Deadlock players blast Bebop as “absolutely broken” following buffs
ValveDeadlock‘s meaty September 12 update made balance changes to several heroes, including Bebop, who players have decried as being “absolutely broken” in his post-patch state.
While Valve saw fit to give the beginner-friendly robot blanket buffs to his overall kit, one adjustment, in particular, has attracted the lion’s share of fans’ ire. Before, Bebop’s Hyper Beam ultimate acted as a high-damage area denial ability with a ton of DPS and Spirit-scaling, but it was fairly easy to walk out of and interrupt.
Most of those attributes remain, but the primary difference is that Hyper Beam now delivers splash damage in a five-meter radius from the point of impact. Having experienced the new and improved ult firsthand, players have branded it as overtuned to say the least.
“Valve kinda broke Bebop’s ult”, one thread stated on Reddit, accompanied by a clip showing the hook hero wasting four members of the opposing team without any assistance.
Expectedly, responses had plenty of similar anecdotes to share. “You can literally take over games just with his ultimate with your first eight points”, one user claimed, adding “The splash damage makes Hyper Beam absolutely broken and almost impossible to get out of”.
Hyper Beam already has a massive slow on it, so that extra 5 meters of having to walk away from it feels a lot longer than you’d think.
However, others suggested Hyper Beam’s strength was already an outlier before, with the addition of splash damage simply tipping its ability to dominate over the edge. “Let’s be honest, it was already pretty broken before. At least maybe now they will notice it”.
Suggestions on how to rein in the ability’s potency varied, though most agreed that further adjustments were necessary. The full list of Bebop changes are as follows:
- Uppercut no longer roots your hero during cast time
- Can now keep firing if he jumps and his laser is already warmed up
- Reverted recent change to make hook have an alternate cast mode to pierce through allies/enemies
- Hook range reduced from 35m to 30m
- Hyper Beam now does splash damage around a 5m area the beam connects to on the ground (can be used to fish heroes out of cover in some areas)
For the full list of hero changes rolled out on September 12, check out our patch notes coverage. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a specific build, you can find guides for every currently playable character by visiting our tier list.