Overwatch’s Hero-Shooter Design Disincentivizes Healers
Both Overwatch and the Overwatch 2 beta's heroes are classified into three roles. The damage role, consisting of the most heroes, has two responsibilities: breaking the enemies' defenses and eliminating the opposing team. Those in the tank role are beefy characters whose purpose is to soak up damage and serve as anchor points for the team to follow (they are also usually the team's shot callers when it comes to deciding which route to take). Finally, there is the support role, whose responsibility is to buff and heal their teammates.
Out of the three roles, the support role is picked the least by far. This is evident in the short cue times in normal and ranked play, and the fact that not many players immediately go support in quick-play classic. Support roles are usually picked last in order to fill out the team roster. There are many reasons why supports are the least-picked hero role in Overwatch, but most of these revolve around the notion that playing the support role is not very hero-like.
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From the onset, support heroes have drastically lower damage outputs than characters in the damage or tank roles. Since damage heroes' primary goals are to break defenses and take down opponents, their abilities are naturally geared toward offense. Tanks, while not as mobile or immediately dangerous as their damage counterparts, have far bigger health bars and have some big, game-changing abilities (Roadhog's Chain Hook and Zarya's Protective Barrier are prime examples). When they synergize with other teammates' abilities, tanks can drastically change the flow of a match.
Most support role weapons and abilities, on the other hand, are meant to heal allies.
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