Higher Ranks: When does Torb become bad?

General Discussion
1

I’ve honestly been really curious about it. It is probably one of the moments where I figure rank does honestly matter.

I’ve found Torb really interesting, and I play him frequently enough to kind of get how he can be played in more favorable ways.

He’s been an interesting character where he’s extremely easy to play starting off, but to get better with him, I had to put in a ton of work and learn a lot of stuff beyond the original, “Keep lvl2 Turret alive.”

Like he’s had a TON of things I had to learn to play better in higher challenges: realize a lvl1 turret isn’t horrible, rely on the gun way more, armor as health packs, turret placement, being patient to capitalize on a powerful ult, etc.

TL;DR: Where and what ultimately causes Torb to become a bad character as you climb?

My Guesses: Communication is the biggest key that shuts him down. Too many people put too much emphasis on a lvl2 turret.

2

When team coordination becomes a thing. When a team focuses a torb turret he becomes kind of useless.

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3

Ah. So the communication department is what really kills him.

4

It really depends on team comps. I’m usually able to shred with him when the other team has too many flankers or no shields. If there’s a Soldier, Orisa, Pharah comp on the other team, though, it’s time to give up on Torb, as much as it pains me.

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5

On Hollywood defence point A, never. I always use Torb there and there is one spot which can defend point alone.

6

Considering that we have top 500 Torbjorn players around, I would say “never”.

It’s more a matter of your own team not tilting on the hero select screen than raw power problem. We have heroes with actual raw power problems (Bastion, Sombra, Ana). Torb us just underestimated and seem as a troll pick by the community. LIke…

This is a very common misconception. Turret is a distraction/complementary DPS, not his main firepower. His gun is very strong both at long and short range, and Molten Cure turns him into a tanky scary DPS for 12 seconds.

Heck, most of the time, its only worthy upgrading your turret if you are in downtime between fights. A level 1 turret is distracting enough and the time used to upgrade it to level 2 would require the turret to stay alive for 10 or more seconds to pay off the damage you would be dealing with his rivet gun instead of hammering it.

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7

See, your point here was something huge I had to learn to become better at using Torb.

I just call the lvl1 turret the cleaner… because it’s about all it’s going to do in a team fight, but also realizing it is on such a low sort of cooldown that you can drop it and forget it while you force people to respect the gun.

I can definitely see a coordinated team that is communicating being the greatest downfall to playing a Torb effectively, but I also see a ton of the failure of Trob being people put too much focus on getting a lvl2 turret only for it to be shut down.

8

Somewhere around game 1 of placement matches. Basically the only way he is effective is if your team plays to his strengths and/or the other team ignores you. He’s really strong in CTF tho!!!

9

since he does really well when the enemy team has zero coordination and when you hit mid masters that goes away id say yes

10

Well, Dafran was doing a Torb to top 500 thing at the start of the season and the games really started becoming difficult to win in high diamond/masters. He abandoned the project shortly after. He said he thought he could do it but he has a bit of a checkered past and didn’t want the hate.

11

Ok well there are top 500 symmetras and bastions but they’re both considered the worst heroes in the game. stop talking down to me

12

I’m not talking specifically about you on the turret thing. It was just a good opportunity, since you replied the perfect phrase to quote.

It’s a widespread misconception because people expect Torb to be TF2 Engie, and his turret is much weaker (comparatively speaking) than Engie turret, but his own gun is stronger than Engie gun. So they try to emulate Engie gameplay on Torb, find that his turret is too weak, and Torb can’t outheal people damaging the turret, and call him useless.

I hold the same opinion on Symmetra. She is not weak, just misunderstood and hated by the community on sight.

Bastion is a complicated issue because he is supposed to be a high risk, high reward hero. He dies easy, but if left alone, he kill anyone within a second. Maybe two if its a tank. But the main reason I say he have a raw power problem is how his ultimate works. Damage-wise, his ultimate is a plain DPS loss, in exchange for mobility and instakill capability on squishies.

Buff his tank mode a bit, maybe give him a new ability for his RMB (maybe a version of his beta shield, activating it will lock his spin at a tight cone?).