Why in the world are we nerfing Exo Boots

General Discussion
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Baps boots are one of the very last things people complain about. Seriously, how many people genuinely said his boot charging time was too strong? It’s one of the most balanced parts of his kit that has a healthy skill curve and doesn’t harm the game. It’s just annoying at most. Hell, I’d even say EVERYTHING in his kit is fine outside of Immortality. And that’s the issue with bap. They are dancing around the issue with Bap. They ignore the underlying issue with immortality and just chip away at his base kip, nerf by nerf.

And no, just nerfing IF isn’t the answer. It has to be reworked to something else like damage reduction or an ult cost reducer. Or even a cleanse field or anti CC field. Something that doesn’t make a team immortal.

Yes you can shoot it, but that is the ONLY option you have. Bap places the drone on a player, and they literally are unkillable until you shoot the lamp. And the issue with having only one option to outplay the ability is good bap players can reduce the amount of opportunity to do that one counter. Baps place it behind walls so you literally can do nothing about the drone. Good team players will play more aggressive when drone is placed to try and melt down targets who are busy shooting lamp. Maybe a lamp is placed on kings row first point, and you a soldier player, try to break it. But since their mccree and bap are in the drone they can just melt you as you try to destroy because you can’t fight back against them. Or for example a bap places drone behind a wall, and a mccree high noons in the drone. Normally when a McCree ults, you can actually burst him down and punish him as a team. But when he’s immortal… you can’t kill him when he’s immortal so you HAVE to kite back. This is why it needs to be damage reduction, so drone has more options other than ‘just shoot it’.

While it’s not the largest nerf, here’s why I am concerned. So this nerf will probably hit live, but because they didn’t address the entire Immortal issue, people will complain about him. And because people complain about him, next they’re going to nerf his damage, then nerf his healing, then nerf his window, then maybe some irrelevant nerf to drone that doesn’t fix the issue. See the problem here?

This pattern is consistent with one of the overall issues Blizzard has with their balancing. They make heroes feel WORSE to play while not addressing why they are good. So you have heroes feel worse to play while still being strong. And next thing you know, bap will feel like trash to play, but because Immortality Field exists, he won’t get buffed. Now we do not want that, do we?

He’s one of my favorite heroes to play, and just the thought of him constantly getting nerfed because of Immortality doesn’t sit well with me. I really hope they don’t nerf boots and instead nerf the real issue

27 Likes
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I think the reason they haven’t drastically changed Immortality Field is due to them also having to change how the achievement works, and we both know Blizzard hates doing that…for some reason.

If anything, I actually thought Exo-boots would charge up slightly faster, as it’s only really used for ascending high ground and is pretty useless while in combat.

For Immortality Field, I always though it should be more of a fast-acting, clutch save moment for the hero (kind of like how it was portrayed in the short story): ability has 150 health, has a duration of 3 seconds, and a cooldown of 12-15 seconds that starts AFTER the duration is over.

Then again, I also have greater gripes with how they’re handling his Biotic Launcher, but that’s just me, personally.

4 Likes
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Good Baptiste players are kinda annoying as a Doomfist player. They just stay crouch charged when they suspect an engagement and use it when you attempt a dive. The bad ones throw down Immortality Field and get CCed out of it and killed.

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I honestly think exo-boots should have a 3 second cooldown, or 3 uses and every recharge takes 1-2 seconds, kind of like Tracer.

Baptiste has WAY too much sustain for a support character making him very hard to kill, or even unkillable sometimes

10 Likes
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gorl i have trouble killing him when he uses his boots every 0.7 seconds when i’m trying to battle mercy him in valk :triumph::triumph::triumph::triumph::triumph::triumph:

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I always just melt the player sticking around it and kill them when it ends 🤷🏼

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I was just scoffing at how desperate they are to keep making support roles easier to kill.

Instead of these DAMAGE role players trying to GET BETTER they scream at anything to make healers easier for them to pick off. And devs comply.

Can you damage dealers at least shoot through my Amplification Matrix so I can get this trophy before other worse nerfs come. I wanna dumpster this game so bad. But that ONE trophy is bothering me. I want to say I did it before I click Delete. :woozy_face:

4 Likes
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I don’t like the dmg reduction idea , I didn’t liked it since day 1 the community mentioned it .
A cleanse field is an interesting idea , but can’t work right now , b/c we don’t have much abilities in the game that this can cleanse u from .
I like the anti CC field idea (but probably can’t work for OW2) .
The next change that I hope for to be in the next exp card for Bap is : increasing the size of lamp a little (like by 25%) .

The thing is : I can think of only 2 reasons why they didn’t or not gonna remove Immo Field .
1- they don’t have a good alternative ability to it yet .
2- They are classifying Immo Field as Bap core ability (identity ability) , they are not removing core abilities like they have said about Ana (they’re removing Stuns from non Tank heroes for OW2 but they’re keeping Ana Sleep as it is a Core ability and maybe b/c they also like it) .

The problem is : the Devs didn’t even share their philosophy about Bap Immo Field (If u don’t have an alternative then say so , if ur not gonna remove it then say it) , they left the community and OW1 discussions and problems to focus in OW2 , what about OW1 ? U can’t leave the community without answers.
There are times : just blame the Devs .

1 Like
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They’re making us wait for freaking Ow2, I guarantee you that thing ain’t staying.

Nah, the issue in general is that you can’t outplay immortality field. You have to force it out

3 Likes
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Nah, Aaron basically said when asked if it will be removed in OW2 that it has a good purpose, which is to mitigate the “overwatch is just a Q spam” game. I am not sure if the dev’s can be convinced. (Even though you can literally prevent deaths from multiple ults with a damage reduction or solo target immortality lamp concept)

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Yep, and that’s why it’s bad. Almost every ability in the game can be outplayed if you are better than them. But the skill of the bap isn’t really relevant to the impact of immortality. With Fire Strike you can dodge it, eat it, deflect it, bubble it, there’s so many solutions. Also when Rein fire strikes, he HAS to put down his shield so that leaves him vulnerable

When Bap throws his field on the ground he gives up nothing and forces the enemy to shoot it. He can still heal and do damage to prevent people from shooting it down. And by the time it’s destroyed, the impact has already happened. He probably saved an orisa or himself by then, and rewarded a mistake. Rewarding bad plays is something that never should have been a thing

I understand why they think ults are a problem, but you have to ask yourself something. At what point does a mechanic become too problematic to the base game just to counter an ult? If they think ults are OP, then why are they trying to make something counter OP? The last time we had something to counter OP, we got Brig. Maybe if ults are too powerful, nerf ults. I don’t think they’re OP, but honestly if that’s why we have IF then it’s a necessary cost to nerf them

1 Like
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it’s to reposition yourself - not to jump like a jack rabbit on crack

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nerfing the mario jump huh, thats what it always reminded me of. it is a wierd nerf tho

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Hard to kill that rabbit because jumps constantly from my genji blade, from my doom combo, from my Hanzo dragon, from earthshatter, you name it

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Apparently it’s hard to kill Bapt when he’s jumping in the air but it’s apparently not hard to kill a Genji when constantly double jumping. Odd isn’t it.

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I wouldn’t hold my breath. In one of the AMA’s someone asked about Immortality Field and the devs said that abilities like IF are important for countering enemy ultimates.

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Because all the Genji, Tracer, and Doom mains were mad he could get away.

Imagine them being so out of touch that they think exo boots were the problem.
I’m looking at you Imo Field.

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Next AMA we’ll have to ask them why they are keeping ultimates so strong that you need abilities like IF to counter them.

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Neither are hard to kill and same with super jump