Cleansing Grasp should just be part of his basekit period. In many situations you would life grip an ally, they would still be anti’d or slept or stunned and die as soon as the invulnerability ended anyway.
Life Cycle is just a rehash of his Parting Gift passive with a small self-heal tacked on. Parting Gift was removed to “reallocate his power budget elsewhere.” This perk is just not good. The self heal isn’t substantial enough to matter and yeah the burst heal COULD be good if it didn’t require him to die in order to go off.
Lifeweaving should be a minor perk. It only adds 20 healing to a heal within 3 seconds of dashing. It should give you a fully-charged bulb on dash. That way you could at least burst heal someone every few seconds. That might feel “major.”
Superbloom could also be a minor perk. Another thread floating around says you have to land 16 thorns for an extra 30 damage. Not that Lifeweaver is meant to be running around DPS’ing, but his already somewhat unwieldy weapon is not greatly improved by this perk.
Lifeweaver has one perk that should just be in his basekit and 3 minor perks. There is nothing about his perks that change his playstyle in any significant way nor do they really add a ton of power to his kit vs. Ana who gets uhhhh two grenades at once, more sleep, headshots on her hitscan sniper rifle, or self nano boost. Lifeweaver is basically F-tier in this patch. He may as well not even have perks for how pointless his perks are.
Cleansing grasp and Superbloom should be baseline. The other two should be scrapped entirely.
There should be a perk that allows his blossom to bounce to a nearby target (maybe with some heal decay).
I’ve said some in other threads, but…
Pulses of tree of life can slow enemies. Heck, you can make Tree of Life’s AoE like WoW’s ring of peace and make it so enemies can’t step into the perimeter of the tree entirely. That could be fun.
With superbloom baseline, you can add a perk that gives it a slow when it procs.
A perk where rejuv dash self-cleanses.
A perk where Lifeweaver’s healing is immune to the dps passive—why not?
A perk that doubles the health of petal platform and adds remote activation.
A perk that spawns a second, smaller tree (a sprout?) by Lifeweaver’s feet when he ults
A perk where an ally gets increased movement speed after grip ends
Go crazy and make a perk where the grip bubble knocks people it passes through.
So much you can do with his kit that get at least a little closer to Ana getting to headshot. The devs are not creative and do not know what to do when it involves Lifeweaver’s kit
I agree that the cleanse should definitely be base, and I would LOVE to have Superbloom all the time too, but I really want to keep Life Cycle as a perk option. Or at least include the 10 self-HPS in whatever replaces it. It helps enable crazy aggro plays, and makes up for so many of my co-supports neglecting me despite everything I do for them
I agree, they took the super safest, most obvious route possible with his perks and they’re not even GOOD. Ana gets to throw TWO grenades with a basic perk and Lifeweaver gets a quality of life upgrade that he should just have!!! They could’ve done so much that was actually intuitive like giving his petal platform a heal over time while people are standing on it.
It’s super uncreative and does nothing to change his play style or make him feel more dynamic.
The parting gift was bad specifically because enemies could benefit from it. This version it doesn’t come saddled with that risk, so there’s nothing really wrong with picking it.
You die? A teammate can get a full heal or half heal on tank, not bad at all, especially since Lifeweaver can pull people to him and make sure somebody is nearby to take advantage of the added health pack.
The problem with it is that it doesn’t do anything while you’re alive or really change your gameplay options. The 7.5 hps with the dps passive is a bad joke. The goal of Lifeweaver (and pretty much support in general) is to not die and having an ability that gives you a reward for dying is counterintuitive. It would’ve been fine as a base kit passive but tacking it on as perk when it was already removed from his kit when other heroes got totally new ideas feels a bit flaccid.
That one is a minor perk though, right? It’s not supposed to be a big game changer. It’s a nice effect for a minor perk.
I know some other characters get kinda bonker perks, but that shouldn’t be the goal. I’d rather Ana get slapped like she deserves than boost everyone to her level.
Also you’re way undervaluing the passive heal. The goal is to not die yes? Doesn’t permanent self heal make that a lot easier? It stacks with the normal passive self heal too I bet(not totally sure though), so that’s bonus. Makes you harder to kill, if you do die then teammates get a big heal, what’s not to like?
I mean even other heroes besides Ana have better minor perks. Brig’s minor perk lets her inspire last longer, Mercy gets more range on GA or her sympathetic healing all the time, Lifeweaver gets a dinky 10hps or a burst heal but only if he dies. If they made it at least 20-25 hps so it actually could change a breakpoint, that might be better, but it’s just such a nothing perk you wouldn’t even notice it was there.
What I dislike is that it doesn’t make Lifeweaver more dynamic to use or stronger or more interesting to play like some other minor perks. It’s a set and forget and maybe you might get some value out of your 7.5 hps when in combat or you die, stagger your teammate, and give the enemy team more ult charge to use when you come back. There is basically 0 reason to ever choose this perk over cleansing grasp.
Personally, it’s the only minor perk that I ever want to take on LW. When I take it, it feels like a huge relief, and I can get more things done independently. The self-heal number looks tiny on paper, but I promise you I REALLY feel the difference. It is night and day. Then combine that little bit of extra survivability with the extra DPS from Superbloom and suddenly he’s winning a LOT more duels. It adds up like you wouldn’t believe
Personally I would like for his Tree of Life to have a cleansing effect as a Major perk (you could replace his rejunvenating perk with that since it IS useless). Thematically it would make sense. Like come on its a healing tree and some plants are known to have cleansing properties. His old passive actually does help out alot since its permanently active healing. I do see what you mean though.
Ya know ya could just say my name I wouldn’t… Wait actually no I think there is legitimate rules on that tho…
I do somewhat agree with you tho I am very pissed they waited so long to give us stuff Lifeweaver has been needed and called them “Perks” just so they could feel they gave him something.
The 10/hp self healing is actually the best thing ever your underestimating that. That’s literally the best one.
The extra burst damage is definitely something he should of been had I guess this can stay a perk but lower the amount needed by a bit.
And the dash adding an extra amount of healing… Yeaaaahh that should probably do something else actually hell I’d just take a reload tbh I can handle the rest XD.
The cleanse on lifegrip definitely pisses me off that should just be a base it doesn’t even do much besides add yet another counter to there golden child Ana.
AND I WENT THE ANA COUNTER ROUTE AGAINST AN ANA AS WEAVER AND GOT ABSOLUTELY DEMOLISHED!
I choose extra healing with the dash so once the effects of anti ran out I could pump out more healing, AND cleanse on anti and it did NOTHING! Literally NOTHING!
They could of been gave us this crap instead of acting like Lifeweaver is this big dangerous character who they “Have to be careful with” no one bought that crap for a second.
So yeah a lot of this stuff we should of BEEN had instead of them just keeping our hero rather lack luster, just so they could fill in slots for his “Perks”.
Yesssss of course we’re on the same page about this one~ That was my immediate reaction after experiencing the perks for the first time too~ I knew I wasn’t insane for thinking that
I agree, cleanse on grip is SO not worth sacrificing Life Cycle over. Taking the cleanse is just sacrificing so much of your own carry potential, it’s not worth it IMO. The cleanse is very nice, but it should be in his base kit. It’s really not enough of a big deal to be restricted to a perk
And that other “major” perk he has really is useless. 100% agree on that. They could do so much better, like doing something crazy with his petal. Give us something that we might actually consider picking over Superbloom
I think most of my issue with the self-heal is that Ana has like a 100% pickrate right now so choosing a self-heal over the opportunity to save my tank from anti feels like a dumb choice. I’ve used it a little more and it can be okay but it feels way more necessary to keep your tank up.
Cleanse should be basekit aside, the 20s on a singular teammate that usually saves them to begin with, is just not worth it over the regen. The thorns is so bad even for the most offensive oriented of LIfeweaver as well.
Well, they’ve also nerfed him directly and indirectly multiple times, unwarranted. They also choose not to buff him in ways that are helpful. They’ve tacked on drawbacks or limitations to his buffs (and now his perks) that weren’t necessary, and now his perks are underwhelming, too. The fundamental stupidity of his design is that the devs clearly do not understand what it needs to be successful. He’s been decently strong but not OP before; it’s possible
The problem as I see it is if he’s actually strong, then the gameplay is super obnoxious for everyone else. He can just hide in the back, and the team fights drag on forever, because nothing will die.
That’s why his design is fundamentally broken. The more viable he becomes, the more fights become just insufferably long, with him constantly denying kills.
I’m not really sure you can make this claim when he has among the lowest sustained HPS in the game that is restricted to a single target. Things die when a Lifeweaver is healing them far faster than when an Ana is.
Buffs to his HPS–which aren’t even really what he needs to be good–can’t change the fact that he is a single target healer with a clip and a charge.
That was my immediate reaction after experiencing the perks for the first time too~ I knew I wasn’t insane for thinking that