Because they like letting one or two heroes dictate remarkably unfun metas for large periods of time.
It’s the balance problem Blizzard can’t seem to fix: add new hero/rework hero- hero op- left alone for a long time- slight nerf- slight nerf again that doesn’t address the problem- 4 more slight nerfs- community gets very upset at the lack of awareness and proper balance addressing- 6 months go by with very slight or no changes to the hero. Community gives up on it and goes to play something else. Blizzard be like “yo we musta did it no more complaints”. THEN a few months later they dumpster nerf the hero into oblivion because they notice the significant player drop. And then rebuff it a few months later so it’s annoyingly viable but not omniviable and oppressive in all situations like it was.
The moth mercy, Dva (4 second dm dva) brig, hog, Bap, Ashe, Cree, sigma, ball, mei(multifreeze) orisa, syndrome. (Obviously more I’m forgetting LMAO)
Cree is in the slight wrong nerf that doesn’t actually address the issue stage.
(Also if you don’t think this is the case go look back it all of the balance nightmare heroes- they’ve almost all gone through this LMAO)
OWL didn’t stop devs giving Halt a 25% cooldown buff, or Rein a self sustain nerf, or Hanzo a Storm Arrow buff, or buffing Soldier’s laser beam back up to 20, or nerf Zarya 3 times…
I mean even OW2 gameplay lost its shine. First BlizzCon demo knockback resistance looked very strong, like 50% Steadfast strong, second demo already looked nerfed, like current 30% Steadfast which does pinball all over the place just the same.
In the end Blizz is saying to main tanks “see that dung beetle over there? You could learn a lot from its example!”
But sure, patience, right? Good for the heart. Lets wait out OWL, maybe we’ll get a nice 2020 out of this 2021 balance round.
I came to the conclusion Sombra and Brig are kinda necessary evils to keep flankers in check.
But really, at most ELOs they barely even exist.
And it greatly simplifies balancing, because otherwise you’d need to go on a nerf rampage against flankers.
That said, a 2sec antiheal, 2.5sec hack, and 3sec sleep reduce a lot of the bite those CC have on Tanks.
And if that’s not enough, make it so the Tank passive not only reduces AntiHeal to 2 sec, but also reduces it’s effectiveness down to a 50% antiheal.
As for Flashbang, I’m thinking 0.1sec stun and 0.7sec “mobility skills don’t work or go hardly any distance”. Or just make it 0.7sec of a hack equivalent.
Either devs commit with 2 max stuns in non-ults for all and any OW2 compositions or I’m out already.
Without harsh diminishing returns there’s no amount of tweaking that can make any single stun good, because no single stun is ever the problem.
Remove hack, remove flashbang, and while we’re at it remove all knockbacks on primaries/secondaries too.
“But it’s short and projectile and there’s defenses and”
No, doesn’t matter, by the time there’s 40 heroes there will be another DPS stun and another sup stun, each with its own manner of tracking, each hitting differently and then we’re back right here again, with 4 stuns per team getting chained up the tanks bum and one needs to be OWL level in gold to evade/block all this easily spammable crap.
If flankers are a problem, deal with the problem. Stuns are more punishing to big hitboxes than anyone else in this game anyway.
Or just forget the removing stuns thing and do busted tank passives. Stun immunity and 50% steadfast, then all the omnipresent stuns and boops won’t get value so easily.
Or give him a whip that goes swoosh and makes Ashe say “oh yeeah!”.
The heck is a cowboy doing with a flashbang anyway.
This is no longer a hero balance issue but rather a necessity for forced 2-2-2.
There is rarely ever both DPS players focusing on a single tank, compared to before Role Queue.
Because of that, one of the DPS players ends up being forced to do the jobs of both DPS players, since the other person can’t bother to do their part properly.
When the game was balanced around Open Queue, this wasn’t an issue because of how teammates could switch roles whenever they realize that someone isn’t doing their part in the role they chose.
Rather than hitscans or snipers like Hanzo being able to take out tanks, as any DPS should, the issue is the flaw in the existence of Role Queue.
And that flaw cannot be removed without major overhauls to the design of the game, which should hopefully be resolved in OW2, since every hero is being reworked to some extent, along with the 6 new heroes.
No heal, no defensive cooldowns, no vertical mobility, no passive, no damage boost, no boop, no barrier penetrating abilities…
Not to mention specific things like speed boost, teleporter, giving armor.
If the amount of non-ultimate stuns in any and all compositions exceeds 2 then it’s not okay and it will never be okay without stupidly dumb passives that cover all CC.
Once again, no single CC is ever the problem, none. I can avoid sleep just fine, I can avoid Hack and Flash and Bash and I can block 180 shatters and Hooks… Each on it’s own is fine, very food counter play, if you get hit by one of those it’s fine, it’s your fault, maybe you die and that’s okay.
Put them all together and there is the recipe for frustration, it’s a cocktail of bullcrap.
Do not put them together. It should be hard rule, even Geoff should stumble on that eventually.
Yes, strong diminishing returns, which is hardly a new idea. Geoff Goodman himself saw that being added to WoW (I think?) after CC creep took its toll there too.
But Overwatch isn’t an MMO, it’s more simple, clear, press key see same thing happen, it’s why I reckon devs ultimately will go for removal instead of exception ruling.
With that said that’s a design challenge, there’s 4(?)stuns/silence in the DPS category, 2 in the support, and that’s before any new heroes… Sleep is staying and Freeze is gone, so 4 to go I guess…
I applaud Blizz for not going the lazy way but I fear the results. There can be no half measure or the effort is a bust, if not on release day it will be eventually with new heroes and bloated kits full of it again…
FTH is 350 damage, Reinhardt’s barrier is 1600 damage.
A double FTH is 700 damage, with a six-second cooldown and a 1.5 second reload after.
Storm Arrows is 350 damage, on 10 second cooldown. Reinhardt’s barrier is 1600 health.
Storm Arrows is not a barrier-buster.
Soldier, who does 180 damage per second with 30 ammo per reload (9 shots per second) will do 540 damage in 3 seconds and still have 3 ammo left over before reload.
Reaper does 240 damage per second, or 120 damage per shot for 8 shots per reload. So in four seconds will do 940 damage, nearly three times the damage of Storm Arrows in less than half that time.