Reinhardt’s weakness is his inability to do anything while having his shield up. At the same time he needs to do damage to gain ult charge. And Reinhardt has poor range overall.
Orisa has a low mobility and most importantly, very static shields. This last weakness has become smaller, as she with buffs has gotten the ability to deploy the shield more often.
In return for these weaknesses, she has her hands free while the shield is up, allowing her to do damage and use her CC. Another strength of her is her long range.
Sigma has everything: A shield almost as flexible as Reinhardt’s while being better in some regards, as it can be projected forward unlimited.
At the same time Sigma has the strength of Orisa of having his hands free while shield is deployed, allowing him to both shield and do damage, unlike Reinhardt who has to choose. Sigma’s range, both with his primary damage as well as his CC’ing boulder, is on top of that significantly longer than Reinhardt’s.
Sigma has, in other words, the strengths of both Orisa and Reinhardt and none of their weaknesses. As a main tank, he HAS no weakness.
With his heavy damage and CC ability, he is even able to replace an offtank - and that is the problem we are seing: Because Sigma is all strengths without weaknesses, he outclasses every offtank in every way. Only one tank is up there with him: Orisa, and only because she was buffed so hard, that she has almost permanent shield up-time.
The reason for the prevalence of Sigma is his ability to replace an offtank. An offtank strength COMBINED with a shield almost the strength of Reinhardt’s, while in some ways being more flexible - what is there not to like?
Blizzard is continuing their trend of making heroes without tradeoffs, following the new cycle of heroes, where Hanzo is probably the best example of a similar hero without weaknesses.
400 HP no armor.
His shield only has 1500 HP not like reins 2000 and he needs to recharge it unlike orisa who just has to wait for her CD to get a new full HP Shield.
Sigmas Primary Fire Range is below Orisas and his boulder is very easy to avoid on longer distances.
His Ultimate make him a very easy target to kill unlike reins or orisas.
It being able to be thrown away doesnt make it better, reins shield moves with him, with sigma you either choose to back off while constantly moving your shield, or leaving your shield and trying to run away, flankers get the best of sigma most times.
Reinhardts shield is far more versatile to protect healers, and stationary dps, plus its 500shields more than SIgma’s
Reinhardt is meant to be a stationary hero, sigma isnt, sigmas shield isnt meant to protect your team, but sigma himself, and if the team can be protected while sigma is being protected, great!
His weapons have a short range, he has no escape abilities and his only source of self protection is a short version of Defense Matrix that doesnt even help you if the enemies know when to not shoot you, he has a slow rate of fire so whenever you miss 2 shots youre already half dead when you can shoot your next shots.
He does not
Sigma doesnt have the same amount of pure damage as someone like roadhog can put out if you hit all your shots, as a roadhog can 1 shot, and has around the same rate of fire as sigma, next to that he has a far superior stun where he pulls the enemy towards him for an almost guaranteed 1shot kill. next to that he can heal.
Wrecking ball can literally run 15 laps around sigma and still be full HP because of his shield mechanic which works 100 times better and doesnt require enemies to shoot at you to work.
No, people arent using sigma as an offtank in Barrier meta, theyre using him as a second main tank, the same way some comps use rein as another main tank.
hes weakness is that hes not really a main tank.
His barrier gets blown up too fast if you even try to use it as an anchor for the team.
Hes weakness are also ability based and beam heroes, since he doesnt really have a way of dealing with them.
His dmg is his primary peel.
The meta in dps etc is a bit insane which allows him to do a lot more.
But just a general example, a Rein with a Lucio would easily run him down.
No, he is anything but. He is actually not very good stationary, as he needs to drop his shield to gain ult charge.
Don’t you forget his shield? Shield dancing is a thing, and it is one of Orisa’s biggest defenses, and also Sigma’s.
Sigma can CC, and at higher levels it is unlikely that a squishy will survive it, if he hits his boulder - not without help at least. With his boulder, his combo becomes very potent, even compared to Roadhog.
He has weaknesses, its just that the other barrier tank (Orisa/Zarya) are making up for it.
Hog is nearly useless with double barrier. Chains do nothing. Ult leaves him vulnerable. Feeds the enemy as much as he eats.
DVA is a joke that still has a tank slot somehow even though she is nothing but an enemy ult charge.
Winston? LOL. So situational right now you start to wonder what Blizzard even wants in a tank.
Hammond is just not able to do very much against double barrier though he can help somewhat with displacement. But a dps/supports will handle the stuns on him cause we have so many.
Rein is being held back by the fact that he has to hold his barrier and has no reliable ranged fire. Orisa will halt and fortify him into oblivion.
Blizzard only wants Sigma/Orisa/Zarya/Rein to be in play for the normies.
Reinhardt isnt meant to get ult every 0.5 fights, hes supposed to protect his team
Did you also forget that half the time the people who are trying to kill sigma can also just jump between the shield, and im most cases theres 1 person on both sides of the shield
and at higher levels a squishy wont survive a hook, period. A roadhog even in diamond will 90% of the time get the 1shot.
If it is ONLY double shield causing this, why didn’t we have this problem with Orisa+Reinhardt?
They were never played at higher levels, remember?
No, it is something else than double shields, and as I wrote in my OP, I believe it is Sigma’s ability to dish out alot of damage and do CC. Combined with his shield, the other offtanks can simply not compete.
So what you are saying here is that shield dancing is not a thing?
Exactly.
Sigma has very high power, also to erase squishies (maybe not all the way up to Roadhog, but close). Combine that with an almost-Reinhardt shield that in some ways is more flexible, and no offtank can compete.
(As an aside, the only offtank remotely playable atm. is in fact Roadhog - his strength IS great).
For the same reason Winston and Dva are unplayable.
Dps maul through them. Rein cant do hes job cause he gets hard bullied by: Reaper, Doom, Snipers, Cree, Mei, Sym, Junk, Bastion, Phara, etc. hell even Torb.
Orisa Sigma is the combo that allows for the most survivability against the oppressive dps heroes.
With his DVA-matrix he more than makes up for the 400 hp (it takes an enemy team a split second to deal 100 damage to Reinhardt if he has no shield).
All the barrier tanks lack mobility, it is not unique for Sigma. Luckily he is not alone (or if he is, the teamfight is already lost).