Overwatch 2’s newest hero Lifeweaver has had one of the more hectic launches for a character in the game’s history since his release on April 11. Along with having a kit that provides high utility—and troll potential—the Thai support character has drawn tons of feedback for having some questionable control schemes and underwhelming healing power.
Because of this, Blizzard announced a swathe of changes for the hero that will come to the game next Tuesday, April 25, and today OW2 game director Aaron Keller decided to make a blog post for players to let them know a little bit more detail surrounding the thought process for Lifeweaver and his changes.
Along with admitting that the hero’s kit is “overwhelming” and “complex,” Keller tried to explain how exactly Blizzard’s devs got to the setup that players have largely considered to be awkward and clunky.
Related: All Lifeweaver changes coming to Overwatch 2 season 4: Buffs and new controls
“When we first began working on Lifeweaver, the idea was to create a support hero that spent most of their time healing, need little aiming skill to heal, and brought transformational abilities to the battlefield,” he said. “Take, for instance, the weapon swap. Early in development, his weapon was a lot less effective than it is today, but steadily over time, it was tweaked in a number of ways that ultimately led to the Thorn Volley that you see today. We learned to play Lifeweaver in a certain state and, as his kit evolved, we weren’t responsive in evolving his control scheme as well.”
With Lifeweaver having one of the more complicated hero kits in the game, Keller went on to say that Blizzard does not intend on making every hero as loaded to the brim with a wide array of abilities that can be used in exceptionally creative ways. However, he left the door open for more heroes to come with similarly “complex” kits.
It’s difficult for Blizzard to create heroes that fall into the overall balance of Overwatch 2 heroes without creating something overpowered, and new heroes often end up needing to be dialed back a bit. With Lifeweaver, the opposite has been the case thus far, and Keller disclosed as much.
“Regarding new hero balance, we’re not exactly shifting our philosophy, but we do think that both Lifeweaver and Ramattra landed a little softer than we would have liked,” he said. “We recognize that a hero’s win rate will climb after they launch, but we also want those same heroes to feel exciting for players on day one. Our goal is for new heroes to feel balanced at launch – not overpowered, but definitely not underpowered either.”
With new controls and some buffs coming to Lifeweaver as he’s added to competitive play, Blizzard is looking to strike that nearly impossible balance. His control rework and competitive launch will reveal if the developers were truly able to pull it off.
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Max Miceli