What will supports look like in Overwatch 2?

#1 - Sept. 13, 2021, 7:01 p.m.

We’ve gotten lots of info on how tanks will change to fit Overwatch 2 (thank you, AndyB!), and even some hints on changes that dps heroes may face.

Supports remain a mystery, however.

Will they be guardian angels, or angels of death?

The reason I originally fell in love with Overwatch was that agressive gunplay wasn’t the only path to victory. I like playstyles that focus on helping my team, and I enjoy the challenge of keeping my team alive much more than fighting enemies.

Overwatch scratched that itch, and even made it possible to carry matches by honing a defensive mindset - outplaying the enemy by countering their attempts to kill your teammates was just as viable as out-fragging them. And it was a blast!

The devs have previously mentioned heroes in OW2 getting more individual carry potential… but going by the balancing history of OW1, I wonder if “carry potential” is being used as a euphamism for “make every hero focus more on dealing damage.”

Are there any significant changes to how supports are expected to function/feel to play in Overwatch 2?

How will 5v5 and the new role passives affect support balance?

As I understand it, all of the post-launch supports were designed with a secondary healing ability (e.g. biotic grenade, biotic orb, regenerative burst), so they’d have some way to self-heal.

But in Overwatch 2, supports will passively self-heal when they’re out of combat. I’m wondering if that will affect the support’s old methods of self-healing: will abilities like Biotic Orb/Grenade and Regenerative burst stay the same in Overwatch 2, or are they being altered with the new support passive in mind?

There’s also the loss of a tank to consider. With less health bars to juggle, how does that affect single-target healers in playtesting?

AndyB

Community Manager

#12 - Sept. 13, 2021, 9:59 p.m.

I’ve been seeing this question pop up quite a bit since our post last week, so I grabbed some time with Geoff and Josh from the Hero design and balance team this afternoon. Here’s what they had to say;

So far, we’ve not made a ton of changes to how the Support role works in OW2. There are some meaningful changes, such as removing the stun from Brigitte (more on her specific rebalancing efforts in the future), however for the most part the playstyle of your favorite support heroes should feel familiar and similar to retail.

As of now, we have no plans to remove self-healing from these heroes. Abilities like Regenerative Burst and Biotic Grenade remain a powerful part of their respective hero’s identities, and will be tuned to account for the passive self-healing abilities also available.

In our playtests, having one less tank made it clear to us that tanks generally contribute much more damage than they mitigate, even on retail. Because of the drop in overall damage being dealt out, Supports were actually too effective at keeping the entire team alive, so we’re testing a tuned down healing output across the board to ensure that teamfights still resolve in a way that doesn’t feel drawn out or frustrating to play against.

AndyB

Community Manager

#37 - Sept. 13, 2021, 10:36 p.m.

In my head that played as that tiktok sound.

You know which one I mean.

In all seriousness, it’s understandable if folks have strong feelings about this direction. I’ll be sure to account for all of the sentiment we hear.

AndyB

Community Manager

#66 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:02 p.m.

Not today, sorry!

3ch

AndyB

Community Manager

#67 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:03 p.m.

Doh! (I always make this mistake…)

Fixed thank you.

AndyB

Community Manager

#70 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:06 p.m.

Don’t read too much into the examples I gave. They’re just “for example…”

AndyB

Community Manager

#75 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:11 p.m.

Rumors thrive and take root in the absence of information. My goal in being here is to cut down on the rumor mill and to provide you all with as much insight as I can as to what’s happening.

AndyB

Community Manager

#87 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:29 p.m.

I said this in the thread last week, but it bears repeating here: none of our hero design and balance changes for OW2 are being made in a vacuum. A change as fundamental as going from 6v6 to 5v5 has far reaching implications and requires us to examine every part of hero balance and design.

AndyB

Community Manager

#92 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:31 p.m.

I’m not prepared to talk about DPS today.

Apologies!

AndyB

Community Manager

#96 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:32 p.m.

It is something we’re considering

AndyB

Community Manager

#122 - Sept. 13, 2021, 11:51 p.m.

On paper, Discord is theoretically weaker with 1 fewer person per team benefiting from the debuff. Thus far in our playtests, Mercy’s Damage Boost hasn’t shown any major issues. That said, there’s still a chance we end up tuning both Discord and Damage Boost down, if we see they’re causing issues in further testing.