Stayin' Alive Supports

heading anchor introductionIntroduction

Whenever I play Genji, I really love to get on the enemy supports' nerves. Being in there, being annoying, getting kills and getting out unharmed.

Especially if you play in a team you can combine forces and coordinate dives, it’s an easy feat to kill a free standing Zen or Ana. So as a support, what can you do?

heading anchor the-basics
The Basics

Let's get straight into some basics - why do enemies love jumping the backline?

The reasoning is straightforward. It splits the team and cuts off the main sources of sustain. That way you can get picks and decimate the enemies quickly before they have the chance to counteract. You essentially end the chess match in a single move.

This has become significantly easier since Overwatch 2 doesn’t feature two tanks, of which one could peel for the backline. Instead, tanks now have to juggle both back- and frontline, which makes countering a solid dive increasingly difficult.

At the same time, the current meta favors heroes that can easily burst down single targets and new additions like Lifeweaver, who has his Life Grip can help the enemies get out of your backline easily after getting a kill. It’s not all bad, though; There’s a reason Baptiste pick rates are through the roof and dive is not the only viable team comp.

heading anchor some-tldr-dive-infosSome TLDR dive infos

Dive is a comp made up of heroes who have high mobility and burst, who can jump past the enemy frontline to score kills on unexpecting targets.

Their win condition is to get themselves into a favorable position, most often highgrounds, and force enemies into a predictable and accessible location. Best case would be to catch enemies mid-rotation.

To be at their most effective state, they need to get picks early on and finish off the rest of the team that’s left without sustain or damage. Since the comp does not play for sustain, they can and usually do use all their utility at once to score a fatal combo.

This guide is going to talk about dive a lot and we recommend you know what that is in detail.

Want to read up on dive comps again? Check out this guide!

heading anchor win-conditionsWin conditions

Staying alive longer is all about knowing your enemy’s win conditions and knowing if your death is one of them. In other words, if you know your enemies want you dead for real for real, you will want to play differently as when your death is just the cherry on top of the enemy’s plan. So how can you figure out this win condition?

The easiest way is to look at the enemy heroes. A team built out of a lot of heroes without sustain is not good at taking long fights. Their overarching win condition is to finish the fight quickly. No way around jumping the backline.

Example 1

Sigma - Sojourn - Hanzo - Ana - Zen

Is this a comp that has a win condition in jumping the backline?

Well, no, not really. This comp can play sustained fights but they‘re looking for a lucky headshot on the supporters nonetheless!

Example 2

DVA - Genji - Echo - Kiriko - Mercy

Is this a comp that has a win condition in jumping the backline?

Yes. They have high mobility and the ability to burst a single target. The likelihood of having to kill the supports as a win condition is very high.

As you might‘ve noticed by now, we‘re talking lots and lots about dive. That‘s because dive is the current anti meta. It counters the meta, which thus makes it a good pick on escort and hybrid maps on attack. And - surprise surprise - is the main comp that is an indicator for a win condition based on backline pressure.

But this is just one of the things that makes it hard for a support player to stay alive.

After all, dive is not the only comp in which supports die.

heading anchor why-do-supports-die-in-the-first-placeWhy do supports die in the first place?

There are a multitude of reasons why one would die as a support but have you ever actually considered why you died?

heading anchor yet-another-exampleYet another example

Dying to a random Hanzo arrow is not just „unlucky“ on your behalf. It‘s punishment for not considering Hanzo's line of sight when choosing where to position. The underlying mistake is thus bad positioning which is also at the top of our list:

heading anchor top-5-reasons-you-die-and-how-to-not-dieTop 5 reasons you die! (and how to not die)

heading anchor number-1-positioningNumber 1: Positioning

It‘s juggling the tank, juggling enemy sightlines and predicting allied and enemy rotations to be able to move in accord with your team.

It‘s no easy feat - in fact, even professional players mess up their positioning and get caught every once in a while.

Better positioning?

If this was so easy to explain, there wouldn‘t be tons of guides about this out there.

I always like to explain good positioning not as a map of places to be, but a philosophy about what a good position for you is. I sincerely recommend looking at our positioning guide if this is something you struggle with. Opening that Pandora’s box here would triple this guide‘s length.

heading anchor number-2-bad-utility-usageNumber 2: Bad utility usage

Every support has one of two ability types. Type A being movement abilities and Type B being self-peel abilities. To survive, both Type A and Type B are expected to be used by Overwatch’s game design. In other words: You need them to be available to stand a chance by being able to create distance, take highgrounds, etc.

Now, some heroes like Mercy use their movement ability at all times because it is the only way she can safely exist as a mid-range support. Kiriko on the other hand is a free death card without her movement ability. If she uses it to jump to an ally to heal, she has nothing to retaliate against an enemy team closing the distance on her.

Ana has no movement ability but her strength lies in taking the duels and going for sleeps and antis - what's true for Kiriko is true for Ana as well. An Ana without any cooldowns, with just her gun to defend herself, stands no chance against a team running her down.

Better utility usage?

I‘m calling this bad utility here, because it has a bad return on investment/ „ROI“. The best ROI would be a teamwipe which is insanely hard to achieve as a support (maybe with a five-man Ana nade). The worst ROI is using utility that results in getting your own team wiped or at least one of your teammates killed which is surprisingly easy to achieve (Lifeweaver Pull into enemy Reinhardt charge). This example shows that spamming abilities off cooldown is most likely to not give you the best result possible. Instead, use them when they give you or your team the most value possible. That may be when a Tracer pops up behind you and would have killed you, if you hadn’t had your utility off cooldown and ready to use. And - trust me here - a support that‘s alive has a lot more value than a long range wonky immortality field or sleep dart.

heading anchor number-3-skill-issue-of-teammatesNumber 3: Skill issue of teammates

At the end of the day, Overwatch is still a team game. A tank that is running into the enemies out of your sightlines and keeps dying makes it hard for you to play like you would want to. It forces you to adapt a playstyle or hero you‘re uncomfortable with, in favor of winning the game - even though it might not be optimal by the book. Another example would be if your other support locks DPS Kiriko and refuses to heal, which forces you into a position of having to create most of the team’s sustain.

When playing differently from what you‘re used to, you will inevitably die more often but you can improvise, adapt and overcome, which you need to do if you want to climb the leaderboard.

Better teammates?

There‘s nothing you can do (about your teammates), except for teaming up with different ones. But as previously said, you can improvise, adapt and overcome:
Improvise: It may mean playing heroes you dislike playing or playing a certain playstyle that you‘re not comfortable with (aggressive frontlining with Brigitte, for instance). This is the masterclass for every player - the occurrence that someone is comfortable on all heroes and all playstyles is marginal.

Adapt: Understand what the enemy’s comp is good at (win conditions!) and understand what your comp is good and bad at. Do not hesitate to swap and adjust your playstyle!

Overcome: Do the steps „Improvise & Adapt“, until you win! Or lose.
Some people you just don’t have synergy with. That‘s an issue to fix for another day.

heading anchor number-4-committing-to-lost-fights-and-bad-ult-usageNumber 4: Committing to lost fights and bad ult usage

I see this with Lucio players constantly. Running in to get a 2 second contest on a point, which is already lost, is not worth it - it‘s a won trade for the enemies because they lose 2 seconds and your team loses the time until Lucio is back in the fight.

The same is for ults like Beat - not using them in a winnable fight is bad, because the next opportunity for a good ult might not be any time soon and you‘ll hold onto it for too long. Using it in a lost fight is bad too, since it’ll be a waste as you may need it in one of the next fights.

Both of these ult usages ultimately result in you dying in situations that could‘ve been prevented by assessing the situation correctly and either committing or not committing.

Better committing?

It’s hard to know when a fight is lost vs when it’s winnable. In fact, you cannot know. The best you can do is make educated guesses and hope luck plays in your favor. As previously mentioned, education is your biggest tool and it just so happens that lots of time playing the game, watching players that are better than you and reading guides like these is key to understanding the game dynamics better and getting a better feel for lost vs. won fights.

Let me give you two very easy examples:

Example A

You’re in the middle of a teamfight. The enemies used all their ultimates and managed to get one of your teammates down. Is this teamfight lost? Some teams might decide to move back a little and give the enemies space in order to not tank any more losses before the next teamfight. That would be considered a lost teamfight. Most teams however, would pop a beat and push the enemies back. After all, the enemies have nothing left to counter 2-4 ultimates at once.

Example B

Let’s say you’re playing attack on Hollywood. Your team has no ultimates whilst the enemy team has all their ultimates ready but they’re down one player. No matter how you twist and turn: Engaging as fast as you can and forcing the enemy team to use ultimates is always a won teamfight, no matter if you got obliterated in the process and didn’t even capture a tick. This is because you will have a far more advantageous next teamfight. You essentially planned ahead and tanked a lost teamfight, to have a far more favorable teamfight next time around.

heading anchor number-5-no-communicationNumber 5: (No) Communication

Not everybody uses voice chat and we cannot recommend it out of the box - there are plenty of reasons not to use it but the one reason you should use it for, is to communicate to your team that you‘re struggling to do your job. May it be because your tank is walking around a corner out of your LOS or because you‘re stuck with a flanker. Let them know when you can’t help them.

Better communication?

Turn on voice chat and blast that mic when you have something to say!

If voice chat is not an option, try using the alternative communication features, namely pings. Let‘s be real - they‘re not that good and most of the time people don’t listen to them, but if your alternative is death, it‘s worth a shot.

heading anchor my-super-special-secret-tipMy Super Special Secret Tip

Following this secret tip will help you stay alive longer as a support immediately. The only thing it needs is a bit of a time investment but you can be sure, every minute is worth your time.

After any gaming session, choose one or two maps you thought you performed super mediocre in. Not too good, not too bad.

Then look at them in the replay feature. Look into your perspective or bird's eye perspective and think „What would be the best play for me here? What could I have done better (in regards to staying alive longer)?“ Then write down what you saw and keep these mistakes in mind when playing your next games, thinking about them constantly. The more effort you put in, the more results you‘ll see!

heading anchor are-you-stayin-aliveAre you stayin' alive?

As always, thanks for reading. I hope you learned something and are now ready to enjoy your matches for longer!

If you want to continue learning, we recommend the guides down below! Check em’ out!