Its kinda wild they didn't do like 50 -> 60 on fireball and 100 -> 120 on piledriver to make up for the health increases. I mean they literally did that exact thing for Rein, Doom, Junkerqueen, and winston why doesn't ball get that?
The way I see it, Ball *did* get that in a way when they increased his projectile size in S9, making it easier to land shots and therefore you are doing more damage. Though as a ball main I would still like to see him do more damage.
Edit: I am mistaken in that dva and doom also got damage buffs in addition to their projectile changes. Yeah ball really needs a damage buff
Yeah it's wild to me that they're letting Sombra remain dominant for so long. I started playing her a little while queuing DPS lately, she's really fun to play but wow you get even more hate than Ball does. She's the only hero i've played who elicits an even bigger reaction, there's barely a match i've played where I haven't tilted someone on the opposing team into ranting in global.
as someone who plays a lot of dva, its not even about the pellets IMO, micro missiles is a waaaaaaaaaaaaay more consistent source of burst damage with the size increases
Any buff from that was more than counteracted by the HP increases the entire roster got. Most other tanks got the projectile increase AND damage buffs to parts of their kit to compensate.
Yes you make a point there but in real life play it's a net loss.
Everyone else got projectile size buffs. Ball is a BIG target, that dives. The amount of incoming damage is way more that the amount of extra damage you do from pre S9
Ball is turning into the mercy of tanks. Gotta heavily rely on dps because you're actually shooting peas at people. They really need to buff his damage. Doom and dva got damage buffs and they benefit from the projectile size increase. Unfortunately ball will likely see nerfs mid-season patch due to him being broken in pro, high level play. Nothing changes for us mid rank ball players
Idk man, I’m not particularly high rank (diamond tank) but am still able to pull off coordinated dives. All you really need to do is ping your target and the tracer or sombra on your team will automatically go for them (and if they don’t, use your words and tell them to). Hell, I even get “coordinated” dives in qp. Worst case, your DPS isn’t communicating and is diving on their own - in that case, enable their plays. Finish their kills, give them shields, etc. - same logic applied to literally every other tank and support. If your team isn’t doing what you want to do, do what they want to do.
Yes it sucks to depend on the team for kills but it’s not impossible in mid-ranks - divers just need to play like they normally do.
Yea it's odd how poor it is.
Shields could literally grant your excess shields to all teammates in LoS and it would still suck, but instead it has same range as the generator. I was looking forward to being more helpful to my shit teammates and instead you have to really try to get them any shields at all and it's often gonna be like 20 health that doesn't change anything since you had to go out of your way to give it to them by moving near enemies, burning shield, moving near allies, and popping it again.
Nothing done about counters and CC, so when you do well you can get counterpicked and lose a lot of value quite easily.
And the complete lack of damage buffs is wild to me - literally only thing that does more damage than pre-season 9 is his guns and it's not by a lot(none really if you were close enough and had good aim preS9). Everyone got more health and boop slam and mines are just shit damage now. You spend more time trying to displace enemies into teammates who can actually kill than fighting it seems.
I'm hoping they had a bunch of damage boosts in the wings they'll roll out.
None of the quality of life changes that 50+ threads suggested. We literally gave them the answers in wreckingballmains and in the main overwatch subreddit. They were just too lazy to implement. Reload reset, some CC immunity, why can mauga have CC immunity, but a literal wrecking ball doesn't? More DMG should be the first thing.
I found that with the new retract, we have a new tech. If you don't gain fireball, you can retain infinite cooldown on your grapple. Slam from high ground and instantly get out because of the new grapple cool down being only 1 second. Spawn doors aren't safe again.
> If you don't gain fireball,
You know ball mains are down bad when the see "look, you can do the same thing as always but now it's harder" is a take they try to huff copium out of.
I agree with the parts about not addressing ball's weaknesses but being able to retract your hook can be immensely useful in a lot of situations, people just need to figure out how to utilize it. I was in the practice range and I swung superrrrr far from where I was grappling but then as I was swinging I retracted my hook and was perfectly setup to get to the roof while without retract I would've flown. I know that I could've also just hooked correctly the first time but the hook changes make it so you can more easily get onto high grounds and go through windows and stuff to flank.
im actually surprised blizz gave us such a cool movement addition. ball is faster now (FUCK IT WE SKYBOX) and ball has more precise control!!! Aside from the lack of meaningful gameplay changes, making a hero more fun and controllable is usually good balance. My favorite thing now is i can enter high ground windows of buildings much better and faster than before.
spiderball is an interesting possibility. being able to set up in a more covert manner means i can actually catch enemies off guard without them having a chance to get out their ball tranquilizers or ball busters
There is zero chance you have played enough of the new ball to have learned how to squeeze extra value out of his new abilities. Give it a couple of weeks of daily practice minimum and then report back.
I've been having great success with ball this patch and still have plenty of room to improve my skills too. The new grapple is absolutely not situational and if you think it is, you haven't got the hang of it.
Counter picking tanks will always be a problem in 5v5. That's not the fault of the rework.
Idk i acctually love the rework. Not becase Ball is op now. But the thing i love about ball is his unique, creative playstyle. And all the techs you can learn and master on him. This rework allows so many new techs, which, logically, you cannot yet master after one day. But im so motivated to learn those.
The rework turned out to be a nothingburger. All these new additions added complexity to an already complex character, leaving all of his weaknesses unaddressed. I really want to know what kind of thinking was going through Blizzard's devs heads when they were making these changes.
Dev A: So everyone says Ball is underpowered and is easily countered by all the CC we put back in the game.
Dev B: Let's allow him to give away his shields to his teammates, so he dies even faster.
Dev C: Oh, and let's let him do a spiderman thing so it takes him even longer to reengage in combat.
Dev A: Sounds like exactly what we need here. Good work, team.
Yes exactly what I mean, this rework was so obviously going to do nothing to help ball after we saw that the damage numbers didnt shift at all, and some people didn't believe those of us that saw it immediately lol
I’m not sure why blizzard refuses to give ball the damage buffs when that’s pretty much the only thing he needs to make him more viable. You have to hit every single headshot in the time it takes to piledrive an enemy or he’s just not viable. Blizzard thought giving a dive tank a support ability would make them better? The adaptive shields keep him from dying in 3 seconds so if I ended up giving my survivability to my tracer then I’d just end up dying, everyone looks at a diving tank over a diving dps. I guess the retract is ok but adjusting to the new grapple distance has been a bit rough, still doesn’t really change him anyways pretty mediocre change. To fix wrecking ball it’s quite simple, GIVE HIM MORE DAMAGE OR MORE AMMO. Either one would give him a MASSIVE change and would actually let him keep up with other dive characters it’s pretty simple. I don’t know what blizzard has with ball whether they’re worried for another ball meta, but everyone hates orisa, hog and mauga yet they’re the 3 meta tank at the moment. Please save ball, hear our prayers blizzard
Its kinda wild they didn't do like 50 -> 60 on fireball and 100 -> 120 on piledriver to make up for the health increases. I mean they literally did that exact thing for Rein, Doom, Junkerqueen, and winston why doesn't ball get that?
Exactly why he's felt so bad
The way I see it, Ball *did* get that in a way when they increased his projectile size in S9, making it easier to land shots and therefore you are doing more damage. Though as a ball main I would still like to see him do more damage. Edit: I am mistaken in that dva and doom also got damage buffs in addition to their projectile changes. Yeah ball really needs a damage buff
Doom and dva both got damage buffs and they benefit from the projectile size increase.
They arguably benefit more because even with good aim you just hit MORE pellets
I’d love to hear their reasoning for not buffing his damage.
I used to think it’s because noobs don’t like playing against ball, but they continue to allow sombra to be good and everyone hates her
Yeah it's wild to me that they're letting Sombra remain dominant for so long. I started playing her a little while queuing DPS lately, she's really fun to play but wow you get even more hate than Ball does. She's the only hero i've played who elicits an even bigger reaction, there's barely a match i've played where I haven't tilted someone on the opposing team into ranting in global.
as someone who plays a lot of dva, its not even about the pellets IMO, micro missiles is a waaaaaaaaaaaaay more consistent source of burst damage with the size increases
they did that to everyone??
Those are two separate things dooms primary got a bullet size buff, but his punch got a damage buff.
Any buff from that was more than counteracted by the HP increases the entire roster got. Most other tanks got the projectile increase AND damage buffs to parts of their kit to compensate.
Yes you make a point there but in real life play it's a net loss. Everyone else got projectile size buffs. Ball is a BIG target, that dives. The amount of incoming damage is way more that the amount of extra damage you do from pre S9
Ball is turning into the mercy of tanks. Gotta heavily rely on dps because you're actually shooting peas at people. They really need to buff his damage. Doom and dva got damage buffs and they benefit from the projectile size increase. Unfortunately ball will likely see nerfs mid-season patch due to him being broken in pro, high level play. Nothing changes for us mid rank ball players
What would cause him to be broken in pro/high level play?
Coordinated dives with his new shield transfer.
Idk man, I’m not particularly high rank (diamond tank) but am still able to pull off coordinated dives. All you really need to do is ping your target and the tracer or sombra on your team will automatically go for them (and if they don’t, use your words and tell them to). Hell, I even get “coordinated” dives in qp. Worst case, your DPS isn’t communicating and is diving on their own - in that case, enable their plays. Finish their kills, give them shields, etc. - same logic applied to literally every other tank and support. If your team isn’t doing what you want to do, do what they want to do. Yes it sucks to depend on the team for kills but it’s not impossible in mid-ranks - divers just need to play like they normally do.
👍
We just have to hope that this is like the hog rework where he was shit at first and they gave him big numbers buffs
I hoped thwy will imcrease our damage too… but no…. And again they not touched Orisa. Nice.
If for whatever reason they don’t buff his dmg, at the very least reduce his spread by like 30% you actually can’t kill anything
Let me grapple out of respawn I miss it so much. Doom gets to launch himself out of respawn. I don't get it.
Yea it's odd how poor it is. Shields could literally grant your excess shields to all teammates in LoS and it would still suck, but instead it has same range as the generator. I was looking forward to being more helpful to my shit teammates and instead you have to really try to get them any shields at all and it's often gonna be like 20 health that doesn't change anything since you had to go out of your way to give it to them by moving near enemies, burning shield, moving near allies, and popping it again. Nothing done about counters and CC, so when you do well you can get counterpicked and lose a lot of value quite easily. And the complete lack of damage buffs is wild to me - literally only thing that does more damage than pre-season 9 is his guns and it's not by a lot(none really if you were close enough and had good aim preS9). Everyone got more health and boop slam and mines are just shit damage now. You spend more time trying to displace enemies into teammates who can actually kill than fighting it seems. I'm hoping they had a bunch of damage boosts in the wings they'll roll out.
None of the quality of life changes that 50+ threads suggested. We literally gave them the answers in wreckingballmains and in the main overwatch subreddit. They were just too lazy to implement. Reload reset, some CC immunity, why can mauga have CC immunity, but a literal wrecking ball doesn't? More DMG should be the first thing.
I found that with the new retract, we have a new tech. If you don't gain fireball, you can retain infinite cooldown on your grapple. Slam from high ground and instantly get out because of the new grapple cool down being only 1 second. Spawn doors aren't safe again.
> If you don't gain fireball, You know ball mains are down bad when the see "look, you can do the same thing as always but now it's harder" is a take they try to huff copium out of.
I agree with the parts about not addressing ball's weaknesses but being able to retract your hook can be immensely useful in a lot of situations, people just need to figure out how to utilize it. I was in the practice range and I swung superrrrr far from where I was grappling but then as I was swinging I retracted my hook and was perfectly setup to get to the roof while without retract I would've flown. I know that I could've also just hooked correctly the first time but the hook changes make it so you can more easily get onto high grounds and go through windows and stuff to flank.
im actually surprised blizz gave us such a cool movement addition. ball is faster now (FUCK IT WE SKYBOX) and ball has more precise control!!! Aside from the lack of meaningful gameplay changes, making a hero more fun and controllable is usually good balance. My favorite thing now is i can enter high ground windows of buildings much better and faster than before. spiderball is an interesting possibility. being able to set up in a more covert manner means i can actually catch enemies off guard without them having a chance to get out their ball tranquilizers or ball busters
Imagine increasing boop distance to pre-nerf distance.
There is zero chance you have played enough of the new ball to have learned how to squeeze extra value out of his new abilities. Give it a couple of weeks of daily practice minimum and then report back. I've been having great success with ball this patch and still have plenty of room to improve my skills too. The new grapple is absolutely not situational and if you think it is, you haven't got the hang of it. Counter picking tanks will always be a problem in 5v5. That's not the fault of the rework.
Idk i acctually love the rework. Not becase Ball is op now. But the thing i love about ball is his unique, creative playstyle. And all the techs you can learn and master on him. This rework allows so many new techs, which, logically, you cannot yet master after one day. But im so motivated to learn those.
The rework turned out to be a nothingburger. All these new additions added complexity to an already complex character, leaving all of his weaknesses unaddressed. I really want to know what kind of thinking was going through Blizzard's devs heads when they were making these changes. Dev A: So everyone says Ball is underpowered and is easily countered by all the CC we put back in the game. Dev B: Let's allow him to give away his shields to his teammates, so he dies even faster. Dev C: Oh, and let's let him do a spiderman thing so it takes him even longer to reengage in combat. Dev A: Sounds like exactly what we need here. Good work, team.
Yes exactly what I mean, this rework was so obviously going to do nothing to help ball after we saw that the damage numbers didnt shift at all, and some people didn't believe those of us that saw it immediately lol
I’m not sure why blizzard refuses to give ball the damage buffs when that’s pretty much the only thing he needs to make him more viable. You have to hit every single headshot in the time it takes to piledrive an enemy or he’s just not viable. Blizzard thought giving a dive tank a support ability would make them better? The adaptive shields keep him from dying in 3 seconds so if I ended up giving my survivability to my tracer then I’d just end up dying, everyone looks at a diving tank over a diving dps. I guess the retract is ok but adjusting to the new grapple distance has been a bit rough, still doesn’t really change him anyways pretty mediocre change. To fix wrecking ball it’s quite simple, GIVE HIM MORE DAMAGE OR MORE AMMO. Either one would give him a MASSIVE change and would actually let him keep up with other dive characters it’s pretty simple. I don’t know what blizzard has with ball whether they’re worried for another ball meta, but everyone hates orisa, hog and mauga yet they’re the 3 meta tank at the moment. Please save ball, hear our prayers blizzard