Okay, this honestly could probably be an entire post on it’s own, but it falls under the title of this post, so I am just gonna say my piece here and argue for my favorite class, because unless you’ve sat in the babysitter’s seat, you really don’t understand how much of a mess the support class has, and always been.
I have been supporting for about at long as I’ve had the game which was September 2016. I started playing soon after Ana came out and she for the longest time was my most played support. Now, I am going to put myself out there with my support times, and date last played as accurately as I can. Before I do, I am going to disclaim a few things.
- Yes Mercy is my most played, but I haven’t played her nearly as much as I had a year ago. (She was like 118 hours before the rework if I remember correctly, for reference, Zen was around 75).
- Even when Mercy was my “go-to” I still played Zen, Lucio, and Ana when I felt like it.
- Before her sledgehammer nerfs, Ana was at 65-ish hours.
There’s my disclaimer.
So, in order here’s my playtime on each healer, plus some other stats.
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Mercy
Time played: 134 hours
Last date played: August 20, 2018
Average Healing: 13,194
Average rez’s : 7.59
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Zenyatta
Time played: 129 hours
Last played: September 10th 2018
Average Healing: 8,153
Average Trans healing: 1,784.76
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Ana
Time played: 74 hours
Last played: September 10, 2018
Average healing: 8,271
Enemies slept: 7.41
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Lucio
Time played: 43 hours
Last played: September 9th 2018
Average healing: 11,074
Sound Barrier Average: 15.65
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Moira
Time played: 20 hours
Last played: August 17th 2018
Average healing: 13,362
Average Coalescence healing: 1,621.63
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Brigitte
Time played: 2 hours
Last played: September 20th 018
Average healing: 6,788
Average Armor given 4,786
Now, did I pull these stats to just show off my mad supporting skills? Yes, but mostly to show that I know what I am talking about. I will say I am a little biased as my favorite healer is Zenyatta, and I don’t care too much for playing Moira because she has no utility, but I have played her enough to know how to play her and I’ve played enough support to know what combos work best, and the general feel of playing support.
The first thing I do want to point out, that as a support main, we’re expected to play all supports so we can fill to what the team needs. Which is kind of crappy since, like you can have a tank main who can say “yeah I can’t play this meta tank” and though the team will be kind of bummed, they’ll work around that tank pick, but if a support player cannot play Ana in this current meta it’s basically game over the way some of the players are in this game. I can be more comfortable playing Moira given the comp before me, but because Ana is the support everyone is playing, they will blame anything that goes wrong on me, unless someone picks a “troll pick”. No one gets as pressured as supports to play the meta roster. People generally will work around the DPS, tank roster, But I’ve heard more “Can we get a [insert support here]?” more than anything else in my two years playing this game.
The second things is, there is a reason people think we’re throwing if we don’t pick the “strongest” healing combo. Who cares Lucio and Ana work better together, Zen and Ana is meta so we better have 1 Zenyatta and 1 Ana. The reason is, the other supports are trash, or there is something big holding them back.
- Mercy: With her last heal nerf and in my opinion trash of a rework, she can only out heal the DPS of fellow supports (Moira and Brig) why would anyone want to heal through molasses only to watch their team die anyways? No one. Healing DPS isn’t as bad, but tanks need the constant healing more. Yeah 10hps doesn’t seem big, but it gets bigger as time goes on. What used to take 3 seconds (180 hp healed) to fully heal a 200 hp hero, is now closer to 4 (200 hp healed). A Tank used to be pulled from near 0 to full in 8 seconds (480 healed) to now it takes 9-10 seconds (450 - 500 healed) and with a game as fast as Overwatch, 2 seconds is a long time, especially when Tracer can empty her clip in a second, Hanzo can shoot an arrow in a second.
- Lucio: Now this one is pretty easy. If the enemy has a Lucio, go Sombra. All you have to do is hack to disable him completely and if he doesn’t die when he uses Sound barrier, you can drop an EMP on it and there’s the problem solved. If you don’t want to take the time and energy to be Sombra that’s also no problem, because anyone with a boop can simply use that boop to keep the Lucio away from his team. His abilities all also have a LOS requirement that involves no walls, or shields in between him and his target, and he get slightly less healing to himself while he’s dancing around.
- Moira: If you pick Moira you’re losing out on utility (personally this is why I don’t play her as much). Ana is loaded to her eyes with utility: Nade that can be used in multiple situations, sleep dart, even Nanoboost has a lot of utility. Lucio has his boop and speed boost to help his team, Zen has his discord and his personal damage, and Brig is part tank. Moira has damage? I guess. She needs to do damage to recharge her healing, and sometimes that’s at the cost of her teammates. Yes Zenyatta has to play a similar balancing act as he plays, but at least my healing is reliable if my shots aren’t.
- Brigitte: I honestly have nothing to say on her on why she isn’t meta. I haven’t played her a lot, but I will say out of all the supports, she is the most unreliable in her healing. Her repair pack is on a 5 sec CD and you have to choose wisely on who you give it to, and if you need any healing in between those heals you have to hit the enemy, and unfortunately if you’re playing a poke battle, that isn’t happening.
So, Ana has the most utility, and high burst healing that is hampered by shields and LOS and Zen has low healing, but high potential damage, can help the team focus fire, can place his harmony though shields (but who can’t out-damage 30hps?) but not his discord, and as long as he has LOS within 3 seconds the orbs stay on their place.
They also have 2 ultimates that offer high heals. 300 for Nano on a single target that also give -50% damage taken and +50% damage dealt. Zen’s Trancendance makes him invincible and heals people within LOS and 10m for 300hps.
That is what we’re working with. What supports we have are either easily shut down, or are in a good place, but by comparison they are strong. The high burst damage that DPS can deal, can be out healed by both Ana and Moira, but Ana’s utility belt makes her a lot stronger pick than Moira. Lucio is worse than Zen because his ultimate is so easily countered, as is the fact he’s completely useless upon a Sombra hack.
Every support main has said through the Mercy changes, and even at a time during Ana’s first reign as the Support Queen that the other supports need to be buffed to keep up with the DPS in the game. Right now, it truly feels that if I am not playing Ana or Zen I am holding the team back, that it would be an uphill battle from the beginning. Before, it was a feeling of it’ll be hard, but doable, and now, the optimist “this is doable” when I see anything but Ana in the main heal seat is dwindling.