I’ve seen a lot of threads saying supports have too much dmg, or dmg isn’t the problem its healing or its utility or whatever. It seems we are confused about exactly what the issue is but make no mistake there is an issue, personally I think there are 3 issues…
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Do everything supports: It’s fine if a support has a lot of DPS, HPS, utility or self-sufficiency. It’s an issue if they have all four, all with a decent uptime, as what is the down side to using them? What is the weakness in their kit? Every hero needs a chink in their armor an opponent can exploit, or a weak area that allows an alternative option to shine. Dva does a hell of a lot and can pull multiple duties, but has no good answer to beams, what does to Bap what beams do to Dva?
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Total shut down moves: Again its fine for a hero (especially a support) to pull out a nope card that massively limits what you just tried to do or even cancel it entirely. It’s not good if its instant on one button press, or on a low-cooldown, or a hero has two of them, or it works vs everything, or it also starts an attacking move as well as stopping something. It’s the same problem as before but zoomed in on one ability, what limitations does it have, what can’t it do?
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Heroes balanced to meet those problems Because Blizz have put heroes with these issues in the game, and left them there a while, we’ve had clear power creep. The yard stick of what makes a good support includes these problems now, so even the heroes that don’t have these issues have power levels similar to the ones that do.
I feel pretty confident in saying only 3 supports doge all three of those problems. Lucio, Moira and Zen, and tbh I’m not sold on Zen. Everyone else fits at least one of these and a few hit multiple. You could argue a few cases sure but its clear too many supports and too many support abilities do too many things and have done for too long. It needs to be fixed, and the easiest first move is to remove the support passive, now they don’t all get self-sustain for free.
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The root problem by far is that supports now do too much dps, and in particular Illari is far too OP in the damage department, especially with one of the best dps ults in the game.
Everything else is a symptom of the above problem.
I disagree. Long before we had Illari we had Bap, who has pretty decent dps potential and strong heals which he can do simultaneously unlike say Moira. Add to that basic mobility, an teamwide omni-block on a cool down and a self heal (that also goes teamwide) so that he basically has 3 health pools.
Illari’s problem is that for some reason we have agreed already very strong Bap needed buffs going into OW2 and that was “balance”, so she need to match that level. Since she is not a do-everything-support like he is that means she has to be a full blooded DPS as well as a healer to match his “balance”.
Lucio is likely the best balanced support, make him the yard stick and hold the others to it, even if that means nerfs, possibly major nerfs, to basically everyone besides Moira.
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You forgot about trying to balance all the supports against each other…
It’s a huge problem…
Like what do you do to balance heros that get 90% of their value for free against hero’s that have to work for %90 of there value.
You have a situation where the “skilled” supports will be strong in gm1
And the “beginner” supports will gape diff any new support player that tries to play a skilled support
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Most… don’t though. This is a myth driven by hardstuck golds. “OH GET OFF PHARAH THEY SWAPPED TO SOLDIER,” or “OMG WHY DO WE HAVE A DVA VS SYMM” but the reality is that this isn’t really a thing. Pharah can play cover vs. soldier perfectly fine and win. Dva can outmaneuver any beam hero, ignoring them perfectly easily to focus on the backline. Some encounters might be more FRUSTRATING than others (Doom into Sombra for instance) but it’s hardly going to break the match unless someone panics and spends the whole match trying to rock-paper-scissors their way through the day.
But maybe that’s just me after spending my day off one-tricking Junker Queen and watching enemy teams spin through five tanks and five Damage heroes to try to stop me. Oh no you guys they have Ana and Mei I’m doomed lol.
Lucio and zen? Both have one of the lowest healing in the game. If there were no other support that could cover their weakness, both lucio and zen would be considered underpowered. You can’t keep a tank alive on zen or lucio.
Moira may be balanced but she’s a cheesy hero who doesn’t have that much of a skill ceiling or expression. I don’t know if you would want to look up to her in terms of hero design.
Oh, yes. Supports are very problematic. I believe they are not only ruining the game of Overwatch, but also my personal relationships. We desperately need to solve these two problems before it is too late.
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You’ve missed my point, or rather taken it too far. Obviously there is stuff Pharah can do vs hitscan, or Dva can do vs beams, Lucio can do vs high ground or whatever else, but all of them are worse off in that match up than they otherwise would be.
I play a lot of dva and when I’m killing it, so they swap to Zarya, Sym, Mei, Moira, I can still beat them, even if they are good players. But I had to learn how to do that and adapt my playstyle which does make me less effective, I’m not throwing but my value is reduced as I am forced to adapt.
So to go back to my op, what forces Bap to adapt? Nothing really. Weak spots don’t have to render you useless, swap or you throw. They just take the edge off your high end and force some sub-optimal play. You’re still getting value, just not max value and someone else may get more. Far too many supports are in that camp with Bap where they don’t care what anyone else on either team is playing, they know they’ll be highly effective playing however they want as they do everything, that is bad design.
I would rather not have every support like Lucio, who enemy teams can literally ignore 100% except his ult
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Depends. Good D.vas who hold right click over Bap’s tank so his healing does literally nothing is one example. Hard focusing teammates it’s difficult or nigh-impossible to heal is another (specifically, Pharah, Echo or Mercy). But other than that, by virtue of being a hitscan, Bap is always going to find value since if he has trouble healing, he can always shoot things. Same is true of Ana.
Bap and Ana are really the only two supports I feel are “overtuned” at this point – with an asterisk placed next to Zenyatta, where I can see Discord being a problem so long as “Tank Buster” DPS are in the game. If Tank Busters were powershifted, I think Discord might still be extremely valuable, but feel less oppressive.
You had me up until you said this.
Can’t Moira throw a healing orb and drain at the same time? And doesn’t her ultimate heal or do damage at the same time, depending on whom it hits?
I don’t play her enough to be sure, but it seemed like that doing two things at once was part of her mechanic.
You are correct on every count.
I think the rise of cleanse and immortality abilities really added a new layer of frustration in addition to the ever increasing number of do everything supports with Kiriko and Illari being the worst offenders. High utility, mobility, sustain, damage, and healing output make them insufferable with little margin for viable counterplay. Overall, Blizzard needs to take a look at the support role and make alterations to the play style and dynamic.
I think it might need to be revisited if they don’t alter the heroes themselves. Because otherwise they are simply too oppressive. Especially in poke comps where they can hide behind a wall for a few seconds and continue to pressure unlike the dps who need constant heals.
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Sure, I can get on board with that idea. I am, however, against the idea of nerfing the top supports and removing the support role passive all at the same time.
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no, the problem with support IS that they do too much damage, as do the tanks themselves. it’s effectivly like having 4 dps attacking you when you play tank.
Tanks and supports have to be dangerous, though: tanks to draw aggro, supports to self-peel. That’s just how the game is so long as there’s no taunt mechanic.
The real problem is OTP. They spend stupid amounts of time min/maxing the potential of the only hero they play, making it look easy to the untrained eye.
The borderline jailbreak the characters, forcing rare interactions into common occurrences, which then get fun mechanics nerfed.
And since you can’t nerf on mechanic without looking into a dozen others, it becomes a domino effect.
Or, we let Supports do damage, because doing damage is fun and keeps queue times for DPS low, and we nerf healing instead.