Since season 9 of Overwatch 2 launched there’s been a noticeable shake up when it comes to how the game is played, especially with the new DPS passive that reduces healing by 15%, so let’s see how it’s affected things for all of the supports.

1) Lúcio

• Soundwave: Create a short-range blast wave to knock enemies away from you.
• Crossfade: Switches between two songs: Healing Boost heals nearby allies, and Speed Boost makes nearby allies move faster (16 HPS for allies, 10 HPS for Lúcio).
• Amp It Up: Increase the effectiveness of your current song (52 HPS).
• Sound Barrier: Create temporary extra health for nearby allies (750 overhealth).
• Wall Ride: Jump onto a wall to ride along it.

Hero score: 89/100

A support picked more for utility than healing, Lúcio’s speed boost is great for enabling short range teammates or letting him be more aggressive himself. He can flank with DPS like Tracer or Genji, helping them put pressure on the enemy backline.

With his wall riding and higher movement speed, Lúcio can be surprisingly slippery, especially if the person playing him is experienced with how his kit works. If he’s caught in a 1 v 1 that he doesn’t want to take, he has a more consistent escape than some of the other supports.

After the buffs to his right click in season 9 that bumped its damage up to 35 and made the movement lockout time longer, his boop is a more reliable way to either annoy the enemy DPS and tank, send enemies off the map or protect his squishier teammates. He’s especially good with heroes that need more help with flankers, like Ana or Zenyatta.

2) Kiriko

• Healing Ofuda: Channel a burst of healing talismans that can seek targeted allies (76.5 HPS)
• Swift Step: Teleport directly to an ally.
• Protection Suzu: Throw a protective charm to make allies become briefly invulnerable and cleansed of most negative effects (80 healing normally, 110 when debuffed).
• Kitsune Rush: Summon a fox spirit that rushes forward, accelerating the movement, attack speed, and cooldowns of allies that follow its path.
• Wall Climb: Jump at walls to climb up them.

Hero score: 87/100

Although Kiriko’s damage output was nerfed slightly with the general health buffs, going from being able to kill most other squishy heroes in 2 headshots to needing 3, she’s still hard to kill and has some of the best utility in the game.

Her Swift Step lets her teleport to teammates through walls and has a generous range of 35 metres, so she can take off angles using her wall climb and pressure the enemy DPS or supports before going back to her team if she needs to. 1 v 1ing her unless you know it’s on cooldown can be a bad choice.

Protection Suzu is one of the only abilities that can remove the DPS passive, even if it’s just for 0.65 seconds, not to mention it gives her teammates invulnerability and cleanses any other debuffs they have. Her healing is also far higher than Zenyatta’s or Lúcio’s, so she’s better at keeping lower mobility tanks alive.

Kitsune Rush gives multiple buffs to her and anyone else in range, including 2x cooldown reduction and 30% extra movement speed, which makes it great for pushing a team fight if the enemy team uses important cooldowns or one of their players dies early.

3) Moira

• Biotic Grasp: Hold to heal all allies in front of you. Consumes biotic energy (70 HPS, 51 extra).
• Biotic Orb: Launch a bouncing sphere that either heals nearby allies or damages nearby enemies (65 HPS, 50 DPS).
• Fade: Disappear, move faster, and become invulnerable, but you cannot shoot.
• Coalescence: Fire a beam that heals allies and damages enemies (140 HPS, 70 DPS).

Hero score: 83/100

Despite usually being one of the worst supports because of her lack of utility, Moira is actually surprisingly decent this season, with her ability to remove the DPS passive from herself, low cooldown mobility and the damage buff she got recently.

Her healing is some of the highest in the game, but it’s on a resource metre that encourages her to do damage and just focusing on keeping people alive isn’t as helpful now, so you’ll need to pressure the enemy DPS and supports if you want to get proper value.

Coalescence is a quick ultimate to charge, so she can use it early to help her teammates push up early with the doubled healing output or finish off a low health enemy, since it can go through shields and buffs her movement speed by 30%.

4) Baptiste

• Biotic Launcher: Lob a healing projectile that heals all allies near the impact (55.55 HPS on splash, 77.77 HPS on direct).
• Regenerative Burst: Activate to heal yourself and nearby allies instantly, with additional healing over time. Instant heal is doubled for targets less than half health (40 instant healing or 80 if under 50% HP, 40 extra).
• Immortality Field: Toss a device that prevents allies from dying. The device can be destroyed.
• Amplification Matrix: Project a matrix that doubles the damage and healing of allied projectiles.
• Exo Boots: Hold crouch to jump higher.

Hero score: 78/100

Baptiste’s kit is a good all-rounder, having both high healing and damage, along with easy access to high ground using his Exo Boots. He’s one of the most self-sufficient supports, capable of 1 v 1ing multiple other heroes or pressuring the enemy team from range while supporting his tank.

His Immortality Field is easily his best ability, making him or his teammates immune to damage once they hit 25% HP, with a range of 6.5 metres. It’s best to place it behind cover so that the enemy team has a harder time destroying it, since it only has 125 HP. He can also use it selfishly if he wants to, making it far harder for the enemy DPS to kill him.

Regenerative Burst is also good for keeping up his squishier teammates when they need the extra healing or to keeping himself alive when someone flanks him, although he can be vulnerable to dive if multiple people choose to go for him at once.

Amplification Matrix doubles all healing and damage that goes through it, so it can be used to combo with other ultimates like Tactical Visor or Deadeye, but sometimes it might be best to use it for yourself. Baptiste can put in a lot of work by ulting from an off angle and shooting at the enemy squishies.

5) Brigitte

• Repair Pack: Heals an ally for a short duration (25 instant healing, 100 extra).
• Whip Shot: Launch your flail to knock an enemy away from you.
• Barrier Shield: Hold right click to deploy a frontal energy barrier.
• Shield Bash: Available when Barrier Shield is deployed. Dash forward to knock back an enemy.
• Rally: Gain armor, empower Barrier Shield, and provide extra health to nearby allies (also gives Shield Bash a stun).
• Inspire: Dealing damage to enemies heals nearby allies (15 HPS).

Hero score: 73/100

Brigitte is still a decent pick when the enemy team has high mobility heroes like D.Va, Wrecking Ball or Genji, but it’s harder for her to keep her shield up after the projectile size buffs because it’s more likely to break early from random spam or poke damage.

Her shield is the best ability she has to keep herself alive against flankers, since she can use it to block 250 damage and shield bash if they get too close, but the longer downtime means she’s more likely to be caught out without it.

The 15% healing debuff also makes it harder for her to stay alive in 1 v 1s, with her low self healing and range. She should be positioning next to her other support most of the time anyway, but this season encourages it especially because poking with whip shot for inspire is likely to get you killed if you’re low.

Rally can also be a good setup for Brigitte’s team because she can use it to stun the enemy tank out of abilities that can block important abilities, like Sigma’s Kinetic Grasp or D.Va’s Defense Matrix, but she can also use it to keep herself alive in emergencies or during a teamfight to force an advantage.

6) Ana

• Biotic Rifle: Long-range rifle that heals allies and damages enemies (93.75 HPS).
• Sleep Dart: Fire a dart that puts an enemy to sleep.
• Biotic Grenade: Throws a grenade that heals and increases healing on allies, while damaging and preventing healing on enemies (90 healing or damage).
• Nano Boost: Increases an ally's damage, while reducing damage taken (250 healing, 50% damage buff).

Hero score: 70/100

Ana’s been a strong pick for the last few seasons, with the only consistent stun in the support role and the easiest source of anti-healing in the game, but every hero getting their health buffed makes it harder for her to kill squishies than before.

Her grenade is still great against tanks like Mauga, Roadhog and Junker Queen, but most of her better matchups aren’t the best picks right now. She struggles against high mobility heroes, which means Ana has a harder time staying alive than before since she doesn’t have the same kill pressure as other supports.

Nano Boost is always going to be good, since you can combo it with other ultimates like Dragon Blade and Tactical Visor or use it to keep a teammate alive with the healing and 50% damage reduction, but it takes longer to charge it than before with the general nerfs and Ana being the first choice for enemy flankers.

She can still work if she has a tank like Sigma, or maybe a D.Va that’s willing to protect her, but you’ll need to position carefully and keep your sleep dart for whenever a flanker tries to pressure you.

7) Zenyatta

• Orb of Harmony: Launch this orb at an ally to heal them (30 HPS).
• Orb of Discord: Launch this orb at an enemy to increase the damage they take (by 25%).
• Transcendence: Become invulnerable, move faster, and heal nearby allies (300 HPS).
• Snap Kick: Quick melee damage increased by 50%, and its knockback is significantly increased.

Hero score: 67/100

Zenyatta’s healing is some of the lowest in the game, at 30 HP per second, but he can make up for it with his high damage output and Orb of Discord. Playing him can be difficult if the enemy team has heroes like Sombra or Tracer because his massive hitbox makes him easy to kill, especially after the HP nerfs, even if he can work in the right situations.

His discord orb is punishing for tanks that don’t have reliable ways to counter play it, like Orisa, Roadhog and Reinhardt, especially now that it’s harder to keep them alive even when using all of your support resources on them.

If someone gets too close, Zenyatta can also boop them away with his Snap Kick passive, along with a free 60 damage (75 if they’re discorded). You can get environmental kills with it if you’re lucky, but it’s unlikely the enemy team will be playing close to ledges often enough to use it that way consistently.

He’s also good at healing high mobility characters, particularly dive, because his harmony orb is auto aim and stays for 5 seconds even if he isn’t in range of his teammates, letting them take more aggressive angles than they could otherwise.

8) Illari

• Solar Rifle: Medium range healing beam that consumes solar energy (105 HPS).
• Healing Pylon: Deploy a pylon that heals allies (37.5 HPS).
• Outburst: Launches you in the direction you are moving, knocking back enemies. Hold jump to go higher.
• Captive Sun: Fire an explosive ball of solar energy. Enemies hit are slowed and explode after taking significant damage.

Hero score: 63/100

Although Illari’s recent buffs helped her feel a little better to play, she still lost the ability to kill most DPS and support heroes with 2 headshots and her damage has charge up time, making it easier for people to survive 1 v 1ing her. She doesn’t have enough utility to make up for losing most kill potential outside of her ultimate.

Her pylon is also easy to break during a team fight, since it can be oneshot by spam that might not even be meant for it with the new projectile buffs, even if that can be counter played by putting the pylon on walls or behind random parts of the map. 12 seconds is a long time to miss out on her most consistent source of healing.

Her right click has the highest HPS in the game, but it has a short range and low resource metre, so she can struggle to keep up tanks that need lots of healing like Reinhardt or Mauga and it’s hard for her to keep up with faster characters like Wrecking Ball because of how low her mobility is in comparison to theirs.

Captive Sun is the best part of her kit, giving her burst damage if someone manages to trigger the explosion and slowing the enemy team, making it harder for them to get away. It’s harder to get value with it against characters that have invulnerability though.

9) Mercy

• Caduceus Staff: Hold left click to heal an ally. Hold right click to increase an ally’s damage inflicted (55 HPS, 25% damage buff).
• Guardian Angel: Fly towards an ally. Jump launches you forward, and crouch launches you upward.
• Resurrect: Revive a dead teammate.
• Valkyrie: Gain the ability to fly. Abilities are enhanced (60 HPS, can chain heal).
• Angelic Descent: Fall very slowly.

Hero score: 58/100

Despite having an easily available damage boost on her right click, Mercy’s is single target and shorter range than Zenyatta’s, as well as needing more consistent LOS with the person she’s boosting. Resurrect is useful, but it makes her a sitting duck and she can only really use it behind cover or near her team.

The projectile size buffs also made it easier for heroes like Ashe, Soldier and Widowmaker to shoot her while she’s using guardian angel, because her mobility is predictable and doesn’t move her quickly enough to make up for it. It also nerfs her ability to pocket heroes like Echo and Pharah, since she’s going to be flying with them most of the time.

Mercy’s biggest problem is that she’s team dependent and can’t really do much damage herself, considering she’s going to spend most of the game using her staff and swapping to her pistol takes 0.35 seconds. Flankers can kill her before she even gets to shoot them back if she’s distracted.

10) Lifeweaver

• Healing Blossom: Hold to charge a healing burst. Release to heal a targeted ally (55.2 HPS).
• Petal Platform: Throw a platform that springs upwards when stepped on.
• Rejuvenating Dash: Dash towards your travelling direction and lightly heal yourself (50 self healing).
• Life Grip: Pull an ally to your direction, protecting them as they travel (50 healing).
• Tree Of Life: Place a tree that instantly heals allies upon sprouting and continues healing periodically as it lives (150 instant healing, 75 per pulse).

Hero score: 56/100

Lifeweaver has the same problems as Mercy, except even worse because his utility isn’t as helpful as hers and it can be punishing if used wrong. Timing a grip badly can ruin a play that your teammates are making or get them killed, and petal platform is better for saving yourself from flankers a lot of the time.

His entire kit revolves around healing and he doesn’t have room to do much else, since his healing needs to be charged and has travel time, so he’s going to spend a lot of the game charging his heal if he wants to keep someone alive. He also has a weapon swap like Mercy, which means he has low offensive pressure.

He can be annoying to kill with the 50 self healing on his dash and petal platform, but all he can really do when he’s alive is try and keep his teammates up, so he struggles to do much when his tank is going to be debuffed most of the time.

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