Pharah's Kit Is Far Too Bloated and I'm Tired Of Her

General Discussion
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Best vertical mobility in the game, two lateral movement abilities, aoe damage, big damage on direct hit (which is much easier to do now), probably the best displacement ability in the entire game (which for some reason also does damage), is a flier…
She just has way too much going for her. She needs to be tuned down.

I don’t care that GM Widows and Ashes can destroy a Pharah, she is far too evasive and deadly. Any time she pops up now in QP I kind of give up, because the skill needed to take her out is apparently very high if the Pharah is anywhere near competent. She’s become the ultimate noob stomp character I guess, except I can deal with Junkrat who is the titular noobstomp character, and I cannot do anything to Pharah, ever. It’s not just me, usually no one on my team can do much either.
She usually just runs rampant, diving, flanking, slaughtering everyone, dipping into the backline and killing both supports and a dps before launching herself away into the distance mostly untouched.
And if she has a Mercy pocket… it becomes literally the worst thing in the entire game, I instantly leave the match the second I see a Pharah with a Mercy glued to her because I KNOW I am not winning.

One of the counters to her used to be to take position in a room because Pharahs were scared of killing themselves with self damage, and now they are no longer scared of that because it was lowered, so if you hole up in a room she’ll just go in there and kill you easily.
Torb’s turret isn’t a deterrent, she’ll just peek it and blow it up in like two hits. It does nothing, no Pharah is scared of it anymore.
I’ve tried Sombra and it doesn’t work out, and I don’t have godlike aim so I can’t hit her in the head with Widow or Ashe.
If I try Echo she’ll swap her playstyle and nothing changes.

Sometimes I’ll play her myself and it’s incredible how much you get away with now. I rarely touch Pharah and even I can do ridiculous things just because of how evasive she is and how much easier it is to land her shots now.

I’m getting very sick of her and I really don’t know what to do when I go up against her. If someone has some advice I’ll take it, but I’ve tried many things and nothing works if the Pharah isn’t braindead.

Before anyone says “Pharah’s kit is bloated? What about-”
Other characters having bloated kits doesn’t mean Pharah’s stops being so.

7 Likes
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The projectile speed increase after her rework is the one change she got that I didn’t understand.

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They should rework her again and actually attempt to address the problems they set out to solve this time. :joy:

Add her to the list!

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her flight change feels like dogcrap, a flying hero that is limited like that… boring.

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She doesn’t even need a Mercy pocket to terrorize lobbies now…Mercy just makes it so much worse.

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My dude, she’s mid-tier and has so many counters that you can literally have a full team of counters to her if you wanted to.

She now has to be on the ground for a significant portion of the time.

Echo has her beat on vertical mobility… And nearly matches her in flight time.

But can no longer two tap…

Because she can no longer two tap. It also got a hefty knockback distance nerf.

If a Pharah is in a small room, she’s at a huge disadvantage. The self-damage still very much hurts and she’s a massive target with no armor.

I’d suggest a bit of practice with hitscan or Echo. Positioning under cover prevents direct hits. With a Mercy on her, focus Mercy or, if you’re running high damage stuff like Bastion, you can straight up kill her through pocket.

If you’re having trouble killing her while she’s in the air, take cover until she has to land and then kill her.

Pharah’s mobility seems like it got a super buff, but as someone with over 300 hours on her, I can tell you that it leaves her more vulnerable more often than her old flight did. It’s nice if you’re aggro, but there are many windows where you can’t be up in safety.

I cannot second this enough. Give me back her old flight and let me two-tap again. You can have the dash and boop damage back.

Let me close out by saying: I rarely play Pharah since the rework, not because I can’t be effective, but because her flight feels so garbage. I really don’t like dealing with Pharah when I’m not playing her because I’m a projectile main. Projectile heroes have a much more difficult time dealing with her.

PharMercy is incredibly annoying to deal with, a lone Pharah is a chore to deal with, but I’d rather deal with PharMercy any day instead of a pocketed Soldier, Cass, or Soj.

3 Likes
7

Lúcio knockback does damage.

Ball knockback does damage.

Brig knockback does damage.

Doom knockback does damage.

Rein knockback (a missed pin) does damage.

Ashe knockback does damage.

Junk knockback does damage.

Illari knockback does damage.

Venture knockback does damage.

Orisa knockback does damage.

I feel like there are more (real ones, not the minor bumps from explosives and Rein hammer) knockbacks, but I can’t think of any more right now. Basically, every knockback does damage.

EDIT: D.Va knockback from thrusting into people does damage.

I guess Winton leap, but it’s mostly on par with explosions. His ult’s swings cause real knockback and damage though.

2 Likes
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She was the only character whose knockback didn’t do damage, iirc. She’s also the only hero with self-damage on her primary (besides Sigma, but you have to be trying). She’s one of two heros that can kill themselves with their ults (Tracer is the other one, but she can blink or recall away). She’s one of three characters who cannot move during their ults, the other two can be very far out of LoS.

Her kit is weird and still fairly antiquated.

2 Likes
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It was interesting that they experimented with letting her move around during her ult at one point, I wouldn’t be surprised if a tweak related to that comes down the pipe eventually.

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im tired of pharah and venture honestly i once again ended up leav ing a match due to a pahrah so venture both are a bit op…honestly venture needs tobe sent to the shadow realm for good

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Coming back to this after looking at Pharah’s stats for the past month in PC competitive…

The most ironic part of this is that the only rank Pharah is a strong pick at is GM.

In QP in the past month she’s pretty much dead middle on pick rate, but she does have one of the higher win rates. This is because she’s a situational hero and highly map-dependent. When she’s good, she’s very good. When she’s bad, she’s near useless.

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Pharah has been and always will be a war crime character. Even up here in GM legit no one likes seeing this character, its never fun for anyone, and basically forces specific picks each and every time you see it just to address the character.

Soldier isnt even a counter anymore with how new pharah plays. You physically cant kill her quick enough.

2 Likes
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I’m not GM, so my experiences differ a lot from yours, but do you think Pharah is as big of a problem without Mercy? To me it seems like a lone Pharah is annoying, but very manageable.

(Yes, I play Pharah and used to main her, but I’m a support main now for 95% of the time.)

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Pharah is always a problem, Mercy just makes it worse. Theres a reason the reigning number 1 player on the ladder for years has been YZNA. Aside from obvious match rigging like playing in terrible ping servers or abusing wide MM to boost WR, the dude still plays like the consistent number 1 player he is, and hes a Pharah one trick.

This character isnt fun, it isnt enjoyable, its cringey underhanded cheese invested rat gameplay that at this point only Cree and Ashe can even reasonably contest.

It doesnt matter what her state in the meta is strength wise, she will always cause problems because her design is built around the worst parts of overwatch in every way. its never fun to have this hero in a game.

3 Likes
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Win-trading. There was a whole scandal about this.

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Almost like I mentioned it, but if you think that win trading is enough to consistently get you Rank 1 season after season after season with multiple accounts taking up top 5 spots youre out of your mind.

The dude is an insane player, and top 10s easily without all the crutching.

Blizzard in general has problems creating characters that are interesting to fight, prime examples being Hog, Sombra, Sym, Pharah, Doom, etc. The list is eternal.

They legit cant make a character anymore or even soft rework them without just making the most absurdly game ruining characters known to man.

Am at the point where I want characters like Doom and Pharah just out of the game entirely. Any time I am forced to play with or against these characters I instantly lose so much fun this game could be giving me.

1 Like
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Junkrat had it, but that was years ago.

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… really?
Half your points are about mobility, just to make more points about “how much she has going on” …
If you would be fair, you could also boil it down to:
-Has great mobility
-Has Explosives
-Has a boop that does damage

Like 90% of knockbacks/boops do damage and most of explosives do direct damage and splash damage.

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all her abilities need a rocket at your feet beforehand now, her rockets are also really good at keeping her on slanted roofs

haven’t had enough time to see if rockets only do horizontal boost to pharah or they are too far away to affect her when she is already in the air as it is noticeably clunky

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What I also find amazing, is how little responsibility the Supports take. Ana and Baptiste are great hitscans, and Illari can also challenge her as well.

If you stay on Moira+Mercy and yell at your DPS, then you are to blame yourself.

1 Like