This is totally unrelated to the story, but this has really been bothering my for the past few weeks: when the hell is Blizzard going to buff Winston? He is SO CLOSE to being a good character, but he falls short in just about every category because it feels like they tried to hard to make him the everyman tank.

He’s mobile, but not nearly as mobile as D.VA and his jump has some serious issues with elevation. I think the intent was to give him the option to harass the back line or get out of danger fast, but the cool down and lack of any sort of grappling ability to get on near misses on ledges makes the jump far less useful than it should be.

His shield has a horridly long cool down, only lasts 5 or 6 seconds, and goes down almost immediately if you’re under fire. It’s virtually useless, especially when compared to anybody else’s shield capabilities (including people who aren’t even tanks!).

Not only does his tesla gun do piss poor damage, but it runs out of ammo way too quickly to be a threat to anybody but the squishiest of characters. You know something is wrong when you can 1v1 a Tracer, who Winston is supposed to hard counter, and still lose because of the shittiness of your gun (among other factors). And if you’re up against anybody with a bit more health or damage potential then you’re done. Even D.VA’s relatively weak shotgun cannons rip up targets at close range, so you’re essentially the only tank option that can’t hold his own in a fight.

His life is insufficient for what he is supposed to do. He’s a huge target, but his damage mitigation is basically nothing, he has to be right on top of an enemy to hurt them, and even if you try to jump in and jump out to just harass the enemy, you’ll usually die before the jump recharges. You’re a tank without the ability to tank anything, to the point that you’re more of a bad assault pick than anything else.

I’ve been seeing Blizzard buff and nerf various characters (sometimes the same ones multiple times!) but Winston hasn’t been touched since a hard nerf in the beta IIRC, and it shows. In my experience, he’s the least picked character, and after playing with him on and off for weeks trying to make him useful, I can see why. He’s shit, which is a bummer because he’s really close to being good in several ways. He’s almost a great counter to fast, squishy characters that also plays well in general. He’s almost a good flanker, disrupter, and sniper harasser. He’s almost a good tank with damage mitigation who can soak up enemy fire for his team and keep on trucking. He has the potential to be one of the better picks in the game, but he falls short in every way.

Anybody know if there is a Winston buff planned?