It feels like WB has two major weaknesses in the way that he’s designed.
- His Adaptive Shield has terrible range. You can usually only get a maximum of 1 to 2 shield stacks even when you’re surrounded by enemies.
I have attempted to replicate this result with enemy teams as closely knit as possible and got the same general result time and time again. Either the enemy scatters so you don’t get the bonus, or the range is just so pathetic that you get 1 to 2 shield stacks at best.
- His gun is extremely weak.
Out of all the tanks, WB rivals Winston for worst per-hero attack damage. He feels very low impact aside from his ability to knock heroes around, and even with excellent tracking it does not feel like you’re doing enough damage with his guns.
It might be that he just needs more ammo, but a slight damage buff might be in order. I don’t know.
These are his biggest weaknesses, as far as I can tell. Feel free to add to this list.
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His biggest weakness, imo, is that people think doing a bloody loopdeloop around the point isn’t throwing.
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I don’t know what you mean by a weak gun; I’m destroying people with it, at least at close ranges. The only drawback to his gun is its long reload time, the timing for which I’m still not used to.
Overall, I’d say his biggest weakness is crowd control. As little as a Lucio boop can cancel your high speeds and knock your swings off course. Also, with some clutch timing, he can be stunned out of Pile Driver before he hits the ground.
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He can also be frozen out of it, or slowed enough to cancel it. Hammond has many counters. The gun is kinda weak it’s really frustrating to get someone down to one dot then have to reload. I think the swing/piledriver dmg could stand to be upped a bit and some of the collision mechanics should be re-worked. Freckles shouldn’t be able to boop him out of a full speed roll or piledriver like she can now. IMHO the only thing that should stop his full speed roll should be orisa fortify, and piledriver should be uninterruptible other than maybe EMP.
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I’m still curious (honestly) what his playstyle is supposed to give to the team.
I haven’t played him personally (except in practice range) but I feel as if he should best be compared to D.Va and Winston in terms of role performance.
As highly mobile tanks, D.Va and Winston have three jobs they can do well.
#1 Backline assassination. Jump in, kill, jump out. I feel like Hammond doesn’t do this job as well as D.Va/Winston in general.
#2 Disruptive initiation. Jump in, disrupt, make space for team to follow up on. I feel like Hammond is built to do this better than D.Va/Winston in general.
#3 Protecting the team. Yeah, obviously, Barrier Tanks do this job better, but D.Va/Winston both have quite decent team protective tools. I’m really not sure what Hammond brings to the table on this part of the job.
Anyways… I think that any discussion of how Hammond works in a team should be focused more on ‘what his job is’ first, and ‘how good is he at it’ second.
What do you think, sirs?
WB is definitely #2, disruption.
His entire kit is designed to get the enemies attention, focus fire on himself, and potentially back off if he has to.
He’s also extremely good at just trolling around the point and focusing the enemy’s attention on him.
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Considering the Adaptive Shields can rocket Hammond up to… what was it, 1300 HP on a CD if he has a whole team around him, the range is fair I’d say, isn’t it about a Tracer Blink?
His gun is definitely powerful, but I feel like I always run out of ammo right before I can secure a kill, and his reload takes forever.
That said, I feel he’s a pretty solid hero atm
So… maybe if you have a Range Team, bring Hammond in first. And if you have a Brawl Team, bring him in last.
Would that sound about right?
Dude, his quad cannons are so strong what are you talking about. I’m literally worried they’re going to nerf them.
Played him all last night and I tried 2 things:
Jump in the middle of the other team and bash them around, separating and confusing them while making them focus on me while I try to peg the healers/support
Result: Usually a dead hamster.
2nd thing I tried: absolutely flying over and around the other team and making them turn around to deal with me and then retreating/shielding when things got too hot.
Result: Very effective on most teams as long as my team uses the opportunity. You can’t ignore Wrecking Ball. His primary damage is focused and enough to take down 1 or 2 people relatively quickly. You gotta turn and SOMEONE has to deal with him.
Things I found out using both: Shockwave drop first before you pop shield. It pops people up and keeps them from turning and retreating before you can pop shield.
Try to arc your grappling hook swings for as far as possible , the sooner you release the sooner that cooldown starts and 3/4ths of a second off that cooldown could be the difference between you getting away and getting pasted.
His biggest weakness is hitbox and predictability. You know where he’s going and it’s this HUGE ball to hit. He FILLS any crosshair. reaper and hog have field days with ALL pellets hitting. DVA makes his day suck. He just is this huge bullseye for punishment.
All in all people are still getting adjusted to him though and no real strats or counters have settled in my opinion. PTR had too little variety of skill levels to make judgements. I’m having fun though.
Well he is not supposed to rely on his guns, he relies on his ball abilities. You are right in that fact that he is like winston with low damage (to an extent with WB), but they are both also AOE. His piledriver and grapple both do aoe damage for more ult charge. I only use his gun for pressure/poke damage and for cleaning up kills.
Agreed on both the issues. I think his damage is fine, but I always find myself clipping or needing to reload mid fight against a single enemy. I believe he needs to have the D.va treatment of unlimited ammo and his shield amount needs to be lowered somewhat for a compensation with a range buff.