The new patch has arrived and everyone is adapting. While its not clear on who are the winners and losers few things are clear. Some heroes require their initial buff in the GOATs meta to be reverted.
In Project Management there is something called ‘Iron Triangle’ where a harmony of “scope”, “cost” and time is required for a quality project. I would say similarly, meta in Overwatch is driven by a triangle too which is “healing”,“tankiness” and “damage”.
You give too much of healing, it becomes a GOATS meta, you give too much tankiness (health, shields) you get double barrier (or GOATS) meta.
And when this happens there are two ways of adapting too this. Either get heroes which can synergize and create more tankiness/healing or/and get heroes which have the faster TTK (time to kill).
And i just feel with games that we have arrived a place in Overwatch where a fellow game called "Paladins’ (used for comparision) reached a year ago. The game had an issue where tanks were extremely strong so they nerfed all their tank heroes and rehauled it. Then the dps heroes which had the most fastest time to kill started ruling the meta to which they had to a complete overhaul and reduce damage of their snipers and faster TTK heroes.
Now currently as of the new meta the biggest winners are:
-Hanzo
-Widowmaker
-Reaper
-Mei
-Baptiste
-Zen
And we are kind of stuck in that cycle of Double shields again where these meta picks if played efficiently will outperform other meta picks which is played efficiently. Its a horrible meta to play tank or healers. Right now, if you are not good with Baptiste then in a cordinated game, you will lose 100% of your games. Also, people are dying so fast that fights are insanely short and over in few seconds that playing heroes like ana, moira(with nerf), mercy & brig is extremely situational rather than bringing variety.
I mean i totally understand that a new meta required adaptation and surely adjustment of the game styles but i really think few heroes need nerf so that we can bring some power back into the dps picks and bring variety to it.
My suggestion is:
1.Orisa: Nerf Orisa pellets damage and increase her ammo a little bit.
2.Roadhog: Reduce his damage of his pellets however increase his hook damage to compensate for it. Adding 1 more second buff on his E Cdr, while reducing his raw output damage but giving him damage over time.
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Mei: Lets have the dmg falloff on Mei back because she is getting her ultimates too fast in a meta where her Wall acts a shield and she has self sustain. Her ultimate is a win condition and she counters dive and enables a better bunker.
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Reaper: Bring reaper back to 10- 15% lifesteal. Give him 1 second additional cdr on his shift to reward good reaper plays to keep him as tank buster and in right place.
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Widowmaker: Time to charge her weapon to 100% should be increase by 1.5 second. She should be deadly in the right hands but not thrive because of lack of shields. (Widow should have a passive where she does more crit damage to isolated targets or in her ultimate but her overall time to kill must be reduced while still keeping her a strong initial pick sniper or cleanup)
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Hanzo: Time to charge a full shot should increase by 1second. His projectile speed should be reduced a little bit. (While the previous projectile speed was the best change, with the changed E it brought players who got more value out of it than intended by getting picks with very little skill expression compared to someone on widowmaker. While there are some amazing hanzo players there are players who are getting value out of him without a higher skill expression. While reducing the projectile speed will keep his damage the same it will require more skill expression or maybe).
His sonic arrow needs a flat nerf. The double sniper in some maps cannot be countered at all. Its almost like widow has a permanent wallhack. I think hanzo’s one shot should be removed and tied with his Sonic arrow. Let’s say hanzo does 180 headshot damage but with targets revelead through sonic arrow he does 300 headshot damage as long as they are revelead.
7.Moira: While devs knew that moira needed a change, i think there could have been a better change. (Moira should do more self heal but less right click dmg). This will allow better skill expression where she can be effective to clean up but not our damage dealer. This way characters like genji are not instantly countered by presence of Moira but Moira can have little bit more peel for her evasive kit. So instead of doing her current damage (her right click should do 20dmg and she should heal 35-40/s. The heals at 60hps was a right change but this led to another problem:
8.Baptiste: He needs 2 seconds CDR after jumping. His right click heal should be 50-55 heals per second. Right now baptiste gets his window in 25 seconds in chokes. He has the same issue as moira last patch. While moira with her ultimate was the best dps in the game last patch, Baptiste is the best dps in the game right now along with his ultimate. His lamp health should be decreased to 150.
9.Lucio: Lucio’s aura needs to be increased.
10.Doomfist: Increase the cdr of punch to 2 seconds from 1.6 but increase its damage a little bit. Good doomfists are able to take high ground and assasinate key targets but bad ones should be punished.
11. Increase rock damage decrease the orbs damage a little bit more.
These are initial feedbacks because the meta still does not look that different than before because some healer have survivility (lamp ) and damage (zen discord, baptiste, reaper, (mei ultimate). And we are in that stage again where the traingle of “healing”, “damage” and “tankiness” is not quite there yet as lets say for example the presence of Baptiste makes a huge effect on tankiness curve by providing more survivality than it would be to play without him(thus it provides more value than intended breaking the balance cycle.
Also, nerfing the snipers should bring us into a more diversed and glorious meta where more dps are viable.
The barrier nerfs are great but we need to reduce time to kill of some of our heroes and their survivability so we can bring some of our 14 dps heroes a little bit back to the diverse pool.
Some of the things i am talking about may not be relevant to skill tier below masters at all. But i think these balance issues must be handled before we go to Overwatch league.