It’s because of his cooldowns. While Ball isn’t necessarily an “I need to kill” type of Tank, sometimes he does need to assassinate someone. Both of Bap’s cooldowns can keep this from happening and Ball has to wait to reengage.
He’s not a hard counter, but he’s probably the hardest soft counter.
That doesn’t really say anything. People don’t try in QP. Comparatively, my success on Ball means much more. 65% WR in comp(High Diamond) as a Ball one trick. It’s not hard to get an insane WR in QP, especially not on Ball because people in QP DC before they counterpick.
Compared to any other Tank, no they don’t.
No lie I despise ball with a passion but yeah the hack is really annoying. There is no greater feeling than hacking ball with sombra though so unless ball was to take a good nerf to his annoying playstyle then sombra is a necessary evil.
When a rank 1 ball tells me on stream it’s not worth it to play ball into sombra, I’m going to believe him over someone that claims to be a ball main on the forums that’s nowhere near rank 1 and very well could not even be a ball main.
What does that even mean “engaging too hard”? I can play ball into sombras because SOME sombras are terrible at the hero and just play her to counter me. If the sombra is even decent, it is NEVER worth it to stay on ball. Hack taking him out of ball form just ruins every single engagement. I’d rather play into mei or tracer because at least I can see them. How do you counter a hero you can’t see? You run around shooting the air. Yup. Just watched a very high rank ball player someone recommended I watch, run around the entire map shooting the air and only made plays once he force translocate or killed sombra. First of all it’s dumb af that that’s what you have to do to play ball into sombra, and most of all it’s only a playstyle that would work in very high rank where everyone can handle themselves well and don’t need a tank by them at all times. It would never work where I play in masters.
You CAN still do it. Chasm proved that. It’s much less fun, and other Tanks are better at playing into her. That’s why it’s “not worth it”.
If a hack kills you, it means that you extended too far into their team. When you know they have a Sombra, you can’t engage like that because you don’t have the same escape tools.
And that just goes to show your inexperience. A good Tracer alone can prevent a Ball from playing the game. A Mei means engaging=death. Sombra means you have to engage softer. That’s it.
I have experience playing with and against Ball. On Tank, I’m a Ball one trick that is only Diamond because of a lack of play time. I could get to Masters if I played more. On DPS. I’m a GM Tracer main. Playing against Ball, I prefer Tracer because she’s far better than Sombra against him and in general. Playing Ball, I prefer facing Sombra over Mei or Tracer, because they can both actually force you to swap. Sombra can’t.
Your arguments are entirely based off of what other people say. Make your own arguments and conclusions before even having this discussion.
Yeah…that’s my point.
So you can only engage the front line? Lol not doing that on ball. Worthless.
No, it shows YOUR inexperience. I out manuever tracers, and a few shots to the head they run away. I do not engage Mei, or make sure to have walls to play around if I do.
Ok but you’re not masters. So why is a diamond ball main trying to tell a masters ball main how to play? I’m obviously playing better than you. Maybe it’s that you think you can play into sombra that’s holding you back.
They can force YOU to swap, not me.
I feel hack is a bs ability. I just mentioned what Harbleu said to me in stream because he’s a rank 1 ball player who finds it worthless to play ball into sombra as I do. You know two people can share the same opinions right?
good one
So you can’t go in the middle of the enemy team. You disrupt more and kill less.
That’s because you only play in Masters. A good Tracer DESTROYS Ball.
And then their team plays closer together so you’re forced into the slow.
Ok but you’re not GM. I’ve played against GM Ball one tricks and easily won because Tracer hard counters Ball.
No, you’re playing more than me. I’ve been on the same card page on Tank that I’ve been on since the beginning of the season. I destroy Diamond lobbies when I’m actually playing in them.
Maybe it’s that you think you can’t that’s holding you back. Go watch some Chazm, then tell me you can’t play into Sombra.
You’re not facing good players, dude. You’re only Masters. A GM Tracer can absolutely make a Ball swap unless she gets outskilled. An even matchup with a Ball on one side and a Tracer on the other always ends in a Tracer win.
Because it’s one of the few things that counters you that you can even experience playing in Masters.
Two people can, but your entire argument has been “this guy said”. Don’t do that. Statements are not in themselves arguments. They can only buttress your own argument. Understand?
So play the front line as ball. Cringe.
The fact that you talk in absolutes makes me think you aren’t even a gm dps. You act like tracer and mei objectively counter every ball and it’s impossible for a ball player to outplay those heroes. All ball can do to mei is avoid her most of the time, but ball into tracer is a pretty even match up, the higher skilled player will come out on top. What exactly is giving tracer the upper hand that makes you think she hard counters ball? They both have very high mobility, I’d argue ball has higher mobility, tracer has more dps but ball has a lot more health and his dps is good enough to put pressure on such a squishy hero.
And I’ve played against GM tracers and held my ground just fine lol ranked doesn’t separate masters and GM like it used to bud. In fact there’s a lot of GM players that play like plats cause blizzard boosted 40% of metal rank players in seasons 3 and 4 to fill out the less populated higher ranks. GREED just posted a video of a “masters” dps player that literally would shoot his own team mates thinking they were the enemy team. High rank is not what it used to be. Tons of boosted plebs.
I lose interest in forum discussions when they start going in circles. I’ve already told you I CAN play into sombra and sometimes I do…but my entire point this whole time has been, it. is. not. worth. it. Why would I ever play ball into sombra when I could get more value on any other tank? That’s the problem. If you’re trying to get max value, as you always need to be doing on tank now since it’s such a garbage role, you NEED to switch.
Maybe Chazm is the exception, he was the person I was saying I checked out yesterday and I saw him hunt down sombra running around the map shooting the air…a playstyle that’s not possible in masters where people can’t hold their ground without a tank by their side. If my team sees my running around the map shooting the air, they’re reporting me throwing.
Sure just ignore the paragraphs I’m typing.
Its because you guys are hard to find in game, outside of spawn rooms. 
(most balls you ‘see’ at least are like that)
That’s you. You don’t like that fact that you have to play differently against different heroes, even though they have to play differently against you.
This is a QrowxClover alt account. Yes, I am.
I have never seen a Ball win against a Tracer and Mei comp. While it certainly isn’t impossible, the Ball has to heavily outskill both the Mei and the Tracer to do anything.
Ball is entirely based on uptime. A Tracer constantly being on him means that he has to disengage more and stay gone for longer. Against a Ball on Tracer, you just hard focus the Ball, and his team will get wiped while you chase him. Tracer is the hardest counter to Ball because she can keep up with him and pose enough of a threat for him to have to keep running, with no danger to herself at all.
Press X to doubt.
Oh, but it does. I’m not even a high GM, I peaked at GM3. But I can see a noticeable difference between M1 and GM5.
That never happened, buddy. Ranks don’t work like that. If players were boosted, they’d fall quickly because they’d be facing players that deserve their rank. If this has actually happened, every game would be decided by the amount of real GMs on a team, when this is just not the case.
That’s the anti smurf system. You only see literal new players at high ranks when they shouldn’t be, because the anti smurf will place you up super high automatically if you do well in the games to unlock comp. My first placement game on an alt account was M1, even though I was playing my worst hero.
Then stop calling it impossible.
That’s how counters work, buddy. That’s part of the game. Viability is contextual. Ball gets less value than other Tanks when playing into a comp that counters him.
And yet Chazm doesn’t. No you don’t.
Ok? Then don’t play into Sombra like that? Chazm doesn’t play against her like that in a game he’s trying in, dude. And regardless, if that WORKS for you, it’s not throwing.
Yeah, there’s really no other hero that is as survivable and mobile as ball. Quite literally takes 2-3 collectively to “match” him.
Not worth it for him, and only for him.
It is, however, the best way to rank up. This has been already proven statistically.
It’s…not a problem.
They’re obviously not.
Exactly. It’s like trying to mimic OWL team strats. That’s never going to work on the ladder. Those things work because of the hyper coordination, mechanical skill and communication.
There is never a reason to swap tanks solely because a Sombra is on the field.
She’s not a hard counter. She never was, not even in OW1. Mei’s old freeze was the only true hard counter and even then only if she was with someone else.
Everyone spy checks when there’s a Sombra in play, this is nothing new.
Exactly.
Sombra also never tends to play with her team either.
nope
Eh, Soldier is more of a deterrent than Tracer. One roll through or slam and Tracer has to go find health pack/recall.
I’ve always thought that momentum preservation when releasing mines would be a great addition. Course, that would also mean that you’ve basically turned ball into a trebuchet or MLRS when fireballing.
and ball can quite literally get up close and personal to anyone or anything.
Him swapping is him straight up soft throwing because he thinks the game is unwinnable on hog/rein whatever he wants to mess around with or he swaps once walks into enemy dies and then swaps back. He probably has 1% playtime on heroes that aren’t ball each season. Chazm literally did an unranked to gm without even shooting so his playstyle clearly works at any rank.
More pathetic than Sombra abusers thinking that hack needs to be a freebie silence ability because the rest of her kit design is so flawed? Sure buddy whatever you have to tell yourself.
There is a major difference between a balanced counter and a cheap ability that literal kindergardeners could pull off reliably.
Somehow, this post aged EXTREEMLY WELL! All points are still relevant, and i seriously think Blizzard should take a long look at how they do “Reworks”. The root of the problem is the same that made 6v6 an issue, and 5v5 is an issue now too, it just feels worse. The competitive system while being “updated” is essentially still the original system from Overwatch one. 100% range is essentially 100 points. and the win and loss of rank is the exact same range as it has always been. You win you gain 20-25 points you lose the same if you lose. How is this any different from the point where Gold 2225 SR wouldn’t be listed as Gold 4 and 25% “progression”. Old wine new bottles. And Sombra is just the same… The VIRUS even if you win the duel you are dead if you do not get healed. Its a dead mans trigger but it sticks to you. It’s the same reason why Cassidys grenade is bad, echo’s sticks are bad etc. You can win, but you will die anyway because low skillfloor heroes are INTENTIONALLY unballanced. You don’t have to make it feel good to lose, but at least don’t make if feel like being cheated when you win, and still die in a 1v1. Agency for each player vs. teamplay you cannot have both these are mutually exclusive. Chess isn’t played with a setup where you can chose pieces that are “easier to move” for new players so you only have Queens that can do all move types with exception of the horse. No you play with 1 queen each, and your terms are equal. Sombra, Kiriko, Lucio, Moira, Echo, Venture, Wrecking Ball, and Doomfist, they all have the same thing in common, they can get in, get value and get out with ZERO risk, they can lose the fight and still survive, meanwhile, Ana kan win the fight vs. sombra but she still dies if she doesn’t have grenade, get heals or can run to a healthpack THAT ISN’T hacked. Pharah has splash damage, and she doesn’t even need to hit her shots to get lots of damage in there, okay fine, but then don’t make her splash damage supressive as well. The game lacks tools for dealing with a good pharah because she gains value from being able to spam damage and cc from behind cover. Genji is being nerfed to oblivion over and over to the point where he is just useless now. And all because people who lost their 1v1 with a favourable matchup vs a genji repetedly requested nerfs. Genji is weak, and even pros need to play genji and only genji for genji to ever be viable. Orisa, Sigma, Mauga etc. these tank has the issue that they are all always able to do everything, you give them “Agency” and yes that precisely is why they will always be busted or useless heroes. Because they cannot be alround characters and not be either dominant in everything or useless. At the same time you cannot make a role that has only 1 player in it rotationally ballanced and then provide hardcountering ability to the support role in the name of agency, because while it gives agency to the ANA that she can play anti-es vs Roadhog, if you have to play Roadhog to deal with a doomfist or a winston or something, you are now being faced with 2 tasks and only agency and a tool for 1 at a time. You rely on your team to also switch, and they don’t want to switch then. There’s something fundamentally wrong with this approach and Hack is just as broken an ability as it always was, but now sombra can get away for free, and get secure kills vs. supports that have no way of escaping or winning a fight, they will be forced to sacrifice position and play in the middle of their team where they are now exposed to random spam, because in overwatch 2 we have no off tank to peel nor tank, so the supports are now at the mercy of their team, because it doesn’t matter if they win the 1v1 vs. Sombra because they will die anyway. It means that tanks can uncontested roll through teams, vs dive tanks, and it requires a bunch of coordination which you will not find on most of the ladder. And the problem isn’t going to go away with fancy graphical updates to the competitive system, or new skins in the battle pass, or fancy words such as “rework” when it’s at core the same hero, with the same issues, and design flaws, and now she just has a “virus”, perma invisibility, and no translocator to destroy. And the game is 100% worse than it was in Overwatch 1, People who argue that you were just shooting barriers have clearly not left the fact that this was a very solvable issue that is THE SAME issue the game has now, but now there are more heroes to contribute to the issue and its overall worse. Rammatras ultimate is not only large but surely you can then outrun it right? NO WRONG, you cannot it has speed boost. Mauga has an unblockable charge, because he is solo tanking and doesn’t need a bubble to protect him, so he is basically reinhardt but better and he has range, he can do ash dinamite as a PRIMARY WEAPON! And it’s effective at range and close up. Look ana is strong at range but not close up, without significant skill, this is good, but MAUGA, Sigma, Rammatra, they other new heros can do it all. And its a fundamental issue with game design: DO NOT MAKE SUPER HEROES, make niche heroes, which can do something unuique and special which changes the gameplay when they are played, but keep them good at that one thing. The notion of Agency died the moment Role-Queue got invented, you cannot fill the lacking position with 2-2-2 locks, and there are no tools for dealing with leavers, the game will punish you just as hard for being unlucky as being beaten. This is why people are not having fun. Ultimates are essentially been turned into cooldowns activated by E. Kiriko’s cleanse is borderline insane to have. If you wanted to fix the agency issue for tanks and not overbuffing them, they should have the simple passive that their ultimates can only be blocked by tank abilities, and dps ultimates can not be blocked by tanks, but supportults can block them instead. while supports should not be able to obliterate an entire enemy team, like moira and illari’s. they should be focused on keeping people alive and enabling the dps or tanks. Don’t give imortality abilities to support vs. tanks. and don’t give tanks the ability to roll an entire team, but keep an entire team required to work together to kill them. If a role can do it all, or has heroes who can do it all, its not balanced anymore. And This issue is just the only constant thing about Overwatch, 6v6 was never the issue, Low risk high value and misunderstood balance cause the issue in 6v6 and 5v5, and now the update to the grouping system has essentially killed the incentive to play as groups, why even have 5v5 for queuetimes if people are sitting in the queue for 15 mins and getting less win or lose rewards, as the same time as getting the same poor quality game, or toxic teammates. or both. 7 Months on and the criticism is still valid for Sombra. several years on and the game still suffers from the same fundamental design issue. It’s getting kind of pathetic at this point that a AAA company cannot figure this basic princple out as described countles places including litterature such as Tracy Fullertons Game Design Workshop book. Fundamentally if a player is bad, don’t reward this player with a cheat! Encourage him to improve instead!
Without hack ball never dies. Ball is as much of a problem as sombra, just in a different way.
That is very incorrect, but the point is that Ball suffers the exact same issue as hack and Sombra, so you really just proving my point.
If that is the reason i hacked pharah and she was still flying through the air i would say thats a nerf…
Ball has like 20 counters bud. Sombra hack doesn’t need to be one of them. It’s probably the most broken interaction in the game. There are some rank 1 ball players that won’t even play into sombra.
Ball has almost no effective counters. Sombra isn’t even that effective any more. He needs MORE counters, then give him more damage so he can do stuff while alive.
The way it works now is that he never dies, and in exchange he does low damage. Let him die to more things and be more risk going in and then give him more reward with more damage.