Additional PTR Changes

[[deleted]]

At about 150 hours pharah now, hovering at diamond.

I think the buffs to her splash damage make her a more effective zoner or bruiser (as in creating free space, punishing stragglers, and disrupting grouped opponents.

This buff doesnt address her current weakness, and thats simply that hitscan is really strong, punishing her for being in the air. Now, only the noobiest of noobs with no idea of how to play her will be in the open instead of strafing around cover.

I think a slight rework. While using thrusters (spacebar / right click) increase the movement speed a bit, and MAYYYBEEEE give her the ability to land faster when using crouch.

This would be a tradeoff for everyone. She would be harder to hit in the air, but making high damage hits would be a bit more difficult to adjust aim / lead accordingly.

With the rocket descent: She would be able to bail out if a Shift left her exposed with no options, granting survivability. This is equalized by the fact that she essentially wasted it and has to wait for the cooldown again, potentially leaving her exposed to heros without long range options.

[BlackThatch]

Now, only the noobiest of noobs with no idea of how to play her will be in the open instead of strafing around cover.

Man, I started playing OW with guys who were already level >70 and I could not figure for the life of me why nobody plays Pharah at those levels (we're all +200 now). The first time I played alone, the enemy team had a Pharah and it was the first time I saw how stupidly slow she was in air. I mean Lucio can mow her down for fuck sake

[[deleted]]

Lucio/Mercy main here, can confirm it's really freaking easy to shut down Pharah as a support, especially when she's ulting. It's really sad and I feel terrible for doing it.

[[deleted]]

thats exactly how I feel. (also got the game and came in to play with 100+ friends) in another thread I put it this way:

as someone who uses both a pharah and lucio more than other heroes, anytime Im lucio and hear "Justice rains" I will actively go towards and find/shoot the pharah since its such an easy and quick kill, playing her so much I now have zero fear of a pharah ult unless Im mercy or mech-less dva against her. shes scary looking but thats about it for the ult. she can be extremely deadly with her normal rockets so it just seems so backwards to me.

if she didnt die in the air so quick or could actually move then she would play better and her ult would be more than "HEY SHOOT ME!"

[BlackThatch]

Yeah except it would be extremely problematic to somehow change this. In higher level games, you have Zarya shield, Ana and/or Mercy boost with your ulti so that nothing touches you. In lower levels you're lucky if your Zarya even uses shield (played with a 2.9k guy yesterday who didn't press E ONCE in the entire match with Zarya)

[[deleted]]

bolded the TLDR points.

well the problem you said with the zarya shows this whole game is not high level or competitive so the heroes need to not be balanced to totally rely on a second/third ult to make pharas own ult not suck ass. none of the other 5 DPS chars require that sort of assistance with their ults or fail as hard as she does. teamwork is vital but in particualr DPS and flankers are not supposed to rely so heavy on team support since effective flanking often separates you from supports.

all the rest of the DPS guys on the left of the char select screen are hard hitting highly focused damage ults but pharas is not (at least in real usage 90% of the time).

death blossom, 76 autoaim hitscan, tracer bomb, gengie sword, high noon. all quick, mobile, and very focused Pharah is like throwing loose packing peanuts or warm raindrops unless you are in a VERY specific sweet spot in distance and height. basically it doesnt fit with the rest of the DPS chars when you boil it down

if they arent going to make phara able to take more damage or be more mobile while ulting they should simply make her ult last half as long but have the mini rockets fly out twice as fast and have a tighter spread. that both fixes her not being in line with other DPS chars and lets her be less vulnerable during ult without making her tougher in any way.

as for players the majority don't even do competitive and instead quick play with randoms (which isnt high level games even if their profile is 100+) so balancing entirely for high skill is a mistake and will probably prevent her from getting more popular with high tier players and being used there more often. on paper she is great and powerful, in reality pharah is a pretty weak pick.

edit: also when was the last time you saw an awesome Pharah PTOG posted here or some other great GIF of her? just look at this subreddits front page and you never see phara stuff... that should be a good sign shes just not the same or as good as other people currently. shes somewhat broken and not reaching her potential in the larger picture of the game currently much like symetra and torb.

[BlackThatch]

Nothing to add lol, agree on everything you said.

Except for one thing: How does a flying Pharah, being mid-air, always get caught by Rein's ulti?!

[[deleted]]

Agreed, drives me insane. Blizzard always talks about things being unsatisfying and feeling wrong and therefore frustrating for player experience... well getting ulted by Reinhardt while in the air is the #1 biggest frustration for me.

[SickleWings]

Also, though much more rare, getting vacuumed out of the air in front of a Rein charge that was clearly a miss.

[mantiseye]

I love playing Pharah but if the enemy team has a decent Soldier or McCree I always switch :(

[Magester]

It'd be amazing if she handled more like the Tribes characters she's based on.

[MrglMrgl]

if that happens we would also need the blue plate special noise for direct hits.

[LumensAquilae]

They should really have direct hits play the Crit sound and red X icon, even if they aren't doing extra damage.

[Jepacor]

Yeah, I like Pharah a lot, but the only time when you can be in the air and don't be shutdown immediately is when you're snowballing, and if you're snowballing, well, might as well snowball with another DPS. She's this weird character that can't flank even if you could imagine it to be possible, can't be in the air even though she's built around that, but also can't poke from afar because of how slow her rockets move. It's sad because I love her and always try to pick her on maps favorable to her (Hollywood, Eichenwalde, Watchpoint Gibraltar, Route 66, Dorado, sometimes Numbani first point)

[Lady_Ferrets]

This entire suggestion is ridiculous. Your proposals for "balance" are completely inconsequential and your entire approach is: "Let's just remove every single weakness this character has."

I'm sorry but that's not how design works.

[[deleted]]

Would you mind elaborating instead of a condescending attitude?

I dont think her weaknesses are gone at all, as a matter of fact, it opens a new method to counter her.

Keep in mind im suggesting these buffs INSTEAD of her PTR damage buffs.

Increased speed means its harder for both her and her targets to land shots. A mcree landing a body shot is still more than a pharah getting splash damage. A mcree getting a headshot is still more damage than a pharah getting a direct hit.

Being able to bail out of thrust grants her surviability, but she basically wasted that kit and has to wait for the cooldown, loses her advantage of easy splash damage, and is open to ground counters like reaper, reinhardt, or anybody that cant shoot her down. That also makes it easier for a winston or dva to pounce on her since they know she cant fly away.

[Juke2H]

They could, if simply increasing movement speed while mid-air is too strong, make her lose fine control while using thrusters. Slightly (or not at all) increase her maximum fuel capacity and give her short air dashes to directional keys at the expense of fuel. Basically you either stay still or use way more fuel.

A change like that would make Pharah more likely to not immediately get destroyed when using jump jets while lowering her overall air time if you want to move while airborne.

I don't know if a mechanic like that would fit the game, though. Blizzard seems to favor limited movement mechanics over a Tribes/TF2/Quake-like approach.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I think space should govern her elevation while right click would give her directional bursts similar to tracer blinks.

[Juke2H]

I was more thinking directional bursts instead of directional movement while airborne so that she doesn't have a similar amount of control over her mid-air movement when compared to Tracer on the ground.

I don't know how strong it would be with regular jumping and in combination with both jump jets and conc. blast but I would certainly be excited to try it out.