Why aren't transformation ultimates not cancelable with stuns?

You stun a Genji who is pulling his sword and he will continue pulling out his sword like nothing happened.

But Mei tries to throw a robot and get stunned and the robot is immediately like “Nah fam. I’m not flying anymore.”

The same thing counts for cast ultimates. Dva calls in a mech, but as soon if she is stunned after that thing has landed, will the mech just disappear. Poof, like it never happened.

Why? Why is this a thing?
Why aren’t transformation ultimates not cancelable?
Most of them already has as a cast time. Why isn’t this also a window in which they can lose their ultimates if they are stunned?

(I get this looks like a rant, but I’m really curious.)

Edit:
And it’s not like it makes transformation ultimates useless either.

  • Genji has his dash so he can safely use it at a distance. Heck, he even get a dash reset when he ults. So basically dash out, ult and dash in.
  • Mercy flies freely and has long range healing. She can just use it anywhere safe and use her great aerial movement and long range beams to heal/boost her team.
    (Does she even has a cast time?)
  • Winston has his jump to close the distance. (Does he has a cast time as well?)
  • Soldier has autoaim so I have no idea why he would be using it point blank.

It just add a bit more counterplay to it.

34 Likes

Snowball has got better things to do.

21 Likes

I guess for programing reasons. Since the character is transformed, it’s not something the devs managed to make it “toggle off” possible. Other than that, balancing. Stuns and CC can already counter far too many ults, at least SOME have to be safe from it.

4 Likes

Snowball midair I’ll do you proud Mei!

Mei: Flashbanged

Snowball: God Mei you’re such a disappointment. disappears

57 Likes

This can be mostly blamed on latency and favor-the-shooter:

I just don’t understand why transformation ultimates get a free pass from stuns.

3 Likes

Because Transformation ultimates have their own trade offs associated with them, for instance yes Mei can get stunned in the throw and the ultimate will be canceled, but if she dies after it lands it keeps on going unlike a transformation ult a trade off, honestly you should be asking why do channeled ults get the shortest end of the stick, lose access to all their abilities can be completely interrupted by stuns and death and with the exception of a few most channeled ultimates are weaker than other ultimates of their class or just in general (Coalescence, Deadeye, Whole Hog)

1 Like

I’m all in for counterplay to ultimates. I think its something this game needs.

I just find it weird that transformation ultimate don’t have this.
And it’s not like it makes transformation ultimates useless.

  • Genji has his dash so he can safely use it at a distance. Heck, he even get a dash reset when he ults. So basically dash out, ult and dash in.
  • Mercy flies freely and has long range healing. She can just use it anywhere safe and use her great aerial movement and long range beams to heal/boost her team.
    (Does she even has a cast time?)
  • Winston has his jump to close the distance. (Does he has a cast time as well?)
  • Soldier has autoaim so I have no idea why he would be using it point blank.

Can be interrupted by death at any point during the ultimate canceling it in exchange for not being interruptable by stuns, thats its counterplay, cast time ultimates have the cast time where both death and interruptions cancel it but only in the short period when being casted

Of course it doesn’t, but it already has its cancel being death at any time during the ultimate completely negates its remaining effects unlike cast time ults, it doesn’t need more chance for interruption unless it gains the benefits associated with a cast time ultimate being death after the cast does not remove its effects, which would be hard to code

It’s a thing because Blizzard borrowed this rule from a game they made, Warcraft III.

For some reason this question was never raised in the Warcraft III forum. I don’t know if it’s because Warcraft 3 playerbase was smart enough to understand or OW playerbase is just so whiny about everything not being the same, but god, let it go.

Hmm, I’ve never played warcraft 3, could you explain to me what you’re talking about?

Warcraft III is an RTS with hero units. Hero units are a lot like the champions you control in MOBA games. They have some basic abilities (3) and an ultimate.

Some heroes had ultimates that were channel-based, some had transformation ultimates. Channel based ults could be interrupted with stun attacks (or silence); transformation ults could not.

There was a hero who could even transform into a CC-immune super unit.

I would like to take this time to remind people that Transformation Ults actually could be halted with stuns or by killing the hero in question mid Transformation before. The problem was that even after doing so, if they were stunned at a certain point and even sometimes when rezzed they’d still have full Ultimate charge.

This made a lot of people feel cheated because they’d stun or kill a Genji mid Transformation and then he’d just pull out the blade again, he basically got a second chance on his Ultimate.

This change eliminates that possibility

2 Likes

Only with Dragonblade which used to be a cast time ult but changed to transformation with the ultimate change

2 Likes

Are you sure? I’m certain I recall complaints about the same issue with Tac Visor and Tank Configuration

The patch notes for this changes mentioned the 2 ults where they changed it, Genji and Orisa, those 2 may have been complained about but it was most likely latency based where on one side it looked like they had already ulted while with the other they hadnt ulted yet and the server agreed that the ultimate hadnt occured yet

Death is the counter for transformation ults. Ults with a cast time don’t have this weakness. Thus, it seems fair to me. I can’t kill Mei to cancel her ult. Once it’s out, it’s out. Similarly, once a transformation ult is activated, it is Only counterable by death. Wouldn’t be fair if it was countered by the stun and death.

(Though really, it’s probably because it would be more difficult to code.)

2 Likes

what he said.

Most ults only require about a second of activation
(if that), then the ult is “Released” and its going to take effect.

Trans ults are balanced for a longer duration, Genji and s76 need time on target to get the full value, as compared to say Dva or Mei.

  • Bastion: has literally nothing to combat this, and he has, if I am not mistaken, the longest transformation time.

That’s something I find weird as well.

He’s the only one with a transformation ultimate that forces him to stop moving. I get he’s literally transforming, but every other transformation ultimates can be used while running.

Can you imagine how unusable Winston’s ultimate would be with cancel on stun? Does Mercy’s ultimate need to be even worse?