The problem with support isn’t survivability. Supports in OW2 die less than any other role. Even the supports we think of as being easy to kill still have low death rates compared to tank/dps. The Support with the highest death rate is Brig and she still has a lower deathrate than the average for dps.
The whole supports play dead by daylight thing is just false. The numbers prove it.
but what ranks does this include? My guess, and I will admit it is only a guess at this point, is, those numbers go way up as you go below diamond, and way down as you go above masters 5.
Over buff is down now so can’t look there sadly. But that one data driven blog post by the devs said support deaths went up in higher ranks. The reason being that dps get mechanically more skilled as you climb so they can bully supports more.
While there was little difference at lower ranks, support heroes starting at high Diamond and above saw the highest jump in return visits to the spawn room. At these ranks, the increased pressure of a more skilled tank or damage player on the backlines has seemingly become too much for even high SR support players to handle effectively as compared with the live game. The most significant difference was at Grandmaster, where the support role saw an increase of 15% in frequency of deaths when compared to live.
This was in beta so maybe things are different now? Sadly we can’t know because blizzard doesn’t like to share data with us 
that makes sense. thanks for following up
Personally, I think the impact is more than obvious. If you both support lose fight is pretty much over with and it is a sweep. If you have even just one support up your team can fallback, regroup with minimal losses and feeding and keep a forward position more easily.
In terms of impact. We just lost an entire tank compared to OW1 and have the lowest shield up time imaginable in the game. Without two tanks getting in your way its entirely possible to murder a backline yourself as part of a contribution instead of it being body blocked by a shield or something. All your whipshots can go through. Bionade/Sleep dart are uncontested. Nothing can really stop the damage amps and discord tosses. Damage orb is gobbled up less frequently.
Of the supports, Ana, Zen, Baptiste, Kiriko, Lucio all have long range damage. Moira/Brigitte are more close range focused, but even they can secure kills. Its really just Mercy that is the weirdo.
The Support problem is a lack of Popularity.
And pretty much anything that would make them more popular, be it better healthpool, regen/lifesteal, movement speed, movement, firepower, and damage abilities. Would make them survive more.
Anything that bottomlines to intentionally not making the Support Role more popular is basically telling Blizzard they should intentionally lose millions of players.
I don’t think the Finance Teams at ActivisionBlizzard Corporate would like that.
How would you know? You’ve had nothing but bad takes and threads mocking them for months. Right now you are trying to control the narrative as you think you can swing it back in flankerwatchs favour. I’m not sure why we should help you do that.
According to what? overbuff? And yes, it’s their job to focus on positioning to stay alive more than any other role.
You mean since the flankers got nerfed. Here is news for you since you think you are educated on the topic but aren’t, the rise in support deaths for OW2 didn’t come from lower ranks, like you clearly think, it came from masters and GM.
The facts are that supports played like Deathmatch for the last few years already and were used to be constantly harassed. That didn’t change for them in OW, but it did change for higher ranks and they didn’t like it. But I’ve told you this many times before.
That tells you a lot about the average dps.
Sigh. You can’t be helped or saved. You’re determined to try to make this issue about flankers and deaths in an effort to avoid the real issues. As you and blizzard have for eight months.
At this point you’re just a troll and I should ignore you. For my own mental health and the betterment of the forum as a whole.
You’re getting matched with those DPS players buddy, so you’re no better than the DPS players in your team. You’re basically mocking your own skill and insecurity there.
What the stats tell us is that DPS is the weakest and least influential role by far, outside of very specific scenarios like a smurf Widow/Sojourn + pocket Mercy.
I play both, don’t tell me that support doesn’t feel like playing dead by daylight compared to DPS.
It does.
I can’t see supports dying more now than they did during the dive heavy season 1.
But yeah. The narrative surrounding supports is largely driven out of feelings and not representative of the actual game.
Supports dislike the lack of peeling now and how much pressure that can put on them. Understandably to be honest.
Does that actually mean they’re dying significantly more or weak? Well…Not based on the stats we’ve been told about. The skill floor of supports have all just been significantly raised and that is unsurprisingly unpopular with old supports.
The feelings of your players is the game in every way which counts.
If they leave because it sucks to play, then no amount of arguing with them that is didn’t suck to play changes that.
If they feel as if it is like dead by daylight, than telling them that isn’t what they are feeling is madness.
Yep, more so, it isn’t like the other roles.
It isn’t skill floor, it is that the role sucks to play.
I have accounts in plat and silver, and the game is wildly different between them.
So I can pop on the plat account, and experience the game as a better than average player.
If the thing is “well you are in plat, so you suck at the game, you need to be better” you have pushed out 80% of your playerbase.
The skill floors for supports are absolutely higher than in OW1 and the floors exponentially increase as you climb in rank. It’s no longer the role of stand behind 2 shields, 2 tanks and 2 walls with no dps being able to contest you. This is the result of 5v5 and there were a lot of warnings about how this would impact supports in particular before release.
So do the other roles if you aren’t playing Hog/Orisa/Sojourn though. This is an issue with the overall game and not something unique to supports that can be fixed with buffs.
As you know I’ve experienced those games too. Despite the lower rank it still sucked to play as dps. The game is struggling with fun and there’s a good reason why dps queues are basically identical to supports now.
Not like it sucks to play support there.
Yes.
When you are grinding for the battlepass, you just select all. It isn’t like people are playing for fun, they just grinding passes now.
I find lower rank support play to be more relaxing than dps despite my dps being multiple ranks higher.
Dps often just makes me angry. Support doesn’t.
I don’t, I hate fighting flankers off constantly. I want to be able to play support when I queue support, not DPS vs flankers mode.
I can pick DPS when I want to play DPS.
Now I have a choice to pick support to play DPS as well. I don’t want to play DPS when I pick support, I want a support role.
It is like if they removed the launcher from junkrat and gave him a hitscan weapon.
The changed from DPS, Support to Hunter / Huntered.
Like I’ve said before I get that. A lot of supports don’t want to deal with it and instead just heal. Yet that wont ever be a thing in 5v5 as it will just take us back to high sustain metas and defeat the entire point.
A lot of the flanker issues in low ranks can be mitigated with good positioning. I’m not a great support, I just dont have a support brain…But as I said find it far more relaxing in lower ranks than dpsing in the same rank.
Ok, for you, I will ask for an example.
You are playing Ana, it is low ranks, and a push map. Give me an example of positioning, they are running Genji / Moira as flankers. (just like your side is)
Depends on the situation and where the fight is taking place. If the Genji is just throwing himself at me then stay with your other support and closer to the tank. They aren’t going to get much done in a 1 or 2 vs 3. Ideally still near cover you can line of sight around.
Your other support is also flanking.
ok, you are close to your tank, and you expect the tank to peel? It is low ranks.
That isn’t positioning which helps you - it helps the tank, since you won’t miss your shots into him, but it doesn’t help you against the flanker(s). There is nothing that stops them just bypassing the front line and being on you.
Yes, you can use cover against snipers, regular ranged DPS, junkrats whatever. But cover isn’t going to help you here, and trying to play where you can get peeling isn’t going to help you either.
If you’re alone forcing Ana into flankers is a bad idea unless your mechanics allow you to 1v1 him. Swap to Kiriko/Bap.
Oh, no not really. It limits the Genji comitting to fully diving you and plats do tend to somewhat peel if it’s happening in their faces.