Re-Balanced Supports

Ana at the moment is still quite strong but not a great choice to pick in multiple situations. Although I don't want her to be a must pick anymore, I still want her to remain impactful. I chose to increase the healing and damage her rifle deals as its very lackluster currently, and while the number change is small, it should still feel noticeable. Sleep Dart still feels incredibly frustrating for everybody but tank heroes, and I feel like the duration needs to be shortened to not feel so disgustingly strong in the current 5v5 format. I reduced its duration but to compensate I decreased its cooldown so Ana is able to fend for herself more often.

Baptiste is the most underrated support, yet one of the very strongest in my opinion. His direct healing output has felt frustrating to go against, so I decided to reduce its ammo because being able to launch 13 healing pods overtuned his healing potential too much, and I believe 12 pods is reasonable. Regenerative Burst is very strong, and I think reworking the cooldown would help it feel better to go against in specific hero matchups. I also nerfed its burst potential because the actual burst healing of Regenerative Burst is by far the most frustrating part about him, so this should help by making the ability less of a frustration while keeping it impactful. I touched the duration of his ultimate because for the amount of power it holds, it lasts too long and can be utilized properly without having to last 10 seconds.

Brigitte has always suffered from losing her hero identity. Her whole get-go was to be a paladin support, a hybrid of all three roles. Obviously that was broken, but I wanted to bring the design back a bit to restore her original identity as this tanky support. I wanted to destroy the repair pack bot playstyle by increasing her DPS while also increasing her tankiness, however I cut a tremendous load of her healing to compensate for such changes. I gave her more durability and more flail damage, but toned down Whipshot a bit to keep the damage combo she has on Tracer effective but not over Tracer's max health. Barrier Shield often finds itself not protecting Brigitte from some abilities depending on where they land, and sometimes they still damage her due to her shield's small size. I am increasing her shield size so she is able to capitalize on her own protection but also the protection of her allies. I redesigned Repair Pack to be more bursty and utilital instead of just throwing out all 3 packs to allies you see, so this way you have to see and think about who you should throw a pack to in-order to maximize its actual potential. I cut Repair Pack's range by a considerable amount so she can't just throw out a pack 25 meters away from the actual fight. I nerfed Rally a bit to keep its relative power level the same because with a higher healthpool, Rally will absolutely become an overpowered ultimate. But since I increased her DPS, I compensated by nerfing her ultimate cost. Lastly, for Inspire, I reworked it completely so that instead of healing allies in a radius, she heals only herself. I also increased the healing of Inspire so it will improve her survivability considerably. This rework should return her original hero design while still managing to keep herself as a balanceable hero as her kit is quite tricky to properly balance.

Solar Rifle's Alt-Fire healing feels weak currently, so I increased its duration and reduced its total time to recharge so it feels up-to-date with Season 9 since her healing isn't a strict number anymore thanks to the dps passive. A complaint i've noticed about Illari is how Outburst knocks back herself and enemies, I don't think that Outburst needs an applied CC as we have enough in the Support role. The distance she gives herself should be plenty while defending herself against enemies as her Solar Rifle is also pretty strong. Due to the knockback being reduced, I decreased its cooldown so it allows her to make riskier plays and survive more often.

Kiriko is generally a fairly strong hero, but there are still things in her kit that need tuning to make her feel better for both sides. I increased the projectile speed of her Kunai's to make them feel objectively better and more reliable, but I reduced the amount of ammo she has for Kunai's to promote a less spammy playstyle. Swift Step is basically just a better Guardian Angel, and a lot of times it is way more frustrating since Kiriko is given invulnerability frames and can teleport through walls. Instead of making her feel clunky cooldown wise, I decided to aim directly at the range she can teleport to and from. I'm reducing the range that the ability has in-order to target the frustrations that players have with the ability, while also making it less of a get-out-of-jail free card.

Lifeweaver has a very flawed design, as the developers imagined his kit to be very similar to Mercy. However, while that is okay, they looked too far into Mercy's kit and gave him a resurrect-like ability where its frustrating for both sides and its on a long cooldown, making Lifeweaver feel clunky. This rework addresses that along with many other design shifts. With the way the developers want to balance him, Healing Blossom offers way too much range for the amount of healing he is able to put out. Due to that, he becomes very clunky. I decreased the range significantly while giving him more ammo and removing the speed penalty he receives when holding the ability. This way, he offers more and feels much more fluid, but at a cost of having to remain closer in a fight. Since I reduced his effective range, its only fair to target another relying issue that Lifeweaver has. His damage is very unreliable in multiple cases, and I want him to be able to both be offensive and be able to defend himself with his damage along with making healbotting not the only effective playstyle he has. So, I increased the speed at which they travel to make his damage more reliable. Petal Platform is often used not for its intended design, which is to offer team utility like ultimate combos. The changes I made for Petal Platform allow for more opened scenarios in which it could be utilized. I feel it would be a bit too strong, so I reduced the platform health just in case. Rejuvenating Dash feels like a clunky mobility tool, and with the fact that he has a lower health pool, I decreased the cooldown so he remains sustainable and fluid while reducing its actual healing so its not too strong. Life Grip has been a huge gameplay flaw ever since it was in the early stages of just being a simple idea. Nobody wants to lose control of their character in anyway shape or form, but Life Grip is awfully frustrating on both sides including Lifeweaver. I chose to remove Life Grip from Lifeweavers kit in exchange for a new ability that is used strictly for offensive plays, but sometimes defensive too, in which I call this ability Rose Vines. The extra speed it gives an ally along with a damage reduction allows for a more opened opportunity for faster elimination capitalization. I also gave it a sweet function where if Lifeweaver deals a final blow on an enemy, the cooldown of Rose Vines gets reduced. This rewards Lifeweaver for damage utilization and encourages the player to deal damage in a fight. This rework should allow for a more fluid experience playing Lifeweaver.

This buff is just a nice Quality of Life as it'll encourage Lúcio players to wall-ride more often along with opening up areas that couldn't be acheived with 30% speed.

Mercy has become very popular to talk about balance wise, as her kit since the shift to 5v5 has become problematic. So, I decided to give her a rework to shift her main playstyle from a pocket support to a main support. The overall TTK has been raised, specifically from the global health increase, so Mercy's healing has become lackluster especially because of the dps passive. I increased her healing on her staff a bit so its more impactful in multiple situations without being over the top. I also shifted the power in her gun to force players to be more thoughtful of their accuracy, while increasing damage breakpoints that she desperately needs for defending herself. My goal with Angelic Devotion is to allow for more playmaking potential in team fights by giving her a form of burst healing along with a good amount of utility for her to feel impactful without Resurrect hindering her power potential. I locked Resurrect behind Valkyrie so the ability can be buffed and feel fluid in her kit without being overpowered yet restrictive for the Mercy player. Valkyrie as an ultimate feels both fun yet boring because of the fun mobility but low impact it has on fights. I redistributed Valkyrie's power by making its healing more impactful, but force the Mercy player to be closer in fights instead of making her too safe by giving her beam a lot of range. Since Valkyrie's healing is increased along with Resurrect being stronger, I cut its duration by a few seconds so its not too unbearable to go against while forcing the Mercy player to make choices fast before the ultimate ends. This rework should make her less dependent on Resurrect while improving the overall effectiveness of her kit by making her feel more fluid and impactful.

Moira has found herself in a very solid spot currently, however there are outliers in her kit that need tuning. Biotic Orb has always felt a little too fast, and people have asked to make it a little bit slower even since Overwatch 1. I chose to do just that, and I decreased the projectile speed of her orb to be in the middle ground of her current speed and her old speed. Fade being useable in Coalescence gives Moira way too much survivability, so I am preventing it from being used in Coalescence. Due to that, I increased the speed she gets in Coalescence to make it feel better to use, while also giving it utility by reducing incoming healing for enemies hit by the beam. This should help Moira by giving her a bit of utility while also addressing issues with her damage.

Zenyatta, design wise, takes the role as a glass cannon. He inputs high damage and high utility in return for bad healing and low survivability. Because of his hero design, I toned down the strength of Snapkick as its ridiculous how far the knockback goes.