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[The Antitype]

I mean... the easiest way to balance it would be to impart a health penality on anybody imparted with a speed boost right?

Like, you get a 15% speed boost, but for as long as it's active (plus perhaps a bit of latent cool-down), you get 15% of your health knocked off (which will recharge afterwards).

Or you could take a chunk of Lucio's health of permanently when he uses a speed boost, which he needs to recoup by healing others, in the same way Mercy's health recoups by healing others (or med pack, obviously).

 

[Antiwhippy]

High risk high reward?

 

[optimus8936]

I don't see what's wrong with a character who can speed up the game a bit. Hell, the reason I've heard from some people as to why they don't play the game is because it's too slow. Nothing wrong with things being fast paced.

But seriously, let's not nerf the only main healer that's worth using. Everyone else is either a side healer or mediocre like Mercy. I like having someone pick Lucio in every game. He's so fun and good with the speed, heals, and wall riding. Please, I want people picking Lucio every game because he's a good healer and a nerf gives people less reasons to play him and hat could make a huge difference. Could change nothing and everyone still plays Lucio, but we don't know until we see and I don't want that risk to be taken.

 

[The Antitype]

High risk high reward?

Pretty much.

If any ability is too powerful, you can either nerf the ability, or make the cost of using it such that players decrease their use of it.

As somebody that enjoys seeing as many different kinds of abilities in the game as possible, I'd rather see them increase the cost or risk than simply neuter the ability.

But I'm a radical. I wouldn't mind them changing Mercy's slow-fall ability to a full-on Pharah-style hover boost to get above the action.

 

[Odrion]

actually if you want to see your favorite esporters use lucio less it's probably better for the game if you reworked/buffed some of the defensive heroes to punish/diminish the value of blitzing in quickly or hell rework and buff them regardless because even in quickplay people are not using them anymore

Let me get this straight.

There's a character that has basically always had a 90%+ pickrate, that is outright considered one of the best characters and sits at around 100% pickrate, that has an ability that outright invalidates other characters and strategies, that the entire game is forced to center around every single meta.

Because I want the ability bringing that character out of line to be toned down, I just want every character to play the same and I should just go play Quake? I know how meta works. I know that there will always be a top tier with a high pickrate. But because I think there's a chance that nerfing such an overwhelming ability will result in opening up other types of strategies, I should just go play Quake?

Okay, sure. That, or maybe I'm just actually right on this one and there's merit into looking into adjusting Lucio to see how Overwatch meta works without speedboost being a constant enabler. Hell, I'm normally the type that doesn't like constant patching, but Lucio has been a problem since closed beta and they outright fucked up with Zenyatta in the last patch.

I dunno, are you? You retorted by making a tone argument.

 

[Beckx]

Managed to hold a team to one checkpoint and some meters on Gibraltar ranked. Naturally, they held us just a little further back the next round. I fucking hate my life.

Haha, that happened to me on Kings tonight, stopped them short of the first checkpoint, and then we fell a couple meters short of that.

 

[Anne]

What I still don't get is why no one ever asked for Lucio to be nerfed before the Zen buff, but now people are asking it like crazy. I don't understand. What changed that affected Lucio?

Certain people were talking about it during the last patch. There was just a bigger problem at the time in the form of Mercy. During Pharmercy meta, fights were entirely dictated by Mercy and that was very apparent and overshadowed the rest of the game. Literally every single fight was a team rez. Sometimes a Mercy even got two a fight. So everybody cried for a Mercy nerf to bring her in line.

This is where things got to where they are now. When they nerfed Mercy, they also buffed the living hell out of Zenyatta. 50 health is a huge buff, but 4x the speed on orbs is insane. So since they did such drastic changes at both the same time, they switched out Zenyatta for Mercy essentially.

Thing is, Zenyatta alone is not as crazy as Mercy was. Meanwhile, Lucio snuck through several patches with no changes. His speedboost with Zenyatta now in meta created such a fucking scary set of interactions that his influence became way way way more apparent suddenly. So like, before we knew speedboost was dumb but people just accepted it. Now, we know how dumb speedboost can really get along with even more insane ass interactions that were popularized during this meta.

Lucio has always been there, but it's just been "hey, he does this thing and that's what we're used to and it's not breaking everything." The longer it goes on though, the more apparent it is that pretty much everything is going to have to be designed around "what happens to it when it gets speed boosted?" Also you need to figure out "is this good enough to be in a game where entire teams can have double speed on command?" for every new character/ability.

That can be fine in theory, just have a whole game built around the speed boost ability, but to me that seems lame and limiting. The fact certain characters don't meet the criteria to exist in the same meta as Lucio is already a warning sign that somethign about it is fucked up.

I dunno, are you? You retorted by making a tone argument.

I retorted by putting out stats, facts, and observations that I have laid down multiple times on here to your non argument. As far as I can tell, all you have to say on it is "speed boost makes him unique so we shouldn't touch it, the meta is fairly new so give it time." Lucio has had time and is only getting worse over time. Zenyatta is admittedly a new thing but having a near 100% pickrate from a 0% pickrate while edging out a few characters is enough to say "hey, let's try toning this down a bit."

 

[Antiwhippy]

I don't see what's wrong with a character who can speed up the game a bit. Hell, the reason I've heard from some people as to why they don't play the game is because it's too slow. Nothing wrong with things being fast paced.

But seriously, let's not nerf the only main healer that's worth using. Everyone else is either a side healer or mediocre like Mercy. I like having someone pick Lucio in every game. He's so fun and good with the speed, heals, and wall riding. Please, I want people picking Lucio every game because he's a good healer and a nerf gives people less reasons to play him and hat could make a huge difference. Could change nothing and everyone still plays Lucio, but we don't know until we see and I don't want that risk to be taken.

My fundamental problem with it is that for game that has so many game types that involves one side defending against another side, speed boost pretty much make defense irrelevant.

 

[optimus8936]

I don't see how having a high pick rate and usage makes a character OP. It just means they're useful. Nothing wrong with useful heroes.

But seriously. Zen is probably getting nerfed and if Lucio gets nerfed too, what are we going to have for supports? A bunch of mediocre/decent healers? I feel like healers should have powerful abilities to show their importance to the game making people pick them more. If healers had the same usefulness as everyone else, they wouldn't get picked as often.

 

[Defuser]

Well if you want to nerf Lucio there's no need to tweak his skill values. Just make his cooldowns longer.

 

[Hellix]

I recently started playing D.Va, now I can't stop picking her. Heeelp

 

[rrs]

high risk, high reward is cool but all I think about with that term is bastion and well that character is dead in comp

 

[I-hate-u]

I don't see what's wrong with a character who can speed up the game a bit. Hell, the reason I've heard from some people as to why they don't play the game is because it's too slow. Nothing wrong with things being fast paced.

But seriously, let's not nerf the only main healer that's worth using. Everyone else is either a side healer or mediocre like Mercy. I like having someone pick Lucio in every game. He's so fun and good with the speed, heals, and wall riding. Please, I want people picking Lucio every game because he's a good healer and a nerf gives people less reasons to play him and hat could make a huge difference. Could change nothing and everyone still plays Lucio, but we don't know until we see and I don't want that risk to be taken.

I am looking at this like how I would look at MVC. If I was Capcom, and saw 90% of people picking say a character like Dr. Doom over the remaining 40+ characters, I would do something about him. Not saying outright nerf Lucio, but maybe buffing Anna and Mercy and giving people a reason to pick them. Variety in terms of strategy through different character picks in the meta only makes the game better..

I don't think Lucio is broken in ranked and QP, but he is too good to not dedicate a permanent spot for him on your team.

 

[Anne]

I don't see how having a high pick rate and usage makes a character OP. It just means they're useful. Nothing wrong with useful heroes.

But seriously. Zen is probably getting nerfed and if Lucio gets nerfed too, what are we going to have for supports? A bunch of mediocre/decent healers? I feel like healers should have powerful abilities to show their importance to the game making people pick them more. If healers had the same usefulness as everyone else, they wouldn't get picked as often.

I don't think having a high pickrate means a character is OP. Zarya/Rein have a high pickrate and I honestly think they are fine where they are. There just aren't enough tanks that do what they do in the game.

For supports, I want them to be good and have decent abilities. If Zen gets nerfed to 30% discord, he'll still have monster DPS, just not enough to nuke a player out of the game instantly. If Lucio loses speedboost he'll still have amazing survivabillity and safe aura healing and speedboost will probably still be good even if it's half of what it is now. Mercy is the only support that is just straight and simple.

Well if you want to nerf Lucio there's no need to tweak his skill values. Just make his cooldowns longer.

Changing CD on Amp It Up just makes Lucio a shit healer and still leaves the speed boost to rock any fight since you only need one.

 

[optimus8936]

Well if you want to nerf Lucio there's no need to tweak his skill values. Just make his cooldowns longer.

But that hurts his healing too, which no one wants.

My fundamental problem with it is that for game that has so many game types that involves one side defending against another side, speed boost pretty much make defense irrelevant.

But that's more of a Defense imbalance than a Lucio imbalance. The lack of good defense heroes for area denial, longer respawn timers, and offense being favored in many maps is what makes defense irrelevant, not Lucio.

 

[Odrion]

I retorted by putting out stats, facts, and observations that I have laid down multiple times on here to your non argument

Not really you argued my tone and ignored the point that nerfing unique traits in the name of "balance" ends up turning a game from Overwatch to modern WOW or League of Legends.

 

[Antiwhippy]

But really.

You know what would solve all this?

Aura freeze mei.

Buff mei.

 

[Sn4ke_911]

New stuff from the Sombra ARG.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/4xaowv/sombra_arg_achievement_comment_has_been_solved/

 

[Odrion]

But really.

You know what would solve all this?

Aura freeze mei.

Buff mei.

they should unironically rework mei so that she's actually good and not miserable to with and against

edit: they should do that with bastion too because everybody knows how to counter him and now he's yet another useless defensive hero

 

[Anne]

not really you argued my tone and ignored the thought that nerfing unique traits so that heroes are more equal ends up turning a game from Overwatch to modern WOW or League of Legends

I mean, what am I gonna say about that? I still feel like Lucio would be "unique" if his speedboost wasn't as nutso. I feel like Zen would still be a DPS healer that stands out if he had slightly lower DPS.

Maybe you don't feel that way. I can't change the way you feel about the uniqueness of a character. I don't want to have to put every character within some boundary to make them not broken, but Blizzard should not design them like shit in the first place. I'm working with what I got on that front.

The "unique" character argument unfortunately doesn't hold up when there's a balance situation that is taking over the game.

But that's more of a Defense imbalance than a Lucio imbalance. The lack of good defense heroes for area denial, longer respawn timers, and offense being favored in many maps is what makes defense irrelevant, not Lucio.

Defense heroes are weak but there is no way around the fact that speed boost is hurting them so much that the only to make them good is to make them strong enough to compete against it. Then you just have a meta where games stalemate without Lucio being on the attacking team and that is even more lame than what we have now. I guess at least you'd get different teams on each side? You'd still see the same teams every match and certain heroes would just become even more mandatory.

 

[optimus8936]

I'd rather they buff other characters than nerf Lucio or Genji. Discord is too good, I can agree on that. But it just turns into an endless cycle where the characters at the top will get nerfed, then they will be replaced at the top, then the new top heroes will be nerfed, and this will keep happening until everything is mediocre and boring. This is exactly what happened to Destiny and that game is a total shit show right now because of their constant nerfing of the top weapons, not because they were OP, but because they were popular. I don't want Blizzard making the same mistake they did.

 

[Antiwhippy]

they should unironically rework mei so that she's actually good and not miserable to with and against

Who's being ironic?

Completely serious here. >_> <_<

 

[Jarate]

I don't think Lucio will ever get nerfed

He's not good enough to carry a team like a great zenyatta or arguably a great mercy can. But he's too invaluable too have because of his speed boost and AOE healing. Teams are probably going to run 2 healers anyway, and there's only like 3 reliable healers in the game right now (Ana will possibly be there, but I wouldn't call her reliable right now) So you're going see the same healers most of the time just due to the nature of the game.

 

[Anne]

I'd rather they buff other characters than nerf Lucio or Genji. Discord is too good, I can agree on that. But it just turns into an endless cycle where the characters at the top will get nerfed, then they will be replaced at the top, then the new top heroes will be nerfed, and this will keep happening until everything is mediocre and boring. This is exactly what happened to Destiny and that game is a total shit show right now because of their constant nerfing of the top weapons, not because they were OP, but because they were popular. I don't want Blizzard making the same mistake they did.

Maybe. That or they flatten out the top enough so that the high pickrate heroes don't trash niche picks or alternative strategies. There's always going to be a best "general" strat/comp. The problem is right now there is only one viable strat/comp that we know exists in this meta. There have been other niche and surprise picks, but the core of every single team has been Zen/Lucio deathball.

Also, yeah I know there aren't enough healers. They'll always have a high pickrate because it's mandatory to have two of them. I just want the game to not turn into Lucio rush strats for every single fight and every single meta. I want an alternative to be there that isn't some huge risk to even consider.

 

[Antiwhippy]

It is curious that out of all the defense characters blizzard list out mei as the one closest to being a tourney regular.

Maybe they have big plans for her?

 

[Anne]

It is curious that out of all the defense characters blizzard list out mei as the one closest to being a tourney regular.

Maybe they have big plans for her?

I unironically think Mei is close to viable. Wall is an incredible ability and she can win team fights with it and the rest of her kit. I was hoping the Mei strats on Numbani/Kings Row/Hanamura would be good enough to stop Lucio/Zen deathballs but I was wrong.

If Lucio/Zen didn't dominate and the game was a bit slower she might actually work out on specific maps.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

Not really you argued my tone and ignored the point that nerfing unique traits in the name of "balance" ends up turning a game from Overwatch to modern WOW or League of Legends.

yeah-ok.gif

A good strategy for game balance involves both nerfs and buffs, a good designer understands that numbers can be both too high or too low. If you limited yourself to only buffs you end up with rampant power creep.

A good way to identify things that should be nerfed are abilities that change the way games are played by themselves. If everyone has something like that, then sure, maybe take a more cautionary approach and try to buff the other 'big' abilities.

But when an ability is one that changes a more fundamental design constant like movement speed that's something to be very wary of implementing. It's the same reason they nerfed Mercy's Damage Boost and will soon do the same to Discord Orbs. When you tune damage numbers for characters, suddenly you have to think about two scenarios, "how much damage does this character/ability do" and "how much damage does this character/ability do with Mercy Beam or Discord". That's very hard to analyze and get right. If Lucio's speed aura was a CD reduction aura people would say that's stupid, but in a FPS movement speed is just as important.

 

[Josh5890]

If/when they start making changes to the stages I hope they make a change to Temple of Anubis. The early part of the stage feels like a bottleneck where if a defensive team sets up with a couple turrets and two bastions it is almost impenetrable. That stage needs a little tweaking.

 

[The Antitype]

I find it very difficult to imagine Blizzard straight-up ripping Lucio's speed boost out of the game.

 

[Odrion]

I mean, what am I gonna say about that? I still feel like Lucio would be "unique" if his speedboost wasn't as nutso. I feel like Zen would still be a DPS healer that stands out if he had slightly lower DPS.

But is a impactful speedboost "nutso"? Or is it just that the esports meta right now (that is the result of a weak roster of defensive heroes) strongly benefits from it?

I mean, everybody in Overwatch looks ridiculous in the context of "esports pros are using them all the time." Roadhog is being used 90% of the time? It has to be that six second hook and the shotgun that instantly kills you if you're not a tank. Bastion can put out more damage than the rest of your team combined. Lucio can make your team go at rocket speed. etc.

The early part of the stage feels like a bottleneck where if a defensive team sets up with a couple turrets and two bastions it is almost impenetrable. That stage needs a little tweaking.

I think the chokepoint is a little weak to be honest. One of it's flank routes is pretty much isolated and once you get past the bridge they can't really entrench themselves again.

 

[The Antitype]

If/when they start making changes to the stages I hope they make a change to Temple of Anubis. The early part of the stage feels like a bottleneck where if a defensive team sets up with a couple turrets and two bastions it is almost impenetrable. That stage needs a little tweaking.

I feel like most combinations of Rein, Reaper, Genji, Tracer, Lucio make short work of teams that overload on turret characters at the gate.

 

[Anne]

I find it very difficult to imagine Blizzard straight-up ripping Lucio's speed boost out of the game.

I don't want it just outright deleted. I think I posted numbers where the passive was a bit lower and amp speed could be around 50-60% instead of 110%.

I still think having speedboost is a bit nuts for the same reasons posted by my homie with Spencer avatar, but at least that way it's easier to balance the game around.

But is a impactful speedboost "nutso"? Or is it just the esports meta right now (that is the result of a weak roster of defensive heroes) strongly benefits from it?

It's actually nutso. Read what Brawndo Addict is saying. It's one of those things that has to constantly be designed around or it just breaks stuff.

 

[Ramirez]

0-3 in competitive tonight so far, wah wah waaaah.

 

[The Antitype]

I don't want it just outright deleted. I think I posted numbers where the passive was a bit lower and amp speed could be around 50-60% instead of 110%.

I still think having speedboost is a bit nuts for the same reasons posted by my homie with Spencer avatar, but at least that way it's easier to balance the game around.

Fair enough.

Honestly, I don't play at a high enough level for the meta to impact me as much as it does you guys.

I just like having as many different abilities in the game as possible, and Lucio's speed boost is kind of his unique 'thing'. Otherwise, he's just a standard healer, minus the damage boost of mercy or the complementary offense of Zen.

 

[Shouta]

If they got rid of speed boost, I wonder what they could add to Lucio to still make him unique. I've been thinking about what they could add but I've only thought of stuff that seems redundant, lol.

 

[Arrrammis]

I honestly think that Lucio is just good right now. He's not perfect (subpar weapons, slow healing except for a short burst every 10 seconds, and an ult that lasts for <5 seconds and is easily overcome using most offensive ults (self-destruct, high noon, dragon blade, mei ult, etc.)), he's just good. I say that the other healers should be buffed rather than the inevitable pendulum swing nerf that would make Lucio useless. Lucio is good IMO because he heals everyone in LoS, while the other healers can only heal one person at a time.

What if Mercy's healing was changed so that it chained from target to target like Winston's does? It's shorter ranged than Lucios but heals faster, and having your team grouped up close enough to use it is a huge risk. Even with the increased healing, a single ult could kill everyone on your team easily.

Zenyatta is pretty good right now, being a bit of a healer and a DPS powerhouse with the Discord orb (hopefully they bring the effect of discord back down to 30% instead of 50%, then I think he'd be pretty balanced). Maybe buff his harmony orb a little, the effects seem negligible when you're in a fight. It would also be neat if Transcendence also gave allies in the radius the speed boost that Zenyatta gets.

For Ana, I think she's pretty OK overall. Maybe increase the radius of her grenade to let her hit more teammates. In my experience an Ana who consistently hits her targets heals the fastest out of all of the healers, with Mercy being a close second.

Speed boost seems to be Lucio's standout feature outside of healing, but if Mercy could damage buff her whole team while right beside them or Zenyatta could use his ult to move the team even faster than Lucio, then I think it woulds be balanced in a fun way rather than the usual "balance", where every character is forced to be the same.

 

[The Antitype]

Honestly, every fucking person who is good with Hanzo at all ranges is a mutant.

I take just hitting a head-shot at optimal range as a personal victory given the lack of hit-scan, the arrow drop, the requirement to lead....


...these guys can nail me from across the map, and one-hit me out of a 180 degree turn when I'm close enough to bleed on them.

I'd be upset if I wasn't so impressed.

 

[Squire]

OT5? We back.

Zenyatta is fucking insane right now. Holy shit. I've been cleaning up all evening.

Also, I finally (and somewhat ironically) got Mercy's Olympic skin! &#127881;

 

[Anne]

.

Nobody wants Lucio's healing nerfed. It's really just speed boost.

If they got rid of speed boost, I wonder what they could add to Lucio to still make him unique. I've been thinking about what they could add but I've only thought of stuff that seems redundant, lol.

Yeah, Idk what else to really do with the dude. I think Blizzard kind of designed their way into a corner with him. The speedboost is an issue, but if you want an LoS ability I can't think of much else to put in. Maybe a more tame speedboost is enough to make it work? Idk the answer to that one.

 

[Brawndo Addict]

I think it's important to qualify that good balance is about more than just win rates. That is, you can have a character with a win-rate of right around 50% and still want to nerf/buff some of their abilities for other reasons. Their other performance metrics could be way off relative to other characters even if it doesn't impact the game's overall competitive balance. Or you may have issues with soft variables like player frustration or unintended interactions/combos.

An intentionally absurd example would be an ability that could instantly kill another player without aiming but had a CD so long that it didn't make a difference in the actual outcome of the match. Yes, it might be 'balanced' in terms of not mattering to the win-rate, but it's not something you would want in the game for a variety of reasons. You also want your characters/abilities to have similar "DBZ Power Levels" for lack of a better term.

 

[Data West]

nerf rez charge rate if you remove lucio's speed boost

 

[KyleCross]

Finally got Tracer's track legendary. That just leaves Genji, Torbjorn, Widowmaker and Mercy and I have all the Summer games skins (sans the alt colorings for Lucio, Tracer and Zarya but I don't care about getting those).

 

[Anne]

nerf rez charge rate if you remove lucio's speed boost

They already nerfed it by 30% lol

 

[Antiwhippy]

It is interesting that the support heroes seem so hard to balance.

Other than defense heroes being generally trash and mccree deleting pharah and soldier out of existence-

I guess tanks are generally good! Except for zen deleting roadhog too-

 

[Odrion]

Hey now, Mercy + Pharah can still work. :V

I honestly think that Lucio is just good right now. He's not perfect (subpar weapons, slow healing except for a short burst every 10 seconds, and an ult that lasts for <5 seconds and is easily overcome using most offensive ults (self-destruct, high noon, dragon blade, mei ult, etc.)), he's just good. I say that the other healers should be buffed rather than the inevitable pendulum swing nerf that would make Lucio useless. Lucio is good IMO because he heals everyone in LoS, while the other healers can only heal one person at a time.

But buffing the other healers won't make his speed boost less beneficial to the current meta.

Instead they should make it that sometimes blitzing into an area quickly isn't always rewarded at the competitive level.

 

[No_Style]

If they want to keep speed boost for mobility reasons alone, they could make it so the boost is cancelled as soon as the boosted individual attacks.

 

[LiK]

I keep gaining and losing the same amount of XP tonight. Gonna probably just solo for the rest of the night. Enemy groups are annoying.

 

[Anne]

Instead they should make it that sometimes blitzing into an area quickly isn't always rewarded at the competitive level.

And I would agree with this. Except they have characters like Junkrat and Mei to already do this, and they aren't good enough. Defense is still better off just running a Lucio/Zen powerhouse team too and just run themselves into the fight first.

 

[The Antitype]

It is interesting that the support heroes seem so hard to balance.

Other than defense heroes being generally trash and mccree deleting pharah and soldier out of existence-

I guess tanks are generally good! Except for zen deleting roadhog too-

I feel like this is only really true at the highest levels of play.

Take it from me, there are tons of less skilled players in the lower ranks that like Soldier and Pharah, because it's easier to output damage. You need to be a better aim to get the most out of a MCcree.

I honestly wonder how much the problems being spoken of here are minor to Blizzard when they look at the full scope of character usage across all levels of play. Will they tune specifically for the higher level and hope for a trickle-down effect, or are they content with character usage being very different and predictable at the highest levels?

 

[Poodlestrike]

Improving the defense heroes (Junkrat and Mei especially) would go a ways towards nerfing Lucio, imo. At the moment, the lack of generally useful AoE and CC means that high-speed characters are super valuable, and thus, so is Lucio. He could still use a small nerf on top of that, but nothing too extreme.

I agree that they've got to be careful to not end up putting all the supports in a "mediocre but necessary" sort of category, where you need one for healing but nobody really enjoys 'em. Still, something's gotta be done about the extremely skewed meta right now. Like half the characters are viewed as competitively nonviable.