Welcome to the first installment of Overwatch Opinion. This series is where we share what we think Overwatch needs from the game itself to its esports scene. As the name suggests, these are opinion pieces, so take them with a grain of salt.
For this inaugural post, we will be sharing why we think Overwatch needs a new healer before the Junker Queen.
Junkertown Queen
Ever since the Junkertown reveal trailer, narrated by the Junker Queen, Overwatch fans have been clamoring for her addition to the hero roster. Which we think is a great idea, just not before we get a new healer.
Overwatch currently has 25 heroes on their roster. Out of those 25, eight are attack, six are defense, six are tanks and the final five are support heroes. This split is made using Blizzard’s categories. In reality, the split between DPS, Tanks and Supports is much steeper.
Considering defense heroes are used as DPS, the split between DPS, Tanks and Supports is 14/6/5. Now, we aren’t saying that there should be an equal number across categories, nothing like that. In fact, we think the 2:1 ratio between DPS and Tanks is fine. But if we look at the ratio of healers to every other hero we get a bleaker picture.
Ana, Lucio, Mercy and Zenyatta are the only healers on the Overwatch roster. Sure, there are other heroes with self-heal abilities, and even Solider 76 is able to heal his allies., but their primary goal isn’t to heal their teammates like it is with designated healers.
This means that there are 21 DPS and Tank heroes with only four Healer heroes (we included Symmetra with the DPS and Tanks because she doesn’t heal). This gives us a ratio of around 5:1, which isn’t great. Admittedly, this ratio is balanced somewhat by the fact that there are heroes with self-heal abilities. However, heroes with self-heal abilities like Roadhog and Mei shouldn’t have to rely on those abilities for primary healing.
Ana can heal multiple people with her Biotic Grenade, Zenyatta can do the same with Transcendence, and with her rework, Mercy can do the same with Valkyrie. Yet they aren’t the same as Lucio’s AOE healing song that can be used freely.
Speaking of Lucio, he’s the only healer that is designed around AOE healing. The other three are focused on single target healing. This presents a 3:1 ratio within the healer class between single target and AOE healers, which we think is limiting because players only have one option for consistent group heals. So when Blizzard announces a new healer (which they will eventually, and hopefully soon) we hope that they are an AOE healer.
We know that it’s easy for AOE heals to become overpowered. That’s why Blizzard nerfed Ana’s bio grenade in the past. But if Blizzard adds another AOE healer like Lucio, it would provide some much-needed variety to the healer hero pool. It would give players another healer that’s potentially on the front lines and in the action like Lucio, though it really depends on how the character is designed.
We don’t know who the next hero is going to be. It may be the Junker Queen or someone else entirely, though we hope the next hero will be a healer regardless if they are AOE or single target.
Images Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment
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