The situation of Supports in OW2

General Discussion
1

Supports are lacking, as a support main for 5+ years heres my input

Changes in OW2 so far, more mobility, less cc, less peel, more flanks.

These changes make the game feel amazing for dps, i mean being able to szoooom is so nice, tanks not having to worry about a flash bang or brig bash feels great to let them ult when they want! fees so good!!!

Cons, supports. thats right the support is a con! supports used to be this role taht kept your team alive! but now, they dont do it. tthey cant, the damage coming in is so high because tanks have gone full throttle into movement and dive. Doom fist, reins ability to cancel chargess, orisia dash and pull, ball, winston dives, even sigma has an ult that creates a good all in and zarya, they feel great you initiate fight its sick! but due to only being 1 tank and the remainder of only 2 barriers in the game and halfing the amount of barriers in the game make supports vulnerable. but alone that would be fine, supports have healing abilities to stay alive and mobility! wellā€¦ not all of them. and if they do have high mobility their damage is better when diving, as its the trade off for cc. but some supports were left in the dust.

Ana, mercy, Zenyatta

These poor supports. lets start with ana

Increase cool down on sleep dart, Im okay with this actually my problem is the vulnerability of Ana. now that every dps can flak, she is unable to escape and must engage in a back line fight. even brig lucio, moira, bap, mercy cal all escape bad situations. ith multiple attempts to get out in a small cool down. Anaunfortunatly diesā€¦ diesā€¦ and dies. the antio nade is big but the team iis dive based no matter what you do because of the movement speed increase. supports die first, then get spawn camped, because they dont have the damage to push forward which means you dont play the game. Ana needs a change. mobility/verticality/escape. idk how to do it but something. this is probably the smallest issue with suppoorts. Mercy and zen have the biggest problems.

Mercy. My personal favourite, the high skill cap, the hhigh mobility and high healing output is fun to do. but she feelsā€¦ left behind, the 30 hps per second outside combat isā€¦ okay at best. due to lasct of damage reduction, barries and ioncrease of movement and reduction of closed areas. mercy suffers. getting out of combat is the hardest thing to do as mercy, you can only escape if a friendly is in los and usually thier in combat as well. the passive was never nice to have unless you are between fights or if you have a fliyer and your not able to be hiut but if you cant get hit whats the point? shes lacking in excitement, its better to give us things to do. mercy is not easy by any means, but, shes also not fun. somethign needs to be done to her kit. her ult is unimpactful. in OW1 you could easily heal up the team due to two tanks being able to soak damage, then damage boost thorugh. now. you cant heal the massive amount of damage coming through. your forced to damage boost your allies and watch them try to trade, or go battle mercy, or hold your ult all game for an escape.

Zenā€¦

Zenyatta is the reinhart of supports. his kit is so old, and fits an old version of OW. out of all suports. zen is going to get smacked in OW2 just as OW1 in 2017-2020, low heals and the huge dificulty to focus discord on any target due to barriers or inability to figure out who your targeting. you just end up discording and autoing down the choke into a barrier. he has no ability to flank the highground or change levels like every support (excluding ana) can. he cant displace enemies, his ult is counterd by anti nade, Dva bomb, mcree ult, any displacement cc and is used as get out of jail free card. if you dont use it you get bullied and spend most of the game in the death screen. Zenyatta needs more movement abilities or sspeed, the man floats, he should be able to move faster than soldier who runs on two feet. the man falls behind in metas such as dive without a lucio, and for fall back and defend metas, hes./ā€¦ okay at best, his healing is not enough to even keep the tickle from fall off damage of sombras smg . its a joke. the damage orbā€¦ when combined with hack is amazing, aloneā€¦ if you cantt hit the head then its useless. besides the target gets a huge purple screen and just stands behind a wall and repositions and the orb is gone in 2 seconds. harmony orb. easy fix. dont let it fall off if los is broken keep healing the same. we dont have a healer that can heal while staying safe. but zen needs something like this, breaking los to reapply it to someone else would feel great, you can flank and not worry about orisa breaking los and dieing because you didnt have los. give it the draw back of having a area of effect and if the target leavs that it falls off. maybe it heals more if you have line of sight. then maybe he wouldnt need verticality he can break off and get high ground for a moment and still help his team

anyways thats my current ideas. good night folks (I wont be responding to this post)

3 Likes
2

Iā€™d like a few small buffs for bap, brig, and Zen.

Brig - remove some of the movement speed penalty while having shield up.

Zen - Right Click buffs to spread and projectile speed. Iā€™d like a fire rate buff too.

Baptiste- some buffs to bloom on his gun, tighter spread so you can be more accurate with him.

I think those would help without giving them game breaking utility

3

Iā€™d just like for them to rework brig at this point. her kit is so boring. its really sad too since as a character, sheā€™s one of my fav. Idk what to suggest for Ana cause she is my main and i like her kit the way it is right now. not sure how they can up her survivability tho.

4

100% down to 75% heal reduction on nade.
as is its basically a death sentence now w/ reduction of barriers.

could add a jump back motion to her sleep dart to help her ā€œescapeā€ a dive (even fi miss gives some distance back)

5

Yeah I agree about her anti nade needing a nerf. It always felt too long for me so maybe shorten it length?

1 Like
6

Just chatting here Mizoreā€¦

I feel your pain. It is a new environment, and a bit different than OW1.

That said, Iā€™m finding the opposite to be true. I think Mercy is great fun in OW2. Sheā€™s all I generally play in either (OW1 OW2)

GA is great fun on these maps, healing is tops or near it, DB matches or comes close to the other supportā€™s dps, and for some reason Iā€™ve had a lot of luck with Mercyā€™s pistol. It seems to help with gaining ult.

It feels like Mayhem, which I dig. And the more I play it, the more I enjoy it. You can use so much of map in ways few others can. All the levels, nooks, corner, overpasses, walls, barriers, vehicles, column, stairs, rooflines, etc. Itā€™s so much fun to play around and through as Mercy. Your constantly reading the fight, and moving with it. Itā€™s fast and unforgiving fun. Misread it and die, get in the flow of things and itā€™s just nonstop action.

I think once more people are used to the maps and all the new abilities, itā€™ll get easier. Itā€™s just in a crazy state right now. A fun crazy state, but a crazy state none the less.

Good luck out there.

7

These are my opinions as a GM support player since OW1ā€™s closed beta, and as someone who had the opportunity to be invited to play in the OW2 Alpha as well as the Beta.

I also think that just a few days of a beta is not enough time to understand the nuance of the supportā€™s role here. The supports survivability is a skill that has been sort of abandoned and eroded away like a vestigial limb for a while; most supports have the ability to survive (perhaps not win, but survive) 1v1s if their team is cognizant of their needing help. The problem is that supports, generally, have not needed to do this for years.

In the ~first year or so of Overwatch, supports really needed to have this skill to climb in ladder. In the past few years it has been less and less of a necessary skill for supports to train, as theyā€™ve been required to use it less and less, as double shields have gone up, dive has been deleted, and stunwatch was initiated.

That being said, support players really need to get good at this skill again before we start going crazy with buffs or the like. Also, please consider the new support passive which is actually massively impactful, but people need to learn to use it. Supports no longer need to use their important long CDs to heal themselves/eachother! And if youā€™re good at controling the flow of a fight, you can heal up some even during a team fight. Thatā€™s so good and is also a big help in survivingā€¦but I donā€™t notice many people in PUG QP Beta games taking advantage and using it to its fullest. I was in the Alpha and the overall skill level of the players was much higher than here in the beta (and adaptability was higher), and I felt the support players had a much easier time with it.

In addition, the support role is being forced to focus a little more on the ā€˜rock, paper, scissorsā€™ aspect of the game than in the past. If you are absolutely taking Mercy in a scenario she is not particularly useful in, you are a much bigger weight on your team. If youā€™re taking her no matter what, you have to be so nutty on her that youā€™re able to overcome her being a weak pick in more team-comp scenarios. OW2 also, imo, puts more emphasis on the ā€˜risk/rewardā€™ ratio than in OW1. Zen is really risky, but he is so strongā€¦so if your team agrees he is a strong pick, you have to build your team around him to protect him.

And as far as ā€˜healingā€™ in OW2ā€¦actually, the healing numbers skew high. If you feel like youā€™re not healing as much/enough, odds are youā€™re either not playing optimally in the new OW2 environment, or are on the incorrect hero for the team. The healing tools are there; the supports -healing wise- make a huge impact if they are allowed to heal their team without being harassed by the enemyā€¦which is why theyā€™re going to be harassed by the enemy. On top of that, though, the game is obviously trying to reward the players who are able to do more than just healing. If youā€™re the Ana who can heal and still mete out damage and of course most importantly, stay alive, youā€™re going to be rewarded much more highly in OW2 than OW1 because your individual impact is that much more significant in OW2.

Basically, all the supports have had their agency and upward skill expression improved in OW2 as compared to OW1. Their individual impact is hugely important now -there is far less to hide behind!-, but that also means that it is very obvious when you are underperforming (and with the new tab menu, everyone can see!), so people can tell if youā€™re in the wrong SR or playing the wrong hero (or just having a bad game) at a glanceā€¦so youā€™re held more accountable.

3 Likes
8

though i understand the brig thing, giving her more movement speed would break her, you can already pit up sheild to proc passive if you cant get inspire off

9

Brigā€™s kit is actually really strong if you play into her strengths. The support role in general now needs to focus a little harder on three things; positioning, survivability, and valuable team compositions. Unless youā€™re giga at any one specific hero (enough so to get an impact on that hero despite the drawbacks and provide individual resources to your team), you have to be more considerate of your team comp when picking your support in OW2 than in OW1.

In OW1 could you take a Brig or a Mercy in situations theyā€™re not ideal in and still get enough value to sort of eke by? Yeah. Would a different support be a better option? Probably, but maybe not enough so to make the change. In OW2, with one less player to make an impact to cover the weakness of playing a less-than-ideal support hero in the circumstances, your whole team will feel that weight of the lacking support. Brig feels useful and strong in the correct circumstances and when people realize how she is meant to be played in OW2. The same goes for all the supports, to be honest.

The only support hero who is sort in a state of limbo is Mercy, for a few reasons. Firstly, the game doubles down on her pocket mentality; in OW1, the significant way to viably climb on her is though hard pocketing. I donā€™t care who says differently; it is what it is -when you climb to medium SR anyway, and then up through high SR. IMO, this is the most braindead and least interactive way of playing the hero. She has an interesting and thoughtful kit and it is all boiled down to the least-common-denominator; hard pocket. OW2 pushes her further into this hole, I thinkā€¦and it is a lot harder for her to succeed with it. She is very easily punished by a wider array of heros for doing it. Part of it is the obvious, ā€˜git gudā€™ā€¦you have to use a bit more of her kit to survive -which is good!-, but I still would rather her kit changed around a little to have a bit more agency on the Mercy playerā€™s behalfā€¦even if OW2 does add some upward skill expression on the hero. Of course, the real answer here is that Mercy is a lot more situational in OW2 than in OW1 and simply canā€™t be taken as often as she is in OW2 which meansā€¦Mercy players need to learn more heros, lol.

10

I agree with your view of picking the right support to match the team is needed but,If it is requiered to wins games to pick the best support for the best situation, the same should be for DPS and Tank? as much as i like the game higning on two players surviving, we are still super swuishy with the new damage debuff from sombra hacks that were meant to help with tanks are annihalating supports who cannot stop a high level sombra from clicking on their head for 1.5 seconds after hack for 250 dmg, along with discord, and mercy damage buff the amount of damage is so high. the amount of damage coming through was always balanced around the need for barrier destruction and out damaging heals. Iā€™m failry sure damage will be lowered ssomewhere to compensate but it is not really fun right now to play support, as is evident by the que. people in OW1 did not want to que as tank, their mechanics were too reliant on ā€œperfect playā€ because without a tank youd lose a point or get pushed back and cant recover that ground entierly because the payload determines the defence point. this resulted in a game where if you lost your tank often enough game over. now with 1 less tank and tanks being SO mobile, and supports falling behind in the speed game, they have that reflection in que. sure you could argue that is because players want to play the new hero and orisa/doom but iim not seeing doom played often, orisa sure, and sojourn of course, and the hype will die down on those heros? I dont think so. Orisa is currently one of the best tanks, if not the best, her kit has everything, immune to cc, over health, knock backs, speed bursts, team wise cc, ranged and safe pins, high damage, head clicking, and damages nullifying, played properly can annihalate a whole team. she feels strong, and her kist gives players alot to do which makes her feel fun, and strong. DPS, has sojourn, high mobility, verticality, full auto damage, 250dmg snipe capability (support 1 shots) high flanking damage, and high speed passive. she is faster than every support just based on the passive movement, with her slide and verticality movement ability, she over takes every support escape and can out damage the healing of every support. with no cc she can come in, pick off ana with 1 fully charged shot and get out with no concequences. the same is with junk now. junkss down side would be his susceptability after his satchel, which used to have 1 charge years ago and he received the buff to two because he fell behind in movement and was easily caught out. now that his base speed is fater due to hhis passive, he can flank the back line satched the healer from above and walk away, because only the tank has cc and is almost always engaged in a 1v1 so that the enemy tank cannot focus the vulnerable supports. ow2 is moving towards a more ā€œsoloableā€ gameplay style where you can solo a fight and win. i.e 1 dps can kill 4 players solo without risk due to 0 cc in the game, moira can solo 2 dps or 2 healers, so can brig and lucio at a much higher cap. but mercy, ana, and zen cannot solo 1 healer (unless its a mirror match of one of the three of them or mercy is using valk) or 1 dps due to the inability to keep up around flanks high burst and verticality while solo. tanks can easily solo a whole team is played right and waiting for the right moment. supportsā€¦ feel left behind in a way, they require asisstance to just survice, not to kill but to escape, while every other character (including moira and brig) can just get away. even bap has some escaspe with high ground that cant be followed by every character. in other words, I dont believe every support should be soloable by EVERY character, they should have atleast 1-2 characters in any role that they can win a fight against, even if its difficult, but it should be a fight they have an upper hand in. a tank role would be way to much as thats the dps andf tanks job to kill. but there is currently no risk to ranged dps to flank the back line. absolutly none. its all reward, because they cannot all get away. only 2 have high mobility 1 hase limited verticality in you have to charge it and its predictable for hit scan, and the rest areā€¦ well allies needed. and its not like its just one dps that can do this,any dps can, Cassidy, sym, sombra, heck even torb has over health increased damage, movespeed, an auto turret, and high melee damage, mei can solo supports, even high mobility oness, soldier, sojour, echo, phara, i can list every support. now im not saying these are ult solos, ist just quick 1.2. sometime 3 and your dead, you spend 60% of the game dead now because of one pick, you can wait for your team but in the mean while your not playing the game, your being camped at spawn, or your other healer is moira and you cannot fade to get a good distance out. your stick, you can try to lucio out but not happening your forced to pick brig to just get out of spawn, and now you dont get an ult because of the speed of ult play. i dont think 1 pick should prevent a plyer from playing the game or being able to use the biggest part of thier kit. it happens in atleast every 3 games as a support where i am camped at spawn have to swap just to be able to fend them off then either swap back to complement the team or continue as brig/moira. you shouldnt have to swap to one of 2 heros to survive, evey support should have a chance to live a fight nit just be a helpless target in a agme that now requires no team to flank and gives only reward for doing so. escape abilities are the best answer as it can delay the amount of time a flank takes. right now. its about 2 seconds of being exposed and only after you fire, but the supports dead so you can leave and win the game now because 1 less dps in the team fight means nothing, one less healer is the end of the game camp the spawn wait for them to change and never receive an ult.

11

I have been playing Mercy on OW2 and been enjoying it a lot. Iā€™ve actually been enjoying it a lot more than playing Moiraā€¦ donā€™t tell Moira I said that

2 Likes
12

ā€˜You need to pick Supports for the situationā€™

Like picking Tanks for the situation, i.e picking Zarya to cleanse the Antinade, the only game making ability the Support roster has at the moment?

13

Oh i agree it is ā€œFUNā€ to play mercy, but im looking at this from the balance perspective at high ranks, where hitscan can aim and predict your predictable guardian angel. that is now no longer an escape but an emergency must heal target then escape. i font it hard to play every support excluding moira and brig against 90% of the roster. it feel bad that in a competative play if we want to have the best chance at winning, it going to be the same two heros no matter the comp. because welā€¦ the other supports dont match up well against hitscan. which is the way blizzard wants to take ow2, into a hitscan fps. i just hope new supports have a kit that atleast hase a movement ability (zenā€¦ ana) that gives them a chance at escape, doesnt have to guarantee it, but a chance. mercy has that chance but not if shes being camped. i think every support should have 1 of 2 things. 1 the chance to get out of a 1v1 as every 1v1 with any dps is a death sentance if your not brig, and second the ability to turn the tide of a 2v2, or 3v3, or 4v4, or 5v5 fight with either healing, sheilding, damage buffs or debuffs, or team wide movement. the second one every support has, the firstā€¦ not so much. and mercys is kind ofā€¦ meh, but she can rez the tank who can literally win the game solo so her impact is fine. I think with mercy maybe something like not needing someone to guardian angel to to get some verticality. kind of like in the experimental card a few months ago, i dont care for mas rez, BUT the valk being a reusable ability on a 10 second cool down would feel amazing on the new maps and comps you have a chance to get away from some heros, you cant just be spawn camped forever.

14

Iā€™m masters, I donā€™t think thatā€™s low rank personally. Yeah, I know itā€™s not the best rank, but still, itā€™s not low either. Plus there is no ā€œcompetitiveā€ on the beta, nor can you judge competitive games on a beta anyway. Plus supports havenā€™t received their changes yet.

the problem with the beta right now is a lot of people are not used to playing without shields so they will constantly make very poor choices and end up taking a lot of damage, itā€™s something a lot of players have to get used to, they took shields for granted now they are gone so people have to be more careful the way they play etc.

Dunno, but if there is no major changes to supports when they changes do go live (whenever they do) I feel like I might be jumping ship to Mercy. I never had this much fun in a long time and I really enjoyed the feeling of being under pressure while playing her. Dunno, there is something about being put under pressure that I really enjoy, maybe Iā€™m a weird :thinking:

15

Well thatā€™s correct, but I think every support barring Mercy (who has minimal agency) has the ability to make a play -or at least start one.

Lucio can speed the team in to a push with amp, and has knockback to separate enemy teammates. That is immensely valuable and wins teamfights alone.

Brig also can separate the team and can provide a ton of front-line burst if played as a brawlā€¦she is able to keep an enemy on lock-down with highly oppressive damage.

Moira is able to pick off low HP/squishy heros from relative safety.

Ana has nade and sleep.

Bap has immo (for defense or offense) and very solid damage.

Zenā€™s discord and a cohesive teamwork push literally destroys even high HP targets.

And of course they all have ults that can used for a push also. All the supports -with proper teamwork- barring Mercy have the agency to have play-making abilities if the player on them is adept enough at the hero. Nade is, imo the most braindead and easy of these abilities to get value out of, so perhaps that is why it feels like she is the only one with the ability to do so.

16

I agree that what I am noticing the most is that people are not used to positioning well without shields. The damage in OW2 is actually lowerā€¦but the shields (and second tank) arenā€™t there to soak the damage. Healing is higher than people think (they actually buffed all the healing in the Alpha aside from Lucio and Zen, I think the game felt better with even less healing!).

I also feel that the Beta being QP only is to the detriment of people trying to figure out balanceā€¦by its nature, people are not trying as hard. Flat out. Also, some heros are better at defense or offenseā€¦and without the chance to ā€˜run it backā€™ in a competitive ruleset, itā€™s easy to think ā€˜we got steamrolled!ā€™ā€¦maybe you were playing the wrong hero. Also, itā€™s difficult to judge the SR of the people playing against you were. Again, in the Alpha, almost everyone was GM+, and you knew the names of pretty much everyone on both teamsā€¦so you knew what you were playing against. But here, you might feel like ā€˜Wow, Winston feels strong!ā€™ā€¦but if youā€™re a Masters tank player and were playing like plat supportsā€¦yeah, heā€™s gonna tear it up.

Once people get a better feel for the positioning, and the supports for keeping themselves alive, I think more and more people will be a bit more accommodating of the support role. That, and the inevitable release of the new support heroā€¦but I do also feel that Mercy is a lot more fun in OW2 than in OW1, as it definitely did raise her skill cap and allow for some more skill expression. You are more active in fights, even if I wish they added a bit more agency on the players behalf.

1 Like
17

I donā€™t think so, a small buff would help her. Iā€™m not talking like 15/20 percent.

Supports have a lot of massive drawbacks to their independence if they are expected to frag out in this and the queue times reflect that and will be a problem no matter what whichever content creator says so.

Additionally, Most DPs can be used in all scenarios and they arenā€™t fighting against their own kit to make impact offensively, whereas supports have these things baked in from OW1 design

18

As mind-numbingly boring & painful tank play was for the last few yrs- at least I retained most of the hidden/forgotten skills like pathing, positioning, pre-stage, initiation, kiting, ability tracking, ult rotation etc.

Those skills allow me to enjoy learning tank again in OW2 without feeding my brains out and throwing the match.

Anyway, I think this is the most insightful & well-written post on this so far. Nothing more to add really, just hope more people stop with the nuclear takes and actually take a moment to consider this.

19

If they donā€™t queue, then they donā€™t queue.

You canā€™t change the users of your game. You can scream and cry and say they are playing it wrong, but if they donā€™t queue, you will have to change the game till they do.

People have this weird idea that if they explain to the supports that they SHOULD be having fun, when obviously they are not, it will make it all ok.

It doesnā€™t, they just wonā€™t queue.

2 Likes