Reviving the Defense role

[Hypovolemic-1753]

Once upon a time there were four classes of heroes: Tank, Offense, Defense, and Support. I think it’s worth revisiting that split in the context of OW2.

But, instead of the old Defense definition, which was mostly area denial, the new Defense role would be a kind of support role assembled from off-tanks and utility dps. Defense would focus on control, damage mitigation, overhealth, and burst healing on cooldown. Contrasted with Healers that are less tanky/evasive and have healing skills that aren’t cooldown-bound.

The goal being to have teams be 1-2-1-1 (1 Tank, 2 Offense, 1 Defense, 1 Healer), where Defense and Healer are different support niches.

So here’s the experiment I’d like to see…

Defense Role

Heroes: Zarya, Hog, Symm, Torb, Mei, Sombra, Echo
Role Passive: Getting an elimination or a save reduces active cooldowns by 1 sec.

Zarya

Exemplar of the role, so mostly fine as is.

• Reduce hp to 300.

Hog

1-3-2 experiment Hog was best Hog.

• Reduce hp to 400.
• Breather: In addition to its current effect, it also creates a cloud around Hog that heals allies for 40 hp/sec over 4 sec and grants 25% damage reduction for the first 2 secs.

Symmetra

The intent is to make her a shielding support and better brawler. To compensate for removing the orbs, her beam has more range/consistency and her turrets are more like proximity mines.

• Beam: Increase range to 16m. Adjust dps to 90/120/150 (from 60/120/180).
• Turrets: Increase damage to 50 dps and turrets now deal a max of 150 damage before despawning. Increase flight speed to 40m/sec. Reduce cooldown to 8 sec.
• Adaptive Shield (new ability): Apply a shield to both Symm and a target ally which grants +100 overhealth for 5 sec. Grants 50% lifesteal to both Symm and the target ally for the duration. 10 sec cooldown. (Welcome back, Tassadar.)
• Orbs: Removed.

Torb

Armor packs for everyone!

• Overload: In addition to its current effect, it also grants allies within 8m +50 overhealth and +10% attack speed for 5 sec.

Echo

She still looks like a support to me, so let’s turn the laser into a healing laser that reflects off allies (can be the same animation).

• Chain Heal (new ability): Fire a long-range beam that instantly heals a target and up to 2 nearby allies for 100 hp. Can over heal for up to +25 overhealth. Also heals Echo for 25 hp/sec over 4 sec. 10 sec cooldown.
• Laser: Removed.

Sombra

Debatably, she could stay in Offense, but I thought I’d throw out a suggestion anyway. This is a bit like the Mei update in that her primary CC is made less annoying, while still keeping the strong version (silence) in her ult.

• Opportunist: No longer deals bonus damage to hacked targets.
• Hack: No longer locks abilities. Now applies Weakness (50% damage debuff) for 3 secs. Increase cooldown to 6 sec. Hacking health packs doesn’t trigger cooldown.
• EMP: Unchanged (still locks abilities).

Mei

No changes.

I know there may be issues with four queues, though I’m skeptical it’ll be worse than trying to get 40% of players to queue for healer. Regardless, they can keep the same queues they have now if they want. Just have “Support” be a flex Defense/Healer queue. Maybe it locks you into Defense/Healer. Maybe it doesn’t. Players are currently free to pick dive or barrier from Tank; sniper, flanker, or grenadier from Damage; so maybe it’ll be fine if players are free to run 2 Defense or 2 Healer if they want.

There would probably need to be minor survivability and healing buffs to Healers for this to work. And maybe some minor survivability nerfs to Tanks to keep lethality similar. But, this post is long enough already.

[TheCheese-1550]

There’s really no point in the defense role. If you’re not on the attack, you’re doing it wrong.

[Hypovolemic-1753]

Heh. You didn’t make it past the title, did you?

This should actually add more attack to the game, as you’re given the option to swap a dedicated healer for a more aggressive support with supplemental healing/damage mitigation. Whether that’ll be good or bad is hard to say without playing with it, but I think it’s worth testing.