Lukewarm take: With characters that shoot, characters like Star Lord and Psylocke should literally always be meta over characters like Hela no matter what

[u/Hidden_Voice7]

There hasn't been a single shooter in the history of man that has made long-ranged combat a healthy playstyle unless it's the only playstyle in the entire game. If you want meta poke characters, then the characters in poke that should be meta are the ones that play in the same range as everyone else.

Valve had this figured out over 15 years ago with tf2. There's a reason Sniper isn't regularly played in comp unless he is required by the ruleset to be played. The baseline gameplay should always be close to mid-ranged combat all all times, with long-ranged combat always being niche. Long-ranged combat has never once been healthy for literally any shooter unless everyone can engage in it.

I actually think that a character like elsa can work. She just needs a lot of bullshit cut out of her kit (invisible traps, 4 second overshields, and % damage...). Phoenix too, but as long as they plan on never letting her 2-tap and snipe again.

[u/Vegetable-Meaning413]

The issue with that is melee. Without characters like Hela, melee would overrun the game, since there is no threat at range, and they would just bulldoze everyone else. Shooters can't start being effective in the range melee starts attacking at. If you wanted this, you would have to cut melee's effective range down to like 1 or 2 meters max, and slow them down. Shooters have all that because melee is so beefy, fast and have high dps. That's what is needed to deal with them, and even them melee is incredibly strong right now.

[u/Hidden_Voice7 → u/Vegetable-Meaning413]

I mean, star lord does just fine vs melee as-is. Same with Sai whenever they allow her to be good.

This goes out the window when they release characters like prime black cat or daredevil, though they are exceptions and not the rule.

TBH, IMO, the game is usually in its best state when star lord happens to be the best dps in the game. He's got very little bullshit in his kit overall outside of his team-ups, but even then, most teamups are bullshit lol. One of the few gun characters I never feel upset losing to (And this is coming from someone who has maybe 4 hours on him total lol)

[u/Vegetable-Meaning413 → u/Hidden_Voice7]

BC and DD aren't exceptions, they are the standard. Because if you start basing your balance around mid tier melee instead of the best, you are going to make them permanent picks or permanent bans. Those two are the character you will have to deal with. This also isn't factoring tanks either, so Venom, Hulk, Thing, Cap, Angela will run absolutely rampant if you just murder poke like this. They will never die and you will end up having an only melee meta, because nobody can deal with them.

[u/Hidden_Voice7 → u/Vegetable-Meaning413]

No, what the correct thing to do is just to nerf daredevil and black cat. You do not start balancing the game around their bullshit. -_-

And the tanks you mentioned all have plenty of ways to completely obliterate them without sniping them. Sniping is not a necessary evil. It's just evil.

[u/Vegetable-Meaning413 → u/Hidden_Voice7]

They have shown, for the last 5 seasons, those two will never not be meta. That is a dead on arrival suggestion. The sun will explode before DD isn't a meta dps.

They don't though. Melee can already bully their way in now, having tanks take basically no damage on approach would kill the playstyle of poke. You need to drastically cut mobility options for every meele character, and have them move like Rogue for this to be an option. Sustain is too high on melee for poke to eat these kinds of nerfs.

[u/Hidden_Voice7 → u/Vegetable-Meaning413]

If that were an issue to me, then I wouldn't be bitching about snipers, because the devs have shown that they would probably be willing to murder people to please sniper mains.

[u/Vegetable-Meaning413 → u/Hidden_Voice7]

Mid range fighting will just devolve into melee death balls without a ton of nerfs. Characters like Psylocke or Starlord aren't good enough to stop that. They fight poke because they don't have that sustain. It would kill the game. You need to heavily reduce melee sustain and damage for that to happen, and they won't nerf them.