Best support heros

General Discussion
1

Okay, I am a support main in Paladins and Overwatch. I have 3,000 gold and understand that gold can not just be wasted (hard to get). I have played for a couple of weeks now and got Tyrande from the tutorial and I got Li Li. My issue with Tyrande is that I have to be doing damage to reduce my heal cooldown. And I can not get close enough to the fight (tanks please just stand still and kill the enemy, not falling back behind the support) without having to waste my heal on myself. I like Li Li’s ability to tank small amounts of damage, deal damage, or just sit in the back and heal. But my issue with her is that until I get 2 for 1 I feel useless when both of my tanks take damage at the same time. Also I have mana issues with her (I take eager adventurer for the heal spam if needed).
I am comfortable in the support role and want a support hero to get really good with. I tried Malfurion (from the rotation) but I could not keep my friend alive (he was playing tank you get from the tutorial). I tried Rehgar but had huge mana issues and could not heal a single target enough or a group well enough (needs to be one of the other and not half and half). I think Lucio could be great especially at the end when we all end up in the middle lane rusing their core or defending ours but I could have a split lane issue. I also think that Lt. Morales could be good because I can power heal my friend and have him just rush a fort but the issue is that if everyone takes damage I can’t save them all. I could quickly rotate targets to heal 2 at once but that seems excessive. So any players who know what they are talking about when it comes to supports, please answer the questions above (and the topic question).

LelsersLaser

Edit: I know have 4000 gold, should I just get Malfurion or Uther so I can increase my heto count so I can play casual draft?

2

My 2 favourites are actually the “easiest” lili and uther. Lili excels in sustained healing (take free jugs at level 1 for great mana control). Was playing lili in brawl yesterday and was literally running around the whole enemy team and they couldn’t get me.

Uther is great in burst healing and spreading some armour if you can pre empt burst damage. He does have massive mana issues, but I find this is actually somewhat alleviated with full q build after you complete your level 1 quest. Definitely works pretty nice if you only have the 1 tank.

3

Well
In heroes you don’t really need to keep everyone full HP (especially with someone like Uther outside a team fight). You’re supposed to keep them alive longer than the enemy healer can. Clutch heals and meaningful cc is much more impactful than massive healing numbers which is why Tyrande and Malfurion are the best right now in terms of high level play (stun/root respectively). Also can’t overstate the power of a well used Cleanse.

At lower levels Lucio, Morales and Li Li have high winrates but they won’t get much value above silver/gold.

As for the others:
Uther is anti-burst (armor) but has low healing and mana issues. Awesome anti-cc talents at 7, including a proper Cleanse.

Brightwing has a global (she can soak more and come in teamfights later) and baseline pseudo-cleanse. Polymorph is impactful, but her slow healing is easily rendered useless.

Whitemane is a jane-of-all-trades. Proper cleanse, root, armor, damage and armour reduction in later talent tiers.

Rehgar has amazing waveclear and can solo camps. Ancestral is amazing burst healing, he has a Cleanse and his slow at 16 secures kills.

Kharazim is a dive-support and should be used as such. He can secure kills and easily has the best cleanse in the game, but it comes at 16 as a downside.

Deckard and Stukov were Malfurion-tier but nerfs made them weaker. I believe recent rebuffs brought them back a bit. Massive lockdown through their W-E combos and they create space through ults but you need to throw potions on cooldown/save the trait to save lives respectively. No cleanse on either.

Alexstrasza is situational for maps like Infernal Shrines or Volskaya Foundry because of her Dragonqueen trait that should be activated halfway through the obj. Amazing ults also.

Auriel has rather difficult healing. You need to juggle her crown on different allies rather than get a “battery” like most people say. Her E is insane crowd control but unreliable.

Finally, Ana was recently reworked. Her grenade denies enemy healing and her Nano-boost is amazing with a mage. She’s difficult to get into because her healing is a skillshot.

1k games with healers, plat 1, I watch a lot of pro-play :slight_smile: Ask away if you need more info or anything is unclear.

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4

If your team is taking that much damage, it’ll never be your fault that they die. Use Safeguard well, and peel them off with the Displacement Grenade. She is one of the more fun Supports I’ve experienced, to be honest.

Have you tried Ana yet? She’s really fun with good usage of her Trait (Aim Down Sights), and it feels really satisfying hitting two heals with one Dart.

Either way, try the various supports out once they’re on the Rotation. If anything, it’ll net you the 500g when you hit level 5. :smiley:

5

Okay is there any support that can put out huge healing numbers? And if you had to recommend just one for huge healing that doesn’t need to damage (like the moonfire) to be effective, who would it be?

6

Support is not like any other role, you need know at least 4 cause they vastly differ in what they can assist or prevent

Tyrande is GREAT (perhaps BEST atm but she really, like REALLY needs a good frontline assistance), if your frontline is Tyrael/D’Va kiss her goodbye, ESPECIALLY if opponents have dive team (and changes are you’re gonna be the one gonna get dived anyway)

Overall I think Ana is like the BEST atm, doesn’t quite have the strengths Tyrande has but she doesn’t have her weaknesses either, i.e. doesn’t require constant AA on heroes/minions in order to “keep the healing momentum”

Sometimes when your team is heavy-backline it’s a “sad day” for support, meaning you can’t afford taking a range supp and you’d have to take a Melee one, in those kinds of situations I’d recommend Kharazim (except when playing vs Kael’Thas but since he’s banned often probably a non-issue)

Khara can HASTE everyone for a better engage/escape as well as has bits of his own burst depending on how you play, and one more thing = might be harder to practise at start but Palm is like more consistent (or at least should be) than Ancestral so you don’t need to “time it right” but just “time it”… Ofc. higher lvl players probably will not proc it but for “regular play” I think it’s more reliable save-ally heroic

Uther is your poor man’s Kharazim but he has better tanking capabilities, meaning you’d take him when you lack BOTH tank and heal at the same time… Works wonders when combined with Tyrande in double support compositions (or at least used to be the case back when Tyrande was a hypercarry) but yes, he’s STILL good to tank and give your frontline some strength overall

Alex = yep, this is your “ace in the sleeve” type of hero when opponent lacks a burst to kill someone, and combine her with someone like Lucio (to keep you all-time high HP) and you’ll be unkillable lol, while STILL having that “boss-mode” for obj timings and stuff… She’s also really good on solo lane to waveclear, it’s like your version of “Solo lane as Support” type of composition

And lastly but not the least = if, IF your team is weak AF at almost everything and noone even bothered picking a proper peel or CC and everyone went with the “escape first” mentality and picked heroes like Orphea/Genji/Lunara and whatnot = don’t even bother heal, just pick a super sayan diver (Kerrigan, Butcher, or Varian colo smash) and hope the rest of “dps freaks” (or dps “freaks wannabe’s” on your team recognize the momentum correctly when to followup your engage and play without heal

UNLESS opponents take an Uther to prevent the burst of insta-kills = chances are you’ll kill 1 or even 2 heroes of your opponent’s until they react properly, shhh, I didn’t tell you this :stuck_out_tongue:

7

Just go ahead and play Li Li if you don’t want to listen to advice.

8

I meant that is there a specific support that excels compared to the rest? And why is Lucio and Li Li bad?

9

“GREAT” heroes do not require any assistance. Lucio and Stukov both fit much better.

10

First of all, supports here have different duty and abilities. Some of them have huge amount of healing, some others got a lot of slow/stuns/roots/etc, and others have both these abilities with kinda equal proportions. What you need to understand is: every support needs to be placed with right ally heroes and/or against right enemy heroes. For example, if you have picked Alexstrasza and enemy team got Ana, you will become pretty useless in battle, if compared only with her. From the other side, if you saw Ana and picked Stukov, Deckard or Lucio, you have advantage, because Lucio has shields and both grandpa and russian have a lot of control abilities. Burst heal is not their priority (alhough Lucio’s AMP heal will still suffer from Ana’s grenade). And so on, Lili will be pretty useless against full mage DD team and vice versa.

And what is good for using support hero as it’s best — you have to learn everything about them, which means: every talent, every good synergy combination with other heroes, every weakness and pick them in right time.

Of course, all of the above cannot be used in QM, if you’re playing solo. But, if you have a team and/or want to play any game mode with draft, feel free to study support heroes.

11

Thanks for the great rely! I want to learn all of the supports but right now I need to focus on who to get next. Li Li was a good intro to the game mechanics but now I want someone who I can get really good with and use while I get the rest of the heros. Who would that be?

12

They have different skills and require different understanding. It’s what you can do best. If you’re good with skillshot, pick Ana. If you’re good with zoning and crowd control — Deckard. If you want to be a little exp gainer and support your team with some little abilities — take Brightwing. If you found little furry girl fitting your preferences, your next step will be Lucio. Because he has only one skillshot and he’s very good at supporting team not only with healing. Take advices above and use them. You may practice your skills with unfamiliar hero with your friends and/or aganst AI.

13

I really liked li li’s ability to heal two at once (2 for 1) so you thunk Lucio is a better li li? And what about Malfurion?

14

You never know until you try. Malfurion is better fighting just behind the frontline, because he needs to moonshower enemy in order to get burst heal.

17

Dont be in a rush to buy a hero , try those in the rotation for a couple of weeks, play with them before you buy them, this week you have Lili ( though you own her) , Rehgar and Ana.

I also recommend playing with other heroes too, so you can learn for instance that if Muradin is out of combat you don’t need to waste your heals on him because his trait will start and will heal him up instead.

I would wait for you to try Lucio or any hero before you buy them, there is a high chance he’ll be on next week rotation.

18

Supports are not always picked for their healing as much as they are picked for their utility. Stukov can silence the entire team and with the right talent can also root them in the silence, Tyrande can and should follow up with her stun and armour debuff, Lili and especially Ana can cleanse often etc.

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19

Abathur

20 characters asdadasdsd

20

Something to keep in mind is that everyone speaks about a different context. I wouldnt advise Uther in bronze since people will show up for objectives at half health and take unnecessary poke. He is however one of the most popular supports in pro play. The complete opposite is Li Li, who is very popular in lower leagues but falls off higher up.

Because of these different contexts, its important to figure out what kind of games you have to see which healers work best for you. I have no experience with Paladins so i can’t tell what kind of supports are similar in HotS. No support is better than others in all circumstances, the best advice i can give is to go to hotslogs or similar websites and find the most popular and highest winrate at your rank.

One last note, tanks that stand still and (try to) kill the enemy are often a liability to your team. You want fights to be a matter of skill, not numbers.

21

I meant to have the tanks stay in the frontline instead of running the opposite direction when they lost 2 hp

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22

There is already a lot of posts, so i just react to your questions regarding Tyrande.

Tyrande becomes stronger with coordination and is one of the strongest supports in short fights. The combination of follow-up stun and armor reduction with her trait insta bursts most heroes in the game (unless cleansed, protected etc.). She also has two viable ultimates, which is more one can say for most other supports. As to her auto-attack CD reduction: you can hit anything, it does not have to be an enemy hero. Just make sure that you heal (&and maybe cleanse) when needed, not just to keep everybody up on 100% health (which I see regularily from other players).