The suggestion is to have a group of tanks and supports that feel more comfortable to play solo. The emphasis is on improving tanking or healing with increased survivability but a few changes are intended to make the heroes more fun in a broader sense. The tank group is incidentally barrier/shield focused as these have proven indispensable and are difficult to balance in combination. The selected main tanks and supports will become mutually exclusive, meaning only one main tank and only one main support is allowed per team at a particular time (switching of course being allowed). Get rid of role queue, implement restrictions at the hero selection screen of at minimum one of each role and at maximum three of a role.
Reinhardt
Armor increased by 50
Base movement speed increased by 10%
Barrier Field shields increased by 400
1.5 meter long perpendicular side sections attached to Barrier Field
Fire Strike damage increased by 25
Orisa
Armor increased by 50
Fusion Driver movement speed penalty reduced to 10%
Fusion Driver damage reduced by 2-3
Fusion Driver ammo reduced by 50
Fusion Driver reload time reduced by .55 seconds
Protective Barrier shields increased by 400, cannot be removed by Sombra once thrown or set
Fortify blocks Reinhardt’s Earthshatter in a cone but has a casting time of .25 seconds
Winston
Health increased by 50
Tesla Cannon stuns any enemy damaged continuously over the course of 4 seconds for .75 seconds
Jump Pack cooldown reduced by 1 second
Barrier Projector cooldown reduced by 5 seconds
Sigma
Health increased by 100, shields by 50
Experimental Barrier shields increased by 600, regeneration increased by 80 per second after being down for 2 seconds, cannot be removed by Sombra once moving or set
Reversion of the nerf to the redeployment speed of Experimental Barrier
Kinetic Grasp blocks Reinhardt’s Earthshatter in a cone but has a casting time of .25 seconds
Mercy
Health increased by 50
Regeneration gains a base constant passive of 5 health per second, to which the bigger value is added
Caduceus Staff healing increased by 10 per second
Guardian Angel maximum range increased by 10 meters, cooldown reduced by .5 seconds
Valkyrie healing increased by 90 HPs/s per target, self-healing increased by 30 HPs/s, chain healing max range increased by 10 meters, duration reduced by 7 seconds
Lucio
Health increased by 50
Crossfade healing increased by 14 per second for allies and by ~2.7 per second for self, area of effect increased by 13 meters but stays at its current value when movement speed is toggled
Sonic Amplifier damage decreased by 2 per round
Soundwave gains a second effect toggled by Weapon 2 where as opposed to knocking back enemies Lucio knocks himself in the opposite direction
Unsure what to do about Sombra entirely negating Sonic Barrier
Ana OR Zenyatta
Ana’s health is increased by 50
Biotic Rifle healing headshots are critical hits
Biotic Rifle ammo reduced by 2-4
Weapon 2 is a self-injection with a 10 second cooldown that restores 150 health over 3 seconds, cast time of .75 seconds
Zenyatta’s shields are increased by 50
Gains a second Orb of Harmony assigned to E, Orb of Discord goes to Weapon 2
Gains Mind of Buddha ability on key 3 which is a 2 second state of invulnerability along with a 20% movement boost but shooting and Orb of Discord are disabled
Ult adjustments for these heroes may be a case by case matter, with ult point totals being a convenient tool.
Anti-“GOATS”
With buffing a group of tanks and supports and loosening selection restrictions the specter of GOATS makes a terrifying return. Plug in a Mei, for instance, and hold a couple of buttons in a general direction to win. Let’s give a few of our neglected “defense” heroes a buff or two to hold our basest instincts in check.
Bastion’s Configuration: Sentry regains critical hits/headshots. His spread in this Configuration makes him bad at long range but at closer ranges he can return to being deadly.
Bastion’s Configuration: Tank gains a knock-back.
Torbjorn’s Rivet Gun on Weapon 1 (Secondary Fire) becomes a buckshot shotgun. Meaning, one, its spread can be made more conish and to become even less effective at medium to long range, but can be tighter at short range. And/or it would gain a separate damage bonus based on number of pellets impacting a target, either as some sort of multiplier at and after a particular number of pellets or even as a % based effect of the target’s health. The “flavor” premise is that more wounds hurt. This provides tricky competition for Reaper.
Torbjorn’s Turret gains AI Learning. After shooting 20 rounds (which is 5 seconds of uninterrupted shooting, to give an impression of the time involved) its damage increases by 1 per round until it crits (over another 3.5 seconds of uninterrupted shooting). The Turret will have to destroyed or redeployed for the damage to reset.
Junkrat’s Frag Launcher projectiles are more energetic in the first 1-2 seconds of being shot. Damage on direct hit is increased by 50 and splash damage is increased by 20.
Believe it or not Symmetra actually seems like an option. Photon Projector gains damage, although I’m not sure why the source I’m looking at specifies against barriers, and her Teleporter can be very useful against compositions with lesser reach.
The trick is what to do with dive. I think Tracer can be given say a 3 second Evasion on Weapon 2 and her blinks could disjoint Torb’s Turret. Her Evasion would reduce incoming damage by say 75%, either in general or more specifically against rooted entities like Torb’s Turret or Sentry Bastion. There are a good deal of options for the developers to curb certain compositions while keeping the game relatively balanced. It’s almost as if they ran out of creativity. Literally speaking balance changes are not nearly as time-consuming to apply as this game gives the impression. Whatever has been holding Overwatch back in balance is a cultural matter, and the results have made a poor argument for it. I don’t know if Blizzard plays smart in the background or if their developers are just incompetent but there is a total disconnect in what is being done versus what could be done. It’s possible certain encumbering methods and tools are being employed that only slow things down as opposed to provide solutions. There are years and multiple games of evidence that the results are mediocre at best.
I just played this game for the first time in several months over 4-6 hours. Aside from sitting in queue for close to 10 minutes per game at 3000 SR, albeit in off hours, I found the experience not very fun and tolerable only in moderation (hey, maybe this is their goal, to make the self-sacrifice in improving society, making us do other things). There is not enough damage to deter Hammond or deal with double shield. As a DPS you can often feel like you’re lashing stuff with wet noodles. Playing Mei and Reaper predominantly is what people struggling with mania should be doing in that dopamine activity in the brain is dramatically reduced over time. This is not what game design aims for generally. Games are supposed to be stimulating. On the other hand, buffing DPS or nerfing say tanks in 2-2-2 will only aggravate matchmaking issues. There are already too many queuing for DPS and too few for tank.
I think if dramatic changes aren’t pursued - and hero bans are not it - this game will only serve to scratch a casual itch for some and be a niche choice for others. If that is the extent of the Overwatch developers’ ambition, so be it. They have made enough money personally and for their employer to resist pressure.
Holy Mackeral that would be OP XD and this coming from someone who loves Mercy. I want her to be in a slightly better place, I don’t think ANYONE wants Moth meta back!
You’re referring to an entirely different problem that is presently of little consequence. I didn’t even know there were any OP supports at the moment. I’m referring to a problem where the imposed ratio of roles in Overwatch is substantially different from what people want to play. This increases the time waiting to play the game, has and will decrease matchmaking quality, and has even made the game less exciting to play. My answer to this problem is intentionally making a group of tanks and supports OP, with a focus on certain aspects, so that they can solo their roles if need be and compositions can open back up to what people want to play. If it works in practice it could benefit a wide range of players.
Even if tanks and supports got buffed into the 7th heaven, I wouldn’t want to play either of those roles solo. Role Queue has structured the game for the better and removing that will take detract from the game’s identity.
Plus I don’t think that making tanks and supports extremely difficult to kill will be very fun for the DPS, plus it would lower the skill ceiling / floor for every tank and support.
I think OW is best in a 2-2-2. Queue times are an unfortunate byproduct of the system that they’re trying to fix, but if a solution involves removing role lock then I’m not on board, personally.
Let me get this straight - you’re a dps main? I’m not afraid of any of these proposed heroes and if I have to fill I will pick among them just fine. I’d rather have queue times that are half to a fifth of what they have become and be able to play against softer compositions with assistance in burning things down too. I remember the times when you could have a lot of fun clicking on heads without playing Widowmaker.
I also think you’re incorrectly assuming that these are the heroes you have to kill first in order to win.
Maybe I misread your post and you’re just another of these selfish tank and support players who doesn’t see the big picture and profess to be too soft to play even OP heroes solo at times. By the way, newsflash, you’re part of a team! It must indeed be a lot of fun dribbling on your keyboard without paying the price. Basing this game on the lowest common denominator is just a bad idea. Sadly, reading Jeff Kaplan’s latest post, the Overwatch development team appears to be soft, slow, and indecisive indeed.
I wish I didn’t find Blizzard games to be most appealing. Truly.
The long queue times suck, but the devs have reassured the community time and time again that they’re working very hard to try and find a solution. I just don’t think that removing 2-2-2 is the right call here, and apparently and neither do the devs. I stand by what I wrote.
You presume that the devs have thought of everything. As for what they’ll do “under the hood” to “try and find a solution” 1) it’s unlikely that they will 2) it likely involves loosening SR spreads and decreasing matchmaking quality. The thing with people like this is also that they are extremely afraid and reluctant to change course, even in testing.
Because your balance suggestion for the game is: remove role queue, buff every tank into unkillable juggernauts, buff supports, and nerf Sombra. Then buff a few DPS in the hope that it’ll stop Goats from coming back(it wouldn’t).
Your pushing for huge power creep, when that has been one of the biggest issues over the last couple years.
How does 50 armor or health or bringing Sigma up to par make them unkillable juggernauts? Orisa gets a considerable damage reduction, Winston has no damage buff and neither does Sigma. All of these buffed heroes become mutually exclusive. Likewise the support buffs are focused on healing, an ability not to simply die when focused or even when jumped on by a single DPS, and Lucio gets a damage reduction. Perhaps Zenyatta could do with a damage reduction too if picked over Ana for the role. The so-called DPS I’m buffing are chronically neglected heroes that see little play, and if you think these buffs can’t stop GOATS I’d gladly take your money in a hypothetical demonstration.
They just reduced Orisa’s damage reduction, so you might have missed that.
Power creep and damage necessarily the same, you can get power creep by increasing damage, not it’s not mandatory.
They’ve been going with healing nerfs recently, again you might have missed this. Multiple supports can hold their own and buy time to get help from a flanker, have you tried swapping?
Did you ever try QP when it was bugged, which happened (IIRC) immediately after the RQ patch? Basically, RQ was restricted to Comp only, but QP still had the 222 team format enforced despite not having RQ - so the two players who were quickest to select DPS got to play them, while the others had to choose tank or support characters.
As far as I can tell, it was loathed by pretty much everyone. Players who were too slow to get a DPS would leave, another player would backfill in, they would discover that they couldn’t play DPS, they would leave, another player would backfill in…it was pretty much a disaster. If Blizzard were doing a sneaky experiment here, it was definitely a failure.
Because for starters, they aren’t going to revert role lock. Additionally, tanks and supports are the two most impactful roles in game, they don’t need wholesale buffs. Third, power creep is a real problem, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.
[edit] also on a personal note, Sombra is already the weakest character in game and you propose significant nerfs to her, in addition to buffing a bunch of her counters.
For starters this wouldn’t work if you didn’t buff Brigitte and Mercy, two supports who the DPS community loathe. Making supports solo capable means buffing areas that DPS players had a problem with. For that reason I think it would fail.