Nothing in his kit is exceptionally original, 2 other tanks have shotguns, mei has a wall, winston has a leap, the shimadas climb walls, Doom and Ram block, rein has a frontal stun ult. Curiously other than the block he does all these things worse than his counterparts, yet he still manages to feel really good and fresh. Definitely one of those more than the sum of its parts designs
The basic gun, yeah it’s a pretty standard shotgun. Not too powerful but he’s got a lot of other damage sources to make up for it
The leap is fairly short but has a bit of damage attached, making it great for engaging but very dicey for disengaging, so he has to commit to fights harder than a pure dive tank would. It also has an interesting property where you can shoot while leaping which should add to the skill ceiling a bit
I think there are two things that make his kit click. First the high degree of synergy between all his stuff. The block and ult reload his gun, the wall gets extra height to leap from, the gun can be used while leaping, the dash can knock people into the wall for damage, the dash and wall can give extra height to the climb, and all his abilities help him stay in missile range longer
Second, the advantages these abilities do have over similar ones all add to the skill ceiling. The wall has more range than ice wall but aiming it is hard, it does damage but that requires good planning or using a defensive cooldown offensivley, it does CC but its unweidly. You can shoot while leaping but it requires aim. you can climb walls but it usually requires you to invest one of your cooldowns, your ult has way more range than shatter but it’s a root and not a hard stun, etc.
Now like I said the block is just straight better than similar abilities, but it is the crux of his kit. I think people freak out whenever the word “homing” is used but its really silly since it’s only from a range similar to something like a winston tesla gun which also requires no aim. Pretty engaging ability too. Encourages you to stand dead in the center of the enemy team, you have to balance using it for survival and for damage, if you get a good tempo with it you barely have to reload, good stuff.
Now for my 3 criticisms:
- The character design
Yeah, you hear about this gang of Phreaks who are heavily bioengineered rebels with this neon grafiti aesthetic, but then if you look at him head on its just some dude, and the predominant colors are black and muted purple. I think the neon green design we saw concept art of was taking it too far, but this is just a letdown. Something about his muscles feels off too
- The ult
I think it’s balanced and works decently with the rest of his kit, but an ult that is just a hard stun feels lame and outdated
- Ana
Yeah this guy is just straight up ana food, arguably worse than mauga. If you’re going to keep designing shieldless tanks like this then sleep dart has got to go. Of course even without sleep dart biotic grenade alone would already make ana too strong against him. Of course it’s especially bad during launch when the scrubs know who you’re playing and can counterswap you with her before the match even started. Yeah ana just ruins the tank role and everyone knows it as much as they play dumb and say otherwise. Honestly hope we keep getting more broken supports like Juno so people pick them instead