I was more referring to the Ana player checking their own positioning and being like "yes, this is where I, the Ana, should be when shit goes down as enemy visual attention is not immediately drawn to me, yet the team can be easily healed or naded from the vicinity of the objective"
Basically my callouts boil down to "I can't see you guys, I can't heal you". Then they get the message once they start dying.
Usually they start complaining and keep rushing in regardless of what I tell them about where I'm positioning. So I try to adjust, but usually that's pointless because it places me in positions where I instantly die. So swapping to a different support is necessary, because players at this ELO have no idea where they should be positioned, let alone where I should be positioned. They can't keep much in their heads beyond "shoot red team".
The constant shakeups in meta are unnecessary to retain players. The meta should grow and develop naturally as people get better at the game/find new combos/new strategies/whatever. Violent swings in who is viable are antithetical to a natural meta progression.
If you want an example of natural meta progression, look at competitive Smash Bros Melee. That game is still drawing huge crowds of players and spectators and has never received a balance patch or update. Despite that, the meta is STILL EVOLVING after being around for almost 18 years.
That's because the players implement their own balance changes like banning Meta Knight, a 1v1 fighting game is very different from most other games, but most importantly, you just can't play Melee as much. If people were playing Melee 3 hours a day every day for 18 years they would not be so tolerant of no balance changes ever
I was more referring to the Ana player checking their own positioning and being like "yes, this is where I, the Ana, should be when shit goes down as enemy visual attention is not immediately drawn to me, yet the team can be easily healed or naded from the vicinity of the objective"
Basically my callouts boil down to "I can't see you guys, I can't heal you". Then they get the message once they start dying.
It did take me a while before I realized that always having the buff beam on a team member even when not fighting meant that opposing players could just visually follow it back to either me or to the person trying to hide from them.
A long while.
But I'm better now.
I've always thought the beam should be invisible to enemies. There's no reason for it beyond making Mercy easier to spot, and no other healer suffers a mechanic like it.
This Reaper's got a Zen orb on him! There's a Zen around here somewhere! This Hog's bursting with heals! There's an Ana around here!
And look, there's Mercy on the other end of that big glowing line. Let's git 'er!
Boo the visual beam! Booooo!
It's a holdover from TF2 this community doesn't need!
Edit: Also I just had some fun games on Horizon. Twice some of the reds decided they should duel me in the zero-G area, it was super-fun. But they had a Torb and I hate hate hate dealing with Torb turrets so I kept him pretty suppressed until he came out on Hammond and got past me. My team gets nothing done, but I get a pick or two and they chase me around and I'm havin' fun until I have to bolt for health, and end up back in the zero-G area.
I nab the health pack, and realize the Hammontorb is on me - but he's gotta' rely on his guns and he's not as consistent with his shots. He used his shield, I waited it out and stuck him with Pulse it was marvelous.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
So should you just not play Ana without a 2nd healer? 'Cause out here in the mean streets of PS4 gold/plat, solo healing is a very real thing.
I have to nade myself a lot when I play Ana, but my best Ana games are def the ones where I don't have to.
Ana's really hard to play as a solo healer, because nade is potentially one of the most powerful abilities in the game... But as a solo healer it's usually just a measly 100 hp self heal.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Chance, every healer bar Lucio absolutely can spotlight themselves. They just don't do it continuously like Mercy. But then, they also don't hava 2 second cd escape and an auto self heal...
The constant shakeups in meta are unnecessary to retain players. The meta should grow and develop naturally as people get better at the game/find new combos/new strategies/whatever. Violent swings in who is viable are antithetical to a natural meta progression.
If you want an example of natural meta progression, look at competitive Smash Bros Melee. That game is still drawing huge crowds of players and spectators and has never received a balance patch or update. Despite that, the meta is STILL EVOLVING after being around for almost 18 years.
That's because the players implement their own balance changes like banning Meta Knight, a 1v1 fighting game is very different from most other games, but most importantly, you just can't play Melee as much. If people were playing Melee 3 hours a day every day for 18 years they would not be so tolerant of no balance changes ever
No characters are banned in Melee (you're thinking Brawl), and pros absolutely play Melee multiple hours a day to stay competitive.
There are a lot of other player induced balancing, though, like certain stages being banned and certain infinite combos (Iceclimbers Wobbling, etc) being banned.
But yes, a 1v1 fighting game is much different in terms of balance than a team based shooter. I just wanted to offer a counterpoint to people saying the meta would stagnate if FoTM balancing wasn't a thing.
Mercy's beam does also have some strengths that other, less visible heals don't. Her beam can go through barriers, and can keep going without LoS for like, 1.5 seconds or so(?), which means if you're playing near corners Mercy can be providing 50 HP/s without even exposing herself at all except for occasional tiny peeks. It's also pretty important for the enemy team to be able to see if Mercy's healing or damage boosting, which changes a lot of damage break-points. And finally of course Mercy needs to be more visible because she's also the most mobile healer in the game, and one of the most mobile heroes period. And has a self heal that starts in a second, so a few moments of not being noticed brings her right back to full. As long as she's within beam range she's also within guardian angel range, and you usually want to be near the maximum of that beam range so you can immediately escape any dive attempts by flying off a good 20-30 meters.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
You'll not silence me with your well-reasoned argument, Kana! (Besides, Zen orb lasts 3 seconds.)
Justice for Mercy!
Edit: also who can I speak to about getting less masters players in my QP games please and thank you.
Zen orb heals for 90 HPs in those 3 seconds, Mercy's beam heals for 75 before it cuts off, if I remember the timing correctly.
It's not that far off
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I would like you all to imagine that this post is roughly a page of inchoate screaming and raving and that the only words you can make out seem to be references to Symmetra turrets and DPS who don't even try to kill them.
I would like you all to imagine that this post is roughly a page of inchoate screaming and raving and that the only words you can make out seem to be references to Symmetra turrets and DPS who don't even try to kill them.
You might remember the almost pathological speed with which I killed Torbjorn turrets in that vod I posted a few weeks back.
The recent patches have reversed my turret killability.
With Old Sym, I could blink past a choke, turn around and just spray a single clip over all the turrets and kill them. With Sym 5.0 or whatever we're at now, I basically have to get close enough for these Heavy Damage turrets to kill me in order to kill one of them with a single clip. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna' leave those for McCree, Ashe, Lucio, Mercy, Soldier, Winston, Orisa, Mei, Pharah, Hog, Zen, Ana, Hanzo and probably others I'm forgetting. Pretty much every hero in the game is now better-equipped to kill Sym turrets than I am on Tracer.
If I'm getting a Lucio's worth of heals it's a different story, but those are hard to bank on.
Torb 2.0 is the opposite. Torb 1.0's turret required 1.5 clips to kill - 300HP - so I would have to blink in, burn a clip, blink away or rewind out, blink back in while taking shots and finish the job. With 2.0 and the 250HP turret, I can blink in, empty a clip and melee.
I still have to burn a rewind if I'm not getting heals, but it's way easier to manage.
I'm curious who Baud was playin' as. If you were on Zen I have no sympathy! You were made to kill those turrets!
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
Mercy, and I WAS shooting turrets! It's just that at two bullets per plus aiming it's very hard to do anything about them in a timely fashion.
To say nothing of following a Rein who walks through a door and is now being hit from behind by three turrets and whose reaction is to continue walking forward, shield raised.
I don't mind Torb turrets because they follow some basic rules and are reasonably sized targets. Some capture points have entirely too many places where you can stick turrets in a way they can't be shot at without getting beamed yourself.
Mostly I was frustrated because I played two games in a row where my teams were full of level 300+ players and it was like, you guys are dying because you're taking 150dps and I can only heal at 50, can you work with me here?
That's always fun. The Rein walks forward and his slower walk speed with the shield up + turrets mean he moves at like 0.5% normal speed.
Drop the shield and die to fire from the reds? Keep it up and die from the turrets? Hope someone shoots 'em while I'm keeping them on me?
Yeah, that's the ticket! Annny second now... guys. Guyyys?
Annnd I'm dead.
Edit: (shakes fist!) Where were you Tracerrr?!
Tracer, half a map away: (giggles)
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I've always felt that like...I don't mind orb of discord requiring LoS but I think orb of harmony should have an infinite timer until you personally remove it.
I've always felt that like...I don't mind orb of discord requiring LoS but I think orb of harmony should have an infinite timer until you personally remove it.
Oh
Pee
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I've always felt that like...I don't mind orb of discord requiring LoS but I think orb of harmony should have an infinite timer until you personally remove it.
Oh
Pee
put this on hammond, my team will rarely ever see me again but the enemy team will surely see me quite often!
I've always felt that like...I don't mind orb of discord requiring LoS but I think orb of harmony should have an infinite timer until you personally remove it.
This is how it was early on in the game. That combined with no hero limits yet meant that the standard competitive team comp was 2 tracers, 2 winstons, and 2 zens, and the Zens basically parked themselves halfway in the respawn.
LoS became required as a nerf against mobile flankers who run off on their own, otherwise they were basically able to operate on their own indefinitely, with a never-ending harmony orb for heals
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
+4
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I've always felt that like...I don't mind orb of discord requiring LoS but I think orb of harmony should have an infinite timer until you personally remove it.
This is how it was early on in the game. That combined with no hero limits yet meant that the standard competitive team comp was 2 tracers, 2 winstons, and 2 zens, and the Zens basically parked themselves halfway in the respawn.
LoS became required as a nerf against mobile flankers who run off on their own, otherwise they were basically able to operate on their own indefinitely, with a never-ending harmony orb for heals
Yeah, I get that...but I kind of feel it wouldn't be a big deal now that hero limits are a thing.
I've always felt that like...I don't mind orb of discord requiring LoS but I think orb of harmony should have an infinite timer until you personally remove it.
Oh
Pee
Yeah both orbs used to have no LoS requirement, but as it turns out it made them wildly OP (discord for obvious reasons, but having a constant no-effort-no-consequence heal on a flanker was also crazy powerful)
+1
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miscellaneousinsanitygrass grows, birds fly, sun shines,and brother, i hurt peopleRegistered Userregular
as a moira player i sympathise with sym turrets being a hassle to deal with alone
I've always felt that like...I don't mind orb of discord requiring LoS but I think orb of harmony should have an infinite timer until you personally remove it.
Zenyatta may now affix an Orb of Harmony or Orb of Discord to an ally or an enemy for an unlimited amount of time. However, the effect of the Orb scales with distance from the target. At 10 to 20 meters out from the target, it begins to decay, to a minimum of 5 HPS / 5% damage boost at the maximum range-- something like 50-60 meters. If line of sight is broken for more than three seconds, the orb's effect is further halved.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
while i kind of like that idea, it's also a very complicated mechanic. How do i know if i'm being the most/least effective. Judging distance is already really hard in game.
I don't think going down to 2.5 range for out-of-LoS and far away is reasonable...
I'd say
1 - let the reduced effect only begin to take effect let's say 2 seconds after LoS is broken.
2 - if LoS is regained, it goes back to full and will take another 2 seconds to reduce.
3 - the effect occurs only due to LoS, and reduces the healing effectiveness to... what's a payload? 10? Let's say 12. And yeah let's say 12% damage for Discord.
Now what becomes interesting is this Zenyatta's healing output will likely be drastically reduced if he just leaves it on Genji or Ham, but said Genji is now instantly favored to win his ganks. The Zen's ult charge and general helpfulness will be drastically increased if he keeps it on allies and foes in LoS, but the advantages of the long-distance heal are manifold.
Now we say all this while keeping in mind that even if we reduced Discord to 0, this would have a massive net benefit on Zen in duels - if the Discord never disappears, your target is permanently marked until Zarya cleanses them edit - to be clear, Zen can now see his marked target through walls, essentially - end edit and the moment they peek you Discord goes back up to 30.
...and that, I think, might be the most OP part of this.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
Remember back at Moira's release all the Symms complained that orb could basically play minesweeper with turrets?
Well now that they're 30 hp and easier to place, I feel like Moira could use that old feature back. It's super unfun on Moira trying to kill even one while the others fire at you.
Remember back at Moira's release all the Symms complained that orb could basically play minesweeper with turrets?
Well now that they're 30 hp and easier to place, I feel like Moira could use that old feature back. It's super unfun on Moira trying to kill even one while the others fire at you.
Moira's grasp does 30DPS, though - that's 1 a second ^.^
Y'know what I don't like? Turrets, Bob and certain barriers - Ham's and Sound Barrier, specifically - not giving ult charge. Wait does Bob give ult charge? (Checks.) No. Fuck Bob!
I'd like to see what would happen if they switched that up. Sym and Torb get ult charge for the damage their turrets deal, but I don't get ult charge from being the one guy on a team otherwise filled with fucking snipers that goes in and kills it?
That's what we in the biz call a raw deal.
Edit: and y'know what I especially like it for Bob because it would give him a frickin' downside. He doesn't have any, beyond a player's ability to tell him to jump off a cliff. Otherwise half or all the enemy team immediately turn to handle him, he pulls major abilities like hack and sleep dart, he dishes out mad O.G. Molten Core damage and he can take a point all by his lonesome!
A lovely downside to that would be knowing that you probably just gave Hanzo his dragons.
Chance on
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
I'm not sure Winston's the best counter to her nowadays anyway, but it's sure not Moira. I feel like the midrange heroes - Mei, Hanzo, Soldier, McCree, Pharah - are all the most ideal for dealing with her turrets specifically.
As for killing Sym herself, I'll still take Tracer.
'Chance, you are the best kind of whore.' -Henroid
If Moira becomes the answer to Sym turrets D.Va will just eat all her balls before they can do it
+1
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BRIAN BLESSEDMaybe you aren't SPEAKING LOUDLY ENOUGHHHRegistered Userregular
The only thing I want for Zen balance-wise is to not have to waste my time throwing the Orb of Harmony back on players who use status reset abilities like Wraith, Fade and Rewind
It's a bunch of fucking busywork and I hate it every time I have to re-focus my targets
Posts
Usually they start complaining and keep rushing in regardless of what I tell them about where I'm positioning. So I try to adjust, but usually that's pointless because it places me in positions where I instantly die. So swapping to a different support is necessary, because players at this ELO have no idea where they should be positioned, let alone where I should be positioned. They can't keep much in their heads beyond "shoot red team".
I've always thought the beam should be invisible to enemies. There's no reason for it beyond making Mercy easier to spot, and no other healer suffers a mechanic like it.
This Reaper's got a Zen orb on him! There's a Zen around here somewhere! This Hog's bursting with heals! There's an Ana around here!
And look, there's Mercy on the other end of that big glowing line. Let's git 'er!
Boo the visual beam! Booooo!
It's a holdover from TF2 this community doesn't need!
Edit: Also I just had some fun games on Horizon. Twice some of the reds decided they should duel me in the zero-G area, it was super-fun. But they had a Torb and I hate hate hate dealing with Torb turrets so I kept him pretty suppressed until he came out on Hammond and got past me. My team gets nothing done, but I get a pick or two and they chase me around and I'm havin' fun until I have to bolt for health, and end up back in the zero-G area.
I nab the health pack, and realize the Hammontorb is on me - but he's gotta' rely on his guns and he's not as consistent with his shots. He used his shield, I waited it out and stuck him with Pulse it was marvelous.
Ana's really hard to play as a solo healer, because nade is potentially one of the most powerful abilities in the game... But as a solo healer it's usually just a measly 100 hp self heal.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
Then her ult should release a giant blast of light and her hair should change color
No characters are banned in Melee (you're thinking Brawl), and pros absolutely play Melee multiple hours a day to stay competitive.
There are a lot of other player induced balancing, though, like certain stages being banned and certain infinite combos (Iceclimbers Wobbling, etc) being banned.
But yes, a 1v1 fighting game is much different in terms of balance than a team based shooter. I just wanted to offer a counterpoint to people saying the meta would stagnate if FoTM balancing wasn't a thing.
Justice for Mercy!
Edit: also who can I speak to about getting less masters players in my QP games please and thank you.
Zen orb heals for 90 HPs in those 3 seconds, Mercy's beam heals for 75 before it cuts off, if I remember the timing correctly.
It's not that far off
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
Solo kills. I love the solo kills card so much, but it comes along so rarely.
You might remember the almost pathological speed with which I killed Torbjorn turrets in that vod I posted a few weeks back.
Yeah. There's a reason for that.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
With Old Sym, I could blink past a choke, turn around and just spray a single clip over all the turrets and kill them. With Sym 5.0 or whatever we're at now, I basically have to get close enough for these Heavy Damage turrets to kill me in order to kill one of them with a single clip. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna' leave those for McCree, Ashe, Lucio, Mercy, Soldier, Winston, Orisa, Mei, Pharah, Hog, Zen, Ana, Hanzo and probably others I'm forgetting. Pretty much every hero in the game is now better-equipped to kill Sym turrets than I am on Tracer.
If I'm getting a Lucio's worth of heals it's a different story, but those are hard to bank on.
Torb 2.0 is the opposite. Torb 1.0's turret required 1.5 clips to kill - 300HP - so I would have to blink in, burn a clip, blink away or rewind out, blink back in while taking shots and finish the job. With 2.0 and the 250HP turret, I can blink in, empty a clip and melee.
I still have to burn a rewind if I'm not getting heals, but it's way easier to manage.
I'm curious who Baud was playin' as. If you were on Zen I have no sympathy! You were made to kill those turrets!
To say nothing of following a Rein who walks through a door and is now being hit from behind by three turrets and whose reaction is to continue walking forward, shield raised.
I don't mind Torb turrets because they follow some basic rules and are reasonably sized targets. Some capture points have entirely too many places where you can stick turrets in a way they can't be shot at without getting beamed yourself.
Mostly I was frustrated because I played two games in a row where my teams were full of level 300+ players and it was like, you guys are dying because you're taking 150dps and I can only heal at 50, can you work with me here?
Drop the shield and die to fire from the reds? Keep it up and die from the turrets? Hope someone shoots 'em while I'm keeping them on me?
Yeah, that's the ticket! Annny second now... guys. Guyyys?
Annnd I'm dead.
Edit: (shakes fist!) Where were you Tracerrr?!
Tracer, half a map away: (giggles)
Oh
Pee
put this on hammond, my team will rarely ever see me again but the enemy team will surely see me quite often!
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
This is how it was early on in the game. That combined with no hero limits yet meant that the standard competitive team comp was 2 tracers, 2 winstons, and 2 zens, and the Zens basically parked themselves halfway in the respawn.
LoS became required as a nerf against mobile flankers who run off on their own, otherwise they were basically able to operate on their own indefinitely, with a never-ending harmony orb for heals
Yeah, I get that...but I kind of feel it wouldn't be a big deal now that hero limits are a thing.
Well...except for Doomfist maybe.
Yeah both orbs used to have no LoS requirement, but as it turns out it made them wildly OP (discord for obvious reasons, but having a constant no-effort-no-consequence heal on a flanker was also crazy powerful)
this is how it was in the beta!
it was way too busted
I just can't have that much fun. Have some sympathy for my victims.
Zen's Bottomless Balls
Zenyatta may now affix an Orb of Harmony or Orb of Discord to an ally or an enemy for an unlimited amount of time. However, the effect of the Orb scales with distance from the target. At 10 to 20 meters out from the target, it begins to decay, to a minimum of 5 HPS / 5% damage boost at the maximum range-- something like 50-60 meters. If line of sight is broken for more than three seconds, the orb's effect is further halved.
Blizzard: Pailryder#1101
GoG: https://www.gog.com/u/pailryder
I'd say
1 - let the reduced effect only begin to take effect let's say 2 seconds after LoS is broken.
2 - if LoS is regained, it goes back to full and will take another 2 seconds to reduce.
3 - the effect occurs only due to LoS, and reduces the healing effectiveness to... what's a payload? 10? Let's say 12. And yeah let's say 12% damage for Discord.
Now what becomes interesting is this Zenyatta's healing output will likely be drastically reduced if he just leaves it on Genji or Ham, but said Genji is now instantly favored to win his ganks. The Zen's ult charge and general helpfulness will be drastically increased if he keeps it on allies and foes in LoS, but the advantages of the long-distance heal are manifold.
Now we say all this while keeping in mind that even if we reduced Discord to 0, this would have a massive net benefit on Zen in duels - if the Discord never disappears, your target is permanently marked until Zarya cleanses them edit - to be clear, Zen can now see his marked target through walls, essentially - end edit and the moment they peek you Discord goes back up to 30.
...and that, I think, might be the most OP part of this.
Well now that they're 30 hp and easier to place, I feel like Moira could use that old feature back. It's super unfun on Moira trying to kill even one while the others fire at you.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
Moira's grasp does 30DPS, though - that's 1 a second ^.^
Y'know what I don't like? Turrets, Bob and certain barriers - Ham's and Sound Barrier, specifically - not giving ult charge. Wait does Bob give ult charge? (Checks.) No. Fuck Bob!
I'd like to see what would happen if they switched that up. Sym and Torb get ult charge for the damage their turrets deal, but I don't get ult charge from being the one guy on a team otherwise filled with fucking snipers that goes in and kills it?
That's what we in the biz call a raw deal.
Edit: and y'know what I especially like it for Bob because it would give him a frickin' downside. He doesn't have any, beyond a player's ability to tell him to jump off a cliff. Otherwise half or all the enemy team immediately turn to handle him, he pulls major abilities like hack and sleep dart, he dishes out mad O.G. Molten Core damage and he can take a point all by his lonesome!
A lovely downside to that would be knowing that you probably just gave Hanzo his dragons.
She doesn’t need to also be the designated Symmetra hard counter and send her neg ball in as a prerequisite to any team fight
If Symmetra is a problem have somebody switch to Winston
As for killing Sym herself, I'll still take Tracer.
It's a bunch of fucking busywork and I hate it every time I have to re-focus my targets