You know what bothers me? Itās that sense of entitlement that only hitscan should be able to determine dps skill. It runs so deep in this game. It wasnāt as strong when it first came out when non-hitscan heroes could kill, but with all the buffs, itās obvious that projectile heroes are treated like trash in this game.
Whatās worse is they havenāt been tuned to reward their own mechanics and playstyle yet. As headshots are a thing for hitscan heroes, directs should be a thing for projectile based heroes. Spam should be punished with less dmg output but projectile heroes should EQUALLY have a FAIR CHANCE to take down a hitscan that has missed their shots. Snipers should be punished for missing their shots too. The fight is so skewed in favor of hitscan with Pharah, you are getting punished with slow moving rockets people can dodge, more direct hits per kill required AND you have low health. Pharah is in a miserable state right now.
Iām so tired of people trashing on projectile heroes like Junk and Pharah and this new-found difficulty of having to aim upwards like itās the most difficult thing to do.
Itās not. If you canāt aim up thatās on you to practice and improve.
So over the Mercy argument too. Either decrease Mercyās dmg boost on projectile heroes if it was truly that big of a deal. (And it wasnāt, it was only for consoles.) On PC, a hitscan just looks at you and youāre dead. Plus there are 5 of them on the enemy team. Good luck trying to have fun in the game. Better go switch to hitscan to win because THEYāRE NOT FUN TO PLAY AGAINST. Now where have I heard that before???
The fight is so skewed in favor of hitscan with Pharah, you are getting punished with slow moving rockets people can dodge, more direct hits per kill required AND you have low health. Pharah is in a miserable state right now.
Pharah can get to places they canāt, much faster than they can. That in itself is a unique advantage, having the high ground, the cover of firing down on people from roof tops, easily being able to fly over the map to flank from unsuspecting positions, and her ability to quickly escape with concussive blast, I think are all things most people playing Pharah donāt utilize, donāt think about, and simply donāt understandā¦
Instead, they try to brute force her āhot air balloonā play style against McCree and assume there must be something wrong with the game, when slowly floating across an open area doesnāt work.
Maybe youāre just playing her wrongā¦ Try for a day, playing her like Reaper. Resist the urge to constantly be in the air. Stay grounded more often. Only go in the air if you have cover and to reposition, not for combat. Flank more, and use concussive blast DEFENSIVELY, not on enemies, but for you to quickly retreat to a different position.
It needs to be said. Pharah is not a noob friendly hero. Sheās played by idiots that donāt understand any of this, and they get frustrated and start saying the hero sucks. Thatās not what the issue isā¦ I would agree the design of this character does kind of lead noobs into playing her this way, but sheās a hidden gem with a lot of potential if youāre willing to look for it.
Love your posts Riptor, they seem really on point! Just to chime in, Iāve had similar issues (albeit in quick-play) playing as Sigma against Reinhardt. Rein counters Sigma hard at close range, and it took me a while to recognize that the best way to fight back was to really focus on keeping my distance. Maybe itās a similar thing with Pharah? She gets countered hard by hitscan when out in the open, but has numerous ways to move around the map, one of which requires you to be near a surface. If you can deny them sightlines, or just sneak up on them, you may have a better chance at turning the tables.
I also wanted to mention, thereās a decent number of heroes in the game that canāt even touch Pharah (Reinhardt, Junkrat, Reaper, etc.), maybe it isnāt a horrible thing that she has multiple counters?
Hope Iām not coming down too hard on the flying lady, maybe she could use a buff or two. Armor seems appropriate, but wouldnāt shields be a little out of character? Maybe the healer issue could be mitigated by a more prominent prompt for healers when Pharah is low? Overwatch is great at letting you know who needs healing when youāre looking at them, but Pharah is pretty much always off-screen, so a red arrow or something when sheās critical could be handy.
This seems pretty off. She got worse in pro play shortly after the change iirc. She certainly did worse in diamond-gm in the months after the change. Her damage per game did not increase despite her higher throughput.
As much as weād like to say pro players are so talented that they simply donāt miss we know thatās not remotely close to true. Watch a Pharah in pro leagues play and there are many times where the player would have killed with the normal direct + splash (120-80) damage break point. If you counted direct vs high splash hits in OW I donāt think that direct is even the majority. If it is thereās still a high percent of max splash hits, any of which could mean the difference between a two hit combo pre rework or a three hit kill post rework.
To me the change to Pharah would be like increasing McCreeās attack speed even more (hyper speedo) and decreasing the body shot damage say to 55 (head shot remains 140). In a perfect world your damage output increase makes McCree a better pick. But pros donāt just land head shots (not even close). So if your body shot and dps on body shots hasnāt altered (will still kill with body shots in same time frame 4 shots instead of 3 but shot faster) thatās great. But you lose head shot body shot as a breakpoint which is pretty important for McCree. Heād still have it easier than Pharah did because the damage from flashbang actually pushes that combo over the breakpoint even if itās not worth going for the double head shot. It would be like a McCree with a 0 damage flash bang that lost his head shot body shot combo. Itās gonna lose kills in games so often (yes including pro level, pro level McCrees get a head shot body shot kill all the time).
To me thatās what happened to Pharah with this change. When you say itās a buff for high tiers you really mean it was a larger nerf for low tiers than it was for higher tiers. But for pro play it seemed to have been closer to an even trade and at GM a slightly negative one. Iām not against the direction of character change there, but the magnitude. Faster TTK wasnāt worth losing her single most important breakpoint.
Youāre kidding right? Pharah counters about 75% of the cast and can force teams to make dramatic comp changes due to her being virtually untouchable to the vast majority of the cast. If anything, Pharah needs some serious nerfs imoā¦
Its a huge piece of her kit lost and dramatically changes the targets that are reasonable to attempt. She needs a compensation buff for it more than speed to even match her previous potential at league level. Maybe Iām way off but I just donāt see her coming back expect in metas where we roll two hitscan nerfs. Pharah used to be a tool often used in OWL to contest Widow as counter intutitive as it seems. Loss of 80hp splash still hurts people there.
When you say you want more of the same what do you mean in exact terms. Like with numbers? Iām curious. I was skeptical of that statement when I think for pros overall she was nerfed, but now that I see you donāt disagree with that Iām curious how youād go about turning losing splash into a net positive. Just making her even faster or?
Youāre going to need healing no matter what, but if you have armor, it should at least reduce your dependency on Mercy. Pharah suffers from being a niche pick depending on the map and the insane amount of counters she has.
Lower ranked players are going to struggle with a lot of heroes, you canāt exactly balance a game based on players who (not to offend people) barely know what different heroes do. Lower-ranked players need a little bit of help in other areas. If your DPS canāt aim, have one of your tanks play D.VA to deal with her.
And yeah, shield would work too. Theyāre pretty interchangable.
It INCREASES her Dependency on Mercy, Shields decrease it.
if you require for max efficiency of your health for you to be kept in the higher range of your health (which is what armor does) you get more for having a healer on hand at all times.
Shields doesnāt have that effect, AND it gives her self healing.
Shield and armor are NOT the same effect in the game. One makes healing SUPER EFFECTIVE if you can place it on them right away. The other removes your requirement to need a healer on hand.
Shields would be amazing for Pharah, and Iād be all over that, Armor would be super bad for her, since it would cement her dependence on a healer on short notice.
Honestly Iād want that splash damage buff to be reverted
or ability to cancel respawn button
or something like dive rocket similar to what she has in highlight intro
That would be broken af, terrible idea.
Shields could be a good idea since it would also increase her viability when playing with healers that have a hard time reaching her, but absolutely not armor since someone like soldier would have his damage reduced to 5 per bullet against her at long ranges.