PTS Frontline Thoughts

Opinions on Frontlines, as a Frontline main:

Ash: Feels terrible. Didn't need nerfs. Was in a good spot. Her damage feels even worse, her Bash is on a longer net CD, and her shield is worthless. Please reconsider her nerfs in their entirity. Just leave her how she is on live. The caut changes alone basically make it impossible for her to deal with things like Seris pocketing now, so she would have been worse anyway...

Atlas: I would have preferred a range falloff rather than a flat damage nerf. Temporal Divide is still incredibly oppressive, and should probably be removed. He will have more wall uptime with Phantom Pain, which exaggerates the issue. Resilience nerf is a huge buff as he was one of the few champions that forced Resilience 3 buys with any frequency. I think this champion needs another look at as he will probably continue to be problematic.

Barik: Is probably too strong. One Man's Scrap procs when you destroy your own turrets, and his self heal might be a bit much. Tinkerin is so bad it may as well be removed. Bowling Ball is too weak to be worth using (BBall 4 gets one-shotted by a lot of champions without Wrecker). Moving towards a more turret-focused setup is a good idea though, as they're basically useless on live. Archi is probably still bad. Bowling Ball could've probably been a Talent to be honest. With a bit of tweaking this might work out, but at the moment it's a bit off.

Fernando: Is even worse. Worse DPS, worse shielding, worse self-sustain. I think point-tank was a good direction for him personally, and would have liked to see that aspect of him buffed. If Hot Pursuit is the reason why the Fireball CDs were nerfed, consider making Hot Pursuit increase the Fireball cooldown so point builds don't have to lose out on their damage too much.

Inara: Wasn't touched too much thankfully, and was in a good spot anyway. Tremors change is a bit gimmicky. tbh I'll miss the old one's super short cooldown for Flying Inara builds.

Khan: He did need to be nerfed, but this is far too much. Storm of Bullets was the main issue as it increased his ult charge rate and damage quite substantially. I play Vortex Grip Khan on live periodically, and his damage without SoB is not that impressive. I would have preferred SoB be removed entirely in favour of another shout-based talent. New SoB is just a downgrade anyway. His shield is totally useless now as 3000 HP is so low that people just destroy it without any Wrecker with ease (and no, nobody is going to give up precious deck space for Shield Wall). His shout being on a longer cooldown I don't think was a good change either. Changes to this champion should be more gradual. I would like to see his direction go more towards a Helper Tank that moves with a damage dealer(s), rather than just nerfing him outright with no compensatory changes.

Makoa: Needed nerfs, but didn't get any that he needed. His inhand damage and shielding were fine, I'm not sure why they were messed with. Moving Leviathan CC immunity into base kit was a mistake. I would have preferred Leviathan just be removed outright, as his ult is extremely overbearing. Putting Hook on a 1s longer cooldown is irrelevant as it's still basically an uncounterable double-CC which usually results in a free kill. I think the Hook's mechanics in general just need another look at. For potential ideas: Make it affected by Resilience, and/or give it a wind-up so it's more telegraphed. This champion is still overpowered.

Raum: Reducing Ignition DR was a good nerf and necessary. I would have liked to see his Harvest DR go down to 15% too, to be honest. Nerfing his inhand damage was a bad change as it was already pretty meh. Consider reverting that. Juggernaut is the biggest issue in his kit, and the main thing that makes him overpowered. The lockout on Juggernaut's damage on the same target hit multiple times needs to be increased by another 1 or 2s at least, as you can basically 1400 burst someone every time, and do a silly 2100 a lot of the time. Combo with ult for 3100 burst, and it becomes a bit overbearing. This is where all his damage/lethality is really coming from, not his inhand. 75% DR on Enforcer is far too much I think, and should be toned down. Leave his inhand alone and focus more on his DR and Juggernaut.

Ruckus: I don't really have any opinions about these changes. They don't really make him much better or worse. Consider making Rocket Barrage give a 2s reduced cooldown for his Rockets so that he has better viability on smaller maps where Aerial Assault is not really viable.

Terminus: No real opinion here either. The strength of his kit has been rejuggled, but is about the same overall strength. More Siphon uptime in exchange for less clutch ults and the item store changes impact him pretty negatively. Overall about the same with all the buffs and nerfs combined. They feel like changes just for the sake of it tbh. (and I still want his old base HP back tbh)

Torvald: Is probably an issue again. His shielding is basically unchaged with the new Thanks, Grandpa and Lifegiver cards, which works out to be a buff overall I think. Please just give up on the bubble bot playstyle and rework him. Also the Direct Current change just makes it worse than before, as it at least had a fun niche for Flank Torv builds (you used to be able to get people to half and then silence for the kill, which you can't now).
Overall thoughts: The nerfing inhand damage experiment is a failure. You need to focus more on nerfing the actual problematic parts of these champions. The wrecker/shield changes are also really bad, as shields have gone from being bad late game to just being bad all game. And no, nobody is going to waste their precious deck space on shield HP.