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?
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.
She was never really suppose to be a damage dealer in the first place. She was ment to be a defense her but since they removed that role she’s stuck in an awkward place. She’s not quite a tank not quite a dps. I don’t think she needs a complete overhall I think her abilities are fine, it’s just the way the roles were changed that make it awkward
Best simplified a rework is needed when something plain old doesn’t work, however, reworks can be on different scales.
Symmetra didn’t work, so she was reworked, Hanzo didn’t work so he was reworked, and in the foreseeable future, Sombra isn’t working, so she is likely gonna be reworked.
The Bastion example is actually a case of what is happening now with Hanzo: Being buffed to counter the counters.
Bastion was built to control space and counter tanks, even at full bore his sentry had less spread then a Soldier 76 at full auto allowing him to utilize his full DPS to deal with tanks effectively.
Naturally this meant that Bastion actually required a good amount of tracking aim to work with, which also meant that characters built around beating aim, the flankers Tracer and Genji, were natural counters due to his precision. In fact Genji could just reflect kill a Bastion. The downside of 525 DPS is that when it is reflected 80% of the time you will kill yourself before you can respond to stop.
Tracer could easily blink behind him and dump rounds into his back mounted critspot. She could also pulse bomb him for a easy kill.
When the rework came in this dynamic changed hard. With 35% Ironclad he suddenly had almost 0 issues with flankers.
Bastion does 15 damage per round before armor or damage resistance, with his natural armor and Ironclad he went from 15 damage per bullet reflected to 4.875. With his 35 rounds per second this meant he went from 525 DPS to 170 DPS. In other words Bastion went from 80% of the time he reflect killed himself, to only 20% of the time he reflect killed himself.
Tracer does 6 damage per round, and fires 2 rounds per burst at 20 bursts per second for 240 DPS. With his native armor and Ironclad he took tracer down to 1.95 per round 3.9 per burst or 78 DPS. She could dump her entire clip and not penetrate through the armor layer. It took dumping her entire clip into his back mounted critbox to get through the armor layer and then he just repaired it back up while swinging around. Her pulse bomb also ceased to secure a kill on him. Doing 260 damage to him which he then healed up.
Throw in any healer and his effective health skyrocketed to stupid levels. Unless you had certain abilities to force him out of sentry.
The massive increase in his spread also made him better at killing a Genji or a Tracer at point blank, the range they engaged him at.
Conversely… the changes actually made him weaker against tanks.
With his spread massively increased and his critical hits removed it became much easier for tanks to deal with him. His damage output was lowered allowing them to last longer when they enter his field of fire. This allowed Roadhogs to much more easily hook him without needing a barrier to give them a second of opportunity. This also greatly increased the same range for Reinhardt to charge Bastion to land a pin on him. Zarya also due to her hitbox size could more reliably use him to get charge. As it was no longer a case where he was not afraid to pop her bubble because he could headshot kill her before she could use the energy. While Winston was still bad against him, D.Va actually went from a fraction of a second of lasting against his fire with no DM, to needing almost 2 seconds to die to his firepower with no DM. Due to the fact he could no longer abuse her critbox to instantly delete her.
Ironclad was a stupid idea to begin with. A better option would have been to bring back the forward shield even if you had to make it a bit more awkward, such as making it so that it only faces the direction he sets up in, or give it lower health compared to what it had back in beta.
Recon needed buffs, what Sentry needed was to be better at its job of controlling space.
Forward shield would have done that, as it would have improved his forward defense, flankers would still counter him, pocket healing would not be effective as its a barrier. Teamwork would overcome him as spinning his turret around would expose his weak point to the enemy frontline. If he did not spin the turret around the flanker would still pop him.
It would of been a far more healthy way to buff him compared to Ironclad.
To make matters worse when they nerfed Ironclad it hurt his ults viability heavily. It used to give 150 armor on activation. With Ironclad he has to complete the transformation to get the defensive bonus, and 35% Ironclad was calculated to give a little bit less effective health then the 150 armor gain. With Ironclad nerfed to 20% Tank mode was massively nerfed in effective health. Leaving it an ult that is very much a liability to use.
That’s what I was getting at when I said a lot of he power comes from her wall. It’s really good at doing that plus more but the rest of her kit is very hit or miss. You literally see people use Mei to either boost characters up, or stall a point for as long as possible. Her freeze is good but her icicles are harder to aim which make them unreliable, her cryo makes her a sitting duck at points and her ultimate is lackluster for how it performs which is why I say the rest of her kit is D tier at best and her wall is B tier at least.
I actually think her cryo freeze is a pretty good ability since it allows her to sustain damage and stall a point while her wall is on cooldown. I like all her abilities and I feel like I do pretty well with her. I actually feel like her icicles were a bit too good since it allows her snipe surprisingly well. I’ve gotten since pretty far a way kills with her. She feels more like a sniper that Hanzo sometimes
That’s the problem is really good for STALLING but in a fight it isn’t so reliable because she feels like a sitting duck while using it unless you use it only to block certain abilities like hook.
But she regains health during it. So if she damages the opponent and then freezes herself until she has her health back (which happens pretty quickly) she’ll have more health then her oppentent if they don’t have an healer nearby or can’t heal themselves. After that she can just freeze the opponent and icicle them in the head. I feel like it isn’t that hard to kill people with mei like people make it out to be.
In most 1v1 Mei is like Brigette in the sense that they have advantages when people come into their range. However the game isn’t always a series of 1v1 and in a 2 v 1 Mei gets destroyed, plus depending on how long you stay in cryo the enemy has time to plan for when you escape. It’s why most Mei’s say the best use for cryo is to block certain abilities like flashbang and hook and not to use it for healing unless you desperately need to.
When a hero is so “niche” they are even considered a troll pick in their niche and you get reported for playing them.
Rework needed when simple buffs dont fix fundamental problems in their kit.