He’s been buffed a lot, a LOT, but his base mechanics are still very weak, he’s just propped up by raw numbers.
Charging his heal and swapping weapons are a huge liability. Lifeweaver is the only support hero penalized for attempting to do damage with an over a second wait before he can heal effectively. I assume his charge was designed as an offset to his “auto-hit” healing but combined with his weapon swap it is extremely punishing. I’d like to see pre-healing go away entirely in supports as it’s not an interesting or fun mechanic. If nobody is damaged yet a support should be attempting to do something proactive like dealing damage.
His ult sucks to use and sucks to play against. It’s no longer a joke (at least at my matchmaking rating) as I tend to place it and then just run up into peoples faces and dps them down (they don’t seem to understand that they can’t easily kill people in its area). But placing a tree that makes my whole team hard to kill doesn’t actually feel good, it feels cheap. And forcing the enemy to stop doing fun stuff and shoot a tree seems pretty bad as well. His tree is overtuned and annoying like a lot of OW2 ultimates and just isn’t fun to use or have used on you.
Lifeweaver’s weapon sucks. It’s amazing how much it sucks and extremely interesting as to why. First, it’s too loud and obvious, above all other guns in the game I can pinpoint exactly when a lifeweaver is shooting, and the torrent of slow moving pink projectiles marks exactly where he is. Second, it does ok dps (132 per second?) but the opportunity cost of him having to have line of sight with an enemy for a whole two seconds or more just to kill them is one of the reasons he was so fragile. Most effective characters can kill a 200 health in 2 shots or exposures. Cassidy (for example) can kill a 200 health target putting himself in danger for only .49 seconds (instant first shot → second shot), Ashe for .65 seconds over 2 shots, Baptiste for .588 seconds over 1.33 bursts, Kiriko for only .5 seconds over 2 kunai, Ana (a character with no headshot multiplier) 1.6 seconds over 3 shots, but for some reason Lifeweaver must hit an enemy 18 times in the head to kill which (due to his spread and travel time is VASTLY less likely to happen than the above) and must put himself in danger for an unlikely minimum of .81 seconds (which never happens, it’s usually around 2 seconds). One of the balance points of fps is the cost of putting your character in danger to harm another, the higher the burst potential of your weapon the less time you have to spend in line of sight and the less damage you will take when trying to deal damage. This is why rapid fire weapons should deal MORE dps than burst fire weapons, Soldier deals 173 dps and Cassidy deals 140 because a single hit from Cassidy can be 140 health whereas a single hit from Soldier can only by 38. From a reactionary standpoint, Cassidy can kill you in half a second with two shots, you only get a warning that he’s targeting you after the first hits you and you have .49 seconds to react. Soldier hits you for 38 and you have .58 seconds to figure out how to react in the unlikely event that he hits another 4 headshots back to back. It’s much more likely that Cass will kill you in .49 seconds than Soldier will in .58 (that’s also why soldier has a rocket to compensate). So, why not change Lifeweaver’s weapon to a shotgun? If not then why not give it some sort of lasting secondary effect (I’ve suggested poison before) so that when you inevitably don’t kill the person you hit at least there is some penalty. Lifeweavers is chronically screwing over his team by firing his weapon (slows down his ability to heal) and then not benefiting himself or his team when the enemy doesn’t die or have any negative repercussions, and exposing himself to unnecessary risk (high opportunity cost).
Finally, lifegrip fails pretty often at the one thing it was definitely designed to do and that’s pull people up from falling down infinite pits. I’ve had games where 3 people falling into pits have touched the side of the ledge just barely as I grip them back and not only do I lose ability cast but they die anyway (50 healing is meaningless to someone who falls to their death). This situation is EXACTLY what the ability should be used for and it’s terrible at it! I can pull people back if I think they are going to die but even with practice and lag they often die as the ability activates or I pull them when they wouldn’t have died and all I did was give up space for no benefit! At least make it so allies who are pulled CANNOT fall down pits once pulled, even just teleporting them to safety would be enough. God I hate this ability.
Petal platform. It’s fine, it’s boring, it’s not particularly useful. Maybe just remove it and give Lifeweaver an actually interesting and useful ability instead.
Now, as for Lifeweaver survivability and hit box? I don’t think he really needs 25 shields. If he was a decently balanced character where his petals weren’t hit boxes and his weapon wasn’t trash and his abilities did what they were supposed to then his raw stats could be nerfed. Nerf his stupid ult too for god sake it just slows down the game. Need I remind anyone that Mercy’s wings are not hitboxes, you can shoot them all day and she will take no damage. Not sure why she gets away with that, but maybe petals shouldn’t be hitboxes either.
EDIT: Common comment is that supports shouldn’t do damage. No offense to you but that’s what you WANT Overwatch 2 to be not what it is. For years in World of Warcraft healers just healed, they did no damage. In contrast in Final Fantasy 14 healers have always been “do as much damage as you can, heal if necessary”. OW2 is like FFXI not WOW. The developers have designed every support hero to deal damage and in a match damage is always more important than healing. You can’t heal your way to victory, you must kill your enemies to win, you can only prevent your enemies from winning by healing.