overwatch Upcoming Balance Changes for Support Heroes

[Starym 3,800]

 

Ana, Lucio and Moira buffs, Brigitte and Mercy nerfs are coming! Geoff Goodman takes to the forums to explain and detail some upcoming changes to support heroes "to keep them competitive with each other". From the lucky ones like Ana's ult healing addition, to a huge Sound Barrier shield buff and more for Lucio, it seems only Mercy is getting a significant whack on the head with her primary healing beam getting reduced.

Geoff Goodman (source)

In the next patch we’re reviewing the current state of support heroes and are making some changes to nearly all of them to keep them competitive with each other. I’ll start by just listing the changes below:

Ana

• Nano Boost additionally heals the target instantly for 300 HP.

Brigitte

• Shield Bash cooldown increased from 6 to 7 seconds.

Lúcio

• Sound Barrier effect increased 50% from 500 to 750 shields.
• Crossfade aura radius increased 20% from 10m to 12m.

Mercy

• Primary fire healing beam reduced 17% from 60 HP/s to 50 HP/s.

Moira

• Healing resource base regen rate increased 20%.

Now that all the changes are listed, I’ll go through each hero and talk a bit about the goals of these changes and our current views on each support hero in general.

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Ana

Ana has a very strong and unique toolbox, with the potential to dish out more healing than any other hero in the game. That said, she has a couple disadvantages that can be difficult to overcome, such the potential to miss your targets, not having any mobility options, and having a more difficult time keeping herself healed up. Her ultimate can be very powerful but often feels like it can be difficult to use effectively unless it is used in combination with other allied ultimates such as Genji’s Dragonblade. This new change allows Ana to use her ultimate as a clutch save on a dying teammate, or even use it in combination with her Biotic Grenade for a huge instant heal on even the biggest of tank health pools.

Brigitte

Shield Bash is Brigitte’s strongest ability, and its short cooldown makes it very difficult to play around. We’d like to keep her Shield Bash and subsequent melee combos powerful and effective, while just allowing a little more counter-play against it. We’ve talked about possibly reducing her defense somewhere, such as reducing her barrier health. However, her tank-hybrid nature is a core part of her kit and we want to make sure she maintains that feeling of being a difficult target to take down. Overall Brigitte’s win rate is still the highest of any support, despite dishing out the lowest amount of raw healing per second. This speaks volumes to how powerful her kit can be outside of her direct healing numbers.

Lúcio

Lucio’s Crossfade aura can be an invaluable addition for any team, but it can sometimes be difficult to keep your whole team boosted. We’re increasing the radius of Lucio’s Crossfade aura to allow more flexibility in how he moves while still maintaining his powerful support songs to help out his team. His ultimate is also being increased to help counter large spikes of damage. For example, Junkrat’s ultimate can deal a maximum of 600 damage, which Sound Barrier can now potentially negate completely. It is worth noting that even though the initial shield he provides is larger, it still takes the same amount of time to destroy itself.

Mercy

Mercy is intended to be able to consistently pump out more healing than any other healer over the course of a match. While this is currently true, the difference in healing is so significant that it makes it very difficult for other healers to compete with her for a spot on a team. Reducing her healing output will close this gap a little, but she will still maintain her status as the go-to pick for raw healing power. We’ll keep an eye on her to make sure she is still a strong pick.

Moira

Moira is a strong hero that doesn’t need a ton of changes. The resource change her is mostly to help her out in the situations where you’re just not able to get close enough the enemy to drain them for resources. Now if you’re team is sparring with the enemy team at super long ranges, you’ll have a bit more resources to work with to keep your team topped off.

Zenyatta

We aren’t making any changes to Zen right now, as we feel he is in a pretty good spot. He is doing his job well as a hybrid damage/healer and being able to provide discord orb for your team will always be welcome.

These changes are coming to the PTR very soon. We’re always looking at our stats, gathering feedback and playing the game to make sure we keep all the heroes viable. We will have time to watch and iterate on these changes throughout this PTR cycle, so please play and give feedback!

[Arcling 898]

Glad to see more nerfs for Brigitte. Her stun is really strong right now, for how often she is able to use it.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Arcling

[Lampanelli 75]

They missed the mark with Moira, sadly. What she needs is her *bug fix* reverted. That would be the best thing they could do for her.

And sadly, this will not diminish Mercy play. Her base heal isn't the thing that keeps her around, it's the utility, mobility, and being the only main healer who can heal throughs shields.

[FanOfValeera 253]

Moira buff isn't whats needed for her really. One of her abilites should have their cooldown reduced.

They are trying to push Ana into meta, by boosting her best tool. Apparently, this doesn't change much when it comes to NanoBlade or NanoVisor, but all these comps having Rein/Zarya can benefit from it greatly. Especially Rein, thinking it is a huge practice target while it is not hiding behind his shield. So Rein goes in, gets his ult (which builds up suprisingly quickly), gets Nano, and rips through opponent like they are a bunch of plush toys. Or the same for Hog, thinking he can't heal while ulting. So, he doesn't have to heal first, Ana can do for the exact same amount.  I love this change.

[Vorguz 33]

Mercy will always remain meta or meta close, because the ress is so dawn powerfull. I think she would even remain in the meta when blizz took her healing completely away. Her damage-boost is a smaller Ana-Ult and she has mobility to go with it.
Her kit is simply too good to cut from the meta.

[Sombra 28]

Mercy is just so ez to play,you cant make a mistake by missing a shot like ana)  as long as she has her rezz, she will be meta

 

moira is fine, she is the only realy hard team healer, that can top up hard aoe dmg

ana just needs a new ult, scrap that nano, as long as mercy has dmg boost, nano will be hard under powered

maybe give her some aoe dmg reduction for a few sec ? So you can counter grav,dragon bullshit

lucio is cool, brig is cool, 

zens discord, could be nerfed eventually but its fine