I generally go Shield Battery if they have lots of DoTs or sustained damage, like a Gulādan or Lunara, and Shield Surge against burst damage. Since CC/burst comps are popular right now, I mostly go Shield Surge. I also get a sadistic pleasure out of seeing an enemy go after me, assuming I am a free kill, just to turn on them and tear them to pieces, because my trait is up.
This was from before the changes to Lightning Shield and Ancestral. Poor puppy.
He thought that facetanking a Shield Surge/Blades of a Templar Artanis was a good idea, and basically ignored the rest of the team fighting over the objective.
This ties back to the point Volun was making that a healer may be able to do other things, but their primary duty is to support their team so this sort of massacre never happens. They definitely should not be wasting their time and resources attempting to solo a bruiser while the rest of their team is dying.
On the same note, sometimes as a support I have to stop myself from healing an ally that has no mana, because I know theyāre probably going to fountain or back soon.
Or stop myself from healing a bruiser or whatever that has a decent self heal and has more mana than I do.
Too many people, even in the higher leagues, donāt realize that pointless brawl is pointless and that evading a spell is better than soaking it knowing that āthere is a healer who will heal me afterwardsā.
I hate to play healer, just because most of the people I play with refuse to evade spells or they do pointless brawl on lane, forcing me to be a heal bot and so I run out of mana very soon.
Thereās this wonderful thing called hearthing. With the change to fountain CD, and objective timers, itās quite hard to actually run out of mana when the time comes if you know how to prepare for it. You brawl, tap the fountain, and the CD will generally be up by next objective.
As a healer, I have zero problems with the middle brawl. Itās only an issue if you fail to kill somebody, AND the enemy has managed to back off and soak, AND no one responds to it, which though happens, isnāt super common.
Itās usually the person who thinks brawls are useless that runs away, where then the brawl suddenly means something because you can now get easier picks off when you outnumber the other team.
Itās also not exactly that hard to brawl for a little, see nothing is happening, and then rotate before too many of the minions die. If you hate supporting your teammates in team fights, you are just playing the wrong role lol.
I know that you can hearth.
But that means you cannot soak lane while someone goes camp or help with camp.
There is a lot of unnecessary and avoidable damage which people receive.
And yes, I donāt play healer. I play mostly bruiser or tank. But still, sometimes you are forced to play healer will fill that role.
Who cares, thatās not your job. You really think soaking that last 3 minions worth of experience is worth risking going to an objective late or you running out of mana so you lose 2 waves of experience after you lose an objective and people die?
As for damage, yes people could learn how to dodge, but at high level, I really donāt see that an issue most of the time. At lower level, itās really an issue, but the good thing is, usually the other team will also suck at dodging. And if youāre the healer who has the tenacity to stick it out, while the other gives up, guess which side is more likely to win.
The two single most easiest macro level things to improve your support play without actually being good mechanically at support is simply, make soaking a low priority, and come to objectives with mana. You do that, youāre already better than most supports who for some reason want to put that mantle on themselves and in the end screw your team up. The problem isnāt supports, itās the way people want to play them.
I smile when I played lucio and saved my team multiple times.
By healing? I donāt know.
By dashing into an enemy team, booping them, amp speeding then high-fiving my almost-dead stunlocked teammate, whilst being able to escape? Yep, 90% of the time thats how I saved my teammates.
Even if you donāt heal, your utility can be the bigger impact.
I had (not to brag) 100k+ healing, did that save anyone? Maybe. My utility mattered more, although, as that was the true saviour.
Yee same! If I play a healer someone is low and being attacked by lets say a Hanzo I always stand in between him and the hanzo to block shots. I especially love it as Lili
Mileage may vary. Some supports have attacks worth using either due to range, or noteworthy damage. E. G. Morales has decent range so why not? Same for Anduin, Lili, Tyrande actually benefits from her basic attacks so definitely.
In the melee camp stukovās burst melee AA is actually very good. Khara also gets great value. However Deckard unless heās taken stuns at 16 has no real need to AA unless it finishes someone off. His damage is very low and heās better off focusing on Sticking to allies to keep trait up and block shots than on giving the enemy some AA damage. Id say heās probably the only healer who has no business trying to force aas into his play. He has enough to do and his AA damage is pretty shockingly bad.