My thoughts about Support in live OW and Beta phases 1 & 2.
Support has been very strong overall. During the first beta phase I felt they needed a nudge in the right direction, and some heroes got it. Some heroes got a bit of a well deserved nerf. Others are still being worked on.
When beta phase 1 went live I knew almost instantly during my time played in the first few matches, our passive was too powerful. Blizzard tuned it down and while it’s still very powerful, it’s not as insanely over the top once you’re out of a combat scenario. I’m speaking more so for Ana, Moira, Lucio, Bapt.
We know the Fox hero is coming near or in October, but it’s a bit annoying to wait so long. Then again, I believe the Support role is the most difficult to balance fairly. As much as we hate it, they need to take additional time and extra care to not only make our next Support fun, but not too OP. I think it’ll end up over-tuned without a doubt. But the less they have to tweak the better.
I still hate Mercy. Look, I get players want to be passive and maneuver around the map, that’s fine, but I’ll always be annoyed seeing a Mercy jumping around without taking some action to defend themselves beyond evasion. The Mercy’s that actually pull out a pistol, whether on my team or the opponent’s make me happy. It would be nice to see Mercy get something extra that isn’t dedicated to clicking heads per se, but still involves timing and punishing enemies that isn’t about dodging them.
Both Ana and Zen need a nerf in OW2. Not OW on live. Let me make that clear. They are both my most played heroes over the past 6 years, and I love them. They’re extremely fun IMO, but are too oppressive in the current beta phase. Don’t remove abilities, just tone down their effectiveness.
The Support role is as fun as ever for me. Maybe even more so with how the game plays. Support is not only powerful, but feels great IMO, barring Mercy.
I’ll miss 6v6, but 5v5 has its own charming qualities to the gameplay and I welcome it more than I did upon its initial introduction.