Been scratching my head on how to block GOATs with the least impact to the rest of the game, for the past 8 months.
And yeah, I probably typed “2 Healer max per team” over 100 times since then.
But I think I finally came up with something even less restrictive than that.
Hero Select changes:
- No more than 1 offhealer per team.
Done, no more GOATs, without even blocking 3-3.
There is debate over Lucio being a main or off healer, so this could ruin running Lucio + Zen.
I’ve seen people run Baptiste-Lucio-Ana
Main and off healer are team positions, not categories. At least right now. Subcategories would need to added to the game for your idea to work.
As one who’s played a little bit of Lucio, I’ve probably been apart of many healer combos.
With those 3, it’s easy to say Lucio is your off healer here. Lucio with a Zen, Lucio is your main healer.
I would argue that it’s pretty clearly outlined which healers are main and off healers.
Mostly by the simple definition of “does this healer have a big defensive Ult”.
You may recognize that, but the game doesn’t.
So write small piece of code to do that.
This solution wont fix the game. It will technically make it worse.
How about other heroes/roles too then? We need to see whats done once 222 comes. And complain after then. But now, its too early for that.
Plus people/owl playing goats isnt end of the world. That meta aint even that popular/used anymore.
Sure, how about 3DPS max, 2 anchortank max, 1 offhealer max per team.
Game rule restrictions should not be put in place to block a single specific composition. What happens if we get some other stacked meta like 4 main healers and 2 main tanks?
2/2/2 with role lock addresses the core issue of how role stacking can cause certain synergies to stack too far.
That doesn’t matter, if it can be easily solved with balance.
Hard restrictions are only needed for problems that can’t be dealt with balance.
Instead of making these annoyingly complicated "if-then"s for hero picks, make this change:
The reason GOATS is so strong is because you can layer three support ults and become an immortal deathball–making support ults less common due to the way Lucio and Brigitte heal means more opportunities to punish teams that don’t manage their ult economy absolutely perfectly.
It also allows teams the opportunity to win fights against GOATS in the neutral, because support ults charge more slowly in general and there’s less opportunity for a support ult to come online right as a pick is about to be confirmed.
stop suggesting role cockblock
There are objective balance-wise reasons why goats W A S a thing.
It is actually almost nonexistent in current ladder
I think the benefit to a minimally restrictive approach with hero pick rules, is that it’s mostly invisible.
Outside of Quickplay or really really high tier, double offhealer is rare.
Double AnchorTank is really rare, and TripleAnchor would be even more rare.
3DPS limit would be more visible, but runs into a similar situation where it’s only really felt missing for really low tier games, or really high tier games.
It’s not done until this changes.
That would be establishing roles officially.
Is mercy, Lucio, or Baptiste primary or off healers?
Could this change?
I’m fine with establishing roles, but it’s def up in the air for many atm
Smart boi big brain move.
Or just limit healing stack to just two healing effects at once. Or just one at once.
Except you then realize that Lucio is statistically on speedboost +60% of the time.
Where as the problem is stacking utility, and stacking defensive ultimates.
Also Brig acting as a secondary Zarya bubble equivalent.
arent you confusing main support?
lucio is not a main healer at all, lucio was being ran back then because he is a main support while zen is a flex support
both are off healers but theyre not exactly the same when it comes to their team roles