Let's Talk Supports

[Nerraw]

Hello all,

In case you missed our previous discussion, feel free to check out the thread here. In this thread I introduced myself and we had an in-depth discussion about health sustain in Heroes of the Storm.

Thanks to all your feedback, it was clear many players wished to have a discussion about Support characters. So, lets dive right into this next discussion topic: Supports.

We’ve heard feedback from the community that our Supports feel like heal-bots. Let’s briefly explore this:

• Healing is a big part of what makes Support characters feel powerful and fun to play in Heroes of the Storm. These are some of our favorite characters, and we are not looking to drastically change the way they play.
• Not all characters are going to fit your playstyle. It’s okay that Li Li is more straight forward to play, whereas Rehgar has an aggressive playstyle.
• Additional depth and complexity can come in the form of talents. Uther’s base kit is quite simple. However, at a highly competitive level, ‘Piano-Uther’ is seen as the optimal way to play, adding another layer of depth.
• All of this being said, we agree that there is room for improvement. If most of your power comes from standing in the backline and not paying attention to enemy heroes, then this is an area we definitely want to improve. We think we can tackle this through some base kit changes, and future talent redesigns. We will also keep this in mind when designing future support heroes.

We’ve also heard from the community that our Supports are not play-makers, so let’s discuss:

• We agree that Support players should have the ability to make big plays, and this is likely an area we can improve. However, lets define what this means:
• Supports are not Assassins. We do not plan to push Supports in a direction that allows them to quickly mop up an enemy team or secure a bunch of kills.
• Supports bring a ton of value in ‘supporting’ their allies. This often occurs through healing, but could be through a movespeed buff, a well-timed CC, vision, etc.
• Many Heroic abilities including a well-timed Ancestral Heal, a perfectly placed Force Wall, or a clutch Divine Shield can all change the outcome of a team fight.
• We think we can address this feedback with some simple base kit changes.

With Lt. Morales, we’re currently exploring changing the way her Displacement Grenade functions; Instead of automatically detonating on the first enemy hero, we’ve changed it so the player chooses when the detonation occurs along its path, exploding automatically at maximum range. Simple changes like this could allow a skilled Lt. Morales player to choose if knocking away the enemy or pushing them toward your team is the correct call.

Other thoughts:

• We want a flexible ‘meta’. We want the meta to vary over time and change based off the map. We like that the current meta allows for 1-2 Support characters per team - we feel this offers a lot of variety in team composition and play experience. We would occasionally like to see some 0 support team compositions, but very rarely.
• It is not off the table for us to retune the total healing output of Support characters. For example, we could decrease healing by 30% and increase health pools by 30%. A change like this likely means that a healer is more about mitigating immediate loss in a team fight, and less capable of constantly topping off their team. While this is a perfectly viable direction for us to explore, I don’t think it addresses either of the core concerns we’ve been hearing regarding making big plays or being considered heal bots.

The floor is now open, please add any thoughts you have below. I’d be really curious to hear where you think we’re currently succeeding with Supports, and where we should be looking to improve and focus our efforts. As always, thanks for your time and help.

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum/topic/20745655517

[Mormolyce]

Honestly I'm mostly happy with Supports, I'd just like more of them!

The change to Morales' grenade sound really good, that thing always feels clumsy and underwhelming compared to what it should be IMO.

[Ryme]

That Morales change is something players asked for since she was released, so that's damn nice. Though, I actually quite enjoyed gittin gud at throwing them at such an angle that they explode in front of them.

[PosPosPos]

What's wrong with supports being heal-bots(when none of them purely are to begin with)?

They just need to have utility outside of healing, that's noticeable and appreciable, and all of them do. The QQs revolving around that just reek of selective memory and cognitive dissonance.

[RH92]

What's wrong with supports being heal-bots(when none of them purely are to begin with)?

They just need to have utility outside of healing, that's noticeable and appreciable, and all of them do. The QQs revolving around that just reek of selective memory and cognitive dissonance.

This is exactly what this complaint is about, Supports having no utility outside of healing.

Pro-players have been complaining Supports are not fun to play because their play-style, outside of Rehgar and Kharazim, is just stay back and heal.

Which I think is quite tricky if Healers keep their healing numbers. Imagine Tyrande healing at the same level of Kharazim. I don't play Supports that much, but I think the game could be more fun if other roles were more self-reliant when it comes to regenerating health; and reduced healing numbers and increased utility of former "heal-bots".

[DesoPL]

Sound good changes for Morales, but i hope Blizz may add soon new support. Auriel sounds perfect for it.

[Deleted]

Lose a lot, get a 30-40% buff, win. Hi Medivh.

[Nerraw]

I’ve read a lot of great thoughts and suggestions in here. Thanks everyone and please keep it coming.

As the long weekend approaches, I wanted to address a few of the topics brought up so far in this thread. Obviously this reply is far from addressing everything though:

• More supports needed: We totally agree. We’re excited to get our next Support, Auriel, out to you guys soon™. I can’t reveal anything about her at this time, but she’s a lot of fun to play and has her own unique powers.

• Fun fact about Medivh: Related to the above, Medivh was originally slated as a Support character. Through much iteration we decided that healing wasn’t right for Medivh and he became what he is now. This is partially why it’s been so many releases without a new Support hero. Sorry about that!

• Creating moments through highly impactful abilities that have a timing window: This feedback came up with Medivh’s shield where it has to be timed very precisely and has an enormous payout when executed correctly. While we love this ability, we’re not necessarily going to do this across the board. In general I think an ability like Divine Palm which has gameplay for both teams works really well. Maybe there are ways to work some of our basic heal abilities more into this space.

• More support like abilities needed: Essentially there was great feedback that powers like Shrink Ray or Malfurion’s Innervate should be more common as these add a unique and fun way to support without providing more healing. We agree with this, but like that these are fairly uncommon so that they can be unique in their own way. As an example, if every Support had Shrink Ray, I think this ability wouldn’t feel as unique. We will look to see where we can do more of these and maybe brainstorm some new ideas here.
• With that said, I think every Support character brings some unique powers which aren’t entirely heal based. With Li Li, she brings Blind which makes her a great pick against a heavy basic attack team. Safeguard on Lt. Morales is another damage mitigation tool, but much better when dealing with burst.

• Cleanse: This should almost be its own topic, but feel free to keep discussing this here.
• Good: We like that cleanse is a weapon against chaining CC effects on a hero. We like that there are moments where a key Cleanse can make a huge difference in a team fight. For the enemy team, we think there is enough counterplay as they can focus the Support who cannot use Cleanse on themselves, or hold certain abilities, waiting for the Cleanse to be cast.
• Not so Good: We don’t like that its considered mandatory at the highest levels of play. Cleanse essentially blows out the talent tiers it is on and other options are not considered at pro level for the most part.
Cleanse is a hot discussion topic internally though, and has been for a while. Like many design challenges, we recognize the good and bad, and there isn’t a clear answer that works across the board.

• Daily Quests: It was brought up that Daily Quests push players into roles they may not enjoy playing – such as with a Support quest if this is not your role of preference. Know that we are discussing this and areas to improve here. Nothing to announce yet but we’re looking into it.

Continue to post your comments and suggestions and I look forward to discussing further with you!

http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/forum...17?page=16#314

[Frozen Death Knight]

Here is my stance on the issue of Cleanse. Either you make it baseline for all Supports and improve the talent diversity by giving Supports some decent talents options, or simply remove Cleanse entirely, and balance the game around that.

If you create an ability for a single role that can avoid a target from being CCed in a game where CC can mean life and death, of course it will become mandatory in high competitive play. It is such an obvious thing that I am surprised Blizzard themselves have not come to a consensus about this yet, but at least we are discussing it now. I do hope something will be changed in regards to Cleanse, because it makes the Support talent trees stale.

[DesoPL]

About daily quests.

Is really difficult add to replace daily like in hearthstone?

[Well]

What's wrong with supports being heal-bots(when none of them purely are to begin with)?

They just need to have utility outside of healing, that's noticeable and appreciable, and all of them do. The QQs revolving around that just reek of selective memory and cognitive dissonance.

So much this.

Supports have some to plenty utility outside of healing, plus their way of healing is a utility itself.

Please Blizzard, do not touch supports, and just bring more into the game.

- - - Updated - - -

Here is my stance on the issue of Cleanse. Either you make it baseline for all Supports and improve the talent diversity by giving Supports some decent talents options, or simply remove Cleanse entirely, and balance the game around that.

If you create an ability for a single role that can avoid a target from being CCed in a game where CC can mean life and death, of course it will become mandatory in high competitive play. It is such an obvious thing that I am surprised Blizzard themselves have not come to a consensus about this yet, but at least we are discussing it now. I do hope something will be changed in regards to Cleanse, because it makes the Support talent trees stale.

So much this as well. I am for removing Cleanse completely. I really don't like the ability.

[Mormolyce]

About daily quests.

Is really difficult add to replace daily like in hearthstone?

I mean... right? It's such an obvious feature.

[Frozen Death Knight]

I mean... right? It's such an obvious feature.

Agreed. I even said back in Alpha that they should have changed it to the Hearthstone system. Hopefully Blizzard will do this for HotS soon.

[Deleted]

It is a shame really, I stopped playing Hots just when morales launched, and it is almost a year ago (september last year) and now when I returned no other support has been added :/ I really hope that Auriel can solo support, saving my gold for her.

I like morales, grenade change would be interesting but otherwise I think she's very good. And I like that Brightwing made a return to top tier. My best bet is because Kerrigan and Greymane are strong now, and polymorph is awesome for that same as her mobility. What I don't understand is how Uther went from top tier to bottom tier.

I like the unranked draft. Sure, I would have preferred old days when me and my friends could play ranked But with unranked at least we can have the fun with bans and don't have to go up against mirrors, so much more fun than QM.

[Nikkaszal]

I LIKE being a heal-bot =(

Rehgar is my strongest support (not only with his actual strength, but because I have played him constantly since alpha and I know his intricacies better than I know my own cock) but Morales is far and away the most satisfying support for me to play. Purely because she is the quintessential heal-bot; she has no other job outside grenade displacement, so mastering healing over everything else is so key. And that is super fun for me.

- - - Updated - - -

What I WOULD like is for each support to get a unique active talent at 20 that focuses on their core theme and improves it for a short time. Really capitalise on Rehgar's aggression, Morales' healing etc. Something with say a 30-40sec CD, not too long but something that in endgame you would want to be saving for crucial teamfights. Something like:

Rehgar - for the next 4 sec, attacking or using abilities does not break Ghost Wolf
Tyrande - the next Hunters Mark you cast applies to all targets in a short radius
Tassadar - for the next 4 sec, Q may be recast repeatedly on unshielded allies
Lili - the next E you cast also causes one damaging ability to miss
Morales - for the next 4 sec, Q heals for double and targets an additional nearby damaged ally
Malfurion - for the next 8 sec, your HoTs heal twice as fast (Q, Tranq and Living Seed)
Kharazim - for the next 4 sec, your trait's potency is tripled
Brightwing - your trait pulses once per second for the next 4 seconds
Uther - ... not sure actually

[FelPlague]

It is a shame really, I stopped playing Hots just when morales launched, and it is almost a year ago (september last year) and now when I returned no other support has been added :/ I really hope that Auriel can solo support, saving my gold for her.

I like morales, grenade change would be interesting but otherwise I think she's very good. And I like that Brightwing made a return to top tier. My best bet is because Kerrigan and Greymane are strong now, and polymorph is awesome for that same as her mobility. What I don't understand is how Uther went from top tier to bottom tier.

I like the unranked draft. Sure, I would have preferred old days when me and my friends could play ranked But with unranked at least we can have the fun with bans and don't have to go up against mirrors, so much more fun than QM.

i would call medivh a support, also morales was october last year

- - - Updated - - -

Uther - ... not sure actually

anyone who dies near uther gets to stay alive for 4 extra seconds before disapearing, but their abilities do half healing/damage

[Deleted]

i would call medivh a support, also morales was october last year

Ah that's true, Rexxar was in september when we stopped playing, morales came a bit later, recall now I installed game... bought her for gold, logged out and uninstalled game. First time I tried playing her was 2 days ago :P Still... one month here and there, overall it's too long for a support. You can feel like Medivh is a support, but he isn't. Can't wait for auriel! And, as mentioned previously, I really hope she is capable of solo supporting.

[FelPlague]

Ah that's true, Rexxar was in september when we stopped playing, morales came a bit later, recall now I installed game... bought her for gold, logged out and uninstalled game. First time I tried playing her was 2 days ago :P Still... one month here and there, overall it's too long for a support. You can feel like Medivh is a support, but he isn't. Can't wait for auriel! And, as mentioned previously, I really hope she is capable of solo supporting.

able to shield allies to stop them from taking damage, able to place portals for his allies, and able to scout amazingly wel... i would call that support

[Deleted]

able to shield allies to stop them from taking damage, able to place portals for his allies, and able to scout amazingly wel... i would call that support

Yeah, I guess everybody agrees with that assessment including the devs, but it can't be done as QM would match Medivh against supportier supports and the wailing and gnashing of teeth would be enormous.

[FelPlague]

Yeah, I guess everybody agrees with that assessment including the devs, but it can't be done as QM would match Medivh against supportier supports and the wailing and gnashing of teeth would be enormous.

like even abathur should be a support really, healing allies, defending areas, able to give them movement speed boosts, a shield, slow enemies, support then with increased attack speed, and attack ontop of them, able to clone charecters, sepcialist role is more of a "this char may be a warrior, or a support... but they just have abit too much special playstyle to make them into one"