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.
Healthpacks aren’t enough to get a team back up to full after a fight, especially an immobile team like Orisa/Hog.
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…
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.
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.
Thats why ZenBrig is Meta, because healing is so important?
Utillity goz nerfed just like Healing, you said Utillity got smaller and healing bigger, but this is wrong, they changed both
You are making this arguement in a Meta where nothing has any sustain at all?
If that wouldve been true, wh, is Moira the least used Support out of all in history of OW, despite having the highest healing and Zen and Lucio the most used Supports, while they are the 2 with the least amount of healing?
it’s not what they do but how they are applied that makes them unique.
As mercy, zen, and ana may all have damage boosts but they all use them in different ways.
Mercy’s can consistently provide a single target increase damage that inturn allows them to apply such to any target the need.
Zen can allow increase damage from all allies on a single target, however he needs LOS. Even then that target is not always what his allies might need in that moment (as in a flanker attacking his other support while he and the dps focus down the tanks)
Ana’s is a temporary buff that increases not only offensive power, but the targets defense as well. But of course this can’t be use to protect and benefit herself.
Its more about main kit design.
Brigitte gives you a 2x CC character where needed.
Mercy gives you pure evasion and flight and easy to play single target healer.
Ana/Baptiste bring single target hitscan options with single target or strong AoE. Bap AoE, Ana single target.
Zen is your pure damage dealing support.
Lucio is your speed support.
Moira brings you your easy to play AoE healing unit.
Sigma/Orisa are your ranged shield tanks.
Reinhardt is your slow melee shield.
Winston is your hyper mobile shield with low range.
Hammond is your self survival tank /w high knockback.
Roadhog is a one shot unit.
Dva is a… I’m not sure what Dva is trying ot achieve.
Zarya is a short-mid range DPS tank.
Tanks still sort of lack a unit with more debilitating CC like stuns such as Mei, Sombra, Brigitte, who can apply a much longer CC effect or simply spam it more.
Tanks lack a long range damage dealer in hitscan (key to taking out flight characters).
Tanks have no flying unit either.
There are no tanks with team healing effects.
You don’t want your character to be too unique. Otherwise you end up dumpstered.
Evidence: Mei, Sombra, Bastion, Sym, Doomfist
Meanwhile on the less unique side, Soldier, Ashe, Hanzo, Widow, Ana, McCree. seeing any patterns here?
Overheal is op and shouldn’t be in this game.
And D.va, and Genji, and Reaper, and Pharah