Wrecking ball needs a change

General Discussion
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Blah blah blah you’ve probably seen this kind of post before, but honestly, instead of complaining, I want to explain my genuine opinion on him.

Wrecking ball was never meant to be a solo tank. He is extremely flexible, being able to meat-shield, peel, dive and brawl. Where the issue lies is that he is not good at any of these. Hammond doesn’t really have a place as a tank anymore. Most tanks excel at one particular play style, might that be how a dva peels, or a reinheart shields, or even how a Winston dives. Wrecking ball completely lacks any defensive utility for his team (you could make a point for boop or maybe mines if you really wanna push it). Even characters like doom or junkerqueen have a way to counter ults or utility to help your team. Imo Hammond is one of the worst tanks in ow2 at the moment (which pains me to say, I love the fuzzball). The most frustrating part is he is probably one of the most overlooked hero’s in the roster (except maybe doom lol).

I think, to make Hammond actually fit in more, you could change or even completely scrap his adaptive shielding in place for a new ability. I have two ideas for a new ability. The first would be a barrier that Hammond would leave Behind him in a trail like manner that would be drawn based on the wrecking ball’s pathing. It would be weak, and would assist in cutting of los, with the catch that it would be able to be shot through, but leave the opponents unable to traverse though it. It could function like a mei wall or a regular shield with how it is broken. My second, much more simple idea, is a pulse that Hammond would emit that would drag enemies towards him, which could be used both in grapple and standing positions. It would assist in controlling space, and I could imagine some fun combos people could come up with!

In the end, I don’t really expect an actual change, But I would love to see some fun ideas for changes to make wrecking ball a more “tank like” tank. My ideas are very simple and fun, and probably wouldn’t really work in an actual match, but they were fun to think of! I would love to see some other cool ideas, or simple balance changes! Maybe you don’t think he needs a change at all, and that’s ok too.

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The only way for Hammond to truly be viable would require the playerbase to actually pivot away from Rectangle Man as the One And Only Tank. It will never happen, so I don’t sweat on it. He’ll always be niche, he’ll always be my best tank, and my team will always be a bigger enemy than any counter swap on the other side.

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It’s kinda the same issue with Winston. As soon as you are doing decent somebody will hard counter Bastion reaper.

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Rien? Characters I do need

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WB doesn’t seem to be your problem, its rein, who happens to have bloated utility then.

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I was thinking they rework Adaptive Shields into an ability that reduces the damage output of nearby enemies, rather than give Wrecking Ball over-health.

I also think they need to reduce his displacement of enemies so he’s more fun to play against. Buff something non-CC related if he is too weak.

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So essentially wall people off to force 1v1s against Tracer with 700 HP? No. Just no.

No. There’s no way to make that fair for both sides.

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Ball is good but there is alot of counter for him if they just Delete sombra he will be fine

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This is where you lost me. He does do all these things, but you completely left out the one thing he does better then any other tank. Displacement. There is nothing more annoying than a wrecking ball attacking your backline. It forces the tank to make a difficult choice. Hold the fort, or peel even though more then half the time the ball will still live and retreat away. There isn’t any comp more scary then seeing a ball, genji, reaper, Lucio, and moira attacking you from every angle

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Lmao he is huge, can cover more distances faster then any other character in game and in ball form he has no critbox and third person view*. What more do you need? He can go from body blocking a soldier ulting the frontline to body blocking a slept support in the backline 50 meters away in a moment. He is faster then sigmas barrier and at distances longer then 35-40m he is even faster then zaryas bubble.
*Meaning you can see both the enemy and ally you’re body blocking and eat abilities that are meant for your squishies. If the ally you’re blocking for is a support you can basically do it indefinitely because hps > dps without crit.

Obviously this isn’t main objective, ideally you should be more focused on attacking their sups or displacing their dps then babysitting your team. But if you see that someone is about to get charged/hooked/rocked/slept etc you should definitely eat that.

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I 100% agree and I like the suggestions you offered for how to change him. I think ball is the most fun character to play in the game, but I have a very hard time justifying playing him without feeling like I’m screwing over my team

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Nah doom at least gets nerfed for no reason.

Ball just exists. He’s definitely more overlooked than doom.

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Honestly you got me there. Ball is actually really decent at body blocking. I find myself overwhelmed when the other team has a good sense of coordination. I think the problem it that you have to make a lot of decisions that you wouldn’t have to make as another tank. “Do I stop the ashe, do I peel the tracer, or do I brawl the orisa so she doesn’t mow over our supports?”. In the end it feels like an uphill battle when you could just swap to someone like sigma and manage most of the problems at one time. You do hold a very solid point tho, and in the end this is just my opinion

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The way I see it you can make the enemy dead later but you can’t make your team mates not dead later. But you need to make the enemy dead to take the objective so it all depends on whether you have the objective or not.

Brawling with a orissa, reinhardt etc in the frontline is just futile imo. They have a better kit for that and nobody is going to die. You can try to boop them forward and then go up behind them with an adaptive shield to block their heals/escape while your team nukes them. Sometimes that works but in general i think you’re better of being in the backline, booping their dps into LoS of your dps and forcing their healers to heal each other instead of their team. Tying up the attention of 2-3 squishies > tying up the attention of one tank imo.

Don’t forget that you’re super fast. If you’re deep into the enemy backline and their orissa or w/e is deep into yours and pushing them back to spawn. Then she is overextended, you’re not. You can go back and join your support and fight her, she can’t.

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We just need to remove hyper-mobile tanks from the game altogether.

And there’s a reason Reinhardt is still so popular and has been for the longest time.

His design is simply ideal for how players want to play the game. Not just for the person playing the tank, but the whole team. It is significantly easier to follow a Rein into battle and rally behind/to him, than it is for a hyper mobility tank.

The playstyle is less awkward and niche, and it simply works.

That’a not to say only barrier tanks are good designs.

Junker Queen, Orisa and Zarya are all tanks without barriers who do a good job being front-to-back tanks that do a lot for their team.

My opinion ofc, but I think hyper-mobile tanks have little to no place in ow2.

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Maybe not remove but they should never be strong. Chain cc will never be fun if the person doing it is 1000 up tank

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Hear hear!

I really wish that wasn’t the case, but in both cases I can often beat my counters. Now a whole line up of counters…that’s another issue entirely.

No you do not. The thing about Iverwatch is its unpredictable nature and the need for players to adapt to a situation. Its a basic skill many players try to avoid, but it is still very important and effective to learn to be flexible, whether you are one tricking or controlling a small pool of heros.

Agreed. Though they won’t buff him more because it might break him again and ssdly the Ball meta is widely feared just as badly as the current “Brawl wins” meta we have right now.

I say, just continue to play him. If you spend your time worrying about others who don’t do the same for you, you’ll realize later how you sacrificed your own fun while trying to have fun.

Take it from someone who spent 30 seasons flexing for other players.

Its not worth it, the payoff is minimal at best, and you’ll have more improvement and fun playing what you find fun and enjoyable.

Now onto you.

Alright so the pathing shield ability is interesting, but it’ll create an issue in where CC is already a problem, and that is opponents against heavy CC lose agency of their game.

This is going to increase more heavily with Mauga’s ultimate Cage fight, and adding the same “wall trapping” capabilities would only add to the frustration for players to where it’ll feel like the CC or double shield meta state of OW1.

It’s an interesting concept, but I can already see how I’l abuse it, since Ball can essentially roll circles around enemies.

The amount of times I do this just to dodge is actually surprising. Having an ability to create mt own mini cage fight would become broken if my movement is already pretty insane.

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