It’s simple, the game just does not function with infinite healing and immortalities being pumped in the same targets. If they refuse to nerf healing and immortalities, then they need to turn support into two separate queues to prevent more than 1 focus healer from being on the same team
A rough concept of how this would work would be breaking the existing support role into into “Medic” and “Support”
Medics are characterized by strong single target healing, triage abilities that save near-death allies, and high dependence on teammates
Supports are characterized by healing that is easy to distribute to the entire team, non-healing forms of boosting the team, and the ability to hold their own in a duel
Tentative distribution (some of these like moira are up for debate):
Medics: Mercy, Lifeweaver, Ana, Kiriko, Baptiste
Supports: Zenyatta, Lucio, Brigitte, Lucio, Illari, Moira
The only major problem I could see with this would be queue times. Ana, Mercy, and Kiriko are three of the most popular heroes in the game and would likely cause the medic queue to be the longest in the game. I still believe higher match quality has priority over queue times
As for dps, I think a similar split could be interesting, prevent some annoying spammy comps, and allow some nicher heroes to have more of a place, but it’s not necessary right now
It is not the worst idea in the world, but I truly resent the restrictions imposed on us. I am learning Kiriko and Baptiste at the moment; however, if I need to swap as I am struggling, my two comfort picks (Zen and Moira) are in another class. That sounds awful. I already hate being locked to tank, DPS, or support when I know I could easily turn a game around if I had the ability to change (and it has been proven TIME AND TIME AGAIN in open queue modes).
The best option would be to split the tanks into 2 catagories: tanks and brawlers, then they can nerf healing/ sustain and the games fixed.
Yes i know thatd be 6v6 (1-1-2-2), i know its a pipe dream, i know itd never happen.
The idea used to get tossed around a lot in OW1. Splitting support into 2 roles and also splitting tank into main tank and off tank (mostly to solve the double shield problems).
I don’t love the idea of more queues to isolate and lock you in, I’ve always sort of missed being able to switch from dps to support when the need arose or someone was struggling like we could before role queue, but getting a balanced team was the bigger problem pre-role queue. Any time I play open queue, I’m quickly reminded of that.
We had this sort of discussion with tank in 6v6, and ending up going to 5v5 instead. All this conversation might do, is bring about 4v4 (1 support per team).
I like this idea; because I don’t think they can balance flex vs main supports properly. But Moira and Illari would need way less healing otherwise people would just pick them for the easy healing value.
I’d be really curious…right now the supports that are popular are the ones that are the easiest to get value out of. If flex supports and main supports were no longer competing for the same value it might make them a more popular choice.
If we made roles all of the sub-roles that exist, it would be something like 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 (9v9). In terms of today’s three roles, it would be 2-4-3 which I think would be kind of wild, but fun.
1 healer (Mercy)
1 support (Kiriko)
1 debuffer (Ana)
You kind of get this today with open queue, except it’s missing enough players to cover every sub-role. If there were 9 players per side though, we’d need a lot more heroes to avoid having constant mirror matches.
Healer and debuffer are subcategories of “support”. So what you exactly mean by “support” so we can put a finger on it? An Enchanter (buffer) (that would be Mercy I guess)? Hybrid with damage (that would be Moira)? Something different?
This is only an issue for people that blindly focus tanks no matter the heal comp there is a way to win.
No point in giving people free wins in a pvp game.
I’ve always had the idea of splitting the tank roles based on those that have shields and those that don’t and make it 1-1-2-2. Do you see any problems doing that compared to the problems we have now?
All Supports have area effect healing. There is not one support that doesn’t have area effect healing.
However, there are actually FEWER supports that healing single target.
This doesn’t work based on your definitions. Zenyatta’s healing is limited by range and vision, his area effect is tied to his ultimate (and a bit brief). Illari only heals one target at a time. Kiriko’s healing is more broadly distributed than Zenyatta’s. Baptiste doesn’t have single target healing.
Damage-role WAS split originally into Offense and Defense, and many of those heroes still functionally operate like this today. The only issue here, is that many of the newer Damage-role heroes don’t really fit into the Defense-role with the exception of Ashe. Sojourn, Echo and Sombra fit more into the original Offense-role; and there’s a strong indication that the upcoming Venture would do so as well.
Brigitte and Illari also have displacement abilities too.
Problem here is that every Tank is radically different from each other. The role is so broad. but contains so many of the elements and functions of the Tank-role that it really can’t be split. Likewise, the Support-role is so homogeneous that it also really can’t be split (though some recent Supports do get a little more broadly defined).
Really, the only role that could be split - and had been before - would be the Damage-role:
The problem kept with this line of thought was that the community couldn’t correctly define what classified as a main-tank and an off-tank. Moreover, even when Blizzard (correctly) told them that all Tanks were main-tanks and were designed that way, they still refused to believe it. Same with Supports.
The game was originally designed with the idea that there would be one Support per team. Though, broadly, most of the Supports were added into the game while many players would end up playing with a co-Support.
Sigma tends to do more damage than Doomfist, so that doesn’t work.
Sombra isn’t a controller, but Doomfist is. Widowmaker can also control space via Vision and one-shot kills. Also, Soldier, Sombra, Reaper and Widowmaker are hitscans.
They all heal, though. Kiriko and Mercy are practically similar since their entire kits are built around sustainment and boosting damage of their team.
Likewise, Ana’s ultimate improves a single ally’s offensive and defensive power. And she can boost the power of healing to the other two healers above. Ana’s more of a buffer, than a debuffer.
It’s too broad, and the Support-role is far too homogeneous to be split up that way.
Kiriko buffs too, Kitsune Rush. Ana buffs too with Nanoboost and Biotic Grenade.
Here’s all the area-effect Supports:
Mercy (Valkyrie)
Ana (Biotic Grenade)
Kiriko (Healing Ofuda, Protection Suzu)
Moira (Primary fire, Coalescence, Biotic Orb)
Lucio (Crossfade)
Baptiste (Primary Fire, Regen Burst)
Zenyatta (Transcendence)
Lifeweaver (Tree of Life)
Brigitte (Inspire)
Here’s all the single target
Illari
All Supports have area effect healing. There are fewer Supports that have only single target healing.
There’s only Sigma who has Shield health.
Unless you’re talking about Barriers in which case…
Barrier Tanks:
Reinhardt
Winston
Sigma
Wrecking Ball
Zarya
Ramattra
Non-barrier Tanks
D.va
Doomfist
Junker Queen
Orisa
Roadhog
But you probably don’t see the problem with this arrangement.
See above. There’s some serious problems with that arrangement.
Im not even gonna argue over most of the outrageous claims you made in the op.
Even if I agreed it was true, doing that would need several reworks to allow then to fit into those categories, which is never gonna happen since the premise of your thread is they arent changing support balance.
