Blizzard designed healers to be untouchable monsters that can singlehandedly defeat DPS if they dare venture close. This has resulted in flankers being extremely low value, as they can not do their job as disruptors and assassins.
The healers have too much sustain (to cross-heal), self-sustain and with the newer designs get-out-of-jail abilities. A new hero like Kiriko on top of that has a projectile with a size so big, that she is extremely lethal in the preferred range of flankers, while having a tiny hitbox and an escape that can not in any way be disrupted or chased down (who wants to chase when she is 100% with an ally?). She can not be successfully duelled by flankers.
Since flankers are now invalid to play, there is really no way to touch the backline, except with snipers.
Enter Widowmaker, Ashe, Hanzo and McCree.
There is no better counter to Widowmaker than Tracer, but Tracer gets too little value to be usable, and therefore Widowmaker can run unchallenged.
There is your Widowmaker problem: It is rooted in the healer-problem.
PS:
If you have a problem with me calling them healers instead of support, let me know when one exists that can not heal. On that day I may choose to use support. But since healing is their defining characteristic, that is what I am going with.
OW balance has always been centered around “can flankers kill stuff or not?” If they can it’s Dive or Poke/Spam, with fast teamfights trading kills, if they can’t it’s a slow Rush/Brawl, trying to farm ults in other to kill.
Fair enough, but don’t yell at Widowmaker when it is not she who is the problem.
And if you don’t have a better Widowmaker? What then?
Chances are that you won’t, as the Wid likely is a main.
The best you can hope for is a 50/50% chance your Wid is better - if any of the DPS can even play her.
No support is untouchable. If you think supports are so OP and actually carry games I suggest you actually play the role.
Have fun when you’re just endlessly healing a team that doesn’t coordinate with DPS/Tanks that are getting outmatched in every way. But oh no don’t worry my healing is going to make them amazing and win!
One player should not be able to outdamage an enemy getting healed, otherwise what would be the point of supports. It is possible to out damage any hero being pocketed if your team focus them, or maybe hey focus the supports. If you choose not to do that, don’t complain.
She’s just the best character in the hands of very mechanically skilled players, to the point of being the biggest solo carry if your team can’t dive/rush at her before they are killed (plus not letting her escape alive) or if your own widow can’t poke back and kill her.
He’s bringing this opinion in from a perspective of “if we want to nerf heroes like widow, Ashe, Cassidy, and hanzo in the burst damage department, then we need to nerf healing to make sustain heroes and flankers viable again so they can go kill snipers” Which I agree with. But if we want supports to remain as they are then high burst damage can not go away.
Yet a Tracer can counter Widowmaker. I as a Diamond Tracer main can counter GM Widowmakers (and trivially so), that is how much stronger Tracer is in the 1v1.
Healers have way lower hps then dps. So in fact dps sort of keep healers to go for safe plays.
A most dps can do 200+ dps. Healing is 30 hps and above go really high besides alts and cds. A great dps can totally negate a healer’s effectiveness quickly. That’s why heroes like snipers in the top end are pretty good. 1 shots… are unhealable besides mercy’s rez. If a healer did 9999 hps. That would not matter against a one shot.
Yes, exactly.
When the heals are so strong that normal sustained damage is easily countered (not only be healing, but also by natural cover, abilities and tank damage mitigation), the only thing that will take down targets is insta-kills.
Flankers are literally still viable. I see a Genji almost every game, an Echo almost every game, a Tracer in a lot of games and a Reaper almost every game.
All of them are still very viable heroes that can do their job if they are actually skilled.
Ah the only broken support. Meanwhile your most played hero is still a DPS.
Heals aren’t that strong. The problem is that people have bad accuracy… Bad accuracy even lowers hps of healers too.
People also tend to have negative views on heroes that help increase accuracy (like stuns/snares). So… most people don’t have good weapon accuracy to get enough dps to kill someone think that heals are op.
For example… Symmetra can do 60/120/180 damage with her primary.
And 40/80/120 damage depending on how much turrets are at. That’s 300 max dps.
Mei can do 94 dps(188 dps with headshots)/100 dps withspray
With tools to block healing/stun enemies for like 2seconds plus snare time
Tracer can do 220 dps (x2 for pellets that hit the critbox) with a clip…
Cassidy can do 140 dps/280 headshot dps…
Most dps heroes can kill in under a second. Other heroes like Symmetra who is the embodiment of sustain damage can still do 180 dps…
You can argue that tanks help mitigate damage enough to make the low healing good…
The healing itself is bad without ways to mitigate the damage. That involves team gameplay. And you get heroes like bastion who can do 125 dps normally and 360 dps while in turret mode…
Problem is dps players not hitting there shots.
Try healing a bastions 360 dps vs zen’s 30 hps… you aren’t going to live that.