My dream patchnotes

Still no patchnotes huh? Ok, here are my hopeful predictions.

Tanks

Mauga
Cardiac Overdrive duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
Cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.

Same reasoning they gave in the dev blog post, except I don’t think he needs the extra 100 overhealth on use. That coupled with the reduced cooldown is DEFINITELY going to make him overtuned. I don’t think he needs the stomp damage either, honestly. If they want to give him more easily available overhealth and make stomp a better aggressive playmaking tool, they’ll have to nerf his DPS to compensate. I’d be ok with that, but it seems like a bit much.

D.Va
Nothing. She’s fine.

D. Va is good right now, but she’s not overpowered. I’d rather see other tanks buffed first.

Doomfist
Meteor strike minimal damage increased from 15 to 50.
Meteor strike ult charge cost increased by 8%.

Listen, I get that we want Meteor Strike to feel better as an ult, but Doom is already good in the right hands. If we’re going to keep buffing meteor strike, we need to increase the cost so that we don’t power creep him.

Junker Queen
She’s fine.

Junker Queen feels good. The DPS passive effects her wound healing a bit but that’s getting nerfed. She’s a decent pick with good agency. I don’t think she needs anything at the moment.

Orisa
Javelin spin movement speed increased from 50% to 60% when active and from 20% to 30% after activation.

I dislike Orisa as much as the next common forum dweller, but she’s had one of the lowest winrates of the tank roster for a good while. This small change will help give her more agency without making her too much more suffocating to play against.

Rammatra
No changes needed.

He good. He’s doing decently and doesn’t really need anything. The main thing hurting his performance right now is the prevalence of dive/flanker characters, which I mean to address later. Rammatra himself is fine.

Reinhardt
Fire Strike damage increased from 100 to 125.
Charge now grants 30% damage reduction.
Movement speed penalty while using shield reduced from 30% to 25%.

Rein needs some love. Fire strike feels terrible and charge is a bit outdated. Giving it a slight damage reduction and making his shield penalty a little less bad will help give him much more agency.

Roadhog
Damage per shrapnel increased from 15 to 20
Healing resource takes 9 seconds to fully recharge, down from 10.

A lot of Roadhog’s viability as a pick comes from his pick potential. The overall health buff definitely made this harder. This change is just to help compensate for that. The shrapnel damage is an increased of 20 damage if he lands all 4 shrapnel, so it isn’t a noticeable amount unless he’s consistently landing multiple of them. It also just helps him poke a bit better since most of his ranged damage come from the larger shrapnel projectiles. The DPS passive nerf will help him a bit, but he is also on the lowest end of the spectrum when it comes to winrates and overall viability. Now that every DPS is a bit better against Hog, I think it’s fair to make his healing available a little more.

Sigma
He’s fine.

He’s doing his usual thing, being really good on certain maps and decent on most others. I don’t think he’s problematic.

Winston
Alt fire max damage increased from 50 to 65

Winton is overall fine, I just think the health buffs make his alt fire feel even worse. If he needed any more buffs I’d probably just increase Primal Rage’s damage the same way, but that seems superfluous right now.

Wrecking Ball
Adaptive Shield now grants overhealth to nearby allies during its duration based on how many enemies it affected. Grants 10 per enemy, up to a max of 50 overhealth per teammates.

Wrecking Ball is a weird one. Up until the last patch he was suffering and mostly forgotten. Then he became one of the best tanks in the game because every other tank became worse. I don’t think he needs much until the rest of the roster gets brought into a better state, so this is more just a neat idea I have for the mini-rework. Wrecking Ball himself is fine, but he’s never been great at supporting his teammates. This change is just to help him offer more utility, sort of like a mini-Junker Queen shout but without the speedboost or guaranteed value.

Zarya
No changes.

After her beam changes, she feels fine. She’s being most affected by the current dive meta right now.

DPS

Ashe
None.

Ashe is very good but she’s not oppressive. The support passive nerf is a nice slap on the wrist for her. I’d rather wait to see where she settles before making any changes.

Bastion
No changes.

Bastion is currently suffering a bit because of the dive meta. I’d rather wait to see where the changes land him before making changes to Bastion himself.

Cassidy/McCree
None.

McCree is actually benefiting a lot from the last set of changes. He’s found a good spot in the meta and should continue to stay there as a decent answer to flankers. He doesn’t really need any changes.

Echo
None.

Again, Echo is fine. She’s pretty much in the same spot she’s always been: Harder to play but overall good.

Genji
Damage per shuriken decreased from 27 to 26.
Dragon Blade swing recovery time increased from .7 to .75.

Genji is in a really good spot right now. The projectile changes let him set up kills easier, and his ult change was incredibly impactful. Overall, I think he just needs very slight nerfs.

Hanzo
Storm Bow rate of fire recovery reduced from .5 to .4
Storm arrow ammo increased from 5 to 6.
Dragonstrike cast time reduced from .91 to .8.
Dragonstrike projectile speed increased from 20 meters per second to 22.

Hanzo is definitely not as good as initially predicted at the beginning of the season. Losing his ability to oneshot, while great for us non-Hanzo mains, has definitely left him a bit lackluster. These buffs will help him put out a bit more arrows, as well as make Dragonstrike a bit more lethal.

Junkrat
Frag Launcher splash damage ranges increased from 10-80 to 20-90.
Frag Launcher splash radius size increased from 2 meters to 2.5 meters.
Steel trap damage increased from 100 to 130.
Steel trap projectile speed increased from 17 meters per second to 20.
RIP-Tire health increased from 100 to 120.

Oh god. This one is the toughest one for me. I don’t play Junkrat, but I know how bad he currently is. It’s hard to balance this character when you’re trying to cut down on oneshots, so instead I’d rather see buffs to his overall collateral damage and abilities. Steel Trap honestly could be reworked into something else, but here I just give it some buffs to allow Junkrat the ability to blow up anyone caught with one nade or mine. I also buffed RIP-Tire since its effectness was lowered by the hitbox size changes. This is basically a slew of minor buffs across his kit.

Mei
No changes. She fine.

She’s fine, but is currently not favored because of the meta. Rather wait to see where she’d settle before suggesting any changes.

Pharah
Hover Jets time to fully refuel reduced from 2.33 to 2 seconds.
Rocket Barrage now grants Pharah 20% damage reduction.

Thank you for the Pharah adjustments! She feels so much better to play against and a lot of my buddies have been having a ton of fun with the changes. Just some minor buffs here. Her hover jets run out a bit quickly and leave you stuck once you’ve used your cooldowns for a little too long. And I’m giving Rocket Barrage the Dead-eye treatment. However, she seems to have a relatively good winrate right now, so I don’t want to overbuff her.

Reaper
Reaper can now move with a 30% speed penalty during the cast time of Shadowstep.

I actually think Reaper is fine from a balance perspective. This change is purely because Shadowstep as an ability feels pretty bad to use. This would open up a lot more interesting use cases without making it feel too oppressive. If he became a little too strong, I would probably increase the movement penalty.

Sojourn
No changes.

Sojourn is good in the right hands, but not overpowered in general. Nothing really needed.

Solder: 76
No changes.

Soldier is doing well right now. Not broken, but really good. The nerf to the DPS passive will affect him a fair bit since he applies it constantly. I’d rather wait to see where the meta settles before making changes. If he needed nerfs later, I would just revert the buff to his Biotic Field.

Sombra
No changes.

Annoying, but not overpowered. Sombra is doing pretty good in the current dive meta. The changeups to the rest of the roster will make her a bit less oppressive, but she doesn’t need direct nerfs.

Symmetra
Shields increased from 150 to 175. 275 total healthpool now.
Primary beam damage increased from 60/120/180 to 70/140/210.
Secondary damage increased from 50 direct and 50 splash to 60 direct and 60 splash.
Secondary fire’s max charge time reduced from 1 second to .9 seconds.
Sentry turret damage increased from 25 per second to 30.
Sentry turret cooldown reduced from 10 seconds per charge to 9.
Sentry turret projectile speed increased from 20 meters to 25.

Fine, if we can’t keep two-tap Symmetra, at least buff the rest of her. Now she gets a little more shields to make her healthier, as well as slight buffs across the board. Her turrets have been especially bad lately so they get the most of it. This should overall make her more effective in every scenario, instead of just bringing back her two-shot potential.

Torbjorn
He’s fine.

Torb is doing fine. He’s not a glaring problem and should still be in a decent spot if the meta were shaken up.

Tracer
Pulse pistol damage per bullet decreased from 6 to 5.5.

Here we go again, back to 5.5! Tracer benefitted hugely from the recent changes to projectile and the DPS passive. With the passive being nerfed to 15%, I think that combined with this nerf and the buffs to the current weak supports would help her fall into a much healthier spot. Right now she is way too strong.

Widowmaker
No changes.

Widow is always a pain to balance. As much as I’d love to spitball my idea for a really cool rework, I don’t think she really needs any changes right now. She’s only a major problem on certain maps in high level lobbies.

Support

Ana
Biotic rifle damage/healing increased from 70 to 75.
Anti-nade healing increased from 60 to 90.

She is currently a victim of the recent changes, and needs a slight bump. I JUST want to increase the healing on her nade in this case so it’s a bit better as a self-heal, and increase her damage output slightly to help her win duals. Ana isn’t the worst, and I think the changes to other characters would help her find her way back into the meta.

Baptiste
No changes. Give skin.

He’s fine but please give the man more skins. :pray:

Brigitte
No changes.

Again, I think she’s fine. She has her niche and still fills it well.

Illari
Solar rifle max charge time reduced from 1 second to .8 seconds.
Solar rifle reload time reduced from 1.8 to 1.5 seconds.
Solar alt fire reload time decreased from 2.9 to 2.6 when full.

Illari has been in a bad spot since her TTK has been reduced and her heals have been greatly affected by the DPS passive. The point here it to increase her overall damage output and offer more access to heals, while retaining her same weaknesses.

Kiriko
No changes.

She’s annoying as hell, but she doesn’t really need any changes. She’s very good, but not broken. I would rather make changes to other heroes and keep an eye on her for now.

Lifeweaver
Healing blossom now charges at a 50% reduced rate while using Thorn Volley.

I’ve wanted this for a long time. It incentivizes squeezing out damage when possible on Lifeweaver. It wouldn’t have a MASSIVE effect on his performance since he’s mostly going to heal anyway, but it allows him to weave in damage when optimal and then switch back to heals without it being so risky. I imagine this would make him much better at a higher level. I would rather wait to see how he feels after a pretty major change like this before buffing him in any other way. He also is one of the characters benefiting the most from the DPS passive nerf.

Lucio
Sonic amplifier damage decreased from 20 per round to 18. Total per volley reduced from 80 to 72.
Soundwave movement lockout reduced from .45 seconds to .4.
Soundwave knockback distance decreased by 5%.

Some small nerfs to Lucio. He’s currently really strong since his last buffs and the projectile changes so these just roll them back a little. I would rather see where he lands after the rest of the roster is adjusted before nerfing him anymore.

Mercy
Caduceus Staff healing increased from 55 per second to 57.5.
Valkyrie healing increased from 60 health per second to 65.

Mercy benefits a lot from the DPS passive nerf. Right now she is still a decent pick in lower elo and a niche pick in higher elo as a DPS pocket. This slight buff might not even be needed depending on the other changes land but I’m doing this assuming that the DPS passive has affected her the most out of the supports. Would watch carefully.

Moira
No changes.

Moira is popular right now, and annoying as per usual, but she is fine. Her TTK buff might have been a bit too unnecessary considering she was the only support buffed in this way, but I’d rather see where the changes land first before making any changes.

Zenyatta
No changes.

He’s settled into a decent spot since his last nerfs. Definitely not bad, but not the best anymore. I would rather wait to see how he’s affected by the rest of the roster’s changes.

And there we go, that’s everyone covered! Overall just some minor buffs and nerfs to most characters with the only real significant changes going to the outliers like Rein, Sym, Junkrat, and Lucio. Feel free to tell me how crap of a dev I would be down below! Hoping for at least a few of these in the patch notes. :pray:

3 Likes

The wrecking ball suggestion seem scarily op. +50 hp for everyone and +whatever hundred of hp for you?? That’s the only one that sticks out as too much to me.

I think I like everything else though. Sym I’m going to laugh when we get 0 buffs after everyone has been writing paragraphs on how to fix her

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+50 health to any allies in your immediate radius on the tank who normally plays hooky from his teammates. Plus keep in mind, on average you’re going to be getting maybe 3 people in your adaptive shield radius unless the enemy team is playing in one big clump. It would be more like +30~ shield to whoever engages with you and MAYBE your supports if you back up instead of rolling around and disrupting their backline. Plus it’s on a 15 second cooldown.

It sounds strong, and could potentially be in some cases, but overall would just probably be a nice little addition to support his teammates. I think it sounds a lot nastier than it would be in an actual game, but the numbers could be bumped down if it was too good.

Thanks! And I really hope they do something for her! I’m one of the people who think Sym is completely fine as a more niche pick. It’s fine if she’s bad on certain maps and great on others, but when she’s bad on all of them it’s just sad.

No no, we kill Sojourn as well. She was the top meta DPS for six seasons until Tracer finally broke her streak despite no nerfs to Sojourns and only an overall buff. The moment Tracer gets dropped and dive isn’t as effective, we go right back to pocket Sojourn meta for another six seasons.

Haha I completely understand the sentiment. I HATED the seasons of Sojourn meta. However, I don’t think she was that strong before the recent rise of Tracer. Yes, she was strong in the right hands, but she wasn’t regularly taking over lobbies, especially not outside of high elo. You might have had a different experience though…

I think Sojourn is just going to have to be on of those characters like Tracer or Widow; Really good at a high level, but pretty meh in most players hands. Either way, I’d rather buff the others first before nerfing her.

I just want a rework done to her, pretty sure the reason for why Blizzard utterly refuses to butcher her is because any nerfs she deserves would just turn her into discount Soldier.
We saw in her short physically how much of a beast she is, why not rework her so that her strength is incorporated into her kit, either by making her purely long range but with a punch that acts like Ashe’s boop, or making her a brawler. Either one would certainly be better than this “Soldier Widow hybrid but better at their jobs” abomination.

These are some pretty level headed changes. I’m more upset with some of the heroes you omitted like Mei and Brigitte than the ones you’ve changed.

The two that might be troublesome are Wrecking Ball and Pharah. Wrecking Ball because giving a hero a new ability functionality without a cost always proves to be more powerful than it seems. Pharah I just feel is underrated, even if her fuel is more awkward feeling.

Overall a solid post with some good ideas, don’t let my criticisms distract you from that.

Are you intending for this to bring back 2 tapping on his primary as well as the combo? It doesn’t read like it but that would be the side effect of adding 10 damage since his primary damage is split into impact and explosion damage for a total of 120.

Well thank you! And yeah, that’s fair. I’m tempted to buff those two but I think they’re actually fine B-tier heroes at the moment. Would maybe do a slight increase to Mei’s primary and increase Brig’s self-heal a bit, but I’d rather play it safe.

Completely valid! Wrecking Ball doesn’t really need a buff to be honest, but we know he’s getting some kind of adjustment to make him better as a team player, so this was just my idea.

Pharah apparently is doing great too, but I wanted to address the pain points I’ve heard about the character and would probably look into a nerf afterwards if she was too good. I know I’ve heard of plenty complaints about her fuel being down too much and, of course, Rocket Barrage sucking so I wanted to bring those up a bit. If I had to nerf anything it would probably be her primary in some way. Maybe a slightly lower missile speed. I haven’t played her enough myself to offer a good suggestion just yet.

Appreciate your feedback!

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Yikes people still not understanding the Meta genji isn’t meta he is in a good spot because the meta favors him. Making him do even less dmg in an environment where everyone has increased health pools is insane. Which this would destroy what remains of his breakpoints. Blade is also extremely terrible right now those change’s doesn’t fix the fact it takes 3 slashes regardless of amp to secure a kill. Leave him alone he will fall off like he always does.

Sojourn railgun needs to have its overall hitbox halfed. Remove the headshot multiplier and make her primary fire more consistent. She shouldn’t be a better widow but function like a soldier and use her rail as a finisher instead of a free kill.

Re: Orisa: I can only speak for myself, but at this point I’d trade spin for a Ram style barrier that’s (obviously) on a lower cooldown. Ram’s is 13s for reference.

There have been times when Orisa’s made it into the limelight, like in season two with that version of Hog around, or when Bastion had a 10s turret cooldown instead of 12s. For the most part though, she’s really not been that good. Even in Ram’s darkest days - after the rightful ult cost nerf but before the season eight buffs - his kit feels more flexible to me and why is that, at the end of the day?

It’s not because of fall-off. That’s outright gone for Orisa. It’s not because of damage potential, since Orisa’s always had him beat there. Is Fortify better than Nem. block? I wouldn’t say so, myself. I’d say it’s on a par at least. CC immunity on its own is golden. Ha ha. And javelin throw is so much better than Ram’s puddle.

I guess I feel that spin just doesn’t cut it, and I’m not convinced that’s a problem that can be solved with raw buffs. At least, without making Orisa a complete nightmare. Grasp works for Sigma because his barrier’s amazingly flexible. For Orisa, I don’t think that spin is going to work.

Hitscan overall is way to powerful right now and needs to be globally adjusted hitbox wise. Hitscan is already consistent but making them more consistent WHILE having high up time on the dps passive is a problem. Give the dps passive an internal CD so it isn’t just being kept up by a a hitscan constantly shooting a target.

That is a claim people make all the time. Has the ‘meta’ just favored him for years? Genji has been one of the top 2 picks for years. That isn’t just a meta favoring him. That is him being the meta for years.

No it wouldn’t. Dropping 1 damage would not change his break points at all. Which is incidentally why that nerf would effectively have no effect.
200 damage (vulnerable to dash kill): (crits = 2 hits)
@26 damage: 8 hits. 7 hits = 182, 8 hits = 208
@27 damage: 8 hits. 7 hits = 189, 8 hits = 216
250 damage (no dash)
@26 damage: 10 hits (9 hits = 234)
@27 damage: 10 hits (9 hits = 243)

People get really confused about break points. To actually impact his break points you would have to get below 25 damage per shot

Which happen in the essentially the same time as 2 slashes used to. TTK is not really impacted.

He has been in the top 2 (often top 1) for YEARS. He doesn’t “fall off.”

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Sigh I like when we compare numbers in a vacuum but sure if we want to go with raw numbers in a vacuum:

Melee = 40 dash = 50 fan of blades = 27/26x3 ammo = 30 maximum amounts fired = 10

Max potential dps for body shots:
(27x3)=81x 10 = 810
(26x3)=78 x 10 = 780

He lost 30 dmg per clip with one damage change.

Let’s do a simple combo dash + 180 three to the head melee combo.

(27x3)2 = 162+50+40=252 (this was primarily why melee was buffed clearly)

(26x3)2 = 156+50+40=246 (this no longer kills and destroyed this breakpoint)

He loses 30 dmg per clip but also destroys his ONLY working combo. Now this is in a circumstance where the target isn’t being healed and you are theoretically hitting every shot. Now factor in the fact you will miss shots and targets will be healed you will slowly realize how significant losing 30 dmg per clip is going to be. I don’t even feel like going into the math with blade. We can use numbers all day but they don’t factor in the fact people aren’t just sitting still like bots.

To address the “he has always been meta” this is false and hasn’t been true for a while the leaderboard is backwards right now so “right to left” not left to right you will notice how how the hero who is constantly played in higher tier is tracer because she is genji but with the tool kit to be an actual flanker. Besides that play rate doesn’t always equate to meta. Genji is popular so regardless of his strength he will be played doesn’t matter if he’s strong or not. Genji fits metas he doesn’t define them and the one time he did he got nerfed within less than a month.

Good patchnotes

But let genji stay where he is .

And buff torb

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It is currently the case. It has been since WELL before OW2 even launched and has stayed that way. The worst he has been is #3 or #4. But that is rare. He is almost always #1 or #2.

That is just not true. Genji is currently played MORE in GM than Tracer is.
GM competitive: (this month)
Genji (#2): 4.00%
Tracer (#3): 3.84%

So, no she has not passed him. What you are seeing is Tracer got a bigger change from her previous play. So you notice her presence more. But Genji has always been there so people are more acclimated to him.

Genji has defined them for a LONG time.

That one time he think he defined meta:
He was #2 before the buffs.
He was completely, over the top, broken OP pushing 9% pick rate after the buffs.
The nerfs were only a partial revert on the buffs.
He was #1 after.

Also, everyone KNEW the buffs would make him broken OP. But Blizzard wanted him in every game of OWL, so they did it. The month was all about getting all those OWL views.

Genji/Soldier are the current dps meta. And they have been for a VERY long time. Every ‘meta’ people talk about is just the heroes performing notably better than they did previously. It is just the change, not what is actually the best. The actual meta (Most Effective Tactic Available) hasn’t changed in years.

Which is quite frankly one of the reason OW is in the state it is. It is stale and repetitive. Every patch is Soldier and/or Genji for dps and Ana for support in nearly every game. The top heroes SHOULD change. They just don’t.

This is just not supported by any evidence. In fact, we have a plethora of evidence to the contrary. EVERY single time Blizzard makes changes we see pick rate directly follow power. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Genji is not even an outlier. They buff him and his play goes up. Nerf him and it goes down. Every time a hero is OP people claim they are ‘just fun to play.’ And they changes any time a hero is no longer OP. People have more fun on a hero when they win more. That is why OP heroes are ‘fun to play.’ That is why they get played more.

And, on top of all that, every time Blizzard has commented on any stats regarding Genji he has been performing well by other metrics as well. If you remember a number of months ago when all the Genji players were screaming he was bad Blizzard directly said he was on of the most played AND had a positive unmirrored win rate.

The reality is that power IS the driving force for pick rate. And we see it time and time again. To pretend otherwise is just a denial of reality.

Oop. The devs definitely agree with you! Two nice buffs for both Mei and Brig. I guess they’re trying to give Tracer some better competition rather than outright nerf her.

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