Melee Damage and Barriers

Competitive Discussion
1

Hi everyone, high gold/low plat player here. First time posting on the forums. Amidst all of the meta talk, I’ve come up with an idea and was wondering what the general consensus on a change like this might be. I’m by no means an expert, but bear with me.

Currently, melee attacks go through barriers. It’s a significant advantage that melee has over ranged damage, but despite the fact that a number of heroes utilize melee attacks in their kit, the only character that truly benefits from this right now is Doomfist. Reinhardt gets no value swinging his hammer through Orissa shield. The same applies for Brigitte and Genji. So, addressing this double shield meta and the strength of Doomfist… how do we change the way melee attacks interact with barriers in a way that doesn’t over-centralize Doomfist?

What if melee attacks, instead of going through barriers, did double damage to them? Let’s go over some potential interactions and how this might make some underused characters more viable.

Reinhardt would benefit a lot from this change. With the proper support, Reinhardt’s shield damage could compete reasonably with the likes of Orissa and Sigma. On top of that, anyone attempting to melt Rein’s own barrier with melee would have to take him on in close range, which would definitely be in his favor. It would also give a lot of value to his movable shield, since closing the gap between shields suddenly becomes a much more viable strategy.

I think this change would also breathe new life into Brigitte… in a reasonable way. Her flail would not go through shields anymore, but If her inspire activated while hitting barriers, she could provide healing to her surrounding teammates while also doing significant damage to the barrier. On top of that, her shift, being a melee attack, would be an option to finish off a weakened shield from further range.

I don’t think this change would completely ruin Doomfist. Suddenly, rocket punching a barrier doesn’t go through it… but it does do 500 damage to it, and Doomfist has ways of avoiding danger after doing such a play. I think it would be reasonable if Doom’s shields then activated when hitting barriers with cooldowns… perhaps alongside an overall shield nerf for Doomfist. Even then, Doomfist can still get behind shields and one shot squishies… so he’ll definitely still be good.

Hammond would be very interesting. A barrier could stop him in his tracks and prevent him from stalling… but he would do a lot of damage to the barrier. In the current meta Hammond is used SOLELY to stall… and I think this change would vary up his play. His shenanigans could still be used to mess with a shield setup and do significant damage.

Obviously this will weaken Orissa and Sigma. Orissa will have to think a lot more about where she puts her shield down. The same goes for Sigma… if Sigma puts his shield down unwisely and it gets melee’d to death, that could be the end of it. At the same time, it doesn’t completely destroy them. Shields can suddenly shield them from melee damage, albeit for a short time. Pressuring an Orissa to use Fortify would be a lot easier, making it easier to work around. Sigma would have to make better use of his rock as a line of defense. It just seems to fall into place nice for them.

Let’s consider how the overall meta might respond. Obviously double barrier would be dropped pretty quick, and this opens up a window for ranged characters. Widow, Pharah, etc. could force teams to utilize some form of barrier despite barrier’s weakness to melee. In response, dive tanks could come back… BUT with an inability to break barriers fast, as D.Va and Winston don’t have melee kits. Hammond will have to be played much more carefully. Counter-picking as a whole would become more important… if a team decides to go heavy melee with dive tanks, that leaves their back line open to flankers like Tracer/Genji. Suddenly, an interesting relationship forms.

Like I said, I’m no expert but I thought it was an interesting idea. Let me know what you think.

TL;DR all melee does double damage to barriers instead of going through them. Thoughts?

2

Well I gotta say I thought this was extremely foolish when I started to read it, but as I kept going it became actually interesting. A way to more quickly stall out Hamtaro would be nice too. Still two main things to go against it…

First is it would be a HUGE change to the game that I simply find the concept of it happening very unlikely.

Second being it changes the concept of a barrier into a more transparent wall. The idea of if Doom can’t punch through it, Rein can’t charge through it, etc. well it would almost seem logically that no one would even be able to walk through it.

3

Leave Rein and Ham out and I’m on board!!

4

Hmm I don’t ever see this being implemented, and I think that this is whacky, but when you said about brig and reinhardt I thought it sounded like it made sense.
I think that if just brig and rein benefitted from this because of their melee weapons that would be good. Having rocket punch do 500 damage to a barrier is ridiculous though.
Not only would this mechanic be completely unfair, as doom would become one of the best shield break heroes in the game, and it shreds over half an orisa shields hp in one CD,
But it doesn’t actually work the way you said it did.
Rocket punch works so that there is an initial small amount of damage on dooms impact, and most of the damage comes if that person hits a wall-- a mechanic that wouldn’t even make sanse with hitting a shield.
At best rocket punch would do around 200 damage.
Otherwise tho nice concept.

5

Barriers are in the game with the sole purpose of mitigating damage that otherwise would be taken from the health pools of players and the reason double barrier is good is because barriers as a mechanic is a very strong tool.

The suggested change is one that would allow barriers to mitigate an additional source of damage and I am sorry but therefore I cannot see this doing anything but strengthen the power of barriers.

Besides the only way Rein is really viable right now is by rushing through the barrier and start swinging his hammer and if the barrier would eat that damage it would most likely kill him on the spot. Just image a world where Orisa can shield dance around a swinging rein.

I do appreciate the effort of coming up with this out of the box suggestion but I am very certain that it is one that would be very bad for the game.

6

Melee attacks don’t go through barriers, it pierce them which means that it deals damage to both the barrier AND the hero(es) standing in range.

Changing that to a more physical restriction which would block movements/attacks would make quite many heroes useless and introduce a horrible and frustrating gameplay.

Would be rather fun watching the poor people who still attempt making D.Va work run into a Rein shield just to stop in their track doing 20 damage to the shield instead of the current 10 damage (I believe it’s 10) the boosters ability does.

Not too many dedicated gengus left either and those would truly rage quit if a shield made their ulti completly obsolete and useless not to mention getting stuck when trying to dash their way out of there…

And all those confused Sombras and Winstons wondering why no one behind the shield gets EMP’d or Bzz’d.

7

Just make them take double damage from melee attacks outright, no need to stop them from passing. Maybe even add explosives dealing extra damage to them, like someone suggested some time ago. I’d dig it.