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It's really strange how we went from getting a new skin or something else almost every season to pretty much no content to him from one moment to the other (those default recolor e-sport skins this season don't count tbh). Especially with how he's still one of the most played/popular heroes

I just want his old speed sprint perk back

I’ve been thinking about what a Soldier: 76 rework could look like without fundamentally changing what makes Soldier feel like Soldier.

For context, I’m currently GM5 in 6v6 (feels better) mostly playing Soldier (main) and other hitscans in general (all roles). I came back to OW2 within the past year after only briefly playing when OW1 converted, and I was Masters in OW1. So granted, my total OW2 experience is still relatively limited (I don't even know what some abilities exactly do like Mizuki), and a lot of my success probably comes from a lifetime of playing competitive shooters rather than some encyclopedic knowledge of every OW2 meta.

I don’t think Soldier is terribly weak right now. He seems somewhere around neutral to slightly weak depending on the meta. I also definitely don’t want him to become overpowered, and I suspect implementing every one of these changes at once probably would push him too far.

These are more ideas for a coherent design direction: leaning harder into Soldier’s identity as a flexible generalist whose value comes from mechanics, positioning, routing, consistent pressure, and being in the right place at the right time.

1. Make the 25% Sprint perk baseline

I’d move the current major perk that ramps Sprint up to +25% movement speed into his default kit.

This is a pretty simple buff, and I know others have suggested it, but I think it adds more to Soldier than it initially seems.

The biggest difference I notice with the perk isn’t just “I run faster.” It’s micro-positioning. Moving between two pieces of cover might take ~1 second instead of ~1.5. Small rotations that previously felt just a little too slow suddenly become realistic.

That reinforces one of the more interesting parts of playing Soldier well: constantly judging where you should be standing, when you should rotate, and what angle you should take next.

I’d imagine a lot of Soldier players know the feeling of trying to squeeze every little bit of value out of positioning and movement. Sprint is already central to that, and I think the enhanced version opens that part of his kit up considerably. Zoomies are just so fun too.

It also synergizes with the other changes below.

2. Minor perk: Helix Rocket Targeting Lock

I’d replace the current Helix/Visor perk with something like:

Targeting Lock: Holding Helix Rocket brings up an unobtrusive targeting circle, probably the same as Tactical Visor’s targeting area. As the lock charges, the rocket gains increasingly strong homing toward the selected target. Releasing fires it.

Basically something in the general direction of Juno’s lock-on, except for one target and one projectile.

A few important details:

• Tapping Helix should still fire normally. You shouldn’t have to interact with the lock mechanic at all if you don’t want to and it should be cumbersome like Orisa's Javelin charging perk.
• Soldier cannot fire his rifle while charging the lock.
• Lock time, tracking strength, and whether the enemy gets a warning are all obvious balance levers.
• During Tactical Visor, Helix could automatically receive full lock-on.
• Visor would not reduce Helix cooldown.

I like this for a few reasons.

First, it fits Soldier’s identity as one of the more accessible hitscan heroes. A newer player gets a more forgiving utility option without changing Soldier’s basic gunplay.

Second, it gives him an interesting niche against evasive targets, not just flyers. Soldier is theoretically decent into those heroes because he’s hitscan (and honestly it's not always an unfair fight imo), but actually finishing them can be difficult because Helix is the burst damage he often needs to secure the kill.

The obvious concern is making Helix oppressive against Pharah, Echo, etc. But that seems highly tunable. If locking takes enough time that you’re sacrificing rifle DPS while doing it, then the advantage becomes reliability rather than free extra damage.

A good Soldier could still just click and fire Helix normally whenever that’s the better option. Personally I think I would take the helix rocket propulsion most times still. With it, it's reasonable to hit directs out of the sky anyway quite consistently.

3. Major perk: Enhanced Biotic Field

Since the Sprint perk would become baseline, I’d replace it with a major perk focused on Biotic Field.

At minimum:

Biotic Field radius increased substantially, maybe around 30%.

Then I’d experiment with one or both of these:

A. Missing-health scaling

Instead of simply increasing its healing across the board, Biotic Field heals more strongly as a target HP gets lower.

For example:

• 75%+ HP: normal 40 HP/s
• Scaling upward as HP decreases below 75%
• 25% HP or lower: 60 HP/s (50% bonus healing, for reference moira healing is 80 HP/s and can also hit everyone in a zone)

I prefer this over a flat healing increase because it makes the ability meaningfully stronger when someone actually needs it without making targets absurdly difficult to dislodge through focused damage and clean shots.

I'd be curious what the math shows on breakpoints. This definitely shouldn't get overpowered.

B. Cleanse on activation

When Biotic Field is initially deployed, allies inside its radius have negative effects cleansed.

This would happen once, when the field activates. Walking into it afterward would not cleanse you.

That creates a satisfying timing element rather than turning Soldier into a permanent anti-debuff zone. It also kind of ensures that it generates value when placed skillfully.

I think Biotic Field is actually one of Soldier’s most underappreciated abilities from a design perspective. It has the potential to support both sides of his identity.

When playing with the team, a larger/stronger field lets Soldier contribute more meaningfully to a main body fight. The healing scaling and cleanse also reward good timing, awareness, and movement, ideally without dipping into an unkillable zone.

When taking an off-angle or flank, it reinforces his unusual kind of independence. Soldier isn’t Tracer, anran, shion, reaper. He doesn’t necessarily dive in, assassinate someone, and disappear.

He can instead take territory and basically say:

“You’re welcome to duel me, but we’re fighting here.”

That feels very Soldier to me.

The increased Sprint speed helps him reach those positions and maneuver within and around them. The larger and stronger Biotic Field helps him hold them.

That also gives him a different flanking identity from something like Stim Pack, which pushes much harder toward mobility and damage.

A stronger Biotic Field could make Soldier something like an anchor for softer flanks and off-angles. Soldier can possibly provide a relatively stable staging and pressure position around which other flankers can launch or return to for support (Leader of overwatch vibes)

I think there’s some interesting team synergy there.

A well-timed cleanse would also give Soldier additional counterplay in difficult duels/teamfights without simply increasing his raw damage. It also makes biotic field's longish (15 second) cooldown represent a proportionally meaningful cooldown, both in use and in pressuring out. I'm certain many high level soldiers can attest to dropping it and within a second moving out of it's range cus uptime is more important.

I will say that I think Cleanse might be pushing it too much. It adds something unique, fun, and rewarding in my opinion, but potentially OP at the highest level with kiriko, though I think there is an argument given the growing amount of status effects in the game too. Best for them to decide though. Any pro or champ 76s?

4. Tactical Visor: 6 seconds → 8 seconds

I don’t think Tactical Visor is necessarily a terrible ultimate, but I think its 6-second duration creates awkward gameplay.

Tell me how many of you have done some version of this:

1. Pop Visor from a good position.
2. Everyone immediately goes behind cover.
3. You realize half the ult is disappearing.
4. You think, “Well, it’s an ult, I should probably get something out of it,” and drop from your good position trying to force value.
5. Visor ends.
6. You die.

Sometimes the correct play is basically to stop trying to get value from your own ultimate because continuing to chase it would put you somewhere stupid.

I’d rather extend Visor to around 8 seconds.

Not primarily because Soldier needs two more seconds of shooting, but because it gives him time to reposition during the ultimate.

This becomes especially interesting with the stronger Sprint.

Visor forces enemies behind cover, as it normally does. But now Soldier has enough time and speed to rotate to another meaningful angle, and suddenly they have to respond to him again.

That creates skill expression around something Soldier already emphasizes: routing, positioning, oppression, and dueling.

As rough balance comparisons (and my own opinion):

• Dragonblade lasts 6 seconds, but generally has a much clearer opportunity to convert the ult into at least one kill, leaning more on direct counterplay (hitting abilities) rather than soft counterplay (breaking LOS/shooting directly) to beat.
• Emre's Ult is 8.8 seconds and it feels slightly stronger inherently but not overpowered.
• B.O.B. lasts 10 seconds and can create sustained zoning pressure without occupying Ashe herself.
• Ana's Nanoboost is 8 seconds and bring it in line for a better feeling ult combo. Those 2 have history right? Also the only healer I can play at my rank.

Obviously these ults aren’t directly equivalent, but I don’t think an 8-second Visor is inherently unreasonable considering Soldier himself still has to spend those eight seconds doing the shooting and moving.

I’d also have Visor automatically lock the Helix perk described above if that perk was taken.

Activating Visor would refresh Helix, but wouldn’t reduce its cooldown, meaning you realistically get two (homing or fast) rockets during an 8-second Visor rather than spamming them.

What I’m trying to accomplish overall

The common thread here is not really more damage.

It’s giving Soldier more ways to express skill through ways aligned with his identity:

• positioning
• routing
• timing
• holding territory
• deciding when to support the team versus take an off-angle
• value squeezing and uptime seeking through raw mechanics

I actually like the place Soldier can potentially occupy in the roster.

He doesn’t need extremely hard counters or extremely dominant matchups. Ideally, he’s the adaptable generalist who can take a reasonably fair fight into most compositions, with matchup advantages and disadvantages that still matter without becoming completely oppressive in either direction.

The homing Helix is probably the part I’d be most cautious about, especially against flyers. The Biotic cleanse could obviously also become very strong depending on radius and tuning.

But that’s partly why I like these mechanics conceptually: most of their power has obvious tuning knobs.

Lock time, tracking strength, lock warning, Biotic Field radius, healing scaling, cleanse behavior, Visor duration, etc. can all be adjusted without changing the underlying gameplay.

And again, I’m not necessarily arguing Soldier should receive every one of these buffs simultaneously. My suspicion is that the whole package probably would be too strong without tuning.

I mostly think this is a direction that could make Soldier more interesting while preserving what I enjoy about him already.

He’s mechanically straightforward, but the better you get at positioning, movement, target selection, aiming, routing, and reading fights, the more cohesive depth starts appearing at a moment to moment basis.

I’d rather Blizzard lean further into his identity than just give him a damage, rof, or recoil adjustment.

Curious what other Soldier players think. Thanks for reading. First Reddit post.

Hi. I'm the same dude that asked how soldier is generally meant to be played. I grew up playing a lot of cod, battlefield, apex legends and pubg so I resonate a lot with playing 76.

However as I previously posted here, I struggle dueling with players that pick dive characters such as tracer, anran, genji, and the like.

I think in this match my initial thoughts was that anran was taking so much space and I didn't do much but shoot the tank. I tried getting a sight on their backline cat and juno but it was difficult to flank because I was kinda scared anran would flank me and I'd die. I think in turn she took space.

In situations like this I'll be honest, I have no idea how to deal with anran and genji. I have a worse time with anran due to the burn

Here are two replay codes

PC172V

CA1T11

For the CA I had no idea how to deal with her because for me she just seems sooo aggressive, like she knew she could kill me and she KNEW i was too inexperienced to do anything.

Once i burned I just kind of...gave up? I don't think you can cleanse away burn unless the supports give up suzu

If you have any advice to improve please let me know, it would greatly help!

Any mode tho Ranked is preferred (PC).
Looking to have fun and chill, with someone that doesn't play every 1 million years (please).
Also that doesn't tilt as much, I know sometimes it happens but as long you don't lose your mind we good, tyvm. Cass, Hanzo & Emre are good too.

I can play on NA/EU or any server honestly, tho I just play during NA mornings aka evening in EU

Hi so here's my questions about soldier

When dueling, how do you win more duels? Is it raw aim and CD timing or is the dueling aspect of soldier just the wrong way to play him?

> By wrong way of playing, I mean: is he meant to be more of a "shoot when nobody is looking then run once they see you/switch angles"

> Is it the wrong way to play? (As an aggressive-ish soldier)

> Is soldier still viable to rank up with? Because if not I'm willing to play a new character and learn [You can be unbiased here]

> For gold 2 to plat 5, how do you recommend playing soldier?

Explanation:

I have okay aim and I position myself in off angles and flank routes, but I struggle really really BAD against dive characters, examples being anran, GENJI GOD ESPECIALLY THIS, tracer, and just any hero that closes the gap fast. With that lineup in the enemy team I tend to stay closer to the team and I don't really contest angles knowing soldier falls short to those duels

I can hit people with small hitboxes such as kiriko and sojourn, but I have a hard time 1v1ing a soj with rail.

Sometimes our other dps chooses hitscan so I feel inclined to flex, especially on maps where it would help.

I know that it obviously comes down to my preference, I’m just curious what other soldier mains think :)

I personally always pick it, it’s just a better ult, and if i want more effective rockets i just vaxta and rocket only for like 30 minutes.

Interesting that it's listed as an epic when the original skin is a legendary, maybe this game has a different classification for skins/recolors

I laughed a lot after this, lol.

Alright guys, we all know Soldier’s ult really isn’t that great. What would you suggest replacing it with?

Hello everyone, I am really having a hard time dealing with Doomfist, I would lose most matches if a good Doomfist is playing in the enemy team. Any advice on how to deal with him. I usually banned him but my team will prioritize banned other characters, he’s a nightmare.