By common request, I took the time to compile the top 500 pick rates for supports just like I did for tanks. I’ll link to that post at the bottom. I only did supports for NA due to the time this takes. I did do it for tanks, but only because that’s my most played role.
Some interesting things I found.
There are 6 champion supports as of the time I took this data beginning at Champion 4.
Top 500 starts in Masters 2 for supports.
There aren’t that many 1-tricks, only 8 total.
Only half the supports had anyone 1-trick them. There aren’t even any Kiriko or Bap 1-tricks which is a bit surprising.
Kiriko and Lucio are the meta. No surprise there. Ana and Bap are next, also no surprise.
Many supports are struggling: Brig, Illari, LifeWeaver, Mercy, Moira, and Zen all have less than half the pick rate of the next lowest. The only one I’m a bit surprised by here is Moira because so many people were asking for Moira nerfs earlier. But the rest I think we all know are less powerful than the top 4.
Kiriko being highly represented at this level of play doesn’t surprise me exactly, but I do think the S9 (and subsequent changes) hurt her more than most people believe/admit. What we can see on Overbuff of her win rates below GM isn’t promising either (and yes, big grains of salt on that information). The projectile size buffs did nothing for her as far as I can tell, which puts a lot more pressure on the player to get multiple consecutive headshots to get anything done with the context of the health changes. Suzu and Rush are still strong regardless.
Lucio being highly played is exactly what I expected would be the case even from early S9.
Zen’s being represented a little less than I would have expected, but that’s probably consistent with performance loss inherent to when his health got lowered.
I agree. Kiriko is my support main. And I love playing her. I’m not surprised she’s represented this much. But I do think she’s overvalued a bit by top players especially when you look at her win rates. I do miss her 2-tap from S8. I think she was better then. But the healing changes benefited DPS centric supports more than healing centric supports. Which is why
I agree with this too. I think the main reason he isn’t is Kiriko and Bap can still output quite a bit of healing and tanks die if you breath too hard on them.
And I thought Ana, Bap and Kiri would be about the same level
The rest are most likely where we all expected; except Moira. Moira is another one we believed to be in better shape
But honestly, Moira’s streght is not in DPSing or spamming orbs. Its her Mobility.
A true Moira specialist can make your life a living hell.
But 99% of the none-main top500 Supports that pick Moira can only play her at a “decent” level.
But its fine I guess. Moira’s mobility requires a ridiculous amount of time and effort for trully mastering that part of her kit
Same happens to other mobility heroes
I’m not saying Kiriko, Ana or Bap are easier; but it happens that they Are more intuitive in a FPS enviornment
And Lucio of course, the expcetion to the rule. He may not be meta every season, but he has always been a core part of high level gameplay. Overwatch League, and Asia, they just love Lucio comps.
Lucio and Winston are a must have
How do you define 1-tricks? Literally only ever having played one character or having spent most of their time, like 90%, on one character?
If the former, it makes sense that there are way fewer than there are in the tank role since you’re competing with another player for your pick. If the latter, I’m surprised, too.
It’s funny. I had recently looked at tanks and they had a lot of 1-tricks. I was somewhat surprised that supports had so many fewer. But I guess I really should have been more surprised at how many exist with tanks.
Also tanks had a much stronger bias towards their main hero than supports. Especially in the Asia region there were a lot of tanks that had very low playtime on the second hero.
I am not surprised. A lot of support players actually play to support their team and everything. I do not play tank because I enjoy tank. I play tank because I enjoy swinging my hammer. That’s the difference. A lot of support players are like, actually nice and caring. They want to help other people. It’s wild!
That’s some dedication.