Lifeweaver is a interesting character at the moment. He’s “Usable” but not quite. Every game feels terrible to play him. I can be fun but its super hard. Not to mention a lot of the time players will “flame” or “throw” all because of the character I picked. As for a solution I have a lot of ideas after playing him for around 200 hours in gm and master lobbies.
I’ve mapped out these ability changes to perform well in low elo and high elo. Instead of making the hero braindead easy to play by buffing his straight stats we can alter his abilities instead.
for Rej. Dash. honestly nothing needs to change. maybe a longer cooldown by 1 or 1.5secs. to balance out to keep him well rounded.
Petal Platform - Can now be casted manually - recasting your button.
(But there is two options from here;
- remove jumping/walking on petal, which will prevent players from taking it, which is inherently bad for your setup. Or
- keep the jumping/walking on it, which will keep Lifeweaver fluid with his options.
Now one of the “arguably” hardest ability to keep balanced but keep good, Blizzard listen to me on this one.
Life Grip - New ability. Now upon cast puts a (# amount) on the ally of choice, (now for the fun part. Two options again;
- The shield applies a burn (thorns) upon those who shoot it. Or
- Keep the grip option up to the user themselves. When shield is cast apply a option for the ally can cast interact key to pull themselves to Lifeweaver. But keep it LOS based for balance.
With these changes it can keep the grip which is a great part of his kit but can opt into other choices if you feel.
As for Tree, keep the same.
His weapon should be more like Kiriko to keep it fluid. Default it to Left is dmg, Right is healing.
I’m aiming to keep a high skill ceiling, while making it still winnable.
Here are some examples of plays with the new abilities:
Ana Brig? nah Ana Lifeweaver. when monkey jumps you, place petal, cast it early, catch his jump and bubble mid air. His engage is now harder.
Pharah going for barrage in their backline? Cast new Life Grip on Pharah and mid barrage she can cast interact to pull her back to Lifeweaver.
Opting into the thorns burn.
I cast shield on my tank, ball dives them, since they dealt dmg to my shield tank its applies a burn on the ball.
His weapon change will keep his gameplay smoother allowing him to have more options to deal dmg when needed instead of just defaulting to heal botting