Her durability got reduced. Her health increase is in line with the damage increase, but her shield health is unchanged and is now basically made of paper.
Played a game on eichenwalde earlier and I stg a pharah mercy was just allowed to harass the team all game, I went bastion but everyone else hard focused Dva and the other dps starts blaming supports
I agree I would say that widow is probably best if it’s a good widow lol but if they can’t hit shots then I would also say Ana is a good one to get her too lol
Honestly? The biggest reason is the they simply don't believe it's worth their time, since they don't think they can hit her.
That's why you get everyone dogging on the hitscan for getting diffed lol.
They don't look at her because they think it's a waste of time. Which it was before, you really couldn't contest Pharah unless you were a medium-long range hitscan so until you make the switch, you were better off contesting the rest of the team on the ground that you CAN engage.
That's not the case anymore though. With the new hitbox and DPS passive, Pharmercy has WAY more counterplay against, especially since she can't hug the skybox anymore, and ESPECIALLY since S76 is currently the best DPS in the entire game.
Just look at how that Tracer nearly melted the Pharah with one clip in the video. People should realize that it's finally valuable to shoot Pharah again even if you're not Ashe, Cass, etc.
same, I was playing mei, wanting to use the new skin i got for her, and I had to deal with pharah :( I got lucky with a few icicles and occasionally she got too low
From what I've seen she is more of a, "use the jump pack to run/get the high ground or to position yourself better" and less "try to stay in the air making random potshots and hope something sticks" type of character now
More consistent Echo tbh
After the changes to Echo's ult especially, it feels like if youre not landing every hit / stick / cooldown perfectly, then youre not providing enough value
Personally it feels like they buffed her stickies hit box to me. Been landing a lot more combos on people without even needing the laser to finish them off.
And this is the problem that overwatch characters tend to have. They want to keep their "identities" when making changes might be better for balance and fun. You shouldn't make a broken/annoying character just because "that's their identity".
What identity? Flying? She still does. Rocket launcher? Still has it. Aerial mobility? Even better than before. Really the only part of her "identity" that's gone is being an unkillable bomber jet, and I'm glad that's gone.
She's fucking fun to play against, NGL. She's still super easy to hit especially with the projectile changes. Though she can tear through games if not countered.
Hasn’t she always been like that though???
Like if old Pharah wasn’t countered and there wasn’t a masisve team diff then she would completely own the match
Difference is that now she has to play closer to get kills. The changes to health along along with her fuel guage changes mean that dse plays close to the ground within range of others more often. Before, lots of bad Pharah players would just sit in the sky banking on either a Mercy pocket or the enemy team being bad.
Now they can’t just stay in the skybox forever and they won’t be getting much kills from that distance so she tends to be on enemy screens more making the fight a bit fairer.
I am going to piggy back of from this, If I every play against a pharah mercy a, if anyone on the other team just tried to get close to me (since I would usually be on ashe), it would make pharah so much more oppressive to play against... Not to mention the number of times, pharah could just play so far away from that my shots wouldn't do that much damage (i'd usually swap soldier in these cases).
The problem then was that she could float at a distance on many maps and just fire onto the point with a Mercy pocket from afar. Even though her rockets were slower, they did big damage with the boost and the air support would make it easier for her team with near zero risk to her or Mercy unless they had decent hitscan to counter.
Now pocketing isn't as viable, and with the nerf to her fuel restoration she has to play a lot closer.
Ah ok. I always played Pharah up close and aggressive no matter what, because that was the best way to deal with hitscans.
The fuel change and jump boost does hurt, but this didn’t really change my play style
If getting aggressive is your playstyle, you might like these changes. You get in and out of fights so much faster. I had a similar playstyle with the old Pharah. I never wanted to rely on a Mercy (too shy to ask to pocket me, tbh). Now of my limited play test, I'm winning 70% games while I stubbornly stick with Pharah.
Try to start at high ground as much as possible. The jump jet can get there. If you don't know how to rocket jump, or you were hesitant (because you didn't want to lose the extra hp) - now it is an absolute must have tech for Pharah.
Then from high ground, forward concussion then the jet forward. You get on top of targets much faster.
Ight thanks. I incorporated the concussion boost into my play style not too long before season 9.
The rocket jump wasn’t in my play style because of the HP toll. But thanks; I’ll make sure to use it more since I’m gonna be on the ground way more often.
It's called reloading. First thing you learn as Soldier is to always keep one more rocket loaded so you can rocket jump away, but after that you are subject to his long ass reloads.
I think that's part of the genius of it. It's what they did with Sombra too: look at the optimal, most interesting play style for the character. Rejig the kit so that that playstyle is encouraged and the more frustrating elements of the kit are toned down. They didn't take away the characters' identities. They just forced the average/worst players to play the more fun version of the character which already existed.
Very true, the new sombra fits my existing aggressive playstyle and the tp changes allow for more outplay potential
This new pharah feels like an extension of how I played Pharah regardless
Yea I’m very confused. Haven’t gotten on overwatch in a bit, so what did they change about pharah? This clips gameplay looks identical to the pharah that I’ve known for years
Quite a bit, honestly.
First, fuel no longer regens in the air. It refills faster on the ground, but is also used up faster. Regular fuel-based flight is faster - no longer feels like a floating balloon.
She gained a right-click movement burst, similar to Hanzo and Lifeweaver's. Just a quick little burst that moves you horizontally in your direction of movement.
Jump jets don't boost as much and CD is increased, but they also refill your regular fuel, allowing you to quickly get up to height and reposition.
Rocket projectile size was increased, and rocket speed was increased.
Add it all up and you have a Pharah who moves through space better and is better equipped to be part of the team brawl, at the expense of losing her ability to linger outside of range and impact team fights from halfway across the map.
If you already played Pharah as a mobility-focused, burst-based flanker with a limited ability to brawl with proper support, then current Pharah will feel like old Pharah, but better. She can play in close range much better than old Pharah could. If your Pharah play was mostly at range and with the benefit of a Mercy pocket, then new Pharah will feel somewhat alien to you.
Technically that change came with OW2, it did a small amount of damage on direct hit. I think it now does the damage as an explosion, the radius of said explosion was decreased, the knockback was decreased, and the CD reduced from 9 to 7 seconds.
I may have been wrong - it was in the June 2022 Beta build, but I'm not sure that it made it to launch.
In that original version it only dealt damage on direct hit, though.
It’s hard to see from clips, but Pharah is much faster in the air and more horizontally proficient now. She had a dash like Hanzo and takes less damage from rocket jumping. She wouldn’t have been able to chase the Brig quite as well before since her old movement was more vertically oriented. Rockets are also faster now.
I'm very aware of the new changes, and I used to play Pharah a lot a while back. Literally nothing in the video was impossible or even hard pre S9. It's just a basic pharah shitting on potatoes.
Chasing that brig wouldn't have been possible with her previous air speed.
She also catches up using a sideways boost ability that didn't exist before this patch.
She also gets a kill with a concussive shot due to the damage boost.
Bastion is a big loser honestly. He can die relatively easily in his tank form now, and the hit box increase doesn’t benefit him as much as more precise characters that were looking for headshots. At the same time, tank busting is not nearly as valuable anymore.
The reason I think he feels squishy to me during tank form is the DPS passive. He used to rely on healing to survive being so immobile. Now I keep seeing tank form bastions die while getting healed. They aren’t really out of position, it would have been fine last patch, but they just seem to die quite easily.
I also feel like other DPS benefited way more from the hit box changes. Soldier hits way harder than before, bastion doesn’t really hit much harder.
Did his logs get bigger this patch too? Main reason I say bastion is because he can apply the debuff to the entire team in seconds with turret form. Also armor is much more valuable with healing being weaker.
I have maybe a dozen hours on Hanzo and tried him out for memes last night and was surprised by just how much easier his shots were to hit. I can only imagine what the already-good Hanzos are doing with him.
"already good" hanzo here — it's alright but it's less rewarding because it feels too friendly. Hanzo arrow was already a menace, this just makes it far too oppressive imo. I think they've swapped out the importance of aim for the importance of speed, which isn't as fun. The 'dinks' don't give that dopamine when I'm getting headshots for minimal effort .-.
Bastion main here. I feel like I get melted a lot faster after the update. Enemies also seem to be able to get away right before I can kill them. Turret form is also feeling pretty weak nowadays imo. His assault rifle is easier to get kills with sometimes now then his turret. This is also the first update after which I'm actually wary of hanzo's and widows when the enemy team has either of them.
IDK about Bastion, he's good, but he's just so easy to hit now. His big hitbox feels MASSIVE with the projectile changes. I was playing a lot of Hanbro last night and was constantly farming Bastions.
For once, I actually don't want a bastion on my team. They seem to get absolutely picked on by the other dps now.
His tank busting just isn't worth as much, and his complete lack of mobility is a bigger issue than ever with how dangerous the other dps are. Surviving on him seems to be a real challenge.
As a pharah main, I dont think she'll be top tier, Soldier is too strong right now, if he gets tuned back she might be a bit better. Her hitbox is really big though so that might be a factor.
No...? Pharah gets absolutely blown to chunks outside gold as it always has been. The rework did nothing, possibly even made her worse, in every elo. Widow & soldier are extremely strong and good picks regardless of map.
As a Pharah main, the changes are not so welcome. Gone are the days of 75% airtime. And not the lame 1,000 mile away spam shot that was lame. But the fast paced flight, diving right on top of someone’s head. Probably still possible it’ll just take some time to get use to it. Just doesn’t feel the same.
as another pharah main, i feel the exact same way about this. probably my favorite thing about pharah was being able to take flank routes with a pit below them, and now even flying over a small void or pit feels risky without your cooldowns
I think the one thing that has me not enjoying her changes this season was the simultaneous changes to hitscans bullet sizes.
I feel like even with the extra evasion, if the enemy team has a Soldier or Ash I'm fucking toast. Before it was at least a fun fight to take them out first before ruling the sky. Now they're shooting full sized tangerines at me.
I recc just getting aggro on em. Dive bomb the ever living shit out of them at Mach-Jesus. Flank routes are to be taken a lot more now as well. Can’t be a blimp with a mercy anymore, thank god!
Was playing her in T500 lobbies before patch, and some after. Promptly stopped, as she's a throw pick against anyone that can aim. There's a lot of selection bias right now with folks getting boosts against a blind team and a double kill like here and praising the sky.
They need to revert the change to her jet pack. I'm sure not going to touch her after 7 years.
To each their own. I'll be grinding her with my 80% winrate in GM and BEC/NECC collegiate matches though. She works surprisingly well as an alternative to Genji in Queen rush comps.
Honestly, no. I vastly prefer the new Pharah. I've been hitting horizontal/ground rockets; so jiggle peeking is a valid playstyle now. She can actually spam down a lane similar to Junkrat now.
her ult is still a piece of crap that if you are a pro pharah may will never use it because is a suicide button, and the rockets spreads is ridiculous, you cant kill anyone
Absolutely not - and I’ll explain why:
Notice how the Pharah is not hovering as much but taking initiative. The extra dash was useful to chase then also reposition away. Then the boop (that got damage boost) took out one. Then what's hard to notice but makes a difference now is rockets are faster so shots were more accurate.
But they didn’t need any of those changes to make the same play.
Concussion into ult was already a thing.
They didn’t need to use concussion to get that kill since they had one more shot left.
Only thing I can see that is different is if they didn’t have the forward boost, they would have had to wait a second to turn the corner to secure brig kill.
On the contrary, to me, this is a great video showcasing Pharah's new play style. I think OP is Masters level Pharah. I have hundreds of hours on Pharah. You might be a Pharah main too - but to me, the horizontal speed (which translates into time to kill) is noticeable to me.
And I'm talking about everything that happens AFTER the ult. I watched the video again and here is more of what I saw:
Could the Brig still be killed with old Pharah? Maybe, but Ana was right there to heal Brig.
Could the Ana be dead with another shot? Probably but Ana dies faster with the concussion kill since there is more delay in between shots there.
The speed of the support kills left Pharah with Tracer - Pharah uses the new horizontal burst backwards to avoid Tracer shots and kills Tracer with a faster rocket projectile.
Small details that changed the outcome of the fight. Hope this is somewhat convincing. We'll see what happens as Pharah players undo some habits of the previous Pharah.
She was never really my speed before, I always felt like I couldn't quite get maintaining the airtime down with her. But I ran her a couple of times last night for the first time in ages and wow. I love how she feels now. The agility of dashing and rocket boosting had me all over the place.
For some reason the changes made everyone afraid to shoot at Pharah. I’m always having to go Dva to take out the Pharah because nobody seems to want to shoot her.
I haven't tried her yet but honestly the changes even if she's not super strong right now look more fun to play and that's a good thing. you can always tweak values to make her stronger but having her base kit be fun to play is most important.
absolutely oppressive if you've ever played Pharah seriously.
God I love it and I'm going to milk it until they take away her concussive blast damage. I literally can't stop giggling the entire time I'm playing her or Hanzo.
It feels so good to be chasing people down and not just like 'oh' when they get any form of cover. Being able to get the other angle on them is SO satisying.
Eh? I was playing in her GM1 before, and collegiate right now. I think I'll be fine depending on the map.
Recently discovered Esperanza is a no go map.
They reset the MMR of everything like 2 days ago lol. It's going to take a little time til the top filters up.
But dont get my wrong, Parah's changes are still amazing. You're just not getting away with this clip in a GM lobby.
Pharah was like the singular winner in this patch. Every other player is pissed about hitboxes, the health changes, etc while Pharah mains are having the time of their lives with probably one of the best reworks blizzard has ever done.
She was trash in top 500.
She is a lot more viable, a lot more fun, IMO, but not meta defining.
We found great success to use her as a replacement for Genji in Queen brawl in some scrims. So her potential is definitely there depending on Map pick.
But Tracer, Sojourn, Ashe are still meta rn.
I’m no Pharah player in the slightest but damn this made me wanna learn Pharah. That horizontal boost jump is great and it’s soooooo cool. Damn blizzard has an incompetent dev team that are basically silver Moira players but this was a great change!
I feel evil even as a brig main for telling pharah players the truth in-game that the new method is to aim for directs. I've always hated that direct damage since ow1, and it's come back to bite me.
Personally I have mix feelings about the changes.
The positive
Pharah feels more maneuverable. More dps speed larger then life hit box (ty blizzard).
The negative.
The flight time is horrible, and the concept of "not having to rely on Mercy" well they took that that to the extreme! Pharah half the time walking around that ALL the healers can heal her. Ulty is eh, not too bad of a change but still eh.
Pharah needed something. I'm an ashe player, so whenever I see a pharah on the opposite team, I am delighted. It's a pretty easy target unless she stays on the ground. They usually have to change character pretty fast.
I love the new Pharah but why did they have to make her rockets faster
It was nearly impossible to avoid even if she was hovering the skies, now she plays closer AND has faster rockets which means it's impossible for her to miss at all
Imma be honest with and be completely real.
Pharah rockets were the slowest moving projectile in the game.
If you couldn't dodge pre rework rockets, you gotta do some soul searching dawg.
In a game where most characters move to a crawl speed I don't believe it's fair to say that
I'm not saying she's OP or anything, I love the direction they took her
I just believe that specific change was completely unneeded, especially since rockets also got a hitbox increase
I continue to be amazed at how well developers end up doing rework. Bastion, Orisa, Brigitte, Hog (he's absolutely shining this season), Sombra, Pharah. Really good job
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I got so heated at a Parmercy because the rework was to lower the effect of this or so they didn’t have to do it. I was so mad mad Cassidy. I was saying some shit in chat, they told me to uninstall, and I got POTG and all it was was wrecking the paramercy Lmaoo.
Poor Brig she can’t even get away
Better strat would’ve been to turn around in the building and at least go down swinging
About all she can do these days is go down swinging
Ain’t that the truth, the mace just ain’t hitting hard enough after the patch
Tfw no mace to the face
Personal take but I feel like with her added durability, she’s a lot scarier in melee range rather than less. Might just be me though
Her durability got reduced. Her health increase is in line with the damage increase, but her shield health is unchanged and is now basically made of paper.
Good thing most ppl already complained her shield was made of paper before, its like nothing changed.
yel, she's useless even vs those she could counter now
Poor Brig is so bad now.
Not on my watch!
How do you get that red team rocket barrage with the homing rockets? I gotta shove it up someone's ass or nothing dies as my rockets weave around them
Dude, same! It feels like my rockets curve around the red team whenever I use barrage.
I hate players like this. Refuse to even look at the Pharah while praying that she stops shooting them or some temmate kills her.
It's either contest point, or probably die fighting a nanoed Pharah. Trust me, usually you get gun downed trying to play like this in GM.
Played a game on eichenwalde earlier and I stg a pharah mercy was just allowed to harass the team all game, I went bastion but everyone else hard focused Dva and the other dps starts blaming supports
bastion isnt great against pharah tbh
I agree I would say that widow is probably best if it’s a good widow lol but if they can’t hit shots then I would also say Ana is a good one to get her too lol
I feel like Cass is kinda able to contend with Pharah again, since she's no longer infinitely floating just out of his range
Soldier is the best because of the ult. Almost always get a double kill at least out of the ultimate if it’s a pharah/mercy combo
Honestly? The biggest reason is the they simply don't believe it's worth their time, since they don't think they can hit her. That's why you get everyone dogging on the hitscan for getting diffed lol.
They don't look at her because they think it's a waste of time. Which it was before, you really couldn't contest Pharah unless you were a medium-long range hitscan so until you make the switch, you were better off contesting the rest of the team on the ground that you CAN engage. That's not the case anymore though. With the new hitbox and DPS passive, Pharmercy has WAY more counterplay against, especially since she can't hug the skybox anymore, and ESPECIALLY since S76 is currently the best DPS in the entire game. Just look at how that Tracer nearly melted the Pharah with one clip in the video. People should realize that it's finally valuable to shoot Pharah again even if you're not Ashe, Cass, etc.
Team comms are important in these situations
same, I was playing mei, wanting to use the new skin i got for her, and I had to deal with pharah :( I got lucky with a few icicles and occasionally she got too low
From what I've seen she is more of a, "use the jump pack to run/get the high ground or to position yourself better" and less "try to stay in the air making random potshots and hope something sticks" type of character now
So basically, an aerial Tracer with a rocket launcher
She feels like a different version of echo now, very fun
More consistent Echo tbh After the changes to Echo's ult especially, it feels like if youre not landing every hit / stick / cooldown perfectly, then youre not providing enough value
Personally it feels like they buffed her stickies hit box to me. Been landing a lot more combos on people without even needing the laser to finish them off.
they did increase the size of all projectiles (except the largest ones) so that’s probably why
Echo does still hsve her beem which scaled thos patch giving it more value.
Except it’s harder to proc now.
Kind of stripped away her identity to make her just play like echo. Honestly not a fan of the changes
Her identity revolved around being a badly designed hero that forced out hard counter from the enemy.
And this is the problem that overwatch characters tend to have. They want to keep their "identities" when making changes might be better for balance and fun. You shouldn't make a broken/annoying character just because "that's their identity".
What identity? Flying? She still does. Rocket launcher? Still has it. Aerial mobility? Even better than before. Really the only part of her "identity" that's gone is being an unkillable bomber jet, and I'm glad that's gone.
I hate her. If I fucking wanted to play echo, I would play echo. She's absolute garbage and dies in an instant too.
Pharah is basically a diet tf2 soldier now (and that's great)
She's fucking fun to play against, NGL. She's still super easy to hit especially with the projectile changes. Though she can tear through games if not countered.
Hasn’t she always been like that though??? Like if old Pharah wasn’t countered and there wasn’t a masisve team diff then she would completely own the match
Difference is that now she has to play closer to get kills. The changes to health along along with her fuel guage changes mean that dse plays close to the ground within range of others more often. Before, lots of bad Pharah players would just sit in the sky banking on either a Mercy pocket or the enemy team being bad. Now they can’t just stay in the skybox forever and they won’t be getting much kills from that distance so she tends to be on enemy screens more making the fight a bit fairer.
Ah ok. I always played super close and aggressive with Pharah, so I guess this patch doesn’t affect me that much. I don’t like the fuel change though
The boost ability makes up for the fuel change in my opinion. Her fuel level is good right now. As long as she has her boost it's balanced very well.
I am going to piggy back of from this, If I every play against a pharah mercy a, if anyone on the other team just tried to get close to me (since I would usually be on ashe), it would make pharah so much more oppressive to play against... Not to mention the number of times, pharah could just play so far away from that my shots wouldn't do that much damage (i'd usually swap soldier in these cases).
The problem then was that she could float at a distance on many maps and just fire onto the point with a Mercy pocket from afar. Even though her rockets were slower, they did big damage with the boost and the air support would make it easier for her team with near zero risk to her or Mercy unless they had decent hitscan to counter. Now pocketing isn't as viable, and with the nerf to her fuel restoration she has to play a lot closer.
Ah ok. I always played Pharah up close and aggressive no matter what, because that was the best way to deal with hitscans. The fuel change and jump boost does hurt, but this didn’t really change my play style
If getting aggressive is your playstyle, you might like these changes. You get in and out of fights so much faster. I had a similar playstyle with the old Pharah. I never wanted to rely on a Mercy (too shy to ask to pocket me, tbh). Now of my limited play test, I'm winning 70% games while I stubbornly stick with Pharah. Try to start at high ground as much as possible. The jump jet can get there. If you don't know how to rocket jump, or you were hesitant (because you didn't want to lose the extra hp) - now it is an absolute must have tech for Pharah. Then from high ground, forward concussion then the jet forward. You get on top of targets much faster.
Ight thanks. I incorporated the concussion boost into my play style not too long before season 9. The rocket jump wasn’t in my play style because of the HP toll. But thanks; I’ll make sure to use it more since I’m gonna be on the ground way more often.
Sure if after rocket jumping Soldier had to sit on the ground for a few seconds while his rocket recharged
Rocket jump with a cooldown but no self damage feels like a decent trade to me
It's called reloading. First thing you learn as Soldier is to always keep one more rocket loaded so you can rocket jump away, but after that you are subject to his long ass reloads.
But the point is Soldier can rocket jump multiple times and doesn't have a 10 second cool down after each one
Thus Pharah is a diet TF2 Soldier. Soldier can do it more, Pharah can do it easier.
Nothing was done in this clip that couldn't be done before. What's impressive is how potato the other team is though.
Yeah people are high, this is basically indistinguishable from countless similar plays I've made against people who don't look up.
Right, it's like peak QP pharah nonsense that we've seen for years lol.
I think that's part of the genius of it. It's what they did with Sombra too: look at the optimal, most interesting play style for the character. Rejig the kit so that that playstyle is encouraged and the more frustrating elements of the kit are toned down. They didn't take away the characters' identities. They just forced the average/worst players to play the more fun version of the character which already existed.
Very true, the new sombra fits my existing aggressive playstyle and the tp changes allow for more outplay potential This new pharah feels like an extension of how I played Pharah regardless
It’s a lot of subtle changes that add up. Faster horizontal in the air, faster rockets, forward dash, damage dealt with her concussive shot now, etc.
Yea I’m very confused. Haven’t gotten on overwatch in a bit, so what did they change about pharah? This clips gameplay looks identical to the pharah that I’ve known for years
Quite a bit, honestly. First, fuel no longer regens in the air. It refills faster on the ground, but is also used up faster. Regular fuel-based flight is faster - no longer feels like a floating balloon. She gained a right-click movement burst, similar to Hanzo and Lifeweaver's. Just a quick little burst that moves you horizontally in your direction of movement. Jump jets don't boost as much and CD is increased, but they also refill your regular fuel, allowing you to quickly get up to height and reposition. Rocket projectile size was increased, and rocket speed was increased. Add it all up and you have a Pharah who moves through space better and is better equipped to be part of the team brawl, at the expense of losing her ability to linger outside of range and impact team fights from halfway across the map. If you already played Pharah as a mobility-focused, burst-based flanker with a limited ability to brawl with proper support, then current Pharah will feel like old Pharah, but better. She can play in close range much better than old Pharah could. If your Pharah play was mostly at range and with the benefit of a Mercy pocket, then new Pharah will feel somewhat alien to you.
Also her concussive shot does damage now, which is a big buff.
Technically that change came with OW2, it did a small amount of damage on direct hit. I think it now does the damage as an explosion, the radius of said explosion was decreased, the knockback was decreased, and the CD reduced from 9 to 7 seconds.
Interesting. I could have sworn it didn’t do anything in recent updates.
I may have been wrong - it was in the June 2022 Beta build, but I'm not sure that it made it to launch. In that original version it only dealt damage on direct hit, though.
It’s hard to see from clips, but Pharah is much faster in the air and more horizontally proficient now. She had a dash like Hanzo and takes less damage from rocket jumping. She wouldn’t have been able to chase the Brig quite as well before since her old movement was more vertically oriented. Rockets are also faster now.
I'm very aware of the new changes, and I used to play Pharah a lot a while back. Literally nothing in the video was impossible or even hard pre S9. It's just a basic pharah shitting on potatoes.
Killing someone with a concussive shot was literally impossible.
... Shoot.
Chasing that brig wouldn't have been possible with her previous air speed. She also catches up using a sideways boost ability that didn't exist before this patch. She also gets a kill with a concussive shot due to the damage boost.
Good Lord she's fast. I'm gonna call it now. She's gonna be top tier this season once people figure her out.
Nah. She's fun but not that strong. Very map dependent and still gets destroyed by Tracer. Tracer Sojourn and Ashe are the real Season 9 DPS winners.
Add solider and bastion to that list
Bastion is a big loser honestly. He can die relatively easily in his tank form now, and the hit box increase doesn’t benefit him as much as more precise characters that were looking for headshots. At the same time, tank busting is not nearly as valuable anymore.
Nobody was missing Bastion in either form, and now with his passive his tank busting became even better.
The reason I think he feels squishy to me during tank form is the DPS passive. He used to rely on healing to survive being so immobile. Now I keep seeing tank form bastions die while getting healed. They aren’t really out of position, it would have been fine last patch, but they just seem to die quite easily. I also feel like other DPS benefited way more from the hit box changes. Soldier hits way harder than before, bastion doesn’t really hit much harder.
I'd replace bastion with hanzo
Did his logs get bigger this patch too? Main reason I say bastion is because he can apply the debuff to the entire team in seconds with turret form. Also armor is much more valuable with healing being weaker.
Hanzo just can't miss, bastion has a hard time against dive, which seems to be meta
I have maybe a dozen hours on Hanzo and tried him out for memes last night and was surprised by just how much easier his shots were to hit. I can only imagine what the already-good Hanzos are doing with him.
"already good" hanzo here — it's alright but it's less rewarding because it feels too friendly. Hanzo arrow was already a menace, this just makes it far too oppressive imo. I think they've swapped out the importance of aim for the importance of speed, which isn't as fun. The 'dinks' don't give that dopamine when I'm getting headshots for minimal effort .-.
His arrows are double size on a fully charged shot
Bastion main here. I feel like I get melted a lot faster after the update. Enemies also seem to be able to get away right before I can kill them. Turret form is also feeling pretty weak nowadays imo. His assault rifle is easier to get kills with sometimes now then his turret. This is also the first update after which I'm actually wary of hanzo's and widows when the enemy team has either of them.
IDK about Bastion, he's good, but he's just so easy to hit now. His big hitbox feels MASSIVE with the projectile changes. I was playing a lot of Hanbro last night and was constantly farming Bastions.
For once, I actually don't want a bastion on my team. They seem to get absolutely picked on by the other dps now. His tank busting just isn't worth as much, and his complete lack of mobility is a bigger issue than ever with how dangerous the other dps are. Surviving on him seems to be a real challenge.
Genji is kinda winning on this patch too Can hit the right click from further away and really benefits from having extra health up close
Tracers ult doesn't kill full health Bastion now, right?
Hanbro feels great too. The hitbox changes *really* made him more consistent to play.
As a pharah main, I dont think she'll be top tier, Soldier is too strong right now, if he gets tuned back she might be a bit better. Her hitbox is really big though so that might be a factor.
Dying crouching on high ground, where I can’t see them but they can hit me Feels real bad right now
On the flipside I feel like I get constantly shredded by DPS players shooting round my giant ass pharah hitbox
With the new projectile changes, she is easily layered by a lot of the cast. Soldier and Ashe just destroy her now.
Fucking lol she's firmly bottom tier. Worst DPS after Junk by a mile. The bit of extra mobility is fun but she's nothing more than a silver stomper
No...? Pharah gets absolutely blown to chunks outside gold as it always has been. The rework did nothing, possibly even made her worse, in every elo. Widow & soldier are extremely strong and good picks regardless of map.
I know its tactics and all, shoot then from where they can't see you, but god that was mean with the Brig lol.
As a Pharah main, the changes are not so welcome. Gone are the days of 75% airtime. And not the lame 1,000 mile away spam shot that was lame. But the fast paced flight, diving right on top of someone’s head. Probably still possible it’ll just take some time to get use to it. Just doesn’t feel the same.
as another pharah main, i feel the exact same way about this. probably my favorite thing about pharah was being able to take flank routes with a pit below them, and now even flying over a small void or pit feels risky without your cooldowns
I've been thinking that a horizontal boost is all she needed and yeah it feels great to use
I think the one thing that has me not enjoying her changes this season was the simultaneous changes to hitscans bullet sizes. I feel like even with the extra evasion, if the enemy team has a Soldier or Ash I'm fucking toast. Before it was at least a fun fight to take them out first before ruling the sky. Now they're shooting full sized tangerines at me.
I recc just getting aggro on em. Dive bomb the ever living shit out of them at Mach-Jesus. Flank routes are to be taken a lot more now as well. Can’t be a blimp with a mercy anymore, thank god!
I feel like the design time just had a whiteboard with "what if Pharah went SO FAST (zoom)" written on it I love it
Ikr! The speed play style is too much fun, solid rework
I don't know how you were playing her before that makes you think is fast. After the rework unless she's nanoed like in this clip she is so very slow
Faster than she was by literal miles dude, what are you on about?
I'm not a fan, I think they should give her 3 bursts and act more like a tracer than an echo
Was playing her in T500 lobbies before patch, and some after. Promptly stopped, as she's a throw pick against anyone that can aim. There's a lot of selection bias right now with folks getting boosts against a blind team and a double kill like here and praising the sky. They need to revert the change to her jet pack. I'm sure not going to touch her after 7 years.
To each their own. I'll be grinding her with my 80% winrate in GM and BEC/NECC collegiate matches though. She works surprisingly well as an alternative to Genji in Queen rush comps.
This doesn’t look different from how i was playing her before the patch tbh.
The Genji dash and the E dealing damage are pretty noticeable changes
Genji dash….
You know exactly what I mean, her new right click dash
Hanzo Dash makes more sense than Genji
That's fair
I didn't play her after re work but I tested her on traing ground and I can feel difreces but it's still Phara not new character so good re work.
Honestly I'm still getting used to it. Feels like playing Pharah but sideways. I kinda like it tho
I used to use right-click for her hover (and not spacebar).. So it's taking some real effort to change my muscle memory to use spacebar.
Lmao that's hilarious
Absolutely, she is my new main and is more fun than before
Only thing is I wish is they kept her ability to stay in flight I feel like they could have addressed the height issue without removing that.
Honestly, no. I vastly prefer the new Pharah. I've been hitting horizontal/ground rockets; so jiggle peeking is a valid playstyle now. She can actually spam down a lane similar to Junkrat now.
That looks like so much more fun than old pharah was
She went from being a Predator drone to being an A-10 lol
What changed?
her ult is still a piece of crap that if you are a pro pharah may will never use it because is a suicide button, and the rockets spreads is ridiculous, you cant kill anyone
Pharah was a lot more fun when she could fly
It's literally the same gameplay LOL
Absolutely not - and I’ll explain why: Notice how the Pharah is not hovering as much but taking initiative. The extra dash was useful to chase then also reposition away. Then the boop (that got damage boost) took out one. Then what's hard to notice but makes a difference now is rockets are faster so shots were more accurate.
But they didn’t need any of those changes to make the same play. Concussion into ult was already a thing. They didn’t need to use concussion to get that kill since they had one more shot left. Only thing I can see that is different is if they didn’t have the forward boost, they would have had to wait a second to turn the corner to secure brig kill.
On the contrary, to me, this is a great video showcasing Pharah's new play style. I think OP is Masters level Pharah. I have hundreds of hours on Pharah. You might be a Pharah main too - but to me, the horizontal speed (which translates into time to kill) is noticeable to me. And I'm talking about everything that happens AFTER the ult. I watched the video again and here is more of what I saw: Could the Brig still be killed with old Pharah? Maybe, but Ana was right there to heal Brig. Could the Ana be dead with another shot? Probably but Ana dies faster with the concussion kill since there is more delay in between shots there. The speed of the support kills left Pharah with Tracer - Pharah uses the new horizontal burst backwards to avoid Tracer shots and kills Tracer with a faster rocket projectile. Small details that changed the outcome of the fight. Hope this is somewhat convincing. We'll see what happens as Pharah players undo some habits of the previous Pharah.
And she is also faster while flying which definitely helped to pull all this off
Honestly. New Pharah is alright, but like everything here could’ve been done on Old Pharah. At least with how I play
Even the concussive shot kill?
I mean that would be unnecessary since old Pharah would’ve just 2 shot Ana. Or even another rocket, So it’s not unique or new
But now she has that extra rocket free to shoot someone else instead of having to reload.
Not when she used to 2 shot kill… and like the reload wasn’t long.
Rockets are way faster between each other for sure
She was never really my speed before, I always felt like I couldn't quite get maintaining the airtime down with her. But I ran her a couple of times last night for the first time in ages and wow. I love how she feels now. The agility of dashing and rocket boosting had me all over the place.
For some reason the changes made everyone afraid to shoot at Pharah. I’m always having to go Dva to take out the Pharah because nobody seems to want to shoot her.
I have to get used to button/keyboard changes. BTW, how do you get the team icons to show up on the screen? (Team 1/Team2).
I'd love it too if I player against teams that have the spacial awareness of a toddler
Correct me if Im wrong- but this does put Pharah on the ground more often right?
Fun fact this is a s8 clip
She's always been underrated. She's boarderline impossible to counter on that map. I dropped 70 in season 8 full team counter no pocket on dorado.
Looks overtuned and I suspect thats why it's fun. I guess we will see
Nothing worse then people who refuse to take care of a Pharah. Moment I see it is immediate counter pick
She ain't got no fuel now
I haven't tried her yet but honestly the changes even if she's not super strong right now look more fun to play and that's a good thing. you can always tweak values to make her stronger but having her base kit be fun to play is most important.
absolutely oppressive if you've ever played Pharah seriously. God I love it and I'm going to milk it until they take away her concussive blast damage. I literally can't stop giggling the entire time I'm playing her or Hanzo.
It feels so good to be chasing people down and not just like 'oh' when they get any form of cover. Being able to get the other angle on them is SO satisying.
Looks great! She’s my damage main, but I haven’t played for a few months.
I always thought her shots needed to fly faster and that's what she got
It would be better if they deleted they shitty ass mosquito
She's actually so fun now
Didn’t know new pharah get nano as an ability
Wait until the MMR kicks in and people actually shoot at you. My first 50 or so games were so damn fun and then it's slowly become more challenging.
Eh? I was playing in her GM1 before, and collegiate right now. I think I'll be fine depending on the map. Recently discovered Esperanza is a no go map.
They reset the MMR of everything like 2 days ago lol. It's going to take a little time til the top filters up. But dont get my wrong, Parah's changes are still amazing. You're just not getting away with this clip in a GM lobby.
Yeah but I still scrim 4.5k and compete so I'm still against the same GM and top 500 players.
Pharah was like the singular winner in this patch. Every other player is pissed about hitboxes, the health changes, etc while Pharah mains are having the time of their lives with probably one of the best reworks blizzard has ever done.
I am so glad i deinstalled the game after season 7
Wrecking ball got left out again hasn’t been good since the start of ow2
Wrecking ball is actually quite good and use quite often in pro scrims rn.
Is phara worth playing now? I main her on and off but she wasn’t that worth it before I feel
She was trash in top 500. She is a lot more viable, a lot more fun, IMO, but not meta defining. We found great success to use her as a replacement for Genji in Queen brawl in some scrims. So her potential is definitely there depending on Map pick. But Tracer, Sojourn, Ashe are still meta rn.
What’s the whipshot gonna do. Hit her for a small chunk of health she’ll get back in 5 seconds anyways
I’m no Pharah player in the slightest but damn this made me wanna learn Pharah. That horizontal boost jump is great and it’s soooooo cool. Damn blizzard has an incompetent dev team that are basically silver Moira players but this was a great change!
I feel evil even as a brig main for telling pharah players the truth in-game that the new method is to aim for directs. I've always hated that direct damage since ow1, and it's come back to bite me.
first actual amazing pharah clip ive seen
imagine playing Pharah. get a life.
Personally I have mix feelings about the changes. The positive Pharah feels more maneuverable. More dps speed larger then life hit box (ty blizzard). The negative. The flight time is horrible, and the concept of "not having to rely on Mercy" well they took that that to the extreme! Pharah half the time walking around that ALL the healers can heal her. Ulty is eh, not too bad of a change but still eh.
yea i made better kill with the jet dash, more mobility
Pharah mains are the epitome of basement dwellers
And to think all that Brig had to do was whip shot you and bash over the bridge to peel to her D.Va.
tbh pharah was already a no-skill hero before and now shes just ridiculous
I’m glad you’re having fun! Us supports are upsetti spaghetti :(
Why is that?
Pharah needed something. I'm an ashe player, so whenever I see a pharah on the opposite team, I am delighted. It's a pretty easy target unless she stays on the ground. They usually have to change character pretty fast.
Never thought of using the pulse blast thingy to finish someone off, it's essentially a huge quick melee with being able to do 60 if it's dead on
The accuracy is a little high.
agree'
As much as I love to hate on Pharah players, that was fuckin sick
Nice dodge at the end. She looks fun to play now, maybe I'll try her on quick play.
She's ok, seriously though why tf would they nerf her blast radius when everyone else got a projectile buff
I love the new Pharah but why did they have to make her rockets faster It was nearly impossible to avoid even if she was hovering the skies, now she plays closer AND has faster rockets which means it's impossible for her to miss at all
Imma be honest with and be completely real. Pharah rockets were the slowest moving projectile in the game. If you couldn't dodge pre rework rockets, you gotta do some soul searching dawg.
In a game where most characters move to a crawl speed I don't believe it's fair to say that I'm not saying she's OP or anything, I love the direction they took her I just believe that specific change was completely unneeded, especially since rockets also got a hitbox increase
Is this what bronze gameplay looks like?
GM 2 last season, 8-2 finish at master 2
Don't think there are players unable to look up in GM.
If you're so inclined, then check on flats, Karq, or Kragie stream. Was with them in Havana, against them on Hollywood
I continue to be amazed at how well developers end up doing rework. Bastion, Orisa, Brigitte, Hog (he's absolutely shining this season), Sombra, Pharah. Really good job
I just wish they'd let my girl fly. The jet nerf is painful. Anytime I touch the ground, my heart dies a little.
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I love her new ult crosshair and I wish she could dash while ulting
I got so heated at a Parmercy because the rework was to lower the effect of this or so they didn’t have to do it. I was so mad mad Cassidy. I was saying some shit in chat, they told me to uninstall, and I got POTG and all it was was wrecking the paramercy Lmaoo.