Gonna preface this with that I LOVE the perk system overall, and that I am really happy with the future trajectory of the game. That being said, I’d like to give some hyper specific feedback on Reinhardt’s perk options:
I cant help but feel that Rein’s perks are extremely underwhelming. I genuinely feel like Rein was the biggest loser in this patch (maybe Sombra or Mercy are up there too). And even their relative strength/balance aside, they just dont do anything to change his gameplay loop in any meaningful (or even minor) way. The best perks are the ones that give heroes new ways to play, and that just isn’t the case for Reinhardt. Let me get into them one by one:
Crusader’s Resolve - This one sounds better on paper than in practice. When I first saw the perks, I thought this would be the better than it is, but what ends up happening is that there are so many things that tickle you through your shield that keep it from kicking in, and even when it does, you dont get too much hp from it before somone cancels it. I get this is supposed to be a minor perk, but most heroes get much better options than this. Just misses the mark for me. I do like the idea of giving reinhardt a way to be a little more self sufficient, but just give him the option to gain 15 heal per second when his shield is up or something. If that’s not an idea everybody jives with, that’s fine, just throwing an idea out there.
An alternate idea I had was basically just that tank pickable passive from the quickplay hacked that let tanks choose to recover from crowd control slightly faster. Id love to see that in game, and Reinhardt (or maybe Orisa) make the most sense for that, in my opinion.
Fiery Uptake - This is just so meh. I really don’t even have strong feelings about this perk, but overall, im not happy with it. This borders from just okay, to practically useless against high mobility compositions. What bothers me about it though, is just that it simply doesn’t do anything to alter your playstyle. It’s just free value, and those are the worst perks. Id suggest something more transformative, like giving Rein the ability to press his reload key to give him a short 3-4 second burst of movement speed, so that he doesn’t have to rely on Lucio or Juno as much. Give it a long cooldown to balance it.
Shield Slam - This is the one that hurts the most, because it could be absolutely incredible, but instead it’s just underwhelming. Are there niche situations where it could be useful? Sure, absolutely. But is it good or even, dare I say it, fun? No, not really.
You go like 2 inches, do 50 damage, and knock enemies back. Sure, you could use it to animation cancel and quickly finish a low hp enemy, and sure, you can knock enemies away, but again it doesnt do anything to change the gameplay loop of the character. And in some situations it’s actively useless. You do more damage when you swing, and a lot of the time you really don’t want to knock enemies out of your melee range. Yes, at least you can now protect yourself a little better, but that’s mostly it.
This is supposed to be a major perk! Let it be MAJOR. Allow Rein to use it, like Brig, for mobility. Give him a way to dodge out of Sigma or Mei’s ultimates. Allow him to quickly and tactically dash to cover, retreat, or close the distance on somebody. I thought about saying let it stun enemies, but that opens up the can of worms of setting up unblockable shatters and so that should never be a thing. Maybe if it was an extremely short stun (like .15 seconds?) used only as an interrupt, that could allow for some interesting versatility to the ability (e.g. do I use it as mobility or save it for this death blossom?), but honestly that would probably be too good. Just the mobility would be fine.
Please leave shield slam in the game, it’s an awesome idea, just make it more generally useful!
Crushing Victory - Again, just free value. You could argue it rewards you for being more aggressive, but Id say it kinda doesnt. Charge is so unreliable, that youre still not going to want to risk it, except in situations where you would have charged anyway, with or without the perk. Then, if you land it, it’s just free value, and honestly it’s not even that crazy. In comparison to some other heroes major perks, this is honestly nothing, and it’s certainly anything but transformative.
What Id like to see is some vertical mobility. Rein has a friggin’ ROCKET BOOSTER on his back. Let him get a quick upward burst on a double jump, similar to like a Destiny 2 vault or somethimg. Put it on a cooldown like lunge or Baptiste’s major. You want to talk about changing a heroes gameplay loop, NOW WERE TALKING. All of a sudden you can actually play Rein on Numbani or Gibraltar 1st point. Now that’s a major perk, and imagine having to choose between the Vault andthe Shield Slam. Interesting and difficult choice there, that might depend on a lot of factors.
Well, that’s it for my feedback on Reinhardt’s perks. Let’s return our favorite hulking German Crusader to Glory!
