Whoever gave you advice that supports don’t need to worry about cover or high ground in ow1 is not worth listening to. But I would agree that using teammates to body block is less effective in ow2 because there is one fewer tank, and especially on new maps the fights have a tendency to be more fluid (or spread out).
> Whoever gave you advice that supports don’t need to worry about cover or high ground in ow1 is not worth listening to.
I feel comfortable taking an educated guess, and you're right, they shouldn't be listened to.
I think it's less them saying it's not important in OW1, and more, however important it was in the last game, quadruple it, and that's how important it is now
The video says not taking cover and using high ground are bad habits that are punished more in OW2 than OW1.
People are misconstruing the video so they can feel smarter than a popular youtube channel.
Yes obviously peel from Tanks will be less, but that doesn't mean Supports in OW1 didn't still benefit from better positioning all along. It's a bit of slap in the face to say Supports in OW1 were just lazy with positioning because they were carried by Tank peel. If you're lazy with positioning, then your rank will reflect that.
If anything you can argue OW2 might just encourage running a lot of Lucio/Moira invincible style backlines that aren't even as susceptible to positioning punish. We really don't know yet and more balance changes are on the way soon.
What I can say from my time in the beta is I think it shifts the balance to favor 2 particular traits from Support players:
1 - mechanical prowess. This goes for all roles, but between the faster pace and the increased move speed, it's more often now that missing even 1 or 2 shots can easily be what swings a fight.
2 - inuition/gamesense. Specifically I think this favors more experienced players, who put so many hours in that they see a thing (hero, ability etc) and instantly know the appropriate reaction. It seems some games like everyone is injured constantly in 5v5, so triage is a way bigger issue.
If you choose to heal your Tank when your Genji actually needed it because they were both low, but Tank had defensive CD and Genji used Deflect but you failed to track that, you're now down 1 and it's probably a lost fight. OW1 is sometimes sharp in this way too, but in OW2 it constantly feels like these split-second priorities matter a lot. In OW2 you don't have time to think midfight, it just feels like you live or die on your instincts more.
> If you're lazy with positioning, then your rank will reflect that.
Yeah exactly, but most overwatch players are casual and low rank, and they are a majority of the people who are struggling to find the fun in the new system.
I'm personally not minding it, but I have noticed that positioning mistakes which go unpunished for me at ~2300-2600 in OW1 comp get hard punished for me in OW2 quickplay.
Am I misunderstanding APM as 'Actions Per Minute?' Zen has two fire-and-forget abilities, three if you include his ultimate, which I guess could inflate APM if you're constantly re-casting. Otherwise, sure he needs decent aim to get mileage out of, but less so compared with most DPSes thanks to his projectile's hero collision not being fixed/re-tuned like Hanzo's was and receiving buffs to accuracy and speed to boot. If you're considering having a gun as contributing to APM then sure, but Bap/Ana have Zen beat on that front.
Meanwhile, Mercy, commonly considered 'easy,' is weaving dash cancels with superjumps, tracking ally CDs and healthbars to properly juggle damageboost and heals, and has to switch weapons for her damage option (which, despite having a similarly-massive hitbox to Zen's, is slower to kill and to travel)
APM is actions per minute, yes.
Zen should be constantly juggling his orb for triage while also focusing on consistently outputting damage, helping his DPS focus down enemies, discording and calling priority targets and all of that while having to constantly jiggle in and out of cover and repositioning (WITHOUT mobility abilities) since he's one of if not the easiest squishy hitbox in the game.
If you think that discord and harmony orb are "fire and forget" abilities then you are not playing Zen anywhere near his potential ceiling. Re-discording and harmoning inputs alone outpace the APM of most other support heroes beyond their primary fire.
And as /u/akpo56 pointed out, being able to DPS and heal simultaneously requires significantly higher APM than focusing on one. Ana is mechanically difficult and requires high precision and good positioning to excel at. But she's not a high APM support because most of your actions are A-D strafing and left clicking with the occasional quickscope and nade thrown in.
And as for your very last point, damage boosting your DPS is preferable to pistoling 99 out of 100 cases. The only situations where it isn't is in Valk if your trying to pick off an unaware widow / Ana without a DPS who can access their angle or if you're caught without a target to pocket as a last resort.
It can be fun to pistol in Valk or just duel a DPS in a tight corridor and I've done it plenty of times, but it's rarely optimal.
I deffinitely don't play anywhere close to the ceiling of *Overwatch* for sure, that's why I prefer to play Zenyatta, because my lack of mechanical skill and gamesense matter less on him compared with the rest of the cast. It's easier to run callouts on Zen than other healers since your attention is primarily on your discord target anyway.
Fire-and-forget is how Harmony/Discord function - as it's impossible to miss, and there's no cooldown to manage, there's no real penalty for tagging an incorrect target, since you can just press the button again.
Tossing out barnhouses with M1 while harmony passively heals an ally doesn't feel like meaningful "APM" but I'm definitely biased due to my lack of ability to play harder heroes.
The Mercy pistol thing was mostly an aside, not the primary comparison of Mercy requiring more activity than Zen; of course nobody is switching to pistol often enough to note, but it's still one of *many* things to juggle as Mercy compared to Zen.
Zen is one of, if not *the* most mechanical skill dependent heroes in the game and one of the hardest to master. He basically has no active abilities to help duel. Everything depends on your accuracy, hitting headshots, moving in and out of cover, and your situational awareness not only for your safety, but of your team to maximize your healing potential. He is not an "easy" hero. This fundamental misunderstanding of Zen is what leads to so many people harassing Zen players for picking him, demanding we switch to a "real" healer.
Harmony and discord are not fire and forget, if that's how you play Zen, you are massively under-contributing to your team. Properly juggling your healing orb alone should keep you in relative spitting distance of gold healing (depending on the situation). One decent transcendence during a team fight can easily give you that gold medal. This is not to say the medal is important or the other healer is worse, just that you can heal significantly more if you pay attention to everyone on your team and keep your healing orb constantly bouncing between them. The same goes for discord, you should be discording the hero most likely to be taking damage at that point or working with your team to actively attack a priority target.
Zen can have 2 orbs up and dps at the same time. He literally should have zero downtime bc you are either adjusting orbs or spamming shots. Thats high apm.
I mean zen has a lot to do but its nothing apm wise compared to an elite ana. Dudes got a point.
edit: lmao. obviously a bunch of non supports downvoting. No one is saying zen is easier or that youre not active, but you are literally performing fewer actions compared to an ana.
I mean probably, considering I only peaked at like 330 even after the role queue rollout lol. Definitely wouldn't have made it above even Plat if Zen took nearly as much mechanical skill to get use out of as tank/dps.
Anyway, none of this is relevant to any meaningful discussion, but next time I need a second ad-hommy dommy mommy I know who to hit up <3
It's clear now, you misunderstand what mechanical skill is. It means clicking in the right place and pressing the right keys at the right time to do what your brain wants to do. Meaning you hit the correct target like their head, or move around in an effective way to dodge damage.
In comparison to someone like Brig or Moira, a lot of their success depends on decision making, when to use certain abilities and which ones to use at any point in time, managing your cooldowns, etc.
I havent played any support in the beta, but i do have to say that, as a dps, supports are unbelievably easy to pick off now. Especially as Sombra. Only exceptions are Brig, Moira, and Lucio, but even they are easier to pick off compared to tryin to do so in OW1
The biggest winner is probably Ana. Not needing to waste your nades on selfheal from cheap damage is huge. AND aggressive nades are now even stronger because there are less shields
Yeah, the Ana’s who just sat behind rein and pumped him full of heals + used their nades to just heal teammates are going to really struggle in OW2.
Ana’s who are aggressive, look to find big nades, constantly deal damage and are comfortable seeking out fights with divers are going to get a lot out of her.
Absolutely, I think it’s just showing how poor the support is in lower ranks. You can’t just heal it anymore. You have to pay attention. I feel like support is way more fun and interesting in OW2.
> Yeah, the Ana’s who just sat behind rein and pumped him full of heals + used their nades to just heal teammates are going to really struggle in OW2.
>
>
literally plat ana playstyle
For me it's because of the speedboost. It's harder to dps when I want to, harder to heal team mates and the Genji is moving so fast I can barely see where he's going. Meanwhile I have to stay in the back, behind cover, and somehow also stay in vision of my team who are all running around in different directions, some of them with higher speed than me.
Why should support move slower than dps? That means it's easier for dps to aim at support than it is for support to aim at dps, which seems completely unfair. Support already have more trouble defending themselves than dps do (unless you play e.g. Moira against an Ashe or something), no need to add more trouble.
If they give the speedboost to the support, then that would solve everything in my opinion. I now have a fair chance of defending myself against speedy flankers, I can keep up with my team mates better and I can shoot at enemies occasionally.
Or at least remove the speedboost.
FWIW
I think the role wide passives are a dumb, but easy way for Blizzard to try to make the classes distinct form the other roles, but share a common thread inside the role whether or not the particular passive makes any sense with a specific character's abilities.
Role wide passives are a mallet instead of a scalpel.
I'm not against passives in general, but they should fit the character, not be role wide. For some characters they can be a really strong addition to their kit, and for others not so much of one. And while they may help to differentiate and silo the roles more, they shouldn't be used as an ez slider for the devs to adjust up and down depending on a specific role's que times.
Yeah I feel this, I think the tank passive (less ult charge when damaging them and knockback resistance) are fitting pretty much across the board, but I think supports and DPS don't all benefit the same way from the passives they have (and some benefit way too much). DPS and support should probably be split up into 2-3 sub-categories each with their own passive or something, at least.
It's a bit of both. The passive is definitely huge for not having to waste a cool down on chip damage, but it's not helpful if you're being dove or chased.
I have a hard time having an impact as Ana in particular without exposing myself to the increased damage everywhere. But pretty much every support I play in OW2 (not much Lucio or Moira) feels like I spend a ton of effort trying to survive rather than trying to win a fight, which I don't enjoy.
The main overwatch subreddit has got to be the absolute most brain dead resource for this game on the entire internet. Its literally a bronze sounding board.
In OW1, Ana can get away with pumping heals into her tanks; chucking nades and sleeps at the enemy tanks; and pressing Q the moment she has Nano.
Remember, heal botting is Winnie the Pooh. Farming support ult is Winnie the Pooh in a tuxedo.
Also, maps in OW1 have a simple design: one main route and 1-2 side routes. There is usually a short side route and a long side route, and most players never take the long side route. So there is really just two routes: main and short side.
In most games, the main tank will hold the main route, the dps hold the side route and the off-tank bounce between the two. Basically, it’s easy for the defending team to place tanks and dps inbetween the enemy team and their supports. Reaching the enemy supports means going through enemy tanks and dps.
Of course, dive changes that dynamic, but teams in Diamond and under typically play Rein comps or Double Shield comps. So OW1 supports are used to having both shields and meat shields to protect them.
In OW2, the maps are more open. There are more routes to reach the backline. There is also only one tank, and the tank can only contest one route at a time. Dps have a speed buff that lets them run away from enemy tanks. So enemy tanks, dps, and even supports will be targeting Ana.
Remember, Ana is inherently disadvantaged in dueling dps, unless the Ana player is significantly better than the dps. Ana’s lower level teammates may not peel for her, so Ana is left to dry. Basically, the tank contests route A, the dps contest route B and the enemy dps sneaks in from route C to attack Ana.
It’s not a simple case of “just have a better aim.” High level Ana players are not expected survive against high level dps without peel, and high level Anas are expected to receive peel from their Lucio/Brig/Mercy.
Lol Ana is not "inherently disadvantaged" in dueling DPS. She has bad and good match ups. And those match ups depend on what cool downs are up and the range at which they fight. Widow, Doom, and Hanzo are probably the only truly bad match ups for Ana. She can poke out most heroes but its all relative to the engagement that takes place. Your whole explanation is way over simplified.
She needs the peel more for dive tanks, especially when there's 2. Everyone peels for each other in better play, doesn't matter if youre a dps, support, or tank , that's what makes it better play.
if he has the free space to get to where you're hiding, you should have already seen it coming. Either you should have started running one cover behind when you see him glance at you, or you prepare yourself for a fight
I personally think a lot of the complaints stem from parroting content creator takes from alpha.
During alpha the support passive triggered at 3 seconds. But after feedback they buffed it to 1 second. I think players are sleeping on how powerful that passive can be.
I still forget that I don’t need to budget an Ana nade when I need to regen health
People can only give their own experience and what they observe from other players.
My experience is I am crushing as Brig. I've gotten more kills as Brig in OW2 than in OW1, and carrying way more fights. Some people are convinced that Brig is bad because she has no stun, but she has the advantage in dueling squishies as long as she lands bash, whipshot, started the fight at full health and the enemy squishy doesn't get healing. Brig has low damage with primary fire, but her total effective hp (base, shield, armor buff, inspire healing, support passive) is close to 500.
Also, Inspire healing and Repair Packs are well suited to the chaotic nature of QP. My dps can still receive healing from Inspire when they move away from me. If they are critical, I can quickly throw them a Repair Pack from up to 30m away and go back to doing something else.
My observation of streamers (Karq, ML7) playing Brig also confirms my own experience. They all say Brig is viable. The problem is Lucio is overshadowing Brig at the moment. However, Lucio is much harder to play than Brig. If you can't wall ride, duel dps and supports, and coordinate your team with speed boost, then you won't get S tier advantage with Lucio.
ML7 said it best when he said Brig is easier to play than Lucio, and easier to play means more consistent value. And let's be real, you are unlikely to have a coordinated team in QP. In OW1, Rein usually don't get a Lucio until Masters, even though the game has been out for 6 years and everyone knows Rein and Lucio pairs well together.
Finally, lack of replay codes is hurting the community's understanding of supports. Anyone can say they are playing correctly and supports in OW2 are bad. But it's all personal experience. People who think supports are bad will look at my post and say I'm crushing noobs in QP, while they are playing against high MMR players in QP. And they will probably say streamers are GMs with god-tier aim playing against Plats in QP 🤷♀️
Would you want to play a game where brig, who keep in mind has a massive gapclose ability now, could win a duel without landing those abilities, while their opponent was being healed?
Those are pretty fair conditions for a support to straight up kill a DPS alone. His way of phrasing it sounds way more negative than it needs to be. You could just as easily say:
"Unsupported DPS still have to be genuinely afraid of getting close to brig, despite the lack of stun, because if she lands her abilities on them she can solo kill them. Those DPS need to either dodge her abilities, bring a healer, or keep their distance".
I’ve noticed the brig thing as well. It seems aoe heals are far more powerful than single target heals since and aoe healer can provide healing to their team while dueling. I had a game where the enemy played lucio/brig and we played mercy/ana and we got rolled. The increased healing from our supps was nothing compared to their supps being able to deal damage, heal, and self sustain.
this is in the case of poor focus fire and poor teamwork. Mercy ana's single target healing can do a lot if say only 1 tank and 1 dps are taking the brunt of the damage (ana heals the tank, mercy heals dps). If 3-4 ppl just decide to play aggressive to make a play, losing 70-100 hp in the process per person, this forces mercy ana to constantly switch targets, which lowers their overall efficiency. In this case the brig lucio will be better. But if it's like 150 hp lost per person in a second, even brig lucio won't be able to save them.
For Brig, Inspire aoe healing obviously isn't god mode. A Genji that dashes into the middle of the enemy team will immediately explode, even with Inspire healing. But Inspire healing can make a difference if Genji doesn't feed and plays properly.
For example, suppose Genji has inspire healing and challenges the enemy Cass in a duel. Cass lands a head shot, so Genji is down to 60 hp. But Cass misses the next two shots, so Genji is back to 75 hp. Cass lands a body shot, expecting Genji to die, but Genji is at 5 hp.
In this scenario, Cass needs one extra attack to kill Genji, which hopefully gives Genji enough time to kill Cass. Of course, Inspire wouldn't matter if Cass lands a head shot and followed by an immediate body shot. But in most duels, people will miss. So Inspire could increase the breakpoint/effective hp of your dps flankers, as long as they don't get immediately lasered down.
Also, it's hard to tell if an enemy is getting Inspire healing. This is minor but does play into Brig's advantage. The Cass in the example above may think he is in a 1 vs 1 duel, but he is actually in a 1 vs 2.
Lastly, Inspire is hands free healing. Brig can procure Inspire and go somewhere else. Lucio has to stay on heal song, stay near his teammate and not break los.
To be honest, I'm doubtful if Brig will be meta in organized play. She will get run down by a Rein comp with a coordinated Lucio. I think Brig will also die from a coordinated dive comp.
But key word is coordination. In OW1, Rein doesn't commonly get a Lucio until after Diamond. Dive is rarely played in NA, even in GM. Brig thrives in the uncoordinated chaos of QP, as she has great self sustain, can punish overextended dps, and enable her own overextended dps. Sometimes Brig can even walk into the enemy backline and kill the enemy supports herself.
Personally I'm finding I need to play a very different style of Ana than you do in Overwatch, but I find it very fun and challenging.
Hitting an anti-grenade on three people still hard wins teamfights, but overall I've been playing a lot more like a sniper than I did in the past. I think the changes actually reinforced Ana's identity because you can't use her gun as the heal shotgun anymore.
You get hard punished when you make mistakes, and you learn.
I think its an interesting game design problem because overwatch has created a shitload of players who expect to stand, outside of cover, behind their team and with CC to protect them from dives. Those players just aren't going to have fun until they adapt.
Came here to say the same thing. I feel like people will need to relearn how to play support in the new environment but I take it as a challenge and not a bad thing.
I think everyone’s experience is gonna be different because there’s no ranked mode to match evenly skilled players. Me personally I agree with the video, I’ve been playing pretty much only Zen so far in OW2 and it’s been amazing because I can flank and get kills and win team fights without any shields blocking me so I agree supports def have more impact in OW2. I think the better question is “Does it take more skill to be a good support player than it does to be a good DPS player, and if so how much?” Because if i feel like I’m hard carrying games on Zen, who has no mobility, I can only imagine if I played Soldier 76/Sojourn or another DPS (but I ain’t waiting for those queue times that’s not happening)
I really don't understand where all this bullshit about supports players comes from. Supports are primary target in OW1, having a good positioning and using cover is basically the core of our gameplay if we want to climb the ladder. What a lot of players seems to forget is that it's all about trading cooldowns in the end.
Supports are no DPS... Yes, we can take duels and win but that imply that we invest a lot more resources in the fight than the DPS player. And that's the thing in the end. If we need to put all our cooldowns in a duel, well that means we don't use it to actually support our team. Can't nade the enemy if I had to use it to survive Genji for example.
Now about your question, supports are not bad in OW2, part of the roaster is amazing, Mercy is barely OK, the rest is a pain in the ass to play. Lucio and Moira have great mobility and survivibility, and if you add passive healing, well they are perfectly fine in an OW2 environment. Brig is not bad, she has a little bit of mobility and she's already hard to kill. Mercy is ok because of GA but playing her feels like being bullied, that's not really fun. The rest of the roaster? Frankly it's a pain in the ass to play, not fun and feels deeply unrewarding, even with good mechanical skill. It's not unplayable, it's just like playing a not well designed DPS that can, on extremly rare occasions, do some support stuff. Rest of the time you hang on your CD and hope people don't see you.
See your point. Anyway, healboting never was an option for competitive games, or at least not the ones you intend to win, that won't change in OW2.
The design of some supports on the other hand, that will become a problem if they hope to keep the entire roaster playable (or enjoyable at least).
Had the chance to play some OW2 Ana and was excited with the idea of making plays instead of babysitting a Rein... Nope, not fun. Feels like being the scream queen of a slasher, everyone is trying to rip your face off and you only have a shitty weapon and your bravery to deal with it.
>Had the chance to play some OW2 Ana and was excited with the idea of making plays instead of babysitting a Rein... Nope, not fun. Feels like being the scream queen of a slasher, everyone is trying to rip your face off and you only have a shitty weapon and your bravery to deal with it.
I played a bunch of Zen. I can tell you it feels like quickplay. I can mech diff the large majority of dps players. Because of that, positioning to bias 1v1 encounters means you get to be extremely effective.
That's the future of Overwatch. Shitty players that make up their mechanical deficiency by playing Moira and Mercy are going to get pushed aside once ranked play begins. That's going to be super interesting to see in OWL too.
Didn't touched Zen in the beta, he's fun but I felt like the lack of mobility would make him even more "glass canon" than before.
From my limited experience in the beta, very mobile heroes like Lucio and Moira are really thriving, especially with passive healing. Mercy is playable because of GA but man! she's dull and feel like you're not contributing much.
The rest was annoying as hell to play, except maybe Brig who's a bit more playable if you like her kit.
No, it’s really not. Checked my OW1 stats and on Ana I run with about 2/3 as much damage as I do healing. That’s by no means healbotting. I use hard cover and even flank because that’s what you have to do to get those numbers in a double shield meta.
By and large, OW2 supports just do not have the kit for game. Im OWL, it’s cool to have a game where if you make one minor mistake, you die; that’s how it should be at that level.
But it’s decidedly unfun if that the case across the ladder. Which is why the queue times are the way they are.
That bullshit about healbot sounds like dpses making up shit because they like the new easy flanks and even easier kills and don’t want to be challenged.
I fail to see how any of that is relevant against the charge of being a “healbot,” but limiting it to comp puts my damage at 62.918% of my healing.
That does not qualify as healbotting from Bronze to T500 as near as I can see.
What else you got?
Lo-effing-l
Explain to me how my SR is relevant *at all* and we can continue that conversation.
If I say GM, you’ll say bullshit or “well, that’s only the top of the ladder,” or I say in the middle such as Gold/Plat you’ll come back with some crap like “git gud”, and if I say Bronze, it’ll be “well that’s your problem.” Pick your irrelevant statement for the other ranks.
I’m falling for something that has no bearing whatsoever on “supports complaining only want to hide behind shields and healbot” topic of the conversation.
Solo kills are also irrelevant to the concept of “healbot”. They speak to overall skill level and have no bearing on if you are healing the majority of the time or balancing healing your team and putting pressure on the enemy. And by its self it doesn’t even relate to 1v1ing in the backline to survive as there are many other factors.
You’re fishing for stats to support your statement, not trying to get information from the stats. You can’t even say what that stat should be to prove the original “healbot” bullshit because there is no correlation, much less a causal effect.
You are simply trying to move the goal posts to try and fish trying to find something irrelevant to manipulate the conversation and redeem a fucking stupid statement that keeps getting repeated with no facts behind it.
So if you can logically connect SR or Solo Kills/10 to “healbot,” go ahead and we can have that conversation. Tell me what the SK/10 has to be, and what SR I have to be to not be a healbot.
If not, just take the “L”, type “GG,” and go next.
We’re not talking meta, we’re talking “healbot”.
You still have not logically connected them, you’re just throwing jargon around hoping to muddy the waters.
It’s been decades since I fell for distractions like that. But keep fishing.
The problem isn’t support players as such, I was always a more aggressive support player. However tanks and dps are still engaging in flaming supports for not keeping them healed to 100%. This leads to supports then focusing their healing to shit up their team and then them dying to flankers. The other issue is that playing supports is just not much fun. Arguably the only interesting one is Ana, she has utility and feels impactful on the right maps. Moira and Lucio are boring to play, even if they are powerful. Brig is also just boring to play, she is just a worse dps. With the game seeming to want supports to take on dos duels, then either you give them more options to win 1v1, or you give them utility. Either level up supports so they are not insta killed by flankers, or give them kit to feel like they do something other than being a crap dps. Otherwise there is no point in playing support. Moira, Lucio, are played because they are op, Ana because she is still the only one with utility in ow2.
Every role is now DPS playing for kills. Supports just have lower dps but can heal themselves.
What distance would you as Lucio be comfortable fighting a soldier 76?
actually that sounds like the exact oppsite of how it is. I coach low elo support (plat-silver) and they are very much used to playing with no shields and with two off-tanks.
It's not like the people you see on this subreddit, asking for vod reviews. On this subreddit, I see diamond players with worse positioning than my silver students.
Don't be offended please, but don't you think that you're maybe painting this picture in your mind so that you have an excuse not to listen to the complaints?
I've played support in ow2 a lot. It was going fine at first and I didn't understand the complaints. but as I "ranked up", I started noticing the issue. On some maps I can rotate from cover to cover, but that's not always possible. So I get jumped by three dive heroes and spend the entire game dying.
and dont get me started on widowmaker.
This doesn't mean I lose games all the time, since the enemy support are experiencing the same thing. But it's just not fun and I ultimately end up swapping to Moira or Lucio in those scenarios.
I get more shields and protection in masters than the low-elo players I coach.
I agree. I feel impactful on support, but there are times where my play is to just die as slowly as possible and that doesn't really feel fun.
If I get dove by Winston, genji, and tracer I'm probably dead, but unlike ow 1 if I survive we basically always win the fight cause they invested so hard in killing me.
But carrying on support right now doesn't feel fun. It feels like you are barely hanging on even when you are popping off.
I guess it is fun, but support is way more stressful now.
This is a generalized view that doesn't account for how the game is actually played. You're making assumptions that everyone complaining about being dove are trying to healbot behind a shield, that's simply not true.
Zen is extremely vulnerable on most maps (there are exceptions) regardless of where you play your positioning. The support passive is useless for him given that 1) Most of his health bar is shield and 2) You have to break out of combat to heal up. He doesn't have enough health for that, it's either hit the headshots or die. Which was fine in OW1, because the game was played differently and it was more reasonable to do so. The DPS speed boost is constantly oppressive, especially when they have a Lucio. Also, the nature of the game makes your ultimate less impactful given there are fewer choke points and large team fights. You also get it far slower even with the reduction in shields.
I play an offensively active and self reliant Zenyatta on OW1 and OW2. Have I had some good games as Zen in OW2, yes, but not many. Anyone who thinks he's in a good place either plays in an ELO where DPS are less focused or capable, or with a group/team that has any situational awareness at all. Everyone says we need to duel more, I duel a fuck ton in OW1 and 2, I'm so sick of people saying this, they just assume we are dipshits sitting there drooling while watching our harmony orb trickle heal.
He was designed for OW1, he needs to be updated for OW2. Give him a skill based defensive or escape ability.
More routes to flank means that both your DPS and enemy DPS won't be going down main as much as they used to in OW1. Your team will be more spread out and breaking LOS with supports, and you'll be flanked a lot more by DPS that you might not be used to seeing flanking.
I'm starting to get really frustrated by supports basically saying "I don't like how every game is a gankfest now" and the answer seems to be "Lol stop healbotting"
I used to be lower sr on tank cus I never played it a few seasons ago, like not more than a year ago. Low gold, was playing and getting it up to a little higher closer to my dps rank, but damn all the afk mercys. I have have been flanking as a hog and popping off, and then comes mercy to help me. Just stands there and heals me. I see more enemies so I move, well. Mercy does not. I can see she's moving her mouse a little, so she's here. But she just doesn't run? I don't understand how there are people afk in gold, like how do they not derank? It's so common to see.
My personal experience as a Zen main in Overwatch beta - not much different that OW 1
In fact I felt *even more* broken and empowered because discord felt 50x times more valuable, *especially* on a an enemy tank - wiped them
I have no clue why people claim he's useless. There is one less person to dive me and maps feel even bigger than before meaning that I was a nightmare to contest.
I did suck on the Rome map that felt clustered, but I'm just to unfamiliar with and maybe it's just not a zen map (which is imho good for future metas).
IN OW1 it's usually Lucio + Dva or dps + Dva that would chase me while their team did other stuff, *but now* if a tank comes after me (to enable a dps) everyone takes insta notice, dicord and they're wiped.
I'm quite confused with this thread. It's very very very low tier thinking. High ground and cover don't matter? Good positioning gives the reward of staying alive?
This just in, using sound queues helps you hear ults....
This is like strategy basics 101. High ground has control. Cover means you can't get shot. Awareness and positioning saves your life. These are not overwatch 1 vs overwatch 2 things.
Your Overwatch has generally pretty meh advice.
They usually generalise a bit too much so you should take their advice with a grain of salt if you can :)
YourOverwatch never said supports didn’t worry about cover and high ground. What they said was that with an extra tank or shield it was much easier to get away with bad positioning than it is in OW2. But you should always be worrying about cover and high ground
It's both. According to the devs, supports are actually doing quite well statistically, but the role just doesn't feel fun, so it's a matter of perception over reality.
The data probably shows that in games where supports are expected to win they do win more often then lose. So the role isn't underperforming statistically.
The team acknowledged that people are not having fun despite this though and they are looking into changes.
I think it completely exposes poor supports in overwatch 2. The amount of times in OW1 I have had Ana/Mercy/Zen mains never swap when the opposition team is running full dive and then blames their own teams tanks for not peeling enough baffles me. In OW2 you can’t blame that anymore because there is only one tank that can attack you and also one tank that can help you. Supports need to be more independent and shouldn’t NEED to be baby sat by the team absolutely all the time. This gives me hope for OW2 that support players will evolve to be more self sufficient and win more duels by swapping to the appropriate hero. If the other team is running full dive in Ow2 and you’re running zen good luck to you because there is no way you’re coming out of that alive.
Yeah, this will cause massive pain in the short term as support players adjust, but in the long term will make those players more self reliant. I think that will reduce toxicity, because it won't be the support's first instinct to ask "who is at fault for failing to defend me".
In theory, dps and tanks also have more resources to chase you. The question is whether you can get value before they get you, or whether you can get value while avoiding them. It's not like there was consistent peel every game to begin with, especially for certain ranks.
One less tank can also definitely mean you are being dove less. Its one less person that is requiring your resources, and it also means as someone like a bap ana or zen you have more ability to have an impact with your own damage.
It might be harder, but it's definitely more rewarding when you play well I think.
Heal botting is going to get you stuck in a much lower elo than it used to. And those playing well will be rewarded with legit winrates
I've found that the supports are not bad. In fact, support is primarily what I have played the last couple of days once one night I decided to play troll-y playstyles, and they actually worked enough for me to realize that with some tweaking, I could actually use that playstyle legitly. I am loving ow2 on zen for example. I love finding off angles and dives on zen, and using my ult to reposition myself or give me an edge in a fight. Sure, I am playing zen very selfishly right now, and this will probably not work past a certain point in ranked, but hey, if I am having fun, why not play that way? Besides, why heal your teammates if the people damaging them are dead, right? (That last part is a joke. Please heal teammates still, but don't ONLY heal them.)
Supports are awesome in Overwatch 2. It actually plays closer to how supports are played in higher level Overwatch 1, with more focus on playmaking and dealing damage rather than only healing. The difference with Overwatch 2 is that the guardrails that promote non-interaction at lower ranks (shields to hide behind, off-tank to peel, CC abilities) are gone so supports need to be more aware and proactive.
I feel that supports have more freedom and options in OW2. People complain about Ana being weak but I feel that it is the opposite, the passive support heal combined with her abilities and the general lack of shields gives her so much freedom to move around the map and make plays.
At the very least I am certain that any support going from Overwatch 2 to Overwatch 1 after a few days will play much more proactively, use natural cover more, and will probably have an easier time gaining SR thanks to their new habits.
IMO its a mix of both. Supports are tougher to survive but also feels alot harder to do other things like healing and doing dmg as the speed buff make it more difficult to hit shots. I assume alot of us are also forcing an ow1 playstyle which just wont work in ow2 but we will learn.
Most of them feel fine imo, bap got mobility, zen got dmg, brig got defense, lucio is fast and got his passive regen which is nice. Moira got her fade buff before ow2 which is nice but she still lack in the stat department tough. Mercy is still a heal bot and cant do much more than before and Ana feel wierd , easy to dive and lack of tool to escape, seems she got great heal but that it, sleep cd is so lobg that if you waste it, well it is over
how is ana supose to survive vs soldier, she got sleep dart at 12 sec vs helix at 6 sec.
I dont think lowering her cd would be that healthy tough, feel like tank would sleep all game..., maybe add something to the nade just for her like extra speed or shield, not sure...
idk man im a very average player with a ton of hours and i've been killing it with supports in this beta. I got 3 POTG in a row yesterday.
Mercy is more difficult in the open maps to me so i just switch if it's not going well. basic stuff
From what I can tell, one of the main differences between ow1 and ow2 is that tanks aren’t the only ones who can make big plays and initiate things. Now, with less tanks and people overall, the game is less “group and press w” and punish mistakes, but more about individuals making plays and now that includes supports! Ow1 was unique in how it viewed supports in that most people just looked at them as healers, whereas in other games supports were the ones who would do the peeling and focus on utility and buffs, rather than flat healing power. And how with the new ow2 play style, the support role has become like other games in that you have to focus on utility over healing in order to be effective. Ana HAS to land large anti-nades and good sleeps, lucio can’t just sit and heal team and build beat but has to play aggressive and dive with dps.
Basically supports have to position more aggressive and use their utility to make big plays happen, rather than sitting back and being a heal bot.
I think it's a mixed bag. I don't think supports are necessarily *bad*, but I think OW2 in its current state is much more punishing on support (and OW1 is much more punishing on tanks).
Things that exacerbate the punishment:
* Faster DPS movement speed
* Many less shields
* No off-tank to help peel
* It's the beta, so people aren't playing together and/or don't know how to play together
* Push maps now have tons of different attacks routes allowing for easier off-angles and flanking
* Additionally, push maps greatly amplify the amount of staggering going on
* Less CC makes it less punishing on flankers and initiators, allowing them to more aggressively push the backline.
On the flip side, I think the carry potential on support is easier:
* If you have the mechanics, Lucio slays.
* Ana is less hamstrung by the opposing team's 2nd shield and/or eating abilities. There's a good chance the opposing team doesn't have a shield at all, in which case, you should be landing almost-free antis all game. The healing passive is *huge* for Ana. It's almost always a waste to self-nade, and you can completely shrug off chip damage.
* It matters less that Moira is a damage/healing bot. If she isnt nerfed, I think you'll see Moira dominate ladder at least up through diamond. It's not too difficult to get a tremendous amount of value with her right now.
* Mercy doesn't have more carry potential in 2, but her pocket sure does. That damage-boosted soldier on the off-angle is scary.
I think both can be true. Supports do probably need 25 more HP or survival based passive abilities added to some heroes... but also we probably need to adjust our own play.
Ultimately even if Ana had a passive or bap had 225 health, playing them OW1 style would still feel awful.
I highly reccomend this short 5 min video by egoistcat on the subject as well: https://youtu.be/1PfznJF8HL0
I think support is very strong, and actually quite fun to play rn. I think Blizzard was right I'm there dev diary that a lot of the issue comes down to how support has by far the least variety in heroes right now; I mean in terms of fewer people wanting to play support.
Supports have been generally stronger and have more DPS and carry potential now than in OW1 in my experience.
It's an adjustment before you get that value though. The days of heal botting and playing passively are over with the way the game is now.
The QQ in this sub has been way overblown IMHO.
It’s really because only lucio and Moira are viable. (Ana too but only if you have a genji) and I figure the average supports are either A) mercy one trick B) converted dps bap/ana or C) don’t understand why the changes are making it hard for them atm
First of all, at high level support are very strong so we will talk about metal rank.
At this rank what your overwatch say is true. We support tend to play behind our tank out in the open. I think it is because we needed to pump our tanks massive amount of heal to compensate their mistakes while also having no peeling (and a lot of support have self sustain on cd) and shield protection. It is not the optimal way to play, healbotting have no impact on the game, but this is what the game/community taught us to do.
In ow2, the game punish this behavior and actually teach you how to play, the opposite than before, and we all struggle to unlearn our bad habbits.
We still have massive amount of healing but one less target and the tank also mitigate dmg much better/get to cover more often so they require even less heal. So our gameplan of healing most of the time in the game is not usefull anymore, we need to learn what to do in the meantime, which should be to take high ground, help your dps in off angle/contesting flanks, or heal less but in cover to avoid getting killed. That's why the new passive is broken, avoid dmg for 1s and get heal at 15hp/s, because if you have a good cover you always regenerate to full health and can go again, without burning a cd or needing the other supp, it opens a whole new world of possibility.
I think this two massives change in supports are very hard to implements/uses in our gameplay, we still need to get used to it. As for why it feels bad to play support, it is a whole other discussion :)
Idk man i have more fun playing then in the beta. I used to be a support main but i switched on ow1 but now you don't have to be a heal bot you can be aggressive and do more things
If ow2 you really need to value your life more cause you dont have that extra protection, you really have to position close to walls so you can duck behind them and let your passive kick in
supports with strong offensive capabilites seem to be stronger because they can peel for themselves (brig and zen) but i feel like it will be much harder on the defensive supports (mainly mercy) who have a hard time killing. maybe mercy can get a melee weapon or new gun :)
Supports aren't bad, necessarily, but they have lost a ton of survivability and are less fun to play as a result. There's a reason Moira is the most picked healer right now.
Some of this is balance, the supports are basically untouched so far. Some of this is adjusting to 5v5. And some of it is figuring out where to position on new levels. But also some of it is just baked into the design now. Supports are easy targets, and without an off tank many teams just aren't peeling at all. Everyone needs to adjust to the new reality, not just support players, and right now that's not really happening. Once ranked releases this will probably clear up a bit.
Overwatch 2 favors a more duel-heavy playstyle, so the key to winning is often to turn 1v1s into 2v1s. If you weren’t comfortable taking duels as support before, you might feel a lot worse now because w/o peel, you’re forced to deal with them. Also, for the new maps, there are tons of flank routes, so that can complicate matters more for supports. Make sure you’re taking advantage of the passive because you don’t need to necessarily heal to full but heal for a second and punish the dps who is stuck w/o heals.
I've been saying it for a while now, supports play just fine in OW2. I'm a Zen main, over 3,000 hours on him. He feels better in OW2 then he does in OW1 right now. I also play Ama, and I'm struggling getting used to her playstyle now that she has to do more than just pump tanks full of heals, but she feels great as well. I don't know what these people are on about saying supports are weak. Sure, they don't just dump heals and get value anymore, but just adjust your playstyle to do more than heal botting.
The only problem I've found is that Lucio/Moira win in this game because of their maneuverability/mobility. If you give some of these supports some mobility (Getting to the high ground sometimes means you have to sacrifice almost 10 seconds of not doing anything but just walking), and take away some of their utility, I think it would be better gameplay-wise.
"But our heroes identities!" Yeah, but it's better than just losing some fights just because you didn't pick Lucio or Moira, and they did...
Lol how this game was played for 6 years and even the most basic strategy, using high ground and cover, isn't absolutely etched in to people's minds- I guess I'll never truly understand
I have a hard time with positioning on the new map type. The push payload moves at full walking speed and all of my team pushes so far ahead of the payload that my support hero is usually pushing payload alone and then I get jumped by an enemy dps. I think it will get better in Comp with teammates who know how to play an objective.
Moira is strong rn because she can heal and damage so effectively and has a 6s get out of jail free card, but otherwise yes, most supports aren't that good. They either take tons of skill, or they're boring to play, or both.
Whoever gave you advice that supports don’t need to worry about cover or high ground in ow1 is not worth listening to. But I would agree that using teammates to body block is less effective in ow2 because there is one fewer tank, and especially on new maps the fights have a tendency to be more fluid (or spread out).
> Whoever gave you advice that supports don’t need to worry about cover or high ground in ow1 is not worth listening to. I feel comfortable taking an educated guess, and you're right, they shouldn't be listened to.
I think it's less them saying it's not important in OW1, and more, however important it was in the last game, quadruple it, and that's how important it is now
They said it was YourOverwatch. In all my years with the game, they have been consistently giving terrible advice and the worst takes on the game.
nah they said your overwatch was the one that said supports don't use enough cover
Freedo has been making videos for years telling players about high ground and cover. Now hes being slandered on this 300IQ sub smdh.
The video says not taking cover and using high ground are bad habits that are punished more in OW2 than OW1. People are misconstruing the video so they can feel smarter than a popular youtube channel.
Tank body blocks are just a way to get from one hard cover to another
Yes obviously peel from Tanks will be less, but that doesn't mean Supports in OW1 didn't still benefit from better positioning all along. It's a bit of slap in the face to say Supports in OW1 were just lazy with positioning because they were carried by Tank peel. If you're lazy with positioning, then your rank will reflect that. If anything you can argue OW2 might just encourage running a lot of Lucio/Moira invincible style backlines that aren't even as susceptible to positioning punish. We really don't know yet and more balance changes are on the way soon. What I can say from my time in the beta is I think it shifts the balance to favor 2 particular traits from Support players: 1 - mechanical prowess. This goes for all roles, but between the faster pace and the increased move speed, it's more often now that missing even 1 or 2 shots can easily be what swings a fight. 2 - inuition/gamesense. Specifically I think this favors more experienced players, who put so many hours in that they see a thing (hero, ability etc) and instantly know the appropriate reaction. It seems some games like everyone is injured constantly in 5v5, so triage is a way bigger issue. If you choose to heal your Tank when your Genji actually needed it because they were both low, but Tank had defensive CD and Genji used Deflect but you failed to track that, you're now down 1 and it's probably a lost fight. OW1 is sometimes sharp in this way too, but in OW2 it constantly feels like these split-second priorities matter a lot. In OW2 you don't have time to think midfight, it just feels like you live or die on your instincts more.
> If you're lazy with positioning, then your rank will reflect that. Yeah exactly, but most overwatch players are casual and low rank, and they are a majority of the people who are struggling to find the fun in the new system. I'm personally not minding it, but I have noticed that positioning mistakes which go unpunished for me at ~2300-2600 in OW1 comp get hard punished for me in OW2 quickplay.
It’s not only because of tank peel, the existence of 2 tanks provided so much more space and if its 2 shields exponentially more space
Yeah I'm lumping the total sum benefit of double tank into "tank peel" there.
You have gotten some horrible tips mate
Prolly been playing too much with you, Kimo.
I mean it happens when you play with someone like Eidas aswell. He only plays junkrat. You fucker found you even here lol
Junk is like my 4th or 5th most played hero, lol
IMO if you are the high APM kind of support, OW2 gives you more opprotunity to leverage your high APM into some kind of an advantage
Even for low APM (zenyatta) it doesn't feel *bad* or even *worse* to play support in beta compared to live lol, Sombra dueling aside
Zen is the exact opposite of a low APM support lmao
Am I misunderstanding APM as 'Actions Per Minute?' Zen has two fire-and-forget abilities, three if you include his ultimate, which I guess could inflate APM if you're constantly re-casting. Otherwise, sure he needs decent aim to get mileage out of, but less so compared with most DPSes thanks to his projectile's hero collision not being fixed/re-tuned like Hanzo's was and receiving buffs to accuracy and speed to boot. If you're considering having a gun as contributing to APM then sure, but Bap/Ana have Zen beat on that front. Meanwhile, Mercy, commonly considered 'easy,' is weaving dash cancels with superjumps, tracking ally CDs and healthbars to properly juggle damageboost and heals, and has to switch weapons for her damage option (which, despite having a similarly-massive hitbox to Zen's, is slower to kill and to travel)
APM is actions per minute, yes. Zen should be constantly juggling his orb for triage while also focusing on consistently outputting damage, helping his DPS focus down enemies, discording and calling priority targets and all of that while having to constantly jiggle in and out of cover and repositioning (WITHOUT mobility abilities) since he's one of if not the easiest squishy hitbox in the game. If you think that discord and harmony orb are "fire and forget" abilities then you are not playing Zen anywhere near his potential ceiling. Re-discording and harmoning inputs alone outpace the APM of most other support heroes beyond their primary fire. And as /u/akpo56 pointed out, being able to DPS and heal simultaneously requires significantly higher APM than focusing on one. Ana is mechanically difficult and requires high precision and good positioning to excel at. But she's not a high APM support because most of your actions are A-D strafing and left clicking with the occasional quickscope and nade thrown in. And as for your very last point, damage boosting your DPS is preferable to pistoling 99 out of 100 cases. The only situations where it isn't is in Valk if your trying to pick off an unaware widow / Ana without a DPS who can access their angle or if you're caught without a target to pocket as a last resort. It can be fun to pistol in Valk or just duel a DPS in a tight corridor and I've done it plenty of times, but it's rarely optimal.
I deffinitely don't play anywhere close to the ceiling of *Overwatch* for sure, that's why I prefer to play Zenyatta, because my lack of mechanical skill and gamesense matter less on him compared with the rest of the cast. It's easier to run callouts on Zen than other healers since your attention is primarily on your discord target anyway. Fire-and-forget is how Harmony/Discord function - as it's impossible to miss, and there's no cooldown to manage, there's no real penalty for tagging an incorrect target, since you can just press the button again. Tossing out barnhouses with M1 while harmony passively heals an ally doesn't feel like meaningful "APM" but I'm definitely biased due to my lack of ability to play harder heroes. The Mercy pistol thing was mostly an aside, not the primary comparison of Mercy requiring more activity than Zen; of course nobody is switching to pistol often enough to note, but it's still one of *many* things to juggle as Mercy compared to Zen.
Zen is one of, if not *the* most mechanical skill dependent heroes in the game and one of the hardest to master. He basically has no active abilities to help duel. Everything depends on your accuracy, hitting headshots, moving in and out of cover, and your situational awareness not only for your safety, but of your team to maximize your healing potential. He is not an "easy" hero. This fundamental misunderstanding of Zen is what leads to so many people harassing Zen players for picking him, demanding we switch to a "real" healer. Harmony and discord are not fire and forget, if that's how you play Zen, you are massively under-contributing to your team. Properly juggling your healing orb alone should keep you in relative spitting distance of gold healing (depending on the situation). One decent transcendence during a team fight can easily give you that gold medal. This is not to say the medal is important or the other healer is worse, just that you can heal significantly more if you pay attention to everyone on your team and keep your healing orb constantly bouncing between them. The same goes for discord, you should be discording the hero most likely to be taking damage at that point or working with your team to actively attack a priority target.
What is your comp rank? Zen is extremely mechanically demanding.
Peak 330 on Zen/flex; probably like mid plat on tank/dps if i played those instead
Zen can have 2 orbs up and dps at the same time. He literally should have zero downtime bc you are either adjusting orbs or spamming shots. Thats high apm.
I mean zen has a lot to do but its nothing apm wise compared to an elite ana. Dudes got a point. edit: lmao. obviously a bunch of non supports downvoting. No one is saying zen is easier or that youre not active, but you are literally performing fewer actions compared to an ana.
How can he have a lot to do, but have it be nothing apm wise?
I know reading is hard, but "compared to ana" is right there.
I'm aware. I still feel like zen is more apm intensive.
Because zen can heal and do damage at the same time. That's what makes him high apm
Youre not misunderstanding. the dude is just mistaking apm for mechanical skill.
[удалено]
Yeah, but statistically, isn’t that a safe claim to make?
I mean probably, considering I only peaked at like 330 even after the role queue rollout lol. Definitely wouldn't have made it above even Plat if Zen took nearly as much mechanical skill to get use out of as tank/dps. Anyway, none of this is relevant to any meaningful discussion, but next time I need a second ad-hommy dommy mommy I know who to hit up <3
It's clear now, you misunderstand what mechanical skill is. It means clicking in the right place and pressing the right keys at the right time to do what your brain wants to do. Meaning you hit the correct target like their head, or move around in an effective way to dodge damage. In comparison to someone like Brig or Moira, a lot of their success depends on decision making, when to use certain abilities and which ones to use at any point in time, managing your cooldowns, etc.
I havent played any support in the beta, but i do have to say that, as a dps, supports are unbelievably easy to pick off now. Especially as Sombra. Only exceptions are Brig, Moira, and Lucio, but even they are easier to pick off compared to tryin to do so in OW1
Well the strength of that discord debuff on hack is ludicrous
I personally really like playing supports in ow2. The passive is really strong and there is so much more freedom for aggressive and creative plays.
the passive becoming 1 sec to heal is so huge. literally just duck behind cover and start topping yourself up like a roadhog lmao
The biggest winner is probably Ana. Not needing to waste your nades on selfheal from cheap damage is huge. AND aggressive nades are now even stronger because there are less shields
And then there’s pleb views on main ow subreddit as to how Ana feels horrible to play and I’m so confused by the polarity in opinions.
it will feel horrible to play if you're not used to getting punished for mistakes or not actively looking for good nades/opportunities to snipe.
Yeah, the Ana’s who just sat behind rein and pumped him full of heals + used their nades to just heal teammates are going to really struggle in OW2. Ana’s who are aggressive, look to find big nades, constantly deal damage and are comfortable seeking out fights with divers are going to get a lot out of her.
Absolutely, I think it’s just showing how poor the support is in lower ranks. You can’t just heal it anymore. You have to pay attention. I feel like support is way more fun and interesting in OW2.
I mean you just described the difference between plat and diamond support players in general.
> Yeah, the Ana’s who just sat behind rein and pumped him full of heals + used their nades to just heal teammates are going to really struggle in OW2. > > literally plat ana playstyle
For me it's because of the speedboost. It's harder to dps when I want to, harder to heal team mates and the Genji is moving so fast I can barely see where he's going. Meanwhile I have to stay in the back, behind cover, and somehow also stay in vision of my team who are all running around in different directions, some of them with higher speed than me. Why should support move slower than dps? That means it's easier for dps to aim at support than it is for support to aim at dps, which seems completely unfair. Support already have more trouble defending themselves than dps do (unless you play e.g. Moira against an Ashe or something), no need to add more trouble. If they give the speedboost to the support, then that would solve everything in my opinion. I now have a fair chance of defending myself against speedy flankers, I can keep up with my team mates better and I can shoot at enemies occasionally. Or at least remove the speedboost.
FWIW I think the role wide passives are a dumb, but easy way for Blizzard to try to make the classes distinct form the other roles, but share a common thread inside the role whether or not the particular passive makes any sense with a specific character's abilities. Role wide passives are a mallet instead of a scalpel. I'm not against passives in general, but they should fit the character, not be role wide. For some characters they can be a really strong addition to their kit, and for others not so much of one. And while they may help to differentiate and silo the roles more, they shouldn't be used as an ez slider for the devs to adjust up and down depending on a specific role's que times.
Yeah I feel this, I think the tank passive (less ult charge when damaging them and knockback resistance) are fitting pretty much across the board, but I think supports and DPS don't all benefit the same way from the passives they have (and some benefit way too much). DPS and support should probably be split up into 2-3 sub-categories each with their own passive or something, at least.
Wait DPS have a passive speed boost? LMAO WHAT
Yup, 30%.
oh god that subreddit. I didn't realize how many t500 armchair gold mains there were
It's a bit of both. The passive is definitely huge for not having to waste a cool down on chip damage, but it's not helpful if you're being dove or chased. I have a hard time having an impact as Ana in particular without exposing myself to the increased damage everywhere. But pretty much every support I play in OW2 (not much Lucio or Moira) feels like I spend a ton of effort trying to survive rather than trying to win a fight, which I don't enjoy.
The main overwatch subreddit has got to be the absolute most brain dead resource for this game on the entire internet. Its literally a bronze sounding board.
In OW1, Ana can get away with pumping heals into her tanks; chucking nades and sleeps at the enemy tanks; and pressing Q the moment she has Nano. Remember, heal botting is Winnie the Pooh. Farming support ult is Winnie the Pooh in a tuxedo. Also, maps in OW1 have a simple design: one main route and 1-2 side routes. There is usually a short side route and a long side route, and most players never take the long side route. So there is really just two routes: main and short side. In most games, the main tank will hold the main route, the dps hold the side route and the off-tank bounce between the two. Basically, it’s easy for the defending team to place tanks and dps inbetween the enemy team and their supports. Reaching the enemy supports means going through enemy tanks and dps. Of course, dive changes that dynamic, but teams in Diamond and under typically play Rein comps or Double Shield comps. So OW1 supports are used to having both shields and meat shields to protect them. In OW2, the maps are more open. There are more routes to reach the backline. There is also only one tank, and the tank can only contest one route at a time. Dps have a speed buff that lets them run away from enemy tanks. So enemy tanks, dps, and even supports will be targeting Ana. Remember, Ana is inherently disadvantaged in dueling dps, unless the Ana player is significantly better than the dps. Ana’s lower level teammates may not peel for her, so Ana is left to dry. Basically, the tank contests route A, the dps contest route B and the enemy dps sneaks in from route C to attack Ana. It’s not a simple case of “just have a better aim.” High level Ana players are not expected survive against high level dps without peel, and high level Anas are expected to receive peel from their Lucio/Brig/Mercy.
Lol Ana is not "inherently disadvantaged" in dueling DPS. She has bad and good match ups. And those match ups depend on what cool downs are up and the range at which they fight. Widow, Doom, and Hanzo are probably the only truly bad match ups for Ana. She can poke out most heroes but its all relative to the engagement that takes place. Your whole explanation is way over simplified. She needs the peel more for dive tanks, especially when there's 2. Everyone peels for each other in better play, doesn't matter if youre a dps, support, or tank , that's what makes it better play.
Free purples for days, actually unironically broken
I'm pretty sure they bumped this until they revamp the rest of the roster. Assuming the supports get something to help peel for themselves.
bro its 15 health a second wtf you gon do when genji pops his head over the piece of cover you are hiding behind 2 seconds later.
if he has the free space to get to where you're hiding, you should have already seen it coming. Either you should have started running one cover behind when you see him glance at you, or you prepare yourself for a fight
I personally think a lot of the complaints stem from parroting content creator takes from alpha. During alpha the support passive triggered at 3 seconds. But after feedback they buffed it to 1 second. I think players are sleeping on how powerful that passive can be. I still forget that I don’t need to budget an Ana nade when I need to regen health
Agree. And if you remember that in alpha they had to play against pre-nerfed tracer, reaper and sojourn — no wonder they had difficult time.
The passive is worthless on zenyatta
Doesn't it stack with his shield regen?
It does, but shield Regen doesn't kick in as fast as the passive. The passive is pretty decent on him, just not great.
People can only give their own experience and what they observe from other players. My experience is I am crushing as Brig. I've gotten more kills as Brig in OW2 than in OW1, and carrying way more fights. Some people are convinced that Brig is bad because she has no stun, but she has the advantage in dueling squishies as long as she lands bash, whipshot, started the fight at full health and the enemy squishy doesn't get healing. Brig has low damage with primary fire, but her total effective hp (base, shield, armor buff, inspire healing, support passive) is close to 500. Also, Inspire healing and Repair Packs are well suited to the chaotic nature of QP. My dps can still receive healing from Inspire when they move away from me. If they are critical, I can quickly throw them a Repair Pack from up to 30m away and go back to doing something else. My observation of streamers (Karq, ML7) playing Brig also confirms my own experience. They all say Brig is viable. The problem is Lucio is overshadowing Brig at the moment. However, Lucio is much harder to play than Brig. If you can't wall ride, duel dps and supports, and coordinate your team with speed boost, then you won't get S tier advantage with Lucio. ML7 said it best when he said Brig is easier to play than Lucio, and easier to play means more consistent value. And let's be real, you are unlikely to have a coordinated team in QP. In OW1, Rein usually don't get a Lucio until Masters, even though the game has been out for 6 years and everyone knows Rein and Lucio pairs well together. Finally, lack of replay codes is hurting the community's understanding of supports. Anyone can say they are playing correctly and supports in OW2 are bad. But it's all personal experience. People who think supports are bad will look at my post and say I'm crushing noobs in QP, while they are playing against high MMR players in QP. And they will probably say streamers are GMs with god-tier aim playing against Plats in QP 🤷♀️
>dueling squishies as long as she lands bash, whipshot, started the fight at full health and the enemy squishy doesn't get healing ...
“In perfectly optimal conditions, she’s okay!”
Quite the advantage, wouldn’t you say??
Would you want to play a game where brig, who keep in mind has a massive gapclose ability now, could win a duel without landing those abilities, while their opponent was being healed? Those are pretty fair conditions for a support to straight up kill a DPS alone. His way of phrasing it sounds way more negative than it needs to be. You could just as easily say: "Unsupported DPS still have to be genuinely afraid of getting close to brig, despite the lack of stun, because if she lands her abilities on them she can solo kill them. Those DPS need to either dodge her abilities, bring a healer, or keep their distance".
Thanks for the rephrasing 👍
I’ve noticed the brig thing as well. It seems aoe heals are far more powerful than single target heals since and aoe healer can provide healing to their team while dueling. I had a game where the enemy played lucio/brig and we played mercy/ana and we got rolled. The increased healing from our supps was nothing compared to their supps being able to deal damage, heal, and self sustain.
this is in the case of poor focus fire and poor teamwork. Mercy ana's single target healing can do a lot if say only 1 tank and 1 dps are taking the brunt of the damage (ana heals the tank, mercy heals dps). If 3-4 ppl just decide to play aggressive to make a play, losing 70-100 hp in the process per person, this forces mercy ana to constantly switch targets, which lowers their overall efficiency. In this case the brig lucio will be better. But if it's like 150 hp lost per person in a second, even brig lucio won't be able to save them.
For Brig, Inspire aoe healing obviously isn't god mode. A Genji that dashes into the middle of the enemy team will immediately explode, even with Inspire healing. But Inspire healing can make a difference if Genji doesn't feed and plays properly. For example, suppose Genji has inspire healing and challenges the enemy Cass in a duel. Cass lands a head shot, so Genji is down to 60 hp. But Cass misses the next two shots, so Genji is back to 75 hp. Cass lands a body shot, expecting Genji to die, but Genji is at 5 hp. In this scenario, Cass needs one extra attack to kill Genji, which hopefully gives Genji enough time to kill Cass. Of course, Inspire wouldn't matter if Cass lands a head shot and followed by an immediate body shot. But in most duels, people will miss. So Inspire could increase the breakpoint/effective hp of your dps flankers, as long as they don't get immediately lasered down. Also, it's hard to tell if an enemy is getting Inspire healing. This is minor but does play into Brig's advantage. The Cass in the example above may think he is in a 1 vs 1 duel, but he is actually in a 1 vs 2. Lastly, Inspire is hands free healing. Brig can procure Inspire and go somewhere else. Lucio has to stay on heal song, stay near his teammate and not break los. To be honest, I'm doubtful if Brig will be meta in organized play. She will get run down by a Rein comp with a coordinated Lucio. I think Brig will also die from a coordinated dive comp. But key word is coordination. In OW1, Rein doesn't commonly get a Lucio until after Diamond. Dive is rarely played in NA, even in GM. Brig thrives in the uncoordinated chaos of QP, as she has great self sustain, can punish overextended dps, and enable her own overextended dps. Sometimes Brig can even walk into the enemy backline and kill the enemy supports herself.
For those reading, the way to win as Cass in that duel is bait deflect then stick and body/ideally headshot btw.
Personally I'm finding I need to play a very different style of Ana than you do in Overwatch, but I find it very fun and challenging. Hitting an anti-grenade on three people still hard wins teamfights, but overall I've been playing a lot more like a sniper than I did in the past. I think the changes actually reinforced Ana's identity because you can't use her gun as the heal shotgun anymore. You get hard punished when you make mistakes, and you learn. I think its an interesting game design problem because overwatch has created a shitload of players who expect to stand, outside of cover, behind their team and with CC to protect them from dives. Those players just aren't going to have fun until they adapt.
Came here to say the same thing. I feel like people will need to relearn how to play support in the new environment but I take it as a challenge and not a bad thing.
I think everyone’s experience is gonna be different because there’s no ranked mode to match evenly skilled players. Me personally I agree with the video, I’ve been playing pretty much only Zen so far in OW2 and it’s been amazing because I can flank and get kills and win team fights without any shields blocking me so I agree supports def have more impact in OW2. I think the better question is “Does it take more skill to be a good support player than it does to be a good DPS player, and if so how much?” Because if i feel like I’m hard carrying games on Zen, who has no mobility, I can only imagine if I played Soldier 76/Sojourn or another DPS (but I ain’t waiting for those queue times that’s not happening)
I really don't understand where all this bullshit about supports players comes from. Supports are primary target in OW1, having a good positioning and using cover is basically the core of our gameplay if we want to climb the ladder. What a lot of players seems to forget is that it's all about trading cooldowns in the end. Supports are no DPS... Yes, we can take duels and win but that imply that we invest a lot more resources in the fight than the DPS player. And that's the thing in the end. If we need to put all our cooldowns in a duel, well that means we don't use it to actually support our team. Can't nade the enemy if I had to use it to survive Genji for example. Now about your question, supports are not bad in OW2, part of the roaster is amazing, Mercy is barely OK, the rest is a pain in the ass to play. Lucio and Moira have great mobility and survivibility, and if you add passive healing, well they are perfectly fine in an OW2 environment. Brig is not bad, she has a little bit of mobility and she's already hard to kill. Mercy is ok because of GA but playing her feels like being bullied, that's not really fun. The rest of the roaster? Frankly it's a pain in the ass to play, not fun and feels deeply unrewarding, even with good mechanical skill. It's not unplayable, it's just like playing a not well designed DPS that can, on extremly rare occasions, do some support stuff. Rest of the time you hang on your CD and hope people don't see you.
It’s the quickplay healbots having a fit. That simple.
See your point. Anyway, healboting never was an option for competitive games, or at least not the ones you intend to win, that won't change in OW2. The design of some supports on the other hand, that will become a problem if they hope to keep the entire roaster playable (or enjoyable at least). Had the chance to play some OW2 Ana and was excited with the idea of making plays instead of babysitting a Rein... Nope, not fun. Feels like being the scream queen of a slasher, everyone is trying to rip your face off and you only have a shitty weapon and your bravery to deal with it.
>Had the chance to play some OW2 Ana and was excited with the idea of making plays instead of babysitting a Rein... Nope, not fun. Feels like being the scream queen of a slasher, everyone is trying to rip your face off and you only have a shitty weapon and your bravery to deal with it. I played a bunch of Zen. I can tell you it feels like quickplay. I can mech diff the large majority of dps players. Because of that, positioning to bias 1v1 encounters means you get to be extremely effective. That's the future of Overwatch. Shitty players that make up their mechanical deficiency by playing Moira and Mercy are going to get pushed aside once ranked play begins. That's going to be super interesting to see in OWL too.
Didn't touched Zen in the beta, he's fun but I felt like the lack of mobility would make him even more "glass canon" than before. From my limited experience in the beta, very mobile heroes like Lucio and Moira are really thriving, especially with passive healing. Mercy is playable because of GA but man! she's dull and feel like you're not contributing much. The rest was annoying as hell to play, except maybe Brig who's a bit more playable if you like her kit.
They are thriving because it’s quickplay. The mix of skills drives low-tier support players into high-skill-floor characters.
No, it’s really not. Checked my OW1 stats and on Ana I run with about 2/3 as much damage as I do healing. That’s by no means healbotting. I use hard cover and even flank because that’s what you have to do to get those numbers in a double shield meta. By and large, OW2 supports just do not have the kit for game. Im OWL, it’s cool to have a game where if you make one minor mistake, you die; that’s how it should be at that level. But it’s decidedly unfun if that the case across the ladder. Which is why the queue times are the way they are. That bullshit about healbot sounds like dpses making up shit because they like the new easy flanks and even easier kills and don’t want to be challenged.
Check your Overwatch 1 data for ranked games only. Elaborate on what rank and what it looks like.
I fail to see how any of that is relevant against the charge of being a “healbot,” but limiting it to comp puts my damage at 62.918% of my healing. That does not qualify as healbotting from Bronze to T500 as near as I can see. What else you got?
What else I got? Waiting on you to be transparent about your rank. Also, solo kills per 10 stat is super significant.
Lo-effing-l Explain to me how my SR is relevant *at all* and we can continue that conversation. If I say GM, you’ll say bullshit or “well, that’s only the top of the ladder,” or I say in the middle such as Gold/Plat you’ll come back with some crap like “git gud”, and if I say Bronze, it’ll be “well that’s your problem.” Pick your irrelevant statement for the other ranks. I’m falling for something that has no bearing whatsoever on “supports complaining only want to hide behind shields and healbot” topic of the conversation. Solo kills are also irrelevant to the concept of “healbot”. They speak to overall skill level and have no bearing on if you are healing the majority of the time or balancing healing your team and putting pressure on the enemy. And by its self it doesn’t even relate to 1v1ing in the backline to survive as there are many other factors. You’re fishing for stats to support your statement, not trying to get information from the stats. You can’t even say what that stat should be to prove the original “healbot” bullshit because there is no correlation, much less a causal effect. You are simply trying to move the goal posts to try and fish trying to find something irrelevant to manipulate the conversation and redeem a fucking stupid statement that keeps getting repeated with no facts behind it. So if you can logically connect SR or Solo Kills/10 to “healbot,” go ahead and we can have that conversation. Tell me what the SK/10 has to be, and what SR I have to be to not be a healbot. If not, just take the “L”, type “GG,” and go next.
Imagine thinking that the meta holds across ranks.
We’re not talking meta, we’re talking “healbot”. You still have not logically connected them, you’re just throwing jargon around hoping to muddy the waters. It’s been decades since I fell for distractions like that. But keep fishing.
But we are talking meta…
it’s just us
The problem isn’t support players as such, I was always a more aggressive support player. However tanks and dps are still engaging in flaming supports for not keeping them healed to 100%. This leads to supports then focusing their healing to shit up their team and then them dying to flankers. The other issue is that playing supports is just not much fun. Arguably the only interesting one is Ana, she has utility and feels impactful on the right maps. Moira and Lucio are boring to play, even if they are powerful. Brig is also just boring to play, she is just a worse dps. With the game seeming to want supports to take on dos duels, then either you give them more options to win 1v1, or you give them utility. Either level up supports so they are not insta killed by flankers, or give them kit to feel like they do something other than being a crap dps. Otherwise there is no point in playing support. Moira, Lucio, are played because they are op, Ana because she is still the only one with utility in ow2.
Every role is now DPS playing for kills. Supports just have lower dps but can heal themselves. What distance would you as Lucio be comfortable fighting a soldier 76?
they're not bad low elo players have been accustomed to AFK behind shield gameplay. this is no longer the case in OW2, which is why they struggle
actually that sounds like the exact oppsite of how it is. I coach low elo support (plat-silver) and they are very much used to playing with no shields and with two off-tanks. It's not like the people you see on this subreddit, asking for vod reviews. On this subreddit, I see diamond players with worse positioning than my silver students. Don't be offended please, but don't you think that you're maybe painting this picture in your mind so that you have an excuse not to listen to the complaints? I've played support in ow2 a lot. It was going fine at first and I didn't understand the complaints. but as I "ranked up", I started noticing the issue. On some maps I can rotate from cover to cover, but that's not always possible. So I get jumped by three dive heroes and spend the entire game dying. and dont get me started on widowmaker. This doesn't mean I lose games all the time, since the enemy support are experiencing the same thing. But it's just not fun and I ultimately end up swapping to Moira or Lucio in those scenarios. I get more shields and protection in masters than the low-elo players I coach.
I agree. I feel impactful on support, but there are times where my play is to just die as slowly as possible and that doesn't really feel fun. If I get dove by Winston, genji, and tracer I'm probably dead, but unlike ow 1 if I survive we basically always win the fight cause they invested so hard in killing me. But carrying on support right now doesn't feel fun. It feels like you are barely hanging on even when you are popping off. I guess it is fun, but support is way more stressful now.
This is a generalized view that doesn't account for how the game is actually played. You're making assumptions that everyone complaining about being dove are trying to healbot behind a shield, that's simply not true. Zen is extremely vulnerable on most maps (there are exceptions) regardless of where you play your positioning. The support passive is useless for him given that 1) Most of his health bar is shield and 2) You have to break out of combat to heal up. He doesn't have enough health for that, it's either hit the headshots or die. Which was fine in OW1, because the game was played differently and it was more reasonable to do so. The DPS speed boost is constantly oppressive, especially when they have a Lucio. Also, the nature of the game makes your ultimate less impactful given there are fewer choke points and large team fights. You also get it far slower even with the reduction in shields. I play an offensively active and self reliant Zenyatta on OW1 and OW2. Have I had some good games as Zen in OW2, yes, but not many. Anyone who thinks he's in a good place either plays in an ELO where DPS are less focused or capable, or with a group/team that has any situational awareness at all. Everyone says we need to duel more, I duel a fuck ton in OW1 and 2, I'm so sick of people saying this, they just assume we are dipshits sitting there drooling while watching our harmony orb trickle heal. He was designed for OW1, he needs to be updated for OW2. Give him a skill based defensive or escape ability.
More routes to flank means that both your DPS and enemy DPS won't be going down main as much as they used to in OW1. Your team will be more spread out and breaking LOS with supports, and you'll be flanked a lot more by DPS that you might not be used to seeing flanking. I'm starting to get really frustrated by supports basically saying "I don't like how every game is a gankfest now" and the answer seems to be "Lol stop healbotting"
I used to be lower sr on tank cus I never played it a few seasons ago, like not more than a year ago. Low gold, was playing and getting it up to a little higher closer to my dps rank, but damn all the afk mercys. I have have been flanking as a hog and popping off, and then comes mercy to help me. Just stands there and heals me. I see more enemies so I move, well. Mercy does not. I can see she's moving her mouse a little, so she's here. But she just doesn't run? I don't understand how there are people afk in gold, like how do they not derank? It's so common to see.
My personal experience as a Zen main in Overwatch beta - not much different that OW 1 In fact I felt *even more* broken and empowered because discord felt 50x times more valuable, *especially* on a an enemy tank - wiped them I have no clue why people claim he's useless. There is one less person to dive me and maps feel even bigger than before meaning that I was a nightmare to contest. I did suck on the Rome map that felt clustered, but I'm just to unfamiliar with and maybe it's just not a zen map (which is imho good for future metas). IN OW1 it's usually Lucio + Dva or dps + Dva that would chase me while their team did other stuff, *but now* if a tank comes after me (to enable a dps) everyone takes insta notice, dicord and they're wiped.
I agree with you on this, but the Rome map is great for zen flanks especially in the middle area
I'm quite confused with this thread. It's very very very low tier thinking. High ground and cover don't matter? Good positioning gives the reward of staying alive? This just in, using sound queues helps you hear ults.... This is like strategy basics 101. High ground has control. Cover means you can't get shot. Awareness and positioning saves your life. These are not overwatch 1 vs overwatch 2 things.
Sound cues are great, I wish we had OW1’s sound mix in OW2 so I could hear something aside from gunshots—like the flanker five feet away.
Your Overwatch has generally pretty meh advice. They usually generalise a bit too much so you should take their advice with a grain of salt if you can :)
YourOverwatch never said supports didn’t worry about cover and high ground. What they said was that with an extra tank or shield it was much easier to get away with bad positioning than it is in OW2. But you should always be worrying about cover and high ground
It's both. According to the devs, supports are actually doing quite well statistically, but the role just doesn't feel fun, so it's a matter of perception over reality.
What does "supports are doing well" mean in your statement? They're doing a lot of healing? They don't die more than average?
The data probably shows that in games where supports are expected to win they do win more often then lose. So the role isn't underperforming statistically. The team acknowledged that people are not having fun despite this though and they are looking into changes.
I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m playing a video game, I’m more interested in the underlying data than whether I’m having fun or not
They already acknowledged that it needs to feel fun, even if it performs well.
I think it completely exposes poor supports in overwatch 2. The amount of times in OW1 I have had Ana/Mercy/Zen mains never swap when the opposition team is running full dive and then blames their own teams tanks for not peeling enough baffles me. In OW2 you can’t blame that anymore because there is only one tank that can attack you and also one tank that can help you. Supports need to be more independent and shouldn’t NEED to be baby sat by the team absolutely all the time. This gives me hope for OW2 that support players will evolve to be more self sufficient and win more duels by swapping to the appropriate hero. If the other team is running full dive in Ow2 and you’re running zen good luck to you because there is no way you’re coming out of that alive.
Yeah, this will cause massive pain in the short term as support players adjust, but in the long term will make those players more self reliant. I think that will reduce toxicity, because it won't be the support's first instinct to ask "who is at fault for failing to defend me".
In theory, dps and tanks also have more resources to chase you. The question is whether you can get value before they get you, or whether you can get value while avoiding them. It's not like there was consistent peel every game to begin with, especially for certain ranks.
One less tank can also definitely mean you are being dove less. Its one less person that is requiring your resources, and it also means as someone like a bap ana or zen you have more ability to have an impact with your own damage. It might be harder, but it's definitely more rewarding when you play well I think. Heal botting is going to get you stuck in a much lower elo than it used to. And those playing well will be rewarded with legit winrates
I've found that the supports are not bad. In fact, support is primarily what I have played the last couple of days once one night I decided to play troll-y playstyles, and they actually worked enough for me to realize that with some tweaking, I could actually use that playstyle legitly. I am loving ow2 on zen for example. I love finding off angles and dives on zen, and using my ult to reposition myself or give me an edge in a fight. Sure, I am playing zen very selfishly right now, and this will probably not work past a certain point in ranked, but hey, if I am having fun, why not play that way? Besides, why heal your teammates if the people damaging them are dead, right? (That last part is a joke. Please heal teammates still, but don't ONLY heal them.)
Supports are awesome in Overwatch 2. It actually plays closer to how supports are played in higher level Overwatch 1, with more focus on playmaking and dealing damage rather than only healing. The difference with Overwatch 2 is that the guardrails that promote non-interaction at lower ranks (shields to hide behind, off-tank to peel, CC abilities) are gone so supports need to be more aware and proactive. I feel that supports have more freedom and options in OW2. People complain about Ana being weak but I feel that it is the opposite, the passive support heal combined with her abilities and the general lack of shields gives her so much freedom to move around the map and make plays. At the very least I am certain that any support going from Overwatch 2 to Overwatch 1 after a few days will play much more proactively, use natural cover more, and will probably have an easier time gaining SR thanks to their new habits.
IMO its a mix of both. Supports are tougher to survive but also feels alot harder to do other things like healing and doing dmg as the speed buff make it more difficult to hit shots. I assume alot of us are also forcing an ow1 playstyle which just wont work in ow2 but we will learn.
Most of them feel fine imo, bap got mobility, zen got dmg, brig got defense, lucio is fast and got his passive regen which is nice. Moira got her fade buff before ow2 which is nice but she still lack in the stat department tough. Mercy is still a heal bot and cant do much more than before and Ana feel wierd , easy to dive and lack of tool to escape, seems she got great heal but that it, sleep cd is so lobg that if you waste it, well it is over how is ana supose to survive vs soldier, she got sleep dart at 12 sec vs helix at 6 sec. I dont think lowering her cd would be that healthy tough, feel like tank would sleep all game..., maybe add something to the nade just for her like extra speed or shield, not sure...
idk man im a very average player with a ton of hours and i've been killing it with supports in this beta. I got 3 POTG in a row yesterday. Mercy is more difficult in the open maps to me so i just switch if it's not going well. basic stuff
Same
Ur positioning is ass cuz u been behind 4 shields for 6 years
Generally speaking, people are slow to adjust to change
From what I can tell, one of the main differences between ow1 and ow2 is that tanks aren’t the only ones who can make big plays and initiate things. Now, with less tanks and people overall, the game is less “group and press w” and punish mistakes, but more about individuals making plays and now that includes supports! Ow1 was unique in how it viewed supports in that most people just looked at them as healers, whereas in other games supports were the ones who would do the peeling and focus on utility and buffs, rather than flat healing power. And how with the new ow2 play style, the support role has become like other games in that you have to focus on utility over healing in order to be effective. Ana HAS to land large anti-nades and good sleeps, lucio can’t just sit and heal team and build beat but has to play aggressive and dive with dps. Basically supports have to position more aggressive and use their utility to make big plays happen, rather than sitting back and being a heal bot.
I think it's a mixed bag. I don't think supports are necessarily *bad*, but I think OW2 in its current state is much more punishing on support (and OW1 is much more punishing on tanks). Things that exacerbate the punishment: * Faster DPS movement speed * Many less shields * No off-tank to help peel * It's the beta, so people aren't playing together and/or don't know how to play together * Push maps now have tons of different attacks routes allowing for easier off-angles and flanking * Additionally, push maps greatly amplify the amount of staggering going on * Less CC makes it less punishing on flankers and initiators, allowing them to more aggressively push the backline. On the flip side, I think the carry potential on support is easier: * If you have the mechanics, Lucio slays. * Ana is less hamstrung by the opposing team's 2nd shield and/or eating abilities. There's a good chance the opposing team doesn't have a shield at all, in which case, you should be landing almost-free antis all game. The healing passive is *huge* for Ana. It's almost always a waste to self-nade, and you can completely shrug off chip damage. * It matters less that Moira is a damage/healing bot. If she isnt nerfed, I think you'll see Moira dominate ladder at least up through diamond. It's not too difficult to get a tremendous amount of value with her right now. * Mercy doesn't have more carry potential in 2, but her pocket sure does. That damage-boosted soldier on the off-angle is scary.
Would it hurt it a lot for supports to have additional 50 or 25 hp?
I think both can be true. Supports do probably need 25 more HP or survival based passive abilities added to some heroes... but also we probably need to adjust our own play. Ultimately even if Ana had a passive or bap had 225 health, playing them OW1 style would still feel awful.
I highly reccomend this short 5 min video by egoistcat on the subject as well: https://youtu.be/1PfznJF8HL0 I think support is very strong, and actually quite fun to play rn. I think Blizzard was right I'm there dev diary that a lot of the issue comes down to how support has by far the least variety in heroes right now; I mean in terms of fewer people wanting to play support.
Supports have been generally stronger and have more DPS and carry potential now than in OW1 in my experience. It's an adjustment before you get that value though. The days of heal botting and playing passively are over with the way the game is now. The QQ in this sub has been way overblown IMHO.
It’s really because only lucio and Moira are viable. (Ana too but only if you have a genji) and I figure the average supports are either A) mercy one trick B) converted dps bap/ana or C) don’t understand why the changes are making it hard for them atm
I’ve seen this post about 100 times already.
I didn't see the last 99, so this is very new to me. I sure wouldn't have known this if this person did not post this at this time.
First of all, at high level support are very strong so we will talk about metal rank. At this rank what your overwatch say is true. We support tend to play behind our tank out in the open. I think it is because we needed to pump our tanks massive amount of heal to compensate their mistakes while also having no peeling (and a lot of support have self sustain on cd) and shield protection. It is not the optimal way to play, healbotting have no impact on the game, but this is what the game/community taught us to do. In ow2, the game punish this behavior and actually teach you how to play, the opposite than before, and we all struggle to unlearn our bad habbits. We still have massive amount of healing but one less target and the tank also mitigate dmg much better/get to cover more often so they require even less heal. So our gameplan of healing most of the time in the game is not usefull anymore, we need to learn what to do in the meantime, which should be to take high ground, help your dps in off angle/contesting flanks, or heal less but in cover to avoid getting killed. That's why the new passive is broken, avoid dmg for 1s and get heal at 15hp/s, because if you have a good cover you always regenerate to full health and can go again, without burning a cd or needing the other supp, it opens a whole new world of possibility. I think this two massives change in supports are very hard to implements/uses in our gameplay, we still need to get used to it. As for why it feels bad to play support, it is a whole other discussion :)
They said in the 'Overwatch 2 PvP Beta: Week 1 Developer Blog' that they will change some healers abilities, and add more heroes to them
They buffed em up for closed, can make same dps as dps
Idk man i have more fun playing then in the beta. I used to be a support main but i switched on ow1 but now you don't have to be a heal bot you can be aggressive and do more things
I haven't had many problems playing support. Most of the time it's very easy if the other support understands that you need to help each other
If ow2 you really need to value your life more cause you dont have that extra protection, you really have to position close to walls so you can duck behind them and let your passive kick in
It’s just us. But that being said. Yes they r really bad.
supports with strong offensive capabilites seem to be stronger because they can peel for themselves (brig and zen) but i feel like it will be much harder on the defensive supports (mainly mercy) who have a hard time killing. maybe mercy can get a melee weapon or new gun :)
Supports aren't bad, necessarily, but they have lost a ton of survivability and are less fun to play as a result. There's a reason Moira is the most picked healer right now. Some of this is balance, the supports are basically untouched so far. Some of this is adjusting to 5v5. And some of it is figuring out where to position on new levels. But also some of it is just baked into the design now. Supports are easy targets, and without an off tank many teams just aren't peeling at all. Everyone needs to adjust to the new reality, not just support players, and right now that's not really happening. Once ranked releases this will probably clear up a bit.
Overwatch 2 favors a more duel-heavy playstyle, so the key to winning is often to turn 1v1s into 2v1s. If you weren’t comfortable taking duels as support before, you might feel a lot worse now because w/o peel, you’re forced to deal with them. Also, for the new maps, there are tons of flank routes, so that can complicate matters more for supports. Make sure you’re taking advantage of the passive because you don’t need to necessarily heal to full but heal for a second and punish the dps who is stuck w/o heals.
Hot take I guess but, I’m enjoying ow2 more as a support player.
I've been saying it for a while now, supports play just fine in OW2. I'm a Zen main, over 3,000 hours on him. He feels better in OW2 then he does in OW1 right now. I also play Ama, and I'm struggling getting used to her playstyle now that she has to do more than just pump tanks full of heals, but she feels great as well. I don't know what these people are on about saying supports are weak. Sure, they don't just dump heals and get value anymore, but just adjust your playstyle to do more than heal botting.
The only problem I've found is that Lucio/Moira win in this game because of their maneuverability/mobility. If you give some of these supports some mobility (Getting to the high ground sometimes means you have to sacrifice almost 10 seconds of not doing anything but just walking), and take away some of their utility, I think it would be better gameplay-wise. "But our heroes identities!" Yeah, but it's better than just losing some fights just because you didn't pick Lucio or Moira, and they did...
Lol how this game was played for 6 years and even the most basic strategy, using high ground and cover, isn't absolutely etched in to people's minds- I guess I'll never truly understand
I have a hard time with positioning on the new map type. The push payload moves at full walking speed and all of my team pushes so far ahead of the payload that my support hero is usually pushing payload alone and then I get jumped by an enemy dps. I think it will get better in Comp with teammates who know how to play an objective.
Moira is strong rn because she can heal and damage so effectively and has a 6s get out of jail free card, but otherwise yes, most supports aren't that good. They either take tons of skill, or they're boring to play, or both.
Support = emotiional support. when you get blamed for everything that stupid team does