I am sick of people saying soldier doesn’t take skill. His primary takes the most skill out of any in the entire game. There is no tech more difficult than tracking the head. Other spray characters have spread and can aim for the neck, but soldier is a laser beam. Flicking to the head is easier, if you think otherwise, play in a lobby with random strafing bots and see if you can track the head at all, and then switch to McCree; its way easier. Finally, McCree’s primary fire only requires 120 APM; you have enough time in between shots to take a quick nap, whereas Soldier’s ceiling is literally 540 APM.
If you refuse to accept soldier takes a ton of skill, and think the “tutorial hero” shouldn’t be viable at all, then may I ask why it is that there are many more bastion, moira, and mercy OTPs in high level ranked play than Soldier otps. Does anyone even know ANY soldier otp’s in high level play? If you think moira takes more skill than soldier, then I suppose we just fundamentally disagree.
If soldier is supposed to be a tutorial hero, why did they rework his primary fire to become one of the hardest to use (in my opinion THE hardest since the APM ceiling is so absurdly high)? Why is there this high skill hero which is just allowed to be complete and utter trash? Why not just keep the spread on the gun and just openly say: Soldier is just a hero that is allowed to be trash, don’t play him more than 5 hours you are wasting your time.
While I believe you’re trying to bait I’ll go ahead and take you a little serious.
Out of all the DPS heroes Soldier is as basic as they come, especially with heroes like Echo in the game and all the tech/flying solo she has to do to be viable.
Comparing Soldier to Moria is like trying to say an apple is an orange. The responsibility is completely different.
The heroes you mentioned: Bastion, Moira, and Mercy - They are heroes that you can do the same thing, on most maps, and get value with but when it comes to Soldier you have to adjust and take optimal positions, whether it be behind a tank or up on high ground, to gain your value. Those spots can change very quickly and Soldier just isn’t a good brawler or bring quick burst to a team fight. That would be why there are little to no Soldier players at the top tiers of play; also his ultimate is weak compared to others.
Pointing to heads and clicking can only get you so far, especially when comparing Soldier’s shot dmg (9.5-19) to Mccree’s damage (35-70). Burst damage makes this game.
This is a nonresponse. Basic =/= low skill. Skill is supposed to be rewarded. Complexity of tech =/= skill. You then proceded to describe why soldier is indeed trash.
Tracking is the simplest of all Aim types. The next is predictive aiming and then flickshots as the supreme discipline.
You sound like someone who has never played a sniper before. Soldier is one of the simplest / basic characters for newbies, (which doesn’t mean that you can’t be skillful with him.) But it’s very easy to get value out of him.
High rate of fire, high damage, no spread, hitscan, healing station, sprinting, rockets and, last but not least, an ult that is just an aimot. There’s a reason he was chosen as the tutorial character (not that the tutorial is good).
I wish Soldier had lost even more damage with the spread rework. It’s just ridiculous how quickly and easily he can destroy little moving targets.
He’s easy in the sense that someone with poor aim will get more done with soldier than a hero like mccree or hanzo. However, soldier does such low damage per shot that he needs perfect tracking to even compete against mccree. It’s way easier flicking to 2~3 headshots than consistently staying on the head.
Lmao there is so much delusional people here. Soldier is one of the hardest heroes because he requiries almost perfect tracking in order to be useful on him. There is a lot of saves and heals in OW, so you can just hit half of your shots on another DPS, you need to land almost everything. And tracking is most of the hardest aim types, especially against strafing targets and on close/long range
I have played snipers before. Flicking is literally muscle memory. Its a skill in a sense, but like anyone can learn the muscle memory. Tracking is reacting. Tracking is much, much harder than flicking. You sound like someone who has never played the character.
if I type all the damage values in Excel and compare S76 with Hanzo, McCree, Ashe, Zen and Widow, this result comes out:
(only mainly used firemode)
Base
SPS
DPS
Crit+
Crit Dmg
Crit DPS
Hanzo
125
0,80
100
2
250
200
Widow
120
0,71
85,71
2,5
300
214,29
S76
19
9
171
2
38
342
McCree
70
2
140
2
140
280
Ashe
40
4
160
2
80
320
Zen
48
2,5
120
2
96
240
S76 has the highest damage on both body and crit hits.
Really using this damage in the game is another matter.
I have experience with tracking aim myself thanks to Orisa.
I also went into one of my custom training games with S76 to try him out against Pharah / Pharmercy. I have to say that it is easier to keep the sky clear with Soldier than with Widow. (at least as long as it is not long range, if it is a Pharmercy) Even against tracers in close combat, S76 does better than Widow (Helix not included).
Tracking is also not so susceptible to any factors that have a strong influence on flicking. (Sitting position, DPI, setup etc.) Tracking is also significantly more consistent than flicking and can be learned and used more quickly.
Agree with OP. Soldier is more difficult to play and requires more skill than ANY DPS class who has a one click kill ability or a crowd control ability by default. All of these kids running around playing Mcree and Mei are basically skilless plebs shooting at stationary targets who can’t fight back. Hanzo has one click kill ability, Widow has on click kill ability, Echo has one click kill ability. All of these characters require less skill than soldier, who also happens to have a trash ult compared to so many in the game.
He’s generally the most spammy hitscan, meaning you can just hold M1 on tanks, build visor and win fights. Other hitscan have to get picks (though this is easier for mcree) Ashe and widow take serious amounts of precision
Soldier is no Sombra or Orisa that needs sustained tracking to do effective damage.
He can fire in short bursts and still do a lot of damage. He also has that nade or rocket thing for easy burst damage and kills behind cover.
His weapon feels a lot worse after the recoil change and he is just an unfun character to play that i wouldnt mind getting reworked. I doubt any one likes him enough to real get good at him when there are so many other more interesting and fun heroes.
His ult is a literal hack ability that will never get any respect . His character is also freakin unlikeable.
Unlucky. Your analysis is completely wrong. Its ok though because this is a common error. Mcree actually does 210 dps, because he does a shot (instant cast) 0.5 sec shot, 0.5 shot, in one second. That is to say, burst dmg is frontloaded, whereas continuous dmg is not frontloaded. Mcree’s dmg is 270, soldiers is 171.