personally i think this patch can be quite good if it pans out the way i think it will.
but i’m reserving myself a bit on the optimism about it.
first off they finally made a reaper change that i’ve wanted for a long time.
i just don’t know if it’s gonna be good enough or too powerful because of all the QoL changes he’s got with time.
and i think the winston change makes sense if they are buffing reaper.
the orisa change seems like a good loophole to not push the barrier or halt into meta defining features of the hero which i think can be either somehow be really exploitable or not really noteworthy at all, we’ll see.
and hammonds less knockback on his boops, well i have no clue, but i guess it’s a stab at something to try to keep him more under control, but i have no idea how that will pan out.
now i’d like to hear everyone elses thought on this, if they’ve noticed something or what they feel about it.
Discuss 
I dont think the Reaper change will do him any harm. Although buffing any DPS atm seems a bit silly.
Personally I’d rather they nerfed some to make others viable. Power creep…
The Ball change seems like the right idea. He still gets the quick ults and damage, but not the boop.
But again the changes they should have made were to Echo, discord and other damage boosting. Whilst also reducing AoE/burst healing a fraction.
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Not a fan of buffing Fortify, not sure about the other changes.
look at it this way, orisa gets to be more viable in other types of comps outside of sigma/orisa.
also it’s more probable that she will get a more defining damage type weakness which is every character that don’t care about headshots, and those headshot characters are the most prominent characters right now which should in theory make them less viable.
that’s what i’m hoping anyways.
i can agree with this, but i think this was an attempt at not doing that and still give a good rustling to the overall meta structure of overwatch.
kind of like changing the meta without making the characters or abilities you just mentioned in a direct sense worse.
I don’t think the meta has changed with this. Ball Zarya will still be the optimum tank line in the good ranks.
Will it make people try/think Orissa and Monkey are better… Yeah, so we will see more of them in lower ranks. But I think all this does is make Monkey last about half a second longer. And Orissa can fortify and close a little space with out losing her head immediately to a sniper.
It seems more like small QoL changes over anything balance related.
The Ball change is clearly them looking for their idea of “fun to play, fun to play against”. Obviously being knocked halfway across the map from out of nowhere isn’t a cool feeling. So as a Ball player, I think this change is fine. Nothing changes about him, he just has to work a little harder for the environmental kills. (not that much harder though, people are surprisingly dim and play close to edges all the time when a Ball is in play).
i think most of these changes except the ball one has the potential to be a lot more impactful than you’d think.
winston is not a bad tank by any stretch of the imagination, this little nudge helps him in the face of burst.
and orisa was really struggling to get out of the vice grip of the sigma comps and i think there’s some possibilities that can open up with that fortify change.
ball just being a tiny bit worse is really not much that should impact him that badly but making other tanks better at the same time could potentially shift some things around.
as for the ball change, i gotta say he was a bit silly before because you could stand at the point on nepal sanctum as far awar from the edge as possible and still get booped to death.
but that’s really the only map that comes to mind for me.
I’d need to test it… But certainly on paper looks like double boops are going to be a lot harder. Certainly the window to do it and shrunk a lot.
The Orissa change makes sense, in terms of logic. Doubt it will make her more viable. Unless you are going bunker, but that comp is pretty rare now.
Winston definitely will seem more appealing. But 50 armour disappears pretty quick. I think it’ll give you probably 1 second max extra before you have to get out, or die. So if a dive tank is your plan, Ball is still much better option than Winston.
Will have to see what happens. But if the meta isn’t Ball Zarya still I’d be very surprised.
well winston is pretty bursty in terms of movement and having that half a second more to react to get out or whatever can help him more than people think, that’s my estimate, but in general i think it was just a response to maybe making reaper more popular overall as a character as reaper might be more flexible now.
it might still be ball, but who knows, you might see an orisa with ball or maybe winston.
because if you think about it, balls ultimate can be a great combo with halt or winstons primal rage as he can maneuver quickly and boop people into the mines.
but idk, we’ll see.
but i think the reaper change was really necessary, now it’s more acceptable to think of him as a 2-shot character at more effective range.
especially since he kinda does have spammy shotgun which shouldn’t be too powerful in a one-shot scenario in most cases anyways which they did shy away from allready before this.
effectively realizing reaper as this semi-auto shotty character more effectively which i think is good that they are atleast pushing him in one way rather than keeping him in this middle zone where he just falls flat.
Can’t see Orissa Ball, there just isn’t the synergy there.
Winston, maybe… But if it goes double dive, it’ll be Ball D.Va.
I’ve not tried the Reaper change, but my first reaction was it rewards a better aim a little more. So he might do a little more damage, but you will have to get a bit better at him to do it.
i’ve yet to try anything myself, but i’m gonna give it a shot today and see how it goes.
when i tried the reaper changes in practice range i could feel that yeah it takes a tiny bit more aim to get more out of it, but it’s a lot more effective in the 5-10m range than what it was before especially against smaller targets that aren’t tank sized, which is why i said he might be more flexible.
and because i like reaper i take it as a good sign, especially if they make him less oppressive against tanks in the same sweep, it just makes your options as a reaper player more varied than just “bully tanks”.
but we’ll see, it’s hard to get any clear picture from experimental cards as everybody is trying out the changes so it’s gonna be difficult to see different characters other than those that have been changed.
Sounds like if you’ve got reasonable aim he’s going to get some value.
Yeah, I tend to just try it in the practice range and then leave it till it goes live.
Most of the changes they’ve done since starting the experimental card, you can figure out just looking at the numbers. Exception being the Soldier recoil change.
Think Reaper will probably just keep his place, the solo queue warrior bullying players that can’t coordinate/pay attention.
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Just watched a few videos.
Winston, D.Va, Lucio, Moira, Reaper, Tracer/Sombra in a rush comp might be insane.
Although. Against new Reaper… New Orissa seems to just dunk on him, if she just get a tiny bit of heals, Reaper cannot win that 1v1 (assuming you can aim with Orissa).
Can honestly see low ranks going Orissa, Rein, Bap, Lucio/Zen.
Hanzo storm arrows only do 185dmg total into fortify Orissa now.
i’m guessing you watched flats video on it.
but i think they are overestimating a bit, there’s a lot of loose pieces right now and i think it’s probably way too early to call an entire comp.
reaper, tracer and sombra isn’t gonna be all that good up against orisa neither is d.va really, and i think it’s more probable that bunker might return because of ease of use and familiarity with it.
is probably not only gonna be low rank but high rank aswell.
what dps they run with it we’ll see.
I’ve not yet. I might give it a watch later.
At least the Orissa change might open up more aggressive play styles with her. Part of the reason she sucks is becasue sitting here hiding behind your shield (ie all bunker comps) is really f’ing boring.
i tried orisa a bit in experimental and she can tank a lot more with fortify up now even against characters that used to melt you even in fortify.
like you can run to a space and then throw up a barrier even in the full open from the majority of an enemy team.
basically if they want to melt you they would all have to focus you and do it hard when you have fortify up.
but you can also stand in the open without a barrier and shoot for the duration aswell without too much worry.
however know that when you do that you don’t have fortify available directly after which means you’re extremely vulnerable after especially against things that used to blow you up either way before.
Yeah. She should be able to close space a lot more now, and have a few options with play style. Fingers crossed it makes her feel a little more engaging to play.
Still if she gets discorded and a focused a little, she will get melted (discord is still too strong for what it is)
But without fortify she is still as “squishy”, it just makes the ability useful. If you go Orissa and have Bap pocket her (as he should do anyway). Running at someone with fortify, shield just as it ends, with Bap heal and the comfort blanket of the immo lamp… She could be a right pain to kill.
I think the Reaper change might open up similar issues the Genji buff did… Just how quickly will he get ult… I hope they consider it when buffing people, but it always seems odd that they increase damage but don’t adjust ult charge.
well reaper does 240 now max per shot opposed to 280 i think it was, and all reaper got was a more effective 0-10m meter range which he allways should have had and still be able to do a bit of damage at 15m range, not scary damage but some damage, comparitively to his actual mobility it finally makes more sense, now a tracer can’t just freely stay at a distance and kill reaper while reaper being completely helpless, it’s a good shift at making reaper less of a straight tankbuster and nothing else into more of a generalist, and reapers ult, well i wouldn’t be too worried honestly, the higher you go the more useless it gets.
as for orisa, she’s still very much so an fps character in the way that she doesn’t really want to stand way in the open, she wants to close off unnecessary sightlines to her as she focuses one target down after the other, and something people tend to forget about orisa is that orisa actually does scary amounts of damage if you can aim with her.
and paired with a barrier and fortify there’s really nothing that can beat orisa in a straight up 1v1 fight unless you use ultimates.
but yeah orisas playstyle might not change all too much, she still walks up to corners spray people down from a far since her bullets are no fall-off projectiles.
orisas weakness is still the same, surround her, because she can’t protect herself from multiple angles and she doesn’t do any aoe and she doesn’t insta-kill anybody and she can’t actively protect others post barrier use and she is really bad at disengaging from location to location so she can still be outplayed with a plan.