Support Question?

General Discussion
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Question about Supports:

For clarification, I’m around Silver rank. Somewhere between Silver 1-4, depending on the day. My takes on this game from a silver point of view are undoubtedly very bad takes. From a casual player’s perspective, maybe a bit better.

But my mates are around Platinum, which most people will say is a horrible horrible rank and they deserve smiting for even daring to share a Plat opinion. I want to do an INB4, and say please be cordial. But my mates were saying something along the lines of “supports do SO MUCH DAMAGE” last night. I personally don’t think they do. I personally believe that supports do so much damage because they kind of need to - people want supports to be unable to deal damage, and only heal. They want them to be unable to get kills, which will happen anyway due to how Overwatch counts KDA. But then, who will protect the supports? Tank? In lower ranks and QP, Tanks are full focused on what’s happening in front of them and around them, not necessarily behind them. It’s hard to be able to turn around because you will get lasered. The DPS? They’re usually off in Narnia, trying to hunt the other team’s supports, disrupt their Tank, etc. perhaps they’re on the Frontline, part of the bastion holding it so that you can protect the point. I’ve had moments where it felt like if I abandoned the line, it would fall over and not just the support would be dead, but we would all be dead.

The only answer then is either “git gud”, which is antithetical to having fun (no greyfalcon, no YouTube videos on this please. Just write a few paragraphs, I don’t have time to watch the videos. And please explain what you’re talking about instead of using buzzwords.) and be in multiple places at once, which is very difficult in the place of play that I am in, or it is have supports that can deal DPS.

What do we think, cordially? I think that there’s a reason for Supports to do damage. I personally play Tank and DPS, but I do flex onto support occasionally. I think that without the heroes that can deal damage (Zen) I wouldn’t play it at all. and not even because I just focus on dealing damage, but because it feels rewarding to have a teammate capitalize on Discord.

In this vein, does Illari have the right to exist? My mates were saying that she’s absolutely busted whatever, but I don’t see this at all. I think that if you destroy her turret, she’s cooked unless she’s protected, or has good enough aim and timing to protect herself. The only support on who I feel gets cheap kills is maybe Moira. And that’s only because I have had experience with her catching me as Pharah, I burn every cooldown to escape because I’m low health, and somehow she still succs me. Of course, I’m at low health, but it is still irritating. Of course, I don’t throw my controller against the wall and scream “THAT [expletive] [expletive]”, but… It don’t feel great.

Of course, this is a matter of thinking. Do the people here think that supports deal too much damage, or are they fine on damage? I would like a cordial discussion. Sorry for the long novel, I’m a bit fried…

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Which supports? If they say bap, sure, we can have a discussion that he has too much sustain along with high damage

If they say, Ana, Zen, Lucio we just point and laugh. The upcoming ow classic event should clear up any misconceptions about what supports were “designed” to do in this game

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Funnily enough, they mean the role as an entirety. They think supports in general deal way too much damage. I think this is centered around Zenyatta, Illari, Juno, and Moira. I’m unsure how to explain it, but I don’t think they do too much damage… I do see your argument for Baptiste. This is probably just a skill issue, but I find him somewhat difficult to play. Prolly just a skill thing. I do in fact, suck.

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every support deals a decent amount of damage, but significantly less than their corresponding damage hero’s weapon archetype.

For example :

Bap does ~128 dps, S76 does 171 dps

The reason they deal (and have to deal) so much damage is a format issue, 5v5 forces supports to have to defend themselves and generally deal damage more often then they used to in 6v6.

Maybe back in OW1, but in OW2 (especially recently) because of the MMR squish that stuffed everyone into Gold/Plat :

It is now incredibly difficult to climb out of those ranks (if you can’t trigger smurf protection because, say, you have an old account and have never played comp before but played LOADS of QP back in OW1) because of the insane skill variation between players because you will have Gold 3 players that play like Plat 3 players or Silver 3 players, but they’re both in Gold 3 so the matchmaker puts them in your game and if you get unlucky and get the Secret Silver you’ve basically lost. Also smurfs, stacks, cheaters, and wide matches ruin the competitive integrity of the game even more to the point where there are Masters games where the players look like they’re fresh out of Bronze (I cant find the exact video i’m looking for but it is somewhere on the forums in one of the matchmaking discussion posts, its like looking for a needle in a haystack.)

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This is interesting. Thanks for the information. I think they’re mad because they want supports to be healers, but they also need supports to not just be healers or else nothing dies and the supports stop playing.

It really is an interesting conundrum though. Supports need to be able to help themselves, and I like your estimation of DPS. Guess I should go make a cheat sheet of how much DPS each support does, bring that up, and watch the bombs go off… NGL, that sounds hilarious.

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I got the numbers from the wiki, it wasn’t my own estimation lol

https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Baptiste

https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Soldier:_76

I mean that’s not a bad idea (if it hasn’t been done before) because most of the playerbase’s perception of hero power levels is based on the numbers in the patch notes, probably why people didn’t bat an eye at ± 0.5 damage for Tracer or Sombra but they exploded over Symmetra’s Peak DPS being buffed from 180 to 195 to compensate for the season 9 health changes (even though DPS like Soldier can output up to 342 DPS by just hitting headshots, 18 DPS less than Bastion’s Configuration : Assault) because, to put it scientifically, ape brain see big number next to small number and head go boom.

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TLDR: OP is discussing how supports need damage and how people in ranks platinum or higher have unrealistic expectations about supports and that tanks can’t properly defend supports.

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Thanks a lot, man! I appreciate it.

And… Kinda? Basically, I can summ it up as asking a question wondering if my friends are correct. I don’t necessarily think they are, because I can see reasons why they wouldn’t be, but are they? I could be wrong.

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Everyone aside from Zen, Ana and Bap are fine.
Those 3 however can be pretty ridiculous.

Zen’s a tank buster and can kill a tank with one volley + discord, pretty self-explanatory as to why he’s a problem in 5v5 without even discussing he boosts damage for everyone on the tank.

Ana is also a tank buster, but uses utility to delete them as opposed to raw damage like Zen. Also pretty self-explanatory.

Bap is good in literally everything. Utility, damage, healing, mobility, he’s got everything. Illari can pump out damage too, but she lacks the same healing output, has no utility and her mobility is tied to a cooldown.

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To answer your question, since Overwatch was launched; it’s all more about positioning than people trying to flank to supports and disrupting tanks. Your mates might not have good positioning which causes an advantage to the enemy team, especially for the supports.

In conclusion, supports can do decent damage, but they don’t do nearly as much as tanks and DPS.

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Ana and Zen have a clear weakness unlike bap. It’s not a design issue that players lock in Hog Cassidy Soldier and never contest them