Due to the amount of posts regarding utility between the supports and what makes them OP I want to post a reminder of the history of OP support heroes and the common theme in the fluxuation of our reaction to these heroes.
Note: I didn’t want to go find the mega threads in these date ranges so I found posts that were about what I remembered were floating around on the forums at the time.
Ana:
A post describing how to nerf her utility
A post attempting to make Mercy viable without hurting Ana (nerfing her)
On Jan 24th and March 21st Blizzard released the patch nerfs that killed her. Bionade duration reduced (5 → 4), bionade healing boost decreased by 50%, her weapon damage reduced from 80 to 60.
Lucio:
Although Lucio was never OP at levels relative to Ana or Mercy, Lucio was a must play (just like Zenyatta is now) due to the only hero with speed.
A post by a troll but good community response on their thoughts.
The nerf mentioned in the thread was the 30 meter to 10 meter aura change. People were positive that speed boost would always keep Lucio relevant.
Mercy:
Thread about how weak Mercy is due to utility that doesn’t match other supports. Responses do a good job explaining the landscape.
On Feb 28th a patch came out making rez make her invulnerable. A week later we get a post asking if Mercy is becoming meta (with examples of what might be causing it).
On Sept 19 Mercy gets infamous Valk rework just before then there was frustrated players who got downvoted for wanting Mercy nerfs.
So my point and take away on support balance, history is repeating itself on these forums. Here is how all buffs and nerfs play out for support balance:
- One hero is too good because of utility (this is always pointed out as the reason they are too good ).
- That utility gets nerfed (bionade/rez/Lucio aura)
- The underperforming hero gets a numbers buff - not a utility buff.
- Rinse and repeat.
This is also true:
- All heroes that were OP because of utility were also considered underpower with that same utility (besides Lucio - but including Zen).
- Blizzard always buffed a hero just before it became OP/meta (besides Lucio).
- Blizzard has never reverted the buff/change just before OP status when nerfing that same hero.
Tldr: Forum support balancing requests have happened over and over on these forums using the exact same arguments for each hero. Saying rez will always mean Mercy is op has been stated before about Ana’s bionade. No “OP Utility” made a hero OP until Blizz changed something for that hero.