[OW2] Directly solving Supports vs Flankers

General Discussion
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So one of the biggest problems they need to solve for the launch of OW2 is Queue Times. And largely that bottomlines to making Support players happy.

One of the biggest problems with Support is that they don’t have a great way to deal with Flankers. Since with ranged attackers, they can just duck behind cover and activate that Regen Passive. But with Flankers, that’s not an option.

So there are a variety of solutions they could do for that. Which mostly all bottom line to making Supports more lethal somehow, or just really really strong at self-peeling. However there’s one approach that doesn’t do that. And it’s perhaps the most direct solution.

Don’t change Supports. Change Flankers.

Genji:

  • Health Reduced to 175hp.

Sombra:

  • Health Reduced to 175hp.

Tracer:

  • Recall health regeneration reduced by 50%.

And yeah, they’d probably want to compensate those Flankers with buffs that are good and relevant at high ELO, but not that good at middle-low ELO. Because Peeling for Supports is good at high ELO, but Peel for Supports kinda sucks for middle-low ELOs. Perhaps things like lower Ult charge cost, more firepower, more attack speed, more mobility, lower weapon spread, less falloff at range or lower cooldowns. Ideally things that require better player execution to pull off, but are strong when you do.

Because when you think about it, this should lead to the lowest amount of potentially negative side-effects. Because giving Supports more raw firepower buffs might require redesigning the survival of Tanks. Or some weird exotic hero interaction I can’t really think about. Where as redesigning Flankers probably should have been the path they took in OW1, instead of introducing Brig and “MOBA Creep”.

And sure, Flanker mains will be upset about it. But they’d be upset about anything that makes it harder for them to kill Supports. And middle-low ELOs are gonna play Genji regardless.

Also a unique interaction is that Kiriko’s Kunai become a lot more relevant and lethal against Flankers when their health is lower. Which might even have the effect of convincing Flankers to play Kiriko instead.

P.S. The one real side effect of this is that lower Flanker survival is going to make it harder for them to hunt down Snipers. But tbh, I’ve never really understood why they gave Widow 200hp. So drop her health back to down to 175hp too. Probably do the same for Hanzo, or take out some of the bloat in his equipment.

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I do think it’s pretty crazy that Reaper got absolutely sledgehammered and Tracer got a hefty nerf, but Genji wasn’t even touched at all. If he turns out to be really oppressive, I think 29 damage shurikens should go first.

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That would probably change the Genji vs DPS Hero matchup.
But I don’t think that would change the Genji vs Support Hero matchup.

Where as dropping his Health, would.

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Honestly I’m kinda surprised he hasn’t been nerfed yet. Maybe by launch or shortly after, especially if he stays meta in owl too.

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I wonder what the logic is there. Reaper and Tracer are deemed too strong in a world with less defenses and CC to keep them in check, but Genji who plays the same role gets a pass?

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Well one thing that makes me wonder, is if the Tracer nerf would be needed at all. Like maybe I’m overestimating her effectiveness in Middle-Low ELOs. I guess the Devs would have some real stats to back that one up.

Where as the beauty of dropping a hero’s HP is that it’s just a simple raw numbers-only change. Which they can patch into the game within minutes, without re-writing the EXE file.

Which is kinda key, since they released the probably Final EXE file patch before Launch on Wednesday.

And I got this suspicion that they underestimated how much Support changes will be needed to drop down queue times. That they were under-solving the issue.

Which means the only way to fix the issue fast is changes that don’t require EXE file changes.

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Did Moira get any further changes? I didn’t follow the end of the beta and OWL would never pick her up, despite developers saying the new ability is super strong for good players to make up for her lost dmg orb.

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Well, I could see devs either doing a LOT of Support changes on October 4th.
Or barely any changes.

And since I’m fearing that second outcome, I’m dreaming up some fixes that are numbers-only changes.

Since if we’re getting a crap ton of players from Valorant, Apex, Warzone, Team Fortress 2, Paladins, Fortnite, and Halo Infinite. And 90% of them go DPS. We got problems.

And all the players who played previous to Role Queue, you had a lot of DPS players per team. Or people who wanted to play DPS, but begrudgingly played Tank/Support.

So we could easily run into a situation on October 4th, where there’s 3x as many DPS heroes per 1x Support hero as we have now.

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umm… Games gonna be more about flanking why do you think they are dropping it down to 5v5 so flankers ruin the day

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I figure, if they indirectly hyper-buff Flankers with 5v5 and CC reductions.
You’d think Flankers should get nerfs.

Genji in particular hasn’t gotten a single nerf in 5v5.

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if that was the case why would they make dps move faster, tanks resist stuns, and all healers get passive heal

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God if I never see another nanoblade again it’ll be too soon. :sob: As a support player, this thread hits my biases too much lol. But those heroes are so popular, I honestly can’t see Blizzard touching them much. Genji was even the first hero to get a mythic skin after all.

But assuming Blizz would care for a second:
Imo, the harder you hit, and the more mobility you have, the less HP you should get. Genji needs to be brought down closer to Tracer. Widow and Hanzo, despite not having as much mobility, hit the hardest out of the cast, so I’d like to see their HP knocked down a bit too. I’m actually still undecided about Sombra. I didn’t play as much in the second beta.

(And while I’m dreaming, being able to 3-tap McCassidy as Ana again would be fantastic. Definitely not gonna happen but god I wish.)

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Well the removed stuns and passive heal are fine. And the increased mobility speed wasn’t and they removed it.

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I look at it this way. If they nerf Flankers, and compensate them with buffs that are relevant primarily to high ELO. You lose maybe 10,000 players tops. Probably closer to 5,000.

If they don’t fix queue times, they lose anywhere between 300,000 players and 3,000,000 players. When you factor in losing existing players, or not-gaining returning/new players.

So it doesn’t make much sense if we’re thinking about “making the most players happy” to deliberately not fix queue times.

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putting chemicals in the water ths

lol. ok. Sombra is terrible in OW2. She was OP in the alpha and they nerfed her so much after intial feedback she became one of the worst DPS, and they didn’t change any of her drawbacks.

Side note: all supports have something to defend themselves against flankers. majority are just terrible at using them…

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Big difference between “defending” and “evading” not every support can defend themselves.

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Is the shuriken damage 28 or 29?
Anyway, Genji definitely felt too strong. I’ve rarely touched him in OW1 and I was rolling enemies in the beta.
Anyway I think they should reduce attack speed and change deflect cooldown to begin with. Changing bullet damage, especially when you decrease it, always feels weird to me. They keep doing this with Soldier :confused:

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