But you haven’t yet substantiated your claim that an attack speed boost would be an objectively bad idea. In your first post your evidence was Soldier’s recoil and attack speed being useless for heroes like Cole and Hanzo. As I pointed out, the first point is a trivial edge case that can be easily resolved and the second is pretty flagrant over-exaggeration.
What have you got now?
Yup, we take away a synergy that we know for sure we don’t like (one-shot damage breakpoints), and which only matters at extremely high levels of play. But it naturally increases a synergy that she already has, which will affect all levels of play! See how much easier that is to balance now that it affects everybody, and how conveniently it avoids being a major nerf? You seem to get the idea. If not, I talked more about it in this response:
And you’re right, let’s not talk about the console meta, because that would be silly when we know full well we shouldn’t balance the game around the shrinking platform instead of the platform that will forever be the home of competition at the highest level.
I like this point, it’s your best one. But when I compare the cost of supports having to heal, which they’re pretty good at, to the benefits of having burst characters, I really struggle to see the cost even compare to the benefits in terms of scale.
Having to undo a crap-ton of damage while your teammate hides behind cover is nothing new. We already have extremely high-damage sustain heroes in the game like Bastion. It’s not always the most fun thing, but it serves a purpose: to create pressure. Once you’ve turned the corner into a Bastion once, you don’t intend to do it again. At best it costs you time and a humiliating heal-up, at worst it kills you and loses ground. So at the point the game becomes not one of walking into Bastion and undoing the damage repeatedly, but one of playing around the Bastion’s pressure. Baiting out his CD, taking map control, etc.
This is the same benefit that extends to the burst heroes: they change the game dynamic in some way and make it more interesting. Reaper is a great example. You don’t just out-heal his two-tap or run away, you hunt him down and make sure he can’t get close. You play around his CDs and positioning. Ashe has this potential. A sniping Ashe can force you to play around her sightlines. Without the one shot of Widow she can safely have more mobility and sustain, keeping the counterplay from being a simple matter of diving and harassing her. Instead you have to actually respect her sight lines and play around them with flanks and shields, and you have a little leeway for mistakes compared to Widow.
I’ve got nothing for Sojourn though, she’s just busted. Absolute insanity for a kit. I hope they don’t keep Sojourn as a burst character but restore Ashe to her former glory.
You already tried this one. It’s very true, I agree completely… but you’re bringing it to the wrong conversation. Mercy is a very obvious exception. Is it not clear when she is already the most pacifist support but has always enjoyed a high pick rate at all elos except the absolute top? Mercy is the way she is for a reason and it would be really dumb to change that. I happily welcome all new supports with crazy damage and debuff potential with open arms.
