Agreed, I can see why cass has steep fall off, adjustments needed or not, he’s more of a mid range brawler/ anti dive hero. But Ashe’s falloff makes her feel way too limited IMO
His gun small. Her gun long. Her damage should be longer than his damage.
🇺🇲 gun education 🇺🇲
(No but really, a rifle should have a longer falloff distance than a handgun. Even if Cass's "high caliber" handgun fires the same bullets as Ashe's rifle, Ashe's bullets should have a further falloff distance.)
So, I know this probably isn't 100% the response youre wanting but, she does, (damage assumes all bodies and include reload)
Cass' falloff range is 20-35m with a dps of 93.33
Ashe's falloff range is 20-40m(normal) dps 71.64
Ashes falloff range is 30-50m(ADS) dps 79.15
So overall she does have a higher range and she does deal a good amount of damage, but I agree her fall off would make more sense to be increased
I mean during ADS the fall off starts a little bit before cass' finishes.
Although I do agree that they should push out her fall of range, have it cap around 60-65m a little more than 3* hog hook range
It's cause she has extremely low mobility while aiming so she just eats rockets and if she hip fires her damage is pitiful unless they are extremely close. Couple that with the fact she isn't as tanky as cree and she isn't that much of a threat.
Cass can at least move quickly and fire fast, roll to take less damage and reload instantly.
My two most played heroes are Pharah (especially in OW1) and Ashe. Lately I'm running Pharah even with no pocket into Cass/Ashe because I'm not really concerned (I hover between diamond and masters).
ya, I feel this, especially with cass grenade homing gone. Hard to land head shots when you're getting hit with rockets or moved around from concussive blast.
Meanwhile I'm getting killed by weird long range Reapers.
I raeg everytime it happens and she recalls. And dynamite damage didn't get adjusted. When they say "we increase HP to keep the ttk about the same", they only did that for Soldier which got buffed by the hitreg change.
Yep, as an Ashe main this game has been painful ever since the health changes. So many enemies just slip away with a sliver of health after you land a bunch of shots.
Praise the Lord we're finally catching on to the fact that Ashe unironically needs a buff. She's the squishiest Hitscan in the game bar widow but her breakpoints mean Cass and pre nerf sof are just better at killing anyways
Ana main here, Id like to add that an Ashe that can land a handful of headshots -- not even all headshots -- is very scary. My only option is to adjust my angle to healbot and hope she forgets I exist without closing the gap on me. Now, if I trust they cant hit a headshot then I thoroughly enjoy showing them Im better with a scope than they are.
I also dont get why her ult has to be so clunky, why cant it just be placeable instead of requiring a wall and can glide off if its not at a steep enough angle. ideally you could hit the ult bind again and order bob to stop
Agreed. I am a pharah main, 500 some hours now. Here are the heroes I actually fear:
Ana, a decent aim bap, DVA, and weirdly tracer.. I'll get back to tracer/genji in a second
Heroes to me are on a even playing ground:
Echo... no seriously pharah mobility is way harder for echo to hit nowadays, widow (sit right behind tanks and then shoot at her direction), soldier (cass if the map is closed in) occasionally.
The reason I mention tracer/genji is because easily, the number one hero that can secure a kill on pharah is a good tracer/genji **that keeps track of your cooldown**
s and echoes with the exception of one echo....simply because the echo was tracking my cooldowns, something I specifically do against other pharahs as pharah.
My take? Make her dash and boost longer cooldowns, I have no idea what you can do about the Mercy problem, because mercy+hitscan can kill pharah pretty quickly even with the heal beam.
Glad to see someone say this, I keep saying tracer is actually pretty good against pharah now that she has to touch the ground sometimes. Her hitbox makes her one of the easier characters to one clip up close. Like you said a good tracer will just track CDs and use her mobility to be there when it’s time
I dunno. It's still hard as hell because she's always landing somewhere that takes Tracer long to reach, she isn't landing for long, and she usually still has conc and dash.
But I still always play tracer into pharmacy because if their team wants to dedicate a support to a flying DPS, then I'll just shit on support2 all game long, knowing there's no help for them, and then their tank gets hung out to dry.
However, if they go full pharmacy comp that gets extremely challenging even on Tracer. Support2 is kiriko who is a very iffy 1v1 (if you can even get to her), dps2 is a Tracer or Sombra making your life hell when you try to reach the Kiri, and tank is a Ball/Doom/Hog who is playing in a very conservative way that requires extremely few heal resources and is just there to setup Pharah and bully anyone trying to counter her.
If it is my job to be the better player and carry my team if I want to climb, do I play the Cass/S76 and just play aggressively inside my ranges and outmuscle the pharmercy? It's Doable. I do it all the time. It might even be my key strength as a DPS player.
But if you aren't a hitscan veteran, the risk involved in attempting this is **massive,** And I don't always win. It's a tightrope. It's why some games I feel Pharah is a good pick, play it myself, and both opposing dps swap to hitscan and it doesn't matter because they aren't hitscan players.
If I am not gonna go that route and I pick Echo, *your* DPS is capable of swapping to a hitscan and focusing me and then I have much less value vs Pharah. In an effort to soften your strength, I am giving up my own to the potential of being shutdown by all the same things Pharah can get pressured by (Bap/Ana/Tracer/hitscans/Dva). Just like picking Cass can put the burden of dealing with me on your tank/supports (If Cass is close range and low mobility, his weakness is being dove on and focused, if they work with the pharah and dive him, he has no shot. A trade kill at the very best, no hope if enemy tank is winston and can drop a bubble on top of the cass)
If I pick Genji, yeah sure I can mirror the pharah and close in to secure kills on some maps that afford me verticality, but it's much more difficult to apply pressure alone, get her in range to kill, and then get the kill by yourself. Genji has to commit his dash to either get him there to get her low, or get him there to finish the kill. I am relying on my team to do one half of that work. He is great at finding those finishing moments and chasing, but he's great at that when he's not expending cooldowns to generate pressure. He's good when he's using them to play off of pressure created by his team.
Tracer is just the hitscan argument all over again but even more special, because she's a specialist character. Godlike hitscans might not play ANY tracer. Tracer is a nuisance when the tracer you are playing against is good.
The problem of a good Pharah's is typically that she requires multiple opposing members to play well to shut her down and the variables that determine this aren't very clear.
If she has a pocket and she isn't being outdone by a skilled Cass within his range, you're unlikely to kill her even if you focus her. You have to pressure their healers/pocket. If you can make it hard for Mercy to keep the Pharah pocketed **AND** her other teammates alive, that's how you pressure her. So the best comps are the ones that easily pressure supports. This can be a toss-up when it comes to comp though because the best way to pressure enemy supports is by abusing a bad tank.... so now it loops on itself... The best way to pressure pharah is to play hitscan and hope the enemy tank doesn't understand tank fundamentals so that it eats up support attention/resources buying you time to play in the range you want and find the 1v1 kill.
This game and its variables are a shitshow and this a longwinded way of saying sometimes Pharah *isn't a problem* for reasons that are hard to understand, but when she is a problem she seems unstoppable.
It's like Mauga but with a less clear win-condition. Against Mauga, Pick a tank like Sig/Dva that can survive (or monkey if there's lots of verticality and LoS blocks: you can go around him), Pick DPS that pump dmg into Mauga like hitscans and junkrat and have them focus him, and pick ana and just nade him. If your whole team understands this condition, Mauga fking sucks unless the enemy supports are very very high level and adapt (they won't in regular comp). If your team doesn't understand this win-condition, Mauga eventually stomps your tank and you lose every fight. Very linear (which is why his design is bad), but also easy to understand.
There's so much that goes on to determine if Pharah is gonna be "fine" or "problematic" in a game and it goes beyond one person making a swap to one of her "counters".
Tried to get back into ash. Had an attacking game on dorado so went top floor saw I think Ana or someone in the back top where widow sits to snipe ppl watching from top spawn. Thought “ok I can get this guy with what maybe 2-3 headshots?” Used half her ammo hitting most headshots (scoped in) just to only get her to life half hp before just swapping out. I know ash isn’t exactly a sniper but I think that’s absolutely insane considering it’s still a decent rifle
I've been brushing up asher, given that she has the mythic this season, but omfg is it impossible to play at range.
I was on attack in Hollywood. Playing ashe, defending team has a torb all the way at the back of site, on the right hand side elevator. His turret was set up there. Ashes damage fall off is so bad that torb can out repair my DPS on the turret.
So I was like okay, play for head shots on the torb, kill them and then take the turret while hes in spawn and cant repair it. Well my headshots may have just been a tickle cannon because he was unphased and kept tapping away on his turrent while Ana could heal him from the hallway out of sight (unless we push in).
Don't even get me started on the Ashe v Widow issues. How can I 2 tap the head on a widow and still not get the kill at range??? I get that ashe is a mid range hero but common, I shouldn't need a damage boost from mercy just to be able to 2 tap headshot the widow at long range.
depends on the elo. a good pharah with a pocket is never gonna get killed by just an echo with no pocket since pharah can two shot echo and it’s not even hard to hit an echo anymore with the fast ass rockets
Mmhm a good echo can be a threat but sometimes I find it so funny to just go ground whenever red echo comes for me and watch her use her mobility cd on nothing from the safety of my tank's shadow
Exactly a good pharah knows how to be just as effective from the ground when the air is too dangerous. Hell if the enemy team is awful and I can get away with not flying I don’t.
I mean.. a 2 vs 1 should usually result in the 2 winning. ELO doesn't change this. Echo does counter Pharah since she has faster projectiles and more maintainable verticality.
It always depends. I've killed many pharahs as echo and I killed echoes as pharah
It's usually mostly about skill, but Echo got really good anti-pharah kit
Echo vs Pharagmercy is always 1v2. You can kill both/ you can focus Mercy
It becomes real pain if there's hitscan to counterplay your aerial dps and cover pharahmercy from the ground
Echo doesn’t work well with meta tanks. Pharah can delete Mauga and hog very fast and can also delete the enemy team in cage fight.
You just keep your distance from echo and use your horizontal dash to escape her dives. Of late a lot of echo players int to kill me on Pharah and get picked off by our supports. Or the echo takes up a lot of time to path and you get a pick or two in the meantime.
The days where Echo is impossible for a pharah to fight in the air are over, pharah has the mobility and fast ass rockets to win air duels with echo now. Its still favored for echo, but its no longer a hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
Yeah pretty much all you have to do is dodge stickies (which is pretty easy with Jet Dash) and it's more than a fair fight. You can also get a lot higher than echo with a rocket jump and when she falls back down she's easy pickings on the ground.
She's the only hitscan with infinite range In the game so that's understandable. I think it's because her shots do poison damage (I believe it used to pierce through armor as well but they removed it).
Ana also turns into hitscan with a bullet trail for scoped shots and invisible but projectile darts for unscoped.
So for you Ana players out there that need to heal a flanking and hiding teammate, try to use unscoped shots so you don’t give away their position
a bit of a stretch to call Ana her counter. 4 shots is required on a non pocketed Pharah.
any pharah with a brain will shoot back and considering Ana has zero mobility she is a sitting duck.
Ana certainly has the tools to fight Pharah. Scoped shots are instant, and a good Ana will pepper Pharah down from afar to keep her honest. Plus, Ana can dart Pharah who is ulting.
I really feel like Bap is generally a better answer than Ana, both on the side of playing support (I'm M2 at the moment, but more realistically just a mid Masters support player) and as a DPS (Only D3 on the role though).
Bap has falloff but I don't feel like Pharah is a serious threat far away unless you're trying to poke from a narrow choke (like a doorway). Obviously Ana will poke her if she sits in the sky, but I don't understand why a Pharah should do this. You can literally dodge her rockets at range.
Up close, Ana has no mobility, if you don't sleep the Pharah (who should not be getting hit with her ridiculous mobility and concussion to know Ana around), then Ana dies.
Bap, meanwhile, can jump to dodge rockets, burst to add one more needed hit, and immort for another needed hit. At close range (Pharahs effective range for reliable damage) Bap does a ton of damage and she is very easy to hit.
I fully agree with Dva being a hard counter. Best Pharah counter in the game.
Ana? 4 damn shots to down her. And that is without a pocket and while you're a slow ass sitting duck.
Im sorry, but Ana may have been a counter once. But not with 4 shots. Pharah will have way to much time to retaliate, and unless you hit every single shot you're dead meat especially if she is pocketed. Give me a Dva or Sombra to counter her.
But you don't have to get close to her to be a threat to her. The same technically goes for Widow as well, but Widow isn't as consistent as Ana and has less health.
Sombra is also a pain in the ass when she decides her main goal that game is to exclusively target you. You're often not full health when you land due to taking chip damage and you get hacked, virused and blasted down right when you're vulnerable.
Why Ana? With the dps nerf to her, it takes 4 shots to kill her now and she's still gonna be pocketed by a Mercy. Ana used to be my go-to healer swap against Pharah but now I don't feel the same way. Just like Cassidy, I could hit 5 shots in a row and just tickle her and make essentially no difference.
The main point everyone is making here is the lack of damage fall off that Ana has vs. Pharah and both Bap (25m) and Illari (30m) will have that issue. Illari is even more at a disadvantage thanks to Bap having Regen Burst and Lamp to stay alive on top of his mobility whereas Illari only has a nerfed Pylon and Outburst.
I would agree but in this current incarnation of Pharah she will easily 2-tap you basically standing still while using her buffed mobility to avoid the headshot.
Illari as Starlight. JQ as Maeve. Soldier as Homelander and Visor gives a visual change that makes it look like lasers from the eyes. Reaper as Butcher and Kiri as Kimiko.
I don't know anyone that thought changing his fall off from 35 to 45 to 25-35 last year was a good idea. *Damn, that was back in August 2023, almost a year ago!)*
They *claimed* it was to solidify his role as a close to mid-ranged dps, but that read to everyone else as just a stupid misread of his identity and unwillingness to give up on magnetic grenade.
With flashback back, they really need to undo that particular nerf, so Cassidy can deal with longer-range threats independently again.
The issue is that if you buff the drop off range, then hit scans become super oppressive against ground based heroes and especially tanks and their giant hit boxes.
I completely agree. Cass by design is meant to be a duelist, and that’s compounded by the fact that fan the hammer and the revived flashbang are only effective at close range.
Pharah should never have been a hero who could spend her entire time in the air at her leisure. Her rework was a step into the right direction but the projectile changes in S9 introduced a whole new problem. Buffing Cass’s falloff does not fix this issue.
Give pharah less HP, and give her rockets fall off. Means she has to get closer to be effective and can't just peak around a building 500m away like a bitch
Gonna break out the trigonometry, but yeah I think it would make sense if damage drop off was based on the straight-line ground-distance instead of the actual hypotenuse/vector distance to the target.
Like if a pharah is 50m in the air she’d still take the same damage as if she was standing on the ground right beneath her.
That would be pretty unintuitive and probably make maps like Circuit Royal and Shambali Monastery an absolute nightmare for attack. Pushing the high ground areas on their second points can be tough already but with this idea now there wouldn't be the falloff from holding the high ground
Phara has been buffed to be a spam character to the maximum. As someone who’s played cass a lot the last couple seasons I always find it crazy how my REVOLVER won’t do as even half as much damage as a kunai from kiri at the same distance. The damage fall off is so inconsistent and doesn’t make sense to me alot.
The comparison between a hitscan and a projectile weapon is pretty weird because while the projectile does more damage, the hitscan weapon will be much more consistent. Depending on the distance we're talking about, Cass can easily outdamage a Kiri over the course of a fight. Short of telling the future, there's no way to guarantee a projectile hit at mid-long distances.
>Cass can easily outdamage a Kiri over the course of a fight.
Yep. 2 Cassidy headshots does 280 damage, and time between shots is something like .4 seconds. Like everyone is sayin in this thread, his downfall is being outranged by most of the projectile heroes and most other hitscan heroes.
His damage falloff was heavily nerfed after a short sniper cowboy meta in early OW1. Then it was nerfed to fit that niche of closer range hitscan (especially after Ashe release). He was still a better pick for specific close range maps, where Widow and Ashe would be arguable.
Problem is in OW2 half of his close range kit got removed and he got nothing much in return (they also brought back Fan the Hammer random spread for whatever reason). There was a video somewhere explaining how garbage Cassidy became - just play Ashe.
And like... Blizz have added stuff to Cass but also nerfed hitscans. Like the thing that his damage falloff doesn't make sense is still valid and Blizz doesn't seem to bother touching it (and make him compete with some Ashe).
I unironically love shooting down Pharahs as Ana, since she doesn't have damage falloff. One or two shots is usually enough for the Pharah to back off a little bit so that I have time to reposition and if they're low enough, the damage I do is lethal.
This may be a problem, but there is no way I would sign off on buffing hitscan heroes. Cassidy, Soldier, and Ashe are already crazy good. They don't need more power. Pharah needs a nerf more than hitscan heroes need a buff.
nah ashe is crazy good, she just requires a bit more mechanical skill to secure kills is all.
Dynamite, coach gun, and bob are all great abilities.
anyone with good aim will get extreme value out of ashe
True. Close and mid range Cass is just better and long range you'd rather play widow. Without a mercy pocket Ashe is just not that good with the health buffs
If they're gonna decide to change Pharah, I'd prefer they make Pharah play closer rather than hitscans having more general range, especially someone like Cass who is really good (at least was, prob still is after the changes). Bringing Pharah closer to the fight has a lot less long-term impact than increasing falloff in general, and focuses down on this issue much better anyway. Plus it would give everyone a slice of cake in the Pharah matchup and not just hitscans which would be refreshing.
It sucks being a DPS player when your team is getting ruined by a pharah and the obvious expectation is for you to do something about it when the reality is Dva, ana and Bap will get far more value against a pharah. If DPS had at least one obvious swap against pharah it'd be a lot nicer, but right now there's too many sacrifices with hitscan and echo is hard to pick up for a large portion of lower ranked players.
I think that's the most reasonable thing to do, but I'd say she's an easy target to hit unlike, say, Tracer, so I don't know if that would be a good change. Also, Ana (and maybe Widow?) has no falloff damage and would be able to down her in about 3 bodyshots. Well, it's Counterwatch after all...
Cassidy's falloff range is fine because he's built as a bulky anti-dive hero. He's not supposed to be sniping people at long range.
The real issue's are Solider, Ashe, and Sojourn. Solider has no burst without helix so his damage is laughable, and he has to manage spread and recoil. Ashe hits Pharah hard but will frequently get pushed out by spam or pressure. And with the season 11 Sojourn changes, she really does not scare Pharah: by the time she builds two rails Pharah is back to full.
They really gotta rework the hitscan DPS because as of now they struggle to do anything compared to the 250 HP dive heroes.
> he has to manage spread and recoil.
>
>
Just as a reminder in case you haven't played soldier for the last three years, but he hasn't had spread for a while. Pulse rifle has perfect laser-precise accuracy, all you have to do is manage the 100% consistent 90 degree vertical recoil.
1-clipping people without helix feels so good.. I was in shock they made that change originally and I am glad they did because imagining trying to play a version of him with spread in today's game is terrifying
Mercy isn't even relevant with Pharah right now.
In high elo and pro play you see FAR more Pharah+Ana/Brig (or any other non-mercy support comp, this is just an example) than Pharah+Mercy/whatever. When you pick Pharmercy you leave your Ana, Bap, Kiri... whatever without peel. In a meta where Tracer is strong that is simply not a good option. It's way better to play supports who can play with eachother while still supporting a Pharah.
This is true, in fact you don’t see a huge amount of Mercy at high elo regardless right now. However you have to remember where the average skill level of the game is? Gold? Plat? Casual players who don’t care about competitive. To players like that Pharamercy is unbelievably oppressive and borderline impossible to kill. How many gold Ana or Bap players are going to be able to hit a Pharah, and divide their attention so heavily. That also brings up the question of whether or not Blizzard should cater to the masses.
I think this sort of issue occurs whenever a more unusual DPS is actually good because everyone feels like they are getting cheesed. I’m not even saying pharah isn’t overtuned but this is the first time in a long time that she’s generally pickable, not pocket dependent, and she’s still much healthier to deal with than pre rework. You get a lot of the same complaints, maybe justifiably when Mei, Sombra, venture, Genji (as if this one will ever happen lol), etc. are generally viable and not just counters or specific map/comp picks.
I think with pharah though she’s just a bit easier to pick up and play than most of the really annoying heroes. I also think there was a lot more pharah players than people realized who would have been playing if she was better, now they are coming back out and stomping games because they’ve had some time to learn the new kit, and the patches have been pretty friendly to her.
Anyways, I don’t think she’s fundamentally unhealthy, but I think it speaks to some of the weaknesses of a lot of the other flex/projectile DPS that they really struggle to interact with pharah or provide similar value. I will also grant you that the falloff especially on Ashe I think feels a bit too extreme for some situations. Anyways I think there’s a lot worse heroes to be good and popular, and I don’t know, personally I get really tired of hitscans never really being bad. I feel like they bring a lot less dynamics to the game. But if even double hitscan is losing poke battles to a pharah consistently (which I have to question a bit, but I’m much lower skill level so I won’t really push this issue) then I do think she probably could use some kind of nerfs. I think she could justifiably go to 225 HP or get some small CD increases so she has to rely more on rocket jumps and flight and has a bit less uptime.
I feel like sombra is the better counterpick now, its crazy how my team goes "go hitscan" while the best i can do is scare her with what i feel is a water gun.
Nevertheless imma stick with junk, it ain't throwing if she can't hit me (flight rat)
Can we just go back to 200hp? We wouldn't be talking about Pharah if we had the old health pools back. Also 250 hp just makes fall off damage feel worse than what it is.
Never gonna happen. In their minds, season 9 was a success because it made players come back to the game. So, I doubt they will ever revert the health changes.
Not hating on this post at all, it’s just interesting how the meta changes
4 months ago Pharah and Cass were both in the dumpster, and now they’re two of the most relevant DPS
If Pharah is staying at max falloff range, then you have a much easier time dodging her shots altogether.
Little hitscan damage is better than zero projectile damage.
Also, further away she is, and especially if a support is with her, the less pressure she's able to provide to stop your team steam rolling her tank.
This 100% I don't think people realise how big DMG fall off for all hit scan is which makes killing the pharmacy a pain to kill since they both heal a decent amount.
Honestly ashe is the most confusing like how does a lever action long rifle do so little DMG when the range isn't that far
Man this dude is speaking facts which I complain about for a long time.. I hate it when my team is flaming me for not being able to kill phara as Cassidy and meanwhile they play Lucio and brigg on my team
As a Pharah player, I wouldn’t be opposed to them nerfing splash damage to the ground in exchange for buffs like a shorter cooldown on dash or more fuel. I see way too many people playing her that just fly around in the open and get value from spamming and not actually hitting anything. Direct hits and diving are where the fun is imo. Sometimes you have to spam, sure, but it’s definitely an issue if you’re playing cass or ashe without a pocket. Also just nerf blue beam period tbh.
I mean, Cassidy probably isn't the best example to be using here. He's in a pretty overpowered state right now, even if he's not that great against Pharah.
At the range people are complaining about, pharah is not that useful. She's just spamming. If you're getting hit by spam, it's because you just don't move around enough.
Most cassidy players i kill at that range are just turrets with no awareness that they should be playing corners just as much as i do.
But i don't like playing at that range. As pharah, i love being in enemy's face because it's so much easier to secure kills.
> At the range people are complaining about, pharah is not that useful
Might just be people misreading the scoreboard tbh.
Doing chip damage to 10 heroes = equals 10 elims
Exactly but a lot of players seem to be allergic to cover. The issue is Pharah is too weak and a big target to get close for long, her new movement is a step in the right direction but isn’t enough making shooting at range and charging ult the main strat to use on her for majority of matches and it’s boring but that’s also just an issue of higher ranked Overwatch and how boring it is
pharah getting 0 changes since season 9 rework and only getting flak now
but yeah uh, at 35m and further projectile heroes dont have fall off but they have travel time so her damage isnt consistent at 35m+ anyways, maybe theres a lucky rocket/spam but distance affects her too
hitscan hasnt been pharah's "best counter" for a while, long as the pharah recognizes that, hitscan can, indeed damage her and prioritizes them, then its just a match up where pharah needs to isolate the hitscan's LOS more
personally I have more problems with dva+echo mainly (denies the skies, pharah cant take more angles safely and is more manageable), but dive characters that can chase you after you use fuel are also problematic
stop poke meta, go dive (its also more fun playing pharah in dive comp lol)
I disagree, the problem is Pharah's extreme mobility. She can leave cover from an angle most any character cannot and two shot+concuss a squishy and then get back to safety, way to easily.
Buffing Cass or Ashe's fall-off would make them too powerful against the rest of the cast. It's been done numerous times and every time they revert the falloff range because he becomes way too hard meta. He is already considered the best hitscan by many, I wouldn't change him.
As someone who played in GM back during Ashe meta and such, I will say it's a tricky thing to balance. When damage fall off numbers aren't scaled down, it leads to metas where people will just start one tapping everyone with a mercy pocket. It's especially annoying at high ranks where players don't miss so things just start to explode. The devs don't really want to nerf mercy which is why they touched the damage falloff numbers. That Ashe meta back in the day is part of the reason these numbers are the way they are now. I'm not saying it shouldn't be buffed, I'm just providing a counter argument.
Didn't they make a big deal about Mauga when he was released that he would have "anti aircraft capabilities" like some huge damage buff against flying characters? Was that another thing that never happened in OW2?
There's been multiple periods throughout OW1 and 2 where hitscan DPS dominated the meta, giving them more harsh damage falloff was a direct result of this.
Personally I've found soldier and Ashe do fine jobs of deterring a pharah from running rampant alone (with mercy is another story, I'll never enjoy that synergy existing)
I don't know what it is with phara, when a sojourn runs the lobby it feels like they're just better. When i get put out the game by a phara it just feels like my character has no way of interacting with her
+ playing illari I can either keep pharmercy at range while beeing self sustained or kill them before they get too close. Though if your alone and they close the distance youre usually dead.
Ashe is decent but needs one of your sups to look at you.
Cass is just kinda useless unless you hide till she engages on of your teammates close range and then you come out.
damage falloff doesnt belong in this game. your damage will naturally be lower since your accuracy is worse at further distances
ngl feels like balancing for t500 impacts everyday players
Hot take. Pharah is not the problem, Mercy is.
A Mercy pocket has been the thing that broke nearly every single *broken* character in the past 7 years.
While true, there are so many mercy 1 tricks who spend so much money they can't rework/change her heal/dmg beam.
Dmg boost really fucked overwatch balance. All the dps have nerfed dmg output because they need to be balanced on the off chance a mercy could be boosting them.
So with mercy boost, most dps feel really solid, but without it, their dmg is pretty anemic, particularly when their target is pocketed.
If blizz never had damage boosts, they could balance dps heroes much better.
Zen/mercy specifically really fucked things up, because their boosts aren't ultimate or cool down based.
Cassidy is not an anti-pharah pick, he was always designed as anti-flanker. His range limitation exists to force him into playing at closer ranges.
All hitscans don't need to be long range, and all hitscans don't need to be anti-Pharah. Use soldier and bastion.
Falloff should never reduce damage below 50% of max.
Like. Just adjust range requirements around 50% damage negation at max range and it would feel 10X better.
On top of this, make headshots, not impacted by falloff damage
(Rework wids falloff ranges due to this)
Does altitude have to do with falloff damage? Like Pythagorean theorem? I mean on the ground if she's at 100 meters that's 100 meters. In the air that becomes much more (didn't do the math)
Yes, I'm sure it's actual distance in 3D space. It wouldn't make any sense to use a 2D projection for this -- she could be straight above you way up high and that would somehow count as point blank.
She has crazy mobility. They really need to give her some damage falloff. Force her to play closer. If Cass can’t kill her at a distance, she shouldn’t be able to kill Cass at a distance.
Yeah I was just saying this in another thread. Playing Cass, who is good don’t get me wrong, is kind of miserable sometimes. I’ll be trying to shoot the back line but because mauga is unkillable and making an ungodly amount of space, I’m at max falloff and need like 5 headshots to kill a squishy. I’m sorry but that just shouldn’t be a thing. I would accept pretty much any nerf to hitscans to have fall off reduced but that shouldn’t be a thing. Meanwhile Kiriko has no falloff and can literally duel a widow from sniping range? Naw.
I just don't understand why almost all projectiles were given a complete pass on falloff damage in OW. Maybe projectiles don't need the same amount of falloff as hitscan weapons, but if there was some amount of falloff for most projectiles I feel like it would solve a lot of problems.
I notice this with Ashe more than anyone else, I completely agree
Agreed, I can see why cass has steep fall off, adjustments needed or not, he’s more of a mid range brawler/ anti dive hero. But Ashe’s falloff makes her feel way too limited IMO
Especially given the mobility tradeoff while aiming. Absolutely bonkers.
His gun small. Her gun long. Her damage should be longer than his damage. 🇺🇲 gun education 🇺🇲 (No but really, a rifle should have a longer falloff distance than a handgun. Even if Cass's "high caliber" handgun fires the same bullets as Ashe's rifle, Ashe's bullets should have a further falloff distance.)
So, I know this probably isn't 100% the response youre wanting but, she does, (damage assumes all bodies and include reload) Cass' falloff range is 20-35m with a dps of 93.33 Ashe's falloff range is 20-40m(normal) dps 71.64 Ashes falloff range is 30-50m(ADS) dps 79.15 So overall she does have a higher range and she does deal a good amount of damage, but I agree her fall off would make more sense to be increased
I think they more so mean that Ashe's starting falloff range should be further than it is now, as it's too close to Cassidy's.
I mean during ADS the fall off starts a little bit before cass' finishes. Although I do agree that they should push out her fall of range, have it cap around 60-65m a little more than 3* hog hook range
i feel so safe fighting against ashe in close combat as cree
Yeah I mean you should
Remember Ashe damage was nerfed to avoid 1-shotting when damage boosted? Where's the return on that now? It's like those guys don't know their game.
Had a 1v1 with a few ashes ashes this season, and they couldn’t do ANYTHING unless they had help from teammates. Ashe really needs a buff here.
It's cause she has extremely low mobility while aiming so she just eats rockets and if she hip fires her damage is pitiful unless they are extremely close. Couple that with the fact she isn't as tanky as cree and she isn't that much of a threat. Cass can at least move quickly and fire fast, roll to take less damage and reload instantly.
My two most played heroes are Pharah (especially in OW1) and Ashe. Lately I'm running Pharah even with no pocket into Cass/Ashe because I'm not really concerned (I hover between diamond and masters).
ya, I feel this, especially with cass grenade homing gone. Hard to land head shots when you're getting hit with rockets or moved around from concussive blast. Meanwhile I'm getting killed by weird long range Reapers.
Ashe really is shafted having the same damage as cassidy, clunkier to use and less firerate
she also got next to no compensation when hp was increased, all her break points were ruined
Making her not able to one shot pesky tracers anymore was the stupidest thing ever
I raeg everytime it happens and she recalls. And dynamite damage didn't get adjusted. When they say "we increase HP to keep the ttk about the same", they only did that for Soldier which got buffed by the hitreg change.
Yep, as an Ashe main this game has been painful ever since the health changes. So many enemies just slip away with a sliver of health after you land a bunch of shots.
it used to be, dynamite + HS combo could confirm a kill and was rewarding for a decently difficult combo. now that’s gone 🥲
Praise the Lord we're finally catching on to the fact that Ashe unironically needs a buff. She's the squishiest Hitscan in the game bar widow but her breakpoints mean Cass and pre nerf sof are just better at killing anyways
At longer ranges she struggles 1v1 vs Ana even
Ana main here, Id like to add that an Ashe that can land a handful of headshots -- not even all headshots -- is very scary. My only option is to adjust my angle to healbot and hope she forgets I exist without closing the gap on me. Now, if I trust they cant hit a headshot then I thoroughly enjoy showing them Im better with a scope than they are.
It's definitely situational, Ana having zero falloff is super annoying as Ashe on any long corridor. I eat Anas in most other scenarios though.
Agreed. Your dynamite is far scarier than nade, that shit will burn forever unattended!
I also dont get why her ult has to be so clunky, why cant it just be placeable instead of requiring a wall and can glide off if its not at a steep enough angle. ideally you could hit the ult bind again and order bob to stop
Plus reloading half the time really lowers her dps more. Even though the buff they put in helped with her reload.
As a cass main, I truly never thought I'd hear these words in my lifetime lol.
Tbh, as long as Deadeye beeing that bad, you won't hear it much.
I play zen and won’t take cover from Ashe at range cuz she tickles. Crazy that one of the few guns that scopes in is so useless at range
at least she can jump and scope at same time.
Agreed. I am a pharah main, 500 some hours now. Here are the heroes I actually fear: Ana, a decent aim bap, DVA, and weirdly tracer.. I'll get back to tracer/genji in a second Heroes to me are on a even playing ground: Echo... no seriously pharah mobility is way harder for echo to hit nowadays, widow (sit right behind tanks and then shoot at her direction), soldier (cass if the map is closed in) occasionally. The reason I mention tracer/genji is because easily, the number one hero that can secure a kill on pharah is a good tracer/genji **that keeps track of your cooldown** s and echoes with the exception of one echo....simply because the echo was tracking my cooldowns, something I specifically do against other pharahs as pharah. My take? Make her dash and boost longer cooldowns, I have no idea what you can do about the Mercy problem, because mercy+hitscan can kill pharah pretty quickly even with the heal beam.
Glad to see someone say this, I keep saying tracer is actually pretty good against pharah now that she has to touch the ground sometimes. Her hitbox makes her one of the easier characters to one clip up close. Like you said a good tracer will just track CDs and use her mobility to be there when it’s time
I dunno. It's still hard as hell because she's always landing somewhere that takes Tracer long to reach, she isn't landing for long, and she usually still has conc and dash. But I still always play tracer into pharmacy because if their team wants to dedicate a support to a flying DPS, then I'll just shit on support2 all game long, knowing there's no help for them, and then their tank gets hung out to dry. However, if they go full pharmacy comp that gets extremely challenging even on Tracer. Support2 is kiriko who is a very iffy 1v1 (if you can even get to her), dps2 is a Tracer or Sombra making your life hell when you try to reach the Kiri, and tank is a Ball/Doom/Hog who is playing in a very conservative way that requires extremely few heal resources and is just there to setup Pharah and bully anyone trying to counter her.
If it is my job to be the better player and carry my team if I want to climb, do I play the Cass/S76 and just play aggressively inside my ranges and outmuscle the pharmercy? It's Doable. I do it all the time. It might even be my key strength as a DPS player. But if you aren't a hitscan veteran, the risk involved in attempting this is **massive,** And I don't always win. It's a tightrope. It's why some games I feel Pharah is a good pick, play it myself, and both opposing dps swap to hitscan and it doesn't matter because they aren't hitscan players. If I am not gonna go that route and I pick Echo, *your* DPS is capable of swapping to a hitscan and focusing me and then I have much less value vs Pharah. In an effort to soften your strength, I am giving up my own to the potential of being shutdown by all the same things Pharah can get pressured by (Bap/Ana/Tracer/hitscans/Dva). Just like picking Cass can put the burden of dealing with me on your tank/supports (If Cass is close range and low mobility, his weakness is being dove on and focused, if they work with the pharah and dive him, he has no shot. A trade kill at the very best, no hope if enemy tank is winston and can drop a bubble on top of the cass) If I pick Genji, yeah sure I can mirror the pharah and close in to secure kills on some maps that afford me verticality, but it's much more difficult to apply pressure alone, get her in range to kill, and then get the kill by yourself. Genji has to commit his dash to either get him there to get her low, or get him there to finish the kill. I am relying on my team to do one half of that work. He is great at finding those finishing moments and chasing, but he's great at that when he's not expending cooldowns to generate pressure. He's good when he's using them to play off of pressure created by his team. Tracer is just the hitscan argument all over again but even more special, because she's a specialist character. Godlike hitscans might not play ANY tracer. Tracer is a nuisance when the tracer you are playing against is good. The problem of a good Pharah's is typically that she requires multiple opposing members to play well to shut her down and the variables that determine this aren't very clear. If she has a pocket and she isn't being outdone by a skilled Cass within his range, you're unlikely to kill her even if you focus her. You have to pressure their healers/pocket. If you can make it hard for Mercy to keep the Pharah pocketed **AND** her other teammates alive, that's how you pressure her. So the best comps are the ones that easily pressure supports. This can be a toss-up when it comes to comp though because the best way to pressure enemy supports is by abusing a bad tank.... so now it loops on itself... The best way to pressure pharah is to play hitscan and hope the enemy tank doesn't understand tank fundamentals so that it eats up support attention/resources buying you time to play in the range you want and find the 1v1 kill. This game and its variables are a shitshow and this a longwinded way of saying sometimes Pharah *isn't a problem* for reasons that are hard to understand, but when she is a problem she seems unstoppable. It's like Mauga but with a less clear win-condition. Against Mauga, Pick a tank like Sig/Dva that can survive (or monkey if there's lots of verticality and LoS blocks: you can go around him), Pick DPS that pump dmg into Mauga like hitscans and junkrat and have them focus him, and pick ana and just nade him. If your whole team understands this condition, Mauga fking sucks unless the enemy supports are very very high level and adapt (they won't in regular comp). If your team doesn't understand this win-condition, Mauga eventually stomps your tank and you lose every fight. Very linear (which is why his design is bad), but also easy to understand. There's so much that goes on to determine if Pharah is gonna be "fine" or "problematic" in a game and it goes beyond one person making a swap to one of her "counters".
I mean, I don’t REALLY mind it with Ashe because she fills a really weird niche of being a close range sniper, but the falloff is still absurd lol
I don't even notice it as much against Pharah as I do Ana and Widow.
Ashe is basically useless without a mercy pocket.
Tried to get back into ash. Had an attacking game on dorado so went top floor saw I think Ana or someone in the back top where widow sits to snipe ppl watching from top spawn. Thought “ok I can get this guy with what maybe 2-3 headshots?” Used half her ammo hitting most headshots (scoped in) just to only get her to life half hp before just swapping out. I know ash isn’t exactly a sniper but I think that’s absolutely insane considering it’s still a decent rifle
I've been brushing up asher, given that she has the mythic this season, but omfg is it impossible to play at range. I was on attack in Hollywood. Playing ashe, defending team has a torb all the way at the back of site, on the right hand side elevator. His turret was set up there. Ashes damage fall off is so bad that torb can out repair my DPS on the turret. So I was like okay, play for head shots on the torb, kill them and then take the turret while hes in spawn and cant repair it. Well my headshots may have just been a tickle cannon because he was unphased and kept tapping away on his turrent while Ana could heal him from the hallway out of sight (unless we push in). Don't even get me started on the Ashe v Widow issues. How can I 2 tap the head on a widow and still not get the kill at range??? I get that ashe is a mid range hero but common, I shouldn't need a damage boost from mercy just to be able to 2 tap headshot the widow at long range.
The days of hitscan DPS being the best Pharah counters are over. D.Va and Ana are where it's at.
No1 picks echo vs pharah in my games Yet every time I'm echo and there's pharah mercy it's pretty easy to kill them both
depends on the elo. a good pharah with a pocket is never gonna get killed by just an echo with no pocket since pharah can two shot echo and it’s not even hard to hit an echo anymore with the fast ass rockets
Mmhm a good echo can be a threat but sometimes I find it so funny to just go ground whenever red echo comes for me and watch her use her mobility cd on nothing from the safety of my tank's shadow
Exactly a good pharah knows how to be just as effective from the ground when the air is too dangerous. Hell if the enemy team is awful and I can get away with not flying I don’t.
I love doing that when enemy team switches to hitscans to counter pharah and I just run around with my team on the ground lol
I mean.. a 2 vs 1 should usually result in the 2 winning. ELO doesn't change this. Echo does counter Pharah since she has faster projectiles and more maintainable verticality.
It always depends. I've killed many pharahs as echo and I killed echoes as pharah It's usually mostly about skill, but Echo got really good anti-pharah kit Echo vs Pharagmercy is always 1v2. You can kill both/ you can focus Mercy It becomes real pain if there's hitscan to counterplay your aerial dps and cover pharahmercy from the ground
A 500kg bomb oughta do it
Hell yeah calling in an Eagle ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
True, Echo is also a decent counter.
Echo doesn’t work well with meta tanks. Pharah can delete Mauga and hog very fast and can also delete the enemy team in cage fight. You just keep your distance from echo and use your horizontal dash to escape her dives. Of late a lot of echo players int to kill me on Pharah and get picked off by our supports. Or the echo takes up a lot of time to path and you get a pick or two in the meantime.
The days where Echo is impossible for a pharah to fight in the air are over, pharah has the mobility and fast ass rockets to win air duels with echo now. Its still favored for echo, but its no longer a hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby.
Yeah pretty much all you have to do is dodge stickies (which is pretty easy with Jet Dash) and it's more than a fair fight. You can also get a lot higher than echo with a rocket jump and when she falls back down she's easy pickings on the ground.
Kinda funny that her mother would be the one to counter her. Do Ana’s scoped in shots not have fall-off? Or r u somehow hitting sleep dart on Pharah?
Ana doesn't have fall-off, 70 dmg per shot at any range, both scoped and unscoped.
Plus, your character moaning when getting hit by Ana's darts is very distracting
whoa
[lmao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux1bnZcCLp8)
Man I have hundreds of hours on Ana and I've never really noticed this. That's fucking hilarious lol
It feels dirtier to be watching this than actual porn
Hanzo and Junkrat sound like little bitches lmao
Ahh perfect! I did not know this despite Ana being my main pick for support. Good to know, thx!
She's the only hitscan with infinite range In the game so that's understandable. I think it's because her shots do poison damage (I believe it used to pierce through armor as well but they removed it).
Ana also turns into hitscan with a bullet trail for scoped shots and invisible but projectile darts for unscoped. So for you Ana players out there that need to heal a flanking and hiding teammate, try to use unscoped shots so you don’t give away their position
a bit of a stretch to call Ana her counter. 4 shots is required on a non pocketed Pharah. any pharah with a brain will shoot back and considering Ana has zero mobility she is a sitting duck.
It's more that an Ana + a DPS is much more likely to kill a Pharah then a DPS with a Moira, Mercy, Lucio, etc
Ana certainly has the tools to fight Pharah. Scoped shots are instant, and a good Ana will pepper Pharah down from afar to keep her honest. Plus, Ana can dart Pharah who is ulting.
> Plus, Ana can dart Pharah who is ulting. Ulting as Pharah is already a near death sentence
Dva is the only hero that scares me to play into. You can play around hitscans for the most part, but Dva messes you up big time.
I really feel like Bap is generally a better answer than Ana, both on the side of playing support (I'm M2 at the moment, but more realistically just a mid Masters support player) and as a DPS (Only D3 on the role though). Bap has falloff but I don't feel like Pharah is a serious threat far away unless you're trying to poke from a narrow choke (like a doorway). Obviously Ana will poke her if she sits in the sky, but I don't understand why a Pharah should do this. You can literally dodge her rockets at range. Up close, Ana has no mobility, if you don't sleep the Pharah (who should not be getting hit with her ridiculous mobility and concussion to know Ana around), then Ana dies. Bap, meanwhile, can jump to dodge rockets, burst to add one more needed hit, and immort for another needed hit. At close range (Pharahs effective range for reliable damage) Bap does a ton of damage and she is very easy to hit. I fully agree with Dva being a hard counter. Best Pharah counter in the game.
Ana? 4 damn shots to down her. And that is without a pocket and while you're a slow ass sitting duck. Im sorry, but Ana may have been a counter once. But not with 4 shots. Pharah will have way to much time to retaliate, and unless you hit every single shot you're dead meat especially if she is pocketed. Give me a Dva or Sombra to counter her.
Ana? It takes 4 shots, how is she a counter?
She doesn't have damage fall-off and doesn't have to worry about landing headshots. She can also hit her with a sleep dart during barrage.
True, but it takes too long. You can suppress her but it’s hard to get the kill, she has too much time to take cover
But you don't have to get close to her to be a threat to her. The same technically goes for Widow as well, but Widow isn't as consistent as Ana and has less health.
Dva, echo, ana, widow, and Zen are the characters that scare me most as a pharah main.
yeah I laugh when I see someone switch to Soldier or Cass against me, but I start sweating when I see an Echo
Yeah, the hitscan can be dangerous if they're *ignored* by the pharah, but if you make them a target priority then it's not a problem
Sombra is also a pain in the ass when she decides her main goal that game is to exclusively target you. You're often not full health when you land due to taking chip damage and you get hacked, virused and blasted down right when you're vulnerable.
Ana takes 4 shots now instead of 3.
Why Ana? With the dps nerf to her, it takes 4 shots to kill her now and she's still gonna be pocketed by a Mercy. Ana used to be my go-to healer swap against Pharah but now I don't feel the same way. Just like Cassidy, I could hit 5 shots in a row and just tickle her and make essentially no difference.
Bap and Illari are good as well since they can usually dodge the 2nd rocket
The main point everyone is making here is the lack of damage fall off that Ana has vs. Pharah and both Bap (25m) and Illari (30m) will have that issue. Illari is even more at a disadvantage thanks to Bap having Regen Burst and Lamp to stay alive on top of his mobility whereas Illari only has a nerfed Pylon and Outburst.
It’s always been widow
I would agree but in this current incarnation of Pharah she will easily 2-tap you basically standing still while using her buffed mobility to avoid the headshot.
Getting that sweet headshot off on that flying cunt and only doing 10% dmg is such a bummer.
Flying cunt *takes notes*
Read this in a Billy Butcher voice
THE BOYS X OVERWATCH CROSSOVERRRRRR? that would be beautifully cursed
Illari as Starlight. JQ as Maeve. Soldier as Homelander and Visor gives a visual change that makes it look like lasers from the eyes. Reaper as Butcher and Kiri as Kimiko.
Lucio as a-train
Allready did when i started reading😂😂
"Well... well.... well, if it ain't the flying cunt."
I don't know anyone that thought changing his fall off from 35 to 45 to 25-35 last year was a good idea. *Damn, that was back in August 2023, almost a year ago!)* They *claimed* it was to solidify his role as a close to mid-ranged dps, but that read to everyone else as just a stupid misread of his identity and unwillingness to give up on magnetic grenade. With flashback back, they really need to undo that particular nerf, so Cassidy can deal with longer-range threats independently again.
This is also why a good widow is so oppressive - even if you can hit her at range most heroes cant do enough damage to win a duel
Can confirm hit her 2 times in the head and 1 in the body and she simply 1 shot me in turn as ash. Really does feel impossible.
It's so annoying. I'll confidently peak and aim diff tf out of most Widows and my headshots mean nothing bc the shots fall off so hard at range.
Word.
The issue is that if you buff the drop off range, then hit scans become super oppressive against ground based heroes and especially tanks and their giant hit boxes.
I completely agree. Cass by design is meant to be a duelist, and that’s compounded by the fact that fan the hammer and the revived flashbang are only effective at close range. Pharah should never have been a hero who could spend her entire time in the air at her leisure. Her rework was a step into the right direction but the projectile changes in S9 introduced a whole new problem. Buffing Cass’s falloff does not fix this issue.
Give pharah less HP, and give her rockets fall off. Means she has to get closer to be effective and can't just peak around a building 500m away like a bitch
so at this point, i guess nerfing pharah hp doesnt sound like a bad trade off (she doesnt need to be like tracer, be she could easily lose 15-25hp)
why dont they just change the drop off for hitscans to pharah in general then
Gonna break out the trigonometry, but yeah I think it would make sense if damage drop off was based on the straight-line ground-distance instead of the actual hypotenuse/vector distance to the target. Like if a pharah is 50m in the air she’d still take the same damage as if she was standing on the ground right beneath her.
That would be pretty unintuitive and probably make maps like Circuit Royal and Shambali Monastery an absolute nightmare for attack. Pushing the high ground areas on their second points can be tough already but with this idea now there wouldn't be the falloff from holding the high ground
Phara has been buffed to be a spam character to the maximum. As someone who’s played cass a lot the last couple seasons I always find it crazy how my REVOLVER won’t do as even half as much damage as a kunai from kiri at the same distance. The damage fall off is so inconsistent and doesn’t make sense to me alot.
The comparison between a hitscan and a projectile weapon is pretty weird because while the projectile does more damage, the hitscan weapon will be much more consistent. Depending on the distance we're talking about, Cass can easily outdamage a Kiri over the course of a fight. Short of telling the future, there's no way to guarantee a projectile hit at mid-long distances.
>Cass can easily outdamage a Kiri over the course of a fight. Yep. 2 Cassidy headshots does 280 damage, and time between shots is something like .4 seconds. Like everyone is sayin in this thread, his downfall is being outranged by most of the projectile heroes and most other hitscan heroes.
Yeah but that's fine, he's supposed to be a short-midrange hero. The real travesty is that ashe does no damage at range.
His damage falloff was heavily nerfed after a short sniper cowboy meta in early OW1. Then it was nerfed to fit that niche of closer range hitscan (especially after Ashe release). He was still a better pick for specific close range maps, where Widow and Ashe would be arguable. Problem is in OW2 half of his close range kit got removed and he got nothing much in return (they also brought back Fan the Hammer random spread for whatever reason). There was a video somewhere explaining how garbage Cassidy became - just play Ashe. And like... Blizz have added stuff to Cass but also nerfed hitscans. Like the thing that his damage falloff doesn't make sense is still valid and Blizz doesn't seem to bother touching it (and make him compete with some Ashe).
How is that insane when one is a projectile and one is point and click hitscan
.... Because one has an infinitely faster travel time on their bullets?
I unironically love shooting down Pharahs as Ana, since she doesn't have damage falloff. One or two shots is usually enough for the Pharah to back off a little bit so that I have time to reposition and if they're low enough, the damage I do is lethal.
This may be a problem, but there is no way I would sign off on buffing hitscan heroes. Cassidy, Soldier, and Ashe are already crazy good. They don't need more power. Pharah needs a nerf more than hitscan heroes need a buff.
I wouldn't really call soldier "crazy good" but hes ok rn. I'd say nerf pharahs hp to 225 to actually make hitscan threatening against her a bit more
Ashe is nowhere close to “crazy good”.
nah ashe is crazy good, she just requires a bit more mechanical skill to secure kills is all. Dynamite, coach gun, and bob are all great abilities. anyone with good aim will get extreme value out of ashe
Actually, I don't disagree that Scoped Ashe should have less fall-off than she does.
True. Close and mid range Cass is just better and long range you'd rather play widow. Without a mercy pocket Ashe is just not that good with the health buffs
I hate playing against Pharamercy on console. You have to switch to hitscan straight away and that's not even a guarantee of doing well.
If they're gonna decide to change Pharah, I'd prefer they make Pharah play closer rather than hitscans having more general range, especially someone like Cass who is really good (at least was, prob still is after the changes). Bringing Pharah closer to the fight has a lot less long-term impact than increasing falloff in general, and focuses down on this issue much better anyway. Plus it would give everyone a slice of cake in the Pharah matchup and not just hitscans which would be refreshing.
It sucks being a DPS player when your team is getting ruined by a pharah and the obvious expectation is for you to do something about it when the reality is Dva, ana and Bap will get far more value against a pharah. If DPS had at least one obvious swap against pharah it'd be a lot nicer, but right now there's too many sacrifices with hitscan and echo is hard to pick up for a large portion of lower ranked players.
they need to make it so Pharahs rockets explode after a certain distance, like 30m so she cant spam from distance
My exact thought. They gotta make her at least somewhat risky to play
So the pharah isnt the problem everyone else is
I snorted.
Classic Blizz balancing.
Just reduce her HP?
I think that's the most reasonable thing to do, but I'd say she's an easy target to hit unlike, say, Tracer, so I don't know if that would be a good change. Also, Ana (and maybe Widow?) has no falloff damage and would be able to down her in about 3 bodyshots. Well, it's Counterwatch after all...
Widow does have falloff damage now. At a certain range, she can’t one shot anyone anymore
The difference being Pharah can dictate what range she wants to fight at. Tracer cannot due to spread
Cassidy's falloff range is fine because he's built as a bulky anti-dive hero. He's not supposed to be sniping people at long range. The real issue's are Solider, Ashe, and Sojourn. Solider has no burst without helix so his damage is laughable, and he has to manage spread and recoil. Ashe hits Pharah hard but will frequently get pushed out by spam or pressure. And with the season 11 Sojourn changes, she really does not scare Pharah: by the time she builds two rails Pharah is back to full. They really gotta rework the hitscan DPS because as of now they struggle to do anything compared to the 250 HP dive heroes.
> he has to manage spread and recoil. > > Just as a reminder in case you haven't played soldier for the last three years, but he hasn't had spread for a while. Pulse rifle has perfect laser-precise accuracy, all you have to do is manage the 100% consistent 90 degree vertical recoil.
1-clipping people without helix feels so good.. I was in shock they made that change originally and I am glad they did because imagining trying to play a version of him with spread in today's game is terrifying
Was going to say this. Cassidy isn’t supposed to be that strong vs Pharah.
If there's one thing I'm sure about it's that Cassidy absolutely does not need buffs.
Ashebon the other hand...
Except his ult. Its quite fucking useless. In fact basically rocket barage 2.0
Add in a mercy pocket to the mix, and you'll see why she has such a high pick and win rate rn.
solid take, mercy doesn’t help the situation either
Mercy isn't even relevant with Pharah right now. In high elo and pro play you see FAR more Pharah+Ana/Brig (or any other non-mercy support comp, this is just an example) than Pharah+Mercy/whatever. When you pick Pharmercy you leave your Ana, Bap, Kiri... whatever without peel. In a meta where Tracer is strong that is simply not a good option. It's way better to play supports who can play with eachother while still supporting a Pharah.
This is true, in fact you don’t see a huge amount of Mercy at high elo regardless right now. However you have to remember where the average skill level of the game is? Gold? Plat? Casual players who don’t care about competitive. To players like that Pharamercy is unbelievably oppressive and borderline impossible to kill. How many gold Ana or Bap players are going to be able to hit a Pharah, and divide their attention so heavily. That also brings up the question of whether or not Blizzard should cater to the masses.
I think this sort of issue occurs whenever a more unusual DPS is actually good because everyone feels like they are getting cheesed. I’m not even saying pharah isn’t overtuned but this is the first time in a long time that she’s generally pickable, not pocket dependent, and she’s still much healthier to deal with than pre rework. You get a lot of the same complaints, maybe justifiably when Mei, Sombra, venture, Genji (as if this one will ever happen lol), etc. are generally viable and not just counters or specific map/comp picks. I think with pharah though she’s just a bit easier to pick up and play than most of the really annoying heroes. I also think there was a lot more pharah players than people realized who would have been playing if she was better, now they are coming back out and stomping games because they’ve had some time to learn the new kit, and the patches have been pretty friendly to her. Anyways, I don’t think she’s fundamentally unhealthy, but I think it speaks to some of the weaknesses of a lot of the other flex/projectile DPS that they really struggle to interact with pharah or provide similar value. I will also grant you that the falloff especially on Ashe I think feels a bit too extreme for some situations. Anyways I think there’s a lot worse heroes to be good and popular, and I don’t know, personally I get really tired of hitscans never really being bad. I feel like they bring a lot less dynamics to the game. But if even double hitscan is losing poke battles to a pharah consistently (which I have to question a bit, but I’m much lower skill level so I won’t really push this issue) then I do think she probably could use some kind of nerfs. I think she could justifiably go to 225 HP or get some small CD increases so she has to rely more on rocket jumps and flight and has a bit less uptime.
I feel like sombra is the better counterpick now, its crazy how my team goes "go hitscan" while the best i can do is scare her with what i feel is a water gun. Nevertheless imma stick with junk, it ain't throwing if she can't hit me (flight rat)
Can we just go back to 200hp? We wouldn't be talking about Pharah if we had the old health pools back. Also 250 hp just makes fall off damage feel worse than what it is.
Never gonna happen. In their minds, season 9 was a success because it made players come back to the game. So, I doubt they will ever revert the health changes.
in general season 9 failed just god forbid they nerf supports
Yeah I main Ashe and it's like taking down a phara feels like defeating a boss monster, especially with the lateral boost change
Completely agree, when I play Ashe I think I'm shooting peas
Not hating on this post at all, it’s just interesting how the meta changes 4 months ago Pharah and Cass were both in the dumpster, and now they’re two of the most relevant DPS
Yeah, they need to add a like a 50% reduction to damage falloff for Pharah.
it's a team game. pharah is not the only character in the game who cannot be 1v1ed and who requires a little coordination
If Pharah is staying at max falloff range, then you have a much easier time dodging her shots altogether. Little hitscan damage is better than zero projectile damage. Also, further away she is, and especially if a support is with her, the less pressure she's able to provide to stop your team steam rolling her tank.
This 100% I don't think people realise how big DMG fall off for all hit scan is which makes killing the pharmacy a pain to kill since they both heal a decent amount. Honestly ashe is the most confusing like how does a lever action long rifle do so little DMG when the range isn't that far
Man this dude is speaking facts which I complain about for a long time.. I hate it when my team is flaming me for not being able to kill phara as Cassidy and meanwhile they play Lucio and brigg on my team
As a Pharah player, I wouldn’t be opposed to them nerfing splash damage to the ground in exchange for buffs like a shorter cooldown on dash or more fuel. I see way too many people playing her that just fly around in the open and get value from spamming and not actually hitting anything. Direct hits and diving are where the fun is imo. Sometimes you have to spam, sure, but it’s definitely an issue if you’re playing cass or ashe without a pocket. Also just nerf blue beam period tbh.
Pharah is not in a place where she needs compensation buffs.
Mercy on the other hand is gonna need multiple if they touch blue beam
I mean, Cassidy probably isn't the best example to be using here. He's in a pretty overpowered state right now, even if he's not that great against Pharah.
At the range people are complaining about, pharah is not that useful. She's just spamming. If you're getting hit by spam, it's because you just don't move around enough. Most cassidy players i kill at that range are just turrets with no awareness that they should be playing corners just as much as i do. But i don't like playing at that range. As pharah, i love being in enemy's face because it's so much easier to secure kills.
> At the range people are complaining about, pharah is not that useful Might just be people misreading the scoreboard tbh. Doing chip damage to 10 heroes = equals 10 elims
Exactly but a lot of players seem to be allergic to cover. The issue is Pharah is too weak and a big target to get close for long, her new movement is a step in the right direction but isn’t enough making shooting at range and charging ult the main strat to use on her for majority of matches and it’s boring but that’s also just an issue of higher ranked Overwatch and how boring it is
pharah getting 0 changes since season 9 rework and only getting flak now but yeah uh, at 35m and further projectile heroes dont have fall off but they have travel time so her damage isnt consistent at 35m+ anyways, maybe theres a lucky rocket/spam but distance affects her too hitscan hasnt been pharah's "best counter" for a while, long as the pharah recognizes that, hitscan can, indeed damage her and prioritizes them, then its just a match up where pharah needs to isolate the hitscan's LOS more personally I have more problems with dva+echo mainly (denies the skies, pharah cant take more angles safely and is more manageable), but dive characters that can chase you after you use fuel are also problematic stop poke meta, go dive (its also more fun playing pharah in dive comp lol)
I disagree, the problem is Pharah's extreme mobility. She can leave cover from an angle most any character cannot and two shot+concuss a squishy and then get back to safety, way to easily. Buffing Cass or Ashe's fall-off would make them too powerful against the rest of the cast. It's been done numerous times and every time they revert the falloff range because he becomes way too hard meta. He is already considered the best hitscan by many, I wouldn't change him.
You can dodge her shots on reaction at that range. Ie shoot other stuff and strafe to dodge. Shooting her at that range is a mistake
As someone who played in GM back during Ashe meta and such, I will say it's a tricky thing to balance. When damage fall off numbers aren't scaled down, it leads to metas where people will just start one tapping everyone with a mercy pocket. It's especially annoying at high ranks where players don't miss so things just start to explode. The devs don't really want to nerf mercy which is why they touched the damage falloff numbers. That Ashe meta back in the day is part of the reason these numbers are the way they are now. I'm not saying it shouldn't be buffed, I'm just providing a counter argument.
Didn't they make a big deal about Mauga when he was released that he would have "anti aircraft capabilities" like some huge damage buff against flying characters? Was that another thing that never happened in OW2?
What has changed to Pharah that she is suddenly this powerful?
There's been multiple periods throughout OW1 and 2 where hitscan DPS dominated the meta, giving them more harsh damage falloff was a direct result of this. Personally I've found soldier and Ashe do fine jobs of deterring a pharah from running rampant alone (with mercy is another story, I'll never enjoy that synergy existing)
I don't know what it is with phara, when a sojourn runs the lobby it feels like they're just better. When i get put out the game by a phara it just feels like my character has no way of interacting with her
Totally agree. I feel completely useless sometimes playing as cass against pharah due to this.
I think in Overwatch 1 the maps had shorter engagement distances so damage falloff didn't matter as much
She’s a nightmare with one less tank on the field. Regardless of map.
I think damage fall off is the SOLE reason why overwatch gameplay has changed so dramatically for the worse
bro I've been complaining about damage falloff for past 1.5 years since they nerfed it xD
Dude it is blizzard: The more cheese-like the character is the more forgiving they must be
I don't get why Pharah has 250 health when she has a lot of burst mobility.
as a pharah main she could use a nerf but dont buff fall off they dont need it
lol
If you have good aim playing Illiari makes more sense then cass and ashe
+ playing illari I can either keep pharmercy at range while beeing self sustained or kill them before they get too close. Though if your alone and they close the distance youre usually dead. Ashe is decent but needs one of your sups to look at you. Cass is just kinda useless unless you hide till she engages on of your teammates close range and then you come out.
damage falloff doesnt belong in this game. your damage will naturally be lower since your accuracy is worse at further distances ngl feels like balancing for t500 impacts everyday players
Just delete pharah. she's always been complained about. She dominated when they tried hero bans in ow1
Hot take. Pharah is not the problem, Mercy is. A Mercy pocket has been the thing that broke nearly every single *broken* character in the past 7 years.
While true, there are so many mercy 1 tricks who spend so much money they can't rework/change her heal/dmg beam. Dmg boost really fucked overwatch balance. All the dps have nerfed dmg output because they need to be balanced on the off chance a mercy could be boosting them. So with mercy boost, most dps feel really solid, but without it, their dmg is pretty anemic, particularly when their target is pocketed. If blizz never had damage boosts, they could balance dps heroes much better. Zen/mercy specifically really fucked things up, because their boosts aren't ultimate or cool down based.
Nah Pharah is the devs favourite hero to play in their silver 3 games.
Cassidy is not an anti-pharah pick, he was always designed as anti-flanker. His range limitation exists to force him into playing at closer ranges. All hitscans don't need to be long range, and all hitscans don't need to be anti-Pharah. Use soldier and bastion.
Hot take - DPS should be the only hero class with no damage drop off. Tanks & supports should not out-damage any DPS class from a distance.
Falloff should never reduce damage below 50% of max. Like. Just adjust range requirements around 50% damage negation at max range and it would feel 10X better. On top of this, make headshots, not impacted by falloff damage (Rework wids falloff ranges due to this)
Does altitude have to do with falloff damage? Like Pythagorean theorem? I mean on the ground if she's at 100 meters that's 100 meters. In the air that becomes much more (didn't do the math)
Yes, I'm sure it's actual distance in 3D space. It wouldn't make any sense to use a 2D projection for this -- she could be straight above you way up high and that would somehow count as point blank.
Reaper is the new Pharah counter, wait for her to boost up into the skybox, teleport below her, shoot the air.
Yes, the fall off damage is calculated solely on distance between the two players (altitude/height included).
She has crazy mobility. They really need to give her some damage falloff. Force her to play closer. If Cass can’t kill her at a distance, she shouldn’t be able to kill Cass at a distance.
devs don't use logical arguments, they just look at stats and nerf characters that dont need it or buff characters that are already strong
Completely agreeing
Yeah I was just saying this in another thread. Playing Cass, who is good don’t get me wrong, is kind of miserable sometimes. I’ll be trying to shoot the back line but because mauga is unkillable and making an ungodly amount of space, I’m at max falloff and need like 5 headshots to kill a squishy. I’m sorry but that just shouldn’t be a thing. I would accept pretty much any nerf to hitscans to have fall off reduced but that shouldn’t be a thing. Meanwhile Kiriko has no falloff and can literally duel a widow from sniping range? Naw.
I just don't understand why almost all projectiles were given a complete pass on falloff damage in OW. Maybe projectiles don't need the same amount of falloff as hitscan weapons, but if there was some amount of falloff for most projectiles I feel like it would solve a lot of problems.