People have been criticizing Support’s horrible state in 5v5 since the first beta. They’ve done some things (Zen’s kick + Moira’s mini rework) at the end of the first beta and they teased more to be done in the next beta but nothing’s ever been done. They even reverted Moira’s mini rework without compensating anything or giving any follow ups.
They again, teased (supposedly) big changes to support role on mid season 1 patch blog post that will be the focus of Season 2, but turned out they’re only adjustments. No reworks on the overall role’s playstyle.
Rinse and repeat.
The role don’t need balance changes, they need an overhaul to the overall playstyle. Sometimes i wonder if the dev ever ACTUALLY play the game outside the closed playtesting.
They can’t fix this problem while holding to the supertank principle. As long as tanks perceive greater value out of just being DPS that can survive than protectors, space sweepers and battlefield controllers, support problems cannot be solved.
It is as idiotic as an army handing the best guns to generals.
Well duh. The quicker balance changes system they got isn’t going to be back online until 7 days from now.
Blizzard (Source): You can also expect adjustments for Ana, Bastion, Junker Queen, Kiriko, Mercy, and Symmetra when we release this new update on December 6.
What people are suggesting for supports is incredibly unrealistic and vague. What do you people actually want to for to supports that they don’t already do? Will whatever ideas you have actually solve the problems you think supports have?
Let me tell you something. There will ALWAYS be a lack of support players. Let me emphasize that: ALWAYS.
I’m honestly having the best time playing support as of late. All of them are fun in there own ways. The “horrible state” you speak of is entirely subjective. I suggest you at least try and look at them in a positive note.
Ultimately, the best thing Blizzard can do to supports is ADD MORE SUPPORTS. Period.
You seemed to forget that in OW1, tank role was the least popular role, look at the role now. THAT kind of treatment is what we want and needed. We need for the role to be fun to play and rewarding which isn’t currently.
Assuming they balance Role Queue Supports like it’s still Open Queue, yes.
But there’s no particularly important “specific gameplay mechanic” reason that Supports can’t have significantly more overall value than DPS. As long as teamfight durations don’t get too long.
One very simply way to help with this is allow supports to use their healing abilities on themselves to survive. Pretty much every game that has “healing” allows a self heal. There is a limited amount of this now (Moira’s ball, Baptiste), but not enough.
In a 1v1 a DPS can basically use their whole kit in the fight when a support can only use 1/2 or less.
In other games a DPS vs a healer was a long fight based on attrition… who used their resources the best. The DPS with the higher DPS mitigated by the healer that could do less damage but self support. This would make spawn camping supports less appealing and allow everyone to stay in the fight longer.