About Supports
Some feel unimportant while others can dominate the game heavily compared to another in most situations, some do not even feel like supports at times, while some always do
I have an idea, what if the developers of Overwatch 2 were to make 2 support roles, a primary support role, and a secondary one.
The primary support role consisting of supports who’s ultimates and abilities mainly focus on support, while the secondary support role consists of the supports who’s ultimates and abilities consist of things capable of doing DPS or assisting in DPS/more leaned towards doing so
An example; Primary Supports - Mercy, Lucio, Lifeweaver, Kiriko | Secondary Supports - Moira, Brigitte, Ana, Illari, Baptise
^MIND YOU THIS IS AN EXAMPLE, NOT FINAL^
Note- In the Role Queue, there would only be one Primary Support, and one Secondary Support, this would also prevent teams from having two supports playing like they are DPS and also give way for the characters listed in the “primary support” option, as well as preventing just full on two main supports at the same time, that is a personal take that I think some would agree with
I feel as if this would solve the “nerf this and that support” issue that alot of players like myself have felt, while also making the game a little more diverse and more open, team compilation wise, as well as less closed off in character choice, as the more DPS oriented supports would be in one category and the more HEAL/MOBILITY oriented supports would be in another, making it so there are not two of the like, I feel like overall this would also make the game more fun and more diverse in the competitive aspect of it, too.
I’d rather not. It’d limit too many comps, ESPECIALLY with the heroes you separated. There’d be no Kiri Lucio Rush comps, no Ana Brig Dive comps, no Illari Bap DPS comps…yeah I’d rather not lose so many comps, thanks
It is a support role, why is there a “DPS” comp, that defeats the purpose of “support”, if you want to play DPS, just go DPS, things like this are why I proposed the idea
and also, it was an example on Kiriko and Lucio, the Baptise, Moira, and Illari part was a more final thing than the others, though.
Doing damage is supporting your team, sure, but this is a class role name we are talking about, not the literal definition, when one thinks of supporting their teammates in a game like this they do not think “Killing the enemy team” do they?
No, they think of healing, increasing a teammates stats and boosting their mobility as well keeping them alive and the like via resurrecting, etc
If we go by your definition, everyone is a support, considering EVERYONE is contributing to the team
But is Reinhardt a support? No, he is a tank. Sure, he can protect allies with a shield, but we do not call him a support, do we? Reaper can do heavy damage to the enemy tank, benefitting the tank, but we do not call him a support, do we? Roadhog is a tank capable of putting in damage and keeping himself alive to an extent but do we call him a support?
My point being, if you want to play a DPS, be a DPS, Supports do not feel like Supports often, they feel like DPS more often then not, and you, bringing up a “DPS” team compilation just proved that statement.
I never said it was just about healing, but I am saying it is becoming a DPS role more often than a support role, I am not saying remove the damage factors entirely but I am also making a point that it can be less DPS oriented by separating the supports who deal heavy damage and are more secondary healers than they are DPS, and the supports who are full on healers and do not deal overly-heavy damage capable of brawling a DPS but instead buff other supports damage
We somewhat have a situation like this already, but it’s problematic. Supports are subcategorized into main support and flex support. Main supports focus on providing consistent healing and utility, being the consistent backbone of the team. Meanwhile flex supports have pop off potential with their damage and cooldowns and have more directed healing. Or at least, that’s how it SHOULD be. For example, Mercy, Lifeweaver, Lucio, and Brig are all main healers, with low to mid healing numbers but do so consistently and can provide consistent utility. Meanwhile Kiriko, Ana, Bap, Moira, Illari, and Zen are flex supports, having pop off potential that can carry the game.
The problem is that Flex supports have been dominant for all of OW2, with Ana, Kiriko, and even Moira sometimes in the meta. Meanwhile, main supports (with the exception of Lucio who is actually decent) are often struggling and ignored. Mercy is trash, Lifeweaver is trash, Lucio is strong but only if you’re skilled enough with him, and Brig is great against most close range characters but absolutely horrible against long range enemies (literally her whole value goes down the drain as soon as the enemy dps switches to an Ashe, Pharah, Sojourn, or Echo).
If Flex supports are going to have more damage, then their utility or healing shouldn’t be as strong, but the problem is that the flex supports have higher everything. Higher healing numbers, higher damage, more impactful utility. They put high power utility like Suzu and Immortality Field on Flex supports when those types of abilities should have gone to main supports who don’t have much damage and therefore their plays would be more about saving allies. We need to rework the support category in general so that not all of the power in all 3 areas (healing, utility, and damage) is in the hands of flex supports.
If you want a game with healers, play a game with healers. Overwatch has Supports. Supports SUPPORT their team through a combination of damage, healing, and utility.
Artificially limiting comps because you aren’t good enough to understand them isn’t a good look, dude.
I agree with this, this is a great pointer to what I am referring to.
I feel like the game would be more fun overall(and diverse) if these flex supports were not overly dominant, or even just categorized to where you can only have 1 flex support and one main support.
I don’t think we should limit comps by forcing one of each, as it does limit options heavily, but rather the devs need to rework the entire support role so that main supports actually outdo flex supports in at least one of the 3 main areas of support (healing, utility, damage). Right now, if we look at Mercy or Lifeweaver, they have low healing, low damage, and the utility is good but less so than the flex supports with their massively impactful utility abilities like anti-nade, immortality, discord, and suzu. Even when supports were “overtuned” or “dominating the game”, that only applied to flex supports because they have everything, whereas main supports were not overpowered at all during that time. Overall I agree with what you percieve to be the issue and have felt very much that same, as I am a main support player who is struggling to climb in Masters. (Brig/Lifeweaver/Mercy main here).
This summed up what was going to be my reply to that, haha
Yeah, right now- it is that main supports feel worthless compared to the “flex supports”, why go Mercy when you can go Illari who can do what you can essentially but more healing, has more utility as can go stationary and DPS
You would think they would look into this after the mythic Mercy skin dropped, people will use it but over all Mercy feels weak compared to Illari, her only somewhat closed gap is her utility or her revive which, does not beat the difference in their ultimates, either
I don’t know. I play Zen a lot and there isn’t a single time I think about any of these more than discord orb and damage damage damage. If I’m on bap I can do both if I can play at the skill ceiling. I don’t have to prioritize one over the other for the most part.
I don’t want to lose out on the synergy of Lucio Kiri/Ana Brig/Bap Illari/Bap Zen comps just to force some D tier hero to be picked more
You are just pigeonholing support heroes into two categories based on your preference. Support is fun because you can adjust your playstyle according to what your team needs. Also support has the least number of heroes and you’re further restricting the options.