Is this why you hate support?

General Discussion
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After watching FTKcomputer’s recent video “the pros and cons of OW2 beta” and seeing how he mentioned that we should balance the supports like they are in paladins.
It made me think about how to my knowledge most supports in paladins Don’t have strong utility. they have healing, damage, and self buffs. hell pip my favorite supports ult was a projectile aoe disable that left you helpless, Which in overwatch would be a DPS ult.
my point being supports in that game served a whole different purpose they had strong and in some ways stronger healing than in overwatch.
while also having comparable dps to some of the damage characters, Only being truly fearful of flankers which were their own role. in exchange they lacked the strong utility. no aoe speed boost. no 100% antiheal, no damage boost, no rez, rarely any base kit stuns. etc. this makes me curious would people really be happy losing these abilities entirely? or would it be enough to rein them in perhaps? if that is what players want it would explain the negative reaction to the Moira rework

P.S. forgot pip had a slow on his explosive flask but IMO that doesn’t compare to the strength of any of overwatches utility. especially when you consider the context of the substantially smaller health pools and shorter TKK.

went to the wiki and will list out utility I foudn and why I think it’s weaker then support utility

Furia

Pyre Strike!

Area Damage
Summon a beam of searing wrath that travels forward, stunning and dealing 400 damage to enemies. Enemies who remain in the beam take an additional 20 damage every 0.05s.

Summon a beam of searing light that travels forward through obstacles. Enemies caught in its path are Stunned for 1s and take 400 damage. Remaining in the beam deals an additional 20 damage every 0.05s.

the issue with this one is that it compares more to cassidy stun only with a longer CD at 12 in exchange for double the stun duration. but I think when you consider the health pools of people in that game (2200 appears to be the most common amount) even the substantially larger amount of healing makes it unable to compare to cassidy’s flash,
much less ana sleep which has the same CD as flash.
granted it is an aoe projectile that doesn’t stop after a set distance like cassidy’s
but in general I get the impresion that this isn’t the big burst of value you get from comparable abilities in overwatch people aren’t gonna just die to focus fire before they can do anything about it like they do you with most support utility

Grohk

tempist
Area Damage
Surge with elemental power and take flight, speeding up and healing allies for 350 every 0.5s while slowing and striking enemies for 200 damage every 0.5s for its duration.

attached to an ult Lucio can speed allies passively for free and amp it up on a 12 second CD. very few characters slow in overwatch that is a right reserved to Mei I believe

Grover

Crippling Throw

Throw your axe to cripple an enemy, dealing 425 damage to them.
Cripple prevents the target from using certain movement abilities. Movement abilities that rely on Knockback or Knockup cannot be crippled

very niche compared to anything in overwatch

2

Bump.mp4

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I dont think that support is in that bad of a situation. As a support main myself I lost at some point the reason to play the beta. It was more fun than OW1 but everything was just the “same” in terms of heroes and so on (and I wanted to play with a friend who did not buy the pack or got access). As soon as OW2 launches all players will play OW2 and support gets a new hero. This alone should change the situation. As long as they look more carefully at some supports (like Mercy is pretty bad in 5v5) we should be fine.

But the idea of having the Paladins style of supports would be nice. I played Paladins for 200 hours, and you are really more self-sufficient and can duel everyone if you have the skill without being in the typical rock vs paper situation.

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I played mostly support myself, and didn’t get bored ether although that is likely because I started playing late into the life span of OW. goats era to be exact.
I do agree for the most part but it is tremendous how many people have shown themselves unhappy with the current support state. Which worries me as it wouldn’t be the first time I found myself the odd one out liking something most people hate. Would hate to come to launch and always have to lock support even if Lucio is my favorite character.

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Like I said we just have a partial view what the situation could be. Lets look again at it in November when the first hype is over and things settle down a bit. Support will be the new bottle neck for sure but I dont think it will be as bad as it was in the beta.

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6

By the end of beta 2 we more or less got the full picture of how they were handling supports, with mercy in particular being one of the more interesting reworks.

As she more or less got a genji dash at the end of each GA, which can be triggered at any point in the dash. Which gave her a lot more mobility. ontop of being given more control over where and when she can get use of her mobility.

While the likes of zen’s snap kick makes diving on top of him almost impossible.

Bapt’s lamp and bonus heal combo, basically giving him three lives, while brig is back to being a paladin again. Now with more mobility and a shorter shield bash cooldown.

Like these changes combined makes the support role a lot more self sufficient, much like the change’s tanks got.

It’s something that people will need to redevelop their playstyles to really get a good use out off.

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The game is different. You lock one character and have it all the game.

In OW you can switch exactly to favor the rock vs paper playstyle.

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Off topic a bit. I remember when Jenos was just released. Man was a monster. Damage, a zen-ish heal that could be applied through walls, a rooting ability, and mobility for the spicy distraction jenos strat.

And a satisfying fat lazer beam ult

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I didn’t necessarily get that bored but like. Why play support when they made tank much much much more fun. I’ve already been almost 50/50 in playtime between support and tank for a bit now and ow1 tank SUCKS sometimes.

I will say I played a ton more brig in beta, and she was my most played hero in beta 2. With junkerqueen brig was insanely fun. You got to actually play the w m1 playstyle that often gets you killed instantly in ow1

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I only nano Mercy anyway. Mercy players are the only ones able to secure frags.

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