Root Problem: #DAMAGE.IS.TOO.DAMN.HIGH

Looking at all of the forum posts complaining (some from me), I can’t help but wonder if things would be better if there wasn’t this absurd powercreep stacking up over the years. It just feels like the root of all evils in this game come from damage being too high. If it was lowered overall to some reasonable extent, what would these popular complaints be like?

  • Double shield: would this have even existed?
  • CCs: would this be necessary?
  • Hero is too weak: would this hero feel viable again?
  • Hero is too OP: would this hero become more skill based and less design based?
  • Smurfing: maybe not so bad if their dmg output wasn’t so obscene?
  • Leavers / Throwers: even with bad matchmaking, would matches cease to be stompfests and salty quit-a-thons if dmg was lower, giving us time to cover for our less capable teammates and rescure the match fairly?
  • Tanking/Support: would the haters find these roles more interesting if they didn’t have to be damage prevention bots?
  • Role Lock: love it or hate it… would this have even become necessary?
  • Roles: would we even have to had regroup all of the roles to begin with if powercreep didn’t happen?

Pick your grievance, and ask yourself what it would be like if damage wasn’t so high, for all roles. Anyone care to help us understand if this is a reasonable thought? Thanks team.

#DAMAGE.IS.TOO.DAMN.HIGH

57 Likes

As a DPS elitist honestly even I have to agree. Mcree firerate is overbuffed. Ashe is overbuffed. Soldier did not need that helix buff… Spam is incredibly strong, torb and junkrat.

And now they’re gonna keep buffing, like the genji buffs?

65 Likes

Title reminded me of a political slogan I heard once…and a certain spokesperson

https://newmediarockstars.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Screen-Shot-2015-01-29-at-12.46.20-PM.png

(And power creep in general needs to be toned down)

17 Likes

I don’t think damage is too high, rather rates of fire and ttk are a bit too fast.

But if you want to get into a deep number crunching session about how to fix all this, we could but I doubt anyone will actually wanna go that route.

9 Likes

If the red team weren’t sat spamming from behind barriers, you wouldn’t need to hide behind barriers to spam back.

2 Likes

Rather, the healing was too much so they had buff damage/add burst damage heroes? The problem just keeps stacking up resulting both counteracting each other, both sustain and damage. There’s a reason why they’re buffing DoT characters, that’s because consistent damage characters aren’t killing anything.

2 Likes

Yup, thanks for noticing, as this is exactly why I am mimicking with the slogan.

#DAMAGE.IS.TOO.DAMN.HIGH

3 Likes

Yes and it would be even stronger

Doesn’t have anything to do with damage

If you nerf everything except that hero maybe but probably not because you are going to nerf damage as an whole

Damage output doesn’t determine skill only value

It wouldn’t make smurfing disappear, actually it might increase that because damage will be useless in high ranks so people would smurf more

It is still a 5v6 and your changes don’t change
they might be lower even because you lost the ability to hard carry

what you are trying to say is “if we make damage useless no one would want to play damage and then they will have to play tank and support to be able to do something”

Yes because goats will be the only thing you would be able to play

I don’t understand why would you do that

4 Likes

Your name isn’t jimmy McMillan by any chance?

Yes.

Being able to shut down the other team’s DPS is always going to be a huge asset. Weaker DPS would only be easier to shut down via double barrier. Not only would it have still existed, it would have been better.

7 Likes

with the introduction of new sustain mechanics through brig and moira, DPS completely lost their efficiency for 14+ months, during that time period, the firerates of select heroes were buffed

all of this as well as the buffs to mei and reaper happened and wasn’t reverted, and really cant be reverted until the new sustain mechanics are weakened as well

3 Likes

Jeez, let’s go through this one by one.

  • Yes double shield would not only have existed, it would be more prevalent since recent comps are built around sustain and less shield break = more sustain
  • Yes CC would be necessary. CC isn’t meant to counter high damage, it’s for high mobility. People don’t solo shatter Junkrats, they solo shatter balls and blades.
  • I don’t know what you mean by this. We’ve seen Ashe go from being very weak to very powerful recently, despite no damage buffs.
  • Tracer is quite good right now despite low damage output, Mei was also very strong for a while.
  • This makes no sense. Smurfs don’t only play characters like Genji, I get anything balls and Anas in my lobbies. You don’t lower damage to combat Smurfs.
  • Yes, but again you don’t balance based on the off chance that a match has a leaver. You balance towards the majority, even 6v6s.
  • The concept of healing is designed to counter damage, and don’t pretend like tanks act as bots. Tanks decide the meta.
  • Role lock is the best thing to ever happen to this game.
  • This makes no sense. Rein isn’t a DPS, he shouldn’t in any way be grouped with them.
1 Like

Hitscan had been bad for a long time, honestly, except maybe Widow. McCree and Soldier needed tons of buffs to become relevant.

not really

McCree has never been lower than a B tier pick, soldier had been middle grounding from season 4 until brigs release that neutered him with the rest of any hero that doesnt do more than 70 damage per shot

2 Likes

McCree has always been overestimated.

He had a terrible winrate for years. He was still picked, but he shouldn’t have been. This is the first time in the entire time I’ve played the game that McCree is even adequate, and even now he’s not even close to as good as anyone thinks he is.

2 Likes

agree to disagree

mccree has been my 2nd most played hero behind genji since i got this game and hes never been bad IMO

1 Like

Also, McCree and Soldier needed large buffs to keep up with Ashe. Launch Ashe was dramatically superior to either.

BTW, Ashe has never actually been weak.

and current ashe needs to get drawn back to launch ashe

1 Like

You’d have to nerf a lot of other DPS if you did that, but maybe you intend to.

i dont think you need to nerf anything else to nerf ashe. The only other hero in her tier is echo who is already getting nerfed tomorrow

this would push tracer into S tier, an actual high skill ceiling/floor hero, and let dive tanklines be stronger than double shield, huge win all around

2 Likes