Rein's and Orisa's shields cover all the way backwards. "But you can flank that!" You can more easily flank D.Va's DM. Besides Zarya beam, it doesn't block Mei's Primary fire, Sombra's Hacks, Symmetra's Beams, Genji's ult or Dashes, Doomfist anything, Winston, Rein charges, Roadhog's Hook (surprising how DM complaints became a cacophony only after Roadhog's nerf by the way), and Lucio Boops. There may well be others.
Meanwhile you're removing counterplay to ults from Pharah, Reaper, Soldier, McCree, Torbjorn, Roadhog, Bastion who all have bad play indirectly buffed for them.
Last edited by Jessicka; 2017-08-22 at 09:02 AM.
I really love the tank argument. Does nobody realize that the heroes in OW are rather loosely categorized and have more specific classifications?
If we were to categorize the tanks as "Hard tank" and "Off-Tank" for instance, you would have two hard tanks and the rest would be off-tanks. Zarya isn't very tanky either, but she wasn't built to consistently eat damage. D.va falls more into a "Vanguard" category.
And Sombra leans more to off-healer/disruptor.
Symmetra and Torb are Builders, specialists if you will, with Torb being the ranged builder/support and Symmetra the close range one.
I could care less about a hero's given role. What's more important is building an interesting and fun hero. And being a Defense Matrix bot is neither fun nor interesting.
Last edited by DrMcNinja; 2017-08-22 at 09:13 AM.
It's a very narrow cone that's pointed usually specifically at someone, which makes it much easier to get around. For example, Junkrat can scoot his bombs right under it, and you don't need much elevation to hit her above it even if it's facing you. You don't need to get much to the side of it to avoid it, unlike Rein or Orisa where you have to get right around the side 90 degrees to them to get at them because the shields are so much wider and taller.
D.Va can spin herself around faster than Rein every effectively could and it extends forward really far, it's borderline impossible for Rein to keep up with Tracer but D.Va can do it pretty easily, you're also underselling how large DM's area of effect really is.
Anyways I'm done here, if she ends up being awful if these changes go live, unluckly.
It's not like her pick rates are low, so I don't think that's a major issue here on the subjective issue of 'fun'.
Annoying to play against for who and why? DPS because she limits their DPS capability? Isn't that what tanks are supposed to do? And it's hardly a little, it's over half when you factor in the 1 second pause before recharging. For burst damage she's never had, and no one ever asked for., and annoying to play against. I like how they traded a little of the defense for some firepower.
Well, she's really strong and useful, so having her makes winning the round more likely. I don't think she's a very diverse character. I also find Mercy to be very boring to play also, but she's almost mandatory. Anyway, don't forget that Dva is a young, cute "anime-ish" girl in a tight suit, also an e-sport champion and drives a mech, basically the target audience's wet dream. I'm sure that also influences pick rate, although probably not in the higher ranks.
Maybe we should try to move away from tank/dps/healer-classifications and let characters have a little variety? Her DM eating up everything being thrown in that direction makes it feel OP. Attacking is just a waste of time, which is not true for shields, which will break quickly if enough firepower is applied, and the damage might still affect players not properly covered. If anyone should have this nullification ability, it should be more limited, either in CD or effect. Her little point blank range cannons are annoying to use and annoying to be the target of. Consistent blasts of low-damage shots nibbling at your health bar.....yawn! I welcome getting killed faster from her so I can wait for a respawn instead of getting slowly tortured to death.
At any rate, from a design view, it seems like a right move. She drives a mech, which weapon systems shouldn't be limited to a couple of sawed off shotguns. The missiles is a suitable addition to her arsenal.
Mother pus bucket!
According to Blizzard, no. That isn't what defines the "tank" category.
"Tank heroes soak damage and break apart fortified positions, like closely-grouped enemies and narrow chokepoints. If you’re a tank, you lead the charge."
https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/game/overview/
While they're reducing her soak slightly, the changes to her offense are going to make her MUCH more capable at the latter part, the "breaking apart fortified positions" bit.
And I really think you're underestimating the strength of Defense Matrix. You can't really compare it to Reinhardt/Orisa in terms of damage prevented; their barriers are constant blocks that are often better worked around than punched through, unless your team focuses their fire. D.va's Defense Matrix can't be broken; it absorbs all projectiles, no matter how much damage they might do. If you had enough ults being dumped on you at the same time, it can absorb levels of damage that neither Orisa nor Reinhardt could. What this does is shift DM to an emergency button to soak big bursts, rather than something that just eats enemy ultimates. You might pop it on Reaper to give your squishies time to dive out of range, or to give them time to run for cover from McCree's High Noon, but it's about buying those seconds, not just countering the ultimate entirely, now.
Nerfing it by half might be going TOO far; maybe it needs 2.5-3 seconds of uptime. But 4 felt like too much. That's what PTR playtesting is for, though.
The bold part is important. It specifically means you don't need to blow your cooldowns to get through it, you just need to do enough to keep her worried. For four seconds. An Orisa Barrier takes specific heroes and focus to burn it down in the 8 seconds before she can deploy a new one. Most setups never get close, while any one hero can do enough to burn out DM. There's nothing to underestimate, because those same barriers can handle the DPS ults as well, people are just weirdly more inclined to make sure they're broken before they try.
That leaves us with the handful of Hanzo, Zarya, Mei for which there's precious little counterplay left; and Zarya is not in need of any more buffs, direct or indirect like this.
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Does Tracer really need a fucking buff, and help with this? For me, she's on the radar as one who's probably, and arguably overpowered already.
I'm just using her as an example overall, and yeah I'll agree that she's really borderline right now, but I doubt there's anyone on this entire board, myself included, that can actually play Tracer well enough to the point that she's op.
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Also, just putting it out there, they've gone on record at Gamescon saying they're looking at Mercy and she's getting 'very interesting and sweet' changes, so I'm already bracing myself for more whining.
The other tanks various defenses can be played against though. You can shoot reinhardt's shield , you can pop zaryas bubble, you can break orisas shield.
There's no counter play to matrix, except "keep her away" (and even then that doesn't work well given she's mobile as hell, not to mention that's how you counter -everybody-, she can sit by her team and matrix to block stuff too instead of being right up in your face)
I'm not saying I like these changes a bunch either (I love to play me some D.Va) but I can understand where they come from too. When I first seen defense matrix I surprised they'd even put something into the game that's effectively "You are immune to ranged attacks in the direction you face (minus zarya laser) while right click is held down"
Happy and sad about the changes. Surprisingly, the reason I am both is because she is just too good in capable hands. No other tank, or character I can think of, do you hear or read about in a game along the lines of "Get DVa out of mech and I'll Ult." Never heard anyone say "Break Rein's shield..." or "Drain Zarya's bubble."
The recharge rate is mainly the issue in my opinion. It needs a little nerf, but maybe not this big of a one. Just as it stands now, she can absorb so much in terms of damage and very quickly completely absorb multiple Ults. The only work around currently is to use 1 Ult right after another and hope that her matrix is close to drained.
A small part of the issue is just how far it sticks out. Maybe changing that would have been enough. When she can sit on top of Reaper and protect everyone around her in a 360 degree radius, regardless of what side she or her teammates are on, has always been ridiculous and frustrating. No other character can provide that kind of defense or utility so often and so effectively.
I don't think she's ever been OP since her last round of changes, but she was definitely extremely strong as an off tank and all the utility/defense she can currently provide.