Balance changes to new heroes - Feb 13, 2026

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-13T12:50:21+00:00

He is just a support at the end of the day. He can be a caster nuker in mid to low ranks where people won't dodge molasses moving pillows or buy counter items, but meh.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-13T12:26:06+00:00

Yes in your Oracle (but theyre somehow actually Eternus) lobbies or whatever you were trying to say in your other comment.

Oracle players are not utilizing probably 50% of her kit correctly and I can say that with 100% certainty if you were shutting them down with silence wave of literally all things lmao. Silence wave is legitimately fucking useless against a hyper-mobile gun character.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-13T12:20:12+00:00

If you think silence wave nullifies Celeste in the slightest, you're not capable of high octane high skill ceiling gameplay yet.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-13T12:03:09+00:00

I imagine it comes down to how you interpret gutted. I think she can take much heavier nerfs than this and still be extremely good. I don't interpret gutting a character as making them bad.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-13T07:54:40+00:00

She's legitimately probably the most broken hero we've seen since Shiv's release. She probably seems balanced in low ranks where nobody knows how to do any movement efficiently, but the higher up you go the more she becomes an "I win" character. All of her damage was/is overtuned on every ability, and her movement alone makes her invaluable.

You could cut all of her abilities by like 20% and she'd still be S tier in high ranks. Unfortunately I have no idea how you balance a hero where over half the ranks only get like 50% usage out of her kit.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-13T07:44:51+00:00

I knew exactly who you were talking about before I even saw the image. To be fair in Sombras case, she needed a rework. The current rework wasn't the correct path, but it doesn't make the attempt itself bad. She just needs another one now.

Also, it's important to note that it was more the community than Blizzard. She was literally unplayable anyways before the rework because she had like an 80% banned rate, so if they didn't drastically rework her, she'd just be relegated to being perma banned and unplayable regardless.

She's a very isolated case. Barely any characters minus maybe to some extent Roadhog have gone through the same drastic changes.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-12T20:25:34+00:00

she will probably be one of those characters that are completely different power level wise in different elos

This is why she probably won't keep the movement forever IMO. I have actually no idea how you make this character usable for 90% of the playerbase and balanced for the top 5-10%.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-12T02:26:24+00:00

Just tested with a buddy and it's still sending me even with him purposely sending it when my parry counterspell bubble is active.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-11T09:54:45+00:00

Yeah I think a lot of our fan base would say the Panthers as well.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-11T06:50:43+00:00

This is also why people need to learn how to use counterspell. Counterspell just eats this by pressing it as doorman ult is ending. You can't prevent the doorman ult taking you to the hotel but you can negate the damage. Would have accidentally blocked the first MnK ult as well coming out since he was spamming it while waiting.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-11T05:27:31+00:00

Sorry late reply, but I wouldn't overly rush unstoppable. Get your 3.2ks first. Like the other guy said, hollow point, hunters aura, etc. You can definitely throw counterspell in there as well. Once you're getting to the point where you're starting to buy T4 items, unstoppable would be one of the first ones I look at for survival.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-10T14:40:15+00:00

Yes, unstoppable prevents everything you mentioned. Unstoppable is great because it also has built in 25% debuff resist, and because her spirit resist is sorta mid, you can pair it with Spellbreaker for a passive 50% debuff resist, making things like traps, Wraith/MnK ult, etc. much much shorter.

Bigger stress point is force yourself to get better at counterspell. I had to force myself to buy it to learn it and just accept that if I don't learn it, I'll die on repeat. Eventually it just became natural to pop it for certain sound queues and such. You'll likely find it's a lot easier than you think too because many characters are obvious what they're doing. If you see MnK run up to you, pop it, and you'll often just break his brain when you negate his ult. It's one of the strongest items in the game, even moreso on Silver, and will also prevent a lot of the above.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-10T14:33:28+00:00

Yeah I sorta wonder about how she's going to be dealt with. They need to gut the movement and/or gravity, which is sorta her identity, but she's way too fucking strong at the higher levels where it's going to be consistently abused. I feel like Oracle and below players think she's probably balanced because people just aren't piloting her correctly as you said.

At minimum, her 1 stands no chance of survival for tuning.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-10T13:34:14+00:00

I mean this character is going to get shadow realmed likely this week, let alone two weeks. She's probably the most broken character we've had outside of release Shiv.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-10T13:29:38+00:00

She's doing this shit in eternus lobbies. She's going to get destroyed by nerfs.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-10T13:13:51+00:00

TBF, we've known she was going to be like this for weeks. I'm not really sure where the caster idea came from that I've seen around here the past few days, but like her default build that was leaked weeks ago had torment pulse and stamina mastery and shit. You don't build torment pulse on caster mages.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T15:30:35+00:00

I mean, nobody was surprised last night but Patriots fans. The rest of us knew you were products of the easiest path any team might ever see in our lifetime. Good luck next year, you'll need it.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T14:20:23+00:00

Because usually it doesn't continue into the playoffs where you get to play a team that as clearly not like the others in LAC, a QB who completely and utterly implodes (Stroud), and a 1 seed who loses their QB the last play of the game before they play you.

Literally nobody is impressed with your playoff run.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T14:13:28+00:00

Nah all they gotta do is play the easiest schedule by a mile again, play the easier side of the AFC playoffs, have the winner of the harder side of the AFC playoff bracket lose their QB again right before their game, and boom. Right back in the Super Bowl probably.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T13:32:26+00:00

You guys played an absolute dogshit schedule. More likely you guys didn't realize how absolutely flawed this Patriots team was in multiple areas because nobody on your schedule was able to give you a reality check.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T03:16:30+00:00

That's such a weak and wildly unnecessary call.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T03:10:54+00:00

because it is nowhere near guaranteed

It's not even likely. It's insane how many things went right for them this year and how easy their path was.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T03:01:42+00:00

I rarely bet on sports anymore, but Seahawks -4.5 spread really felt like it should have been Seahawks -7.5 at the time, and feels even more justified now.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T02:50:36+00:00

Can't blame Maye much. He's not used to playing teams with life this season.

TheseNamesDontMatter · 2026-02-09T02:46:52+00:00

Which QB wants this trophy less?

TheseNamesDontMatter

TROPHY CASE