The "Supports are defenseless" Fallacy

General Discussion
1

I see this thrown around a lot as well as “DPS just want supports to be free kills” as if every problem that the support role has is due to DPS mains.

Here’s some news for you, Support is the most busted class in the game!
The problem with them is purely player based on not a fault of the heroes design or kit.
There is an idea planted in the minds of people who gravitate towards the support role which is “I don’t need mechanical skill”, maybe it’s something they picked up from other games but the vast majority of people who play support aren’t mechanically skilled.
This is why support players think that they are defenseless and blame DPS heroes and players. Sometimes asking for nerfs to DPS heroes, buffs to support heroes or actual “do it for me” hard counters. All this does is just result in power creep which the support role has been the main offender of basically since OW was released.

Mechanical skill is not the only skill in the game, game sense is important too and probably even more important to win games, but if you feel like you are actually a free kill in a duel vs. an enemy DPS hero, then you not having mechanical skill is clarly your own problem and something you should work on. Not ask for heroes that does it for your simply by existing.

Tracer is one of the heroes that everyone and their mom likes to call OP no matter what rank they are at. The unstopable, uncounterable beast that will one clip everything and everyone. Even though in reality, even at the highest rank, Tracer isn’t even considered to be that OP.

Just to put things into perspective, if we take pro players in OWL who play Tracer. One would assume that if a gold Tracer is amazing, an actual pro must be just straight out unimaginably god like right? What about Zen? Zen has no mobility so even though the Zen players are pros as well, they must constantly lose every 1v1 vs. Tracer right? Turns out, that’s not really true.

This shows final blows and deaths per 10 minutes in the showdown between Tracer and Zen. Most of them are actually close to having a 50% of those duels while Jjonak wins over 50%. The funny thing is that SBB’s stats on Tracer are inflated because he doesn’t have to play against JJonak.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/8azk63/tracer_vs_zenyatta_final_blows_of_stage_1_2/

We have seen Anas and Lucios dominate flankers as well in 1v1s. Mercys zip around the map making Tracers waste all their resources and sometimes even end up dying trying to secure those kills, battle Mercys who whip out the pistol to chase kills or defend themselves with or without Valk. Who doesn’t enjoy watching Unkoe getting tired of just damage boosting and healing his Pharah and just whips out the gun to get the job done himself?

It’s nothing more than an excuse for not wanting to put in the time and effort that is required to get the mechanical skill that is required to be able to fight and win those duels.

Get to work and stop relying on heroes that do it for you!

11 Likes
2

If supports are fighting a 1 v. 1 against a dps hero in a fair fight, they’re doing it wrong.

1 Like
3

How are they doing it wrong if they are getting flanked? If anyone is doing anything wrong then it’s the team of the support.

4

they have this thought in there head that mechanical skill shouldn’t matter at all and overwatch should be a rock paper scissors game where the only thing that matters is who you pick. Being a counter shouldn’t be an instant win. you should have to put forward mechanical skill to do it Like in these matchups:

McCree vs Genji/tracer

Zarya vs Dva

Widow vs Pharah

though they are “counters” the more skilled player will most likely win.

You know, how shooters are supposed to be

and before you say it, Overwatch is a shooter with moba elements (objectives and cooldown abilities) but it is a SHOOTER first. They categorize it as a shooter. Mechanics should come first.

5

All the support heroes have some way of escaping or defending themselves.

For example, as long as a flanker doesn’t literally flank a mercy without dash, the mercy an just GA away. Well, eh… If Genji dragonblades or Tracer sticks a pulse bomb, the mercy is kinda dead without support. But what I said holds true like 90% of the time.

Or you could look at Zenyatta. No escape options, so flankers destroys him right? Well, if you’re fighting a Genji in an open field where he can just combo you for free and jump over your head, you may want to reevaluate your positioning skills.

1 Like
6

Uhm… the whole point of flankers is able to get around the enemy team to get to the backline? You can choose to run if you can or fight.

1 Like
7

its not its just a class based team shooter

8

Looks like someone is mad…
Did you lose 1v1 , trying to flank the enemy support heroes?
They are fine.
Ana has no escape - that’s why she has super high damage.
Zenyatta - No escape=High Damage
Mercy - Guardian Angel but that relies on allies(so fun to have 5 people scattered around the map trying to heal them at the same time -.-), she has to switch weapons and most of the time she’ll be half hp by the time she realizes she’s under attack
Moira and Brigitte are kinda OP, but I don’t have much problems with them
Lucio- High Mobility, Fine Damage
To sum up , no one(idk about Moira , Brigitte definitely needs some tweaks) needs a nerf, just learn who their counters are and “git gud” with them.

9

If you come at me, I’m fighting for my life.

If you’re contesting, I’m going to shoot you.

If I get you to back off, or kill you, then you just got got.

Don’t cry that I’m a support and ask for mobility nerfs or whatever.

Do your job and kill me.

10

It’s impressive how you completely missed the point of the thread… good job.

This thread is about asking you to do your job which is also getting better mechanically, the heroes getting nerfed aren’t supports. It’s DPS because supports are “defenseless”.

1 Like
11

I do my job, which is healing and speeding people around. To do that well requires I stay alive as long as possible.

If I’m in a moment where I’m getting targeted and no one’s around to help me, I’ll frickin’ defend myself.

If you get killed trying to take me down, tough. Don’t claim it’s unfair because “I’m a support.”

You get better mechanically. If supports are supposed to be at a disadvantage, you shouldn’t ever let me dunk on you.

2 Likes
12

I think you failed at understanding the OP…
This thread is literally about support heroes being capable of defending themselves but people who play them generally don’t have the skill to do it. Instead they ask for heroes like Moira and Brigitte that removes the entire need of requiring mechanical skill to do the job.

1 Like
13

I didn’t ask for either Moira or Brigitte.

Most support mains arguably did not, because most mains understand the strengths of their chosen support, and understood already that we had opportunities to defend ourselves through either fight or flight.

However, I do recall a lot of people complaining that supports were boring because the class was too strategic, micromanaging, and not focused on fragging which is “the most fun part of the game.” So now we get two fragging supports and now all hell breaks loose because apparently “supports aren’t supposed to be good at killing things!”

Which is the context that people are discussing supports being defenseless, by the way. It’s not a serious concern. We’re actually mocking the backlash. Have you seen how presumptuous a lot of the Brigitte threads are? The utter disgust and elitism that a “support” can live on the front lines? It seems the assumption was that all we’re supposed to do is exist in the back, otherwise, Brigitte in theory wouldn’t be an issue. But people have an issue with her. They not only hate how overtuned she is. They hate the fact that she was designed from the ground up to be able to be on the front lines and help stop a push, to counter dive, as it were. If she were in DPS or tank, no one would give a damn.

Hence “So you want supports to be defenseless?” in response.

It’s not a really serious indictment of the support class from mains, not from where I’m standing. We’re making fun of you.

1 Like
14

Based on this forum, that’s clearly not true. When Moira first came out, support mains celebrated that now they could “finally” defend themselves as if the heroes prior to her were incapable of doing so.

Brigitte is doing everything for very little. Brigitte would get a lot less hate for that if her being able to do those things was actually earned in any way, but it’s simply not. That’s where the concern comes from, Brigitte does too much for how little the player needs to do. Does great AoE healing, provides armor which makes so many DPS heroes useless, is an off tank that can create space for Reinhardt and has huge burst potential and can deny flankers like nothing simply by landing one of the easiest to hit abilities.

If Brigitte had to earn the right to do any of those things, it would be fine, but that’s not the reality we live in.

We all know you are making fun of us, because you have literally suceeded in portraying yourselves as the victims when you are actually the wolf in sheeps clothes.

2 Likes
15

what nerf has there even been to any hero that was put in because supports are defenseless?

16

I think the people who are victimizing themselves are those still complaining that Brigitte somehow can’t be countered at all, and that she invalidates the hours of practicing mechanical skills, as if we’re still under the impression that being able to aim is the only thing that matters like it’s CSGo. Meanwhile I regularly get on teams that run the Swedish trick over, and rarely does she outheal me. I’ve adapted.

I personally don’t care about whether or not someone is doing my job “more easily.” I care about where my heroes fit in the new meta and how I can adapt to make myself the most useful, and have fun learning new strategies and getting creative. Finding a place for myself, grinding out the matches, and carving out my niche as the game evolves takes precedence than getting on the forums to whine about the hours of my life I’ve put into a disposable video game supposedly being wasted by one character, a character who counters me hard no less. I have more confidence in myself than that, and I thought people who pride themselves on developing the hardest skills and characters in the game would’ve had a similar attitude. Ah wellz.

17

That’s fine and dandy that you seem to like to improve and apparently kill flankers but the majority of people don’t share your mindset.

Their minds are made up that they are in an unfair and unwinnable match up and they need heroes like Moira and Brigitte to “defend themselves”. Which is frankly just making the actual good support players look worse because guess what, those new, low effort heroes tend to outshine the harder to play ones.

Blizzard needs to stop catering to people who have no intention of improving at the game. Just as mechanical skill, or dumbing it down to just aim as people around here like to do, isn’t the only skill to OW, game sense isn’t either.