I am and will always be a support main. I love the importance of the role and the potential to be the backbone of the team. However, in OW2 I find myself being very annoyed by the low survivability of supports due to the absence of a second tank. I'm constantly getting killed and my team refuses to help me, which is beyond annoying. I love being a support, but the sitting-duck feeling that some of them have is making me miserable at the same time
@@splinter4161 Same. People just have more options in DPS. Need the support roster to be as interesting if they want the players to queue. Till then we are just comparing apples to oranges and expecting the same taste and color.
Usually i try to accept it by thinking that my role is very important in helping enable the team to create impact. Whilst its true, and whilst i definetely understand that supports are the ideal first target to get out, it is annoying to be the most most aggro'd yet typically at the same time most forgotten role of the game. Honestly though, maybe its the sojourns getting to me, i cant with the random head clicks just evaporating my existence out of nowhere midfight like what is the counter to that? Lol
I play support. Half of the issue is that some support heroes really need more survivability in the current meta(Mercy and Kiriko could definitely use a small "get off me" ability). The other half of the issue is that new players(and some old players) are just not going to help you, if you're getting focused down or spawned camped you're more likely to get insults than help from your teammates.
Thats so true !! Thats what I went through just today and Im a support. Nobody gives a fuck about you if your in need of help, the enemy dps Moira is just sucking your ass and your team Genji is asking to pocket and screaming at your face cuz you are not healing !!!! I'll actually become a dps player soon.
I’m a Mercy main and I’m amazed at how easy it now is to control her movements and how you can stay airborne technically forever. So I don’t know about her. Can’t talk about Kiriko because I can’t aim 😁
I feel like mercy is fine. If youre good youll be flying around more than any echo or pharah. Im bouncing and jumping and zooming tbrough the air all game. If someone kills me i know they wasted a lot of time to do it and that time probably allowed my team to win the fight or the game. Ive sen other mercy players play like this where you use ga on cd and are always moving in unpredictable ways. It makes the boringness of playing mercy more fun too.
First of they can start by adding more support heroes. There are like 8 support, and 2 are needed in every game (role queue) that doesn't offer that much variety. And it also feels like some of the support didn't age that well in Overwatch 2's more aggressive playstyle.
@@kernoleary1394 more supports with abilities similar to orb of discord would be good, maybe a buff to a teammates damage instead of a nerf to enemies defense, unless this already exists and im just being braindead
Blizzard just gives crap tons of choice to DPS and support and tanks never got any love.... just the DPS matters.. no shit everyone wants to play DPS... the team used to be 2 tanks, 2 DPS and 2 supports.. now it's 1 tank, 2 DPS and 2 supports.. therefore, we should have as much support choices than they have DPS choices.... even up the thing and then maybe people will stop to queue DPS.. if they have 15 DPS, we should have 15 supports.. plain and simple!
Support is the role that depends the most on good teammates, if you play dps or tank it's easy to carry and change the game, but supports absolutely need other teammates to play well
@@milocongdon7853 both of my highest heal numbered games have been a loss. Tank and Damage are the only roles that can carry the game period. Healers need peel that people don't comprehend and then get mad when they die. To many Rambos and not enough Docs.
As a support main, I was thinking making the 500xp like 3 matches a day rather than 1 match a day, but honestly you’re right in that it would cause people to just dps those characters. Survivability would be nice, but something tells me blizzard will just nerf some other characters and then add new support characters later on.
Just a little thing to add, people likes to be rewarded when they do something that helps the team, so I've had games with mercy and lucio for example where my ultimate and skills saved the whole team from getting down, but I rarely get the POTG, it's always for who kills more people in the less time possible, if supports would get a little more recognition it would help a lot more to get people playing that role.
theres the "heroes saved" thing now, which i do like, but honestly its... inconsistent to say the least. A lot of times you DO save someone but dont get the credit becasue their hp wasnt low enough. Speedboosting someone out of a DVA bomb absolutely should count
@@mishtehfish Completely agree with everything you said, but it would be mindboggingly difficult to program all of the possibilities into the system to take those things into account properly.
Yeah, i wish that I'd sometimes be a Mercy POTG when I ult, increase damage to all the peeps and we get a teamkill. Isn't that worthy of a POTG? Apparently not, only brrrrrrrrrrrrr is
Sombra bullys me all the time! I've literally gotten spawned camped by her multiple times. Mean while all my teammates are doing.."Need Healing!", "Heal me!". Smh... Sombra is invisible so she just hacks me, can't use my abilities. Even if I almost kill her, she'll just teleport away to heal and come back.
The main problem with support is the fact that most of the support options feel weaker than their tank and DPS counterparts. Most of their weapons feel extremely weak, and their abilities only really help to get to other team members. They have very few options to actually protect themselves . Im not advocating for supports to be as strong as DPS, but they could thin the gap a little.
This is the reason I like Moira more than other support. Her heals are good, and if someone pushes you you can fade out. Edit: realized I called Moira dps instead of support 😂
Maybe, better yet, get rid of the gap entirely! support characters in other games like Paladins and League have plenty of DPS tools integrated into their kit to make sure that they can assure the safety of their teammates AND themselves. I see no reason why overwatch's supports should be any different.
@@ianshaw3189 i just wanted Pip in OW2 i was rank 1 pip in Brazil a couple of times i just want my fast, agile, jumpy boi. He has significant damage, self healing tools and the necessary mobility to stay alive and run from flanks while still doing tons of heals and some damage
Actually, I was a die hard tank main in ow1, but for some reason when ow2 dropped I went to support and it honestly feels really stressful like you said. The worst part is when you are low-key holding the team together, and still get yelled at by the rein who charges into the enemies' backline.
When they think you can make them immortal or when they demand healing when you were just killed. Support needs to do more damage tbh is infuritating when tanks or DPS are NOT hitting and just hiding
@@theseeing last week i had some guy just running around and spamming need healing, i wanted to heal but how am i supposed to heal him when he keeps running away
If your looking for a support main Moira is genuinely fun to play. You can heal and do dps at the same time.Her movement ability is insane because you get a ridiculous amount of air if you do a jump at the end plus your invunerable and invisible the whole time which pretty much guarantees you an escape from death if your position is right. She can even flank and pick off already damaged players and return to her team to heal them in an instant.
i love all supports (Ana is my favorite) but as moira its so fun to just go behind enemy lines, kill someone and just run back behind reins shield whenever i get low.
I'm a Support main, specifically Moira and Baptiste. Most of my experience from playing is being targeted by enemy Tanks and DPS, and trying to stay alive while healing my teammates, which is easily said than done. My own teammates run away, chasing the enemies or are flying around, away from my range, while I'm constantly targeted by 1 or 2 enemies for an easy KO. Survivability for supports is difficult...
Agreed. Your trying to survive and help and heal when your teamates run off and leave you to die. Also Baptiste and Moira are also my main support characters.❤️👌
Escapability is a huge key to making supports more fun. As Zen getting targeted non stop by Genji, Winston, Sombra and having no real way to get away is a horrible feeling. I switch up so fast to other supports that at least have a chance to survive but even with them it is hard, just not impossible.
Genji and sombra have no health so they just get two shot by zen and for Winston you can out dps him very quickly so I don’t know what you mean. Im a zen player btw.
You can literally bully Genji what do you mean Sombra is kinda chonked so for now you at least yet a pass, but you literally have the tools to bully Genji off you Beating a Winston takes a little more aim
I play Ana primarily. I understand that she isn't well suited for close range combat but her sleep dart can and nade can help out in those cases. I understand that Support isn't meant to be able to pump out large amounts of damage but the new aggressive focus in Overwatch 2 and Nerf to shields make it difficult for me to rely on my team as they are constantly busy. Not to mention how little people stay in my sightline for that matter.
I’m a mercy main. It annoys me that revives and Damage assists are not recorded in the main page of game stats. It instead classifies “damage assisted” (which could better show your influence in game) as a single “assist” which is very vague. It also doesn’t show my teammates the number of revives I have on the post game scoreboard. That information is hidden from the others unless they do some digging. Survivability is also an issue. I love mercies movement mechanics but she is a sitting duck if your team dies or don’t understand that you can’t perform or survive if you can’t get to them
The biggest issue with support is the inability to carry the game. They create such a small impact on team fights. If your tank and dps teammates can't aim or focus outgoing damage effectively nothing dies, regardless of how much you heal them. At some point it feels like you're just feeding the enemy ult charge by healing your team mates that can't hit anything. Honestly they could buff healer outgoing damage abilities just like they buffed tanks for OW2. The better aim of a good healer could still outmatch the other teams DPS, and the real skill would come in balancing your outgoing damage with your outgoing healing.
Another porblem with support is the lack of heroes in my opinion. DPS heroes have a wide range of heroes making most people find and main a dps much faster. Tanks do have a little more heroes than support, but there is only one tank in a standard match. Support needs two people in a standard match, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that there are too few support heroes to choose from. I would suggest that blizzard focus on pumping out more new support heroes, then there is a bigger chance for someone to find and main a support they like. There is a lot of great ideas for possible support heroes. One i thought of was maby a support hero that could place down a healing station or something simular. This could make it a part support, part dps wich could strike some interest in those who really dosen't want to play support.
That’s such a great idea too. Not only would it pull away DPSing Moira players and give them a more productive alternative, being able to have some of that DPS experience in another healer would be excellent as well.
On OW1 I ALWAYS went for Flex Queue, so I played a lot of support. On OW2 I stopped picking Flex, because it meant I would be support on 10 out 10 matches. And it's just not fun at all anymore. I think it's because playing support means you rely on your team a lot. And, if that was already frustrating on OW1, it's even worse on OW2, with the game being Free to Play, because most players are new and have 0 game sense. I would have no problem playing support if I was on a team with friends or people who actually communicate tho. But, still, not EVERY F*CKING MATCH.
Well, i guess i´m a support player too, and to my mind the mistake lies in taking the second tank from the team. That second tank really offered a lot more protection to the healers and everyone else, so you didn´t always had to run around healing everybody at the same time. It also really set a frontline, which you could draw back to and seak cover behind it. SInce that second tank is missing, a lot of protection has been taken from the team, whioch leads to everyone getting more damage, giving the healers a harder job, even harder than it was before, all while that they still have to struggle to stay alive themselves. So the fixes for that would be either giving the Supports more TP, so they don´t always have to look that desperately for their own healthbar and can focus more on keeping others alive, while maybe nerfing their offensive capabilities by a bit(like 2 points of damage less per projektile or +1 second reload time), or giving us the second tank back, which would make the situaton also for the DPS better.
To be honest. Blizzard should in december focus on support role. Like adding new healer NOT TANK, do some reworks etc. New tank is stupid idea and will only make queues only more weirder
@@michaoek2614 well tanks and healers both had terrible queue times in ow1. So you at least know that they see the number of supports and tanks and want it to catchup to the dps.
My primary role usually is Support, I think the reason why most people avoid playing as support is because of less of an impact they're in the game currently. The tank usually carries the team and the dps's role is to eliminate players as much as they can while supports need to babysit each player making sure they survive, healing, destroying utiles, and all that while trying to stay alive because most of the other players will be focusing on the objective/enemies. What I mean by less of an impact role is even though you did your job really well as a support some other Moira's can be both the top healer and the top dps of your team you'll still lose, the carry potential of support is really low but it is possible it's just really hard compared to the other roles like tank.
yup. The moira pain is real. I dont get what I am missing...I lost a game yesterday where I had 28k healing, other healer on my team was solid too...we out healed the other team by 40%
@@CM-zu9vg if you have Orisa going into a Zaria your team should have more healing as Orisa is going to struggle a ton. You could have 50k more healing but if all that healing is just to keep a player up healing isn’t the issue. There’s bigger team issues happening and you’re just trying to make it work as a healer.
I feel like the main problem with healers in most games, is that they try and give them a DPS option, but they don't LINK the healing and the DPS (or link it very poorly) so you end up feeling it's either boring or frantic. You end up with the choice of healing OR dpsing and neither is pertiucally fun cause they can't let you have too much DPS cause your wont heal, and just... it's a mess.
Thats a decent point actually. And for someone like ana, you have to save your potentially offensive cooldowns to save your own ass from the constantly diving team. Sure, you can find a great moment to throw in a nade but its a toss-up whether you actually have it or not. Also, by having one tank, i feel like you have to pocket them a lot more since theyre soaking all of the damage that was previously shared, so you have less time to dps or if you get dove, your tank fades quickly
This is what makes Mercy so funny. She actually does some pretty good damage if your aim is good. Ive gotten some funny kill streaks on players who FORGET she has a gun. A gun that has no damage fall off, Unlimited range, headshot criticals, and a I belive 20 round clip with a pretty fast reload. Now I want to state that I focus mostly on healing the team, and buffing players for damage... but if my squad is good and enemies are in sight...I like to shoot them. It is stupidly fun to kill un aware Widows or to help whittle down DVA mech armor. Yet in one of my recent games, a game where I Never died.. rezzed alot of players, did lots of damage and even got a Triple kill... I ended the round with 17 eliminations. Im not sure if Rezes still count as "Eliminations" but I had the highest total of the game. So yeah Mercy can fight... dam well at that.
Hard disagree as a lucio otp main I average more dps than my actual dps sometimes and really good healing on my games, If you have a moira who just dps's shes not playing support shes playing as a dps with a shorter que time.
@@NintendoHistorians I love seeing you Boop MASTERS launch people off cliffs as well. I don't see it as often as I did in Ow1, but it is still a riot. Seeing dps players just lose it when they get STOMPED by us support players never gets old. Oddly enough I dont see many Tanks get Salty.. The only time I saw a Tank main get ragey was an Orisa that used their Ult while I played Widow. Stationary Targets are the best ya know?
Supports right now really need to rely on their other support for peel. There isn't an offtank anymore so the one solo tank is probably too busy being your team's frontline to turn around and peel, and the only way a DPS can peel for you now is by killing whoever is attacking you. Being able to rely on a lucio boop and speed, or a brig to get up in their grill, or a Kiriko rescue... hell, even a zen kick might be enough to save your Ana's life... not to mention the threats you had to worry about before are more dangerous across the board (except Doomfist). A support isn't killing winston or Dva, Sombra does *huge* damage now, Genji is, was and will ever be Genji... you get the drill. Until Blizzard intervenes, look out for your fellow support.
@@mangshu21 Hey, just because they have the tools to do the job doesn't mean they're interested in doing it. I was just pointing out that maybe we support players should start watching eachother's backs.
Personally as someone just starting to play, its how shallow the pool is for Supports, and it doesn't help new players are throttled by the roster size when they start playing. You get 3 whole Supports out of 8 to start with, and one is blocked off by the damn seasons pass unless you sell out to Blizz and get it preem. Ideally, fixing the support stuff isn't simple, but I can see things like POTG involving supports more often if they do something meaningful enough, and adding more and more supports consistently.
the play support get 1 free lootbox was an enticing offer for ow1 that helped increase support player counts, but the current 500xp bonus is laughable and insulting, not to mention it's also virtually useless to f2p players
Survivability is key because without that second tank to turn around and help the supports, no one else is turning around and helping you out. Too many support characters feel like sitting ducks either because either their mobilty is too low to get out of trouble, their DPS is too low to contest DPS heros consistently, or a mix of both. The sad part is, I'm not sure how you change some characters like Zen or Mercy without either reworking them to fit the new demands or potential over tuning them into being something they aren't designed to be.
2 ideas I have for support, is a hero that focuses on giving armor/ shields (not so much for healing) and is an 'in your face' hero like Junker Queen, and another that 'mops up the survivors' from a fight and has a hook and healing is based on how much damage you're doing.
A lot of the supports just need reworks to fit the new game style. They should pretty much all either have a “get to team” ability or a “get enemy off me” ability. Lucio and Moira are doing so well because they have strong and easy examples of these, whereas heroes like Mercy and Ana both have harder kits to escape the dumb potential of other roles. Overall as a tank and dps player, even I feel bad for rolling over enemy healers who barely get to play.
@@unusualgaming8629 Yes, but that doesnt mean the those supports need reworks. And your teammates peeling for you isnt the only way you can climb. YOU as an ana player should be making those plays for yourself.
@@jiopa no I agree I think only supports who need buff are mercy small dmg increase on pistol and maybe kiriko slight projectile speed increase. I do think Ana has the most potential to carry but a lot of her power comes from your team capitalizing on what you do
I enjoy playing Zenyatta- but it’s mainly his design But he is very fun as well. His snap kick was a amazing addition to him, and helped balance him out a little more. Admittedly my biggest problem is Orb Management. I forget where my orb of harmony and orb of discord is at times but I am working on it. Theirs also the issue of people not protecting their supports but that can always be learned quickly
i'm new to the game but i actually enjoy a lot the support class... shooters aren't really my strength but being able to help the team from a distance was always something that kept me in a more passive playstyle, but as a mainly support player I should say that most characters in the class should have more tools to survive and escape when in danger, keep the distance on the opponent and work efficiently on taking down enemies, that way you can feel more powerful while using your hero without having them all the way at the back trying to keep everyone alive. Then again, I'm too new in this game to give a specific solution, but i've played every support character a couple times at least.
There definitely is a learning curve with support now that everything is fast paced. It’s refreshing to see someone talk about problems with lightheartedness rather than frustration
Seriously, i always playing as a Support and this role has the fastest time to find a game. But I agree with that it's hard to find good player on solo play. For it's funny my second support always feed and die every time or they are trolling or just don't know how to play the game.
Playing support is great when you have a team that knows to at least stick within range and not die off a mile away spamming I need healing. Some survivability would also be nice to have, cause I feel like wet tissue paper. Feels just like when I’m playing Hunting Horn in monster Hunter.
The way I see it is some people have the “ support gene” where they like to see their team do with with their help, hence my favorite healer being Ana, it’s really satisfying to nano someone and see them take out the entire team. Then there are other who don’t have the “support gene” they like seeing the team benefit form what they do directly, like flanking and taking out both the healers, or draining people HP with someone like soldier or reaper.
If such a thing exists, I have it. :P Not just in OW but in most games with a class sytem I'll always gravitate towards healer/support. Or preferably a healer/dps mix. I just like sitting back and overseeing the battle while keeping people alive over sweating over optimal damage or tactically trying to keep damage from the rest of the team.
well i am a zenyatta main and i enjoy playing all the other supports , i normally focus on healing my team and countering tanks with zenyatta. when any teammate calls for healing il be there , tho sometimes its kinda boring to play support , my pay back will be the greatings from my team. i think its ok to take a break from being support and playing dps or tank but i will never stop playing support
In *GUNDAM EVOLUTION* all mobile suits have stamina bars that range from 3-1 bars that can be use to use thrusters like a sprint mechanic, and can be use to dash any direction. I suggest you guys check it out since their healers are a bit unique which one can deploy a turret and fly away while still tethered healing.
I would never stop queueing up all roles if I didn't get support 10+ times in a row. Even queueing just for tank & dps I'll eventually switch back to throw in some healing into the mix. There should be a difference between "all roles" and "filling the least desired role". I might as well just switch from tank + dps to only support when I'm not playing with friends.
I think all supports need a form of mobility. •For Zen, I wouldn't mind a double jump that launches him up. •Ana also a double jump, but it instead triggers a roll like Cassidy. •For Baptiste, I wouldn't mind some more directional movement for his jump, instead of just up. •Brig needs a slow effect on her bash and less healing over time, but more burst-y. I also wouldn't mind her bash reaching even further. •For mercy i simply want to be able to cancel res with the interact button. •I want Lucio to have his ultimate cost reduced by half, but be shorter in duration and less overhealth. I would like his ult to be a bit more dynamic to use, but also be easier to fight against. •let Moira give a weaken effect if she passes through enemy with fade. Her fade will now also not be invisible. I also wouldn't mind if they got rid of damage orb entirely and instead gave Moira some sort of a raw damage buff. These are some changes I would like to see, at least tried. Some might be bad, but i feel like it would at least freshen up the characters a bit.
@@BenjaminBüchler ...Legit. The whole issue with Overwatch has always been that the supports are overtuned and the entire meta revolves around who is the best support combination -- even more-so now that there's only 1 tank.
ya, Support is no longer fun without a second tank to guard flanks to keep support safe. There are only 2 ways to fix this (1 I do not like it) 1. Give a stunning ability to all supports. (I do not like) or 2. Bring back the second tank to focus on guarding the flanks.
I just think no one really wants to look after other teammates and just wanna get in there and brawl. Then there's also the toxicity of trying to heal your teammates but being chewed out with a DPS doesn't realize they're over extending. Maybe what they could try is 1) Rework Brig and 2) Change the Healer Role passive from 'auto regen HP' to healing in an AoE from dealing damage (ie Brig's passive). Or maybe make healing way easier like allowing Mercy to use her pistol while she has a healing beam attached, make Ana's heal darts have a bigger hit box, give back Zenyatta's healing Orb to stay on a teammate without needing line of sight or give him the option to use the Discord orb as another Healing Orb. They could even rework a character to become a Support like what they did with Doomfist. Maybe Mei could be reworked and have an ability to also Ice Block an ally to save them from a big burst of damage or bring back her freeze on her primary but lower her overall damage.
I believe the abilities of supports need more impact. Things like lowering the time on Ana’s sleep cooldown, a Rez reset if Mercy gets a kill, increasing Lucio’s boop distance or bring back a less OP version of Moira’s enfeeble orb (stats that don’t make her invincible to every ult in the game). OW don’t need to buff raw stats to make supports engaging, they need to make them more intimidating and offensive to match the shift in play style that’s already happening.
I love running Lucio as his kit is versatile enough where I'm able to tackle different situations, while still being able to help the team win fights. It would be great though, if say Lucio received a buff where his Sound Barrier AOE "stuns" or hits/knocks back enemies for a small percentage of damage, making him more useful for tackling objectives more efficiently, allowing his team to push for counterattacks. This would still allow for him to maintain his playstyle but offer more incentive for Lucio players to deal damage without relying too heavily on booping people, etc.
As a new player with no prior experience in OverWatch 1 here is my take. Ana, Zenyatta, Baptist and Brigitte have the biggest issues right now, that being majority of the time after you die you just can't get back to combat until your entire team is dead, it's hard when the best thing you can do is stay as far away as possible and do as much healing as you can because when you die your team dies and you have a hard time keeping yourself alive in combat, zenyatta's a Sitting Duck waiting to be headshot, ana dies to the flank, baptiste survives a bit longer but ultimately dies the same, Brigitte it's fine but really hard to use in most Maps, you have to be melee distance majority of the time in order to heal anyone but when you're in melee distance so are the enemies, Lucio mercy kirico and Moira all have great mobility and thus are allowed to get back to combat faster when they ultimately die because no one's paying attention, plus they have some of the best kits in the game in terms of support so I think supports needs some form of movement speed when out of combat, " move 25% faster when out of combat, this effect is farther increased when a teammate drops below 33% hp " of course this does open up a flank play style for most support and Lucio would go zooming but it's the best thing I can think of
OW1 Supports were paid well in the old system. You play it enough you get compensated with a juicy skin so it felt like a job but you gave less of a fuck if your team was shit. Now they only compensate you with garbage so while it's still fun sometimes to play as support, when I get tired of it nothing holds me back to trying other classes.
it just feels like even tho supports are so important, they have very little game play impact. Where before it felt like healing worked, now it feels like i can barely keep one dps alive if i pocket them alone with the other support. Its just so much more work now for so little gameplay impact.
The problem with supports are in my opinion, the reduced healing; If you miss a shot with ana nowadays, it does feel more punishing than in ow1, and you mostly can't outheal the damage in some teamfights which is super frustrating. Basically it feels like I'm as a sup arw required to kill as many of the enemies aswell the damage input is actually healable
Dps and Tanks think that supports are there to bail them out of mistakes, when that doesn't happen supporters gets blamed for bad healing. I think making supporters do more damage will help supporters defend them self easier. Giving supporters more survivbility would only make supporters lazier. teamwork is the key and Dps tanks need to understand it the hard way.
Im spitballing here, and recognize this would totally change the game, but what about creating hybrid classes? So You have pure support, tank, and dps, support/dps, support/tank, and tank/dps. You still can only pick your role to play as Tank, DPS, or Support, but you have some overlap on your choices. Like, if you selected the support role you can pick the pure support heroes, support/dps heroes, or support/tank heroes. If you selected tank role, you can pick pure tank heroes, dps/tank, or support/tank. Dps role can choose pure dps heroes, support/dps heroes, or dps/tank heroes.
As a new OW player. Playing as Ana. Yes i die a lot but lately I've found ways to survive while being impactful for my team. I think its rewarding having a hard role. Do i get yelled at sometimes but at the end of the day if my team cant helpe while im helping them thats on us not trying to work together. When i think outside the box and still learn how to grow it makes me push harder on support I love it.
In both overwatch and tf2 I play fill all the time. I noticed in my last sesssion 9 out of 10 fill matches were support with the other being a tank and 10/10 of my buddies were assigned support. I think there are a few reasons for not liking support. 1: they are the high priority targets with limited ways to protect themselves if isolated from their team or if their team just does a shit job of protecting them 2: There are a large number of pick/assassin characters designed to nearly instantly remove a target at a distance, having wido, hanzo, ashe, cassidy and sojourn 3: there are a large number of dive heroes who have the ability to just move in past their team on a sometimes sucide charge to kill the healers. There is sombra, reaper, tracer, genji, junkrat, symmetra, echo and phara 4: A large chunk of the damage in this game is hitscan making dodging hard and tanks your main source of staying alive if not in cover 5: Most of the tanks due a shit job of actually protecting their team against people who have the eyes, aim and mental ability to focus on eliminating the healers first. Only 3/11 healers can create shields that can cover everybody and 1 can choose 1 teammate to protect at a time, everybody else only have the option of standing in the way to protect them which is not enough when an enemy can focus on the supports. 6: a few heros can force you out of position, roadhog and junker queen have grapples they can pull you from the backlines into shotgun range if they land the hit, sojourn and junkrat can pin you in place, reinhardt can charge you, resulting in you being seperated if you even live through it. Comparing this to tf2 as a reference as they got compared alot when overwatch 1 first came out, not looking for a debate on which one is better, 1: The medic has up to 2 weapons as self defense which while suck he is also facing people who never enter another dimension during the chase or teleport. 2: Only 1 charcter can perfom long range one-shots, sniper 3: 2/3 can do the upclose assassin well, spy, scout maybe a demo or pyro 4:The hitscans are all close range except for sniper, allowing for dodging most attacks with reach 5: Due to more damage being projectile and range or upclose hitscan, it is harder to single out a medic from a safe range. Because of that, decent movement is often enough and there is limited need for a real tank in tf2, even then a few options sort of work like the default uber making you invincible for a bit or the heavy having a shit-ton of health 6:Nobody can force you into the other team in tf2 unless somebody is behind you as it is all knockback forcing you in the direction the impact came from, explosions may boost you in a bad direction but nowhere near a hook in overwatch. The end result is that in tf2 so long as my team has completed the tutorial, has a pc able to run at atleast 30fps, a working keyboard and mouse, working audio and internet from this millennium they can do enough to where I am not getting swamped super hard. By contrast in overwatch, it feels like if my tank picks anything but reinhard, sigma or winston I will get snipped within 4 seconds of contact with the enemy team or dived in about as long if the enemy team picked even 1 diver hero.
There definitely needs to be some kind of change. I'm a support main and I am feeling the lose of the second tank. The amount of times a reaper or genji just walks to the back line, gets ignored by our tank and proceeds to kill the two supports. Then the remaining team of DPS and tank get upset at us support players when they're not getting heals because we're dealing with constant flankers and dying. Support heroes need be given some kind of life line here.
As a flex support/dps main, I love Kiriko. She can "fix" your teammates screw ups with well timed tp's/suzus "if" you can muster the neccessary discipline and awareness. So please don't throw hard to hit 40dmg Kunai when your mates could really use a heal right now. You're literally throwing :p
I think what really needed to be address is some supports dont have good self peel or disenege when most dps have some kind of dash or ability to help them close the gap. Supports were always high value targets but in OW2 it feels like you have a kill me sign on you if you aren't playing Lucio,Moira,or Kiriko. Playing Ana, Zen and Mercy is almost painful when people are just always hunting you down constantly. They also need to start giving the support role a bit more carry potential and only then would more people probably play support.
I'm also a tank/support player myself, and I've been having a blast on zen (and I actually do heal thank you). I agree that more rewards is a bad idea, instead making the support heroes just straight up more fun to play is the trick. First, you could make supports a little more deadly. Make it more dangerous to dive/dual supports. Second new novel abilities/interactions that aren't necessarily healing focused but are still "support". Kiriko's cleanse, Zen's discord orb, lucio's speed boost, and ana's sleep are great examples. And finally, lean in to what makes support fun for the good support players already. It's a balance of medium mechanical skill requirement (relative to your rank) and medium/high positioning and map awareness. Some characters are just really frustrating to heal (echo, genji, some widows) and supports constantly get flamed by people feeding their brains out with "where's my healing?!" so if we had more characters that did ambient healing like lucio/brig with interesting abilities like discord orb and sleep dart and a slight damage bump we could hook a whole new generation of players who understand that "support" doesn't mean "heal bot" and actually enjoys playing the role.
I generally only play for supports since I'm usually chasing the daily and weekly Queue For All Roles Challenges. And yes, as a support, you generally won't get any peels from the tank or DPS. This has put pressure on me to stay bunched up with them, but that then becomes problematic when they all go their separate ways and then when you do engage with the one player you're with, you get focused.
They need more survivability, this can be health, shields, crowd control, and most importantly mobility. With less tanks, dps can spread out more, making healing header. Kiriko's tp is borderline OP compared to the other supports. Moira needs less damage, Mercy needs more damage, Brig needs some crowd control back and more powerful ULT, possibly 50 more health support wide might do the trick. Idk, I'm new
I am a support main and I agree with your thoughts on how to improve it. I will say I've played overwatch since Christmas 2016 and I'm losing the desire to play support, and that's because I have to spend more time trying to survive than actually playing the game, so I would find a way to make it feel less like trying to survive and more like actually playing. I don't know how but I think that would make playing support less stressful and people more willing to play support.
The primary reason why most people don't play support is because our role is arguably the most dependant on our team. The requirement for making a big impact on games is WAY higher than for DPS or Tank, and now that the card system is gone, we get no recognition for anything that we do. As a support, not only do you need to be able to duel characters designed to kill you/have WAY more HP than you, but you also have to corral a bunch of, sometimes, wild and angry toddlers to victory. Meanwhile, reaper who just jumped in the middle of the enemy team and pressed Q gets PotG and sometimes even a deciding wipe to win the game. The support role is like playing chess with a bunch of pawns that do whatever they want. The support role was designed with 2 tanks in mind. It needs a rework entirely. Maybe reduce our healing and increase our DPS/survivability so that we fill more of a combat medic type of role.
I play support, but noticed that when cut off from my team and i'm in a 1v1 with a tank I have a 99% chance of dieing. I believe if supports had a means of escape they'd be more viable. I love playing Ana, but as soon as I miss my dart or hit one but there's 2-4 others shooting me I have 0% chance to survive and support my team. Kiriko's wallclimb is the only passive ability that's an escape tool and that's fine, but all of the other supports would benifit if they could shake off persuers and rejoin the team instead of just getting staggered so that my team can die while I'm coming out of spawn.
give rewards on tiered levels of healing to incentivize people actually healing. 5k healing, 100xp, 10k healing, 500xp, 20k healing, 500xp + an esteemed badge to go next to your name with the number of 20k healing matches you've played
I wanted to main Zenyatta but his health is too low, I understand you can reload and get your health back but that’s at least a 5 second animation. Meanwhile Roadhog can constantly heal and has massive amounts of health, obviously he’s a tank but dear God help the healers.
I've been a support main in every game I play for the past year or two and honestly, I don't think this can ever be fixed. The problem is that most people want to be the one getting the plays. They wanna go and murder the entire enemy team. They wanna feel cool. And there's not much a support can do for that. Yes you can get stuff like that on support very rarely, but it won't even be halfway as much as a DPS or a tank. Then sure, you could give supports more tools for damage and plays but then they would just become op instead. The only way to get more people to play support happily would be to change their minds on the game, and I don't see that happening sadly.
I've joined in to all roles to get the challenge done everyday, it might as well have 2 support categories instead of "all role" It puts you as support 9 times out of 10. Then after I get support I throw to get done with the matches quicker so I can play the game like I want.
If DPS fights dive, they have 6-8 characters choices to swap to. Thats the equivalent of the whole cast of support and only 1-2 are counter picks (which may not synergize with your current team). Support needs more options, that's it.
As a support main, I've definetly been feeling the drawls of the support role when all the other roles seem more fresh(?) in OW2. Definetly agree the role needs a breath of fresh air.
I think the problem is that the majority of players have no clue how to play support in the new meta. You can't just be a healbot, you have to consistently evade and 1v1 dps players, if you can't do this you will fail as support. Every support has a uniqe way to do this in their kit and overall good positioning is a big factor as well. This is a very tricky thing for blizzard to have to balance, because the majority(if not all) of supports are actually very balanced right now, it's just that it is the hardest skill floor role in the game and many will not be bothered to put the effort in to learn the role, especially because it is a very thankless job. Which brings me to my next point, supports will almost never get the praise they deserve, and so players not passionate for the role will quickly become discouraged. The new leaderboard system only exascerbates this where many clueless teammates will be quick to point at a low healing done stat to be indicative of bad play, which it is not. So how to fix lack of numbers: 1. Lower skill floor for support (more moira-like supports / more supports in general) 2. Add more ways for supports to recieve praise (bring back player cards, on fire, endorse enemy etc.) 3. Add more reward for skill expression (characters like lucio with extremely fun tech -- or in-game recognition for a good play i.e better potg for something such as clutch ana nade or bap lamp) These are just my thoughts though, would be happy to hear any opinions voiced in comments.
Last night was the first time I played since 2020. I main roadhog but in a few matches everyone was DPS with one or two tanks here and there. I had to play support and somehow got PotG as Mercy, who I have like.....a total of twenty or so minutes of playtime on in my entirety of Overwatch due to me preferring to be a Tank on the front? It's pretty sad that people don't give support more of a try but I am now about to work on learning supports more to be a help to teams where people refuse to be support. Hell I got a lot of love over messages from a Rhine and a Soldier I kept alive in a push and I did great reviving players after taking a bit to learn to do it lmao. It's actually fun and feels good to be support, because you can single handedly be the difference between an unstoppable rush and being wiped out by a solid defense, or holding the line against an overwhelming enemy or being destroyed and losing ground.
I played Lucio and yes I prioritize supporting my team over running ahead and trying to get kills but I feel like most people don't play support is because it's hard to get the play of the game and everybody wants to see their hero on that final screen. I think making a change to where if healers do a great amount of healing to assist somebody into getting play of the game there should be a separate play of the game for the healer if they do that or allow the healer to get play of the game for supporting their team so heavily.
They need to support to be OP like brigette when she first came out. But also I think they should shorten the 9sec spawn time to 5 to give defensive teams more of a shot of making sustainable defenses when they’re a player or two short (as they’ve died and need to get back to play area)… and if your support is the one that is away from play area due to death you can assume your teams will also be dead so right after. This then gives the problem of teams being killed one by one as the spawn of each character is staggered one after another. This then makes teams be ineffective and have one final stand when they get near 3rd checkpoint.
I main support myself (Moira/ana) but some problems that I see arise is that the only real support that have survivability is moira with her dash and Lucio with knockback. It would be a great favour if blizzard added better options for support characters.(ana preferably cause she'd work so much better with greater vantage points)
I'm a main support, and that will probably never change, but lately I'm seeing myself playing a lot more DPS and Tank because it feels so frustrating playing as support.
If the support player pool is that low, what i'd do is Add a special limited role bonus for queueing up as healer along with a static 500 xp. the 500 drops to 100 but for heals if there really is that little of them i'd take off the xp bonus for "Fill" and i'd just keep the 500 on healer until the numbers balance out, and then ontop of that i'd add the additional bonus of Healers above a certain amount of heals in a game will get even more bonus xp. find a good number thats relatively challenging for the whole community to get to like 6k or 7k or something and that way people will want to play healer, and people will want to pump out as many heals as possible benefitting the team. Thats my idea atleast.
I'm a main Mercy and oh God it was a painful experience reaching Plat having to deal with Genji/Sombra every game without anyone to help me besides the other support. In OW1 the off tank was able to look after the supports most of the times to help them survive against a good flanker, and now that the second tank is gone and every single DPS just cares for kills, the support players can only rely on each other... And sometimes even your support pair is too focused on dealing meaningless damage as a Moira lol
Also - supports need to be able to get potg for actually supporting, vs only over from doing damage. It is a total vibe killer to know that the game itself will rarely if ever acknowledge my plays - it makes me feel unappreciated and as though I’m having no impact.
i play as a support only... and i have to agree... its super hard too survive... and more when the Tank feels like, oh there a thousend Meters away is one DPS to kill instandly... and leaves uns healers alone...
It’s kinda hard to be healer, especially with a Reinhardt that always flies at the enemy team, dies and screams in the channel that he didn’t have his team or any healers.
I think they should do something entirely unconventional and add three new healers instead of one more. Yes, we just got Kiriko, and she is great, but image the new metas people would be curious to explore if all of the sudden the healing category had three new healers to work with? What if there was a reason? Like sibling healers with different healing abilities, people from the same club or village? Or maybe there's a healer with a few more HP than the others that allows him or her to push in the front, but not the amount of a Tank HP? Blizzard definitely needs to do something bold with healers, I agree. I personally like the idea of a bold launch of multiple new healers at the same time.
On Baptist for example i wish that he would have the ability to change his grenade from a healing grande to one that makes damage on impact, mercy just needs anything at all to defend herself she is helpless at times.
I must agree with all of the things you said! It is damn stressfull playing healer. And your ideas to better it does sound like it would really help! Personally I thing they just need to add more support heroes in general to encourage players to play them
Every support having zens kick would be amazing. It has knockback so if you get jumped you have SOMETHING to get away with. Like mercy and hit someone with her staff and it acts as zens kick.
i've been a support player since 2016, and although my deaths per 10 have risen from 4 to 5, i can't say i haven't been having fun. as support you really do have to prioritize your survival above pretty much anyone else on the team, barring certain situations of course. but in cases like when some dps asks you to rez in the middle of a fight, a tank suggests a dumb strategy, or in general you're being pushed into a bad position because of team rotation, you just have to say no. it's actually really concerning how other roles don't realize how vulnerable supports are. hell, i'm in diamond, and there's still people who don't know you can't heal through barriers or know how to look behind them for 2 seconds to see that a flanker is on their ana. and they'll still have the audacity to ask for heals. i think the solution is to widen the roster and encourage more people to play support with a high variety of playstyles, just like dps has. also maybe even a small buff to health regen or adding in some movement abilities would help a ton, especially on a hero like zenyatta. overwatch 2 is a much more aggressive game by design, and that hasn't aged well for our small roster. also, smaller suggestion, but supports really don't get the same kind of praise that a dps/tank would wiping the enemy team. maybe if there was a recognition system in the same way that there's a vocal announcement of "double-quintuple kill!" there would be more incentive to play the role. support typically can't carry as easily as dps/tanks can, so it's nice to be appreciated.
I kinda jumped to support after waiting so long for a game as Dps but found out that as a support def need some more health or a ability or extra shield just to survive group attacks better because everyone knows that healers must be taken out asap so most of them die immediately.. also many players just dont protect healers they keep asking for heals but let Us die.. i think theres something thst needs to be done as well adding more characters..
I am and will always be a support main. I love the importance of the role and the potential to be the backbone of the team. However, in OW2 I find myself being very annoyed by the low survivability of supports due to the absence of a second tank. I'm constantly getting killed and my team refuses to help me, which is beyond annoying. I love being a support, but the sitting-duck feeling that some of them have is making me miserable at the same time
Supports can murder hard tho.
I find myself 1v1'ing dps often as my mains, Brig, Kiriko and Ana.
@@splinter4161 Same. People just have more options in DPS. Need the support roster to be as interesting if they want the players to queue. Till then we are just comparing apples to oranges and expecting the same taste and color.
Usually i try to accept it by thinking that my role is very important in helping enable the team to create impact. Whilst its true, and whilst i definetely understand that supports are the ideal first target to get out, it is annoying to be the most most aggro'd yet typically at the same time most forgotten role of the game. Honestly though, maybe its the sojourns getting to me, i cant with the random head clicks just evaporating my existence out of nowhere midfight like what is the counter to that? Lol
@@splinter4161 I've seen you everywhere today homie lol
@@Boatboy_ they say league players are calling for her nerf, but I doubt casuals aren’t queuing cause they are scared of Sojourn.
I play support. Half of the issue is that some support heroes really need more survivability in the current meta(Mercy and Kiriko could definitely use a small "get off me" ability). The other half of the issue is that new players(and some old players) are just not going to help you, if you're getting focused down or spawned camped you're more likely to get insults than help from your teammates.
Thats so true !! Thats what I went through just today and Im a support. Nobody gives a fuck about you if your in need of help, the enemy dps Moira is just sucking your ass and your team Genji is asking to pocket and screaming at your face cuz you are not healing !!!! I'll actually become a dps player soon.
I’m a Mercy main and I’m amazed at how easy it now is to control her movements and how you can stay airborne technically forever. So I don’t know about her. Can’t talk about Kiriko because I can’t aim 😁
@@lunakon5911 lol I wish I knew how to fly around as mercy 🥺
this ^
I feel like mercy is fine. If youre good youll be flying around more than any echo or pharah. Im bouncing and jumping and zooming tbrough the air all game. If someone kills me i know they wasted a lot of time to do it and that time probably allowed my team to win the fight or the game. Ive sen other mercy players play like this where you use ga on cd and are always moving in unpredictable ways. It makes the boringness of playing mercy more fun too.
First of they can start by adding more support heroes. There are like 8 support, and 2 are needed in every game (role queue) that doesn't offer that much variety. And it also feels like some of the support didn't age that well in Overwatch 2's more aggressive playstyle.
I agree, why on earth there's over twice as many damage dealers as healers I'll never understand. Some more damage dealing healers would be great
@@kernoleary1394 more supports with abilities similar to orb of discord would be good, maybe a buff to a teammates damage instead of a nerf to enemies defense, unless this already exists and im just being braindead
@@Dkarm26 so kinda Zenyatta brother. Yeah would be cool. I live playing Bap even as a tank main
Blizzard just gives crap tons of choice to DPS and support and tanks never got any love.... just the DPS matters.. no shit everyone wants to play DPS... the team used to be 2 tanks, 2 DPS and 2 supports.. now it's 1 tank, 2 DPS and 2 supports.. therefore, we should have as much support choices than they have DPS choices.... even up the thing and then maybe people will stop to queue DPS.. if they have 15 DPS, we should have 15 supports.. plain and simple!
They're adding 2 more supports and 1 more tank next.
Support is the role that depends the most on good teammates, if you play dps or tank it's easy to carry and change the game, but supports absolutely need other teammates to play well
Well it goes the other way aswell, a shitty support player can ruin the games of tank and damage players
@Dmitriy Golovko yeah but it's harder for 1 person to mess up a game for 4 other people as apposed to 4 bad players messing it up for you...
@@atothetaco that still applies to every role lol
Moira can carry
@@milocongdon7853 both of my highest heal numbered games have been a loss. Tank and Damage are the only roles that can carry the game period. Healers need peel that people don't comprehend and then get mad when they die. To many Rambos and not enough Docs.
As a support main, I was thinking making the 500xp like 3 matches a day rather than 1 match a day, but honestly you’re right in that it would cause people to just dps those characters. Survivability would be nice, but something tells me blizzard will just nerf some other characters and then add new support characters later on.
To be honest, support in ow2 has been religated to be "dps but lower and you can heal a little"
Just a little thing to add, people likes to be rewarded when they do something that helps the team, so I've had games with mercy and lucio for example where my ultimate and skills saved the whole team from getting down, but I rarely get the POTG, it's always for who kills more people in the less time possible, if supports would get a little more recognition it would help a lot more to get people playing that role.
theres the "heroes saved" thing now, which i do like, but honestly its... inconsistent to say the least. A lot of times you DO save someone but dont get the credit becasue their hp wasnt low enough. Speedboosting someone out of a DVA bomb absolutely should count
@@mishtehfish Completely agree with everything you said, but it would be mindboggingly difficult to program all of the possibilities into the system to take those things into account properly.
I forgot mercys potg intros and I main her
Yeah, i wish that I'd sometimes be a Mercy POTG when I ult, increase damage to all the peeps and we get a teamkill. Isn't that worthy of a POTG? Apparently not, only brrrrrrrrrrrrr is
Like a zoom in or camera change to show someone you clutch healed
The main problem for me is flankers and my team refusing to help with them
It can be hard sometimes. In random groups especially.
Not to mention the enemy Moira hunting you down as if you killed their mother when you play support.
Sombra bullys me all the time! I've literally gotten spawned camped by her multiple times. Mean while all my teammates are doing.."Need Healing!", "Heal me!". Smh... Sombra is invisible so she just hacks me, can't use my abilities. Even if I almost kill her, she'll just teleport away to heal and come back.
@@botezsimp5808 Ohh that happens to me a lot too spawn camped is so annoying Idk what to do I just give up when it happens
Ask them for help nicely. 6 or 7 outta 10 times you'll get it
The main problem with support is the fact that most of the support options feel weaker than their tank and DPS counterparts. Most of their weapons feel extremely weak, and their abilities only really help to get to other team members. They have very few options to actually protect themselves . Im not advocating for supports to be as strong as DPS, but they could thin the gap a little.
Straight up sounds like a gap
This is the reason I like Moira more than other support. Her heals are good, and if someone pushes you you can fade out.
Edit: realized I called Moira dps instead of support 😂
@@SomberP yeah, that's why I started playing her more in Overwatch 2
Maybe, better yet, get rid of the gap entirely! support characters in other games like Paladins and League have plenty of DPS tools integrated into their kit to make sure that they can assure the safety of their teammates AND themselves. I see no reason why overwatch's supports should be any different.
@@ianshaw3189 i just wanted Pip in OW2 i was rank 1 pip in Brazil a couple of times i just want my fast, agile, jumpy boi. He has significant damage, self healing tools and the necessary mobility to stay alive and run from flanks while still doing tons of heals and some damage
I would love survivability option for the healers. Kiriko has the teleport, bap has the jump, and zen has the kick. Give Ana like a roll or something.
Her survivability options are the sleep dart and self heal with nade that also damages the flanker....
Actually, I was a die hard tank main in ow1, but for some reason when ow2 dropped I went to support and it honestly feels really stressful like you said. The worst part is when you are low-key holding the team together, and still get yelled at by the rein who charges into the enemies' backline.
When they think you can make them immortal or when they demand healing when you were just killed. Support needs to do more damage tbh is infuritating when tanks or DPS are NOT hitting and just hiding
@Hi thereA genji that dashes far behind enemy line starts a 1 v 3 battle then demands healing, like bro im still not even half way there slow it down
same with trying to give speedboost to a d.va as lucio but she just uses her charge to charge out of the radius and then the boost is over.
@@theseeing last week i had some guy just running around and spamming need healing, i wanted to heal but how am i supposed to heal him when he keeps running away
bro i feel this HARD
If your looking for a support main Moira is genuinely fun to play. You can heal and do dps at the same time.Her movement ability is insane because you get a ridiculous amount of air if you do a jump at the end plus your invunerable and invisible the whole time which pretty much guarantees you an escape from death if your position is right. She can even flank and pick off already damaged players and return to her team to heal them in an instant.
i love all supports (Ana is my favorite) but as moira its so fun to just go behind enemy lines, kill someone and just run back behind reins shield whenever i get low.
Yeah as a new player I just point pick Moira and dominate. I can heal teammates myself and do insane damage
She was tailormade dps healer that could somewhat stand her ground against flankers so it makes sense why she has so much survavility
yo I be gettin the most heals and the most dps in most of my games with moira ... shes OP
Ew moira
Tank: need healing. Support: need peeling
I'm a Support main, specifically Moira and Baptiste. Most of my experience from playing is being targeted by enemy Tanks and DPS, and trying to stay alive while healing my teammates, which is easily said than done. My own teammates run away, chasing the enemies or are flying around, away from my range, while I'm constantly targeted by 1 or 2 enemies for an easy KO. Survivability for supports is difficult...
Agreed. Your trying to survive and help and heal when your teamates run off and leave you to die. Also Baptiste and Moira are also my main support characters.❤️👌
Escapability is a huge key to making supports more fun. As Zen getting targeted non stop by Genji, Winston, Sombra and having no real way to get away is a horrible feeling. I switch up so fast to other supports that at least have a chance to survive but even with them it is hard, just not impossible.
Genji and sombra have no health so they just get two shot by zen and for Winston you can out dps him very quickly so I don’t know what you mean. Im a zen player btw.
getting dived by a winston into your back line as a zen main isnt fun
You can literally bully Genji what do you mean
Sombra is kinda chonked so for now you at least yet a pass, but you literally have the tools to bully Genji off you
Beating a Winston takes a little more aim
@@GoldenKirby maybe but winstons face is the size of your monitor.
Zen should get an escape ability where he gets on his feet and runs away fast
I play Ana primarily. I understand that she isn't well suited for close range combat but her sleep dart can and nade can help out in those cases. I understand that Support isn't meant to be able to pump out large amounts of damage but the new aggressive focus in Overwatch 2 and Nerf to shields make it difficult for me to rely on my team as they are constantly busy. Not to mention how little people stay in my sightline for that matter.
I hate it when I'm trying to shoot my teammate and the RUN AWAY FROM ME...... LET ME HEAL YOOUUUU
I’m a mercy main. It annoys me that revives and Damage assists are not recorded in the main page of game stats. It instead classifies “damage assisted” (which could better show your influence in game) as a single “assist” which is very vague. It also doesn’t show my teammates the number of revives I have on the post game scoreboard. That information is hidden from the others unless they do some digging.
Survivability is also an issue. I love mercies movement mechanics but she is a sitting duck if your team dies or don’t understand that you can’t perform or survive if you can’t get to them
The biggest issue with support is the inability to carry the game. They create such a small impact on team fights. If your tank and dps teammates can't aim or focus outgoing damage effectively nothing dies, regardless of how much you heal them. At some point it feels like you're just feeding the enemy ult charge by healing your team mates that can't hit anything.
Honestly they could buff healer outgoing damage abilities just like they buffed tanks for OW2. The better aim of a good healer could still outmatch the other teams DPS, and the real skill would come in balancing your outgoing damage with your outgoing healing.
Another porblem with support is the lack of heroes in my opinion. DPS heroes have a wide range of heroes making most people find and main a dps much faster. Tanks do have a little more heroes than support, but there is only one tank in a standard match. Support needs two people in a standard match, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that there are too few support heroes to choose from. I would suggest that blizzard focus on pumping out more new support heroes, then there is a bigger chance for someone to find and main a support they like. There is a lot of great ideas for possible support heroes. One i thought of was maby a support hero that could place down a healing station or something simular. This could make it a part support, part dps wich could strike some interest in those who really dosen't want to play support.
That’s such a great idea too. Not only would it pull away DPSing Moira players and give them a more productive alternative, being able to have some of that DPS experience in another healer would be excellent as well.
@@poopyfartboi Thank you, glad you liked my idea.
On OW1 I ALWAYS went for Flex Queue, so I played a lot of support. On OW2 I stopped picking Flex, because it meant I would be support on 10 out 10 matches. And it's just not fun at all anymore. I think it's because playing support means you rely on your team a lot. And, if that was already frustrating on OW1, it's even worse on OW2, with the game being Free to Play, because most players are new and have 0 game sense.
I would have no problem playing support if I was on a team with friends or people who actually communicate tho. But, still, not EVERY F*CKING MATCH.
Well, i guess i´m a support player too, and to my mind the mistake lies in taking the second tank from the team. That second tank really offered a lot more protection to the healers and everyone else, so you didn´t always had to run around healing everybody at the same time. It also really set a frontline, which you could draw back to and seak cover behind it. SInce that second tank is missing, a lot of protection has been taken from the team, whioch leads to everyone getting more damage, giving the healers a harder job, even harder than it was before, all while that they still have to struggle to stay alive themselves.
So the fixes for that would be either giving the Supports more TP, so they don´t always have to look that desperately for their own healthbar and can focus more on keeping others alive, while maybe nerfing their offensive capabilities by a bit(like 2 points of damage less per projektile or +1 second reload time), or giving us the second tank back, which would make the situaton also for the DPS better.
To be honest. Blizzard should in december focus on support role. Like adding new healer NOT TANK, do some reworks etc. New tank is stupid idea and will only make queues only more weirder
Next 2 heroes after that are supports.
@@jiopa I know. But i said that next hero should be healer. New tank only will make queues more longer
@@michaoek2614 well tanks and healers both had terrible queue times in ow1. So you at least know that they see the number of supports and tanks and want it to catchup to the dps.
@@jiopa thing is these dps players dont get any damage and refuse to use anything that isnt a dps.
Laughs in Mauga
My primary role usually is Support, I think the reason why most people avoid playing as support is because of less of an impact they're in the game currently. The tank usually carries the team and the dps's role is to eliminate players as much as they can while supports need to babysit each player making sure they survive, healing, destroying utiles, and all that while trying to stay alive because most of the other players will be focusing on the objective/enemies. What I mean by less of an impact role is even though you did your job really well as a support some other Moira's can be both the top healer and the top dps of your team you'll still lose, the carry potential of support is really low but it is possible it's just really hard compared to the other roles like tank.
yup. The moira pain is real. I dont get what I am missing...I lost a game yesterday where I had 28k healing, other healer on my team was solid too...we out healed the other team by 40%
It doesn't matter how much you heal if the people you're healing can't aim.
@@ndrs4u7 fr
@@CM-zu9vg if you have Orisa going into a Zaria your team should have more healing as Orisa is going to struggle a ton. You could have 50k more healing but if all that healing is just to keep a player up healing isn’t the issue. There’s bigger team issues happening and you’re just trying to make it work as a healer.
I feel like the main problem with healers in most games, is that they try and give them a DPS option, but they don't LINK the healing and the DPS (or link it very poorly) so you end up feeling it's either boring or frantic. You end up with the choice of healing OR dpsing and neither is pertiucally fun cause they can't let you have too much DPS cause your wont heal, and just... it's a mess.
Thats a decent point actually. And for someone like ana, you have to save your potentially offensive cooldowns to save your own ass from the constantly diving team. Sure, you can find a great moment to throw in a nade but its a toss-up whether you actually have it or not. Also, by having one tank, i feel like you have to pocket them a lot more since theyre soaking all of the damage that was previously shared, so you have less time to dps or if you get dove, your tank fades quickly
That's kinda why it's called support not healer.
Your team needs to mitigate their own damage. Avoid being shot, so the the support can DPS.
This is what makes Mercy so funny. She actually does some pretty good damage if your aim is good. Ive gotten some funny kill streaks on players who FORGET she has a gun.
A gun that has no damage fall off,
Unlimited range, headshot criticals, and a I belive 20 round clip with a pretty fast reload. Now I want to state that I focus mostly on healing the team, and buffing players for damage... but if my squad is good and enemies are in sight...I like to shoot them. It is stupidly fun to kill un aware Widows or to help whittle down DVA mech armor. Yet in one of my recent games, a game where I Never died.. rezzed alot of players, did lots of damage and even got a Triple kill... I ended the round with 17 eliminations. Im not sure if Rezes still count as "Eliminations" but I had the highest total of the game. So yeah Mercy can fight... dam well at that.
Hard disagree as a lucio otp main I average more dps than my actual dps sometimes and really good healing on my games, If you have a moira who just dps's shes not playing support shes playing as a dps with a shorter que time.
@@NintendoHistorians I love seeing you Boop MASTERS launch people off cliffs as well. I don't see it as often as I did in Ow1, but it is still a riot. Seeing dps players just lose it when they get STOMPED by us support players never gets old. Oddly enough I dont see many Tanks get Salty..
The only time I saw a Tank main get ragey was an Orisa that used their Ult while I played Widow. Stationary Targets are the best ya know?
The problem with supports is that you feel more like a baby sitter than anything else.
Supports right now really need to rely on their other support for peel. There isn't an offtank anymore so the one solo tank is probably too busy being your team's frontline to turn around and peel, and the only way a DPS can peel for you now is by killing whoever is attacking you. Being able to rely on a lucio boop and speed, or a brig to get up in their grill, or a Kiriko rescue... hell, even a zen kick might be enough to save your Ana's life... not to mention the threats you had to worry about before are more dangerous across the board (except Doomfist). A support isn't killing winston or Dva, Sombra does *huge* damage now, Genji is, was and will ever be Genji... you get the drill. Until Blizzard intervenes, look out for your fellow support.
A fellow support can save your life for sure.
yeah right and then the moira on your team is 300 metres away from you duelling their supports instead of playing properly.. lmao
@@mangshu21 Hey, just because they have the tools to do the job doesn't mean they're interested in doing it. I was just pointing out that maybe we support players should start watching eachother's backs.
I also am a support main, tank focused, you loose the tank you loose the fight…I find Moria, lucio, and mercy to have best surviveabilty
Personally as someone just starting to play, its how shallow the pool is for Supports, and it doesn't help new players are throttled by the roster size when they start playing. You get 3 whole Supports out of 8 to start with, and one is blocked off by the damn seasons pass unless you sell out to Blizz and get it preem. Ideally, fixing the support stuff isn't simple, but I can see things like POTG involving supports more often if they do something meaningful enough, and adding more and more supports consistently.
the play support get 1 free lootbox was an enticing offer for ow1 that helped increase support player counts, but the current 500xp bonus is laughable and insulting, not to mention it's also virtually useless to f2p players
Me a D-Va player.
"But I am playing support!"
Survivability is key because without that second tank to turn around and help the supports, no one else is turning around and helping you out. Too many support characters feel like sitting ducks either because either their mobilty is too low to get out of trouble, their DPS is too low to contest DPS heros consistently, or a mix of both. The sad part is, I'm not sure how you change some characters like Zen or Mercy without either reworking them to fit the new demands or potential over tuning them into being something they aren't designed to be.
Anna throwing a slipper is too accurate. 😂
2 ideas I have for support, is a hero that focuses on giving armor/ shields (not so much for healing) and is an 'in your face' hero like Junker Queen, and another that 'mops up the survivors' from a fight and has a hook and healing is based on how much damage you're doing.
A lot of the supports just need reworks to fit the new game style. They should pretty much all either have a “get to team” ability or a “get enemy off me” ability. Lucio and Moira are doing so well because they have strong and easy examples of these, whereas heroes like Mercy and Ana both have harder kits to escape the dumb potential of other roles. Overall as a tank and dps player, even I feel bad for rolling over enemy healers who barely get to play.
And yet ana has more playmaking than moira and is found consistently in top 500.
@@jiopa in higher ranks your team knows how to play around having an ana to peel for them. in lower ranks moira is safer
@@unusualgaming8629 Yes, but that doesnt mean the those supports need reworks. And your teammates peeling for you isnt the only way you can climb. YOU as an ana player should be making those plays for yourself.
@@jiopa no I agree I think only supports who need buff are mercy small dmg increase on pistol and maybe kiriko slight projectile speed increase. I do think Ana has the most potential to carry but a lot of her power comes from your team capitalizing on what you do
I enjoy playing Zenyatta- but it’s mainly his design
But he is very fun as well. His snap kick was a amazing addition to him, and helped balance him out a little more. Admittedly my biggest problem is Orb Management. I forget where my orb of harmony and orb of discord is at times but I am working on it. Theirs also the issue of people not protecting their supports but that can always be learned quickly
I play in GM. Zen fun. Sombra been wrecking me constantly. Can’t wait for a nerf
What's snap kick?
@@blacksepikseye7300 his melee attack! Instead of punching he will kick his opponents away to a safe distance
Each orb will show a thumbnail of who you assigned it to and their health at the bottom of your screen 😀
@@jet_prince8270 wait is that a thing? I've never noticed but I also haven't played overwatch in a few years, just got into it again a month or so ago
i'm new to the game but i actually enjoy a lot the support class... shooters aren't really my strength but being able to help the team from a distance was always something that kept me in a more passive playstyle, but as a mainly support player I should say that most characters in the class should have more tools to survive and escape when in danger, keep the distance on the opponent and work efficiently on taking down enemies, that way you can feel more powerful while using your hero without having them all the way at the back trying to keep everyone alive. Then again, I'm too new in this game to give a specific solution, but i've played every support character a couple times at least.
There definitely is a learning curve with support now that everything is fast paced. It’s refreshing to see someone talk about problems with lightheartedness rather than frustration
Seriously, i always playing as a Support and this role has the fastest time to find a game.
But I agree with that it's hard to find good player on solo play.
For it's funny my second support always feed and die every time or they are trolling or just don't know how to play the game.
They should add" your support is under attack" " your support is slain"
Playing support is great when you have a team that knows to at least stick within range and not die off a mile away spamming I need healing. Some survivability would also be nice to have, cause I feel like wet tissue paper. Feels just like when I’m playing Hunting Horn in monster Hunter.
The way I see it is some people have the “ support gene” where they like to see their team do with with their help, hence my favorite healer being Ana, it’s really satisfying to nano someone and see them take out the entire team.
Then there are other who don’t have the “support gene” they like seeing the team benefit form what they do directly, like flanking and taking out both the healers, or draining people HP with someone like soldier or reaper.
If such a thing exists, I have it. :P Not just in OW but in most games with a class sytem I'll always gravitate towards healer/support. Or preferably a healer/dps mix. I just like sitting back and overseeing the battle while keeping people alive over sweating over optimal damage or tactically trying to keep damage from the rest of the team.
well i am a zenyatta main and i enjoy playing all the other supports , i normally focus on healing my team and countering tanks with zenyatta.
when any teammate calls for healing il be there , tho sometimes its kinda boring to play support , my pay back will be the greatings from my team. i think its ok to take a break from being support and playing dps or tank but i will never stop playing support
In *GUNDAM EVOLUTION* all mobile suits have stamina bars that range from 3-1 bars that can be use to use thrusters like a sprint mechanic, and can be use to dash any direction. I suggest you guys check it out since their healers are a bit unique which one can deploy a turret and fly away while still tethered healing.
I would never stop queueing up all roles if I didn't get support 10+ times in a row. Even queueing just for tank & dps I'll eventually switch back to throw in some healing into the mix. There should be a difference between "all roles" and "filling the least desired role". I might as well just switch from tank + dps to only support when I'm not playing with friends.
This is literally the reason i stopped playing support. Sick of getting 0 value at all playing it
I think all supports need a form of mobility.
•For Zen, I wouldn't mind a double jump that launches him up.
•Ana also a double jump, but it instead triggers a roll like Cassidy.
•For Baptiste, I wouldn't mind some more directional movement for his jump, instead of just up.
•Brig needs a slow effect on her bash and less healing over time, but more burst-y. I also wouldn't mind her bash reaching even further.
•For mercy i simply want to be able to cancel res with the interact button.
•I want Lucio to have his ultimate cost reduced by half, but be shorter in duration and less overhealth. I would like his ult to be a bit more dynamic to use, but also be easier to fight against.
•let Moira give a weaken effect if she passes through enemy with fade. Her fade will now also not be invisible.
I also wouldn't mind if they got rid of damage orb entirely and instead gave Moira some sort of a raw damage buff.
These are some changes I would like to see, at least tried. Some might be bad, but i feel like it would at least freshen up the characters a bit.
I dont know if this is a serious suggestion or not..
Yeah just buff every Supp indefinitely as if they wouldn’t already have the best abilities in the game…
@@BenjaminBüchler ...Legit. The whole issue with Overwatch has always been that the supports are overtuned and the entire meta revolves around who is the best support combination -- even more-so now that there's only 1 tank.
I think brig hp should be reverted back to 250hp
ya, Support is no longer fun without a second tank to guard flanks to keep support safe.
There are only 2 ways to fix this (1 I do not like it)
1. Give a stunning ability to all supports. (I do not like)
or
2. Bring back the second tank to focus on guarding the flanks.
I just think no one really wants to look after other teammates and just wanna get in there and brawl. Then there's also the toxicity of trying to heal your teammates but being chewed out with a DPS doesn't realize they're over extending.
Maybe what they could try is 1) Rework Brig and 2) Change the Healer Role passive from 'auto regen HP' to healing in an AoE from dealing damage (ie Brig's passive).
Or maybe make healing way easier like allowing Mercy to use her pistol while she has a healing beam attached, make Ana's heal darts have a bigger hit box, give back Zenyatta's healing Orb to stay on a teammate without needing line of sight or give him the option to use the Discord orb as another Healing Orb.
They could even rework a character to become a Support like what they did with Doomfist. Maybe Mei could be reworked and have an ability to also Ice Block an ally to save them from a big burst of damage or bring back her freeze on her primary but lower her overall damage.
I believe the abilities of supports need more impact. Things like lowering the time on Ana’s sleep cooldown, a Rez reset if Mercy gets a kill, increasing Lucio’s boop distance or bring back a less OP version of Moira’s enfeeble orb (stats that don’t make her invincible to every ult in the game).
OW don’t need to buff raw stats to make supports engaging, they need to make them more intimidating and offensive to match the shift in play style that’s already happening.
ana throwing a sandal would single handedly raise her pick rate in unranked lmao
The lobbies I've been in, 3 tanks and 2 healers end up mopping the floor with everyone
Glad I get blamed as a support for when they all run off alone and the tank dives deep alone
I love running Lucio as his kit is versatile enough where I'm able to tackle different situations, while still being able to help the team win fights. It would be great though, if say Lucio received a buff where his Sound Barrier AOE "stuns" or hits/knocks back enemies for a small percentage of damage, making him more useful for tackling objectives more efficiently, allowing his team to push for counterattacks. This would still allow for him to maintain his playstyle but offer more incentive for Lucio players to deal damage without relying too heavily on booping people, etc.
As a new player with no prior experience in OverWatch 1 here is my take.
Ana, Zenyatta, Baptist and Brigitte have the biggest issues right now, that being majority of the time after you die you just can't get back to combat until your entire team is dead, it's hard when the best thing you can do is stay as far away as possible and do as much healing as you can because when you die your team dies and you have a hard time keeping yourself alive in combat, zenyatta's a Sitting Duck waiting to be headshot, ana dies to the flank, baptiste survives a bit longer but ultimately dies the same, Brigitte it's fine but really hard to use in most Maps, you have to be melee distance majority of the time in order to heal anyone but when you're in melee distance so are the enemies, Lucio mercy kirico and Moira all have great mobility and thus are allowed to get back to combat faster when they ultimately die because no one's paying attention, plus they have some of the best kits in the game in terms of support
so I think supports needs some form of movement speed when out of combat, " move 25% faster when out of combat, this effect is farther increased when a teammate drops below 33% hp " of course this does open up a flank play style for most support and Lucio would go zooming but it's the best thing I can think of
OW1 Supports were paid well in the old system. You play it enough you get compensated with a juicy skin so it felt like a job but you gave less of a fuck if your team was shit. Now they only compensate you with garbage so while it's still fun sometimes to play as support, when I get tired of it nothing holds me back to trying other classes.
it just feels like even tho supports are so important, they have very little game play impact. Where before it felt like healing worked, now it feels like i can barely keep one dps alive if i pocket them alone with the other support. Its just so much more work now for so little gameplay impact.
The problem with supports are in my opinion, the reduced healing;
If you miss a shot with ana nowadays, it does feel more punishing than in ow1, and you mostly can't outheal the damage in some teamfights which is super frustrating.
Basically it feels like I'm as a sup arw required to kill as many of the enemies aswell the damage input is actually healable
“Nobody is playing support”
Me, maiming Kiriko and Lucio: *am I a joke to you?*
Dps and Tanks think that supports are there to bail them out of mistakes, when that doesn't happen supporters gets blamed for bad healing.
I think making supporters do more damage will help supporters defend them self easier.
Giving supporters more survivbility would only make supporters lazier.
teamwork is the key and Dps tanks need to understand it the hard way.
Zenyatta hasn't been changed since day one. Give Mercy 250 HP and one second cool down for her guardian angel for starters
It's crazy how much the game has changed almost a year later lol. Now a video needs to be made called, "Why nobody is playing tank in overwatch 2!" xD
Im spitballing here, and recognize this would totally change the game, but what about creating hybrid classes? So You have pure support, tank, and dps, support/dps, support/tank, and tank/dps. You still can only pick your role to play as Tank, DPS, or Support, but you have some overlap on your choices. Like, if you selected the support role you can pick the pure support heroes, support/dps heroes, or support/tank heroes.
If you selected tank role, you can pick pure tank heroes, dps/tank, or support/tank.
Dps role can choose pure dps heroes, support/dps heroes, or dps/tank heroes.
As a new OW player. Playing as Ana. Yes i die a lot but lately I've found ways to survive while being impactful for my team. I think its rewarding having a hard role. Do i get yelled at sometimes but at the end of the day if my team cant helpe while im helping them thats on us not trying to work together. When i think outside the box and still learn how to grow it makes me push harder on support I love it.
I think one thing they added for support to feel good is "saving" people, and tbf it can feel good.. but that's it.
It's weird to see real life Reinhardt talk about support roles
In both overwatch and tf2 I play fill all the time. I noticed in my last sesssion 9 out of 10 fill matches were support with the other being a tank and 10/10 of my buddies were assigned support.
I think there are a few reasons for not liking support.
1: they are the high priority targets with limited ways to protect themselves if isolated from their team or if their team just does a shit job of protecting them
2: There are a large number of pick/assassin characters designed to nearly instantly remove a target at a distance, having wido, hanzo, ashe, cassidy and sojourn
3: there are a large number of dive heroes who have the ability to just move in past their team on a sometimes sucide charge to kill the healers. There is sombra, reaper, tracer, genji, junkrat, symmetra, echo and phara
4: A large chunk of the damage in this game is hitscan making dodging hard and tanks your main source of staying alive if not in cover
5: Most of the tanks due a shit job of actually protecting their team against people who have the eyes, aim and mental ability to focus on eliminating the healers first. Only 3/11 healers can create shields that can cover everybody and 1 can choose 1 teammate to protect at a time, everybody else only have the option of standing in the way to protect them which is not enough when an enemy can focus on the supports.
6: a few heros can force you out of position, roadhog and junker queen have grapples they can pull you from the backlines into shotgun range if they land the hit, sojourn and junkrat can pin you in place, reinhardt can charge you, resulting in you being seperated if you even live through it.
Comparing this to tf2 as a reference as they got compared alot when overwatch 1 first came out, not looking for a debate on which one is better,
1: The medic has up to 2 weapons as self defense which while suck he is also facing people who never enter another dimension during the chase or teleport.
2: Only 1 charcter can perfom long range one-shots, sniper
3: 2/3 can do the upclose assassin well, spy, scout maybe a demo or pyro
4:The hitscans are all close range except for sniper, allowing for dodging most attacks with reach
5: Due to more damage being projectile and range or upclose hitscan, it is harder to single out a medic from a safe range. Because of that, decent movement is often enough and there is limited need for a real tank in tf2, even then a few options sort of work like the default uber making you invincible for a bit or the heavy having a shit-ton of health
6:Nobody can force you into the other team in tf2 unless somebody is behind you as it is all knockback forcing you in the direction the impact came from, explosions may boost you in a bad direction but nowhere near a hook in overwatch.
The end result is that in tf2 so long as my team has completed the tutorial, has a pc able to run at atleast 30fps, a working keyboard and mouse, working audio and internet from this millennium they can do enough to where I am not getting swamped super hard.
By contrast in overwatch, it feels like if my tank picks anything but reinhard, sigma or winston I will get snipped within 4 seconds of contact with the enemy team or dived in about as long if the enemy team picked even 1 diver hero.
There definitely needs to be some kind of change. I'm a support main and I am feeling the lose of the second tank. The amount of times a reaper or genji just walks to the back line, gets ignored by our tank and proceeds to kill the two supports. Then the remaining team of DPS and tank get upset at us support players when they're not getting heals because we're dealing with constant flankers and dying. Support heroes need be given some kind of life line here.
When lucio could kill with his ult in experimental, that was a nice touch!
As a flex support/dps main, I love Kiriko. She can "fix" your teammates screw ups with well timed tp's/suzus "if" you can muster the neccessary discipline and awareness.
So please don't throw hard to hit 40dmg Kunai when your mates could really use a heal right now. You're literally throwing :p
I think what really needed to be address is some supports dont have good self peel or disenege when most dps have some kind of dash or ability to help them close the gap. Supports were always high value targets but in OW2 it feels like you have a kill me sign on you if you aren't playing Lucio,Moira,or Kiriko. Playing Ana, Zen and Mercy is almost painful when people are just always hunting you down constantly. They also need to start giving the support role a bit more carry potential and only then would more people probably play support.
I'm also a tank/support player myself, and I've been having a blast on zen (and I actually do heal thank you). I agree that more rewards is a bad idea, instead making the support heroes just straight up more fun to play is the trick.
First, you could make supports a little more deadly. Make it more dangerous to dive/dual supports.
Second new novel abilities/interactions that aren't necessarily healing focused but are still "support". Kiriko's cleanse, Zen's discord orb, lucio's speed boost, and ana's sleep are great examples.
And finally, lean in to what makes support fun for the good support players already. It's a balance of medium mechanical skill requirement (relative to your rank) and medium/high positioning and map awareness. Some characters are just really frustrating to heal (echo, genji, some widows) and supports constantly get flamed by people feeding their brains out with "where's my healing?!" so if we had more characters that did ambient healing like lucio/brig with interesting abilities like discord orb and sleep dart and a slight damage bump we could hook a whole new generation of players who understand that "support" doesn't mean "heal bot" and actually enjoys playing the role.
I generally only play for supports since I'm usually chasing the daily and weekly Queue For All Roles Challenges. And yes, as a support, you generally won't get any peels from the tank or DPS. This has put pressure on me to stay bunched up with them, but that then becomes problematic when they all go their separate ways and then when you do engage with the one player you're with, you get focused.
Not to mention the crazy spam damage you get when you group up with the tank.
They need more survivability, this can be health, shields, crowd control, and most importantly mobility. With less tanks, dps can spread out more, making healing header. Kiriko's tp is borderline OP compared to the other supports. Moira needs less damage, Mercy needs more damage, Brig needs some crowd control back and more powerful ULT, possibly 50 more health support wide might do the trick. Idk, I'm new
I am a support main and I agree with your thoughts on how to improve it. I will say I've played overwatch since Christmas 2016 and I'm losing the desire to play support, and that's because I have to spend more time trying to survive than actually playing the game, so I would find a way to make it feel less like trying to survive and more like actually playing. I don't know how but I think that would make playing support less stressful and people more willing to play support.
The primary reason why most people don't play support is because our role is arguably the most dependant on our team. The requirement for making a big impact on games is WAY higher than for DPS or Tank, and now that the card system is gone, we get no recognition for anything that we do. As a support, not only do you need to be able to duel characters designed to kill you/have WAY more HP than you, but you also have to corral a bunch of, sometimes, wild and angry toddlers to victory. Meanwhile, reaper who just jumped in the middle of the enemy team and pressed Q gets PotG and sometimes even a deciding wipe to win the game. The support role is like playing chess with a bunch of pawns that do whatever they want. The support role was designed with 2 tanks in mind. It needs a rework entirely. Maybe reduce our healing and increase our DPS/survivability so that we fill more of a combat medic type of role.
I play support, but noticed that when cut off from my team and i'm in a 1v1 with a tank I have a 99% chance of dieing. I believe if supports had a means of escape they'd be more viable. I love playing Ana, but as soon as I miss my dart or hit one but there's 2-4 others shooting me I have 0% chance to survive and support my team. Kiriko's wallclimb is the only passive ability that's an escape tool and that's fine, but all of the other supports would benifit if they could shake off persuers and rejoin the team instead of just getting staggered so that my team can die while I'm coming out of spawn.
give rewards on tiered levels of healing to incentivize people actually healing. 5k healing, 100xp, 10k healing, 500xp, 20k healing, 500xp + an esteemed badge to go next to your name with the number of 20k healing matches you've played
I wanted to main Zenyatta but his health is too low, I understand you can reload and get your health back but that’s at least a 5 second animation. Meanwhile Roadhog can constantly heal and has massive amounts of health, obviously he’s a tank but dear God help the healers.
I've been a support main in every game I play for the past year or two and honestly, I don't think this can ever be fixed. The problem is that most people want to be the one getting the plays. They wanna go and murder the entire enemy team. They wanna feel cool. And there's not much a support can do for that. Yes you can get stuff like that on support very rarely, but it won't even be halfway as much as a DPS or a tank. Then sure, you could give supports more tools for damage and plays but then they would just become op instead. The only way to get more people to play support happily would be to change their minds on the game, and I don't see that happening sadly.
I've joined in to all roles to get the challenge done everyday, it might as well have 2 support categories instead of "all role" It puts you as support 9 times out of 10. Then after I get support I throw to get done with the matches quicker so I can play the game like I want.
If DPS fights dive, they have 6-8 characters choices to swap to. Thats the equivalent of the whole cast of support and only 1-2 are counter picks (which may not synergize with your current team). Support needs more options, that's it.
Solution:
Add a tank role passive; “allied support players on your team take reduced damage (25%) while the tank is nearby”
As a support main, I've definetly been feeling the drawls of the support role when all the other roles seem more fresh(?) in OW2. Definetly agree the role needs a breath of fresh air.
I think the problem is that the majority of players have no clue how to play support in the new meta. You can't just be a healbot, you have to consistently evade and 1v1 dps players, if you can't do this you will fail as support. Every support has a uniqe way to do this in their kit and overall good positioning is a big factor as well.
This is a very tricky thing for blizzard to have to balance, because the majority(if not all) of supports are actually very balanced right now, it's just that it is the hardest skill floor role in the game and many will not be bothered to put the effort in to learn the role, especially because it is a very thankless job.
Which brings me to my next point, supports will almost never get the praise they deserve, and so players not passionate for the role will quickly become discouraged. The new leaderboard system only exascerbates this where many clueless teammates will be quick to point at a low healing done stat to be indicative of bad play, which it is not.
So how to fix lack of numbers:
1. Lower skill floor for support (more moira-like supports / more supports in general)
2. Add more ways for supports to recieve praise (bring back player cards, on fire, endorse enemy etc.)
3. Add more reward for skill expression (characters like lucio with extremely fun tech -- or in-game recognition for a good play i.e better potg for something such as clutch ana nade or bap lamp)
These are just my thoughts though, would be happy to hear any opinions voiced in comments.
Last night was the first time I played since 2020. I main roadhog but in a few matches everyone was DPS with one or two tanks here and there. I had to play support and somehow got PotG as Mercy, who I have like.....a total of twenty or so minutes of playtime on in my entirety of Overwatch due to me preferring to be a Tank on the front? It's pretty sad that people don't give support more of a try but I am now about to work on learning supports more to be a help to teams where people refuse to be support. Hell I got a lot of love over messages from a Rhine and a Soldier I kept alive in a push and I did great reviving players after taking a bit to learn to do it lmao. It's actually fun and feels good to be support, because you can single handedly be the difference between an unstoppable rush and being wiped out by a solid defense, or holding the line against an overwhelming enemy or being destroyed and losing ground.
I played Lucio and yes I prioritize supporting my team over running ahead and trying to get kills but I feel like most people don't play support is because it's hard to get the play of the game and everybody wants to see their hero on that final screen. I think making a change to where if healers do a great amount of healing to assist somebody into getting play of the game there should be a separate play of the game for the healer if they do that or allow the healer to get play of the game for supporting their team so heavily.
They need to support to be OP like brigette when she first came out. But also I think they should shorten the 9sec spawn time to 5 to give defensive teams more of a shot of making sustainable defenses when they’re a player or two short (as they’ve died and need to get back to play area)… and if your support is the one that is away from play area due to death you can assume your teams will also be dead so right after. This then gives the problem of teams being killed one by one as the spawn of each character is staggered one after another. This then makes teams be ineffective and have one final stand when they get near 3rd checkpoint.
I main support myself (Moira/ana) but some problems that I see arise is that the only real support that have survivability is moira with her dash and Lucio with knockback. It would be a great favour if blizzard added better options for support characters.(ana preferably cause she'd work so much better with greater vantage points)
I'm a main support, and that will probably never change, but lately I'm seeing myself playing a lot more DPS and Tank because it feels so frustrating playing as support.
If the support player pool is that low, what i'd do is Add a special limited role bonus for queueing up as healer along with a static 500 xp. the 500 drops to 100 but for heals if there really is that little of them i'd take off the xp bonus for "Fill" and i'd just keep the 500 on healer until the numbers balance out, and then ontop of that i'd add the additional bonus of Healers above a certain amount of heals in a game will get even more bonus xp. find a good number thats relatively challenging for the whole community to get to like 6k or 7k or something and that way people will want to play healer, and people will want to pump out as many heals as possible benefitting the team.
Thats my idea atleast.
I'm a main Mercy and oh God it was a painful experience reaching Plat having to deal with Genji/Sombra every game without anyone to help me besides the other support. In OW1 the off tank was able to look after the supports most of the times to help them survive against a good flanker, and now that the second tank is gone and every single DPS just cares for kills, the support players can only rely on each other... And sometimes even your support pair is too focused on dealing meaningless damage as a Moira lol
Also - supports need to be able to get potg for actually supporting, vs only over from doing damage. It is a total vibe killer to know that the game itself will rarely if ever acknowledge my plays - it makes me feel unappreciated and as though I’m having no impact.
i play as a support only... and i have to agree... its super hard too survive... and more when the Tank feels like, oh there a thousend Meters away is one DPS to kill instandly... and leaves uns healers alone...
It’s kinda hard to be healer, especially with a Reinhardt that always flies at the enemy team, dies and screams in the channel that he didn’t have his team or any healers.
I think they should do something entirely unconventional and add three new healers instead of one more. Yes, we just got Kiriko, and she is great, but image the new metas people would be curious to explore if all of the sudden the healing category had three new healers to work with? What if there was a reason? Like sibling healers with different healing abilities, people from the same club or village? Or maybe there's a healer with a few more HP than the others that allows him or her to push in the front, but not the amount of a Tank HP? Blizzard definitely needs to do something bold with healers, I agree. I personally like the idea of a bold launch of multiple new healers at the same time.
On Baptist for example i wish that he would have the ability to change his grenade from a healing grande to one that makes damage on impact, mercy just needs anything at all to defend herself she is helpless at times.
I must agree with all of the things you said! It is damn stressfull playing healer. And your ideas to better it does sound like it would really help!
Personally I thing they just need to add more support heroes in general to encourage players to play them
They coming. The next 3 new hero’s, 2 of them are supports
Every support having zens kick would be amazing. It has knockback so if you get jumped you have SOMETHING to get away with. Like mercy and hit someone with her staff and it acts as zens kick.
i've been a support player since 2016, and although my deaths per 10 have risen from 4 to 5, i can't say i haven't been having fun. as support you really do have to prioritize your survival above pretty much anyone else on the team, barring certain situations of course. but in cases like when some dps asks you to rez in the middle of a fight, a tank suggests a dumb strategy, or in general you're being pushed into a bad position because of team rotation, you just have to say no. it's actually really concerning how other roles don't realize how vulnerable supports are. hell, i'm in diamond, and there's still people who don't know you can't heal through barriers or know how to look behind them for 2 seconds to see that a flanker is on their ana. and they'll still have the audacity to ask for heals.
i think the solution is to widen the roster and encourage more people to play support with a high variety of playstyles, just like dps has. also maybe even a small buff to health regen or adding in some movement abilities would help a ton, especially on a hero like zenyatta. overwatch 2 is a much more aggressive game by design, and that hasn't aged well for our small roster.
also, smaller suggestion, but supports really don't get the same kind of praise that a dps/tank would wiping the enemy team. maybe if there was a recognition system in the same way that there's a vocal announcement of "double-quintuple kill!" there would be more incentive to play the role. support typically can't carry as easily as dps/tanks can, so it's nice to be appreciated.
I kinda jumped to support after waiting so long for a game as Dps but found out that as a support def need some more health or a ability or extra shield just to survive group attacks better because everyone knows that healers must be taken out asap so most of them die immediately.. also many players just dont protect healers they keep asking for heals but let Us die.. i think theres something thst needs to be done as well adding more characters..
I’m currently a support main and it is the worst role to solo queue lol.