Reactive characters, or in this instance, supports, i.e., Mercy and Lifeweaver, that have to rely on the skill expression of others to get their value, are either bad or create huge imbalance issues within the game.
I personally wouldn’t like to see any more characters like these designed in the future, and hopefully the two I mentioned get fixed to the point where they’re able to express their own skills and actually make some big plays of their own.
LW actually can…
I don’t see a problem with them. I’m all for different types of playstyles and sub-roles within the support category. There are different variations of supporting that I think adds a lot of dynamic to the support role. And sometimes I don’t want to play Zen or Ana and directly attack the enemy - sometimes I do want to truly support my teammates and be reactive. The skill expression is there.
He realistically can’t, though his damage is too minimal to make plays frequently.
if u mean “kill something” with making plays… this is the most gold take ive ever heard.
LW can deny gravs, Rez and Orisa Ults.
Grip can also be gamechanging and can be used in tactics
Platform gives him a unique utility, that can be game changing.(got a game were a hog and Mei appeared in our backline cause he platfromed them over a wall)
So u would say a huge Anti nade or a clutch immo/suzu arent “plays” cause they kill nothing?
Any character that can only enable others to get their value doesn’t seem right to me and never really has.
I see what you’re saying, though, but I think every character should have at least one mechanic where they’re able to make consistent plays without just enabling others.
Actually, no, yes, I literally mean that exactly every support can deny an ult, but not every support can consistently eliminate the enemy.
LW doesn’t have to rely on his teammates to get value at all. He can support his allies with his abilities to help them get kills, but he isn’t fully reliant on his teammates as much as Mercy to get value. Playing LW as my current main on support has single handedly been the most fun I have had on a hero, his abilities have more potential to them than you may think.
I really only see him needing a buff to his proj speed/dmg as he has a hard time with securing kills. Or maybe reduce the spread idk.
As for Mercy, her ability to pocket has been annoying me a lot as of recently. She completely just sucks the fun out of games when people don’t look at her. But other than maybe her dmg boost, I think she’s fine.
Heroes that are more focused on game sense and awareness, or “reactive”, are very interesting and fun to play while also having such interesting play styles. I would in fact like to see more of them as I like to look at the bigger picture as I play the game and make plays and predictions that will potentially end up in a cool save/my team winning. Not everyone wants basic supports like Ana and Zen, though they are fun it’s just a different playstyle compared to Mercy/LW, who are more focused on managing the game as a whole.
Battle Mercys with their Barbie blasters getting team kills exist. Even if they get like 3 kills that’s still a big play😌
kiriko for example cant either, is she reactive then?
Brig also has a hard time
Now that they set a fixed schedule for character releases, expect that many characters will release that will change the game entirely. Assuming the devs can at least stay on schedule with the PvP.
Hard disagree.
I personally love the play-styles that Mercy & Weaver are supposed to embody. They remind me of the enchanter class in League of Legends. Its an entire class dedicated to that defensive, buffer/healer/augmenter style of play that Mercy & Weaver embody.
While the downside of an enchanter-style character is that they can’t carry a bad team, the upside is that when you get a good team or even a decent one, you make your team or your one pocket virtually unkillable.
Furthermore, the beauty of overwatch means that you can switch at any time. So if your team sucks and you can frag on support you just switch. That failsafe alone means that there’s no need to disregard designs like Mercy & Weaver.
In the future, as Overwatch evolves, there may be more & more of a niche carved out for defensive enchanters in Overwatch, which isn’t a bad thing. One of the great things about overwatch is that it has playstyles for a lot of different kinds of people. How many shooters have characters like Rein or Mercy in them? I think its best if Overwatch stays that way.
I’m torn on Lifeweaver. I think having characters with different playstyles is a great thing for the game overall, but on a personal level I just cannot jive with him because nearly everything he does seems to serve the defensive, reactionary purpose of staying alive to dump heals into teammates. Other supports can get proactive, offensive value by playing off-angles and using their abilities to pressure the enemy, such as a Moira on the side flinging damage orbs or an Ana, Zen, or Bap on high ground pelting the enemy with shots, and either only heal when a teammate is low (Moira, Ana, Bap) or have passive, fire-and-forget heals (Zen). Lifeweaver, however, feels like he has very, very little to do when there’s no healing that needs to be done. You can shoot people with thorns, but it feels like a tickle cannon more than anything, and playing off-angles feels way riskier since you have a larger hitbox and less of an escape than most other offensive supports. He feels like a very healbotty support, which is a shame, as I love his character design.
Edit: don’t get me wrong, Lifeweaver can make plays. Life Grip has saved my rear multiple times, and I’ve seen more people get brought back from the brink of death by perfectly timed Trees of Life than I can count. My issue is that, again, these plays are reactive in nature than proactive, but that’s just my subjective taste.
TL;DR - I appreciate the variety in playstyles, but I just find defensive/reactive Supports very, very boring.
Kiriko can two-tap squishing in literally 1 second and has a 3x headshot damage multiplier on her kunais, which can deal some huge damage.
Brig doesn’t have huge damage-making potential like Bap, Kiri, or Zen, but she still has something, which is her whip and bash. With Lucio, if you hit your shots, you can pop off with him. How often do you see Lifeweaver and Mercy making huge plays outside of enabling?
All of Lifeweaver’s plays are reactive, and just enabling his teammates, you’re not going to win a 1vs1 on Lifeweaver against literally any hero; that’s just the way they designed him; he isn’t supposed to be dealing damage, and that’s why I don’t like him. He’s just a reactive character who just enables others skill expression; he’s literally the stereotype everyone thinks supports are just “healers.”
I really feel like this isn,t quite rigth. Mercy and Lifeweaver feel very different, having a Mercy is as pro-active as the user, and outputs a LOT of pressure, which is something Lifeweaver does not.
Maybe weaver COULD if people were more aggressive and well coordinated with life grip, but even then this is nearly irrelevant with its CD compared to just… damage boost and the consistency of beam.
I think both characters, whatever their problems are, are not actually the same at all.
Mercy is reactive to the ones she’s supporting, which enables the person she’s supporting to be more proactive. She’s not the one who’s proactive; it’s the same with Lifeweaver.
So u hit HS on Kiri constitently? u seem to be pretty huge on her…
So does LW? I still got 1-2 Solo Kills per game with him…
Wraith form has this issue.
Compared to stuff like deflect it can’t be used proactively because it’s just a waste of a dodge.
Even Moira’s fade is better because you can use it to actually resposition.
You just gotta end up using to to react or predict when an enemy is gonna throw some ability at you.
Yes, as that’s how you express your skill and make plays outside of just enabling; you hit headshots consistently with her.
I wouldn’t even call Lifeweaver’s damage “something.” It’s the same with Mercy; it’s basically not even there, and when it is, it’s in an extremely niche and specific situation where most of the time the entire clip of your weapon is instantly out-healed in just one second by the enemy support.
I wouldn’t call Mercy or LW entirely reactive. They’re not the heroes with the highest solo potential, sure, but they’re not mutually inclusive. Yes, rez and grip are the flashy plays and are pretty reactive, but that doesn’t mean they’re overall a reactive play style. With their primary healing alone, both can’t really output the burst to react to incoming damage, barring the abilities mentioned. Damage boost is much more preemptive than reactive. Can’t boost shots after they’ve been fired. And both of their movement abilities are better used to position, instead of as positioning themselves, if that makes sense.
Then you look at heroes like Kiriko or Ana. Some of their strongest abilities can also be highly reactive. Suzu cleansing a massive anti or sleep shutting down an ult, for example.
Hmm… I feel like this is actually more a semantics debate. I don’t actually think “reactive” is a concise enough word to describe what you dislike about them. Passive, perhaps? Something else?
Yeah, I actually agree that my choice of wording could have been better.
I do like the word “passive.” A bit more at what I’m trying to get at, which is that Mercy and Lifeweaver are not proactive characters; they’re reactively, or, I guess, passively, if you will, enabling their teammates to be more proactive rather than them just being proactive themselves. I think that generally sums up what I’m trying to get at here.
Or, in simpler terms, Mercy and Lifeweaver cannot control fights and situations by themselves; they need to be completely reliant on others to control that fight or situation for them.