We’re approaching the point now where even Tracer/Soldier are weak due to the immense amount of burst healing this game has now. The only viable way to kill things now are one-shots, thus why we have a sniper meta. But I think if we universally tone back healing, it could lead to more other compositions such as dive, deathball, etc.
I think if we do this, we may find that we don’t need one-shots to burst through all the healing and sustain in the game. Because after all, this game has been caught up in a healing arms race that spawned goats.
I don’t think a healing arms race spawned GOATS. I also don’t think healing needs to be universally nerfed, mostly because since all the support heal at different values it’d be difficult.
Having a new character or two who can REDUCE the potency of healing could work though
Yeah, it’s pretty jarring. It’s also a problem that there’s just no drawback to spamming healing to no end. Just look at other games: MMOs, Mobas, even some other FPS. They all have limits in place to prevent healing from being dished out infinitely, whether it’s through resource bars (e.g. mana), diminishing returns or some other restrictions.
The current sniper problem is pretty much being enforced by the state of healing… and the reason is even twofold. First, most obvious reason is that healing incentivizes the use of one-shots to kill things reliably. But healers also cancel out the main weakness of one-shot heroes when they’re on their team. A sniper’s main weakness is usually their lack of self-sustainability, meaning that even if they just get showered with trash damage they have to back off to search for healing continuously. Now look at this game: half of the supports can heal a sniper to full health in a matter of seconds and some can even do it from across the map. Most complaints about Widow also involve her getting pocketed by one or more supports in the end.
And they also need to implement more heroes with anti-heal mechanics… and not only slap it on supports that can also heal either.
Yup. Healing is absolutely killing this game. Many of us have said this for at least a year but Blizzard will never nerf it. They’ll give McCree a second revolver instead
Healing is weaker now that it was during 3-tank meta though?
There’s just more sources of it.
Plus the problem isn’t that things don’t die, it’s that things die too quickly resulting in running less DPS in the meta because the risk of them dying is too high compared to the sustain/ utility that support/ tanks offer
I could run a DPS, with 200hp, who can die in less than a second from Widowmaker, Hanzo, Ashe, McCree, Soldier, Doomfist etc. or I could run a tank, who does decent damage themselves, with defensive tools AND 400+ hp
That’s the problem; tanks are just fat DPS at this point, Healing needs to be high because damage is constantly going up
When Soldier had 20 damage last time; Ana’s healing grenade lasted for 5 seconds (Only 4 now) and had a 100% heal bonus (It’s only 50% now). Ana was able to heal 250hp with her 10 second cooldown THEN more over 5 seconds.
That is literally Ana’s ULTIMATE now without the bonus healing afterwards. Heck even Tanks were stronger back then too.
Moira has the highest single target healing with 155hps (Primary + Orb) that doesn’t use an ultimate.
Goat’s isn’t strong because of healing; it’s strong because Tanks/ Support utility is actually able to survive the huge influx of damage being added to the game
Firstly, I’d like to say that we’re not in a sniper meta, definitely not the case for most of ladder play. I’ve only seen snipers in the highest levels of play consistently, but a lot of the times it’s goats and goats variation, so they’re not even very dominant there. Across broader ranks, we’ve hardly ever seen as much diversity in pickrates before this; lots of different DPS are getting picked up, tanks and supports we weren’t seeing are making a comeback or even becoming meta. So I disagree that we’re in a meta determined by snipers, though their influence over the game is definitely significant, they just aren’t present enough in actual games to say they’re meta.
I also don’t see how lowering healing across the board would make one-shots less effective or predominant. Even if you just nerfed burst healing (of which there’s very few single abilities that burst heal substantially), you’re still just as susceptible to getting sniped as before if you’re a squishy. All burst damage/healing does is determine outcomes faster, not necessarily better.
I think people often get this idea that there’s “a ton” of healing in the game just because healing often ends up stacked. It does seem oppressive, admittedly, if you’re pumping shell after shell into a Roadhog that has three different healing resources on him. But those are multiple sources being used just to keep one person alive. I wouldn’t jump to say that any singular or even small handful of abilities are problematic in this regard. Repair Pack comes off as the worst to me, it’s a very easy big heal on a medium cooldown, but it’s also attached to a support without any other direct healing ability. Within its own world, it isn’t really a problem.
Plenty of DPS are proving successful right now, especially when enabled with the right comp, the right enemy, or the right map. Healing has never really been a game-defining attribute and I’d hesitate to say it is now, games are more often won with utility and successful strategy execution than it is with just raw healing. A high-heals comp might require a change in DPS or require more specific targeting, but you’re certainly not just limited to one-shots every single game everyday without fail.
You can’t just “introduce” a new character to counter a meta. If you do they’ll either be
A. Weak and won’t be able to change the meta or
B. Be like Brigitte and be super OP. Because how can you expect a character to counter the meta without being stronger than the meta themselves…
What I’m saying is: introducing a character to counter the meta is never the way to go, as evidenced by Brig.
What I’m proposing is NOTHING like what happened with Brigitte, I’m not saying bring in one character to counter a Meta, I’m trying to say that having more heroes who can counter heal and heal stacking rather than having Ana be the only option to do so is a better alternative to just merging all the Supports
Do you guys realise how dangerous anti heal is? Mercy and moiras effectiveness are tied to their healing first and foremost. Nobody wants your damage boost if they’re a corpse. Coincidentally these two are off meta healers to boot so I don’t know where the blame comes from. Off healers completely eclipse the main healers in top tier play. All except Ana who has anti heal utility. Not to mention the anti heal effect will hit the low HPS having healers more.
There is also the fact that more anti heal means one could create anti heal stacking. Like it is not just as simple as tossing a few anti heal heroes, these things have repercussions