It seems like cleave is mostly relegated to tanks and Brig, and there is this unwritten rule that DPS should only perform projectile, beam or in the case of Doomfist damage through barriers that is focused on a single target.
the cloest thing we have to DPS cleave is Genji’s dash, but that’s situational and has to be earned through elimiations rather than be the main source of damage.
A close range cleave DPS would stack with Rein and or Winston and or Brig to circumvent barriers alltogether could bring brawl to a whole new level.
it could theoretically much extinct double barriers or future heavy shield based bunker comps if that DPS cleaver is either strong enough to burst through or has good enough survivability to do low damage cleave.
Junker Queen seems to fit the bill of of the former cleaver archetype- a fast, agile high risk close range cleaver with her axe/staff thingy.
if we have a dedicated cleave DPS it would fundementally change how Overwatch can be played, the question is, would it be wise to implement such a hero?
Mei does, since the pierce on the spray acts like a cleave. But she is basically a tank anyway.
Torb does it with his hammer I think.
Mei’s cryo cleave doesn’t do enough of a substantional damage, it’s more utility based with her freeze ability and even if it does cleave, it’s mostly used to isolate targets and you wouldn’t really use her to break through a bunker like say Rein or even even Brig.
Torb’s hammer is melee if I’m not mistaken, and even if would be a cleave, it’s still a meme weapon.
I’m talking a 100dps+ cleave dealer with either a melee or energy based weapon that goes through shields in close range.
This is kind of miss leading, far as i know the only true “cleave” is Reinhart’s fire strike. Most other things are stopped by barriers.
Other than Melee based attacks, which all hero’s can do. If you are just talking about AoE moves, then again lots of hero’s can do that.
Dps with cleave ability.
So… like dragonblade, but as a regular ability (or primary)?
I think it’s possible. The reason only tanks so far has cleave damage is because their role as space makers make it so they need to make sure they can push enemies away from their space, so they need to make sure they can put pressure on everyone around.
Mei’s damage is kind of a cleave damage, same about Genji’s dargon blade.
Personally I do think cleave is a bit more fitting for tanks than dps but no reason for a dps not to get cleave as well. Best users for such an ability are of course brawlers.
Seeing how Blizzard manages to balance both Rein and Brig, I don’t even want them to consider another cleave character, DPS or otherwise.
The best way to solve double shield, is to introduce more barrier piercing damage sources. Right now, Firestrike and Moira Orb and ult are the only non-melee abilities that do this. As long as barriers have very few answers, they will continue to be insanely valuable. If you introduce more abilities and primary weapons that ignore shields (of course, doing less DPS than non-piercing weapons), you could build an anti-shield comp and the enemy tanks will need to switch to make use of something other than stacking shields.
Df has a cleave on cool down.
moira has lots of cleave, one of her best playstyles is as a flanker exploiting it and her survivability to make space. A hero in the dps category with cleave would be a great option for those games where you’ve queued dps but your tanks have their W key unbound
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