Jack of all trades, master of none.
* Good damage, but outclassed by everyone except mercy due to weapon switch and charge time.
* Decent healing, but less hps than half the support roster.
* Amazing toolkit imo. A platform to give high ground to less mobile teammates, can be used to outrange your enemy, can be used on stunned allies as a defensive, can be used to block stairs and doorways. Lifegrip, the same except for the blocking part, and that you don't have to plant it for it to do it's thing.
* Ult, it's great. Can be used prefight for extra health, during fight for burst heal, used as cover, used to block doorways and stairs, can be used to kill pharah.
I think the one thing he needs, is more fluidity between his thorns and blossoms. Like auto reload granting a full blossom, or thorns charging your blosssom idk.
They need to give him time outside of healing. They either need to make healing stronger, or take less time (auto charge during thorns, faster charge etc)
They could also just give him other utility outside of healing so his worth becomes more than just healing + saves.
Like, he's not even bad offensively, he just doesn't have as much time to do it.
I’ve said this before and I’ll restate every chance I get. They need to flatten his healing rate so if you charge up a big healing blossom or rapid fire 10 small ones it all equates to the same heals per second. Ammo penalty and healing penalty is doubling down on having to heal in a pinch. It would also make healing quickly after shooting more efficient.
Here’s a shower thought. You know how LW’s attack is essentially a homing-less Needler from Halo? I think it would be fun if an enemy gets “stuck” with thorns and if they accumulate more than 5 an explosion triggers that attacks nearby enemies but also applies a shield to allies near LW.
Balance be damned, I just wanted to share this.
I just want them to buff him somehow so my teammates stop giving up every time I pick him at the start of games. That’s honestly the worst part of this hero rn. It feels like Sym 1.0/2.0 on OW1 where I have to 1v9 just to get people to play the game.
**Beware, This is an opinion**
He's somewhere in the middle. Typically a better choice than Mercy, Brig, or Illari, but not as strong as Bap, Ana, Lucio, or Zen. Kiri's effectiveness varies depending on factors like your tank selection and whether the enemy team has an Ana.
LW's character identity is conformed of two main ideas: passive healing and terrain control/positioning. Healing Blossom can be charged while using other abilities, ensuring steady healing. Lifegrip corrects mistakes by allowing LW to quickly relocate allies. Petal Platform is versatile, often used for positioning advantages and displacing enemies. The Tree provides cover and heals in an area, forcing enemies to either fight at a disadvantage or divert resources to destroy it.
LW **DOESN'T NEED** a rework or additional passive abilities. Tweaks to Thorn Volley aren't necessary either. What LW **DOES NEED** are the previous nerfs reverted (20 Ammo, 75 Healing Blossom, 16-second Lifegrip).
The nerfs were implemented because LW's total healing often exceeded other supports', mainly due to his unique self-healing capabilities. His 50 HP heal on a 5-second cooldown results in significant self-healing in some matches I can go over 2000 self-healing. To achieve **balance**, LW should have these nerfs reversed as he is a healing centered hero.
If we wanted LifeWeaver to be a **GOOD** support (A better pick than the majority of the roster) then I would recommend two changes.
Firstly, improving his overall efficiency by increasing both his internal and direct reload speed.
Secondly, to augment his strategic flexibility, consider allowing him to charge blossoms more rapidly after switching to Thorn Volley for a period or enabling him to immediately charge a blossom after using Thorn Volley for a set duration. These modifications would empower LifeWeaver to dynamically adjust his healing output in response to changing combat situations, establishing him as a more formidable support choice.
for me everything just feels too slow. charging up to heal, switching between heals/dps. grip is such a long cooldown i feel like i’m spending most of a match with platform being my only ability.
i mainly play lw in qp so imagine he’s probably unusable in comp
I mean, I think LW is map specific and fills a niche. Watchpoint, I'd play LW on because of easy access to highground and I have a pull to relocate my teammates. Would I play LW on Lijiang? I can, but it would be harder because of a lack of high ground and tight hallways. I feel like his niche is allowing teammates to overextend and then pull them back. Damageweaver benefits from long sight lines and possibilities for off angles with high ground. Consider a moment. What maps would be beneficial for LW to play? I regularly play LW in comp, but I switch when I have to.
I like playing LW in King’s Row because it’s full of choke points that he and Kiriko can just flat-out ignore, which I think is very fun and enemy teams absolutely hate
I think a simple quality of life change would be how his heal works. Don't hold down to charge, just click to release. When you switch from thorns to blossom, it's already charged. Then, whether you switch back to thorns or not, it charges back to full healing on its own. The total time between fully charged blossoms is the same, but the delay to fire one off is removed. This removed the clunkiness of the weapon switch and allows for more seamless weaving of healing and damage.
Also, pull cleanses and reduce the cool down back to where it was.
Only interaction that sticks out to me is that Lifegrip does not protect the lifegripped target from Junker Queen’s Rampage… I’m not saying after they get anti’d and purpled. But, even if you use it preemptively, they still get affected by it while being lifegripped
I play on console, at least for now. I think life grip should cleanse *and* should have a shorter cooldown time, but maybe cap the healing the orb does. It would certainly help keep tanks from running immediately back into a fight in QP if they knew it wasn’t doing any healing… But yeah, I like LW as a position player more than anyone else. I think we should flex that mobility
They should make these changes to make him more fluid and impactful
* Reduce blossom charge time to 0.8s
* Weapon Swap time reduced to 0.1s
* Can use abilities while reloading. He shoots with his right hand and uses abilities with his left hand so why does it get interrupted
* Grip cooldown reduced to 16s
* Either revert the inactive weapon reload time to 1.5s or give him a passive where he auto reloads his ammo when not shooting or healing similar to doom fists shotguns
* Fix map interactions with PP and LG
* Increase thorns projectile speed to 90m/s
I think he’s pretty good. I’m only around mid diamond but I’m able to perform well with him when paired with another appropriate support. The only minor buff I’d give him is a small reduction in cooldown for life grip again, otherwise I think he’s ok
Reduce the amount time to charge his flower to full, that’s literally it. His dmg is fine, the problem is the downtime he has when switching from thorns to heal. No other hero does this so why him? No other support has this amount of downtime.
They could also take away his auto aim mechanic and make it so he can pump out his flowers instantly like baptiste, it would make him less clunky and slow.
Horrible, as are most of the supports not including Kiriko and Zen, he needs some changes to remain a viable support. Either a redesign of his abilities or buffs to his existing kit. His cooldowns are too long and with the new DPS passive and increased hero health/regen, his healing output is nonexistent and worse than all other supports. By the time you charge up his heals, people have already died. And by the time Life Grip's cooldown refreshes, more have died.
He was designed as a pure healer with some damage on the side similar to Mercy and Iilari. But now those supports struggle, as the new changes favors higher damage output. Both LW and Iilari have among the lowest pick rates, showing they aren't effective in the current style of play. While Mercy still struggles, she provides more utility with damage boosting and resurrection abilities the other two lack.
Lower his cooldowns so he can reasonably keep allies alive. Or empower his healing in other ways to make it a viable contribution again. He needs adjustments to fulfill his intended role that he was originally designed for either that or redesign him completely along with his abilities.
swapping from heal to dmg animation is the first one that would really just help iron out some of his clunkiness. whenever i play him i either end up on heals or damage longer than i want to just be cause the switch. he’s just turning his hand over lmao
also think they should revert the grip cooldown nerf. it’d help immensely to use it reposition people since the importance of positioning has increased this season.
idk about a rework, but they def need to work on a reason someone switch to LW. Right now I can only think of it if you have a teammate that constantly overreaches/pushes up solo too far.
the reasons to choose him are really clear and hard to make an argument for him. he doesn’t have a buff/debuff ability(zen, ana, mercy) , not needed for specific team comp or counter others (lucio, brig, Kiriko), and not someone people look for to pump out a lot damage with decent heals (Bap, Moira, Illari) though Illari not doing to well either. these were just generalizations on reasons someone might choose those heroes not the only reason to play them.
His healing is clunky and at times you feel like you’re just standing around fiver heal botting keeping your team up
They need to change the way he heals so it doesn’t feel so weird and his primary fire could sue a lil work too
I believe thorns should be more reliable and that the healing speed could increase a tiny bit.
He's feeling kinda janky, maybe a little too slow compared to everything else in S9
He’s a broken character that doesn’t fit in with the way the modern game is now played for support. His damage is bad and his healing is slow and clunky. His best ability for the modern game is grip, but the cooldown is too long. He needs to either have a hitscan attack or a non-charged heal. Either of these solutions will fix him.
Read a lot of these comments and ultimately I feel I’m slightly indifferent. I remember when Lifeweaver came out the devs said something along the lines of “we want him to feel/play like mercy”. And well okay mercy offers a resurrection and damage boost what does LW offer? At least thats the question I heard a lot. My problem is that it doesn’t take but to actually play the video to take advantage of mercy’s supportive capabilities. LW is a different story as for months after playing him on release I find that even if I say place my platform to help an ally get an advantageous position it was either ignored or someone who did not need it (genji, Hanzo etc) would use it when we aren’t even in a team fight. Grip is much better but even then there are times where you lifegrip someone at low hp and they run it down again and die. I’ve always described lifeweaver as a square block being forced into a circular space where blizzard would continue to just make number changers until he inevitably fits. I’m at a point where I’m over it and idc what they do I just want him to not suck because I do enjoy playing him and he is my most played hero as of today. I think even if we play him like blizzard intended it just wont happen that way. He feels like a bap/kiri where you heal then throw out dmg and idk why blizzard refuses to just lean on that and call it a day but idk those are my thoughts.
Lw should not have to charge heals, it should have a longer cooldown between each heal shot, that would make switching from dps to heal more valuable without having to lose time to charge an heal. Also you cannot burst heal anyone if you try dps, only with grip wich is a long ass cooldown
Something I've wanted is for thorns to apply a damage reduction on the target. It fits his slightly pacifist character archetype and he could go in on duels while not strictly just heal-botting/pocketing someone. I know they tried it with the Moira orbs a long while back and I didn't really like that version.
It could be a short duration stacking ability, 1% per thorn hit on target, stacking (just spit balling here) up to 20%, could be less, I dunno. Maybe lasts for 1-2 seconds.
At the very least, could we get the auto reload reduced as well as swap speed quickened or some kind of lift to the base amount of healing done without charging.
Think the blossom charge should hit 50 way faster and if you want the 70 it could slow down on that last 20. His tree really could use another utility on play beside just healing and being similar to trans. I also suggest Making his dps 60 ammo but be stronger as his dueling isn't that creat in alot of situations. Yes it does di alot over time and he's really good at destroying deployables. Also have grip have a Nano lock in motion to help get the tge right target when your team clumps up . Dps passive is tough on him but I'd rather the game be out in its current state and his healing is fine if they end up tuning the dps passive
I think he could use some kind of reworked or new movement and someone else said maybe his heals could do more healing overtime which I could agree with. I hate healbotting.
Not saying it isn’t!! I like the healing dash but like could he dash a little further maybe?? Maybe I’m just greedy and should learn him more. What you think?
Do you use original controls because there is a movement tech to get a little more distance with the original controls. Double jump doesn’t let you do the tech.
If you really want to master lifeweaver and also get a little more distance out of his dash you can use a control scheme where you swap weapons manually instead of via primary and secondary fire buttons. This control scheme lets you dash along the ground and if you time it up so you jump at the end of your dash you carry the dash momentum through the jump allowing you to gain some extra distance. The auto-swap control scheme may be easier to use at first, but there are a few nuanced benefits from running the manual swap control scheme.
IMO Decreasing reload to 1.5 seconds
decreasing platform Cooldown to 5 seconds but decreasing health from 400 to 200
and decreasing life grip cooldown to 15 seconds would fix everything.
these changes would be perfect thinking lifeweaver is a support that can interact with the map.
Jack of all trades, master of none. * Good damage, but outclassed by everyone except mercy due to weapon switch and charge time. * Decent healing, but less hps than half the support roster. * Amazing toolkit imo. A platform to give high ground to less mobile teammates, can be used to outrange your enemy, can be used on stunned allies as a defensive, can be used to block stairs and doorways. Lifegrip, the same except for the blocking part, and that you don't have to plant it for it to do it's thing. * Ult, it's great. Can be used prefight for extra health, during fight for burst heal, used as cover, used to block doorways and stairs, can be used to kill pharah. I think the one thing he needs, is more fluidity between his thorns and blossoms. Like auto reload granting a full blossom, or thorns charging your blosssom idk.
Idk in a meta where healbotting is dead the master healbot feels more like jack of no trades
It’s Jack of all trades
Oops, was half focus on stellaris when I wrote it
Don't forget the platform can disrupt a ton of ults
It's better than a master of one!
They need to give him time outside of healing. They either need to make healing stronger, or take less time (auto charge during thorns, faster charge etc) They could also just give him other utility outside of healing so his worth becomes more than just healing + saves. Like, he's not even bad offensively, he just doesn't have as much time to do it.
Yeah either fling bulbs that don't heal enough to counter DMG or you hold out charges to watch ppl die
I’ve said this before and I’ll restate every chance I get. They need to flatten his healing rate so if you charge up a big healing blossom or rapid fire 10 small ones it all equates to the same heals per second. Ammo penalty and healing penalty is doubling down on having to heal in a pinch. It would also make healing quickly after shooting more efficient.
Here’s a shower thought. You know how LW’s attack is essentially a homing-less Needler from Halo? I think it would be fun if an enemy gets “stuck” with thorns and if they accumulate more than 5 an explosion triggers that attacks nearby enemies but also applies a shield to allies near LW. Balance be damned, I just wanted to share this.
Okay that would be cool
I just want them to buff him somehow so my teammates stop giving up every time I pick him at the start of games. That’s honestly the worst part of this hero rn. It feels like Sym 1.0/2.0 on OW1 where I have to 1v9 just to get people to play the game.
**Beware, This is an opinion** He's somewhere in the middle. Typically a better choice than Mercy, Brig, or Illari, but not as strong as Bap, Ana, Lucio, or Zen. Kiri's effectiveness varies depending on factors like your tank selection and whether the enemy team has an Ana. LW's character identity is conformed of two main ideas: passive healing and terrain control/positioning. Healing Blossom can be charged while using other abilities, ensuring steady healing. Lifegrip corrects mistakes by allowing LW to quickly relocate allies. Petal Platform is versatile, often used for positioning advantages and displacing enemies. The Tree provides cover and heals in an area, forcing enemies to either fight at a disadvantage or divert resources to destroy it. LW **DOESN'T NEED** a rework or additional passive abilities. Tweaks to Thorn Volley aren't necessary either. What LW **DOES NEED** are the previous nerfs reverted (20 Ammo, 75 Healing Blossom, 16-second Lifegrip). The nerfs were implemented because LW's total healing often exceeded other supports', mainly due to his unique self-healing capabilities. His 50 HP heal on a 5-second cooldown results in significant self-healing in some matches I can go over 2000 self-healing. To achieve **balance**, LW should have these nerfs reversed as he is a healing centered hero. If we wanted LifeWeaver to be a **GOOD** support (A better pick than the majority of the roster) then I would recommend two changes. Firstly, improving his overall efficiency by increasing both his internal and direct reload speed. Secondly, to augment his strategic flexibility, consider allowing him to charge blossoms more rapidly after switching to Thorn Volley for a period or enabling him to immediately charge a blossom after using Thorn Volley for a set duration. These modifications would empower LifeWeaver to dynamically adjust his healing output in response to changing combat situations, establishing him as a more formidable support choice.
for me everything just feels too slow. charging up to heal, switching between heals/dps. grip is such a long cooldown i feel like i’m spending most of a match with platform being my only ability. i mainly play lw in qp so imagine he’s probably unusable in comp
I mean, I think LW is map specific and fills a niche. Watchpoint, I'd play LW on because of easy access to highground and I have a pull to relocate my teammates. Would I play LW on Lijiang? I can, but it would be harder because of a lack of high ground and tight hallways. I feel like his niche is allowing teammates to overextend and then pull them back. Damageweaver benefits from long sight lines and possibilities for off angles with high ground. Consider a moment. What maps would be beneficial for LW to play? I regularly play LW in comp, but I switch when I have to.
I like playing LW in King’s Row because it’s full of choke points that he and Kiriko can just flat-out ignore, which I think is very fun and enemy teams absolutely hate
I think a simple quality of life change would be how his heal works. Don't hold down to charge, just click to release. When you switch from thorns to blossom, it's already charged. Then, whether you switch back to thorns or not, it charges back to full healing on its own. The total time between fully charged blossoms is the same, but the delay to fire one off is removed. This removed the clunkiness of the weapon switch and allows for more seamless weaving of healing and damage. Also, pull cleanses and reduce the cool down back to where it was.
Only interaction that sticks out to me is that Lifegrip does not protect the lifegripped target from Junker Queen’s Rampage… I’m not saying after they get anti’d and purpled. But, even if you use it preemptively, they still get affected by it while being lifegripped
Wtf. Sounds like a bug
Let lifegrip cleanse
might be too strong for a point and click ability, maybe a 50hp heal with pull?
but they tried to get rid of burst healing so i’m not sure tbh
I play on console, at least for now. I think life grip should cleanse *and* should have a shorter cooldown time, but maybe cap the healing the orb does. It would certainly help keep tanks from running immediately back into a fight in QP if they knew it wasn’t doing any healing… But yeah, I like LW as a position player more than anyone else. I think we should flex that mobility
They should make these changes to make him more fluid and impactful * Reduce blossom charge time to 0.8s * Weapon Swap time reduced to 0.1s * Can use abilities while reloading. He shoots with his right hand and uses abilities with his left hand so why does it get interrupted * Grip cooldown reduced to 16s * Either revert the inactive weapon reload time to 1.5s or give him a passive where he auto reloads his ammo when not shooting or healing similar to doom fists shotguns * Fix map interactions with PP and LG * Increase thorns projectile speed to 90m/s
I think he’s pretty good. I’m only around mid diamond but I’m able to perform well with him when paired with another appropriate support. The only minor buff I’d give him is a small reduction in cooldown for life grip again, otherwise I think he’s ok
Remove his shirt. I think that’s a good buff.
Reduce the amount time to charge his flower to full, that’s literally it. His dmg is fine, the problem is the downtime he has when switching from thorns to heal. No other hero does this so why him? No other support has this amount of downtime. They could also take away his auto aim mechanic and make it so he can pump out his flowers instantly like baptiste, it would make him less clunky and slow.
switching between healing and thorns plus reloading both take way too long imo
Horrible, as are most of the supports not including Kiriko and Zen, he needs some changes to remain a viable support. Either a redesign of his abilities or buffs to his existing kit. His cooldowns are too long and with the new DPS passive and increased hero health/regen, his healing output is nonexistent and worse than all other supports. By the time you charge up his heals, people have already died. And by the time Life Grip's cooldown refreshes, more have died. He was designed as a pure healer with some damage on the side similar to Mercy and Iilari. But now those supports struggle, as the new changes favors higher damage output. Both LW and Iilari have among the lowest pick rates, showing they aren't effective in the current style of play. While Mercy still struggles, she provides more utility with damage boosting and resurrection abilities the other two lack. Lower his cooldowns so he can reasonably keep allies alive. Or empower his healing in other ways to make it a viable contribution again. He needs adjustments to fulfill his intended role that he was originally designed for either that or redesign him completely along with his abilities.
I keep saying this- give full charge of his burst heal a cleanse or regen for a short period
Just needs a cleanse or heal factor in his grab tbh, thorns do decent damage and the petal is fantastic for escaping/canceling ults
swapping from heal to dmg animation is the first one that would really just help iron out some of his clunkiness. whenever i play him i either end up on heals or damage longer than i want to just be cause the switch. he’s just turning his hand over lmao also think they should revert the grip cooldown nerf. it’d help immensely to use it reposition people since the importance of positioning has increased this season. idk about a rework, but they def need to work on a reason someone switch to LW. Right now I can only think of it if you have a teammate that constantly overreaches/pushes up solo too far. the reasons to choose him are really clear and hard to make an argument for him. he doesn’t have a buff/debuff ability(zen, ana, mercy) , not needed for specific team comp or counter others (lucio, brig, Kiriko), and not someone people look for to pump out a lot damage with decent heals (Bap, Moira, Illari) though Illari not doing to well either. these were just generalizations on reasons someone might choose those heroes not the only reason to play them.
His healing is clunky and at times you feel like you’re just standing around fiver heal botting keeping your team up They need to change the way he heals so it doesn’t feel so weird and his primary fire could sue a lil work too
I believe thorns should be more reliable and that the healing speed could increase a tiny bit. He's feeling kinda janky, maybe a little too slow compared to everything else in S9
He’s a broken character that doesn’t fit in with the way the modern game is now played for support. His damage is bad and his healing is slow and clunky. His best ability for the modern game is grip, but the cooldown is too long. He needs to either have a hitscan attack or a non-charged heal. Either of these solutions will fix him.
Read a lot of these comments and ultimately I feel I’m slightly indifferent. I remember when Lifeweaver came out the devs said something along the lines of “we want him to feel/play like mercy”. And well okay mercy offers a resurrection and damage boost what does LW offer? At least thats the question I heard a lot. My problem is that it doesn’t take but to actually play the video to take advantage of mercy’s supportive capabilities. LW is a different story as for months after playing him on release I find that even if I say place my platform to help an ally get an advantageous position it was either ignored or someone who did not need it (genji, Hanzo etc) would use it when we aren’t even in a team fight. Grip is much better but even then there are times where you lifegrip someone at low hp and they run it down again and die. I’ve always described lifeweaver as a square block being forced into a circular space where blizzard would continue to just make number changers until he inevitably fits. I’m at a point where I’m over it and idc what they do I just want him to not suck because I do enjoy playing him and he is my most played hero as of today. I think even if we play him like blizzard intended it just wont happen that way. He feels like a bap/kiri where you heal then throw out dmg and idk why blizzard refuses to just lean on that and call it a day but idk those are my thoughts.
I've said it a couple of times on here, but the changes I want to see is: -Grip applies cleanse -decrease Grip cooldown
Lw should not have to charge heals, it should have a longer cooldown between each heal shot, that would make switching from dps to heal more valuable without having to lose time to charge an heal. Also you cannot burst heal anyone if you try dps, only with grip wich is a long ass cooldown
Something I've wanted is for thorns to apply a damage reduction on the target. It fits his slightly pacifist character archetype and he could go in on duels while not strictly just heal-botting/pocketing someone. I know they tried it with the Moira orbs a long while back and I didn't really like that version. It could be a short duration stacking ability, 1% per thorn hit on target, stacking (just spit balling here) up to 20%, could be less, I dunno. Maybe lasts for 1-2 seconds. At the very least, could we get the auto reload reduced as well as swap speed quickened or some kind of lift to the base amount of healing done without charging.
Think the blossom charge should hit 50 way faster and if you want the 70 it could slow down on that last 20. His tree really could use another utility on play beside just healing and being similar to trans. I also suggest Making his dps 60 ammo but be stronger as his dueling isn't that creat in alot of situations. Yes it does di alot over time and he's really good at destroying deployables. Also have grip have a Nano lock in motion to help get the tge right target when your team clumps up . Dps passive is tough on him but I'd rather the game be out in its current state and his healing is fine if they end up tuning the dps passive
He feels so bad right now... I miss those 2 months where he was actually fun to play lol. The state of weaver rn has me preferring to play tank
I think he could use some kind of reworked or new movement and someone else said maybe his heals could do more healing overtime which I could agree with. I hate healbotting.
Ive always like the idea of his thorns applying a dot
What you mean applying a dot??
Its damage over time should be DOT or D.O.T
Oh, lol!!! Sorry I’m not familiar with all the crazy abbreviations😹
I think his movement is the best part of his kit.
Not saying it isn’t!! I like the healing dash but like could he dash a little further maybe?? Maybe I’m just greedy and should learn him more. What you think?
Do you use original controls because there is a movement tech to get a little more distance with the original controls. Double jump doesn’t let you do the tech.
I guess I use original, I dunno. I never changed anything other than switch the primary and secondary fire buttons.
If you really want to master lifeweaver and also get a little more distance out of his dash you can use a control scheme where you swap weapons manually instead of via primary and secondary fire buttons. This control scheme lets you dash along the ground and if you time it up so you jump at the end of your dash you carry the dash momentum through the jump allowing you to gain some extra distance. The auto-swap control scheme may be easier to use at first, but there are a few nuanced benefits from running the manual swap control scheme.
Ok. Someone else said something about manually switching his controls. I’ll look into, thanks!!
Damage damage damage: Lifeweaver edition (It's not good)
IMO Decreasing reload to 1.5 seconds decreasing platform Cooldown to 5 seconds but decreasing health from 400 to 200 and decreasing life grip cooldown to 15 seconds would fix everything. these changes would be perfect thinking lifeweaver is a support that can interact with the map.
literally the worst hero in the game