This is about Brig but… I dont wanna actually be read… I just wanna like… pour my salty tears into the void…
One of my favorite shows to binge when Netflix’s endless choices overwhelms me into a pit of despair is Justice League… ya know… the animated one?
Honestly Top Tier. I love the show, the dynamics, the joy of team ups and it’s the show that ruined me because the creators were team #WonderBat and literally no other DC writer is…
So I am not special or anything when it comes to superheroes. I love Spiderman. Green Lantern is hella cool. Wonder Woman? Fine Af. HawkGirl? Choke me. Firebird? Yeah, Im a comic nerd. And she’s my wife. Back off.
But a hero I cannot stand…I loathe, just ruins the whole day for me….
Superman.
What a trash hero. What a snotty little prick. What a waste of my time.
And the thing is, it’s specifically Superman. I’m fine with Supergirl. I’m fine with Superboi. Like, gimme my angsty krypto boi and sunshine girl any day. They are awesome and I love them.
But not Clark. He’s just…the worst. I don’t care that he’s super, inherently. I don’t sit here siding with Lex Luthor about how… power is dangerous and he could kill me wHenEvEr.
I don’t care about that. I’m human. A very determined duck could kill me. Clark isn’t special in that regard.
I’m more of a batman approach. I don’t like Clark. Clark Kent is where my beef is. There’s an interpersonal aspect I can’t get over because it’s the history and nature of who he is that bothers me. Not what he is. And there isn’t anything I think that could happen that would magically make me like him…
And I can recognize where his existence has been explicitly empowering to people. Where he gives them hope and the optimism he can inspire. And I see how this can be both in the DC/comic universe and in the real world where he is racially, socially, and financially a net benefit to a lot of people. His lore is intricate and something people aspire to and look up to. I can see that…while experiencing none of that myself.
And the creators of the Justice League ran into an interpersonal issue when writing the show themselves. Superman was a Justice League founder so he has to be there, but he is just SO OP and SO loaded in his abilities that they had no way to make it make sense of why you would ever want another hero when Superman existed and could just… do everything?
He ruined dynamics, he ruined plots, he destroyed any form of character growth, he was the one hero they ran into this issue with consistently and it caused a wreck from the very beginning in just writing episode one… The entire premise was about writing a hero that came from another planet and was powerful and a literal main character was a hero that was powerful and came from another planet. JFC this guy just ruined the base plot of the show before the show even started ekjhakfjhsfduikjh;ag….
Anyway… so umm….
Brig has a skittle for a Brain and Here’s Why.
A disclaimer- IT’S NOT ABOUT AIM
So, small disclaimer before I have a bunch of people read the title and then nothing else… I don’t care about aim. JFC not everything is about aim. Symm can have autolock back. Moira is A tier imo. Get off me about Aim. And No, I didn’t hate Brig before her awful rework. I used to like her a lot actually. And no, before the meta babies decide to rant about how OP she was…
Dude, I ran her solo heal a week before her rework. Back off.
You don’t have to read a whole thread. It’s a self righteous rant into the void that I do on a reg here. Not every essay screech I write is golden. But also,
Don’t comment on stuff you don’t read. Take your presumptions elsewhere. I loathe projection. Like, I have 9500 comments and none of them declare AIM as the sole or best skill to have. I don’t “secretly” think anything. I’m as Shallow as a Shower. I promise, I’m not that deep.
So get out my notifications about AIM and/Or Goats. You’re both projecting so much you can go start a movie theater.
I Don’t have to like a hero. It’s entirely possible for me to define skill on my own terms that differs from yours. Not everyone will agree with you. Moreover, you can change your mind about things. I might not think this about Brig later. That’s true. But I also didn’t think this way about her before. I changed my mind.
I went from highly liking and respecting her to loathing her very existence. This is a written forum… you can visually see when I changed my mind. I’ve changed my mind on many a thing. I’ve even been reasoned with once or twice.
But sometimes a person can change their mind and still not come to the conclusion you wanted. This is what happened for me with brig. Someone tried to convince me that my initial thought was wrong… and they were right. And they convinced me…she’s a walking potato.
None of why I hate Brig has anything to do with aim or wanting her to be OP. I won’t bother with a real response if you waste my time going about these routes.
I’m a blunt hoe who doesn’t go that deep, fam. I promise. There’s a reason my wife left me for my brother.
Also… this is my screech into the void… Get off me with my train of thought ramblings. It’s my ramblings and sometimes it’s just nice to know a ramble screech is out there. It helps me forget that my nation is on fire, people have no concept of the value of a dollar, my job is evil, and my dog is dying and nothing I do is helping him and he won’t eat and the doctors want to charge $8,000 to help just test him and everything is awful. Back off and let me screech, you absolute grammar freaks.
So there’s a thing people like to talk about with Mercy that I don’t agree with…kind of. And that’s coming from me. I mean… I have an ocean in me called Mercy because the witch got me salty af. I don’t like her. I don’t want her in the game. If I were Jeff, I would make it a joke to have her unplayable every Wednesday at 6 and all of Sundays… ya know…so she can be in church? Since her theme is about angels…??? Get it???
I think it’s funny shut up
So a thing I often see is that mercy has an “overloaded kit.” And that like her, new supports have “overloaded kits”
Well… no.
Kits and numbers
Let’s go over what a Mercy do base kit (Base kit because omg an ultimate is an ultimate. Stop using ultimates to make an argument about kit):
Heal beam
Heal beam lock on
Dmg beam
Dmg beam lock on
GA
Angelic decent
Pistol
Resurrect
Regeneration
And I do include lock on as an ability because a- that gives a slight edge in her positioning abilities, and B- it allowed more positioning abilities to be at her disposal per her GA tech
And I’m not going to include super jump as “glitches” are entirely subjective and able to be eliminated on a whim or accident.
But yeah, that’s 9 things in mercy’s kit.
But… let’s compare Zen
heal orb
heal lock
dmg orb
dmg lock
dmg fire
shield regen
no footsteps*
and yes, I include stealth as an asset. He the only one who doesn’t have a sound at all times. But even if I don’t… that’s 6 abilities in his kit. To mercy’s 9.
That’s pretty loaded
Let’s compare that to our newest support Baptiste-
heal lobs
dmg fire
imm field
regen burst
hippy hops
hmmm…. Quite interesting… well let’s add in AOE
Heal lobs AOE
So… I kind of have to stretch the AOE lobs and even then, he’s on par with zen. Mercy is barely 3 abilities more.
Interesting.
Ana? The skill queen?
Heal shot
Dmg shot
Heal nade
Heal nade burst heal
Anti nade
Anti nade burst dmg
Sleep dart
Sleep dart dmg
Scope
Hmm… 9… 9…. Someone else had…
Squints in suspect* Mercy???
Look, I definitely think Mercy’s abilities are often overlooked when it comes to the endless threads about her being crazy undertuned. And her assets will be played down in some weird attempt to garner sympathy and I don’t dig it.
BUT… I don’t think a claim to Mercy’s kit being overloaded is warranted. Because the basic heroes still have quite a few things in their kits.
Soldier has burst dmg, sprint, and heal
Rein has a charge and firestrike that brings pain. There’s nothing wrong with having a lot in the kit inherently. A problem comes with
The nature of the kit abilities
The balance structure of the kit abilities
How the kit is implemented on a hero
Let’s discuss.
His palms are sweaty.
Knees weak, arms are heavy
There’s vomit on his sweater already
Mom’s spaghetti
He’s nervous,
but on the surface, he looks calm and ready
To drop BOMBS but he keeps on forgetting
What he wrote down
The whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth but the words won’t come out
He’s choking now, everybody’s joking now
The mod steps in and says
“Hey, kid. Just calm down. It seems like you made a mistake and we understand how scary it can be up here. Why don’t you take a breather, and we’ll start over? UwU”
…
Well… that makes rap battles a lot easier.
Endless resources and chances- for the skilless
See… I’m not against people doing things over and trying again and learning and improving. And I’m a bleeding heart liberal leftist who believes in giving people the time, energy and resources to succeed in life. But, I think there is a context to when and how those tools are dispersed. In the case of competition, the time to improve is prior to the time to compete.
Moreover, tools given must be appropriate and limited in the course of the competition.
That is, you can have blocks to use at the start of the race. But if you trip, no one pauses your time to let you start over with blocks. You messed up. You gotta deal and make up for your mistake. You might pull it off. You also might lose. That’s not on the race, your competition, or the people who set up the race.
And a competition itself may not be indicative of skill. I love watching the Olympics and seeing all the talent. A mistake on the dismount doesn’t make that gymnast any less talented. In fact, they are definitely more skilled than I am. But… they still messed up in that context at that moment.
They aren’t less talented or skilled, but they did mess up.
And this works the other way too. Consider this scenario, I can be given every handicap in the world because…idk… Jeff Bezos read my rant on capitalism, so he really wants to see me compete and squirm on television… and money buys anything. So I’m allowed to compete in the games, and I’m…mid tier athletic. Ya know… I’m not some worm on the floor. I can run a 5k and be actually able to finish it. I’m just… one of those naturally athletic people. It’s fine. So Jeff hooks me up to do floor with hoisters and be the only gymnast on floor with hoisters to help me flip. And also, a giant trampoline so I can reach the appropriate height.
Ultimately, I may be getting help with time, money and resources, but not everyone can do an impressive performance even with that help. Jeff Bezos is happy and I successfully completed a floor performance at the Olympics. Not everyone can do that. I mean, When my roommate tries to just…jump in a bounce house, they dislocate their knees. My Mom definitely can’t be on a trampoline and doing flips. She might ….waddle in the hoister….kind of test how high she can bounce? She definitely won’t be doing any front flips lmao
So it does take skill to even use these aids… but … would I deserve to win? Is it fair for me to get a medal when I had so many more resources at my disposal?
I mean… Yeah I used a trampoline but…not everyone can backflip on one. Yeah I used a hoist set up so I could get the height needed to flip thrice but… it still took skill. Some people can’t move at all in those hoisters.
But we all know Ultimately….nah. I wouldn’t deserve to win when my competition had no aid in their time to compete.
The context and merits of what I was competing in doesn’t justify a win in my case. Even with the skill it takes to use those aids in my performance, my skill wasn’t on par with my peers.
And what skills I did use were not the same ones being judged from on my peers.
Whether you just have…more opportunities and more help doesn’t mean you have no skill. But skill is judged by the context and situation around the thing being judged.
Serena Williams is definitely skilled. Her losing a match doesn’t make her less skilled. Her tripping doesn’t make her less skilled. Her not having a medal in competitive beach volleyball doesn’t make her less skilled.
But if I gave her super speed, thor’s hammer in racket form, the ability to freeze time, and a gaze to shoot beams out her eyes and blind her opponent….
Yikes.
To compare in game- pt I
So a thing a lot of people fall on either side of when it comes to brig is how she was “skill-less” before, and so any change is better, or that she’s so spread in power that the burst effectiveness makes it more difficult.
It does not.
So, we have two examples in my head. One from what already has happened, and one hypothetical.
Let’s start with the M word and get it out the way.
Whether you think mercy has more skill now or not from mass rez isn’t my point here. I am specifically talking about the rework monster that came on valk’s launch with reset rez for 4 charges.
It’s pretty simple to see. Despite how some people thought rez would be weaker with a split in her rezzes, a split rez was and to this day performs much better than one single shot of a mass rez. If Mercy lost her current cooldown rez, and rez was reworked to function like her reset 4 charge rez could… she’d be broken again.
Because being able to amend and have multiple chances to do a thing is inherently more powerful than one burst power thing. Because you have the simple ability to make amends quickly.
This is something we had brutally demonstrated with mercy’s initial rework. Multi rez is inherently more powerful because the player has much more leeway in their play, timing, and margins of error.
But let’s extend this to a hypothetical with the queen of skill herself- Ana.
To compare in game- pt II
So, Let’s change ana to be more in line with how they went about with Brig’s rework-
Let’s start with her disengage- sleep dart.
Ya know, we are on this anti-CC tirade anyway. So let’s cut sleep dart’s time to 4 seconds of sleep. Quite a bit of time. Brig’s CC Stun was cut, so it’s fine. But Brig’s whip shot was buffed so, let’s do the same for Ana. – Sleep is now reworked hanzo speed- eg nearly hitscan.
… Yikes. That’s quite a bit of ease added into ana’s kit. She doesn’t even have the drop physics of hanzo for distance.
Let’s continue on. Brig has armor pack- given 3 charges.
So off the top, ana’s closest ability is nade. Nade gives anti, pack gives armor. Both have heal buffs… pretty easy.
So like brig, let’s split the power but, let’s go further. Make it even- 25 heals per nade. And let’s make it so nade is only anti’d by 1/3rd unless stacked on.
Did I…up ana’s skill because it takes more chances to get the full value of anything she normally did with one nade?
God no.
Ana as she is live, has one shot to use her abilities before a long cooldown kicks in. She is very limited in those abilities, and it can be messed up. By giving her 3 nades and extending it to be stackable ana can do what live ana cannot: amend mistakes.
It’s definitely frustrating when your ana uses nade on herself for a trickle of health gone, and then you have no anti for the enemy trans. It’s a pain as ana when you want to anti, but you don’t pay attention and instead smack your full hp rein. But these are things you learn and grow away from repeating.
Giving ana the ability to do it all- defend herself, heal, and anti all at the same time because you gave her 3 tries to do anything doesn’t make her improve. It doesn’t reward her one time play. Instead, it makes it easier for her to do everything at any given time.
And then, to top it all off, Brig got an inspire buff to boot. So let’s account for ptr’s nerfs and buff ana’s heal shots to 85.
Ya know…. Because sleep dart was nerfed.
This. Is. Not. Skill.
And that’s not to say balance isn’t capable of making things reasonable. It definitely can. But balancing doesn’t excuse kit design. No amount of balance to the new ana I just created will match the same level of play making, and personal accountability of live ana. Live ana will always be more skilled than 3 nade, hitscan sleep , and 85 hps ana.
Additionally, the nature of balance needs to match the goal of a hero and the nature of the kit. That is, Ana is meant to be a healer in 222- not a healer /dps like zen. Giving ana a charge one shot is dumb, no matter the balance.
Brig fails in the former, and she fails in the latter.
i.e: She a big ol’ dum dum.
And for me- it’s all because of her shield.
Let me compare:
Reap-a-deep-deep
Some people will defend brig’s shield by mentioning how she is melee range. Well…. Let’s compare melee heroes: starting with reaper.
Reaper has issues with survivability and balance. We all know this. Either it’s too strong or too weak. But let’s look at his actual kit:
Primary fire
Wraith form
Tp
Passive life steal
That’s…not a whole lot. And brig has much more in her kit, including and not limited to doing her job from a distance- armor pack.
But let’s try anyway.
In fact- let’s try to nerf reaper by making him more like brig.
I mean, brig can’t go up high. So… if I take away reapers Shadowstep….and give him a shield… surely he’s nerfed right?
Obviously not.
A shield on a DPS with that much dps emphasis with a shield is stupid broken. Even a baby shield of just, 150- a tracer health, is crazy strong. Because at-will shielding is a primary tanking ability. Because shields have a utility of so much inherently. From blocking primary fire, ultimates, cutting off distance, granting time….
If reaper has a shield, he can close the gap on mccrees without fear. He has a more reliable form of escaping ultimates. He has more hp to barrel through. And this isn’t bad on a tank. But it is bad to give such a strong and reliable tanking ability on a hero meant to do dmg, and who is balanced as such. The only way this is somewhat balanced, if to make it borderline useless and removeable. You know… like a 25 shield cast at the beginning of the game that disappears upon death and has to be reapplied…
SPEAKING OF
Symm.
I’m not going into the merits of symm 2.0 or 3.0. I am merely looking at shield and shield balance.
No matter what rank or whoever, symm 2.0 wasn’t op in kit, and neither is 3.0 outside of balance numbers argumentively. And let’s be clear—balance numbers are one part of an equation. If I made live ana have a 90 dmg shot and a 100 heal shot, she’s also broken.
What I am looking at right now: shield and shield use.
Symm 2.0 had a shield. But what she was not- was balanced to also be a main source of dmg dealing. Even when she was cast out of supports, symm was not a “I have 4 golds” hero.
Her balance relied on utility and that meant she was allowed a shield but the shield was balanced around her dealing dmg. Symm was not given a rein shield. She had a moving shield with a cast time, a cooldown, and was not amendable once cast.
This carries over to live symm. Where once she was given a mega shield, the consequences are still here with it having a cast, and not being amendable but now It’s less frequent, fluid, and mobile. It’s restricted to her ultimate. The took the entire problem out of the equation from her base kit, straight up.
Symm 2.0 with an actual rein shield doesn’t work. It’s too much on an autolock hero. Symm 3.0 with an actual rein shield is too much on a hero with dmg and flexibility like she has. It’s the context of where her shield Is placed that symm hasn’t been a barrier monster.
balance and kit
Zen is still fairly good. He does decent dmg, decent healing, and no one ever has much issue with him. And that’s because at no point did blizzard say he was meant to be both a dmg dealer and a primary healer. Buffing his heals to 45 because “he needs to heal and this makes it less than mercy” not only
Makes him unfair to other supports
But
Makes him less skilled because his heal prioritization is greatly reduced.
And this goes the other way where if he was buffed in his dmg too much, the same applies.
It’s not any one thing. You need to look at the whole and see where and how this all works. And it’s why you can even have people argue that Mercy is balanced despite so much being in her kit. She’s balanced in power, and her kit isn’t designed to make her reliable in multiple roles.
And then we have brig.
1920s salesman voice Do YOU have a team that is grouped together a lot? Do you have a team that separates a lot? Do you hate playing moira for strong heals? Do you hate playing lucio only to be rewarded with low heals? Do you want to heal from a distance like zen and ana? Do you want to heal up close like moira and mercy? Do you want to stop enemies? Do you want to bully foes? Do you also want to null ultimates? Do you want to block ultimates? Do you want to prevent one shots? Do you want a one shot of your own? DO YOU WANT TO HAVE EVERYTHING THERE IS IN LIFE?
Well, BUCKAROO, I sure have the hero for you!!!
Given everything to solve all the problems
Part of this isn’t on Brig herself, there’s been a shift in the game to minimize weaknesses and reduce the concept of ‘hard counters’. Which, fine. I favor hard counters, but…I like chess. A knight do knight things, a rook do rook things. But I recognize not everyone is a chess person.
What I am not about is changing chess pieces so that every chess piece is actually a queen but… we still want to call the pieces bishops and knights and rooks and pawns….
Like… ohh, a queen can go the whole board any which way, but a pawn can only go two spaces in every which direction and I balanced it by letting pawns go whenever they want… see? It’s skill.
Dude… that’s an awful game. Wut.
Look, I get we all have preferences… but I think brig takes the “I have an answer to any situation” to valk levels of stupid.
And you can like Valkyrie but… that’s an ultimate. Brig is like that….all. the. Time.
She a dum ol’ dum dumm because there is no situation in which her kit can’t make amends.
She has easier CC, easier heals, easier packs, multiple chances for packs, the gift of time for packs, armor at will, and a balancing for tanking and healing.
None of this was the case for old brig because her balance and kit limits were much more extreme.
She had low heals so inspire wasn’t ruining games. She had an okay shield, but she still had high deaths because it wasn’t a bail out. She had one chance to help an ally with pack because her inspire was risky, unreliable and not 100% in her control.
But we took away any sense of her needing to be aware of her surroundings, kept her ability to bail out of fights, let her not have to be with allies, and made inspire so strong that engagement prioritization is moot.
There were consequences to old brig. And it’s pretty clear to me that they were working because she was bad in 222.
Which imo, a hero with all that, being bad kind of shows that it’s mostly a player issue. Because zen is not too hot stats wise right now…but no one is claiming he has a bad kit.
Oh, and other heroes that were “bad” prior to changes : Orisa, Mercy, ANA.
These heroes launched and were balanced around consequences.
You think Ana with a 10 clip but 100 nade and an 80 dps shot would be a nerf today? GOD NO.
But people…. Don’t like working for things. And landing those ana shots were hard when she launched.
So we made things smoother for her.
At least with ana, the base of her skill set was preserved.
puts on tinfoil hat Pfft, you thought a rant about Brig wouldn’t circle back to me actually ranting about mercy? About me blaming every single wrong decision back to her?? Sasuke tch You underestimate my power.
And did you think that I couldn’t make this also secretly a rant about Game of Thrones? Something I didn’t even really watch but…love to bash?
shifts glassesnasally voice* Ha! You fools!
Allow me to do both while then transitioning into a rant about Capitalism.
Kronk voice oh yeah… it’s all comin together
So… we all hated how Game of Thrones ended. It was ummm…. checks notes*… Bad. Yeah it was bad. That’s not a controversial statement. Now allow me to ostracize myself and admit… I kind of hate Tyrion.
Yikes. I’m just… a big ol hater I guess. Hate Superman. Hate Mercy. Hate Brig… I don’t even like pizza. Or Chocolate. Or my 2 ex wives and husband.
God… do I like anything?
Well… I do! In fact… I like book tyrion quite a bit. And, I even like Peter Dinklage’s portrayal of book Tyrion.
Ya know who Game of Thrones fan fave is tho?
Not. Book. Tyrion.
And this isn’t a rant about book vs tv/movies. I’m talking about tyrion specifically. I have a list of characters I think are better in film than books- for example: Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter. Or The Babe in 50 shades of Grey (I’m not even joking. If you have time, watch a Lukewarm Defense of 50 Shades on Youtube… I never watched the films or bothered with that whole mess but…man… I feel bad for filmmakers lmao). I’m not trying to claim that one version of Tyrion is better or worse here. I’m just saying, I prefer in the narrative the character that is book tyrion than film tyrion and that I can have this preference because both Tyrions are not the same character.
While you do have film versions of characters being different by the nature of different mediums, I don’t think that it means you’ll always have such a differed image of a character every time. I think Cersei is fairly The same across depictions. I think Hagrid is spot on in film to his book counterpart. But this doesn’t hold for every character every time, to the point that it can cause a shift in story. For Harry Potter- we see this clearly with Hermione and Ron. For Game of Thrones, we see this in Tyrion.
small changes over time- It’s climate change Baby
While it’s easy to point at big Oil Companies as the sole cause of climate change, that’s not…really how it works. They didn’t just… pump out CO2 in 1980 and then…no mas.
And the damage wasn’t allowed all at once either. It’s a series of political changes, leeways, and acceptances that gave them power and political sway. A policy here. An amendment there. A loophole in wording just in case and then a judge on their side.
It didn’t happen overnight.
But the result, has already been devastating. Small warning from your local insurance agent** if you want insurance, buy it today. The market is tightening and companies will not want to cover you. The small things that existed before are much worse now. And they have added up to consequences that are abhorrent by today’s standards but was barely noticed while it was happening.
For a less depressing look, we have story characters like tyrios. Tyrion in both forms- film and book- is sarcastic, rude, blunt, intelligent, and drunk af…. Also does things with girls but…look I’ve given up on t3 but I don’t wanna be banned.
But. And this but is important.
The Tyrion in film is much more likable because he isn’t as morally gray as his book counterpart. Tyrion in film has had small changes that occurred in season 1-3/4 that resulted in a shift wholesale by season 4, and culminated in a different character by the final season.
This is explicit when you see Tyrion’s base instinct to how he views people.
There is a point where both book tyrion and film tyrion match in their opinions of the masses. At his trial, he doesn’t express remorse or regret upon having the people against him. Instead, he rants at them literally explaining how he would laugh and experience joy upon witnessing their misery.
However, film tyrion transitions into a character that by the end, he claims those same people are actually innocent.
This wasn’t done through changes in tyrions experiences with people en masse in different roles and/or scenarios. Instead, the film tyrions characterization became more and more mild so that by the time we got to the end, even though he hadn’t experienced change to grow in this department, the viewer already knew him as a big ol’ softy.
He doesn’t have a line here. He doesn’t grope an underage girl there. He doesn’t have a one sided love affair. He grants a bit of criticism to cruelty here.
Small things. He wasn’t supposed to force Sansa into things, but…he was supposed to do something.
In one scene… it’s not so bad.
He was supposed to kill his gf. He is supposed to feel regret. But theres a small change in making them more mutually in love, that was supposed to make it more heartbreaking, that also lends to it being more sympathetic. …not so bad in this one time…
Adding in an apology makes sense in the moment. It even makes sense to book tyrion, but it adds to a product that lends itself to film tyrion being more sympathetic.
We keep adding more and more small diversions away from book tyrion.
And this series of actions lent itself to a character growth away from what was initially intended for his character.
This isn’t inherently bad. You can like the more sympathetic Tyrion Better. I think he’s nifty. But, he isn’t the same tyrion at season 8, as he is in season 1, and the growth is clearly unintentional because they keep acting like he’s season 1 tyrion.
Character growth needs to be acknowledged and accounted for with the story or else things don’t make sense.
If I’m baking a cake, I start with flour, eggs, and sugar. But if while I measure out the flour and sugar, my brother makes scrambled eggs… I can’t just add scrambled eggs into the flour and sugar and expect a cake.
It doesn’t work.
The eggs have changed and I need to acknowledge this change and either find another route, or abandon my plans for this cake.
I need to acknowledge that there have been changes and that now, it is unlikely that I will be able to do what I set out to do without significant amendments.
This type of change existed for Brig, but also, for the game as a whole. I don’t blame brig at all for Goats and 222. There’s another awful person that… really… Always will be a problem
Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. Lord have Mercy. Like…just take her…. Please.
Ok…so I actually am not going to rant about mercy herself … I’ve already done that. But instead I’m going to rant about what changed with her and why. And how that ties into OWL and the history of Activision Blizz and the esport scene. That is, while I think mercy’s kit is an issue regarding overall play now, I don’t think it came from mercy players themselves upon the launch of overwatch. And that the changes done to mercy have resulted in a game balancing philosophy that pulls away from the initial sales pitch of overwatch in favor of non-mercy and mercy-like oriented players.
Is it a bit convoluted? Sure. Am I messy? Well… in my defense…I’m a Gemini. Do I care? Well…. no. Eff you. this is my thread and I’ll pull everything into it that I very well please. You think I forgot about how the U.S. government confirmed the existence of aliens??? YOU THINK I DON-
mercy is too much
I don’t know how many times I have to begrudgingly defend mercy players who liked mass rez. Because it wasn’t a win condition. Mass Rez was a niche ult and it made mercy herself niche. Valkyrie is an inherent upgrade. Whether you like hide n rez or tempo rez or hated it -is irrelevant. Mass Rez Mercy was a statistically worse hero than valk mercy. Asking for it in its last stages of life is inherently going to weaken her.
Now that that’s out the way… Valk is trash and for good reason: it do all the things. We know this. But I think a better thing to focus on is the “why.” Why did we settle on this, when it’s the opposite of what people ask for?
I remember watching this stream where a top 500 player said after mercy’s final heal nerf said, “I’m happy for the nerf, because 60 hps was too hard to beat”
… Note…this was just when mercy’s heal nerf hit. Moira and ana and baptiste still existed at their former heal numbers. All of whom outshone the 60 hps stream by a mile.
Now, this isn’t to say that 50 hps is good or bad. I’m not hearing that. I really don’t care for this thread. What I want to talk about, is how this top player, seemed to specifically feel that 60 hps was too much despite having no negative opinions about other healers for their own power.
Moreover, how it didn’t cross over into mercy’s ultimate which made it for her whole team. Which this player said they too felt like valk was underwhelming to play with.
And I’m not talking about this player in particular. But this sentiment that comes with players who have a mercy on their team, or ana on their team, and not liking the forms of play they came with… i.e: their niche.
Valkyrie is for everyone
Valk launched and it had a whole lotta lotta in it. But why did we settle where we are now? And why is it still a strong ult despite not being particularly powerful in any one place?
Well…Imo… that’s because Mercy sux and isn’t exciting for Owl. But she works for the DPS, and that’s what is exciting to see.
Look, I actually don’t mean to demonize DPS here. But… Even DPS admit that watching mercy is boring.
Moreover, it feels bad to lose to a valking mercy with a raging pistol.
Yes, they nerfed mercy… but how did they nerf her? Well… in the way that best benefits and doesn’t ruin the match for a dps.
That is, they made an active choice to kill mercy;s mobility, pistol dmg and uptime, in favor of keeping her heal buff and chain beams. They could have dropped the beam altogether. Made mercy’s ult that for 30 seconds she was Super Mercy, the mercy who murders. And damn her team. It could have been balanced that way. But they chose the route of the chain beams. They elected to keep her heals. They kept her ally centric play that specifically ensured mercy’s asset was good always. Because a Murder mercy is also one that can’t amend mistakes from dps.
They wanted to give her allies mercy without any input from mercy herself.
And we continued this trend.
Because it actually worked.
Bending mercy;s autonomy to be bound by her allies’ effectiveness while being given only moderate tools for her own use ensured that mercy is less niche in her play, has more chances to swing a fight, and is less inclined to error.
Are there times when other ults might be better? Sure. But is there a time valk is explicitly bad? No. Because Mercy is a team hero. Nothing she does hindered another hero choice.
And this push for enabling independent play, has been going on for years. But it was by the valk feedback that we realized it could actually work.
Because prior to this… it didn’t.
And this is best seen, with Ana.
Ana- The hero Everyone Loves and never wants
I’ve seen so many threads about how OP ana is for anti…
Stop.
If anti was such a big deal… triple tank never would have happened because a Bubble and an Ana would have mitigated it back down.
Just like speed and rez and armor and imm field…ana happens to have a unique thing. And when the sledgehammer comes for anti- it’ll come for sleep. And then heal amp… like every other unique thing.
But Even with the Anti hate…ana herself is still sitting pretty as the “skill” hero. Apparently…Baptiste is an AOE healer and is a cake walk to ana for it. God forbid the sole hero with a hit scan strong heal be on par with the projectile hero. Like… what… is baptiste allowed a 90 heal if he forgoes his AOE since he has only projectiles?
Gtfo
But anyway. The rant about ana…. I had a point… oh, right.
Ana has been hand held ever since her initial buff- for dps.
Ana launched as was seen by the community as bad. But I think it’s fair to say today that if ana was… “reworked” to have a 10 shot clip, 100 heal nade, 80 dps, and speed added to nano… It wouldn’t be a “bad” thing for ana players.
But it would be or everyone else. Because suddenly, ana has a lot more independence for murder, and a lot more relying on her aim for heals.
Like… follow the logic:
Ana is skilled because she needs to aim.
Ana is rewarded in heals because she need to aim.
It’s unfair for a support to do 80 dmg because she’s a support. . .
So… in other words… It’s about aim until it’s not.
What it really is about, is ensuring ana knows her place and doesn’t stray. They could have nerfed her heals to tone ana down, and she would have had more heals than her launch state still, per her ammo increase. But we kept heals for ana and ana only, but not her dmg.
Because it felt bad….
Notice… it seems like feeling bad only applies to…support base kits.
This isn’t to say dps haven’t been changed…but that the nature of what is changed on DPS is never the aspect that required “skill” even if that is what is complained about.
Genji had deflect changed. But…he isn’t aiming that. Widow had her charge changed…not her one shot potential. Scatter was changed despite a huge cooldown.
The aspects that are a hero claim to skill isn’t what is toned down. But, for supports….
I love the frog man but the wall ride menace needs to be murdered.
The only hero in the support roster to elude the dmg and skill elitism is zen because he has only 1 aspect of his kit to nerf. So for dps, any boost is great, even if lowered, and zen himself isn’t allowed a heal buff, leaving only his own dmg because otherwise you only have a zenyatta tank option. Low dmg, low heals, but 350 hp because he slow.
But what made zen’s skill as a support was his ability to coordinate his team around disc orb. And that has been cut significantly.
So… tinfoil hat… this choice stems from OWL and Activision spending. Because OWL was pushed when there used to be another competitor…
BattleBorn.
Ohh…. The tea gets hotter. Strap in babies… My mind is a void of information. Endless and useless and I need to make sense of it all.
The ActiDevil and MONEY
Battleborn creator stated that the announcement of Overwatch terrified him. Not only was there an IP similar to his own, but it was coming from a behemoth of a game developer who just got Disney wealth to back them up in every choice they made.
This isn’t to say that BattleBorn was murdered entirely by Overwatch. That creator created a slew of problems that are entirely on him. But to say that its murder existed outside of Overwatch is … disingenuous.
Overwatch was expecting an e-sports scene too. But look at how prepared that scene was in terms of where the devs said they were, and where BattleBorn was pushing to be.
Whether you like Jeff Kaplan or not, I think it’s fair to say that Jeff himself is a slow and steady person. One of his first quests in WoW was this dragged out mission for letter finding and forced teamwork.
Jeff isn’t fast.
But despite claims of competitive being on the “horizon” coming from turtle man, we got competitive fairly quickly. And revamps to that system even faster.
And BattleBorn was SooL.
But… notice how perfectionist these devs are. Blizzard Sheen is part of the company “brand.” But we have something as fundamental as competitive being pushed with systems like
Sudden death???
I smell a stink.
“We have no obligation to make art. We no obligation to make history, we have no obligation to make a statement. But to make money. And to do that we must always make good movies. At times we may make art, history, or a statement. But our only objective is to make money.”
~Daddy of Daddys, Bob Eisner- Former Disney CEO
Bob Eisner’s legacy is that which you are very familiar with- Direct to Video, Disney sequels.
Because art wasn’t his focus. Money was. And his protégé, who quadrupled Disney stock into the Corporate Monster of today, Bob Iger, followed his lead with Live Action Remakes, and IP sequels.
Make a thing as similar as possible and tweak it to be as consumable as possible. For all the things even if not a sequel…
Consumable knock offs
Disney takes a unique thing, and morphs it to be as broadly consumed and devoured by the masses which wasn’t the case before.
Don’t get me wrong… money was always in the play. But so was art. Sleeping Beauty was a net loss. But the art is what pushed some of the greatest animators to their creative brink.
It still has a style unique to itself which is why Princess Aurora stands out so much from the main lineup of modern princesses and aesthetic.
These were not commercial.
But overall, Sleeping Beauty was more a passion project of art. and it was not only resource intensive, but time.
Also…side note…if you’re reading this…why? Please…look at your choices. I’m already disappointed in mine.
So notice how fast Overwatch additions came out initially. And when that started to dwindle…
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this timeline kind of follows the decline of competition.
As competition dies, as Overwatch ensures the death of the other, overwatch has space to breathe.
It’s not that things needed to be killed in terms of competition for wealth. But like Disney, it’s about domination. At the expense of Art.
So something you might notice about ye olden justice league is how inconsistent Superman’s powers are.
This is an issue I take with…a lot of hero movies or shows (one episode they are fast enough to stop a bullet, another episode… they aren’t. One episode they can move a planet, another, they struggle to lift a building). But the Justice League has this issue the most. And that’s because the writers wanted to keep the base cast the focus of season one, and that meant Clark had to be relatable.
But it’s a show about multiple heroes with their own niches and strengths. And Clark had none unless you wanted to write in kryptonite every scene.
It made Clark never bad, but also never great. Because they had to constantly and consistently nerf him, and some things are just …too useful even if weakened.
This is why you don’t have a lot of Batman and Superman team ups and instead get more martian manhunter and wonder woman with batman. Batman’s stories are often about solving issues, and superman just has an innate edge that warrants a lot of batman’s skills useless. Why search a whole house if you have x ray vision?
Why create an antidote when you can just laser beam destroy it?
Wonder woman and martian manhunter are both written at times stronger than superman, but none of their abilities are as iconic and so baked into their kits like superman. Is Wonder Woman’s Iconography her strength? Her lasso? Her wonderful thighs meant to kill a man? And that questioning is what allows her to have one thing emphasized more at one point and less at another without defining her character.
Whereas Superman has the brute force, the delicacy, and the inter personal skills to solve any issue at any time. And so in the Justice league,
He’s kind of a muted version of himself. Less smart, less strong, not as fast, not so charming… all of this was done on purpose and the writers still often found themselves banging against the wall because unless they nerfed him to a potato, his kit was still finding itself being too useful for the story.
Brig has too much. And she’s balanced too strong. So like Valkyrie, like superman… there’s never going to be a time that brig is inherently bad. Which also means changes in the game will make her consistently weak or her kit will find itself being too strong by virtue.
Granted, this happens with balancing frequently. But there’s a whole lot baked into brigs kit, design, and balancing that I have to wonder, to what extent it’s different than when soldier has a 19 to 20.
There’s a big difference between some things being strong, and everything.
Brig will never ever be nerfed enough unless she’s a potato in power to match the skills she doesn’t need.
Rein was given a passive to help rein. He was NOT given some bail out heal beam kit for allies in case he needs to reach someone outside shield range.
A primary tank and strong support does not a good kit make.
Brig was given a strong shield (Yes, strong because it’s frequent and a whole hero’s worth of hp), and strong heals and has been given a pass because her CC stun time is lessened.
But it’s dumb and always going to be an issue. Because it’s a conflated kit with conflated balancing and conflated goals.
She wasn’t made zen and lucio. She was made mercy, while not being given’s mercy’s base kit niche and weaknesses and instead given a constant, frequent, Valkyrie as a kit. Everything for anyone- be it ally, enemy, or herself.
Brigs got the tools, and unless you whip out actual kryptonite she’s just going to be this mess of a hero. Either too weak or too strong.
I hate Clark Kent. Not because he inherently is dumb or weak, but because nothing he does matters. He can be dumb, and fairly weak but with so much in his arsenal of abilities it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter if in the story he can’t move a planet because he has speed, laser eyes, xray vision, freeze breath, and is indestructible. Flash has one. One of the things.
The niches of heroes have been killed. But brig is just atrocious. She not only isn’t niche. But she is explicitly loaded in her balance and kit. And it’s representative of how we’ve bent the game to be less niche but only in specific ways that isn’t inherently what the roles of tanks or supports is about. Moreover, that it killed what was unique about her play style in the scene, in favor of the commercial desires that crucify art for its sins.
Ana’s less niche today than launch, sure. But she isn’t exactly being run with zen in a pharah genji dva Winston dive comp with zen/lucio. She still has her strengths.
Whereas brig doesn’t excel anywhere and her largest complaint is that it’s “awkward” to play her for maximum efficiency. Well buttercup… if you can do anything and everything, having to be careful when you use your laser beams seems like a more than fair trade.
“Look guys… I know I have laser beams and super speed and super strength…but…it’s so hard because sometimes I want to lift something and while I’m lifting…I have to turn my head around to use my laser eyes… it’s sooo hard”
Like…Clark…shut up.
One of my favorite scenes in the wonderful super tag teams is when Batman needs to evacuate from his plane in the middle of nowhere from smack in the middle of the sky. And he calls out to the Justice League in a mass notice, “I need air support…because I can’t fly…. At all.” It’s hilarious, it’s self-aware, and recognizes that no…not everything can have some “contingency plan.”
Batman is painfully aware of his weaknesses. No one denies his strengths…but his weaknesses are built in to who he is. He works within his limits, and when it falls outside of them… he has to ask for help or faces the wrath of getting decked in the face with consequences.
Can he beat Superman? Yes. He did. The Dark Knight Returns is great and you should see it. But did he do it by… outdoing Superman? Well….no. Batman got effing decked…but it was by acknowledging his weaknesses that he was able to beat Clark…with help. It didn’t come from the sky bending itself to the needs of Bruce. And Superman still far outshines Batman. But by asking for help… Bruce was able to overcome the behemoth that was Superman. And Superman’s hubris allowed it to happen.
Brig is a walking hubris filled potato and it doesn’t matter. Because as long as she has all the things… well… who cares if she’s a potato?
I didn’t have this burning hatred to brig. It formed after looking at all the things. If she didn’t have all the things, I wouldn’t care. But it’s not just about Brig. No hero exists in a vacuum. She’s part of a larger whole and larger goal.
If valk was mercy’s specialty… I’d be down with it…ish. Mercy;s specialty would be to be, non specialist. Soldier or Orisa style. But this has expanded far beyond mercy and taken form with brig in a manner that bothers me beyond just brig herself. But theres a thematic shift in the game to remove all sense of counters and instead make every piece on the board as loaded as possible in conflicting ways that eliminate the value of needing to think about consequence.
And that’s because players, hate consequence. We want to escape. And that’s fine. But at what cost? And for whom?
I understand that Sombra, and torb, and symm and mass freaking rez isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Scatter, and overheals, and toss-a-shield- and auto locks are hard to play around.
But to me, that was a form of game art. Unique ideas, formative progression for the genre of FPS is something that excited me. And it was a skill check for actual heroes that wanted to do the shooty shooty. I felt good outplaying symm because… I killed her faster than her auto aim could to me. And playing as her meant that even with my limits, I still had a chance. She required a special play and special way of working.
But that’s not what the reworks or pushes in balance move forward do. They don’t create a special thing, and then add to the idea. They shave it down and minimize things to be consumable.
Nothing about torb is special now. No mechanics, no ideas. He’s a shadow of who he was. Symm is offering nothing unique to her allies. And it’s not inherently how each individual thing is, but how they also add up.
But live Brig is the embodiment of…idk… selling out.
And I guess I just hate that. #LongLiveRocknRoll
While my hero may not get as much hate, we still out here to defend!
