There are 3 Types of Abilities that make a Support’s kit Meta in OW2:
Mobility
Self Healing / Temp Invulnerability
Duel ability (1v1 potential)
Heroes who have all 3 in their kit will forever be meta in OW2. Kiriko , Lucio, and Moira have all 3 in their kit. They need to rework all Support Heroes that DO NOT have these 3 philosophies included in their kit in order to make all supports viable. All 3 are needed in OW2 with the absence of an off tank to peel for the Support role. Supports can no longer sit in the back and just heal, like they could back in OW1 days. Those days are over. We are now in the Duelist Support Era. What do you all think?
Moira is not meta in mid+ and higher ranks. Anywhere where people can aim and have decent target selection she won’t be good.
Duel ability isn’t that critical anywhere where people do teamplay and not pug deathmatch. What’s important is the ability to fend off flankers but that’s not the same as being able to duel them. Just enough thread is good.
Mobility is not specific to supports. This game is about mobility so naturally every hero that has it will have an upper hand.
Invulnerability is much better on say Baptiste - who also happens to have excellent burst and self-heal. Yet he isn’t stronger than say Ana or Kiriko. Utility isn’t only about invulnerability even if that helps a lot.
The one you are missing is utility. Lucio and kiriko have utility along with the supports you don’t list. The higher up the ranks you go the more important utility becomes which is why Moira drops out of the picks.
Kiriko is strong because she has great mobility with wall climb and tp and she has good crit damage and she can counter many ults with her ukuni thing. Along with her ult she is possibly the strongest hero, next to sojourn, in the game right now.
Other heroes like Ana are struggling at low ranks because of they lack of mobility and their reliance on utility which is not always easy to get value out of in a 1v1 against a flanker, like sleep which requires aim and timing.
Moira will always be the strongest support at low ranks because of the lack of skill needed to get value from her - in my opinion, way too little skill to get way too much value.
Supports should absolutely not have consistent positive results in 1v1 scenarios unless it’s against another support. Brig qualifies for all three of these points yet she doesn’t see much high rank play or very favorable opinions on her current state. Mobility is the safe option and likely the best way to keep them engaging while not popping off with killstreaks
Hard for me to rank, considering it’s usually unique to each hero and their playstyle.
And if a hero is lacking in one of those, it will need to be compensated in a different area.
I.e. Mercy vs Zenyatta
That said, I think Season 2 is going to have some pretty extreme balance changes that increase the popularity of the Support Role.
Supports will probably account for 10-15% of players assuming no Support hero changes. And they want Supports to be 2/5th or 40% of the total playerbase. Or as close to that as possible.
And they are going to want it fast, because Ramattra is going to be causing some extreme queue times in the Tank Role. Also a lot of Ramattra’s design, is angled to kill Supports.
The game has changed, and gotten newer. Heal botting is now throwing, and utility reigns supreme. The only players who have so far complained about this are players who don’t want to embrace change.
You can no longer just get your ult as mercy from healing, hide, then get that 5 man rez!
You can no longer just be ana and shoot your tanks all game and get high plat!
You can no longer just be moira and spam heals until your dry!
Why? Because overwatch constantly wants to raise the skill ceiling. Passive playstyles only reward basic understanding and limited skill. Utility forces smarter usage, controlled discipline, and once again, raises the skill ceiling so people can’t just be instantly busted with a hero since its just a heal bot.
Im sorry to all the support mains who are going to cry about this direction of change, but its better to embrace it then constantly whine. To spend more time writing angry complaints to blizzard than improving at these new kits.
Man i sure hope so. Queing in for flex is basically a 99% chance you’re getting support at this point. To the point that it’s surprising when you’re not.
Well maybe not at the start, but the more horrible queue/matchmaker issues get, the more desperate the devs are going to get to make that problem go away.
Even if it means solving it with the balance equivalent of chainsaws and dynamite. Compared to previously using medical surgery tools.
I agree with Trilly. Proper cooldown management, and positioning Bap, Ana, Moira, Kiriko, Lucio, and even Brig can easily out 1v1 most DPS. It should be difficult for a DPS to kill a support deep in enemy territory without any support pocketing them.