Absolutely - that’s the big problem that needs to be solved.
Going from “supports aren’t fun” to “supports are more fun than DPS” is gonna be a big challenge, especially given that the switch to OW2 seemed to be all about empowering DPS and tanks more…
Another issue that has really put me off support is that the removal of a tank has meant no real peel for you at lower elos and so any dive means you are probably dead. You could play kiriko or moira to possibly escape it, but even then if there is a monkey diving you’re probably not getting out of there alive against him even as moira.
I find that if the other team is dive I’m better just leaving the game than fighting it as it just makes me toxic constantly walking back from spawn.
If they are removing the counter to dive, being the 2nd tank, then they need to add something for supports to help them survive it as, without that 2nd tank, it’s rather difficult and unrewarding to play.
More like “Supports are less Fun than DPS, but almost as Fun".
I’d argue that they don’t have equal impact.
Supports can’t carry via damage because that’s the DPS’s job.
Supports can’t carry via control because that’s the tank’s job.
Supports can’t carry via sustain because one shots are common and only one support can do something about a successful one shot.
So… how exactly are Supports supposed to carry? There’s nothing left. The devs painted themselves into a corner when they decided that (mostly) only tanks get CC.
make baps jump charge quicker
That’s a big part of it. Support Evasion/Sustain tools are built around an 8sec Winston Leap cooldown, not a 5sec one.
I genuinely don’t care about MMORPG style jobs.
Overwatch is a variant on Class Based Shooters.
And the extreme vast majority of the playerbase it has, and is likely to recruit, would prefer Supports to be more in the Class Based Shooter direction.
And the idea that Supports can’t have more overall value than DPS, or else vague bad thing they always refuse to talk about, is pretty tedious if you’ve seen people bring you this argument thousands of times, and never follow it to it’s logical conclusion.
Then what exactly is your solution?
Again… “DPS” supports don’t solve the problem. We KNOW they don’t because we have so many and the problem is still here.
Maybe just maybe the way to fix supports is to make at least some of them capable of carrying via using their specialty instead of trying to make them DPS lite.
Logical conclusion is that it results in stalemate. If support manages to keep up with all kills in this game, game remains uncertain, until support makes a mistake or dies.
Moth Mercy demonstrated it quite well.
Logical conclusion is that you’re gonna lose some players no matter what you do regarding queue times.
And losing a small fraction, of a small portion of the total playerbase, is a small number.
So if the devs have the choice
of losing 10,000x players,
or losing 100,000x players
Which one do you think is the better business choice?
It’s less about business, and more about OWL. Viewers do not have attention spans to watch relatively long uncertainty time, when it’s unclear, which team is coming out on top.
Which is why supports are allowed only minor slowdowns of overall carnage, rather than stopping it, let alone reversing it.
Last time it was possible, many players were very unhappy with it.
I think OWL isn’t that profitable, and was overall a net loss in profits. And could maybe even be disbanded after Microsoft buys the company.
And they need to be focusing on Ladder players to buy PVE in bulk.
Yes, but I believe it to be main reason behind such design choices.
PvE poses it’s own problems, as if talent trees would even remotely allow supports to taste actual power, current support crisis of PvP will look like minor inconvenience.
So doesn’t that bring us back to making the Support Role as close to equally popular as the DPS Role, as possible?
Based on the preferences of Ladder players.
They nerfed it from 1 sec to 1.5 in Beta 2 with all the other supports
I’m just tired of queing all roles and keep getting support. I even played a 5 stack where we all sued for all roles for 3 matches for the daily and I was stuck as support all 3 matches. Support definitely needs a buff to the damage out put, except Moira. She’s fine in that department, she just needs a utility ability.
It does, but making supports more like DPS isn’t a solution to that problem, as it just offers DPS worse deal.
I’d say giving Supports almost as much Dueling Capability as DPS, in addition to their Heals/Utility is approach.
If Supports aren’t “Broken OP” in Open Queue. Then they probably aren’t doing it right.
I’m assuming you are referring to Moth? I am fairly certain that the anger towards Moth was more due to just how uncounterable she was back then. The rework boosted her mobility so much that she was basically impossible to kill and her beams and Res were impossible to deny outside of killing her.
Case in point… Mercy 1.X could also carry via sustain, but there was significantly less complaining about her.
Yes. Since Moth was exactly that - carrying by constantly resurrecting your allies, until they finally make it.
They can’t be broken OP, because most of their abilities work best on lonely tank.
I wish I could make my DPS just as able in combat, as our tank, but supports just do not have that kind of power in their kits.
And even in Open Queue, you still will encounter plenty of DPS, it won’t be 3-4 tanks at all times.