I am wondering what the answer is based on opinions on which hero aming all had the weakest historical state in the game.
I myself am unsure but my top 3 are Release LW, season 9 symmetra and post moth meta mercy
1 Like
Release Zen died to a full strength Widow BODYshot or a single damage boosted Pharah/Junk hit.
10 Likes
Id still say he was pretty good back then because of 50% discord. He wasn’t a glass canon but a wet tissue nuke, but there have been worse zenyatta states imo
2 Likes
Think most of the weakest hero states were at OW1 launch.
I’d say D.va in her initial state was probably the worst, she was pretty awful. DM on a cooldown instead of a resource meter, micro missiles didn’t exist, couldn’t shoot while boosting, bomb took like 4 seconds to go off, she could die to her own bomb, etc.
9 Likes
This is more so the worst state compared to the rest of the cast in the meta
Current powercrept tanks eat old ones but even the weakest tank now is stronger than release tank then.
Still at release dva was very viable
The funny thing was that Season 2 Dva was absolutely monstrous and could just fly at anyone and delete them every time boost was up. And we now have that back 
Sombra whenever she had the lowest winrate.
4 Likes
In that case, yeah, probably release LW. Even after tons of buffs he’s still just ok. Sym has been pretty awful quite a few times too though, compared to everyone else.
2 Likes
Release LW was terrible and in so many ways it was unwinnable
But season 8 symm was fine tuned so her numbers made her barely function, and when season 9 came they suddenly fell so far behind everyone else she actually became unplayable. The pickrate halving and the winrate dropping by 14% (56 to 42 and briefly hitting sub 40)
I have played both heroes and in the history of OW even, the giganerfed sombra path felt more playable
2 Likes
I wish they would make dva like this again so i can stop seeing her in every damn game.
Probably Present Day Symmetra. I really have no idea what they’re going for here.
She has a Lifesteal passive that’s no stronger than base Shield Regen, it’s a flat amount, and only restores her Shields when damaging Shields, so it’s sustain is funnel necked so hard to the point it’s redundant. For comparison, Reaper and Dez’s Lifesteal are Percentage Based, so it can scale with Damage Boosting effects. Nano Boost, Orbital Ray, Discord and Mercy Damage Boost all boost their Lifesteal. Same goes for Mauga.
She has a short range beam weapon that’s weaker than most Support weapons, if you can’t charge it up. Which, unless the enemy tank is blind or has just left a Barrier somewhere, is almost impossible to do safely. And even when she is charged, she’s got the second shortest range in the game, winning over only Mei, who has a flat 100 dps and a 20% Slow to make her damage more consistent. And unlike Symmetra, Mei actually has the Health and self peel to work as a close range Damage hero with no mobility.
Her Orbs are pathetic, being a slow charging, slow firing projectile that does 100 total damage that can’t headshot, meanwhile every other projectile in the game can. The initial reason they couldn’t headshot was because they used to pierce enemies and do 120 damage, whilst moving at half the rate, and they were still more effective than these things. They’re also her only reliable source of damage which, because of course they are, are also hindered by having a charge time and being a projectile. So whoopie. Please bare in mind that Pharah rockets fire faster, deal more damage, and can be fired from an omni-directional plane, whilst Symmetra can fire from in front of you, or behind you, whilst doing less damage and traveling slower. Oh, and she doesn’t get any Lifesteal off them either, that’s exclusive to her beam.
Her turrets are just useless, in most cases. They die too easily, their range is miniscule, making their Slow the only useful thing about them. Their cooldown is far too long, for what little value they get, and she can only have 3 out at a time, greatly limiting the utility they could provide.
And her Ult is just weird. It’s not a bad Ult, in fact it’s actually an amazing Ultimate. It just makes no sense for a Damage hero to have it. Every other Damage ultimate either provides some form of high, upfront burst damage, or have incredibly powerful offensive utility like Widow’s Infrasight and Sombra’s EMP. Photon Barrier is purely defensive in nature. Which makes 0 sense for a hero who already struggles with low damage output.
And her Teleporter is a mobility tool that can be taken away from you. That says more than enough. Imagine if you could stop a Tracer from Blinking with every hero in the game. Cause currently, only Sombra can do that reliably. Anyone can destroy your Teleporter, and you’re buggered if they do. Terrible design for a mobility tool. It’s also got all the problems Reaper’s Shadow Step has, but worse in every way, due to the nature of the ability just sitting there with no way to defend itself.
Like, what actually is this hero going for? She’s a bad Utility DPS, she’s a bad Tank Buster, soon to be an even worse one when they make those changes to Beam Weapons against Matrix abilities, she’s a bad Flanker as using her to flank puts her on a 30 second cooldown of just sitting there to do it again, rendering her useless to her team for far too long afterwards. She’s a mess; there’s a reason noone plays her.
1 Like
Well she isnt the worst she ahs ever been. That was before her buffs in season 9. Shes moderately playable niche now.
In season 9 she was the worst character in the game by far
Release sym. As a support all she did was put 25 shield into people. She wasn’t not good at all. I think even tp had a 6 player limit too. She was basically 6 turrets and that’s all she had going for her.
Post goats nerf Dva was horrendous
You could argue launch Dva but at least people back then didn’t punish you for anything.
Post goats nerfs Dva was so bad they ended up reverting all the nerfs except for dm length
Classic Goodman balancing. Nerfing for goats meta after removing the possibility of it being played
6 Likes
She was garbage. Matrix as a cd was so bad, and she had longer cd boosters, and just her normal guns for dmg. Not much of a threat, and super squishy.
2 Likes
Looking back on it now, OW1 launch had a strange mix of OP and UP heroes.
Some heroes, like Dva as you mentioned, were way worse.
Others, like Bastion were so OP he was borderline broken.
Then there was Ana (though not a launch hero) with broken Nano that gave movement speed increase.
And lets not forget mass Rez, everyone’s fav ult. Undo a team wipe with one button press!
season 9 Sym probably
Release LW was at least capable to do his base job of being a healer.
there was zero reason to ever pick Sym in S9 unless you wanted to meme around TP with a premade.
Gotta love historical revisionism because back then no one thought mass rez was anywhere near overpowered and was in fact considered the weakest support ultimate back then when it came to teamfights.
In fact it was widely considered that Mass Rez was at its strongest not to ‘‘undo a teamfight’’ but as a Tempo Rez to stop your team from entering into a losing teamfight condition (1-2 picks).
1 Like
Hog after his big damage nerfs in ow1
2 Likes
Yeah, Mass Rez was considered so bad, it was usually a liability for your team.
1 Like