Overwatch’s new hero Sigma has some major design inconsistencies

One of the things we found during our own Sigma mythbusting Overwatch stream is that a lot of his abilities feel inconsistent with the rest of the game. Sigma breaks rules that other heroes don’t, and it makes the game more difficult to play for it.

One of the major concerns with Sigma is his Accretion ability. It sends out a giant rock that deals 80 damage, stuns, and knocks back enemies in a small AOE. It’s essentially a big projectile like Moira’s Biotic Orbs or Orisa’s Halt. According to the developers, you can’t Deflect it back as Genji or Defense Matrix it away as D.Va because it’s “too big” or because it’s a separate entity.

This is a strange decision because there other other Deflect-able and Matrix-able projectiles that are similarly sized, and the bit about being a separate entity doesn’t follow the same rules the other separate entities do. For example: Hanzo’s Dragonstrike Ultimate can’t be damage boosted after the arrow transforms into a big dragon. It’s a separate entity that isn’t attached to Hanzo as a hero, so you can’t damage boost it as Mercy, Ana, or Orisa. Junkrat’s RIP Tire is the same way. But on PTR right now, you can damage boost Sigma’s Accretion, as pointed out by DarwinStreams.

Not to be disrespectful but some game design decisions about Sigma are very questionable.
Devs said his Rock cant be deflected because its a separate entity/object, not a projectile. And yet it can be damage boosted by Mercy or Ana pic.twitter.com/cAsmmZmsTg

— Darwin 🇮🇪 (@DarwinStreams) July 24, 2019

Darwin also demonstrated that Sigma’s Hyperspheres shoot out in an arc that drops just below the crosshair. This is inconsistent with the way other heroes like Junkrat and Baptiste work. It makes it harder to aim Sigma’s projectiles for no real reason.

There are a few extraneous things, like Sigma being able to block a Roadhog Chain Hook with his Kinetic Grasp and not receiving personal shields for the 30 damage blocked. Sigma’s Accretion also doesn’t knockdown charging Reinhardts: it just stuns them out of it. Usually, a counter-stun causes Reinhardt to lie down flat and be open for damage.

None of these things individually ruin the game, but all together they make it harder to understand what does and doesn’t work for Sigma. It’s poor design to break your own rules all over the place, especially with a competitive multiplayer game. Current players get confused and new players have to take notes on how things work because it’s excessively complicated, with different rules for different heroes.

Fortunately, all of these things are still on the PC PTR and are subject to change before they go live, so hopefully Sigma’s skillset will be more consistent before we see it in game