The recent Wrecking Ball changes have helped to make him viable and better fit into the tank role as it exists in 5v5. However, Wrecking Ball still gets countered hard by Sombra and by knockback in general.
Counterplay is important in Overwatch and generally I support “strong” counters. However, I think in the case of Wrecking Ball, these counters are oppressive and represent a fundamental design problem for him.
Roadhog used to be in a similar situation. For years, Roadhog was countered SO hard by Ana that he had to balanced around that fact, so as soon as Ana wasn’t an issue anymore (because of Kiriko), Roadhog became a menace in the meta. He was always a menace when the enemy team didn’t have an Ana.
Wrecking Ball is already a menace when the enemy team doesn’t have Sombra, Lucio, or Brig.
By making these counters less effective, we can flatten out Wrecking Ball’s power level to be more consistent. Avoiding frustration when playing Ball into his counters and when playing against Ball on a team without his counters.
To meet these goals, here are my proposed changes:
Ability lockout does not affect Roll (Ball form). So getting hacked doesn’t take him out of Ball form or prevent him from changing forms.
The only abilities in the game that force Wrecking Ball out of Ball form are Hack and Sleep Dart. Stuns don’t do it, hinder and root effect don’t do it. Sombra would still be a very potent counter to Ball without this.
20% extra knockback resistance while in Ball form
Because Ball form is momentum-based, knockback is much more effective against Wrecking Ball than other heroes. With this change he is moved about as much in Ball form as he is in normal form.
Ramming speed cannot be lost by momentum changes resulting from enemy knockback abilities
What I’m imagining is if you boop ball while he’s at ramming speed coming towards you, he gets launched back the same distance as any other tank would, but he keeps his direction and speed. This way knockbacks buy time to get out of the way but don’t completely undo the Wrecking Ball’s rollout.
If these changes were implemented, Wrecking Ball would be an absolute menace similar to Roadhog during season 1. He would have to receive serious nerfs elsewhere to compensate.
Thanks everyone for reading - a humble game designer
Then they gave him the resource meter breather which made him even more braindead
Doesn’t even have to think about when to use healing. There is no mind games anymore. Now who gives af if he gets stunned. If he gets stunned out of his breather he just gets it back after a second. Dumbest change they ever made
The movement they added to hamster is very nice but the rework did exactly nothing to help him, the shields he can give people are only usfull in extremly neash situations, they didnt buff his pile drver damage when they increased everyones health and his guns still feel like shooting a bb gun at a brick wall that has armour, health regen and the guns spread is so bad it can miss a wall
The most annoying things of playing Ball is when you lose your momentum due to some cheese. Meanwhile Mauga gets to run through literally everything with his shift or E I forget which one with 100% cc resistance. And for gods sakes he needs to be able to slam while in a cage. And if you want his mines to be canceled which is stupid in my opinion then at least make it so every other tank can also get their ult canceled.
welcome to overwatch where if you play hammond and have a half decent first fight everyone will swap to counter you so you don’t even get to play your hero.
Ball is fine. He’s just got a pretty high skill ceiling and few transferable skills from other heroes. You just need to spend more time with him. Literally the only thing he’s weak to is hack, and even then, unless you’re rolling into an enemy team without thinking about where the Sombra is, you’re not going to die.
I would say he plays a lot better in open queue though, as do all the off-tanks.
You think Mercy counters ball more than Venture? If you hadn’t said you were a ball main I would have guessed you’d never have played him. How if Torb more of a counter than Mei or Reaper? and Ana at top? She can sleep you but it’s hardly a counter. It’s got a long cooldown and on her own she’s one of the easiest heroes to kill with ball as she has zero mobility. Baston as well. What are you doing? rolling around in front of him while he’s in turret mode?
Yeh wrecking ball is terrible man i just get destroyed and countered over and over again. I watched yeatle get so mad and say ball is still trash and then you get called bad because your getting countered by 3 differant people its beyond a joke honestly.
Hes not fine watch yeatle play him literally the best ball in the world and he gets countered by everyone and looks miserable playing the hero. wake up.
I dont know about all these lists but would you agree hampster needs at the very least a mag size increase cuz its the main thing bothering me right now
Mercy because she can damage boost or heal any of the other heroes on this list and make them even harder to deal with. She is also not that easy to kill as Ball. I thought Venture was just OP in general but after the nerfs I haven’t had much issue with them so far. But maybe I’m wrong.
Mei and Reaper you can play around their lack of mobility and cooldowns. But you are going to need someone else to shoot Torb’s turret. If you have to do it on Ball that is such a time waster and makes you spend most of the games getting health packs instead of engaging the enemy. Also his E makes him just as tanky and dangerous up close as Mei and Reaper.
The sleep + anti is the #1 counter in my opinion. You are basically dead most of the time if she lands a sleep if the rest of her team has their monitor turned on. And the cooldown is pretty short on those. Yea you can kill her if you bait them out but most Anas are going to save it for you and Ball is an easy target to hit.
Yea if you are playing Ball against Bastion it is kind of hard not to. You know he is going to be focusing you most of the time right?
I’m plat with a 64% Ball win rate so far this season. Yea there are different metas and different counters for different ranks. But I have spent a lot of time around this rank and this is my overall experience. I sometimes face a Brig and also not sure what WetWipe (another Ball main) is smoking by calling her a walking target. She is another hero I would try to avoid as Ball most of the time. Annoying to deal with especially with her boop. But still not that scared of her coming after me either.
Also speaking of boops I can’t believe I forgot Lucio. He probably belongs somewhere in the middle so I’m going to edit him in now.
why would brig split from her team when her heal potential is greatest when she is with her team? she literally have to do nothing but bother ball to win if you play ball against her.
i have something like 95+% win rate against ball