“Balance” Change Boogaloo

Oh boy. I hate to be that guy but genuine question, "Does whoever decided balance changes at Respawn actually play their own game?" No, seriously. Not a rhetorical question. Because I cannot comprehend these balancing decisions anymore.

Whoever is making these "balance" changes have to be memeing at this point or they literally have no idea what balancing is.

Gibraltar, who was already bordering on OP, is literally overpowered now. The buff no one asked for. I was f-ing joking 3 weeks ago when I said they'd be buffing Gibby and nerfing Wraith in the future but, apparently, I was unironically predicting the future.

Why does Lifeline even exist anymore?

Let's look at Gibbys broken kit:

• Takes 15% less damage
• Has a gun shield that can absorb 75 HP and regenerates after every reload
• Omnidirectional dome shield that cannot be destroyed and enables Lifeline's faster healing passive and faster resing passive
• Highest damaging ultimate in the game

Totally balanced.

Might as well delete Lifeline since the only thing that's unique to her now is… her healing drone and virtually useless ultimate (because Vault). Neat.

And then Wraith got nerfed. The nerf no one asked for. Now her ability takes longer to recharge and her speed boost in her Ult has been nerfed. Why were these changes made? Who knows? Wraith's ability wasn't that good to begin with and hasn't been since S1. Yes, she gets invulnerablity but the downsides that come with it are way greater than the benefits.

• Has a 1 second delay on activation which means that if she's being teamshot (or just getting beamed by a G7), she'll go down before it's activated

• If you get the luxury of activating it before being inevitably downed or, better yet, being IN the void and still going down, she cannot see or hear enemies while phasing

• Phasing gives off bright trail while moving and loud noise on exit

Totally broken my dudes.

But… but… Wraith's hitbox! Yeah, of all the characters in the game, she can be annoying but never broken. The only character in the game that I personally view to be a pain to down is Gibby and Path. Gibby because, well you know why, and Path because of his grapple. Despite previously being a Wraith main, I do use other characters regularly including Wattson, Bangalore, Caustic, and Lifeline. I also have the Master of All badge (win 10 games with 8 different legends) and I can't remember the last time I had issues killing her that wasn't my own fault. This is obviously just my perspective, as is everything in this post, but I'm refuting the "You're biased" comment I will inevitably receive.

Pathfinder has completely eclipsed Wraith in utility now since his ability only takes 15 seconds to recharge and can fling him 50+ meters in one grapple and, unlike Wraith, let's him escape in any direction while maintaining complete awareness. His Ultimate is now clearly superior since it can move his team anywhere, including to places that shouldn't be accessible, with a shorter cooldown. Cool.

Crypto has been buffed so that's cool but where's the Bloodhound buff? Mirage? Octane? Seriously? Nothing? Ok.

Well, I already decided to be a Wattson main a week ago so the Wraith nerf doesn't impact me as much but I'm not going to pretend it doesn't bother me.

Aside from that, was waiting for a G7 nerf and that didn't come either. Amazing. Predicting next patch:

• Pathfinder nerfed (since they appear to be nerfing whoever is the most used and Wraith's usage will inevitably decrease, I'm predicting Path will take the #1 spot and be nerfed)
• Gibmebuffs Buffed
  > 100 HP gun shield and does 15% extra damage kappa