I was hoping Hero 27 would be officially revealed last night so I could analyze and predict how the pros will use it. After all, Jeff Kaplan said Hero 27 is ‘meta-changing,’ and I am extremely skeptical. Skeptical, but eager to know how.



The last night bit is important because I usually write my posts the evening before they’re posted, queuing them up for high traffic times. As such, I currently have nothing to say about Hero 27, even if she’s revealed between me writing and posting this. But don’t worry, I’ll analyze her soon enough.



In the meantime, I wanted to talk about the DPS problem of the Overwatch League. I don’t mean that there are too many DPS players, or even that there are too many DPS characters. Rather, I’m concerned about how the cameras of OWL spend too much time focusing on the damage dealers rather than on other roles.



I know this is not an original complaint or concern. At the same time, it’s something the League needs to address if the developers of Overwatch want the game to grow into the team-building, hero-switching, positive-thinking community it so desperately wants.



One of the great appeals of Overwatch League is that the audience gets to see how the pros do it better. A Genji main might watch an OWL game and recognize where their playstyle needs work. A Junkrat main will see cheeky, sneaky ways to use Rip-Tire. Widowmaker mains will find good positions to poise and aim.



But here’s the thing. All of those characters I just mentioned are DPS heroes. And I play support.



I played Moira more than 80% of my entire Season 8 playtime, and consistently pumped out more heals than the other healers on my teams. My most played hero is Lucio, by a large margin. I love playing characters like Ana and Zen. I have a love-hate relationship with Mercy, but she’s still one of my top played heroes overall.



But let’s consider Moira. When I watch the Overwatch League, I never get to see professionals use her from any perspective other than third.



The audience of Overwatch League has many opportunities to watch Widowmakers land headshots from the Widowmaker’s perspective. We get to see the pathways Junkrat takes using his Rip-Tire. We often watch Tracer engage in deadly duels, McCree get off tricky ultimates, and even Sombra land difficult hacks. But when it comes to most supports and tanks, we don’t get to see any of that.



True, Zenyatta gets a lot of love, though some argue he’s just a DPS with two supportive abilities. Ana gets the occasional POV. But I have yet to see a single POV featuring Mercy, Moira, or Lucio. True, I may have missed the games where their POVs were shown, but even so, these characters are not equally represented on camera compared to their DPS brethren.



Instead, we’re forced to watch these characters from a third-person eye, where is grows increasingly difficult to understand and recognize the choices the pros make. When I see a pro Tracer dart around the back lines, I’m able to determine why they’re making the choices they are. When I see Lucio wall grind around the pillar in Oasis, it’s usually from the perspective of someone else, and I have no idea why the pro is choosing to make that action in that moment.



Some things can be learned from a third-person perspective, of course. I think Orisa players can learn a lot about barrier placement from this perspective. But at the same time, we’ve missed out on seeing Orisa through the eyes of the player. When do they use Halt? Which targets do they focus first? How much of a lead do they create when aiming at prey?



DPS, in the meantime, get all the attention, the camera emphasizing their kills and eliminations and ignoring the copious amounts of healing they often receive at the hands of their dedicated support teammates. A counter argument to this is that support players don’t necessarily want the glory that comes with high-killing DPS players. They chose to support their team for a reason, and it was so they could heal, not so they could secure kills.



But this causes an imbalance in Overwatch’s ecosystem. When players watch Overwatch League, they aren’t being coached regarding how to play supporting characters. Instead, they are being coached on how to play DPS heroes. And so when they log in to Overwatch to play a few games, they are drawn to Widowmaker, Genji, Tracer, and other damage dealers. Nobody leaves an Overwatch League game wanting to play Lucio, or Moira, or Mercy, or even Orisa or Reinhardt. These heroes are merely side characters in the story of Overwatch League, serving no purpose other than to make other players and characters look good.



And that really bums me out as a support player. I was excited to see OWL players give Moira playtime following the Mercy buff, only to be disappointed when I realized I wouldn’t see what Moira gameplay looks like in the hands of a pro. Instead, I get to watch her behind a fan of shurikens, struggling to guess what the Moira player is doing at any given time.



I’ve ranted and rambled a bit, so I’m going to wrap it all up.



When the Overwatch League cameras focus on DPS Heroes …



1. It puts a greater importance on kills and eliminations rather than on supporting the team.



2. It keeps players from wanting to emulate the pro players who play supports and slow tanks.



3. It encourages players to emulate the pro players who play DPS.



Now don’t get me wrong. Eliminations are important. DPS characters and players are needed, and I think the camera should spend a lot of time with those DPS players. For example, I think Widowmaker offers a great general POV because of her ability to survey the entire battlefield, often giving the audience a chance to see the entire battle at once.



I’m just asking for one thing. Don’t show the POV of DPS players 95% of the time. Give them 60% of the screen time, and give the rest to the other heroes, especially the supports and the slow tanks.



Zachary out!

