Hey y'all! This is Alec, Lead Hero Designer, stepping in for Aaron this week. We thought this Director’s Take would be a good time to chat about our heroes, recent balance changes, and what we’ve learned from them, and talk a bit about the philosophy behind our two upcoming reworks for Sombra and Roadhog.
Illari and the Safe Side of Strong
Let’s start with Illari. Going into Illari’s launch, our slogan was “safe side of strong.” We want hero releases to be impactful. It’s best for the game for a number of reasons, but most importantly, it creates change throughout the meta. An impactful hero launch can shift other heroes’ viability and create new and unique team compositions - an unimpactful hero launch can feel as if the game didn’t enter a new season.
Making a new hero feel impactful on launch is challenging because we are asking you to choose between that hero and their overall potential versus picking the heroes that you may have hundreds or ...
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