Zarya has a bubble on cool down that can reach targets from long distances. This allows her to stay with her main tank, while communicating with her back line and save a life. D.va has her booster and pretty decent range on her matrix. She can dive with Winston, and if the back line needs help the she can fly to them. Sombra and Mei can only do one or the other. I will give you this though, if the Mei and Sombra actually play like babysitters it could work. However, people don’t play dps to be baby sisters. Mei is too slow to do both jobs effectively, and Sombra would have to waste her cool downs zipping back and forth. Not to mention neither Mei nor Sombra can block damage on specific heroes.
In all honesty, Blizzard would probably have to rework almost all the heroes to make them work in this new comp.
I don’t see the issue with the game being altered. The state the game is in rn is awful and I honestly don’t think it would be that hard to implement 1 3 2. Also yea Sombra would use her cooldowns to keep up but so does everyone else Dva has to use her launchers and Winston needs to use his jump.
it would actually work i guess. it redefines tank as any shield class (aside from brig) and then you can just move heroes like hammond, zarya, dva, hog into the DPS category, they’re just fat DPS anyway. or maybe even bring back the “defense dps” category and throw all the off tanks in there, than you can queue as DPS and play something like a more offensive version of hog, dva or zarya, and you can still be tanky enough to stick with the reinhardt, but the gameplay of these heroes would be reworked so much that you didn’t require playing something like rein+zarya anymore, zarya would not be tanky enough to be considered a real off-tank anymore, she would instead be just be defensive oriented DPS which would be good on things like eichenwald. and yeah DPS players would play her or dva or whatever, the skillsets are so similar, like if you can play Soldier well you can be a very dominant Zarya because they’re both tracking heroes that do sustained, not burst damage.
it also officially kills double shield as 2-2-2 killed goats.
It’s happening, No one goes to this much trouble on a failed idea. They will be releasing it to the PTR or as an alternative mode in order to get real data on balance changes that need to be made.
She is used more like a, “utility dps.” Her only team damage mitigation is her Mei wall. Which Mei players use to do different things. The purpose of Zarya bubble and defense matrix is to mitigate damage. Not to mention Mei’s wall is the hardest thing to use in her kit. Bubble and matrix is much more reliable to use to save a teammate. Think about how often you’ve seen a crappy Mei wall. You really want to depend on that to safe your life?
I agree - the wall as is would definitely not work.
The rest of her kit is pretty Tanky though.
I have seen suggestions to put segments in charges though, so that way she could dull out 1/5 segments of the wall at a time, to clog chokes instead of walling them shut ; if she so chose. Placing a full wall would require more precision though.
idk when I play on my accounts I play in diamond and masters games
meis who aren’t bad know how to wall off enemies at a choke for a team push, and block predictable enemy ultimates. also, don’t underestimate the power of her ice block. you can save your teammates with her ice block almost as much as with wall which is a lot
I’m not underestimating Mei at all. I’ve seen Mei’s ice block used to save teammates from enemy ultimates while they hid behind her. I’ve seen Mei walls do some pretty neat things as well. Except these things require much more skill to pull off. Defense matrix for example is extremely straight forward. Mei wall has more uses and requires an experienced player to know when to and not to use it. A not very experienced player may use his Mei wall to get up a high place to chase down a kill. Meanwhile here comes high noon and she doesn’t have her Mei wall to block it. An experienced Mei player has been tracking ults the whole time, and knows it’s coming. Bam, Mei wall. Crisis averted and the team is saved. D.va can do preform both these jobs effectively because she was designed to be an off tank. She flys up and confirms the kill. Here comes high noon, she fly’s toward cowboy with matrix and blocks it. Might even kill cowboy as well. Mei can do some off tanky things, but she definitely isn’t one.
Even tho i don’t mind solo tanking, and actually preferred it. Making it 1-3-2 lock would be no better than 2-2-2.
I play main tank in Quickplay, but i don’t actually solo tank that often even in that mode. Eventually one of the DPS switches to an off tank if we need one. Despite people claiming 6DPSes every game in QP. It’s actually about even between 2-2-2 and 1-3-2, leaning heavily towards 2-2-2.
What needs to happen is to make the second tank optional and allow the DPS to switch mid game.
You have a lot more DPSes willing to go Roadhog on Ilios for example.
You don’t have to be high tier to know how to use a hero. And yeah, i consider Mei an off tank. Much like how Brigitte is an off tank on the support side. They also both work best next to a tank.
Mei’s icewall can be used a lot like Orisa’s barrier so she both counters and supports Orisa. Icewalling an enemy Orisa’s barrier negates the point of the barrier and gives the advantage to your team who can then use it to get closer. Orisa’s put barriers at their feet and her team is behind it, so icewalling it means the entire area in front of it (especially if she’s trying to keep you at a distance) is instantly your exclusive territory.
How’s that for taking space?
As i’ve said, the thought process behind icewall is very similar especially if you’re the type that also plays Orisa aggressively.
I personally find mei excellent at shutting down orisa pulls and hooks using both of her abilities. as well as cancelling out orisa ults and immortality fields
but I agree blocking ults like shatters and emps does actually take discipline
