Wrecking Ball's Skill Ceiling is TOO LOW

Catch me live at twitch.tv/hilmdustin

[@jingping5948]

"so your ball is good but its not getting any value" "don't care" "figured"

[@charleshaines9715]

I've spent tons of hours learning all the engage and disengage routes are, where all the Megas are placed on every map, how to engage different comps, learned all the techs and can execute them any time I desire, I have improved my aim and hit head shots consistently with WB, and have learned good practices from the best WB players out there. But I win twice as many games by just playing Winston at a fundamental level. Winton

[@HilmDustin]

Winton is a master class on what a healthy skill curve (impact related to skill expression) looks like.

[@nathancasey7712]

Brutal lmao

[@sergeantblack6890]

Felt this in my soul. That's how it goes these days. Unfortunately

[@localmilfchaser6938]

@@HilmDustinyup. This game needs a lot of reworks. I may just quit

[@TankMAIN877]

Yeh unfortunatly ball needs some decent buffs i feel his primary weapon needs to be buffed only then he will be really viable.

[@jellymiaouthekillerpuff7975]

I was flabbergasted at the idea at first and maybe some terms are not pinpoint accurate but my man, you cooking.

[@josephreynolds2401]

Yeatle and Spilo have been banging this drum. Outlets for Skill expression on a hero create Opportunities to Counterplay. Counterplay, even a little bit, means hard counters become Not-so-hard counters and playing safe /smart can overcome the inherent asymmetry of these matchups. Thumbs up.

[@josephreynolds2401]

edit: check out the midseason patch. Less dying to big burst, yeehaw

[@TankMAIN877]

Yeatle said ball is the hardest hero to play in the game so he aint banging that drum.

[@josephreynolds2401]

@@TankMAIN877 Yeatle says exactly what I said. My argument is partly informed by these two, among others and through my own experiences.

[@TankMAIN877]

@@josephreynolds2401 Yeatle told me over a call that wrecking ball the one of the hardest heroes to play with the highest skill ceiling so don't know where you are getting your information from.

[@josephreynolds2401]

@@TankMAIN877You speak to this person. You don't read what I wrote. Then you say Yeatle's words paraphrased are wrong. What are you talking about? Yeatle said what I said. That's that.

[@spencerstanley4759]

This is a beautiful video, you cover a lot of the issues that people have, but you stepped back a couple layers to cover how heros fit into the game entirely, rather than just saying "give him cc immunity on shields" or "nerf sombra" or other common concepts. You addressed a macro level idea, and it is super respectable.

[@gregortheoverlander4122]

I think you make some solid points. Like, does wrecking ball even have a high skill ceiling? Once you are great at ball, it feels like you've hit a brick wall. I think you're right about his skill ceiling. He isn't like widow and tracer. Yes, ball is infinitely hard, like tracer and widow, but does he get infinite value? I'd argue no. Whenever ball ends up being meta in pro play, it's just all about absorbing cooldowns. Like, I genuinely wonder if you'd be able to feel the impact between a decent ball like Hadi and a goated ball like Chazm in a real pro environment? I don't think you would. Like, you could spend the next 50 years mastering ball, but that doesn't actually get you anywhere when Winston also has the same near infinite skill ceiling and is just better.

[@ChickenSoupMusic]

Ah yes the 1 tank problem…

[@nathancasey7712]

Ball has an incredibly high ceiling but you don't get as much reward. Just look at chasm for example. He's incredibly successful at ball even when ball was shit. But he's disproportionately so much better than pretty much every ball even in high ranks

[@Omnicron800]

@@ChickenSoupMusicI’d personally argue it’s more the fact he’s practically a pure disruption tank, every other tank in the game can hold the frontline at least semi decently ball functions basically as a fifth dps with a lot of health and the ability to draw aggro and cooldowns without dying constantly.

[@josephreynolds2401]

@@Omnicron800 "Frontline" doesn't mean standing main. Kill this mental framework. It's losing you so many games. Wrecking ball creates an opportunity for his team to form surround maneuvers. He is frontlining in and around their team so his team can stand in their respective angles. If his teammates don't choose to take those angles, it is the ball's fault for expecting his team to get into those helpful places, but his team is still bad.

[@Omnicron800]

@@josephreynolds2401 my suggestion wouldn’t be to make him frontline if my statement gave that impression it would be to more incentivize his teammates to actually play into that style of play the problem is that requires coordination and or high mobility heroes that can take off angles or reliably take care of themselves. I just feel his pure disruption style of play on paper is really fun and engaging but in execution is frustrating for almost everyone involved including ball players. And frontline in my mind just means the ability to stand in front of your team and demand attention from the enemies ball is gonna roll in and shoot you from behind or too the side if anything displace and pile drive possibly even get key picks but alot of what you’re describing in my experience is not really even hard or too much to ask I just don’t think it meshes very well as it can. Ball in my experience works best with heroes like soldier tracer sombra definitely Lucio the problem is fundemntally you’re right in that wayyy to many people who play this game just stand main and shoot but the game spent a good chunk of its lifecycle rewarding that behavior to me it’s been slowly moving away from that for some time but that doesn’t mean their aren’t growing pains.

[@liundeirkil8706]

7:30 is an insane ball tech. By using the new pull mechanic on your grapple you can slingshot yourself off the map and swap to another hero MUCH faster than before!

[@tau-5794]

Another hero with a poor ceiling-floor ratio is Mei, her primary fire is stupid easy to use and good against bad players, but its low actual damage makes it terrible against people who know what they're doing. The small rework they did a few seasons ago I think was actually good, though could be implemented differently now. Remove the ramping slow, but keep the ice burst effect, it transforms primary fire from a primary source of damage and light crowd control to a combo setup tool, to then exploit with an icicle or fist for a big burst of damage which Mei lacks for the most part.

[@penrilfake]

Yeah, I really liked that rework, but it definitely made her way harder to play for how risky her effective range is, compared to heroes like Sojourn who kinda don't give a fuck. I think it would be interesting to retry deep freeze combo with the new hitbox sizes.

[@saquial]

I agree with your point, however, I feel there’s a misconception of what a skill ceiling is. The impact of a character is irrelevant for the skill ceiling, what’s important there is how much skill is required to reach that maximum impact. The skill ceiling of Ball is really high due to how much skill is required to reach Ball’s maximum potential, but the issue here is that that maximum potential is really low compared to other tanks.

[@BadderRus]

Silly little guy

[@batatasabia]

Man you're so right, and balls problems hits so hard that you dont even need to be in a competitive cenario to it to be a problem. As mainly a quickplayer who REALLY loves ball, playing him some times just feels annoying, cause if I want to do anything useful in the match it feels like I have to put in WAY more effort then if I was playing Rein or Winston, and thats on QUICK PLAY, i cant imagine how much worse it feels on ranked. Even in cases I think there could be some analysis on how hard some character should be allowed to shut down others (Sombra mainly) I think that if his primary was an actual real working gun you would still be able to play around those counters, as punishing them would be viable, but as it is now you simply cannot kill a sombra os cass fast enough in most cases unless you try so hard you'd think the match was worth money, and at that point I just feel like playing rein and chilling. Outside of the points itself, really liked the video! The pacing and argumenting flowed very nicely!

[@neilmallick20]

His skill ceiling had to get lower in Overwatch 2 in order to be even remotely pickable they have to add these gigantic HP buffs which add value at the skill floor. He can take basically any non-tank 1v1 and win with the exception of maybe Reaper and even then you can poke him out from off angles. Yet tanks still get obliterated in this game lmao. I don't know if tanks are solvable in 5v5.

[@HilmDustin]

Still gotta try tho right

[@RJRJ]

Depends what you mean by "win". Supports can survive his burst after the HP changes and buy plenty of time to get to safety. They win by not dying or wasting enough of his time, not by killing him.

[@CalamariZander]

7:30 Balls Mains using super cool tech to do absoulety nothing

[@druMoreno]

Give the Ball 20 extra shots and call it a day

[@saturnz13]

In a perfect world you can do meaningful damage from the mid range with primary and close the distance without much fear of CC. My friends look at me crazy when I said Ball should be unstoppable while in fireball and have a Rev up button that shares piledriver cool down.

[@xythiera7255]

But if you do that you make everybody elses experions worse . Thats the Tank problem to make Tank good in 5v5 you have to make everybody els experions worse . Imagine how dps and supports react if a cc imune high hp high dmg ball just runs in and out thats a stupid idea

[@nathancasey7712]

Also give genji invulnerability frames in dash while we're at it

[@mentlegen3887]

I love peoples apprehension to ball getting a damage buff now, when his guns were technically nerfed after the Hp changes. Ball felt a lot better before season 9 when all of his abilities and guns threatened the pre buffed health pools. Heres to hoping blizzard gives my hamster dude a light buff in damage at least. Thanks for the video dude! Never had it occurred to me that the skill ceiling of ball was too low XD

[@JoshWrightWoodworking]

This guy is goated 🐐

[@bottledchaos4946]

maybe an increase to his crit multiplier would help, althought i dont think this would help with his skill floor moreso the ceiling

[@HilmDustin]

I could see it lowering the skill floor because it would still be a damage increase making his primary fire more threatening. However that will still mostly improve the skill ceiling.

[@shivernaut8607]

you are the first gamer on youtube I've seen to actually show an understanding of what these terms mean. Defining gaming terminology is actually a sorely needed niche rn, people really just say words they hear. fix your mic though edit: actually your mic is probably fine I think my headset just broke

[@HilmDustin]

Nah I'm working on a better mic solution right now it does suck

[@shivernaut8607]

we both need an upgrade lol

[@primalinea682]

So many heroes have the same problem

[@denjii9]

if they buff his damage and displacement then wrecking ball is so capable of doing things that a full team will just counter swap him, this character just doesnt in this game he's cooked

[@HilmDustin]

maybe he's cooked, but it couldn't hurt to try to make him better for the baller and the ballees

[@withboldentreaty]

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the fact we've thrown the terms value floor and value ceiling out to have a catchier video title. The skill ceiling should be about potential skill expression; the value ceiling should be about how much impact the hero has. The problematic heroes are those for whom skill and value curves don't align. That said, you're 100% correct about what's happening with this hero and this game. The fixes are good recommendations. In addition to and in agreement with your remarks, Bol needs hands more than any other dive tank because he's the least likely to be followed up on--players simply don't understand how to play with him (and worse don't want to invest in understanding). He is in fact such a high skill hero he increases the skill demand on his team. Vocabulary aside, you've earned a like and a Subscribe; I hope this video keeps on the algorithm rise. Cheers.

[@HilmDustin]

I plan on making a future video about this but the skill curve is referring to how much value or impact a players gets for how much skill they have. There is no humanly possible way to reach the point in which a player is playing with 100% accuracy at all times so this couldn't be the skill ceiling. I think a better word for it is just perfect play. However the skill ceiling refers to the point in which improving the skill doesn't change the impact. Think of it as a graph with the x axis being skill expression and impact being the y axis. At a certain point as the skill increases the impact will not. This is what I'm referring to

[@caleb_dume]

This was a really interesting video. Impact is Ball’s biggest weakness, even at the top of the tank ladder.

[@LastSider]

I remember when wrecking ball came out... I was like nope, a complicated hero is not my style.

[@charleshaines9715]

Give WB's primary fire a burn mechanic like Mauga. Or give it a ramp up damage. Or give him a flamethrower.

[@squiddler7731]

A damage over time mechanic makes a lot more sense on wrecking ball now that you mention it. On Mauga it's just a gimmick that doesn't really change his gameplan, but with wrecking ball it would allow his primary fire to keep damaging opponents while he's in ball mode. Imagine setting multiple enemies on fire and then comboing that fire damage with the damage from slam and grapple, that could make way more sense for his kit than more direct damage

[@isaacargesmith8217]

Legit it always struck me odd that addaptive shields cant cleanse. Adaptove shields is sort of not that interesting because once you know the right times to use it, you rarely have to consider if you should. Giving it the shared shields I think is meant to address thisand how ball doesnt directly defend but it rarely is that useful. If it had an anti cc cleanse it would be more like monkey bubble in that its a multi use tool who you have to weight when to use it. By ysing it for healing you give up the pocket cleanse and same for cleansing at a point where it may not heal much. Also balls gun genuinely just feels awful. This kind of weapon just does not fit a character like ball and its just sorta braindead and bad. Why not give him a rocket or something, out of all the other dive tanks his gun requires the greatest amount of mechanics for the least value on a character who already struggles with his skill floor. They also just feel awful to use, genuinely have some of the worst game feel for a continuous fire hit scan in the game

[@heistakes]

Diamond Hampter main here..refreshing video and completely agree..it’s taken me hundreds of hours to get to the proficiency I now have on Ball..hours that had I spent them on any other character I’d probably be in a better spot..ask any Ball main why they play him and they’ll probably all say the same thing..and it won’t ever be ‘because he’s OP’ or competitive it’s because he’s fun to play..but you’re absolutely right..he only needs a little tweaking..make his guns just that little bit more powerful and he’d be in a good place..players are scared of a ball meta because most can’t play him effectively..why should we few suffer

[@totallynottemirlan1915]

Your ideas resonate with me a lot, as a ball main. It truly felt like there's nothing I can meaningfully contibute as ball at certain points

[@TodPoleDotCom]

You just described turning ball into a dps, which I’ve been asking for since OW2 rendered his playstyle linear

[@nathancasey7712]

That kills the ball we all know and love though I guess that's OW2.

[@HilmDustin]

I think there is room to give ball more damage and less survivability while still existing in the tank role

[@ixatokii4386]

the tank on tank knockback cancelling out is a small change that would really help fr

[@undo8558]

Thank you Hilm Dustin for this video.

[@kurvaanyad12]

6v6 talks shouldnt be excluded. The real reason why people didnt play tank back then is beacause playing tank rarely had you shoot an actual GUN in an fps. If queen and ball were added instead of orisa and sig ow would be the biggest game ever.

[@HilmDustin]

Ball was meta for like a solid year towards the end of overwatch 1. I'd agree that the flawed design of orisa and sigma were a big problem for overwatch 1 but fundamentally a role like tank will simply attract less players due to its requirement and the pressure

[@gandelgerlant565]

Excellent video, but I think we should start distinguishing between "skill ceiling", and "value ceiling". The former would mean how good you can get at a given hero, while the latter would mean how much value you get at maximum skill.

[@Nemo.404]

I would love to see an essay like this but talking about Reinhardt. This was greatly done

[@crush3304]

My dream for the rework was they dropped his shields for a proper shout like ability that gives 75 or so temp health to ball and his allies. As well as giving ball a speed boost to gain fire ball without grapple. This would have felt far more intuitive than the current shield implementation and given ball an addition tool for combating cc. To top it off I would love ball’s sustain to be moved to a passive similar to doom. This gets ride of the annoying one button press 1200 hp ball and instead rewards players landing abilities by giving them consistent temp health.

[@davibarbosa7283]

Adressing the primary weapon is something very interesting and I'm all here for it. I really wanted tham to look at that

[@ToddHowardWithAGun]

Honestly, why don't they make his adaptive shields sort of like a winston bubble that follows him around? This feels way more intuitive than their current solution of pressing it again to give to your team mates, and also gives him the added bonus of blocking some healing like winston can. It would also solve the CC problem from characters like Sombra, since shields block hacking.

[@penrilfake]

A 700 HP shield that auto-follows the fastest character in the game, who turns his whole body into a hitbox, and also covers him from all angles would be hilariously overpowered. It would need to last like 1 second for it to not be the most powerful ability in the game, as it would have virtually no counterplay save for EMP.

[@MADDOG-sq9oj]

fantastic analysis and very intelligent video, well done! I would hope Blizzard takes this as strong feedback for ball but also characters as a whole

[@varsinious477]

The only problem with buffing Ball's damage is it would be really easy to "break" him and make it too oppressive. And yes absolutely, tanks SHOULD ignore other tanks knockback resistance. Ball and Queen suffered hard from that most recent buff to the tank passive loosing ways to displace the enemy tank. I enjoy ball and would like to get better at him, but right now it's simply not worth the effort required to get the same value as anyone else. If I was to suggest a change, maybe have his primary fire ramp up in damage for sustained fire. Like the last half of the mag dose %30 more if you did sustained fire or something

[@RyneVera]

At first I was getting ready to disagree, but honestly you make great points about his actual effectiveness for most people in Overwatch. I feel I the high end he can be strong sometimes, but he fails to survive for as long while making a difference on team fights. Especially if there is sombra/zen, full team focus, or the team generally being aware of the ball flanking. Good vid man!

[@-.Outlaw.-]

They’d have to reduce his health pool drastically. 90% of the roster straight up can’t kill the dude

[@Komixands]

As a ball main who reached 4500 in ow1 and has been top 200 in ow2 i agree with nearly all your points except 6v6. The tanking experience will never become more attractive in 5v5 and thats been proven over these 2 years even with all the "pro tank" changes (when in reality its just needless buffing to make all tanks super tanks which ruins everyones fun including the tanks) ball was made with 6v6 in mind so he could focus on disruption and focusing key targets while his other tank held core positions that empowered the angles ball was disrupting for. In ow2 he needs insane damage to be able to meaningfully trade with backline characters when in ow1 he didnt need that as much. Overall increasing his damage will result in it being unfun for players playing against him and will only create more instances of his hard matchups still being way too hard but his easy matchups becoming even easier. To me, 6v6 was how this game was originally designed and was abandoned for marketing and queue times (which have gone back to being 5 min plus for diamond supports and dps) and if the game got updated and wasnt stuck on doubleshield for almost 2 years (just like how goats was left running rampant for way too long) tanks wouldnt have left in droves.

[@bihn]

How do you think the recently announced changes will affect Wrecking ball? Both the general tank ones, and the individual buffs?

[@HilmDustin]

I wouldnt want to speak on the changes as we need to see them in action to truly understand. However I think the impact is increasing.

[@thijmstickman8349]

I feel like "skill ceiling" is the wrong frame for the discussion. Ball is a strong tank with a lot of techs to learn, albeit with slightly weak damage. With the "rework" we got even more ways to master movement and techs and now he even has the ability fo help out his team, making him more well rounded. Wrecking ball is only a bad (aka low skill ceiling) tank when put up against disables or boops which hard counter him. Here are ways of solving the problem: 1. Disables need to effect him less - Nerf hack and sleep - Hack doesn't force him into crab - He has a shorter piledrive animation 2.He needs skillful ways to deal with cc - Adaptive shields is actually a shield instead of overhealth some of the time - He is unstoppable at super high speed - Getting booped before you fireball doesn't cause a full 5 second cooldown if you disconnect (maybe just 3 seconds? Then you have one second to hit brig before she can whipshot you again) 3. Hero bans to ban sombra I do agree a damage buff and nerf to sustain is a good idea. It would also make him less helpless if he does get hacked into crab mode.

[@HilmDustin]

Yeah that's what I mean by a low skill ceiling. If your enemy is playing as optimally as you your impact will be lesser than it should.

[@ericsaavedra4482]

Bro cooked af

[@Godeonn]

Only truth

[@JulianneStingray]

"Make tank currently more fun before adding a second one back" But thats the problem. Tank WILL suck forever in 5v5

[@CB-yh3db]

8:35, “The tank passive reducing knock back needs to be addressed” Devs: Let’s increase the passive knock back reduction from 20% to 50% in the Season 10 mid-season patch.

[@HilmDustin]

Now I get to interact even less with the enemy tank :)

[@hooparainbowbraceypkmonand7862]

Increase his magazine size to 90-100. For what it is now he barely even has enough to kill one person with how strong supports are. Maybe increase the damage on the bullets as wellbbut honestly either/or work. Decrease arm time on minefield again or increase the damage, its way too easy to escape, even a good minefield can be walked out of and rendered useless by winston, zarya, reinhardt, ramattra, roadhog, sombra, junkrat, and even other wrecking balls due to how much aoe they can deal. Faster arm time makes it harder to react to giving more potential for damage but alternatively more damage per mine gives it a more deadly presence if you happen to be caught. As it stands now its kinda like venture ult whrre its used to only clear the way but can often barely do that. Adaptive shield, maybe for the first second and a half of the ability it ignores all CC and negative effects. While it may seem broken it'd still be easy to counter ball, it just requires a bit more patience. This also rewards. all players for timing their shields to when they might get hackedor cc'ed and can help break the endless cc chain cycle ball can easily get stuck in. Dont do all 3 of these at once, pick and choose then reign another in if needed.

[@gurratell7326]

And lower the reload time, damn it can be frustrating sometimes!

[@hooparainbowbraceypkmonand7862]

@@gurratell7326 reload time is fine cuz ball form reloads for you

[@airwisher3894]

I’ve been complaining forever ball needs at least 100 bullets preferably around 120 just so he’s more threatening when taking backline angle. Players should have to FORCE ball out as a opposed to simply just evading him or ignoring him because of his extremely short effective uptime. Don’t get me wrong 80 shots is still more then enough for one pick on a lot of squishys in OW2 but the reload is so outrageously long in gunner mode (idk the actual name) that even if you go into ball mode for the quick reload they’ll just ran off far away already, make you retreat from damage, or they end up getting support. Maybe just take some heath off ball and let him be a more assassin like tank such as doom (even though doom isn’t exactly a paragon example of great tank balance lol)

[@mohammadalirashed3103]

If there's a low skill ceiling, it means there would be no difference in a master wrecking ball and a gold one, because the character just stops being more impactful at a certain point, regardless of the players skill. This obviously isn't the case though.

[@HilmDustin]

That's obviously an exaggeration of my argument. I'm not asserting that there's no difference in impact relative to skill on ball, I'm saying that the ceiling of impact is too low because it is attainable. Players can and have reached a point in which them playing better doesn't change the impact on the game.

[@Tayleron]

I agree with his primary fire. To me it has never felt good, but at least back in the day you could still confirm kills. Currently they feel fully cosmetic. I'm not so sure about the knock back change. I don't really like how high the passive has gotten (50%) but I don't think adding complexity to that is the right idea. Reducing it overall, but addressing CC such as hinder, hack, etc, would be preferable imo

[@xythiera7255]

Conclusion : We need to make every other role worse to make tank or hammond viabel thats the problem of 5v5 the only way Tank woud come back is if the other roles get worse . Imagine a high hp high mobility tank that can go in and out instantly with enoth dmg to kill 2 supports becouse thats what you need to even make a dent into supports . Thats not fun to deal with for anybody pluse that woudnt even matter becouse you still get perma cced and counter swap so even if you given him massive dmg he still woud be shit . There is no way to make tank fun in 5v5 thats why after almost 2years they still cant figure out tank . 5v5 did also not slove the population problem at all it made it worse with the only playstyl beeing a counterswap slave or lose .

[@jingping5948]

If Wrecking Ball could kill me, an Ana/Bap player, through my other supports healing all on his own I would sincerely curse him and the devs who thought that'd be a good idea. That said, I don't disagree with most of what was said in the video. To touch on his skill floor I'd add that the way in which he gets value is hard to understand for new players, to get value requires great game sense (understanding value beyond elims) and obviously mechanical skill of his unique movement and techs. This issue this creates is two-fold: new players don't have the game sense to pick him up easily and experienced players who have the game sense would have to learn his unique techs which can be too time-consuming or rank degrading to justify. As for the ceiling, I think its a role issue more so than a Ball one, can you really name a tank with a good skill ceiling rn? Maybe Junkerqueen. If I listed all the tanks who have skill ceiling issues I'd say Rein, Ball, Orisa, Mauga, Hog, Ram, and Doom would make my list. They all either get too much value for little skill or too little value despite extreme skill. Orisa just got nerfed so maybe she's not on the list anymore, idk.

[@joshfrey6315]

And he just got buffed to buff most of his damage besides his guns

[@Randomness662]

Ngl I saw the title and got a little agitated, but within the first minute you explained the impact factor in the "skill ceiling" and now I get what you mean. If everyone measured skill ceilings this way, then Ball would likely be regarded as the lowest on the roster imo. I mean, especially with how he is right now, I think the only character who has ever bested him at being unimpactful was release Life Weaver, but at least release Life Weaver could get carried.

[@nathancasey7712]

I was going to disagree with you until I watch more of the video. Pretty much spot on.

[@hgrenm]

Cool video, subbed :)

[@reyne-soundtherapy469]

How would you feel about keeping the 25% knockback resistance for tanks, and then those that have an alternate stance get the 50% buff (rein shield up / charge, hamster ball mode, ram brawler, doom guard, Dva thruster, junker shout, mauga overdrive, hog breath, winston leap). Zarya and Orisa don't get the buff but they already have cc immunity in their kit. Sigma could have it during his grasp but I like the idea that since he floats he doesn't get it. It adds another flavor to using abilities more skillfully and gives tanks an appropriate ratio of the 50% KBR according to their size and kit to emphasize their engagement / disengagement styles. Also, (I'm a bit biased cuz I love wrecking ball) let him have cc immunity while he's a fireball and the descent of slam. Hear me out! He's not a fireball for very long and requires that he sneaks up on a team in order to reliably avoid hard cc like hook and hack before generating some value by initiating a fight. They can still CC the hamster if he feeds or doesn't set up correctly before or after the fireball but it creates a skill expression to capitalize on a small window of opportunity. I just don't like the idea that wrecking ball feels like a beach ball instead of what his name implies. Plus he's the only tank that can be almost completely nullified by one or two characters, mainly Sombra and Hog. At least give him a fighting chance against them!

[@HilmDustin]

Def another way that adds depth to the hero that is lacking, as well as the tank role as a whole

[@molamola9723]

The idea of moving his survivability to damage sounds good and more engaging for the ball player but honestly worse for the rest of the team. Since it’s 5v5 and the entire team relies so much on a single tank for control and pressure having a squishier tank just sounds less fun to play around for the other players especially when the rest are being changed into brick wall beefcakes.

[@HilmDustin]

Plenty of squishier tanks and I think it would be a mistake if tanks all were just beefcakes that don't fall over.

[@TehEricAlmeida777]

Keep making videos plz, you're great

[@crossdaboss8914]

Honestly swinging into people could give some kind of debuff would make him better in team play not sure the debuff but would allow his team to benefits more off of his failed engages could exchange some survivability for damage but ball at his core is selfish and he kind of feels akward in 5v5

[@kdaunii7070]

I like this guy Keep cooking

[@possumwithacowboyhat5140]

Wrecking ball fundamentally does not fit into this game. Especially in 5v5.

[@duiwu3684]

he fits into 6v6 very well

[@voidfields5065]

i think wrecking ball is one of those heros thats just kinda not meant to be meta and im fine with that cause if wreaking ball is meta ONLY the wrecking ball gets to have fun.

[@HilmDustin]

Don't knock it till you try it

[@iana4104]

they are buffing the tank knockback passive lol

[@HilmDustin]

Yeah the tank matchups certainly didn't improve

[@Requiem2319]

maybe if every support didnt have 2 or more get out of jail free cooldowns

[@masterchiefyoumind]

I think ball gets too many cooldowns effecting him so we could have adaptive shields limit how much cc or even a passive for tanks thay reduces cc cooldown effectiveness or much they gets but honestly I'm not a game balancer I can only try

[@nickc.440]

I don’t understand why you say adding back a tank is like pushing the cart ahead of the horse. Didn’t these issues with wrecking ball arise because a tank was removed and his role as the off-tank disruptor/ backline diver was made impossible by the fact that he also had to be the face tank? I didn’t play much overwatch 1 so I don’t personally know the answer to this question.

[@HilmDustin]

Yes and yes. However the reason the game was moved to 5v5 had nothing to do with the balance of the game an entirely to do with there not being enough tank players for the queues to be short. Instead of trying to get more tank players that cut the role to 1 tank. To try to go back to 6v6 this is the number 1 issue that needs addressing BEFORE we can have 2 tanks again. As for the cart before the horse, it's referencing the fallacy in the logic of "if we bring back 2 tanks the tank players will come back because the tank players will come back if we have 2 tanks"

[@Korvmannen]

All things considered, Moira and Winton require similar skill sets. The only meaningful difference in terms of skill ceiling is that Winton has bubble that can be used to express player skill more than Moira orbs, and that his ult is hard to make full use of. Other than that, they both have very simple kits with mobility on low CD, and don't require aim to master.

[@penrilfake]

Winston requires aim to master, though. The M2+land+melee combo upon jumping is really important for actually threatening a kill at higher level. Ofc it's not super important at lower levels of play, but that's what makes Winston a good design, and Moira a bad one. Her only form of skill expression is fade jumps on map geometry.

[@masterchiefyoumind]

I suppose y could say his skill ceilinged is not low enough for players to play unless you're good

[@joshfrey6315]

The thing is if we made tank a more enjoyable experience then we wouldn't need 6v6. We need 6v6 because it's miserable to play currently and the game was never properly balanced around it.

[@HilmDustin]

this is what I meant by cart before the horse. "6v6 will make tank more enjoyable because tank is more enjoyable in 6v6" what tank has as a problem now could be solved by 6v6 but that does not mean it can't be solved in 5v5.

[@dravenbluesummers]

Think you downplay his playstyle too much . Its a fair question to ask if he can excel as a backline assassin and be a tank... they dont mix well. Kill potential is not a tanks job a tank is a space taker and supposed to setup plays for his team .. Moving ball to dps then he could be more focused on raw power, and it might be viable for his power dynamic to shift. But i loved the video very well explained ❤

[@Sandvichman.]

7:17 "We need to make playing tank more attractive before entertaining the idea of 2 tanks" these things are not mutually exclusive lmao continuing to dev on a fundamentally flawed format is wasted dev time and resources the best thing they can do for tanks is allow them their individuality instead of watering them down into low brain-power generalists i mean, don't you think the 6v6 crowd are the people who would happily return to tank? I feel like that's a good reserve of players +the rush of players to try new thing (there's bound to be some retention)

[@EmperorFeatherFlight]

Some good points but the low skill floor thing makes no sense

[@fooloo415]

6:50 wtf, ive never seen that

[@jorgejorge2902]

Different balls same cancer😓

[@Shivertehtimbers]

2nd form on death where he throws mines and auto slam on remech...gotta nerf tf outta his health if u do that tho

[@ibrahimismail5625]

I honestly believe that there should be some heros and legends with a high skill floor It's what makes these heros unique I wouldn't want to lewrn ball and Be good in my first few games i wouldn't even pick him up if he wasn't such a challenge to learn Take riven from lol for example the number of games you need on her to even start winning is crazy but she is a very loved one trick champion made for one tricksrs

[@beachbomb]

The thing is, even when u reach max potential he's still not good and is easily outclassed

[@ibrahimismail5625]

@@beachbomb yes i get that part but i still stand by the point that some heros just need insane mfs to play them and are not made for the casual audience the part about his potential is correct though

[@downey6666]

theres a threshold you have to hit on aim

[@DolanAndGoobyFTW]

all other tanks have at least 1 ability to block sombra hack or have a shotguns (hog, jq, dva) that makes it easier to flick and cancel hacks because of larger pellet spread. even doomfist has his ult as an escape ability. MEANWHILE, ball is gonna have to do godly flicks every 10 seconds as the sombra invis hacks them from random angles. i cant tell you how many times i correctly predicted where the invisible sombra was and shot at her, but missed by a pixel. is it too much for me to ask that sombra should be partially revealed if bullets/potential damage is a zarya-bubble hitbox size away from her? IF I CORRECTLY PREDICT THEIR LOCATION, WHICH IS HARD ENOUGH ALREADY, WHY DO I HAVE TO STILL AIM PERFECTLY AT SOMBRAS THIN HITBOX, ITS REALLY A JOKE. oh, but giving sombra autolock on the hack is okay 👍 ball is the hardest hero to play in the game and gets countered by the easiest to use abilities 😂😂😂😂😂 its a grand troll

[@gdsyth3r574]

add another tank to make 6v6

[@danielreich5266]

cooking privileges revoked

[@WarConicX]

tbh whats the point of ball when a god tier ball is only as good as a mid tier orisa who probably doesn't main orisa

[@WarConicX]

hear me out tho... flamethrower ball

[@yorhanexus8139]

Good video, ur mic is cooked

[@HilmDustin]

fr fr

[@lobato2833]

Good video, but ball is really annoying and im afraid that agreeing with you will get him a buff😭

[@AltairEgoX]

I loved wrecking Ball and then I uninstalled the game😂 and yes I was good at using him. But as you stated that didn't matter🎉

[@Archy_The-Wizard]

You bring up some good points, but I just want to say something about the reason you don't want to entertain going back to 6v6. You say that we should make tank more fun before going to 6v6, but 6v6 itself will do that. People love to talk about the bad tank queues at he end of OW1 but that's only because the game was abandoned, there were plenty of time in that game where the tank queues were not the shortest ones, yet it required more tank players, ...

[@HilmDustin]

Right but now we don't have the tank players. They left during overwatch 1, which is why overwatch 2 is 5v5. I don't know if 5v5 or 6v6 is the answer, but 6v6 can not be the answer right now because the issue that made the game 5v5 has yet to be solved.

[@Archy_The-Wizard]

@@HilmDustin A lot of people still play the game but stopped playing tank because of the format. I'm one of them, if the game goes back to 6v6 and brings back the tank synergies while fixing most of the effects of counter picking, I'm switching from DPS/Support to Tank. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that camp. I do agree that it is a risky move, it would need to be done along with a PR stunt and a way in-game to convince players to attempt the tank role, which should actually be easier now that we have tanks like Ram, Queen, and Mauga, which are likely to be fun for DPS players.

[@basilenordmann7356]

You confused skill-ceiling and impact-ceiling as one concept in the first 30 seconds, say no more Bye

[@HilmDustin]

No, I defined skill ceiling clearly. If you can give a better definition than the one I said what is that?

[@hannahabulhawa1567]

Make DPS Tanks & Shield Tanks two different roles. There will be more dps players playing DPS tanks like Roadhog and Wrecking ball. Shield tanks are Reinhardt, Winstons, Sigma etc

[@jeffreycordoba7083]

Ball is not designed for 5v5, as most of the tanks tha had to be reworked cause of this shitty format

[@Azlare9_9]

who let bro cook.... BECAUSE THEY NEED A RAISE

[@CunchwapSupeme]

The threshold on your mic is too aggressive sir

[@HilmDustin]

Fr fr

[@insanitynears]

this is just saying ball is bad with extra steps.

[@HilmDustin]

What do you mean by that?

[@PlasmaUI]

fix ur mic

[@HilmDustin]

fr fr

[@PlasmaUI]

@@HilmDustin W video tho

[@dontletmememandie6506]

Holy shit this gameplay is hard to watch xD Just ram people, my dude. You’re not doing shit with your machine guns

[@HilmDustin]

Not sure why you're watching this for my gameplay but I appreciate it

[@dontletmememandie6506]

@@HilmDustin well I was listening to the ball complaining. Im a ball main. Agree with everything, but the gameplay was just something else lol. Sorry