And Soldiers in gold/plat are naturally not going to chase you around a tree, because there are so many other opportunities for damage and kills. But in the unlikely scenario that a Lifeweaver is contesting an objective by himself, and Soldier is the only one alive – with his ult available to him, he will kill the Lifeweaver in his own tree.
You’re going to get flamed cause this forum is filled with rabid support players and LW fans, but I kind of agree. Lifeweaver has always had a design problem. I’m a support main myself with 75 hours on Lifeweaver, and I really enjoy playing him. I think his kit opens up interesting playmaking and clutch moments. It still lowkey sucks from a balance perspective.
The problem with Lifeweaver is that you can list a ton of hypotheticals around his petal platform and alternative uses for lifegrip, but the reality is that in most situations, you’re just going to use them how you normally would. Yes, you can potentially grip your Reinhardt into the enemy team’s backline. Yes, you can use petal platform to cancel the enemy Sigma’s ult. These are some awesome interactions that are the heart and soul of what Overwatch is about. But let’s be real…
In reality, you’re probably not going to be doing that consistently every game. Most platforms are just going to be used to save yourself from dives or get a better healing angle or maybe used to help a teammate get to high ground on certain maps. Most lifegrips are going to be used to pull low health allies to safety, as intended. There’s nothing wrong with this inherently, it just makes it very hard to balance the power in his kit when his utility isn’t as consistently strong as other supports.
And since we can’t really buff petal platform or lifegrip in meaningful ways, we’re left either buffing his healing numbers to where he makes nothing die (like before when he was overtuned) or we buff his secondary, which actively works against his healing’s charge mechanic. His kit is fun but flawed. It doesn’t have enough points of power within it in to properly balance him. However, I don’t think he’s THAT bad. He’s definitely playable, just never optimal. Here is what I’d love to see them do with Lifeweaver.
The biggest thing the devs could do for Lifeweaver is smooth his gameplay loop. If you don’t want to overtune his numbers, make it so his weapon swap is instantaneous. No clunky delay. Lower his passive reload time by half a second. And in addition to that, give him a passive that lets him charge heals at a reduced rate when using his thorns. Take some of the punishment away from his using his secondary, and suddenly he becomes a lot more engaging to play and can more easily “weave” between damage and healing as the situation calls for it without leaving him in situations where he has to awkwardly switch weapons and then charge a heal only for teammate to die.
That not only will make him stronger and his playstyle more fluid, but it would also allow us to leverage power into the passive based on how he performs. It would also open up different avenues of Lifeweaver play. You’d have classic healbot Lifeweavers, more aggressive Thornweavers, and the players that ride the line in the middle to get the most out of him.
Besides the initial 150 burst, it heals at 43 HPS. 75 HP pulses every 1.75 seconds.
My fantasy world where I have a 64% comp WR as Lifeweaver despite him being underpowered, yes. I’m underranked, tbf, but I am successful at the hero
Soldier cannot shoot and sprint. He’s also presumably not ulting literally on my butt, so he has to waste time gapclosing in order to get close enough to actually sprint then shoot. Since, like, it takes a lot fewer steps for me right atop my tree to circle it for LOS than it takes 76 20 meters away to circle my tree for LOS. you’re getting kind of hung up on a single example I provided
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They are. Very simple mechanic, not a lot of abilities + main ability copied from the concept of a whole Nintendo franchise…
If Lifeweaver’s design is bad, we could say the same (or worse) to many DPS heroes.
Your opinion. It doesn’t have much value.
Your opinion. Subjectivity doesn’t have much value.
You just proved me you don’t know much about Lifeweaver and thorn damage that is pretty huge (with the distance buff). Also, reloading healing or damage ammo while using the other one is very valuable and pretty strong.
Your case in a nutshell : “I can’t play a hero 'cause I don’t understand their complexity in terms of gameplay, which means it’s a bad hero”…
Biased as ever… A typical forum thread / post.
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There not hypotheticals it’s how you play him in multiple situation if you find them like on maps like Dorado, or going on flanks on kings row.
Your buffs make sense its what we’ve all been asking for anyways.
But I swear yall always forget how good we actually are with this hero.
It’s just his base kit is struggling right now.
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Then you should like Lifeweaver, since he brings strong utility to the battlefield as well.
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Those are hypotheticals because I listed hypotheticals. You’re going to tell me that you normally cancel Sigma ult with petal platform? Of course not. That doesn’t mean you haven’t done it, just that a lot of the power in his abilities is situational and tied to being at the right place at the right time, more than any other support. As I said…
I’m a Lifeweaver player myself with a positive winrate. Just because we make him work doesn’t make him good in the grand scheme of things. I also said…
He’s had a bad winrate since release because other supports outperform him. I’m not calling anyone bad. I’m simply stating that people who go “Lifeweaver isn’t bad, he can use petal platform to negate a lot of ults” are missing the point. Yes, he has some awesome utility when the situation calls for it but being able to make a really cool petal platform play a couple times a game just doesn’t provide as much consistent value throughout a match as say Ana’s anti. He still needs help and it’s a problem inherent in the way utility and power is distributed in his kit. You can’t really buff his current utility, and you can’t buff his heals without him becoming an overly defensive fun-killer.
Really? I haven’t seen many other people asking for his heals to slowly charge while thorns were out. I brought up the idea months ago when he was released and got a lot of “you just want him to be Moira”.
Let’s use some common sense here. If I’m ulting from a distance and you spawn a tree and hide behind it, would it be in my best interest to waste my visor running up to that tree and then chasing you? No, no it wouldn’t. And if you had 60%+ winrate on Lifeweaver you should be playing against other people in your rank who don’t do that. So I feel like there’s a huge discrepancy in what you’re telling me and what would actually happen in that scenario.
Right. So the ult was blocked. 
Nobody with a functioning brain liked him.
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I think Lifeweaver is a worse design than Moira. To me he’s easily the worst designed support. Mauga is the worst tank from a design perspective. And in DPS, it’s Sym IMO. Though the competition in the DPS roster for the worst designed is stiffer. You could easily argue a couple different ones.
I agree. After all the talk about how players get frustrated when you remove their ability to control their hero. Then removing stuns and turning Mei and McCree into a joke… They go and give an ability that removes my ability make decisions and worse yet gives it to a support that likely has no idea how to play the game. Infuriating, I suggest people just start instant reporting all lifeweavers going forward.
“I suggest people spam false reports going forward” …
you guys never beat the deranged allegations. Anti-lifeweaver brainrot is a scary thing to witness. He’s a hero in this game who is available to play. Like you can be normal.
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No, because Soldier can still shoot other people on your team… so you just effectively wasted your tree to save yourself
I did read. It’s wrong. That’s why what brownie said, doesn’t actually matter.
No, his entire thing isn’t making plays. He has ONE playmaking ability and it’s on a nearly 20 second cooldown. Lmfao, there is nothing “playmaker” about lifeweaver.
I said this. Reading is fundamental.
He has ONE, utility. That’s it. And it’s both frustrating to play against AND with. While the other supports have:
- better utility
- better healing
- better damage
- better ults
3 playmaking abilities actually… sigh you can lead a horse to water.
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No… he has one.
His petal isn’t a playmaking ability, that isn’t how 99% of lifeweavers use it. Even the ones in high elo. I would know, I’m in high elo. I see lifeweavers (every once in a while since he’s so awful)… it’s not a playmaking ability.
His lifegrip is the only playmaking ability.
Idek what you think his 3rd playmaking ability is, since his only other ability is dash unless we’re throwing tree into this convo then sure… his literal ULTIMATE is a playmaking ability. He’s not a playmaking hero.
Why dos everyone bring up there rank like its an ultimatium only reason I made it to gm with such a strong desire was to just shut everyone up who uses this cope out XD.
Also the 3rd one is tree, not very good for healing like it should be but great for blocking ults blocking doors and a few other things.
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It’s crazy how many people who don’t play Lifeweaver try to tell us what he can or can’t do, or what he is or isn’t capable of
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I play a lot of Lifeweaver and I love him.
I think he’s genuinely fun to play. Plus the hero is really cool.
But I also agree he has design flaws. He’s the hero with the lowest winrate in the entire game.
His heals are pretty slow, yes. But the real issue is damage. Don’t get me wrong, he has a good dps and he can be a threat, but he’s inconsistent because of the spread and the projectile speed.
I’d definitely stop touching his heals and focus on his dps: either improve his spread or his projectile speed or a little bit of both.
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