What players need to understand about playing Support

General Discussion
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The Support role is by far the most important role in the game due to the fact that you have a tall responsibility of not only keeping your team alive, but also using your abilities effectively. You are, by nature, going to be the most highly sought-out target from the enemy team due to your ability to revert any damage done to your own team.

When you queue as support, you are taking on a huge responsibility. So of course you’re going to feel most stressed because you are going to constantly have to keep up with doing several things at once- healing teammates, fending off attackers, positioning, ability management- and so on.

I understand that there is a sizable portion of players that feel as though playing Support is incredibly unrewarding, I get that. But what you need to understand is that Support- on average- has the highest skill cap out of both other classes in the game. And the reason that I feel for why Support is looked at with such disdain is because there are a lot of players that just simply don’t know how to utilize them to their full potential.

Or, to put it bluntly, being able to play effectively as Support- much less enjoy playing that role- requires a bit of iron and the willingness to embrace the responsibility that comes with it.

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It really doesn’t have that kind of skill-cap. Healing doesn’t require aim, most utility abilities don’t require aim or are click-and-forget, and there’s almost no extra effort required on your part after using an ultimate because most of them work on activation.

Even doing damage is going to be easier on a Support than it is on a Damage-role hero, and every single support has passive healing. Basic attention is all that’s really required for good play.

Now there are definitely issues with the Support-role and the difficulty players have in dealing with the split-focus of healing and defending themselves, but that’s something that might need to be addressed by Blizzard themselves, or teaching players how to re-focus away from healing to self-defense. But I don’t suspect will learn this or teach this.

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I never said that aim is the only thing that contributes to a high skill ceiling.

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I disagree. If you want to boost someone having them play support is the easiest way because it requires the least amount of skill.

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I’m a support main, and I agree. There are plenty of high skill cap supports, but to say that they’re the highest skillcap class is just silly. Yes, they require peak game sense, more than a lot of other heroes, but they get a lot more value with less mechanical skill.

It’s much harder to learn how to aim consistent headshots, than it is to learn how to stay alive flying around and holding left-click as Mercy.

Another example: I love playing Brig. I’m an extremely good Brig player. I know exactly how to position, land consistent whipshots, know when I can take opportunities to damage and burst targets, and how to use my ult to make decisive picks on the enemy team’s supports. I am constantly thinking about my positioning in regards to my teammates and the enemy team when I play Brig. Do I think I’m very skillful at Brig? Yeah, it takes a time to develop the insane game sense and feel for her game flow in order to play her at my elo. Do I think Brig is hard to play? No, she’s very easy to pick up and find value with.

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In what category may I ask?

Hence why I said higher skill cap for the class in general, and not one hero in particular. Because all classes have their own high and low skill heroes.

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I’m not sure what you’re saying here then. Are you saying that supports have the highest skillcap characters in the game? Cause I would say that’s probably not true as well. You can’t really categorize classes by skillcap.

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If healing doesn’t require aim, then dpsing or tanking doesn’t require aim either.
Don’t tell me you don’t need aim as Ana, or that you need precise aim as Reaper or Winston.

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So when I say the highest skill cap, I am saying being able to utilize your ability management, game sense, basic mechanical skills, all topped off with having to take on the responsibility of keeping teammates alive.

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I still don’t understand… Obviously that’s what skillcap means. That doesn’t explain why you think supports are the highest skillcap class in the game. You shouldn’t compare classes by skillcap, because each class has characters that are high skill and low skill.

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I think I’ve explained it pretty clearly. Also, again, on average Support has the higher skill cap due to the numerous variations that comes with being a Support player.

Also, multitasking. That was the word I was looking for. You have more things that you have to juggle between doing on top of trying to keep yourself alive considering that Supports are always a high-priority target.

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I know you didn’t. But most of what you said isn’t concrete evidence or demand of hard skills necessary for success with Support as compared with the other roles in the game. Support doesn’t have that kind of demand that the Damage-role has when it comes to mechanical aim, or even effort and risk with some ultimates found in the Damage-role in comparison to the Support-role.

You can certainly argue that Valkyrie is probably the most difficult ultimate, because it requires more effort beyond a simple activation. But if try to compare it to something like Dragonblade, which has a similar activation (and transformation ultimate), you’ll find that Dragonblade is substantially harder to get value out of it than Valkyrie or Tactical Visor.

And then there’s Transcendence and Sound Barrier, both very easy to get a lot of value out of them. Same with Coalescence, and Rally. Nanoboost really rely on the Support to get any value out of it, and Kitsune Rush is going to still depend more on the team to get value out of it, than Kiriko herself.

And when we talk of utility - that’s Sleep Dart, Soundwave, Protection Suzu, Biotic Grenade, and Damage-boosting (through various sources) - most of these don’t require much aim or precision. Sleep Dart is certainly hard to land on a non-Tank; but Biotic Grenade isn’t too hard to get its healing values or the healing buff out of it. Soundwave has a wide-arc and is easy to hit.

Damage-boosting is an easy, no-frills switch for Mercy, and Zenyatta just has to keep sight on non-barrier targets for Discord. There’s no cooldown, so there’s no punishment for failing with Discord, either. And aiming it isn’t hard comparatively.

Now doing damage can be challenging for a Support hero, but again, still easier to do than the damage-role. Mercy’s projectiles don’t have fall off and two and half times larger than Genji’s or Hanzo’s projectiles. Likewise, Zen’s travels twice as fast as Genji’s and more than three times as fast as Pharah’s or Junkrat’s and is both larger and can critically hit for similar damage (Discord applied). Moira’s beam aim is the widest outside Winston, and also applies some self-healing to her, and Kiriko’s kunai are both larger and just as damaging on critical hits as Mei’s alternative fire. Two headshots yields a kill from both.

Now it is true, that Supports - most of them anyway - don’t have any damaging abilities to enhance or guarantee kills, but that’s also not really their job. And they do have to juggle a lot when it comes to active-triage; something that can be stressful to do. But I don’t think it is anymore (or less!) stressful than it is for a Damage-role hero or even a Tank-role hero has to deal with in their job or role. And it isn’t less important than any other role, either.

Now that I’ve listed off several concrete examples, and comparisons to show you how easy and how capped the Support-role is, I’m hoping you can either agree or provide a suitable rebuttal.

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This is precisely why I did not make direct comparisons because Support ults function very differently from DPS.

No, but there are supports that still require demanding aim or require you to be aware of where you are aiming.

Again, you’re making it seem as though aim is the only factor that goes into what separates a good support player from a top500 one. Knowing when to use these abilities and on who plays a direct factor in which team wins the fight.

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Yeah no, I’d still disagree. If you’re new to the game and don’t have much game sense, support might be the most confusing role, but on average it’s still not the highest skillcap class. The baseline for doing well on a support is survive and heal, and there are plenty of them that allow you to do both easily. Mercy, Moira, Lucio, Kiriko, Brig… They all will find a lot of value for free just by holding down left click.

I have two new friends to the game that just picked it up with Overwatch 2, and both of them do fine healing as Lucio, Moira, and Kiriko. Swap them to DPS and put them against a Pharah and we are almost guaranteed to lose because their aim isn’t good enough to hit her yet.

Trust me, I’m a support main, I value all the skill it takes to play these characters at a high level, but they are not the highest skillcap class. But again, we shouldn’t be comparing entire classes to each other anyway. There’s no point to it.

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The most important thing to understand as a support player is that you are the most important player on the team. If you letting someone else die means you stay alive, then you do that. You should always try to be the last person to die. Morons who think they are good at the game if they are pocketed 24/7 belong in bronze.

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See, this stance I do agree with. If you die, more than likely everyone will lose the war of attrition before you get back to the fight. Arguably, the tank’s life can be more important depending on the circumstances, but yes, you should always prioritize yourself over the safety of your Genji who decides to flank the enemy team’s Winston 50 miles away from the point.

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And you don’t think that being able to survive is as important as being able to get kills as a DPS? Do you not think that positioning and knowing when to use abilities that will save your life plays a major factor in this?

This is only true for Mercy. Moira will eventually run out of juice. Lucio will only be able to tickle the enemy. With Brig you have to get in the enemy’s face and risk getting blown to bits. Doing something as basic as healing is easy. But knowing when to heal and when to shoot back adds a whole new level of the player’s awareness.

That would depend on who they’re playing and if they’ve been working on basic mechanics. Because naturally Support isn’t going to teach you raw aim at first. Supports can be easy to pick up, but it can also be really difficult to master.

Oh, I do, I just think that you and I see Supports in a very different light.

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Not really, not when compared to Damage-role heroes. Being aware of where you’re aiming isn’t much different from where a Tank or Damage-role hero needs to be aiming, either.

Right, which is why I said, that basic attention skills are required for good Support play.

Those same basic attention skills are also required for good Tank and Damage-role play too. You need to know who the most threatening targets are and how to approach and eliminate them, or defend against as a Tank.

But how those tools are used, and whether you have the skill demand required to use them will vary from role to role. For example; can I land enough arrows with Storm Arrows to eliminate that Nanoboosted Genji? Or can I use Earthshatter to shut down that Bastion? Or can I use Sleep Dart to silence that Pharah? Odds are, you’re going to have an easier time shutting down a threat with a Support option than a Damage-role option (and an equally similar difficulty as a Tank compared to Damage).

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Yes, I absolutely agree with this as well. At least here we found common ground, so it’s a start.

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Importance doesn’t matter. We’re talking about skillcap, which is measured by difficulty. It’s easier to survive on most of the healers than it is to maximize damage on a DPS. Ultimately what we’re arguing is game sense vs mechanical skill. Mechanical skill is harder to develop than game sense.

Nope. Obviously I was using hyperbole. Moira is simple to pick up and do well with, as is Lucio. You can get top healing in the game as Lucio easily just by sitting on your heal field and pumping it up every so often, and that’s a valid strategy until you reach higher ranks. The decision making progress of when to shoot back is actually simple in most scenarios. Are my teammates in immediate danger? If yes, you heal. If no, take some potshots. This will generally be enough for you to climb to the higher ranks.

Now, go to the higher ranks without being able to aim your shots as a DPS. You can’t. Even DPS heroes who are less aim intensive like Torbjorn and Pharah will struggle to find any kind of value if they can’t aim their shots. Just because supports are higher priority targets doesn’t mean they’re harder to play just because they have to stay alive and use abilities. Everyone has to do that.

As is every character in the game really. Again this all goes back to game sense vs mechanical skill. Mechanical skill is harder to learn than game sense, but they’re both extremely important for EVERY hero in EVERY class.

I’m going to bed. G’night!