What is this? and who are you?
Hello guys, girls, people playing Overwatch, people working for Overwatch, people loving Overwatch, people loving Pharah.
Call it mega thread, this might be the 5th or maybe more post I wrote about Pharah. I would love to say it’s because I love to play her so much and that I’m enjoying the game, but actually I’m sad to say it’s no longer the case and for many seasons now.
I’m a Pharah main with 400hours on her, high master reaching GM several seasons playing the most on Pharah since I started this game back in the end of 2016, and probably more hours watching gameplays of other pro players and streamers. I never played much FPS before except Unreal Tournament and some CS Condition Zero. I’ve always loved projectile characters and rocket launcher, she was just fitting like perfect gloves to me when I play OW the first times.
I believe it’s really important to break down a few interactions that characters have in the game first, in order to understand my point, to get where I’m coming and why I think Pharah keeps getting ignored by the devs, and keeps being unpopular. She never was popular though, but she was still an option back in days she was still a character that could change the dynamic of a game, the way a good widowmaker changes the way you play, being more aware and cautious about your positioning and actions.
but what was she before…?
Seasons before, it all came down to your Mccree, Soldier, Widowmaker player, with eventually help of DVA, Ana or Mercy dps boost and Zen Discord to kill her or counter Pharah/Mercy strat. When it’s easy to admit mastering hitscans at low ranks is rare and that she was dominant, it’s even easier to realize that when you start your journey from Diamond to top 500, things get worse.
You needed to have hitscans specialist to take her down, but there was already many tools at disposal to annoy her enough to either force a swap or completely counter her.
how is she now…?
She’s now and for many many seasons, facing an incredible amount of characters, direct counters, soft counters that became better at dealing with her. While she kept losing utility and strength among all the other heroes thanks to counter buffs, to new heroes introduction, to reworks, the game also changed drastically and the heroes she was good at dealing with, have now more if not better tools than her entire kit.
well give me an example bud !
As I don’t want to leave any blurring in what I’m saying, I’ll illustrate this with one example. I could have take Junkrat, or Symmetra, or Orisa, or even Bastion, but I assume Hanzo is a more popular pick and a better example.
When I started the game back in December 2016, I remember that the game usually advises us to play Pharah against Hanzo cause it was hard to hit arrows, you needed to load your arrows a decent time, look up in the air and also had very little to no mobility except wall climbing.
He could and still can OS 250HP characters, but he had drawbacks, and back in the days Pharah really was a threat to him. Scatter arrows was by no regard threatening. So you really needed to be good at Hanzo, to be a Wraxu with easy 35/40% accuracy on him to be a threat, cause you only relied on your primary fire.
- First they decided to buff him to increase his pickrate
they lowered the delay before having a max charged arrow, they lowered the travel time of his arrows. And I probably miss other buff to his sonic arrow CD as well as a cd reduction to scatter arrow back then.
=> it failed
- Second as it didn’t change anything, they decided to rework him.
We came from a useless scatter arrows (Pharah’s perspective), to storm arrows which is without expanding on outrageously strong as a dps burst output (people call it machine gun).
We came from a very limited mobility character to a jumping rabbit in all four directions every 4-5sec. Hanzo rework is the perfect, if not the finest example on how badly balance changes are handle. They completely changed the balance of power between this 2 characters, they decided to not only rework him, but to erase his only drawback which was mobility.
From that day the balance of power changed from a Pharah>=Hanzo to Hanzo>>Pharah.
okay but that’s just one example…
Now I wouldn’t say it changed as drastically for Junkrat, Orisa, Symmetra, Bastion but in cases, they got significant buffs/reworks that give them better responses against Pharah (double mines, shield form changed/firing rate increase/mobility while firing increase, Symmetra right click orb/turrets buff, etc).
Moving on, I believe she’s at the moment, by far the most countered character in the game and I’ll expand on how.
why do you think she’s the most countered hero?
Every hitscan, projectile or damage are either blocked by 1) shields/DM or abilities that dodge/ negate damage in general, 2) bodies (characters hitbox) or 3)structures (walls, doors, bridges, barriers, cars, payloads).
When you play Pharah, these damages can only be blocked constantly by structures. So out of 3 major sources of damage blocking, you’re in fact only playing with structures as the only reliable option for you to take less damage, which can often be poor coverage.
Out of 30 heroes now in Overwatch, only one can fly constantly and is supposed to be the best at giving vertical flanking possibilities. Without surprise this is Pharah.
The rest of it, 29 heroes, are all “on the ground”, they touch the ground when they heal, they touch the ground when they deal damage, or when they absorb and tank damage.
Having that in mind will help you to understand how easy it is to separate which elements/abilities are useful for characters in the way they are designed, and which can’t interact at all because that’s how the game is.
- PHARAH BENEFITS POORLY FROM OVERWATCH TANKS
Reinhart, Orisa, Winston, Roadhog, Zarya, DVA, Hammond, out of these 7 tanks, none of them can apply a shield or protection in the air with consistency on Pharah.
It’ll either be coordinate actions such as Zarya bubble in a critical time, or a DVA defensive matrix with both limited range, but most of the time, this will happend during specific play such as Pharah’s ultimate barrage which require a lot of ressources to keep you alive during it.
Other 29 heroes can easily benefit from Reinhart/Orisa/Winston shield/ Zarya bubble, DVA defensive matrix, their hitbox to body tank as well as Roadhog/ Hammond distraction, and of course rely on their own abilities to dodge damage or recover from it.
=> with that in mind, it either leads to have a more passive gameplay and play as a “on the ground” character, shooting behind shields (but Junkrat is a better option imo) or a more agressive gameplay when you would actually play the way the character is supposed to be design for, which is spending most of your time in the air and be that vertical flanking threat, right?
- PHARAH IS MAP DEPENDANT
The simple fact not all the maps can help her is the same as saying she will play without tanks.
As most of the flankers you would say? And you’re right. Most of the flankers don’t care to be in the front line or in between tanks and heals, they have tools to survive (escape abilities, mobility passives, recovering tools), Sombra has a safety translocator (I really advise you guys to put it on rooftops), Tracer has recall and movement speed passive, Genji has dash, movement speed passive, deflect, Soldier can be played as flanker at times and with extreme caution but he has healing station and running ability.
With Pharah you only rely on your fuel and hover. Your jumping jet E is situational and gives you vertical mobility, not horizontal nor movement speed (occasionally in confined areas), your concussive blast is unusable in the air as well. Which means your only tool to play with, as a flanker, are structures and elements of the maps. That’s your shield, that’s what gonna tank for you, and maybe save you.
Now all of the maps aren’t reknown to be specifically design for flying characters, in terms of health packs accessibility, pillars/high platforms locations and even sometimes when some maps have ridiculously low sky ceiling. (Hollywood, Kings row, Numbani, Paris, etc etc)
Only Anubis is by far my favorite and feels like the most Pharah friendly. But automatically it puts Pharah in a niche pick as Bastion is with pirate ships comp who also is map dependant. You would by the start play against the game if you pick her in open field part of maps when you have litteraly little to no covers at your disposal. You’ll have some platforms, some pillars, some houses, some walls, that you’ll use to cover yourself, mostly at very specific choke point (first point eichenwalde, first point volskaya, Anubis, etc ), but if the enemies can’t see you, you have to understand that you need to be seen by your teammates as well in order to be healed, or rely on health packs around the maps.
As most of the flankers?
YES. But when they run out of it, they still have health packs around the map to help them, and they can access it far easier than Pharah does.
When you think about it, it’s almost as if at times she has to travel more distance to get to an health pack, with less mobility (paradoxical isn’t it?) than other flankers. Yes she can fly, but when you really rely on that fuel you’re saving with caution, you’re a very slow target. A tracer would blink go to the toilet, eat, sleep, read a book, take that health pack way quicker, and by that time you would still tragically carry your heavy Raptorion armor to the closest health pack and pray that no one can land any shot on you in the mean time.
All the movement and escape possibilities feel so much better with other flankers when with Pharah, it feels like a Damocles Sword every milliseconds you’re spending to reach that pack. I’m without joking stressing for my life every time I have to rely on health packs to save my life. I never feel it this much when I go on tracer and I zip zap through traffic, when I translocate myself with Sombra, when I deflect dash out with genji.
Why maps don’t have flying health packs or packs on specific locations? Pharah, DVA, Winston, all the characters that have at least little vertical mobility would benefit from it, and it wouldn’t feel unfair. It does feel unfair when you need to drop down for health packs when you really can’t get any heals from your teammates.
Speaking of it, I do believe the current Overwatch healing cast is unable to provide heals “easily” to Pharah.
- PHARAH LACKS OF HEALING SUSTAIN OUT OF 7 HEALERS SO FAR
In terms of healing, most characters simply aren’t design to heal her, and it’s actually ridiculous that only few can help Pharah to survive when she might be the one that is the most exposed considering that her personal kit lacks of tools, and that tanks can barely help her mitigating the damage. So let’s break down every healer interaction with Pharah.
-
Mercy is from the start of the game the best healer to pair with Pharah: amazing synergy, providing escape doors for Mercy when she gets harrassed by flankers on the low ground, providing more sustain to Pharah (as she hide less with corners) in the air to put pressure on the enemy team as she needs to.
That’s a winning pair (unless one of them are bad, or unless both of them are bad and unable to make it work) -
Zennyata heals you if he sees you:
he will give you healing orb time to time, but he’ll need for sure to maintain line of sight, otherwise he’ll just leave it for tanks or other “on the ground” characters that stand constantly in his line of sight. Zen is supposed to discord and dps the enemy, so overall not so much a reliable source of healing. -
Ana Amari, the mother:
well her kit is on paper what is the second best healer Pharah would benefit the most from. The problem is the amount of damage Pharah can take out of her 200hp. She needs instant healing sustain, so you have to have a Ana scoping you otherwise the travel time of your shots won’t give you the support needed.But when you play Ana on scope, you lose attention on what is flanking you around. You for sure don’t want to give any free room to that Tracer or Genji that wait for you to scope in order to one tap you right? So most of the time your Ana, if good, masters the quick scope but her mission (especially in today’s Overwatch crazy damage world) will be to keep the tanks that take tremendous amount of damage on frontline instead of scoping a Pharah the whole game.
-
Moira is simply not a healer designed for Pharah:
her main heal is close range, her healing orb max potential has to be used in close quarters but mostly on the ground rather than throwing it in the air (when your Moira is not dps orb mode only ofc) -
Lucio was an interesting pick for Pharah:
back in the first seasons when both his healing and speed radius were about 20-25meters. She could benefit from it and it made sense to have a lucio when running a Pharah, now it doesn’t make much sense, and isn’t a reliable healer for Pharah overall.
Maybe Lucio could have a cylinder radius aoe effect to prevent that non sense, it wouldn’t be game breaker I swear. -
Brigitte has the same problem:
designed for the tanks, works for “on the ground” characters. Her healing aoe and armor ult need you to be close to her for it to be effective. Her E ability has a travel time, can be beneficial for Pharah but will be used more often to save tanks that are more likely to be in her line of sight than a Pharah that forces you to look up, and that’s not even her primary heal. -
Baptiste, fresh out of the cocoon:
another hitscan threat to Pharah, but mostly a healer that has very little synergy with her. In terms of healing, same problem mentionned before about aoe limited radius. Baptiste healing CD are for people surrounding him, not for a character that is supposed to be >30m up in the air. His main right click heal will be such a pain to hit Pharah with consistency that I bet no Baptiste players will try or only if Pharah is static.I can see some nice synergy with immortality fields, as she would both protect the drone by body blocking damage and also not die during barrage, but it would force using barrage vertically facing your target, which is one of the worst way to use it, as you’re leaving out splash damage you usually benefit when facing the ground. Not such a bad pick in terms of synergy with immortality field and his amplification barrier, but in terms of healing not a good option AT ALL.
so out of these 7 healers…?
No one is as closed as Mercy is in terms of synergy and healing output. The issue is that Mercy at her current state is not a good healing option.
50hp/s is bad, like really bad imo She’s not a main heal as Ana, Moira, and Baptiste, she’s not even a good off heal as Lucio and Zen, both speed/Discord and defensive ults are far better options than a freezing resurrection and her valk ult that never felt so much uneffective as an ult.
She’s not in bad spot, she is in an indecent spot. They butchered nerf her, and as long as she’ll be like this, there will be no room for Pharah as she is the only one making her work decently in high elos from masters to top500.
She always needs to be paired with her, otherwise it’s a throw pick and you’re unable to get the job done. Your teammates will welcome you to swap or at least take Junkrat instead, because this way you have far more options to get heals, and also because now Junkrat is basically doing a better job against flankers/ dive, at holding choke points and burst damage, crowd/splash damage, etc.
Tell us what would you change?
I never liked the fact that Pharah/Mercy duo was strong though. I wanted Pharah to be more independant, having more defensive tools or escape abilities that would increase her skill, far more than having your survivability being so conditioned by the Mercy pick.
The more you climb the ladder, the more you realize no matter how good you are at landing your rockets directly, at dealing damage, at being a threat and distraction to the enemy team, once you die first, people have a common idea that you are already countered and need to swap. It’s already enough hard to make it work as a pick, that if you already have teammates that start the bashing, it just makes it uncomfortable to play her any more on every regard.
I would trade less PharMercy effectiveness for more resistance and tankiness on Pharah’s kit everyday if they want to continue to balance the duo the way they’re doing.
So without beneficiating much from tanks help, being map dependant pick more than ever if not any more, it’s also hard to make it a reasonable pick when you know that more than half of the healing cast is unable to provide you support.
what causes this situation in your opinion?
Heroes introduction, heros buffs/reworks simply kept reinforcing that pervert effect of putting her more and more as very niche niche pick. She faces trillions of damage sources that can completely deny her in both agressive or passive playstyle. To name major changes that impacted her, here is a list.
-
Orisa bubble form changes:
which drastically change angles when you could land rockets in the back and from above. Current buff when she’s allowed to move faster (from 50% speed penalty to 30%) while shooting which gives her better in and out mobility with her shield, + previous fire rate buffs and smaller shooting spread -
Ana dps back at 70/shots:
3shots instead of 4 shots as before -
Bastion buffs:
sentry ammos from 25 to 35, turret mode allowing smaller spread the longer you shoot (which is schredding Pharah really really fast) -
Ashe introduction:
basically a better version of Mccree, a mix of Widow and hanzo power wise -
Hammond introduction:
another hitscan type damage -
Hanzo buffs and rework:
faster delay to max charge an arrow, faster projectile arrow speed, obviously reworking scatter arrow in storm arrows and his mobility jump -
Mccree buffs:
deadeye, combat roll, fan the hammer and overall buff to falloff damage distance -
Soldier recent buffs:
much needed for some as he was bad but yet another hitscan buff from 19 to 20dmg/bullet, faster delay when switching from running to weapon and overall buff to falloff damage distance -
Mei buffs:
damage falloff damage erases, increased ammos stock and nerf to the ressources needed for her ice right click (from 25 to 20) -
Junkrat buff:
two concussive minesI can go on so easily on things… buffs, reworks, nerfs to other characters that are buffs to others that annoy Pharah which increase their pickrate and so increase the overall potential to deal easily with Pharah. The only positive thing might be DVA that became less oppressive as she has to manage more her DM now.
But I just think enough is enough, Pharah is in between two chairs spot for too long and here are my suggestions, as I would be an idiot to only criticize without making suggestions.
WHAT PHARAH NEEDS
-
Get her splash damage back to 80: there is no reasons why she doesn’t have this back, revert her firing rate if necessary but most Pharah mains preferred way more the 80 splash damage than a faster fire rate that in most of the case isn’t appropriate. Playing Pharah, is about timing your rockets, you shoot and count them each and make sure they’re useful. You almost never hold that left click.
-
Ad shields or armor to her: She needs to be a 250hp character, with either 100 shields/armor or 50. What I liked with old Symmetra shield generator, was the freaking 75 shield that allow you to pick a bit and get back safe. She doesn’t have the tools nor the mobility to go chase healthpacks on the ground, and if they’re not willing to ad some on high platforms for her, then they need to give her more resistance.
-
Her barrage ult needs some drastic improvement: get rid of freezing her during 4sec. Barrage has to be quicker like 2.5sec maximum with less damage output or let it like this but ad an headshot immune and damage resistance at least or a cancel button.
It wouldn’t be bad for the mini rockets to have a straighter travel path and they get an impact damage buff and splash reduction as using Barrage would be use more vertically and not always be predictable and optimal from above. Its unbearable to see target surviving a barrage when you aim straight at them from above or on a 45° angle, you die in 0.5sec and they survive cause the mini rockets travel time is too long and the spread is especially too wide -
If she needs one more ability, it would be to get back on the ground quicker: similar to her highlight intro. There is nothing she can do if you just pressed jumping jet and a Mccree popped highnoon out of nowhere and you’re just dead. I’m not asking for a saving button such as genji deflect, i’m asking for more chances of surviving, just giving options to Pharah.
-
Make concussive blast a 2 ways ability: it can either detonate on distance (as it is on its current version) or detonate up close to give her mobility in the air without structures around in order to dodge better.
-
They really need to work on her flying mobility: the movement left/right doesn’t feel impactful. She’s slow AND has one of the biggest hitbox as a dps. She either need to be slow and have a smaller hitbox, or quicker but with a large hitbox. Both is just harsh in that hitscans tempest.
I really believe Pharah needs more than some minor tweaks, and if anything, they need to separate Pharah balance patchs on PC from the Pharah on consoles. Even if on console now I heard she’s no longer a big problem with aim assist improvements.
I’m convinced some of these changes would help her a lot along with some maps tweaks in order to settle her place better in the game.
Pharah was a decent pick before, counterable, but still the hours put in her would allow you to work arround counters. Now I feel t’s just impossible, you’re fighting against too much in the game to make it a good pick. That’s sad when the only conclusion that comes to mind right now is to swap to other heroes cause some have just better situations. I kept flexing, I got better with support, with hitscans, but I do want to play Pharah at times, and It’s no longer a wise choice…
Finally I want to mention that if they would have keep the splash damage to 80, Goats would have had a real counter on the person of Pharah. Instead the damage wasn’t outbursting the sustain of 3 supports.
Thank you for reading me, I hope this can be seen, I put my heart and times writting this.
and what do you all think?
![:frowning:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/frowning.png?v=6" ":frowning:")
![:smiley:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")
