For me ,it’s when a character would become too oppressive when buffed with their current kit.
I mean realistically ,any F-tier hero we have now can be balanced to at least C-tier for high ranks ,but most of them (See : sym 2.0) would just be too oppressive in the lower ranks and would dominate there.
symettra does need a rework. Her kit is so strong.
I suck at using her shield and charged shot(only played 10 games so far) but the turrents /sheild generator on their own are super strong.
She is a very powerful support hero when she is not played as a DPS
Mei’s an akward character for me. I love her, but her kit can be very hit or miss, mostly because I feel a lot of her power comes from her wall and being able to cut off and disorient teams with it while the rest feels kinda eh sometimes.
That’s interesting concept. I guess you could say she used the rest of her darts to heal herself when she reloads then? Lol
I don’t see her being crazy oppressive in lower ranks only because she requires more trackin now which lower ranks haven’t developed yet.
In a lot of cases, a rework isn’t needed. Mercy is a great example; there are several suggestions in the megathread (that have gone unread) to nerf mass rez without removing it or to nerf tempo rez without making Mercy even more boring. Sombra is also a good example. Some players are calling for her to have a rework, but we don’t even know how strong or weak she is because her kit is so gnikcf inconsistent!
How would you go about nerfing mass res honestly? The main reason they nerfed it was so it would stop hide and seek play 
The Sombra one is very true.
Off the top of my head, add a LOS check on it so she can’t Rez anyone through walls. Take off the invincibility and replace it with some damage resistance. Maybe take away GA’s ability to target your team’s corpses.
But frankly, a lot of the issues that Mass Rez had was that it punished ult spam, which is the easiest ult combo to pull off as a team, and was countered by ult economy, which requires a modicum of restraint most people don’t have. It’s why Mercy had a lower pickrate the further up you went; it was easier and easier to counter because people knew not to blow 6 ults to kill 5 people.
On top of that, Hide and Rez was used to abuse the SR system, which was patched out a week before the rework went through. Good Mercy players didn’t do it, simply because it didn’t work as well the higher you went. On top of that, there’s a sense of counterplay; knowing the enemy has their ults and sending your team to bait those ults out, knowing they aren’t going to get any ult charge out of it and then reviving your team because they have nothing to counter it is a great strategy.
Honestly, they made it more necessary to hide and Rez now than when Mercy had it as an ult. You simply can’t Rez someone without hiding out of sight.
Well, mass rez is effectively the inverse of a dps ult. So, give it the same limitations.
Valkyrie
Moved to E ability
Chain beams removed
Uninterrupted regeneration removedDuration: 4 seconds
Cooldown: 12 seconds (begins after Valk finishes, for a minimum downtime of 16 seconds between Valk uses)Free flight and stronger beams.
25% stronger healing (75 hps)
Damage boost also provides a 15% movement speed bonus to the target
Ressurect
Now an ultimate ability (again)
Reworked from previous versions for balance.Revives all dead allies in a 15 meter radius
Line of Sight restricted
Cast time added: .8 seconds
Mercy’s personal invulnerability removedNew feature: in addition to raising dead teammates, all living allies in range (including Mercy) recieve a 200hp burst heal upon a successful cast
Quality of Life changes
New hero option: “Guardian Angel prefers beam target: “contextual”.”
Mercy will fly to who she targets. If no one is being targeted, she will fly to her beam target by default.Angelic Decent: rate of decent has been adjusted from a featherfall to a glide. Mercy will now be able to move between nearby platforms on her own, giving her greater freedom in positioning.
Note: Mercy may need a nerf to her regen delay (e.g. 2 seconds instead of 1) in order to balance out all this extra mobility.
The thing about the LoS checks I have a problem with is that Mercy would just tell the team to die on point or all together so a LoS check wouldn’t fix anything because teammates were all bunched up together when they died. Removing GA for corpses would send Mercy straight to F tier because your nerfing her mobility substantially.
I’m still a firm believer that Mercy didn’t even need the rework because yes mass rez was annoying, annyoing =/= broken. Don’t shoot 5 ults into a Zarya grav lmao.
The funny thing about the SR abuse was I don’t think anyone even KNEW it existed until youtubers started bringing it up in videos lmao! Like other Mercy players, including myself didn’t know the exploit existed until you saw OW channels start saying it was a problem only for it to actually become a problem.
That’s actually the same thing I said when this nerf came. Like you reworked mass res because it discouraged healing for her ult but you nerf her to were you NEED to stop healing (more frequently I might add) just to res. Lol
The problem I have with LoS checks is that teams were bunched up and told to die on point, so unless your team is literally scattered across every corner of the map LoS doesn’t really come into effect anymore.
In my personal experience as a Mercy main during 1.0, I used “die on point” as shorthand for:
“Quit tiptoeing around the point, you can’t take it unless you get on it. Look, it’s okay! You’ll be safe, because I’m backing you up and I even have my ult if things get out of hand. JUST GET ON THE POINT ALREADY.”
It would make it harder for Mercy to hide right next to point and Rez with no risks if she required direct LOS. Also, with everyone grouped up on point it’s much easier for say Pharah to drop in from aboe and use Barrage before anyone can react out of invincibility, or for Reaper to stand in the middle of all that and use Death Blossom (it’s going to break any shield someone puts up, as it does more damage to a shield depending on how many people stand behind it).
Removing GA for corpses simply means that she physically can’t zip into the center of the graveyard. Yes, it’s a nerf, but it also helps require her presence to remain close to the fight, so it’s easier to stop her from rezzing.
I think reworks should only be considered when simple continuous buffs/nerfs can’t achieve a balanced state. There’s something seriously wrong with their kit that prevents them from being anything other than too good or not good enough. I feel like it relates a lot to the skill curve of the hero in question.
For instance, I don’t see any way that a character like Bastion or Symmetra(on live) can be simply buffed up to be able to consistently win duels with other characters at the highest levels without becoming an oppressive must pick for everyone else.
We’ve seen this with Bastion. In Season 4 he was a must pick with 35% Ironclad. Then he got nerfed down to 25% (I think, might be 20) and now he’s a throw pick? That’s all it takes. He has a relatively low skill curve, so he’s either in a state where he works or he’s in a state where he doesn’t, and his viability may vary a bit depending on the current meta. Very hard to find a middle ground. I believe our newest hero, Briggy, is in the same boat honestly.
Funny enough, lots of people, including Blizzard themselves apparently, want Torb reworked. I actually think he could become balanced through simple buffs. For instance, a turret that packs more of a punch but has less range, and a faster primary fire so he becomes less spray and pray and can function as a damage hero properly. There’s ways to work around him that don’t involve giving him new abilities.
I think a lot of the heroes that have gotten reworks didn’t need them. Actually, I think Sym’s is the first rework we’re getting that was needed honestly(along with her first one way back when). I think Mercy, D.va and Hanzo could have been handled better.
Death blossom, yes but I’m not sure about barrage.
Removing corpse GA only fixes the res problem but now creates a whole new problem where Mercy has less options to move to. That’s what concerns me most about that change because it’s fixes 1 problem but creates 3 more.
That’s more “playing farther back” instead of flat out hiding, which is what I usually would do but that doesn’t erase the option of hide and res. Which is why it was changed. Lol
I don’t think she needs a new kit. Her job is to be able to disable the opponent and cut them off from points, and to stay on a point for as long as she can which works well with her. She was probably the most fitting as a defense hero before they removed that role
I mean, yes it does, but then Rez is literally the strongest ult in the game. Outside of using Rez, why would Mercy need to fly to a dead teammate, potentially closer to an enemy that’s ready to kill her?
a rework is needed if a hero is underperforming in their class or if it’s nearly impossible to get any value from their kit
I don’t see a Torb getting simple buffs in the way other characters get only because his turret is too stationary and only lower elo players fall pray to it but when you reach Plat or even gold everyone knows how to destroy a stationary turret lol.
Definitely! I understand why they changed the, but they could have been handled better in my opinion. Mercy was a case of it being annyoing but not OP necessarily, D.va is a character blizzard doesn’t seem to know what to do with, like Symmetra. And Hanzo was just an overload.