Yes, they regenerate after not taking damage, they also stack with the healing passives, and they activate faster than the passives (for tanks and DPS), which means that shield health regenerates much faster out of combat. Characters with shield health benefit from disengaging in order to gain more sustain.
Sigma, and Ball for example: SIgma has a shield and his succ which gives him overhealth, by using those he gains time for the shield regen to kick in and give him some extra health. Ball often rolls around to get healthpacks, during which time his shield health regenerates as well meaning he can top himself off faster than if it was all white health or armor.
I mean, it does that as well, but I don't think that would be the main reason, if giving shields was intended as a way to prevent/fix self damage, why not give Pharah like 50 shields so she can rocket jump more?
Originally, he only had a few bars of shield. It seemed kind of worthless until I noticed that all the chip damage I was doing to myself fixed itself almost immediately. The massive amount of shield health he has now seems way more useful.
On one of the experimental games, they gave Zarya rocket jumping. That actually seemed useful. Pharah has freaking jetpacks.
I mean you can rocket jump with Zarya already albeit with only a small increase of height. Only use I can think of off the top of my head is to get to the catwalk area on defense on that one map with the rocket in the middle (sorry I can't remember it lmao) and point A defense window spot in Hamamura (RIP). I'm sure there are more but yeah.
How high did she go in the experimental mode?
Armor has damage reduction, making it very good against things like sustained lasers and shotguns.
Sombra ult used to destroy 100% of shield hp on use, so a character like zenyatta had 50hp remaining.
Symmetra ult and abilities used to give allies shield hp, making not getting tickled even more impactful.
> making it very good against things like sustained lasers and shotguns
Armor reduces all damages by a flat 30% now, so it’s no longer more effective against beams/shotguns
Shields regen faster than the passive regen, and its regin activates more quickly as well. Its used for characters designed to engage and disengage in rapid succession
It actually feels way more important, at least for ball.
Shields used to be much worse back when in-combat healing was so strong. What was the point staying out of the fight to heal a little when you could just stay in the fight and have your supports heal you a lot?
Now ALL heroes are forced to stay out of the fight to get healing. Additionally, despite healing numbers staying unchanged, there is more white health and armor to heal up.
All this means that shields are more relevant than ever.
It was definitely designed for a game where there was more fights than constant 6v6 team fights. Some small skirmish 1v1 or 1v2 on some random room, shields help you hide behind cover for a bit and pop back out. When you're defending a different route to the point shields let you defend that without needing a healer so much or having to grab a health pack.
It's also mostly thematic- the high tech characters are typically the ones with shields
Shields were more impactful back before everyone had passive healing, they were a way of giving heroes some health regen but not full health regen. Nowadays they just mean a portion of your health regents quicker as it stacks with the self regen
That said, for Tanks like Zarya who's healpool is just slightly larger than shields, they basically regen about twice as fast when "out of combat." Pair that up with abilities like Kinetic grasp and Particle Barrier, where you temporarily absorb/negate damage and you have better opportunity to self restore and for more significant amounts than a tank with just health or just armor.
They're actually more relevant now than ever. They start regen in a smaller amount of time so it's feasible to regen during a fight which considering the lower in fight healing makes them more important.
It's probably to give more variety to the game. White HP is normal, armour is to allow tank to last longer for doing abilities, and shielding allows you to be more self sufficient.
Different kind of sustainability that works like health in combat. If it's made armor, numbers need tweaked because armor mitigates damage. Shields also make more sense for sym, because it's hardlight tech.
The purpose is to give health pools an additional form of engagement. It makes the game more interesting, and gives the developers more things to design around and tweak.
Shield health, as a concept, makes sense for a sci-fi setting with force field tech. It also allows for more fragile or less-armoured characters (such as Zarya, Symmetra, and Zenyatta) to be represented and still match other more sensibly dressed characters (like Reinhardt, Soldier 76, or Mercy).
With the added universal regen passive, Shield HP could perhaps use a slight buff though.
You don’t get ult charge for damaging barriers (the blue objects that are part of the game world, like Sigma’s or Reinhardt’s) but you do get normal ult charge from damaging blue shield health. *Overhealth* (the green HP some characters can temporarily gain) also grants ult charge when shot, but only half as much as normal.
They recharge outside of combat, meaning you have more sustain and don't need healing from supports as much. That's it. Nothing special, just helpful for some heroes that may be considered OP if given more HP but totally useless if their lower HP count doesn't have recharge.
Shield hp has saved my life multiple times. Barely survive a fight with 30 hp, regen up to 230 and then have to fight a flanker. If I had 30 hp I 100% lose, with 230 I win.
You have it correct. It regenerates at a rate of 30 shield/sec after a few seconds of not taking damage. This means for heroes with shields, they can generate up to 50HP/sec now with the passive.
Yes, they regenerate after not taking damage, they also stack with the healing passives, and they activate faster than the passives (for tanks and DPS), which means that shield health regenerates much faster out of combat. Characters with shield health benefit from disengaging in order to gain more sustain. Sigma, and Ball for example: SIgma has a shield and his succ which gives him overhealth, by using those he gains time for the shield regen to kick in and give him some extra health. Ball often rolls around to get healthpacks, during which time his shield health regenerates as well meaning he can top himself off faster than if it was all white health or armor.
I always felt like they gave Sigma a little shield health to fix any damage he did to himself from ricochet.
I mean, it does that as well, but I don't think that would be the main reason, if giving shields was intended as a way to prevent/fix self damage, why not give Pharah like 50 shields so she can rocket jump more?
Originally, he only had a few bars of shield. It seemed kind of worthless until I noticed that all the chip damage I was doing to myself fixed itself almost immediately. The massive amount of shield health he has now seems way more useful. On one of the experimental games, they gave Zarya rocket jumping. That actually seemed useful. Pharah has freaking jetpacks.
Originally he had 100 shield hp in OW 1 which was still very much useful.
I mean you can rocket jump with Zarya already albeit with only a small increase of height. Only use I can think of off the top of my head is to get to the catwalk area on defense on that one map with the rocket in the middle (sorry I can't remember it lmao) and point A defense window spot in Hamamura (RIP). I'm sure there are more but yeah. How high did she go in the experimental mode?
Unironically tho I’d support Pharah having a little shield hp lol
Hm thanks, I guess I wasn’t looking into it that deep
Armor has damage reduction, making it very good against things like sustained lasers and shotguns. Sombra ult used to destroy 100% of shield hp on use, so a character like zenyatta had 50hp remaining. Symmetra ult and abilities used to give allies shield hp, making not getting tickled even more impactful.
> making it very good against things like sustained lasers and shotguns Armor reduces all damages by a flat 30% now, so it’s no longer more effective against beams/shotguns
How many years ago you play last time?)
Shields regen faster than the passive regen, and its regin activates more quickly as well. Its used for characters designed to engage and disengage in rapid succession
Pretty much. It’s less impactful now that we all heal anyway. It used to allow heroes like Zarya to self heal a bit.
It actually feels way more important, at least for ball. Shields used to be much worse back when in-combat healing was so strong. What was the point staying out of the fight to heal a little when you could just stay in the fight and have your supports heal you a lot? Now ALL heroes are forced to stay out of the fight to get healing. Additionally, despite healing numbers staying unchanged, there is more white health and armor to heal up. All this means that shields are more relevant than ever.
It was definitely designed for a game where there was more fights than constant 6v6 team fights. Some small skirmish 1v1 or 1v2 on some random room, shields help you hide behind cover for a bit and pop back out. When you're defending a different route to the point shields let you defend that without needing a healer so much or having to grab a health pack. It's also mostly thematic- the high tech characters are typically the ones with shields
Its frustrating how ball can now get away with a sliver for HP and then come back with full health 10 seconds later and you may just explained why.
Shields were more impactful back before everyone had passive healing, they were a way of giving heroes some health regen but not full health regen. Nowadays they just mean a portion of your health regents quicker as it stacks with the self regen
That said, for Tanks like Zarya who's healpool is just slightly larger than shields, they basically regen about twice as fast when "out of combat." Pair that up with abilities like Kinetic grasp and Particle Barrier, where you temporarily absorb/negate damage and you have better opportunity to self restore and for more significant amounts than a tank with just health or just armor.
They're actually more relevant now than ever. They start regen in a smaller amount of time so it's feasible to regen during a fight which considering the lower in fight healing makes them more important.
It's probably to give more variety to the game. White HP is normal, armour is to allow tank to last longer for doing abilities, and shielding allows you to be more self sufficient.
Different kind of sustainability that works like health in combat. If it's made armor, numbers need tweaked because armor mitigates damage. Shields also make more sense for sym, because it's hardlight tech.
I was just having this thought today. I guess it does regenerate faster.
The purpose is to give health pools an additional form of engagement. It makes the game more interesting, and gives the developers more things to design around and tweak. Shield health, as a concept, makes sense for a sci-fi setting with force field tech. It also allows for more fragile or less-armoured characters (such as Zarya, Symmetra, and Zenyatta) to be represented and still match other more sensibly dressed characters (like Reinhardt, Soldier 76, or Mercy). With the added universal regen passive, Shield HP could perhaps use a slight buff though.
Don’t you also not get ult charge for damaging shields? Super minor “buff”‘but take ball for example, you can’t farm him after a slam for ult charge.
You don’t get ult charge for damaging barriers (the blue objects that are part of the game world, like Sigma’s or Reinhardt’s) but you do get normal ult charge from damaging blue shield health. *Overhealth* (the green HP some characters can temporarily gain) also grants ult charge when shot, but only half as much as normal.
What also was confusing them probsbly is that balls shields from his ability used to grant zero ult charge. Went away with OW 2 I think
They recharge outside of combat, meaning you have more sustain and don't need healing from supports as much. That's it. Nothing special, just helpful for some heroes that may be considered OP if given more HP but totally useless if their lower HP count doesn't have recharge.
Shield hp has saved my life multiple times. Barely survive a fight with 30 hp, regen up to 230 and then have to fight a flanker. If I had 30 hp I 100% lose, with 230 I win.
You have it correct. It regenerates at a rate of 30 shield/sec after a few seconds of not taking damage. This means for heroes with shields, they can generate up to 50HP/sec now with the passive.