The problem with Lifeweaver

General Discussion
1

Lifeweaver has been out for a long time now, and he is still a fundamentally flawed hero. Out of these flaws I want to focus on one specific, significant problem: Lifegrip, specifically in regards to his own team.

The ability to displace and remove the agency of a teammate to play the game and make their own decisions is a concept that simply should not exist.

If you look through this forum, reddit, wherever, you can see that this topic gets brought up semi-frequently, however it is always dismissed for one of two reasons:

  1. “Victim blaming” (for the lack of better term)
  2. False comparison fallacy

Victim blaming:
The victim of a bad pull is a drooling moron who is out of position and doesn’t understand anything about the game, while the Lifeweaver player is a genius playing 5D chess.

False comparison fallacy:
Most often compared to Mei’s ice wall, but I have seen many other comparisons that got worse and worse as they went. To keep this reasonably short, I can’t go into detail for every one of them, however just stopping to think for 10 seconds before making the comparison should in most cases be enough to see why the comparison would be senseless.

Mei’s ice wall is a object in game, it affects all players and there would be no way to make ignoring mei’s ice wall fair. However, if lifegrip had been denied, an interaction by two players on the same team that affects no one else, nothing changed, no laws or logic of the game had been violated, and all continues as if nothing happened.

Now, bad pulls get more frequent the lower ranked you are, obviously. But perhaps less obviously, a big reason why these types of pulls are common, and why they are so frustrating, is because of the type of players that lifeweaver is aimed at.

Slippery hero that thrives on survivability, rarely does damage due to low healing per second, and healing is autoaim. Ring any bells?

There’s no denying that players playing low skill floor supports have probably the highest skill to ego disparity. But when they are throwing a tantrum,telling you how to play, going on about how you are diffed, you could just chuckle to yourself and carry on.

Now these players are armed with the power to displace others, others that are playing heroes that they, in most cases, don’t understand.

All of this could be solved with one simple change. An option to opt out of lifegrip. Not an interact button in the game, as you would sometimes see suggested, that would never work with the pace of the game. A option in settings, just as you would adjust your crosshair, ability sensitivity, etc.

Having an option to turn off pulls when playing with an abysmal lifeweaver would make all the difference, and there would be no drawback for anyone else in the lobby.

With this implemented, it would also be easy to make the choice to opt out of lifegrip hero specific, as there are heroes where I simply wouldn’t fear a bad pull in most cases, and there are heroes where you would generally not want to get pulled.

1 Like
2

This reads like you were accidentally pulled because you walked between lifeweaver and the person he tried to save.

Lifeweaver has no time to deal damage because his 51 hps (41) isn’t enough to keep anyone alive with, because people don’t use cover.

If you’re half health as a dps and walking into a fight, you might get pulled because he wanted to heal you to full health. Just so that you live for 1.5 seconds instead of 0.5 seconds. But you didn’t want to stand still for one extra second.

Lifeweaver isn’t slippery. He has a one use elevator and a 6 meter dash. That’s a similar amount of movement that illari has, and no one’s calling her slippery.
Lifeweaver also has the biggest hitbox out of all supports. Even bigger than half the dps.

They also see the fight differently from you. While you’re busy focusing your one enemy, the support is usually busy keeping an eye on everyone and can usually pinpoint the enemy who’s enabling all the teamwipes your team is experiencing.

If a support asks “can we please focus x character” or “we need to do something about x” then please do, because at that point that character is either killing the team on a flank repeatedly, or standing between you and the actual problem person. Effectively making you unable to make headway.
If it is a butthurt comment of “switch” or other non constructive noise, feel free to ignore it as it’s not helpful.

If there’s a repetitive “fall back” or “group up” it usually means the support needs help, the point is being back capped or someone is going to end up feeding because they’re too far from the team.

There are trolly weavers, yes. But i’ve only ever had 3 of those since his release, with enough play time to finish all passes to lvl 80.

The best way to get rid of bad pulls is to play smart, and be at least on gold level.

15 Likes
3

You sure introduced new and wise ideas that have never been brought up in the 57794974964964964 other “b-buh I-I h-hate life grip” threads :+1::sob:

The problem with Lifeweaver is that the devs want him to be heal-heavy and have pivoted their game to not allow heal-heavy heroes to thrive. The problem with Life Grip is that 19 seconds greatly oversells how powerful that ability actually is.

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4

I could have prefaced it with acknowledging that yes, most of my interactions with lifeweaver have been positive, and being given a second chance at life when losing a fight feels amazing.

My main issue is that when playing with a lifeweaver that makes bad decisions, it feels more frustrating than anything else in this game, by a long shot.

Accidental pulls happen, doesn’t bother me too much, I can understand that and never really fault the lifeweaver for it as long as it is not becoming a pattern rather than a one time incident.

There aren’t many explicit trolls on lifeweaver, as in pulling you with malicious intent, I could probably count the number of those I’ve had in my games on one hand. The larger issue for me is lifeweaver players that might in their own way mean well, but end up causing much more issues than they solve.

This can sometimes be solved by communicating with the lifeweaver and asking him to stop, but in my experience they often take it as an insult to their decision making, and become more obnoxious with lifegrip, and pulling more frequently than ever before.

Related to this is the fact that I feel like it is way to easy to mask troll pulls as a well meant attempt to help a teammate, and I can’t imagine anyone ever getting banned for disrupting my gameplay as long as they are smart about it.

I could probably go into ranked right now and soft throw a game on lifeweaver, make someone on my team absolutely miserable, and mask it as honest mistakes. Not that I would of course, I am just giving an example.

Overall, this was meant to be more of a suggestion, or a discussion on the topic as a whole, rather than as a way to complain about a specific anecdontal incident I might have had.

I know that this, of course, most likely won’t come true, but i wanted to put this out there to see if others might feel the same way, and also in a way to “debunk” the faulty logic some players on this forum have used to dispute and mock the frustration with this hero.

5

I’ve had trolly weavers that pull me off the point in overtime, but it’s usually because they were aiming for someone else who instantly died on the point because of the bad pull.

I know it can be really annoying, but having an option to disable being pulled might deny a match saving pull, if only they could have saved you from an ult.

Such an option has pros and cons, but if he was allowed to heal better, he would have less need to pull people.

1 Like
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Blockquote
You sure introduced new and wise ideas that have never been brought up in the 57794974964964964 other “b-buh I-I h-hate life grip” threads :+1::sob:

It is a lasting issue that doesn’t get enough attention because it is not an issue at the highest levels of play since lifeweaver players at that elo they know what they are doing, most of time anyway.

Blockquote
The problem with Lifeweaver is that the devs want him to be heal-heavy and have pivoted their game to not allow heal-heavy heroes to thrive. The problem with Life Grip is that 19 seconds greatly oversells how powerful that ability actually is.

I am definitely not arguing that he is overpowered, or that lifegrip is. Frustrating? Sure. But not overpowered.

As far as I am concerned though, lifeweaver is one of the heroes that should never be meta, and the worse of a pick he is, the better. I felt the same way about OW1 brig, every nerf she got, even when she wasn’t meta anymore, was a cause for celebration.

7

Give it up - I thought it was a terrible idea until 1 month after release and the trolling with this surprisingly turned out to be minimal - and never experienced it myself in comp.

We now also have a cool way to save people thrown off cliffs.

Not a fan of the style design but mechanically Lifeweaver is good for OW.

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8

For sure, I can imagine that this could be an issue, but for me personally, the positives would still outweight the negatives.

I would probably not even use the option to opt out of the pull most of the time, but when I need it and it’s not there, its absence is very significant.

9

I can understand that. I just feel like it might end up causing issues if someone forgets that they’ve disabled pulling and start heaping aggression on the lifeweaver for not saving them.

As i said, pros and cons.

While one person might use a feature for an intended purpose, there will be dozens misusing it.

10

On the list of things teammates regularly go out of their way to do suboptimally, mistimed LW pulls are way down. Just consider it another environmental hazard and break LoS preemptively.

11

Also there is a 62625272299222621919192763% chance that those dps players that do turn off the option to get lifegripped will cry and sheet their diapers in chat saying that they’re constantly dying and their supports aren’t helping them.

The only troll lifeweaver I’ve ever seen is myself in a single game after being flamed by a dirty, stinky, braindead ally mccree player. So to punish him I proceeded to pull him behind walls every time he dropped his ult. I thought it was a fair trade.

I’m by no means playing 5d chess out here but it’s actually ridiculous how often I have to waste life grip to FORCE my dps onto highground when they refuse to look out for my platforms. And when I don’t force them up there? The enemy team pivots, takes highground themselves and proceeds to violently sodomise our team.

Some players also don’t understand that forcefully repositioning them can be about resource management too. A soldier or an Ana that I’ve pulled up to highground is a soldier or Ana that’s no longer in the thick of things and at immediate risk of getting killed by close/ mid range enemies. That’s 1 person on my team I can freely ignore for a little while to ensure the rest of my team gets as much healing as possible as we push to engage. Nothing worse than playing a backline weaver watching your entire team all go to critical health within a few seconds of each other because they’re all bunched up and taking damage from the same AOE sources etc etc.

2 Likes
12

I’ve played ana with a lifeweaver. And it’s been so nice.
We get jumped and the weaver panic platforms, then remembers i exist and pulls me up too.
Or he’s just on a different side of a battle and pulls me from a flanker.

I’ve had lifeweavers apologising to me sometimes in those cases, and i don’t know why. They saved my life, i’m a support main. I understand.

If supports don’t look out for each other (and the occasional past off-tank main helps sometimes) then who does? Dps? Not likely.

2 Likes
13

Yeah I find that DPS players are extremely anti lifeweaver, whilst tanks are about 70% for, 30% against.

I’ve had games where I’ve practically made my tank invincible. Before they’ve even hit the floor from a sleep they’ve got a platform under them. The moment they’ve crushed and killed an enemy ana in the backline, they’re gripped back in to keep on swinging on the rest of them. Nothing the enemy team throws at them sticks and at the end of the game I get to see the pleasure of an endorsement followed by a “lifeweaver diff” in chat from them :heart:

If DPS actually communicated with their supports, they’d realise they have the luxury of being HYPER aggressive for a kill every 20 seconds with the guarantee they’ll be able to get out alive. But all it takes is one pull that’s rightfully saved their life but at the cost of them losing out on trading an elim for their death and it’s all downhill from there.

So more often than not unless I’m seeing some positive feedback from my dps, I’m saving my grippies for my tank.

2 Likes
14

/enters the room

/clears throat

/sings

Geeeeeeeet over Ittttttttt!
Get overrrrrr ittttttttttttttt!
Get over it!
Get over it!
Get over it!
Get OOOooooOooOOoooOOVER iTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

/bows

/exits

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15

If i’m on Pharah and I pop barrage please pull me if I’m about to die! Thanks luv youuuuu

<3

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It’s nice to see a demonstration of exactly what I am talking about, a mediocre player with a god complex.

You are precisely the reason this feature is needed.

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There was no god complex in the message. What was conversed was the fact that sometimes people tunnel vision, and at that point the person who’s keeping an eye on the whole enemy tean instead of a single enemy might see a rotation towatds the highground. At which point they know a dps is needed on the high ground or the team gets ult farmed by the enemy.

It’s about point of view and a question of how many things you can focus on at a time.
It’s a given fact that focusing on landing headshots detracts from the ability to keep an eye on the entire enemy team. While a support with homing heals has more time to pay attention to the ebtire battle field.

And if people don’t react to pings fast enough, the fight might be lost.
At that point it’s better to grab someone to contest the highground with the support, instead of dying or just giving up the highground and the fight.

1 Like
18

In order for the game to have variety there will be new heroes that do new things that are considered “unprecedented”.

Life grip is a concept that actually gives a tool to supports that did not exist before and that is okay.

Can you make mistakes when using it? Of course. But those mistakes are no more or less impactful then others. It is just more noticeable when it does.

Pulling a reaper out of the enemy team just as he death blossoms can feel bad for both players. But it’s a mistake that can and should be allowed to occur.

I have spent the passed month learning Life Weaver. His life grip has a high skill floor in my opinion. It is the highest part of his skill expression.

It needs to be kept that way.

5 Likes
19

He used the magic phrase! All hail player agency, the one true pillar of all gaming!

20

wow i would love if they added this to everyone

refuse nano? hell yeah!

refuse rez? absolutely!!!

refuse immort lamp? why not!!!

hell, let me refuse suzu!!!

let me just turn off an important part of any kit!!! why not? after all, its only fair