamfights are nerfed.

This one is self-explanatory but let me make an example. Genji’s dragonblade is one of the best ultimates in the game but due to how fast we gain ult charge before, he can pop this off whenever he wants. Now he has to use this sparingly and make sure to make the most out of his dragonblade.

  • Heroes who have one-shot capabilities will be preferable

Getting picks means less people on the objective, and always respawning means less ult charge and players can no longer clutch with their ultimates as often as they can. I believe an overhaul with the DPS heroes is needed otherwise, all we’ll be seeing when this patch goes through is Doomfist, Widow, and Hanzo.

  • The last point is HELL

This is especially true on 2CP, killing enemies one by one also means that they respawn one by one, this means contesting the point for what feels like HOURS. Due to ultimates coming up much less, that means both teams also have much less teamwipe potentiaI. I have never been this mentally tired before.

This is just my observation for now, but I really feel like the game will change big time with this balance alone.

I wish they could do the same for damage and healing. It’s a significant change, but a necessary one to bring back heroes like Soldier or Winston

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Soldier and Winston are actually pretty good picks in PTR imo.

My observation is that making it globally hurts some characters that didnt need it as well

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Yes, that is true.
Zarya for one is heavily affected by this, I think she has one of the slowest ult gain if not the slowest.
I think they should revert her graviton back to its original size with this.

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Another example is Mei, shes probably getting hit the hardest…

Lucio too,

And brig is getting a net 22% ult increase in between both nerfs

We’ll see how her increased healing compensates for this though

Ults definitely needed this nerf.

Mei is getting hit the hardest by this.
Sad times.

Not to mention Junkrat. His ult charge has been nerfed by a whopping 22% this year, and considering his main strength was how fast he could farm his ult, that’s a big yikes

I really don’t see this fixing the issue. The first time they gave a global ult charge nerf, people also brought up similar points, particularly of “ultimates would actually feel like ultimates” and “team fights won’t just be ult fights” but fast forward to now, and people feel like team fights were just won by ultimates. I think that’s still going to be the case. It’s just that it’ll take longer to get those ultimates, but once they are ready, the problem presents itself again.

They could increase the ult charge by however much they want, but we’ll still have the problem of people feeling that ultimates are too impactful at some point. And at the same time, there are some ultimates that would get unnecessarily nerfed like Graviton or Call Mech.

The first iteration of ult charge actually felt like glorified abilities, literally everyone was using them every so often, the next global ult nerf - the one we have now, like i said, feels like an ult race.
Though honestly I feel like with the nerf now again, ultimates does actually feel like ultimates, finally.
Team fights focuses more on proper ability usage and kill potential rather than “poke and build ults”.