Will support ever become popular again?

I like playing support and find it a more engaging experience in OW2. Undeniably it is harder but I have had better balanced games in this beta than I get in OW1 and far fewer steam rolls. I think the trade off to 5v5 is worth it and if you get a good Rein, Bap and a Torb it still feels very like OW1 as you can hold space and fight off enemies.

My only concern is the queue times because support is 10 seconds while damage and tank are 10 minute plus. I find this insane. Do people really hate playing support that much or is it simply the lack of new heroes?

I have a theory that toxicity towards supports may have put a lot of people off. It is an awkward gameplay loop having to heal teammates that are harassing or blaming you for their deaths. Game after game it becomes tiring. In the end it may be the community that has made support unplayable.

Also the idea that support is the easiest role in the game seems to have been turned on its head. I think if anything it is the most specialised role because skills from other games don’t transfer. Game sense is often more important than aim but ironically this creates a higher skill floor than damage where basic FPS experience goes a long way. Playing support without basic game sense in OW2 is a lot harder.

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It’s mostly just a lack of content, I think. There are people turning away from the role because the dynamic has changed quite a bit by removing a tank, and most shields. I firmly believe though that people will return to the role when it gets a couple new characters and/or reworks. Support is just not as exciting as DPS and tank, which both have new heroes and several reworks. Support also has the least character choices, so it’s just
 not as exciting.

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I hope so. The disparity in queue times is just so big. I want to play tank as well but the wait is nearly 20 mins so it feels like I’m trapped on support now!

I guess we will know the truth at launch when the new support comes out.

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I’m with you there. I have fingers and toes crossed that the new support is good. If it’s boring or undertuned then I think we will be stuck with queue problems for a WHILE.

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I play Ana/Bapt all the time!! Lots of fun honestly.

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It might get closer to tank popularity once the tank hype goes down. I think support will always be more accessible for most players than playing tank. It’s also one of the most interesting role because the role has a bit of everything, healing, damaging and utilities.

It’s just that they just made playing support a terrible experience right now because they indirectly buffed the DPS roster by removing one tank, so the fight ends way quicker now. And the skill floor for playing support has risen higher because of push maps like Colosseo.

Higher skill floor required to effectively play the role also means the role being more frustrating for newer players. Because they won’t be able to enjoy the role until they get the hang of supports in 5v5.

Given that tanks only need 1 slot now and support literally got zero new heroes and they only have 7 heroes to choose from, there’s still a surprisingly high number of streamers playing support right now. Once support gets new heroes and they get used to 5v5, more will probably queue for the role.

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New Tank hero just came out, and she is very death match focused so she is a blast to play.
Everyone wants a turn at the new shiny.

This combined with what the question "What exactly do support characters have to look forward to in ow2?
While many roles got new toys support had some taken away, or nerfed.
I certainly understand what blizzard is trying to do here, and changes are going to have to be made to fit in with the 5v5 format, but none of it builds excitement for most support players.
I think also support attracted a less combinational player, and now support is more often put in a position where they have to duel flankers, even in more casual games.

I personally think 5v5 plays better, but it does so at the cost of a lot of support players enjoyment.

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How to make Support popular again:

  1. Stop making Mercy, one of the most popular supports, insanely unfun and bad with beta changes
  1. Rework Moira and Brig to be more interesting, could do the same to Mercy
  1. Release new support HEROES. Not just Fox girl
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right now its that support has nothing new. once the novelty wares off it will calm down again.
the people complaining about support balance level are just bad support players. support is in a really good spot rn with the exception of mercy.

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I do see the current extreme lack of supports as more of a no content thing, but support is going to be the least queued role for the entire life span of the game just because of the sheer number of dps mains and only having one tank now.

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I always thought this too but I wonder if tank is now a more enjoyable role. Part of the fun but also frustration of OW1 was the tank synergies. Now this has gone the tank is the star of the team, the supports focus you more and it feels impactful. That said, I’ve literally only played tank twice with a combined queue time of over 40 minutes. :joy:

On the road to solo support Ow3 :sunglasses:
:face_holding_back_tears:

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I mean first off Support has the least hero’s of any role now I believe, and some like Brig have gotten nothing but nerfs since her release. Not exactly inspiring people to put the effort into learning a hero that is constantly changed by the whim of patches.

Second the whole stated direction of OW from the dev’s was something more like Call of duty. Fast paced action and low time to kill. They want stuff that looks good on stream and prevents people with low attention spans from getting bored.

None of that goes well with a role that is supposed to keep their team alive and to make fights longer. Not unless the whole support role is focused on dmg boosting their DPS or something.

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It will be if they don’t address the issue with supports feeling like a respawn simulator on certain push maps like Coloseo. Part of what leads to frustration for supports is also what makes the role unique and fun (healing your teammates and the suspense of surviving from flankers).

But OW2 just adds to the increase in frustration part without much of the fun part. Because healing became less impactful now, so there’s less pop off moments if you’re a main-healer. You can only pop off by being aggressive now like the DPS and tanks. But at the same time, the tools you’re given to be aggressive isn’t that fun compared to the other two roles (zenyatta, you just shoot but have no mobility ; baptiste, you shoot with an inferior gun) or it’s more team-dependent (anti-heal requires follow-up).

On paper, support should be more accessible to new players, because we have heroes like mercy that’s easy to play. But because the game is more hectic now and the fight is ending much faster than before, it might lead to the role being less inviting to new players.

So how do you fix support queue time? Make mercy feel good to play in OW2. Whether we like it or not, majority of the support playerbase consists of mercy mains. So if the game doesn’t feel good to mercy mains, then the support role loses a huge chunk of its playerbase.

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I think they need to give supports more utility and manoeuvrability. The use of speed is interesting and a support that worked a bit like Tracer crossed with Zen would be fun. I don’t play Mercy but in my games so far I have been impressed with the Mercy players. However most of the supports in the beta probably already have hundreds of hours on OW. The real test will be when new players try the game and the COD crowd get their fix destroying new support players. That isn’t really a sustainable situation in the long run as no one will learn the role.

I prefer the faster pace of OW2 but I’m not sure I could have learned to stay alive while playing at this speed so it is a real dilemma. It is the same with Mercy. How can a hero that is reliant on game sense be easy to play when a new player has no game sense? Perhaps they need to create slower support friendly game modes for people to learn and gradually unleash faster play.

I did not have much fun as support in the 1st beta and read „low-skill heal-bot“ one too many times here.
There is still fun to be had, but it gets buried under an avalanche of toxic DPS, who most of the time could not define „game-sense“ if their life would depend on it.

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I’m hopeful that the scoreboard will show the DPS what’s actually happening and give them pause for thought because if the team is losing and the supports have out healed the enemy then they might be better keeping quiet.

I think Support needs pretty aggressive changes as a role before it has a chance to regain popularity. While new content may temporarily band-aid the issue, I don’t think it’s a long-term solution, particularly if the new content has the same problems as the existing content.

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Baptiste, Brigitte, Lucio, and Zenyatta all feel really good in OW2 and find that they can preform quite well.

Moira feels more rewarding if you prioritize damage because despite having the highest healing per second output out of the supports it never feels like it’s enough. Not even accounting for the fact that she legit has zero utility. She’s damage or heals. Nothing going for her.

Ana is way too easy to dive once they get sleep dart out of the way, but she’s still okay because of the sheer game-winning capabilities of anti-nade.

And Mercy? lmfao she’s pretty much only useful for res and dmg boost right now. Her healing doesn’t do anything and her SJ is literally broken and puts you at a disadvantage. Not to mention the entire support class just got her passive copy and pasted onto them, Mercy’s self-heal only being a bit better (But not really since Lucio has healing aura, Bap has regen burst, Brig has inspire,
Ana has nade, Moira has life steal, and Zen has regen shields
 Mercy still has the lowest self heal out of everyone.)

We also didn’t get anything new other than Zenyatta’s spartan kick and extra hp. Tanks got an entirely new, very fun to play Hero in JQ, a semi new hero in the Doomfist rework, and the orisa rework,
Damage got an entirely new, fun to play hero in Sojourn, and the Bastion and Sombra rework.
Both tank and damage got pretty awesome role passives as well, while supports, as I said before, got Mercy’s copy and pasted passive, which, while it helps a lot, is kind of boring. We also got our ult charge reduced on tanks.

If they don’t make changes soon, support is just gonna suck. Mercy’s SJ is set to get a change in the mid-beta patch along with some (allegedly) huge Moira changes. Here’s to hoping.

They need to fix Mercy, add something unique to Brig and Moira and give us new heroes. Zen and Ana are top tier. Lucio is super with those new maps and Bap had a few good changes that make him more impactful.

They are on the right track but they need to fix the issues before October or we will have a queue problem at launch. That would be bad.