Mercy, Brigitte, Sombra, Bastion, and Many issues I have with the community devs, and the balancing of the game. (MegaThread for All Issues even ones i missed)

General Discussion
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I have major concerns with the community and the devs I would like to discuss.

WARNING, LONG POST, TAKE IN INCREMENTS

How many people in this community actually think before they put a buff this, or nerf this, or rework this comment in the forums. How many people in this community actually think on the broader picture. How many people in this community know what a ‘power creep’ is.

Power creep is a term used when something apart of a game gets stronger over time as more things are added/changed. Example: Tankyness from s1-s3 culminating in the Triple tank meta, then the mobility creep that culminated in dive ruling the meta most of the time in diamond and basically always in master+ from the end of s4 to end of s9 in which brig had to be made to stop it. Then the sniper creep around s7/s8 after widows buff where snipers got stronger and stronger until dive died and then both became oppressively overpowered. But theres one creep everyone, or almost everyone seems to have not noticed until brig. The CC creep. This creep began with anas release, and due to every single dlc hero except moira having heavy cc, this creep got stronger, and stronger. Then brigitte got released which effectively killed mobility creep in its tracks and heavily boosted the cc creep, as well as df bugfixes and tiny buffs.

The community, as well as the devs, do not seem to realize that nerfing brig will not fix the problem of cc(or frankly their bad game sense/positioning but diff thread topic), she is just a tiny cog in a machine, nerfing her wont stop the cc creep. The only way to stop cc creep is to stop anymore cc from being added, to nerf all cc(which would completely kill some characters and basically say to dive ‘hey have dominance back’), or the best way: Implement more anti CC. I’ll explain why

This game is an fps, but its actually more akin to a moba due to the abilities/classes/cc/etc. The difference is however, there is a ton of anti CC in moba games or other games with heavy moba aspects(paladins), which ow doesnt have a lot of(orisa and zarya are the only two good anti cc users in the game). If you want to nerf brig as well as cc and balance the game logically, do not strive for direct brig and cc nerfs, strive for more anti CC variations/abilities/etc which would indirectly nerf it and not kill the characters if done right. That is how you will fix the problem.

However, it must be done in a way that doesnt bring back mobility creep.

Onto the next topic. Since i already described brig above i wont do it again besides say she is not op, shes niche, much like mercy is now, except unlike mercy extremely effective where shes meant to be, swapped out when she isnt working. Hence the pickrate/winrate in diamond+, and her winrate in bronze-plat is due to bad players not knowing how to fight her.

Mercy. oh mercy mercy mercy, i honestly feel bad for you, you are a staple of ow, but you are despised by 50% of the community and the other 50% adore you. You were meta after a rework did do its job and made you meta, sadly the most overpowered support for 6 months, then nerfs, still overpowered, until recent nerf and other support changes and now youre losing pickrate but gaining winrate, this is what is called a balanced hero, doesnt work in every scenario, but used in the right ones you win. To those playing mercy and wanting mercy back to how she was prerework, im sorry but that definitely never going to happen, mercy is in the most balanced state shes ever been in, im sorry shes no longer fun for yall, but maybe now yall will have to learn other supports, frankly i think the games balance means more than mercy being fun but overpowered.

Sombra
This is by far my favorite characters in look as well as lore. However, I was around during the 2 weeks that her hack was bugged and went through shields and prenerfs, she was incredibly oppressive to anyone she hacked(tanks got the blunt of it especially reins). Now she is one of the worst heroes in the game again. Honestly, to those that want her hack buffed, read my input on the massive cc creep, and why buffing sombras hack or frankly any cc could easily spiral out of control and destroy the games balance. Sombras hack is one of the 3 most oppressive ccs in the game. Sleep, Freeze, and Hack are the trio of oppressive ccs. The difference however between the 3 and normal ccs like stuns, pulls, knockback, knockup is that Sleep Freeze and Hack are insanely hard to pull off, but when they do work, they are easily the strongest forms of CC in the game. So, if you buffed hack especially, think about the possibility of it enforcing a heavy cc meta, which is already getting closer and closer to becoming a reality, if you thought stun bash was bad, or ‘stunlock/cclock’ was a thing in s10, you know nothing. If you want sombra buffed, i recommend not doing it directly on her damage or her hack, do buffs to other things, translocator, stealth, etc.

Bastion
I see the bastion threads, i know hes easily another of the worst heroes in the game. However, i was around in s4 during the week long omnic crisis 2.0 aka bastionpocalypse where he had 35% dr on his passive. I also know he has one of the worst hero designs in the game, how exactly could you ever balance a robot that turns into a literal minigun. The only opinion i can give on bastion really is that he needs a full complete rework. Like in everything except ult and maybe lmb. He simply cannot be balanced as he is rn in any forseeable way.

Onto what i get annoyed with the community over as well as the devs. I alluded to it above. The community including myself at times, and the devs fail to see things in the ‘broader picture’ it appears. Broader picture means what could happen if ‘blank’ gets changed in ‘blank’ way. Like how changes to one character can make them overpowered if something else was to happen, ill give examples.

Dive into the brig meta change. Dive was what the game was balanced around from s5 to the end of s9, every hero change, every dlc hero, even the map release during that time. Now, combine that with brig going into comp, with no changes to non dive characters to help them adjust, look at what happened, brig appeared to be overpowered and overwhelming because she completely stopped dive in its tracks while also eradicating almost any hero that got in her way. Brigs change also showed another failure of broader image viewing, the snipers. The snipers were buffed to fit in dive, but were not nerfed to deal with the fact their counters were about to die off or at the very least get weakened incredibly. Boom double sniper meta, and i dont even need to mention hanzo.

Onto another big issue. Bugs

Dear Mercy can you guys please stop fighting the hydra or playing whack a mole with reinhardt when it comes to bugs. Rein is becoming more and more unfun to play for a lot of rein mains. You deal with one bug and 2-3 more come, its infuriating.

Then theres the sombra bugs(which if fixed i admit could have the same effect that doomfists bugs getting fixed did, but i still want a very game breaking bug free game from what is meant to be an AAA game, im fine with tiny bugs that dont effect gameplay).

I think that sums up my issues. Hopefully yall somehow read this entire thing.

19 Likes
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Desperately needs a TL;DR

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Yeaaaaaa i dont think i can manage to do that lol, if it helps, take it in increments

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Lol Sombra’s treatment has been borderline abusive. I’ve mad numerous threads about her and the changes she needs to be at least a viable option instead of a troll pick but I doubt any of them got seen by the devs, same to the other Sombra enthusiasts.

They’re scared to balance heroes that will be too powerful in a specific niche. It’s why they haven’t buffed Bastion or tweaked him. He would be even more of a problem in pirate ship comps.

The only option for all of these dumb heroes is to rework them because their designs SUCK

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I dont think sombra needs a rework, just buffed in ways not directly in her damage or hack. I do agree with bastion

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What i don’t get is that how do they not know how to balance such a simple character like Bastion. Like out of all of the heroes in this game Bastion has the most obvious weaknesses and advantages with him and yet they can’t get past the idea of that

Oh he kills noobs, better not buff Mr. Scary Turret Boy.

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its not about him ‘killing noobs’. He has the capability to become insanely overpowered in high tiers(happened in s4 for a week then he got turbonerfed straight to live)

Bastion is a very simple kit yes, but its a kit that isnt balanceable. You cant balance a robot that turns into a turret because if hes mobile during turret its a mobile flippin turret lol, and if hes stationary and cant get enough damage reduction he dies too fast, but if he has too much dr he doesnt die.

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The 2 Bastion Mega threads would disagree.

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and i know they would, i am okay with that. It is best for bastion to get fully reworked. Hopefully in a way that doesnt = hanzo/mercy rework.

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The title alone needs a TL;DR

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Even if they implemented anti CC, I feel they’ve gone too far down the path they’re on to make even that work.

I can’t quite put into words why I feel that way. It’s something along the lines of me believing they’ll never go back on their stance on hero viability vs hero accessibility. They want every hero to be viable at the highest level, and they want to have accessible heros in that mix. I personally think this is a huge oxymoron. I think it’s a joke to release easy characters to counter hard characters. I think it’s a joke to release easy characters that enable hard characters. I feel it’s a huge source of this game’s issues.

Not only that, but the community is so rampantly toxic now that if they even did go back on their stance, and you were playing an “easy” character - you would get flamed and reported for it.

I will be amazed if season 12, 13, or 14 feel remotely rewarding.

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No, we are not obligated to learn other supports just because ours is not fun. If you want to dedicate yourself to competitive, than yes. But is not okay to tone down a hero with nerfs because of an OP rework that was not asked by its players.

I think when it comes to Mercy people forget that a game is meant to be fun for the player, and lots Mercy players have been complaining about the treatment she received in the past year since the beginning of the whole mess. And before anybody say that fUN iS sUBJectIVe, she was reworked because of fun. Because lots of players would just cry saying she is unfun to play against, instead of even trying to find ways to counter her Res: before or after her ult. It’s not fair to destroy a hero with nerfs like this and make other players happy, while the players of that hero feel frustrated about the state. The treatment Mercy received had no equality of fun between the people who disliked playing against her and the people who loved playing her.

Mercy before this rework was never a must pick. In fact, she was a trash-tier hero for a long time, till her invulnerability buff. She had a few concerns, but not as much as this monster that the reworked one has. She could be fixed, yet they didn’t try to.

Imagine if that happened with your favorite hero. Certainly you would not be happy about it. Sure the game balance is important, but the way this balance is happening is disgusting. Fun matters, because we all bought the game in order to have fun. And there are good-sense Mercy players who suggested tweaks that would balance her without ending her fun, but making her less frustrating for her haters. Even suggestions with no Mass Res. She just appears to be balanced, but she’s not. Her kit is messed up and it’s not okay to left her like this.

I know the thread is not all about Mercy. I know there are other heroes who need help as well (I’m a Sombra player as well). But what you said about her ‘‘being balanced’’ is honestly a message like ‘‘screw you learn a new hero’’.

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Each season just gets worse. I doubt it is gonna get better. Blizzard’s treatment on heroes and system, andthe community, are factors that contribute for that.
Right now I just do my placements and stop Comp. Since each season seems more stressful.

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Ya, that’s where I’m at too at this point lol. I still stick around the forums and give snarky criticism at Blizzard because I want to believe that it isn’t the case. I want to believe that this game will go back to feeling fun and rewarding with a community that’s more ready to tryhard in ladder play.

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Bastion can be balanced but I agree in a sense that I think it requires a bit of rework - maybe not a FULL rework, but changing around some abilities I think will be a must.

I think a large part of the problem is the desire to trade a significant amount of killing power in exchange for being so incredibly fragile and vulnerable. Simply tweaking numbers like his spread, the way his passive damage resistance works, or changes to tank form may aid in making him a bit better but without some heftier changes he will never be anything more than a very niche hero with many weaknesses and reliance on the team. His massive potential means that a lot of various buffs could easily result in him being overtuned, especially if people start building teams around him.

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Well, I’m not sure about that. My feeling is that Blizzard on 2016, launch year, and Blizzard now, are whole different companies in the treatment they gave to the costumer and the game. Right now they just care about OWL and what the pros want, and screw the community.
I feel a huge lack of respect as a player and costumer, since they seem to don’t even care about hearing suggestions or concerns. But oh well.

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Nah I agree with you about all of that.

It’s just that, every once in a while I get that one really, really, REALLY good match. Like, it’s so good that no other game even comes close to getting me feeling so involved. It’s like chasing that one last hit ya know. You want to believe you can feel it again.

It happens less with every season. Every season makes it harder to get that feeling. Every cheesy hero added, every cheesy mechanic buffed, every hero reworked. :frowning:

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But this basically means you’re not buffing her at all. If you can’t buff hack you have to buff her damage.

Or give her back the ability to gain ult charge from packs which in some way is buffing hack.

Damage threshold for hack is still a buff for hack.

So basically all they can do is buff her damage besides QoL changes like sugar skulls on enemies heads with a timer which I have been begging for, for such a long time.

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Yeah, I know what you mean. I wish we could have the good times of Overwatch again. The game looks so different, but from a bad perspective. At this point I don’t know how much time I’ll be playing in the next months, depending of what gets changed or what doesn’t.
I miss the game that I was so in love in 2016 - first semester of 2017. Overwatch offered fun and made me feel like a true hero.

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There are plenty of possible ways to buff Sombra that do not include directly buffing hack or damage. You literally listed two in your own post (ult charge from medkits is most definitely not a buff to hack), and that doesn’t even count one of the most popular requests to add damage threshold on invis.