The Great Midseason Debate feat. Spilo, AVRL & UnsaltedSalt

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Timestamps
0:00 Opening Thoughts
10:00 The DPS Passive Change
31:50 Format & Tank Issues + AVRL's Sledgehammer Solution
52:20 How Fast Should Patches Be?
1:14:10 Midseason Patch Changes
3:04:40 Should Supports Heal Less? The MOBA Comparison
3:25:15 Rest of Midseason Patch Changes
3:48:10 Concluding Thoughts

[@GroupUp]

This episode was recorded on 15th March 2024. Podcast links below! If you're enjoying this content, why not let SVB know on his stream (www.twitch.tv/svb_ ) or check out his second channel The Soak (youtube.com/@TheSoak ) where he does movie, TV & anime breakdowns! The best way to support the podcast is still www.patreon.com/svb Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/ow_svb/the-great-midseason-debate Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/6sRWutKTc0gnWuguo62Vpa Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/svbs-group-up/id1490256265

[@Mateo-]

15th March February 2024???😭😭😭

[@phizix5023]

Samito: Give us two tanks back!!!! AVRL: Delete tanks altogether

[@SkippytWalrus]

I mean honestly

[@TSGC16]

@@SkippytWalrus without tanks this game just becomes cod with abilities.

[@vopcracker3193]

I love the tears of idiots that needed a year and a half for what Samito and others have been saying since fucking launch. Maybe we can actually play a sequel and not a glorified pre-alpha. PS: made another comment bc I came with solutions, not bitching.

[@johnsonspark171]

@@TSGC16 that's all it is right now. Tank is just beefy DPS. Anybody who says otherwise is just lying to themselves and coping. 5v5 is dogshit

[@TSGC16]

@@johnsonspark171 Yea i know 5v5 is doodoo

[@GEOPAS1995]

Spilo's face during Salt's doomfist mental breakdown made my day

[@malicious8767]

You can tell Salt has NO clue how or why the character works. And he doesn’t want to either

[@inlandthempire.6932]

Dude is unironically cooked

[@JonezBBQ]

time stamp?

[@joshuataylor5080]

The Hog main complaining that Rein can "kidnap" him and take him across the map is the HEIGHT of hypocrisy. Seriously? The guy who mains the character with HOOK is complaining about Rein charge because it "kidnaps" you? Get out of here.

[@300ml_brasil]

honestly dk why svb invites him. once every 10 opinions he gets smth right

[@Nutstache]

​@300ml_brasil Love salt but he has some wild takes lol

[@bigschiz0383]

@@300ml_brasilyou guys need to get a sense of humour

[@300ml_brasil]

@@bigschiz0383 dont worry we are laughing at you

[@felipemoraes9488]

Hook and his ult work as "kidnap", salt has some stupid takes

[@dwendolnelson61]

Tanks are least played in MMOs because they’re the least forgiving. DPS and Healer/Supports in MMOs can instantly see their value to a fight. Tanks can’t. The party just stays alive but if the tank dies everyone else does. Your reward is literally just completing the objective.

[@xxgravityxx6545]

Damn what a great take.

[@tieguyscollectibles9767]

but that's the story of a hero man that's what it is

[@bambampewpew32]

That's why we need 2 of them!!!! Lmao

[@P3bbIes]

thats why i hate when tank players complain, thats just what being a tank is in literally all role based game if you want dopamine and kills play a different role

[@bambampewpew32]

@@P3bbIes bad take tanks were more enjoyable in ow1, it's possible so complaining is valid

[@CuimeraEmariti]

This group was super fun! Great vibes. Very analytical, but UnsaltedSalt also bringing feeling into it. AVRL throwing some hot takes and Spilo felt like quality control. Really felt like everyone empowered each other. Good hosting SVB, ofcourse.

[@runaway74]

Yeah, unsaltedsalt bringing feeling like a moron into it

[@vopcracker3193]

Any podcast or conversation around this game that isn't around 6v6 at this rate is just padding for content. The game is on life support as long as 5v5 remains the primary format.

[@sutg845]

​@vopcracker3193 you're on copium for even entertaining that idea. It's not happening, get over it.

[@justDreamerrr]

Exactly, agreed with a lot of takes in this episode.

[@vopcracker3193]

@@sutg845 everyone passionate about this game is asking for it; Blizzard's already smelling the money they're burning with how they're changing the game. There is no reason other than 5v5 anymore why Tank should be balanced differently than other roles.

[@rudyramirez125]

Love seeing Spilo on! 🙏🙏🙏

[@zc8673]

Always

[@endless_del]

hes the goat

[@toons4934]

Definitely we’ll spoken. When he talks I listen the most.

[@bobothebob4716]

Is he doing alright? He looks strung out.

[@jeffstone7471]

spilo is who brings me to the podcast

[@jm0112]

Rein shouldn't have a movement speed penalty from shielding. Spilo biting his tongue while salt is throwing a tantrum about the worst tank in the game.

[@josephreynolds2401]

It should be minimal, at most. Dedicating all your potential actions AND so much movement to hold shield isn't great for the player. Shatter isn't what it used to be and if it never becomes as impactful as it used to be then Rein needs his midfight buffed. Changes need to be made to and around his barrier, almost exclusively.

[@akai_shuichi_x]

I agree. It's crazy that Rein has to choose between shielding and damaging unlike other tanks, but he isn't compensated for that by getting to his ideal position quicker or being more effective in his ideal range.

[@Doomthepixarkid]

This is a great fix that I think wouldn’t do everything but would do a lot

[@jm0112]

@@Doomthepixarkid Personally I think it would help make rein feel better specifically when he doesn't have a lucio.

[@fettbub92]

Hog mains, amr

[@GgSanity]

Salt is cooked bruh. The hog main complains abt rein “kidnapping people” bro was having a yap fest LOL

[@majorcasualties9306]

yeah if rein taking you away is the main issue that just sounds like a skill issue/positional check. Almost all the tanks can ignore/stop it easy not including the supports who can help also lol. the complaints of a hog player hahaha

[@malicious8767]

Bro’s just mad he can’t afk shoot Rein point blank without eventually getting charged smh

[@prestigini3150]

Bro a 4 hour podcast so perfect for work

[@feedstacker]

Spilo W

[@AnimeOtaku56.]

To justify the quick patch side I think 2-5 changes every 2 weeks is actually better for balance than changing half the roster every month. A wide set of changes makes it hard to spot outliers. If we did a few changes every couple of weeks we can deal with outliers faster and introduce less of them over time.

[@mcqueen8737]

I completely disagree that they should aim to change the game every so often instead of just when needed though. I also think theres some value to just letting a patch marinate and letting players and especially pros come up with different ways to play characters and the game. The constant massive changes feels like it appeals to much to streamers and casuals who bounce between 5-6 'popular' games depending on whichever one got updated last.

[@x100bullets]

Main buff reaper needs is give that poor guy some quieter shoes, he’s the only flanker that is allowed zero surprise

[@jeffstone7471]

this

[@czekskii]

tanking requires you to take on a ton of extra responsibilities that other players have tools to solve, not the tank.

[@hy3na739]

Yeah... You can never win as tank... Even if the solution is clearly a specific supp or dps pick you still get told to switch and flamed... Maybe if we all stop playing tank queue times will get so high dps and sup will complain and Blizzard might finally do something...

[@sinistertoady6712]

i feel this. everytime I'm struggling for elims on tank, press h in spawn and I'm like damn wish i could play widow right now. At the very least this is because i'm not proficient with the tanks that have the best kill potential like hog and zarya. I generally prefer winston and rein.

[@ZzsiegzZ]

This is true because anytime my tank is getting dominated it’s usually discord or nade so I go kiri and it solves everything

[@czekskii]

@@ZzsiegzZ even DPS help the tank so much. DPS that are flanking, or taking good off angles relieve so much pressure on their tank.

[@porcupinezebra648]

mauga was never trash, the fact they buffed him was crazy

[@Oguh608]

Yup, he was playable before. The 100 instant hp buff is such a weird random buff to him.. They are always so scared to overbuff characters but then suddenly they are not...

[@janvandenhooren9397]

@@Oguh608the buffed him to sell the new skin. It’s a business without competitive integrity. We don’t have to wonder why they did it. When. I was playing hog into Ana kiri in season 2 and my zen joined voice to say sorry bro I don’t have kiri unlocked on this account the game lost its competitive aspect to me. It’s just a circus at this point.

[@forthe3136]

@@janvandenhooren9397I swear I think they buffed Moira at the start of the season because she was the mythic for the battlepass

[@Nobrabra16]

​@forthe3136 Yea they made her succ lock on easier. Maybe something else, i forgor :3

[@umbralowl]

@@Nobrabra16 range, damage and range

[@yesman2473]

Spilo nailed it thats literally the perfect change, just make tank passive resist debuffs, for example less damage on discord, less time on nade and sleep etc…

[@vopcracker3193]

The thing that sucks is that even this wouldn't solve anything in 5v5, it would just make every Tank feel overpowered and make Sigma/Orisa/Mauga even more annoying to play against. 5v5 single handedly brings this game down. Let me be clear: _Everything in this game, including role passives and AVRL's Sledgehammer option (if it were implemented) would make more sense and have more impact within Overwatch in a 6v6 format. Hands down._ Anything else is just prolonging the death of Overwatch 2.

[@akai_shuichi_x]

Reducing cc and not just knock back would be a lot more engaging as tank. When the opponent doesn't have any boops, it can feel like that part of the passive does nothing. I think the idea of this change is good, but it would also have to come with significant balance changes. Sig/Orisa/Mauga feel bad to play against since they either: 1. Have consistent sustain that makes them very hard to kill. 2. Are a stat-check; so in a 1v1 they'll mow/cc you down or get in your face and you can't do anything about it. Changing tanks like this so they aren't as oppressive, or have more windows of vulnerability could be good. The cc passive change would allow them to nerf such high sustain without tanks immediately dying to cc. It'd also make tanks that don't have cc mitigation like a shield feel better. Now would the dev team be able/willing to make such drastic changes? I don't know.

[@yesman2473]

@@vopcracker3193 yeah but then they should be looking to nerf some of those tank sustain which is the mayor problem

[@vopcracker3193]

@@yesman2473 exactly my point; You simply can't do that in a format where you're forced to balance one role differently than the others for no real reason other than que times.

[@yesman2473]

@@vopcracker3193 yeah and I prefer 6v6 I don’t think the problem with the queue times was that nobody wanted to play tanks, we just didn’t want to play the boring double shield bunker and if you would do that you loose, so it would make it miserable to play tank, they just needed to balance, remove lamp nerf shields etc….

[@ObeseWizard]

This was the best episode of the podcast yet. Please get these guys back again, I love the dynamic between them and their ideas. Good job SVB

[@ObeseWizard]

Just to double down on my appreciation, I've always thought Rein was one of my favorite tanks in the game, both to play and to play against. But now I'm kinda second guessing myself from your points, he really is one dimensional. I'd love to see him be reworked for 5v5 better. I like the faster movement speed with shield deployed, that is a good idea. I also think a new ability for him could be super neat, i'm not sure what that would be though. I guess my first thought is maybe a hammer blast jump like the one in "Dauntless" ? Obviously less distance, it should only be like a couple meters, but just something to close a gap without needing to waste pin and make yourself super vulnerable. I've also thought before that Mauga and Rein's charges should be swapped, Rein should have the unstoppable one and Mauga should have the stoppable one. Maybe remove the ability to pin then, just increase the boop from getting hit by it.

[@Amy_399]

there's no way Salt just said Rein is for people with nerve damage

[@Michael-pn4xu]

even a broken clock is right twice a day

[@jacobsotorios8886]

you dont need to aim, you just hold shield

[@Amy_399]

@@jacobsotorios8886 you dont play rein correctly.

[@areallybigman8687]

​@@jacobsotorios8886 Bro is bronze

[@evanquintana4778]

When I got Overwatch, I played on a laptop touchpad with literally 5 frames per second. Mercy and Reinhardt were the only heroes I could play to any degree, and I ended up climbing from silver to Plat, eventually Diamond with a new PC. Rein may not ONLY be for people with nerve damage, but he has always been nerve damage inclusive.

[@plimbopilled]

nightmare blunt rotation ngl

[@konrah1486]

Spilo?!

[@areallybigman8687]

nah Spilo is chill

[@Primacon]

One of the most entertaining episodes ever. I was listening to it while doing chores around the house. How was this 4 hours????? Felt like an hour!

[@tehMothMan]

Every hero in Overwatch: Spilo: Ya just not a great design...

[@GetQuakedOn]

low skill floor play styles / heroes and low skill ceiling playstyle / heroes should not be viable in higher ranks. the higher you climb on overwatch the more skill output should be required. i always wished i never climbed into gm & top 500 because everyone just plays to win which means they are playing meta and usually that means playing the easy heroes instead of the hard ones. if you want to play a low skill floor / ceiling hero in the higher ranks you need to be absolutely insane with that hero. doing things that 99% of the playerbase is not doing. thats just not the case for overwatch sadly

[@mcqueen8737]

Exactly. Hero's like mauga and moira should function like how weapons like the p90 and xm do in cs; things that let you stomp around in lower ranks but get quickly punished as soon as you enter the higher echelons of ranked.

[@codysearchfield8258]

SVB, please do a “Great Mindset Debate”

[@driftingbout297]

I love seeing awkward vs spilo

[@Amy_399]

@@driftingbout297 real, we NEED that debate

[@staroxi]

I love these long form podcasts, keep them coming boys, you’re making great thought provoking content.

[@konradnemeth9789]

Having Unsalted and Spilo on is like having a monkey debate Albert Einstein. (jokes aside, I think Unsalted has some bad takes)

[@Bacchus325]

Some absolutely unhinged takes in this one my fuckin god.

[@thedofflin]

I love when I agree with AVRL and UnsaltedSalt because it means we truly understand the problems with the game, since those two seem to think so differently about the game compared to most guests on the podcast. Unsalted really nailed it that if a team just wants to win they simply need to counter the enemy tank. It's sad to think about, but it's really that simple. The issues are if no one counters the tank, they usually dominate the lobby, 1 or sometime 2 counters seems to be balanced, but if there are 3 or more counters then it's just gg. I don't know what the devs can do about that except a pick-and-ban phase, which definitely won't happen in this game.

[@LUCKIPUP]

they honestly need to just remove the ult swap completely and make it so you get like a 10-15% debuff on building ult charge, so your counter when you do swap, it better work without just being a annoying ult battery like someone swapping zen or kiri just to sit in the back and farm ult, theres been numerous times where my swap immediately has the value we need to stay in the teamfight and not die, and the only thing i have to worry about after swapping is building my ult as quick as possible to keep help making a difference, if people could swap but not become scared little ult batteries waiting to combo ult the other tank, things would be a lot different. Theyd have to actually not be scared and try to make a play on the swap without relying on the fact that they can hide and play corners just to build whatever counter ult

[@thedofflin]

​@@LUCKIPUPinteresting. Your first swap could be free but anything after that is a straight -80% penalty and can even go negative, e.g. your next ult might take 180% charge at worst, if you were at 50% your next ult would take 130% to charge. This would really discourage swapping, and would also encourage being the last person to swap, because if they want to keep going with the counterswapping nonsense they will take the massive penalty

[@thedofflin]

I honestly hope they try a quick play hacked with no hero swapping allowed. Can still swap between rounds.

[@LUCKIPUP]

@@thedofflin that might be hard

[@LUCKIPUP]

@@thedofflin but yeah you built on my idea and made it even better tbh. ive seen people constantly swap and even swap back to something they were previously playing and eventually their team comp absolutely shits on me when i play tank. what you suggested is pretty dope because that would make it so those people wouldn’t even have a chance to build ult. ive been in matches where ive made multiple people on the enemy team at least swap 3+ times, that would make their ult debuff craz snd theyd end up building ult at like a 50% rate because they swapped and died without even building/using ult like 3+ times at least

[@endless_del]

ITS BEEN SO LONG I MISSED YOU GROUP UP PODCAST

[@hubertwinston7601]

hog main complaining about pin lmao

[@gnomad3143]

SPILOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@jamisonparker7504]

People always seem to forget. Daddy Jeff said when he announced 5v5 that he was going to remove the tank role and replace it with a role call "Brawler" I always felt like this was a key part of what made 5v5 work in his mind. We all know the story... Jeff left and he took his "Brawler" concept with him. And he must have really took it, because no one has ever talked about it since.

[@Jager_2365]

Give Hanzo an arrow wheel. That u can select different types of arrows like; explosive, scartter, heat-seek, sonic arrow, ice arrow..... Obviously balance them out, and the wheel is on a cooldown. The you can lower the normal arrow to like 80dm or so....

[@Slinkywheel]

Spilo does not miss

[@waynetec13]

"It's only 2 seconds" It only takes one bullet to reset the passive. The tank is usually the largest target on the screen. It's not hard to hit a tank, even if you spray and pray. As an aside, hot take, we could have avoided a lot of this debate if they hadn't shut down OW1. I miss OW1. A lot. I played OW1 almost every single day for years. I've played less OW2 total than I played in season 1 of Overwatch 1.

[@spacecowboy7193]

I always have 1,000 thoughts I wish I could express when I watch these, but I just want to say Moira fade on a 6 second cooldown is insane. Every Moira main would drop a tier and a half if they had to play any other support.

[@spacecowboy7193]

It’s horrible that Moira is more viable than Ana above gold, much less in GM and OWCS.

[@JANjeweetzali]

Moira is OP because this is her mythic skin season. They will nerf her next season. Keeping the servers up costs money you know

[@blueoystercult124]

​@spacecowboy7193 Well spoken, king

[@Bacchus325]

Saying Hanzo is broken now with a Mercy pocket because he can one shot is crazy because you know they'd be calling us scrubs for calling Hanzo broken before S9 when he could one shot literally all the time.

[@NSeaBear]

I think the automatic value supports can have is crippling in lower ranks. Mercy beam, Lucio AOE, weaver lock on, brig pack and aoe, illari pillar, zen orb. Most damage players require at least some input to have value. Yes, there are torb and sym turret. But most require a shot to hit or an ability to hit.

[@drewlocke9099]

This is so true. Low ranks get shit on but the truth is, we aren't as good and need that extra help

[@Sizzyl]

That take on spy around 2:50 was insane, watching a good spy go to work is sick.

[@Iron-Blurr]

I do like the reversal, consolation, uphill battle etc. But they should show how much extra was gained or lost. Lets say your match win was gonna give a flat +10 units of rank/ SR, it should say +3 for uphill battle so people really see how much extra they got. Basically it should look like this: Win: +20 Uphill battle: +5 Win streak: +2 Total: 27

[@umbralowl]

Also when you win a match that you where expected to win it shouldn't be red so players don't think it's bad it should be yellow instead imo, not bad but not good either

[@scarecr0w630]

Alot of players will see the words consolation, uphill battle etc and not even know what those mean. I don't know half of them and I play in masters lobbies all thr time.

[@elhubro2386]

salt cries that doom can negate tracer bomb after stick, but hog can do this with breather too. doom has no weakness must be a big joke, every game 5 counters

[@AngrySecs]

Unsalted is EXTREMELY bias I just generally ignore him. He says rein should be deleted from the game

[@jonashansen8907]

@@AngrySecs Agree, Salt is not very well spoken and doesn't even know what he wants, he just talk a lot of BS. How he is relevant in the OW community is a mystery to me, he has the mentallity of a metal rank player. He adds no value to these podcasts.

[@AngrySecs]

@jonashansen8907 my favorite comment from his last podcast was something along the lines of "Salt proves you can be incredibly good at overwatch while knowing nothing about it" and I feel that fits.

[@D1G1TS420]

​@@jonashansen8907while I kind of agree about him not being the best at communicating there is some merit to the metal rank perspective as the vast majority of players are in those ranks. I'm not sure it will ever be possible to cater to both high and low level play

[@steel2572]

@@D1G1TS420 Hes top 500 though

[@jezetor]

A great group for another great episode. Thank you!

[@Zyborgg]

If they made a glasscanon mauga he'd need some mobility and sustain in otherways. I've always thought, what if he could shoot while doing his overrun. So you could essentially do a mauga drive-by and get kills. Just running past enemies and shooting at them. That would be so fun.

[@scarecr0w630]

SVB mentioned doom being the tank that cycles cooldowns, but I'd argue orisa and ram as well. I love ram this season with the 7 second cooldown. Shield and Vortex, shoot behind the shield, Shield drops wait half a second, nemesis form, nemesis drops and Shield is available. Orisa is similar but I think she's boring to play lol.

[@runaway74]

I feel like Sigma also fits the bill

[@darkphoenixempire6520]

what is salt 'smoking'. rein pin on ram is not that good. rams hitbox is so bad that you maybe pin him 1 out of 4 times

[@toons4934]

Is this why I struggle pinning ram !?!??? Every time I’m like why the fuck didn’t I get him

[@polar6066]

2:58:39 regarding to what spilo said about tp, im pretty sure they buffed it that way because it takes much longer to kill targets now that she cant two shot, so tp stays around longer. maybe they just want to test how she plays with bad orbs and bad hp but higher stats on everything else

[@LicensedContractor]

Spilo with the BO3 dead opps Cosmic Silverback. Respect.

[@LeadLeft]

I like Avril's idea about bringing the tanks more in-line with the rest of the cast. As for Burst damage / burst healing goes, I'd like to see them experiment with more damage over time / healing over time effects to mitigate how "bursty" things feel.

[@fareedjaved5986]

Really enjoyed the thoughts on healing & supports. Would enjoy seeing SVB & AVRL talking more about potential changes inspired by Dota 2.

[@fabianlindstrom9519]

You remove mercy from the game and make torb throw you 5 seconds damage boost packs and 5 second mercy beem healing packs, but on 7 + seconds cooldown so you really have to be smart with it and wait for you flankers to engage or your sojourn to ult etc, while you are protecting the back line with short range damage and not a spam that kills faster than hanzo

[@WhereIsYourID]

My question is, why is winrate the defacto indication that a hero needs adjustment. I get why its considered, and I could be off base on this but it seems like Devs just look at a winrate being too low for a hero and say oh the hero needs to be buffed! or vice versa. Maybe just adjust for balance and prioritize skill expression instead of trying to aimlessly cycle thru metas for shits & giggles?

[@departure696]

3:48:00 I have had so many games lost because of the overtime music getting my teammates stressed so that fight to touch point and die just to realize that we still have 10 seconds but now no one can touch for overtime

[@k00laidman0025]

This made me imagine a world where hero lock was a thing and team builds are more about covering team weaknesses, over maxing out a specific playstyle/comp live dive or poke

[@shioramenrabbit]

Gosh this was such a good and dynamic discussion. Really loved the talk around tanks, and it hit home to me, yet again, that going back to 6v6 isn't ever going to answer the problem. I played Guild Wars, and other MMORPG's. Teams were *constantly* posting, and waiting for, tanks to go on a raid. Guilds scheduled raids around when their tank players were available. I like tank. My favourite role is support (and I do mean support, I don't like doing a lot of healing, I like characters like Zen, with debuffs and things they bring to the field) but my 2nd favourite is Tank. Because I don't particularly enjoy the mechanical side of playing, I like the timings and decision making, resource usage and juking/surviving, and I don't even mind having periods of time where I'm just a damage soak waiting for my opening. But I'm in the minority. Playing tank, and for that matter playing support, is all about being good under pressure. Intense pressure that lasts for long periods of time. And just because the OW player base as a whole tends to disregard any skill that isn't linked to a single number on a single line on a spreadsheet, doesn't mean that there isn't a difference between being brilliant at it and mediocre, or garbage. But, at the end of the day, even if I think they're wrong and kind of whingey, the majority must at some point rule. Fighting to make people play right (which includes staying abreast of balance changes and educated) is way harder, than just figuring out a way for them not to be able to play the role wrong.

[@toxic_icecream]

2:57:14 AVRL said he is okay with 2 shots if they are hard to hit, thats a problem with current sym, you can miss an entire non tank hitbox to hit someone. So if they would decide to change it back to 2 shot, hitbox decrease is a must

[@ccandour]

Hey SVB, can we get links to the guests' youtube channels in the description?

[@johnperez1723]

I've mained and have been a consistent high elo grandmaster hanzo player all the way back since the early seasons of overwatch one. I have a lot to say about him and not much space unfortunately. 😅 Addressing what they discussed in the podcast of his restrictive bow fire and that Spilo mentions increasing his rate of fire to adjust for the lost one shot. To put it bluntly there already exists a high rate of fire projectile dps in Soujorn. Hanzo has a slower more methodical play style that's incredibly satisfying when performed well that's never been replicated to the same extent for a player like myself. He's a brawl hero with fair sniper capabilities which while not touching widomaker is still lethal. The loss of his one shot has from my point of view destroyed a core aspect of the character that while understandably frustrating when it's a log through choke finding a mark is also a high form of skill expression unique to him as no other projectile dps to the same degree blends a mixture of tracking and prediction with each shot. I won't deny for a moment my bias to simply revert the changes and return to the prior state of Hanzo but if we're moving forward in a world where he simply can't one shot without outside assistance I hope we can agree to respect the core of the hero and not simply say fuck that guy and keep him in the trash. If I were to offer my own imput on how to change him I'd suggest making him an odd mixture of utility burst akin to his sonic arrow. Adding effects to all his arrows rather than simply being high damage in quick succession like storm arrow. Ultimately I just want him to feel like a fun independent character who's healthier for the game as a whole that can pop off every once in a while. I appreciate those who read this and if anyone replies I'll be happy to discuss.

[@OO-il6sl]

I hit every shot on Hanzo, 30-40% headshot acc nd lose games in plat..

[@amgkv2.025]

1., I think that this has been the best group on the podcast in a very long time. The discussions were so civil, everyone was listening and respecting each other, and no one was talking for too long. 2., I think that increasing tank hp while giving them a slight resistance to the dps passive reduction and time would make them have a similar interaction that they currently have where they will die, but it will just be longer that they stay in. The goal of the season 9 patch was to make sure that things can die. Not right away, but over consistent fire things die. That should remain the case for tanks because the dps passive makes that a thing, but just giving them more health so that they exist in the fights for a bit longer.

[@marmar162162]

I feel like if they just adjusted sombra where she periodically reveals her in-stealth character model every 3-4 seconds or so while invis it would be balanced and would address the issues regarding her perma stealth. Kinda like sadako in dbd when she’s phasing. Or even add some footsteps or a voice line like mischief and magic every few seconds. Idk I just feel like that would add counter play to her stealth that’s fairly simple to implement.

[@tieguyscollectibles9767]

yessss been waitin for this

[@richieg1306]

4 hour Group up podcast and a 1 hour 20 min Kanye interview damn im eating good tonight

[@trueflood323]

Thanks for that Kanye plug. Gonna check it out

[@zendakk]

​@@trueflood323Is he marketing his own line of designer tin foil hats yet?

[@lukasg4807]

Where's the interview at?

[@flyingfajitas]

I was thinking about the same premise AVRL brought up. Having all negative effects be reduced on tanks would make the entire tank experience better.

[@Bluemansonic]

3:50:50 no NO NOOOOO, KEEP THE -15%!!!!! In Silver-Plat it was impossible to get anything done as Tank or Support cuz nobody uses cover, ESPECIALLY ON CONSOLE LOW RANKS

[@lilpharma]

Oh hell yea great lineup!

[@Hous3ofpros]

so interesting to hear the takes on everything as always, but even more-so the quick takes on the ranked system at the end. I personally find it really nice to have the information on why I’m getting more or less sr for a win or loss. The thing that frustrates me tho is the ‘volatile’ system. It will often cause me to lose 30+ sr each time, which honestly just feels bad considering the tiers are just an arbitrary divide of the ranks. They don’t actually matter, they’re more of an incentive than anything. Like in League there’s promo games, this is not that system, so it makes no sense to me why it costs me more sr for losing, just cuz. The demotion protection is at least a nice QoL implementation to help against just going up and down, and up and down, because of an (attempted forced) 50% win-rate.

[@Hous3ofpros]

for reference I’m a high plat/diamond tank player

[@jonahp1127]

The overwatch community loves change…”but not like that, they should’ve done this”

[@DriplessShrimp]

I mean we asked for change but then they just do random stuff no one asked for. They should have reworked discord and blue beam years ago. Then they could have balanced damage and healing numbers without breakpoint degen garbage.

[@4589dude]

If we're at the point where we have to consider homogenizing the tank role then that by itself says a lot about how fundamentally bad 5v5 is for this game

[@konrah1486]

“If we” That was literally just AVRL, nobody else

[@davidnewhart2533]

@@konrah1486 Wrong. 5v5 encourages homogenization of tanks. There's no debating against it. Sigma was the only tank that actually took the transition from 6v6 to 5v5 well. That's mainly because Sigma is what you would call a generalist.

[@konrah1486]

@@davidnewhart2533 Not wrong at all, none of anything you just said changed the fact that AVRL was the only one who said that

[@Nick-ki9hh]

Salt’s Rein take is so bad that it makes me question every take from here on out by him.

[@ChimpRevolution]

Please get quaked and salt on at the same time id love to see the chaos unfold 😂

[@D1G1TS420]

Just a thought on Mauga, what if one of his guns was only effective at long range and the other is only effective at short. Drop the crit healing and lower the cooldown and effectiveness of cardiac or give him some other ability that mitigates damage.

[@sawtuthe9670]

I think would be cool if tanks were treated more like supports without heals OR dps with a little higher health. So you can have tanks play more of a Paladin type role where their tanking is still enabling other teammates like the supports, or by demanding space. Almost like rein and zarya being the yin and yang to it if Zarya was better at bubbling teammates than herself.

[@TechnoTrex1089]

Whenever Salt speaks 😂

[@natedavis2944]

Spilo the rein defender. My goat 🐐

[@CoconutYoyo]

For Mauga I wonder if they can play around with ideas of more micro management of each gun by trying to adjust the fire rate of each gun (one as is and maybe the fire rounds are slower fire rate), or perhaps the amo is split in two cartridges and you either have to switch from one to the other, or risk a reload downtime, and then change damage amount of 2nd gun to be low when target is not on fire and higher when on fire... just some random ideas to test. The guns should do significantly different damage amounts based on if its crit'ing or not so that player is forced to figure out the balance between optimizing damage and reloads. I dont know if that would actually work in practise. I would also like to see what a block ability would look like where he puts both weapons out in front of him to mitigate some damage and then can convert the damage taken to extra damage dealt but then lower the overall damage amount he does to compensate and balance it out. Also they could introduce an overheating mechanic to his guns where if you hold down an entire clip it actually overheats and means the reload is delayed as a result or the damage dealt is slowly decreasing the longer the gun fire is held down. Just some random thoughts

[@TrueNyxis]

Ideas for doom: - keep his slam and punch the same, minus the charge aspect. -replace the block with a shield ability that creates either a forward facing shield or a 360 degree bubble shield for 2-3 seconds that deflects damage like genjis deflect. Ideas for Mauga: -change his cardiac overdrive to an abily that changes his vision and weapons to "mental overdrive" where for 1-2 seconds his hud and weapons autolock on incoming projectiles and he can shoot them down.

[@Dezatron-]

If we want a rework torb, then make him either all passive or more aggressive. Passive as in make him about building with turrets and maybe destroyable barriers. While taking away his shotgun or just nerfing it. The aggressive path way is nerfing his overdrive by taking away the faster fire rate and keeping everything else because he's very good if people know how to play right.

[@OO-il6sl]

Huh ur other option is.just a huge nerf

[@Dezatron-]

@OO-il6sl yeah, I don't think they will attempt that after seeing venture. But I stand by my nerf for the rate of fire during overdrive.

[@AbzuLifeweaver]

In order to make healing work more like you're saying i would say All healing would have to be based on cooldowns. Similarly to mobas like Soraka healing is an abilitiy not a constant thing.

[@mardy3732]

Tank could have a passive that provides a certain percentage of resistance to stat changes. So things like discord and dps passive would only have 70% effect for example.

[@TruGmER17]

My idea for a Rein re work is to lean into his MMO Paladin fantasy. Maybe when he holds shield he gives his team a damage reduction aura or he could provide a short term buff to one of his team mates. Lean into the Brig support/tank idea and make Rein a tank/support

[@josewolf9884]

I like the analogy of "Tanks are playing dark souls" but I'd also add "Dps are playing Rhythm Heaven" and "Supports are playing animal crossing"

[@galev3955]

Say you never played support, without saying you never played support.

[@vordoen]

Team based shooter tank characters are pretty chunky in comparison to normal. because of the utility. the thing is all tanks don't have the utility that supports do, so it has to be to where they have HP.

[@hy3na739]

They could make it so tanks get a damage reduction so long as their entire team is alive and not in spawn... Making it so you have to first kill a squishy on the other team before focusing the tank, except if they are super far out of position of course...

[@aetherjuice]

I wonder if Harbleu is ever going to be in one of these.

[@retrorevival1]

gimme harb over salt anyday, salt is missing way too many braincells.

[@Drew-fn6rq]

He is Fasting so not mentally there

[@retrorevival1]

@@Drew-fn6rq he's not fasting the entire rest of the year where he's still just a vacant airbrain. my family are fasting for ramadan too right now and we don't suddenly lose our critical thinking capacity lmao.

[@jonashansen8907]

@@Drew-fn6rq Salt literally eating in the beginning of the video... He is just born stupid.

[@ad_victoriam69]

DPS passive needs to be 15% on single shot heroes and 10% of machine gun heroes. Also needs a damage activation threshold or a cool down on when it can be applied again

[@ytk3797]

I’d love to see Super invited to this podcast he always seems to be left out of the ow community for some reason even tho his one of the nicest and popular creators

[@runaway74]

Agree omg, thought I was the only one who noticed

[@TSGC16]

He's not really left out he just chooses to focus on streaming and not on the OW community itself

[@Real_MisterSir]

6v6 Tanks have less hp (350min 450max) Every other role gets scaled back to 200-ish hp Tanks are primary cc and mitigation role through abilities, rather than damage sponge role through health pool. Health pool used to sustain crit damage and high-burst abilities - rather than being a bunker for sustain and outliving endless damage with support behind. Support are primary utility role (aka amplification role) Damage are enabling role that utilizes tank space and amplifiers to get value from openings, and prevent enemies from creating openings themselves Remove all immortality and heavy sustain abilities Lower both damage and healing Role passives are gone, individual hero passives introduced where needed Cooldown normalization around 6-8 seconds on average (certain outliers may exist below 6 seconds. None should exist above 10 seconds). Ability debufs should never be as strong- or stronger than ultimate debufs

[@jarmaljean-charles2850]

they’re never adding 6v6, that would delete the purpose of making ow2

[@Real_MisterSir]

@@jarmaljean-charles2850 nothing rules out anything. More controversial stuff has been done before

[@jarmaljean-charles2850]

@@Real_MisterSir yes but this would be outright stupid , the selling point of ow2 was that 6v6 was no longer a thing . adding it back into the game would make the notion of making a second game redundant . i get your sentiment and i get what you mean, but it just lacks the logical sense behind it to ever be put into play . the ow community is the MOST resistant and critical of change anyways and you can’t satisfy everyone, you’d end up getting a group of people saying to bring back 5v5 and the cycle continues . not to mention that even if they were to bring it back as a second mode, there’d still be discourse and even more disparity in the player base as 6v6 players would more than likely become toxic towards the 5v5 players or vice versa . in an already toxic environment, bringing in 6v6 to a player base whom is already basically never satisfied is not ideal . they NEED to adjust the tank role, that’s literally it . tank has very clearly fallen to the wayside in favor of larger patches and changes for dps/support who don’t need anymore buffs, especially when the tanks don’t become anymore durable or tankier or let alone get any meaningful changewhile everyone else has their abilities and numbers buffed . the tanks still become the target for all the NOT GOOD things to hit them while not having their health and ability to play the game adjusted in turn .

[@gabrielfrench9813]

Tanks only have 30% reduction to knockback as their passive, they should receive like 50% reduction on all negative effects duration and/or effectiveness or something as well or something else to make their passive feel more meaningful than only knockback reduction. Or give tanks a passive that works with the team somehow like the dps one sorta does.

[@rowdylavender4278]

I've only watched a few of these podcasts and I love them but one thing I will say. If have have done this already amazing I'll find the videos but you should do one for people who are at mid ranks to see how the game feels there too like have all levels of players here to get all opinions on all levels of play.

[@patelkin1699]

wow can we go 3 min without an ad break?

[@WilliamAcosta-fs8ct]

I’m fine with 5v5, but I’d like an exception to allow 6v6 just for King’s Row…but the tanks are only allowed to be Rein & Zarya. I do miss playing that duo on that map.

[@jonahp1127]

On AVRL’s point, what if tanks in this game were more like Gibraltar or Newcastle from Apex Legends? Apex does the “tank” role far better than overwatch. Only slightly more damage resistance and similar hitbox sizes as the rest of the cast. And they still have strong damage mitigation abilities that don’t feel oppressive. It would be interesting, but every tank would have to be reworked beyond all recognition.

[@GetOffGenji]

Really agree with their takes on Brig. Samito hates on her, but it really is unjustified in her current state. She has no Immo abilities, no crazy ranged hitscan damage, and no get out of jail free cards. Yes she is strong in the right hands but not oppressive. She takes A LOT of game knowledge as well - easily one of the highest of any heroes in the game. Bad players simply cannot get value out of this hero which is a very good thing. Also, her bust damage combo requires her to use all of her abilities INCLUDING her escape ability! Very great trade offs in her kit that players get to choose between depending on the situation. As for the buffs, I’m not totally sold. I don’t think she needed anything to be honest. This repair pack buff is HUGE. If they really wanted to buff her, the best thing to do would have been reduce shield bash CD by 1 second. It would let her be even more mobile and flexible. Buffing repair packs allows her to sustain her team without inspire being active. Usually it’s a general rule among brig players that if you miss 2 whipshots, you lose the fight for your team. This repair pack buff seems like it will make it so that you can now miss 2 whipshots and be fine. At least the dps passive will probably keep it in line. Overall, brig is an awesome hero. Fantastic design in my opinion.

[@Tk421WTF]

One of the big issues I see for Tank is that until you're very experienced, it's really hard to understand what you should actually be doing. The game doesn't teach you what tanking means and it's hard to intuit when your character's strengths and weaknesses actually apply. Way too many frontlining DVa/Winton players out there thinking their defensive ability is meant to hold up to that, or Rein/Mauga/Doom players just suicide charging into the backline cause hey, the game gives them a button to do that. And when the rest of the team is stuck with a tank like that it's such a huge impact compared to any other player on the team. Once you know what you're doing it's a unique and challenging and rewarding thing to do but climbing that skill floor is like trying to fall up a ladder.

[@avadanocum6495]

I love how when supports felt bad, devs and creators were like: "ahhh my sweet litle child we will help u, here take best hitboxes, hurtboxes, healing, damage and mobility tools" Absolutely noone plays tank bc its shit as f- "skill issue", sorry didnt know that having an absolute uselss dps after 12 win streak is my fault i will try better. "Just play sigma" who is the most boring tank in the game, its venture but with shield and no mobility. Also it feels very fun with ow2 matchmaking to play tank, on dps u can actually carry a game solo or with 1 good teammate, but on tanks- no fuck u. U wll get mei/simm/reaper/bastion+ zen/orisa and now u can go f urself. AND toxicity is unbelievable :my last game on tank ever was zarya with zen on my team who was constantly dove by winton, i gave him 2 bubbles, but it wasnt enough since our moira thought she is dps now.AND U KNOW WHO WAS TO BLAME?!- RIGHT ME: "U have to counter winton" ok, i play mauga - kill their winton+ both dps +1 support. Next fight - orisa mei ana- i die and of course its on me So now i play only dps, bc even if u loose u at least get to play the game. Those idiots with high ranks have dps that actually apply pressure and dont just stand there behind u all game, thats why they wont ever understand why noone plays this shitty role anymore. Also counterpicking tanks doesnt require any skill, ana/zen/sombra/echo/pharaph/reaper/bastion/torb make ur life miserable but take 0 iq and skill to shut u down in a " competetive game"

[@JANjeweetzali]

haha nice rant. you should learn doomfist to get through the ranks you are describing quickly.

[@galev3955]

Re: Symm teleport health buff. I don't know how no one understands this. All damage got buffed. This change is most probably there to bring the teleporter time-to-kill back to where it was before.

[@Iron-Blurr]

I'll stay it over and over until people listen. We didn't have tank players in 6v6 because we had BORING TANKS and the game was abandoned. We now have FUN TANKS like Ram, doom, JQ and even new orisa is more fun with the javelin. No one wants to play old orisa or sig constantly. You can't blame people not playing tank on the format when you're ignoring the fact that tanks were just designed to be boring. Fix the design to make tank fun and people will play as tank.

[@galev3955]

The thing is, in these debate people are high elo and the queue times there are (from what I hear) indicative of no one playing tank. However in lover ranks queue times are usually

[@Iron-Blurr]

@@galev3955 so high elo players don't like to play fun tanks? Cloudy plays rein no matter the meta. Cyx plays hog no matter what. Doom players play doom no matter how bad he is in the meta or what a buggy mess he is. People will play what they find fun regardless of the meta. So all designing fun tanks would do is bring more players to potentially enjoy the role. So high elo has nothing to do with people not playing tank or being able to find games. The biggest factors are player population, incentives to play tank, "fun factor" with tank design and the meta being balanced enough to not push tank players to quit the game. The brief super op mauga only meta pushed many tank players to stop playing the game for a while since their favorite tanks (the fun ones) were unplayable and you had to play mauga or counter mauga which is boring.

[@MichaelSmith2233]

A drawback to sombra invis could be all turrets detect her (ie. torb turret, sym turret, ashe Bob)

[@silentdc404]

Blizzards philosophy for tanks is good for everyone except the tanks. Basically just a sacrifice so the other 2 roles can have fun. Why are they “scaling” people’s damage and healing? Wasn’t the whole point of the health changes to address too much damage and healing? Idk I see no reason to play this game anymore and the devs don’t seem to want to change their philosophy with tanks

[@alexanderhayes9393]

People didn’t like tanking in OW but they also didn’t have tanks like JQ or Doom. Which are far more fun than playing shield bot

[@kenerb654]

True but in OW1 Brig had shield bash stun on cooldown, Ana’s dart kept you asleep for longer, Discord was chain casted on you, etc etc. So many changes have been made since OW2 to accommodate for the tank - these same changes would have to be in OW1 or else it would feel just as shit to tank, Rams and JQs would be eaten alive by a Cass stun/Sombra hack/Ana sleep/Brig Stun combo

[@elpapisaint]

A big change to mauga would be changing the crit multipliers on his guns (1.5x on left and 3.0x on right. Better pressure on squishies and voth gun firing dps stays the same)

[@voltthefurryboi9776]

I always said just. Let him heal more for using a single gun over 2 guns. Rn the main issue with him is that he only gets sustain from shooting 1 out of the 5 people on a team

[@Andreas-pt8le]

Healing amounts havn't really changed since moira launched. Damage resistance and immortality/invulnerability is the reson that made healing overtuned.

[@slomow]

AVRL is only slightly right. Some characters could fit a homogenized tank/dps role but tanks like rein and Winston would simply be blown up even faster and would become unplayable. If the game was balanced around rein being meta, we could make other tanks playable but not op against rein. If that were possible, the game would feel fun