Some heroes are left to waste away and die like bastion, while other heroes have such overloaded kits they are permanently in the meta like ana. Like they’ll give ana a grenade that is ult level, stops enemy healing and empowers your own, the ability to deal damage and heal with a scope to make shots easier, the best stun in the game, and nano an ult that basically makes someone unkillable.
Meanwhile bastion has a self root he needs to do any decent damage, no headshot modifier in that mode for some reason, and a self healing mode to remind you that you’re playing a bad hero and feeding the enemy ult charge.
But it happens with mcree, genji, etc. They are constantly balanced and changed but heros with low play time are basically left to die.
I don’t know why, but I can’t help but think of Riot Games’ recent dev update where they said that new League of Legends champions don’t have overloaded kits… looks at Akshan.
I agree though, I think until another hero with anti-heal comes into the game, Ana’s Biotic Grenade should have a 15-25% damage susceptibility (like Orb of Discord) instead of anti-heal; or they could just lower it to 50% anti-heal.
Every hero is going to need drastic adjustments in order to fit into the 5v5 format effectively, and that’s one of the many concerns OW2 has.
It’s because they cater to whiny streamers who want a cod/valorant clone.
Why do you think that heroes like Tracer and McCree are allowed to be hard S-tier meta for MONTHS but if a hero like Sym Doom or Genji gets to become A-tier they’re nerfed in two weeks? Why have Symmetra and Doomfist been riddled with absolutely catastrophic, game-losing bugs for years? Because they’re not the cool heroes, that’s why. You think if a hero like Tracer had a significant chance for her recall to simply not work, it wouldn’t be hotfixed in 48 hours? Hah
There’s blatant bias at play and that’s just what it is, unfortunately.
It’s undeniable that the way some heroes have been treated by the devs very closely resembles favoritism, but when it comes to terribly - designed and/or low skill - high reward and/or overly frustrating to play against heroes, a general category Bastion also belongs in, well it’s no wonder they rightfully receive no buffs.
The only changes they need are power shifts and, most importantly, reworks. Certainly not buffs and, when it comes to Bastion, buffs that increase his Sentry damage even more and therefore exacerbate his fundamental design flaws even more are absolutely nonsensical.
That’s why, mains of these heroes must realize they can’t both have the cake and eat it. The days of the entire game suffering just so a small minority of players that happens to main a hero is pleased are long gone… They will either have to accept drastic changes such as reworks for their heroes, or they will have to make peace with the fact that their heroes aren’t gonna get any stronger.
Bastion cannot be meta without a rework or it would be one of those metas that drives people away (hence why he is getting one in OW2).
It’s funny though for 96% of the competitive playerbase you can pick whatever you want (which means more than 98 percent overall) and so really we are talking about Bastion being weak for 4 percent on the comp population only.
Extreme imbalance at launch lasted a very long time and caused the mains of many heroes to be initially over represented in the top ranks.
As high rank opinions are taken more seriously when it comes to balance there has for all intents and purposes been gatekeeping of which heroes are “allowed” to be viable by the high rank community.
Obviously the mains of long term meta heroes will be very resistant and vocal about other heroes competing. Especially heroes they aren’t interested in playing.
Balance of healing, for instance. If we balance heals, as if every teammate being healed is pro player, chances of same healing to work on average player are slim at best.
I’d go as far to say that balance isn’t the main issue. Sure it’s what some of us care about, but it’s the lack of content that turns a good portion of players away. Shiny new things are more exciting than “Oh cool, my gun does 2 more damage now!”
Who thinks “Hey, let’s give this hero an ability that does a quarter of most squishies health while also making them unable to heal for 4 second” (In a game where the TTK on non tanks is half that)
I didn’t get this memo. I’ve been playin’ half a day, too! 