Should Pharah receive some survivability buffs?

General Discussion
1

I personally think Pharah is in a very rough place now. She usually dominates in lower tiers due to inconsistent hitscan aim. Otherwise, she’s very niche pick since Pharah is constantly being outclassed by other damage heroes. (I heard rumors that Pharah’s pickrate is like the second lowest in Masters?)
Sometimes, she’s viewed as a troll pick when there’s no Mercy in her team because the fact is that Pharah is too dependent on Mercy.

In close range fights, Genji, Tracer and Doomfist are preferred as they can get in and out of the fight easily. For Pharah, she only has concussive blast to get in or out of the fight, while her concussive blast cooldown are fairly long (9 seconds).

Close to mid fight, Soldier:76 has better sustain than Pharah, while Mccree has better damage potential as he is a hitscan and he also receive quite amount of buffs in previous patches (e.g Combat Roll, Primary fire rate, Fan the Hammer, Deadeye, Damage dropoff).

For mid to long range, Snipers are much preferred than Pharah since Snipers are much oppressive in higher ranks, thus Sniper + Mercy duos are much common than PharMercy duos now.
Widow and Ashe primary attacks are hitscans that are high burst and capable to one-shot. (Widow’s bodyshot is 120 damage, which is same as Pharah’s direct hit rocket damage.)
Comparing Hanzo’s and Pharah’s projectiles, Hanzo’s arrows are much faster, quieter and less noticeable than Pharah’s rockets. Plus, Hanzo can contest highgrounds with his climb and able to survive against dives with his second jump and Storm arrows.

After several patches, I feel like Pharah is falling behind compared to other damage heroes.
Not just the hitscan heroes (e.g Soldier:76, Mccree, Bastion) were buffed, Blizzard also buffed heroes that are weak against Pharah, such as Junkrat, Mei, Torbjörn, Reaper, etc.
Symmetra can now toss her turrets at higher places which can disrupt Pharah’s aerial mobility, meanwhile Pharah is pretty much a turtle in the sky.

Ashe is her new counter, Baptiste is capable to zone Pharah out of the sky like Ana does. Hammond can be a threat to Pharah if close, since his weapons are hitscan and he has very large healthpool that Pharah needs to use full clip of direct-hit rockets to kill him.

With amount of buffs and reworks, Hanzo and Sombra become semi-counters to Pharah.
Hanzo has better chances to deal against Pharah due to his arrow speed buff and Storm arrows.
Sombra’s hack shuts Pharah out of the sky, her hitscan machine pistol is good enough to cripple Pharah in close to mid range, due to Pharah’s hitbox is fairly large. If Pharah manage to land a direct hit on Sombra, Sombra will translocate away and Pharah needs to outplay her again.

I really hope Pharah can have survivability buffs or something that she can be much less dependent on Mercy.
Since Pharah is a damage hero that excels vertical mobilty and direct AoE damage, I think her vertical mobility should get a small buff or bring back the old Splash damage in exchange of slower fire rate, just like the days before Pharah’s change in last October.
Old splash may give Pharah better chances against Genji/Tracer and this will be another indirect nerf to Brigitte as Splash damage is one of the great ways to deal against Brigitte.
Fast fire rate doesn’t really give Pharah benefits, except busting shields but Pharah is supposed to flank around shields. Plus, Junkrat and Hanzo might be better choices for busting shields than Pharah.

24 Likes
2

I’m adding a self-serving suggestion here…

Remove or reduce Primary self damage, that would increase Pharah’s mobility and decrease Mercy dependency.

That’s the buff. Now for the self-serving part: Reduce CC on her rockets. The fire rate increase combined with the knockback patch have made Pharah a ping ponging little she-devil, and that serves very little gameplay purpose other than to Pharah’s own vertical mobility. It’s just a nuisance for those on the ground. Unnecessary one at that.

So… No self damage on Primary (Barrage remains), remove CC on Rockets, keep the rocket jump as is (or even increase it).

I don’t play Pharah so let me know if that’s slightly better than cancer.

7 Likes
3

Some things that I would give her is:

  • 50 armor to her health, to help protect her more.

  • A new ability called Mini Barrage where she fires all her rockets rapidly, however each rocket only deals 75 damage.

  • A new Ult, something akin to Mercy’s Valk where she has the ability to fly for a short time while firing rockets at a higher speed.

  • Also a revert on her splash damage, it was a dumb nerf to begin with.

19 Likes
4

Give her some armor, it makes sense for her to have it anyway.

19 Likes
5

Needs a reworked.

Being OP with no hitscan and trash when Hitscan is not going to work

4 Likes
6

She already has. it is called Mercy.

4 Likes
7

The problem is that Pharahmercy already works pretty well and buffing her survivability would make her too hard to kill

12 Likes
8

Self damage was toned down slightly in Pharah’s change patch, but removing self damage will not punish bad Pharah players. Thus, I won’t like this kind of buff.

I do like giving her old rocket knockback back where Pharah could ‘juggle’ her enemy, just like in Quake and Team Fortress 2. The player ‘juggled’ his/her victim in the air, experienced players could usually follow up another aerial direct hit.

9
  • Give her armor
  • Have an option to cancel barrage
5 Likes
10

In fact, pocket Mercy enables ALL heroes, not just Pharah…

17 Likes
11

Yes but the pharah combo is one of the more efficient ones.

Also if you want to buff her surviability, you will also have to do something about her combo with mercy.

You know how much bastion sux but when he is in combo with rein/orisa he can be pretty annoying to deal with. Pharah is the same thing.

2 Likes
12

Doesn’t it also punish good players who use the rocket jump?

Overwatch already plays like bouncy castle simulator, we need less CC, not more.

1 Like
13

I won’t like the armor part as they will make PharMercy harder to be stopped. Or perhaps she can gain small shields like Hammond does but it has cooldowns or drains her fuel?

Able to cancel Barrage may be nice.

14

Increase her fuel and fuel recharge rate slightly, while reverting her splash dmg nerf and pharah is good to go.

4 Likes
15

2 things:

1.- Pharrah does in fact wear armor, her skins revolve around armor redesigns and whatnot, she and Genji are the only dps who actually wear armor but Genji’s basically his body since he’s this sort of cyborg. Having all this armor on you should give you more protection than say, McCree who is taking bullets wearing a cloth…

2.- I feel like people, including pros, play pharah wrong even though one could argue that it’s not their fault, just because Pharah can acquire artificial high ground easily doesn’t mean that she should do so all the time and pharah mains have optimized her kit to such extreme where they almost never touch the ground, meaning that they become an easy target to hit by being airborne ALL the time

I don’t think it’s entirely their fault though since the kit kind of points you to that direction, for example: space bar throws you into the air instead of it being just jump… imagine if Bap’s jump was ALWAYS channeled, you would think that you’d need to jump the highest all the time! but that’s not the case, Pharah uses a rocket launcher and deals a TON of damage up front, if you were to sit behind a shield for a little bit or stay on a healer’s effective range for a while, then you increase both your survivability and effectiveness

I would also like it if her boost was directional and not just UP, meaning that you could speed DOWN if you needed to, for example if Widow hits you with a body shot, even if you decide to go hiding, you’ll be free falling and be an easy shot, unlike say, Mercy, who can get shot in the air but then GA to an ally on the ground potentially avoiding a killing shot

If pharah were to use her flight as a tool instead of a simple gameplay mode then perhaps her problems wouldn’t be as big as you’re making them out to be

7 Likes
16

PharMercy is oppressive in lower tiers, but in higher tiers, Sniper + Mercy duos are much common than PharMercy, since good Snipers control the game.

Mercy damage-boosts Ashe/Widowmaker, their rifles become rail guns. Her pocket healing makes Ashe/Widowmaker barely touchable from dives.

The only way to counter heavily enabled Widow is having a better Widowmaker on your team or… go GOATs / Triple Tank, 2 Supports, 1 DPS.

And Snipers can still be efficient without Mercy, like Widow/Hanzo can still pop multiple players in rows.
Unlike Pharah, playing her is like trying to survive when you don’t have a pocket Mercy. If Pharah was being too safe in the back, enemies dodge her rockets much easier as her projectiles are loud, easy to spot and takes time to travel.

1 Like
17

I guess I’m confused. Her actual CC capability was severely hindered over the course of a few patches over the last few years.

First it was the airborne movement patch which allowed heroes to better adjust and correct their path while off the ground, severely impacting how heroes like Lucio and Pharah approached “boop” kills. This required at least Pharah to launch a primary rocket to pop an enemy off the ground with the rocket’s knockback, then followup quickly with a CB. It took some effort to actually get some CC kills, which was ok and better balanced overall.

Next it was Pharah’s nerf/rework that reduced knockback on primary fire, not only reducing her survivability against hitscan (throwing off aim just slightly) but also reducing her ability to score CB boop kills as well given that knockback was cut about 25%. It also reduced cooldown, but I can’t really say it’s been a huge impact offensively as it has been defensively.

She did get a slight buff when Orisa’s and D.Va’s “grounding” bug was patched out (a year after it had been acknowledged) but even then it’s a step forward after taking about 4 steps back.

6 Likes
18

Requiring a pocket from another hero to be viable is TERRIBLE game design.

9 Likes
19

Yes but is a thing that happens. It just comes out natural for a mercy to be pocketing the pharah.

1 Like
20

Yeah so my point is they should make her more independent.

1 Like