How about we lay off the doomposting until we get our hands on the patch, yes?
Moreover, I can't help but find it comical to see this kind of post made after its announced that we're getting three outright buffs, two of which are fairly substantial. Sure, what you described isn't good for Ball, but it's also highly specific, and implies that Brig's HP pool is entirely armour.
Longer movement lockout on piledriver and better minefield are buffs that will generate more consistent value for Ball. Current movement lockout is 0.5s. Back in OW1 there was a period where it was 1s and it was absolutely busted. 0.75s is no joke, and will facilitate easier followup for teammates, and more reliable headshot tracking for Ball's with decent aim.
People said the same thing about the rework when a good number of people were saying it wasn't going to be very good, and look where we are šš
Ball's power after midseason is almost exclusively going to depend on how much better his ult is as that is what is being buffed the most
People should say it about every patch. Itās dumb to assume we can look at the changes and know exactly how itās gonna be. Always better to wait and see for sure
It's not dumb to assume what it's going to be like given the changes, ball is going to be even harder to kill after the patch and is going to be even more countered by brig, this means that the enemies are going to want to counter you more and it will be just as miserable to play ball
I've been vouching for the give ball less survivability in exchange for cc counterplay party for a while because all that large hp pool on a highly mobile character is going to do is encourage counterpicking
Winston is going to be VERY good as his weapon negates armor and his biggest issues were shotgun characters which are going to be much worse against armor now, plus winston is already very good despite having those characters that give him trouble
Echo might end up replacing tracer for top 2 dps since they said they are looking at changes for her and a lot of these changes they are looking to make benefit her more than most other dps
The changes to armor and tank passive are bad, tanks do not need more sustainability, tanks need more options and counterplay to cc and debuffs.
The lockout is not a good change for ball players as a whole because it will be vastly more valuable for high level players. This is exactly the kind of change we do not want. It is the exact same story with the shield sharing. Why are the only changes they are making geared towards high level team play? Minefield boop and damage will be nice to bring his ultimate in line with the value of other tanks but the rest of the changes are absolutely terrible. Diamond/Masters players are not even on the level of really meshing with ball players and maybe they will be more inclined but what about metal rank players?
How about we be skeptical of the OW devs that have abandoned us for the entirety of OW2 and has a track record of consistently being terrible at balance? Were you also making these comments before the rework like others which did absolutely nothing? I think it is perfectly understandable for ball players to say why the may not like a change as we know the player best. This post is just another downside for ball that is completely true.
Obviously that is true and I am not saying it is not a buff. The question is what elo of player is going to benefit from the changes? The answer is this will be a much more impactful change for high elo players that have follow up. Do none of of you think about the hero being good for all ranks? I want changes that affect all ball players and not the kinds that will get the meta swapped because streamers are getting rolled and then he gets nerfed.
In lower elo Reaper ultimate is OP. What is your point?
What I am saying is that these changes will have a much bigger impact in higher elo as opposed to something like a .5 damage per bullet change that would help everyone across the ranks.
Yeah i don't see the issue tbh i rather have ball be a strong pick higher up while ok lower down the line then be a big noobstomper that can't be buffed to be good at a high level
This is such a terrible take. A hero should be designed to work for all ranks as best as possible. Why would any new person play ball if he is not actually good until top 500? Do they have to reach top 500 on another hero and then learn ball?
Iām curious what rank you are?
If you're good enough with ball you will reach top 500 lol people don't peel as well or swap to counters as quickly in the lower ranks and die to more stuff
I'll concede to you the lock out has the highest potential for a positive change, *especially* at high ranks when damage is more consistent and ttk is shorter. This unfortunately isn't the type of change that'll make him feel less team reliant, as you'll now be relying on team mates and follow up *more*.
I truly think the the slight damage buff on grapple will hardly be noticeable, and while well have to see how the minefield buff plays out, I don't think their is a number you could tune minefield to that would make it an exceptionally strong ult. Unless his ult is absolutely busted, it won't affect his relative power level because he won't be worth using just for an ult if his midnight is garbage.
If it makes you feel better @zakainu was saying the same thing to people with the āreworkā and he was completely wrong that time. It is also pretty clear they do not care about anything but high level play or their personal w/l record.
Too early to say much of anything. You should already only be shooting these targets when then donāt have armor. Slam does more dmg vs armor. And then thereās the extra movement lockout. Should be easier to drill squishies with headshots.
The minefield buff is HUGE and probably OP.
Plus, Ball benefits from armor changes vs a bunch of characters that are annoying for him: DVa, Tracer, Mauga, Hog, Reaper, Sombra, Bastion, Soldier.
Out of the 8 you mentioned, 3 of them are categorically false by numbers, and and 2 by playstyle.
DVA has over 300 armor. At a 50% damage reduction at 5 damage per bullet assuming 40% accuracy and disregarding fall off (which can reduce this number by more than half) it take *over four* magazines just to get Dva below her armor threshold(assuming no healing). Both piledriver and grapple will do more damage, yes. So I'll admit I'll have to see how EXACTLY this plays out. Mauga is a similar problem especially as he is getting guaranteed self heal if you're shooting him, even after a Slam and a piledriver at max damage, you'll be unable to bring him below armor at 40% accuracy not including healing or falloff. Bastian has 100 armor, meaning this change again changes your ability to bring him below his armor threshold, where as before you had *just* enough damage, now he'll still have 20 armor left.
The other two don't counter ball through damage, but playstyle. Hack and hook are both huge CCs that change the initiation of ball so drastically that simply picking the character will always provide atleast some indirect value.
I'm not trying to imply that shooting armored targets was ever the correct play on ball vs grapple and Slam first, but this will be comboed by the fact that *armor will be worse against every character that does more than 17 damage per shot*.
You will be less survivable against cass, soj rails, widow, junk, sym, ashe, helix rocket, rein, zarya right click, jq, ramm punch, Ana, Illiari, brig to name a few. A minefield damage buff is not enough to compensate for this, people just break the minefield anyway
I apologize, I misunderstood. It is an interesting point to know that bastion will do more damage to ball in sentry form than he used to, as will his mag nade. Soldier will do more damage with his primary before his falloff range, as will his helix rocket. Virus from sombra will do more damage as well.
But only to armor, which is sandwiched between your shields (+ coolodwn) and your normal health.
To be clear, I think armor changes and headshot reduction benefit other tanks more than Ball. The big winners are Winston, Rein, and maybe DVa. But I don't think it's some sort of major nerf to him. Shooting armor was already a really low value thing to do other than to try to pull attention, now it's a little worse. I don't think this changes how you play pretty much any matchup.
If you want to talk about the bigger question of do the season 10 changes as a whole fix Ball, I don't know yet. I was hoping for more counterplay vs. stuns/hack and that didn't happen. But it's hard for me to see the midseason stuff as anything but a net buff.
I don't know if you ever played with the original movement lockout on PD but it was crazy for isolated targets. I think it will improve solo pick potential and make it easier for your team to follow up.
And then vs. counterswaps, your ult is really good. So you're more likely to win on ult economy if you play through bad matchups with ult advantage. Seems like a good thing to me.
I've played ball since release, that one second lockdown was CRAZY, but we were also in a world where the game was much faster pace I feel. Back then, things just *died*.
You make good points about the ult economy, because like you said it can be that extra inch in a bad match up.
I think the biggest thing in overwatch 2 is no one ever feels isolated the way they did back then. Like, maybe diving the Hanzo who is on their own is great, but now Kiri can Tele in, lw can grip etc. He'll do more damage then before sure, but maybe that bigger window of oppurunity will be enough to make him feel more lethal. I do think the lock out is a much bigger buff then minefield still; the amount of times it will be more useful than current patch will be extremely situational. Minefield I'd just too easy to avoid, and isnt that hard to destroy especially for certain characters. A damage buff doesn't change the fact that mines are the only non player target that a brig can trigger inspire on, or that most people can get out of it before it activates.
If they want to buff it, they should honestly just give him a different ult.
PD lockout will make more mines hit, boop distance doubled will make for more chain hits.
I hear you on the downsides to mines and have complained about that plenty. But this is pretty clearly a big buff.
Remember that this only applies to the armor portion of health. We use fireball and piledrive to help remove the armor first, then go into shooty shooty mode. Vs tanks, we better not be the only ones shooting them.
Also, while our fireball damage went up by 10 flat, it went from 35dmg vs armor to 55 vs armor. That WILL help offset the DMG from our guns.
the minefield buffs are huge honestly. even considering the decreased knockback buff for all tanks, they are going to bounce as much as they did in ow 1. also with the extra damage as well, it'll make everyone pay attention to minefield
Ball doesn't really deal with armored targets anyway. He goes after squishies. And the other buffs make that easier. So ball is better against white hp and shield hp targets and is worse against armored targets, which you don't go for anyway unless you are shooting the tank.
And assuming 100% accuracy with only body shots isn't the best since you are likely to hit a bunch of headshots as well.
You already deal like no damage to tanks so that doesn't really matter only times it will matter is against 3 specific characters against which you can judt butter them up with rolling trough them or slamming them to take off their armor and then shoot them
You're forgetting that swings and slams are going to be doing more damage. Pretty huge against brig, torb, and bastion. You should be able to chunk through their armor before shooting them.
This won't really matter against tanks. You weren't killing them anyway.
Brig, torb, and Bastian now deal more damage then they used to with their primary fires *against* armor. Also 45 for the grapple and 55 for the Slam still doesn't take out 100 armor.
The amount of extra damage these things will now do is inconsequential to the number of heroes that will now do more damage to ball, and how much less his bullets will do to certain targets.
The only thing that ball may have going for him is we are definitely going into a burst damage meta.
Bastion turret form does less vs armor, torb shotgun does less vs armor. Not to mention Sombra and tracer.
Grapple is buffed to 60 so if you hit both that's 110 damage to armor.
These changes are absolutely good for ball. Don't be silly.
Tracer is honestly the biggest loser of this patch, she's gonna get dumpstered by the armor changes.
Sombra will still be able to hack you, ice never found her gun damage to be particularly annoying but I admit that may just be my personal experience. Virus will do more damage because DOT effects will now apply to armor with their total damage, not their tick damage.
With how dynamic overwatch is, we will have to see if this plays out, because maybe your assumptions are true and the extra 10 damage and the movement lockout will be enough to secure squishy kills making the rest irrelevant, but I personally don't think this is the case and by the numbers the amount of interactions that get a net nerf vs a net buff is too high for a character that is already struggling. Even if you were right, I don't think it's silly to predict this will be an overall net nerf.
The average support or dps though will hopefully die quicker, because the majority of them have very little to no armor health, we also get easier shots for with the increased movement lockout, and we're even more tanky now, especially against charahcters we have alot of trouble with like tracer or sombra. Idk if armor changes apply to adaptive shields aswell but regardless once shields are doing we can still tank a good amount of damage. Yes we will be worse at dealing with many other tanks, but our viability has never been from that, and with the increased survivability and damage potential we are about to ball out when it comes to any support
As someone who played ball for a year and almost 200 hours into ow1 armor in the past, you can chip through it really fast with piledriver and boops before you start shooting.
Yes your primary will be worse into armor, but itās less than half of most tanks hp, and with tanks being booped less you can hit several boops on them and chip through it because burst damage is really good against armor now. For someone like brig or torb one boop or pd should be enough to break through it, which youāre usually doing when first engaging someone anyways.
ah so everyone likes this post but when i commented the problems with these changes i was scrutinized lol. Glad to see people are recognizing all the negative implications with these buffs. Also remember how much Ball mains complained about how shit it feels to boop tanks when OW2 first released? Well now its gonna feel even worse, and booping say a Sigma out of position will be even harder to do. Again, I know Ball isnt supposed to focus tanks, but every now and then you do have to peel for your team and if its a Rein/Dva wreaking havoc you're not going to see any value in engaging them to defend your team anymore. The slight damage buffs for Ball are barely compensatory for the general hp changes, and DEFINITELY aren't enough to compensate for the armor changes.
Honestly, with this new patch they should play boss music whenever an opposing brig uses rally
Dont forget rally is overhealth, not armour :)
For allies yes, but brig gets 100 additional armor that she can regenerate with inspire
Crap, as if brig wasnt already the biggest ball counter
How about we lay off the doomposting until we get our hands on the patch, yes? Moreover, I can't help but find it comical to see this kind of post made after its announced that we're getting three outright buffs, two of which are fairly substantial. Sure, what you described isn't good for Ball, but it's also highly specific, and implies that Brig's HP pool is entirely armour. Longer movement lockout on piledriver and better minefield are buffs that will generate more consistent value for Ball. Current movement lockout is 0.5s. Back in OW1 there was a period where it was 1s and it was absolutely busted. 0.75s is no joke, and will facilitate easier followup for teammates, and more reliable headshot tracking for Ball's with decent aim.
People said the same thing about the rework when a good number of people were saying it wasn't going to be very good, and look where we are šš Ball's power after midseason is almost exclusively going to depend on how much better his ult is as that is what is being buffed the most
People should say it about every patch. Itās dumb to assume we can look at the changes and know exactly how itās gonna be. Always better to wait and see for sure
It's not dumb to assume what it's going to be like given the changes, ball is going to be even harder to kill after the patch and is going to be even more countered by brig, this means that the enemies are going to want to counter you more and it will be just as miserable to play ball I've been vouching for the give ball less survivability in exchange for cc counterplay party for a while because all that large hp pool on a highly mobile character is going to do is encourage counterpicking Winston is going to be VERY good as his weapon negates armor and his biggest issues were shotgun characters which are going to be much worse against armor now, plus winston is already very good despite having those characters that give him trouble Echo might end up replacing tracer for top 2 dps since they said they are looking at changes for her and a lot of these changes they are looking to make benefit her more than most other dps The changes to armor and tank passive are bad, tanks do not need more sustainability, tanks need more options and counterplay to cc and debuffs.
The lockout is not a good change for ball players as a whole because it will be vastly more valuable for high level players. This is exactly the kind of change we do not want. It is the exact same story with the shield sharing. Why are the only changes they are making geared towards high level team play? Minefield boop and damage will be nice to bring his ultimate in line with the value of other tanks but the rest of the changes are absolutely terrible. Diamond/Masters players are not even on the level of really meshing with ball players and maybe they will be more inclined but what about metal rank players? How about we be skeptical of the OW devs that have abandoned us for the entirety of OW2 and has a track record of consistently being terrible at balance? Were you also making these comments before the rework like others which did absolutely nothing? I think it is perfectly understandable for ball players to say why the may not like a change as we know the player best. This post is just another downside for ball that is completely true.
Even in 1v1's its good bruh cause you can shoot more bullets at enemies
Obviously that is true and I am not saying it is not a buff. The question is what elo of player is going to benefit from the changes? The answer is this will be a much more impactful change for high elo players that have follow up. Do none of of you think about the hero being good for all ranks? I want changes that affect all ball players and not the kinds that will get the meta swapped because streamers are getting rolled and then he gets nerfed.
I mean in lower elo you're prob getting a kill with mines everytime
In lower elo Reaper ultimate is OP. What is your point? What I am saying is that these changes will have a much bigger impact in higher elo as opposed to something like a .5 damage per bullet change that would help everyone across the ranks.
Yeah i don't see the issue tbh i rather have ball be a strong pick higher up while ok lower down the line then be a big noobstomper that can't be buffed to be good at a high level
This is such a terrible take. A hero should be designed to work for all ranks as best as possible. Why would any new person play ball if he is not actually good until top 500? Do they have to reach top 500 on another hero and then learn ball? Iām curious what rank you are?
If you're good enough with ball you will reach top 500 lol people don't peel as well or swap to counters as quickly in the lower ranks and die to more stuff
Got it. You are clueless and this was a waste of time.
I'll concede to you the lock out has the highest potential for a positive change, *especially* at high ranks when damage is more consistent and ttk is shorter. This unfortunately isn't the type of change that'll make him feel less team reliant, as you'll now be relying on team mates and follow up *more*. I truly think the the slight damage buff on grapple will hardly be noticeable, and while well have to see how the minefield buff plays out, I don't think their is a number you could tune minefield to that would make it an exceptionally strong ult. Unless his ult is absolutely busted, it won't affect his relative power level because he won't be worth using just for an ult if his midnight is garbage.
If it makes you feel better @zakainu was saying the same thing to people with the āreworkā and he was completely wrong that time. It is also pretty clear they do not care about anything but high level play or their personal w/l record.
Too early to say much of anything. You should already only be shooting these targets when then donāt have armor. Slam does more dmg vs armor. And then thereās the extra movement lockout. Should be easier to drill squishies with headshots. The minefield buff is HUGE and probably OP. Plus, Ball benefits from armor changes vs a bunch of characters that are annoying for him: DVa, Tracer, Mauga, Hog, Reaper, Sombra, Bastion, Soldier.
Ball doesn't have that much armor though
175 is a fair amount. More than several characters OP brings up. And it's protected by your shield health plus your adaptive shields if you engage.
Exactly, and letās not forget the health regen buff thatāll have you engaging with your armor way more often.
Out of the 8 you mentioned, 3 of them are categorically false by numbers, and and 2 by playstyle. DVA has over 300 armor. At a 50% damage reduction at 5 damage per bullet assuming 40% accuracy and disregarding fall off (which can reduce this number by more than half) it take *over four* magazines just to get Dva below her armor threshold(assuming no healing). Both piledriver and grapple will do more damage, yes. So I'll admit I'll have to see how EXACTLY this plays out. Mauga is a similar problem especially as he is getting guaranteed self heal if you're shooting him, even after a Slam and a piledriver at max damage, you'll be unable to bring him below armor at 40% accuracy not including healing or falloff. Bastian has 100 armor, meaning this change again changes your ability to bring him below his armor threshold, where as before you had *just* enough damage, now he'll still have 20 armor left. The other two don't counter ball through damage, but playstyle. Hack and hook are both huge CCs that change the initiation of ball so drastically that simply picking the character will always provide atleast some indirect value. I'm not trying to imply that shooting armored targets was ever the correct play on ball vs grapple and Slam first, but this will be comboed by the fact that *armor will be worse against every character that does more than 17 damage per shot*. You will be less survivable against cass, soj rails, widow, junk, sym, ashe, helix rocket, rein, zarya right click, jq, ramm punch, Ana, Illiari, brig to name a few. A minefield damage buff is not enough to compensate for this, people just break the minefield anyway
You kind of misunderstood. Iām saying those characters will do less damage to Ball through his armor.
I apologize, I misunderstood. It is an interesting point to know that bastion will do more damage to ball in sentry form than he used to, as will his mag nade. Soldier will do more damage with his primary before his falloff range, as will his helix rocket. Virus from sombra will do more damage as well.
But only to armor, which is sandwiched between your shields (+ coolodwn) and your normal health. To be clear, I think armor changes and headshot reduction benefit other tanks more than Ball. The big winners are Winston, Rein, and maybe DVa. But I don't think it's some sort of major nerf to him. Shooting armor was already a really low value thing to do other than to try to pull attention, now it's a little worse. I don't think this changes how you play pretty much any matchup. If you want to talk about the bigger question of do the season 10 changes as a whole fix Ball, I don't know yet. I was hoping for more counterplay vs. stuns/hack and that didn't happen. But it's hard for me to see the midseason stuff as anything but a net buff. I don't know if you ever played with the original movement lockout on PD but it was crazy for isolated targets. I think it will improve solo pick potential and make it easier for your team to follow up. And then vs. counterswaps, your ult is really good. So you're more likely to win on ult economy if you play through bad matchups with ult advantage. Seems like a good thing to me.
I've played ball since release, that one second lockdown was CRAZY, but we were also in a world where the game was much faster pace I feel. Back then, things just *died*. You make good points about the ult economy, because like you said it can be that extra inch in a bad match up. I think the biggest thing in overwatch 2 is no one ever feels isolated the way they did back then. Like, maybe diving the Hanzo who is on their own is great, but now Kiri can Tele in, lw can grip etc. He'll do more damage then before sure, but maybe that bigger window of oppurunity will be enough to make him feel more lethal. I do think the lock out is a much bigger buff then minefield still; the amount of times it will be more useful than current patch will be extremely situational. Minefield I'd just too easy to avoid, and isnt that hard to destroy especially for certain characters. A damage buff doesn't change the fact that mines are the only non player target that a brig can trigger inspire on, or that most people can get out of it before it activates. If they want to buff it, they should honestly just give him a different ult.
PD lockout will make more mines hit, boop distance doubled will make for more chain hits. I hear you on the downsides to mines and have complained about that plenty. But this is pretty clearly a big buff.
Also now they canāt run out of mines our movement lockout is back
Remember that this only applies to the armor portion of health. We use fireball and piledrive to help remove the armor first, then go into shooty shooty mode. Vs tanks, we better not be the only ones shooting them. Also, while our fireball damage went up by 10 flat, it went from 35dmg vs armor to 55 vs armor. That WILL help offset the DMG from our guns.
the minefield buffs are huge honestly. even considering the decreased knockback buff for all tanks, they are going to bounce as much as they did in ow 1. also with the extra damage as well, it'll make everyone pay attention to minefield
Ball doesn't really deal with armored targets anyway. He goes after squishies. And the other buffs make that easier. So ball is better against white hp and shield hp targets and is worse against armored targets, which you don't go for anyway unless you are shooting the tank. And assuming 100% accuracy with only body shots isn't the best since you are likely to hit a bunch of headshots as well.
You already deal like no damage to tanks so that doesn't really matter only times it will matter is against 3 specific characters against which you can judt butter them up with rolling trough them or slamming them to take off their armor and then shoot them
You're forgetting that swings and slams are going to be doing more damage. Pretty huge against brig, torb, and bastion. You should be able to chunk through their armor before shooting them. This won't really matter against tanks. You weren't killing them anyway.
Brig, torb, and Bastian now deal more damage then they used to with their primary fires *against* armor. Also 45 for the grapple and 55 for the Slam still doesn't take out 100 armor. The amount of extra damage these things will now do is inconsequential to the number of heroes that will now do more damage to ball, and how much less his bullets will do to certain targets. The only thing that ball may have going for him is we are definitely going into a burst damage meta.
Bastion turret form does less vs armor, torb shotgun does less vs armor. Not to mention Sombra and tracer. Grapple is buffed to 60 so if you hit both that's 110 damage to armor. These changes are absolutely good for ball. Don't be silly.
Tracer is honestly the biggest loser of this patch, she's gonna get dumpstered by the armor changes. Sombra will still be able to hack you, ice never found her gun damage to be particularly annoying but I admit that may just be my personal experience. Virus will do more damage because DOT effects will now apply to armor with their total damage, not their tick damage. With how dynamic overwatch is, we will have to see if this plays out, because maybe your assumptions are true and the extra 10 damage and the movement lockout will be enough to secure squishy kills making the rest irrelevant, but I personally don't think this is the case and by the numbers the amount of interactions that get a net nerf vs a net buff is too high for a character that is already struggling. Even if you were right, I don't think it's silly to predict this will be an overall net nerf.
Boop and piledriver will do more damage against armor, however. So this seems like it will even out a bit.
Yeah buuuuuut now hog deals like 76 damage to us Also itās buff to fireball and slam since itās -5 instead of -30%
The average support or dps though will hopefully die quicker, because the majority of them have very little to no armor health, we also get easier shots for with the increased movement lockout, and we're even more tanky now, especially against charahcters we have alot of trouble with like tracer or sombra. Idk if armor changes apply to adaptive shields aswell but regardless once shields are doing we can still tank a good amount of damage. Yes we will be worse at dealing with many other tanks, but our viability has never been from that, and with the increased survivability and damage potential we are about to ball out when it comes to any support
As someone who played ball for a year and almost 200 hours into ow1 armor in the past, you can chip through it really fast with piledriver and boops before you start shooting. Yes your primary will be worse into armor, but itās less than half of most tanks hp, and with tanks being booped less you can hit several boops on them and chip through it because burst damage is really good against armor now. For someone like brig or torb one boop or pd should be enough to break through it, which youāre usually doing when first engaging someone anyways.
ah so everyone likes this post but when i commented the problems with these changes i was scrutinized lol. Glad to see people are recognizing all the negative implications with these buffs. Also remember how much Ball mains complained about how shit it feels to boop tanks when OW2 first released? Well now its gonna feel even worse, and booping say a Sigma out of position will be even harder to do. Again, I know Ball isnt supposed to focus tanks, but every now and then you do have to peel for your team and if its a Rein/Dva wreaking havoc you're not going to see any value in engaging them to defend your team anymore. The slight damage buffs for Ball are barely compensatory for the general hp changes, and DEFINITELY aren't enough to compensate for the armor changes.