Doesnt make a lot of sense to me. Is it for balance?
It’s supposed to be, yeah. I’d prefer something more decisive, myself.
It’s called depression.
ever since season 2 of ow1 pharah has been deleted by blizzard
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Everyone can hurt themselves with explosives IIRC except for Junkrat, who has a unique passive.
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Junkrat and D.va are exceptions because of all the characters that can damage themselves, those two suffered by far the most because it was incredibly easy to die to their own ultimates.
Also in D.va’s case, they buffed her ultimate’s detonation timer at the same time they gave self damage immunity because it was far too easy to dodge but shortening the timer would have made it far too dangerous for D.va.
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Heroes who gained immunity to their own ult or kit:
- Dva
- Junkrat
- Bastion
Heroes who can self harm but it’s very tiny/insignificant amount/on cooldown skills:
- Dva - micro missiles
- Sigma - primary and accretion
- Zarya - secondary fire
- Bastion - secondary fire
- Soldier - helix rocket
- Echo - orbeez
Heroes who do significant self harm from a cooldown skill:
- Ashe - dynamite
Heroes who can suicide from ult but not often because there’s a bug preventing suicide from happening, and also they have the game’s highest mobility as well as a dedicated escape/immunity button:
- Tracer
Heroes whose primary spammable weapon does significant self harm, can suicide in less than a full clip, whose self harm actually went UP when they tweaked her splash formula 3.5 years ago, whose ult also suicides in literally 3/4ths of a second, who is also the most visually armored hero in the game apart from Rein but that accounts for nothing:
- Pharah
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You overstate how much self damage Pharah does to herself over the course of a match
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I’m just stating the pure numbers
She does 40 per rocket (used to be 32), which is primary fire and way higher than anyone else, and not cooldown skills like almost everyone else
and barrage takes precisely 0.75s to suicide if any payload, object, player, meka, bubble, shield, barrier, doorway, hallway, or hanging lamp happens to be/appear within 10 ft of your uncancellable ult
It’s high per hit because she shouldn’t be hitting herself with her damage very often at all. Pharah is meant to be played at medium to long range, not close range, and unlike Junkrat there’s no chance of her projectiles coming back around to see her and she isn’t groundbound.
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The heroes/abilities with immunity seem to be close-ranged (namely Junkrat), where self-damage could be commonplace. Bastion, Junkrat, and D.va’s ults also leave them fully vulnerable already, so self-damage could be seen as overkill for their supposed “superstar” moment.
The majority of other low-self-damage examples provide extra mobility as a trade-off. Standard rocket jumping is a familiar mechanic. This also extends to Pharah.
Other self-damage is typically from heroes that want to operate at a range (Pharah, Soldier, Sigma, Echo, Bastion, Ashe), thus could be punishment for poor spacing. Leave them more vulnerable where they should be.
Tracer seem to be the only one where the self-damage really doesn’t make any sense to me.
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rocket jumping is a thing
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they nerfed her fuel making her play closer to ground/enemies overall
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in higher ranks stealth divebombing is the only way to even play her so you will be super close all the time
Her self harm is just egregiously high and it’s extremely outdated from where the game was 6 years ago,
and they haven’t changed it, but INCREASED it. I’m just sayin it’s unfair
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The only Hero who can’t Damage themselves with Splash Damage is Junkrat (to my knowledge), because part of his Passive makes him immune to his own Explosions.
He’s literally the only one designed that way.
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(She can still self damage with micro missles)
(Take advantage of this)
Rocket jumping is a thing, but it’s far from a necessity
As for her being closer to the ground and enemies as a result of playstyle, she’s still never required to be so close as to take self damage and has the ability to control that sort of interaction with her superior vertical mobility.
It’s only as outdated as anyone else’s self damage is. If Pharah doesn’t need it then nobody needs it. And nobody does need it, it’s not a very influential mechanic. However, due to it being not very influential, it’s also not very invasive and not really worth worrying about. Just adds flavor to the game really.
Also Pharah literally has a voiceline you can use about rocket jumping being dangerous.
It’s true, I didn’t consider that. It’s so miniscule though that it’s like who cares.
She didn’t have them at the time they made her immune to her ult, so I imagine the mechanic is on a per ability basis rather than a passive effect.
I do think it should be removed across the board
yes for everyone except pharah whom it’s very detrimental to
I have died so many times because I end up face to face with enemy and either:
- shoot them and also suicide from too close
- die anyway because I DONT shoot, but back away slowly, and they have just been served a closeup free low health target on silver platter not fighting back
You really can’t say “just keep distance”, it’s not viable to play in open air spamming rockets in diamond PC and above, it doesn’t work, you have to dive people 
not directing this at you, but people in general who think “bruh just fly 3 miles away from point and spam rockets ez”
What’s really weird is that the self damage is around 33%, except apparently for Zarya where it’s 50%.
Keep distance doesn’t mean staying way in the air, it just means don’t hug your target. If you’re really stealth bombing them then you really shouldn’t need to land on their heads.
The only time I usually see Pharah’s killing themselves is whenever they get hooked by Hog, don’t immediately die, and then immediately shoot while they’re still at point blank. Other than that specific situation, I don’t notice her killing herself more than other characters do because there’s not really a reason that should be happening often.
If Pharah really suffered as much from self damage as you claim, it would’ve been gone a long time ago considering the characters that suffer a lot from it are immune to it.
Eh, it happens a lot. You shoot, drift around cover to zone out a hitscan or something, then kill yourself because your last shot before getting fully behind cover grazes the very thing you were trying to hide behind. You probably don’t notice because that’s kind of the point, Pharah is trying to get away from your LoS.
Then of course there’s the classic “ult, turn, hit a lamppost” thing that happens because Pharah’s ult is unusable far away.
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