The Hatred against Ball Mains

Competitive Discussion
22

It really doesn’t make any difference. I’m sorry i made the assumption, but when you have a private profile and are defending Hammond so passionately, its hardly any surprise I would make that connection lmao

I don’t know if you’re a Hammond main, tank main, tracer main, a one trick, three trick, flex player, console player, or pro player or bronze player. None of that really matters, nor do i really care. My point still stands, that for me, in MY experiences, the ‘Hammond player that never swaps and isnt in VC’ is the type of Hammond player that I most commonly come across in my games.

I really don’t understand why you can’t grasp the fact I’m just saying that I can see where the negative stigmas come from, but agree that people shouldn’t be rude towards them… but also understand that things won’t change and you need to just accept the fact that there is a stigma surrounding certain heroes so you can just focus on enjoying them instead.

23

Simple. I’m saying that when you say “most Hammond players are not in VC” not only applies to most players in comp, but also is likely not an outlier. If anything it’s likely that you just remember the negative experiences more vividly because that’s a natural bias.

You need to accept the fact that if you have a stigma against anyone playing a hero due to how other people played then that is entirely on you.

24

And you YET AGAIN missed the fact that I said it applies to a wide set of heroes including my own main not just Hammond but you’re choosing to think i mean otherwise to fit your own narrative. This thread was specifically about Hammond and the hate he gets when picked and i was rationalizing why he receives the comments he does based on my own experiences. And from my own experiences, MOST people are in VC in Masters, but certain mains tend to opt out of VC (likely due to the negative feedback they can get in VC due to people being toxic towards their hero choices - which is what OP was talking about).

PS dont assume I’m toxic or flame people who dont swap or main certain heroes or arent in VC, I’m NOT. I was just rationalizing with OP. Like I said, I’ve experienced the exact same things they do, so I wouldnt put other people through it.
I’m done here, but feel free to continue if you have more to say

25

Look all I’m saying is that if you have a negative view of anyone because they happen to choose a hero you have a negative stigma for then that’s on you and not them. Of course stigmas exist for a lot more than just Ball but that’s no excuse for having that stigma for him.

26

I hate ball. He is my most hated character. However, I don’t accuse people of throwing by playing him. What annoys me, is when someone instalocks ball, and then doesnt switch, and gets no value. I understand if they are getting value, but these are the bad ball players. This is the problem with a lot of one tricks. However, since they are on tank, a role with very high value, it throws off the team. The rein has no zarya, the orisa has no sigma or roadhog.

I understand if you run ball with a team comp that is mobile. But I see people run ball when the team is running a comp that needs a Rein (Ball is okay when the team would never be behind a shield anyways, like a pharmercy duo and others like that).

I just hate ball because my teammates never shoot him (In diamond/masters), and he lives through everything.

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27

whenever I have a good ball on my team, I am happy. hamster can have tons of value and doesn’t need to be babysit by us supports.

28

Blizzards fault for power creep. They give chars like junkrat such stupid a$$ buffs that you get absolutely screwed by random spam. Or hanzo that plinks down a hallway to 1 or 2 shot people without ever even aiming. Ball is fun and most people wouldnt mind them if there werent so many boosters/smurfs/hacks in the game with nearly every hitscan able to 1 shot. Blame blizzard, not the player. I try but fanboys LOVEEEEEE jeff.

29

Ball mains are the most obnoxious tank player out there because they refuse to change even if it isn’t working, and force the team to play around them, I’m not saying it’s all of them but every time my team starts with a ball I know that most likely they’ll stay ball forever that’s why they get hate

30

in my experience, the “hate” is directed to ball otps, not just ball mains. if there were the same amount of winston otps as ball otps the “hate” towards them would be the same.

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31

100% agree with your comment

32

In my opinion, ball has the highest skill floor of any tank, particularly at lower levels.

That said, he’s also got an insane skill ceiling and he can hard-carry better than most any other tank.

I’m not super high-ranked, but when I started this game, I was around 1200 competative. I’ve clawed my way up to 2500 pretty much on virtue of ball.

I do switch when I need to, but people on my team think that I need to switch more often than I actually do. I’ve had teamfights where I’ve literally single-handedly killed both of the healers, and my team yells at me to switch because I’m “not doing anything”. A lot of the virtue of Ball is in his ability to lock down a single, or even a few people during a fight, which is often unnoticed by your team even though the value of it is amazing.

If played correctly, Ball can become an assassin at lower ranks, where he uses his swing + pound + gun to isolate and kill a target very quickly. He can chase and finish better and more safely than anyone else, and at ranks where damage focus is non-existent, his ability to watch the battle field and finish off the low-hp heroes is often the difference between winning and losing.

People also have no clue about how Ball is countered. McCree, Mei, Brig, Ashe, Lucio, Hog, and Orisa don’t counter ball. They have a very limited range of efficacy that is very easy to avoid if you set up the right flank routes. People with knockbacks are usually my best friend, because I can time my engages so that they knock me away after I engage, ensuring that I get out easier.

Sombra is the Ball counter, period. Sombra squashes him because he can’t account for her wherabouts and a hacked ball is a dead ball. If they don’t have a Sombra, 95% of the time they aren’t countering me, period. The other 5% of the time, it’s usually a talented junkrat who knows how to trap effectively, or else it’s an Ana who is comboing her sleep with a serious damage dealer like Bastion or Reaper.

The thing is, the “ALWAYS ENGAGE ALL THE TIME” Ball strategy will have games where it actually works, so Ball mains will be comforted by those games and assume the fault is with their team when they die. Being good at Ball requires you to know how to assess the enemy team and engage carefully and intelligently so you maximise disruption but minimize death. Most Ball players don’t take the time to learn that balance and to learn the micro-skills of finishing targets, damage focus, playing around your enemies to avoid CC, really good tracking, etc. There’s just a ton that goes into him.

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33

Personally I know ball is a good pick on SOME maps like lighthouse Illios, shrine Nepal, and a few others. But you being on ball honestly makes everybody else’s job on the team so much harder especially on defense, I don’t think ball is ever a good pick on defense payload maps unless you have to switch to stall at the end so many games with ball as my off tank and it makes our jobs so much harder it feels like we get zero support when getting punished because ball can’t mitigate any dmg like dva, zarya can and can’t save your live with abilities like hog hook, or Orissa pull and fortify. Ball is by no means a bad character, but he is a horrible teammate in 75% of games

34

This is honestly just ignorance. I’ve played more than 1k games as ball and have a 60% win rate with him. That doesn’t match your “he’s a bad teammate 75% of the time”, nor does the fact that pro streamers have 1-tricked him from bronze to masters.

Ball’s pickrate is higher than any non-shield tank in GM. The fact that he’s only good at “certain maps” is quite frankly a myth. He can do his thing on any map if you’re good at it.

35

If you change it to “only OP on certain maps” then it would be true. There are certain maps and even points on a map where he isn’t very good but that is true of all characters. There are also maps where he is just broken.

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36

If you’re not getting any value from ball, just change. I main ball and sometimes you just cant seem to do anything. The easy out is to just play Sigma/Rein/Orissa. I find them very boring though, but will change if it helps the team and I’m playing crud

37

Another example today. Playing control map which ball is quite good on. I get my ult just as two of the team start asking me to switch. Have a look and notice that Zarya is at 29% charge which is very poor. I point this out to them but it’s like they didn’t care that Zarya was doing nothing. Somehow it was balls fault and I should be the one to switch.

Played five games today for 3 wins and 2 losses. Only one of those games did I not get abuse. In fact I got more abuse on two of the wins than I did two of the losses.

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38

to be fair, they actually play better when not in VC so they can focus on workin it. If they suck, they suck. It’s w/e, just like 50% of the DPS suck every game.