Super Depressed Pharah Main here :/

General Discussion
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I just… don’t know what to do any more. Blizzard seems intent on indirectly destroying the character and she’s become so “situational” (read: no decent mccree or soldier on the other team) that I don’t even want to bother with her half the time.

Some people don’t seem to get why she’s so bad now, so let me explain all the indirect nerfing she’s suffered:

a) Huge ranged damage buff for hitscans. McCree & Soldier can waste her like she’s made of paper now, even at long range. They are actually worse to play against than a Widow. The Widow has to zoom to fire a full damage shot, limiting her field of view and reaction times. McCree and Soldier don’t. So it’s much harder to sneak up on or sneak behind them without basically getting raingunned.

b) Mercy Nerf. So this is a lot worse than it looks on the surface. The issue isn’t that Mercy’s primary healing has been trashed. It’s that everyone is now playing Ana. Which means two things. One, you get poorer healing since most Anas seem to forget Pharah exists. Two, the enemy team usually also has an Ana. And Ana is great against Pharah. So enemy teams are highly likely to have yet another counter against you.

c) Soldier bullet spread buff. Soldier can now fire longer without his weapon spread increasing. I honestly didn’t think this would matter that much. But it was huge when I was playing last night. I could barely poke my head out to drop a couple shots without it getting blown off against a decent soldier.

d) New “buffs” to Pharah are mostly nerfs. Okay I do love the reduced concussion blast cooldown. I use that a ton to maneuver and get in and out of situations quickly. But the damage is a nerf. Faster fire rate is pointless since you have to aim more now that only direct hits do decent damage. And it’s harder to aim careful because you’re usually under a lot more dangerous fire than before.

e) There are some other little things, too. Mei no longer has ranged damage dropoff at all. And McCree’s roll cooldown reduction means he’s both harder to hit and can get a free quick reload often so you don’t even get that breather.

I’m just incredibly frustrated and depressed. I’m not an amazing Pharah player but I’m pretty decent I think and before all these changes I was really effective. I’d gotten really good at dealing with Widows, which were Pharah’s main counter. I still have some good games when McCree and Soldier aren’t in play, or on maps like King’s Row that have good high cover. In the past I could still be effective even against a good Widow and Hanzo on the other team. But now there are so many effective Pharah counters that it’s overwhelming to deal with in many games.

I’ve been playing other characters a bit, but my other main was Mercy and while I have been fine with most of the changes when they nerfed her core healing that was just too freaking far. I’d much rather they just took away her stupid rez. And I have some other characters I like to play like Mei and Brig and Torb and DVA. But nobody I enjoyed as much as Pharah.

I dunno. How do you think they could fairly fix Pharah? I’m inclined to say she should get a little armor, or maybe shields - not much, just enough to make it easier to survive heavy fire. I’d also like more mobility. For example, let her cancel her jump-boost midway. Often I only need a little boost up, I don’t want to get tossed up and bump my head on the skybox, making me a sitting duck.

I dunno, anyone else have ideas? I’m just so frustrated, I don’t even enjoy playing her much any more.

43 Likes
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I want them to toy with the idea of giving her some armor. Imagine Pharah having 160 hp and 40 armor in her base health pool.

(Suits her thematically too)

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Awh… your support has arrived!
Hugs. :innocent:

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I have a couple Mercy mains I often play with and that does help <3

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I’m pretty sure these changes were due to how she was on console. I play PC, but from what I gather people on console were having a tough time with her

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Most people in higher ranks say that the Pharah changes were a huge buff. It’s just a massive nerf to console users and lower ranked players that aren’t as precise.

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I would like them to maybe nerf ana’s cooldown on her sleep dart or nerf the damage her rifle can do

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Vulmaxi: I see a lot of debate about that. Valkia and Fareeha both had different takes.

And good for higher ranked people, but I’m not them.

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Pharah mains who could aim destroyed half of my games today. I begin to question all those nerf threads the more I am playing the game.

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You just pointed out what they were trying to accomplish; they wanted to reward higher skill players who can land the direct shots rather than having Pharah be a flying junkrat (pidgeon?) She can’t just spam in the general direction anymore and still make an impact, she takes a higher level of skill now to be useful.

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I feel you here. This is honestly how the Mercy rework followed by the 14 nerf after nerf after nerf felt for me.

I’ve felt very demoralized over the entire process so I feel you.

Ultimately I cannot tell you how to feel or how to handle the situation. Unfortunately it looks like the current state of Pharah is here to stay :frowning:

Sending positive good vibes your way.

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Pharah mains that could aim would obliterate me even before this buff. She’s going to be a nightmare in the right hands now.

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She is in fact, a nightmare the more I encounter her.

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Well if you guys think it’s a buff making high skill players too powerful… and I think it’s screwing lower skill players… then it’s obviously a mistake because it’s failing people of all ranks.

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Oh for sure. Pharah was overall unremarkable at most ranks. Not too strong, not too weak. It’s just a continuation of Blizzard fixing the wrong thing about heroes to compensate for obvious flaws.

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I honestly thought she would getting 25 points of armor, or lose 50 health and gain 50 armor.

At the OP, maybe you should play something else.

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Though honestly my issue personally hasn’t been how much damage I’m doing. I’ve already kinda adapted and moved to taking more careful aim. It’s the survivability issue.

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This is what they did to Roadhog’s gun too, some fancy math and voila, the numbers are the same but it doesn’t make for better gameplay.

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If you’re stuggling with survivability without a widow on the enemy team, it means your positioning is less than optimal. Pharah is still primarily a medium to long range hero; she is still designed to spam the deathball to built ultimate. However, she’s supposed to be opportunistic and get in and get out of the brawls to take advantage of the high direct damage she now does.

Also, if theres a mccree, S76, Ana, Widow, Zen, then its your time to swap.

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I’m not bad at positioning I don’t think, otherwise I would’t have made it this far without being wasted every game by Widows. And some maps simply don’t have decent places to get cover from hitscans.

And your comment contradicts itself. First you say she’s a medium/long range spammer. Then you say she’s supposed to get in close and do direct damage. Which is it? I hope you’re not suggesting I should be getting a lot of direct hits at long range when people can simply step out of the way.