Appreciate that insight. I really did neglect a lot of perspectives on it, so this is helpful. I imagine it was one of those, “Ana is good for this team and also helps screw the enemy team” situations, which probably reinforced her position in that variation.
Orisa’s barrier was the same for a while, but she received buffs to its cooldown, and a QoL adjustment so you could deploy it and not have to stop shooting. I’d argue the QoL was pretty impactful since Orisa has the longest reload in the game, and it helped cover yourself while you did it.
But even outside of the barrier, staying with the, “look at their whole kit” aspect of it all, she received a net-buff to her base armor, her Fortify, and a movement speed buff while firing.
I guess my whole point is, look at everything. Orisa received a lot of nerfs, too (and IIRC the damage on her Fusion Rifle went back and forth like, 3 times). Shield may have stayed the same, but the rest of her kit went through different balance changes, too.
I’m looking at Ana similarly. There’s some nerfs, but there’s also a lot of buffs to her that have occurred that have helped her reach the dominant state she’s in.
Winston will never be meta on Ladder unless they deal with the Burst Damage creep issue, and with the release of Echo and the buffs to Ashe, this isn’t going to happen at all if ever
For years Orisa’s barrier was 900HP on an 8 second cooldown.
Yeah but it’s just a nice QoL, it doesn’t logically follow that THAT is what suddenly meant the 900HP barrier on an 8 second cooldown had to become a 600HP barrier on a 10 second cooldown.
i fully agree with you looking at the whole kit,
But I’m relating back to what OP said. OP said bionade wasn’t changed for years, I added that also Orisa’s barrier wasn’t changed “for years”.
Both ana’s nade and Orisa’s barrier got a change shortly after their heroes went live on the retail game but they then has such respective abilities got unchanged for years.
I don’t like that idea at all.
Why should a low skill support rival a high skill support in the meta?
I’d much rather have more high skill supports than Mercy ever being meta again.
You need to stop thinking in extremes and in general you really need to chill out. Rival does not mean meta. Meta means meta, rival means Mercy will compete for a spot in certain comps instead of being below her in every elo including bronze and silver of all places.
Because Mercy has needed a buff for a very, very, very, long time
Regardless of “skill” or whatever, Mercy has needed a buff.
The fact that she can go from the most used support in GM, to dropping off the face of the Earth because ECHO, another hero, was banned SCREAMS Mercy needs looking into
Like the ONLY times Mercy has seen any real viability in the last like 6 months are when they banned literally EVERY hitscan hero leaving Pharah playable for the first time in months, or when Echo isn’t banned
Well for starters she isn’t garbage anymore so, her general value might be too high in contrast with the rest of the healers, not to mention that she is the only healer that counters other healers (Moira can kill the others too but alas that’s not really countering, that’s just Moira being broken)
I do think she has space for adjustments and nade is just the only thing that seems to have a ton of extra value, the thing does like 10 different things at once
ana has never been bad, she’s just not been meta sometimes.
and i think this has kind of cropped up due to people want to be able to play zen again maybe.
even though there’s more issues facing zen than just anas anti-nade.
or it’s a collective feedback from other supports that heal that gets their heal screwed up because anti-nade exists.
anti-nade have kind of allways been a sore issue but never really stood out too much due to everything else taking precedence.
That whole argument died a long time ago in this game, when a hero like Ashe who is literally an easier version of Widowmaker, McCree, and Soldier, can be sitting at a 60% winrate while niche, get buffed, jump to the 2nd most used DPS, and still have over 55% winrates
Or when a hero like Baptiste or Sigma, can be must picks in GM, and average/ below average outside of GM, but people will scream and cry about them until they get nerfed into the ground that they may as well not even be in the game
Mercy has to play in much more dangerous ranges, with half her kit locked behind the movement of her teammates
Like I’m not saying Mercy should be the end all be all of supports, but giving her 55hps, or making Rez actually effect her kit and not just be there to be there isn’t going to push her into the levels she used to be at
There are people (e.g: me) that have been thinking for years that BioNade is an ultimate level ability in power.
I never changed my mind, I’m simply not the kind to make threads about it every week.