Just thought about it and there’s no character with a melee only kit. Would anyone else be in favor of this?
4 Likes
There was one back in ow1 called doomfist which got swapt to tank in ow2 which completely ruined him. Personally think they should swap him back to dps but that will never happen.
17 Likes
Depends what you consider melee, reinhardt, doomfist and brig are all melee heroes.
If it’s by range, then we already have those, if it’s by animations alone, then no.
Problem with melee, they would have to have a lot of selfsustain, which would make them tanks or hybrids. Tanks are fine, hybrids can break the game or be useless, depending on balance.
2 Likes
I mean unless they have insane mobility i think it won’t be great, you’ll never get close enough to ever do damage.
2 Likes
This. We would have to deal with an insanely fast or mobility capable hero. Without CC it would be impossible to hit them. Very likely with 150 HP and way to get HP by landing a killing blow that refills 50 HP ^^
Could work, but it would be the new “most skill intensive hero in the game”. Something like ball of DPS in terms of techs.
I dont want to deal with something like this…
Old DPS Doomfist was pretty close to this, and yeah, a lot of people miss DPS Doomfist.
And a lot of people don’t.
I do personally like DPS Doomfist, but he’s definitely built on a necessary foundation that’s controversial to say the least.
2 Likes
In Overwatch you could always go Hammerbjörn.
But I don’t think he’s viable in Overwatch 2.
1 Like
Shameless self-plug is shameless
Reinhardt, Brigitte and Junker Queen to a lesser extent are “melee-focused heroes”. For an FPS, it is nearly impossible to have a melee hero without a ranged attack.
No, that’s not quite correct.
The original Genji concept is this:
Genji himself was originally conceived as a slow-moving stealth assassin with an ability that allowed him to trip an enemy, stunning them, and then instantly kill them with a sword strike “finishing move” if another enemy didn’t interrupt the attack, but this design was found to be unfun.[[49]](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Genji#cite_note-49) At one point he was also given an Ultimate that would allow him to instantly kill an enemy from behind, which would have had unique stealth kill animations such as stabbing them in the back or cutting their throat.[[50]](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Genji#cite_note-50) The lessons learned from this iteration of Genji were taken into consideration when developing Sombra as a stealth hacker.[[48]](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Genji#cite_note-Blizzcon_2016-48) Another early version of Genji was treated purely as a melee hero with his sword always drawn and the ability to stick to walls.[[51]](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Genji#cite_note-51) Some of these abilities appear to be the basis for the [Talon Assassin](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Talon#Paramilitary_Forces) enemy unit that appears in the [Overwatch Retribution](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Overwatch_Retribution) event.[[52]](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Genji#cite_note-52) His Dragon Blade ability was originally his primary attack, but this didn’t work well, so it became his ultimate.[[53]](h ttps://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Genji#cite_note-DesignQueen-53)
1 Like
doomfist was first a dps and he was mostly useless… and still is.
4 Likes
I’d like something like the Heavy Fists loadout, but that probably wouldn’t work out well…
Wont work, too hard to balance.
1 Like
Could kinda argue that Brigitte and Genji fall into that category, but yeah, Doomfist was entirely what you’re talking about.
Super unreliable in the tank role, though.
Doomfist has entered the chat
he’s technically not melee only, because his shotgun can deal some damage outside of melee damage. And op seems to want a fully melee hero.
1 Like
Melee only doesn’t fit with the dps paradigm. Doomfist was melee heavy and he already needed to be reworked into a tank.
Melee attacks are short range and defense ignoring, i.e. tank-like.
There was one called doomfist but he was swiftly scrapped and replaced with a boring mess called pillowfist
When asked why the devs simply uttered the words “skill issue” 
1 Like
Not that swiftly. several years isn’t exactly swiftly.
Or because he was fundamentally unfun to play against, support is unpopular enough in 5v5, and his cc-heavy kit didn’t fit their plan for cc on tanks only.
Good gravy, imagine the misery of playing into a ball/dpsfist comp in role queue games without any DPS CC to handle it. Hack nerfed into the ground, stuns removed…
Also, a melee-only DPS hero would probably be as annoying to play against as Tracer or Doomfist. If they aren’t mobile they’re garbo, so “Tracer with punches” is kind of what you’re going to end up with and I don’t imagine people will enjoy that very much.
“Unfun” is subjective, especially on the topic of doomfist where most of the complaints were coming from lower ranked players (mainly supports) who lacked the skill to actually deal with him.
I find widow Ashe tracer hog orisa (I could go on for ever here) to be unfun but does that mean the devs have to listen to me crying about them???