Are you looking for a beginner’s guide to the Support role in Overwatch 2? We have you covered! Our comprehensive guide breaks everything down into bite-sized pieces, making it easy to follow and understand.
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What is Overwatch Support?
If you’ve read our beginner’s guide to Overwatch 2, you know that the game has a Support role. But what exactly does that mean?
The Support role is precisely what it sounds like – a character with abilities that help support the team in some way. These characters can typically:
- Heal
- Buff
The Support role helps you experience the game from a new perspective, and you’ll be in high demand because you’ll be playing a role that most people don’t want to play.
But Support characters are an integral part of any team because they can turn the tide by landing a heal at just the right time or buffing team members to help make that last push to victory.
Who Excels at Playing Support in Overwatch?
Support roles aren’t for everyone. People who excel in this type of role aren’t interested in being on the front lines or dealing heavy damage. They prefer to be helpers that work behind the scenes to heal and buff wherever they’re needed.
Don’t worry if the Support role isn’t for you. There are plenty of other characters in Overwatch 2. Check out our best beginner characters in Overwatch 2 to find the perfect character for your playstyle.
Best Overwatch 2 Support Characters for Every Situation
Overwatch 2 has quite a few Support characters that are actually fun to play and can work in a variety of situations.
Mercy
Mercy is one of the best Support characters for targeted heals. While Mercy carries a pistol, it doesn’t do much damage and is ineffective in most situations. Her primary ability is to heal.
Mercy also has a Guardian Angel ability that makes it easy to reach targeted allies and a slow-fall ability that allows her to float instead of fall. Along with targeted heals, Mercy can resurrect fallen allies, although the ability has a 30-second cooldown.
Her Ultimate ability is Valkyrie, which she can use to fly into the air to perform a damage boost or heal a group of allies. Because Mercy doesn’t have many offensive abilities, it’s best to stay hidden and on the move.
Lucio
Lucio is arguably the best Support character for buffs, thanks to his AoE effects. Lucio’s character is all about music, including his abilities. That’s what makes him a fun character to play.
He does carry a weapon that can launch sonic projectiles and knocks enemies back, but most of his abilities are based on two songs:
- One song heals allies in an AoE circle surrounding him.
- The other song increases ally speed.
Another cool thing about Lucio is that he can skate along walls, which makes it easier to escape enemies.
Lucio’s Ultimate ability is called Soundwave, which will increase everyone’s health temporarily.
Lucio’s healing abilities are passive, which makes him an interesting character to play. In addition, his speed boost is great for helping allies leave the starting area more quickly and get a jump on the other team.
Moira
Moira is the most versatile Support character in Overwatch 2, but she’s also a little complex for beginner players. Moira is both light and dark, so her healing and damaging abilities go hand in hand.
If you can master her gameplay, you can deal a lot of damage and heal your allies. Basically, you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Moira’s weapon is her hands, and she needs to deal damage to enemies in order to regain her healing energy. So, you’re forced to do both damage and healing.
One of Moira’s abilities makes her Fade, which allows her to disappear and move away from enemies. But she also can’t heal or do damage while she’s in this form.
In addition, Moira can cast a Biotic Orb, which launches an orb of energy that will damage enemies and heal allies.
Her Ultimate ability is Coalescence, which fires a huge beam that damages enemies and heals allies. It’s essentially a Biotic Orb on steroids.
Although Moira is incredibly versatile and a great addition to any team, her mechanics are complicated. As a result, she’s not ideal for beginners, and it will take time to master her abilities.
Other Support Characters to Try
The Support characters above are some of the best ones in the game, but there are a few other characters in this role that you can try, such as:
Zenyatta
Zenyatta can wear down enemies quickly using her Orb of Destruction ability. But line of sight can be an issue with this ability, which is why Zen doesn’t top the list of Support characters.
To survive, you must stick near a strong tank and have a dedicated healer.
Zen isn’t as versatile as other Support characters, making her best suited for specific team makeups.
Brigitte
Brigitte has a nice range of abilities that allow her to protect, damage and heal. She can use Flail attack to heal allies for small amounts, but she also has a dedicated heal. Her heal has three charges and a great range.
Along with heals, Brigitte also has a bash and defensive shield.
The biggest issue with this character is that she has a slow attack speed and she’s very vulnerable to counterattacks. Movement is especially slow when she uses her shield.
Baptiste
Baptiste isn’t a character that’s particularly special or unique, but he’s a reliable healer and can often hold his own in fights.
Baptiste’s main attack is a biotic blast that can deal some pretty good damage. He can also change his gun to fire-healing rounds instead of damaging ones. The nice thing about his gun is that it has a decent range and short cooldown, so it’s pretty easy to keep allies alive.
The only downside of this character is that he can’t actually heal himself, so he needs a dedicated healer nearby.
Kiriko
Kiriko is a character that many people put on the same level as Lucio. She has a setup that is a lot like Mercy’s, and you can use a kunai to deal critical hits for timely kills. She is a character that can climb walls to keep up with DPS, and her ultimate will speed up her ally’s attack speed and movement.
Expert Tips to Become a Master at Overwatch Support
Overwatch 2 support characters require a bit of finesse to play properly. If you’re not used to playing support, it’s a whole different type of playstyle. The following tips will certainly help you make the most out of support characters:
Drop the Tunnel Vision
Support characters need to do what’s most important for the game. You must be versatile and willing to help your team win at any opportunity that you have. Winning may mean:
- Healing players
- Buffing teams
- Scoring a kill
As a support character, your damage isn’t impressive. However, if you have the opportunity to finish off an opponent, it is better to score a kill than buff a player that is attacking someone that isn’t close to dying.
You need to be opportunistic as a support character and put pressure on the other team by adding in shots whenever the opportunity arises.
Throughout the game, you’ll need to:
- Assess the game
- Hop on any advantage that you can
- Consider going offense when you can
- Buff the hard hitters
As a support character, you won’t be the offensive machine that Genji or Tracer is, but you will play just as important a role. If you’re throwing buffs to other players, doing any damage you can and keeping players alive with well-timed heals, it can mean the difference between winning and losing.
Position Yourself Properly
Positioning is one of the hardest things for a natural damage dealer to learn when playing support. Support characters are often the target of the other team and are often easier to kill. If you run in like a melee character, you can be sure that you’re putting your team at a major disadvantage.
Instead, you need to find a position that allows you to heal and buff your teammates without making you a main target.
Evasiveness is the name of the game.
We recommend that you position yourself away from enemies and behind your damage dealers. This will become even more important, thanks to our next tip. If you follow the next tips properly, you can be sure that when enemies go to attack you, your damage dealers will peel them off for you.
Always Talk to Your Teammates
Communication wins games. If you’re a support class who remains silent, you will be hurting your team’s chances of winning.
Why?
You need to be on the same wavelength as your damage dealers. Damage dealers easily get tunnel vision and will spend time trying to get a kill. They rely on your heals and buffs to win the game, but they’re constantly scanning the field for:
- Easy kills
- Damage threats
Unfortunately, this type of playstyle will also make it more difficult for Overwatch support players to stay alive without communication. Instead, you need to communicate the following:
- Which players that are near death and can be taken down
- When you’re under pressure and need a teammate to support you
Once you master communication, you’ll make it much easier for your team to maintain an aggressive playstyle and go in for kills while providing the best support possible.
Your Survival Priority is Important, Too
As you’ve learned from these tips, it’s also very important that you stay alive. You may have teammates yell at you because they died or you didn’t add enough support, but they don’t fully understand the game.
You must stay alive, as your team depends on you. A support character’s life matters a lot.
Your goal is to keep other players buffed and alive, but even with one heal available, you have the power to:
- Improve your team’s survivability
- Boost your team’s damage
Again, this tip goes along with the last two. If you learn where to hide and stay during a match, you’ll improve the odds of your own survival. Now, mix in communication and you’ll live far longer than you would have without focusing on survival from the start.
Review Your Games
Overwatch 2 pros will take a step back and review the games they play.
Why?
They want to find mistakes in their game and areas where they can come on being better. Every player has an area of their game where they’re lacking. Even the best players in the world make mistakes that turn the tide of a game.
You need to:
- Analyze what you did right
- Understand what mistakes you made
Also, you may do amazingly while playing Lucio and horribly when playing Ana.
That’s okay.
Don’t play Ana if you can’t leverage her abilities or don’t like playing her. There’s never a reason to risk your fun for playing a character. Instead, try out different Overwatch support characters and find one that you prefer playing.
There’s also a chance that you simply aren’t the type of player who excels in a support position.
Some players are better at landing kills than buffing others – that’s okay. However, if you do master a support character, you’ll find that you always have a place on a team and can be a major difference-maker in ways that are nearly impossible unless you’re playing support.
Overwatch 2 is a lot of fun, and if you want to play support, the tips above will help you master the support playstyle. However, if you can’t seem to find your groove or just want to be better at support, you can try watching streams on Twitch and YouTube.
If you watch some of these pro-Overwatch support players, you’ll pick up tidbits in their game that you would only learn from playing hundreds of games.
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