They don’t lose viability, but gain reason to actually care about their supports. As 1-2 seconds of extra life don’t really justify having to protect your teammates.
Players don’t care about supports, because one just isn’t impactful enough for individual player. One is strong for team as whole, but not for individual players on that team.
Why would Mercy ever get buffed tf?
And she’s one of the most played heroes, she doesn’t need more players
Mercy is literally the most popular hero in the entire game. We don’t need more Mercy players.
Whether we need more support players is a different question, but that doesn’t automatically translate to Mercy just because she’s a support.
Unless they do. If in those 1-2s we got the kill first. Then it mattered a lot more than you’re giving credit for. You got the assist right?
Often it’s just not enough, as supports are balanced around supporting somewhat competent players. Not something you can rely on in general, let alone in F2P game.
Yup. So buff all Supports with big changes, then they can figure out the meta tierlist rankings between Supports with small changes, later.
So how do you know that
A) Kiriko had no effect. Sounds like it would be basically impossible to tell without blizzard commentary, if they were simultaneously changing the algorithm.
and
B) Supports continue to be the limiting role in all regions
If the support population is only 15% of players. And you buff them to a point that they carry frequently. What happens to the 85% of players who now can’t secure kills unless they one shot. You think they pick support?
I don’t know if “Add new Support hero” has a permanent popularity increase for the role.
But I highly suspect it doesn’t.
And you are probably correct, as adding new hero doesn’t fix inherent flaws of role itself.
I think the types of buffs they give Supports should be specifically angled at converting DPS/Tank players into Support players.
Similar to how OW2 Tank changes were angled to convert DPS players into Tank players.
Theoretically we should only have off healers? Because I’d be down for that.
So you suggest to make supports into better DPS/Tanks, than DPS/Tanks? It’s definitely how you can make them pick supports.
They are experts at it and will then make Pikachu face.
I think we should have “FPS Combat Medics”, instead of “MMORPG White Mages”.
With Mercy being the exception to that, where she’s the token “MMORPG White Mage” hero.
For real, Gundam Evolution and Paladins are the most similar games to Overwatch, and they got that figured out.
I will also say this if even half the mercy that left during exodus return the support q problems will be solved.
Yup, but it’s hard to count on that unless they went full “Almost Revert, with buffs for power inflation”.
We need more support players, not specifically more Mercy players. Mercy is the support hero with the least amount of cross-over between other supports, so often in practice, they’re unable to play other support heros to a similar degree of effectiveness. So really, we need more support heros, thus bringing more players to the role, and more players on all the supports. Mercy is the most filled out, tbh. Ana is a high pick hero, but people play her because she is fun and effective…if/when Bap was meta, those same Ana players played Bap at around the same skill level. The same can’t be said for Mercy players, generally.
So buffing a hero that absolutely does not need it, and in fact is being clamored for for nerfs (or, more realistically, reworks) seems like a real strange move.
Why would they return, when game is pushed towards aggression and damage, rather than caring for allies?
Just get rid of roles already. If tanks are fat DPS, then supports should be utility DPS.
We are long past point of bringing former players back.
Please no. “Supps need buffs” doesn’t mean they need better team support power. Such utilities already are too excessive and need nerf if any. Otherwise it just causes damage creep. What they need is individual and independent performance.