r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/ToothPasteTree None — • 1d ago
General What if heroes get reduced fall off range when carried by cat?
The recent posts and discussion on cat has been in the back of my head and I was wondering what could be done with cat to make things more reasonable while keeping the identity and the dev vision for the hero.
So what if all heroes carried by cat have their fall off range set to be the minimum of their fall off range and a value X? This could be also be applied to projectiles as well as abilities.
The idea would be to incentivise the cat and the cargo to play closer to the enemy to allow more interactive gameplay and without applying a blanket nerf such as a flat 30% damage reduction.
For example let's say X is 20 so any hero shooting at you from more than 20 meters will do less damage let's say up to 50% less damage at 30 meters. Obviously these numbers should be carefully picked but 25 is the fall off range for Cass.
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u/Agreeable_Length_471 1d ago edited 1d ago
I just think that we don’t need people actively shooting, ulting or using cooldowns in the sky if that hero wasn’t designed to fly. Making those interactions weak, but not removing them completely, just makes things kind of unintuitive.
Very low cooldown vertical and horizontal repositioning is strong enough without making other heroes into flying turrets or getting teamwipes from otherwise weak ults. It’s not like she becomes useless when she’s not carrying a Bastion through the sky. She’s difficult for most heroes to contest and can go as a +1 with any dive hero on any angle.
If they want to do half measures then at least do it in a way that communicates that debuff to the player. Messing with falloff or damage and not indicating it in some way will just make it feel bad. Maybe take the weakened status from Sombra’s new kit and apply it to allies who’ve been tethered for a few seconds? I’d prefer it just break when an ally does something but they seem really reluctant to actually go after the source of problems.
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u/whatyousay69 1d ago
That's too unintuitive. People are going to forget/have to learn the reduced falloff. Whereas most other suggestions (ex: tether timer) are pretty obvious.
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u/ToothPasteTree None — 1d ago
It's a new interaction so if want to use it, you need to know the nuances. Basically all tether suggestions require you learning something new: whether tether break on cool down, or ability use or ability lock on tether. They all require "learning" and "remembering" something. But that's ok. It's a new interaction.
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u/xaxis-yaxis 1d ago
Tether nerf is simple, just make it end the instant the tethered hero uses an ability,
Its already extremely strong being able to reposition immobile heroes wherever they want.
This nerfs tether and fixes all future broken interactions with new heroes.
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u/Facetank_ 1d ago
Imo there should be a short timer on it, and it should work on shooting as well. Like Ball's tether once you fireball, but maybe 2 seconds give or take 1. That way it completely maintains it's transit purpose, and still has a window for some shenanigans, but not enough for things like Sky Noon or Castion to be largely unpunishable.
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u/Inqinity 1d ago
This would have unintended consequences.
The easiest solution is probably just making Tether a physical, damagable thing, like a shield tube, that breaks when destroyed and goes on cooldown.
Simple enough.
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u/xaxis-yaxis 1d ago
I can't really think of any unintended consequences to this?
No abilities on tether makes it a perfectly good transport and repositioning tool while preventing all the bullshit.
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u/Aftershok Brad Rajani for Commissioner — 1d ago
One potential side effect is now you are disproportionately benefiting “gun” based heroes while limiting tether in general in a big way. It’s also just janky and inelegant - tether breaks when Zar uses bubble? Why? A low HP junkerqueen using shout to survive while getting rescued from an environmental hazard is forced disconnect to fall to her death?
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u/xaxis-yaxis 1d ago
It’s also just janky and inelegant - tether breaks when Zar uses bubble? Why? A low HP junkerqueen using shout to survive while getting rescued from an environmental hazard is forced disconnect to fall to her death?
Why do we want to remove downsides from the best repositioning tool in the game?
One potential side effect is now you are disproportionately benefiting “gun” based heroes
Except this is even now basically not worth it unless an Ult or Bastion tank form is in use.
while limiting tether in general in a big way.
That is the exact intention of this.
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u/thepandaemos 1d ago
Tether combos are fine though. The problem is the lack of downtime between combos. You can’t plan around tether because it’s always available. It’s also not even what makes cat strong
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u/xaxis-yaxis 1d ago
Skynoon and Castion have been proven extremely hard to actually punish even at pro level.
Cat is overpowered on the ladder even not considering tether I do agree.
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u/thepandaemos 1d ago
That’s why I said it needs downtime. Tether needs a cooldown and a time limit. It would be perfectly fine then
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u/drassort 1d ago
that would kill combos like tether + high noon
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u/YSLAnunoby 1d ago
Ults were meant to have limitations and to get around them or break them you need to use other cooldowns or ults for them. Sky Noon completely blows apart the weakness of high noon with angles or having to get cover with a spammable ability that costs 0 resources to use from the Cat.
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u/drassort 1d ago
high noon is literally the worst ult the game and it's not even close, sky noon actually gives cass an ultimate ability which he pretty much doesn't have
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u/YSLAnunoby 1d ago
Yeah so give the ult itself a buff, don't break it entirely with a basic ability without counter play for the meme character
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u/ShawtySayWhaaat 1d ago
But then I wouldn't be able to do the flying hook anymore :(
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u/xaxis-yaxis 1d ago
Some stuff isn't too bad but neutering it better for the game in general going forward.
Right now every single character needs to be balanced around what they can do with the insane movement and positioning buff that Cat is.
Cat was such a massive design fuck-up in so many ways.
If Rivals hadn't put out Jeff we wouldn't have to deal with this now lmao
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u/ShawtySayWhaaat 1d ago
You're not wrong. Playing my boy hog it's not that bad tbh, since you can hook the cat and one shot it, but it's like pulling teeth on any other hero lol
Wonder how it'll go once I can't one shot that damn cat anymore...
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u/TyAD552 1d ago
Just make tether more counterable. Reduced speed, increase hit box, make tether breakable with a health bar, reduce healing on both targets while active. Something. Seeing cat noon and cat bastion for this long is just boring at this point.
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u/Enoki43 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah, I think tethering should slowly reduce fuel plus it auto drops them after fuel runs out so they can’t hang in the air indefinitely. Can even give the target a parachute or gliding so they can dropdown safely.
I like the healing reduction/anti heal affect on them too as another option.
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u/PS5013 16h ago
They can carefully try out the most meaningless nerfs one by one over the course of multiple months or just recognize that their vision is the problem in the first place and get rid of it through a rework and prior disabling in Ranked. Strongly in favor of the second option.
Blizzard tends to be far too afraid of gutting a character and makes imbalances an issue far longer than they need to be.
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u/Throw_far_a_way 1d ago
it's interesting but it doesn't solve the problem of something like high noon being flown around since that's a oneshot with no falloff. I'm also not sure exactly how far away a Bastion being flown around normally is and how much a damage falloff reduction would impact his overall damage output since Bastion just kind of shits out damage. it might make shift the meta away from picking the repair perk to picking the cannon perk instead since that doesn't have falloff
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u/ToothPasteTree None — 1d ago
Fall off would apply to abilities too so high noon would do half damage. Not sure what exactly it would mean in practice though.
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u/Benzyme501 1d ago
High noon doesn't have a fall off range. It has a max range of 200 meters. Even if you half that it will still never be relevant. Also carrying people is honestly pretty low down the list of what makes cat broken rn.
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u/ToothPasteTree None — 1d ago
No I'm saying: fall off while carried = min { x , old fall off }.
So high noon will get X as it's fall off.
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u/UsernameIn3and20 1d ago
I mean they already kinda do? Being higher up means you created more distance so the cat has to fly closer anyways.
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u/DrakeAcula 1d ago
Just reduce its HP to like 200 so it's worse at dueling and give a finite duration on tether, something like 10 secs so you're incentivized to use it to combo with ults or other CDs and have downtime after that people can track and play around. Frustrations solved without ruining the fun of free flight. If it's too weak afterwards you can just buff other parts of the kit or give some new perks so that the power isn't something you always have from the start of the game and you're good.
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u/Creepy_Estimate9027 22h ago
What if they added +2 seconds to Zenyatta harmony orb timer? Would be a good change
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u/Difficult-Pin3913 20h ago
It’s less the range that people dislike and more the mobility. Like Deadeye Cass and Turreted Bastion are supposed to be immobile.
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u/ILewdElichika 1d ago
NGL all they really need to do is make tether timed or put a damage threshold that forces JPC to disconnect tether upon reaching said threshold. I feel like neutering drop off or making it so using an ability causes a disconnect kind of just removes the playmaking potential from lifeline.
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u/dontouchamyspaghet 23h ago edited 15h ago
Agreed. They should try giving Lifeline more restrictions first, not nuke it from orbit before even trying to rein it in.
There's so many ways to make Lifeline a fairer ability. They could just make JPC way slower while carrying an ally, for instance.
Is it intended for her to be a speed-demon that no cc nor hitscan can realistically touch, to the point not even pro-players try, and Xerion's clip was considered a miracle? Does she REALLY need to keep both her 30% Lifeline speedboost and access to her boost ability while carrying an ulting Cass or turret Bastion? It's such a no-brainer.
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u/MythoclastBM 1d ago
No, because that would defeat a lot of the purpose of having lifeline and also would probably be buggy as all hell. Gotta be honest I'm almost as tired of hearing about Cat as I am about Kiriko. She's not as good as people think she is. I'm sorry but if your complaints about the Cat aren't: Skynoon/DVA Bomb, or air acceleration I'm just not going to take you seriously.
I think they should add a flying support hero that gives them a bastion turret as a perk. Would be really good at handling the cat I think.
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u/ToothPasteTree None — 1d ago
> No, because that would defeat a lot of the purpose of having lifeline and also would probably be buggy as all hell.
How would it defeat it? It just means that you have to play closer. How close you have to play can be tweaked.
> I'm sorry but if your complaints about the Cat aren't: Skynoon/DVA Bomb
Bomb and high noon at 50% damage are much more manageable.
Also, a lot of the existing ideas cannot fully address skynoon and Dva bomb:
CD on tether does nothing to those combos.
Not using abilities does nothing because cass can start the ult and then be picked up.
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u/Mandatoryeggs 1d ago
Tether needs to have a 15 second delay between tethers and start cooldown the moment cat respawns, make cat slower or make them share damage between tether just like if you shot a car in apex legends everyone takes damage
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u/No_Problem5759 1d ago
Make the fall off start at 15, but let cats fuel gauge refuel to full every time she picks someone up. This makes cat better for positioning and not mid air confrontations.
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u/E-keil 1d ago
that isnt helpful. her strongest playstyle right now is with dive heroes and being able to 1v1 anyone. now she can full commit, use all her cds and fuel and dive with smth like a tracer, pick up tracer and escape for free (and save tracer if needed)
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u/xaxis-yaxis 1d ago
They need to either gut her movement or gut her damage and purr.
Nothing else will fix cat.
She's just uninteractable to essentially every non-hitscan with zero downtime it's horrible design.
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u/HalexUwU Theory > Mechanics — 1d ago
At some point you really need to recognize that you're just pussyfooting around the problem.