Since the summer of 2018, when Wrecking-ball was first released, he has been one of the strongest heroes in Overwatch. Especially, strong is the hate we have for Wrecking-ball while playing against him. It seems weird for a tank, that is naturally strong to be able to jump from platform to platform in a matter of seconds, and still be able to go into the middle of the enemy’s team and survive. Well, this is Wrecking-ball everyone. The question that the title suggests is the following: should he be nerfed?
Who is Wrecking-ball?
If you don’t know who Wrecking-ball is, probably you were looking for a different gaming article. 😛
For the ones that have an idea of who he is, we can start by breaking down what makes Wrecking-ball so powerful.
First of all, he has 600 total Hit Points, which is one of the highest HP pools in the game. The pinnacle of his power is his rolling skill. He can turn into a ball that moves extremely fast and, to add to that, he has a hook that lets him stick onto surfaces and move like a swing while dealing damage. Oh! nd don’t forget that when he is a ball, he has not critical hitbox. As if this wasn’t enough, he can use Piledriver to smash into the middle of the enemy’s team and with the skill, Adaptive Shield, creates a powerful shield that gets even more powerful the more enemies are around him. The cherry on the top is his ultimate, Minefield that, by deploying 15 mines around him, allows him to spread chaos amongst the enemy team.
Sounds pretty broken, right? Like he needs some serious nerfing.
If that was only the case, we would say that this hero definitely needs changing. But, to be able to create the chaos that Wrecking-ball is designed to create, you need A LOT of practice. First of all, even to start playing him is tricky. There are a lot of things you need to be able to understand, as well as an eye for how much damage the enemy can deal to you when you jump between them. This is true for every hero, but especially true for Wrecking-ball.
This is the way Blizzard is using for balancing heroes. Creating heroes that in theory sound overpowered but in practice need quite some practicing to function, is a pretty interesting and bold way to “nerf” a hero. Of course, some changes to the damage values and HP always change the hero’s viability in each meta and these are always welcome, since we like a breath of fresh air every once in a while.
Our suggestion would be to try and play him to see for yourself. You will see it is hard to move at the beginning, but then it is starting to feel better and better. Just don’t look at videos of professionals playing with him because you will get disappointed!
Our Opinion
To conclude, the answer to the question we made in this article would be “no”. Although we still get angry when he is utilizing his toolkit against us, we have to admit that this is the kind of thing we love from Overwatch.
We need more crazy heroes that are fast-paced and feel so satisfying to play. We have to give it to Blizzard, most of the heroes they have created for this game feel so unique that it’s hard to hate them, even if they are broken like Wrecking-ball.