Let's talk counterswapping

So, I know this is a game where pressing H in spawn is not only allowed but encouraged. Fine, I accept that. I know how to play more than one hero. And I can adapt. But there is a problem wit this mechanic. It’s the final push.

Let’s say you’re on a payload map. You are playing your favorite tank, and you are winning. The enemy gets to the first checkpoint, but you have them stalled pretty good on the second one. They swap, win 2 team fights, you swap to mirror but now they get the second checkpoint before your team stabilizes. Now you are winning again. You have them stalled again. They swap. They lose. They swap again. They still lose. Finally, with less than 60 seconds left they make a final swap. You lose the team fight. But before you can even get back out of spawn they cap the final point.

The swapping itself is part of the game. And I might not always like it. But that final swap where even if I make an immediate swap after losing 1 fight, I still can’t even get back to the point means I don’t have any opportunity to counter their swap.

I propose a couple possible solutions.

Option A: Limited swaps. After a certain number of swaps you have to pick from heroes you’ve already played that match. No random surprise swaps late game.

Option B: Hard lock swapping with a certain amount of time left on the clock for the final point.

I don’t know if either of these are good solutions. But I will say losing because someone cheesed a single fight is frustrating.

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Imo, there isn’t really a counter big enough that swapping and having no ult or perks for the final fight makes it a free win for them. Maybe they will have a slight advantage, but that fight is totally winnable. Especially having the spawn advantage if it’s a staggered fight and not a full team wipe.

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I disagree here. There are definitely some tanks that completely dominate other tanks in a neutral fight, even with one having perks and the other not. And just because you didn’t swap doesn’t mean that you have ult.

Honestly and as much as people are probably tired of hearing it, its a 5v5 Tank problem and tbh im not sure its fixable in the format.

Both options on Paper sound good but it would also come down to Rock/Paper/Scissor for who swaps at the right time and ends up with the better match up

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Since you play Dva, I assume you’re talking about Zarya. Where yes she often is good into Dva. But your situation is describing the last fight. Coming in with 0 charge or perks or ult, I don’t really see that as much of an advantage. And even if it is an advantage, it’s not much that you cannot have a good shot of winning the fight. People play into their “counters” all the time, it’s part of being good at a hero. No matchup is as simple as swap and win the next fight simply by picking a better tank. Especially when the described situation benefits defenders as well at that part of the map.

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Actually, no. I wasn’t. I was not playing D.Va in the scenario I’m talking about actually.

Either way, mu point remains. A swap at the end of the game isn’t going to suddenly just win the fight for free. At best they have a slight advantage, but in the scenario due to being at the end of a payload map, they are likely still at a disadvantage. Guess it depends how many ults everyone else has.

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I disagree. This was absolutely a free win. Not only did I not have the right tank, my team didn’t have the right comp to deal with them either. Not only would I have had to swap here but so would my DPS. And with it being the last fight, we didn’t even get a chance to try.

It wasn’t a slight advantage. A tank I had been dominating all game despite multiple swaps all the sudden just rolled over me.

Not knowing which matchup was this bad for a crucial fight but not used earlier aside, in this story, this was where the game was lost. Didn’t run off enough clock and gave them enough time to figure out which of their eight swaps would solve the puzzle.

I mean they only won like 4 team fights the entire game. But still won because of which fights they won.

Sadly, as much as I hate counter swappers, there isn’t much you can do with out ruining the game. We are reliant on the Devs balancing tanks especially, in a way that negates a bit of the counter element.

One thing I’d try (and it would probably be awful) is, in role queue… the tank can’t swap.

Problem is tanks are already at the mercy of their team in order to get the impact players expect. All it takes is for the enemy team to decide to counter you and your team to not want to help and your abaility to pkay the game goes to 0, youll then get reported or flamed

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Yeah. Sadly.

Also, kind of why I enjoy playing tanks. There is a visceral feedback as to whether you’ve played well or not.

If you don’t, you’ll lose.

I agree with first but disagree with second, i think theres very real situations where you can play as good as you can in a game but you lose, like i mentioned with how tanks played if your team decides to not support you the game is instantly 100% harder but eveverything still becomes your fault.

Oh yeah, definitely you can play well, but the other team just plays better.

But if you play badly. You will lose.

Hog/Orisa/Zarya all say Hi. These three alone just dominate other tanks with ease.

It’s not, the game can only function correctly in a 6v6 setting.

That’s just part of the game, if you saw the swap, and chose to not swap around it, that’s kind of on you, Lumin.

If I see their tank swap off to Road, and I’m on JQ, I’m instantly off JQ. Getting most of my health deleted at will by hook+headshot is not ideal.

I do think the three I mentioned need tone downs, because all 3 just bully other tanks.

Be the same problem, one person picks a bully tank, other picks a normal tank, and you’re now stuck on that tank just getting bullied and diff’d.

Well, in the specific case OP’s talking about, it’s not on him. It seems to be a situation like: Lumin is on the payload playing as Scissors in overtime, and the tank switches to Rock while making it to point. Lumin can’t swap in that situation.

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I’m not referring to that, only you are. I was giving a broad statement. At least have some comprehension man.

It’s also why 5v5 is a garbage mode, three tanks just bully all other tanks.

What tank matchup is so lopsided that it can’t be managed with perk/ult charge advantage and patience? The advantage they gain by having a “good matchup” against your hero is HEAVILY nullified by you having full perks and ult charge.

Sure if you just nosedive right into a tank that you have a bad matchup against you’ll probably die. But with patience, perk advantage and ult charge you should be able to win any single fight. They probably can’t even build an ult in one fight but you’ll have one.

Can you be more specific? What were the teams? How did they beat you in a team fight when you had an ult and perks and they didn’t?

A replay would be ideal.

Stop swapping you aren’t getting the value you think you are. Let the other tank swap themselves to death it’s because they are on a panic.

Also stop fighting the other tank unless like you are playing maybe one or two tanks that excel at that terrible play style.