When it comes to Overwatch heroes, few can be as difficult to balance as Pharah, given the fact she synergizes so well with Mercy. A popular new rework concept gaining traction would limit her reliance on the guardian angel.
Pharah and Mercy go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Pharah by herself can be a threat raining rockets down on enemies from above, but with a Mercy in the air with her, her power rises immensely.
With the support by her side, everything from the strength of Pharah’s attacks to the constant heals being poured in can make the Egyptian hero a difficult foe to shoot down.
Now, a potential rework idea is generating some buzz as it would turn the rocket queen into more of a threat on her own.
Redditor LightLegacy took to the Competitive Overwatch section to voice their suggestions to improve Pharah and highlighted the hero’s “commitment issues” as the biggest weakness.
“Pharah’s current mechanics encourage very uninteractive gameplay for 80% of the match. Especially if you don’t have a Mercy pocket, you’re forced to play high in the sky and spam missiles from afar,” they wrote. “But then there are those exciting Pharah moments – the ones where she aggressively uses Concussive Blast to quickly duel unaware enemies.”
The idea LightLegacy presented would make these exciting moments the focus of the kit, starting with her Jump Set ability. The user believes should be connected to her fuel resource with the cooldown either removed or significantly reduced.
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“The idea would be that she could continually pop up over cover, fire a few rockets and come back down, like a glorified super-jump,” they wrote.
Another idea that would really take away some of the reliance on Mercy is addition of regenerable shield health. Considering some of the angles and positions Pharah can take, other heroes can have a difficult or impossible time trying to heal her, with the exception of Mercy.
Having shields would take away part of this problem by having her health regenerate over time instead of having a Mercy constantly pocket her.
Adding to the mobility buffs, LightLegacy also believes giving Pharah two Concussive Blasts would greatly improve her aerodynamic movement. This would allow her to get into better positions, boop enemies forward and knock herself back towards her team.
Of course, these ideas are all straight buffs, so at least one part of Pharah’s kit would need to be nerfed to compensate to fit the rework idea, but there are some interesting suggestions here that could really change up the game.
Hopefully, the developers look into these ideas, especially with Overwatch 2 still in the works.