Oh, I am huh? Golly, you musn’t have been here when Orisa came out then! Nobody said she was original, they complained that she reused a bunch of different existing mechanics
Which is the truth, she does reuse a bunch of existing mechanics. Pretty much every new character does, and many characters in the base game also share mechanics. It’s called good game design.
I honestly don’t think making supports more lethal is the way to go.
Here’s the thing. Supporting allies and killing enemies are fundamentally opposed to each other. The positioning and where you’re looking is drastically different. Killing enemies and controlling them however isn’t. To borrow terminology from LoL, somebody who plays Vanguards will probably still be fine playing a Diver. Players who like Wardens will probably still be okay playing Juggernauts. Controlling enemies by punching them in the face is usually close enough. Which is why OW2’s tank direction seems to be mostly working.
There’s not really any role that is Damage Focused Support. Instead, they have Enchanters and Catchers. They both enable their team, but Enchanters do so more via defensive cc and abilities while Catchers use long range CC to create openings for their teammates. At most there’s one Zen like hybrid named Senna.
They’d be far better off focusing on new supports with abilities like enfeebling orb than on ones who do damage.
Moira should have gotten enfeebling orb and her damage orb. Would have made her more interesting.
Enfeebling orb is a fantastic ability.
Thing is, it doesn’t belong on Moira. Moira’s kit and personality very much is that of someone who is going for their goals and will crush anyone who gets in their way themselves and not wait around for their friends to help them.
Mercy though… it’d fit her like a glove. Or another Mercy esque support.
I know you’re not speaking of nostalgia specifically but let’s not confuse OW1 unique abilities and hero agency with nostalgic scatter arrows or mass rez. While Mei has lost her freeze she is still the strongest CC in dps roster with wall splitting teams and soaking damage. I think she has some identity still. Her freeze is just more mindless.
Cass however just feels disgusting to play. I hate the timed trade-nade.
They could just give him an impact grenade that blows up at X range if they hate CC that much. The only real issue with CC though is the impact it had on tanks. Yet they took a scorched earth approach to it aside from Ana and some tanks.
That’s the thing.
I don’t care about MOBA/RPG balance logic, because I see Overwatch as a Class Based Shooter.
I also don’t care about balancing roles in a way to accommodate for “Too many Support heroes on a team”. Which is a possibility on games like LoL.
Take a look at class based shooters like Valorant, Apex, Dirty Bomb, Paladins, and TF2. (And Gundam). What they all have in common is that Supports are lethal.
That doesn’t change the fact that LoL has actually done a pretty good job of making Tanks, DPS, and Supports all fun and impactful.
It also really doesn’t change the fact that your positioning for using stuff on allies is vastly different than using stuff on enemies.
Take a look at class based shooters like Valorant, Apex, Dirty Bomb, Paladins, and TF2. (And Gundam). What they all have in common is that Supports are lethal.
So the idea that “Well League and WoW PVP balance roles differently” is a “I genuinely don’t care” kind of argument for me.
I figure that’s an ELO thing, and that the positioning one uses for healing and dueling flankers has a lot of overlap.
Where as Support versus ranged attackers? Literally just walk behind a wall for a bit, and regen your health back to full.
So you’re just going to ignore the fact that Mercy 1.0 was the most popular support in the game by a long shot and her existence was what got a lot of people to play OW who otherwise never would have?
Not really, since there’s two issues going on here.
I’m not saying we have to pick between those two, I’m saying do both.
Partially by giving different buffs to different Support characters. (I.e. More healbot stuff for Mercy, and more lethal stuff for Zen)
But I’d say they should also do stuff like give Mercy a 2.5x headshot modifier and a 3x faster weapon swap speed. Such that if flankers are getting in her face, she can just duel them directly. But with the option of GA she doesn’t have to.
Leave it up to the player to decide how healbotty or bloodthirsty they wanna be. Which might change over the course of a single round.
You don’t play support do you?
Not much, but Mercy is my most played Support and I got a couple hundred hours on TF2 Medic.
I do however have a lot of class based shooter experience.
For example, this is a Support character in a Class Based Shooter (That came out before Overwatch and had abilities, ultimates, and this character does a lot of revive stuff. And basically has a crossbow gun that can nearly kill in one charged headshot)
I think thats what would make ow most popular too.
Well, yes. It certainly did spice up the game quite considerably when classes felt unique. WoW was after all designed as an MMO, and while per example Eye of the beast didn’t have any function, it was a fun gimmick to have for hunters. The spells, talent trees and various other things made the character unique and the RPG elements complete.
And apparently Blizzard realises - too late - that they have removed the RPG of MMORPG in WoW, since they now suddenly introduce talent trees again, and re-introduce old spells that were removed.
We’re talking about Overwatch here
Does it really spice up Overwatch having a character that you never see? If you play them then sure, but what about everyone else that doesn’t play them?
The difference here from WoW is that there’s a good reason that nobody uses the characters you never see
People will always be looking for min/max, using “the best” in order to “win”. No amount of balancing can ever change that aspect. There will always be some characters that are rarely used.
Doesn’t mean you should make every hero in the DPS roster Soldier 76 or Sojourn in terms of their abilities. What’s the point of having a plethora of heroes then? Reality is you don’t have 30+ heroes to choose from, you have 3. 1 tank, 1 DPS and 1 support. And the rest just play around that same concept. What’s the fun in that?
But we’re not talking rarely used here, we’re talking never used. And we’re not talking about worst=/=bad either because characters like Symmetra, Sombra, and Bastion are in fact bad in OW1 overall(especially Bastion)
They needed changes and they are still unique whether you think so or not. Change is good
It shows.
Speaking as someone who does enjoy supporting quite a bit, dueling is not what I’m here for. It simply isn’t. No amount of changes to make supports better duelists or more lethal is going to get me to play more. It may actually make me play less if supports lose their other abilities to make room for lethality.
Now, what I want, and I’d hazard to guess other people who play TF2’s Medic and assorted mmo healers want is pretty simple. I want the ability to keep my teammates alive (within reason) and ways to avoid/prevent duels from happening in the first place. That’s it. The amount of supports we have who can prevent or avoid duels is honestly pathetically low.
The next obvious question is why should they cater to me and others like me. Simple. We already have Ana, Baptiste, Zenyatta, Lucio, Moira, and to a lesser extent Brigitte as supports who have to take duels when jumped for people who do like them. Mercy is the only support who doesn’t and she still sucks after her rework.
In addition to that, OW2 needs every single support player it can get its hands on. Supports are 40% of every match and are nowhere near as popular as DPS. They have a massive playerbase they lost with Mercy’s rework that they could get back if they actually tried.
Well first off, if you wanna understand me. Don’t think of me as a “Role Main”, I’m a “Role Queue Main”. Like I’ve probably spent 400+ hours figuring out Role Queue stuff and related issues.
That said, here are the current changes I wanna seefor Supports.
Then probably just a bunch of minor changes like a few extra points of damage or healing here and there for each Support hero.