they told us kiriko was a dps support.
she’s actually closer to a main healer
they told us ram was a tempo tank
he’s actually a more aggressive version of ow1 orisa
they are telling us lifeweaver is a mercy like main support
he seems to be an utility support with low heals
what gives?
Unfortunately the video’s no longer around since Twitch deletes them after a bit, but in the run up to Sigma’s release Seagull got to play around with the character while chatting with devs. They asked him who Sigma’s ideal co-tank would be. Zarya? Roadhog? D.Va? I’ll tell you which tank they didn’t mention: Orisa.
Overwatch is such a complex system that I’m not surprised that they don’t entirely know how a kit is going to play out in the wild. I can imagine they thought that Kiriko would be played as a flanker instead of scooping up as much ult charge as possible from healing.
So… He’s exactly like Mercy. They got it right this time.
yeah but it seems consistently off the mark. it comes a point where you wonder if they eother have no clue what they’re doing or if the marketing team is pulling words that would be marketable out of their backsides.
they called sigma a main tank and he turned out to be an off tank with a barrier
I think it’s both. I don’t have a high opinion of marketing in general, I’ll tell you that much.
neither do i.
kiriko obviously is something produced entirely by a marketing team instead of any creative intention and there’s the whole paid hero crap that ensures i woulf barely touch the game. i still have to unlock ramattra and i wouldnt even have kiriko if it wasn’t for her being free for ow1 accounts
Is this supposed to be the mercy like…? I dont see it but maybe?
Devs have also said (iirc) that dva matrix was for escorting rat tires once so. They are a silly bunch sometimes.
What they intend and how things end up playing out with the playerbase are often different. They likely wanted people to be aggressive with Kiriko but people found that exploiting her heals and playing for ult gave more value.
What a tempo tank is an odd classification and I’m not entirely sure what they believe that to be but he’s basically just a tank that can poke and brawl.
The “Mercy cute” I predicted to be a bit of bait and that it would be a male character. They just made an attractive male with some androgynous features and traits about him. Mercy cute doesn’t have to be female. His healing doesn’t require aim as such so in that way he’s also similar to Mercy.
When people were asking for a mercy like, I think most people wanted something thet could transfer her movement skills onto. Not another character with a no aim heal.
Who knows, really, since “Mercy like” is different things to different people. To me, what I used to like about Mercy was going from teammate to teammate with a priority on healing and only using blue beam as filler. To others, it’s entirely about the movement and movement tech. To still others, it’s about blue beam.
Personally, Kiriko scratches the Mercy itch for me, but for other people it’s not the same at all (and I get why).
I have to agree. The PR team seems to be objectively lacking knowledge of the community names given to roles and play styles.
I don’t think that’s what they have in mind when thinking about entry level characters that aren’t heavily mechanic based.
True. I thought of it as her movement and the focus on decision making over aim. Weaver has part of that but his movement doesn’t look like a dominant part of his kit. Still fun, just leagues away from what makes mercy, mercy (imo)
I don’t know if that even applies to weaver. Dude has 7 abilities and most of them are not new player friendly.
Mercy like = Low aim requirement, so yes.
I definitely agree that LW is not newbie friendly. Bap has had a rubbish win rate outside of GM since… forever, and he doesn’t have to deal with weapon swap delays, charge heals, abilities* that can grief allies, weak self peel, debatable payoff and a weird key binding setup.
This guy might just be the most unforgiving support in the line up at time of writing.
*Yes, plural. Life Grip is obvious, but the lift also has screw-up potential, as does his ult since it blocks like a Mei Ice Wall.
Yes someone already said, though it’s not what I was anticipating since we already have plenty of low aim sups.
that is the other thing i was wondering, how can anyome see a kit with so much potential griefing if used incorrectly. They are not even immediately aparent what to do.
heroes like mc cree or mercy are intuitive and simple, but LF seems like the kind of heroe a complete newcomer would need two or threeatches to figure out what he’s supposed to do and not be a liability.
Mei got 3 stars just for her wall basically
I thought they just meant cute ( 
) and easy to play mechanically like mercy.
I think OP’s point holds in that regard, too. A character that needs weapon swapping to get full value, with one of the weapons being a charge move and the other an attack with heavy spread to control, doesn’t sound that easy to me, even if the healing ability is lenient.
When they said mercy like, I thought they meant accessible to all skill levels. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but Lifeweaver looks like he’ll be the most challenging support to play.
Both lifegrip and petal platform have insane potential, but I can’t imagine anyone below GM is going to really utilize it in a meaningful way. I can imagine a lot of people will just be randomly lifting their teammates up in a battle.