We’ve heard it said a hundred times; the issue with Life Grip is how it only does one thing, and does it EXTREMELY well, so it really can’t have a shorter cooldown. Then I got to thinking about reposition/back-from-spawn Grips and wondered how Life Grip would feel if it incentivized gripping someone out of combat…
Hear me out:
- Replace the Cleansing Grasp minor perk with a perk that gives you a speed boost after dash which lasts for 3 seconds, or until you take damage
- The “until you take damage” prevents this from being another escape tool and makes it better for out-of-combat rotations
- Add cleanse to the base Life Grip
- Should have always been there tbh
- Add the quality to Life Grip that it refunds half the CD if both you and your target are above 75% health
- This allows you to use Life Grip for pure repositions and aggressive angle-taking without blowing the massive CD in the process. Pair it with the new minor perk, and LW becomes a support that not only takes wide angles, but helps slower characters take those angles with him. Although he could do so now, the high CDs make it too costly, so most people don’t bother.
- (note on trolling potential below)
Issues and Fixes
CD refunds on defensive grips
Alternatively, the refund could proc if the target hasn’t taken damage in X seconds. This would prevent 9-second defensive grips in the case of “low-damage, high-danger” situations like being slept, junk trapped, the start of a Winston dive, ect.
Trolling
Since the CD refund increases trolling potential, I would pair it with a commonly-requested QoL change: canceling the grip. Consider:
- Target can cancel an active grip with interact
- With this, I propose these additions that make the cancel more intuitive
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- third-person perspective and free camera movement for the target during the pull
- A slightly longer delay before the pull starts (like +0.5 seconds)
These changes not only prevent trolling, but create even more creative grip scenarios, like the target could be pulled through the enemy team and dropped right in the middle (reaper ult?), with greater situational context to make the cancel timing easier.
What this change doesn’t address
One lingering issue that I will concede: Another problem with Lifegrip is that unlike almost every other support ability, LW can’t use it on himself, so you can’t pressure it out. Sometimes, if LW is around, it feels like you have to win the fight twice. I don’t think these changes solve that, but from the perspective of Lifeweaver and his team, it could add some depth.