[Discussion] What balance changes would you make?

General Discussion
1

Short and sweet. If you were a developer, what changes to heroes would you make in order to balance the game?

Rules:
-We won’t worry about balancing too much as this is hypothetical (But if something is clearly too OP, then discuss)
-If there are problems with some peoples ideas, then discuss.
-If you think an idea could be improved, then discuss.
-Don’t be offensive.

To get the ball rolling, here are my ideas (Quickly: Sorry there’s too much text. I went a bit OTT):

Ana

Sleep Dart - Lasts 3 seconds, reduced from 5 seconds.
Reason: Too many stuns in the, 5 seconds is also a long time to do nothing in a game of OW.

Bastion

Configuration: Tank - Now moved to E. Can no longer move and deals less damage.
Ultimate (New): Supercharged - Allows movement in both forms, increases damage, restores health and grants armour.
Reason: Turn him into a ‘shapeshifter’; tune his Sentry mode to be better at single target and shield breaking, but his Tank mode to be better at AoE. Supercharged allows his tank form to operate like it currently does, but also his Sentry mode to break shields faster.

Brigitte

Barrier Shield - Incurs a 1 second cooldown when the Shield is cancelled.
Reason: Just a minor inconvenience for Brigitte and to make the player think about when to lower the shield and when to keep it up. 1 second is not a long cooldown.

Hanzo

Storm Arrow - New Right Click. Take 1.5 seconds to charge up a Storm Arrow, that has all the benefits granted in the Storm Arrows ability.
Sonic Arrow - Also shows health packs.
Reason: Added the Right Click so that Hanzo can potentially get a quick kill before his team assaults the point. The charge time should be the inconvenience to stop it being overused. Sonic Arrow to help players find the health packs (Why not?)

Lucio

Crossfade - Added a Damage buff track; increases allies damage by a small amount. Affected by Amp It Up.
Reason: An extra layer of complexity for an otherwise easy hero to play. The damage buff should be very small if it affects those around him, like on a payload map. Cycling through three songs (Heal / Speed / Damage) should be the inconvenience here.

McCree

Flashbang - Lasts 0.5 seconds, down from 0.7 seconds.
Reason: Reduce overall length of stuns. But gives McCree less time to Flashbang / Fan the Hammer. He has to be quick. Also when he Flashbangs over a Reinhardts shield, the team still has time to push.

Mei

Blizzard - The weather-modification drone can now be destroyed; it has 450hp and 50 armour.
Reason: As soon as Blizzard is thrown on the point, and the defending team has no D-Va/Genji, the Blizzard generally gets 2-3 players trapped and killed. There should be another way to break Blizzard, provided the team focusses it.

Reaper

Wraith Form - Now bound to the right click button.
The Reaping - Reduced to 20% life steal, from 50%.
Harvester (New) - Bound to Left Shift. Increases the life steal of The Reaping from 20% to 60% for 7 seconds. Cooldown is 15 seconds.
Reason: His life steal is too much as a passive ability. Turning the bulk of it into an ability (Harvester) allows Reaper players to still get some health after attacking, but gives them a button to think about pressing in different situations. Forces Reapers to be more ‘skillful’.

Reinhardt

Barrier Field - Incurs a 1 second cooldown when the Shield is cancelled.
Earthshatter - Enemies are knocked down for 1.5 seconds, down from 2.5 seconds.
Reason: Just a minor inconvenience for Reinhardt and to make the player think about when to lower the shield and when to keep it up. 1 second is not a long cooldown. Change to Earthshatter to reduce general stuns.

Tracer

Blink - Now bound to Right Click, no longer bound to Left Shift.
Time Displacement Grenade (New) - Throws a bomb; if it lands on a player, that player is bound backwards in time by 1 second. That player has any lost health returned. If the bomb lands on the floor, it does nothing. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
Reason: I didn’t see why Blink was bound to two keys. Plus allows her to also potentially break holds by displacing an enemy. But the displacement requires precision to throw the bomb onto an opponent. Also long cooldown to try to stop it being too OP.

Widowmaker

Venom Mine - Widowmaker can now lay three Mines; also has a max of two charges.
Infra-Sight - Also shows health packs.
Reason: Venom Mines potentially are there to defend Widowmaker’s position and tell her someone is coming for her. But they might see more action if she can throw more of them. They are not a big issue in most, if not all, games. Also Infra-Sight, just a slight buff regarding health packs.

Winston

Tesla Cannon - New Right Click ability. Charges up his Tesla Cannon and releases a burst of electricity infront of him. Deals more damage to shields. Can attack players through shields.
Climb (Passive) (New) - Can climb walls.
Reason: The new ability designed to make Winston the Tank anti-Tank. Which sounds odd. But also gives him an extra role to play. Also, he’s a giant monkey. He should be able to climb!

1 Like
2

Your Mei idea is the one that caught my eye the most. I agree, it should be destructible but not so weak that it’s too easy. After all, B.O.B and Riptyre can both be destroyed, super charger too so its a logical move if nothing else. Perhaps it could even be hacked, you know because again Super Charger and B.O.B can be so again it’s matter of logic to a degree. As someone who plays Mei I’d be on board with this, that way it’s not to easy to just control a point knowing a good sniper or hacker could take out my little robo-pal if I’m not careful.

I also agree with the Winston clime change, he is a gorilla after all. Its one of their things. It’d also just be a handy trick as at least when I play him it’s way to easy to end up in a situation where he can be eliminated without fuss.

But the tracer one, that sounds the most interesting to me… The time grenade bit specifically, it’s a handy sounding tool but one that can backfire as well as succeed requiring great caution to use. I’d say I’d have maybe increase the bound back to 2 seconds over 1 but that’s all.

They’re all interesting ideas, in this hypothetical state and maybe even in implementation but saying that has probably opened the flood gates for the people who disagree… Oh well. I like them, your suggestions all could be good ways to shake things up these are just the 3 that caught my eye the most.

3

Thank you for some of the feedback!

I just feel like the Mei change wouldn’t be too big, plus the drone is very small so it’s unlikely to change the way she plays. It would also be a big distraction for the enemy team if they see it being thrown and then focus it down. :slight_smile: Might lead to some fun situations.

I like Winston, he’s a mobile tank like D-Va. Climbing is logical (I genuinely struggle to think why they haven’t done it already) and allows him to be that little bit more mobile which would be fun.

I think the displacement grenade that I’ve put forward might be OP, but it gives her something new which I think she lacks. She’s a very one dimensional hero at the moment. 2 seconds might be better, I was just erring on the side of caution :slight_smile:

Have you got any ideas or balancing changes you might make to some of the heroes? :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

Remove armor completely. Compensate for it with a larger health pool. I’ve been saying this for a long time - armor reducing damage but not healing was a bad bad idea. They needed Brigitte to shield bash their heads to realize that.

5

Remove armour completely and suddenly Torb’s ult isn’t as effective as intended, and Brig loses the only utility that that is currently unique in the game, (Torb lost armour packs after all). Armour works it just needs to be balanced correctly or have suitable counters.

6

Is it me or your Lucio suggestion is straight up from a patch note of Heroes of the Storm?

7

Waoh more Mccree nerfs? Do people really want that?
My dude Mccree is the weakest hero in this game win rate wise.

969×431

And a Lucio buff? Hes the best hero.
I just can’t believe that some people actually want that.

8

Everybody has their own agenda. As you see from the OP he removes CC without any compensation so its obvious what their agenda is. This is why threads like this one are so worthless.

9

I can categorically say I have no interest in HoTs so I did not know they were even considering this.

I was thinking about this last night. You could potentially have some heroes who deal full damage to Armour and some heroes who deal extra damage to Armour (Maybe like a Junkrat).

So if you read the OP you’d notice that I was trying to start a discussion. Please don’t try to put words into my mouth. I can only suggest ideas based on my experience with stuns and certain heroes. If you’ve got any other ideas, please share them :slight_smile:

The question is; those heroes who I may have tuned down (not removed) the CC; do they need compensation?

Ana: 3 seconds is a long duration if she can catch someone away from the point. That’s three seconds for a team to push and focus a healer or a tanks shield. That’s a long three seconds of 6v5. Her healing, from what I’ve seen, is also viable.

McCree: McCree’s always been a hero that requires skill to play. He doesn’t have flashy moves like Junkrat’s bombs. But FB and then FTH is such an old combination and doesn’t require skill. IF the stun was reduced to 0.5s, what could he be compensated with? 1 second shaved off the cooldown; so he can stun more frequently? Or extra damage with his main ability?

Rein: Earthshatter is such an OP ability when it lands, particularly when two teams are fighting over the point. If his stun is reduced, should the ability do more damage? It already charges very quickly if the Rein hits his ranged attacks well. Or do you think it’s a weak ultimate?

More vague questions that require more discussions might be; do you think there are too few stuns or too little? What are their purpose? To break a choke point, or to disable someone? Is that fun gameplay? The simple answer might be to ‘get good’ and avoid the stuns. So, are stuns not a problem for you?

Genuinely curious here.

10

From what I see you want to reduce CC?My only problem is that how will you counter fast moving targets like genji or tracer without stuns?

11

New Reinhardt

Unstoppable - During his Charge Reinhardt is immune to all kind of knockbacks, but not stuns. (Lucio boop etc)

12

B-But…I’m a Lucio main and love booping charging Rein’s :stuck_out_tongue: Serious question now though, would it replace an ability or his ultimate?

I’ve been mulling this over. That wasn’t something I had considered. I don’t think Genji’s are as much of a problem; you can kill them fairly easily with other counters (Moira, Sym, Rein etc).

Tracer’s however…I don’t know about that for sure.

13

No. If i’m charging as a Rein, it should commit to me charging. Being booped straight on and staying still mid air while in charge animation is annoying as hell, especially since i’m already taking a risk charging as it is :slight_smile:

14

To be fair, it doesn’t really make sense how a Reinhardt charge can be nudged by a boop straight on.

15

Guess you just need to get to know the game better, its like saying make mercy un-killable whilst ressing because I die otherwise. Its about counterplay

16

@Yaaaas That’s why I’ve suggested these changes. Gameplay just revolves around certain heroes; while players don’t counter.

17

I like the Mei idea, especially since Baptiste has a drone that can be destroyed that’s about the same size as snowball.

18

Remove “Bap-This” from ever existing !