Let’s talk about Pharah for a sec.
First, I applaud some of the Chinese OWL teams for pulling out Pharah. I really like watching the unorthodox strategies by some of the newer teams to the league. However, when pharah is ran, I can’t help but see a major flaw…
Jeff recently said the following:
Doesn’t that also mean WE have evolved as players to CRUSH an ulting Pharah? I’ve seen this in my games and OWL games. Pharah doesn’t last two seconds. Granted some Pharah ults are sneakier than others, but the HIGH risk may not be worth the reward (or come even close in comparing it to other dps ultimates).
Look, I’m coming at this from an unbias perspective. I’m a Reinhardt main. Pharah is one of my counters, but even as Reinhardt I can lob a Firestrike that will toss out half her life allowing my team to just instantly finish the job.
I think Pharah’s ult needs something. I don’t know what, but I feel her ultimate hasn’t “evolved” with the game.
That could work, even if she just used it quickly to assassinate a key target and then jetpack into the air. Sure she can stay and keep firing, but at her own risk. I’m always in favor of changes that give more control to the players (now if only they would do this for Orisa).
Her ultimate is definitely outdated. Even the lifesteal changes helped make Reaper’s usable. Pharah needs some help, I say that as a Reaper/hitscan. So… I get countered by her or counter her. Not sure if I am biased or not. But honestly, who thinks that “ult” is okay? If anything, I hate her ult because they would rather come at me from behind and solo ult me because Widow cannot fly into her and force the sudoku.
Nobody is complaining about her ultimate, though. Even a bronze can counter her as she literally just stands still. This would be the sort of buff that would not even affect lower ranks, I believe.
She does? Even in my Plat games she is an easy kill. What rank do you have to be to consider Pharah (or her ultimate) so much a threat that you feel it needs nerfing?
Her ult is extra bad. It’s either shouldn’t damage her so she could jump on people like Reaper or simply make spread lower so she can use it from higher range.
Also from different topic about whole pharah flying thing
The problem with Phara is that she is hard to balance in a way that satisfies both ends of the game.
Blizzard know this, and that is why they’re hesitant to change her. It’s not as simple as throwing “surviability” at her because that will achieve little. Pros will still gun her down, and lower ranks will suffer because of it. She’s still a menace on console, or so I’ve heard.
She’s like reaper in the fact that the skill of the player means little in the face of good players, and little skill is required to get results against bad players.
Phara’s inherent design is also kinda bad. She counters several characters by existing, again I think Blizzard know this, as the changes to her tried to make her more aim focused, and not about floating around and getting spam kills because the enemy team can’t (or won’t, gold is a joke) hit you.
With that in mind, whatever is done to her ult needs to be done in a way that it doesn’t help bad players, but will aid good players in a fair manner. Cancelling it is a given, but I don’t think that will be enough.
Maybe let her retain some momentum (NOT from jump jets however) so that good phara players can slide across the enemy team, but bad players will struggle to make use?
The funny part is that Pharah ult is the most consistent part of her kit right now as her primary fire is now a complete joke and only serves as ult battery for the enemy healers.
Pharah ult was always supposed to be used either in a team combo or in times when Pharah would be able to deal high damage fast enough that attempting to bring her down would be unproductive compared to take instant cover and I believe that this characteristic has been held for the entirety of the game. It wouldn’t ofc be a meme if these situations were easy to achieve, the only bad thing that I would change is that it still self damages her.
I think Pharah needs work on her entire kit and HP bar but her ult should be left alone.
Edit: I like the concussive blast cancel suggestion though
Pharah needs extensive work. I’d really like to see her reworked to have substantially more mobility, but with less upfront damage to make her into more of an aerial flanker than a Junkrat-style bomber. Keep her weakness of having poor access to healing, but allow her mobility to cover that weakness when used well by mitigating damage.
As for her ult, I think it could be reworked to more-or-less serve the same purpose without the JUSTICE RAI–ergh! problem. Make it into a bombing run (i.e. she quickly flies in a straight line and bombs an area), or a bombardment-style ult similar to the Lightning Strike in CoD where you select a few target areas, and then she ults on them.
Not really. Mashe is the more common and more powerful combo now. PharMercy only really shows up on a couple of maps that used to be maps that Pharah could play without PharMercy, and even there she’s… adequate. Not even that powerful or unbeatable, because like I said, a counter Mashe or a McCree or, in low ELOs, a Torbjorn will ground that combo.
Pharah needs to be able to move during her ult. It’s not a good ult when I hear it, I don’t think about avoiding it so much as I look for the Pharah because she’s such an easy kill.