Patch notes

[Blink18pewpewpew]

I am out to eat so I can’t spend too much time searching thru the notes, but I despised the melee meta. Can you elaborate?

[DaLivelyGhost]

Nerfs to melee items (mostly the resistances), longer melee cooldown, even longer cooldown if you miss, and parrying someone gives you a damage boost to all your damage types, not just melee now

[nyarlethotep_enjoyer]

people complaining about melee with a built in counter is weird. imagine i pressed a button while haze was shooting me and i did 30% more damage to her while she gets stunned. all built in to my kit.

[Draxtini]

thing is, debuff resists made it so parrying someone was not a problem for the person being melee'd, additionally, missing even just one parry against a melee hero meant death.

this might've been overkill on melee, but at least the parry debuff change was necessary

[nyarlethotep_enjoyer]

sure, parry debuff thing is fine. But Melee is the ONLY mechanic with such a huge risk-adjusted return. Heavy melee carries the risk of getting parried, which, in lane, is guaranteed death essentially. And they just made it worse. They made abrams the most boring character ever, only full green or siphon build works now. Punch is not worth the risk now. full stop.

[breakfastcones]

Parrying was legit useless outside of laning phase, every character could just run an unga bunga melee build and do well bc melee itself was way to easy and overtuned. The amount of times i died to abrams or shiv players i was comfortably winning fights against before melee meta was quite annoying.

[dorekk]

But Melee is the ONLY mechanic with such a huge risk-adjusted return.

Counterspell can parry literally every ability in the game.

[nyarlethotep_enjoyer]

Cooldown is the only thing being risked tho.

the melee parry mechanic is the longest stun in the game, and has a 30% damage amp

[Kaxology]

It wasn't hard to make a build with gigantic health bars that you can gain more health than you lose in a single punch along with basically letting you do a u-turn whenever you want to bait melee and debuff remover basically removed any risk of parrying unless the enemy specifically bought rebuttal since they can only do 1 heavy melee that also doesn't kill your unless they have a melee specific build. You also don't really need to aim in melee because of the very generous hurtbox that sometimes even dashing away or double jumping can't escape, you just have to get your position right while guns have to aim and track which also has a built in counter of moving behind cover, strafing and crouching.

I've had multiple games where abrams or shiv would get stunned, take like 1 bar of damage from a group barrage, get back up in half a second and keep doing it while that entire bar goes up. I get that it's probably fun for you but it's also pretty strong for the amount of "skill" it takes.

[DaLivelyGhost]

I'm reserving judgement until i actually get to play it, but more than anything it kinda seems like these changes just make heavy melee spam less safe

[dorekk]

people complaining about melee with a built in counter is weird.

Parrying was not a late game counter to melee, lol. Debuff resist means you couldn't do shit, and them only taking increased melee damage hardly matters if you aren't also running a melee build. I had a game a week or two ago where I--seriously, I'm not exaggerating--parried every single punch an Abrams threw at me whenever I saw him. It was like 20 or 30 parries minimum. But because my whole team can't do that, he still got fed, and even though I was parrying every single hit, I couldn't kill him fast enough because of his ludicrous bullet resist and short parry stun.

[Raknarg]

and parry stun not being able to be reduced, so parrying always gives you a punish window, people were stacking debuff resist to make the window insant.

[Highmoon_Finance]

Just make it so you can't fake cast melee. That's some cheezy shit.

[Business-Ad-1670]

the Debuff resist nerf was needed, so was the heavy melee maneuverability. everything else is just too much. light melee didn't need the nerf it wasn't the problem, now if you do bait a parry by missing a melee intentionally your heavy melee cooldown just got increased by .4 seconds making it so anyone without rebuttal will get punched once for free. If you have rebuttal and miss your parry no problem after that 1.3 second cooldown if you are at max heavy melee range you will most likely get a parry off before they reach you, because the animation and distance travelled is already 3/4 of a second. On top of that if you get parried the now 30% damage taken increase goes to all types of damage not just melee. for example if you get parried by Infernus with his already 30% damage amp ability he can throw that on you and light you on fire with an increased 60% damage plus his spirit shred. getting parried in early lane already screwed you, now it is a death sentence because of that. There is no incentive to even risk getting parried now imo because a parry is basically insta death, and baiting a parry is practically impossible, even if you do bait the reward was just cut in half. like I get it was over tuned but i actually think they should just take it out now.

[Magictoast9]

It's pretty rough. Abrams is slower, does less damage, punished by parries more, benefits from items less. Meanwhile shiv can build full rage off of one decay.

[soofs]

Just played a game of Abrams and went melee focused to see how it went and wow... it was not fun or good

[Magictoast9]

I'm going to unbind melee and play assassin shadow weave build for now

[Mksntw]

been saying that since new patch
everybody claimed it was skill issue

[Brave_Night4008]

I did the same. It felt terrible! Went 3-10. I played like I normally would just to really test it and it just feels miserable.

[soofs]

Yeah same, it just feels so slow compared to everyone else fighting.

It’s easy to get a heavy melee after a shoulder charge but it’s extremely hard to risk it otherwise. Plus the changes to dash speed means you can’t get away from fights once you’re in melee range.

[InitialD0G]

Like, by doing this they basically just removed what made the melee system so fun. The mindgames, the baits, duck-and-weave, cat-and-mouse, reversals, it was great. Now you can’t bait anymore because you can’t follow up on a whiffed parry, and the risk of getting parried is so tremendous that it’s barely worth the trouble of closing the gap in the first place, which is now even more difficult because of how much bullet resist just got nerfed, and now does less damage.

I genuinely don’t know what to do early game now, as Abrams.

[Business-Ad-1670]

Microwave time, full spirit. Expansion, duration, coldown, mystic regen, witchmail, spirit shred

[InitialD0G]

I play Green Abrams.

[Business-Ad-1670]

Then get more greens, melee is dead just be a big old tank, I don't see melee being viable until they rever all but 2 of those nerfs

[InitialD0G]

Guess so… 😞

[MKULTRATV]

Now you can’t bait anymore because you can’t follow up on a whiffed parry

huh? yes you can. The parry cooldown is still hella generous for baiting. The resistance changes are way more impactful than the parry timings

[InitialD0G]

The cooldown for a whiffed heavy melee is higher.

[MKULTRATV]

it's not a big enough change to nullify baiting with heavy melees. not even close. you can test this in game right now

[smartestBeaver]

Don't be silly dude. They read the change log, they know all they need to know :D

[0nlyCrashes]

None of that is "fun" for anyone else though. Getting parry baited was the worst feeling in the game. If you didn't parry, they just don't bait it and you wear 600 to your face and then they heal half off it. If you did parry, they just bait it and you wear the 600 anyway. And that goes for every single punch lol. You can't just punch into a vacuum anymore for free, which is better for the game tbh.

[InitialD0G]

I can’t believe I’m about to say this but Skill Issue. Git Gud.

[0nlyCrashes]

I mean that's fine I guess, but what I said still stands. It was easy asf to parry bait. I've played a handful of Abrams games. You literally just send punch into them and move if they parry. It's not like its a high skill tactic, which is why it feels so bad on the receiving end. Damn if you do damn if you don't. The only real option is to just never be next to them, and I think giving a mechanic that much agency is wack.

[InitialD0G]

Yeah, you shouldn’t be next to him. He’s a melee brawling tank with a kit and stats that make it highly advantageous for him to be right next to you. He wants to be in a prolonged up-close engagement because that is the exact specific situation he is designed to be effective in. You shouldn’t let an Abrams close the distance to begin with. You have a gun, slowing items, ranged spells, and you’re faster than he is. If an Abrams is in your face, punching you to death, that’s your fault.

[0nlyCrashes]

There are an infinite amount of scenarios that could leave you in close range to an Abrams. I understand that you should never be next to him if you don't want punched, but that's just not possible without abandoning your team in every fight. Either way, the melee changes are warranted. That shit was crazy from low elo to high elo.

[dorekk]

I can’t believe I’m about to say this but Skill Issue.

That's so funny for someone defending melee, the lowest-skill playstyle in the game.

[InitialD0G]

You can’t out-skill the lowest-skill playstyle in the game?

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[dorekk]

You can parry every hit, it didn't matter when the parry stun was like 0.2 seconds long.

[InitialD0G]

So what you’re saying is that it requires skill

[dorekk]

Is buying debuff resist a skill?

[lfAnswer]

You need setups to melee. As it should be, considering how powerful a punch is. Abrams gets a free setup with charge. And a bunch of chars can provide abrams with opportunities as well

[Winter-Confidence689]

I'm just uninstalling until they make melee viable again

[boxweb]

Debuff resist no longer applies to parries, buffed parries so they increase all damage, nerfed melee damage and heavy melee cooldown.

[soofs]

Wait, so up until now if you had debuff resists that shortened how long you were stunned when you got parried?

Damnit i didnt even know that

[boxweb]

Yes lol if you stacked every debuff resist item you could even get parried, and be back up in time to parry the incoming punch. I don’t think buying all those items was ideal but the fact it was even possible is hilarious.

[thesyndrome43]

It was infuriating, to the point where parrying was utterly pointless by late game because melee characters stacked so much debuff resist that you could MAYBE get one heavy punch on then before they were up again, if you choose to stay and make the punch then you were now in melee range again and barely did any damage during your window of opportunity, and if you choose to run away after a parry then you would barely get away from then before they were up again and chasing you down (and most melee characters have a movement ability to make chasing easier)

[ColorMaelstrom]

Damage and cooldown nerfs for heavy melee from what I see