I think devs would like to give Mercy some buffs but have been really apprehensive about it because of the PharMercy issue.
So weaken the âpermanently stay up on the airâ mechanic.
Presto, then something like a 55hps buff, or a 70hps on an R button ability, would be reasonable.
They are still drinking heavily from the moth meta. I VERY much doubt it has a damn thing to do with Pharah, and EVERYTHING over how badly moth meta went.
No doubt, but they also have it where Mercy is a really popular hero, and theyâve never done much to repair the wound that the reworks left.
And by solving this issue, they get 2 heroes fixed for the price of 1.
Since that opens the doors for Pharah buffs.
It wouldnât need to be a major change. It could be something as simple as a minor tweak to her airborne and/or GA hitbox.
It just needs to be a reason to not stay semi-permanently attached to the Pharah.
They are not going to touch her, they walked away from their mess after moth meta. They wonât be returning.
You are WAY more likely to see new heroes which can do Mercyâs job than for her to change.
I SUSPECT however all the interactions between Pharah, Echo, and Mercy will be looked at AFTER Echoâs release.
I think taking away 50 health from her and then giving her 50 shield could help her a lot and then Iâd like to see her give a new ult and put a mini barrage on cooldown for like 12 seconds
That might work, in the getting her out of mercyâs shadow, but she would be nerfed as part of it.
Talking about things which donât sound like the nerfs she would get.
The change you suggest makes her slightly stronger in the low ranks, and does nothing for her in the high ranks, so, 1) she would be nerfed, and 2) she would have even less of a pick rate in the high ranks as she does now.
Other changes need to happen at the same time at the very least.
Who cares about low ranks though? Balancing the game around the worst dregs of the community isnât going to end up with fun gameplay. Like if pharah is dominating let her dominate, then whoever is playing her will cimb to a rank and get shut down if they donât belong. The MMR system works.
Unless youâre going to make it so each league has different balance rules then donât even bother to balance for the worst players. I shouldnât be punished because someone else sucks.
Seriously buffing Pharah would be such an issue? From the sheer amount of counter she can have in one game (d.va, 2 hit scans, bap,ana) you dont want to buff her becouse of Pharmancy? its just hipoocricy. She can be deleted instantly, denied playtime or even a sheer value of her pick by good d.va and you all dont want to buff her solo becouse what - pharmancy? are you joking? so dont buff winston cause dive is strong, dont buff tracer cause dive is strong/ Ridiculus. SHE NEEDS SOMETHING to stay important.
I mean, thatâs GM. There are plenty of GM junkrat one tricks that never swap vs pharah.
Why bother choosing Pharah at all if the moment you appear on the battlefield, the enemy team will suddenly have one or any combination of the following heroes: McCree, Widowmaker, Ashe, 76, Ana, Baptiste, Zenyatta, Bastion, or Torbjorn?
Pharah is an incredibly effective hero when you play to her strengths.
ââŚwhen you play to her strengthsâ
Flying into the air, slowly hovering around in the open like a hot air balloon, complaining when you get insta killed by Anna/McCree from a mile away, is not playing to her strengths.
This unfortunately is how most people play Pharah. They look at her jump jet ability as something that needs to be pressed every time itâs available. This is like 90% of whatâs wrong with Pharah players. Resist the urge to use this.
Her most powerful ability, by far, is concussive blast for quick retreats. You want to get the most out of her, play her like Reaper⌠pick 1 target, flank, fire 2 rockets, concussive blast off a wall and retreat⌠relocate and do it again.
Sheâs not a brawler⌠and sheâs definitely not useful in open spaces. She needs to be by a wall, always with concussive blast up, and you always need to be relocating. 2 rockets, move, 2 rockets, move, 2 rockets, moveâŚ
You play her any other way, youâre playing her wrong, and yeah, youâre going to hit a wall and start saying sheâs broken. Itâs not that sheâs broken, itâs that your style of playing her as a brawler, doesnât work⌠and youâre trying to brute force this play style into working by suggesting the game needs to be changed so the way YOU WANT TO PLAY HER is viable.
Pharah is a high skill character, effective in the right hands. With that said, I wouldnât mind if she had an extra 50 armor⌠
You know what bothers me? Itâs that sense of entitlement that only hitscan should be able to determine dps skill. It runs so deep in this game. It wasnât as strong when it first came out when non-hitscan heroes could kill, but with all the buffs, itâs obvious that projectile heroes are treated like trash in this game.
Whatâs worse is they havenât 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.
Iâm so tired of people trashing on projectile heroes like Junk and Pharah and this new-found difficulty of having to aim upwards like itâs the most difficult thing to do.
Itâs not. If you canât aim up thatâs on you to practice and improve.
So over the Mercy argument too. Either decrease Mercyâs dmg boost on projectile heroes if it was truly that big of a deal. (And it wasnât, it was only for consoles.) On PC, a hitscan just looks at you and youâre 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 THEYâRE 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 canât, 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 donât utilize, donât think about, and simply donât understandâŚ
Instead, they try to brute force her âhot air balloonâ play style against McCree and assume there must be something wrong with the game, when slowly floating across an open area doesnât work.
Maybe youâre just playing her wrong⌠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. Sheâs played by idiots that donât understand any of this, and they get frustrated and start saying the hero sucks. Thatâs not what the issue is⌠I would agree the design of this character does kind of lead noobs into playing her this way, but sheâs a hidden gem with a lot of potential if youâre willing to look for it.
Love your posts Riptor, they seem really on point! Just to chime in, Iâve 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 itâs 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, thereâs a decent number of heroes in the game that canât even touch Pharah (Reinhardt, Junkrat, Reaper, etc.), maybe it isnât a horrible thing that she has multiple counters?
Hope Iâm not coming down too hard on the flying lady, maybe she could use a buff or two. Armor seems appropriate, but wouldnât 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 youâre looking at them, but Pharah is pretty much always off-screen, so a red arrow or something when sheâs critical could be handy.
Just because that would be available at low ranks doesnât mean the morons down there could actually make use of it.
PS: All they use conc blast for in low ranks is booping people off the map, very few Pharahâs even think to use it for movement below gold.
That is absolutely NOT how I play Pharah lol but okay.
Exactly, which is why Iâm all for buffing the living hell out of self booping.
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 weâd like to say pro players are so talented that they simply donât miss we know thatâs 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 donât think that direct is even the majority. If it is thereâs 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 McCreeâs 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 donât just land head shots (not even close). So if your body shot and dps on body shots hasnât altered (will still kill with body shots in same time frame 4 shots instead of 3 but shot faster) thatâs great. But you lose head shot body shot as a breakpoint which is pretty important for McCree. Heâd still have it easier than Pharah did because the damage from flashbang actually pushes that combo over the breakpoint even if itâs 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. Itâs 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 thatâs what happened to Pharah with this change. When you say itâs 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. Iâm not against the direction of character change there, but the magnitude. Faster TTK wasnât worth losing her single most important breakpoint.
Hereâs an easy fix: Give her 175hp & 50 armor making her 225 total.
Totally, BUT they miss LESS, so the splash helps low ranked players more than higher ones.
YES, which is why it is good, it opened up across the board buffs which didnât push lower ranked play out of control.