Something Ive come to think about when it came to wondering the support balance issues. I was thinking about their strenghts and weakness then i though about how little some of those weakness actually matter. Not just for supports but for many characters in general.
lets takes everyone fav resurgent balance problem of mercy. Before rework her biggest weakness was highly team dependent the vast majority of her kit was made to be used on team mates, without them she cant heal or boost, GA or ress. Now thanks to to the rework with Valk she is capable of running away on her own free will. Her other large weakness was can only heal one person at a time, again the rework allowed her to heal the entire team.
and i suppose another weakness wuld be the distance she needs to actually heal but again valk allows her to do it from the sky or far away.
on the flip side we have ana with no mobility or self sustain not really compensated by anything unless you want to waste a vital utility skill. But then again zen is in the same boat, no mobility no self sustain. But he gets them slightly compensated by the fact the majority of his health is shields, high equal amounts of dmg at twice the fire rate with discord active, and gets to go invul and faster during ult/
supports are not the only problem Hanzo is notorious for not having any super weakness, effective both close and long range, and having greater mobility when sniper ideally should be melted if they get caught in close quarters.
where as characters like reaper has limited effective mobility, and no long range attacks to fight at range unlike some other character that are also close range but have attacks that deal enough damage at range to the point where their alt fires become their primary fire, looking at you roadhog.
I dont know if this is fool proof theory but i do feel like some of the most popular characters are also the character whose weakness dont mean much compared to other character weakness. Its proven wrong already at diamond ana sits at 6% which is a massive improvements from just a few months where she sub 1% at all ranks.
i dont know where i am going with this line of thinking but it is something ive noticed with blizzard balance philosophy, sym alone is getting her mobility weakness almost completely removed with her new TP with no new weakness to make up for it.
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I am trying to figure out where you are going with this whole thread. what are you suggesting?
About Weakness Compensation
Hola, @Somvra!
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okay take my mercy example
Before rework weakness
Team dependent mobility
single target healing (no group healing)
After rework weakness
the exact same, but are greatly reducued to the point of not being there thanks to valk.
also tempo resing (the superior version of rez) was greatly buffed.
what I am trying to say is characters with weakness sometimes dont bring the character down hard enough. Ana weakness is obvious and has no way to compensate for them herself.
but other character usually have a skill, or an ultimate that make those weakness disappear or at compensate their weakness enough the point they are not a problem.
its like say giving rjumk rat a second mind to help with mobility trouble or giving mobility to orisa to compensate for her overall slowness or giving dva a long rockets to compensate for what ever reasons they gave them to her.
its not a suggestion more of something ive come to notice and wondered what people think about it also, still confused?
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Here weakness is still there, more so than ever.
I know they are still there but its the fact you can briefly be rid of those weaknesses which can translate into high effectiveness regardless if they are limited to an ultimate or not.
what i am trying to get at is mercy was a very capable healer even with these weaknesses, but the fact that valk gets rid of them makes her an even stronger healer then she has any right to be
Her valkyrie is pretty lack-lustering honestly, and can be easily neglected via Burst damage and as for resurrection, the weakness is still there more so than ever, due to the fact that she is practically immobilize for nearly 2 whole seconds.
its not not how effective it is its about what it does for her as character. Mercy primary weaknesses is range, team dependency and no group/aoe healing capabilities. Valk gets rid of all 3 weakness and it makes her so much stronger because of it. this is why shes so capable in every meta more so than before the rework.
thats what i think anyway for mercy is no way OP atm i think the support problem right now is people prefer their heals not to be limited in either way and have them on tap, which is the other supports are less useful this season.
but anyway mercy was just one example, i just think a characters weaknesses should be more defined and less muddied because they can be compensated by the characters kit, much like ana weaknesses by her defined, how phaar weaknesses are well defined and how orisa are defined
I understand what you are saying, however, Mercy’s ultimate Valkyrie does just that though, it enhances her abilities.
Like I said Mercy still have weakness for sure as it is still there.
I honestly stop focusing on heroes’ weakness the day when Jeff said this …
But then we take a look at Hanzo, where he literally gets his weakness removed.
and this is the point ive been trying to make, some character weaknesses are either removed or the effect of them are lessened while some characters have to suffer the full effect of their weaknesses. orisa mobility, ana’s long but powerful cooldown restrictions
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Like I said, I understand where you are coming from as I stated before. I don’t know why Blizzard does this, but OhhWell.
neither do i, its just something ive seen that happens a lot on the current character kits and what happens when characters go through a rework. it makes me wonder what weaknesses the next character will have and what part of their kit will mitigate that fact
Other then.
-Her primary fire removed from the game and replaced with a copy of my 2nd to least favorite (that being widow as I’m a horrible scope shot)
-her secondary fire turning into a hybrid of phara and hanzo
-3 less turrets doing less damage then her 6 old weak ones
But more along the line with weaknesses I think you mean
-removal of shield gen and the 75 shield health that came with it
-loss of defensive photon barrier ability
Not trying to turn into another sym thread just pointing out she did get some weaknesses too
EDIT also her new tp ability has a cast time and is not an effective escape mechanic like most mobility abilities
i think it more as a zarta/moira beam tbh i havent the pleasure to try her myself (greedy people want to play her for once on PTR) so I cant really comment on a before and after analysis as I dont play her.
but from her glance it seems like the big 3 weaknesses that I apply to sym those being Lack of mobility, slow setups and consisent range damaged are being aleivated, not removed which is good because those weakness is what kept her down in the guuter for so long.
personally I feel she could of done fine with no cooldown on turrets and less of an animation to put down as I allways felt she was just too slow for nearly all metas to keep up requiring her either to hang back or sneak behind the lines to set up her nest
