Lifeweaver buffs confirmed after months of being Overwatch 2’s “worst” support

Aug 19, 2023

Overwatch 2 players were shocked to discover Lifeweaver's abysmal win rate months after his initial release. Game director Aaron Keller has confirmed that buffs are coming to make him more worth playing.

Lifeweaver's launch hasn't exactly been a smooth one. Players have been making use of his kit in ways that weren't exactly intended, with many of those picking up the hero either purposely or accidentally trolling their teammates.

While some have really come to enjoy what Lifeweaver provides for his team, many have either chosen to drop the character entirely or haven't been able to make him work in their matches.

With the hero sitting at a sub-40% win rate from Bronze to Masters, players are desperate to see some changes to the hero in the near future. Fortunately, devs have confirmed that buffs are coming.

Lifeweaver's kit is inherently hard to balance, and stats are a bit of an enigma when it comes to the character. Unlike many other heroes in Overwatch 2, he's got 2 abilities that have no statistical relevance.

Both his Petal Platform and Life Grip don't have a quantifiable stat attached to them, and they’re only useful if the Lifeweaver player and his teammates are on the same page. However, there's one number that's hard to ignore when it comes to determining his usefulness: Win rate.

The hero's been getting torn apart by the community for how easy it is for him to troll games, with many speaking about how they don't like seeing Lifeweaver on their team.

His win rate is abysmal across all ranks, leading many to call him the "worst" support hero, and perhaps even the worst hero in Overwatch 2's current state of balance. Things are dire for Lifeweaver.

The original poster cites his low damage, his platform and grip feeling bad to play around, his ult being subpar in comparison to other support ultimates like Zenyatta's, and his hitbox being "the size of Manhattan."

Many redditors agreed with his scathing criticism and shared his surprise at the fact that Lifeweaver hasn't been reworked yet. However, Blizzard have announced a huge set of buffs for the character in the pursuit of making him a more appealing pick.

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Aaron Keller spoke about Lifeweaver's current state ahead of Season 5's launch. While we don't have a set of exact changes for the support hero, we have some vague descriptions of how he's getting buffed when the new season arrives.

"Players can expect increases to his healing and damage output, a heal on Life Grip, a slightly reduced hitbox, and some quality-of-life changes to Petal Platform." Aaron explained.

Alec Dawson, another member of the Overwatch balance team, explained that they experimented with a few ways to buff Lifeweaver like giving him bonus healing on allies with missing health, but they ultimately landed on universally buffing his existing abilities rather than trying to add a new mechanic.

With Mei changes, 100->55dps on primary fire.For Lifeweaver, experimented with a passive that gave more healing for ally missing health and added effects for standing on the platform. Felt best bringing up his stats across the board, gives more space to work with in the future. https://t.co/TRJGSmGiaL

The numbers on his increased healing and damage are up in the air at the time of writing, as well as how much Life Grip may heal allies. And, while these changes are substantial buffs, it appears that Lifeweaver will function much in the same way he did before.

With all of that said, not everyone is struggling to win on Lifeweaver even in his current state.

idk what everyone was complaining about lol pic.twitter.com/I2NGLclXUL

Streamer and high ranked Overwatch 2 player Eva Langwin managed to hit Masters with an astronomically high 81% win rate.

For those who are already well on their way to mastering Lifeweaver, the upcoming buffs could propel them to even further heights. It remains to be seen whether or not this’ll be what pushes him into the meta.

Meanwhile, Junker Queen will be getting some nerfs targeting her overall survivability and how often she has her ult up. Season 5 is bound to shake up the meta.