So you’ve read the title and thought “What? You stupid?” And yes I am, which is why I thought of this. And yes, it’s most likely stupid. Very much. But hear me out:
In the event the 4 remaining-and-never-expanding Support line up gets re-roled, 3 of them seem pretty easy. Zarya would go back to be a Warrior. I think we can all agree on this. Aba and Medivh should be healers… “Healers”, Assassin doesn’t suit them, in my opinion. (In Medivh’s case, an Assassin with that much Utility?) But then, what about the Vikings? Assassin seems the best, they can do damage if done right, the right level 7 and 13 talents. (Coming from the stupid one that plays on Vs AI) But then I thought, What about Bruiser? And after some thinking, it could work, but they’d need to be reworked.
Baleog gets his Pain Don’t Hurt Talent but doesn’t heal more off Heroes, which is where the new Pain Don’t Hurt Talent would help with.
Erik gets part of his Erik the Swift Talent that gives him healing while moving. Maybe, thinking about it, unsure it’d work as well because it’s… Erik. But the idea is there.
And Olaf is fine as is really.
This gives the other 2 vikings a touch of self sustain.
But some of you might be thinking, “There’s more to a Brusier than Self Sustain” and if you mean CC, then that box is already ticked. Olaf can Slow for a few seconds when attacking heroes. Least we forget.
In the event the Erik changes don’t happen, we got ourselves a reworked Vikings as Bruiser. Might help the Vikings garner hate… or more hate, idk the bit on Viking hate.
And no, this wasn’t anything to do with me wanting more Bruisers because I play Bruisers more than Tanks and I’m sticking to that.
It is not stupid. I actually agree with you. When they announced the role rework I was 100% sure they would be relabelled as Bruisers. It is weird to have them as “Supports”.
I ain’t trying to remove the supports, it was more a “What If” thing.
Aba makes sense but Medivh can heal teammates. And I’d rather not see an Assassin with that much utility. Do you? I get why people said it, of course, it’s just what I feel.
Supports are not never expanding tho.
It was said there are no Support Heroes planned at the time of saying this, which alone could’ve changed since that.
Warrior is no longer a thing tho.
Medivh was originally planned to be a Healer but was changed intentionally into a non-Healer/non-Assassin because it just doesn’t fit him that well.
What if we don’t mean CC? Vikings are too squishy to be a Bruiser and no amount of CC or Sustain helps that.
Same reason why Murky is not a Bruiser.
You don’t need to change him at all that he could be a viable assassine. His current version works as assassine pretty well, but he is just very hard to play to work out as mage.
It’s not hated, it just doesn’t make sense. It basically replaced the specialist role because specialists as a role didn’t make sense either.
Problem with support as a role is that the definitions of the word support doesn’t match the role of support in game. When ppl think of support, they think of how a person can somehow “assist” another person. The support doesn’t fit all heroes in it’s role. TLV is not a support. They don’t provide any extra support. They either solo lane or soak. That’s the role given to a bruiser typically.
As for the rest, Medivh Zarya and Aba, while they do provide abilities based on the definition, only Zarya and Aba are really played as supports. Medivh plays as a dps-mage; sort of like Guldan but with less burst but more utility.
Blizzard needs to determine what exactly the role of support is supposed to be or we fall in to the same problem specialists had… Without a proper classification, it’ll just sit as a wierd class that nobody understands, and balancing such heroes will be difficult for blizzard because they won’t know what to balance for them or how.
As well, to be noted, supports seems to not be entirely a class of it’s own, ever. By this I mean, support cannot solely be a “support” but will always be a support mixed with another class, which adds to the confusion. For instance, Zarya is a support but also has “bruiser-like” characteristics which is confusing because you could then go ahead and say “well then why can’t Medivh be considered a support” but then you’d have to take all heroes and ask yourself that question as well: why isn’t Tyrael a support? He offers plenty of support like qualities, more so than Medivh and I wouldn’t be able to give you an answer.
Only 1 hero fits the support class by its pure definition of support and thats Abathur. I don’t really need to explain why on this.
In the end, until Blizzard actually comes up with an actual definition/purpose to the support role as to what they’re supposed to do, this role will remain as it’s only sole purpose to replace the old “specialist” role.
Actually Murky’s playstyle comparable to Vikings and if you say Vikings could fit a bruiser/solo laner. Why shouldn’t Murky fit the role as well? In fact both heroes are played efficiently as solo laner, which is usually the bruiser’s job. I would even like to add Samuro, who can be played as solo laner, but his kit is more fitting to be assassine.
Olaf has 1848 with Olaf the Stout, and a trait that causes 93 health regen per second out of combat on top of his base regen and trait regen.
As long as he doesn’t sit there and die, he can absorb a fair amount alone.
Zarya - Bruiser, easily. She lacks the CC to be a proper tank, but can soak, waveclear, and even take camps quite effectively - Not to mention her strong team fight capability.
Medivh - Would actually put him in the Range Assassin - Mage camp. Chromie, Probius, and even Raynor all have support-like talents, so while it doesn’t dominate their kit as much as W/E dominates Medivh’s kit, if you can have support-like tanks and damage-like healers, then support-like assassins are perfectly allowable.
Abathur - Needs a total rework. More emphasis on map control via mines and locusts as well as group healing via carapace and, again, mines, and less emphasis on “Turn Decent AA hero into Unstoppable Godmode hero”
Personally, I’m leery at turning TLV into a Bruiser after the Gazlowe fiasco. How about TLV as a melee assassin akin to Murky? They are individually squishy, but collective deal an absurd amount of damage.
If you play Medivh only as a ranged Assassin, you’re blatantly missing huge parts of his kit. View on the opponents at any time, Portals and Shields.
Low level player can’t fully utilise his kit. They usually don’t look at the mini map, to make his raven form useful, they don’t use portals and if, they use them to get themselves in trouble instead of saving. If you don’t know how long his Shields protect you, you will overextended and die.
Medivh is fine as he is. If you think, he needs a rework, come back when you have enough experience to talk about changes.
Same goes for the rest of the support heroes. Learn to play them useful, learn to play with them on your team. Than you can ask for changes