Yes, I am a Lazy Millenial. TL;DR Me!

The Most Disappointing Hero Spotlight Released

The Multiplicative Power of Healing

Brightwing and Effectiveness

Why Emerald Wind is Worse

Why Blink Heal is Better

Emerald Wind isn't as good as everyone thinks. There, I said it. Put down your torches and hear me out. If you're interested, read the long rambly argument below. If you're a lazy millennial like me, take a quick gander at the TL;DR:*Brightwing's base kit struggles in a single support meta.*Healing power multiples the effectiveness of your team.*Critical healing in teamfights is important.*Mobility is incredibly strong right now.*Emerald Wind struggles in a single healer meta.*Emerald Wind was silently nerfed with the introduction of global utilization announcements.*Blink Heal being instantaneous mobility is a big deal.If I were to announce a new support hero coming to the Nexus, let's call said hero 'Nightping', and you were interviewing me about her, how would the conversation go?"So we've gotten a lot of supports with weaker self-healing like Ana and Alexstrasza; does Nightping fare better in this domain?""Not really. Nightping essentially has the ability to regenerate about 9% of her total health every 4 seconds.""Oh. Well then she much have much more health than Ana and Alex to compensate, right?""Much less than both, actually"."Okay well then she must provide fantastic healing. Is it more single target or area of effect?""Well actually, she also boosts the health regeneration of her allies by about 3-9% of their total health every 4 seconds depending on their health pool size"."Okay...well we hear she's a global so does this effect occur globally?""It occurs in a very small circle around Nightping's body. If you stand near her for a while and don't take any damage, you will eventually reach full health.""So...she excels at padding the healing stats on the score screen?""Bingo!"Sure, this sounds silly and it's a little one sided. The argument I'd like to make, however, stems from a few factors I'll talk about below.When looking at healing, one needs to look at critical vs. non-critical healing. This is just a look at what that healing is actually accomplishing. It looks completely different in your average hero league game than it does in pro play but in both cases, the essence is the same: healing multiplies the effectiveness of other players. Let's look at this in terms of analogical numbering:Suppose you have an Illidan in your hero league game who has a capability level of 9. Suppose, you as Rehgar have a skill with this hero at about 25% effectiveness but add 10% for the synergistic pairing and therefore increase the Illidan's overall capability level of 12.15. In similar fashion, suppose you have an Illidan who is around a 3 in his capability level and a Rehgar at about a 95% effectiveness (including synergies) you only end up with an Illidan at a 5.85 capability level. Why does this happen?It comes from the fact that as a support, you only have so many tools at your disposal. Even if you use them all flawlessly, it requires a certain level of competence from your target; you cannot control how they press their buttons. If they are doing everything wrong, than the health and support you are providing only serves to buy time until their inevitable death. If both of you are fairly capable, the support you provide allows them to remain in the fight until your opponent's inevitable death (or retreat). Even a minor amount of healing can add an enormous amount of capability and a spectacular healer and nearly DOUBLE the effectiveness of a good hero.This is obviously a simplified version of events, and it is not to say a great support cannot carry a game, however it is to illustrate the multiplicative nature of healing and the limits imposed on it's usefulness. This will allow us to look at Brightwing's support style.Now that we understand the multiplicative nature of healing, let's look at the critical vs. non-critical aspect of it. Critical healing is healing that allows you to directly influence the outcome of fights. Non-critical healing is healing that provides indirect sustain which may or may not benefit the overall game. While not so cut and dry, you can often think of critical healing as being healing output during a fight and non-critical healing as being a general sustain outside the fighting that allows a team member to stay in the field longer without tapping or backing.Brightwing provides decent non-critical healing, but her tools to support with critical healing are very limited. She sacrifices her only mobility tools to support allies (Pixie Dust and Phase shift if you've specced into it) and in order to provide any critical support whatsoever, then has to compromise her position completely. In hero league, this translates into requiring near flawless play from teammates in taking no unnecessary damage. In more competitive team play, it forces teammates to play safer and does not enable and enhance their trade potential or kill pressure.Much to the frustration of everyone, double healer used to be everywhere. This made 'the Brightwing bomb' a stellar option because it acts as an engagement tool that splits a vulnerable teammate away from his support(s) system. This allowed a quick and effective way to immediately force the enemy to burn several crucial cooldowns or lose a teammate altogether. Moreover, it didn't matter that Brighwing's healing capabilities were weak because there was another healer to take care of those responsibilities, further enhanced by the spell armour Brightwing provided. Even though Brightwing was positioning aggressively, another healer was able to provide the survival mechanism to enable Emerald Wind as a playmaker.With the double healer in the dumpster, Brightwing now needs the healing numbers to compete. Otherwise, you end up with the Quick Match inequity wherein one team had a massive advantage because they had healing power and the other didn't. It's why Tassadar or Medivh are not solo support heroes. Healing power enables a team in an incredible way.The final death stroke to Emerald Wind was the introduction of the alert system upon teleportation. It was always generally obvious who Brightwing was going to teleport onto for a shield, but the timing had to be flawlessly predicted in order to stop the Emerald Wind. Enemies get roughly a 2 second warning before Brightwing even teleports in and then another second to get in position for the silence or stun. This leaves an extremely vulnerable body locked out of her ultimate for 10 seconds in the most compromising position possible. Sure, she can iceblock...but a few seconds of invulnerability while completely surrounded by the enemy team isn't even enough to pass the 10 second lockout of her ultimate.Blink Heal gives Brightwing the enabling power she needs in the single healer meta. Moreover, this meta is dominated by super mobile heroes like Genji and Hanzo. Mobility, right now, is one of. Blink Heal provides excellent mobility on a very short cooldown in addition to the healing it provides which allows Brightwing to utilize her other mobility tools (Pixie Dust and Phase Shift) on allies freely without too much worry of her own vulnerable position. The teleportation is IMMEDIATE. This is a crucial point. Unlike Natural and Cyber Agility, Dwarf Toss, Powerslide, and most other mobility tools that can be interrupted midway through, Blink Heal provides a quick andteleportation to another location making it an excellent tool for dodging almost any ability. This significantly compensates for Brightwing's lack of self-healing capabilities as well.