Hot Take: Supports Do Not Need More Buffs

General Discussion
1

Supports are actually extremely strong right now. The reason they can be frustrating to play is not because they’re weak, but because they are often focused.

Tank damage and stuns need to be toned down and certain dps need to be nerfed, giving supports more breathing room. Simply buffing supports will only result in power creep where focus will shift to less mobile dps instead, making them the new buff targets. Once those are buffed, you’ll see supports again becoming the focus targets. If buffed enough, they will be very difficult to kill, which will lead to goats style endless fights where no one can secure a kill.

2 Likes
2

Ok if support buffs are out of the question then there should be a general reduction in damage across the board take everyone back to pre goats damage numbers, then they can actually start balancing the game.

1 Like
3

Yeah, this is a pretty reasonable take.

The supports are asking for buffs because they don’t think this will happen though.

I think there should be anyway, hell, I would be happy with support healing nerfs if this happened. Pushing the TTK up wouldn’t be a bad thing.

2 Likes
4

This is take is weak. Do not enter this take in the county fair because it is WEAK!

Trying to boil a complex situation down to ‘buff support’ or ‘nerf support’ is so childish and reductive.

It’s also a very common take.

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If we get pre-GOATS damage numbers we also need to get pre-GOATS healing numbers.

2 Likes
6

Here’s a bit of theory crafting, reduce all damage by 10-20% for DPS 5-10% for tank and maybe 10-15% for supports (tanks and support need some damage to be able to take space and defend themselves) and remove one shots

7

Pre goats healing numbers where higher than they are now as blizzards idea to stop goats was to reduce healing and increase damage putting healing to pre goats would result in no-one dying.

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You need to balance herowise any general buff or nerf will only make the game worse.

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That’s why I gave a range of percentage reduction different heroes will have different reductions within that range. Here are some ideas

For widow and hanzo there damage would be reduced to 95 for a fully charged body shot 190 for a crit

I would rebalance kiriko by getting rid of her 3x damage gimmick increasing her base damage to 50 with a 100 DMG headshot maybe up her fire rate to be inline with zen reducing his damage from 48 to 44 and also reduce how effective discord is

Reduce ashes damage while scoped to 70 (down from 80) and unscoped to 25 (down from 30)

These are just some off of the top of my head going off heroes whose damage numbers I actually know.

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It’s not about dmg or hp numbers though, for example ana needs antinade tweaked to get buffs else were.

A lot of issues are kit issues rather than raw dmg or hps or moment speed.

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The global damage reduction would just be a baseline then specific abilities can be balanced from there

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Higher with who?
Mercy heals more than she did pre-GOATS.
Lucio heals more than he did pre-GOATS
Zenyatta heals the exact same amount as he did pre-GOATS
Ana heals a lot more than she did pre-GOATS.
Brigitte heals more than she did pre-GOATS.
Baptiste and Kiriko didn’t even exist pre-GOATS.

The only support in the entire game that heals for more HP than they did before the GOATS meta in early 2018 is Moira. So I’m not sure where you got this idea that healing was such a runaway problem then and isn’t now.

13

Hottake, literally everybody who doesn’t want them to fix Matchmaker issues quit the game, and it wouldn’t matter.

2 Likes
14

Mercy Healed 60 per second before goats, Lucio had a much larger radius on his aura, brig could burst heal 150hp with armor overheal on her repair pack, Moira’s healing orb moved slower so it would stay closer to your allies for longer (her healing resource also lasted longer and regenerated quicker her grasp was also Easier to aim and healed her for more.) ana’s nade had a shorter cooldown and burst Healed 100hp before goats her nano also burst healed for 300hp.

There may not have been a massive numbers difference but the overall effectiveness of healing was much higher pre goats.

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That’s fine. Supports are strong and very impactful, and they should not be able to exploit that power freely with little difficulty or pressure.

Supports should not be so powerful yet also safe from everything else.

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relax ignoramus. you know not of what you speak. for example:
ineffectives such as yourself, cried that bap’s immort was OP.
when in actuality ineffectives were simply unfamiliar. now many are familiar and have been for some time. which is why immort is melted instantly usually. due to impulsive nerf thereof and familiarity. if devs weren’t weak minded, immort would not have been nerfed so that it actually has function after deployment. then there’s the artificially delayed exo jump which makes jumping with bap in critical moments useless. the fact that less ppl play bap after invalid nerfs, validates everything said.

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There is a big difference between “yet also safe from everything else.” and survival horror.

1 Like
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We have to talk about buffs/nerfs on a PER-SUPPORT basis

Cannot use blanket judgements for entire role anymore

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We can say the role isn’t where it should be though, and give a general direction which could work.

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Agreed that the supports do not need anymore buffs, but the truth is that they are always going to be focused now that tanks are Raid Bosses and killing them is the only way to actually finish a team fight.

6v6 made the game balanced. This half-assed, no brain decision on Blizzard’s part to remove a tank is why we will never achieve balance.