Making a 100% pacifist support in a 6v6 team combat game? It would be extremely difficult if not downright impossible. Even Mercy has a pistol that can do a fair amount of damage, but look at how she’s been treated for mostly having a ‘pacifist’ playstyle.
A new healer, maybe an off-healer like you mentioned, should have a new healing method we haven’t seen in game yet, or have some cool utility that works with their kit (Lucio has speed boost, Zen has discord, Brig has CC and armor), something that hasn’t been seen before. Ideally, a CC immunity/cleanse would be extremely helpful in comps like Dive and GOATS, or an anti-heal/reduced heal factor.
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I have been asking for this for a long time. I think we are long overdue for a support that just sits back and helps and enables their team. This is also the reason that mercy players ask for mercy changes, because we have no-one else like mercy who suits our play style.
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I think the challenge with “pure support” is that support abilities really need to be innately less powerful than pure damage. i.e. If one support can reliably outheal one DPS, the fights will literally never end. See also: If one support can pump out shields faster than the enemy can burn them; if they can amplify their team’s abilities without restrictions; if things like immortality field had no counterplay; etc.
Support abilities that aren’t direct healing tend to be a lot more passive than damage abilities, too. You’re applying it on people who want you to give it to them; they’re not dodging you (well, not on purpose, anyway), and they’re not trying to stay away from you. So even if your healing/support is tied to skillshots, it’s less challenging than attacking or debuffing the enemy. And support abilities have more to do with handing your teammate a gift and hoping they do something good with it, and whether or not they do is usually beyond your control.
Both of those above reasons are why Mercy feels a little lackluster to play at the moment; how do you have “pure support” abilities that don’t feel oppressive to the enemy team, or helpless to the support player?
I do not mind playing support roles in the team, and I’m plenty content to do something that goes unnoticed but sets up a teammate for POTG, but “pure support” is going to be very, very hard to accomplish in a way that feels good to play as, or else feels good to play against.
If the devs come up with a pure support that allows the support players to feel challenged and impactful, without being a “moth-meta-esque” titan that every non-support player wants to nerf into the ground, then sweet, I’d be happy to play it. But I question how viable that is as a concept.
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I don’t dig Ana that much but Bappy is my fav. I’m all about those hybrid supports.
I want a barrier wizard.
I think thats true as someone who sucks at pure supports. Funny thing is, among other things, the inspiration for this topic was how inviting the support roster is for me because of all the new additions that follow your philosophy. Because of that, i think support players are due for a very “back to the roots” hero, but i don’t know if thats what players even want, hence this topic. I don’t think we need to worry about Blizz shutting down the steady flow of combat medics anyway.
Such a detailed post 
Im always up for jump pads.
Probably.
Yeah, and it seems like the gun is more and more encouraged as time goes on. Im not necessarily saying “no weapon,” just asking what kind of new supports players want.
Thats what i was thinking. Mercy wouldn’t have to be ideal for every pure support enthusiast is there we more of them.
I think biotic grenade, sleep dart, hack, discord, the boosts, rez, and immortality field prove that utilities can be very adrenaline pumping.
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At this point I’ll take whatever barrier. We have been in need of a shield tank for more than a year now, the fact that they managed to add a the 16th DPS before making a Rein alternative is quite annoying.
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Serís from paladins would be perfect for overwatch imo her últ would just need to be different.
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Now that there’s a surplus of healers that favor grouped up, tanky sorts of comps, I think it’d be nice to have a healer that can enable more dps-heavy styles of play. The only healers that really do are Mercy and Zen.
People have mentioned a healer that distributes health packs, and I think that’d be cool. But maybe instead of deploying them in one stationary spot, they make it so that the health packs can be picked up by teammates and stored for later use. This way, a dps player can just use one as they’re maybe diving into the backline or making risky plays / escapes or something.
I’m thinking that this healer would only distribute mini-packs, and characters can only hold one at a time. Players have to pick up the healthpacks by interacting with them, and would also use them by pressing interact.
Perhaps, in order to avoid situations where people can just hold onto healthpacks forever, they can make it so that the healthpack either disappears after a certain amount of time or the amount of “heal juice” in the healthpack begins to slowly drain out overtime.
I’d prefer to have another main healer since I just like main healers more, but an off-healer would do fine to balance the support roster out.
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What would best flesh out the roster would be an assassin off-healer. A hero that works well in a duo flank and provides a play style analog to Genji or Tracer. High damage, short range, strong mobility, medium single-target healing, and no AoE healing (unless it’s an ult).
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I love every part of this except “high damage”. Why do we need high damage on a healer? I barely understand needing medium damage…
Love the whole flanky Genji/Tracer vibe, single-target/no aoe heals thing though.
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Yeah I totally agree. I really want a new off-sport that requires high-ish skill, high mobility, and high utility. Like a healer that focuses more on buffs and debuffs than flat out damage like the other offhealers.
It would be super nice if they added a solo target speed/jump buff. Or a cleanse ability (that works like a zarya bubble but no damage blocked and another effect). Hell, id be cool to have an ability that makes an enemy do less damage
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For balance and player engagement, mostly.
Same reason Zen has good damage. If you’re going to give them weaker healing, then they need to present some other sort of significant threat to the enemy. You could give them CC instead of damage, but… I’m not sure that’s wise.
I think you’d want a buff or debuff in the kit also, but not as replacement for damage/CC, as that leaves you pretty vulnerable.
(This concept is a lot like Kharazim from HoTS.)
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