TL;DR: With the Waveshatter power, Guardian Wave often goes on cooldown without spawning a wave (no heal, no damage). It happens when you cast at or near max fall charge, so the build Waveshatter is designed around is the one it breaks. Reported on the official forums by at least 8 players since August, still not acknowledged or fixed.

What happens - You cast Guardian Wave, it goes on cooldown, and nothing appears. No visual, no healing for allies, no damage. - Sometimes a loud flowing-water sound gets stuck for the whole round (both teams hear it) until a wave actually spawns. - After a failed full-charge wave, later waves cast from the ground can also fail (~30–50% in one player's practice range testing).

When it happens - Casting at or near max Waveshatter charge (the bonus that builds while you're falling). - Much more often with items that extend air time: Aerial Surf, Wuxing Waveriders, mid-air dash gadgets (Dashing Skates / Jet Skates). Reportedly worse with Ebb and Flow. - Started with the August 11 patch (Season 4), which raised Guardian Wave's max degrees from 10 to 15. The same build worked fine the season before.

How to reproduce 1. Play Wuyang in Stadium, take Waveshatter. 2. Buy Aerial Surf and/or Wuxing Waveriders, plus a dash gadget. 3. Jump high (or drop from a ledge), dash mid-air, and cast Guardian Wave near the end of a long fall. 4. The wave frequently doesn't appear.

Current workaround Release the wave before full charge, and don't stack air-time items. This means giving up most of what makes the wave build good.

Videos - https://youtu.be/JyJhoROihIQ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xewvkodd_pg

Forum reports (please reply or like if you're affected) - Main thread with a full summary: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/stadium-waveshatter-power-causes-guardian-wave-to-not-cast/1034440 - https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/wuyang-build-broken-in-stadium/1034955 - https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/waveshatter-bug-on-grounded-waves/1036271

Wuyang is my favourite Stadium hero, and right now his signature power punishes you for using it the way it's designed. Even a Known Issues mention would help. @PlayOverwatch

I get it. Cat is a nightmare and balance is not in the best spot right now. But we just had a brilliant Sombra rework, an interesting addition to the support role in Doctrine, the kneecapping of the most egregious hero in the game (Hog), and the long-requested hitscan bullet size nerf.

The game is literally just a moderately-sized balance patch away from being in a really good spot. So why does it feel like morale is at a low it hasn't hit in years?

It doesn't happen too often, which makes it all the more avoidable by just extending q times slightly and massively increasing match quality as a result.

For context, this is a game where the entire lobby was m5 to m3 and the enemy tank was diamond 5. The result is; this poor soul didn't get to play the game and probably felt horrible, and their teammates surely didn't enjoy it either. Just a hard limit of say, 3 divisions between tank players, would go a long way.

Even the game seemed to understand that the value proposition of this match was unfair, as I only got 24% despite a calibration up multiplier. Knowing the game as we do today, if this happens 1 game out of 50 it's one game too many. It's just not necessary anywhere below the absolute tippity top of the skill distributions.

like is it genuinely all just bugs? it feels so bad to play her on a competitive level sometimes just because of random quality of life nerfs:

• you can lose allied bubble CD on a dead teammate for almost a year now, never mentioned in the patch notes

• added small delay to application of self-bubble (one of the recent patches)

• nerfed m2 jump height (latest patch)

I know this is anecdotal evidence, but it seems like ever since the beginning of the year, my friends and I ( all ranging from plat to masters in various roles) have noticed an increase in q times and match quality going down. Like I am getting 5 min qs for dps and support in NA east. Im only plat too. I tried tank to see how fast it was and it was literally 3 seconds. I don’t even bother playing qp anymore, I get destroyed in a tracer duel and see on their profile grandmaster damage. It seems it’s all stomps either way with nothing in between.

Aaron Keller said in an interview that they are now going forward with the theme park experience of Overwatch. But doesn’t the theme park make these issues worse? Having so many qs between stadium, 6v6 and 5v5 seems to be hurting the product and degrading match quality. 5v5 and 6v6 are too different for it to have the same balance I feel like, and going forward designing maps/ heros for all these modes seem inefficient. Plus if they give a good 6v6 patch and make the mode feel good like in ow1. Wouldn’t it start to cannibalize 5v5 q times? Maybe it already has started.also why can’t 6v6 get dedicated balance and treated as its own mode now? They talk about how they are okay with it being in the game but stadium still gets more love than 6v6.
It feels like we’re in a content war with rivals, like pump out new content and figure it out later. I think new maps , heros are good even if sometimes they are flops but with perks, subrole passives and the new 2027 system and all these modes. Like we have been weak balance patches, no perk refreshes and just seems directionless at times. I get it’s a live service game, and it needs refreshes to keep itself new / relevant but do we really need to reinvent the wheel every year from now on? The game has survived so much bs from the past at its core it’s a really good game.

One moment, he’s getting POTM for zeta in the top tournaments, the next he’s not even signed??? I’ve been somewhat absent around 2025 and most of 2026. It seems as though he fell off a cliff???

More info in the link below on Advanced Shader Delivery:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/phantom-blade-zero-nvidia-geforce-game-ready-driver/

I'd love if this put an end to running that custom map for compiling shaders.

Dive been strong has been really fun, especially when you compare it to maps where poke is still preferred like circuit royal. I dont understand how people enjoy that. Despite my enjoyment, I think balance could be better. Here are some changes I would like to see in the mid season patch:

Global

• Bullet size reduction for projectile based heroes

Projectile sizes need to be reviewed, especially with the recent hitbox size increases. Rigth now every projectile hero has been essentially buffed, especially the spammy ones.

Tanks

Dmon

• Remove slow effect from ult

Her ult does too much and is one of the reasons why she's so strong. Something has to go and my preferred choice would be the slow effect.

Domina

• Make corporate retreat base kit
• Reduce barrier size
• Bring back power move major perk

She's doing better, but as long as her barrier remains static, she will remain extremely niche. Allowing her to move it once should fix that, while also giving us a reason to reduce its size.

Junker Queen

• Move to bruiser sub role
• Add unstoppable during the first 0.6s windup of carnage
• Replace rampant with rending recall

She's not doing good right now. Moving her to bruiser will help with her survival efficacy by allowing her to get to cover faster and reducing the amount of critical damage taken. Unstoppable during carnage windup gives her the ability to deal with CC, without completely removing counter play. Rampant charge should be sacrificed in order to balance things out, especially since its a badly designed perk.

Mauga

Let him rot, the game is better without him.

Support

Ana

• Nerf anti nade back to 75 damage and 14s CD
• Move to medic sub class
• Make head hunter perk into minor critical
• Trash new sleep perk

I dont think this needs any explanation.

Doctrine

• Either reduce max hp cut or hp cut per drone
• Decrease decay duration form 6s to 4s
• Nerf max overhealth generation
• Reduce shrouded momentum damage reduction to 30%

While he may not feel toxic, its undeniable that he's busted right now. His ult is in large part to blame for this. Nerfing several aspects of it while also reducing his survival by targeting shrouded momentum should somewhat tame him a bit.

Kiriko

Just remove invul from suzu already.

Illari

• Make burnout base kit
• Add new resource to healing pylon called solar charge
  • Solar charge regenerates only when pylon is inactive
  • Solar charge automatically refunds mag of allies in the vicinity of pylon
  • Refunding mag consumes solar charge
• Resonating Pylon: New major perk, upon casting outburst, pylon will resonate and cast an outburst of its own at 50% efficiency

She's jobless right now. This mini rework aims to fix that by giving her utility and better synergy with other fire based heroes. Currently there is no hero that refunds mags, which would also make this form of utility unique.

JPC

Kill the damn thing already.

Sombra

• Revert gun damage nerf
• Make life hack base kit, but remove the burst heal
• Nerf cyberspace damage reduction to 30%
• Nerf hotfix hps from 25 to 22.5

Sombra is strong right now cause of cyberspace damage reduction and her ability to give massive sustain to dive heroes. Nerfing her gun does not address these aspects of her kit.

DPS

Anran

• Remove Boop from inferno rush
• Move power away from dancing blaze into other parts of her kit

Insufferable character thanks to her boops and dancing blaze. A big reason for this is that dancing blaze is always worth using. There is no thought put behind the usage of this ability.

Cassidy

• Replace silver bullet
• Replace bang bang

These perks should not exist on this hero, regardless of how strong he actually is.

Genji

• Replace meditation perk
• Replace dragon thirst perk

These perks might not be best in slot, but they still massively lower his skill floor by making him less punishable.

Reaper

• Make dire triggers crit into minor crit
• Revert passive life steal buff
• Buff back to 300

The HP nerf didnt make sense back then and neither does it now. Dire triggers is the problem, address it directly.

Vendetta

• Replace siphoning strike perk
• Remove boop from whirlwind

The perks allows her to trade more effectively, by extending the window she can be active in. Reducing it will make her a lot more punishing to play, which forces better decision making. There is no reason for her to have a boop, we already have too many of those right now.

The character is too evasive, flies too fast in too many directions with no inertia at all.
She completly outperforms other flying characters, Pharrah is slow and predictable because of her jetpack movements, echo's flight is on a cooldown and time limited.
Meanwhile the cat is basically in echo's flight mode constantly and it's crazy to think those 3 characters have the same hp.

I'm making this post because whenever there's a JPC nerf debate it's alway shifted toward her kit:
"make tether a cooldown, make it unable to carry ultimate", "nerf her boop, her self healing".

My friends, I believe the cat needs to die more easily, as simple as that, she's infinitely more evasive than a Tracer with more hp and you cannot rely on AoE damage to kill her.

Don't come at me with "skill issue" I'm literraly studying right now pro/champion vods of hitscan players and they struggle so hard to kill the cat it is embarrassing to watch (that's what triggered this post).

These Raccoons really do be Crazy

It made it so hard to see the teams. In contrast, they swapped back to red and blue for the recent games and I could actually tell what was happening

I noticed I back up too much and it makes me less involved in the fight. If I go up too much I just die

Turn off chat. Literally that simple. I went from plat to gm (I can show proof if needed) by simply turning off chat. Its literally the easiest way to rank up. Literally just keep playing ranked with chat off and take every loss as an learning opportunity and don't blame the team. Especially if your tank (my condolences)

It has diminished returns after masters but this is aimed for around plat or gold players. It's Literally just the blame game in chat every round and lower players will provide nothing to you having chat on I promise.

Landing a headslam in a pro game is so funny to me for some reason

EDIT: please stop responding it’s already at 200 replies

Hi everyone,

So I play on PC using a controller (due to a disability, saving up for an actual proper K+M setup that I should get within the next few weeks). I main Sierra because despite not having the most exciting playstyle to me, she is easily the hero I do best as, I have a good time usually. I usually win about 80% of my solo queue QP matches at the top or near top of the scoreboard (I know that it doesn't tell the entire story) and for Comp I'm Gold 1, though I don't play much because I feel like it's unfair to saddle my teammates with a controller player. Generally speaking I play a long range off angle poke/spam while also flexing to punish bad positioning and melting tanks when they're harassing my teammates or distracted.

I've heard a lot of talk about Sierra being unusable at higher ranks due to teams actually communicating and timing your cooldowns so they can avoid them, when does that actually start becoming a problem and how can I play around that?

I have other flex picks like Pharah, Tracer, Mei, and Bastion but I don't usually do quite as well with them, especially Tracer, but I don't want to handicap myself as I rank up by focusing only on one hero that isn't that viable at those higher ranks.

Link to his tweet: https://x.com/xeriongdh/status/2112605889085505623?s=46

I’ve been playing Mercy since Day 1 of OW1, or technically the Open Beta if you count that. Call me what you want, unskilled or whatever, but I truly went for her because her movement is fun and the healing beam is fun. Damage boost and Rez I never cared too much for, HUGE emphasis on not caring for Rez, especially since OW2 came out as new supports have been dropping in

I’m just so pissed off that it feels impossible to play Mercy once you hit Diamond unless you want to be harassed for it every other game, and the thing is, I can’t even blame people for being upset they have a Mercy on their team, she’s not a good pick unless you have one giga strong amazing DPS on your team but even then other supports can probably enable that support more efficiently whilst still being able to properly keep up the rest of your team

That’s not to say you *can’t* play Mercy past Diamond, of course you can play anyone at any rank and I’ve gotten to high Masters with Mercy as my main support before, but it’s tiring to play her when she’s purposefully left in a shit state like Sombra was because her kit is too unhealthy when she’s classed as a good pick by most people. And of course, she’s also much more risky to rework because she takes in a shit ton of cash, they only reworked her before because 5 man rez was genuinely gamebreaking, but God do I doubt they’ll actually do another for her now when she needs it so badly. I’ve given up on her outside of QP, I switched to Juno and then when Doctrine came out he was the most excited I was for a support since Moira’s release, and of course yeah he’s still strong and could be tapped down a bit more but I’m there for him rather than his strength y’know

Anyway, I don’t know what the consensus is on what people think needs changing about Mercy to make her healthy yet actually playable outside of metal ranks, but for me? Rez has gotta go. Yes it’s iconic to her, but I really do think it’s holding her back. Here’s what I’d do, I’d get rid of Rez entirely and make Flash Heal into a multi-beam heal. So it works the same as it is now, but as you’re connected to someone and you activate it, it does a temporary multibeam connection and heal boost before disconnecting and going back to a solo target

But then I think you’d have to do something with Valkyrie which… to be so honest I don’t have an answer for, but I don’t think I need to have an answer for every Mercy problem in order to have a valid opinion that she needs change, surely? I mean, maybe they could keep Rez and put it back on her ult but limit it to a single person so she actually has to be smart on who to pick and it’s not just ‘Oh my E is up, guess you’re being rezzed’. Obviously you’d have to make her cast time much faster for it otherwise it’d be an absolute ass ultimate, but I just don’t know if Rez is the right idea to keep around in anyway

I’m curious to know what you all think should be done in order to make Mercy not a fucking meme by 90% of the community and actually a playable support. Please don’t just say shit like ‘Delete her lol’ or ‘Keep her in the ground, fuck her playerbase’ because ultimately I think you’re a loser if you cannot have genuine discussion around her

After YEARS of grinding; being hardstuck silver for 3 months and plat for a year, I FINALLY hit GM!! the sense of accomplishment is immense and I wanted to share it with you guys 🌸🫶🏼

Hey fellow CompetitiveOverwatch enjoyers! I know it's a long shot, but I bought one of these shirts back in 2021 when Fuel won the May Melee, and since then it's been one of, if not my favourite shirt I own. Unfortunately it was in my backpack when it was stolen last week with no chance of recovery 😭.

If anyone has one they're willing to part with in a medium or large, I'd love to buy it off you, shipping to Australia included!

PS that Fuel logo flag has still been my PC background since then too!

While the top 5 teams in Korea are pretty much set in stone, at the bottom of the table is a completely different story. O2 Blast, Seiji, Zanside, and Poker Face are in an absolute dogfight trying to make LCQs. All four teams currently sit at 1-5, some with more favorable matchups this week than others. Here’s a quick summary of the teams, their remaining matches, and what scenarios could transpire.

O2 Blast: vs Cheeseburger & T1
O2 is in the unfortunate position of having two matches left where it’s seemingly impossible to win. Unless they pull off what would be the upset of the stage against either aforementioned team O2 is in a position where they will need some outside help to make LCQ

Seiji: vs Crazy Raccoon & Poker Face
Seiji’s best chance for win here would be against PF, even if CR decide to troll. Win and you’re pretty much guaranteed a spot at LCQ. In the event they go 0-2 this week however, they’d lose the H2H with O2 and would then be put on the verge of elimination, but they could still survive if one other scenario plays out.

Zanside: vs Team Falcons & Poker Face
Even in rough form Falcons should take care of Zan, which once again leaves PF as the more winnable matchup. Win a match and you’re pretty much in. If Zan goes 0-2 and so does O2, Zan go in on H2H. If Zan, O2 and Seiji all go 0-2 this week however, Zan would be the eliminated team. (H2H map diff between tied teams would put O2 in, then H2H Seiji would advance, the map diff between the three is O2 5-4, Seiji 4-4, Zanside 4-5)

Poker Face: vs Seiji & Zanside
Poker Face has the most impact on what could happen while also being in no real danger of elimination, it’s almost the perfect situation for them. If they go 0-2 they own the H2H over O2, which would force O2 to need a victory in one of their matches.

How do you guys see this all playing out?

In the last balance patch they made him significantly Tankier and increased his dmg on his gun. I'll be honest this has me kinda worried because it feels like it's only a matter of time till they give him back his one shot fully, and it feels like they're still trying to balance him like old Roadhog. He has an additional ability now and thus additional balancing knobs you can play with to make him viable, but they immediately jumped to making him tankier and more lethal like they did many a time prerework. Here's some issues I take with what they did last patch:

1. Buffed Vape

Nerfing Vape was one of the smartest decisions they made as it's the less skillful of the two defensive cooldowns he has, but then they buffed it. Why? If you're looking to buff his survivability then why not do it to Trash Compactor instead? It can be used offensively, defensively, and for movement on a lot of maps. Vape is just Vape; all it does is heal and that's it. Also why buff his survivability period in 6v6? He isn't forced to Main Tank in 6v6, and is allowed to be frailer than Main Tanks cause he makes up for it with his Hook and Trash Compactor. Honestly idk why they keep porting over most 5v5 changes 1 to 1 into 6v6 as if it's gonna make the gamemode any less unbalanced than it already is, but that's a discussion for another time.

1. Buffed His Dmg

I have no issue with them buffing his center pellet as he did have basically zero midrange presence, and even now I feel like his midrange is kinda meh. What I take issue with tho is not compensate nerfing the spread pellets. He already did enough dmg up close at the start of season 5; this just buffs it even more. Did they learn nothing from people getting mad at the Reaper changes to know giving a character with high up close burst dmg even more burst dmg for free is a bad idea? This especially has me worried cause I feel like if he underperforms rather than buffing basically anything outside of his dmg and survivability they'll just buff those two things till we're back to where we started and he's the same old Roadhog everybody knew and hated. The same unkillable, one shot machine that's very one note.

1. Didn't Have A Third Point

I like rule of threes and I'll be honest I didn't really have any points outside of those first two, but I thought having three points would be neat, so that's why this is here :P