Tank Balance Recommendations and Ideas

Introduction

So, with the somewhat recent Flex/Dynamic Queue tests not too long ago (which I thought both went pretty well for the most part actually) - along with just playing a lot in general - it really got me thinking much more deeply about a bunch of balance stuff, mostly relating to 6v6 but kind of overall too. If anything, I think one of the biggest takeaways these tests showed us is that tanks in particular could use a lot of love in the balance department. Of course, so can a lot of other heroes, but I mostly just want to focus on tanks here for the moment as I think they’re the largest group that needs the most unique changes. Honestly, I do think tanks have been needing to be looked at for quite some time now as the role could really use some drastic revitalization to say the least (even in 5v5 I’d say) both to make tanks more fun to play and to decrease some of the pain points of playing against certain heroes (we all know the group). The tests also just highlighted all of the years of balancing we’ve missed out on for 6v6 specifically, which is really what made me want to take a closer look and pull some of my own thoughts together.

Now, I’m always tossing around ideas in my head about things I think might be fun or cool to have in the game and while I know not every idea might be a good one, I figured maybe I could write down a few here (again, for tanks specifically in this post, though I will touch on some broad things that would also pertain to other roles) in the hopes of maybe even just sparking a thought of something that the devs might be able to use. I do also have other thoughts on DPS and supports too, but those could probably each use a separate post of their own. Also again, pretty much all of these only relate to 6v6 in my mind so a lot of them might not translate well elsewhere.

Macro-ni and Cheese (I’m sorry, I had to)

Before we jump into my thoughts on each tank individually, there’s probably a few things we should go over first just to set the stage: mainly relating to some macro changes I’d make to the gameplay as a whole since they would obviously affect tanks too, as well as some of my other more general reasoning/philosophies behind certain suggestions about the given heroes.

Macro

To begin with, let’s look at the macro part first. This mainly revolves around removing several passives that I think make the game a little less intuitive and are really more just like band aid fixes for deeper issues. As you might have already guessed, those passives are the reduced ultimate generation from doing damage or healing to tanks and the global healing reduction everyone gets after receiving damage as well. Now, allow me to explain though because at the same time I also don’t want to end up in an unlimited-sustain and/or ult-dump-every-30-seconds meta either (like we see happening in certain other games at the moment I’ll point out). However, I just think the blanket passives are a worse way of preventing those things from happening as they’re a lot less straight forward for players to comprehend (not to mention they affect different heroes differently) whereas removing them and balancing these things on a per hero basis just makes so much more sense.

For example, with the healing reduction passive it can be very hard to keep track of this all the time throughout the course of a match as damage chaotically flies around during battle, which goes for both when it comes to who is affected by it at any given time and how much longer it is applied. It just makes healing feel inconsistent a lot of times and it could be so much simpler for players if each hero’s numbers were tuned appropriately rather than just putting a somewhat confusing blanket statement on everyone. Also, when it comes to applying it, not all heroes are equal there either to put it mildly. Some heroes have a much easier time of simply spamming down range to keep the debuff going, but this too would go away if they just used the approach of adjusting each heal number individually as they should be anyways to keep healing from getting out of hand. Not to mention, in 6v6 specifically there is more damage in general going around since more people are on the field anyhow, and with tank health pools being much lower I’m not sure it’s truly necessary in the format.

Kind of in that same vein of thought is the ultimate gen reduction from tanks too. This is just another under-the-hood inconsistency for players that I think is unnecessary as well, when it really should be about tuning ultimate charge rates for heroes that are building them too fast. I really just think that in general when players are building an ult (doing damage/healing to get ult charge namely) or healing a teammate, they should know how much of either one they’re going to get done rather than having all these extra factors to calculate in that unnecessarily complicate things more. Let’s face it as well, these passives were more so meant to curb certain issues in 5v5 to be fair, which is totally fine and while I don’t like the inconsistencies being in that mode either I definitely think it has no place in 6v6 whatsoever.

So, just to reiterate, what it really all boils down to is removing those 2 passives and adjusting outlier heroes to better fit in with the rest of the cast in order to keep gameplay feeling consistent. This kind of leads me to what I was meaning when I said earlier that the passives were really more just like band aid fixes to deeper issues. See, I think that what the delicate balance of Overwatch gameplay is truly based on is appropriate TTK’s. When you’re fighting the enemy, you want to be able to burn them down in a decently reasonable amount of time, but at the same time nobody likes getting instantly deleted or destroyed so fast you don’t even know what happened either, which is a difficult balancing act for the devs to put it lightly.

I think early Overwatch was pretty good at this, which is part of what made it so enjoyable to play, but as things grow people are always looking for the next biggest, strongest, most eye-catching thing. It’s pretty obvious this has led to a good amount of power creep over the years, which is to be expected really, and I don’t think many players would disagree with me. New DPS that come out pretty much only look viable if they can basically one-tap every other hero in the game, new supports look cooler if they can heal everyone up to full faster than the spawn room can, and tanks need to be able to do everything all at once all the time. Basically, it’s just gotten to the point there I think there are too many outliers out there right now, and most of them I’d say can attribute that to burst options both for damage and healing. Now, is it wrong for new heroes to have their fan fair for a bit, no, however I do think there comes a time when things need to be brought in line with the norm, and I don’t think the blanket passives are the way to do it (especially when it comes to affecting heroes that already are at least somewhat appropriately balanced).

To that end there would likely need to be a good amount of tweaks to some (but not all I will say) damage, healing, and ult generation numbers for a good handful of heroes. Honestly though, I don’t think it’d seem like very much once everything thing was said and done as it would mostly just be focused on heroes that have high burst damage, high healing/burst healing, and those that generate ults a little too quickly.

Quick side note for the other passives that are now subrole passives (not talking about individual hero passives just to specify). I was once in favor of removing those as well when they were applied more broadly but I do appreciate the devs taking the time to re-evaluate them and divide up the cast accordingly with each one. I think that was a good work around for them, however, I do not think that can be done with the 2 passives I’m talking about here so I’m much more inclined to see them removed.

I know that was a lot and I’m supposed to be talking about tanks, but I do think removing those passives and bringing outlier heroes that do too much damage & healing more in line would make gameplay feel a lot better, which would all obviously affect tanks too when it comes to tweaking them specifically. I’ve also seen a lot of other people in the community calling for their removal in 6v6 as well (the passives I mean), so I definitely want to take that into account for my suggestions.

Tanks

Now, on to the meat and potatoes of this post (finally). I’ll just begin in the order they appear on the regular selection screen, and I’ll include some explanations where I feel they’re needed. Quick reminder that I don’t think all tanks need crazy changes so some might have more to them than others. Also, I did really like a lot of the creator patch changes too from a while back so you might recognize a bunch of that in here as well.

D.mon

This was actually going to be more of a joke since she’s first on the select screen now and she just came out, but I have been seeing her a lot lately with the buffs they did so I’m sure they’ll probably nerf her back down somewhat soon. I’ll just throw in what I think they could do with her to possibly bring her more in line because while she might be super strong at the moment, I really like the way her kit flows with the buffs and wouldn’t want to see that change so maybe there is another way to keep her in check. Also, there is one other slight change I’d make to her re-mech to make it more a bit interesting.

• Limit Break (ultimate ability)
  • This is such a good ult and it’s pretty cool, but I do think it charges really, really fast at the moment so I’d lower the charge rate on this and also make it so that it doesn’t start recharging until its effects have gone away
• I would try swapping her health and armor around a bit to see if that might make her a little less survivable. Maybe 25 - 50 armor to health to start and see if that changes anything.
• Call Mech
  • I like that it’s not just a copy of Dva’s but I have heard that some players feel like it’s kind of annoying as it doesn’t do that much damage. I’d make it so that enemies within range (5 meters) get pulled in toward the Dmon when she re-mech’s by about 3 meters

D. va

Another smaller suggestion (with a lot of explanation) as I really don’t think she needs much. If anything, I think I’d add a bit more reward for eating damage to her base kit. As for her defensive capabilities, she sort of already follows the rule thumb with DM where she can block and attack (micro-missiles) plus she has good mobility, but it’s smaller and doesn’t last long.

• Defense Matrix
  • I would make it so that every 100 damage absorbed by DM gets converted into a few percentage points of ult charge, and absorbing other ultimates gives a lot more. If ult charge would be too OP you could replace it with all kinds of stuff if need be (like health or something), but I think ult charge - in the right amounts - would be a good reward and an interesting mechanic. Say 5% per 100 damage eaten and 25% if you eat an enemy ultimate.
• I would get rid of the Precision Fusion perk (press reload to reduce M1 spread for 3 seconds). Maybe I’m wrong, but I see virtually nobody use this ever. Actually, I think I’ve seen clips and vids of people saying not to use it because it just doesn’t go well with the rest of her kit.
  • I’d replace this with a perk called “Shooting Star” that makes it so that when Dva self-destructs she can shoot her mech to make it explode a little faster (like the old cinematic this would be named after kind of). Basically, it’d make the mech become an entity she can shoot with no crit spot (only the dva can shoot it). It has 100 hp and as soon as the Dva does that much damage to it it’ll explode right away. If I’m thinking correctly this should make it so that if you’re skilled enough you can make the bomb detonate about 1 second faster. That’d be the goal because I think any faster than roughly a 2 second detonation might be too quick and remove too much coutnerplay, but I may be wrong about that too.

Domina

Obviously, this is one that would fall into the category of shield needs to be less powerful, so I’d start there. I would also reduce her cooldown on her crystal just slightly to help her survive more with it, and I really liked the community crafted event changes they made too.

• Barrier Array
  • I’d start by removing a column from each side to make it smaller (so 6 squares in total removed; 3 on each side).
  • I’d reduce the health of each segment to 200 hp down from 225
  • I’m not 100% sure about this part but it might also be worth it to tighten the curve of the shield with it being smaller as well
  • I’d reduce the cooldown to 12 seconds
• I’d reduce the cooldown of Crystal Charge to 7 seconds from 8
• I’d increase the range of her Sonic Repulsors to 12 meters and the knockback to 20 meters
• I’d make her ult also envelop allies it goes through with a 200 hp barrier (this might make it way too good with the buff they gave it recently, but I just thought this aspect would be so cool)

Doomfist

As I’m sure the entire community knows, he needs his uppercut back and perhaps a slight bit more survivability as well. Uppercut is just so iconic for him, and it felt fun. I do think slam is also kind of important for him too though, but having both as separate abilities seems like it’d just be too many almost, unless you combined the 2 of them of course.

• I’d give him back his uppercut but I’d combine it with seismic slam where when you first activate the ability, you uppercut and then - within a fixed window of time - press it again to slam back down.
• I’d also make it so that a direct hit with a fully charged punch (only the one who gets hit directly) flies back 40% further just to really make his punch feel like it hits hard. Yes, I know it seems like it does already, but I’m just talking about knockback here and not damage so I think it’d make it feel more impactful.
• I’d up his health by 25 hp (from 425 to 450)

Hazard

To me, Hazard is one of those tanks that is almost fun to play against and almost fun to play as, but not quite there for either. When playing him, climbing around and leaping is pretty fun but does feel a bit underwhelming and limited at times, while going against him with his annoying spike block that also damages you as well as the thicc Mei wall pillar is just frustrating to deal with. The second part is tough because the mei pillar thing is a big part of his kit so I’m not sure if taking it away would just make him feel incomplete or not but I have another idea.

• Spike Guard (this one’s a bit complicated but bear with me because it kind of explains what I want his kit to do)
  • I’d remove the aspect of it dealing damage upfront (at least during the ability you could say)
  • I’d reduce the range to 6 meters
  • I’d make it so that it for every 1 full second an enemy is within range it marks/sticks them with spikes. These spikes can explode for additional damage but only when you slash them with Violent Leap after they are marked/stuck (so basically just like his major perk Explosive Impalements but using his block instead of his gun to apply them)
  • I think it should be that targets can get stuck with up to 3 spikes each that last for somewhere between 5 - 10 seconds (probably close to 7 so that way if the Hazard did just use his leap - with a cooldown of 5.5 seconds - he’d have time to try one more use on this); allies can also melee them off of you too for counterplay (you can’t though since they’d be on your back)
  • When spikes explode, they would each explode for 20 damage hurting anything within a radius of 2 - 3 meters (size would need to be tested because this would mean they can hurt others who aren’t stuck if close enough btw).
• I’d replace the Explosive Impalements perk with one I’d call “Chain Reaction” that makes the spike detonation ranger larger (maybe 3 - 5 meters depending on testing) and other spikes that are within range of any spike detonation will explode too
• Jagged Wall
  • I’d make it so that instead of the large pillar that the projectile currently makes it’d make a field of small spikes with a radius of 5 - 7 meters (somewhere in there) that slows enemies who walk through it by about 20% and applies a mark/spike to them once when they initially step in and another every 2 seconds after that (up to the 3 maximum that are allowed to be applied to a single target that is).
  • I’d make it so that it would still spawn one long very thin spike/pillar from the middle that Hazard could stand on if he wants, and if enemies destroy it, it would destroy the entire field for counterplay. Also, this should still be able to be applied to walls horizontally just like the wall can be now so the radius would need to be spherical I suppose.
  • I’d reduce the health of the middle spike to somewhere between 200 - 250 hp from the 400 the pillar is now
  • I’d reduce the cooldown to 10 seconds
  • I’d rename the ability to Jagged Field
• I’d replace the minor Anarchic Zeal perk (spike guard damage lifesteal) with one called “Jagged Detonation” where you can press the Jagged Wall/Jagged Field ability button again once the field is down to make it explode and apply a single pike to any enemies within 20 meters (20 meters from the center of the field within line of sight of course)
• Lastly, I really liked the community event idea for the additions to his wall climb so I’d re-add the ability for Hazard to cling to walls at the top of his climb as well as the shift into third person to look around and detach using abilities (or just by letting go of course)
  • One other thing I’d add is using an ability resets wall climb

Junker Queen

Not too much here. I think Junker Queen is really fun but does suffer a bit in the survivability department. While she does have lifesteal on a couple of things and shout, I still think only having 450 hp and no true defensive capabilities (beside shout kind of I guess) makes that health pool a little low. Might end up needing to tweak the numbers on shout with this if it proves to be too strong together though; in the end I’d opt for more base health and less of the boost health from Commanding Shout if they both are too strong. Side note, I also loved the community even changes to the axe, but I think in the end I’d keep it how it is now.

• I’d increase her health to be between 475 - 500 hp (just would need to keep an eye on this to make sure it’s not too much with the passives gone)
• I’d lower commanding shout’s cooldown to 11 seconds (again might need to be tweaked if she’s too survivable with this)

Mauga

Ah, yes, everyone’s most beloved tank. This one is tough because it can be a little hard to pinpoint the biggest annoyance of his kit, but after thinking about it for a while I do believe a lot of it boils down to his “lifesteal”/overhealth that’s in his base kit which I think is what gives him the ability to simply stand there holding both buttons with no care at all. Most of the ridiculousness I’ve experienced and seen online I feel like comes from that. If I’m wrong though and it’s something like his guns themselves then he honestly might just need a full-on overhaul, but at that point I feel like they’d just be making a new hero. So, I’ll try to work around what he has now and see if it might sound any better.

• I’d remove his Berserker passive (gaining overhealth from doing crit damage)
• I’d reduce the base damage of each gun from 4 to 3.5
• I’d change it so that critical hits with is first gun (Gunny, aka the one that ignites everything) count as double to igniting a target. For example, he needs 10 hits with that gun to ignite an enemy but a crit shot would count as 2 for that
• I’d make it so that his second gun (Cha-cha, aka the one that does crit damage to burning targets) also now shoots armor piercing rounds that can penetrate shields but it does 50% reduced damage when they do pierce a shield and they ignore armor’s damage reduction on ignited targets (only for bullets fired from this gun though)
• Cardiac Overdrive
  • I’d change this almost entirely to be that, when activated, for 3 - 5 seconds (would need to be tested) Mauga moves, fires, and reloads 20% faster (2 hearts working overtime)
  • I’d reduce the cooldown from 15 to 10 seconds
• I’d remove his minor perk Kinetic Bandolier (Overun reloads ammo during first second of charging) and swap his major perk Firewalker (ignites enemies hit by overrun) in its place.
• I’d replace the missing major perk with one called “Chain Loader”
  • For Chain Loader, I’d make it so that for every second or two seconds (need testing) that Mauga is standing within 5 meters of more than one other teammate, 50 ammo is reloaded into his guns
• Combat Fuel (major perk that gives him overhealth based on damage done when you activate Cardiac Overdrive)
  • I’d change this to be 100 overhealth maximum down from 150 since the cooldown on Cardiac Overdrive is shorter
• If he proves to still be too survivable with the Pyromaniac (50 overhealth when igniting someone) and the Combat Fuel perks - though I doubt it - then you could consider replacing them with ones that simply up his burn damage or something similar. I think with his passive gone though and healing from Cardiac Overdrive gone he wouldn’t be as big of a problem as he is now

Orisa

I will say Orisa used to be a lot more maligned in the past than she is now, but I don’t think she’s as frustrating to play against as she once was which probably helps. The few adjustments I’d make could go one of two ways, which would either be to keep the shield perk but adjust its size and health a little, or get rid of it and replace it with bringing halt back (the old pull mechanic from the ancient days for those who don’t know).

• If keeping the Protective Barrier perk
  • I’d reduce it’s size by 10% and health down to 550 hp
• If getting rid of the Protective Barrier perk
  • I’d replace the Protective Barrier perk with one called “Halt” which basically just swaps Energy Javelin (not the spin though, you still get to keep that) for the old Halt ability where you pull enemies in within a certain radius just like it used to (it’s been so long I don’t even remember the numbers on it, but for those who don’t know it was almost like a mini Zarya ult but it only did the pull, it wouldn’t keep you there)
  • I feel like people would want to take Halt more often than not so to even it out with the other major perk Heavy Javelin (increases Javelin’s knockback and impact damage) I’d also add to that, that Javeline stays imbedded in targets it hits for an additional 2 seconds after striking them during which time Orisa can press the ability button again to detonate the Jav for 50 more damage (also affects other enemies within a 3 meter radius)

Ramattra

I think Ram is actually in a pretty good spot overall right now in 6v6. He is a little squishy in his omnic form but I think that’s a fair tradeoff for everything he gets in nemesis form. The only thing I can think of to change on him would be to add something I think is missing from his Vortex ability. Also, for his shield, I do think it is appropriate as is since it is stationary and not too big (even with the minor perk), and while the cooldown might seem a little long I think the fact that he can stay in nemesis form for so long kind of makes up for that. Plus, as I said earlier you still want heroes to have their windows of vulnerability rather than just being unkillable all the time.

• Ravenous Vortex
  • For the longest time I always thought this ability should be better against fliers (or really just anyone with vertical mobility), which it is don’t get me wrong but I do think it needs just a little more help in the height department. So, I’d make it so that either the height extends all the way to the skybox, or - if that’s too big - then wherever you detonate it (love that you can manually do that now in his base kit) it forms a sphere that pulls enemies within a 4 meter radius down to the ground with it.

Reinhardt

When it comes to Rein and his base kit I think he is honestly in a good spot right now too though I did really like the idea that they had for him from the community crafted event, so I’d probably bring that back. I do think his shield might be a little too strong as well even though he can’t attack while using it, and I’ve always thought Rein’s perks were very lackluster.

• I’d bring back the Berserker passive from the community event sort of where for every 100 hp he loses he gains 10% move and attack speed up to a bonus 30%
• I’d lower the hp of his barrier from 1800 to 1600
• I’d rework his perk Crusader’s Fire (get an extra charge of fire strike when you stun an enemy) to make it so that Fire Strike’s impact damage is reduced to 100 damage but ignites all enemies withing a 3 meter radius for 50 damage over 2 seconds
  • I’d also swap the name of this perk with the major perk Ignited Fury just because that makes sense
• I’d add to his major perk Shield Slam (basically gives him brig bash) that as his barrier takes damage it stores up energy and does additional damage
  • For every 400 damage absorbed shield bash does an additional 25 damage up to a total damage of 125 (so 50 for the base and 75 if the shield has absorbed 1200 damage since bash’s last use and has not been broken)
  • All extra charge is lost if shield is broken of course
• As stated earlier I’d swap the name of his minor perk Crusader’s Fire to the name of his major perk (the one that was Ignited Fury) and make it so that instead of giving him 2 seconds of extra attack speed on fire strike hits it reduces the cooldown of charge by 1 second

Roadhog

Well, here we go. To me, this is even more difficult than Mauga because I have thought and thought about it for so long but how do you make Hog less annoying to play against without just changing his identity to something completely different. I’d say the main pain points of his kit are his one-shot chain hook combo (chain hook in general is just not very fun to play into to be honest) and his insane healing resource. It’s hard though because without those things being decently strong he ends up turning back into a pumpkin and becomes one of the most unplayable tanks on the roster. Also, do you just remove chain hook then if it’s that unfun without even trying to rework it? That’s always been his gimmick though, and it is pretty unique compared to everything else we have. I guess I’ll put out 2 options: a more basic one where I try to keep his kit relatively the same but adjust some things to make it slightly less annoying to play into and another where I change up the abilities more dramatically.

• Keeping the kit the same(ish)
• Chain Hook
  • So as mentioned his one-shot chain hook combo is what makes him useful but it is also very annoying to play into. Now, I know the damage that hook does can be key to getting that one-shot kill so my idea is to basically make it so that hitting a hook doesn’t do a flat 25 damage but scales up based on how far the hooked target is. So, at somewhat close(ish) to max hook range - if the hook connects - perhaps he should still be rewarded for hitting it and thus gets the full damage.
  • When messing around with him in the practice range it seems like his gun might just be able to kill close enough without the extra hook damage so his pellet damage might need to be looked at too, but I’d be interested to see what the scaled hook damage would do first
• Take a breather
  • I think this is a lot simpler to deal with. It just needs to go back onto a cooldown rather than a resource in order to restore that window of vulnerability needed for counterplay. So I’d put it on an 8 second cooldown like I think it was before, but I’d also add the ability to cancel it early if the Hog wishes to put it on cooldown quicker as well.
  • Duration to be changed back to 3 seconds at 150 hp/second, but if the heal proves to still be too much or too little then it might need to be changed a bit number wise.
• Changing the kit up
• Chain Hook
• No longer pulls targets to Roadhog but latches onto a target for 3 seconds
  • The initial stun duration is the same, which is really like a fraction of 1 second, but targets are hindered for the rest of the duration the hook is attached to them
  • Targets and their allies can melee the hook/chain to break it early
  • The hook/chain (when it connects) has a break point of 120 hp (so 3 regular melees to break it or 2 for most melee heroes)
  • During the time the hook is attached, Roadhog and the target are tethered together with the Hog’s movement taking precedent (basically meaning the hog can drag targets with the chain though the target should be able to move back and forth pretty freely perhaps to try and get stuck on some geometry on purpose)
  • This also means that while you need line of sight to connect the hook, once it is attached LOS does not break the chain and the tether length should almost always remain the same as what it was when the hook connected
  • The tether doesn’t go through walls but bends around them to keep the length the same
  • If the hooked target is a tank, Hog’s movement speed is slowed by 40%
  • For damage, the initial 25 damage on attach is still there but the chain is also now electrified and does 50 hp/second for the duration it is attached
  • (Oh baby we’re not done there) Hog can also attach his hook to allies
  • Again, you do need LOS to attach it but not to keep it on. The length of the tether can stretch when attached to allies, but it cannot exceed the range limit (20 meters) or it will automatically break. This way the neither the hog nor the ally can displace the other because the chain/tether will just break
  • Also again, the tether doesn’t go through walls, it just bends around them so if the hog and tethered ally go around opposite sides of a pole or some other map geometry and just kept going that would eventually break the tether since it would stretch too long
  • During the time that Hog is attached to an ally, 50% of the damage taken by that ally is transferred to the Hog (while the total damage dealt would still be the same overall, this might need to be tweaked if it’s just keeping certain heroes alive for way too long)
  • While a tether is attached to an ally and the Hog uses Take A Breather the ally is also healed at 50% effectiveness (since I’m gonna suggest the same changes to Take A Breather as above it would be 75 hp/second and that would last up to 3 seconds assuming the hog himself isn’t stunned out of it or something like that). Allies do not get the 40% damage reduction when he uses it though.
  • When an allied tether breaks or is detached by the hog, hook’s cooldown cut in half (reduced to 3.5 seconds)
  • Hog can shoot while tethered to any target without the tether breaking
  • Being stunned or slept will break any tether but just being hindered will not
  • Boop also does not break tether and the hog’s movement still takes precedent (even if that means an enemy pharah booping him into the well on Ilios would mean dragging a tethered teammate to their grave)
  • This doesn’t apply to allies since the tether would just break if it stretched longer than 20 meters
  • The hog can press the ability button again to detach any hook/tether
• Take A Breather
  • Changes here would pretty much just be the same as above with putting it back on an 8 second cooldown at least and having it heal 150 hp/second over 3 seconds upon use
• Pulled Pork (major perk that gives you overheath based on how far you pulled someone with old hook)
  • I’d replace this with a perk called “Toxic Love” where if the Hog uses Take a Breather while hook is attached to an enemy that enemy is poisoned for an additional 25 damage/second for 4 seconds

Sigma

Kit-wise, Sigma has nearly always felt like he was in a pretty good spot. I think one critique for him would be that he has a lot of defensive capability with his shield and grasp (and even kind of rock you could say). A good Sigma that can manage his shield can make it feel like it’s just always up, which is a skill yes, but I think everyone agrees that constantly shooting at shields is not great so it could probably stand to be toned down a bit while compensating him elsewhere.

• Experimental Barrier
  • I’d reduce the size by about 10 - 15% (need to test and see it because his barrier is already not that big but I think could do with a slight reduction still)
  • I’d reduce the hp to 550
  • I’d reduce the recharge rate to 50/second which might seem like a lot but give me a minute
• Kinetic Grasp
  • I’d add to this that when the Sigma absorbs any projectile and his barrier is not deployed (or broken) it immediately starts recharging and the recharge rate is doubled for 2 seconds
• I’d move his major perk Levitation (activate double jump to levitate briefly) to his base kit as his hero specific passive
  • I’d replace this perk with one called “Kinetic Dampener” that makes it so that any enemies that pass through a stationary experimental barrier are slowed by 10% for 2 seconds (might need to mess with percentage and time here to make sure it’s enough but not too OP, though needing the barrier to be stationary I think gives enemies the ability to play around it anyways)
• If the barrier nerf still proves to be too much even with the other changes, I think I’d look to give him more health first, maybe 25 - 50 hp if he needs it

Winston

Winton I think is very fun as he is and could really only use some minor tweaks in my opinion: mostly to his ult and a couple of his perks. He does seem a bit squishy in 6v6 as well so perhaps a slight bit of health would help him too. Now, the other thing you might be thinking about is his barrier, because ironically, it does have more hp than Sigma’s and he can also attack while it is down. However, I think the tradeoff is appropriate considering how large it is (making it easier to walk into and destroy), its longer cooldown, and mainly that it is stationary.

• I’d give him 25 more health to bring him to 550 hp
• Primal Rage
  • I’d up the amount of bonus health he gets from 500 to somewhere between 600 - 700 (for a total health pool of between 1150 - 1250)
  • Now with this, it is hard to say if this would be too much because I don’t want to make him immortal and if my earlier talk about the passives being removed as well as a lot of burst options being toned down all around it might turn out that he may not need this buff
• Chain Lighting (major perk for bouncing lightning with secondary fire)
  • I’d just change this to allow it to bounce to up to 4 additional targets

Wrecking Ball

Ball is the last one in my personal list of tanks that are just menaces to play against a lot of times. In 6v6 I do think he is way more manageable to go against though I’d say, not only because he has less health but also likely due to having an offtank to help deal with him too. He can still be pretty annoying sometimes even still and I do think his bubble perk should really only be in 5v5 since that’s where he needs it being that he’s alone. As for playing him, I think he is fun to play as is, but I do have a few minor changes in mind for him. Also, when it comes to playing him - and the reason they gave him his bubble perk - is that going against heroes that can stun him can be really painful. It’s tough because he definitely needs to have counterplay but it does suck when they just go Sombra and/or Cass and/or Ana as well.

• Grappling Claw
  • I’d make it so you can now latch onto allies as well if you want
• Adaptive Barrier (major perk that gives him a zarya bubble for 1.5 seconds)
  • I’d replace this with a perk called “Adaptive Rotator” where for every ally Ball transfers some of his adaptive shields to when he does it, it reduces the cooldown of adaptive shield by 1 second
• I’d give ball a hero specific passive called “One at a Time” where he can only be affected by one cc cooldown at a time (i.e. hack silence, stunned, slept, hindered/tether in Mizuki’s case) and after being hit with one he is immune for 2 seconds
  • Just a bit of explanation as while this might seem like a worse form of his current bubble perk, I think it’d be a better way of helping ball with the cc while not removing the ability to counter him entirely. You can still get the initial cc in on him, but you can’t then just chain cc him to death (unless the Ball chooses to stay in of course) which is never fun for anyone

Zarya

Last, but most certainly not least, my old OW1 main: Zarya. This is an interesting hero to consider because in 6v6, with separate bubble cooldowns again, I really don’t think she needs much of anything. Her vulnerability window is back with a 10 second self-bubble cooldown, she has less health, and still has the damage nerf they gave her a while back. However, I see her getting banned all the time for some reason. My only guess would be that a Zarya with good bubble rotation can be pretty difficult to play against sometimes, especially if they’re good at keeping high charge. Still, I’m going to stick to my guns and hope that it’s just that the community might still need to catch on that once she uses her own bubble (and to stop shooting at bubbles before you can kill her) she’s really not that hard to play against. If that isn’t enough, they might be able to look into extending her projected bubble cooldown a bit more I guess. Also, the community event changes were fun so I’m gonna include those.

• While allies have projected barrier on them they can jump higher (not sure what the numbers were exactly but I’ll say 75%)
• Grav’s attraction range is 50% bigger but enemies that are affected by the new range part can still use cooldowns to get out if they’re able

Conclusion

Well, that’s it. If you made it this far, I definitely appreciate you reading all that. I know it was a lot and probably all crap but let me know your thoughts on any of it if you’d like down below. Like I said earlier, my only hope is that even if these aren’t great overall that they still might spark just a hint of a thought that the devs could use to better the game. I’ve been played the game for quite some time now and really do enjoy it, even through all the ups and downs over the years. I only want to see it succeed and maybe help make a great game. Thanks again.

P.S. Here’s hoping Blizzcon will blow everyone away and then some