Sigma nuked the tank rooster

I’m at the point of finally agreeing with this. His design is just busted and has caused enormous damage. He needs the Sym treatment and a rework from the ground up.

Sure, make the tank roster even less fun. Not everybody likes playing Reinhardt

1 Like

I think Sigma came a few weeks after 2-2-2 went live, if not it took some weeks for players to get used to him and for the meta to shift.

Orisa and Hog were strong in that interim, but they weren’t nearly as dominant or oppressive as the subsequent double barriers. Alternative setups were absolutely viable.

The thing is I saw this coming. For another barrier tank to have worked it had, like Orisa, to lack synergy with existing barriers because it would obviously create problems, just as we saw from even very limited pirate ships on Junkertown.

Instead, Sigma seems to have been intentionally and deliberately built with having synergy with other barriers in mind.

Nah. Role queue came out the same patch as Sig. On live specifically.

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/news/patch-notes/live/2019/08

You’re probably confusing it with the pro meta in OWL. They delayed Sig’s release in OWL but still made it mandatory 2/2/2 in stage 4. There was something wrong with the client’s they use that they couldn’t get it to work in time or something like that.

Double sniper took off in OWL with Orisa+Hog, bunker style. You may remember the Halt+Headshot and Halt+Hook meta. That was all quickly shut down by Mei+Reaper though, with Mei’s wall acting as that second barrier to block LOS on Widow, while Reaper took advantage of being able to chew through anybody who got 'caught on the wrong side of the wall.

It’s kind of funny to think about, but Mei-Blade was the first Double barrier because Sig wasn’t possible at the time and Mei became Meta out of nowhere because she was the DPS that plays like an off tank while hog was an off tank that played like a dps.

That stage only lasted like a month as well, and then they did some weird play off’s where any team could potentially get in. It was kind of a mess, honestly and about the time I stopped paying as much attention to OWL.

https://overwatchleague.com/en-us/news/23053104/2019-season-playoffs-primer

2 Likes

Predicted with certainty, key words there.

How many nerfs or buffs do we declare as the end of a hero or a tragic balancing decision? How often are we right? So Sigma was one of the few times we “called it,” doesn’t make it any less about spinning the roulette. If you have an opinion on every change sometimes you turn out to be right, no surprise. There’s not a single one of us here who could read every change and seen exactly what impact it would have, though. Not even the devs who are designing these heroes and changes with goals in mind have that ability. None of us knew for sure if Sigma was going to be OP or not until he hit live servers, you admit that yourself.

I don’t underestimate this community, I just don’t overestimate it either. Too many people cry wolf, and only a handful of times is there one. I have no sympathy for the devs, precisely because of how long they let the situation stand and because of how they choose to balance it even now. But we aren’t reliable fortune tellers. I ask you to honestly reflect back on all the reactions you had to changes in this game, and see how often you were right on the money.

Oh my, that poor rooster…

Reinhardt says hello.

Sigma wasn’t the problem to double barrier - he was the solution to the problem which was the HITSCAN. :confused:
The reason that he even performed well because he was one of the few tanks that could hold his ground and not be pushed over. But the community doesn’t like it when tanks aren’t pushoevrs

I mean, I feel pretty good about my most recent reaction to an unbalanced change:

For most changes I only react with interest because it’s always fun to play the game a little differently. But there have been plenty of ideas that have been so wildly OP/UP that you could tell just by reading the text, and it shouldn’t be too much to expect the devs to be able to identify them earlier than a live patch.

That suite of Genji changes should never have been seriously considered let alone put into an Experimental mode…and it still got into the live game! “Oops, we screwed up the game for a month! Hindsight is 20/20!”

So not many people remember this, but actually Role Queue Beta came out slightly before Sig, and 3-3 was being phased out slightly before role queue. There was also a bug(?) where Sig was disabled for literally one game when the actual season began, then was enabled instead of the typical 2 week period without him.

And we were in REALLY great shape up until his release, where he wrecked everything by his insane Brig-like design.

1 Like

No. It didn’t. I literally just explained this. But since you wont take my word for it:

https://dotesports.com/overwatch/news/sigma-is-already-available-in-competitive-overwatch

Blizzard’s customer service Twitter made an update about role queue not working as intended for quick play and received a few comments inquiring about Sigma’s presence in competitive mode. The account said that his presence is “intended for the Competitive Beta Season.”

While this isn’t standard practice for developers, it makes sense. The Role Queue Beta Season, which lasts until Sept. 1, is essentially one big test of how role queue affects competitive players.

It was only on PTR before that.

https://www.esportstales.com/overwatch/season-17-most-played-heroes-by-competitive-tier-july-2019

We really weren’t. Goats was already being fazed out for bunker with double sniper before any of that happened because of how much they crippled tanks.

Yes, because we had so many barrier tanks to choose from. Really makes you wonder why we didn’t have double barrier before. /s

Both Brig and Sigma have completely nuked the entire Tank roster - for two years running.

Brig killed the off-tanks and now Sigma has killed the main-tanks.

All because Blizzard can’t admit their hero designs are bad.

1 Like

Why did Sigma nuke ma rooster :‎(

Has he stated this and if so can I get a link ?

I just don’t understand why he’s allowed to have a copy cat ability of Defense Matrix, but 100% better.

I feel it was a mix personally. Sigma enabled double shield with his insane hybrid kit that out performed off tanks with the added perks of a multi-directional spammable shield but it became necessary to keep running it due to damage creep being so high especially after blizzard gutted all the shields Which ironically was an awful attempt at ending double shield

You keep saying “they failed” - how exactly did they fail? Also, why is being a “hybrid” bad?

At GM Sigma has a high pick-rate (23.49%) - I’d say that was pretty successful. WB OTOH is about 11.64%, not bad, but could be a bit better. I’d say based on that Sigma is a bit too strong, while WB could actually use a bit of buffing.

It’s in the Reddit interview, there’s links to that in a sticky I think.

I don’t necessarily think the concept is bad, but reducing them to D.Va level is a bit much.

Was a response by Geoff to powercreep.

It’s funny even know while sigma slaughtered Orisa, Rein, and got so many nerfs himself he is probably still the best tank in the game overall.

Man how you screw up this badly in game design, it’s just incredible, almost impressive.