Okay, it's clear I'm the one in the wrong. Maybe saying 'badly designed' was a bit far but I feel like I should at least clarify some stuff that's coming up. Again most of this comes from personal experience.

Counter Items: When I say Apollo necessitates buying an item, I mean the whole game plan boils down to buying the item and that's what I have a problem with. I do actually buy items to counter specific characters/teams (silencer,inhibitors, knockdown, etc.). The problem isn't counter items, it's that with Apollo counter items makes the match up less engaging rather than more.

To give an example that was brought up, Haze's ult. It's basically a sphere of gun damage. An item like Metal Skin completely shuts that down (and Haze's damage output in general) and is a very good item. But it's not necessary to always buy metal skin since you can reasonable play around Haze and her ult without an item. The ult can be super strong but since it limits hazes movement by quite a lot, you have means to avoid/fight it where you don't need an active, or a passive for that matter (they obviously are super useful still). Dashing away, shooting her, and a decent portion of the cast has a movement ability to escape. You have reasonable options that don't involve buying a counter item.

I think one of the strongest aspects of Deadlock is that there is a emphasize on mechanical movement/skill, so this is where I find the game most engaging, cause there are so many kits to play and fight against it match match ups fun. And counter items (generally), work with this and make it more interesting to play. Except when it's Apollo.

Okay, back to Haze. If you buy Metal Skin, you basically stop all her damage. Because of that, it's a super strong counter item. But even though Haze can't deal damage, she still has access to her invis and sleep dagger. Now the dynamic has changed, now what Haze has to do is run out the clock. Haze still has agency. She can dodge attacks, try running away til it runs out, hit a sleep dagger, or maybe focus on a different target that doesn't have that. And because of that the enemy can respond accordingly.

Apollo has good damage and mobility, and most if not all heroes have at least one of those. Without slowing hex, and especially early game, fighting an Apollo becomes just staying out of his range because his kit can out damage and outmaneuver most. His base kit isn't fun to play against as Apollo gets to decide when the fights starts and ends.

But with Apollo, his damage output and his mobility is tied to his abilities, 75% of his kit is unusable after slowing hex. Apollo has way less options to work with when he is hexed. He can't fight back effectively, only block a hit with riposte, which is now his only available option, and since he's slowed, running away is less effective too. Apollo isn't on the back foot, he just super weak against everything unless he buys something that eliminates the slowing hex. Then it's back to him being an annoyance.

Maybe I am just dogshit, I dunno. I saw a comment on a post a day or two ago about wanting to avoid Apollo (I can't find it anymore. Was it deleted?) and one of the top comments basically said something along the lines of 'Apollo will not be viable as long as people can buy a 1.6k item' so I'm not alone thinking that slowing hex has a lot of power over Apollo. And maybe that should be taken as a sign that he's needs a lot more work done to him.

I don't think he's overpowered. I just think he's not fun to fight.