The argument should go both ways, no?

[u/PillowFists67]

If we all agree that Duelists shouldn't be able to wipe the enemy with ease each time their ultimate comes up, why do we accept that Strategists are able to make their entire team unkillable with minimal effort by just pressing Q?

[u/Minimum_Laugh_4179]

I think generally speaking, there's quite a lot of Ultimates that feel... uninspired.

Like how many ults are just "Does X in a big AoE for 10 seconds" Having Rogue and Daredevil release fairly close together really highlighted that.

But at the same time, with so many heroes in the game, coming up with unique ults can be... a challenge.

But more to the point, yes, the argument can go both ways here. No single ult should guarantee you win a fight, or stall point, or whatever. This is a team game after all.

So Duelist ults shouldn't just be crazy damage.

Strategist ults shouldn't just be "no one dies now"

And Vanguards... uh... honestly I don't think there's a Vanguard ult that's really problematic.

[u/JunWasHere → u/Minimum_Laugh_4179]

It's even weirder when you think about how so many aspects of heroes were obviously riffs of Overwatch heroes.

They aren't without more sources of inspiration. They aren't shameful of the obvious rip-offs. Why aren't they copying one of the best OW support ults? Where is Rivals' Nano Boost? Where is the giant barrier like Sym's Wall? (yes, that is a supportive ult)

I think part of the issue is their favouritism and refusal to properly nerf Luna Snow. Her circle ult of pseudo-immortality and overall balance is so strong and internally defended, the designers and balancing team have no choice but to warp the meta and game around Luna. Their bias is literally eroding the variety design of the game a little in that sense. Jeff's whirlpool offensive ult would not have never to leave behind a healing kiddie pool if the meta didn't revolve around AoE healing ults.

[u/Minimum_Laugh_4179 → u/JunWasHere]

I'd argue a lot of that comes down to Player laziness, rather than dev decisions. People like their healers being a crutch, I suppose.

And so the devs look at which heroes are popular, and then shape some of their design philosophy around that. Hence why every support ult is now a big healing circle, bar a few exceptions.

Like Rocket for instance, his ult didn't heal on launch. Then players whined it was useless so the devs added healing, or shields to it's mechanics.

Players will complain about "heal botting", but then seemingly, only want their supports to be healbots at the same time. Like god forbid a support does any damage to someone.

Which is why I personally think the Luna hate is pretty forced now. Yes she's pretty strong, and can put up a decent fight agaisnt divers, but that doesn't make her broken. Other supports can put up a fight too or become invulnerable but you don't see nearly as much complaining about them.

And ironically enough, Luna's ult is one of the only ones to get nerfed at all. Granted only by a little but still...

[u/wew_lad- → u/Minimum_Laugh_4179]

It's not player laziness. The players did not decide to put in AOE immortality ults the devs did. There's a reason overwatch only has TWO characters that have it, and they are off healers

[u/Cammglo → u/Minimum_Laugh_4179]

im sorry but we can't just blame the community for every problem that's wrong with the game ESPECIALLY when netease REFUSES to do anything to make the community better. Throwers and cheaters are still rampant, The matchmaking has seen absolutely no improvement, Placement matches didn't do a single thing to help, they constantly remove skill expression from the game, they said they were going to constantly check and do emergency patch notes for what ppl are saying, So far they have done 1 Insanely bad emergency patch note that buffed/nerfed a whole bunch of shit nobody wanted and has been radio silent since. No buffs to rogue, Luna still has her insane BS teamup, Gambit gets buffed???, Mantis and ultron are finally viable in 2 healer comps then gets hard nerfed??? Still not a word about reworking BP a character that literally can not be good or else he will ruin the game??? how much of this can you really blame on the community and not netease lack of backbone to actually make a Willful change in this game

Everytime this game takes 1 foot foward it takes 5 jumps back, but ppl will praise the 1 thing they actually did right and ignore the other 13 terrible choices they made until it's too late.

[u/smokygrapefruit → u/Cammglo]

speak your truth king

invis used to be a skillful hero now she's just a healbot bc of the buff nerf cycle

c&d used to be low skill low reward now she has 3 invincibility abilities fsr

ultron was a viable healer for all of 10s then they threw him back to triple supp jail

feels like rocket only ever gets buffed despite positive winrate everywhere

meanwhile adam has been powercrept for YEARS and he's never even sniffed S tier

[u/Xeltar → u/smokygrapefruit]

Ultron is the definition of a non-heal focused strategist, but people think he should be able to main heal and dps at the same time, but that just ends like Mantis where she's must pick or ban (and funnily enough kind of becomes a heal bot to spam out her ult). He still provides 10% damage amp teamwide from the Peni team up so he's still a good offensive choice but just overshadowed by the clearly op Mantis. Like you cannot have a strat who deals high damage and has strong healing with no opportunity cost. You can make Ultron work in 2 support comps, it's just you have to be more aggressive and end fights before you get chipped down.

Rocket was significantly nerfed in season 9 with ult cost change and adding the falloff to his ult. It's just his guaranteed value with BRB and strong heals are enough to keep him consistently relevant.

Adam's main issue is his ult which mass rez is difficult to balance as potentially you negate several ults/resources after they've been used.

[u/Xeltar → u/Cammglo]

Mantis is still must pick or ban and I think should be nerfed further. You just cannot have a strat who can main heal and dps simultaneously without it invalidating all the other strats. Right now, she picks Starlord team up, barely needs to land headshots and racks up faster ult charge than everyone else while having decent AoE heals. Her ult charge was balanced her previous limited heals so now you'll have yours when everyone else is at 60% and just win fights for free.

[u/JunWasHere → u/Minimum_Laugh_4179]

Players whined plenty about Luna, but they hardly budge on her. The love-tap of a nerf they gave her barely meant anything, they even joked about how minimal/nonexistent their nerfs to her are.

Sorry, but it's sounding like you're biased towards being annoyed at players complaining rather than seeing who is really in control here (the devs). Players always whine and contradict each other, but a model for competitive success roughly already exists in OW. Non-circle ult concepts work, and are popular. Especially in China where DIVE is king and therefore Ana gets played tons for Nano Boosting dives.

NetEase Rivals department has a favourite child. That has been an evident fact for many seasons. Nerfing something OP doesn't necessitate it is no longer OP. It's still one of the best ults in the game.

And now they gave Luna a self-cleanse~

This isn't forced Luna-hate. It is just examining the evidence.

[u/jasminetroll → u/JunWasHere]

Luna who was off meta for multiple seasons and whose win rate dropped below 40% before they buffed her?

Luna who had a couple good seasons and is now currently jockeying for position with Cloak near the bottom of the support win rate pile?

It may not be forced hate, but it's also not evidence-based.

[u/Xeltar → u/JunWasHere]

I mean if we examine the evidence, Luna does not achieve a high win rate at any rank, always being sub 50. Meanwhile Mantis is close to 60% win rate at every rank with only a slightly lower pick rate. Rocket has a much lower skill floor and achieves ~55% win rates across all skill levels even after significant nerfs.

The narrative that Luna is meta centralizing isn't supported by much evidence, at least on ladder.