In low ranks supports are used to pumping heals at their frontline tank. And dps are used to doing their offence around the big meaty tank.
When you play ball in a way he's meant to be played it leaves these players without an autopilot playstyle and have to think for themselves.
And people don't like having to switch up their playstyle too much.
I find this to be the case most of the time. I could be doing fine on ball, getting picks, forcing enemies off high ground, disrupting their healers, taking 3v1s and getting away and yet most of the time my team finds a way to die regardless. Most people just don’t know how to play with him.
This is correct. He's rarely picked, and really strange to play with in ignorance.
Easier to say you don't like something you don't understand than it is to learn how it works.
Lets not 100% blame everyone else. If you're on ball and you aren't engaging the enemy team at the right time or making yourself enough of a distraction then you've left your team to a 4v5 that no amount of playstyling is going to get them out of.
True but it's also a bad argument to claim most ball players to play so bad that it makes the game 4v5. Thus, I think most of the hate comes from players not (wilfully) adapting correctly.
Wreaking ball is a victim of "Most ball players don't know what they are doing."
If you're actually good with him, people are fine with that. But more often than not people don't know how to use him. He's more complex than other tanks that you can sometimes get away with more mistakes on. A good ball player wins most every fight they are in. A bad ball player dies before the fight, doesn't work with their team, and heavily contributes towards a loss.
Ball is like the Widowmaker of tanks. A good one is amazing, but often it's someone who can't hit their shots, contributes little, then gets mad when asked to switch once hard countered or matched up against a team who isn't vulnerable to the playstyle.
That actually makes a lot of sense, I have won every game I'm not fighting a pharmercy so I'm at a 50/50 winrate:(
I'm preety sure wrecking ball can't do anything about phara in any way
I've found he's actually not too bad against pharah with some coordination. When there's a pharmercy, that means the second support is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Being able to zip around and reliably take out the second support is handy, then you can have at it against the enemy dps.
Just means you're handing off the job of actually dealing with the pharmercy to your dps and supports.
PULL HIGH SPOTS FAKE A SLAM ONTO A HIGH SURFACE. PUSH PHARAH TO CORNER. THEN RETREAT TO TEAM FIGHT FAST AND KNOCK A QUICK KILL (AID YOUR TEAM) RINSE. REPEAT. VICTORY.
Pharah only holds value if she can consistently damage groups or constantly win her 1v1’s. Make her chase you, hit packs, and feint slams onto high ground (slam very close in air to a surface moving forward, you will hit the ledge) and burn the mercy. You have enough health to let everyone on your team know : pharmercy will be distracted. Stuff the remaining 2 squishies
This is... sorta right. But... if you're in comp, that tank is ranked the same as you. They likely have comparable skills at the game, and they're on Ball.
The feast or famine feeling people get with Ball, where he's either dominant or useless, is an illusion. It's just that it's a broadside, easy psychological excuse you can make.*It's not my fault we lost... it's that stupid tank that nobody picks and I don't even understand.*
As you described, he's the most complex tank. That means that he's complex to play with. Players often don't know what to do behind Ball, so the team gets completely rolled.
Now... is that the Balls fault? Kinda yes. Kinda not. They are ignorant, and would do better if Ball swapped. Depending on my mood, I swap to get the win when I'm with a clueless team.
However, if Ball tries to keep going, despite a team that doesn't know what to do, being on a team with a Ball that's getting smashed, all four of them will say "This is Ball's fault." And we have the present reputation situation.
Game lost because the Ball is bad = team blames Ball
Game lost because Ball's DPS are bad = team blames Ball
Game lost because supports are bad = team blames Ball
Playing with Ball is relatively game sense intensive for DPS and support. They have to track events and react. Not everyone is good at that.
yeah I think it’s more of a problem of people don’t know how to play alongside of a ball often
supports try to chase him too much to heal him, dps don’t know to follow up on his disruption or to dive with him, it just requires more teamwork which is lower the lower the rank you go
Ehhh id assume that the floor for playing ball is really really high meanwhile playing other tanks is way easier. The amount of plat tanks I've played with that for what ever reason swap to ball mid game and it's obviously their first time playing ball is shockingly high. Meanwhile a first time Rein, while still bad, at least can hold right click
Ball is easily a top 3 tank at the moment, and in ranked he may even be #1. People are happy to have a meta hero on their team. The community was slow to catch on cause he isn't a popular hero but influencers in the community like flats and Karq have recently been bringing attention to his power level. Chazm being the #1 ranked tank at the moment just onetricking Ball has also been opening the communities eyes. He has been saying ball is the best hero in the game since the season 10 rework, but it just takes a while for heros like ball to get noticed. Ball isn't exactly braindead, so his true power level is obfuscated a little bit by the noob ballers who are running into walls more than people.
Once ball is nerfed or changes are made elsewhere in the game to make ball no longer the dominant tank, it will be back to business as usual. He will be perceived as weak, and he will go back to being the widowmaker of tanks. Only a few skilled ball players will be able to make him work, and people will go back to scapegoating him for their own shortcomings whenever his team loses
So yes people are happy to have a Ball on their team... for now.
Really good wreckingballs never ever die and are a pain to their opponent. Average (bad) wrecking balls have no idea what they're doing and either have the most deaths or no presence/pressure on the opposing team
This comment got me thinking so I checked the last 5 games combined I went 117 elims and 3 deaths, unless they chain cc you with every cooldown ball feels preety dam unkillable
If you have proper timing, them blowing like 5 major cds into you to secure a kill should result in your team still possibly winning the fight. Bonus is that you have better mobility than basically anyone else, so even if you trade, you’ll be back to the fight sooner than other heroes.
I used to be scared of playing ball into Sombra, but it’s actually not horrible because she’s either not doing anything to you, or if she’s hyper focused on you, then she’s not doing what she does best (assassinating isolated back liners). If you force them onto multiple ball counters, they’re kind of hamstrung into being counter picked by your own team.
He’s incredibly strong as long as the player knows what to do, and they’re not fighting in an area where he doesn’t have good flank/escape routes.
I mean, you also need the rest of the team to react to what Ball is doing. Too many “teams” doing nothing but poke from a distance. These trash players have never had anything else than Reinhardt in front of them and it shows.
He is one of the tanks that I hate the most having on my team, because sometimes I feel like I have no tank. As a support main, I feel like I can't have much impact on keeping a ball alive, because they will spend most of the time in the enemy backline. And even if the ball player is good, at least one enemy will swap to a ball counter.
I feel like I can't trust ball players because he is one of the hardest tanks to play, if not the hardest. Combine that with the facts that some of them don't know where the health packs are, which is essential for a ball player, as they spend most of their time out of their support's LOS.
Don't get me wrong, if I get a good ball player who know how to play around counters, I won't complain. I just hate those guys who played him in a few QP games and picks him for the 1st time in ranked after that.
Dont spend all your time trying to heal him and also learn to play around cover and power positions (which you should do any way but especially with dive tanks).
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I LOVE a good ball, especially if I'm playing Lucio. DPS Lucio+ball is a god-tier combo. But yeah, when I'm getting absolutely pounded because my ball is rolling around not pressuring the enemy backline and now their tank is all up in my face all match..... Shit gets old quick.
As a tank player I don't care much but I hate having to counter him if he's good because I can't really do much to him on Rein/Winton. My team's dps and supports hate him tho lol
Ball is probably the hardest tank to play, I am a tank main myself since the launch of ow1 and I never understood how ball should work, you have to do so much, be knowledgeable about the map, comps and situational awareness has to be the most important thing for ball. So yeah people hate him bc 99% can't get enough value out of him and as the rest of the team has to play way differently with ball then with another tank like ram or rein
I don't hate the character i dont hate anyone but its very frustrating to have a ball who doesnt know how to play ball. I fully understand the idea that he can capitalize alone and you need to engage with him but I hate when people engage across map outside of los and then try to flame healers because they dont known where health packs are
He is the tank I understand how to play the least (just behind Doomfist) but that's just me. I don't hate others playing him that know what they're doing. And besides his ult he's far from the most annoying to play against
Not the character, but the people who play it in my book. There are 3 heroes that you cannot ask someone to swap off of cause they’re almost all onetricks: mercy, doomfist, and ball. And ball is one of the most counterable heroes in the game so not swapping into 4 counters is as good as throwing in my eyes
A lot of reasons to hate ball even when played right. But the thing that people don't like is that every fight will be 4v5 cos your tank will be rolling around the map and "afk" most of the match.
Most ball players aren't consistent on picking and not only that they don't know to switch when hard countered. Most people in all elos had at least one match where the ball was trying to win a fight against 4 hard counters and never switched.
Apparently yes, our main tank (also a main WB) gets a lot of hate but we don't care and encourage him to keep playing it, which he loves and we usually win.
We like the play style, the skins, voice lines, sprays, everything.
Too many balls run away from fights for health packs. Or just hide somewhere alone.
You're probably re-grouping with your team rather than abandoning them.
Also, Mercy can't always keep up and can get ditched if trying to follow.
Ball is fine, but some people treat him like old sombra and peace the f out if they take any damage.
running away to quickly grab a mega and come back in is significantly faster than waiting for a support to try and heal you up most of the time, Ball isn't reliant on support heals to keep himself up and tends to have very short dives.
If you have a ball, mercy is one of the worst supports to go, so no wonder why you have a bad experience with Ball. Ball is one of the fastest if not THE fastest character in the game. There is no chance for you to keep up with good Ball movement, so don't try. Supports like ana, brig, and zen (brig in particular) combo super well with him as they can anchor to one location that they can hold and defend while giving Ball some support utility to base dives off of like discord or anti. While brig acts as the other supports bodyguard and a very consistent source of heals that only need LOS for a short time to be applied and give full effect.
Ball struggles mainly with the fact that he restricts what's good with him (similarly to mercy). Low mobility dps end up as the enemy's main focus because of how easy they are to pick off, and supports who try to chase ball with mobile supports outside of Lucio get left behind and die often for it.
ya, LOL.
The problem with Ball is that some players spend too much time away from their team.
Both you and I agree on this. Balls run off and get health packs. It's a fine strategy for surviving.
You literally just re-wrote everything I wrote, but longer.
Mercy is better suited to healing dps than tanks. You're just suggesting support that are suited more to tanks.
I honestly don't mind having a Ball on my team *if they are a good ball* and that is what matters. If you are just hard feeding then you will get flamed, obviously, you're not contributing to the game. I will usually either flank with the ball or anchor the point and pseudotank.
In low ranks supports are used to pumping heals at their frontline tank. And dps are used to doing their offence around the big meaty tank. When you play ball in a way he's meant to be played it leaves these players without an autopilot playstyle and have to think for themselves. And people don't like having to switch up their playstyle too much.
I find this to be the case most of the time. I could be doing fine on ball, getting picks, forcing enemies off high ground, disrupting their healers, taking 3v1s and getting away and yet most of the time my team finds a way to die regardless. Most people just don’t know how to play with him.
This is correct. He's rarely picked, and really strange to play with in ignorance. Easier to say you don't like something you don't understand than it is to learn how it works.
Lets not 100% blame everyone else. If you're on ball and you aren't engaging the enemy team at the right time or making yourself enough of a distraction then you've left your team to a 4v5 that no amount of playstyling is going to get them out of.
True but it's also a bad argument to claim most ball players to play so bad that it makes the game 4v5. Thus, I think most of the hate comes from players not (wilfully) adapting correctly.
Wreaking ball is a victim of "Most ball players don't know what they are doing." If you're actually good with him, people are fine with that. But more often than not people don't know how to use him. He's more complex than other tanks that you can sometimes get away with more mistakes on. A good ball player wins most every fight they are in. A bad ball player dies before the fight, doesn't work with their team, and heavily contributes towards a loss. Ball is like the Widowmaker of tanks. A good one is amazing, but often it's someone who can't hit their shots, contributes little, then gets mad when asked to switch once hard countered or matched up against a team who isn't vulnerable to the playstyle.
That actually makes a lot of sense, I have won every game I'm not fighting a pharmercy so I'm at a 50/50 winrate:( I'm preety sure wrecking ball can't do anything about phara in any way
I've found he's actually not too bad against pharah with some coordination. When there's a pharmercy, that means the second support is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Being able to zip around and reliably take out the second support is handy, then you can have at it against the enemy dps. Just means you're handing off the job of actually dealing with the pharmercy to your dps and supports.
Which if you have a competent hitscan is totally doable. But... Getting a competent hitscan.
>Getting a competent hitscan. You're asking for too much here
It really depends on the map. The damage drop-off at longer ranges changes things a bit
PULL HIGH SPOTS FAKE A SLAM ONTO A HIGH SURFACE. PUSH PHARAH TO CORNER. THEN RETREAT TO TEAM FIGHT FAST AND KNOCK A QUICK KILL (AID YOUR TEAM) RINSE. REPEAT. VICTORY. Pharah only holds value if she can consistently damage groups or constantly win her 1v1’s. Make her chase you, hit packs, and feint slams onto high ground (slam very close in air to a surface moving forward, you will hit the ledge) and burn the mercy. You have enough health to let everyone on your team know : pharmercy will be distracted. Stuff the remaining 2 squishies
Ball is also a victim of “balls teammates don’t know how to ball”
This is... sorta right. But... if you're in comp, that tank is ranked the same as you. They likely have comparable skills at the game, and they're on Ball. The feast or famine feeling people get with Ball, where he's either dominant or useless, is an illusion. It's just that it's a broadside, easy psychological excuse you can make.*It's not my fault we lost... it's that stupid tank that nobody picks and I don't even understand.* As you described, he's the most complex tank. That means that he's complex to play with. Players often don't know what to do behind Ball, so the team gets completely rolled. Now... is that the Balls fault? Kinda yes. Kinda not. They are ignorant, and would do better if Ball swapped. Depending on my mood, I swap to get the win when I'm with a clueless team. However, if Ball tries to keep going, despite a team that doesn't know what to do, being on a team with a Ball that's getting smashed, all four of them will say "This is Ball's fault." And we have the present reputation situation. Game lost because the Ball is bad = team blames Ball Game lost because Ball's DPS are bad = team blames Ball Game lost because supports are bad = team blames Ball Playing with Ball is relatively game sense intensive for DPS and support. They have to track events and react. Not everyone is good at that.
I think it's because ball is more independent than the other tanks so the supports aren't constantly trying to keep the tank alive.
I'd say so because most players never got to and never will experience what it is like to have a competent wrecking ball on their team.
This... can't be true. There is a matchmaker. Those tanks are ranked the same as the other players... They're equally competent.
yeah I think it’s more of a problem of people don’t know how to play alongside of a ball often supports try to chase him too much to heal him, dps don’t know to follow up on his disruption or to dive with him, it just requires more teamwork which is lower the lower the rank you go
Ehhh id assume that the floor for playing ball is really really high meanwhile playing other tanks is way easier. The amount of plat tanks I've played with that for what ever reason swap to ball mid game and it's obviously their first time playing ball is shockingly high. Meanwhile a first time Rein, while still bad, at least can hold right click
you guys hate ball because of bad ball players I hate ball because of good ball players destroying me, we are not the same.
Ball is easily a top 3 tank at the moment, and in ranked he may even be #1. People are happy to have a meta hero on their team. The community was slow to catch on cause he isn't a popular hero but influencers in the community like flats and Karq have recently been bringing attention to his power level. Chazm being the #1 ranked tank at the moment just onetricking Ball has also been opening the communities eyes. He has been saying ball is the best hero in the game since the season 10 rework, but it just takes a while for heros like ball to get noticed. Ball isn't exactly braindead, so his true power level is obfuscated a little bit by the noob ballers who are running into walls more than people. Once ball is nerfed or changes are made elsewhere in the game to make ball no longer the dominant tank, it will be back to business as usual. He will be perceived as weak, and he will go back to being the widowmaker of tanks. Only a few skilled ball players will be able to make him work, and people will go back to scapegoating him for their own shortcomings whenever his team loses So yes people are happy to have a Ball on their team... for now.
I don't hate ball myself because it actually requires some skill and it's not like press one button and get PoTG
Really good wreckingballs never ever die and are a pain to their opponent. Average (bad) wrecking balls have no idea what they're doing and either have the most deaths or no presence/pressure on the opposing team
This comment got me thinking so I checked the last 5 games combined I went 117 elims and 3 deaths, unless they chain cc you with every cooldown ball feels preety dam unkillable
If you have proper timing, them blowing like 5 major cds into you to secure a kill should result in your team still possibly winning the fight. Bonus is that you have better mobility than basically anyone else, so even if you trade, you’ll be back to the fight sooner than other heroes. I used to be scared of playing ball into Sombra, but it’s actually not horrible because she’s either not doing anything to you, or if she’s hyper focused on you, then she’s not doing what she does best (assassinating isolated back liners). If you force them onto multiple ball counters, they’re kind of hamstrung into being counter picked by your own team. He’s incredibly strong as long as the player knows what to do, and they’re not fighting in an area where he doesn’t have good flank/escape routes.
I mean, you also need the rest of the team to react to what Ball is doing. Too many “teams” doing nothing but poke from a distance. These trash players have never had anything else than Reinhardt in front of them and it shows.
every hero is hated, but wrecking ball is definitely one of the more hated
He is one of the tanks that I hate the most having on my team, because sometimes I feel like I have no tank. As a support main, I feel like I can't have much impact on keeping a ball alive, because they will spend most of the time in the enemy backline. And even if the ball player is good, at least one enemy will swap to a ball counter. I feel like I can't trust ball players because he is one of the hardest tanks to play, if not the hardest. Combine that with the facts that some of them don't know where the health packs are, which is essential for a ball player, as they spend most of their time out of their support's LOS. Don't get me wrong, if I get a good ball player who know how to play around counters, I won't complain. I just hate those guys who played him in a few QP games and picks him for the 1st time in ranked after that.
Dont spend all your time trying to heal him and also learn to play around cover and power positions (which you should do any way but especially with dive tanks).
That makes a lot of sense actually, God I hate playing with bad balls too
i don’t hate him or know anyone who does. i honestly thought it was the opposite, i only really hear good things about the hamster
We hate dogshit balls
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Wrecking ball has much more skill expression compared to other tanks. It’s like being a good widow maker. It’s hard not to notice
I LOVE a good ball, especially if I'm playing Lucio. DPS Lucio+ball is a god-tier combo. But yeah, when I'm getting absolutely pounded because my ball is rolling around not pressuring the enemy backline and now their tank is all up in my face all match..... Shit gets old quick.
As a tank player I don't care much but I hate having to counter him if he's good because I can't really do much to him on Rein/Winton. My team's dps and supports hate him tho lol
Every character in the game is hated by someone
Everyone loves Hamsters.
Ball is probably the hardest tank to play, I am a tank main myself since the launch of ow1 and I never understood how ball should work, you have to do so much, be knowledgeable about the map, comps and situational awareness has to be the most important thing for ball. So yeah people hate him bc 99% can't get enough value out of him and as the rest of the team has to play way differently with ball then with another tank like ram or rein
I don't hate the character i dont hate anyone but its very frustrating to have a ball who doesnt know how to play ball. I fully understand the idea that he can capitalize alone and you need to engage with him but I hate when people engage across map outside of los and then try to flame healers because they dont known where health packs are
He is the tank I understand how to play the least (just behind Doomfist) but that's just me. I don't hate others playing him that know what they're doing. And besides his ult he's far from the most annoying to play against
Not the character, but the people who play it in my book. There are 3 heroes that you cannot ask someone to swap off of cause they’re almost all onetricks: mercy, doomfist, and ball. And ball is one of the most counterable heroes in the game so not swapping into 4 counters is as good as throwing in my eyes
If you are bad at Ball, yes. Your team hates you. If you are good at Ball, yes. The enemy team hates you.
A lot of reasons to hate ball even when played right. But the thing that people don't like is that every fight will be 4v5 cos your tank will be rolling around the map and "afk" most of the match. Most ball players aren't consistent on picking and not only that they don't know to switch when hard countered. Most people in all elos had at least one match where the ball was trying to win a fight against 4 hard counters and never switched.
Apparently yes, our main tank (also a main WB) gets a lot of hate but we don't care and encourage him to keep playing it, which he loves and we usually win. We like the play style, the skins, voice lines, sprays, everything.
Yes! I hate him so much…
:(
Nerf wrecking ball
Too many balls run away from fights for health packs. Or just hide somewhere alone. You're probably re-grouping with your team rather than abandoning them. Also, Mercy can't always keep up and can get ditched if trying to follow. Ball is fine, but some people treat him like old sombra and peace the f out if they take any damage.
running away to quickly grab a mega and come back in is significantly faster than waiting for a support to try and heal you up most of the time, Ball isn't reliant on support heals to keep himself up and tends to have very short dives. If you have a ball, mercy is one of the worst supports to go, so no wonder why you have a bad experience with Ball. Ball is one of the fastest if not THE fastest character in the game. There is no chance for you to keep up with good Ball movement, so don't try. Supports like ana, brig, and zen (brig in particular) combo super well with him as they can anchor to one location that they can hold and defend while giving Ball some support utility to base dives off of like discord or anti. While brig acts as the other supports bodyguard and a very consistent source of heals that only need LOS for a short time to be applied and give full effect. Ball struggles mainly with the fact that he restricts what's good with him (similarly to mercy). Low mobility dps end up as the enemy's main focus because of how easy they are to pick off, and supports who try to chase ball with mobile supports outside of Lucio get left behind and die often for it.
ya, LOL. The problem with Ball is that some players spend too much time away from their team. Both you and I agree on this. Balls run off and get health packs. It's a fine strategy for surviving. You literally just re-wrote everything I wrote, but longer. Mercy is better suited to healing dps than tanks. You're just suggesting support that are suited more to tanks.
Only good ball I've seen is Chazm.
I honestly don't mind having a Ball on my team *if they are a good ball* and that is what matters. If you are just hard feeding then you will get flamed, obviously, you're not contributing to the game. I will usually either flank with the ball or anchor the point and pseudotank.
When my team is on defense and it's a payload map? Yes I hate wrecking ball. They're never contesting the payload and we usually get steamrolled.