EDIT: This has been rewritten in response to criticism. Let it be known my mind can be changed :D. Should be far easier to read now.
This will be an analysis post looking at why Life Weaver’s kit competitively fails, and why he cannot become a meta. Not in a “Ruin the game” way, but in a “Life Weaver lacks the tools to define a meta. He only fits into other characters metas at best.” It will also propose a rework to solve the identified problems.
Please note that I will be using terms from the Chess community. A lot of them fit really well for the points I want to make and I will include small definitions for their first usages.
I would have loved to avoid making a post like this but so many of you seem to think disliking Life Weaver means I’m bronze. Ignoring that I clearly, am not.
Life Weaver as a support is intended to do a couple of things that other supports simply cannot:
(Please note all terms in caps are in the glossary above)
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Prevent teammates from being smothered (surrounded and 1v5’d) as situations resolve
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Allow ultra-aggressive overextension
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Make Support Points (High grounds or other protected spots in enemy territory, think the Reaper on high ground above your backline) more accessible for their team (for instance allowing Cass up on high grounds a lot quicker than before)
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Act as a Gambit (A play that exchanges abilities, players, or other things for another advantage) support. His main utility gives up positioning in exchange for utility.
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Dismantle previous “Winning Positions” where the enemy team was just going to have a straight material advantage.
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Give supports the ability to control their teammates.
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Enables even shammier sham sacrifices (essentially a sacrifice that gives equal or greater rewards to the team making the sacrifice, except now they don’t have to sacrifice a player).
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Add more counterplay to Orisa and Zarya ultimates.
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Intended to help with Deflection (Luring an enemy player or the enemy team into trying to get value from something they can’t, aka luring them into non-optimal plays).
What are the main problems with Life Weaver:
- He removes agency from his teammates (No, contrary to what some people believe, any other support being chosen will restore more of it in traditional play. I have had 0 death games without Life Weaver believe it or not. Because with other supports, I don’t lose my agency without being able to contest it in some way.)
- He typically enables snowball situations where your team lacks the utility to prevent the enemy from just rolling them.
- He creates motion sickness more than any other player.
- Makes tanking consistently a worse experience.
- Is a character where not playing him well actively ruins their teammates play, unlike other heroes where not playing them well doesn’t impact other players agency or ability to attempt plays.
- He turns into a healbot with no offensive utility. This is a death sentence in anything higher than gold as fights prioritise your ability to shut down the enemy and kill them fast. A character with no offensive utility will never succeed there on ladder. A plat Ana will outperform a gm life weaver. A plat baptiste will outperform a gm life weaver. A plat lucio in the right comp will outperform a gm life weaver. Etc. Etc.
- He tends to undermine his own team’s position by removing the defence of another player. Typically can lead to knock on deaths where the person the pulled player was defending dies as a result.
- Ruins sacrifice plays unless in comms. A lot of life weaver players on the forums have admitted to not playing in comms because their team keeps complaining about them.
But why have the devs plans failed? Is it just players not knowing how to play Life Weaver?
Well no. It’s not because players don’t know how to play him. He’s a character who is only viable in lower ranks where feeding is common, and good use of offensive utility is almost never used. He is essentially a far better Brig, made specifically for Bronze all the way to low plat. But this time he doesn’t break the higher ranks by being broken beyond belief, instead just being terrible there.
Higher ranked games see less cases of players being Smothered, they see less cases of players being put into Zugzwang (Positions where all actions only result in losing), they tend not to fall for sham sacrifices, they simply don’t benefit from the utility of Life Weaver’s kit because that utility is there to help bad character play.
They however tend to lose out because all of Life Weaver’s downsides still apply. The loss of agency, the lack of offensive utility, the lack of play making ability, the consistent undermining of defences on your team (makes someone else vulnerable), is incredibly disorienting. Tends to ruin plays, becomes a Karen. Etc.
He can pull people off cart in overtime (Have taken advantage of that to win games before since he can’t keep them alive on cart), He attempts to make Bunker’s in a game where Bunker comps don’t work anymore. He gives the enemy Tempo (Tempo is essentially who is calling the shots, and who is responding to them) and ruins that control of the rhythm if his team happens to have it. He completely invalidates the teams ability to sit in Sitzfleisch (Aka the ability to maintain your own position with your actions.) With other supports Sitzfleisch is possible, but as his utility changes his allies positioning, he actively ruins it. He simplifies the game down to a state that his team is worse in.
He undermines his team’s ability to occupy a position, he helps his team become more overloaded (he can’t help you with your duties like other supports. He will force you to deal with it, or completely remove you from the situation). He tends to ruin interposement (An enemy Soldier is shooting at your soldier, you shield them as Rein. You interpose the threat from the enemy Soldier) from his own team if they do so in a dangerous situation (every situation in a fight), he completely lacks the ability to create threats for the enemy without using grip and ruining another part of his teams position, and their agency.
A mouse slip from him actively gets people killed by removing their teammates from them in a way that isn’t easily reverted (like removing a Mei Wall), His utility is frequently forced giving him little control over how to use it (and when he does get to exercise it, using grip unnecessarily benefits the enemy team), he doesn’t prevent Forks (Multiple people are in threat of imminent death), he is constantly on the losing end of exchanges.
A lot of you claim I just hate Life Weaver. And you’re not wrong that I think he’s a terrible character design. But a lot of you keep claiming it is possible to win with Life Weaver without just having the other four players on your team being better than the enemy ones in ranks higher than gold.
Well I have been playing my offroles. I ended up playing dps, and got an 18 win streak. This was near the start of the season and went from plat 1 to diamond 2 farming Life Weavers in half of those games. I played my main role tank (it decayed from masters to diamond 1 who would have guessed) again for the first time in comp since season 3. If there was a Life Weaver on the enemy team, we won. If there was one on our team, we lost. I legitimately think if you form a team and never play Life Weaver, you will just straight up inflate your rank. My brother who is a gm support ended up falling back into masters trying out the changed Life Weaver in comp. He has dozens of hours on them.
Also have to say, tank queues are hilariously fast at the moment compared to other roles. Seems that no one wants to play tank. I wonder why.
Let’s fix his kit with a rework:
At the moment Life weaver’s problems come from a lack of offensive utility, and from only getting value by moving his teammates, often without their consent, so let’s change his kit.
Petal: Petal now upon reselect will rotate up and act in a similar manner to Ramattra shield. This doesn’t work in the raised position, and is selected in a manner similar to Nano, so if you intend to throw another petal elsewhere, it won’t take away your ability to throw it.
This changes petal into an ability that when used can actually help hold a position, rather than just being mainly used for running from flankers, or setting someone up on high ground. This is a straight buff.
Life Grip: Life grip now becomes an enabling offensive ability which functions similar to Zarya bubble. Upon initial activating it becomes a 2 second bubble with 250 health that heals the target for 25% of the damage dealt to the bubble, If the person in the bubble presses F, it will then activate the grip and pull them backwards.
If the player does not use the pull, the cool down is 8 seconds, being of a similar power to Zarya (with the healing being there since it doesn’t charge Life Weaver as Zarya’s does.
If the player being gripped uses the pull, the cool down now becomes 16 seconds.
What this change allows is for Life Weaver’s ability to be used in a way that doesn’t actively undermine a position, it helps prevent snowballs, enables players to do their jobs, and doesn’t ruin their agency.
But you all play this same game. What do you think? Do you think that when they overbuff him to the point of being launch Brig, that the game will be more fun for both teams? Do you think 10 second Life Grips will make tanks enjoy the game more?
Do you think that Life Weaver can be played into high ranks despite his lack of any relevant value? Do you think there’s literally any reason to pick him over other supports?
Do you think I’m wrong about this? If so why? Why do you think Life Weaver works for you?
