Let's talk GOATs - What's a problem, what isn't

General Discussion
1

(Collective thoughts on GOATs thread, share your ideas/thoughts)
Now I’m not trying to get up on a high horse and look down on the forums, especially considering they don’t account for most of the playerbase and not everyone has the same opinion, but every time I see a new post about GOATs it boggles my mind how genuinely delusional some of the people on this forum are.

Overwatch is not an easy game to balance, this much is obvious. Brig was also a terrible decision, this much is also obvious - at least now.
The current state of the game is that from Bronze to Masters nobody plays GOATs, and in OWL it’s everywhere. Grandmaster to Top 500 it’s played a lot but that’s such a minuscule percentage of the playerbase who are actually affected.

So what’s the problem? Massive sustain provided by Supports with AoE healing combined with the large health pools of tanks. The comp sticks together, sped around by Lucio and pumping close range damage into singular targets with the aid of Discord Orb until somebody finally dies, at which point the team who lost a player gets near instantly rolled.

The primary members of this comp are Rein (sometimes replaced with Winston), Zarya, D.Va (often replaced by Sombra), Lucio, Brig and Zen.
Rein and D.Va both received significant nerfs in the armour change patch, so much so that playing either of them outside 3-3 has become much more difficult, and in the case of Rein often downright unfun.
Zarya has been almost unchanged.
Lucio has received a nerf to his speed boost, but a ridiculously good Buff to his boop and no nerf to his AoE healing - likely because doing so would make him an awful off-healer outside of 3-3.
Brig has received so many nerfs she is horrendous outside of 3-3, but the one thing virtually unchanged is her AoE healing.
Zen got a damage buff and Discord nerf.

So, here’s how I look at the game: You nerf the individual heroes too much or introduce blanket game-changers like the armour nerf - you damage GOATs yes, but those heroes then become horrible to play outside of 3-3. If D.Va is nerfed again, I doubt I’ll bother to play her. I never play Rein anymore after the armour change because he gets bullied and shredded. And look at poor Brig for god’s sake.
I don’t want to say that Blizzard’s obsession with their multi-million eSport is killing heroes in Overwatch, but if the community keeps caring about OWL so much then it genuinely will be the case. Personally, I think OWL has caused so many changes Overwatch frankly would be much better off without it.

It looks to me like nerfing the AoE healing stack (maybe give Moira a passive so it doesn’t affect her so she doesn’t become awful?) and/or reworking Brig into the tank role (we need more tanks anyway) is the best way to fix GOATs. Buffing spam heroes makes lower ranks a chore, and nerfing Tanks makes a role already lacking in players even more so.

Thoughts?

2

The problem isn’t so much AOE heal stacking, as it is offhealer ultimate stacking.
Statistically, for Pro games, Lucio is only on heals about 30% of the time in GOATs comps.

The other problem is that unlike QuadTank, which was vulnerable at close range, Brigitte makes that a joke.

2 Likes
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I think offhealer ultimate stacking definitely plays a part, but most GOATs games seem to boil down to ‘poke the other team until one dies/we get ults > ??? > profit’, which spawned the “Next fight: rally to me, fire at will, nerf this, lets break it down, hammer down, pass into the iris” meme.
Brig is definitely a 3-3 enabler as well, because Hog tended to be run when Quadtank was a thing - but Brig consistently shuts down dive and chip damage, whereas Hog doesn’t.

4

Goats came about due to synergy stacking. Each member provides a benefit to other members that covers weaknesses or enhances strengths. They become greater than the sum of their parts.

To rein the effectiveness of this comp in, there are three possible methods:

  1. Introduce role limits.
  2. Rework the damage class so they provide more team benefits, making them attractive options to incorporate into the meta.
  3. Nerf the individual heroes used for Goats to the point that they are useless outside of Goats.

Blizzard is currently implementing option 3. Hopefully they will soon realize that this is doing potential long term damage to the game. Hopefully.

1 Like
5

I stand firmly by the belief that GOATS only exists because of the lack of survivability in the game.

This comp doesnt exist for most of the playerbase. It’s at the highest ranks when confirming kills is quick and consistent where this comp thrives.

And that is because of the simple fact that it denies those quick and consistent kill confirms, relegating it to death via out of position or via ultimate usage.

1 Like
6

They eat everything and to much of it.
BUT on the upside they make good screaming memes…

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7

Well played. Well played.

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I don’t see how

Well for most players. Nothing. Goats comes with a mastery of heroes and cohesiveness not applicable to most players. It’s a structural problem you can exploit if you are able to. That is, if being taller than 5’9 meant you could reach a button in the building for instant :100:s in elementary school, only a few people could exploit this structural issue.

I think aoe nerfs are ridiculous. Aoe existed before brig and weren’t a problem. This goats issues is a structural matter only existing from safe players of the owl. But this issue will eventually come up again with new heroes in different ways if we don’t address the structural issues. That is, putting a lock around the button, doesn’t eliminate the button itself.

Until this is fixed, and I think it’s best addressed via role requirements- you will always have some version of stacking abilities in this game even if not called goats