on Overwatch's mobility problem
Video
I want to open this up by giving credit to Blizzard. When Jeff mentioned balance a while back he said he thought Overwatch was in a good spot everyone thought he was crazy, but it's the truth. There's a single fact that constantly reminds me of this, with enough skill you can get to top 500 with any hero, at times top 100. Some heroes are easier to climb with (this isn't a shot at low skill floors, it's a shot at meta) but that doesn't change the fact that it's still possible. The way I think of it is that after a 7 year development cycle the only issue is that a heroes numbers of off by 10%, that's pretty damn good. At the top 1% of games you can still run most heroes. The community needs to face it, Blizzard hit their scope and now its about fine tuning. Overall we complain too much in this community, some of it is constructive but that's rare. In either case it does give feedback to the developers on how the current game makes us feel. They try to understand the source of these feelings and then attempt to address them. They have some hits and misses but I really wanted to give respect where its due before talking about design.
So why have this post on change if they did everything right? A couple reasons. The first is that the answer to Overwatch's damage/healing cold war is more complex then reducing healing and damage by X amount. DPS and Support play differently and player feedback, effectiveness, enjoyment and skill come from different metrics. Therefore the approach has to be different for each role. Secondly, flanking is no where near as useful as team fighting. This promotes deathball and focus fire, with no other options the team has to double down and run a deathball themselves. This is where Overwatch turns into the revolutionary war with shields. Both teams line up and take shots until someone dies. Very little movement or flanking is involved and even rarer are fights where teams are completely separated. To properly address the greater issue of damage creep and ultimate effectiveness we need to change the game in waves. If we first allow players to be more mobile and reduce reliable burst damage we can then get a clearer look at damage across the board and decide if we still believe time to kill is too low. In a perfect world most of the fighting would happen as a team but small skirmishes to determine positioning would happen on the flank. This would allow a mixture of individual skill and teamwork. I think the community is bias against damage because of how heavily the game is required to have focus fire against two shields.
A couple minor points of why more changes are needed that won't be directly targeted here. The first is that Overwatch's core design of "counter picking" is no longer a balancing point yet the original heroes were designed with that concept in mind. Most new heroes don't have a direct counter or were designed to have less of a weakness than the original cast. This is the primary reason for the Torb, Sym, Junkrat, Bastion, Reaper, and other major hero changes that we've experienced. Heroes can't be a specialist anymore, a specialist's answers are too easy and games with them feel like their either overpowered or instantly countered. You would think a major shift of design would cause most if not all heroes to be changed, but we haven't seen that yet.
I want to talk about the second minor reason through a question I'd love to personally ask Jeff Kaplan or Geoff Goodman. In regards to balance, do you believe that a game must constantly change because of player growth? How can a character be balanced if skill can take them out of scope for what they were designed for? As developers we should be able to see the abuse of something when done skillfully. If we don't then the idea of a counter based game goes out the window because certain heroes can grow past their counters. This is great if it happens to every hero but if it doesn't then those without a weakness due to skill will always be played and a dominate meta will form.
My reason for asking this is that Jeff made another point and it was that he didn't believe a game should be changed for the sake of change. I agree with this to an extent but a game will have to change because of player growth. With the lack of action from Blizzard with balance has me guessing how does he define a need for change? A problem with high level design is that sometimes you get your head stuck in the clouds. If "A" is a problem don't change "C" to deal with "B" that will deal with "A". Sometimes nerfing "A" directly is the answer, something Blizzard has been reluctant to do with Overwatch. A follow up question, "Do you believe it's possible for a developer to properly design a game when they're afraid of their audience?"
To make one point clear, these ideas do not address power creep. This is strictly dealing with reliable burst damage to give us a more mobility overall. Once the game is more even in terms of mobility we can get a clear view on the overall damage of Overwatch. Power creep and ultimates are other issues but would have to be dealt with after these changes if we still see an issue. I'll attempt to follow a flow to keep it clear and concise. I'll give my suggestion and then follow it up what the problem is and how my suggestion will attempt to address it. I want to make all parts of my process visible because I believe there is personal skill with each part. Sometimes you'll identify the problem well but the suggestion is lacking. This is in effort to keep conversation flowing and help identify issues as a community. A suggestion without perspective doesn't contribute to the greater conversation.
The overarching theme to my suggestions are as follows. To reduce reliable burst damage which will enable movement and reduce the dependency on shields. To allow all roles to feel like they can make plays, to place a greater emphasis on position and execution instead of abilities, and to allow a more diverse hero pool. Overall DPS heroes will have less reliable burst damage while supports will get larger downtime windows to take advantage of. This is because while all heroes can deal damage only some can heal it. This creates a difference of six heroes dealing damage vs two healing. Healing must work in bursts or it will never overcome this disparity.
I want to focus more on what I believe is wrong rather than what i propose. There are multiple ideas to deal with the problem, these are just the ones I thought could address it. As such I'll hide the suggestion so viewers see the reasons first. Some of the changes are not addressing the mobility related concerns we discussed here but I've included them anyways as some heroes are generally in a bad spot.
This is the only role i'll talk about each hero. In general supports will be reduced to 50% self-heal across the board because of the reduction of head shot damage. Their overall healing will not change but the amount of downtime between their bursts of healing will be increased. This allows supports to still make plays while still giving the opposing team windows if they use their abilities improperly. While there are massive complaints in the community about AOE passive healing understand that it's needed because not everyone wants to actively heal. Each role in Overwatch is meant to appeal to different sets of players. It's improper to think players want to play a support and then pick a hero. New players will generally have a way they enjoy playing a game and there should be a support that helps fill that role. The difficult part is that at the higher levels there needs to be a support to deal with a problem in case the rest of their team composition lacks that specific need. I'm not suggesting counters, i'm saying that if we have concepts such as "mobile burst" for DPS, the support role needs to have some answers as well.
Ana
Overall Ana is a little over tuned in all areas. She has a strong anti-ultimate kit but she still packs a punch with some of the highest healing in the game. Her abilities are some of the most impactful in the game and a little too consistent to land. To create a larger window of opportunity and to force players to land their shots we lower her ammo count to 10 and increase her reload time. This allows players to still pull off huge heals but if caught during a reload they can be taken advantage of by attacking her or her team. Her sleep dart is one of the largest projectiles in the game while nearly guaranteeing a kill. Its duration is needed to deal with transformation ults so I've made it a little harder to hit. Nanoboost is an amazing ultimate that I see as a bunker buster to gain positioning. To keep that goal but stop it from being combined with other ultimates too often we change it from a flat damage increase to guaranteed damage with an emphasis on breaking shields. Overwatch's damage is already high enough, I want to allow players to make their shot with this ultimate instead of allowing them to bludgeon through everything.
Baptiste
Tracer
Tracer gains significant survivability with headshot damage lowered but retains the ability to kill someone in one clip with body shots. I don't believe it's good design to have her immediately die or for her to get a kill. I would like there to be more execution on both sides before the engagement ends. By lowering her overall damage she has to get a little closer to secure the one clip and stick around for one more reload if damaging heroes at range.
Hanzo
Hanzo loses the ability to one shot with his primary but with the reallocation of damage from his primary to storm arrow he is the only DPS hero to retain headshot + body shot for 200 damage. This allows him to have some lethality against other DPS heroes while outputting slightly more shield break damage. It primarily makes him more of a tank buster like Blizzard originally intended. Lastly the bounce added to Hanzo's storm arrow is to address the primary issue with snipers, cover. Initially I assumed scatter shot was there to help the sniper deal with those around corners and behind cover. The problem was that while scattershot addressed that issue they decided to make him shoot 6 arrows at once resulting in massive burst damage. His mobility is increased while shooting to give him more survivability while attacking. Hanzo's sonic arrow is changed again to give him strong control over a corner or doorway to give his teammates partial information on how the enemy team is moving but not enough to give perfect information. We also introduce counter play with his arrow being destroyable if the enemy is keen enough to hear where the arrow landed.
Mei
Mei has been moved into a well balanced spot. She has her specifically strong maps but overall is still useful on any maps. She doesn't feel like a throw pick nor does she feel as overbearing as before. I still think one of the mechanics that make her annoying is that she slows down your ability to aim which takes away your ability to fight her. I believe the movement slow is enough of restriction, players still need to feel like they have the ability to fight her. This change allows players to feel like they had some chance at fighting her once they got within her range.
Doomfist
Constant complaints on the forums about this hero but he's nearly balanced. The only change I would make to doomfist is to not allow him to have an animation-breaking shot after slam. By giving him one less shot between abilities he now has to land a shot at the end of his standard combination. This allows players a very small window to save their allies and make him not feel like an instant death.
Widowmaker
Widowmaker has been the least balance hero in Overwatch's history. She is the primary cause for constant shielding and the non-viability of half the cast. A dominating widow has only one answer, a better Widowmaker. Any other answer must be made by changing your entire team and strategy. No other hero in the game elicits this type of response. By changing her head shot damage to 1.5x you now can take a single shot from her and live. For the reduction in this lethality she will gain an ability to see through walls for short amounts of time. I believe having perfect information is a very bland and boring ability. It restricts the players too much and removes any counter play. With imperfect information you now have to make a guess which can be taken advantage of. Lastly, her ultimate will give her the old head shot multiplier back with the bonus ability of going through shields and players. This gives her an extreme amount of damage potential while putting it on a timer. The purpose of widow will be to generate opportunities from afar for her team instead of winning her team the fight with a pick off. With a lower cool down hook she can now take grapple shots more often and abuse subtle sight lines. Lastly her ultimate gives her the one shot that she currently has today with a bit more power but only for a limited time. Players now know exactly when they're in danger of getting instantly killed.
Pharah
I've never liked Pharah's design since the start of Overwatch. She's always been the most feast or famine hero that's completely dependent on if the enemy can run a hit scan. This makes Pharah feel like her availability is more dependent on the enemy than it is on themselves which is my biggest complaint with Blizzard's balancing. Instead of nerfing a hero they buff her counters. This takes all choice away from the player except for picking a new hero. While Pharah has her dominate maps there are usually better options to run. The falloff change causes a worry that she'll become too strong. To address this we lower her ability to be pocketed by lowering fuel regeneration rate. In the perfect scenario she'll have to land for 2-3 seconds before taking flight again. This forces her out of her ideal position and punishes a pocket healer that will feel less than useful during this window. In return she gains some armor and the ability to regenerate it when not in combat. The armor also helps her deal with hit scan heroes and gives her some survivability in the duel when on the ground.
Symmetra
We're seeing sym get more use and with more buffs for her on the way she's fitting into a good position. The change here is to give her a little more utility and to encourage more teleporter usage on the flanks.
Sombra
So why have this post on change if they did everything right? A couple reasons. The first is that the answer to Overwatch's damage/healing cold war is more complex then reducing healing and damage by X amount. DPS and Support play differently and player feedback, effectiveness, enjoyment and skill come from different metrics. Therefore the approach has to be different for each role. Secondly, flanking is no where near as useful as team fighting. This promotes deathball and focus fire, with no other options the team has to double down and run a deathball themselves. This is where Overwatch turns into the revolutionary war with shields. Both teams line up and take shots until someone dies. Very little movement or flanking is involved and even rarer are fights where teams are completely separated. To properly address the greater issue of damage creep and ultimate effectiveness we need to change the game in waves. If we first allow players to be more mobile and reduce reliable burst damage we can then get a clearer look at damage across the board and decide if we still believe time to kill is too low. In a perfect world most of the fighting would happen as a team but small skirmishes to determine positioning would happen on the flank. This would allow a mixture of individual skill and teamwork. I think the community is bias against damage because of how heavily the game is required to have focus fire against two shields.
A couple minor points of why more changes are needed that won't be directly targeted here. The first is that Overwatch's core design of "counter picking" is no longer a balancing point yet the original heroes were designed with that concept in mind. Most new heroes don't have a direct counter or were designed to have less of a weakness than the original cast. This is the primary reason for the Torb, Sym, Junkrat, Bastion, Reaper, and other major hero changes that we've experienced. Heroes can't be a specialist anymore, a specialist's answers are too easy and games with them feel like their either overpowered or instantly countered. You would think a major shift of design would cause most if not all heroes to be changed, but we haven't seen that yet.
I want to talk about the second minor reason through a question I'd love to personally ask Jeff Kaplan or Geoff Goodman. In regards to balance, do you believe that a game must constantly change because of player growth? How can a character be balanced if skill can take them out of scope for what they were designed for? As developers we should be able to see the abuse of something when done skillfully. If we don't then the idea of a counter based game goes out the window because certain heroes can grow past their counters. This is great if it happens to every hero but if it doesn't then those without a weakness due to skill will always be played and a dominate meta will form.
My reason for asking this is that Jeff made another point and it was that he didn't believe a game should be changed for the sake of change. I agree with this to an extent but a game will have to change because of player growth. With the lack of action from Blizzard with balance has me guessing how does he define a need for change? A problem with high level design is that sometimes you get your head stuck in the clouds. If "A" is a problem don't change "C" to deal with "B" that will deal with "A". Sometimes nerfing "A" directly is the answer, something Blizzard has been reluctant to do with Overwatch. A follow up question, "Do you believe it's possible for a developer to properly design a game when they're afraid of their audience?"
To make one point clear, these ideas do not address power creep. This is strictly dealing with reliable burst damage to give us a more mobility overall. Once the game is more even in terms of mobility we can get a clear view on the overall damage of Overwatch. Power creep and ultimates are other issues but would have to be dealt with after these changes if we still see an issue. I'll attempt to follow a flow to keep it clear and concise. I'll give my suggestion and then follow it up what the problem is and how my suggestion will attempt to address it. I want to make all parts of my process visible because I believe there is personal skill with each part. Sometimes you'll identify the problem well but the suggestion is lacking. This is in effort to keep conversation flowing and help identify issues as a community. A suggestion without perspective doesn't contribute to the greater conversation.
The overarching theme to my suggestions are as follows. To reduce reliable burst damage which will enable movement and reduce the dependency on shields. To allow all roles to feel like they can make plays, to place a greater emphasis on position and execution instead of abilities, and to allow a more diverse hero pool. Overall DPS heroes will have less reliable burst damage while supports will get larger downtime windows to take advantage of. This is because while all heroes can deal damage only some can heal it. This creates a difference of six heroes dealing damage vs two healing. Healing must work in bursts or it will never overcome this disparity.
Overall Changes
Global Ultimate increase by 15%
Click here for reasoning
Ultimates happen a bit frequently, it's too common for supports to get their ultimate within the first minute of play. This problem gets worse with controlling ults that help a team build more ultimates which starts a dangerous snowballing effect. Part of me thinks ultimates should go on an overall timers instead of being based on charge but I understand its an immense mechanic to give players feedback on how well they're performing but the concept of ultimates is ultimately snowbally. The change should lower ultimates to once every two major fights. It's good to have excitement in the game but a forced mechanic to generate hype is just poor design. The game should be exciting for players to make plays, not press a button.
-Head shot Multiplier from 2 to 1.5
-All 200HP DPS heroes to 100 hp/100 shields
-Shield Regeneration starts after 5 seconds, up from 2
-Shield Regeneration rate from 30 hp/s to 25 hp/s
Reasoning
Overall the body shot damage in Overwatch feels good, we just need to address the sudden burst damage of head shots. I have to stress that this does not remove burst damage, it only limits it. Currently, players are forced to play behind shields too much and when out of cover for a second there is a risk of instant unavoidable death. This limits play styles and makes the game feel constricted. It inherently makes non-deathball compositions weaker. The primary way for a weaker force to deal with a stronger force is either choke points or to out maneuver them. With movement being so limited in Overwatch because of burst damage teams are often unable to reposition themselves without suffering game losing damage. When responding properly low mobility compositions are still smashed once they lose a couple teammates as they have no way to deal with a stronger force. Overall players should feel a more freedom when moving around the map while rewarding players who can be more consistent with head shots. With the change to 100hp/100shields a single head shot will deal HP damage while a double will still kill. If any damage is done it will force the target to back off for 5 seconds before shields start regenerating. The end goal of this change is to force an extra body shot after a headshot on 200hp heroes or require two head shots to kill, rewarding skill and consistency.
These changes also address the dependency between DPS and support. A while ago Blizzard stated that new changes were meant to highlight individual performance and they were not used to it because the game was originally designed around teamwork. I agree with this change in direction but a change in philosophy means nothing until a core mechanic is changed to support it, Blizzard has yet to do this. Ideally DPS heroes will still need some support but not to the point that they're dependent on it. By allowing more heroes to heal slowly we allow supports to move freely by not requiring constant LoS. To this effect Blizzard was right to call the role "Support" and not "Healer". We also address supports being slightly more offensive overall, by giving supports more time and space they are allowed to use more of their kit offensively. Reducing this dependency between the roles is a good start.
The immediate worry with headshot damage is that tanks become too strong. The shield change effects Rein/Sigma and deals with double shield. It punishes slower tank pushes in a way that will force a team to stay back a couple extra seconds when moving between positions. The idea is to give teams the option if they want a full HP shield or to press forward right away with reduced shield health. If they wait the defending team can properly reposition themselves. Overall it will make shields feel slightly more rewarding to damage, shields without regen will be changed in the notes below. A tank's effectiveness overall is directly tied to their supports which is what we're targeting instead of tank balance. Specific tank hero changes are below.
Lastly, this is to help even the playing field between multiple design types. Sustained damage will be slightly more comparable to burst damage as well as projectile heroes are now closer to being on par with hit scan. Currently projectile and sustain type designs are a little below hit scan/burst. Instead of buffing them we can slowly make them as impactful by lowering head shot damage.
Some may note that there is a contradiction with lowering burst damage and trying to give heroes the abilities to make plays. The idea is to allow heroes to make plays but they need to have the consistency and skill to do so.
These changes also address the dependency between DPS and support. A while ago Blizzard stated that new changes were meant to highlight individual performance and they were not used to it because the game was originally designed around teamwork. I agree with this change in direction but a change in philosophy means nothing until a core mechanic is changed to support it, Blizzard has yet to do this. Ideally DPS heroes will still need some support but not to the point that they're dependent on it. By allowing more heroes to heal slowly we allow supports to move freely by not requiring constant LoS. To this effect Blizzard was right to call the role "Support" and not "Healer". We also address supports being slightly more offensive overall, by giving supports more time and space they are allowed to use more of their kit offensively. Reducing this dependency between the roles is a good start.
The immediate worry with headshot damage is that tanks become too strong. The shield change effects Rein/Sigma and deals with double shield. It punishes slower tank pushes in a way that will force a team to stay back a couple extra seconds when moving between positions. The idea is to give teams the option if they want a full HP shield or to press forward right away with reduced shield health. If they wait the defending team can properly reposition themselves. Overall it will make shields feel slightly more rewarding to damage, shields without regen will be changed in the notes below. A tank's effectiveness overall is directly tied to their supports which is what we're targeting instead of tank balance. Specific tank hero changes are below.
Lastly, this is to help even the playing field between multiple design types. Sustained damage will be slightly more comparable to burst damage as well as projectile heroes are now closer to being on par with hit scan. Currently projectile and sustain type designs are a little below hit scan/burst. Instead of buffing them we can slowly make them as impactful by lowering head shot damage.
Some may note that there is a contradiction with lowering burst damage and trying to give heroes the abilities to make plays. The idea is to allow heroes to make plays but they need to have the consistency and skill to do so.
-Fall-off's minimum damage down to 20% for all heroes (where falloff if applicable)
-Sniper re-branded as Scout (Transition to suppressive fire and utility (information gathering))
Reasoning
There are two issues I have with falloff damage. Currently fall-off damage has two different minimums, 30% and 50%. Without prior knowledge this is not possible to know through in game mechanics alone. Secondly, hit-scan heroes apply too much pressure to heroes in the open at long ranges. Any concerns about long range damage or consistency should be dealt with at the hero level with their fall-off range or weapon balance. The same falloff issue exists for splash damage. Currently splash damage can vary from 20%-50% fall off depending on the ability. Making it 20% across the board will help players gauge damage distance better and live a little longer.
The change to snipers is to address the concern with snipers losing their ability to one shot. Currently snipers are one of the primary reasons we need shields. It was noted by Blizzard in this patch that snipers would be an issue with shields getting changed. Widow will partially retain her ability to one shot while hanzo will not. The idea is to take some lethality away but increase the amount of openings they can create. Favoring mobility and a new utility, information. Specific hero changes will be below.
The change to snipers is to address the concern with snipers losing their ability to one shot. Currently snipers are one of the primary reasons we need shields. It was noted by Blizzard in this patch that snipers would be an issue with shields getting changed. Widow will partially retain her ability to one shot while hanzo will not. The idea is to take some lethality away but increase the amount of openings they can create. Favoring mobility and a new utility, information. Specific hero changes will be below.
-Credited environmental deaths give ultimate charge to all opponents
Reasoning
I believe ultimate generation should be considered a utility, we already have it in a way with damage amplification. The idea is to allow heroes with environmental hazard potential to provide more for their team. Since the change only effects credited deaths any suicides will not be given to the entire team unless damaged.
-Health packs respawn time down 50%. 10 to 5 and 15 to 7.5
(For reference Sombra's hack reduces respawn time to 2.5s)
-Small health packs heal for 50hp +25 temp hp for 4 seconds
-Large health packs heal for 225hp+25 temp hp for 4 seconds
-Move health packs off the main route and more onto the flanks
Reasoning
A big issue I've had with Overwatch's design is that is doesn't support flanking in the sense that it's not anywhere near on par with being with your team. The times that it does support flanking is with instant kills which we're removing. In most cases if you know the enemy is flanking you simply crush their 5 heroes with your 6. The other option is to send an off-tank to easily kill them. I don't want to remove death ball, it's a concept that should exist but it needs some openings.
This change assists flanking by allowing flankers to stand up against off tanks if they follow them too deeply into the flank. By camping the faster respawning health packs more heroes will be able to neutralize off-tank aggression. In most cases the fight would end in a draw and force a team to send more heroes to deal with the flanking hero. By creating a mismatch of hero amounts we now have a reason to flank (other than killing) and one hero can force two heroes out of the deathball. The reason the extra temporary HP is added to the health pack is to allow heroes to leverage the extra time needed in the open with our headshot changes. 25hp is all that is needed to change the damage thresholds of most heroes but discord or damage amplification would remove that advantage, notice zen and mercy are heroes that are less played but would be encouraged by tactics, not buffs. What we want to avoid is making the flank too powerful. By allowing the temp health to exist for 4 seconds only one hero on a team can get it per pack. We're also minimizing the potential of the flanker instantly killing a support with the previous damage changes. It promotes the flanker to create openings for others to take advantage of or vice versa. Conceptually, a hero should be given an attempt to get value on the flank, they shouldn't be guaranteed it. Positioning alone should not outright win you the game, execution is still needed.
This change assists flanking by allowing flankers to stand up against off tanks if they follow them too deeply into the flank. By camping the faster respawning health packs more heroes will be able to neutralize off-tank aggression. In most cases the fight would end in a draw and force a team to send more heroes to deal with the flanking hero. By creating a mismatch of hero amounts we now have a reason to flank (other than killing) and one hero can force two heroes out of the deathball. The reason the extra temporary HP is added to the health pack is to allow heroes to leverage the extra time needed in the open with our headshot changes. 25hp is all that is needed to change the damage thresholds of most heroes but discord or damage amplification would remove that advantage, notice zen and mercy are heroes that are less played but would be encouraged by tactics, not buffs. What we want to avoid is making the flank too powerful. By allowing the temp health to exist for 4 seconds only one hero on a team can get it per pack. We're also minimizing the potential of the flanker instantly killing a support with the previous damage changes. It promotes the flanker to create openings for others to take advantage of or vice versa. Conceptually, a hero should be given an attempt to get value on the flank, they shouldn't be guaranteed it. Positioning alone should not outright win you the game, execution is still needed.
-Momentum is always Additive
Reasoning
This change is to create consistency across the board and remove momentum from being overwritten. Currently there are abilities that remove any source of momentum and replace it, such as seismic slam, pile driver and halt. A hero's viability should not be dependent on removing the opponents ability to move. Note that this does not give heroes full control in the air when under these abilities, only the ability to change how they're effected by it initially.
-Tab screen no longer shows enemy heroes
Reasoning
Currently the stats screen gives away information too easily. Hero choices on the stats screen should update when the player takes damage from the enemy team. This allows a little more deception which is healthy for the game.
-Overtime only increases the spawn time for the attacking team
Reasoning
Overtime is needed to keep players playing, to keep the game exciting and to keep morale high. It allows anyone to make a comeback and while it is a bit of manufactured hype, it does help the game overall. The problem I have with overtime is that it means the defenders did their job properly yet they're punished for it. Changing the spawn time only for offense means the defense can properly setup at a standard defense location instead of being pressured to fight where it's not as advantageous. Overtime should have higher stakes but it shouldn't feel like a different game.
Assault game mode (no changes)
Reasoning
I've thought about this game mode a good amount and I don't believe there's an easy an easy way to deal with this mode without map changes. So my only question is what is the purpose of assault? What dynamic is it looking to leverage? I have two main thoughts about it. Firstly it's meant to be a massive uphill battle for the offense. It's an attempt to create a brawl where the offense is looking to get a pick and leverage the spawn advantage. The offense can make unfavorable trades and still come out ahead in the long run. Ideally you'd have a constant fight on the point with the offense winning in the end. This is where the second point gets messy, the defense has the spawn advantage and can keep stalling until they get picks. I think the game mode should flip its design on the second point, give the attackers a good place to stage their attack from. Similar to the top balcony on Hanamura point 2 when attacking. If you give the attackers a good place to attack from then they can freely pressure the point and take that ground. Now it's the defense who are trying to push out through the choke to defend the point once they lose their initial position. This would change the focus on the retake of the point, this would mean map changes would be required. I don't think its an issue to have an attack favored map (old horizon lunar point 2) in the map pool. It's actually beneficial to have that type of diversity. Overall 2cp has more issues than snowballing.
Hero Changes
Support
This is the only role i'll talk about each hero. In general supports will be reduced to 50% self-heal across the board because of the reduction of head shot damage. Their overall healing will not change but the amount of downtime between their bursts of healing will be increased. This allows supports to still make plays while still giving the opposing team windows if they use their abilities improperly. While there are massive complaints in the community about AOE passive healing understand that it's needed because not everyone wants to actively heal. Each role in Overwatch is meant to appeal to different sets of players. It's improper to think players want to play a support and then pick a hero. New players will generally have a way they enjoy playing a game and there should be a support that helps fill that role. The difficult part is that at the higher levels there needs to be a support to deal with a problem in case the rest of their team composition lacks that specific need. I'm not suggesting counters, i'm saying that if we have concepts such as "mobile burst" for DPS, the support role needs to have some answers as well.
Changes
-Bionic grenade heals self for 50%
-Biotic Rifle
-Clip size from 14 to 10
-Reload time from 1.5 to 2.5
-Sleep Dart projectile size from .4 to .2
-Nanoboost heal from 250 to 150
-Nanoboost damage buff changed from +50% damage to +100% damage against shields
-Nanoboosted weapons act as a "beam" and cannot be deflected/absorbed
-Biotic Rifle
-Clip size from 14 to 10
-Reload time from 1.5 to 2.5
-Sleep Dart projectile size from .4 to .2
-Nanoboost heal from 250 to 150
-Nanoboost damage buff changed from +50% damage to +100% damage against shields
-Nanoboosted weapons act as a "beam" and cannot be deflected/absorbed
Overall Ana is a little over tuned in all areas. She has a strong anti-ultimate kit but she still packs a punch with some of the highest healing in the game. Her abilities are some of the most impactful in the game and a little too consistent to land. To create a larger window of opportunity and to force players to land their shots we lower her ammo count to 10 and increase her reload time. This allows players to still pull off huge heals but if caught during a reload they can be taken advantage of by attacking her or her team. Her sleep dart is one of the largest projectiles in the game while nearly guaranteeing a kill. Its duration is needed to deal with transformation ults so I've made it a little harder to hit. Nanoboost is an amazing ultimate that I see as a bunker buster to gain positioning. To keep that goal but stop it from being combined with other ultimates too often we change it from a flat damage increase to guaranteed damage with an emphasis on breaking shields. Overwatch's damage is already high enough, I want to allow players to make their shot with this ultimate instead of allowing them to bludgeon through everything.
Baptiste
Changes
-Biotic Launcher (primary)
-Clip size from 45 to 30
-Falloff from 25m-45m to 15m-65m
-Reload from 1.5s to 2.5s
-Fall-off damage minimum from 50% to 20%
-Biotic Launcher (secondary)
-Clip size from 12 to 10
-Reload from 1.5s to 2.5s
-Regenerative burst heals self for 50%
-Regenerative burst no longer interrupts reload
-Clip size from 45 to 30
-Falloff from 25m-45m to 15m-65m
-Reload from 1.5s to 2.5s
-Fall-off damage minimum from 50% to 20%
-Biotic Launcher (secondary)
-Clip size from 12 to 10
-Reload from 1.5s to 2.5s
-Regenerative burst heals self for 50%
-Regenerative burst no longer interrupts reload
I think Baptiste is in a solid position currently and only needs changes to line up with global changes. His Regen Burst is bland and seems like an ability purely to allow him to self-heal but it does give him some burst healing which he needs. A lot of complaints for Baptiste are about his immortality field but the ability is designed to deal with an ultimate. It's on a long cool down and has decent counter play, my favorite aspect of it is that it makes the enemy follow up on an ultimate instead of pressing a button. His primary fire damage seems acceptable except that it does too much damage at mid-range. With his fall-off starting earlier we clearly separate him from DPS heroes. His max fall-off was extended because of the global reduction of falloff, he was one of the heroes with 50% fall off. Overall Baptiste stays the same. He gets a larger reload window but allowed to regen burst during it.
Brigitte
Brigitte
Changes
-Rocket Flail from 35 damage to 40
-Inspire healing reduced from 21 to 15
-Inspire self heals for 50%
-Repair Pack charges from 3 to 4
-Repair Pack range from 30m to 25m
-Rally move speed bonus from 30% to 15%
-Inspire healing reduced from 21 to 15
-Inspire self heals for 50%
-Repair Pack charges from 3 to 4
-Repair Pack range from 30m to 25m
-Rally move speed bonus from 30% to 15%
While the most hated hero in the game she provides a nice brawling type support. Not only is the brawler archetype needed in the support role but the support role needs a strong anti-harasser. I think she is in a good position overall but would like to move some of her passive healing into active. Passive healing is needed for players who want to support but not focus on it. This is desperately needed to get more types of players attempting to play support. Personally i'm in this category, I'd rather quit Overwatch than play a dedicated healer like mercy. That being said it's a little too strong. Along with the pack charge increase I want to make her entire kit feel more close range by reducing the range of her pack by 5m. With the reduction of head shots she will be more problematic for burst damage but now has significantly less self healing. This requires her to shield dance and be more active. The damage increase on her primary is there to save one attack (.6 seconds) against 200hp heroes which is needed for her drastically reduced self heal.
Lucio
Lucio is one of the best balanced heroes in the game. While his self heal has been changed significantly he gains an immense amount of suitability with headshot damage reduced. The only change I would make to him is to align him to the new healing standard. While his overall healing is reduced to deal with the issue with passive healing in OW, he gains new utility with environmental deaths giving ult charge to the entire team.
Mercy
Mercy is another well balanced hero yet is highly contested on the forums. Primarily a support that is focused on consistent healing and evasion. She is the only hero who can heal through shields and when ulting she is quite difficult to hit. The only change to her is to address her self-heal that will start a little later to give players more time to hit that second head shot on her.
Moira
The main issue with Moira is her inability to make plays and how Blizzard compensated her kit by overloading it with consistency. I mean consistency in two ways. First, her abilities are simple to hit and have a wide effect. Secondly, her abilities can almost always be used and have little to no timing windows to exploit. Her one weakness that doesn't get talked about enough is that she has no long range options. In truth I don't have any suggestions for Moira as the latest experimental patch directly addressed my concerns. As long as her kit gets some play making ability while her consistency is lowered I think she'll move in the right direction.
Zenyatta
No changes to Zenyatta are needed. He's the threshold for what a support should be able to do with damage. Because of the increased time on shield regeneration he has already been changed to match the reduced self-heal change.
To keep the DPS talk short i'll list all of the fall off changes, while I have ideas for most heroes they aren't nearly as substantial as all the of changes we've gone over so far. Any hero's fall off that was changed will be given +10m to their maximum distance.
Falloff changes
Ashe's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Bastion's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
McCree's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Soldier's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Widow Maker's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
WreckingBall's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Lucio
Changes
-Crossfade healing from 16 to 14
-Crossfade selfheal from 12 to 7 (50%)
-Amp it up heal from 52 to 46
-Amp it up self heal from 40 to 36
-Crossfade selfheal from 12 to 7 (50%)
-Amp it up heal from 52 to 46
-Amp it up self heal from 40 to 36
Lucio is one of the best balanced heroes in the game. While his self heal has been changed significantly he gains an immense amount of suitability with headshot damage reduced. The only change I would make to him is to align him to the new healing standard. While his overall healing is reduced to deal with the issue with passive healing in OW, he gains new utility with environmental deaths giving ult charge to the entire team.
Mercy
Changes
-Self heal starts after 3 seconds
Mercy is another well balanced hero yet is highly contested on the forums. Primarily a support that is focused on consistent healing and evasion. She is the only hero who can heal through shields and when ulting she is quite difficult to hit. The only change to her is to address her self-heal that will start a little later to give players more time to hit that second head shot on her.
Moira
The main issue with Moira is her inability to make plays and how Blizzard compensated her kit by overloading it with consistency. I mean consistency in two ways. First, her abilities are simple to hit and have a wide effect. Secondly, her abilities can almost always be used and have little to no timing windows to exploit. Her one weakness that doesn't get talked about enough is that she has no long range options. In truth I don't have any suggestions for Moira as the latest experimental patch directly addressed my concerns. As long as her kit gets some play making ability while her consistency is lowered I think she'll move in the right direction.
Zenyatta
No changes to Zenyatta are needed. He's the threshold for what a support should be able to do with damage. Because of the increased time on shield regeneration he has already been changed to match the reduced self-heal change.
DPS
To keep the DPS talk short i'll list all of the fall off changes, while I have ideas for most heroes they aren't nearly as substantial as all the of changes we've gone over so far. Any hero's fall off that was changed will be given +10m to their maximum distance.
Falloff changes
Ashe's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Bastion's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
McCree's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Soldier's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Widow Maker's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
WreckingBall's primary falloff from 50% to 20%
Echo's Sticky bomb splash damage from 25 to 5min-25max (2m AoE)
Junkrat's Primary splash damage from 10-80 to 16-80 (2m AoE)
Symmetra's Primary splash damage from 17-70 to 14-70 (2m AoE)
Soldier's Rocket Helix splash damage from 40-80 to 16-80 (3m AoE)
Pharah's Primary splash damage from 24-80 to 16-80 (2.5m AoE)
Sigma's Primary splash damage from 9-30 to 6-30(3m AoE)
Tracer
Changes
-Damage per clip from 220 to 200
Tracer gains significant survivability with headshot damage lowered but retains the ability to kill someone in one clip with body shots. I don't believe it's good design to have her immediately die or for her to get a kill. I would like there to be more execution on both sides before the engagement ends. By lowering her overall damage she has to get a little closer to secure the one clip and stick around for one more reload if damaging heroes at range.
Hanzo
Changes
Primary Attack
-Arrows now slightly knock back (Same strength as Sigma primary)
-Damage from 125 to 115
-Movement Penalty from -30% to -20%
Storm arrow
-Damage from 70 to 80
-Storm arrow ricochets once
-Sonic Arrow
-Arrow is now destroyable with 5hp
-Radius from 9m to 4m
-Duration from 6s to 9s
-Cooldown from 12s to 18s
-Arrows now slightly knock back (Same strength as Sigma primary)
-Damage from 125 to 115
-Movement Penalty from -30% to -20%
Storm arrow
-Damage from 70 to 80
-Storm arrow ricochets once
-Sonic Arrow
-Arrow is now destroyable with 5hp
-Radius from 9m to 4m
-Duration from 6s to 9s
-Cooldown from 12s to 18s
Hanzo loses the ability to one shot with his primary but with the reallocation of damage from his primary to storm arrow he is the only DPS hero to retain headshot + body shot for 200 damage. This allows him to have some lethality against other DPS heroes while outputting slightly more shield break damage. It primarily makes him more of a tank buster like Blizzard originally intended. Lastly the bounce added to Hanzo's storm arrow is to address the primary issue with snipers, cover. Initially I assumed scatter shot was there to help the sniper deal with those around corners and behind cover. The problem was that while scattershot addressed that issue they decided to make him shoot 6 arrows at once resulting in massive burst damage. His mobility is increased while shooting to give him more survivability while attacking. Hanzo's sonic arrow is changed again to give him strong control over a corner or doorway to give his teammates partial information on how the enemy team is moving but not enough to give perfect information. We also introduce counter play with his arrow being destroyable if the enemy is keen enough to hear where the arrow landed.
Mei
Changes
-Slowness no longer effects the players aiming speed
Mei has been moved into a well balanced spot. She has her specifically strong maps but overall is still useful on any maps. She doesn't feel like a throw pick nor does she feel as overbearing as before. I still think one of the mechanics that make her annoying is that she slows down your ability to aim which takes away your ability to fight her. I believe the movement slow is enough of restriction, players still need to feel like they have the ability to fight her. This change allows players to feel like they had some chance at fighting her once they got within her range.
Doomfist
Changes
-.25 delay after an ability before primary fire can be shot
Constant complaints on the forums about this hero but he's nearly balanced. The only change I would make to doomfist is to not allow him to have an animation-breaking shot after slam. By giving him one less shot between abilities he now has to land a shot at the end of his standard combination. This allows players a very small window to save their allies and make him not feel like an instant death.
Widowmaker
Changes
-Charged shot ammo consumption to 6, up from 3
-Grapple hook cool down from 10s to 8s
-Grapple can no longer latch onto ground below her (mimics ball grapple)
-Ultimate moved to an ability
30 second cool down, reveals enemy positions for .5 seconds every 2 seconds. Lasts 6 seconds
-New Ultimate
Transformation ult, lasts 10 seconds
Head shot multiplier to 2.5
Fully charged shots now pierce players and shields
-Grapple hook cool down from 10s to 8s
-Grapple can no longer latch onto ground below her (mimics ball grapple)
-Ultimate moved to an ability
30 second cool down, reveals enemy positions for .5 seconds every 2 seconds. Lasts 6 seconds
-New Ultimate
Transformation ult, lasts 10 seconds
Head shot multiplier to 2.5
Fully charged shots now pierce players and shields
Widowmaker has been the least balance hero in Overwatch's history. She is the primary cause for constant shielding and the non-viability of half the cast. A dominating widow has only one answer, a better Widowmaker. Any other answer must be made by changing your entire team and strategy. No other hero in the game elicits this type of response. By changing her head shot damage to 1.5x you now can take a single shot from her and live. For the reduction in this lethality she will gain an ability to see through walls for short amounts of time. I believe having perfect information is a very bland and boring ability. It restricts the players too much and removes any counter play. With imperfect information you now have to make a guess which can be taken advantage of. Lastly, her ultimate will give her the old head shot multiplier back with the bonus ability of going through shields and players. This gives her an extreme amount of damage potential while putting it on a timer. The purpose of widow will be to generate opportunities from afar for her team instead of winning her team the fight with a pick off. With a lower cool down hook she can now take grapple shots more often and abuse subtle sight lines. Lastly her ultimate gives her the one shot that she currently has today with a bit more power but only for a limited time. Players now know exactly when they're in danger of getting instantly killed.
Pharah
Changes
Pharah's hitpoints from 200hp to 150hp/100armor
Hover Jets regeneration rate reduced by 20%
New ability - Reactive armor
-Pharah regens 25armor/second for 4 seconds. Damage interrupts this ability
-Cool down 12 seconds
Hover Jets regeneration rate reduced by 20%
New ability - Reactive armor
-Pharah regens 25armor/second for 4 seconds. Damage interrupts this ability
-Cool down 12 seconds
I've never liked Pharah's design since the start of Overwatch. She's always been the most feast or famine hero that's completely dependent on if the enemy can run a hit scan. This makes Pharah feel like her availability is more dependent on the enemy than it is on themselves which is my biggest complaint with Blizzard's balancing. Instead of nerfing a hero they buff her counters. This takes all choice away from the player except for picking a new hero. While Pharah has her dominate maps there are usually better options to run. The falloff change causes a worry that she'll become too strong. To address this we lower her ability to be pocketed by lowering fuel regeneration rate. In the perfect scenario she'll have to land for 2-3 seconds before taking flight again. This forces her out of her ideal position and punishes a pocket healer that will feel less than useful during this window. In return she gains some armor and the ability to regenerate it when not in combat. The armor also helps her deal with hit scan heroes and gives her some survivability in the duel when on the ground.
Symmetra
Changes
-Using teleporter immediately starts shield regeneration
We're seeing sym get more use and with more buffs for her on the way she's fitting into a good position. The change here is to give her a little more utility and to encourage more teleporter usage on the flanks.
Sombra
Sombra EMP will no longer effect personal shields. Sound Barrier and all other shields will keep the same interaction
Most tanks are in a suitable position with the change in headshot damage. Four of them can headshot while the other four cannot. While they all benefit from the reduction in headshot damage they are affected more by the longer downtime for supports. I don't think much needs to change as the main concern of shields has been address with the longer regeneration delay. The only suggestions I have for tanks are Orisa/Sigma. The biggest culprits of the double shield meta are not strictly caused by double shields but by the massive mid-range damage they possess.
Orisa
Orisa's issue is that with such a large clip and low cool downs all you do cycle through the abilities and with enough support you can constantly stay alive. Little effort is needed to make her extremely effective. This is both boring to play as and boring to play against as there is little value to learning her timings. The idea I propose here is to heavily punish her for using all of her abilities but allow them all to be more flexible. Her shield can be used more often but removes the double shield on cool down. Fortify can be used for the same amount of time but for a much longer cool down. The benefit to this is that she can now use single charges to deal with a single ability instead of baiting it out once. For halt we gradually reduce the AoE but allow players more time to react so halt becomes more area denial instead of constant chaining abilities. Her primary attack now will miss more at mid range with its wider spread but still be effective up close. She gains a slight increase to movement to make her feel more fluid as well as an interruptible reload to giver her more flexibility to a given situation.
Sigma
At first i wanted to reduce Sigma's range but I've noticed alot of players love the aspect of his bouncing shot. It got me thinking on why Sigma's ability has AoE damage. Besides general usefulness it came down to player feedback. If Sigma's attacks didn't detonate they would feel like garbage even on a direct hit. Instead the players gets this nice sound and damage, you can really feel a good Sigma shot. The problem is that this allows Sigma players to be rather inaccurate and still provide significant damage. Instead of removing the AoE damage and removing the mental impact it creates, I've reduced his AoE damage to punish missed shots and make him feel less oppressive. The issue of his shield being constantly up was addressed with the shield regen change. Once broken he now has to wait 5 seconds to get his shield back. This will allow more sustained damaged against Sigma.
RoadHog
If we promote mobility then we also need to help each role deal with it, so lets bring hog back. When hog was changed into a brawler he lost a significant part of his identity, burst damage. Hog holds space purely with the threat of death, the problem is that it's based on a single ability instead of his primary which is more readily available. The idea is to re-introduce that fear again but at a higher ammo cost than before. Overall it's a nerf to his damage output as he'll have to reload more but he retains harassment and shield damage with his secondary attack. I understand it looks elegant that his primary and secondary are the same but I think we should use them as different attacks to give him more options. His new passive is to leverage the concept that the only tanking he does is with his physical body. While it was always suggested that he body blocked there were no abilities directly suggesting that. With this he now provides some tanking in a way that's quite different from the other tanks but still within his design. Heroes such as Rein, Doom and Brig will no longer be able to charge him as he will be able to block it physically. We also add the idea that any hero under a dash effect such as Hammond, Genji, or Tracer will also be knocked down if they try to pass through his model with an ability.
DPS, tank and support heroes are designed differently. The way they receive feedback through game mechanics is also completely different, so each role needs to be addressed differently. DPS heroes feel rewarded for the constant pressure they create and shots they hit. Player skill has gotten to the point where too much damage is coming from these heroes at a constant rate, so we lower the degree of damage while still allowing them to have the tools to do their job.
Supports feel rewarded when they save an ally with burst healing or big ability usage. Because all heroes can deal damage but only a couple can prevent it supports will always require burst healing. We keep their burst healing but create windows of opportunity where they are unable to heal while keeping impactful abilities that immediately save someone's life.
Tanks feel rewarded when they can provide an opportunity to their teammates from creating space through damage or damage mitigation. They also get tremendous feedback when they bide their time and can attack when viable. By switching between threatening damage and damage mitigation they have a fluid way to play an otherwise boring role. We take none of this away from tanks so that we can instead target the window of team-wide damage mitigation. Allowing all heroes to feel more reward for damaging shields and opening up more angles and ways to play Overwatch.
Tank
Most tanks are in a suitable position with the change in headshot damage. Four of them can headshot while the other four cannot. While they all benefit from the reduction in headshot damage they are affected more by the longer downtime for supports. I don't think much needs to change as the main concern of shields has been address with the longer regeneration delay. The only suggestions I have for tanks are Orisa/Sigma. The biggest culprits of the double shield meta are not strictly caused by double shields but by the massive mid-range damage they possess.
Orisa
Changes
Primary attack
Spread is a constant triangle pattern, identical to the look of her gun
Ammo count from 150 to 100
Reload is now slowly fills up, 25 ammo per .4 second
Delay of .4 added after a reload
Move speed penalty from -30% to -20%
Fortify
Fortify now has 4 charges of 1 second effectiveness
Fortify recharges 1 per 6 seconds
Damage reduction from 40% to 50%
Barrier
Cool down changed from 10 seconds to 6 seconds after its destroyed
Looking at the shield and pressing the button again will self-destroy the shield
Halt
Radius reduced from 7m to 5m
Slow removed
Activation delay from .45 to .8
Spread is a constant triangle pattern, identical to the look of her gun
Ammo count from 150 to 100
Reload is now slowly fills up, 25 ammo per .4 second
Delay of .4 added after a reload
Move speed penalty from -30% to -20%
Fortify
Fortify now has 4 charges of 1 second effectiveness
Fortify recharges 1 per 6 seconds
Damage reduction from 40% to 50%
Barrier
Cool down changed from 10 seconds to 6 seconds after its destroyed
Looking at the shield and pressing the button again will self-destroy the shield
Halt
Radius reduced from 7m to 5m
Slow removed
Activation delay from .45 to .8
Orisa's issue is that with such a large clip and low cool downs all you do cycle through the abilities and with enough support you can constantly stay alive. Little effort is needed to make her extremely effective. This is both boring to play as and boring to play against as there is little value to learning her timings. The idea I propose here is to heavily punish her for using all of her abilities but allow them all to be more flexible. Her shield can be used more often but removes the double shield on cool down. Fortify can be used for the same amount of time but for a much longer cool down. The benefit to this is that she can now use single charges to deal with a single ability instead of baiting it out once. For halt we gradually reduce the AoE but allow players more time to react so halt becomes more area denial instead of constant chaining abilities. Her primary attack now will miss more at mid range with its wider spread but still be effective up close. She gains a slight increase to movement to make her feel more fluid as well as an interruptible reload to giver her more flexibility to a given situation.
Sigma
Changes
Primary fire
Direct damage from 55 to 75
Explosive damage from 30 to 10
Gravitic Flux
Removal of 50 initial damage
Direct damage from 55 to 75
Explosive damage from 30 to 10
Gravitic Flux
Removal of 50 initial damage
At first i wanted to reduce Sigma's range but I've noticed alot of players love the aspect of his bouncing shot. It got me thinking on why Sigma's ability has AoE damage. Besides general usefulness it came down to player feedback. If Sigma's attacks didn't detonate they would feel like garbage even on a direct hit. Instead the players gets this nice sound and damage, you can really feel a good Sigma shot. The problem is that this allows Sigma players to be rather inaccurate and still provide significant damage. Instead of removing the AoE damage and removing the mental impact it creates, I've reduced his AoE damage to punish missed shots and make him feel less oppressive. The issue of his shield being constantly up was addressed with the shield regen change. Once broken he now has to wait 5 seconds to get his shield back. This will allow more sustained damaged against Sigma.
RoadHog
Changes
Primary fire
Damage from 150 to 200
Attack speed from .7 to 1
Ammo used per shot from 1 to 2
Secondary fire (no changes, acts as the live version does)
Passive "Bouncer" added
Heroes that charge into hog are now knocked down
Heroes are no longer able to pass through hog with abilities
Damage from 150 to 200
Attack speed from .7 to 1
Ammo used per shot from 1 to 2
Secondary fire (no changes, acts as the live version does)
Passive "Bouncer" added
Heroes that charge into hog are now knocked down
Heroes are no longer able to pass through hog with abilities
If we promote mobility then we also need to help each role deal with it, so lets bring hog back. When hog was changed into a brawler he lost a significant part of his identity, burst damage. Hog holds space purely with the threat of death, the problem is that it's based on a single ability instead of his primary which is more readily available. The idea is to re-introduce that fear again but at a higher ammo cost than before. Overall it's a nerf to his damage output as he'll have to reload more but he retains harassment and shield damage with his secondary attack. I understand it looks elegant that his primary and secondary are the same but I think we should use them as different attacks to give him more options. His new passive is to leverage the concept that the only tanking he does is with his physical body. While it was always suggested that he body blocked there were no abilities directly suggesting that. With this he now provides some tanking in a way that's quite different from the other tanks but still within his design. Heroes such as Rein, Doom and Brig will no longer be able to charge him as he will be able to block it physically. We also add the idea that any hero under a dash effect such as Hammond, Genji, or Tracer will also be knocked down if they try to pass through his model with an ability.
DPS, tank and support heroes are designed differently. The way they receive feedback through game mechanics is also completely different, so each role needs to be addressed differently. DPS heroes feel rewarded for the constant pressure they create and shots they hit. Player skill has gotten to the point where too much damage is coming from these heroes at a constant rate, so we lower the degree of damage while still allowing them to have the tools to do their job.
Supports feel rewarded when they save an ally with burst healing or big ability usage. Because all heroes can deal damage but only a couple can prevent it supports will always require burst healing. We keep their burst healing but create windows of opportunity where they are unable to heal while keeping impactful abilities that immediately save someone's life.
Tanks feel rewarded when they can provide an opportunity to their teammates from creating space through damage or damage mitigation. They also get tremendous feedback when they bide their time and can attack when viable. By switching between threatening damage and damage mitigation they have a fluid way to play an otherwise boring role. We take none of this away from tanks so that we can instead target the window of team-wide damage mitigation. Allowing all heroes to feel more reward for damaging shields and opening up more angles and ways to play Overwatch.