I had forgotten over the last week how much wrecking ball ruins an otherwise fun game. Hog has a tendancy of feeding, but at least the occasional hook and pick makes up for it. Wrecking ball does arguably more feeding (as he plays in front of the barrier) but has 0 pick potential.
Last week I had so many really fun games, having played 4 games today, I have realised that having a player that is very inneffective 99% of the game but occasionally boops a couple of people off the map, makes the game a less enjoyable experience.
I may just be annoyed/unlucky to have 4 people who have been playing other tanks and winning because they are enabling their team, who need to fall a few hundred SR to be back at the rank where their feeding is less of an issue, IDK.
BUT i can confirm that having no wrecking ball in the heropool makes the game much more fun to play.
I guess it does give people some incentive to get to master so they can have those weeks without ball ruining their games, even if that wasnt their intention.
Honestly, I feel like having hero bans in masters and up, isn’t a very good thing. They should have just ad justed the hero bans, now when you do reach masters you’re stuck with hero bans. At least, when they have it in lower ranks as well, you can get used to it and adjust. Instead of adjusting to “new rules” when you reach a certain level.
Really, the main thing my solution achieves is preventing wrecking ball from feeding. Even if nothing else comes out of this hero pool experiment, it has solidified my knowledge that wrecking ball should be reworked into a DPS (a small hamster ball type thing) or given some actual tanking abilities but IDK how to do that and keep to the lore.
Last week just showed me how much wrecking ball ruins games.
Hero bans should have been only for the Overwatch League players. Having bans in Masters and up is just going to cause even more issues for the lower ranks as there is now even more incentive for more higher rank players to throw more often to artificially stay out of the ranks with enforced bans. This will be especially true when said bans become oppressive towards their favorite heroes or comps in a cyclical fashion in no time.
I’ve yet to have Hammond in my games… Enemy team did and when focused properly, he’s really not that much of a problem. Yes, he’s annoying, but he doesn’t have to be a (big) problem. My problem most of the time is people not being willing to counter swap and ignore heroes like Hammond, who can stall as if their lives depend on it.
My 2 cents is that Ball is similar to high mobility dpses like DF, Genji and Tracer. If executed poorly, easy pick off, enemy now has only 5.
However, if the Ball player is anywhere worth his salt, that Ball can be a total nightmare to face. High mobility, high sustain, 2 CCs, excellent zoning ult with high damage, decent hitscan damage at close to mid range.
What teams usually fail to do when they get a Ball player like this, is to capitalise on the space he creates when he swings in and piledrivers. Inevitably, one or two opponents will be ripe for the picking. Usual suspects are the main tank as his supports are preoccupied saving themselves from the Ball, or an out of position dps or support due to the incoming Ball.
Needlessly to say, sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Could be the Ball player isn’t that good, the map being unfavourable for Ball, the teammates not being comfortable with that playstyle, or the opponents are well suited against a Ball.
Your mileage will vary depending on what rank you play at, as does most things in this game.
Hero bans should be for OWL only. IF they insist on having them.
Honestly, i’d rather see no hero bans at all. I don’t turn on the NFL to watch Patrick Mahomes play linebacker just for craps and giggles. He’s a QB and i want to see him play his best “hero” which is QB.
Just to clarify, I enjoy having him on the enemy because he is very easy to counter. My problem is when he is on my team and just blindly feeds into the enemy team over and over again. All too often he engages early, dies because his hitbox is impossible to miss then the team is 5 v 6.
High plat/Low Diamond
What teams usually fail to do when they get a Ball player like this, is to capitalise on the space he creates when he swings in and piledrivers. Inevitably, one or two opponents will be ripe for the picking. Usual suspects are the main tank as his supports are preoccupied saving themselves from the Ball, or an out of position dps or support due to the incoming Ball.
The prblem is, if he is dead most of the time he creates no space. And even when he is alive, they normally roll in, hit a tree accidentally so lose fireball, get stuck on the ana’s hitbox, get slept, instantly woken up, fall off a ledge to activate piledriver only to get interupted and killed. I dont know about you, but that series of events (which is more common than you would like to believe) doesnt create much space for us to capitalise on.
It also is one reason I dont want to play tank. If i am tanking next to a ball, there is literally nothing I can do. If I try to do anything, their 2 tanks (assuming they dont have ball) just run me over. He is a fun hero to play, the problem is when i comes to a (supposedly) COMPETATIVE environment, he is a bad pick.
The only solution to this is to simply remove him from the pool on a temporary basis until he is in a fit state (like they have done for Horizon and Paris)
It’s also just going to encourage smurfing for people. Like, if I was a mccree main in masters, I’d be smurfing right now to avoid my hero being banned every week.
I have never heard anyone say ball ruins the game till today… I swear I see something more stupid on the forums everyday. First it was widow being op, then doom being op then HAMMOND? Like how.
Yea, having the rules change at an arbitrary SR known as Masters is just going to make gatekeeping a huge problem in Diamond as you deal with both smurfs who don’t want to play under the new ruleset and folks who just aren’t capable of climbing because of bans (eg their main is banned this week).
Quite the opposite, hammond just feeds huge ammounts of ult charge and has 0 impact on the game most of the time, he just doesnt have a place in the game IMO, he isnt a main tank becuase he doesnt reduce damage, but he also doesnt have enough utility to be an off tank
Ball is only bad when he’s against a coordinated team who has at least 2+ cc. Even a Sleep Dart + Hook can shut him down. Even if the entire team is full of CC, you can still make him work. The key is for Ball’s team to watch his positioning and go in when he goes in. For example, even if you’re against a full cc team. Let’s say you’re against Rein Charge, Hog Hook, Ana Sleep Dart, Brig Shield Bash, Mccree Flashbang and Mei Freeze. This is where spinning on a pillar stops working for the most part.
There are TWO simple things that some ball players forget about:
Headshots with your leftclick can hit quite hard and fill your ult charge quite fast.
Grapple cooldown is very short, 5 seconds I think? Something that can cause major, repeated disruption, zoning, and repositioning for your enemies. As long as you pick a decent flank route where the enemies don’t see you, that also doesn’t waste too much time, all you have to do is Roll Max Speed through your enemies from behind, hitting as many enemies as you can. Return to your team, find quick healthpack, or do another lap around a circuit, then repeat and Roll Max Speed through their faces or backs again. Coming from behind is great against CC heroes. Rolling into their faces is much more risky.
A great example for where ball can work nicely is Attacking Volskaya point A. You can flank to point on left without being seen with a high grapple over roof. Then, after doing a 180 to look back at the choke, you can set foot on point for a second or two and the enemies will come from the left to contest. You can roll through 3+ of them, return to your team, roll through again and do a lap around the healthpack hut near point. Doing laps around just to burn time to get new grapple cooldown, and using it as often as possible, while limiting piledrivers, is the way to go. Most balls spam piledriver every time it’s ready and put themselves in unnecessary danger. It’s best to utilize Grapple Cooldown, and plow through the front, the back, the sides. You must become a pest like a tracer.
Also, similar to how winston likes to drop on enemies and zap them so he can get out with leap ready, you can start on a high ground as ball, use a piledriver, and IMMEDIATELY grapple to safety, assuming your piledriver was somewhat sneaky. Grapple into Piledriver is as risky as winston leaping into enemies with no barrier ready.
Also, similar to how winston likes to drop on enemies and zap them so he can get out with leap ready, you can start on a high ground as ball, use a piledriver, and IMMEDIATELY grapple to safety, assuming your piledriver was somewhat sneaky. Grapple into Piledriver is as risky as winston leaping into enemies with no barrier ready.
That comparison to winston is one of my problems with hammond, hammond is just a worse/harder to play version winston. A very good wrecking ball can make him work, but imo 2 winstons would be picked over wrecking ball winston everytime if it was an option.
Literally just played a game with a wrecking ball on my team, first choke of hanamura defence, our ball is top right window firing into the enemy as they approach, they just lucio speedboost into our solo tanking rein and blow him up, then the rest of the team falls appart and the wrecking ball has the cheek to start blaming DPS, then refuses to switch and we lose.
Hanamura defense is the place in which I’m able to bring out Ball’s full potential in being a pest. I start above their spawn door before it opens. It opens and I Piledriver+Adaptive shield, then I immediately grapple to escape to the choke, but instead of just returning to my team, I go indoors to get mega healthpack, then I roll through them, do a lap around middle building, and just keep annoying the crap out of them with repeated grapple plow-throughs. It’s quite easy to piledriver in front of the small door that has mega inside, and escape into there. I love being a pest.