u/Lamanus

Vendetta has been fairly problematic to balance ever since her release. After the Hero Trial, all of her recovery times were lowered for smoother gameplay, her cooldowns were increased, perks were adjusted, removed, and shuffled around, and her damage and HP were both gutted nerfed to make playing against her less frustrating, especially at lower ranks.

However, playing as Vendetta can now feel weak and unimpactful. In higher ranks, she is considered high tier, but she is also easily countered. A myriad of heroes can force her to retreat before she can even reach her target, and securing a kill while escaping safely becomes its own game.

Being a melee hero, she needs self-sustain. Her Warding Stance is essential, and her Siphoning Strike perk can occasionally clutch out fights with its lifesteal, but it is still not enough.

Since she is essentially the equivalent of a Hanzo who, instead of shooting tree logs, simply holds M1 in your face, she can become frustrating to encounter, especially given how mobile she is.

On top of that, her current 45-45-120 damage Palatine Fang combo can feel too much of a damage burst for some.

But changing any of that towards Vendetta's favor, risks making her busted once more, placing her in the same category as Roadhog and Sombra.

Making any of these heroes good, can make the game less fun.

So what Vendetta could need, is a rework, and I decided to take a shot at it.

Instead of thinking about what entirely new tools she could receive, I tried focusing on doing more with what she already has first. Afterwards, I analyzed the rest of the cast to find a reasonable toolkit that would fit naturally within Overwatch as a whole.

Vendetta is currently overly reliant on landing her Overhead Strike, which makes her gameplay loop repetitive and predictable. Projected Edge serves to bridge gaps, but also drains her Warding Stance meter as trade-off. Whirlwind Dash serves as a strong engagement tool that is in a solid spot already. Soaring Slice does not really need major changes. However, compared to other movement abilities, it is incredibly telegraphed, though that is a necessary trade-off for an omni-directional repositioning tool. Onslaught is a solid passive that does not need any changes whatsoever.

With that in mind, I decided to first focus on reworking Palatine Fang:

A possible route, would be increasing the number of slashes by two, bringing the total to five, while redistributing the damage across the combo. To improve her self-sustain, she gains 20% lifesteal per slash, while lowerning her HP from 200 HP+75 armor to 200 HP+50 armor like at the start of Season 2.

The idea is to trade burst damage for sustained survivability. Removing Overhead Strike is also a choice, but keeping it allows her to still hold her own against flying heroes and retain her hero identity. Proper upkeep of Onslaught would become essential for this version of Vendetta.

Afterward, I looked at her abilities:

While she is highly mobile, Warding Stance slows her movement speed by 30% in exchange for 75% damage reduction and shares the same resource meter as Projected Edge.

The solution/idea here is, that Projected Edge would instead function on a separate cooldown system with two charges, each taking six seconds to recharge. In exchange, its damage would be reduced.

After that, it was here that I took the liberty of making things complex and borrowed a concept from her fellow war criminal, Ramattra. Basically, I gave her a stance mechanic.

Vendetta would have two stances: Secutor Stance and Murmillo Stance, shifting her playstyle between a mobile flanker and a self-sustaining bruiser. This fits her identity as a gladiator capable of adapting to opponents and overcoming any challenge she faced in the Colosseo. (The stances are also named after real gladiator archetypes.)
Changing stance would be a commitment, as once changed, Vendetta will be stuck with it for at least 10 seconds before being allowed to change back. This means players will have to carefully choose when to give up their mobility.

1. Secutor Stance:
It would include everything Vendetta currently has, except for Warding Stance, while also using the Palatine Fang rework.

2. Murmillo Stance:
It would slightly alter her playstyle. Palatine Fang would function exactly as it currently does in-game.

Warding Stance would replace Soaring Slice, while Whirlwind Dash would be replaced by a new ability called Whirlwind Fang.

Warding Stance would remain unchanged.

Whirlwind Fang differs from Whirlwind Dash in that Vendetta no longer dashes forward. Instead, she spins twice: the first spin pulls enemies inward, while the second knocks them away.

Her ultimate, Sundering Blade, would remain unchanged.

Is this basically two heroes in one? Kinda. Is it overkill? Maybe. Does it sound cool? Yeah.

With that said, here is a quick overview with very basic numbers:

Secutor Stance: (200 HP, 50 armor)	Murmilo Stance: (200 HP, 50 armor)
Palatine Fang (Secutor Style): Damage: 30 (Swing 1), 45 (Swing 2-4), 55 (Overhead Strike)	Palatine Fang (Murmilo Style): Damage: 45 (Swing 1-2), 120 (Overhead Strike)
Soaring Slice: Damage: 50 Cooldown: 7 seconds	Warding Stance: Damage Reduction: 75% Cooldown: 0.5 seconds
Whirlwind Dash: Damage: 70 Cooldown: 10 seconds	Whirlwind Fang: Damage: 45-45 Cooldown: 8 seconds
Projected Edge: Damage: 50 Cooldown: 6 seconds per charge, 2 Charges	Projected Edge: Damage: 50 Cooldown: 6 seconds per charge, 2 Charges
Stance Change: Cooldown: 10 seconds	Stance Change:Cooldown: 10 seconds
Onslaught (Passive): Unchanged	Onslaught (Passive): Unchanged
Sundering Blade (Ultimate): Unchanged	Sundering Blade (Ultimate): Unchanged

As for perks, I came up with the following:

Minor Perks:	Major Perks
Raging Storm: Unchanged	Relentless: Unchanged
Unrelenting Fang: Gain Unstoppable and 25 temporary Overhealth when using Whirlwind Fang, its cooldown is increased to 10 seconds.	Siphoning Edge: Lifesteal applies to Projected Edge.

I am by no means a game designer, and I certainly am not good at balancing. This was made for fun, since I really want Vendetta to be in a healthy spot. I’d be fine with just the changes I suggested before I started writing about a whole new stance mechanic.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to playing Anran until Vendetta becomes playable again.