The dev's are addressing your "OW2 fears"

General Discussion
122

This is sort of where I land, minus being able to do it myself. I have no technical knowledge of how to adjust things in-game, so I am inept on the technical side. But there are several instances where I think Geoff is just…so abysmally unaware that it screams incompetence.

Like doubling Junkrat’s damage and not nerfing his ultimate charge cost, or adding in Sigma in the game and thinking that wouldn’t be busted. He just has such a garbage track record of how little foresight he possesses, that I genuinely wonder how someone else hasn’t taken the lead on his behalf.

Same with Doomfist’s rework for OW2. It’s like his thought process is:

Everyone: “We don’t like Doomfist’s kit”
Geoff: “Why”
Everyone: “We don’t like CC and he has a lot of it”
Geoff: “Ok…what if we move him to tank, he keeps all his CC, and actually gets another ability to mitigate damage?”

I just have zero faith in him, and he proves that I am right to have no faith in him time and time again.

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123

I see you were not here for the infamous quotes where the head of balance team mocks dva players after they nerfed defence matrix to the ground to just “escort riptires and genji blades”.

Or when they killed 3.0 symm teleporter and made it infinite in duration because “it felt like symmetra always had a teleport up” since they never killed her teleport I suppose.

Despite that they apparently have a symm one trick in their internal test team, they still don’t know how to do anything with symmetra.

You’re talking about internal test team that has difficulty of killing a stationary object like torb turret and will balance around that kind of skill level. And all the balance changes that have been awful around the years.

Let’s not even talk about mercy’s rework lmao.

There’s a reason why they started balancing around OWL pro players, which is equally bad avenue to go with.

There is also a very good reason why the head of the balance team was removed from HoTS team.

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124

Its just got to be egotism and connections that keep him in place, it makes no sense.

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126

And here is were any context of when and were Double shield was created and thrown out the window. AS your comparing how mei is now. Who by the way is not a trash pick, she is rather balance a the moment and combo’s well with the like or rien, and as a decent counter to hog ball. But hey people will pick her up fie trying to freeze everything, and not even bother with the other half of her kit.

But when Double sheild was first created it was a counter measure to Mei as she had all of her Goat buffs at that time. As at the time Mini goats was the meta of the day, which featured Mei and reaper, right around the turn of 2-2-2.

Also like McFlashgorden isn’t exactly Meta at the moment either M8. He is played quite a bit, primarily because of the flash bang. But he is far from the strongest Especially against double barrier, Were he and is crutch can’t exactly get around barriers. Or the Hog ball meta which is currently being played on the higher ends of the latter.

He is definitely played meore then Mei, as she doesn’t exactly have the insta pick mentality. Or the ease of being easy to pick up and play especially such a hero that has context sensitive ability uses.

The only reason dived worked was because the dive tanks, were able to get around the front line. And immediately engage the supports while making space for the rest of the team to play around.

Like a genji, tracer combo then with a zarya and rien. would have easily been counteracted by likes of a Mcburger and Zarya/D.va, As without their space makers, they would have been taking the brunt of the damage, CC, and ults.

And were in fact interchangeable with widow, Pharah, and Even junkrat right after his rework. (his tire, two mines, large nade hit boxes, and no damage fall-off mines made him great as a dive hero till he got tuned back.) Basically anyone capable of shooting the back line with the tanks was runnable.

As D.va and winston more or less covered each others weaknesses. Winston made space for d.va not be affected by the likes beams/ mei’s freeze/ or even just general long distance damage. While d.va could catch most ults, Coolldowns, CC, and more with her 4 sec DM. On top of being great at peeling for her own supports. and just helping winston secure picks.

Like the flankers were only their because they were mobile enough to play around the tanks. If anything you could maybe argue that genji had some influence because of his ult, ignoring DM and barriers especially with nano.

But those were peek cases, not the general gameplay that occured every fight. nor did it dictate how teams engaged.

Or you know te job of balancing a game that has hundred of thousands of unique interactions that don’t exist in your average shooter. While also keeping such playable, in low, mid, high ranks, and in OWL games. Where the level and skill, teamwork, and game sense is wildly different. Is not exactly easy.

Like most of highly complained about heroes such as tracer, is only ever an issue on the top of the ladder. Yet you will get complaints on the lower and mid ranks about her all the time, where she is infact underperforming compared to most of th other DPS.

With heroes like sym being completely broken at both OWL and bronze, while at the same time almost bottom teir in mid ranks out side of specific niche situations.

This game isn’t cod were the only major concern is if each gun isn’t outperforming the other. It’s game filled with extremely vastly different mechanics, mobility, playstyles, interactions. The fact this game is playable at all at nearly every level, is a feat in it’s self.

127

Puckman, I normally respect your opinions, but on this one when clear issues exist (for example Immortality Field) and nothing changes, I think we can say its more than just “you don’t know the subtleties”…

Other balance people do this very well in comparison to Overwatch btw.

Her hypermobility is a key issue never addressed in the game. The resultant countermeasures to the kit have produced problems at all tiers… good example btw. Its not about “performance”, its about what the kit in the full context of the game results in. Stacked AOE healing is another clear example and issues of double barrier…

Please - we all know this.

128

Because mortality field hasn’t been an issue since it was tuned down. Like ya all heroes are relased stronger then originally intended. As to not only get the player base to try them, but find where and how people will exploit such abilities. Especially in combination with other heroes.

Then in turn tune down said abilities to keep the general feel of the hero, while at the same time removing the exploitable aspects of such.

Like ya it prompt up bunker comp back in the day. But no it’s cooldown is longer, it’s up time is shorter, it has less health, and a smaller minimum health pool.

All together it keeps it in a state where just about any dps can quickly get rid of, while leaving its intended target with a limted health pull that any support/tank can get over in a single shot. Even after shot of healing.

If anything nade has served a simlair purpose with its 100hp burst healing on top of 1.5 healing boost.

With the major difference being that it can’t stop major bust of damage like a widow head shot, d.va bomb, tire. With the upside of what it can handle will leave the target with a topped off health pool.

While Mortality field can handle one big burst of damage, at the cost of the receiver having a rather small limited health pool after such. Ontop of being removable if it is used/forced out early.

Similair to how you can force out nade by focusing the ana.

So you know its not exactly an all powerful ability. Nor is it exactly on the level of say sound barrier/ trans do to it not being able yo keep your team healthy through damage.

129

It is no question - its bad for play in general as design. I mean I am surprised you would not see the persistent issues this kit brings…

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Yes and double shields is meta now as well.

She is only above Bastion. At best she is a niche pick. She is not remotely balanced.

No, it was part of bunker. But that is a different issue and irrelevant to who is driving the current meta. And even if Mei did drive it back then, that would just support my saying that tanks are not the ones driving every meta.

He is the second top pick.

Also you are right he is weak-ish against barriers. Which is why barriers are played. Barriers are the best answer to Soldier and Cassidy, so that is what you use.

I could say ‘the only reason dive worked is because of the dive dps being able to get in the back line and secure the kills.’

The reality of dive meta was the dive tanks made it easier for the dive dps to secure kills. Most of the work was done with Tracer. She was far more the lynch pin of the comp than the tanks. Again, tanks played a part but they did not set it.

No it didn’t. It let him get once for sure, albeit slower and easier to avoid/counter. But he never had the survivability or the ability to disengage and re-engage quickly. Junkrat was never a good dive choice. Diving as Junkrat is and was simply slower, less reliable, easier to avoid and counter, and far riskier than any dive hero. He was never part of that meta.

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131

I mean it’s a weaker tool then most barriers or zen’s and lucio’s ult, simply do to the fact that it doesn’t save the team’s health pool. Nor does it prevent the likes of stuns/knockbacks/ LOS effects like hack or freeze.

And as I mentioned theirs room to play around, it’s propping up a meta like it did with bunker. And maybe outside of his peak healing output capability, or jump spam. He is currently pretty much on par with the rest of the supports. That’s not to say he doesn’t need tuning here or their in some places.

Like we have similar interactions and counter play with other abilities like nade, and even rez to a degree.

If i’m not mistaking that’s ball hog at the moment for being are tank due of the season.

With hammond, sigma, d.va, and road hog being the top four tanks at the moment. followed by rien, orisa, zarya and winston. In GM.

with hog being the most played tank in masters.

Thats not to say it’s not played, but ball hog was the forums meta complaints for the past month or so.

But they couldn’t at least without the threat of being peeled away with ease. Like without the dive tanks, ye old Zayra could easily melt genji and feed off his damage. While tracer would be spending a lot of time avoiding the dps and nade/dart more so then then attacking the dps directly. At least not on the more open ended maps, she could get away with if on something like kings row.

CP/hybrid maps not so much. Do to the wide open area’s leaving them both open to fire.

Like back in the days especially before we got the mechanical power house players we had today. that has had four plus years of practise. The flanker DPS more or less required the dive tanks space to be as remotely effective as they were. As it gave space for them to stay in that area long enough to get picks, and build ult.

Like believe it or not but genji/tracer/ and sombra were not great at getting burst kills. They have rather high TTK, outside of instances of point blank clip dumping. Which is still mechanically hard to pull off do to having to space your blinks, about like landing a headshot with hogs secondary. But it’s spread out over a second of time.

And the more that is able to focus them, the less time the flankers have to do decent damage.

Before his nerfs he was everywere especially in the middle of the Mouth meta, that bleed into dive. Before brig was released anyway. He could get those instant picks, were the likes of tracer or genji had to poke at or focus fire with a tank to get as quickly.

That and his ult was straight up broken for a bit, like it didn’t make any noise while in the air. and it use to be able to sling shot it’s self over terrain. insta gibby many tanks, making the rest of the dive easier.

Was not the end all be all, but was a great flex.