🚀 Pharah 2.0 rework

General Discussion
1

This is the only time I’ve ever typed up a rework kit for an existing hero. There’s a lot of things I have wanted to change about her kit for 3 years now so I wanted to put it out there in the naive hopes that devs will see it and decide to actually change her for the better (for once in her life).

The only real actual meaningful buff she ever got was hover efficiency increase in November of 2016. Sorry if you think making her do 8 less self harm with rockets or able to boop herself 2 extra feet on the ground is big buffs, or the literal 3.7 more damage she’s about to get on the edge of her splash radius are good (that last one by the way isn’t even a buff, it’s a revert).

With yet another hitscan (the 9th one) and yet another healer whose whole kit and healing doesn’t affect/reach pharah in the air (Baptiste), I really feel Blizzard needs to change, rework, revert, address, or at least acknowledge pharah’s existence SOON or she’s going to join the F tier benched heroes. She’s teetering on the D rank bench, with the only way to viably play her how she was originally designed is to glue a mercy to your back.

Pharah 2.0

HP: 175
Shields: 75 (regenerate)
Total healthpool: 250

Rocket Launcher

Rocket clip: 18 (stay with me here)
Rate of fire: reverted to previous slower speed
Rocket travel speed: increased by 25%
Damage: 120 direct hit, 80 max splash hit

New mechanic: You can now overheat your launcher if you hold down M1 after 6 shots and it will go on a cool-off period where you can’t use it for 3 seconds.
You can see a meter slowly rise with each shot and if it fills up then it will overheat and glow and you can’t use it. Of course it will cool off slowly if you don’t take shots.

This means you are punished for spamming blindly, and the new travel speed and slower rate of fire means you are rewarded for making precision prediction shots.

The revert to max splash means because she has slower overall firing, she will now be able to get kills like the old days with a max splash + a direct and won’t be forced to divebomb every squishy in order to secure a kill (and most likely die trying to escape back to team with no mobility)

Mobility

Hovering: Same as it has always been no changes there.
Jump jet: Now shares the fuel resource that hovering does, meaning it no longer has a cooldown but using it takes up 75% of your max fuel resource instantly.
(new skill) Suit Thrusters: holding a direction plus RMB now makes use of the tons of rocket thrusters all over her head-to-toe flying suit she has in literally every skin ever released (who would’ve thought, huh, wow.) and boosts you in the direction at the cost of 25% of max fuel resource but the distance is half of Tracer’s blink (distance could be experimented with).

These can be chained together in rapid succession to gain a lot of horizontal ground but you will lose flight right afterwards because your fuel is out. Anyone that’s played Anthem knows exactly how this would function, just think of the Interceptor’s 3 dashes in-air

Concussive blast: Removed. It was largely used as a pitiful mobility tool to gain a few extra feet forward, or to add a few extra feet of height if used right before jump jet. Since she now has a large suite of mobility options, concussive is being removed. I don’t think many Pharah players would be sad about losing the ability to boop people off maps in a few specific maps

Ultimate

(press q to respawn suicide meme of an ult Barrage has been removed)

Incendiary Missiles: After a 1 second transformation on her suit and a loud announcement of some kind, her main rocket clip is now replaced with a 3 round incendiary payload. Shoot each one at the exact same speed and rate of fire as normal rockets, but these are special, their explosion is 2 times larger than normal, they do 200 damage each, and they leave behind a lingering area of fire that does a slow 10 dmg over time until it reaches 50, on the ground ( or on the shield or tank that gets hit and survives).

I’m not going to make excuses or solutions for Pharmercy to become less prevalent, because at this point that’s a MERCY KIT problem and not Pharah’s problem. It’s because 75% of the healing mechanics in the game don’t benefit/reach heroes airborne, not sure what Blizz could do to fix this but I think it’s unfair to design or nerf Pharah’s whole kit from what she deserves because Mercy exists

1 Like
2

She’s still pretty well used in OWL i don’t think she really needs big buffs. That’s what I’d call a huge buff. The rocket travel speed to, god no that would be awful. You can’t just rework a character to improve balance of a hero then completely ignore the fact that pharmercy is a thing, just imagine the state of the game if blizzard did that.

4 Likes
3

Well, I got some ideas:

3 Likes
4

That wouldn’t be Pharah, that would be a Hanzo that blinks. Which isn’t a problem but better saved for a new character.

The ult idea is interesting but otherwise an 8 shot mag and 2 conc charges make more sense.

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5

This is more reasonable although i don’t think a change to concussion blast is really needed if she gets side airdash

6

These are all great examples

7

I dont understand why you desperately want to remove the Mercy, Pharah combination and your changes dont make any sense, because people will still glue Mercy to Pharah anyway.

I also dont understand what your problem is with healers being better or worse in certain comps.
A Lucio doesnt make much sense, if your team is spread out. It also doesnt make much sense with vertical targets like Pharah.
Mercy simply makes more sense in that regard and I dont get why you want to force it to seem like a problem?

It makes about as much logical sense as saying: “2-2-2 is working okay, but sadly my 6-0-0 isnt, so let’s change that by making weird balance-decisions.”
“Mercy is a good pick for Pharah, but Pharah & Baptiste isn’t, so let’s change this with some weird balance-decisions.”

8

This would make her more effective as a pocket and would only cause issues.

Gave it a read. Not only is just kind of silly sounding considering here model shows 6 in the chamber but also removes the punishments of missing shots while adding punishments for being able to skillfully place shots as fast as you fire them.

The issue was never that she could fire at 0.9. The issue was that people would spam without aiming. Having a overload mechanism PUNISHS skilled players if they are able to follow up shots consistently.

Soooo a ground Pharah? Using your jet fuel for ALL your movement options means you NEVER want to use your fuel options and if you do your on the ground right afterwards anyways. Which means there is very point in using it in the first place.

Concussive blast is important for displacing enemies so you isolate a target from the group. Its removal would mean she would be far less effective against deathballs.

No to all of it.

Want something simple but effective? Give her right click the ability to sacrifice fuel for temp shields to a max of 50.

Which would make her less dependent on pockets while not making her to powerful with one. While at the same time giving her a higher skill ceiling by deciding shen fuel or shields is more important.

Nothing complicated.

9

I should start by saying that over the last two months, I’ve played Pharah a ton. I’m normally a support/tank main, but she’s been my go-to dps that I’ve been learning to master (also now learning Tracer.)

I agree with alot of the problems you’ve identified, such as more hitscans than ever, and more powerful hitscans than ever. Even a new healer coming up that is also hitscan. The power creep in the game has left Pharah somewhat behind-- with new buffs also coming to Soldier 76 and the recent falloff changes to both McRightClick and now even Reaper (less shotgun spread, less falloff, now even better self-healing.

Also, it should be noted that last year, with the nerfing of Mercy and the changes to Pharah’s mix of direct hit and splash damage, the Pharamercy setup is not anywhere near as strong as it used to be. Yes, it’s still effective in certain situations, or for small moments, but the “hey look at us can’t get us while we are wide open and raining rockets” is a thing of the past.

That being said I’m also of the opinion that power creep and health creep aren’t actually good for the game. I think Pharah is probably the most balanced hero in this game-- Yes she can be quite effective and quite powerful, but probably also has the most direct counters of any dps in the game.

While I think she needs tiny tiny buffs/changes to help her stay viable in her current setups, she doesn’t need a massive overhaul that would most likely result in everyone going crazy and her being nerfed to oblivion (look at initial Brigitte, the initial rework of Hanzo, or sombra in her various stages, etc.)

WHAT I’D LIKE TO SEE is a 1-second reduction on her concussion blast, and perhaps a passive that does extra damage from her rockets to mechanical targets. Like 10% buff perhaps when she’s shooting either BOB or a Torb turret. Having to dedicate 3 actual rockets to killing a torb turret takes too long, and she’s generally too squishy to do this and still also be able to compete on the field effectively.

The 1-second reduction to concussion blast would help Pharah compete with proper play of Pharah. She is not really used with just “flying high in the skies” and raining rockets. She’ll be shut down immediately. But reducing cd on concussion blast would help her peek over a rooftop, get that shot on Torb turrets (or pressure a hiding Hanzo or Mcree etc) and still let her have more of a chance to make changes and get back out alive.

I know she will always be countered by good hitscans. There are also more good hitscans in the game than ever. Giving her the small cd reduction would reward good Pharah play without breaking her or making her oppressive at mid to lower ranks.

I’m open to suggestions and conversations. glhf

10

Pleaseeeeee this.

:waning_crescent_moon:

1 Like
11

Ask any pro players/streamers/devs or anyone who has more than 200-1000+ hours on her, if she needs this cause she doesnt need any kind of reworks, reverts, etc.
Shes got few buffs & nerfs in the past and last one she got was like last year/early on this year btw.
Shes not gonna be F tier as much you going to say it buddy. Also shes one of the most counter to goats right now.
And do you actually even play prahah cause this what your saying doesnt feel like youre playing her at all btw.

12

I don’t think Pharah should have more than 200 hp, but sure, make all of it regening shields if you want.

Pharah shouldn’t have more horizontal mobility than she already has. If she gets another mobility tool, it should send her down.

13

So what I’m seeing is changes that… make her completely self sufficient, an enormous buff. Not because she needs it, but because people are obsessed with making her able to play distant from her team, leaving cover, and not needing a healer to survive enemy retaliation over time. No. Bad. There’s a reason she’s not self-sufficient like this.

And then on top of that you want to give her the Hanzo treatment, increasing projectile speed. The devs are already on record as not being happy how that impacted Hanzo. 120 damage rockets should not be receiving such an enormous ease of use buff. Oh and you also gave back the stronger AoE for some reason.

14

No thanks. As a long time player, I love the new rate of fire. She’s much more snappy and responsive.

Also no. Lack of lateral mobility in the air is her specific weakness. That’s why you use towers and columns for cover.

Pharah is one of my favorite heroes to play and I object to this.

15

There’s stuff I really like here, stuff I really don’t like, and stuff I’d change but for the most part fits well.

-I’ll put a placeholder here for now until I can I really go in depth, this’ll be fun :)-

16

I personally want a change to mercy to allow her to ga to pharah but with a cd (not on ga but to pharah) and have the character based around itself not an idiotic combo that no one else is balanced around…

I do better on my own than having a pointless moth on my arm anyway and then got the splash nerf making her meh… fighting genji is a pita now with lol… splash she has… i can aim rockets sure… assintae sure… but area denial was her best use…