Quick Match Abathur restrictions, Zarya but not Deathwing?

General Discussion
1

Long ago, there was an attempt to balance QM by role. I always opposed it, but it went through anyway, and now it’s almost impossible to find a QM game with a combination of Abathur/Medivh/Zarya.

There have been a lot of changes since then, such as removing Tassadar from the Support role so he’s not on that list, but it’s pretty clear that the restrictions still exist (when was the last time you saw a clone Medivh throwing portals everywhere?). I don’t understand why, but if they are going to continue, there’s no reason that Deathwing should not be added to the list. Aba+Medivh, or Aba+Zarya, are both clearly better pairings than Aba+Deathwing, a character that can’t get a hat, and can’t be an Ultimate Evolution.

I’d prefer to just remove the QM Support role restrictions, but if we’re going to keep them, please add Deathwing to the list.

2

But DW is a Bruiser. Bruisers are matched against Bruisers.
Supports are matched against Supports.

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3

There’s no rule preventing Supports from being on the same team. It’s just that the game tries to match roles and there are only four Supports in the game (and only two that are popular in QM), so they will almost always match against each other instead of with. It’s not about “pairing with Abathur”, it’s just a fault of the very small Support pool.

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4

The rule you speak of was called a “sustainer” rule, in which Zarya, Tassadar, Tyrande, Medivh and Abathur would be selected into the comps, and would face each other, with the rule being that each team has 1 max, done to make Aba games quote “”“bearable”“”.

This rule doesn’t make sense anymore because two of the heroes have been fundamentally changed to a healer with the other becoming a Ranged Assassin, and the rule has fallen ever since into becoming a rare sight (mostly Medivh vs Aba), IDK if its still active, or followed, but it could have been changed in the 2018 queue update that was removed.

Point is, it could still be considering the rule, and failing into infinite queue because of it.

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5

Abathur is the cutest video game character I have ever seen

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6

I’m pretty sure it’s linked to the Support tag, because I’ve definitely seen some Aba/Tass and Aba/Tyrande games since then, but as far as I know 0 Aba/Zarya, Aba/Medivh, or Aba/TLV games.

7

Aba/Medivh is the most common ones I have, one of my friends is masochist TLV and plays him when he wants, he ends up facing Aba most of the time, it could vary, but then again Aba is a really popular hero unironically.

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8

It’s not restricted. It’s just if 1 team has a Support the other needs to as well (unless Healers are present), and there aren’t enough ppl playing Supports to get more than 1/teams.

9

DW would be my emotional support dragon when I lose.

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10

This is an issue they cant really and never could really work around.
In a no healer game Aba more or less quarantees the win every single time, while games with a healer are more balanced

Aba matching against a “support” is the only way, unless you make it so that it is always forced to be aba mirror match. Too bad mediv and zarya absolutelly do not stack up to aba in that no healer game thus aba almost automatically wins the game.
Its much better when a healer is present and mediv and zarya can be great or fantastic depending on the player and especially team comp.

DW would not work here since he is indeed a bruiser and doesnt offer support abilities, just general bruising.

11

as someone who frequently plays support (aba, tlv, medivh, even zarya a fair bit), Aba win is NOT guarenteed against the other supports.

TLV in fact may be a soft or even hard counter as the passive lane pressure prevents Abathur from body soaking and removes any advantage from Abathur’s global soak.

Medivh can easily jump and scare the Abathur away if they’ve got half a brain (even if abathur is camping under a fort, Medivh post 7 can just assassinate the Abathur with Arcane Explosion)

Zarya is a little rough, but since she’s best abusing early game in the 4 stack, and abathur forces his team to play down a man until at least level 10, pushing early advantage can snowball a victory for Zarya’s team.

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12

I think Aba isn’t necessarily great or bad on its own, but the ability to fill multiple roles makes it a better role flex than Varian. And that makes any and all rules just silly, it is playing rock-scissor-paper knowing the opponent choice.

I just come off a match against Aba-DW combo actually, we lost by 2-3 levels, granted it was very unfair, but what I noticed is Monstrosity delivering an automatic win. Objective, boss, camps? He just pushes, and when the time comes, just throws hat and enables PvP Raynor to 1v500 successfully.

It’s the same with a Zarya counter, either Zarya goes solo lane and just tries to hold the push while Abathur creates a 4.5v4, or goes PvP snowball and Abathur will build a PvE snowball overriding it with siege and xp advantage.

Adding Aba hat on TLV could also be a little awkward. Some would argue the two heroes cancel out, others would enjoy playing group TLV.

That said, there is a funny stat on Heroes Profile. It says, the top teammates for Abathur in QM are:

  • Cho’Gall, 68.08% winrate
  • Zarya, 64.54% winrate
  • TLV, 63.93% winrate
  • Medivh, 62.80% winrate
  • (Deathwing: 48.12%)

Granted, these are probably stacks. Still, it sounds like very powerful combinations that should be avoided at all costs. CG just becomes way too powerful (likely also combined with a healer), Zarya has infinite sustain, TLV is a murderer anywhere, and Medivh becomes Genji.

Against Abathur, the winrates:

  • Medivh: 40.58%
  • TLV: 55.29%
  • Zarya: 45.70%
  • (Deathwing: 45.96%)

Overall, it suggests either Aba needs a nerf, or Medivh and Zarya need buff (or burf, like trading CD on their weird abilities for more standard behavior, namely damage).

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13

I wish this was true.

Alternatively, I wish I could ban Supports from my matchmaking, it’s really dumb playing matches where one team has a Support and the other doesn’t.

14

There is a rule for Support vs Support.
Which is ignored in favour of the stronger Healer vs Healer rule.
Or thrown out of the window if the MM cannot find a second Support “in time”.

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15

This is what usually happens. As we’ve pointed out before, this is primarily due to there being few heroes in the support category, and the fact that Abathur is sooooo cute, he is far more popular than the other 3 supports. From my experience, I’m more likely to have Abathur mirrored on both teams in QM, than I am to see Zayra vs Abathur.

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