Overwatch Zenyatta nerf coming; Mei and Mercy to get buffed

The Overwatch forums are always full of information

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Tweak, tweak, tweak. Blizzard continues to modify the various Overwatch heroes in an effort to achieve perfect game balance. It looks like Zenyatta, Mercy and Mei are now in the crosshairs.

On the official forums, designer Geoff Goodman offered his take on the various changes coming to the heroes:

On Mei: "Currently her ult can feel a bit unwieldy and inconsistent, especially when you compare it to other similar ults such as Reinhardt's. We're internally testing allowing the ultimate projectile she throws to pierce barriers (such as Reinhardt's shield), and increasing the radius a bit on it."

On Mercy"If she were to get a new ability it would ideally have to be something that she could use more 'outside of combat' or something that is generally used much more rarely. That said there are some things we can do to help her out in the near future."

On Zenyatta: "Zenyatta is definitely playing a lot better these days. At this point anecdotal feedback, internal stats, and competitive feedback are all showing he's actually a bit *too* strong at the moment. At this point we're looking likely to reduce some of his power in an upcoming patch, probably related to his Discord Orb."

Goodman offered no time frame for changes to be implemented, so just watch the patch notes. 

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 15, 2016 7:18 AM

    John Keefer posted a new article, Overwatch Zenyatta nerf coming; Mei and Mercy to get buffed

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      August 15, 2016 7:30 AM

      Why nerf. Zenyatta? He was so good now

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        August 15, 2016 8:11 AM

        Probably because Discord orb is stupid as hell.

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          August 15, 2016 8:13 AM

          [deleted]

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          August 15, 2016 8:17 AM

          No way, it helps so much with the dudes with a stupid amount of HP.

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            August 15, 2016 8:21 AM

            I mean, that is exactly why it is stupid as hell. It is way too powerful for how easy it is to use. Press E to reduce a hero's HP by half? Come on.

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              August 15, 2016 8:22 AM

              I thought it just gave them additional damage intake, not actually removing health

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                August 15, 2016 8:26 AM

                It's actually 33% not 50%. There is no difference between someone taking 50% extra damage with 400 HP, and taking normal damage at 266 HP. Both require 266 damage to kill. Thus his E effectively reduces their HP by 33% for pressing 'E'.

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                  August 15, 2016 8:29 AM

                  Or you los him.

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                    August 15, 2016 8:36 AM

                    Yeah, mid team fight just run away for 3+ seconds.. totally reasonable for a person just pressing 'E' without aiming.

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                      August 15, 2016 9:02 AM

                      It's what you do in other situations too. It's just another ability that takes high priority. The orb itself can be los off or los behind a tank so you can protect your healers from it. Hell, it can't be placed through a shield so Winston + rein can take the ability out of the game for fights.

                      Like most other things in the game you just have to counter it. Whether that's be sniping the Zen or shielding or by hiding until the Zen has to be close and just ambushing him, whatever.

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                        August 15, 2016 9:08 AM

                        Most other things actually require skill to use.. that is a huge difference. Plus most other abilities have a cooldown (or require ultimate charge to use).

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                          August 15, 2016 9:13 AM

                          There's skill in knowing who to put it on while not getting murdered and then communicating it to your team. Because if you want to actually do damage you'll need to tell your team or be damn good with his balls, which are harder than normal weapons to land consistently

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                          August 15, 2016 8:18 PM

                          [deleted]

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                August 15, 2016 8:26 AM

                [deleted]

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        August 15, 2016 10:08 AM

        Because he's too good right now.

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      August 15, 2016 8:18 AM

      I hope they don't make Mei a must pick. She is the most rage inducing character to play against ever

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        August 15, 2016 8:27 AM

        [deleted]

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        August 15, 2016 8:28 AM

        [deleted]

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        August 15, 2016 8:41 AM

        in quick play, some buddies faced double mei + double mcree as a defensive team. they rage quit after that game, so basically I did as well.

        the game is fully derptastic in quick play and it's becoming not fun. buffing mei is fucking stupid.

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          August 15, 2016 8:54 AM

          I like that those doubles systems exist in QP - it adds some variety to the game.

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            August 15, 2016 8:57 AM

            I think I'm going to perma bastion in QP. everyone else is troll tastic, so why play serious? save it for competitive, right? all bastion all the time.

            anyway on that match I switched to rein to push leetle kart, and our DPS went into the toilet. we completely stalled after point 1 on watchpoint gibraltar. I would wait for folks to rez, approach cart, and then we'd wipe. over and over.

            variety is "fun" I guess, but on the receiving end of being trolled and our team is incapable of adjusting, it makes me go straight back to diablo 3 or world of tanks or something else.

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              August 15, 2016 9:05 AM

              Rein is not a good solution for bastion, his shield does too fast. You need a Junkrat or pharma or genji or tracer or widow or ana or Mei (wall) or even cowboy in some situations. Basically you don't tank a bastion, you indirect fire him till he's dead or prevent him from shooting you so you can get past this place and make him move. And it's not hard to do so.

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              August 15, 2016 9:07 AM

              Deep. I mistook this reply from one to the bastion post below, my bad

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          August 15, 2016 8:56 AM

          Mei is useless at higher levels. At some point there needs to be some tuning for those brackets.

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            August 15, 2016 8:59 AM

            they need to tread carefully or quick/fun play will be further ruined.

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              August 15, 2016 9:48 AM

              [deleted]

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              August 15, 2016 10:29 AM

              I keep running into cancer comps..... its not fun at all...

              I wish they'd make 2 QP modes one with no heroes restrictions and one with 1 per team like competitive.....

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        August 15, 2016 10:05 AM

        I would play overwatch so much more if they removed mei from the game entirely.

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      August 15, 2016 8:31 AM

      I really wish they'd do something about Bastion. There's no other character in the game that requires such a coordinated counter as Bastion. His range and accuracy are just too good IMO.

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        August 15, 2016 8:55 AM

        Disagree. He is good for pretty much one ambush before he is almost permanently eliminated from the game by several characters.

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          August 15, 2016 10:24 AM

          Just one character is enough, and high level play almost invariably has that character: Genji

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            August 15, 2016 10:44 AM

            Genji annoys me way more than Bastion. Played well he has hardly any weaknesses. Especially compared to Bastion.

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        August 15, 2016 10:29 AM

        Roadhog! He's such an easy hook!

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          August 15, 2016 10:31 AM

          the hitbox/hitscan or whatever attributes to that fucking hook make anyone an easy hook. well, except genji and tracer which are just rated "difficult".

          it's basically a hanzo grade projectile. rarely misses.

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          August 15, 2016 10:45 AM

          It's a great feeling accomplished against only a tremendously stupid Bastion because he'll tear Roadhog apart long before he can get in range

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        August 15, 2016 10:32 AM

        [deleted]

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        August 15, 2016 4:15 PM

        Uhhhhhhhh diva?

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        August 15, 2016 8:32 PM

        they have more than enough counters already, and hell they just added ana,

        ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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      August 15, 2016 8:47 AM

      I'll accept a nerf to discord orb just so long as they give his auto attack a bit of damage back, to where he's still hitting for about 60 on a discorded target.

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        August 15, 2016 8:58 AM

        I don't disagree. He still needs to hit hard even if his damage amplification is nerfed

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          August 15, 2016 9:09 AM

          I don't like this solution because utility abilities being nerfed for more damage is the wrong direction to go in general :(

          It's already waaaay lopsided to make picking utility over any form of damage a ridiculous idea. Given the game revolves around team play, they need to start encouraging the characters with utility.

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            August 15, 2016 9:29 AM

            He wouldn't really be getting more damage seeing as how he'd still be hitting for the same as before (40+40*0.5 vs 45+45*0.3 being the likely example) - it'd just mean that the nerf to discord wouldn't also act as a nerf to his ability to defend himself, which IMO would be too much.

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              August 15, 2016 10:42 AM

              I'm distinguishing between damage and utility. His damage output in that scenario would be the same, but his damage would increase. Discord doesn't do damage, it increases other damage done (aka is utility).

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      August 15, 2016 8:57 AM

      This makes me want to play an Overwatch mod with Nerf guns.

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      August 15, 2016 9:19 AM

      I wish Mercy could use her dash-fly without having to have another player targeted or extend the range of her being able to target people and fly-dash to them.

      I don't mind that Mercy's a no-offense hero, or that she's a little slower than others, but without being able to dash-fly along it takes so long to get back into things. If Mercy could target players farther out than she can currently it'd make at least getting into/out of the fight a little quicker, which would be sweet.

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        August 15, 2016 10:02 AM

        Yeah, I hate tapping shift at some far off hero in the hope that I get in range briefly

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          August 15, 2016 12:22 PM

          Same here, but it only really sucks either when I'm trying to get out of a hot spot or on spawn and I'm trying to get to the hot spot. Even trying to fly backwards out of a fight's usually not that bad, it's just covering the ground to get to the fight.

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      August 15, 2016 10:28 AM

      I personally think symmetra should get a buff, and honestly most defense heroes could use a buff too.

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        August 15, 2016 10:32 AM

        Maybe her turrents can do low level healing for friendlies, or give her 2 sets heals and damage.

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        August 15, 2016 8:46 PM

        Her shielding characters ability seems weak. What is it, 25 shield points? Make this 50, or does this start throwing things out of balance.

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          August 15, 2016 9:07 PM

          It used to be 50 but that makes certain characters like genji super overpowered if played at high levels, similar to how zen's orb could be used outside of line of sight. I do like the other idea of providing healing with turrets. Also her right click travels way too slowly to be useful in most situations.

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        August 17, 2016 7:52 AM

        If anything, make her turret cool down way shorter. 10 seconds for a 1hp turret, where you are super vulnerable while placing it, is way too much

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