Patch Notes for October 21st Experimental Card w/ Video

Oh man NEW COWBOY HERO CONFIRMED, never heard of this guy McCree sounds awfully familiar though.

At least the McCree changes made me laugh

Junkrat is just depressing however…

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If you turn around and say his name three times in a dark room, all your pictures will turn into fruit.

So why do we need Junkrat to be a short range DPS when we have shotgun characters and Doomfist?

He is area control, part of his gameplay is making life hard at chokes or on the point, sometimes indirectly. Hitscans are so lethal that sometimes the only way to deal with them is to fire high and from behind cover in a big arc. This removes entire aspects of his gameplay and you might as well just play Reaper or Torb instead. They’re more durable at such lethal ranges.

It isn’t all just spam, sometimes you use his range to take advantage of someone you know is coming through a doorway or to stand behind cover and kill Widow with artillery fire. That takes aim and timing.

Also, part of good design is giving the player info they need to play with. Who is going to know EXACTLY what “between 15-20m” is? Imagine landing your shots on Junk at a range you think is good but they take 80% reduced damage since there’s no range indicator. What an awful feeling.

Why would a grenade just randomly do 80% less damage? You gonna add stupid range stipulations on Ana’s grenade too? Pharah rockets? Zen orbs? Hanzo? You can just spam all those abilities at chokes or into a crowd and get value, better fix that.

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You said it, tanks are already under insane amounts of damage, increasing the damage output of a hero just puts them under even more damage. it doesnt matter than Torb can peel for other heroes, because that same peeling damage is going to be focused mostly on the front line, at the tanks.

Yes, but those nerfs should have come in this experimental as well, buffing him becuase “He will eventually get nerfs” is not really a good balance philosophy. Realistically i dont think he deserves either of those buffs, especially not at the same time with 0 compensation nerfs.

What about the other tanks tho? Rein will ahve a hard time closing the gap, once he does he can get 4 shotted not counting his grenade plus all the other incoming damage, Orisa´s shield alreary breaks as soon as it is placed. I play junk and even i think this could end up pretty badly

It is not a bad buff, but it is pretty bad considerig the increase in damage with this patch, she still does the same heals only slightly more consistent. it doesnt help her compete at all with the supports with utility

Hiya folks,

So everyone knows, the community team is monitoring and reading your immediate feedback to the new Experimental Card.

For those who have already taken the time to jump in and test the changes for yourself, thank you very much. I understand how these changes could cause a lot of critical conversation.

If I could ask one personal favor; avoiding hyperbole and invectives when sharing your experiences helps us community folks get to the meat of your feedback much quicker. It also makes it far more likely that we can respond to your thoughts with developer insight.

Let’s work together to make sure your experience is clearly communicated to the devs.

39 Likes

Are these buffs supposed to offset some future nerfs they get to their CC? In particular mines and flashbang being less disruptive? And Torbjorn turret getting some damage reduction / less range?

Thank goodness this is only experimental and you all know these changes are pretty terrible

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The McCree buffs seem unnecessary, but the Junkrat ones look terrible. The falloff change is a significant nerf to any Junkrat that can actually aim, but the buff to impact damage means he’s now annihilates anyone, even tanks, within 15 meters. It just encourages an absurdly stupid, suicidal style of play.

i think its a safe bet people arent capable of that after seeing these forums over 5 years :sweat_smile:

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Hey Andy, thanks for replying to posts like usual.

Just wondering, when are we going to remove lamp from the game so we can all have fun again? And hopefully none of today’s proposed changes make it through as none of them address the core problems that exist currently.

Bap and Brigs synergy literally enables things like Sigma/Orisa to be near unstoppable, this is a problem and I think the first thing to take out or reduce in over all effectiveness is the lamp. None of today’s changes address core issues that the devs do not seem to want to tackle directly and head on? I’m open to being wrong but why does nothing ever get tackled head on.

Initial impressions:

  1. Torb - Suprised he was buffed as he was already lowkey strong.
  2. McCree - Decent changes. Thank you for not touching his stun. And I’m sure you guys tested roll in the air with a previous ExC.
  3. Moira - She definitely needs more help so I’ll take what I can get
  4. Junkrat - This is the one I’m not sold on. He’s pretty balanced and I see these changes as unnecessary. It is lowering his skill ceiling and making the character less interesting. I really hope this one doesn’t go through.
  5. CONGRATS ON YOUR 100th POST!!!
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Understatement of the year.

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Is this an out of season April Fools joke?

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Disappointed to not see any Bap lamp nerfs. One of the most frustrating abilities in the game to play against.

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I’d really like to know the thought process behind revisiting the gravity-defying roll buff for McCree. It looked and felt silly the first time, and now, I don’t understand why the team once again seems to believe he needs more mobility even with his HP buff still intact. I’d think they’d at least nerf the HP at the same time.

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Out of all of these things, the Torb buffs concern me the most.

Torb was already a solid pick. Nobody plays him because he just isn’t fun for the majority, not because hes bad.

All I see in these changes is 1. Trying to deal with Double Shields. And 2. Trying to “fix” the game without touching Tracer, Bap, or Double Shields.

Instead of, y’know… actually nerfing the issues… they’re just going to overbuff everyone to keep up with the issues.

It’s sad and such a waste of time.

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Hello AndyB,

– I have multiple questions about this Experimental.

Why did the balance team decide on buffing tank busting in general?

Why weren’t there any changes to Bap // Zen.


FEEDBACK ABOUT CURRENT EXPERIMENTAL.

The Junkrat changes are not good what so ever. There is way to much spam already in this game and damage increasing abilites. The last thing we need is more of that.

Torb is already a powerful character that didn’t really need more tank busting.

Moira - This is probably the only decent change here.

Mccree - Why oh why are we buffing a top picked and performing DPS? He’s not even bad right now, and actually fairly decent in all situations.

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To start off with, I think the moira change was good (though I still feel like there’s not much reason to have her other someone like bap or ana)

The McCree change, although isn’t a massive buff, he didn’t need it. He is still incredibly strong and the most picked DPS in all ranks, barring GM. I know you guys probably think “winrate”, but pickrate is actually related to winrate. Because a consistently high GM pr means people are not falling out of GM.

It’s really frustrating in general how you buffed mccree when there are many other heroes that deserved it more.

The junkrat change is very wild. The damage is simply too high. I think junkrat was already a solid pick before and he didn’t really need any changes. Also the falloff is a big nerf to good junkrats who can land their shots from range. I get that this is for double shield, but this doesn’t really address that. This is just a massive nerf to rein. Sigma will just eat junk spam in double shield.

Torb change I’m not sure about, I feel like he was already a sleeper pick, but I’m fine with it.

And to finish this off, I really hope you guys are looking at nerfing tracer. It’s really tiresome to see you guys try to add counters to her, without just simply nerfing her.

9 Likes

Throwing in my two cents here;
Junkrat having changes to his damage values rewarding more skillful play:
V. Good
Falloff damage on impact? Terrible and unfair if the hero is singled out. Gotta do similar with Phara and other explosives or Junkrat may loose his place and be sidelined, something blizzard has been adamant about NOT doing.

McCree: mid air combat roll has already been tested and refused on the basis that certain locations should just be off limits without the aid of Symetra. High noon buffs will make these changes quite oppressive in high and low rank competitive. Lowered health and changes to flash bang could be needed to effectively balance with these changes.

Moira: a good quality of life change that helps all ranks.

Torbjorn: using less ammo flat out could present some problems with damage output and this coupled with more Overload opportunities could possibly allow the hero to challenge tanks too effectively. Lower ammo during overload and high outside of may be necessary