These PTR patchnotes are a middle-finger to tanks and Brigitte

General Discussion
1

These patchnotes absolutely cannot go live. They’re not what this game needs, nor does it properly balance the heroes. All this does is make Reaper an OP behemoth, makes tank players considerably less likely to want to tank now, and Brigitte near irrelevant.

Found here: Overwatch PTR Patch Notes – January 7, 2019

WHY THIS IS BAD

Reaper

  • This hurts literally every hero in the roster. His life steal increase to 50% does not fix the problems people have with him, only gives him the Bastion treatment
    His problems are not the life steal. This increase to 50% gives body shots the potential to heal him 40 health per shot. 40 health per shot. That does not even include what a headshot is capable of. He will annihilate anyone who opposes him that he gets near
  • Shadowstep is still terrible and still needs a buff or change
  • If you want Reaper to be stronger against tanks and GOATS, why not just give him armor piercing rounds? This buffs him, but also does not hurt the tanks’ protection against fast rounds like Tracer and Soldier. With the latest short story about Jack and Ana, we learn Reaper already has cell degenerating rounds, so why not implement that into the game to where it pierces armor?

Armor and Brigitte

  • This is a direct nerf to Brigitte’s effectiveness, as well as the primary reason (Rally) she is selected. If armor’s effectiveness diminishes against heroes like Tracer, Genji, McRightClick, and Soldier, why even pick Brigitte to begin with? People keep saying how she passively counters heroes like Tracer with armor, but if that is nerfed, what’s even the point now? I’d rather have a Sound Barrier or even Valkyrie and Rez on my team than weak armor
  • This hurts the tanking role so much to the point I can already see tanks being selected even less. Consider me one of those players if these go live. Tanks are the most reliant on coordination with their team and their teammates in order to be effective. So if you partner that with weaker stability and weaker durability, consider the tanking role’s playerbase even smaller
  • Tanks like Zarya and Roadhog are not affected by this really, in fact, Roadhog, as well as Orisa, are now more effective against armor and other tanks. But half of Orisa’s health is armor, and she only has 400hp, so I would honestly say she is even less viable now, because her indirect damage increase against heroes with armor won’t matter against heroes like McCree and Reaper that will now be crapping all over her dead body
  • Didn’t we nerf Tracer’s Pulse Bomb to make her less of a “tank buster” and more of a flanker who dismantles the Supports? I feel like all this does if give further confidence to go back to bullying tanks, which is exactly why Pulse Bomb was nerfed to begin with. This just potentially brings us back to old problems

D.Va

  • The players that flex to tanks are now going to be less compelled to flex with D.Va getting nerfed with the armor changes, as well as Defense Matrix being weakened. I know D.Va is popular and her pickrates high, but she is honestly quite balanced, and still requires skill and excellent timing to get full-potential from her strongest trait: Defense Matrix
  • She is picked for Defense Matrix
  • I really don’t have a lot to provide other than D.Va is fine. Was fine

WHAT TO EXPECT IF THESE GO LIVE:

  • The tanking playerbase will diminish and be less compelled to want to tank. It now gives them even more justification for learning other roles better, such as DPS
  • GOATS will definitely weaken, which I agree needed to be, but this is not the correct way to go about it because all it does it kill GOATS, making it near unviable, and further promotes going back to Dive, especially with Tracer benefiting greatly with these potential changes
  • Brigitte was honestly feeling quite fair and balanced with the Shield Bash changes. But these nerfs to her just feel like a “screw you”, and makes her a near invaluable pick, because any good flanker now has a stronger upperhand at winning against her. So expect to see all Supports suffering from this as well
  • Reaper will be an oppressive and godly foe, especially in lower ranks where lack of team coordination and sloppier aim means Reaper will stomp on all of the competition. And every competition, not just tanks. This will make everyone hate Reaper, and does not even remotely address the weaknesses he has that are the core problem with him. Again: LIFE STEAL IS NOT HIS PROBLEM RIGHT NOW

TL;DR: These PTR patch notes cannot go live, they do more harm than good. Reaper will be too strong, not in a skill-based way, but in a cheesey way that just makes people remember OP Ironclad Bastion. Brigitte’s effectiveness will be so weakened that many players will find her irrelevant compared to other options, and most likely will permit flank heroes to run rampant again. Tanks are hurt hard in many ways, and expect to see the tanking playerbase to diminish.

Please…we have to reevaluate other options that promote necessary buffs/nerfs to individual heroes that does not hurt a chunk of the playerbase, but still offers fair, balanced counters in a meaningful way. RIP tanks

69 Likes
2

And she still has DM.

I thought vertical mobility with low CD, high dmg at close range, a decent burst, a good zoning ult and a high hp were good reasons too to pick Dva. Call me crazy but im still playing her.

21 Likes
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People should know by now that the PTR is not actually for testing and reevaluating changes. These changes are going live, whether you like it or not.

49 Likes
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She is picked in pro-play mostly for Defense Matrix’s ability to weaken oncoming damage so that barriers last longer. So she helps in Dive, for yes the reasons you mentioned above, but to also help lessen the impact against Winston’s barrier. And she is used in GOATS for the same reason as protecting the barriers so that they do not get melted in 4 seconds.

1 Like
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thiears no if it goes live. it is if on ptr

1 Like
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I’ve seen several tweaks and fixes on PTR before things do go live. Anyone with the ability to do first grade math can easily tell Reaper’s lifesteal potential will make him near unkillable for any team who does not 100% focus all resources into killing him. Which may come as surprise, but lower ranks don’t do a very good job coordinating together in a fashion that would result in a high-priority target getting killed fast enough before they do too much damage.

Reaper is going to bust through any team in Platinum or below. 40 health per body shot. Per body shot. Which is essentially 40hps which is almost as much as a pocket Mercy. Now picture him with THAT life steal + a pocket healer. Yeah, RIP.

3 Likes
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I’m a tank player, and this is probably one of the few patches that I haven’t had a bad feeling about.

  1. Brig changes are good. Her ultimate was absurd, and now it’s reasonable.

  2. I do think the Reaper changes are the wrong changes, but they really don’t do much against tanks. Most of the time you don’t want to be taking a Reaper on alone anyway.

  3. Armor nerf isn’t that big of a deal, to be honest. It’s a nice little buff to Winston, and it just means tanks can’t soak up quite as much damage as they used to, but their high health pools still allow them to take a beating. This does affect Orisa more than the others, and I believe they’ll do something about it, but it’s not that dire of a situation. She’ll still be meta on the maps where she is now until that buff goes through.

  4. I’m not sure how I feel about the D.Va nerf. She needs some changes, but this feels like they missed the mark.

7 Likes
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Reaper is 100% going to crap on every single tank, even with the team helping the tank player out. Reaper with a pocket healer will win that fight every time, with maybe the exception of a really good Roadhog player.

1 Like
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No it doesn’t.

He’s still just as countered by the DPS who counter him, best ones being Mccree ,Widow and Hanzo.

Lifesteal isn’t worth anything if you get one-shot way out of your range (Or in hanzo’s case ,even in your best range) /get stunned then insta-killed

1 Like
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The only DPS that stands a chance against a Reaper with these buffs is McCree with flashbang + Fan the Hammer and potentially a Hanzo with a lucky up-close headshot. A good Reaper knows how to flank a team, and knows to avoid long-ranged fights.

1 Like
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Mcree says hi

20chars

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Already said it:

Go play Reaper in PTR for a bit, and report back here with your findings.

1 Like
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Not really.

Ashe ,Widow and Junkrat are also all good options.

‘‘A good reaper’’ has to get into LoS at some point regardless of how good he is if he wants to attack the tanks ,maybe not in widow’s but everyone else is valid.

1 Like
15

Talking out of your butt here. Wait and see

3 Likes
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Again. Go play Reaper in PTR for several hours and report back your findings. Additionally, we cannot deny that the life steal buff isn’t even the buff he needs.

2 Likes
17

:fu:

[Laughs in Flanker]

18

laughs at you having no one on your team wanting to play tank

4 Likes
19

PTR games are worth nothing ,it’s nothing like actual matches.

I’ve played with ,as and against reaper in the actual game many times, lifesteal doesn’t change the fact that all the listed heroes counter him ,as they’re either too out of his range ,can get out of his range when he gets close or both , and half of those heroes have small hitboxes as well ,they also all have high burst damage and all except junkrat don’t really have a hard time hitting headshots on him due to his hitbox.

I would’ve liked they buffed him somewhere else too (Shadowstep mainly) ,but this will not make him OP at all.

And if you buff something specific hard enough ,it’ll eventually make a hero viable (Not that that’s always the best choice ,but still.)

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I didn’t even know this emoji existed. lol, why does it exist?

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you’re just as surprised as me lmao

i just figured it was probably in the preset. i couldn’t resist :joy::joy::joy:

1 Like