The homogenization of play styles

General Discussion
1

Whenever it comes to buffs and nerfs, a chunk of people on the forums always seem to be demanding things that will ultimately just make the characters more identical to each other. The devs have said that when it comes to balance they would rather buff strengths than buff and eliminate weaknesses for this exact reason - if you focus on getting rid of weaknesses instead of making strengths better, you end up with everyone being the same.

For example, with Ana, so often I see people complaining that she NEEDS more mobility and she NEEDS more self heal. But that seems illogical. If you want mobility and self heal, you should be using Lucio or Mercy. The point is that they are making it so that if you want massive burst healing you go Ana. If you start giving Ana mobility and self heal she’ll just end up like Mercy with a sniper gun.

The same goes for Mercy. People act like her ressurection power needs to go completely, because none of the other characters can do that. But that’s… the point? Of course they are going to weaken her generic healing as opposed to getting rid of the thing that makes her special. You know what else Mercy doesn’t do? DPS. People act as if other supports being able to DPS where Mercy can’t is irrelevant, because the fact that she has a skill they don’t is bad. Yet, ALL of the supports can do more DPS for her.

Zen has his debuff and high DPS. Ana has her sleep gun and burst heals. Lucio has his mobility and area affects. Brigitte has her tankiness. Moira has a great balance of DPS and healing. And yes, Mercy has her rez.

This is a good thing. I think it’d be neat to have another dedicated healer, but that’s the exchange. Mercy gets these things because she doesn’t do stuff that isn’t healing. Brigitte gets to be tanky because her heals aren’t very reliable. Zen gets high DPS potential because he’s otherwise vulnerable.

It feels like if the devs were to listen to you guys, all of the characters would basically end up the same but with a different gun.

5 Likes
2

Exactly! I wish people would understand this. Not all heroes are meant to require the same skill sets as well.

3 Likes
3

There’s actually a bit of symmetry with the healer main changes.

Healer balance = Pick Two:

  1. High Utility
  2. High Heals
  3. High Survival

Mercy is 1 and 3
Ana is 1 and 2
Moira is 2 and 3

1 Like
4

Yeah exactly! And that’s a good way to do it, because it means no character has EVERYTHING, but all of them have something that sets them apart.

5

This is correct on paper, but when you actually get into a game, here’s the actual symmetry:

Mercy is 1, 2, and 3.
Ana is just 1.
Moira is 2 and 3.

6

I tentatively agree that Mercy has all three, but she also doesn’t have any DPS, which the others both do. Which is the whole point.

I’d argue that Ana DOES in fact have high heals if you are good at shooting.

7

Well, I have no doubt Ana won’t be a popular pick for the bottom half of skill ranks.

But these changes should make her pretty solid for the top half of skill ranks.

1 Like
8

Good point. The heroes have unique move sets for a reason… is why I was drawn to this game to begin with. If I wanted a generic FPS where everyone can do the same thing I’d go play CoD.

Goes right along with the people that demand “equal representation” of heroes when it comes to their play times. It’s like… no… this is a competition within a league, and the owners paid good money for the team. They’re going to run the strats that are most effective.

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Let me just quote the actual Dev post about this:

Just because it isn’t what they usually do, it doesn’t mean they won’t buff a weakness. If a weakness is too severe, they will look at it.

10

Okay, cool. I wasn’t talking in absolute terms, but good to know.

11

Hopefully. It’s how it should be.

12

Mercy will still be top tier for lower tier play where people abandon their healers, and solo healing is expected.

Although the Moira changes will help her be a close second.

But Ana just melts under those circumstances.

1 Like