What the hell is with this balance patch

Armor damage reduction from -5 to -3.

RIP Literally every tank now. This effectively reduces each tanks hp by 30-80. Literally no one asked for this. Why would you change how armor works instead of just changing the health of the specific heroes. Changing how armor works overall seems like it would be much more difficult to balance than just nerfing some problem children.

Brigitte. Rally now has a maximum duration of 30 seconds.

I dont think I’ve ever seen anyone complain about rally since its an ult. This is also nerfed again due to the first nerf.

D.va Defense Matrix cooldown increased to 2 seconds from 1 second.
And here we have the 8th straight nerf to dva since her rework.
Blizz just buff her counters.

Reaper - Lifesteal increased from 30% to 50%.
We now have an immortal being that cannot be killed while in combat in the slightest. NO ONE COMPLAINED ABOUT LIFESTEAL BEING TO LOW. FCKING SCRAP SHADOW STEP ALREADY AND GIVE HIM AN ACTUAL MOVEMENT ABILITY.
This reaper buff does nothing but make him a nightmare to kill during his ult. (Which he already is) But hey. He’s still stuck with the most useless ability in the game.

Overview of this balance patch.

  1. Makes tanks more frustrating to play and nerfs the entire tank roster.
  2. Makes Dva a nightmare to play instead of addressing the fact her counters are under-powered as hell.
  3. Gives Bridget a nerf literally no one asked for.
  4. Makes reaper insanely hard to kill while still having him be useless in most situations. (Im not even sure how they managed this one)

Lets not forget the real victims here.
Poor Hammond was barely viable with the current armor he had. Now he’s just going to get ripped apart and sent to F tier with Sombra.

Poor Winston is going to get ripped apart by reaper and he will be unkillable untill he’s dead. Then reaper will get destroyed because that lifesteal doesn’t help against dps. Aka no way out.)

Poor healers are going to have to focus heal tanks only because the armor does nothing now.

Poor bastion. STILL HAS NOTHING AND WAS NERFED BY THE ARMOR CHANGES.

Usually we get some bad changes with a lot of good. This time we got nothing good at all. Instead of fixing the problem (Most of the dps not being viable) They nerfed the tanks and made tanking even more of a nightmare to do.

What I would have changed.

Bastion - In recon mode he has a new ability. (Crossfire - Pulls the cannon from his ult out and fires one hitscan attack that deals 150 damage to heroes or 800 damage to shields. It has a 1.5 second cast time and renders him immobile during it.)

Reaper - Scrap his teleport and replace it with moiras ability except it can go up and is louder and has a 15 second cool down. Can still be targeted like his ability but instant cast time.

Symmetra. Every time her beam increases in power it gets narrower and has a longer range. Starts with a thick beam thats easy to hit people at her current range and each stage increases its damage and range but makes it narrower aka harder to hit on small targets. Each stage increase the range by 1m. Prevent the slow from her turrets from stacking on Reinhardt.

Mcree replace FTH with another emp grenade. This grenade instantly disables shield hp and does 400 damage to barriers. (Counter to lucio’s ult, and gives him an ability to help damage shields.) This is a thrown grenade that explodes on impact with any surface or character. 9 second cool-down.

Soldier 76- Increase helix rockets damage to shields by 100.

Hanzo -Remove headshots from storm arrows and increase their base damage by 10.

Sombra - Decrease her spread by 10% and make hack a projectile shot instead of a channeled ability.

Phara. Give her 35% damage reduction during ult (PC only)

Mei - Reduce freeze time of her ult by 25% & and allow her to skate on any ice she places (IE freezing the floor) and get a 25% movement speed increase.

11 Likes

It’s time for sniperwatch!!! While they think this will get people to watch owl, it’s really going to get people to stop playing and caring at all.

Could the panic button be any more obvious and desperate?

7 Likes

It’s a patch for OWL.

They nerf Orisa, Winston, and Hammond without any justification whatsoever just so they can heavy handedly try to break GOATs for the next league season.

All we’re likely to see instead is the same Reinhardt, Zarya, Lucio deathballs we saw for the first few seasons and no recourse for an alternative.

I almost understand the D.Va nerfs from a pro perspective but again, for ladder she was no problem to anyone. It’s just a horrible heavy handed rushed approach that won’t help the game we actually play.

6 Likes

Did you say… BEYBLADE??

Let 'em RIP! (Rest In Peace, because here comes THE REAPER!)

Roadhog sobs quietly in a corner because he’s been forgotten…again.

Tons of people have been QQing about it. I don’t agree with them, or with Blizzard kowtowing to the whining (especially when they then ignore my whining).

She is OP and had this coming.

I just hope it’s enough to get him into some games. He’s a very basic character concept and should see playtime outside of the specialists and OTPs that largely give him what little rep he has.

Are you crazy? Bastion’s anti-tank DPS when they have armor went up by around 60. He’s received, arguably, the biggest buff out of anyone.

i hate that there is no sym buff -__-

armor nerf is an indirect buff to symmetra but it makes orisa even worse than she is now…

4 Likes

sym is just underused tbh she is really strong but people are just not seeing it.

Nah this hellish change is FAR better than a stupid teleporter fix. RIP, fam. A Grim Reaper is supposed to be immortal. Muahahahahha.

she is powerful but she also gets trashed by… everyone and everything.

care to explain that one?

pandering to the top 0.001% and to a league that will never hit mainstream.

as billionaire mark cuban says “overwatch is trending downward”

5 Likes

I don’t know why, but every time I see someone say a portmantaeu like this I get irrationally annoyed.

I guess I should consider myself lucky for just so happening to agree with this balance change, then.

Dunno why they don’t just change armor to a % instead of making it a flat reduction. Countering just packet damage instead of straight dps seems like such an arbitrary and hard to balance mechanic.

her kit is clunky and she has wayyyy too many hard counters

if you think the armor nerf is enough to get rid of goats you’ll be shocked when ppl are still playing goats since brig was dropped once she got nerfed. your tanks are still good because you’ll have zen, lucio, and ana. not sure why you’re making the armor nerf a big deal

But why? It nerfs Hammond, Orisa, and Winston who aren’t really problematic heroes at any level.

I’m pretty contentious about D.Va as well, since she’s hit twice while not actually behind an issue in ladder play.

3 Likes

Yes, if they that a casual who doesn’t like the balance in the game is going to watch the stupid OWL they have another think coming.

And if someone wants to lecture me how pros dictating the balance is somehow good for us scrubs, don’t bother. I would rather believe in Santa Claus than in this nonsense.

1 Like

Tanks were too dominant, this nerfs the problem children while making under-powered picks like Road more attractive.
Armour in general is overpowered, the mass application by Brgitte is one of the biggest factors enabling GOATS.
D.VA has been too strong for too long, nerfs have to be given until she is in line with others.
The armour change means the mass stacking of healing is now less dominant and there is no need to run 3 healers with stacked healing (such as Brig + Lucio with a main healer alongside them), instead it places impetus on keeping key targets alive with 2 healers while running some DPS to take advantage of weaknesses that Tanks and Healers didn’t have before.
The only one I somewhat agree with you for is Reaper.

This is clearly aimed at making DPS viable again in a meta that completely removed them. About bloody time.

Kind of hurts Hammond in a way with this patch. But I’m not going to touch an Main Tank now because of the armor reduction. Duck that now.

2 Likes

good.