“Tuning Supports down for OW2” (Hurricane Santa edition)

[Yin-1797]

@Doomfish-11651

Tuning down the Supports doesn’t sound good. It actually sounds horribly downright awful.

@AndyB-11735

In our playtests, having one less tank made it clear to us that tanks generally contribute much more damage than they mitigate, even on retail. Because of the drop in overall damage being dealt out, Supports were actually too effective at keeping the entire team alive, so we’re testing a tuned down healing output across the board to ensure that teamfights still resolve in a way that doesn’t feel drawn out or frustrating to play against.

@Doomfish-11651

Just seems they are lessen the power of healing and other abilities. Just so we be hiding and focusing on healing more.

So what I’m finding lines up with what Blizzard says. Tanks are doing lots of damage currently in Overwatch right now. I’m seeing Tanks like Zarya, Sigma, Roadhog, and D.va averaging close to ~15k damage, and typically higher than what Tracer’s total damage values are.

This is not unusual given how Blizzard has balanced Tanks. So by removing one tank from the current balancing situation in Overwatch right now, means that you’re losing out 15k damage, and the possibility of one-shot opportunities (since several Tanks are capable of this). This means that healing power is going average higher and stronger in Overwatch 2 than in the prior game, so tuning down healing is logical.

@Xaby-21512

On the hindsight Baptiste was an bad example in some way as he is a huge part of the healing creep problem with one of the highest AoE heals

He’s better tuned now, but he can still ramp up quite a bit if everyone sticks together. If they are toning down healing in OW2, he’s most likely been tweaked, so he should be in a better spot.

@CosmicElf-11883

The problem with this is, they are just repeating the mistakes of 2016/early 2017 with allowing Dive hypermobile characters to rule the game. Of course players on these kits think this is just fine, but most were not around then and have no idea how stale the game becomes with just that. Also, do not expect any significant playerbase to stick with the game to just be slow-moving fodder for these kits either. It’s not sustainable as a game. This move with Brig is less game design, than marketing.

Overwatch was still really popular and still growing then, it’s only when Brigitte and the eventual GOATS metagame did Overwatch began to stagnate. And even prior to that, during the period you mentioned; it wasn’t flanking that was dominating, but Triple-Tank due to Ana’s Nanoboost.

@VexInsanity-2870

No because that utility is already very strong. And even stronger in 5v5.
5v5 is in itself a buff for dps and supports. it’s just a buff that you cant really gauge the impact of. There is less stopping them from doing what they want to do. But also more value in their kits with less players.

Supports already have exceptional value, though it is tuned to be slightly less than Tanks, due to homogenization (again, how many supports boost damage). Value in terms of damage, isn’t necessarily going to increase unless they suddenly decide that every damage-role hero gets some utility added to their kits (which I don’t think they’ll do). Thus, for Damage-role it’s going to continue to be value based on how quickly they can eliminate targets. Basically, Damage isn’t going to gain value (regardless of whether there’s one tank or two). but since they’re mandatory, they can’t be rendered irrelevant to the composition.

Individually… that’s still going to an issue, but we’ll see what Blizzard can do here.

@lorenzo-11776

I just think that if they reduce healing across supports that other parts of their kits would be made stronger.

Healing is healing and it’s a value into itself. It doesn’t really matter how much healing you’re capable of, only that you can do it and provide it towards the team. That’s value. The rest of their kit has value, but that will depend on what value they can give to their team. Most Supports typically offer more value than nearly all of the Damage-role, but many also offer some utility that many of them share. Damage-boosting via direct or indirect is one such case and that cheapens the value that an individual Support can offer.

@Jukebox-22596

They’ve said they want more ‘individual impact’ but as soon as a Tank or Support has individual impact they get hard nerfed. Now they’ve fully admitted they’re removing even more playmaking from supports.

WHen everyone can do damage and one-shot, the uniqueness of damage and one-shotting is lessen. Put another way, damage is cheap value. One-shotting is capable by several; thus if your only role in the game is to produce damage, you won’t have much value. Hence why Tanks and Supports have tremendous impact and value, because they do something more than just damage.

@Jukebox-22596

They’ve talked about how they wanted to make the TTK even faster (and they have).

TTK has slowed from launch and it used to be even faster back in beta. Damage as a whole has gone down, and while somewhat necessary; healing creeped up along with a number of new tanking methods (Fortify effects, Steadfast, Kinetic Grasp/Defense Matrix).

@Jukebox-22596

They’re turning Tanks into big, worse, more boring DPS.

Tanking itself is an anomaly. It only really exists and works in the MMO sphere and only because of dumb AI. You can’t really have heroes in a competitive game designed to take in all this damage and still live through it. You break the game, and it gets worse when you double it.

@Jukebox-22596

They’re giving every DPS Genji’s ultimate movement as a permanent passive.

Unlikely.

@Jukebox-22596

Supports are getting a passive that’s going to be less than impactful against any kind of mobility because every DPS can now 100% out run them

Unlikely.

@Jukebox-22596

Tanks are getting a pointless passive and DPS are going to be able to ignore them (because of that passive).

Also unlikely. Tanks being able to resist Mei’s slow will allow them to more confidently deal with her.

@Jukebox-22596

They’re never going to fix the fact that there are more DPS than tanks and supports put together. As well as the DPS having way more character and playstyle variety.

The biggest variety in playstyles is found in Tanks, not Damage. It’s only in Tanks do you have the fastest hero in the game. A bonafide melee hero with a hammer and shield. A unit that can fly and self-destruct and not die when the mech is killed. Only in the Tank-role can you find a literal Butcher from Diablo. And only in the tank-role can you find animals, omnics and humans.

Sure, the Damage-role has builders, commandos and soldiers; cowboys and ninjas; but all of them have guns. Very rarely in the Damage-role do you find a unique weapon like Mei’s freeze spray, or Genji’s shuriken or Hanzo’s bow. And yeah, you got plenty of choices in the Damage-role which includes Echo. So someone there will always fit you in terms of variety.

@Sprklmufin-1212

(I know mercy is balanced but she could have been way more engaging to play

But that’s not what Blizzard wants for Mercy. In this case, Blizzard wins.