Soldier: 76 need some buffs

Soldier right now is in a really bad spot, you rarely see a soldier nowadays. So I got some idea’s for him that will make him a more viable pick.

1st: Let soldier reload while he is sprinting. This might sound a dumb choice, but actually this will make his damage output a bit higher. This only works when he sprints away, but when is trying to get some distance between someone and him self he can shoot after the sprint. This is more a quality of life change than a real change.

2nd: Allow soldier to deploy his bioticfield while shooting. This is also a quality of life change. Just like Orisa who can do everything while shooting. It makes his damage output also a little bit higher because he doesn’t have to stop shooting if he wants to put down his bioticfield.

And last: This might not be a thing you want to change on him. let him sprint while shooting. doing this might make him annoying just like tracer. I don’t know if you would like to have another one like her, I would rather not see that happening.

2 Likes

Soldier doesn’t need buffs, other heroes need nerfs. (Also a meta change where he’s actually useful would help him a lot)

5 Likes

The first 2 suggestions are quite good and reasonable. The last one not so much.

6 Likes

I know, it was an idea I got from CoD sinds he kinda plays like that.

None of these changes would break him or change him a lot, why do you think they aren’t needed? almost every other hero is twice as good as soldier

I do think he needs some buffs, I just don’t think this will do it for him. And if the meta actually shifts so that he’s useful, finally, he’ll be OPAF. He needs a rework.

The proposed changes are buffs that come about because he feels weak with respect to other heroes in the game, either as a result of power creep (from other New heroes or hero buffs), or due to meta changes.
In such cases, the correct fix is not to just keep increasing the power of the hero that feels underwhelming, but to instead correct the power difference from the heroes or scenarios that make him feel weaker. Not long ago Soldier was a completely viable pick, and didn’t need any of the above three changes to make him competitive. The correct course of action is to identify why and address that instead.

1 Like

I actually thought of one that wouldn’t change him much at all and still help him out in 1v1s tremendously.

Allow his healing field to nullify stun effects. Let’s say if a doomfist were to uppercut soldier in his heal aoe, he would now still be able to fire his weapon or helix the doom for the entire duration of doom’s uppercut. Soldier would also be able to now aim/look in other directions, which he could not do before. The only thing that would remain from the enemy’s ability is the knockback, so soldier would still not be able to adjust his positioning because of uppercut’s momentum lock. It would be the same for wreckingball’s ground slam as well which would still knock soldier in the air but now he can attack without interruption.

It would help the team a lot too. It would make diving doomfists and wreckingballs actually try to wait out soldier’s heal field before they can go in and get out for free which they can basically do now.

let’s face it soldier gets wrecked by stun. now he can actually win fights or trade deaths more when dealing with roadhogs, brigs, mccrees etc

Really, soldier actually feels okay so far?

But suggestion 1 and 2 sounds okay. Suggestion 3 sounds a bit too much, since being able to run and gun is something quite scary.

Here are the changes I would make to Soldier since he is one of my mains.

  • agreed on reload while sprinting
  • clip size increases to 30-35
  • during hit ULT, able to shoot continuously without reloading. His ULT is 6 seconds. He takes 2 seconds to reload.

Making his reload faster during his ult seems more fair tbh, being able to fire non-stop during his ult seems a tad OP.

Similarly, I doubt he’ll ever get a clip size increase since that buffs his primary and ult at the same.

I agree with the people who have said 1 and 2 sound like good and fine QoL buffs to give him. 3 seems a bit much.

According to the Wiki, his ult already reduces his reload time to .75s.

His ULT isn’t good now, so regardless, no reload will help him a slight bit.

Soldier doesn’t really do much when it comes to win cons. Unless other heroes were reworked in major ways, Soldier will never do much.

Comments like that only makes me believe ppl don’t understand what meta means.

The alternative would be to give him back his 20 damage per bullet back.

Eh, as far as ults go I could probably name a decent number that are worse.

While I agree, I also heavily disagree. Soldier with 20 damage seems slightly too much.

Maybe make it 0.5? Like him just popping the mag and continue firing?

But this thread is about Soldier not about fixing other heroes.

What exactly do you think it means? Certain heroes are good or bad depending on what the meta is. A hero can be trash one season and then a must-pick the next just due to a shift in hero picks based on balance changes of other heroes. Look not further than Reinhardt who has essentially been unchanged aside from bugfixes since launch day and has swung from F-tier troll pick to must pick more than once.

In gaming, meta means the way(s) used to approach win conditions, typically used to refer to popular strategies. Sometime the strategies aren’t optimal at all (DotA and Dota 2 have always been played suboptimally) and sometimes they’re strategies that are supported/enabled by the latest patch.

You weren’t that far off but the reason why I’m calling you out a bit on

is because Soldier as a hero isn’t supported that well by the game design, he doesn’t have anything to offer besides lacklustre damage. Even the heroes that deal less damage than him are still better because they offer something else.

A lot of the time when people say that a hero “isn’t meta” they somehow assume that a hero or strategy isn’t viable because other people aren’t playing it. That’s not how logic works though.

I first played OW in December 2017 and since then, all the shifts that I’ve noticed have been due to players realizing that a certain hero is OP or some must-pick hero like Mercy being completely removed from the game due to poor balancing. Maybe it was different in 2016-mid 2017 but that’s not relevant in 2018.