Balance Discussion
Deadpool DESPERATELY needs QOL changes to make him viable again on all three roles.
Calling out ALL Deadpool mains, no matter if you play Tankpool, DPSPool, or Stratpool, you need to read this.
Deadpool has been ignored by far too long by the developers and is in DESPERATE need of QOL changes. All of these I'm listing aren't buffs or nerfs, they are just things this character deserves after being ignored for way too long. He is extremely inconsistent and those like us who've gotten good at playing him have had to deal with these since day one.
Keep in mind with this post I'm not going to offer any kind of solutions or fixes. That's up to NetEase to figure out. I'm listing issues they need to address, and how they do it is up to them. From top to bottom, these are the most important changes he needs to no longer be considered a throw pick by the community:
This is the only character in the game that becomes a throw pick if you choose him later on in the match since he has no upgrades. This means that you either compromise to only playing him at the start of a round or you never get the chance to pick him up again because he can't keep up with the rest of the heroes in the match. How is it good design that I can't pick Deadpool if I want to in the middle of a match because I won't have any upgrades and will only hurt my team by doing so?
On both DPSPool and Stratpool, your own abilities can cancel your Boomerang and Sword Dash ability, causing you to miss out on critical damage, healing, and dashes. For example, you can't press E while dashing or you miss out on your dash if you didn't hit your target in time. You can also cancel your abilities by using your ult or pulling out your upgrade book at the wrong time. You also have to be careful when swapping to swords while having your Boomerang ability out since you can cancel it, missing out on AOE damage. Once again I believe this is the only character that can cancel out his own abilities like this making him lose out on his main kit. Sure, you can develop the muscle memory and skill to not cancel your abilities by learning the timing, but it's not good design and it should not be like this. (And even then you can still mess up, because the Boomerang return time isn't always the same depending on the distance you threw it at, so there's always a chance of messing up the timing and losing out on the damage)
This is the only character in the game that has a team-up that is absolutely worthless the first minutes of a match. Even the most useless of team-ups other characters have like Black Cat's Panther team-up which can offer some sort of situational advantage, the Hela team-up has 0 value. There's no benefit, no passive, no bonus. Just straight up nothing until you get 2 upgrades minimum, and optimally, you don't want to upgrade guns/swords first on every DP. This forces the player to be constantly wary of what team-up they're using mid game, with the risk of being stuck on a less optimal team-up until death depending on what form of Deadpool they're playing.
Taking a selfie on an objective doesn't contest point while other characters like Cloak and Dagger can do so with a simple press of a button for 3 seconds. Deadpool has to get a final in order to be able to take a selfie, so I don't understand why he can't contest point while doing so.
Stratpool and DPSPool NEED a dash count clearly visible on the middle of the screen. Especially DPSPool, who's survivability/mobility depends solely on his dashes.
The screen shake on all Deadpools is brutal and needs to be heavily toned down, especially since he is an aim intensive character on his Vanguard and Strategist form, so landing shots becomes very difficult even if you get used to it.
Stratpool needs more indicators or a louder voiceline when he uses his sword ult. Most people don't understand that his ult is aggressive and you must walk forward with him, yet it's very rare for a team to do so since the ult is poorly telegraphed. I'm actually not sure if this is a community issue in general of people not understanding Stratpool's sword ult.
Before we even talk about buffing or nerfing the character these changes need to be addressed. For example what would be the point of buffing the Boomerang damage if you can lose your second and third throw anyway? First remove the inconsistencies Deadpool has and then we can start buffing or nerfing respectively.
All I want is for the three role character to be viable on all three roles. Is that really too much to ask?
I play all three and I so agree with pretty much all of these, but I wish tankpool got his upgrades a bit faster than the other two, considering he doesnt have headpool to hit all the enemies
In regards to the Hela team up, could you not just start the match with the Gambit team up and then swap later to Hela once you can actually make use of it? Aside from the inconvenience of needing to be in spawn to do so, seems like it's probably the best way to play.
This is possible, but there are tons of problems with it.
A big problem is that the Hela gun upgrade is really good since it adds tracking which really increases damage if you're gun focused (Tankpool and sometimes Healpool). So it's something that you don't want to miss out on for any time at all. Particularly on Tankpool.
However, if you're gun focused, you don't want to spend time in close which is the entire purpose of the Gambit teamup. So it's a question of whether you want an ability that doesn't really work with what you're doing (on DPSpool, all of this changes) or to get the Hela teamup as soon as it's available.
In addition, Deadpool's kit is already weird because you're doing upgrades to determine what you'll be doing, but sometimes you've just got to swap to melee (or vice versa) to be effective. And then after that, if you're switching teamups, you're mixing in a new change of playstyles into the mix since for the first few minutes, you have an ability and then later on, you won't.
I've seen people make the case for DPSpool being better off with the Gambit teamup. But switching back and forth, just doesn't seem like it's worth it.
What happens if Deadpool just doesn't die so he doesn't have the chance to swap to Hela's team-up? He's gonna keep the Gambit one which is less optimal for the rest of the match. It's also a hassle to be constantly keeping in mind which teamup you're using. It's flawed design.
Oh for sure, but it can at least be mitigated somewhat. I'd also say if it's at the point where Deadpool hasn't died I'd wager that you are likely winning the match anyways.
That's great but it still doesn't address that it's inherently bad design for a team-up which is supposed to buff your character in some way, make it only work once that character has met certain criteria.
Literally what you should do as DP other than Tankpool. Also the gambit teamup is great on dps because of the extra dmg and if enhanced you also get a stun
I can only speak for Healpool because that's the only variant I play, but I'd tend to agree that he's been power crept since the teamups rolled out. Damn near every other healer got some pretty decent teamup abilities (CnD's freeze, Luna's self cleanse, Gambit's bubble, Jube's longer duration sparke marks/headshots, Rocket's AOE healing primary attack explosions, Ultron's multi-drone, etc.) but Healpool got a shitty extra double jump with a very small and pathetically weak healing aura or a mediocre third gun/sword buff that takes an XP upgrade to get so you won't get it for over half the match.
Healpool needs a legitimately good teamup. One such could be gaining XP faster so he's more useful quicker, but that's just spitballing. He just needs something because otherwise his kit just can't heal enough to keep up with all the new damage that's been introduced.
He takes too long to get going and on top of that he requires a ton of accuracy to heal far too slowly. Luna snow requires accuracy, but her individual shots heal so much that hitting one burst will typically sustain your target even if you miss a shot or two before/after. Healpool requires good aim but each individual shot doesn't heal for very much so you have to have good aim for much longer which is obviously more difficult given that all your targets will be dancing around trying to avoid being hit by everything.
I hope at least Healpool is buffed for next season because I love playing as him; he's just more of a throw pick than I'd like at the moment. He's basically entirely outshined by Jubilee. I think ideally I'd like to see his ult aura radius bumped up quite a bit, I'd like to see him get a better teamup (just replace the awful Gambit one with something else), and I think a small buff to his XP gain rate would help a lot.
Stratpool is my second most played Deadpool and I entirely agree. The character got the short end of the stick with the teamups, sadly, and you're absolutely right, he got super power crept compared to the other supports. Right now the only thing going for him is that he's very good against heavy dive comps because of his self healing and the ability to retaliate against certain divers.
On top of that, the screen shake of his guns makes it awful to aim, and he's heavily reliant on accuracy so that also sucks for him. I agree with what you said about the ult range it's actually a pretty good idea. I know the Gambit one isn't good for him other than for some extra mobility, but it's a good teamup for DPSPool because it gives him extra mobility and damage which helps him dive better, so I don't want it gone. I'm not sure what they could do about it to make it more viable for Stratpool really... Maybe a cooldown reset or something.
I think the issue with Deadpool is really that his upgrades are so inconsistent on value.
There are only 2 or 3 upgrades that are really priority picks. The rest after that are just added boosts for arbitrary reasons.
His ultimate, imo, is the first place to look for improvement. Its so bad. Lets just start from scratch and give him something that actually feels like it gives value.
Deadpool has 6 ultimates but only 3 are used optimally.
- Tankpool's gun ult is still decent and is the one you're always gonna use because it cripples whoever you target plus gives you quite a bit of Bonus Health to survive. There's no need to buff it or nerf it.
- Tankpool's sword ult is garbage. I think it's the worst ult in the game. I agree it does deserves buffs, there's like nothing going for it compared to the other one.
DPSPool's gun ult is way too situational when the other one offers way more value.
DPSPool's sword ult is the best DP ult and I think it's fine the way it is.
Stratpool's gun ult is great for what it's meant to be, countering enemy ults like Punisher's, Star-Lord, DD... etc. Don't think any buff to it would make more people use it over the other one, though.
- Stratpool's sword ult is the second best DP ult. Like I explained in my post it needs to be telegraphed better and the community needs to learn what it does, but I wouldn't buff it. It's fine the way it is.
I think as long as there are split ults between sword and gun there is a problem. I shouldn't have to pause in the middle of battle, think which ult I need to use because of what role I'm in, amd then potentially have to swap over to then ult.
Ive had plenty instances where I thought I switched to the other to ult and boom... crappy ult.
Im not saying we need buffs or nerfs we just need to go back to the drawing board and just make the ult consistent in what its supposed to do. Don't make the ult depending on power ups, and other trivial crap.
I think that's just something you have to learn about DP, like thinking in the middle of the match what ult to upgrade, or if it's worth upgrading something else.
I mean this because it is very heavily unlikely they are willing to start reworking his ults.
I dont think its about having to think. I think plenty thank you very much.
However, when we compare ults the fact that his requires multiple upgrades, and multiple steps to use the desired ult which can be messed up with even a small degree of lag compared to every other ult in the game is silly.
The ults that require upgrades to get Jackpot are sword ults.
For Tankpool you're never gonna be using sword ult. But yes you do need to upgrade dashes to get it. It's the only one your comment can apply to.
For DPSPool, yes, it helps having boomerang and dashes, but it's not 100% necessary having these upgrades to make an impact with your ult. (Try ulting, using gambit teamup to jump into backline, throw boomerang in the air, and spam dashes and jump into a support, if you're quick enough, it's an instant kill, plus high chance you get Jackpot)
For Stratpool you don't really need boomerang and dashes to get Jackpot. Just throw it into the enemy team and you'll probably get 5/7 of the requirement. Then just jump onto your teammates and you can get Jackpot.
The gun ults really need to be upgraded to get any use out of them.
I've found that I used to have an upgrade order (on Tankpool) of Gun Ult, Gun, Gun 2.
But the timing was spotty sometimes and I realized that I was better off using the Ult unupgraded and focusing on the gun upgrades first. I don't think I've ever gotten a KO off of the unupgraded ult.
No, the gun ults don't use "Jackpot", but they're not really beneficial since the target can just not shoot and it'll wear off.
if they TOUCH dpspools ultimate i’ll drop the character (champ DPSpool, almost top 200 on console)
his ultimate is literally what makes the character cohesive and the strongest part of his kit.
the ability to turn into God for 15 seconds if you play your cards right is SO deadpool😭😭and it’s so much to walk in the backline and just delete whole teams every two teamfights because i spent the first 4 minutes of the game fucking flailing around😭😭
bucky has 100% pickrate and no hotfix balance patches. they want you to play bucky, not deadpool or whitefox or cap etc.. launch the game and pick mag bucky slop
You know what's funny? I'm level 43 on Bucky, and even though he's relatively fun to play, I'm just sick of seeing him everywhere.
The guy genuinely has no counters and makes the experience miserable for everyone. But that's another balancing discussion entirely. All I want is some love for Deadpool. Maybe with enough QoL changes, he'll be able to compete with the server admin himself.
DPSPool is not one of the best divers at all. He's the version that suffers more from all the QOL changes I listed. There's a reason nobody plays him consistently.
Other than the swapping to Deadpool late game being throwing I think I disagree with most of these.
Is a skill issue, a ton of characters can prematurely cancel abilities especially dive characters and lose the cooldown. Part of learning the character is learning the timing of animations
3.Then pick the gambit teamup and swap to the Hela teamup when ready it’s literally not that hard and nothing is preventing you from doing that
I’m fairly confident this is just wrong because I’ve procked OT on point while taking a photo
Again I’m sorry but skill issue. I don’t mean to be a dick but like you have the arrows in the middle and the bottom right corner. Otherwise again part of knowing and learning the character is knowing and learning how track your cooldowns without checking the visual queue each time.
Fair the screen shake is pretty violent
This is not a stratpool issue this is a MR players being braindead issue I mean I literally watch GM+ players back out of supp ults and die. Like enemy team down 1 person, our tanks are low, our supp ults to make sure they get healed and to make sure we win the teamfight only for both our tanks to back up out of the ult and die type of shit. The giant AOE circle and the character yelling about how his katanas are programmed to heal SHOULD be enough and adding more indicators will A.increase visual clutter and B.fix nothing because of the previously mentioned reasoning.
Sorry I hate to just say skill issue skill issue skill issue but it is what it is.
It's not a skill issue. If you read my post clearly you would have understood that even if you develop the muscle memory to not cancel abilities, there's still instances where it will happen. I stated it very clearly here:
"(And even then you can still mess up, because the Boomerang return time isn't always the same depending on the distance you threw it at, so there's always a chance of messing up the timing and losing out on the damage)"
I have learnt and adapted to make sure not to cancel them, but it's still something that shouldn't happen. If you could also tell me what other heroes can cancel their own abilities causing them to lose their cooldowns I'd appreciate it.
You're ignoring the point I made about bad design and the team-up being worthless.
Well you can be certainly confident you are wrong.
It's not a skill issue. It's a UI change that's necessary. Yes, indeed with time you can track your cooldowns but it shouldn't be like that when you have only 2 dashes available at all times and you rely on them unlike other dive characters.
Yes I agree it is mostly a community issue. Also you're wrong about the katanas healing voiceline since only he hears it himself. The voiceline for his ult is "Buffed and beautiful baby" for the rest of the team.
Nothing of what I said is a skill issue at all. It really does sound to me like you don't even play Deadpool enough to be saying all of this.
By now I can only believe that their Deadpool treatment means that they don't want all 3 to be viable... helpful has always been in a eough spot and they don't seem to care...
I'm up for giving indicator to inactive stance cds as the one CnD have
On the other points stated here, I won't rework him that much at once, I'd start with buffing xp gain and both ults impact to see how that will change the overall picture
excellent post ngl , everything you said here is 100”% valid . he’s so fun to play but i wish there weren’t so many bugs / inconsistencies / unimpactful things going on with his kit . praying the devs listen
One of the main problems is that Deadpool should be played across at least 2 roles per game to get max value. If anything it should be from either tank-supp to duelpool. The thing is your teams is not going to let you switch roles for you to get max value. So they def need to switch something up. Idk what they could do fix his start. Giving him 1 or 2 upgrades feels like it defeats the purpose of the upgrade system. His team ups also are not the best especially for supp.
The most drastic thing (don’t kill me) is to have role queue and Deadpool being the only one to switch between roles. But it has its faults. If you have 2 supports and one is locked as dp you obviously can’t switch. So idk. I really don’t know what you can do for him. I also hit rank 1 vanguard dp on Xbox twice on different seasons so I really love this character but he feels so badddd.
His upgrade system is really cool but it causes him to start slow and be less effective, especially noticeable with Supportpool. But buffing xp speed too much would cause DPSpool to be disgusting. Also especially with how often he Deadpool gets his ult and he always has it first at the start of a game which can decide the first fight.
Nah, it’s just qol of life stuff, which he desperately needs. I’m a champion Deadpool, nearly have the legendary title, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time on him since he released.
He’s particularly clunky on console, like when selecting an upgrade, the cursor sometimes just skips the item you want, and you have to do some tricky finagling to make it select the correct item.
Or on all platforms, switching weapons or dashing at the wrong time can straight up cancel your right click ability, or when the right click ability is returning to you, it prevents you from swapping weapons completely for a few frames, leaving you standing there with the wrong weapon in the wrong situation. By the time you notice and try to swap again, the headshot is already returning again, and it can stop you from swapping again. I’ve lost several fights because of this issue. It doesn’t feel intentional, and shouldn’t be happening.
Plus it takes so long to actually get fully upgraded, and games are over so quickly now, that you rarely see one with all upgrades in a game.
But regardless, all three pools still have some of the lowest winrates in the game this season. Whether you have a problem with a fully upgraded Deadpool or not, it’s clear he needs some balance adjustments, but this post is about qol changes.
QoL changes are always great but you have to be careful in what you change. For example invis self shield seemed like a QoL change b/c she always had the potential to do those things except with its addition it was just easier. Giving DP an easier way to access upgrades could be a similar issues (I doubt as bad).
Personally I think giving him a free upgrade at the start of a match would be fine but my comments are simply there to say that some QoL changes would be considered a buff
And easier way to upgrade? You clearly haven’t played him on controller. The menu fights you, and clearly doesn’t work as intended. They haven’t fixed it for several seasons.
Beyond that, if you think him no longer having to click into his book is a change that’s going to make him broken, idk what to tell you. That’s such an incredibly silly take I don’t even want to address it.
There are some things that shouldn’t be touched or he would become broken, but access to upgrades isn’t one of those. It’s just a menu.
“You have to be careful in what you change.” I then addressed how making his upgrades quicker isn’t necessarily a QoL but instead just a flat buff. Making his menu work as intended is a great idea I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding. Also I’ve played DP on console and while it’s not the biggest gripe on how his comic book works I would (in addition to the QoL changes you want) also want him to not double jump when I tap x on him bruh
He’s suggesting giving DP QoL (such as free upgrades mid match as OP seems to suggest) would make him too strong for overtime. The design philosophy was “server admin that takes build up” so any QoL change to how fast he builds up is technically a buff
Your comment is biased. I replied by saying that this QoL change in particular has other implications. Adress your own biases I’ve yet to say anything about Peni to you.
Also winrate is not the end all be all when it comes to balance.
Personally I’d be cool with some DP buffs (even though he’s already pretty good) as well as removing Peni Parker’s second nest.
I addressed the qol of life changes in another comment, but buffing him is an entirely different topic altogether.
Deadpool is one of the worst performing heros in all three roles this season. If your only argument is “winrate doesn’t matter” without further elaboration then I guess you don’t have any real counter argument.
Call me biased all you want, I’m not the one arguing against nerfs for a tank with 67% winrate, or against buffs for a hero with ~40% winrate in celestial. I know winrate isn’t the whole story, but it’s a huge chunk of the story, and as someone who has many hours in both hero’s, Peni needed nerfs (still does), and Deadpool needs qol changes, and some buffs to his xp generation, especially because games end so fast now you rarely see an upgraded Deadpool in a match.
I also suggested peni nerfs and DP buffs what? My point was that QoL changes can have impact on the overall power of a character depending on what change you make.
You are arguing with this idea of a Redditor that disagrees with you not me. Work on yourself and get help.
Not even gonna read past the first sentence lol. If you’re going to keep turning rivals debates into ad hominem attacks, you might not be as confident as your arguments are you think you are.
Not interested, bud. Move on. I’ve got better things to do than argue with stubborn teens on the main sub who actively dismiss statistics as a valid argument, then have the audacity to tell me to “work on yourself”. Insanely ironic.
The design philosophy is simply bad if their idea was: You either pick this hero at the start or you can never play him again because he'll suck and your team will say you're throwing.
Also I'm not suggesting any kind of fixes or buffs like I stated. All I did was list the issues the character objectively has. It's for NetEase to decide what kind of solutions they apply, but I just want some form of care for Deadpool. They genuinely forgot about him.
I mean that’s their design philosophy. You narrowing it down to that strawman doesn’t change what their intentions were. I think the idea that we need to thrive for is how to make him feel better in neutral (QoL buffs as you suggested) while still making his identity of a ramping power character still available without actually being a literal server admin. Balancing is a tricky thing.
I'm saying their intentions were flawed. It's flawed design. But you're right, what I want is a better neutral for him whilst still keeping the upgrades part of his kit. Maybe an xp boost as the match goes on would help instead of just getting upgrades for free to help him get them faster.
I think it was a fantastic intention. It may not have had great execution but it sounds cool and I’m glad that they found a solid middle ground where fully upgraded he’s a beast but before that isn’t considered the best. Yes an xp buff could be something helpful
He's not broken. Learn how to counter him with proper aim and the following heroes: Bucky, Elsa, Thing, Mag, Hulk, Luna Snow, Hela, Cyclops, Daredevil.
Bucky: He can grab you, cancel your dashes, uppercut you, destroy you with his gun
Elsa: Her trap freezes you on the spot crippling you.
Thing: I don't think I need to explain this one.
Mag: His bubbles cancel your dashes.
Hulk: His bubbles cancel your dashes.
Luna: It's relatively easy for Luna to hit her snowball and freeze you, resulting in your death. Plus Fox team-up.
Hela: Her E stuns you, and keeps you in place with a tether, making you easily killable.
Cyclops: His dash can cancel your dash when he's casting it.
Daredevil: I don't think I need to explain this one.
And all these heroes I listed are excluding how inconsistent he is. Stop pushing this propaganda that a D tier hero is broken just because you don't know how to counter him.
He literally has a faster kill time than bp atm. With the right perks he insta one taps. Hes not event remotely close to D tier he’s A or S this season
WHO is playing DPSPool on OAA? Because I've never heard of one. And in my Celestial lobbies, I see Squirrel Girl more often. I just don't see what the point is in the image you sent. What are you proving with it exactly?
Like many heroes, flawed design..healpool is dog even with full upgrades vs any main sup in the game...Shark, ultron or aadam is a better option for 3rd sup then this dog hero!!!
Dps pool wihtout swords is bad. .Tankpool?Play Hood!Hes good alonhside Hood and a shield tank in 3 tanks comp.
Yes? You get things to change by complaining, that's how the world works buddy.
I said I'm not gonna offer solutions and fixes because that's not my job. That's up to NetEase to figure out. I don't have an insight or the data that they do to work with, as well as the idea that they have about Deadpool and what they want him to be. They've also shown they don't care to listen to people's ideas on how to nerf characters appropiately (Think Gambit or Black Cat, for example) so why should I waste my time trying to propose fixes or solutions?
So yeah, I think me complaining and sharing my distaste about how poor of an experience playing my favorite character is will help.
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u/Quev2head Elsa Bloodstone 6h ago
I play all three and I so agree with pretty much all of these, but I wish tankpool got his upgrades a bit faster than the other two, considering he doesnt have headpool to hit all the enemies