Ana isn’t OP, the entire Support Class has been powercreeped

General Discussion
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Before the Mercy rework, Lucio maintained a near 100% pickrate in pro play, and he was the top hero in the game even after his rework.

When the Mercy rework hit, Lucio instantly dropped into obscurity, overshadowed by Mercy’s ridiculous Resurrect output and her new found utility and survivability.

Now, Lucio was the most picked support in the OWWC Burbank Stage, and he is the second-most picked Support in GM after Ana. What changed?

In addition to the many Mercy nerfs, Lucio had his Boop ammo requirement removed, his wallriding abilities streamlined, his ultimate shields buffed by 50% and his Aura’s AoE increased by 44%.

Lucio was not the only hero to experience significant powercreep. Ana fell off during the pre-Mercy Dive meta as a direct result of D.Va being able to consistently eat Biotic Grenade and Sleep Dart, making Zenyatta the better option.

Ana did not need a 600hp burst heal, 4 extra shots, shooting through teammates and 10 more damage per shot. With D.Va getting her DM duration cut, she can no longer make Ana completely useless, and thus Ana would have been more viable had she not been changed at all. Even the first buff back to 70dmg would have been enough to bring her back into competition with Zenyatta.

The issue was never Ana and Lúcio being terrible, the issue Mercy being disgustingly OP. In Blizzard’s effort to bring Lúcio and Ana back into the limelight, they brought what was already arguably the strongest class another leg up.

So, what is the solution? Nerf Mercy, Ana and Lucio more? Probably not the best idea. Instead, Mercy should probably receive some sort of rework and the recent buffs to Ana and Lúcio should probably be reverted.

The balance of the individual supports themselves isn’t the issue, the issue is that the entire class has been buffed.

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Balancing Plat and below is certainly doable.

Diamond in the middle.

But I kinda wonder if it’s a fools errand to try to enforce variety on Masters/GM which will play whatever is the most viable, even if it’s only slightly better.

Especially since those ranks are very quick to switch to something different entirely when new meta strategies are found.

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Considering that the game at the top level right now is extremely diverse (except for the DPS class), that type of sentiment is simply unfounded.

As long as characters are map dependent and close in viability, the strengths of individual players will generally win out over minor deviations in the meta.

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Both can be true.

Ana is OP.
AND
Supports, their healing specifically, has grown far too powerful.

But on the whole, Supports are just…not what they should be.

Ana: gets jumped, auto spams Grenade at her own feet, damages enemy and heals herself back to full. So much as hears a audio telegraph, fires a Sleep Dart in its general direction with impunity.

Zen, just spends the round spamming right click at corners, Discording tanks so they drop in seconds. Ult builds lightning fast so he can go Avatar State every fight and block multiple enemy ultimates.

Brigitte: We win the fight because I can hold left click!

Lucio: Relentless right clicks coupled with stalling isn’t that a whimsical idea!

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It is diverse, more diverse than it’s been in a long while.

Just saying making it more diverse than it is now is going to be difficult.

And anything that is balanced for lower ranks when taking skill into account, will have different effects at the highest ranks.

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That’s why the game isn’t balanced around low ranks. There are some exceptions of course (most notably 35% Ironclad Bastion) but those only apply in very, very extreme cases.

Making the game more diverse at the top level wouldn’t be that difficult. If we go down the list of DPS heroes, there are some easy changes to make the DPS class more viable.

Soldier: 76: Sprint now breaks the Uppercut lock and his damage is once again 20dmg per bullet.

Mei: Cryo-Freeze Cooldown reduced to 10s, now reloads Mei’s weapon.

McCree: Fan the Hammer spread decreased from 6.50 degrees to 5 degrees in order to increase the utility of Combat Roll’s reload.

Bastion: Spread tightened and Headshots reinstated OR Ironclad Damage reduction increased from 20% to 25% or 30% (the highest it can go before he’s unkillable in lower ranks again). Also, I think the maximum damage reduction cap should go from 50% to 60%, just so Bastion’s passive isn’t useless while Nanoed.

Torbjorn: He’s getting a rework.

Symmetra: If she needs anything, Perma TP and a buffed Primary are the best solutions.

Roadhog: Revert back to before Damage nerfs.

Orisa: Probably okay, maybe some sort of cd reduction to Fortify.

Reaper: Improve his ultimate and his teleport.

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diamond isnt the middle.

Gold/plat is the top of the bell curve for overwatch players.
Thats where most of the players are at.
IMO, thats where the win rate average for characters should be very much near 50%.

Every other rank it doesnt matter except if it hits over 60% in gm.
The reason it increases is because players better use and exploit the depth a character has to better benefit their game play. Like genji’s dash refresh.

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Well, I mostly agree there.
Fix the F-tier and meh-tier heroes.
Stuff grey is thinking about

And maybe give Mercy 55hps and Moira heals through shields again.

Variety will go up, and we might even achieve some amazing variety from Plat on down.

Just color me skeptical that that effect won’t be muted in GM.

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This Ana sounds terrible and you should not have any trouble dealing with her

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Mercy doesn’t really need any buffs, it took giving Ana and Lúcio insane buffs to stop her from being a must-pick, and she still isn’t useless, she had a 30% pickrate in the Burbank group stage.

Moira could use healing through barriers, but honestly Moira is just a low-skill hero and she should be situational in the high ranks. Moira’s biggest problem right now is that GOATs loses to Ana GOATs almost every time.

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Well I think Mercy pickrate is sagging a bit in Plat/Diamond.

Perhaps they could shave a bit of time off her Rez cast?
Say 1.0sec instead of 1.75sec.

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I don’t know why, but Ana has always had an unexpectedly high pickrate in Platinum. Personally, I think it’s because Platinum players think they’re better than they really are.

Regardless, Mercy still maintains an almost exactly even winrate with Ana in Platinum and Gold.

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Well, ranks at the top have shrunk since February.

So old low Diamond is now high Plat.


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That’s probably intentional and won’t be reverted. Strong supports are needed to attract enough people to play them. Most people play mostly for fun even in comp and support is the least glamorous role. There is never a shortage of people willing to play DPS and tanks need two healers to function optimally.

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Grand Master and Master do not necessarily follow all of the pro strats. Frequently when I’ve looked at stats they seem to only have part of the strategies trickle down.

Here’s an example from 2017.

Source: http://www.omnicmeta.com:80/2017/05/pro-vs-ladder-hero-usage-s4.html

Mercy was in a decent portion of the World Cup matches both in winrate and pick rate. but, if you check Overbuff you’ll see her pick rate for today is @ 1.74% in GM and 3.37% in Masters. For comparison, Ana is @ 14.56% in GM and 13.24% in Masters and Moira is @ 1.54% in GM and 3.34% in Masters.

An argument could be made that the supports are balanced at Pro level but, in GM the traditional main healer numbers look terrible.

(I’d contest that it’s actually balance at Pro as I don’t think the matches were even enough or of significant number to actually tell. You had one of the coaches in the US vs Canada match talking about not being practiced against what the other team was doing which suggests things are on the experimental stage rather than being terribly known.)

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Looks like zen is need of minor buffs

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To be fair, 35% ironclad bastion was borderline unstoppable. Even at high ranks the “omnic crisis” meta was abused to hell and back again and he could tank entire ultimates with impunity.
Also, don’t forget that Ironclad used to stack with nanoboost, making him essentially immortal.
Tho i agree with tightnening the spread and put headshot back. That’d have very little impact in lower ranks, while significantly raises his skillcap and viability in highr ranks.
But i’d go for a raising spread, like soldier, so that burst fire can allow him to be precise at longer range.

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He’s #5 for winrate at the present on PC.

He’s the only support that has been nerfed more than he’s been buffed lately but, I’m not sure he needs to creep forward just yet.

Personally, I think the Omnics are lacking appeal to portions of the player base and that is part of why their pick rates tend to be lower. Zen for much of the time since I played the game has had an above average winrate with a pick rate that suggested people didn’t want to play him. For example, over the past six months he had a pick rate of 10.96% in GM Comp but, in GM QP that drops to 5.17% for comparison Mercy fell from 9.44% to 8.19%

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i’m honestly kind of baffled lucio got buffed so dramatically
a lot of people here said the ult buff wouldn’t be meaningful and that the aura increase is too small

it’s weird of blizzard to buff the hero that had a near 100% pickrate up until the mercy rework instead of trying to address the reason lucio fell hard to begin with (mercy’s rework)

i don’t think enough people understand how ridiculously powerful supports are in this game

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Your title says Ana isn’t OP, but than your post explains why she needs to be reverted because she is out of hand currently.

Honestly I don’t think its a bad as people think it is, just make resurrect suck less for Mercy, and give Moira a buff, and they should be fine.

1 Like