Last month, Blizzard acknowledged that the unpopularity of the support role was hurting Overwatch 2‘s queue times, and it expressed a desire to make the role more fun going forward, but many support fans worry that the new season may have made the role more frustrating than ever.
Season 2 of Overwatch 2 is live, and it came with a big batch of hero balance changes (opens in new tab) intended to shake up the meta alongside the release of the new tank Ramattra in Overwatch 2. Doomfist is handily the biggest winner of the patch and is currently riding high on a wave of buffs that some top players argue are completely overpowered, though the jury’s still out on the general community consensus. However, there’s no doubt that Doomfist is going to be more of a menace going forward, and many support mains, who’ve received exceedingly minor buffs mixed with a few nerfs, are worried about the state of the game.
me when i am enjoying playing Support in Overwatch 2 but Get Quaked On executes a perfectly angled Head Slam->Crouch Slam Effect->RKO->720->Turn Slam ->Teabag->Bhop Slam combo with the new Doomfist buffs pic.twitter.com/oacfIJ4nnSDecember 6, 2022
A recurring grievance with playing support in Overwatch 2 has been how easily other heroes can absolutely eat you alive, even when you stick close to your tank, or indeed your entire team, like a good little healer. The likes of Genji and Tracer (who’s been buffed after a bug fix, as it happens) have become particularly infamous here, but they’re far from the only ones, and Doomfist is also now primed to join the ranks of the support slayers. Even Sojourn, whose infamous railgun was toned down in Season 2, got a buff to her primary weapon fire which will make her more lethal in close quarters.
Meanwhile, the few supports mentioned in the Season 2 patch were barely touched. Ana’s sleep dart cooldown was reduced from 15 seconds to 14. Mercy’s weapon swap time was reduced by 0.15 seconds and her blaster got five extra rounds in the mag. Kiriko, meanwhile, had her ultimate nerfed considerably while her other abilities received small boosts like an ammo increase and a cast time reduction for her protection.
To sum up, the fear is that a lot of damage and tank heroes just got considerably stronger, while already struggling supports barely got anything. The response to these hero adjustments – which, to be fair, don’t seem to represent the in-progress “role-wide changes” that Blizzard mentioned when it committed to improving support – has been mixed, to say the least. The meta still needs to settle, but many early impressions aren’t good news for supports. This Blizzard forum post from Chubbyboy (opens in new tab) sums it up nicely: “Good luck, supports.”
“Supports are huge sitting ducks, more than ever,” SnowGhost (opens in new tab) writes in one of today’s hottest forum posts.
“Now instead of the DPS focusing the supports all game, now you’ve also got [Doomfist] and [Roadhog] doing it too,” says Spudicus (opens in new tab). “The entire point of every game is for everyone to focus the supports and now there’s no [crowd control] or shields to save them.”
“Sorry about your luck, tank and DPS players,” quips Azrael (opens in new tab). “I know it gets hard when support is showered with all this attention.”
The Overwatch subreddit is similarly pessimistic. “Support is going to be rough this season,” bemoans ZaytexZanshin (opens in new tab). “Season 2 is just extremely unfun for supports if left as is,” adds MasonPopcorn (opens in new tab).
Doomfist is a recurring pain point in these discussions, and the newly buffed Tracer is close behind. “Doomfist is stuck to your face, Tracer is stuck to your face, Sojourn is zipping around the map as fast as Tracer right-clicking everything every two seconds, but luckily you have five extra bullets,” as Antici—–pation (opens in new tab) put it in one comment.
Some support fans expect Season 2 to suffer from even longer damage and tank queues, which would be bad news for everyone. It’s still early days for the new season, but all signs indicate Overwatch 2 still has a support problem.
The good news is that, beginning with Season 2, Blizzard made new Overwatch 2 heroes slightly easier to get, though you’ll still need to grind or pay up.