How I'd Balance Every Hero 💕

General Discussion
1

Hi, all!

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about the game recently, and I’ve started to develop a lot of opinions on certain heroes. Some of the ideas have been awful, but I think some have been okay. Well, I’m here to share all of my ideas for the hero roster. If you agree or disagree on any on these, please share! Thanks for reading! :smile: :two_hearts:

Offense

Doomfist
  • The Best Defense…
    • Shields gained by abilities increased by 5, to a total of 35.
    • All cooldowns reduced by 1s when Doomfist participates in an elimination (does not affect Meteor Strike).
  • Rocket Punch
    • Hitbox size increased by 10%.
  • Meteor Strike
    • Area of effect increased to 8m (up from 7m).
    • Epicenter size stays the same.
Genji

  • Deflect

    • Hitbox size reduced by 25% to match the animation shown.

  • Swift Strike

    • Hitbox size reduced by 25% to match the animation shown.

  • Dragon Blade

    • Can now be cancelled if stunned/killed during the cast animation.

    The goal is to make Genji’s hitboxes actually match their animation. As of now, both hitboxes are extremely forgiving in nature, and adjusting their size would make him more predictable and consistent to play against. Additionally, the change to his ultimate is to incentive more unforgiving gameplay on a very forgiving ultimate ability.

McCree

  • Deadeye

    • Now fires shots 50% faster when activated.

    Although it’s mainly a zoning ultimate, McCree’s ultimate is very inconsistent in how the skulls appear when the ultimate is activated, and how long the enemy has to get to cover. Allowing him to fire his shots faster makes his ultimate more friendly and responsive based on the actual display.

Pharah
  • None.
Reaper
  • The Reaping
    • Self healing increased to 30% of damage dealt.
  • Hellfire Shotguns
    • Now ignore armor mechanics and treat armor as normal health.
    • Spread reduced by 10%.
  • Wraith Form
    • Now able to be cancelled.
    • Sound reduced by 25%.
  • Shadow Step
    • Cast time decreased to 1.5s (down from 2.5s).
    • Sound reduced by 5m.
Soldier: 76

  • Tactical Visor

    • Can now be cancelled if stunned/killed during the cast animation.

    While I agree that Soldier: 76 is probably the most balanced hero in the game, this also puts his transformation ultimate on par with other ultimates in which there’s more counterplay if the player has poor positioning.

Sombra
  • Hack
    • Cast time increased by .15s (up from .65s).
    • Cooldown from failed attempt reduced by 1s (down from 2s).
    • Cooldown from successful attempt reduced by 2s (down from 8s).
  • Stealth
    • Cast time reduced by .3s (down from .7s).
  • EMP
    • Now gains ult charge through hacked healthpacks once again (at 50% the original rate).
Tracer

  • Pulse Pistols

    • Damage reduced by 1 per shot (down from 12 per shot).

    Tracer has been dominating in higher tiers and has an extremely high damage output. This small change just pulls her power back slightly.

Defense

Bastion

  • Ironclad

    • Increased by 5% damage reduction (up from 20%).

  • Configuration: Sentry

    • Can now headshot enemies.
    • Spreas increased by 10%.

  • Configuration: Tank

    • Now gives 200 armor once cast.
    • Can now be cancelled if Bastion is stunned during his transformation phase.

    The goal of these changes is to make Bastion more viable at higher tiers. He’s still quite easy to counterplay, but has more strength to incentivize actually using him outside of Pirate Ship.

Hanzo
  • Scatter Arrow
    • Reworked into Volley.
  • Leap
    • Added.
Junkrat

  • Concussion Mine

    • Damage reduced to 80 (down from 120).
    • Cooldown reduced by 2s (down from 8s).

  • Steel Trap

    • Damage increased to 120 (up from 80).

  • RIP-Tire

    • Charge required increased by 20%.

    Moves the power away from launching mines at enemies without removing his trap/mine combo. Also, his ultimate comes up extremely fast, so the small charge nerf makes his ultimate take slightly more to come up.

Mei

  • Endothermic Blaster

    • Now pierces enemies, and can freeze multiple enemies at once.
    • Now disables all enemy movement abilities and passives after 10 ticks (takes 30 ticks to freeze someone), and is removed after 1s passes from the last tick of damage.

  • Blizzard

    • Now disables all enemy movement abilities and passives after 10 ticks (takes 30 ticks to freeze someone), and is removed after 1s passes from the last tick of damage.
    • Area of effect reduced by 2m (down from 10m).
    • No longer cancelled when stunned or killed. If stunned or killed before Snowball leaves her hand, it will drop at her feet.

    Mei is designed to be a counter to mobility, but doesn’t do her job very well. Allowing her to stop mobile heroes allows her to fit more into her niche, while not increasing her oppression to immobile heroes. The nerf to Blizzard’s radius accounts for making it harder to escape her ultimate.

Torbjorn
  • Forge Hammer
    • Now heals the turret for 100 HP per hit (up from 50 HP).
    • Takes 1 less swing to upgrade the turret to tier 2.
  • Turret
    • Turret HP is now entirely armor, excluding 50 base HP.
  • Molten Core
    • Now deals 20 damage per second to enemies within 5m.
Widowmaker
  • None.

Tank

D.Va

  • Defense Matrix

    • Duration increased by 1s (up from 2s).
    • Maximum recharge time increased by 2s (up from 8s).

  • Boosters

    • Cooldown increased by 2s (up from 5s).

  • Micro Missiles

    • Can no longer be fired while Defence Matrix is active.
    • Damage reduced by 20%.

    D.Va is the go-to tank at the moment, due to her being a jack-of-all trades with a high amount of mobility, damage prevention, and DPS. Pulling her mobility and damage output slightly, while increasing her DM uptime allows for her to act more as a tank rather than a fat DPS.

Orisa
  • None.
Reinhardt
  • Barrier Field
    • Now recharges at 250 HP/s (up from 195 HP/s).
  • Earthshatter
    • Now acts as a wave rather than a lingering AoE.
    • No longer blocked by small objects and terrain details.
Roadhog
  • None.
Winston
  • None.
Zarya
  • None.

Support

Ana
  • Biotic Rifle
    • Shots now ignore full health teammates.
    • Damage increased by 5 (up from 70).
  • Nano-Boost
    • Now grants +20% movement speed.
    • Now grants +50% healing done.
Brigitte
  • None.
Lucio
  • None.
Mercy
  • Valkrie
    • Moved to her E ability.
    • Grants chain healing/boosting to nearby allies for 33% effectiveness (30 HP/s, 15% damage boost), as well as free flight.
    • Increases base healing/boosting by 50% (90 HP/s, 45% damage boost).
    • No longer grants increased regeneration.
    • Lasts for 8s.
    • Cooldown is 16s.
  • Resurrect
    • Moved to her ultimate ability (Q).
    • Cast time increased to 2s (up from 1.75s), but only affects Mercy for 1s (cast animation). Takes 1s extra for the target to be revived. No longer slows Mercy. Can be cancelled by killing or stunning Mercy during the 1s cast time.
    • Range increased by 10m (up from 5m).
Moira
  • None.
Symmetra

  • Sentry Turret

    • Health increased to 20 HP (19 shields, 1 HP).
    • Cast time reduced by .7s (down from 1.4s).
    • Cooldown decreased by 2s (down from 10s)

  • Teleporter

    • Now has 12 charges (up from 6).
    • Allies can now see the location of the teleporter through the wall.

  • Shield Generator.

    • Now grants +25 shields (up from 75).
    • Area of effect increased by 25m (up from 50m).

    These are just small ideas, but the go-to option is that she needs another rework.

Zenyatta
  • None.

To those who have made it this far, thank you! Even if you only read the changes for your favorite hero, thanks for reading. Please leave any feedback you have below; I’m not a game designer, just a college kid who wanted to try and offer some ideas to help balance the game a bit. Feel free to critique me, I know I probably make some horrible calls.

Edit 1: Thanks to all who have commented - I took a lot of the comments and made some adjustments to make the proposed changes much more reasonable. Please continue leaving feedback if you disagree on anything.

See you around! :two_hearts:

64 Likes
2

everyone is so going to love this! lmao as a reaper main i would!

17 Likes
3

I can’t take half of that serious

41 Likes
4

Wow, you really put a lot of thought into this.

Jelly likes😁

15 Likes
5

And Jam?

Blah blah blah

3 Likes
6

He couldn’t care less, he’s to busy destroying the world🔥

4 Likes
7

Not bad, Some of these ideas are pretty decent.

5 Likes
8

Keep on mind I’m going to ask every time I only see just jams or jellys opinion.

2 Likes
9

For Symmetra, remove the speed reduction from placing sentries and you got a deal.

2 Likes
10

Good, he’s thankful you care about his opinion😁

But it won’t save you😡

2 Likes
11

Which half, though? :thinking:

12

How much was turret range before? I know damage would be 84 dps

13

40m, so it’s be reduced to 20m. The damage buff is almost certainly too high, especially for an autoaim turret, but the 50% 50% looked too cool to pass up. It’d half to be maybe 25% extra damage for ~70 DPS, which is far more reasonable.

14

Roadhog -> Revert to pre-gutted state

1 Like
15

Dunno, man

As a torb player i dont know, the range reduction might make the turret bad since extra dmg doesnt matter if i cant put it anywhere for it to do its job

16

True. I don’t play Torb much myself, just against/with him, but a lot of the time I see people place the turret in places with short LoS to avoid being outranged. This seemed to play into that playstyle better.

Like I said, I don’t play him, and I’m no game designer, so 80% of these ideas are probably garbage.

17

I play torb a lot so let me explain why im iffy about this

Torbs turret has big range bc of his gun not having it, in fact, my turret is like a third gun to me, that focuses on range while i shotgun people to death

Turret is fine atm, if i want to do heavy damage all i need to do is press right click and i can 3 shot a roadhog or spam primary fire

Hence why im iffy about this

Also
.

Would rather have faster upgrade speed and have dmg not block upgrade, this change incentivices torbs to hammer the turret constantly and thats not the way torb is meant to be played

And this

No offense but this is usless, i dont see this helping in any way, i would rather have the turrets missles beeing homing

And overall you didnt fix torbs biggest issue, his critbox

1 Like
18

The turret thing I completely I understand. The range is probably a lot better than damage.

The faster repair speed (I was going to make it upgrade faster, but didn’t add it for some reason I don’t remember) was intended to allow Torb to spend less time repairing his turret so he can contribute with his gun. I can see how it could make him want to sit there wacking it, but overall I think it’s decrease his time smacking it.

The Molten Core thing is just for fun. It’s funny to think of a superheated dwarf burning people near him while they try to take the point while he smacks them with a hammer.

And I forgot the head hitbox! I totally meant to add that, I’ll definitely fix it when I edit it next. Thanks.

19

There are definitely a lot of changes I don’t agree with, and there seems to be a lot of power creep going on, but I still got to give the OP props.

You obviously thought a lot about this, and your effort hasn’t gone unnoticed. What a clean, well thought out, and detailed post. That’s what won you a thumbs up OP.

4 Likes
20

Please no. I dont want 5-5-8. I like Df because of his ability to pick what fight he wants to be in and when to leave. Lowering his leave speed would just make him worse.

6 Likes