Effects: She was still an extremely niche pick that was almost never used on attack and rarely worked at high levels unless the individual was so skilled and experienced with Symmetra.
Bastion:
Effects: Was incredibly overpowered, then after his Ironclad nerf:
Even worse than before.
Roadhog
Effect: Turned him into a troll pick and fat ult charge, until this change happened.
Effects: Today, he is still decent, but he does not have the raw stopping power that he had before. The intentions were probably to make him less reliant on Hook, but his spread couldn’t make that possible.
D.Va
Effects: Her burst potential was deemed too strong, and was brought back.
Mercy
Hoooooo boy. Let’s take a trip down memory lane. It’s been nearly an year since this hit the PTR.
Her initial PTR release state:
Effects: …I think we all know what happened and what’s still happening…In short, nobody is happy. Although the constant arguing between both sides has never stopped, both agree on one thing: Rez in its current state is still too strong.
Sombra
Effect: We will never know. Was nerfed shortly afterwards.
Effect: Turned her into a buggy, inconsistent hero.
Hanzo
Effect: Drove out all DPS except for Widowmaker, Grav Dragon was effective in EVERY SINGLE RANK, and required multiple nerfs. Is still arguably too strong.
Sombra (Again)
Effect: Made Sombra extremely boring, even after certain buffs Sombra mains are still unhappy.
9. Symmetra (Again)
Effect: M1 was useless until it was patched. I don’t know about her current state.
So, noticed anything?
Every Overwatch rework has either not changed anything, made a hero unbelievably overpowered or unbelievably underpowered, or made the experience of playing that hero a complete snoozefest
After every single rework, each hero has required further tuning. Bastion remains garbage.
Am I the only one slightly concerned for future reworks?
EDIT: Welp I forgot Lucio and Ana. Both were pushed to the bottom. Hopefully these upcoming support changes help.
Geoff Goodman is an amazing balance designer, don’t question him.
Sym is far better now but honestly she still holds that stupid stigma of being garbage. You can literally be carrying a game and have your team yell at you.
All other reworks have been complete failures
Lucio was the first character that has been reworked post-beta. Oh, and his rework has been somewhat succeful.
DVa needed small nerfs, but that didnt make her rework “terrible”
Community overreacted when Roads rework was released. It didnt made Hog unplayable. In fact I had a lot of great games with the new Hog altough people cried at me for throwing. Funny enough the enemy team agreed that I was the biggest threat on our team when they cried in all chatt.
His rework only nerfed him, it didnt break him
A lot of reworks are called terrible because the community didnt want them; not because they were straight up terrible
I actually completely forgot about the Lucio rework.
His rework was successful for the first few months, then Mercy + Zen took over and he’s been a map specialist ever since. Hopefully these support changes will help.
My main point was that after every rework, a hero has been left to rot, or required further tuning.
Unfortunately there are too many definitions of what balance is…pick rate/winrate…are they meta…are they used in pro scene…are they niche (which btw can be perfectly fine)…
I would actually argue roadhog dva and mercy (yes I said mercy) have all been successful…sym is still wait and see but I personally like current one…bastion is questionable but I feel like margin for error on him is the smallest amongst all heroes…as in he is probably the easiest to make OP/UP…sombra first rework was good I think…I don’t think the most recent changes do anything
I would say Lucio’s rework was massively successful. Needing a buff a year down the line is normal, and game balance isn’t static.
Well, yeah… “Reworking” a hero implies a pretty significant rejiggering of their state. The idea behind reworking a hero for balance (which isn’t the only reason to do a rework) isn’t to make them more balanced, it’s to make them easier to balance down the line.
It’s similar to refactoring in programming – yes, you may introduce more bugs, but the goal is to make fewer bugs in the future. Or preventative care for doctors, or one of a bajillion other analogies.
Mind you, the Lucio change wasn’t even to make him more balanced to begin with, it was to increase the sense of agency people get from playing him, and in that front it was a colossal success.
Lucios rework didnt change his place in the meta at all. I doubt it was his reworks fault that Mercy and Zen took over the meta
You cant expect a reworked hero be perfect the moment he hits live. I agree that Mercys rework has been a straight failure, that syms first rework didnt help sym at all, that Hanzo is completly overtuned because of this rework
But as for Hog and DVa, they only needed small changes
…I cant comment on Syms 2nd rework. I dont know if shes not picked because shes still bad or just because people dont want to try out the new Sym… because shes Sym
Ive seen Seagull doing work on her but thats just one person, so yea…
![:sob:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/sob.png?v=5" ":sob:")