I’ve been seeing this question pop up quite a bit since our post last week, so I grabbed some time with Geoff and Josh from the Hero design and balance team this afternoon. Here’s what they had to say;
So far, we’ve not made a ton of changes to how the Support role works in OW2. There are some meaningful changes, such as removing the stun from Brigitte (more on her specific rebalancing efforts in the future), however for the most part the playstyle of your favorite support heroes should feel familiar and similar to retail.
As of now, we have no plans to remove self-healing from these heroes. Abilities like Regenerative Burst and Biotic Grenade remain a powerful part of their respective hero’s identities, and will be tuned to account for the passive self-healing abilities also available.
In our playtests, having one less tank made it clear to us that tanks generally contribute much more damage than they mitigate, even on retail. Because of the drop in overall damage being dealt out, Supports were actually too effective at keeping the entire team alive, so we’re testing a tuned down healing output across the board to ensure that teamfights still resolve in a way that doesn’t feel drawn out or frustrating to play against.