Overwatch 2’s latest Support hero, Lifeweaver, was fairly underwhelming at launch. However, with control changes and some much-needed buffs to his Ultimate and healing, he’s more viable than before. Nevertheless, the team at Blizzard Entertainment is still examining ways to make him worth picking.
As game director Aaron Keller notes, “We have a support hero with one of the highest healing rates and one of the lowest death rates in the game. That should be good, right? Overwatch is more than the raw numbers that get assigned to a hero’s weapons and abilities. Players need a reason to pick one hero over another.
“For Lifeweaver, those reasons are supposed to be his utility abilities. Life Grip and Petal Platform can be game-changing abilities, but they’re also inconsistent. When they work right, they can change the state of a fight, but many times they are waiting to be used or just not being used well, either by Lifeweaver or his team.”
The idea is to provide an incentive for swapping to Lifeweaver when other options aren’t working. Future changes could include another buff to Thorn Volley, reduced hit volumes, a new Passive and a potential new benefit for his utility skills. Of course, the team doesn’t want to go overboard in buffing his raw healing and defensive skills since that could “negatively disrupt the overall flow of an engagement.”
Whatever changes it may make, the team hopes to have them ready by the time Season 5 goes live. Keller also teased his next blog post discussing the future of the hero shooter, so hopefully, some PvE details are inbound. Stay tuned in the meantime.