I don’t think it’s really polarising because some have it vs some don’t, but moreso that the ttk is so low that barriers, esp high uptime spammable ones like rein’s, become so important to have unless you’re running a hyperaggressive dive comp.
like if ttk wasn’t so low, supports can be balanced to be less heal bots and having 2 offtanks as the tank combo wouldn’t be all that bad. just like in paladins tbh.
but unlike paladins, there’s no global mechanic to deal with heal spam and shield spam in OW. well… there partially is with 2-2-2, but if damage is lowered for higher ttk, then 2 main healers and/or 2 barriers will be a problem again. hence a conundrum in OW. ultimately ttk needs to go back up while still having mechanics that are very available (i.e. not just to a very limited number of heroes) to shield break or prevent main healer spam.
but i think the less thought of path is that you’ll just have to play differently if barriers are truly only useful against abilities and isn’t that effective against spam damage or most damage overall.
and since ttk is so low the need for healing is inconsequential as they die quickly anyways.
so it becomes more like a cover shooter and very fast engagements that ends as quickly as they begin.
so all in all a very different game to what it is now.
but they could also make every tank have a form of basic barrier that accounts for a level of spam damage and balance around that so it becomes a part of the role specifics.
i mean every support can heal to some degree, but not every tank can provide a barrier to a degree.
all in all i think there needs to be some generalization to what a tank should be able to provide and “space” is a bit too lose of a term.
That’s not true. People who play tank aren’t the only people affected by tanks. Nor are Reinhardt players the only tank players, despite the forum meme about him being the only real tank.
that can’t be it, we haven’t even seen changes and they’re already whining about how blizzard will destroy moira. shrug emoji I guess the knowledge that it’s coming on an experimental card scares people
idk, I feel like the idea that barriers (and probably tanks in general) is likely to be completely changed will significantly alter the way the game plays for quite some time. i couldn’t imagine overwatch feeling “normal” without barriers, so i wonder what ideas they’re considering. to me, barriers being the top focus and asking if they belong doesn’t seem like something they’d say if they just want to nerf their health or charge rates a bit ya know?
Why is Rein barrier a problem? Didn’t he have a 2000HP barrier once before and I don’t remember people complaining about it. Seems like stacking barriers is more of an issue. This suggestion solves it better imo
I feel you. I have a feeling the change will be bigger than the support changes, maybe people are just taking it one step at a time. The Moira issue is way more hot button.
While I am very interested in any changes Blizzard may make to barriers, it is hard to comment without any idea of what kind of changes are being considered. It’s also hard to imagine Rein without a massive shield.
remember back in the day, you would just rush em/dive him and he was F tier due to that. maybe they should focus on why dive doesnt work anymore.
(this would also work for double barrier cuz it sucked before too when you just rushed passed it.)
What would you think of these hypothetical changes I thought of in the bath?
A barrier HP nerf, but temporary shielding upon using Charge (100HP for using the ability plus half the pinned hero’s max HP if he connects with a target) and an MS boost towards targets hit with Fire Strike? Maybe 2 charges of Fire Strike? Something needs to be done to even out the fact that Rein’s got one ability that breaks the game and 2 that do basically nothing.
When they nerfed barriers they took rein from 2000 to 1600.
However, at the same time they took orisa from 1200 900 [thanks, motz] to 600 and Sigma from 1500 to 900.
Hero
Nerf %
Reinhardt
20%
Orisa
33%
Sigma
40%
Rein’s barrier was nerfed by FAR the least and is simply so good nobody else can compete with him. I think this was done this way because they thought he would have problems due to the limited range of his hammer. However the problem is that rein’s hammer range just isn’t as big of a disadvantage as it appears on paper.
The entire point of the game is for both teams to fight over the same small area so we naturally move into rein’s effective range at some point. It’s required if you want to win.
