Our target range for hero viability by win rate is between 45-55% unmirrored win rate at Masters rank and above.
uh oh, they confirmed them don’t balance around Cardboard 5? fecesstorm incoming.
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zero understanding of heroes shamelessly talking about stats for hanzo after ruining the primary of a iconic hero , it’s like a complete joke.
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So they more or less are reverting Cassidy back to having cc even though they were adamant about moving away from cc in everyone’s kit.
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Try not to activate Riptire right in front of me as Ana?
(This isn’t directed at you, just riding the high from recently sleeping a junk in my backline out of his ult lol)
Sorry I can’t do that I heard you use sleep on someone else so I’m obligated to launch my entire body at you from Narnia. Ana is my favourite hero to int onto flank every teamfight.
Rookie mistake.
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The part about pickrates and winrates is interesting to me!
- Overbuff is basically confirmed as “take it with a grain of salt” and not totally off base. Based on the “generally fairly accurate” rating it is probably only really off base in niche scenarios IE one person connected to OB has played Symm in GM this week while Blizz has 14 other instances of her seeing play to get data on.
- “Negative” winrates are not an immediate buff grant so long as they’re within Blizz’s margins.
- They are at least somewhat aware of how pickrate can and does influence winrate.
- The core balancing decisions are based on Masters+.
The admission that they kneejerked on Symm during Mauga meta is nice, but I still wish they would’ve thrown her a bandaid buff by now like they imply giving Reaper while they look at his Shadow Step.
Sombra being a bit of a balance nightmare tracks. Hog nerfs are being cooked up maybe for tomorrow? Friday patch???
Kinda fascinated that Winston isn’t on the list of winners for this patch? With Reaper/Bastion/D.Va/Mauga all being on the loser list and the Tank headshot reduction I genuinely expected monke to be among the winners.
I hope they were being serious about the more consistent clarity of Dev notes, that Soj buff the asker mentioned still has me head scratching and I’d love to have even a glimpse into what motivates those “Huh?” changes.
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Finally. So now we can stop with the…overbuff doesn’t matter Everytime balance is discussed. Straight from blizzard themselves overbuff is a fairly accurate source.
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They have been saying that for as long as I can remember. The deniers just do not like facts. You cannot help that.
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Not so fast, Don’t forget this part:
^ before this he listed tons of way stats can be misinterpreted and not perfect indicative of a hero’s current balance state. Odds are most forums goers won’t factor in that nuance when citing a single overbuff percentile…
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more like i guarantee you
overbuff is almost exclusively cherry picked to “prove” the claim youre making
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It comes at a bad time, Overbuff seems like it’s pretty broken right now.
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Well its 2 pst so unless they add some new ones after the time limit they set…it looks like thats it for answers
gonna go back and edit some (formatting nightmare)
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They literally only answered same few questions and ignored so much stuff. Mercy ignored once again of course.
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Overbuff is a good source but it depends on how you use it. Unfortunately even if much of the data is good people are really bad interpreting that data
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A little refreshing, and a little wtf at the same time.
The part about the community perception of heroes differing greatly from the stats Blizz is seeing caught my eye in particular. This makes sense but… at the same time seems a little convenient. Theyre not doing anything about perceived problematic heroes cause said heroes are not actually problems. Sure… theyre not gonna show how they know that, we just have to trust theyre not idiots or bad at their jobs.
…
I would bet a lot that he’s at least talking about Ana in this regard. I want to effing see what Blizz is seeing 
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Disappointing as usual. Great job team 
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One of the devs answered to a single question only… 
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Reaper gets canned again, who would’ve thought…
Thank goodness they’re looking into shadow-step… because that’s obviously why he complete garbage. No other glaring weaknesses. Back on the “Soon™” train I go!
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oh…we got a late response from Josh…ill add it up top:
I’m not really sure how I am supposed to ask this, but
Is the current Balance Team confident about being able to fix the biggest problems the Tank role has been suffering since the OW2 release?
I’m specifically talking about the Counterswap Meta and unhealthy Tank designs being “allowed” to exist, like Tank busters and unkillable tanks (Roadhog, Mauga, and Orisa).
Are we confident that making Tanks able to do almost everything is the right thing to do?
Are we confident that we can make Tank fun again for the majority of the player base without straight buffs?The headshot reduction and knockback reduction changes are especially interesting to me because I really don’t think that simple number changes will fix how Tanks feel to play.
I don’t want to counterswap.
I don’t want to face unkillable and easy-to-play Tanks.
I don’t want Tank Busters.I really LOVE this game but it currently feels like as if we were going into the wrong direction while ignoring the BIGGEST Problems :c
At its core, Overwatch is a game designed around being able to swap heroes to gain a tactical advantage or help solve a challenge you might be encountering. This contributes to keeping the moment-to-moment gameplay experience dynamic, drives hero diversity and offers a wider range of both strategic gameplay and skill expression in learning when/where/how to play multiple heroes.
There is a question of how much of an advantage is too much compared to the cost of switching. Ideally we want counters to be clear and understandable, but soft enough that it’s still possible to outplay a disadvantaged matchup. It is a team game though and 1v1 matchups are not the highest priority when assessing the heroes.
Tanks do feel this the most with only one of them per team in 5v5 role queue, but all roles do experience the pressure to counter and be countered to an extent.
We’re striving to find a balance between swapping heroes every death, (which certainly feels too often), and rarely swapping heroes or getting trapped in mirror matches every game, which quickly leads to fatigue. We’ve seen a lot of improvements here compared to earlier seasons, but it could always be better.
“Unhealthy” and unpopular designs are not necessarily the same thing. When designing heroes, we aim to provide a wide range of playstyles, mechanics, and aesthetics for players to enjoy. It’s okay if they don’t all resonate with everyone broadly. We’ll do our best to make the game as fun as it can be for a wide audience.
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Took them way too long to realize how broken take a breather is.