Supports are meant to be adaptable heroes that you can use in very specific cases.
For example, if you think your healer won’t heal that much but you don’t want to invest a place in your team in another aggressive healer, you can pick a Medivh who is pretty much an assassin but can also help out.
If your healer cannot give burst heal, and you are scared of the enemy burst damage, you may choose to go with Zarya
If you have a good 4-man but poor waveclear, you could go with or aba to get the soak and use your 4-man as a gank team. Or if you believe you can hold objective for a long time, aba is amazing in getting xp advantage.
Still, you can notice that Aba can be used as a healer of sorts, but still do good damage (with a proper build)
Same goes for all of them, they are pretty much “i can kinda heal but not really, and I can play the assassin too”. Except for TLV (why you exist TLV, you fun but dam you bad)
BUT for the others, yes, you can say that the way they are right now, but, per example, Abba could easily become a full-time healer with a simple twist on his abilities, no significant gameplay-difference from his current stat. Med can also build to do damage with other abilities, like his Shield and His portal, again nothing that could be easily changed to be like that by default. And so with the others.
Nope, sorry, the empty sentence comes from “justifying” X hero can do this outside his role, but that doesn’t prevent him from being fine in whatever role he has, when you, yourself, just did a huge list of heroes that, precisely, can do more than one thing fine, yet they fit their role for a reason, and that reason is the “role’s overall purpose”… Which brings us to the original question, what is the support role even supposed to be, you can say X hero does well in whatever subject, but all heroes in certain role follow one common goal at least. That’s what I pointed out in that sentence, is a criticism to your original statement, mind you, (and you just agreed!, so thank you).
That’s a very sketchy way of putting it, but fair. I can give you that. You found a link between them, and put in a way that makes them “seem” planned somehow, however your theory fails when another hypothetical hero comes as support.
Because then, should said hero also have shield to be linked with Zarya? How do you prevent the link to be broken? Same for Vikings, in fact, TLV and Zarya would be marking a definitive end to the role this way (since they could only be linked in one way), no way on expanding on it, nor way of bringing new heroes to it (something I already pointed out previously in some other reply, something that can be solved by giving the role a primary purpose goal).
It is a cleaver way for listing them, as I said, but absent of any actual logic to the question of the exitence of the support role itself. I give you kudos for it, though, nice try indeed.
Also, I didn’t say they are not played, but that people pick the hero in the role for the sake of the hero, not the role… you know, (again): The actual issue.
But you would expect heals at least some way… That they can also provide something else, that’s cool, but you expect heals nonetheless.
Please notice how I have not said, at any time, that all heroes in certain role must play the same, but that all roles (supports in this case) should provide something uniform to the gameplay, in the same way healers heal. Case closed right there.
Perfectly fair, I’ll not debate that. But I can say the same can be applied to yours my friend.
Is not, but is a nice clue (that with proper analysis can end up being truth or not), or you will always deny something just because many people agree with it? Denying this would be irrational at best, and clear proof of ideological obstinacy rather than objective reasoning. (Oh! irony).
You just contradicted yourself from some sentences above: [«And it’s not like Support Heroes are barely played. There is no issue regarding that»] So, are they niche or are they not? Make your mind, please. Also, I fail to see how Zarya is really hard to play, and Zarya is 25% of the role itself, go figure )
Want to end saying, I agree “Bruisers” are also very loosely defined, pretty much all bruisers could easily fit as eitherproper Tank or Assassin, but at least they have the common ground to be something in-between those two, unlike Suppports, that have absolute nothing. So that’s that.
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That’s a very fair point. But for that I would say there are already heroes that benefit more from one effect than others do, people that benefit more from slows, or blinds, or even heals than others, yet that doesn’t prevent any of those things happening because there is a hero that benefits from it more than others, know what I’m saying?
At most, that means that said combination (the hypothetical support plus a busted non-mana resource hero) would be very powerful, indeed, but it wouldn’t be different than, let’s say, a Cassia with a Joha or Lili.
About that I gotta’ say, I thought we all agreed heroes could do something else than what their peers can (or can’t) do, but as long as they fulfil the role’s purpose, they can be categorized as such.
So why would that “0.5 healer” be a problem for her to be a normal bruiser?) What about Tyrael? What about the other team having an Uther and another healer (that’s way better than a mere 0.5 healer), and so on?
As I said, this is not about individual heroes and what they can or can’t do, but a whole category role itself and what makes it, well… it. Hope the idea is clear.
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Deepens the strategy.
Or, since R.A. usually takes two spots, what makes the roles of M.A., Tank, Bruiser or Healer so undesirable? I thought it was depending on scenario, comps, maps, perhaps even the players themselves, etc., what is the difference there then on having more options with the Support role? It should all come down to strategy on the picks, isn’t? Well, now you would have more tools to play, so to speak. How is that even remotely a bad thing?
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Oh, I agree, and they can continue being like that. But now, instead of picking solely for the hero (who is absolutely roleless, other than a tag), you can also pick for the role’s benefit and make it a proper role that helps your team in one specific way in addition to whatever the hero can do individually, something that is true for all other roles in the game, but poor supports, which expands on strategy and possibilities of comps. And that’s a good thing, IMHO.
Also, TLV are very good in proper hands, but now there would also be a reason for them to be categorized as support, and be picked up other than solely their soaking capabilities… other than being “weird”. Know what I’m saying?
So you don’t think Etc is the best Tank?
Two baseline aoe CC and Moshpit.
Yes, but what would be the point in that?
Gazlowe became a Bruiser without changing much.
Roles can be altered when they’re close to each other but why would we?
I listed Heroes who can fulfill the role of other Roles.
The the purpose is not tied to the Role itself.
But there are certain exoectations thus when a Hero is designed to be a certain Role they usually able to do those, but that’s not guaranteed and they’re not alone.
They’re not planned, but they are still themed, united.
I and others provides multiple Support Hero concepts.
There are many ways for the Support role to be expanded.
There are Heroes currently who can provide Allies with Mana:
Malf
Deckard
Ana
Alex
Medivh
Probius
Your idea for the Support role to provide resources wouldn’t be unique.
They wouldn’t be less similar to Healers.
And you either make that Resource-oriented mandatory and thus they’re no longer niche, or nothing changes.
Do you think Support Heroes are picked because ppl like the Heroes and play them even tho they don’t need them or do you think that fulfilling different purposes within the same Role is a bad thing?
Because usually you don’t pick a R.Assassin just because you need one, you pick a RA with a purpose in mind and thus the Heroes you want and can pick becomes limited.
Same with the other Roles.
Ppl pick Heroes for their abilities regardless of Roles.
But there are Heals from others as well.
Etc, Yrel, Malganis all provide allied Heals.
From the Support Role, ppl expect support which is below a Healer’s capability.
Even Tlv does that in a way, providing xp lead so their team has more hp (like a Shield which is temporary increased hp), dmg and the enemy is probably divided which makes their allies even more (relatively) durable.
(Bit farfetched, but I legit see it this way.)
Every Support provides support. They’re the Healers’ little helpers.
They’re the Heroes who can make certain comps work, they enable them.
There is no contradiction in that.
The Support role is the hardest to pull off, but that doesn’t stop ppl from spamming them.
In Ccl, Support Heroes are banned.
At high ranks Tlv and Aba is banned fairly often.
In QM Aba is an all timed classic.
Supports are also kinda inbetweens.
They’re the ones pseudo-Healers. Between Healer and another role (usually Assassin).
Edit: tho Chromie does not provide Mana, she can provide Cdr, which in certain scenarious is more useful than getting more mana (which not every Hero has, so she basically has the ability what you’re trying to give to a whole Role).
Where do you get the idea that it would be no significant difference? In order to give aba those extra full-time healer qualities, he’d need severe nerfs to his other functions in order to remain balanced. So while he might still have his old abilities, but they’d be significantly less impactful (and thus feel different to use). And being forced into full time healing also means he’d have way less opportunity to do all the push/mine/soak/hat things he previously had going.
You can’t just add new abilities to Heroes without sacrificing at least some parts of their old kits. And if you’re going to remake a Hero into a whole new role, you’re inevitably destroying (significant parts of) their old role.
Mostly QM matchmaking, really. Having sustain or not makes a huge difference in how games play out, so in QM it’s important that if one side has a healer, the other has at least one too. Zarya kinda is in the awkward spot between healer and bruiser. The issue isn’t that she can’t do bruisery things (she can), it’s that she can do some healer-y things too. (Not enough to compete against any actual healer, but enough to matter in a non-healer situation). Classifying her as a bruiser would lead her to be matched against other bruisers in QM, which in no-healer games could mean that one side (zarya’s) has a big advantage in still having half a healer while their opponents have none*.
(*Obviously this isn’t the only factor in a game, or even the only potential imbalance in QM, but it is a potential problem that’s prevented by making her support).
That’s not as much of an issue, as long as either side does at least have one healer. Having any healer vs none is a much bigger difference than having 1 healer vs 2.
He doesn’t quite have enough to be capable of being pseudo-healer like Zarya. Same with E.T.C. and a couple other Heroes that have (talents for) some small ‘heal/shield others’ capability. It is a bit of a grey area though, there is no hard definition about how much healing is ‘too much’ to be matched against non-healers without issue.
Sure, but as I’ve already said before, support isn’t really a role in the first place. It’s mostly a collection box for any unique designs that don’t fit the standard categories.
This alone proves you only argue to argue, man, you don’t care about the subject, just about “opposing”. I was agreeing with you, I even said so…
Heck, you do this every time, with many people. This makes me wonder if you actually suffer from being an egomaniac (and I wouldn’t be surprised if the case is severe).
But anyways, here is a quick response:
Yes, they can do other stuff (my exact point, thanks again). Yet they belong to certain role for a reason. That extra purpose may not be the reason they are in said role, but they have a common ground with their peers, is really that simple.
By twisting and, oh irony, complicating their relationship. Instead of being an “obvious thing”. Very different, and again, the point.
I absolutely applaud this, will gladly hear other propositions as well.
I’m glad, that means I’m not alone. More power to it then! (Thanks for the encouragement).
On the absolute contrary (if you have cared to actually read anything I’ve said). Being different from each other in a role is cool, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is a common ground. Why would you even say such a question?? Oh! right… argue for the sake of argue and strawmanning hard, I’m afraid.
And here you just absolutely agree and support my whole idea… So Thanks, yet one more time (I’m starting to think you actually love this and you are supporting me, given how much you give me reason we are only having a communication problem.)
People pick the best hero they think a role can give. Extremely different. Otherwise why would you even complain about QM giving 5 assassins and call it clownfiesta? That would make zero sense giving what you just said. (Which by the way, that happening in qm was already debunked on a thread not so long ago, and the analysis was on line with what I said about it, that is not even that common to have 5 assassins… So, yet again, I speak with reason and facts, But you complain anyways, you argue for the sake of arguing).
And… heck YET ONCE MORE you agree with me, you even provided a list: Malfurion and everyone else in that list can also provide mana. What’s the problem there? And other heroes providing heals doesn’t prevent the healers role from existing and doing it better, does it? (arguing for the sake of arguing spotted once more as well).
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Good day, good sir. You literally only waste both our times. The day you actually want to properly analyse any idea, you are welcome. But to argue for the sake of arguing is so childish and a waste of time for both of us.
Will simply ignore future comments from your part. But thanks for sharing, anyway. It was fun.
Gameplay =/= stats. Abathur’s gameplay consist on moving around the map, hatting people, placing mines, etc. That’s how he could stay, easily, with the same gameplay.
That in order for him to become a full healer would need some adjusting on his stats, that is obvious, even some of his talents could change, but his gameplay would remain pretty much the same. Notice the difference?
This is like Tassadar’s rework vs Cassia’s rework. In Tas’s it was an absolute change on how he was played, an absolute change in his gameplay (what you imagine), but Cassia’s was simply a different take from what she used to be, focusing on other things now, yet her gameplay remained pretty much intact. (what I say).
But I thought you just agreed with the other guy, Zarya lacks any type of CC and so much other stuff that makes for a good bruiser, so you are gaining a half-healer of sorts, but you are losing the rest of the average tools. I really fail to see how that makes have an advantage, heck, in QM zarya is cool but nothing broken even when such extreme cases happen, she grants something but gives something else away. That sounds balanced to me.
But she is not. You said so yourself, she is not a proper healer, so how can she it be 2 then? And even so, the other team would have something else in that spot to counter-balance.
I just love how you and the other guy keep contradicting each other, yet you love each other so much. Is kinda’ hilarious but awe inspiring (gotta’ admit ) Supporting each other for the sake of support not for merit of argument.
Anyways, I say this because that’s exactly what I say! Heroes doing extra stuff than what their role provides, doesn’t automatically makes them another role, nor prevents them from having a common ground with their peers… you just said exactly that… You are saying exactly what I’m saying… (Just read my previous reply above this one if you don’t believe me). Why are you supporting someone that says the absolute stuff than you, but confront someone that says and thinks the exact same things?).
Thanks! Yes, that’s the question. IS the “oops, we don’t know what to do with these heroes” box. That sucks, jsut imagine new people coming into the game and saying «oh cool! what does this “support” guys do!!!?» and the ansewr being “they are the weirdos fo the game, they don’t fit anywhere else, that’s their purpose” (that’s just sad!) Support role needs love, and you give them love by giving them a solid purpose.
And if you hate the role, then just put an end to their misery already (as a role) and put them somewhere else. I would love to see the role expand, though, and with it the strategy behind the game itself, making it even more interesting and fun… but to each their own.
I don’t want weird heroes to go away, far from it. I want the categorization to go away, so people don’t continually misinterpret the role. Keep their kits, keep them weird, but make it so more people are willing to try them, and more people learn how to play with them. Much like Murky was moved into a melee assassin role, or how Cho’gall is weird, but classified like “normal” heroes, do the same for the remaining 4 supports.
I would far rather see them moved intact, than languish in a role that seems to be dumping ground for new ideas. I would love to see more weird heroes, not fewer, but I think just the name “Support” puts off too much of the player base.
I gotta’ say, IMHO, that’s because “Supports” don’t have a purpose… is that simple (at least as far as I’m concerned). But give them a purpose, a common basic task within their ranks, and the role suddenly becomes a cool focused one, not a meme. My two cents.
Except his priorities for doing all those things would shift dramatically, as his healing would suddenly be his main strength. So while you’d still have some locust push, for example, it’d be just a side project instead of an actual strength or purpose. (And as a result of that, also less worth doing when you can’t get enough value out of it anymore). Stats might not equal gameplay, but they certainly effect gameplay. Just look at how Tyrande changed from pseudo-dps/duelist to healer for a quick example.
The whole global mines/soak/push strategies Aba can currently go for also don’t go well with the full healer role you’re envisioning. Healer role would require aba to be near-constantly devoted to helping other players, which means he won’t have (as much) time to do other things around the map. While ‘Healer Aba’ gameplay could indeed be mostly the same for the dedicated ‘hat players all the time’ Aba strategy (certainly one way to play him, but far from the only one), any other Abathur gameplay or builds would be severely changed or crippled. It’d be much more like the Tassadar rework (drop parts of kit, focus on one aspect) than the Cassia one in that regard.
While I can certainly see how Abathur could be reworked into such a Healer role, I do not think that would a good idea (on the contrary, it sounds awful to me), as it would severely hurt his current flexibility. (and in my view, make him much less interesting of a character).
But I think that’s enough on the specific Abathur rework topic. That’s a different discussion and probably more something for a separate thread, this was originally supposed to be about the support class after all.
I thought you were talking about ‘uther + another healer’ vs ‘one healer’ scenario’s. I tried to tell you that that (1 healer vs 2) is not nearly as detrimental as having 0.5 healer vs none.
True, and that’s why ‘1.5 healer vs 1 healer’ or ‘2 healers vs 1’ isn’t an issue. One side might have a bit more healing, the other side has more dmg (or tankiness, or whatever), all fair and good. Of course plenty of players will complain when it (or any other uneven role distribution) happens, but that’s beside the point here. As long as both sides have the same basic necessities (some frontline, some sustain, some dmg) the exact role distribution isn’t that important. (Or at least, not nearly as important as the individual Heroes, team synergy, etc.).
The problems arrive when one side completely lacks one thing, as that leaves too big of a weakness in a comp for the enemy to exploit. And that is what’d happen if Zarya could get matched against a normal bruiser, with the Zarya’s side having too much sustain from still having a pseudo-healer while the enemy has none. (And with Zarya it gets awkward on both sides, as Zarya vs a real healer also isn’t a fair matchup).
But it is admittedly a bit of a grey area, and somewhat arbitrary on where you draw the line on what you consider ‘fair’ matchups.
The problem is that while I agree with you on that part (Zarya having non-bruiser qualities doesn’t disqualify her from being bruiser), that bit isn’t really relevant here. The problem with Zarya isn’t that she’s unqualified to a bruiser. It’s that classifying her as bruiser causes too many issues in QM matchmaking, and so to prevent those issues they made her support instead. That’s all. In a world where QM didn’t exist she’d probably be a (weird) Bruiser anyway.
I don’t (though I admit I could’ve made that clearer) agree with him on that. I’m fairly sure Zarya’s a support because of the ‘semi-healer vs no healer’ issues you’d get from classifying her a bruiser, not from her somehow being incapable of being a bruiser. She’s usually picked in that slot anyway. The lack of cc (outside of ult) can make it a bit tricky, but it’s not like having cc and such is a hard requirement of being a bruiser. Things like Chen or Leoric or Artanis also exist after all. (And roles aren’t perfect anyway.)
Sure, that would be sad. Fortunately that’s not really the answer, you’re just messing up cause and effect (they’re in ‘support tag’ because they have a weird purpose, not because weirdness is their purpose), as well as falsely assuming ‘supports’ have some collective purpose they all share. (they don’t, their only common ground is ‘not fitting with normal categories’)
A better answer would be ‘these Heroes are special, depends which one you mean’ or something like that. Or ‘these are a bit more complex, learn the basics first’. I dunno, not great at these kinds of answers.
I don’t know how many more times I can explain this to you: Support. Is. Not. An. Actual. Role.
Stop pretending it is. The Support tag itself means nothing. It just the collective tag for any unusual Heroes, their kits are what defines their actual roles. The only thing a Support tag says is ‘this Hero does something that doesn’t fit the standard categories’.
Please, stop obsessing about roles so much. The game is far too complex for that, you can’t define every Hero in one word. It’s not like a role tells you everything about a Hero anyway, individual kits are still important. You can tell the difference between a Raynor and a Jaina. Why can’t you figure out what an Abathur does? Are you really so incapable of thinking for yourself that you need a specific tag to fully explain everything the Hero does for you?
Remember, roles aren’t perfect. Despite what you seem to think, they are not fixed definitions of what a Hero can or cannot do. At most they are guidelines of what a Hero’s general duties are. You still need to learn for yourself how to properly use each individual Hero. This goes for Heroes in every role, from Assassin to Support. Supports can be a little trickier to learn to utilize because of their uniqueness, but I’d argue that that’s part of their charm.
Ok, one last time then: Support is not an actual role. Never was*. Never will be. It doesn’t have to be ended as a role, because it isn’t one in the first place.
(*Disregarding the period where the current ‘Healer’ role was called ‘Support’, I suppose. )
The Heroes in the ‘Support’ club don’t need to be put ‘somewhere else’, they’re already there. That’s why they are in the undefined ‘Support’ bucket, and not in the standard role groups. The ‘Support’ tag is where all the unusual Heroes that don’t have or fit the standard roles get grouped. Go here for unique strategies.
Again, I would certainty appreciate a name change to make this more obvious. I can see how ‘support’ sounds too much like an actual role, and I’d love a more neutral tag for the group to prevent this confusion.
Indeed, in order for his hypothetical new healer role… but that’s expected. Abilities and talents would do other things focused on healing, but his gameplay (his uniqueness, so to speak) would prevail. As far as I’m concerned. Isn’t it?
But says who? That’s the question, buddy… It can be a role, and a proper and important role by that. In fact, it is already categorized as such, hence it exists. Facts over assumptions, any day, IMHO.
I’m not pretending, on the contrary I’m perfectly aware of that design failure, that’s why I’m trying to help organize it properly and make something useful out of an accident (not having a place for the heroes in there, therefore creating the role). So, I bounce that back at you, friend… Stop pretending it is not a failure in design.
I 100% agree. I’m not expecting any role to be perfect in any way. But all of them do share a common ground within (all but, well, you know who).
Because it was an accident, and is noticeable that’s the case. So you know the deal on what I say on this issue.
Extra edit:
As I see it, when an accident in design happens, one has 3 options. You can either:
-Build on it and make it a happy accident, exploiting whatever potential and building something amazing out of it. Perhaps even making it an staple for the game itself! (Look for some way to expand and unify the role in this case). Which is what I purpose.
-Ignore it. Lower your head, and perhaps if you ignore it enough it will disappear by its own, people will forget about it. In this case it would be leaving the role as it is now and forever more. Which is what you purpose as far as I’m concerned… Ignoring its obvious perception flaw as a role, (not the individual heroes, mind you) and denying it any further potential it may have, hoping nobody notices the decision mistakes made.
-Correct it. Reworking and accommodating the heroes in some other category, as they should have since the beginning, specially if they were not taking the role seriously nor intending to build upon it (an unmistakable bad call from their part, then). But at least this would correct it.
No, it isn’t. Would Abathur still be unique like in that form? Sure. Would his gameplay be the same? No. An Abathur mainly focused on healing would play vastly different from the current Abathur, who’s more focused on xp, pushing, vision and/or dmg support.
(Again, I suppose that if you play Abathur as ‘hat players all the time’ you might not notice too much difference, but that’s only a limited fraction of his existing gameplay.)
I really don’t think it can, at least not like you seem to envision it. As already pointed out earlier, I see too many problems with that plan, the biggest ones being;
The Heroes are too different from each other to be ‘united’ into a coherent role like that. While they’d have a common theme, that still wouldn’t tell you anything useful about what to use them for. ‘Medivh Mana Portals’ would still be vastly different to use than ‘Abathur Mana Hat’ for quick examples. They’d both add mana, but you’d still use mostly use one for fancy engages and the other for global support.
You’d need to destroy too much gameplay and identity of those Heroes to twist them into such role to be worth it.
There is no real purpose for such a Role. Unlike with health and healing, Heroes are typically designed to be self-sufficient in their resource management.
Could such a ‘mana makers club’ technically be made and called a ‘Role’? Sure, but it would be about as useless as the current Support ‘role’. It wouldn’t be proper (poorly defined) or important (unnecessary). And it wouldn’t even solve the purpose of having a ‘everything else’ tag to sort unique heroes.
I suppose, but that category is literally described as ‘provides benefits’. Any Hero that does anything useful qualifies under that. If the Assassin role didn’t exist, even Valla could be a support (as she ‘provides damage’). It is very much designed as a catch-all to cover any Hero that doesn’t fit the other roles, not as a description of what the Heroes in it do (as with actual roles).
I’m a bit confused here, what exactly do you consider the ‘failure in design’ at this point? The Heroes in the Support category (for not having a purpose), the role itself (for not being descriptive enough), or the role categorization system in general (for not having a proper role for those Heroes)?
If it’s the first option, the Heroes do have purposes. Those purposes might be unique and/or not fit the standard roles, but that doesn’t somehow mean they’re useless. They’re still pretty neat designs, not failures.
If it’s the middle one, it’s not meant to be descriptive. It’s meant to be the ‘everything else falls under here’ category. That’s not a failure, that’s just sensible design. Otherwise you end up with a ton of redundant categories just to slot one ‘weird’ hero each.
If it’s the latter, it does have a place for them, namely the ‘everything else’ bucket that is the Support class. Though I will (again) agree that it is a small failure in how misleading it is, and would be better off if they renamed it to not resemble a role as much.
I personally heard (and only heard, so might be wrong) about Supports in other MOBAs. Those games don’t have Healers.
Tho some Supports in them are Tanks and such if I heard correctly.
HotS Supports are basically like “regular” Supports unless they’re excellent in their role or not unfair in QM without facing another Support. (Almost every role shenanigan is because of the QM MM since ppl wanted more “fairness” in a quick mode.)
So I disagree that the role is vague, misleading or not united.
But I agree that it’s a category of “misfits”.
These are the supports who don’t fulfill any of the other roles (and it’s a direct choice, not accident as @Op thinks, they just wanted to create cool and unique Heroes who didn’t fit well into existing categories but they didn’t want to force them into one because that would hinder the kit they envisioned. And that’s why @Op’s idea is bad, not talking about how useless such role would be).
I think I’m late to this party, but I’ll give my opinion anyway:
I think it’s important that a “others” category (where they put heroes that don’t fit into the “main” ones) does exist.
Think of it like this:
if there was no Support Class (and nothing else in its place either), then the Aba, Medivh, TLV, and Zarya would have to be reworked to fit the other Classes.
If you add another class (like the resource-management one suggested), then they would still have to be reworked, be it to fit into the new Support class, or one of the others.
Either way, their kits as they exist would “not be allowed”.
In other words, if you have only a finite number of classes (which obviously you do), and none of them is the “none of the above” category, then there are necesarily hard limits on what heroes can or can’t exist.
One of the most unique aspects of Heroes of the Storm is the fact that they have weird heroes that “defy MOBA conventions”, so having those hard limits to design space is undesirable IMO.
Though maybe they could have come up with a better name for the class, IDK.
(though the most descriptive name: “Others”, sound really dumb )
What about more focused on xp, pushing, vision and or/ healing (where the dmg support is switched)… How about that?
How are Uther and Morales exactly equal in gameplay? What makes them both healers and not something else? Let that sink in for a minute, and you have your answer. The heroes themselves being different doesn’t matter, in fact, is welcome. But a common ground is all they need to be unified as a role.
Not really. See the Aby example.
Not yet, but it would then be very useful for heroes that are not designed to be like that. Or should we get rid of the healer role just because there are heroes that are very good at self-sustain?
And what a nice addition to provide resources as well as benefit, isn’t?
That’s exactly what I said to the other guy. You agree with me way more than what you think, it seems. But Valla is an assassin precisely because the defined role of “damage dealers” (so to speak) exists. The same can go for Supports if uniformed with something (in this case I purpose providing resources).
They lack a purpose, indeed.
Being descriptive or not is irrelevant, since they don’t have a purpose to be described in the first place, so that’s not the issue. Also the heroes could easily fit somewhere else, as I said. Nothing a patch or even a rework can’t fix in the end. Like they did with Tas.
The heroes have purposes individually, just like Uther and Morales have purposes individually. But current supports don’t have a common ground, as Uther and Morales and all other healers by that matter do.
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All of that is a fair observation. However, how is that Cho’Gall is not a support then? Following your “only weird heroes go support” theory. Support is not just about “weird”. Is a role born as an accident (despite what a couple of other people naively believe), where they ended up with heroes that they didn’t know where to put.
Giving them a common ground doesn’t prevent them from being very different than the others. As Cho’Gall or Murky have a proper role each. But it would solidify the role itself.
Any role can have very “weird” heroes by that. But what makes a role, a role, is the common ground within its peers (or task, if you prefer, it provides to the team). Support role doesn’t have that 'cause it was an accident, and is time to solve that accident, IMHO.
So that would already be significantly different gameplay. (Which is a problem, I don’t want Abathur changed like that.).
And I still don’t see a good way to combine the full healer role (which requires Aba to spend most of his time healing his team) with the current (possible) playstyle of soak/vision/pushing (which requires Aba to spend most of his time managing minion waves while team does things without him).
I don’t hate the general idea of a ‘healing hat’ Hero by the way. I just think it’d be terrible to ruin Abathur for it. I’d sooner add a new ‘healy hat’ Hero instead.
They’re not exactly equal, but they’re similar in that they both go with the team and keep them healed up. You pick them up when your team is looking for heals, and either of them could feasibly do that job (one would probably be better fit, but they’re both valid options).
With ‘mana maker’ this doesn’t really work, as you would rarely be looking for a ‘mana maker’ in the first place (teams do need healing, extra mana is usually unnecessary), and the ‘mana makers’ that’d exist play too differently from each other for their ‘unified role’ to have any useful information. You can’t really use Medivh portals for reliably mana sustain for example, as you need them for mobility. Or Murky would be off in lane most off the time, not providing mana for his team.
(Again, unless you want to rework those Heroes’ entire kits and purpose, but then you’re ruining entire heroes for no good reason).
So, at this point you’re suggesting to
Add a whole new role
Rework (and ruin) a ton of Heroes to fit that role
Make new Hero design far more difficult and a lot less interesting by making it impossible to add unique heroes that don’t make mana.
Deliberately cripple (new) Heroes to not function without a mana provider.
Rework the overall HotS gameplay to make ‘mana maker’ an important role to add in comps.
How much further do you intend to go with this? You just keep adding more and more changes to somehow justify your other ones. And all this just because you dislike how 4 Heroes don’t have a specific unified category?
Rebuilding the entire game (which is what your suggestion basically comes down to at this point) is not something you do on a whim, you need a very good reason if you want to do that. So far, you really haven’t provided any. Change for the sake of change is not a good thing. Reworking things to solve problems that arguably don’t exist is not a good thing. Your idea is not a good thing.
Even Heroes that are good at self-sustain typically want a healer to survive teamfights. But you’re not entirely wrong that healers aren’t always necessary and you can technically build a comp without one. Similarly mana providers wouldn’t always be unnecessary.
But it’s really not worth adding an entire role just to only be used in rare exceptions*. Adding a resource providing Hero could certainly be done, but it’d be much cleaner to just add them to the Support bucket (assuming they don’t have Healing to be Healer).
*Which is another reason why the Support group exists, so we don’t need a special role for ‘Abathur’ or ‘TLV’.
Not exactly. It’d be unnecessary at best, game-ruiningly ugly at worst. More the opposite of nice.
No. I know I agree with some of your points, I’ve even said as much. I also accept that some of them are valid positions, even I personally don’t like them. I just don’t agree with the rest of them, and highly disagree with your overall conclusion.
You seem to be under the misunderstanding that agreeing with one thing you’ve said means I also agree with the rest of it. It doesn’t. It’s not like this is a one-dimensional discussion where only possible positions are ‘agrees with me completely’ and ‘disagrees with me’. There’s plenty of middle ground where there is bits of both agree and disagreement, or where I agree with your initial statement but don’t like your solution or conclusion.
For your reference:
I agree Abathur could be reworked into a healer. (I think it’d be a very bad idea and ruin most of the current Hero, but it could be done).
I don’t agree that this would be a good change. (See previous).
I agree the Heroes in ‘Support’ don’t have much common ground. (That’s just true).
I agree ‘Support’ is not a well-defined role. (But where you seem focused on the not being well-defined part, I simply don’t see it as a role at all.)
I don’t agree that it not being defined is a problem. (It’s not a role in the first place, so the not being defined part is moot.)
I agree Support could use a better distinction from normal roles, if only to prevent confusion like yours. (Again, name change the category to ‘Other Roles’ or some such would already work. Once you stop falsely assuming it’s meant to be a coherent role, everything makes a lot more sense.)
I don’t agree the role needs a defining feature. (Because, again, it’s not an actual role anyway. Nor does it need to be.)
I don’t agree it is a problem to have an ‘undefined’ category. (I think it’s a good way to classify Heroes that are too complex for one-word role definitions).
I don’t agree the Heroes in it need to be reworked to fit other roles. (I think it’s perfectly fine to have Heroes that more complex than one-word role descriptions, and ‘support’ is a good category to place them.)
I agree Zarya could be called a bruiser when purely looking at her own kit. (Only she isn’t classified as one because of the problems this could cause in QM.)
I agree that one could technically add a ‘resource generator’ role. (It would be ugly and unnecessary, but it could be done. Previous posts have already pointed out the many issues with it.)
I don’t agree that adding such a role would be useful or good for the game. (Again, see many earlier posts for various problems with such a role. And add that it would be useless for your initial concern, as you’d still need a new ‘unsorted’ category for the next unique Hero.)
I agree that some heroes could be reworked into ‘resource generators’. (You certainly can slap random mana on Medivh portals etc. It’d be ugly and probably ruin the those Heroes, but it can be done).
I don’t agree that those reworks would be good for the Heroes.
(On the contrary, it sounds like an awful way to ruin them.)
Yet again, that’s because it’s not meant to be a unified role. It’s just easier to have one ‘unsorted’ category than having 3 or 4 categories for just one Hero each.
I think we’ve reached the end of the useful discussion though. You keep repeating things for which I’ve already pointed out why (I think) they’re not good ideas, whilst ignoring half the things I posted.
That’s decision of the player, isn’t? If you don’t want that, cool for you, that Aba is capable of doing so, that’s very different. And so goes if he would be doing healing or providing resources. I fail to see what’s not logical about that.
And there you go: Supports are not exactly equal, but they are similar in that they go with the team and keep their resources up.
You pick them up when your team is looking for resources, and either fo them could feasibly do that job (one would probably be better fit, but them all are valid options)…
Hope you see where this is going Again, I fail to see how that doesn’t fit. There is literally nothing about this that can easily be applied to supports as resources.
For that, read above, please. Also, those are only suggestions that perfectly fit on their current gameplay, other things could be done instead if necessary. I fail to see how it can’t be fixed.
The role is already there, is an accidental meme-role (not the heroes within, but the role as role itself). So, I’m not saying that in the slightest. At most I’m saying give Support role some role and a purpose of being.
*That’s entirely your subjective opinion on that. As far as I’m concerned (and as many people has agreed on my original comment).
*This would actually be making them even better, more interesting and, on the absolute contrary, “unique” (to not say weird) can actually be any role by default, instead of the “weird zone”. Your logic there is flawed, buddy (are you reading what I’m actually purposing or are you only trying to give me contrary for the sake of it). I actually addressed that issue. Now the purpose dictates the role, and the individual heroes (with whatever uniqueness and weirdness they may have) are free to be on whatever role it suits them better.
*Just see above, this assumption is, by all means, non-sensical, with all due respect.
*How exactly overall HotS gamplay is changed, exactly? You mean how comps could work? Because the gameplay in the match, literally, remains unchanged.
Nope, sorry, I just repeat what I said. You just keep adding more and more excuses (most of the time contradictory to yourself or even some that are already explained or covered previously). Also, another proof you are the one doing is that I don’t dislike the 4 heroes not having an unified category, the number of heroes is irrelevant (and the heroes themselves too). Is the category as a whole (very different approach). So, are you understanding what I’m saying yes or not?
Even heroes that are good at self-resourcing would typically want a guy providing them resources to keep them on teamfights… (just read above, is the same thing).
That’s your subjective opinion, and given the support (no pun intended) to this thread, I say you are minority in here. But to each his own.
Most of them, and the ones you don’t, you usually are not reading them well, as I stated above…
Oh, i know that!! I also know it is an accident. And people notice. And that’s way more important if you want to give HotS a solid presentation, so to speak (unless you want it dead, that’s it, I like HotS, i love Hots! I want it to become better and reemerge).
Let’s do this, friend. Try iron-manning my argument instead. Let’s see what happens. I will do the same for yours. Deal?
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