Damage reduction would be the same as healing in combat and would reduce the stress of the other support would have solo healing.
Don’t think it’s really fair to use Symm as a good example. We never got another non-healing support. The fact that Blizz’s solution for sustain was just “more healing” has cause more issues then solved them.
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Because they removed Brigs armor they want every Support to be a healbot? They also nerfed Brigs healing a lot, they nerfed wverything about Brig, not just the utillity
Those were not good old days, lol
And Symmetra was never a support, fight me
To be fair, we do have a mechanic for OOC healing- healthpacks (and technically you dont even have to wait to be OOC to use them). But too many players in this game are too lazy/entitled to actually USE healthpacks and would rather spam for heals even if their Supports are unavailable to help them.
But anyways, back to OP’s topic- I would like to see more creative utilities in Support kits. I hope whenever OW2 is released with (hopefully) more Support heroes, that we can see some fun ideas there. In addition to armor/shields, we could really use some more buffing/debuffing Support abilities. Like cleansing teammates, buffing/debuffing cooldowns or firing speed or things like that.
I replied to a comment Jeff Kaplan posted when they were reworking Sym and he never responded. I asked him if they could try making her shields different from the other heroes that uses shields.
Here are my posts:
This was years ago and they still seem like good ideas to me, but it seems they made it clear they only want Support Heroes to be Heal bots. It’s sad but that’s how it is. 
Than they destroyed tanks ability to tank.
Need to make healers about more than just healing and tanks capable of tanking again.
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Healthpacks aren’t enough to get a team back up to full after a fight, especially an immobile team like Orisa/Hog.
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That’s fair. I think OOC passive healing plus healthpacks would be a bit too much, though…Unless they also toned down Support healing a lot and reworked those heroes to all have stronger DPS/utility. Otherwise maybe just replace healthpacks with OOC healing.
Yeah. I really wish they’d lean into utility instead of stripping it away. The playerbase screams for these things to be stripped only to wonder why tanking feels horrible and certain DPS are always OP. You can’t do rock<paper<scissors with 30 heroes - there needs to be a larger equation.
Armor should have been reworked during the GOATs era. It could have been a tool that resists burst damage more efficiently than sustain damage, helping non-burst heroes find a place in this game but instead they gave her more healing and weakened her kit.
Alternatively, creative ideas like “fire ignores armor” (Dynamite, Torbjorn’s gun, Firestrike, etc) could have kept armored teams in check and turn some heroes into counters without weakening Brigitte’s utility for her team.
Symmetra is great as a DPS. I adore Sym 3.0 (we are on Sym 3.5 now, my Sym had a 2 second tele cooldown until everyone just allowed them to raise it to 10 freakin seconds for meme reasons and +25 hp).
Symmetra now works best as a DPS but I think your argument misses the point entirely on creating a non-healing support. Anything can work in this game if the devs take time to create it. The ideas for 2016’s Overwatch is vastly different than 2021’s Overwatch. I mean, people still insist Hammond isn’t a tank and yet he is perfect for the role.
Diminishing the possibility because of one bad attempt is just lazy
Exactly this.
It’s sad how connected all of these issues are. Tanks want changes so they don’t need to rely on healing so much. Supports want to feel useful in a fight without healing. DPS don’t want TTK raised to stupid levels. Yet Blizzard’s answer is “decrease utility (speedboost, discord, revive, armor, IF) until it becomes secondary, increase healing until it becomes almost passive” All that does is lead to…
- Healing is so plentiful so people fight in the open and in chokes, making it so Tanks need to be designed as barrier bots to provide cover
- Things need to die so DPS needs to be stronger because both teams have the same meta for healing/tanks
- Healers need to do even more healing because everyone dies if they stop for even a second (Bonus) - More AOE healing because Blizz ran out of ideas on how to support a team outside of healing. Just turn them into a dps with aoe heals and ‘claps’ ya done.
- More burst DPS needs to be created because sustain can’t burn through the stacked healing and barriers all at once
It’s always weird jumping back into Destiny 2 because of how much I get away with in Overwatch. That’s why team ults have become so fight defining in this game.
- Brigitte armor nerfed, compensated with healing
- Zenyatta discord being nerfed again, compensated with healing…
- Lucio amp speed nerf (70%), then rework + heal buff, then a basic speed nerf (20%) and amp nerf (50%), then speed buff/change/nerf? (basic 25%, amp 60%, wall ride down to 30% from its old 65% boost)
- Mercy’s reviv-- sentence explodes
- Baptiste’s lamp nerfed, reduced duration, longer cooldown, IF health nerfed twice
- Ana’s movement speed buff on ult removed. Nade and sleep dart both had their effect and duration reduced
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This is why I always say the game itself needs some changes rather than a few number nerf/buffs for heroes.
They made map edits before for this reason. Healthpacks are underutilized at the moment. Something like a ‘heal generator’ in many different spots of the map, away from the point, could restore a team when out of combat. Teams could try and secure those spots before pushing on but then be without in the firing lane/on the point.
It could go even further and certain teams could have control of it depending on how far they pushed. They wouldn’t be on the point so it wouldn’t matter during the team fight but someone like Tracer wouldn’t benefit from your backline nodes until the team caps A or something.
All of that probably isn’t the best idea but I do think the devs could benefit from rebalancing the game itself rather than fighting with the heroes every week. In the very least, at least drop some actual cover. This isn’t Lucio ball, the ground shouldn’t be so empty.
Her healing got nerfed
No, Zen got not healing buff at all
They nerfed he rhealing from 60 to 50 (now55) and gave her more utillity like rez on CD
His damage got buffed, his range and his boots, while they nerfed the firerate of his grenades and halfed the healing of his shift
Her healing got nerfed from 75 to 70 and her Grenade healing boost got reduced from 100% to 50%
You only list nerfs to utillity and act like they never nerfed healing
Just because listing nerfs isnt a proof that they want to make Supports healbots
They haven’t been removing the support role’s ability to support their team in ways that aren’t healing, they just made healing the primary focus moreso than it originally was.
Their supportive capabilities are still there, they are just more of a side deal rather than the main function.
The armor overheal was such a cool mechanic.
I don’t believe they “never nerf healing”
My issue is that instead of creative changes to a hero or more utility, they opt to balance out their healing instead as compensation.
Healing used to feel almost secondary on most supports but that idea has been changing over the years until healing has become an absolute necessity in this game. If you stop healing, your team dies. Same for DPS, losing utility in exchange for higher damage.
If they follow the trend they’ve been doing for the past four years, discord/speedboost/etc will only grow smaller because as the forum shows, there’s never a “happy number” to land on with utility. It’s all an ‘unfair advantage’ so the only thing the devs can do is gradually reduce it until everyone becomes an equally dependable healer with flavor differences.
What many people want are for heroes in this game to be less reliant on healing so it doesn’t turn into a sustain match that ends when someone ults or burst kills. Let having a Brig on your team = armored gang. Let having a Lucio = a team of speedybois. Pacifist Mercy reliably brings back a killer from the grave and Ana stuns the enemy while turning everyone into a main healer for a handful of seconds.
The way it is now, it all boils down to “Why choose x hero when y gives more health per second”. At some point, it becomes less about what else they bring to the fight and more about who can successfully keep the team alive through enemy team fire.
i’m affraid do to the team nature of this game having a healing that couldn’t heal even slightly would be a detriment to the game. If anything it would be like placing sombra as she is into the support category without any changes.
Sure she is “Supporting the team” by disabling various heroes, but in doing so she is opening her other support to constant targeting do to being their teams only source of sustain.
And in removing such removing the only way the team had of replenishing their health. No a support doesn’t need to be focused on healing specifically, just look at zen and Lucio for that one. But we need some way to replenish HP that isn’t taking turns on the ten seconds long respawning health pack.
I think they need to go back to a more simplistic way similar to how supports started out as where the healing was tailored to the utility of the support and all supports had utility.
AoE healing should be around the same amount as Lucio.
A damage oriented support should have lower healing.
The only healing amplification ability was from Lucio and it was only his healing.
Support ultimates were more effective.
All supports should look at the main three (Mercy, Lucio and Zenyatta) to base their balance off them.
Honestly I have to disagree as even tho healing is necessary, the unique tools and utilities they bring are what flip matches in the games current state.
Like Zen’s damage boost, Ana’s nade, Baptiste’s lamp, are all extreamly powerful utility that open up gameplay styles.
Support is fine now. They are versatile enough and have enough variety in toolsets to not completely overlap. Unlike tanks which lack variety and have too much of the same movesets.
Zenyatta - Damage Boost
Mercy (Including Ultimate) - Damage Boost
Ana (Ultimate) - Damage Boost
Bapt (Ultimate) - Damage Boost
Lucio (Ultimate) - Gives temporary shields for a certain amount of time.
Brig (Ultimate) - Gives temporary armor for a certain amount of time.
What was that about variety?
The only actual unique mechanics are Anti-heal and Speed Boost. They removed the no-heal support and armor overheal.
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