Ignoring her current nightmarish stats, as long as this thing is even remotely viable, she will continue to be a problem, even if they nerfed her HP to 200 or even 175. This is a binary issue.

Perma flight simply breaks way too many interactions in her favor. Melee heroes basically cant interact with her. Projectile heroes struggle to hit her. The only type of heroes that can reliably deal with her are HS and even then thanks to purr paired with her speed, you can hardly call that a disadvantageous matchup.

This is without considering tether, which is yet another game breaking ability that extends some of her inherent vileness to whoever she's carrying.

Its insane to me that this thing has been allowed to roam free for so long. This has been an issue since her release, which has simply gotten worse thanks to the buffs she received. Its also not isolated to low rank, its a game wide issue from the lowest of ranks all the way to pro play. Yet somehow cat players will have the gall to say skill issue when literally quartz cant hit the damn thing, one of if not the best HS player in the game.

JPC needs to be reworked. Perma flight needs to be removed in favor of something similar to either echo or pharah. The OW framework cant survive a hero like her.

There are several problematic heroes like Freja, Anran (low to mid rank), Cass, Mauga, Zarya, Kiri and so on, but all of them are saints compared to cat. The only hero that comes even close to JPC is hog and even then I would say she's still worse. At least hog has the decency to be crap outside of 6v6.

She honestly doesn't have a perk choice currently. Both relentless and raging storm are straight up just bad perks compared to their alternatives, while siphoning strike and extra edge are straight up just boring.

I wouldn't mind seeing them replaced entirely, with maybe relentless staying as a minor perk. I do like the extra speed it provides.

Honestly, we dont even have to try and create new perks, stadium has a fantastic number of abilities to pull from:

• Riposte: Might be too busted, but losing movement penalty after blocking damage is nice.
• Defiance Core: Another form of sustain that could allow her to use CDs more aggressively.
• Cataclisma: I would simply change it so 30 ability damage is converted into the AOE explosion for balance reasons. Still this could be an amazing major perk, probs still too strong though. But hey who doesn't like bleach.
• Exalted empress: Could take the place of siphoning strike, but might need a slight buff.

There are several other abilities that I find interesting, but these the ones I think could translate well into the base game.

I've said this since release now. Cat is like tracer but on the vertical axis. She has unmatched mobility and thus should have a deficit to make up for such power. Make her 175hp (100hp 75 shields).

Fliers by their very nature already reduce the amount of interactions they have to their advantage by having an additional axis of movement. For cat this translate to basically being undiveable, especially compared to every other supports. That is an entire play style that cat doesnt need to worry about.

The only reliable way to contest her is to play HS and even here, she has something up her sleeve to even out the odds, mainly purr. This ability essentially boosts her effective health by 90 or 270 with her insanely busted new major perk. Not only does it offer an insane amount of self heal, it also displaces targets and heals allies up to 370hp with the major perk in a 10m radius.

And this is without touching on life line being a game breaking ability, which completely nullifies the weaknesses of certain characters.

Cat needs to be a 175hp and have life line on a duration or max damage taken limit which results in the line breaking.

This cat needs an emergency hotfix now, its insane to me that they've let this thing run rampant for even a day.

Now, I dont have to buy all skins, thats obvious, I just think its a bit of a wasted opportunity on blizzards front to rob me from my hard earned cash.

My main criticisms come from the fact that the sword model basically stayed the same, while the skin tight suit looks more like body paint than anything else. The hair also isnt the greatest. Even among other skins of its rarity it looks a bit plain.

Perhaps this skin will become buyable with credits later down the line, so FTP players actually have something besides recolors. Still the marmor recolor is straight up better honestly.

I'm happy now, legit I have no more requests, she feels great, fair and skillful, without being overly toxic.

Her base kit can be left as is now, she is in a great spot. The only changes I want to see going forward are just perk changes since raging storm perk is legit crap, while relentless simply cant compete with siphon.

That said, I'm extremely happy with her current state.

Tanks

Doomfist

• Make empowered punch ult exclusive
• Replace matrix perk
• Buff primary and slam damage
• Block now grants global -4s cd when charged

Empowered punch is the issue, remove it already from his base kit. It being part of his ult, since otherwise its a glorified repositioning tool. Matrix perk has to go, since it heavily reduces counter play.

Mauga

• General sustain nerf

He does not die, nothing really changed about his kit, even then it feels like in this seasons specifically he has seen a surge in viability, which I cant explain. Still something has to be done about him.

Orisa

• Buff charge javelin so uncharged javelins are as good as base javelins

While I utterly detest this character, I still think its high time blizzard finally fixed her major perk. A perk should not be an active detriment to the character. Right now its often the case that not picking any major perk is preferable than picking one at all.

Reinhardt

• Nerf shield to 1000hp

Since last patch, he's been way too good for the effort it takes to play him. I understand why they buffed his lethality, which is fine, but that has made him into a problem. Sure he might not dominate in high rank, but he for sure does in lower ones.

Roadhog

• Gut until rework is out

Character does not deserve to be playable as long as he's not reworked. They did it to sombra, they can do it to hog as well.

Wrecking Ball

• Replace shield major perk

Same reason as doomfist matrix perk, this perk simply heavily reduces counter play against the hero.

Zarya

• Gut until reworked

Most banned hero in the game for a good reason. Like basically every bruiser she's extremely unfun to fight. Her bubble simply does too much and enables some of the most toxic FDPS metas in the game. She is the definition of uninteractive design.

Damage

Anran

• Shift power away from dancing blaze into other parts of her kit

Character is an undying mosquito. For a supposed high skill character, her rotation is as braindead as they come, shift in -> press E -> poke a little-> shift out. Problem is that dancing blaze simply is always worth using the moment you engage, instead of being a survival tool like deflect.

Cassidy

• Nerf hinder duration
• Move double bang to major perk

Its crazy that this character gets to stack two extremely busted perks. He's been ruining lobbies for way too long. Its about time that they address this monstrosity of a hero.

Freja

• Remove primary bloom
• Nerf take aim damage

She is good again, but extremely also back to being toxic. The buffs she got were needed, but they should've also nerfed take aim in the same patch.

Sojourn

• Nerf rail damage
• Move overcharge to major perk
• Buff primary
• Increase to 250hp

This has been talked about for ages. Character is legit trash outside of pro play and the top 0.1% of players.

Sombra

• Rework news

We were supposed to get some new information about the current state of the hero rework, but that hasnt materialized. I'm hoping to see something at the start of next season.

Support

Ana

• Move to the medic subrole
• Nerf anti nade back to 14s cd

The main problem with ana is that she lacks self sustain ever since the global support passive got removed, which is why they've been trying to compensate for that by buffing nade. This though simply resulted in tanks having a worse time.

Kiriko

• Where is the suzu nerf blizzard?

Lifeweaver

• rework news

Same as sombra, honestly I always dread having a weaver in my team. I want this character to finally get a working kit, so I no longer have to dread having one while playing tank.

Mizuki

• Nerf chain hitbox size
• Make animation more readable
• Nerf hinder duration

Currently he's beyond busted and its all thanks to how hard he can shut down tanks and flankers.

Moira

• Revert damage buffs

Honestly I dont know what they were thinking with this one, she is too good for how brain dead she is.

Zenyatta

• Nerf zen orb back to 25%

This buff has made tanking miserable with the amount of poke in the game right now. 30% damage vulnerability is simply too much.

My mains

• Tank: JQ
• DPS: Vendetta
• Support: Illari

I honestly think all three are fine right now. I especially dont want to see vendetta get any new buffs, at most some perk changes.

No one likes EM-punch. Its has way too much AOE value, which is the exact issue in lower ranks, while making him horrible at higher ranks, since all of his power is locked behind what the enemy is doing. Both doom mains and most players that care about balance know this, so I dont have to explain further.

Nerfing EM-punch is bad because what they should've been doing is just straight up remove it, while buffing his base kit. Rocket punch is fine as is. It still offers a lot of AOE value, but its by no means toxic.

Personally this is what I would've done:

• Block no longer grants EM-punch.
• Block now grants a 4s CD reduction to all of his abilities excluding block itself.
• Buff damage of primary or make one-two base kit.
• Buff slam damage to 60.
• Meteor strike still grants EM-punch.

I think its fine for ult to still grant EM-punch, simply because its mainly used as a glorified repositioning tool, get out of jail card. The power budget is there to allow a certain level of frustration to exist.

The only problem left after that would be matrix, which I personally dont consider to be a big deal. If anything the problem is that you have basically no perk choices when it comes to major perks. I personally love the slow, but matrix lets you tank so much more damage, its honestly almost always the better pick.

And no, sorry doom mains but upper cut can never return in any form. Its simply too much mobility and displacement. Dont get me run, its extremely fun to play with, but its way too frustrating to play against.

To conclude this, Doom is the type of hero in my opinion that makes OW special. His visual design is iconic, his voice is amazing and his kit is unique. Its honestly a shame that blizzard has been wasting him, just because they've been too stubborn to actually address the elephant in the room (inbound address me meme).

He's not the first hero to suffer from this, nor will he be the last, looking at you Vendetta (my main, overhead), Sojourn (Rail), Freja (take aim), Hog (hook), Kiri (suzu), Ram (block) and the new addition reaper (dire triggers). You could also count widow and hanzo here honestly.

Its much harder for FDPS to take deep off angles and in general for squishies to make plays. Aggression is way down especially if you have two shield tanks layering their CDs, making the whole experience a slog. In general tank synergies simply dont feel good to deal with when not playing tank.

Team fights last much longer, which results in a rather annoying stalls during the match where it feels like nothing is moving, especially with the aforementioned CD layering.

Another side effect of this is that running double hitscan is not nearly as detrimental compared to 5v5, which again reduces the quality of the match, since flanks are much harder to pull off.

This also affects certain tank play styles. As a JQ main in the tank role, aggression has gone way down compared to 5v5. In this mode she actually feels like a fat DPS instead of a squishy tank and it wouldn't surprise me if heroes such as bastion and torb are actually around as tanky as her. She also seems to assume the role of an off tank, since she can enable the main tank by using shout and pulling targets towards them. The extra speed and HP act like a discount zarya bubble and I honestly dont know how I feel about that.

The chaos is fun, but it feels like skill expression and individual responsibility has been severally neutered in the mode. Now it feels like I cant bee nearly as aggressive when playing queen and neither can I engage as often as vendetta, which in my opinion is a big turn off.

Tank synergies are match defining, which makes it a lot harder to win if you dont also take advantage of them, thus naturally limiting your picks before even taking a look at the enemy team.

Also, the idea that you can pick up the slack of a bad performing tank as the second tank in 6v6 is straight up snake oil, a myth.

If anything it makes it even harder to win, cause now you're stuck dealing with two enemy tanks and their synergies on top, while having an active ult feeder on your team.

6v6 1-3-2 RQ is fun, I would actually like it as an alternate mode to 5v5, but I would never ever replace 5v5 RQ with it. I find the experience mainly fun cause of the chaos, but as a FDPS / Tank main (Vendetta / Junker Queen) I feel like my contributions feel less relevant to 5v5.

There is also the fact that supports are stuck heal botting more, which paired with the increase in player numbers results in game taking longer, which I dont know how feel about. Either way, this is why these types of experiments are great.

Hog.

Now that there is a second tank, hog gets to just play the game like he used to. I actually would consider playing 6v6 1-3-2 RQ as an FDPS / tank main (vendetta / JQ), but not as long as hog is even remotely playable. Sure, I can diff most hogs I meet as Queen, but that doesnt mean I'm having fun.

I still wouldnt take it over 5v5, since it legit feels like my contributions matter less, but I would be lying if I said that he extra chaos isnt fun. That said, butcher hog into oblivion and maybe we can start talking about RQ 6v6.

I think vendetta is now in a legitimately good spot, I said this even before the recent range buff. She legit feels good enough to carry if you actually one trick the character, while having a high enough skill floor that not every brain dead player can just abuse her.

I honestly did not expect them to buff her range back to what it used to be and honestly I'm a bit scared now, but I cant say I'm not happy.

But the only thing I really want to see gone is that respawn nerf. It does legit nothing besides making the character clunky.

She is no longer the trade queen, a noob cant pick her up and just win the game anymore, they're going to feed their brains out. This hasnt been the case for a long time now. Please remove the respawn nerf, thats all she needs now, dont buff anything else (besides perk changes, we need those).

Also, can we stop pretending that vendetta does not have a high skill ceiling? Sure she is no tracer, doom, ball or maybe genji, but she far outclasses most DPS out there.

This was the reason they gave us when they buffed that POS hero hog. They said under performing tanks lead to lower match quality, yet they've been nerfing doom almost with every patch.

Mind you, I do not think doom is salvageable as long as he has EMP, so despite me enjoying playing him, I fully understand why he gets nerfed constantly. That said, at this point its honestly no longer just ridiculous, but straight up sad to see. Instead of adding these half measures, they could've just gone for the fist and just chopped off the tumor that is EMP, while buffing primary and slam damage, maybe even making matrix base kit. Unless there is a doom rework coming soon, I legit dont understand what they're doing.

But hey, if we're going down this route, can we for the love of god just delete hog from the game? Legit, just nuke his ass. Put hook on a 12s CD. Gut this pig. This hero should be sitting at sub 40% WR, even 47% WR is too good for him.

Dont get me wrong, I think the newest patch is great. Love to see flankers get some love and while I'm a little scared of that ranged buff as a vendetta main, I cant say I dont like it.

Its also nice to see that they're actually listened on the reaper situation, even if they still havent nerfed dire triggers.

Butt hats the point I'm trying to make here, blizzard needs to be more aggressive when it comes to unhealthy aspects of a heroes kit. This problem has continued to repeat itself across multiple heroes and has even infected reaper thanks to the addition of dire triggers. We've had this talk with overhead, take aim, rail, hook, dire triggers, nemesis block and of course empowered punch.

Half measures only work if you actually plan to reach a destination eventually, but all we've gotten where endless half measures with no goal in sight.

Again, I am very happy with a lot of the changes we got in the patch, but the doom nerf is so ridiculous that I cant help but to criticize it.

When all they need to do is just nerf the damn hinder duration to something more reasonable like 1.2s or even 1s (0.9s on tanks). This has been the only thing I find genuinely oppressive about him as a tank / FDPS main. Why are we trying to revert buffs that the hero clearly needed?

The extra 1s on doll is good, it allows support player to be aggressive and take deeper off angles, that's great. Same with the CD buff.

The ult change was also required. It being double sided was needed and its duration is not a problem. If we're complaining about 6s dome, then the first ult on the chopping block should be kitzune, not sanctuary.

And no, we dont need to change the chain into a projectile or make it smaller, thats really not the problem, its simply the duration of hinder. At most make the animation more reactable.

Finally, unrelated, I hope I find cass dead in a ditch in the mid season patch. At the very minimum silver bullet size needs to go down to 0.07 and double bang needs to be moved to major.

For those like me playing on linux, I've noticed that VRR goes haywire the moment it drops to from the locked target, which in my case is 120fps.

Going windowed (I either way force fullscreen through window rules), seems to solve the issue for me. Posting this here so others who're facing the same issue as I can find it.

Vendettas perks are not the best for the most part, but two of them stand out as being especially bad and basically never worth picking.

Raging storm literally just turns you into a sitting duck, while making your only means of getting out rather unreliable.

Relentless is simply not worth picking over siphon since she literally does not have the sustain to ramp her passive to 8 stacks.

To fix these issues, here is what I would suggest:

• Raging storm: Extra spins now only trigger while holding the ability button. Each new target hit grants 1s CD reduction.
• Relentless: Every damage instance now grants two stacks instead of one.

Having to press a second time to disable ranging storm, simply makes the ability clunkier for no reason and thus less viable as a disengage tool. Holding for extra spins simply would feel more natural. The CD reduction is there to encourage players to use the ability more offensively instead of just as a disengage.

Relentless basically would be the glass cannon route, you're trading sustain for faster and higher ramp up.

>Palatine fang damage reduction

I have always been a supporter of having lower overhead damage, but this always came with the caveat of having that power put somewhere else in her kit. Also, who in their right mind nerfs her horizontal slashes to be worse than just doing a melee strike?

No where in this rework did she gain a damage compensation buff to make up for such a huge loss in power. She literally loses most duels now thanks to this nerf.

>Soaring slice being unchanged

This would've been the best place to test two of the most requested changes for the character:

• No respawn nerf.
• Faster throw and projectile speed.

Its so obvious that it hurts.

>Warding stance changes

Probs the only somewhat good change in this mode and even then it comes with major problems. You cant guard proactively anymore, since that means wasting resource, compared to before. This directly impacts her projected edge economy to a massive degree.

Secondly, why are we making her into a block slop hero? I shouldnt have to explain why giving vendetta an effective HP pool of 1100 isnt a good idea, especially when some types of attacks dont even damage her HP.

>Whirlwind dash pull

Another useless tone deaf change. This is her only reliable disengage tool and even then its not that great. You cant make this ability into an offensive one without first addressing her rather horrible disengage tools. This is the whole reason why people want faster soaring slice animations.

>Sundering blade changes

Straight up just a nerf. Its already a really predictable and vulnerable ult. Not bad, but also very easy to shut down. Enemies being able to see where you're going to hit makes this ult unusable. Also, what is the backwards blade supposed to achieve? It does nothing.

And this is why you dont take the opinions of content creators that dont play the character they're trying to rework seriously. If this event is going to be a reoccurring thing, please ask for actual mains of the character to provide feedback. For vendetta I would suggest GetQuakedOn and Joystick.

They straight up just gutted her in this mode, you literally dont have the lethality to win 1v1s nor do you have the raw stats to extend the fight.

In exchange we get discount deflect (I got a few kills that way, funny honestly but still shit), a useless buff to ult and pull on whirl which I honestly have yet to find a use for.

I legit dont know why they reduced the damage on primary without giving her any lethality upgrade somewhere else. This also nerfs siphon indirectly, which further turns her into glass.

The only thing she's good at in this mode is just holding block, cause she still has the same issues as before but with no damage. Its even worse since now you cant proactively block without consuming your resource, which directly impacts you projected edge economy.

Who ever redesigned her did not cook with her at all in this mode. They didnt even remove the respawn nerf, WTF.

• Reaper alt has a recovery of 0.5s while having lower base damage and far worse spread.
• Zen alt fire has a recovery of 0.6s while being less consistent duo to it being a projectile.

The fact that this hero only got slapped with 0.4s recovery nerf instead of also getting a damage reduction is insane. Also, jesus 0.17 bullet size, ignoring the damage, how could anyone have consider this to be balanced or fair? Its just crazy.

The fact that you guys are complaining about a nerf that barely affects her viability is insane to me. Its as tone deaf as those complaining about the vendetta overhead displacement resistance bug being fixed.

This character is still busted, her burst is still insane and needs to be reduced to a more reasonable amount (same with reaper BTW). The delay does help with the burst issue, but as long as execution deals 140 damage (more with perk) and up to 190 with bike, she will remain toxic.

Now, I will reiterate this with every post I make. Her base kit isnt toxic. I think she's one of those heroes that can be allowed to be a regular in the meta, but in her current state, she's more than just a regular member of it, she is extremely overpowered.

I really dont want to see her CDs increased, or HP and overhealth on dash reduced. The only two variables I think they need to tweak are falloff and burst. Finally, the one thing I really dont want to see is her moving further into the main DPS role.

Edit: Here are some other burst abilities and their recoveries.

• Helix: 0.4s, projectile based so its less consistent.
• Rail: 0.64s, deals less damage and needs to be farmed, but its easier to land.
• Cyber frag: 0.2s, slow projectile, easily avoided.
• Sticky bombs: 0.3s, slow sequential projectiles.
• A-36 nade: 0.5s, slow projectile, easily avoided.
• Flashbang: 0.6s, deals less damage (still BS BTW, but for other reasons).
• Virus: 0.38s, slow projectile that needs to be landed after target becomes aware cause of hack.

Its legit insane how most ideas I've been thinking about for ram already exist in stadium. From giving him reduced CD on vortex as a perk when switching to nemesis form to fixing block slop by adding a tackle that he can execute from block.

For those that dont know, ram has a power in stadium called breakout, which essentially allows him interrupt his block by executing a short dash / tackle when pressing melee.

With a few tweaks this could easily be added as a base kit ability, while nerfing block itself in such a way that encourages ram players to be more active instead of block-slopping themselves to victory. Here is my suggestion:

• Give Block a 2.5s duration.
• Make breakout base kit.
• During breakout ram becomes unstoppable.
• Using breakout will increase block CD from 1s to 4s.

Essentially I'm just taking away his ability to just block slop himself to victory, which no one enjoys dealing with and compensating him by giving him the ability to outplay CC in a skillful way.

This would result in an increased skill floor and ceiling, while also reducing his vulnerability during nemesis form. It would also kind fit his shorted name since he'd have something similar to headbutt now.

Also, can we make second phase into a minor perk that replaces relentless form? It would synergize well with Nanite repair and thus give him more options when it comes to his perks.

One thing that bothers me with illari is that for a sun themed hero, she really doesnt have that many fire based abilities outside of her outburst perk and ult.

I also think her perks are rather one sided. Solar flair is not that bad of a perk, especially in instances were you have to heal a lot, but its competing with sunburn while also not being major perk material. Rapid construction honestly feels useless.

I think solar flare just needs to be made into a minor perk and have its healing reduced to 75. It would be a decent competitor to solstice. More damage or healing. Rapid reconstruction should just be removed.

I honestly would also like to see sunburn be base kit, even if it means having less damage than before. I just think she should have some kind of burn ability inherently tied to her base kit.

Now to the new perks I would like to suggest:

Major: Solar Lens

• Solar rifle alt fire now deals damage as a beam weapon and builds up ignite.

Think of meis beam but with fire. I think this would be a thematically fitting perk that would drastically change her match ups and play style. Depending on the numbers, it might be a bit too strong though.

Major: Solar Pylon

• Healing Pylon now periodically creates heat waves which build up ignite.

The idea behind this specific perk is to allow her to function better with other fire oriented heroes, by providing a consistent but passive ignite aura around the pylon(anran and mauga). It would also increase the priority of the pylon itself, which could serve as a distraction when thrown.

Major: Cleansing Flame

• Adds minor AOE cleanse to outburst.

This perk might be too strong. Maybe it would need a negative to balance it out.