Lifeweaver: Overwatch's Flower that Failed to Bloom

Ah Lifeweaver. The Pretty Boy of the Overwatch cast. He's captured many hearts, even my own DPS riddled one. But despite this his playrates and winrates are some of the lowest in the game? Why is this? Lifeweaver is Overwatch's Flower that Failed to Bloom. Let's talk about it

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:40 History of Lifeweaver
3:06 Game Design Talk

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Footage Credits:

[PixelRory]

To anyone who saw the old title: No you phuccing didn't

[ClericEwan]

As a lifeweaver main with 200+ hours on him, lifeweaver was dead on release

His kit is so fun to use and simple, but the thing is that his utility in mobility just isn’t too useful, the dps passive absolutely crippled him, and the devs know that as long as lifeweaver has his current healbot centered kit he will always be bad or overpowered, they nerfed him in s8 for having too much heals but that’s the character you made?? Wasent it obvious he’d have the best heals?

I don’t think they’ll rework lifeweaver but I think he’ll be one of those heroes they just neglect in balance

[kpcool]

I just want the reload to be faster, the moment I have to reload my teammates will die due to the need to charge up afterwards. If the first heal in the mag was automatically fully charged it would feel so much better

[elitexxguy]

The big issue with lifeweaver and why he’s bad is that he completely lacks any proactivity in his abilities. Everything is reactive and even with the tons of use cases for petal 99% of them are reactive which means at best you will be able to prevent your team from losing a fight rather than do anything that actually helps them win the fight.

[pIoobles]

I’ve been playing lifeweaver since his release and he’s now my support main, and honestly my issue when playing him is if there’s no one to heal, no one to pull, no one to lift, the most you can do is spam your thorns. His only form of damage is not great, and while it does do a lot of damage at the right angle it’s just not consistent. He just lacks the ability to be proactive

[GuilhermeOliveira-sezh]

His thorns should have a poison effect (like Mauga’s gun that burns you but this time it’s poison to fit the flower/nature aesthetic) it would help him with his dmg and it would assist the rest of his team, it doesn’t need to do that much dmg like Mauga’s gun does, but just a bit would help him so much!!!
As a support main LW is just SO MUCH FUN to play, I wish his impact was as big as his fun factor is 😔🌸

[Theguyoverthere]

I love how LW has lower HPS than other magazine/reloading heros like Ana and Baptiste, lacks a burst heal option like nade or immort/regen burst, BUT IS BALANCED WITH THE LONGEST ASS RELOAD because he has to reload+charge up a petal + wait for the slow ass projectile to land. That’s like 3 whole seconds of downtime every time he reloads. I hate it so much.

What’s worse is that his control scheme on release was more streamlined because the auto-reload upon switching weapons happened after 1 second. Whenever there was downtime you could avoid the reload entirely by switching and shooting for 1 second before swapping back to a full magazine. For some damn reason they nerfed the auto-reload to 2 seconds and by god almighty I need to ask why the devs thought that was necessary.

[aqueleRu]

Just one thing, blizzard isn't ignoring Wifeleaver, they just don't know how to balance him.

They just keep buffing his numbers, with does nothing to his kit or gameplay loop, at some point he will be truly busted because of power creep.

[cirno]

A weird thing with life weaver is he can only heal one person but the supports who also only target one person (zen and mercy) get a damage boost, at best he’s half as effective as the hero’s with multi heal while lacking the damage boost of similar healers

[smefgrimstae]

Lifeweaver's fatal flaw, I believe, is his lack of offensive pressure combined with his intended "pacifist" playstyle. He's clearly designed after Mercy, with his easy-to-use healing, high survivability from mobility and weapon swap for self defence. But where Mercy has damage boost and resurrect - two tools that add or restore damage output to the team - LW has the vague notion of allies using high ground. Which doesn't make them hit any harder than usual.
Because of this lack of guaranteed offensive utility, a LW who decides to add pressure to the enemy must use his thorns. They're semi-decent for what they are (makes sense, he is a support), but the lock him out of healing for so long when you factor in charge time. But if you buff his thorn-swap playstyle, you go against his indented design of *not* being "just another DPS support". You can't make his current kit good without straying from what it was meant to be by using simple number buffs.

That said, its criminal Healing Blossom has ammo. It's single target and middling heals-per-second, just like Mercy's beam and sort of Zen's orb. And neither of those have ammo.
Also Healing Blossom should have some heal over time. A 15hp for 5s HoT would allow him to heal multiple allies at once, which he desperately needs. It would also mean swapping to thorns doesn't hurt as much, as allies would still get some heals.

[PseudoGuido]

when she lifes my weaver till i LIFE PROTECTS LIFE

[ganymede]

What basically ended lifeweaver was the new dps passive.
When you have a character whose entire gimmick revolves around situational utility made up for by insane healing output.... then decrease his healing output by 20% for almost the whole match... you have nothing left.
Lifeweaver is impactless in the current game UNLESS you somehow manage to use his utility. He can't keep a tank alive if they're being shot by semi-capable dps. He was so close to being good and they literally killed him with that dps passive.
Every other support got by because they had other consistent factors
Illiari and Moira had their damage
Ana and Kiriko are just filled with utility
Lucio has speed boost
Mercy has dmg boost
And brig was a dive disabler.

Lifeweaver has nothing except his healing that is consistent. The only way to fix him at this point is give him a passive that basically has his healing specificaly ignore healing debuffs. If Kiriko can counter any debuff with suzu, then letting Lifeweaver counter the healing reduction and antiheal shouldn't be too big a deal

[Jaeden_Phoenix]

As a Lifeweaver main with about 150 hours on him just last season, I love playing this stupid twink, but I've found that what Lifeweaver typically does is enhance whatever your team is already capable of doing. You have a team that's doing great? You'll make it easier for them to do great? You have a team that's doing awful? They're going to be even more awful. He just keeps people alive to keep doing what they're doing for longer, and gets a few quick saves out of it, but he isn't going to be able to contribute exceptionally like Ana or Kiriko.

That said, something I do love is his *in-combat* movement. Typically in a game, I'm not dying unless someone has cracked aim or pops an auto-aiming ult (Soldier/Cass for example) because if you know how to use your cooldowns properly and have good positioning, there are very few heroes who can properly chase you down. Only ones that really spring to mind are DVa, Doomfist, and a good Genji.

[ThisRandomPerson]

I've been thinking about how when lifeweaver uses his dash, his petals on his back would shoot out and heal any ally in range if they need healing. If their full health, the petals would target the enemies and damage them

[joereed]

It is legitimately impressive how fast you are turning out these videos while keeping quality this high.

[stqrm]

I think that if they made the weapon swap as fast as someone like moira or kiri, lw would become a very powerful and waaay more fun character

[bananacat]

I love Lifeweaver

To me, the amount of loses is totally worth it because It feels unbelievably satisfying countering an ulting Orisa using petal platform or lifting an enemy character into the air while your team DVA bombs

[マイク-wg]

People just so happen to praise me every single time I play Weaver because people really adore healing. It's just how I farm endorsements if I feel like it. The character is definitely underwhelming though, so that's why I take this sexy man to war and DPS instead.

[MoonlightBrillance]

I love having a good Lifeweaver on my team. His survivability is very good, sometimes frustratingly so. Also this series has been so consistently entertaining and they’re always a treat to watch.

[manzerogd]

I agree, LW is one of the most fun supports that they ever released and that's why I find myself playing him a lot. Like you said, his abilities are like a double edged sword where it can go very right or very wrong. A really good grip on a hero that's about to fall off the map is so rewarding. Gripping a hero that's losing a 5v1 and about to die and they spam "thank you" on you - it feels so good. Countering an Orisa or a Zarya ult with petal, petal-ing that Ana up who was about to get Dragonbladed in half - life saver moments.

On the other hand, there are these moments where everyone is bunched together and you grip the full HP guy and (and the original target of the grip dies), or you grip an ulting Reaper and he looks at your soul for 5 straight seconds without saying anything, or you accidentally grip a Mercy into a Bastion ult, or petal-ing that Dva ult which ends up killing two of your teammates. 🤣

In summary, I love playing as this beautiful man because it is fun learning and gaining a good judgment when a grip or petal is gonna be good or appropriate.