If your balance metric is “how good are they in the metal ranks?” then we’d better give Ball a massive buff. Heck, Fist isn’t doing great there either. He’s definitely worse statistically than Tracer, no matter how hard you try to spin it otherwise.
Fact is, Blizzard balances around Masters/GM/Owl. They’ve openly stated that several times. And Tracer is hardcore meta in masters/gm, and is still pretty dang meta in OWL. By ALL accounts, she is a bigger problem than Ball or Doom, and has been historically. She’s been in the top 3 DPS heroes for literal years.
No matter how you try and spin it, Tracer is the bigger issue. They literally made Brig because they were unwilling to nerf Tracer even though Tracer was dominating the meta.
I appreciate you coming here and sharing with us, first off. I don’t want to seem ungrateful to hear from the devs with what I’m about to say here and that’s this: It’s all well and good to say this, but that pressure isn’t going to come from the developers. It’s going to come from our team mates, our fellow players. And you can make these declarations here that Tanks are not expected to mitigate damage, but whether or not that aligns to player expectations remains to be seen. In much the same way that players could not reconcile their expectation that supports should heal (looking at Symm here) I wouldn’t be terribly surprised to find that they still expect tanks or brawlers to mitigate damage no matter what shape the tools for that may be in.
Andy, I don’t want to make this sound like I don’t appreciate you sharing information. I really do, it is good to hear the plans with hero balance.
Though the more the overwatch team of developers describe OW2, the worse the game sounds. Your comments about less damage mitigation and getting a single kill on any player causing such an imbalance that the teamfight is over sounds like an absolute nightmare.
It sounds like the game will be reducing ttk to the point where the game becomes a respawn simulator to all but the most skilled.
Frankly, it doesn’t sound like a fun game to play based on the developers description of what they are trying to do. Now I hope I’m wrong, but if the game is what is being described by the team making it, it doesn’t sound like a game I will be playing anymore once OW2 is released.
I’m not a particularly skilled video game player anymore, I’m getting old. I play to have fun and this new game doesn’t sound like it is going to be fun. Just frustrating unless you are very good at the game.
I really hope that Team 4 is giving serious consideration to the idea of turning Doomfist into a tank.
Now that CC is being removed from DPS heroes, this is the only way I could see them preserving the spirit of the character – and it would make a lot of sense too.
Doom already has a hitbox the size of a tank, he has self-sustain (via his passive) like most tanks do, and with his kit being almost entirely CC, his abilities would translate well to the OW2 design philosophy of reserving CC abilities for tank characters.
He’d need rebalancing from his current state of course (particularly in his lethality – though I’d argue he’s not far off from Hog in that regard already), but otherwise this is the best way to maintain the character’s identity in my opinion.
I just can’t see any DPS rework for Doom feeling right to existing Doom players, considering the massive overhaul he’d have to go through to remove CC from his kit. He’d practically be an entirely different character. But I can so clearly envision him playing similar to Wrecking Ball in the tank role.
Andy, if you read this, I’d really appreciate it if you passed this feedback on to the devs. I’m sure they’ll do right by the character either way, but I don’t want them to overlook the potential of this route to really stay true to who the character is.
I know this might be reaching, but reading this kind of reminds me of team deathmatch on arcade thats 4v4, and some comps consists of 1 tank, 2 dps and 1 support, specifically those parts
I know that this gamemode is deathmatch and its 4v4, and when you throw an objective and 2 more players in, it feels different. But I kinda felt pointing this out since it really reminds me of that gamemode.
All I can say about OW2 and the entire 5v5 meta: it may work in coordinated pre team comp and OWL games…but it is likely to kill simple non comp quick match and Arcade games with randoms, where usually not much team communication is present. And seriously, Tanks are already not that popular in unranked matches…and who really wants to be the only Tank player in such games? I already see even longer queue times in comp and non comp games for DPS players.
And I already see OW2 mostly be a endless “team wipe” gameplay in 90% of the cases. fight, the unlucky team dies within seconds repeat. No long brawls, no tactics, no survivors. One Tank only, nerfed barriers (Rein had a tiny 550hp barrier in the OW2 gameplay presentation) I see no chance this one tank 5v5 will be an improvement in gameplay. Of course I have not played OW2 yet and we must trust the devs when they say it will be great - but my gut feelings tell me to be cautious…and my gut feelings are usualy very right.
I honestly am shocked that this hasn’t been tested or considered. Doom fist is portrayed as able to take a hit and hit back twice as hard. He screams tank in all of the cinematic he’s in.
I do it by destroying his supports and DPS while he holds up his shield and then finishing him off after. He’s helpless when you knock the pins from under him.
Nope! But I am gonna eat every defensive cooldown they have and laugh while my teammates systematically pick them apart while abilities are on cooldown.
