Overwatch 2's new support hero can sabotage his own team, but Blizzard hopes players will behave
It's hard to appreciate Overwatch 2's newest support hero(opens in new tab) knowing that at any moment he could absolutely ruin your day.
On April 11, Overwatch 2 will introduce Lifeweaver, a charming Thai hero who has the ability to pull his teammates toward him. If an ally is in danger, Lifeweaver can cast a shield onto them and yank them to safety. He can also yank them into danger, or off the map.
Lifeweaver could be a griefer's dream, but Blizzard seems confident it won't be a problem.
«In terms of trolling, we do have some controls over where Life Grip can be cast from, and it's doing some detection to make sure that you're not doing something really bad like dragging someone into a death plane off the side of the map or something like that,» hero design producer Kenny Hudson said in a group interview with PC Gamer.
Heroes with their own movement abilities, like Tracer's Blinks or Moira's Fade, can escape Lifeweaver's grip, but wasted abilities cost you precious time in a fast-paced match.
«Internally, when we were coming up with this ability, there was a little bit of apprehensiveness,» Hudson said. «But what we found as we were playtesting was that we actually saw a lot of heroic saves with Life Grip, especially if you have an over-extending tank or something like that.»
In the gameplay video released today, you can see Lifeweaver pulling a friendly Reaper and Pharah through enemies as they use their otherwise stationary ults. It's an impressive display of what coordinated plays could look like with the ability, but it also seems like it would be rare outside of high-skill matches.
Lifeweaver has to spend time healing too, but he was designed to offer an alternative for players who want to help their team in
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