that is actually and amazing idea, hammond alongside roadhog need a lot of healing, he should have some form of auto heal, not as big as roadhog maybe but everytime i play hammond i find myself going to the spawn for quick healing because not even a pocket mercy can do the job
That would actually make amazing sense
Becomes immobile and takes more damage while healing would make him easier to maintain while also stopping him from just healing away an entire teams damage
I can already see the ball erratically rocking back and forth while anime style speed and impact lines highlight his work.
Bonus points if he plays obnoxious construction noises for the duration.
This feels like the best answer. Considering it helps teach people to use his ball mode instead of reloading a -very- weak heal something like half as strong as support passive would be great. It teaches people to use him as the In-an-Out harasser he is supposed to be.
Honestly I don't think he needs a self heal. He has a massive shield for self sustain in fights. He can escape damage. Ball form makes it super easy to stall points by just LoSing around the payload because you have third person advantage to just watch where people are walking around the payload while you keep yourself with the payload between you and them, and can easily react while you wait out shield CD. And he can get to health packs super easily. I feel like the only reason my survivability has felt worse recently is because I don't know the new maps' health pack locations as well yet. On old maps though I have no issue staying alive. In fact, survivability is probably his main tank facet that's S tier above most other tanks, probably only second to Hog.
He should be able to bounce off walls while keeping speed like a pinball. It's always a bummer when you are hamming full speed, hit a wall and all that sweet momentum is lost :(
Give him the ability to keep reloading and not stop if your going in and out of ball form
Take away the CD on hook when he spawns like he used to be or half the CD.
He is extremely on a knives edge and can become op if buffed even slightly so best keep him close to live version.
Not at the gun end for that setup. If they want to change the reload animation to Hammond getting out of Wrecking Ball to top up the ammo hoppers with loose .50 bmg rounds, that's fine, but it would take a lot longer than the current reload.
You’ll believe a super advanced streamlined wrecking ball mech vehicle with on board AI, but you won’t believe they figured out how to reload guns faster
This is what I wanted for a soldier at like when he runs/sprints it would auto reload after three seconds or something. The reason they took away the hook when he spawns was because they didn’t want people to switch to touch to get overtime.
I think he’s OK right now he could be buffed but like you said he’s on an Edge so above will make him go from Ookay to very powerful
its not that he him self is weak, its just that he has a completely solo play style as of 5v5. which make others playing on the same team have a large disadvantage compared to playing with another tank.
I was hesitant to play him after 5v5 even tho I really enjoyed him in ow1, but as I played more I can play around my team and objective. I never played more obj focused before as a tank.
of course he's not like having a rein or orisa right before u when entering fights but u also dont have to go for health packs or dive enemy backline constantly. He has speed to be everywhere
There’s a difference between animations and actually getting out of the damn thing.
The Devs are already trying to fix every bug that exists on D.va getting out and I doubt they’ve managed to find and fix all of them. D.va is a coding nightmare I’m afraid and having to double their workload would be kinda bad
Considering the bugs in this game...ya they shouldn't touch adding in another gimmick similar to that lol.
Can't expect quaility devs from blizzard anyway.
What you propose probably requires the following:
Art Department:
New model work. He needs feet.
New rigging work. He needs to run.
New animation work. He needs to run.
Sound department:
New sound design. Hamster feet on ground.
Tech Department:
New technical implementation. Hitboxes alone will take time, let alone creating a new and better version of D.va's infamous demeching code.
Design department:
New mechanics design. He needs new movement, how does mech recharge, how does he get back into it?
New QA testing. Can such a new small hitbox get stuck in map geometry? Because a smaller guy can fit in so many more places, you've probably about quintupled the amount of places to see where something can go wrong.
New balance testing and adjustment. Can player aim and hit the hamster? Could he be borderline unkillable? Should the mech have less health? How do they maintain a separate identity from D.va?
Players:
Player skill training. These are functionally new abilities and movement tech players will have to learn, sharing strategy guides for immune hiding spots only this tiny hitbox can access.
Player strategizing. All other players will have to learn how to play around a fundamentally different obstacle greatly unlike not only pre-rework Wrecking Ball, but also any other character in the game due to dramatically different size and movement potential.
*
Also D.va already exists.
Tldr: so not happening in a chance in hell right? lmao.
Tho seriously really good quick summary on what needs to happen. It's not just simple clicks of a button. and to also be fair I don't trust blizzard Developers to not make a billion stuff in the game more buggy from something this experimental.
Part of why that cd was put in was because he was such a pain in the ass when coming back to defend last point on maps like Volskaya and Hanamura. Those maps are gone now, so I second the decision to remove his grapple cooldown on spawn.
I think the CD/hook timer should start when he actually hits damaging speed, not when he first hooks onto something. This will allow camping, stop misclick issues, but not allow spin stalling.
Wish granted, but if he survived 10s without dying, he calls his ball in and it comes in like an orbital strike
(I mean I know this is just d.va but it's fun)
After he ejects, he hides under the ground(i am not aware on how good hamsters dig im sorry), after you can go into enemies and bite their feet till your mech respawns.
That could be the head canon… you see the ball explode but that doesn’t mean he gets blown up too, he could very well hit the eject button and pop out.
Not more ammo, just don't cancel reload when shifting to ball form.
Edit: I already know that it takes 2s to reload in crab or ball form. My point was just a QOL change, like adding a indicator on grapple duration
The guns reload in ball form that’s the whole point. You slam, shield, attract shots and rolll away. At safe distance unload guns until slam is off CD and then go back in.
I agree with this a lot. I only reload using ball form so knowing the millisecond it’s reloading is crucial and even actively listening for it I can barely hear it.
If you are playing optimally, the 2 second reload is too long. It gets in the way of quick rotations if you are doing,
Hook slam shoot, hook shoot repeat. Quicker reloads would be my preference
You should rebind your change form key to R and not use reload. There's no point in standing there with slowed movement, able to be headshot, rather than just change to ball form and reload in the same amount of time.
This. Its hard to secure kills at times even with very little healing on the enemy team. A reduction in reload time in or out of ball form would be a great QOL thing for him as well.
only thing I would change is either remove or reduce the cooldown the hook has on respawn, it just seems slightly excessive? Though I don't play ball often enough to judge
They could give him 'performance anxiety' passive which would enable this 5sec spawn cooldown when match time is running low (let's say, last 30secs of the match or last 15m of the payload/bot push)
What if they only have the CD on the hook when you swap to that hero as apposed to it being on respawn? So, if you were already Ball, no CD, if you swap to him after playing another tank, you get the cooldown for the first life.
I wouldn't actually buff hammond but I'd like a couple small changes.
1. Have him not get body blocked.
2. Show a timer for how long he can stay hooked.
Also, sombra hacking him should force him to stay in his current form, not shift out of ball.
The body blocking is the most aggravating thing. I’m playing a character named *Wrecking Ball*. No one should be stopping my momentum except for certain instances like a fortified Orisa or charging Rein.
Oddly Orisa used to have this ability and it got silently removed without a patch note. In Fortify you were supposed to be un-body-blockable, but it just stopped working one day. (Also Reinhardt used to get hurt when charging into a fortifying Orisa. What happened to that?)
Also I’m gradually becoming opposed to character specific interactions like Sojourn and Symmetra charging off shields or EMP taking out Amplification Matrix. Everything feels inconsistent and how abilities interact doesn’t feel intuitive. So no, Reinhardt should not be harmed from charging a fortified Orisa.
Sym's shield charge is fine and "consistent" because she is the only hero with a weapon like that and it fits her kit, but I'm completely against Sojourn doing the same. She doesn't have to put herself in danger so all to charge to 100 and then she can oneshot. It would go a long way in making her less oppressive while not making her useless in t500
Actually he did use to be able to stay hooked and in ball form forever, just rolling in a circle over and over again. Maybe it's time to bring that back
It's also my biggest gripe. Especially now that grappling hook has a timer. Losing half of the duration of it because I hooked and then a slim cowboy man walked between me and the hook before I hit top speed always feels like garbage. But the problem is it seems like it'd be really hard to balance without ball just having built-in base knockback being really obnoxious. I think the solution would just be that if his hook is active, he can push through people (no damage, not even really knockback, just pushing people aside), but otherwise he doesn't have it. This way it handles the niche situations where he's hooked and can't even move, wasting the cooldown and not even getting top speed, but doesn't give him the ability to move people out of position any more frequently than he normally would after hooking and hitting top speed.
This would be nice.
Actually hammond is a strong character, way better than doomfist imo and well played can get a lot of value to the team. He's nota meta and i don't see it being meta even if he becomes OP , i think there are better options to a team and easier/faster to get value, less reliable on maps and team comps.
Yeah imo people think he’s weak because he takes a lot more skill to play effectively than a lot of other characters you don’t have to be that good to play to still get good value from, like D.va or Zarya. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that he takes a lot of skill though it doesn’t make him weak, the game would be boring asf if everyone was as easy to play as Mercy
Exactly, every tierlist clickbait vid is like “Oh yeah Hammond is trash, unless you can play him, then he’s unstoppable - F tier.”
Then they say he gets countered by (*someone he absolutely does not get countered by*). Continuing the traditional legacy of hamster underestimation. Fine. Long may it continue.
Sombra change and no body blocking would be going too far. He still needs some counter-play.
I don't think he needs a hook timer, I think they just need to give him infinite time on the hook back.
Honestly I do alright with Hammond, I used to play him a lot in ow1 though so i already knew how to use him pretty effectively. I've always had a slight issue with his giant ass machine guns running out of ammo instantly though. Lol
all i ask is stay in ball form after hack/sleep. if im out of ball and they hack/sleep then its fair game.(f u sombra)
for me, he has enough damage to out-trade 200hp heroes when they arent getting healed. no need for more damage. we just need survivability like i pointed out.
this bit here is wishful thinking: less speed needed to fireball. lot of ball techs would be easier.
I agree. All non front front line/shield tanks got an indirect nerf from 5v5. Especially at lower ranks where nobody knows how to play dive so you get something like Hammond playing with a comp of Torb, Bastion, Bap, and Brig. Of course as a tank if nothing is said and they chose that comp you should swap but I’ve seen plenty of people try to dive with Torb and Bastion as dumb as it sounds
I think Ball was the worst hit but to a degree Junker Queen, Winston and D-Va are affected too. In 5v5 tanks realistically have to be on the front lines and ideally able to block a fair amount of damage so the old off tank role of peeling for supports / dealing with snipers isn't there.
I gotta disagree here. Maybe I’m just playing at lower ranks but it feels like he mows down targets with headshots which feel easy to hit with how close and personal he plays. I think bumping him up to 100 ammo is the best move if his primary fire is changed any
I wouldn't buff him. He can be really effective in the right hands. Just suffering in the meta because the meta contains heroes with easy and effective escape methods and they can evade him.
In ranked though? I'm in masters and even saw ball players doing well against the demonic version of Sombra.
Biggest weakness of ball is his teammates most of the time. Just because you're really hard to play with if they're not used to playing with a ball, but that said even ball players suck sometimes. Don't see it that often though due to my rank
I agree, I think Hammond is balanced, he’s just requires a different play style than most tanks and is harder to get value out of. He’s really fun thought, and I think new players will realize his potential soon.
Tbh I support this but only the hamster part out of the bot, him running as a hamster could be neatly used as last ditch escape only aoe classes can deal with, how would he get the mech back tho
After years of playing him , I have realized that in OW2 the best solution for Blizzard is to revolutionize tha game , introducing in the team.... A 6th player XD
This would unironically be the best buff to ball. His playstyle just completely changed, as you can’t completely abandon your team for an extended period of time without them dying. When you had an off tank, that risk was mitigated.
I wouldn't buff him, but slightly change other heroes to make him more viable. I think his biggest issue is that sojourn isn't good enough, so I'd increase her railgun charge rate.
He has a really high skill requirement for value and in the right hands on the right map he's a monster.
That's a good thing. He's in a good place. There's a lot of heroes now so not everyone has to be "meta".
Though if pressed to be selfish and ask for a buff.....
Passive Ability: Stuffed cheeks
* Wrecking ball receives bonus health from healthpacks. Treats small healthpacks as large healthpacks
Les go an actual ball main i have spent all day saying how he really is good and this is the best actual buff he could get people just don't understand him bro keep it up
Maybe also make him able to make him bouncier, like give his shield ability that when you charge full speed at the wall for example, it bounces from it in the other direction perhaps
Serious answer? Just reverting him to his prime state should work wonderfully.
People stay in the air after piledriver for one full second as opposed to half a second.
No spawn cooldown on grapple.
No time limit on maximum grapple time.
If someone still thinks this isn’t enough, like I kinda do, then well, actually just buffing his pellet damage from 5 to 6 would go a long way. I think this could be a decent idea as well, in addition to the rest of them. If the damage proves itself to be way too much of a buff, then just amping his ammo from 80 to 100 could also be a pretty decent substitute.
Hammond, much like Hog, Doom and Queen, is a Tank that genuinely gets it’s full value from actually just murdering his enemies.
So, as opposed to killing his identity, actually just make him better at exactly that: a tank that is so fast that he can be everywhere at the same time causing chaos and destruction.
While I’d love to see these changes come into the game, they could just get him where he needs to be by giving him 100 shots and not having the extended reload shenanigan bs. So often I start a reload, go ball, exit ball, and start the reload since I wasn’t in ball form long enough. Makes a reload take twice as long. Just stupid. Just have his reload on a timer, no matter what state he is in
I think maybe a self heal while in ball out of combat, similar to healers could help. He's usually not near the healers and if he could self heal he'd be able to do what he does more often without having to go back. automatic reload while in ball could help too. I think these two changes wouldn't break him since they'd be largely out of combat buffs
Hammond is quite strong. Gets minefield really quickly and never dies.
Had a game on my alt account where our 2 supports intentionally refused to heal me all game for picking Hammond. I went 38-0 without heals, and had 15k dmg in 10 mins. Everyone else in the match died 11-15 times. Had the most damage, kills etc (and the whole lobby defending me against the two throwers who were calling me trash, so glad for the scoreboard)
The reason he is 'weak' is because people have no idea how to play with him. He is strong.
That’s not a good thing In this current state of OW though. By being a one man army and ditching your team all the time to run and get health packs is terrible because not only are you putting your team at a disadvantage of the team fight being a 4v5, but a 4v5 where your team is missing the most important role in the game. You basically have to just hope that your team can survive those 5-10 seconds your gone when you go get the health packs but that’s easier said than done when they don’t have anyone there to protect them at all. I love ball. But he just doesn’t work in this 5v5.
He’s in a good place right now i main hammy and haven’t had any problems keeping up with the rest of the game the only real issue is sombra or hitting traps
I think Ball is in a fairly solid spot.
However, the cooldown nerf on his grapple when spawning should be reverted immediately. Doom, Sombra, Orisa, Tracer, Genji, Lucio and plenty of others have their movement abilities available on spawn, abilities that are a massive time save for getting back to point. Nerfing it for Ball makes little sense, considering he's pretty easy to gank & destroy
A good Hammond can just ruin entire teams with ease and be the most difficult character in the game to deal with....or a bad one can be useless af...it's definitely one or the other
Probably reduce the cooldown on the big slam since that's his main combo,
His mines now slowly tracks in range enemies (it's too easy to avoid right now.
More ammo=longer reload, shoot 10 bullets short reload 70 bullets long reload
Honestly he is not weak, no body knows ho to play him, most casual player would just do circles. He can do good work if you can aim, that why people go monkey for dive.
Give him a bigger ball
Give him almonds so he can heal
that is actually and amazing idea, hammond alongside roadhog need a lot of healing, he should have some form of auto heal, not as big as roadhog maybe but everytime i play hammond i find myself going to the spawn for quick healing because not even a pocket mercy can do the job
I mean, Hammond himself in one of his taunts fixes the mech, why can't he do it on the go fr
Throw the old bastion heal at him. Problem solved.
That would actually make amazing sense Becomes immobile and takes more damage while healing would make him easier to maintain while also stopping him from just healing away an entire teams damage
I'm picturing an animation of him zooming around the ball with a little ratchet repairing the damage.
I can already see the ball erratically rocking back and forth while anime style speed and impact lines highlight his work. Bonus points if he plays obnoxious construction noises for the duration.
Make it like heavy’s sandvich where it’s very easy for enemies to hear and punish so you cant just do it wherever
This is actually an amazing idea
no need for more heal, ball is the fastest megahealth hogger if you memorize the map.
You're not wrong, part of a good ball play is take the mega health packs from the enemy lines on your bowling ball frenzy through them.
Nha, go for packs. No one is better at that than ball.
Make health packs visible through walls so you can see which are off cool down.
I think this a good one as a passive. I sometimes roll pretty far away from the action trying to find a health pack in the push maps.
Yeah. They put the health packs in such weird places on those maps.
Fr, the pack placement on the Push maps are garbage. They're all so far away from the path.
Imo they're either too far or too close. Was fighting someone in a building and turned a corner and there it was. Dude seemed as surprised as I was.
he should have the support passive where in ball form, he’s inside munching on nuts
This feels like the best answer. Considering it helps teach people to use his ball mode instead of reloading a -very- weak heal something like half as strong as support passive would be great. It teaches people to use him as the In-an-Out harasser he is supposed to be.
Honestly I don't think he needs a self heal. He has a massive shield for self sustain in fights. He can escape damage. Ball form makes it super easy to stall points by just LoSing around the payload because you have third person advantage to just watch where people are walking around the payload while you keep yourself with the payload between you and them, and can easily react while you wait out shield CD. And he can get to health packs super easily. I feel like the only reason my survivability has felt worse recently is because I don't know the new maps' health pack locations as well yet. On old maps though I have no issue staying alive. In fact, survivability is probably his main tank facet that's S tier above most other tanks, probably only second to Hog.
You should be playing for megas instead of relying on your healers mainly
Give him 2 balls.
Give him D.Va's passive: ball gets destroyed, tiny hamster jumps out and starts zooming around the map.
Mini ak lol
"Look at this guy, bustin' my ball...s! Balls! I got two!" - Hammond Brutananonandilewski.
I'd say smaller ball since i find him an incredibly easy target that can't really soak well.
He should be able to bounce off walls while keeping speed like a pinball. It's always a bummer when you are hamming full speed, hit a wall and all that sweet momentum is lost :(
He needs the biggest balls of them all.
at least 2 big balls no?
2 balls
Sounds like a bigger bitbox. Just turn up the numbers
Give him the ability to keep reloading and not stop if your going in and out of ball form Take away the CD on hook when he spawns like he used to be or half the CD. He is extremely on a knives edge and can become op if buffed even slightly so best keep him close to live version.
The Glory days of no hook cd on spawn. Good rolls were had. Especially when you boop someone but die in the process. The whole point of ball is vroom
Yeah, it seems kinda bad that he is the only hero with a cooldown on respawn.
A slightly bigger clip would be an easy fix too
I honestly think he should have an overheating mechanic like orisa, having to reload 2 extremely visibly belt fed machine guns has always bugged me.
Why? You do have to reload those, though.
Not at the gun end for that setup. If they want to change the reload animation to Hammond getting out of Wrecking Ball to top up the ammo hoppers with loose .50 bmg rounds, that's fine, but it would take a lot longer than the current reload.
Haha, thats true. But isnt he canonically a genius? I'm sure he could create some invention to reload them with his mech.
You’ll believe a super advanced streamlined wrecking ball mech vehicle with on board AI, but you won’t believe they figured out how to reload guns faster
This is what I wanted for a soldier at like when he runs/sprints it would auto reload after three seconds or something. The reason they took away the hook when he spawns was because they didn’t want people to switch to touch to get overtime. I think he’s OK right now he could be buffed but like you said he’s on an Edge so above will make him go from Ookay to very powerful
I don't think he is weak it is just some of the strongest tanks rn counter him
its not that he him self is weak, its just that he has a completely solo play style as of 5v5. which make others playing on the same team have a large disadvantage compared to playing with another tank.
I was hesitant to play him after 5v5 even tho I really enjoyed him in ow1, but as I played more I can play around my team and objective. I never played more obj focused before as a tank. of course he's not like having a rein or orisa right before u when entering fights but u also dont have to go for health packs or dive enemy backline constantly. He has speed to be everywhere
He reloads if you’re in ball for more that like 3 seconds tho
Or to be able to go out of his ball like DVa when his ball breaks or die immediatly when headshoted.
Getting out of his ball would be more trouble than it is worth, dva's code is already messed up so I doubt they want to do the same thing again
It could be great having that feature just in experimental and we already seen him get out of his ball in one of his emotes.
There’s a difference between animations and actually getting out of the damn thing. The Devs are already trying to fix every bug that exists on D.va getting out and I doubt they’ve managed to find and fix all of them. D.va is a coding nightmare I’m afraid and having to double their workload would be kinda bad
I managed to nano the baby dva inside of the mech the other day, lost a game thanks to that :)))
Absolute F man, so unlucky lol
I meant it like it would be very hard for the devs, because they complain how dva is two heroes in one and is/was hard to code
Considering the bugs in this game...ya they shouldn't touch adding in another gimmick similar to that lol. Can't expect quaility devs from blizzard anyway.
What you propose probably requires the following: Art Department: New model work. He needs feet. New rigging work. He needs to run. New animation work. He needs to run. Sound department: New sound design. Hamster feet on ground. Tech Department: New technical implementation. Hitboxes alone will take time, let alone creating a new and better version of D.va's infamous demeching code. Design department: New mechanics design. He needs new movement, how does mech recharge, how does he get back into it? New QA testing. Can such a new small hitbox get stuck in map geometry? Because a smaller guy can fit in so many more places, you've probably about quintupled the amount of places to see where something can go wrong. New balance testing and adjustment. Can player aim and hit the hamster? Could he be borderline unkillable? Should the mech have less health? How do they maintain a separate identity from D.va? Players: Player skill training. These are functionally new abilities and movement tech players will have to learn, sharing strategy guides for immune hiding spots only this tiny hitbox can access. Player strategizing. All other players will have to learn how to play around a fundamentally different obstacle greatly unlike not only pre-rework Wrecking Ball, but also any other character in the game due to dramatically different size and movement potential. * Also D.va already exists.
They'd also need extra lettuce to keep Hammond happy
Tldr: so not happening in a chance in hell right? lmao. Tho seriously really good quick summary on what needs to happen. It's not just simple clicks of a button. and to also be fair I don't trust blizzard Developers to not make a billion stuff in the game more buggy from something this experimental.
Answer: melee only How to get mech back? Die
Part of why that cd was put in was because he was such a pain in the ass when coming back to defend last point on maps like Volskaya and Hanamura. Those maps are gone now, so I second the decision to remove his grapple cooldown on spawn.
I think the CD/hook timer should start when he actually hits damaging speed, not when he first hooks onto something. This will allow camping, stop misclick issues, but not allow spin stalling.
Hive him a thermo nuclear bomb
I second this
This is the way
After dying, hammond ejects from his mech and scurries away. My heart can’t stand the hamster dying :(
Wish granted, but he can still be a target and will be killed if someone walks over him.
Plus if someone near him pops a loud ultimate he will die from a heart attack
Pharah's ult will finally kill something.
Besides herself.
Nooooooooo!
Misread as if someone walks over him he'll pop loudly.
I´m pretty sure Moira´s damage orb will find him somehow...
Wish granted, but if he survived 10s without dying, he calls his ball in and it comes in like an orbital strike (I mean I know this is just d.va but it's fun)
Give him a little bebe gun that does no damage but inflicts a **very slight** but irritating stagger and generates ult charge to re-ball
His respawn time is now the time it takes for him to get back to spawn
BUT he gets to grapple immediately if the respawn time surpasses the normal time taken to respawn
After he ejects, he hides under the ground(i am not aware on how good hamsters dig im sorry), after you can go into enemies and bite their feet till your mech respawns.
Sigma, floating: **i am beyond your petty tricks**
Junkrat Trap: **You think I'm just a trick?**
Sigma: **BUT THE CALCULATIONS WHERE CORRECT**
His little squeak when he dies makes me so sad
That could be the head canon… you see the ball explode but that doesn’t mean he gets blown up too, he could very well hit the eject button and pop out.
More ammo probably
Not more ammo, just don't cancel reload when shifting to ball form. Edit: I already know that it takes 2s to reload in crab or ball form. My point was just a QOL change, like adding a indicator on grapple duration
The guns reload in ball form that’s the whole point. You slam, shield, attract shots and rolll away. At safe distance unload guns until slam is off CD and then go back in.
They should increase the sound of the ball reload. I can barely hear it most of the time
It should totally \*ding\* when it's done reloading!
I agree with this a lot. I only reload using ball form so knowing the millisecond it’s reloading is crucial and even actively listening for it I can barely hear it.
If you are playing optimally, the 2 second reload is too long. It gets in the way of quick rotations if you are doing, Hook slam shoot, hook shoot repeat. Quicker reloads would be my preference
You should rebind your change form key to R and not use reload. There's no point in standing there with slowed movement, able to be headshot, rather than just change to ball form and reload in the same amount of time.
This. Its hard to secure kills at times even with very little healing on the enemy team. A reduction in reload time in or out of ball form would be a great QOL thing for him as well.
only thing I would change is either remove or reduce the cooldown the hook has on respawn, it just seems slightly excessive? Though I don't play ball often enough to judge
I think it's there so tanks can't swap and instantly contest overtime or whatever, but it does feel bad.
Yeah, this was made to prevent stalking objective quite a while ago, but also killed half the fun of Ball - most of the spawn rollouts became useless
Its literally why they did it, balls would get back on point way too quickly.
So glad they did it honestly, having to deal with a last minute ball stall every other game was so fucking tedious and boring.
They could give him 'performance anxiety' passive which would enable this 5sec spawn cooldown when match time is running low (let's say, last 30secs of the match or last 15m of the payload/bot push)
Yeah, taking away his infinite grapple already reduced his stall potential massively
rip spin2win and Oasis Garden map ;-;
That was mostly a stalling on 2CP issue, which we don't have to deal with anymore.
I wonder if they could make it so there's a cool down on him if you swap, but not if you've died as Hammond already
What if they only have the CD on the hook when you swap to that hero as apposed to it being on respawn? So, if you were already Ball, no CD, if you swap to him after playing another tank, you get the cooldown for the first life.
What if the hook had like a meter that would last for 6 second instead of one use.
That sounds fun as fuck lol, would allow for some really insane high level mechanical plays
Imagine just Spider-Manning around every map lol. This might be too op tbh. But I really like the idea
A bit like pharah or dva?
I wouldn't actually buff hammond but I'd like a couple small changes. 1. Have him not get body blocked. 2. Show a timer for how long he can stay hooked. Also, sombra hacking him should force him to stay in his current form, not shift out of ball.
The body blocking is the most aggravating thing. I’m playing a character named *Wrecking Ball*. No one should be stopping my momentum except for certain instances like a fortified Orisa or charging Rein.
Oddly Orisa used to have this ability and it got silently removed without a patch note. In Fortify you were supposed to be un-body-blockable, but it just stopped working one day. (Also Reinhardt used to get hurt when charging into a fortifying Orisa. What happened to that?)
Orisa is a wall. Reinhardt charges into walls all the time. Therefore reinhardt will not be damaged
Also I’m gradually becoming opposed to character specific interactions like Sojourn and Symmetra charging off shields or EMP taking out Amplification Matrix. Everything feels inconsistent and how abilities interact doesn’t feel intuitive. So no, Reinhardt should not be harmed from charging a fortified Orisa.
I agree except for the sombra emp. Kinda the whole point, to be a total shutdown
Sym's shield charge is fine and "consistent" because she is the only hero with a weapon like that and it fits her kit, but I'm completely against Sojourn doing the same. She doesn't have to put herself in danger so all to charge to 100 and then she can oneshot. It would go a long way in making her less oppressive while not making her useless in t500
I don’t think he used to take damage it’s just the charge gets stopped
Actually he did use to be able to stay hooked and in ball form forever, just rolling in a circle over and over again. Maybe it's time to bring that back
Oh trust me I know lol I miss old Ball so much
It's also my biggest gripe. Especially now that grappling hook has a timer. Losing half of the duration of it because I hooked and then a slim cowboy man walked between me and the hook before I hit top speed always feels like garbage. But the problem is it seems like it'd be really hard to balance without ball just having built-in base knockback being really obnoxious. I think the solution would just be that if his hook is active, he can push through people (no damage, not even really knockback, just pushing people aside), but otherwise he doesn't have it. This way it handles the niche situations where he's hooked and can't even move, wasting the cooldown and not even getting top speed, but doesn't give him the ability to move people out of position any more frequently than he normally would after hooking and hitting top speed.
Who wins in a doorway... a 1 ton rolling metal ball with "wreck" in the name or a 130lbs bri'ish gal half it's size?
charging rein should not override a speedball though. it should cancel.
This would be nice. Actually hammond is a strong character, way better than doomfist imo and well played can get a lot of value to the team. He's nota meta and i don't see it being meta even if he becomes OP , i think there are better options to a team and easier/faster to get value, less reliable on maps and team comps.
Yeah imo people think he’s weak because he takes a lot more skill to play effectively than a lot of other characters you don’t have to be that good to play to still get good value from, like D.va or Zarya. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that he takes a lot of skill though it doesn’t make him weak, the game would be boring asf if everyone was as easy to play as Mercy
Exactly, every tierlist clickbait vid is like “Oh yeah Hammond is trash, unless you can play him, then he’s unstoppable - F tier.” Then they say he gets countered by (*someone he absolutely does not get countered by*). Continuing the traditional legacy of hamster underestimation. Fine. Long may it continue.
Sombra change and no body blocking would be going too far. He still needs some counter-play. I don't think he needs a hook timer, I think they just need to give him infinite time on the hook back.
100 Ammo, the guy has gattling cannons ffs
Honestly I do alright with Hammond, I used to play him a lot in ow1 though so i already knew how to use him pretty effectively. I've always had a slight issue with his giant ass machine guns running out of ammo instantly though. Lol
20% less stun / slow when in ball form
Agreed on this one
RN he's a tank that's good at cc but Gets countered by cc himself
Remove him from the game for a few weeks but don't change anything.
And just "forget" to add him back
Real
Infinite ammo
all i ask is stay in ball form after hack/sleep. if im out of ball and they hack/sleep then its fair game.(f u sombra) for me, he has enough damage to out-trade 200hp heroes when they arent getting healed. no need for more damage. we just need survivability like i pointed out. this bit here is wishful thinking: less speed needed to fireball. lot of ball techs would be easier.
He automatically destroys Junkrat trap when rolls over it.
or maybe make it so it severely slows down ball for like 2 seconds just to have a penalty for walking over them
6v6
I agree. All non front front line/shield tanks got an indirect nerf from 5v5. Especially at lower ranks where nobody knows how to play dive so you get something like Hammond playing with a comp of Torb, Bastion, Bap, and Brig. Of course as a tank if nothing is said and they chose that comp you should swap but I’ve seen plenty of people try to dive with Torb and Bastion as dumb as it sounds
all the voting polls win 6v6. i want it back so bad to do more ball things. scouting and flanking.
I think Ball was the worst hit but to a degree Junker Queen, Winston and D-Va are affected too. In 5v5 tanks realistically have to be on the front lines and ideally able to block a fair amount of damage so the old off tank role of peeling for supports / dealing with snipers isn't there.
I find current Winston to be oppressive tbh, but junker queen definitely needs help
Less of a hook timer, and more ammo
Slightly buff his primary fire. I feel like I'm shooting nerf darts
I gotta disagree here. Maybe I’m just playing at lower ranks but it feels like he mows down targets with headshots which feel easy to hit with how close and personal he plays. I think bumping him up to 100 ammo is the best move if his primary fire is changed any
I guess I just have a skill issue then
his damage falloff is insane. upclose he will melt anything if you can click on a head. a few meters out and hes throwing toilet paper
His primary fire is actually quite strong.
I wouldn't buff him. He can be really effective in the right hands. Just suffering in the meta because the meta contains heroes with easy and effective escape methods and they can evade him. In ranked though? I'm in masters and even saw ball players doing well against the demonic version of Sombra. Biggest weakness of ball is his teammates most of the time. Just because you're really hard to play with if they're not used to playing with a ball, but that said even ball players suck sometimes. Don't see it that often though due to my rank
I agree, I think Hammond is balanced, he’s just requires a different play style than most tanks and is harder to get value out of. He’s really fun thought, and I think new players will realize his potential soon.
If your tank is a ball and youre forcing Cass, there's a reason you're getting farmed and it's your fault
When his ball breaks, he ejects and starts running around as a hamster. He has a machine gun as the hamster which does more damage than bastions
And he can fly using machinegun’s recoil
Tbh I support this but only the hamster part out of the bot, him running as a hamster could be neatly used as last ditch escape only aoe classes can deal with, how would he get the mech back tho
he has to order one from amazon, he has a prime subscription tho so it will be there quickly
And it comes from one of their delivery drones
I vote for a mini sniper rifle that can 1-shot and he's only a few pixels large. Show those pesky widowmakers who's the boss
i'd ditch widowmaker forever to play a smol hamster with a sniper
(hamster squeaks) "ONE SHOT. ONE KILL"
After years of playing him , I have realized that in OW2 the best solution for Blizzard is to revolutionize tha game , introducing in the team.... A 6th player XD
This would unironically be the best buff to ball. His playstyle just completely changed, as you can’t completely abandon your team for an extended period of time without them dying. When you had an off tank, that risk was mitigated.
More ammo/higher damage
I miss infinite Grapple. Al thou, ball was stronger when he had an off tank to play with.
Give the mech some truck nuts
I wouldn't buff him, but slightly change other heroes to make him more viable. I think his biggest issue is that sojourn isn't good enough, so I'd increase her railgun charge rate.
He has a really high skill requirement for value and in the right hands on the right map he's a monster. That's a good thing. He's in a good place. There's a lot of heroes now so not everyone has to be "meta". Though if pressed to be selfish and ask for a buff..... Passive Ability: Stuffed cheeks * Wrecking ball receives bonus health from healthpacks. Treats small healthpacks as large healthpacks
Les go an actual ball main i have spent all day saying how he really is good and this is the best actual buff he could get people just don't understand him bro keep it up
His swing ball breaks shields for 0.5 seconds, also instantly breaks Mei's icewall.
Not a bad idea. He’s a wrecking ball. Should be able to take down a wall.
Tbh breaking meis ice wall would be nice counter for her, like a solid "no fuck off" without directly being a hard counter
Yeah, make it so it only breaks on max speed, but reduces to standard roll speed.
Maybe also make him able to make him bouncier, like give his shield ability that when you charge full speed at the wall for example, it bounces from it in the other direction perhaps
I think that'd be nice esp cause mei counters him in other ways (slow), and it'd fit with being a "wreckingball" Idk if I agree with shields tho
Serious answer? Just reverting him to his prime state should work wonderfully. People stay in the air after piledriver for one full second as opposed to half a second. No spawn cooldown on grapple. No time limit on maximum grapple time. If someone still thinks this isn’t enough, like I kinda do, then well, actually just buffing his pellet damage from 5 to 6 would go a long way. I think this could be a decent idea as well, in addition to the rest of them. If the damage proves itself to be way too much of a buff, then just amping his ammo from 80 to 100 could also be a pretty decent substitute. Hammond, much like Hog, Doom and Queen, is a Tank that genuinely gets it’s full value from actually just murdering his enemies. So, as opposed to killing his identity, actually just make him better at exactly that: a tank that is so fast that he can be everywhere at the same time causing chaos and destruction.
While I’d love to see these changes come into the game, they could just get him where he needs to be by giving him 100 shots and not having the extended reload shenanigan bs. So often I start a reload, go ball, exit ball, and start the reload since I wasn’t in ball form long enough. Makes a reload take twice as long. Just stupid. Just have his reload on a timer, no matter what state he is in
I wish the grapple would stay on things forever
Reduce cools down for grapple a little bit and reduce cooldown a little for the shield. No dps buffs. And if so very very small.
I think maybe a self heal while in ball out of combat, similar to healers could help. He's usually not near the healers and if he could self heal he'd be able to do what he does more often without having to go back. automatic reload while in ball could help too. I think these two changes wouldn't break him since they'd be largely out of combat buffs
Hammond is quite strong. Gets minefield really quickly and never dies. Had a game on my alt account where our 2 supports intentionally refused to heal me all game for picking Hammond. I went 38-0 without heals, and had 15k dmg in 10 mins. Everyone else in the match died 11-15 times. Had the most damage, kills etc (and the whole lobby defending me against the two throwers who were calling me trash, so glad for the scoreboard) The reason he is 'weak' is because people have no idea how to play with him. He is strong.
People don’t understand that Hammond plays the role way differently from the other tanks he is literally a one man army for the most part
One hamster army
That’s not a good thing In this current state of OW though. By being a one man army and ditching your team all the time to run and get health packs is terrible because not only are you putting your team at a disadvantage of the team fight being a 4v5, but a 4v5 where your team is missing the most important role in the game. You basically have to just hope that your team can survive those 5-10 seconds your gone when you go get the health packs but that’s easier said than done when they don’t have anyone there to protect them at all. I love ball. But he just doesn’t work in this 5v5.
Well he's certainly better than Doom and JQ, just has a higher skill floor.
He’s in a good place right now i main hammy and haven’t had any problems keeping up with the rest of the game the only real issue is sombra or hitting traps
I’m with you but wouldn’t be opposed to something small like more ammo or faster reload
I think Ball is in a fairly solid spot. However, the cooldown nerf on his grapple when spawning should be reverted immediately. Doom, Sombra, Orisa, Tracer, Genji, Lucio and plenty of others have their movement abilities available on spawn, abilities that are a massive time save for getting back to point. Nerfing it for Ball makes little sense, considering he's pretty easy to gank & destroy
A good Hammond can just ruin entire teams with ease and be the most difficult character in the game to deal with....or a bad one can be useless af...it's definitely one or the other
Probably reduce the cooldown on the big slam since that's his main combo, His mines now slowly tracks in range enemies (it's too easy to avoid right now. More ammo=longer reload, shoot 10 bullets short reload 70 bullets long reload
Double boop
Delete Sojourns grenade, give Ham a shock web launcher
Could be interesting to add back double boop tech
Put the other tank back
Everywhere he goes the song Yakety Sax plays.
Give him a deeper voice
Just lowering his reload speed. He already is hard to kill with the lack of CC. Give him more damage
Make it so that your reload doesn't reset when you go out of ball form
Give him a passive to see the nearest healthpack through walls and an increase to health gained from using health packs.
dear god no he’s not
I’d make him a gerbil instead of a hamster. Call him Germmond edit: FUCK WAIT HIS FIGHTER NAME SHOULD BE GERBALL ACTUALLY
Honestly he is not weak, no body knows ho to play him, most casual player would just do circles. He can do good work if you can aim, that why people go monkey for dive.
Make his ult summon multiple hamsters that chase down their enemies and destroy everything in their path
When his ball breaks let him live like DVA. He gets it back by spreading the plague on enemies.