For those that dont know Poke refers to team comps that use their long range to win the fights from afar. They often win by abusing strong areas of the map (like high ground) and are hard to approach.
Poke comps tend to be the MOST complained about comps…
Bunker
Double shield
Double offtank
Double sniper
While there are specific things about each of these comps that makes them pretty awful, the argument can be made that if MOST poke comps are unfun, then the problem is poke itself.
Is it a problem with poke comps specifically? Or could there theoretically be a poke comp that is fun to play?
MY OPINION:
There are some hybrid poke comps that are pretty fun. In particular, my favorite meta was the poke-dive split comp. Ball/tracer was the dive core, with sigma/zen/ashe+1 as the poke.
Another meta that I thought was pretty fun was a couple weeks during double shield. For some reason, players thought it was a better idea to have the orisa and sigma take their own off-angles, rather than stacking barriers. It was the only time that double barrier was actually fun, but after a couple weeks players went right back to barrier stacking.
Hands down the WORST poke meta was original double shield. Its technically poke but it played a LOT like brawl. Six players stacked on top of each other as a deathball with range. I know a lot of people agree, that was one of the worst metas of all time.
the number 1 PROBLEM with long range comps in OW is brawl influences. Poke comps are FUN when they are FRAGILE. The nature of most support abilities (and some tank abilities) is that they keep teammates ALIVE. These two concepts are at odds with each other. Its not fun to play the “get in close range” minigame with a poke comp, but then still lose because they simply have better sustain. The WORST poke comps are the ones where the enemy feels free to stand out in the open tossing out damage.
the number 2 PROBLEM with long range comps is too much damage. Because poke heroes cover so much range, they create massive zones where damage is unavoidable. When you have multiple poke heroes, the area where you can die to focus fire becomes absolutely massive. Its not really fun to have LARGE areas of the map go off-limits. Its beatable, but not fun.
Really, problem 1 and 2 are the same at their core: deathballing + poke SHOULD NOT MIX. It creates comps that are
- too sustainable
- too bursty
- both
Solutions:
- Removing a tank helps a lot. Most life saving support abilities (healing, lamp, healing amp) tend to work best on tanks. Choosing a life saving support just for one tank is a much bigger commitment than it was in OW1.
- Removing some team protection abilities from tanks also helps. The tank-healer dynamic enabled a lot of “unkillable” synergies that were unable to be bursted (tanks) or burned out (healing).
- Poke heroes should NOT be balanced around stacking their damage to survive. They need to be able to fight and survive AWAY from their team, without resorting to MASSIVE burst mid-long damage as a threat.