The term ‘nerf’ is one that is thrown around in every video game forum in one way or another, usually followed by a series of expletive words. With Overwatch mania in full swing and a roster of 21 characters, the balancing for some of them has been put into question. After playing with each character and reading through forum post after forum post of rage-induced rants, it’s clear that some characters aren’t feeling the love.
Now whether it’s justified or not is up for debate, as Overwatch is an exceptionally balanced multiplayer shooter for the most part. That, however, doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement when it comes to this list of heroes, as some do need a bit of fine-tuning. Before we begin, it’s critical to note that we are not calling for certain heroes to be nerfed into the ground so they become unplayable or that an entire character’s purpose is made void. Almost every character in the game has a counter opposite made to eliminate them, even if Blizzard didn’t make this overly apparent during the initial outset of the game.
We will also be taking into consideration the growing competitive scene in Overwatch, as already high-level play has begun to take hold. Yet, the competitive meta will not be the singular basis for our choices, as some characters are running rampant through the normal servers. It’s also important to note that metas can drastically sway and shift, especially with the soon to be released ranked game mode, though these five characters could use a bit of tuning up before that game type drops.
5) McCree
Let’s start off small with everyone’s favorite cowboy McCree. Acting as both a mid-range and close quarters assault class, he is a very well-rounded hero that can dish out some serious damage. While his weapon, Peacekeeper, can be the bane of some players’ existences, we’re going to discuss his Flashbang. This powerful grenade has the ability to stun an enemy for around three seconds, with almost complete disregard for what said enemy is doing. With the exception of a few ultimates, his Flashbang can pretty much stun anyone going through with their finishing move. The problem with this ability is that McCree’s stun/Fan the Hammer combo is a death sentence for almost any character not in the tank class. McCree’s combo becomes even more dangerous since his roll ability instantly reloads his gun, thus allowing him to unload 12 rounds into an opponent before they can really react.
Our suggestion is to remove the stun effect from his ability and instead give it the ability to blind targets for a brief period of time. Now this will of course slightly reduce McCree’s effectiveness in close quarters, but to offset this we’d recommend a cooldown reduction to seven seconds instead of the current nine seconds. McCree should be viable up close, but also should reward players who are able to successfully control the Peacekeeper’s recoil. The blinding ability would still give McCree an advantage, but not simply reduce an opponent to sitting there unable to react.
There’s also complaints to be made against the wind-up time for his ultimate, Deadeye, but this shouldn’t be changed. McCree is very much about patience, accuracy, and timing, which his ultimate ability reflects wonderfully. All we seek to change about him, his the actual status effect his Flashbang grenade causes opponents.
4) Torbjorn
Torbjorn is the quintessential builder for Overwatch, as his turret can dispense some serious damage down range. While it’s not uncommon to see a Torbjorn on defense, multiples of this character are becoming more and more prevalent. He is a very powerful defender class, as the sheer amount of damage both him and his turret combined can do is truly something to be respected. However, what pushes this guy a little over the edge is that his turret can practically come out as soon as the other one is destroyed. Yes, his turret has an eight-second cooldown, but it can be fully set up in under four.
What this leads to is Torbjorn effectively always being able to have his turret up, so as soon as one goes down he can begin rebuilding it. There is no cost to actually upgrading it to tier 2, so if your turret is destroyed in an attempted push you can have it fully operational again before the engagement is probably over. Now, we don’t want to make Torbjorn not viable in Overwatch but there should be a change in the way his cooldown works in regards to placing a turret. Instead of a cooldown activating as soon as you place the turret, it should begin once said turret is destroyed.
Also, there is an argument to be made about how long it should take for his turret to become fully active and opening fire, but something like this would need a lot more testing to get it balanced just right. Torbjorn players should have to be a little more thoughtful for their turret placements, but that is not the case currently since there is really no penalty to it being destroyed at all.
3) Bastion
Oh Bastion, the most loathed robot in all of Overwatch. There is a lot to be said about Bastion across multiple forums and various social media groups, but truthfully he really isn’t that bad. Bastion isn’t a terribly unbalanced character as the counters, and there are many, make him feel much fairer than he has been initially perceived. However, there is one change that could help him feel a bit more even with the rest of the cast and it actually has nothing to do with his damage output at all. No, the problem is that Bastion can heal while in Configuration: Turret.
The problem with Bastion currently is there is very little risk at all for becoming stationary. It doesn’t take long for you to change back into your Recon form, so you can easily move if a Junkrat or Pharah are lobbing projectiles at you from a safe distance. This is only boosted by the fact that Bastion can heal while he is in turret form, removing any real risk involved with topping your health bar up after a fierce engagement. Now, we aren’t asking for the removal of his healing ability, but simply restricting it to Recon mode only. This would force Bastion players to change in order to heal themselves, offering an attacking team a chance to exploit this.
It’s fairly simple for a Bastion to either sit on the payload or just anything vantage point and rain death, which can lead to a pretty clear stalemate, even if you switch to the appropriate counter character. Also, he should totally be forced into Recon mode if hit by Junkrat’s Concussion Mine and it’s sort of baffling that he doesn’t.
2) Mei
Woah, woah, woah! Put that keyboard down, I know what you’re about to say. “But Collin, Mei isn’t in any of the high-level competitive play!” Yes, this is 100% true, yet she has run absolutely crazy the casual side of Overwatch. Now, I understand that Mei got a significant nerf to the damage from her primary weapon, but it really doesn’t feel like it changed a lot of the core frustrations. We won’t be discussing changes to her healing or the ability to form an ice wall, because again, we don’t want to absolutely ruin a character’s viability.
However, her time to freeze is still way too short for it to be anything but annoying. Currently, it takes around 3-4 seconds to completely immobilize a target and far less for them to have their movements slowed. The time to freeze an opponent should increase, as anyone who even has their back to her for a second has zero fighting chance against her. Changing it to a six second freeze time would still allow for some counter play, but not make it impossible for her to put someone on ice.
In order to compensate for this time increase, her damage should be increased against any target that is already frozen. This would encourage Mei players to plan ambushes for enemies rather than just running full force at an opponent and freeze them regardless of what’s happening. Mei is a defensive class and should not be played like an assault hero.
1) Zenyatta
No, Zenyatta doesn’t need a reduction to anything, in fact, he is one of the few characters that would benefit better from a small buff. This will not go for anything regarding his actual abilities, as both of his orbs are incredibly well-designed. The need for line of sight makes Zenyatta not feel completely broken, but it does highlight a glaring issue with his character. Survivability.
See, Zenyatta is a much more aggressive style of support class, since for your effects to be useful they require you to actually see the target. Doing this almost always puts you in the middle of some pretty intense firefights, but Zenyatta is so frail that he rarely lasts long. A fully charged Widowmaker shot can instantly kill him if it hits anywhere on his body and given his slow movement speed, this isn’t very hard. He also has a pretty big hitbox, making him an easy target for abilities such as Roadhog’s hook.
Now, we need to make sure not to go buff crazy, as Zenyatta can easily get out of control fast. He is a very, very powerful support in the right hands. What we would suggest is either an increase to his movement speed or a boost to his health pool, not both at the same time. Either balancing his health pool so it’s around 200 or raising his base speed would give him more of a fighting chance since he lacks any actual mobility talent like Mercy. Zenyatta is an Overwatch character that can easily get out of control, so getting the numbers just right is key. That being said, something does need to change, because as it stands he arguably the easiest support to kill out of the four.
But that is very much what Overwatch needs, little changes to balance out the various characters. No one character needs to be nerfed into the ground, nor is one character completely broken or overpowered. A lot of them have counters and many complaints stem from people not willing to change heroes in order to do this. The five suggestions we have are more to make them feel slightly less overbearing and make them less of a knee-jerk reaction pick for various players.
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