What hero variations would you like to see?

General Discussion
21

All of those characters have long range capabilities or ways to close the distance safely without risking their own lives(aside from venture who is in the same trash category as Reaper because of it). Not to mention relatively easy to land and consistent burst damage.

They refuse to give Reaper a new ability and without one, he is incompatible with this format.

Those characters aren’t threats to Reaper, but the same is true for the opposite. Zarya is only ever a threat if she has her bubbles, but with the added burst damage it’ll be much harder for her to contest him if you time it right because he’d be able to shred her down much faster.

Doom has no counter to Reaper, since Reaper isn’t squishy (enough for to doom to kill him easily).

His damage is not great. Even if you land every pellet on the head (which you’d have to be within 1m to do), he still does less damage than a Hanzo can do from any distance (216 vs 249).

One version is a more busted version of his former tanking busting self and the other sucks because it’s just how he is now.

Aside from being a supremely niche situation in which this variant would be useful, this would leave you stuck in the backline with a relatively useless Wraith that wont get you back to the safety of your team.

It’s gutting a large chunk of the complexity in his kit for engaging the select few characters with bad self-defense abilities.

This is what it’s supposed to do. It is extremely useful for map control and getting short-range picks which is what Reaper struggles with currently, since he can’t have his damage buffed without becoming a tank buster and they don’t want to give him a way to close the gap. Giving himself a deployable advantageous environment solves a lot of these issues in the least problematic way.

Not to mention that it can even used as a bait tool in which you play mind-games with the enemy by making them question whether or not you’re actually in the smoke.

22

I suspect hero variations, if they exist, would likely be more minor things. I would not expect heroes to be getting a bunch of new weapons or an entire full second kits worth of abilities or anything.

More likely it would be things like modifies, probably not entirely unlike the pickable passive QP hacked trial, but maybe tailored a bit more per hero.

23

I wanna see what that ability Lifeweaver had on his concept design was.
The attack that came from his flower backpack.

htt ps://static.wikia.nocookie.net/overwatch_gamepedia/images/a/a4/Daryl-tan-lifeweaver-motion-studies.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20230421190530

24

Yes dva is in the game.

1 Like
25

I’d expect changes on par with Mirror watch and other events, Like it’s pretty clear they have the resources to make really wild changes. Including new abilities and the like.

Be it they are also sitting on a vault of hero talents that never got used.

So as long as your next expecting the full cast to get variations all at once, a couple drip feed every other season or so ontop of normal heroes and maps would be a nice bit of extra content. Which something like that was also teased by the devs.

Yo that is so cool, I can see that being like an alternate fire like zen or something like juno’s lock on cooldown.

I’m always up for supports to have more damage options.

26

I agree they do have resources to do this, but they’ve had a philosophy for years that encountering a hero should allow a user to know what they’re going to be up against. When you see a Reaper, you know what Reaper can do, not having to guess until you see him use his abilities. So even though they can, I don’t really think they will.

I think they would be willing to use hero talents that have small modifications to behavior such as rein shatter being narrower but more effective. I do not think they’d do something like Widow having a personal shield ability.

27

Their is a second factor to this, as you will not know who what is in play till the enemy pops out the door or gets on point.

it’s common to have to sus out what the enemy is throwing at you from the start of the game, prior to your first engagement happening.

Then from their your given a build board in the tap menu with everything you need to know about the enemy team.

Like tf2 doesn’t have this issue, because you will always “generally” know what each character will do. Then have tells for what their rolling. Even if it’s not visually clear you will know after the first couple of shots or when that player uses a certain tool.

That and well players will go through this with new heroes/reworks/balance changes regardless. And will have to feel out the match up in lot of cases.

28

Not knowing enemy picks at the start of the match is a bit different from what I’m referring to, though. Even if you’re playing a suboptimal hero when you first encounter them, you still know how they can engage, and what their abilities are once you actually see them, and can play appropriately.

There’s no unpredictability there. You dont have to wait until you actually engage them to know “Oh McCree swapped out flashbang for mag grenade so I can’t just play outside his range.”

I would argue that TF2 absolutely does have this issue, though. It just has other factors that largely mitigate its importance. For example, TF2 is a 12v12 game – its far more chaotic, and much more of a casual experience, without a lot of room for trying to counterplay individuals. You can have 3 people playing the same class with different loadouts, so trying to micro-optimize against one doesnt matter as much. But TF2 does definitely have this issue.

Is the pyro running shotgun? Flare gun? Jetpack? Very different styles of engagement for each.
Is spy running normal watch or dead ringer?
Is the soldier a rocket jumper, or more of a direct hit kind of guy trying to land rockets?

This occurs once per rework. Once the hero is reworked, everyone knows what the abilities are. Their abilities dont randomly change per match.

29

Tag em and bag em junk
Trap activates if it hits a player when thrown,timer only starts when it hits the ground.maybe only one mine for balance reasons

30

I’d like to see a version of Hanzo with a oneshot, and another with faster RoF with lower damage.

31

Yes and no, keep in mind their is also a lot of wiggle room in team synergy and peeling.

Like ya you might see that sym, but you might not see that zen behind her or know if she will get bubbled by zarya.

you will not have a 100% clear picture of how that engagement will play out.

Be it you will know within that sym will be able to do handfull of things, and as long as those things are not completely crazy like “she suddenly pulls a sniper rifle” then I think we will be fine.

We do need tells for who is doing what when. Of not obvious from the start like widow having her widdle wirror watch barrier.

And the Tab menu will need be marked with the hero variation, Like this striker cassidy, or sentinal sym.

but not having that data clear cut and present isn’t really an major issue.

Not in comp modes, and not every server plays at that scale.

That is kind of default the casual settings but 6v6 , 4v4, and more do exists as common comp formats.

Yep and people adapt on the fly, or set up defenses that can counter act such play right off the back while people settle into the lobby.

At the rate of patches that change the whole game or role, this has been happening like every season or so for a while now.

And it takes a long while for a lot of people to adjust to a rework or even really learn what it does.

Some people still don’t know that Sombra can’t just TP across the whole map anymore.

Or that ye old orisa could stack barrier cooldowns.

Like ya people will be put off at first, but like having the extra bit tactics when dealing with a hero. or game sense to look for the tells will just smooth out the experience over time.

That and the score board giving that info post first fight or so, so every one can pick around that.