Buff or Nerf, which is the right one to do. | Forums

[Okt0g00N]

Here is my take on buffing or nerfing.

Nerfing
Nerfing a hero has a negative impact on players actively enjoying that hero and a somewhat positive impact on those who hate playing against a certain hero.
Nerfing is a way of balancing to keep everything in control and keep the pace of the game at a level, now, nerfing brings nothing that could shift the meta apart from major nerfs, but overall nerfs are negative and could make someone quit over a few changes but make some happy, it's a tradeoff you are always loosing something only to gain something hopefully bigger.

Changing Through Nerfing
If they are gonna nerf a hero, a change in their moveset, or a replacement of some sort rather than a direct sledge hammer nerf could be less impactful to both ends, players don't get as exited because one hero is nerfed but people also don't quit the game/quit playing that hero because of a nerf, it's rather a change of playstyle that they have to adapt, sure the change has to be negative but it's masked and so more people don't realize until late when they can slowly build on the changed hero.

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Buffing
Buffing a hero can leave sometimes backfire, but the player base that was enjoying the hero will enjoy it even more and probably set their main in stone as the ultimate god of destruction, but it can also completely demoralize other players that were already struggling and make the bigger half quit.
Buffing a hero is hard and no matter how well is done it can leave scars and therefore players will start to hate X character, look at hitokiri and hitokiri fans, people treat them as heavy on red noobs, but in reality they are just their former self and have probably moved on to another hero.
The decision to buff a hero has to be backed up by months of pain from certain players to enjoy the changes while also not making the people playing against the buffed hero completely go nuts (example : raider when first released)
A buff has to be well targeted on a hero that is weak, that is irrelevant and that already didn't make enough of a difference in the meta. (example : nobushi)

Changing Through Buffing (Rework)
Reworks that benefit a hero have to be targeted well and at the perfect time, like any other release, it has to be masked by something else as for example (a new season comes out, new hero, new event, new stuff, bunch a changes and a rework hidden in there), reworks to quietly succeed have to be hidden by something even bigger to not leave
such a big impact if done wrong.
A rework done wrong that went in the wrong direction is lawbringer, but guess what, months passed since he got release and only about recently people have been talking about it being overpowered, why ?, well in my opinion i think it got masked by other changes and didn't leave such an impression.
A rework that has to be glorious and directly in your face, has to be done well, has to be at the right moment, has to have some sort of hype built beforehand. example (centurion)

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Conclusion
Nerfing is a boring and stale way of keeping the flow of the game and shifting metas left and right, it's easy to do and has a time window that it can be applies almost infinite, it has low risk and a fairly high reward, however, it's not fun.

Buffing is an interesting way of keeping the game moving and shifting the meta alot, it's hard to pull of and has to be done within a strict time window where it's wanted and has to be done due to people having enough of their weak heroes, a buff/rework has to strike right when the community is at its weakest, mostly when people are deciding to move over to another hero, releasing a rework for a hero right when the player is about to give up can massively benefit the players getting it and can even set their mains in stone, never forgetting their "legendary" comeback.
Buffs/reworks, are equal risk equal reward based on how big it is, so it's not as appealing to the balancing team.
Buffs also make the game fun and different, but as time passed and characters start stacking buffs and buffs, the new era begins, the era of powercreep where without a game changing change you can effectively loose your entire player base, and the people remaining don't realize how broken and how shifted the game is.
And during a powercreep era, every nerf is inflated and seen as a character killer, heroes nerfed fall from the meta and everything turns to ashes.

A little bit of both to keep the game from being boring, but is that really the way of balancing, how much should of each be done ?
Let me know what you think. Also, i have wrote this at 1 am in the morning, sorry for spelling mistakes.

[GayForShugoki]

The constant nerfing reduces damage, which creates a more turtle playstyle. They should be buffing bad heroes to meet a middle ground. At this rate, there are like four or five strong champs that are considered strong, a few in the middle, and the rest are low tier. All assassins need buffs. The only two decent assassins (Shaman and Berserker) in the game do not even play like assassins. Buffing them will change the dynamic. Assassins were meant to be glass cannon damage dealers yet they nerfed their damage for some reason. When tanks are out damaging the damage dealers, something is wrong.

Either way, nerfing is easier than buffing. Every single rework they have done has been awful and unhealthy for the game.

Warden, Shugoki, Centurion, Kensei. All of them became worse (as in stronger, more unfun, whatever) after their rework.

[Gaser.]

The constant nerfing reduces damage, which creates a more turtle playstyle. They should be buffing bad heroes to meet a middle ground. At this rate, there are like four or five strong champs that are considered strong, a few in the middle, and the rest are low tier. All assassins need buffs. The only two decent assassins (Shaman and Berserker) in the game do not even play like assassins. Buffing them will change the dynamic. Assassins were meant to be glass cannon damage dealers yet they nerfed their damage for some reason. When tanks are out damaging the damage dealers, something is wrong.

Either way, nerfing is easier than buffing. Every single rework they have done has been awful and unhealthy for the game.

Warden, Shugoki, Centurion, Kensei. All of them became worse (as in stronger, more unfun, whatever) after their rework.

Fun is a very subjective thing.

[Okt0g00N]

The constant nerfing reduces damage, which creates a more turtle playstyle. They should be buffing bad heroes to meet a middle ground. At this rate, there are like four or five strong champs that are considered strong, a few in the middle, and the rest are low tier. All assassins need buffs. The only two decent assassins (Shaman and Berserker) in the game do not even play like assassins. Buffing them will change the dynamic. Assassins were meant to be glass cannon damage dealers yet they nerfed their damage for some reason. When tanks are out damaging the damage dealers, something is wrong.

Either way, nerfing is easier than buffing. Every single rework they have done has been awful and unhealthy for the game.

Warden, Shugoki, Centurion, Kensei. All of them became worse (as in stronger, more unfun, whatever) after their rework.

I absolutely agree, nerfing is much easier to pull off and easy to suffice a need into the game, but buffing is hard to do and has to be done in mind with a few other aspects, including if the hero is really bad and needs help.
However reworks are even harder to make and require alot.
I'll agree to a certain extent about those listed reworks, and fun is a very subjective topic but the flow of some reworked heroes feels much smoother, albeit some still lack moves and are trash to play against due to unfairness.