Guardian (New Support/Tank Hero Concept)

Story Discussion
1

A very simple hero design that can be taken in many different directions. He is on the tankier side of support, so tanky he might actually fit more as a tank.

Let’s go over the design first.

Design - Guardian is a tall male with a muscular physique. Guardian is a combat medic, using a pump shotgun in one hand and a right shield in the other, he uses the top edge of the shield to rack a new round each time he shoots. He’s got a friendly demeanor and is quite boisterous. He has no modifications to him, just a unit of a man looking to save lives more than taking them. In game he would constantly be standing with the riot shield raised with his shotgun braced on its top edge with him peering over it slightly in full military-esque medic gear. Notably the riot shield is attached to his forearm, leaving the hand slightly free, but not able to do much. On his back is a large mechanical backpack with a few mechanical limbs and a spare shotgun. His reload animation is effectively him handing the shotgun to his backpack so it can reload it while giving him the spare shotgun which will be already loaded, essentially rotating the shotguns out as he uses them back and forth between the two. One of the mechanical arms wields a stim gun, braced on Guardian’s shoulder. His backpack is intelligent, like many of the robotic assistants in overwatch, with its own personality and quirks!

**Weapons and Abilities
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Support or Tank Passive - If tank, either initiator or Bruiser, if Support either Tactician or Survivor

Hero Passive - Guardian Shield - Guardian takes reduced damage to his body from the front and provides a healing/damage resistance aura to any in a cone behind him and himself. His head is still exposed and he can be headshot, but the target is smaller given his positioning with the shield, only showing enough so he can aim and shoot. He suffers no movement speed penalties. He just constantly has the shield up, maybe while reloading his positioning is opened up slightly?

Primary/Secondary - His Primary fire shoots the shotgun which has a pretty tight choke, so the spread isn’t wide, but the damage fall off is great past 10-15m. His secondary fires healing stims from the mechanical backpack arm braced on his shoulder that heal allies and pass through enemies without doing any damage.

Shift Ability - Back off - Guardian charges forward in a manner similar to Mauga/Rein with a prompt to either cancel his charge or hit a shield slam. This shield slam will damage enemies, and knocks them backward, stunning them if they collide with a wall. It also temporarily boosts the passive healing behind him for a few seconds, allowing allies to retreat behind him for a quick boost of healing.

E Ability - Combat Stim - Can be used on himself or an ally. The stim arm fires a combat stim or injects it into Guardian providing damage resistance and some healing over a duration.

Ultimate - Still… a WIP tbh. I’m open to suggestions lol.

Basically I wanted a more aggressive, frontline healer that is similar to Brig, but a little bit different. I mainly liked the idea of using a shotgun with a braced shield and body shot damage reduction from the front.

Ideally how he would play is up front with tanks in a support role where he frequently changes places with the tanks to heal them and give them some breathing room, while laying down suppressive fire with his shotgun. He’s also designed to help peel for fellow healers in case they get jumped, but with increased ranged capabilities.

He’s still in the early stages of being developed, but this is the rough idea.

2

If you ask me, conceptually this would be great for the game, especially if they’re built to be more of a support they could be the kind of hero that can really start giving tanks more breathing room and feel less awful to play. the only issue i can see would be the hero feeling too similar to brig/rein. the shift ability seems like another shield bash, the healing aura like inspire, and the personality is almost exactly reinhardt, which isnt a bad thing necessarily, but it can be hard to make them really stand out if they play, act, and/or feel too similar to other heroes.

I know this is basically unsolicited input from a stranger, just hear me out, i have a few possible suggestions to help them stand out while keeping/boosting the main vibe:

Role: Firstly, I’d make them built around being more of a support hero than a tank, since the concept seems to be designed around giving tanks some breathing room, making them a tank would kinda defeat the purpose. (I touch on subrole at the end)

Passive: The cone is a good way to add a new kind of healing, but it could be difficult or clunky in game, maybe the passive provides teammates with cover in the area behind him, almost like how a zar bubble can cover an ally from dva bomb, and instead of a damage resist zone, he himself gains damage reduction depending if there are allies in the area behind him (probably like, 10% per ally, to a max of 30%), and maybe allies there trigger their passive health regen sooner.

Primary/Secondary: Your version already has this covered mostly, the only point of discussion i have is the secondary fire, since the E is also a stim the name may feel redundant, aside from that I dont see any issue.

Shift: The “back off” is too much like shield bash, which both rein and Brig have already. and since your passive is providing a buff for people behind you, bashing into enemies could be less helpful than it seems. Instead you can make it a quick cover move that can be used directionally if an ally is not near enough to be targetted, It could use a similar targetting mechanic as swift step does and gain the strong movement keyword (and maybe make them invulnerable for a short time so they can actually complete the cover), additionally when you cover an ally they’d gain overhealth and begin healing at a rate of maybe 20-40/second (since it would also stack with the passive healing making it too high could get overpowered, but its also single target so it may go on the higher end)

E ability: This one is actually good, and i would be happy to see it in game, especially on a support. Mild change though, the stim could give a teammate an attack/movement speed and healing recieved buff in place of the damage reduction, and as a support ability could provide healing over time, probably similar to regen burst, but make it last no more than like, 4-5 seconds for balance. (Side Note: If you do end up making them a tank, i might suggest removing the healing and heal boost effects entirely and instead just keeping the damage reduction if used on an ally)

Ultimate: I know you said you dont have something yet, but maybe their ultimate can basically make them a tank for a while, it could be a kind of transformation ult like winston, he could grow a bit bigger (cosmetically could have something to do with the backpack you mentioned), and provide the passive cover to all allies within 10 meters, this could also be where you bring back the damage reduction concept of the passive, in ult form (maybe like a 5-10 second ult) he provides a 25% damage reduction to allies, 50% reduction to himself (passive would not stack here), and he gains an extra 50-75% of his max health as overhealth.

Health Pool/Subrole: The only other points i would want to touch on mechanically (especially since they didnt get brought up) would be health pool and sub-role. they would probably end up in the Tactician subrole (though maybe Survivor, but since the movement ability puts him in the line of fire it may not do him any good)and maybe have 275-300 health, 50-75 of which is armour. (in ult form they would end up with up to 525 health at the most)

I think it would be a really cool concept and veer the game away from supports who just heal and the ult would REALLY differentiate from anything in the game already. (and I do think the concept would work best on support).

(genuinely, not trying to be mean or anything, i hope it doesnt come off that way but I know i can think i sound fine but end up seeming like an a** lol, just figured I’d offer my 2 cents that no one asked for.)

3

I really need to visit the forums more often lol. Thanks for showing interest in my character concept, now let me get into it a bit more (Cause I was a bit tired as of the time of writing it, kinda forgot about it tbh XD)

Role: I’d disagree with the idea of it giving tanks breathing room and moreso the team breathing room. It leans more tank imo, the idea is moreso you’re either saving other supports or your DPS from getting jumped if anything. Initial release brig was more the support saving tanks character and look how they wrecked her lol, so I think it makes more sense to put him in the tank category.

Passive: It seems awkward but thats because its not his primary form of healing. Again, the passive also makes him seem more tank-like than support, because a tank should generally be in the front soaking up damage, and instead of providing a massive barrier like rein to protect his allies, he provides either a healing or damage resistance boost to those behind him. I’d say it should have a 2-3 second lingering effect after leaving it though.

Primary/Secondary: The Secondary is set as his primary way of healing while the E is a Cooldown based self/ally burst heal stim. I.E. he functions a bit like Baptiste where his secondary can heal allies, but if we put him more in the tank role we can honestly probably just scrap the secondary entirely.

Shift: There are plenty of abilities that act like back off but again its more like a Rein charge than a shield bash, but instead of carrying the enemy, you just collide with em and send em backward. I even thought of adding the distance you run affects the damage you do and distance you launch an enemy you collide with. It’s meant as an ability to clear space, push an enemy away from your more vulnerable characters and allowing them to recover behind him, again putting the wall (Him) in front of the enemy, and his allies behind him so they can benefit from his backward healing cone.

E ability: Realistically, I think that this would work better as a self-use ability only. A little pick me up to keep him in the fight, and it works better in the tank role if it stacks on more damage resistance.

Ultimate: Could work if hes made into a healer, but I still think he might lean more heavily towards tank than support with his kit.

Health Pool/Subrole: I didn’t mention health, but I did mention subrole lol “Support or Tank Passive - If tank, either initiator or Bruiser, if Support either Tactician or Survivor” As a tank I would probably put him at 400-500 health, with about 100-200 health being armor. If he was a Support, I’d see him more at 250-275 health with a good 75 or so being armor.

All good, like I said, at the time of writing I wasn’t sure which he fit better into categorically, but what… a few months later and I’m thinking he might be more set for a Tank role than support role, but I appreciate the engagement! : )