Wrecking Ball is probably the tank that requires the most skill. You need all of the skills of Winston and Reinhardt put together as well as impeccable map knowledge (map knowledge SPECIFIC TO THAT CHARACTER, no less) AS WELL AS amazing aim against targets that are being knocked in all sorts of directions.
Despite needing all these things, he has a multitude of counters. Even the standard team comp of Zen/Ana/Genji or Tracer/Widowmaker or Hanzo/Reinhardt/Zarya counters him very well. Ana sleeps him because heās incredibly predictable, Zen discords him and Reinhardt charges him. Hanzo empties arrows into him and thatās a VERY dead hamster, even with shields. Heck, just sleeping him counters him well enough, because youāve taken the extremely easy-to-hit target out of the fight for six seconds.
Not to mention his HARD counters. Brig does well against him because of the bash and her team being able to follow up. McCree can stop his momentum and take him down in a single flashbang. Mei is Mei against a mobility hero, except Wrecking Ball has no instant movement abilities to counter her. Bastion just completely shreds him with ease, forcing you to swap or lose. Sombra is the same. Lucio is too slippery to catch and your guns/chip damage just feeds into his ult. Roadhog, Torbjorn, D.VA, Zarya, Junkrat, Reaperā¦ I could go on, but thatād take forever.
Itās usually better to just play Reinhardt and win the game instead of playing Wrecking Ball and gambling.
In a game with people that preach that hard heroes donāt deserve easy hard-counters, Wrecking Ball sure gets ignored. Either he needs to be buffed to the point where he can outplay his hard counters somehow, or his difficulty of play needs to be lowered somehow, because I donāt see any alternatives.
Just because something requires a lot of skill does not necessarily mean it should have little to no counters. Part of the skill is learning to outplay the counters.
CC wise, some things could probably get toned down, but that generally applies to a lot of heroes and not just wrecking ball. Reaper is a mess and will probably eventually get addressed to actually fix his problems and get rid of that extra life steal that didnāt solve anything.
Wrecking Ball just sucks overall. Disruption simply is trash compared to actual hard damage mitigation. He is feed ball first and foremost. And he has by far the worst primary fire in the game.
As much as I agree with thatā¦ its pointless to try and explain things like that on the forumsā¦ Here itās āIf you have to hit a ton of buttons quickly, nothing is allowed to kill you everā
Many of Wrecking Ballās counters CANāT be outplayed if you want to play him as intended. Bastion. McCree. Sombra. Roadhog. Mei. Reaper. Itās impossible to kill these heroes if they have any semblance of skill or intelligence.
Hell, with Reaper, youāre actively contributing to your teamās demise, because heās getting HP off you.
My personal favorite counter is Mei, put an ice wall up and he wonāt be spinning in circles now.
Hammond in my mind is very situational but honestly can do a lot of damage and hold the point for a while if you play your cards right. I say that he isnāt trash, but he doesnāt feel much like a tank with his kit.
He is a very ability reliant hero so Mei and Sombra counter him hard. The rest are soft counters.
Of course if they see you coming from a mile away, they are going to focus you but ā¦ if you just draw their attention and move that attention to the sides, to the back, just bounce around and keep 2-3 enemies chasing you trying to kill you ā¦ thats HUGE.
Making an enemy look to the wrong place at the right time can literally turn away the tide of a battle. WB and Winston do this very very very very well.
I played a lot of hammond in qp and i get what you mean but i know how to get around some of this counters zen and ana ambushed by the right time even with a possible sleep dart get deleted if you know the combos of hammond but as you said if you have some skill with hammond its āeasierā to get around things
Apart from the lackluster ult, I consider Hammondās kit fair. Also, I can win Deathmatches with Hammond, and have super fun while doing it. That canāt be bad.
Sombra is the only character that will make me swap from Hammond. Mei is annoying too, but her range is limited, and Hammond can actually roll out of the freezing cloud. Hackās range (and latency compension for Sombra) is somehow much more unforgiving to Hammond.
The other ācountersā apply to all tanks. While Hammond has some flanking potential, it only works if you attack from outside of enemy line of sight. If you try to piledrive on a prepared team without support you will be dead - just like a solo charging Rein, or a crazy leaping Winston.
Part of the skill is in recognizing hard counters are on the fieldā¦ and dealing with it instead of forum posts about how easy the counters are. I get the Mei situation because I do a lot of Meiā¦ I love WBā¦ he makes my job and value easier if he just runs onto a point then mindlessly spins aroundā¦ of course I am going to interrupt you with a wall then freeze youā¦ natural selection takes its tollā¦
Maybe use your abilities more wisely, such as either getting rid of Mei first for a window of time, or use your abilities in ways that make it that much harder. One has to expect getting shut down if you just run up, tether to the point then roll in lazy circlesā¦ there are better ways to use WB.
Hammond is excellent. The problem is that we donāt have enough defensive skills in the roster to assist him.
Without a Zarya off-tanking for him, WB can easily be stopped by one of his few hard counters or even ruined by his soft counters.
The goal shouldnāt be to overly buff him when he is designed so well but rather introduce new heroes that can support from afar (Pharah needs it too - again, Zarya is the only tank for her).
The next goal is to introduce a hero that can penetrate barriers easily and do moderate DPS so that Rein will have an actual counter. WB does a good job of making Reinās life harder but he has counters people can swap to. Rein has no threat that can shake away the value he brings.