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Overwatch |OT4| You Want A Good Genji, But You Need The Bad Hanzo
- Thread starter GraveRobberX
- Start date
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Forerunner
Member
Played a few games before the servers crash. Seeing a lot Ana and Zenyatta, even though most people will switch off the longer the games goes on. I'm also seeing D.Va take Reinhardt spot now and a lot more McCree.
Meta shake ups are always nice and make the game seem more lively. People are more likely to try different things.
Meta shake ups are always nice and make the game seem more lively. People are more likely to try different things.
divisionbyzorro
Member
PTR was 6v6 Ana for about three days.
Just pick Tracer and Genji and rack up the kills.
Just pick Tracer and Genji and rack up the kills.
Kor of Memory
Member
So looking at this, the main counter argument I have is this:
Imagine each character as a SIN wave. They have peaks and valleys. Peaks are when the player is performing well, valleys when they're dead or not really participating.
Some players have very little variance to their peaks and valleys. Lucio for example is almost always healing something somewhere and providing an aid to his team.
Other characters have much steeper peaks and valleys. These are high risk high reward characters. Bastion is a great example. When he works, he works, and he'll land a triple or quad kill. Except then he'll die and his lack of movement abilities means he'll be out of the match for 15-25 seconds. This is why you don't see Bastion a lot in Comp games. While it's great when he works, it's horrible when he doesn't.
Hanzo is the same way. When he works, it's great, but when he doesn't he's the equivalent of being down a full player. Hanamura defense feels like a 5v6 to start with, then a critical damage dealer is gone, and now it feels like a 4v6 because Hanzo isn't on his A game, and the enemy team knows it. So they push, and you've lost A before you can get back to spawn.
All High risk high reward characters are like this, and because of the risk, pro players tend to avoid them because they don't like to gamble, they'd rather rely on their skills than a roll of the dice. That way they can lay blame on something tangible when something goes wrong.
yeehamuffins
Member
One thing I did get to enjoy before being kicked: all of those new, cocky D.Va players with their toggled Defense Matrix getting a face full of my Zarya barreling towards them with 100% charge. They melt just the same as they used to.
how come?
Dead Prince
Banned
server issue. will blizzard not let them get a loss/penalty for this? we'll see.
Orochinagis
Member
No update for consoles? shame Blizzard shame
nhlducks35
Member
Heh, Ana has the "Witness me" line
I read this entire thing and I can't really think of anything else to add. It's pretty exhaustive in covering not only the problem of Hanzo but Overwatch in general. League had a similar problem where making champs and items too similar (within the roles) makes balancing too difficult. If everything is just a slight variation on each other, then there's no reason not to mathematically maximize every role. When LoL vs Dota threads crop up many people cite the unnecessary complexity of Dota heroes, but they don't realize that it's specifically this complexity, that two similar heroes who occupy the same roles (say, Dazzle and and Earth Spirit) can offer completely different team strategies, is paramount to the balance work. And when IceFrog overbuffs or overnerfs or even remakes a hero, the balance isn't thrown out of whack, because what's holding up the glass house of balance is the relative strength of team comps, of which there are countless; very rarely are individual heroes problematic. Trends and macrobalance rule Dota.
Hearthstone suffers from the same problem. Really, any game that touts the "easy to learn, hard to master" motto will be vulnerable in this area. Complexity itself is a balance tool.
So what's Blizzard to do? I'm leaning towards the utility option for Hanzo. Pushback could work. Bleed? With movement causing extra damage, like Rupture in Dota or Puncture in Path of Exile. As a Dota player I'm not opposed CC but CC is probably even more rage inducing than Hanzo's old hitbox for your average player. Ana is at risk of becoming the new Hanzo, and will only held back by her extremely high skill floor and her lack of weeb appeal.
I also agree that the pro scene, for all their mechanical competence, is underdeveloped. I would've expected that some team would, by now, be able to figure out ult timings and whatnot. I've also considered the idea that an optimal strategy might be to not damage the opposing team at all until ults are ready. The pro scene's microstrategy is pretty good (there's room for improvement of course) but the macrostrategy leaves a lot to be desired.
Also your friend touches on one of the reasons Mercy was such a problem before the Ana patch. Sometimes she could rez twice in a protracted fight, all because of the damage flying everywhere (that never kills outright) she gets to heal. I think Blizzard is aware of this but are choosing to ignore it, like they did the problem of hero stacking. They have backed themselves into a balancing corner and are delaying addressing it directly, clinging onto the notion that they can manage it with minor balance tweaks, rather than going after the more fundamental problems.
I think in between the Zen buff, the Mercy change, and Ana, we'll start to see the cracks of Blizzard's adherence to the "120 damage per second, 200 hp" baseline they use for non-tank heroes. There's a lot of damage flying around right now, and the TTK is going to be higher than it ever was before.
Kor of Memory
Member
Didn't they just nerf the rate that Mercy gets Ult?
divisionbyzorro
Member
Ana players - pro tip - she's not a sniper. Play her at midrange and only snipe when Pharah goes up in the air.
No. All the Ult "nerfs" are just counterbalances because now you gain charge from self-healing as well.
Incendiary
Banned
I like using Ground Pharah to bait enemies as well. Like I was walking with a payload and I baited a Genji into using his ult to try and take me out along with the rest of my team, but I just jumped as soon as he started and took him out from above before he could kill anyone.
My philosophy with Pharah is don't take to the air unless you can see the whites of the enemy's eyes. A well timed boost can do things like avoid a Junkrat tire or black hole and put you in a position to counter them at little to no risk.
Orochinagis
Member
Its funny how Mercy can get like 3/4 of her ult by healing a single tank
they've disabled comp, you can't play it, it's not on the menu anymore.
More depressing than funny
divisionbyzorro
Member
Mercy should be able to rez from longer range, but charge the rez much slower. It shouldn't be a factor in literally every team fight.
divisionbyzorro
Member
I had to shout at my teammates in PTR to stay in my LOS if they wanted healing. I'm too slow and squishy to chase after them.
FTFY. Console patches must go through a certification process before release. PC patches do not.
She gets self healing ult charge now, and she gets to supply more buff damage so I think it evens out. It being slightly nerfed doesn't solve the fundamental problem. Her ult change would need to be completely sent to the floor to do so. I predict she'll still be able to get off two ults regularly.
However Ana is an unknown quantity here. She seems built around suppressing threatening squishies like Mercy. If teams can bring forth Anas that can regularly counter Mercy, we might start seeing a shift in strategy. Or, perhaps, every game will now have Ana + Mercy instead of just Mercy.
EroticSushi
Member
What they really need to do is fix the basketball physics.
Not with all the garbage Hanzo players now switching to Ana.
I wonder if I can just jump in front of Ana users to get healed. XD
Also, Comp is back for PC users
https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/755482545643401216
divisionbyzorro
Member
I can't wait for the Ana players yelling at me because I stepped in front of their shot.
A Sentient Keyboard
Member
The points about the value of burst damage and why alternate strengths for hanzo upset the game balance are really good. As a supporter of the hitbox changes, I hadn't thought of that. Still, I think making hitboxes larger than they appear to be is a bad solution, and creates a worse situation than simply hanzo being really bad.
The blizzard gameplay designers have been smart so far, and I'm sure they can come up with a buff for hanzo that makes him useful without fudging what is appearing on the screen. If nothing else, I'd be ok with them reverting the hitbox change but also scaling up the arrow models to match the hitbox size. It'd look stupid, but at least I would know what to expect. Until then, I'm fine with hanzo being dumpster tier.
Duplicate legendaries shouldn't even be a thing, it's pretty stupid. Or duplicate player icons, since you can't even buy them them.Never gets any less disappointing.
optimus8936
Banned
If they are gonna have legendary duplicates, you should get around 500 currency, imo.
But it would be much easier if they were just removed.
Dead Prince
Banned
they'll just use the pee jar on themselves. fuck team healing.
There's an argument presented in this thread (which is a good read) that supports gain less rank on a win and loose more on a loss than dps classes do but there's not enough evidence given to support that claim. I've always thought (and someone in the thread mentioned this) that your elo was, in large part, based on your performance versus the "average" performance of whatever character you chose. We need more testing and more evidence here although the rank 80 Torb player is certainly interesting.
Bold claims and terrible news if true.
It's a good read with a lot of good points. Kudos to you friend for making it. Here's what I think:
I think there's room to buff Hanzo (if he even needs it - I'm not convinced he does) without messing with the magic numbers. Make it so hit ult activates and travels quicker or has a wider area of effect. This would make it easier for him to catch folks in it, similar to how they made D.Va's Meka explosion activate quicker.
You could also give him quicker cooldowns on his Sonic and Scatter arrows (I personally find the wallhack arrow to be a huge benefit) so that he can use them more often. Neither of those options messes with the magic 120 damage number or anyone's HP pool but would buff Hanzo.
Right now, I find Hanzo to be a good addition to a team if the person plays him well. He can reliably kill squishy heroes, keep his wallhack arrow up for the rest of us (which helps everyone) and has an Ult that is good at area denial. He's a little bit situational and better on some maps/ parts of maps than others, but many other characters share that trait.
If anything, I would vote for Symmetra as the character who next needs some tweaking. She is TOO situational and smart players are learning that there are only so many viable spots to place that teleporter. But that's a topic for another post.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Zen will absolutely be my new main over Lucio, who will move to second place. I don't see myself ever playing Ana, to be honest.
Most likely, since the effect still shows up on targeted character.
Considering waking up early and going to the nearest pc bang to play. Of course the patch goes live when I'm busy for once.
Vault Dweller 111
Member
Bupkis on a release for consoles?
How's Roadhog's hook PC brethren? Any fixes in this patch?
How's Roadhog's hook PC brethren? Any fixes in this patch?
Not likely in a week or two.
I've always enjoyed playing Zen more than Lucio and Mercy but they didn't change his healing so I can't imagine, as a solo queuer, ever getting to play him the way you want. Because Lucio and Mercy are always going to outshine him as a healer. Same for Ana.
I made a post about something similar to this earlier.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=210478638&highlight=#post210478638
There is something dodgy going on with this competitive scene. The difference in aim between someone like Seagull, who looks very natural and "normal", to some of those listed, very mechanical and "unnatural", is very stark.
Vault Dweller 111
Member
I've got an unpopular opinion. Why does my team need a healer? Doesn't Lucio and or Mercy being required actually speak to a failing on the games part? They shouldn't be any more viable than any other character.
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