Overwatch 2 has a serious support shortage right now. The role is proving rather unpopular, with queue times substantially shorter for those brave enough to tackle babysitting two diving DPS and a tank that’s somehow halfway across the other side of the map. I’ve been queueing flex almost exclusively, getting a role that isn’t support once every 20 games or so if I’m lucky. Overwatch 2 has made me hate playing support (opens in new tab), partly fuelled by role fatigue and also thanks to it becoming even more thankless than the first Overwatch.
Blizzard has long been aware of problems surrounding the support role (opens in new tab). But with queue times suffering massively in Overwatch 2 thanks to the discrepancy, the developer seems to finally be taking note. In a developer blog (opens in new tab) from executive producer Jared Neuss, he acknowledged that the team needs to make support a more desirable choice.
“With the move to 5v5, we’re seeing longer queue times than we’d like for both tank and damage players,” Neuss said. “While there’s no silver bullet for this issue, the team has a LOT of ideas that we want to experiment with for the upcoming seasons.”
look_at_those_queue_times_then_look_at_the_bxp from r/Overwatch
That includes focusing on the support role, and how Blizzard “can make it more fun and rewarding to play.” Neuss says the team is “discussing targeted support hero reworks, game system updates, and even some role-wide changes to improve support quality of life.” There may be some tweaks to battle pass experience rewards in the future, too. Right now it’s 500XP for your first game of the day queued at support or flex, with every game after that rewarding 100XP. That’s only 1% of a level, not much incentive to dive into an underappreciated role.
There are no specific changes yet, but Neuss says as the team settles on ways to improve the experience it’ll feed that info back down to players. More incentive for support roles definitely feels like a good idea. I’m unsure how larger support kit reworks could benefit the role unless they end up leaning into an increased focus on damage output. Blizzard previously said one tactic is to simply make more support heroes, with it being the least populated role. But with season 2 introducing tank hero Ramattra (opens in new tab), we’ll have to wait a little longer for that roster to fill out.
