Making a bad pull isn’t excused by you having good intentions. The game doesn’t care about good intentions, it only cares about the outcome of your actions.
I am not blaming actual LW players here, by the way. I am blaming the people who mindlessly attack anyone who criticizes the Pull ability itself and how it’s being used, without listening to reason and without actually understanding the points made. Why are there so many apologists?
An ally ability that revokes all player agency without one’s consent, and without one’s ability to counter it or avoid it, is inherently incredibly dangerous - especially when that ability’s sole purpose is to revoke player agency (unlike other hindering abilities like Mei wall for example).
It’s not about players being bad, or malicious, or unaware. It’s about the ability having one sole outcome no matter what the intentions of its use are: To displace an ally regardless of their consent.
An ability like this simply shouldn’t exist in the game, not in this form at least.
My proposal is to make the ability proactive. Make it function like a Zarya bubble that applies to an ally for a set time duration - and within that time duration that ally can freely press their interact key and get pulled back to Lifeweaver. Make it the ally’s choice.
This would also mean you can plan its use in advance, instead of just yoinking players at random when they don’t expect it - especially when it isn’t communicated beforehand (which doesn’t even happen in GM btw).
So instead of apologizing for the ability’s existence and how players use it, instead look at how disruptive it can often be, by merit of its design and sole intended use. Look at ways to rework it so that it can actually be an enjoyable experience for everyone, not just the LW player - as it is in fact the LW player who is the least impacted by it, thus they should have the least say in whether or not the ability is healthy for the game.
Some copium is expected in the comments, obviously. But hopefully people will also see sense in this issue, and not just leave it as the annoying mess of an ability that it currently is.
It is odd they ever made this hero imo. They already had issues with mei and her walls, and Sym’s Tp’s to a lesser degree. (you can easily troll torb by moving his turret around). To add another hero that let you affect your team mates without the permission was an odd choice.
As the OP mentioned, it doesn’t even have to be malicious. You often don’t have all the information about what is going on, what your team is trying to do. Would their possibly death out weigh the gain of killing the enemy and so on. Never mind the delay in action between pushing the button, and an ability going off. For a long time Mei’s been complained about blocking things like a Dva bomb on purpose. Despite her wall being released at the same time or even before the bomb.
That Life weaver been getting buffs to help his “kit” while ignoring the pull is odd. Especially as the dev’s flat out said they knew it was a problem when making Rein’s Shatter immune to the pull. As if he was the only Ult that could have issues with it.
Long essay for a point that consists of three sentences.
“I don’t like life grip”
“I don’t like that people like life grip”
“I would prefer it to work like Zarya bubbles”
Wouldn’t a better suggestion be that you can press the interact key to cancel the pull but keep the Shield for what would have been the duration of the pull? Your change doesn’t make the ability better, in fact it makes it way worse.
This part especially boggles me. It’s very evident the main reason he’s weak isn’t because of his dmg or heals -its because he is so reactive in every part of his kit. He needs things to go sideways before he can provide any value, which is never a winning strategy.
But then they buff his stats instead of actually reworking the one ability that is already scuffed and could use a real bump.
I would like to stress this isnt just you but to all the people that uses the “I didnt consent agrument”
Yet people blindly attack Grip without considering all the benifits it can do. Many post like yours just boils down to concent. You didnt want to be pulled yet got pulled. Yet no mater what we say, or try to convise you, you dont even try and see out point, only your point of view matters.
Lets say a ana nanos you without your concent, or a mercy rezes you when you didnt want to. Thoese are similar situations where you didnt want to do something yet now you have to. Mei even can do this to some extent, she can wall off areas forcing you to either wait or go a different way, sorta like LW where can can force move you a small distace. One is a forced move while the other is a forced stay.
When you decided to play a team hero based shooter with roles you give up some concent, this isnt chest where its 1v1, its a 5v5 so there are 4 other people on your team that you need to work with. Tanks need to do their job and have faith that their team will support them through heals and damage. DPS need to have faith that their tank will tank and apply pressure so they are able to do their job. Supports need to have faith that their tank and dps will keep them safe so they can support the team. Each role has a job and you need to work with them.
However the LW argument that some of you say is that you dont consent to being pulled regardless of the situation. You dont have faith in your supports that they can do their job, you prefure that they dont interact with you and leave you alone. You are being the selfish ones, you are playing a team based game yet dont want to play with the team. You want the tank to tank for YOU, you want the supports to support YOU, you want the game to revolve around YOU. If you didnt think that way then you wouldnt get mad over LG becuase he temporary makes the game not be around YOU. He is trying to support his team, to work with them, yet you actively are trying to work agaist your own team.
Now if you were trying to say you dont think the ability works in overwatch because it reactive or some other reason then i would consider your argument. However this post is how you personally dont like him becuase someone else tried to save you.
I apologies, so my trolling is less obvious, can’t pull people into pits but can “accidently” keep them from making game changing plays… Whatching genji ult just to slice the air is comical.
Your complain kinda falls apart with the “not having all the information” point because that’s exactly why most people that get pulled in a way that saves them don’t understand why they’re pulled. Most often the supports will have the most information on the team (they’re often further back and in LW case is normally higher up).
I think the real point you had there is “I think I can win my fight and would rather risk dying than being pulled and resetting”
Also life grip isn’t really meant for back line divers anyway at this point, it’s more for saving hero’s like Ashe and 76 who are getting dove by a flanker and then reposition them with a petal. It’s also amazing at peeling for second supports like Ana.
The same could be said about any situation though, a ana could nano only for a rein to charge off a map, mei could wall off her team, lucio can boop enmies out of utls. There are tons of situations where any hero can hurt another hero on accident. This isnt unique to LW
Life grip is player action as well, mei can preven player action yet your not saying that only mentioning LW.
Life grip is a single target with a heal and invulriblity, its really hard to get someone killed using Grip. The only way ive see someone greif with him is by him pulling a ally into the enmies getting him killed in the process as well. Its also a 16 second cooldown and takes away control for ~1 sec, It has a uptime of ~8%. Life weaver can block as well with his tree but considering that is a ultimate it might happen 1-3 times in a match.
Mei has 2, she can wall off every 12 seconds and the wall last 5 seconds. It has a uptime of ~41% she also has her ice block that can block doors every 12 seconds for 3 seconds or a 25% uptime.
Mei also has a higher pickrate then LW so your more likly to run into a trolling mei then a trolling LW.
Mei has way more troll potential then LW.
So everyone else is a accident when they do it but never a accident for LW
Most of the time your right but there are exceptions. Just yesterday I was rein v rein. I knew he had shatter and I was pressuring to bait it out. My life weaver thought I overextended and gripped, giving a free shatter triple kill that lost us the round. That may not be the default but it shouldn’t even happen really.
And the big problem here is it was hugely frustrating for me, having a plan and executing it well to then have my team mess it up in such a obtuse way. That is objectively a terrible game experience.
Genuinely though, what is the issue with the OP’s suggestion. He’s phrasing it a bit poncy (and unclearly, it sounds nothing like zarya) but its a good idea. Think of it more like someone adding you to a group, where you can press a button to accept and join.
Weaver puts it on you, has like a 2 sec c/d before e can put it on someone else, and if you then need it press a button and boom, it activates, you go back to weaver and it goes on full c/d.
The best part is then it’s objectively your fault, not weavers if it goes wrong. Did not get it in time? should have asked for it sooner. Pulled out when you were winning? I guess you panicked then. Oh did it hit the wrong person? well they accepted it, blame them. Give the player control and it becomes their fault, right now it is weavers fault when it goes wrong.
The issue about the whole press f to accept doesnt in reality, just look at thresh from league, or symettra teleporter, or the bird guy from HoTs. They all have that Interact to tp feature, however people use it to late or just never use it becuase they think they dont need it. In how fast overwatch is now, even that slight pause where you debate on using it might cause your death.
Also why is it that people only mention grabing tanks, i grab my other support or dps way more then the tank or i just save it for a ult where i can 100% save someone from certain death.
You guys make it sould like we only pull the tank and no one else. Im gonna save my other support from the genji that has been in the back lines for the last 30 seconds while my dps and tank do nothing to help.
Ok so you reduce him to a translocator. That’s incredibly broken and removes all skill from lifeweavers end. You’d be taking one of the highest skill ceiling supports (in terms of game sense) and making him boring and 1 dimensional.
It’d then need to be nerfed into the ground anyway because no one would want to have a rein charge and and tp out for free whenever he wants. At least now it’s a form of skill expression that doesn’t have to be a super long CD
in which case it is their fault, they shouldn’t moan
It’s my death I would rather it be my decision. If I get it wrong my bad. And personally I’d make it a setting (like Mercy beam swap sensitivity) where I can authorize LW to grab me without asking or I can make it my choice. If I know and trust the LW player I’d switch it.
I’m a tank player so that’s my example. If I played more DPS I’d have more DPS examples. That said I have seen a mid Dragonblade Genji about to shred like 3 enemies pulled back because “Brig and I needed help with this Tracer” as I was on my way to help, actively covering with DM. Not exactly an ideal moment that one and the Genji rightly got very very angry. And oh god the amount of “ahh we needed help or thought you were dyeing so we pulled you, how we we meant to know it was OT and you were the only one on cart…”. We’ve all been hit by that one.
As the ability stands due to communication, control and timing errors I would say it
ranks worse than lamp, bubble, suzu and Brigs pack. Just make it something you can pre-load set up and personally activate and my bet is it becomes the best solo-target save in the game.
I like how people who enjoy LW try to have discussion about him without resorting to what your doing.
But people will still complain, “why didnt you put in me earlier” or something or then you have do deal with 2 players pings, the LW putting the shield on target, then the target using the interact. It just adds in a extra step that i dont think would work. However having a interact to leave would work alot better while giving the target some control back.
Also as a support main, I can also list tones of examples where a pull has save someone. Thats just it examples. For every example you list where you had a negtive expierence i can list 1 that was positve. Look at mei, she has the same potential to run ults and plays. They wall of a dva bomb, or block a friendly shatter. She has the same capabilites to ruin a play as LW does. Lucio and Pharah can as well, they can boop people out of ults or boop a enemy ult into their team. Ruin other peoles plays suck, however that isnt something unique to LW nor is it something that happens more frequently as LW. LW is just the newest hero with that potential so he stands out more.
Personally i think its more reliable then thoes 3, Lamp and suzu have travel time, suzu can be blocked by shields or DM, they can miss, or walk out of the area you threw it. Bubble from zarya is in the tank role so i dont think it works quite well when talking about supports. And repair pack besides the burst healing doesnt work well in prolonged fights since its has a long recharge time.
Now im not saying they are bad ablities, but when its comes to saving a target grip is more reliable then the others.
IMO
TLDR: Ruining plays in not unique to LW, if the argument is just that, then we would have to remove way more ablities then just LW Pull.