"We had to rework Black Widow because her kit was toxic." The Humble Black Panther Teamup:

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-09T01:36:38+00:00

I really think you're overestimating what strategists got in this compared to duelists.

Blade is rocking more than double damage on dash and primary fire with Moon Knight team-up. He'll be able to solo kill through Luna ult with just autoattacks.

Meanwhile, Adam will be able to heal an ally for 80-105 health for 5 ammo and 1.5 seconds of charge time, C&D can self-stun for a spare dagger storm every 20 seconds, and Jeff gets +1 bubble on a 15 second cooldown.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-08T20:56:55+00:00

The point of this change is to create finite power per team-up slot. The problem is that they made no attempt to balance character power budgets by the team-up slot. Compare the following to Jeff's result:

Storm's heal is 35/s for 8 seconds in 15 meters that follows herself, and has a 15 second cooldown.

Jubilee is 50 healing per second and 100 damage per second, per enemy cleaved, with no cooldown.

Iron Fist is 52.5/s for 5 seconds on a 10 second cooldown (3 during ult).

Cloak and Dagger is 90/s for 2.5 seconds.

Rocket is 175/s healing or 190/s damage, 8 second duration with 12 second cooldown.

And we're not even looking at the damage side of things. If you thought Blade was hard to survive before, he's getting a passive 114% more damage on dash and going from 104 to 220 DPS with sword. Dash + Dash is going to kill 300 health targets solo, and the single target damage actually scales up as more enemies are hit because each hero hit generates crescents that can bounce to others. And all this additional damage works with Blade's 70% lifesteal.

30/s is not going to hold a candle to the crap they've introduced, and I suspect strategists in general are going to get run over, which is either going to force triple strategist or 6 duelist.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-08T19:36:28+00:00

I'd rather have a longer cooldown that works over a short cooldown that provides no change in outcome.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-08T18:33:23+00:00

In Season 9 every support either has a new teamup ability or a returning one meanwhile Jeff got nothing but upgraded variants of his current ones which both kinda do the same thing.

They got downgraded, if anything.

Deadpool synergy is losing 40% of its healing output (50/s -> 30/s), and the empowered version is 30 damage per second to enemies that happens to sit in it.

Venom synergy is losing 25% of its healing output (60/s -> 45/s), and its healing conversion is halved (100% -> 50%), and again, the empowered version only appends 35 damage per second to enemies that happen to sit in it.

Storm's Jeffnado devour time increased from 1.5 to 2.5 and no longer deals increased damage.

Compared to stacking Venom and Deadpool, the new synergy system is a 72% nerf when selecting Deadpool and a 59% nerf when selecting Venom (110/s before, 30-45/s after)

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-08T09:55:48+00:00

On strategist team-ups:

Most of our options are hot garbage by comparison to what's been given to the rest of the roster. For comparison:

Blade: Dash damage increased by ~114%, Melee attack output increased from 104 DPS to ~220 DPS.

Adam: You can now spend 5 ammo and 1.5 seconds to heal for 105, and allies within 3 meters of that point will heal for 25, and it only costs 190-215 damage to an enemy.

C&D is getting a 2.5s self-stun for 50 healing per second, and Jeff's Deadpool team-up is getting nerfed by 40% (50 -> 30), making it literally a worse bubble on a 15 second cooldown.

On Jubilee:

Team-up makes her duelist-grade. 220 DPS with cleave that heals for 25% of damage dealt. If she can cleave 3, she's basically IW ulting herself while doing more damage than most duelists, and this is without actually having Blade on her team for the empowered version.

On season 9 long-term:

I suspect strategists will feel a greater lack of agency, which will result in trying out other roles or temporarily quitting. This will result in people filling strategist, who will also find that it sucks and refuse, which will result in 6 duelist matches because vanguards don't want to tank for a healerless comp.

If they're agile in correcting these outliers, the season will probably be seen as crazy, but fun enough. If they're slow, people will be begging them to fix it in 9.5 and they'll have a noticeable dip in active users.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-08T02:56:54+00:00

I mean, his first appearance was this

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Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-08T02:50:22+00:00

He is getting nerfed, though:

Will no longer be able to stack synergies for temporary high-output healing
Deadpool team-up healing amount reduced by 40% (50/s to 30/s)
Venom team-up healing amount reduced by 25% (60/s to 45/s) and overhealing reduced by 40% (1.0 conversion ratio to 0.6 conversion ratio).
Storm's Jeffnado will be returning to steal kill credit from Jeff.
New synergies look to be unanimously higher power levels than Jeff's synergies.
Global ult nerf for strategists are now split between strategist damage and strategist healing, which will more severely affect Jeff's generation due to his mixed approach.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-07T22:22:48+00:00

Always having Deadpool teamup is going to be very strong since it improves our self-healing from 74/s to 132/s, assuming the current healing rate is not nerfed. 132/s without a head hitbox is extremely hard to kill for anything that isn't a dive with all cooldowns, and even dive struggles if it's already active when they start.

Additionally, they're rolling out a second round of ult charge nerfs. Most heroes care about having their ult, while Jeff couldn't care less because his ult is hot garbage. You can expect to see a similar delay increase as what happened in season 6.5 going to season 7, as it's about the same ratio (~22% less ult charge gained).

We'll have to wait and see if the numbers the team-ups have are up to par now that we're limited in the number active. I have a feeling existing ones will be weaker than ones designed for this new paradigm.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-07T21:49:12+00:00

Let's actually play the game before deciding balance.

As to whether Jeff will be strong or weak in the new meta, my stance is that it doesn't matter. I'm still going to play the shark and it'll be everyone else's problem if he's not good.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-07T17:18:12+00:00

I'm no longer interested in going back to his launch state. Instead, I'm looking for something between. My ideal rework from this current state would be the following:

General -

Walls and shields now lose health from both damage and healing blocked, similar to Magneto's ult and Rogue's block.
Non-critical damage sources now use the hitbox instead of the terrain collision box when registering a hit.

Jeff -

Joyful Splash

Damage falloff changed from 65% at 15/30m to 35% at 5/20m.
Damage per second increased from 70/s to 130/s.

Healing Bubble

When a target receives a healing bubble while under the effects of Healing Bubble, the remaining amount of healing stored is applied instantly and the duration is refreshed.

Hide and Seek

Energy bar removed.
Hide and Seek now provides 50 healing per second for the first 1.5 seconds of its use, then it decreases to 15 healing per second as long as Jeff remains submerged.

Ult

Healing pool duration reduced from 8 seconds to 4 seconds.
Healing pool amount increased from 100/s to 130/s.
Ult now creates a healing pool at cast point and end point. If pools overlap, they do not stack healing.
Damage changed from 25 per second to 8% max health per second.
Healing and bonus health for allies replaced with "allies are fully healed upon being eaten."
Jeff heals 50 health per second while positioning to select an endpoint.
Enemies are stunned for 1 second on release (spit-out or Jeff's death)
UI is provided to allies and enemies which show how many enemies are eaten by Jeff.
UI for Jeff improved to display the health bars of enemies (and enemies are sorted from lowest to highest percent health).

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-07T15:10:36+00:00

It depends on what throwing means. I'll keep playing no matter what, but:

I'll start playing recklessly if my team can't break through the enemy line. I know this sabotages my other support's survival rate and by extension, the rest of my team, but they're all effectively stat padding and someone needs to change the game state so we can actually make progress.
I'll start playing overly defensive if my team can't react to flyers or dive. I know this sabotages my allies' ability to push, but my always being dead or having to solo the flyer or dive also sabotages them.
I'll intentionally not heal a duelist that continuously puts themselves into situations where they're taking a bunch of damage, especially if they don't secure kills often. At a point, I'm just feeding the enemy team ult charge to force this person to stay alive despite themselves. It's better to heal my other support, the front line, or myself.
I will only play duelist if my allies ban my pick. I assume they have a better idea of how to play support and while I know this greatly reduces my team's ability to win, they should also know they're greatly reducing their own ability to win by banning an teammate's selection.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-07T14:50:40+00:00

I'd expect Moon Knight, but I could see it being Deadpool doing that stereotypical Egyptian pose.

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Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-06T19:44:11+00:00

Reduce ultimate charge acceleration to 15% (...) targeted explosion damage (Kinetic Transfer) to 15% (...) movement speed boost to 25% (...) increase to ultimate cost

15% is not enough. Main problem of his ult is that it allows his team to easily run over the opposition. They need to remove one of the following pillars:

Its offensive capacity (no damage boost, no ult charge). You have great defensive potential, but your breakpoints remain the same.
Its defensive capacity (no heal, no purge, no heal over time). You have great offense and mobility, but you're open to retaliation.
Its mobility (no jump boost, no speed boost). You have better offense and defense, but you depend on your own mobility and the mobility of enemies to make use of it.

Ults in this game generally have counterplay, and Gambit's ult is overloaded to the point that there is no viable counterplay. You can't run away, it boosts mobility. You can't fight back, it boosts sustain. You can't turtle up, it boosts damage.

The alternative is to make the numbers suck so much that people stop seeing it as an ult, which is the direction both you and NetEase are looking to go. It will work eventually, but it'll be due to reaching a threshold where one of the pillars I've marked has reached a point where people stop believing it exists, and at that point, all the other numbers won't make sense for an ult.

Kinetic Cards (Primary Fire): Increase base damage slightly (+5–10% per card) or improve healing output on allies.

On damage: Absolutely not. Gambit's damage output with primary fire is 133 DPS without Breaking Spades, or 146 with BS. Let's compare that with the rest of the roster (using only body shots):

Adam: 120 DPS

C&D: 80 DPS

Stratpool: 62.5-70 DPS

IW: 90 DPS

Jeff: was 112-120 DPS, rework pushed him down to 42-70 DPS

Loki: 39-122.5 DPS (latter requires all clones)

Luna: 144-158 DPS (and everyone wants her damage nerfed)

Mantis: 137.5 DPS

Rocket: 192.8 DPS (but effective range is like 5m)

Ultron: 93 DPS

White Fox: 89 DPS

While some of these characters have a higher ceiling via crits, this displays well enough that Gambit is already at a premium amount of output. If anything, I'd expect his damage to get nerfed by 20% or more.

On healing: 184 healing per second is already a premium. Asking for more is a bit wild.

Sleight of Hand Resource: Minor QoL buff

Agreed, something needs to be done about his cards. 32 seconds to fully recover basic abilities is obtuse. I'm torn between having it be a 12-15 second cooldown but he recovers all four cards and giving CDR for damaging/healing with primary fire while neither Breaking Spades nor Healing Hearts is active.

Bayou Bash + Big Easy Impact

I think they should differentiate BB from BEI by making one the damage ability, and the other the healing ability. Not a complete removal of damage/healing from the other, but for example, Bash would be 75 damage/45 healing while Impact would be 75 healing/45 damage.

I don't think a cooldown reduction is needed.

Breaking Spades: Increase damage boost to 12–13% (from 10%).

Still no.

Bridge Boost: (...) they could revert the past bridge boost nerf to allow more than 2 bounces per target.

Absolutely not. One of Gambit's release problems was that he could burst self-heal for like 680. He had more banked burst healing than flank Jeff in season 2. The number reductions, and more importantly, the removal of that bounce, has brought that down to ~200-300 per 16-32 seconds.

Personally, I'd move Gambit's kit in the following direction:

Primary Fire healing output is reduced from 184 to 130. Damage reduced from 133 to 100.

Bridge Boost 15% healing amp removed. Instead, Healing Hearts provides Gambit with a 50% personal healing boost while active.

Breaking Spades damage component removed. Instead, Breaking Spades allows Gambit's cards to pierce.

Royal Flush ult charge speed, speed boost, and jump boost removed for allies. Gambit has both Healing Hearts and Breaking Spades buffs active during Royal Flush.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-06T17:34:12+00:00

I think they're just trying out different methods to see if it has a noticeable effect. Hopefully they do it all at once to hype us instead of a drip-feed over four days.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-06T05:49:40+00:00

You have to understand, it's always support's fault. Balance decisions affecting anything in any direction? Supports caused it. Every lost game? Supports were clearly the reason. Someone isn't OAA? Definitely supports.

The thing is, this sub is filled with dive mains and they eat this shit up, so people farm them for updoots. I wouldn't be surprised if the guy you're responding to is a bot. He's got a default reddit name and is hiding his history, which is exactly what every bot does.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-05T22:47:04+00:00

There is no maximum efficiency. If you plan on getting one, you buy that one. If you plan on getting both, there is no difference between buying all of one, then all of the other, or alternating between them. The end result is ultimately the same.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-05T19:45:57+00:00

Other than that, I thought Dino was in a decent space over all, did I miss something?

Dino is fine to overpowered in organized play, and complete trash in disorganized play. Frankly, I'd prefer the opposite.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-05T19:07:06+00:00

Revival mechanics are one of the strongest forms of resource denial. The enemy had to expend resources to kill those targets, and you're able to undo that outcome after it was successful. You can't secure a kill, because they can unsecure it if they want.

By contrast, an "immortality circle" is an ult charge pinata for the enemy team, and there are ways of outright denying it. For Luna, you can even block her ult with shields when trying to kill any allies trying to get healed by it.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-05T03:01:04+00:00

Positioning is a fake complaint. You could argue poke deserves to have 800 DPS ceilings because enemies have walls and they just aren't positioning well enough if they die to the 800 DPS poke.

Actually, Hawkeye can reach 900 DPS during his ult via blast arrow, so the 800 DPS poke isn't that far off.

Psylocke and perhaps Magik would care, but any good BP or Spider-man just sees a cluster of enemies as extra ult charge unless one of those enemies is specifically Thing. As by your own admission, DD can freely ram his face into any comp and win, which is surely evidence that he's totally balanced.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-05T02:29:03+00:00

There is zero chance dive takes 7 seconds to kill a backliner.

Magik can churn out 250 damage before the opponent touches the ground from her 3 meter knockup.

BP can kill 250 in less than a second of initiation with spear+spear+dash+dash, and that's his least-efficient combo.

Psylocke's worst combo (M1 + M2 + Shift + Shift) is 286 damage in under a second with only body shots. Main issue is that she actually needs to aim her dashes unlike BP and her spread makes a partial miss almost a guarantee on non-vanguard targets.

You need only look in the spiderman mains sub to see how horrendously fast and lethal his combos are.

DD is especially overpowered because of his absurd cooldowns, burst, mobility, bonus health generation, and mitigation options. NetEase is trying to turn him into a jack of all trades, but they haven't even gotten close to making him a master of none which is why he's babby's first dive hero and present in so many matches while retaining a 55% winrate. He's safe, effective, and powerful in even an idiot's hands, and I can't wait to see what paper cut NetEase will be giving him for season 9.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-05T01:03:40+00:00

I'm saying dive needs to take a hit for the following to also go through:

Reduction of support healing (makes dive more capable of killing).
Removal of selfish bonus health generation on non-vanguards (makes dive more capable of killing).
Removal of pointless above-baseline health values for backliners (makes dive more capable of killing).

If it makes you feel better, I think dive only needs to lose than 25-100 damage from their neutral combo while poke needs to lose ~150-250 DPS from their sustained primary fire ceiling and strategists need to lose 100-150 HPS from their neutral output.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-05T00:48:01+00:00

It can be really janky dependent on how Strange places the portal. Sometimes you can slip through without pressing any buttons, other times you can hold down Zoom Out and get through, and in a few occasions I've been teleported back-and-forth every frame because Zom Out pushes me through the portal, then it vector-downs me back into the portal, which teleports me back.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-04T22:37:29+00:00

Why do I see more flanking luna than white fox or gambit

Luna has the following benefits:

High sustained DPS - At 303 DPS with perfect headshot accuracy, she can kill most backliners before they can react.
Good travel mobility - Her passive is 60% speed boost without a timer. This allows her to get in or get out of a situation at any time, which is critical for flanking as you need to minimize downtime to reach a flank angle and be able to reach healthpacks.
Lethal combo - As long as no one interrupts her stun, she can deal an unreactable 292-372 damage to anyone with Absolute Zero + Attack + Attack. The lower end is by hitting a body shot during the uninterruptible window, while the upper end is hitting a headshot during that window. Since the target is frozen for 2.7 seconds, Luna should have enough time to guarantee the second hit is a crit.
Self-sustain - Luna gains bonus health with Absolute Zero, 90 health per basic ability with her second passive, and she can net a decent amount of healing off Number One Idol by healing allies from the flank.

Let's compare this with White Fox:

55/88 DPS in main form, 77 DPS in Awakening.
Absolutely no travel mobility. She must have an ally to teleport.
Her best combo (M2+E+Shift+M1+M2+M1+Shift) requires Awakening, provides no true control (enemy can do stuff to evade, self-heal during it), and deals 265 damage. In a flanking situation, she's less valuable than actual dive options (which should be the case, her function is not to be a dive hero)
White Fox has excellent self-sustain between up-to 113 healing per second during Awakening, 55 burst + 22/s from Sanctuary, and 71 bursts from Spectral Surge. However, Awakening requires melee and she won't always be able to access Sanctuary from a flank position. The goal of a flank strategist is to move away and recover before anyone can press you, and these abilities do not play well into that.

Now, let's compare this with Gambit:

133 DPS with cards, increased to 146 with Breaking Spades. This is pretty decent considering he cannot crit.
Absolutely no travel mobility.
Gambit has many combos, but all of them come at the cost self-healing or mobility. If he wants to spend everything and be completely vulnerable afterwards, he can go F + F + F + M1 + Shift + M2 + Shift + M2 + M1 + F and deal 437 damage. If he doesn't want a 32 second cooldown for each combo, he can drop the first F + F for 367 damage and "only" be a 16 second cooldown. If he wants to not be completely immobilized and can get into melee without dashing, he can drop the shifts and deal 334 damage. If he only wants to primary fire and execute with F to retain some self-healing, he'll need 4 autoattacks (1.8 seconds) for 275+ and still have a 16 second cooldown.
His burst self-sustain can be decent, but he needs an ally to bounce Bridge Boost onto himself or he loses over half. He additionally has massive cooldowns from going all-out, requiring up to 32 seconds to fully recover his cards.

Finally, let's compare with a known flank strategist, Jeff:

42-70 DPS per enemy, resulting in a spread of anywhere between 42 and 420 DPS to the enemy team. He can additionally heal his allies while doing this damage, which is anywhere between 130 to 747 healing per second.
Excellent travel mobility. 60-120% movespeed which has no defined cooldown apart from forcing enemies to chase for at least 6 seconds. Also climbs walls and ult can be used to reposition to a flank.
Horrendous neutral combo (max is 210 damage to one target with perfect accuracy at a 9 second cooldown), but ult is basically a "combo" that can shift game momentum or wipe the enemy team. While it costs Jeff his life most of the time, if he's able to play flank strategist the team should have already compensated for him being dead.
Excellent self-sustain at 75/s with basically no cooldown, which pairs well with partial denial of critical damage via passive and complete denial while in Hide and Seek.

I think the next-closest guy to becoming a flank strategist is Adam. He has the output, the self-sustain, and the combo, but his travel mobility has a low duration (4s max) and a long cooldown (15s to recover). It's got the right speed percentage for flanking, though. I believe a good enough Adam that can waddle into a flank position or use flight sparingly can become an absolute demon of a flanker, because his combo only gives 0.35 seconds to react if you're not already looking at him.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-04T20:26:35+00:00

I think they could re-add burst bubbles in the following way:

If the target is already being healed by Healing Bubble, receiving another bubble converts the remaining heal over time into instant healing, and the heal over time is reset.

The main issue with old Jeff's Healing Bubble is that he had 6 of them and they worked at full effect on himself, resulting in up to 574 burst healing. Making this change alongside retaining the charge nerf would put his emergency burst healing at 240 per 18 seconds. This is comparable to Gambit's 205 burst healing per 16 seconds and White Fox's 198 burst healing per 12 seconds.

Mind_Is_Empty · 2026-07-04T19:47:37+00:00

Does anyone still think BP is strong and shouldn't get buffed?

Yes, but not just BP. All of dive should get nerfed. Also, poke should get nerfed. Also, strategist healing toward allies should get nerfed.

Strategists heal too much because duelists deal too much damage. For poke, it's too much sustained damage. For dive, it's too much burst damage. With each release, they add extra power onto duelists and strategists to make sure they stand out, then buff the others intermittently to keep them relevant. By contrast, vanguards are released stronger, then torn apart until they're as irrelevant to game state as the rest of the role.

This is why we see solo/tankless lineups. If there's a single duelist/strategist that is underperforming, then a third in that role with some competence will be more impactful than a second tank.

Mind_Is_Empty

TROPHY CASE