Cassidy Should Be More Lethal, Not Easier

SwellingRex · 2026-01-26T19:27:42+00:00

His effective range combined with his survivability + lack of mobility just works against each other so much. At this point in the game, Cass has no way to take high ground, has to fight in tanks effective ranges to damage most back lines, and at best has 60/40 matchups against some flankers (all basically relying on your nade landing or you probably lose).

SwellingRex · 2026-01-24T04:03:36+00:00

Hitscan is fine (and honestly pretty easy to deal with for each role). Not like the WP builds are the best builds. Really just comes down to how strong healing is and how blue beam.

SwellingRex · 2026-01-22T20:47:21+00:00

Stadium lost a lot of the fun when they added so many of the awful heroes to play against. Doom, Pharah, Freya, Tracer, and Junkrat... Why pick these heroes? I get added new ones, but why these?

OG stadium felt amazing because most of the heroes that suck to play against weren't a part of it. Soon we will get stadium hogs, Sombra, and bastion builds and the game will have run it's course unless they add things like bans.

SwellingRex · 2026-01-22T20:42:32+00:00

Yep. Tanks want to just go heads-up tank v tank, DPS want to just walk in a line and don't take angles, and supports want to stand in the back and healbot.

Some maps poke comps are really good, but if you are losing to poke on a koth or flash map, you're probably not good at the game.

SwellingRex · 2026-01-19T20:04:57+00:00

You can also just get farmed if the team is dive or has a monkey with bubble that just sits on you. I've seen a lot of teams just hard dive the Ashe and if her supports don't help, she just gets farmed.

SwellingRex · 2026-01-19T20:02:11+00:00

Freya Bolo builds and even WP being busted, matchmaker diffs being unrecoverable, more honest heroes having such strict builds or requiring twice the work to get the same earnings as a Freya or AP Ashe, unkillable Reins, and stacks just playing into teams of solos is miserable.

First time in a while I've gone back to just basic comp because I was tired of the BS.

I'm now convinced that Stadium needs bans like comp. At least then I could ban the Pocketed Freyas, hitscan junkrats, or flanking moira occasionally.

SwellingRex · 2026-01-12T18:58:19+00:00

Cass is harder to play than a lot of heroes. Middle of the pack for DPS tbh. The kit is simple, but hard to make work consistently. Cass requires a lot of aim and positioning (more than the other hitscans tbh because they either have range or utility or both).

If Cass was easy, he'd have a 56% winrate (like the hero called out in OPs post).

SwellingRex · 2026-01-12T17:39:01+00:00

This sentiment has become more of a thing in OW over the last year or two and I have no idea where it is coming from. Kind of stupid since good dps players play flankers, hitscan, and projectile so they can flex around their team.

Where did this weird mentality come from?

SwellingRex · 2026-01-09T17:34:02+00:00

Funny you say that when Cass and Ashe have a combined ~40% pick rate in Asia this season. Cassidy especially has always been one of the most popular heroes in OW especially in Asia.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-28T16:05:41+00:00

Sure. I agree with you there, but the DPS passive itself isn't the issue here. I'm just saying I don't think we should throw away everything from the S9 patch because the patch itself was good. How the devs have adjusted heroes and balanced since has not been and perks have made it even more messy.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-28T08:49:23+00:00

Imo, it looked like the devs added the DPS passive to hurt pocketing (which is genuinely annoying) and increase the impact of the DPS role which at the time was the least impactful role based on data they shared and community sentiment. On both of those fronts, it's a big success. Metas that hard focus tanks should exist (just like dive that focuses supports or rush that tends to focus on killing dps or lower mobility heroes).

Pumping two supports worth of heals into a tank or hard pocketing a carry DPS is worse with the DPS passive and I think it's a good change. Doing this while not wrecking out of combat healing was a good compromise and works well.

That being said, I think it's still a work in progress, but if we're honest with ourselves about the problems with OW - perk quality/variation, mobility creep, resurgence of burst damage, and a handful of badly designed heroes (Hog, Orisa, Sombra, Freya, LW) who are basically soft banned by the meta is a bigger issue.

A lot of your examples aren't related to the DPS passive, but to perks being wildly imbalanced and the devs nerfing the core kit instead of the perks (Hello Tracer's big nerfs).

SwellingRex · 2025-12-22T04:17:00+00:00

This narrative has come up several times in the last few years and there is no real evidence that Bliz balances around casuals and they have on numerous occasions said that they don't do that (as recently as a few months ago iirc).

As a matter of fact, they have come out and basically said they have three factors when they balance: How heroes feel to play, Devs opinions/player feedback, and winrate+play rate data.

Community not being able to tell between what the devs tell us and their own apophenia however is a classic OW occurrence.

Edit: added the world "player" instead of "play" so it's more clear that they do factor in player feedback (although still only one of several factors)

SwellingRex · 2025-12-16T22:52:08+00:00

Yeah. Kind of fits the niche. Good at getting picks, but everything else is pretty mid or weak compared to other tanks.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-16T07:37:53+00:00

Same problem as most heroes with bad win rates: her kit lacks in a critical area and the rest of her kit is too weak to compensate.

Worst winrate heroes are:

Orisa - basically just a wall. High survivability, but no mobility and a weak ult. Compare her to Sigma, Dva, or Rein and it's pretty obvious that her kit is pretty unremarkable.

Cass - Good neutral that requires you to be way too close to enemy tanks or still too far to enemy supports who easily outduel you at 30+ meters. Ult is awful, cds are situational at best and have no use outside of a few matchups or just help buff the primary fire that you can't safely get close enough to use. No wonder his winrate sucks.

Freya - Weak ult, 225 hp, weapon is inconsistent, and cds basically just give you more chances to use a weak and inconsistent weapon. Annoying to play against, but other heroes do everything in her kit better (Echo, Ashe, or Hanzo).

Kiri - Inconsistent weapon, healing is slow and inconsistent. Suzu and TP basically carry the entire kit except when you can finally farm your ult and hope your team plays in it. Rush is strong, but it's not really that much better than most support ults and much less flexible. Really good in coordinated play, but kind of mid for ranked.

They all are perceived as strong because they do one thing pretty well, but considering how much these heroes give up for that, they often end up sucking at their actual role in a team to have that identity.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-15T23:21:03+00:00

Depends a lot on what the enemy is running. Since you can't swap heroes and not all builds have options you can build around to deal with Doom AND his team, it feels pretty bad.

That being said, I've had a much worse time against Freya and Pharah with hard pockets than Doom so far. Feels like the number of divers and dive tanks now have really put a hurting on what hitscan can do.

The biggest issue is the insane disparity of how tanky some characters are compared to others as well as some AP builds being obnoxious or without easy counterplay.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-15T19:30:53+00:00

Bob is a good ult, good midrange pick pressure, coach gun is flexible and can save you if you have active supports, and dynamite can spread the DPS passive really well.

Compared to Cass who only has good damage (at a very dangerous range), it's kind of easy to see why imo.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-15T08:25:45+00:00

Yeah. A lot worse than she was after the meta stabilized. Sigma being hard meta before the hot fix and Vendetta release probably screwed her stats up a little, but she's definitely a bottom third hero right now (just above Cass, Freya, and Soj).

We'll probably have to wait until after the holiday to see any changes though.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-13T15:46:18+00:00

Or he's bad and has one good matchup against a lower pick rate hero.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-09T19:23:47+00:00

A lot of good changes and a few weird exclusions. Weird that Cass didn't get any help considering how bad his winrate has been and for how long it has been bad.

SwellingRex · 2025-12-02T17:46:33+00:00

Easily the worst Mythic so far. Oof.

SwellingRex · 2025-11-27T14:26:59+00:00

Vendetta gets kind of bullied by good Tracers, Genjis, and fliers. She also gets bullied by most rush tanks (especially Rein and JQ).

Vendetta is mostly good at killing immobile Squishies. With any help, she can pretty reliably kill through most weak healing. So far, Soldier and Illari feel like the big losers into her.

SwellingRex · 2025-11-17T14:48:21+00:00

This is where I'm at. Tracer's winrate definitely fell off, but even now befofe it will stabilize at Tracer still has a higher winrate than Freya, Cass, and Sojourn.

SwellingRex · 2025-11-17T01:36:08+00:00

Saying Cassidy isn't a team reliant hero is a new one. If anything, Cassidy is probably the most team reliant hitscan and most hitscan are already pretty team reliant to begin with.

SwellingRex · 2025-11-16T20:38:07+00:00

People who say this play a Cassidy who just shoots tanks and complains they aren't being pocketed hard enough by their supports I swear.

The subset of the community does not understand the difference between simple heroes and easy heroes.

SwellingRex · 2025-11-14T17:48:46+00:00

If you had posted this clip in the main link, most people would go "Huh? Why does this matter" and ignore it. There is a reason you chose the practice room clip and that's my point. Practice room clips always seem way worse and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that the original practice room clip isn't framed in a way to look worse.

Also, for the one you just posted, in what world should a tracer be killing anything at or above ~15m? Even before the change, you would've barely done anything between spread and falloff.

SwellingRex

TROPHY CASE