- Players are complaining about waiting in long queues for the support role
- Many attribute this to the recently-introduced support Illari’s popularity
- Others say that supports have been buffed a lot and have thus become too popular
Players who play support have reported having to wait for more than ten minutes to get into a lobby, as the role seems to have ballooned in popularity over the last few weeks.
Illari Shakes Up the Meta
Support is one of the most important roles in Overwatch, but it does not mean it doesn’t come with its problems. Interestingly, the latest issue came with the arrival of the game’s newest support hero – Illari. Usually, when a new character is introduced in a game, be it Overwatch or another title, many people flock to it, wanting to try out the newest addition. Such is the case with Illari, and that’s precisely the problem many players are currently complaining about.
Since there are many fans who want to try out the new hero’s kit and skills, the pool of support players has ballooned. Many are reporting that they have to wait in queues for over ten minutes to find an empty support slot. This caused players to demand something be changed as queue times continue to climb, with many fans complaining about this in a viral Reddit post.
It’s interesting to note that this issue plagues only the support slots. Other roles, such as the tank, can get into a match in under one minute. The issue also seems to be compounded at higher ranks. “Yeah, masters queue times are pain sometimes,” one player wrote. “In my experience, the estimate is always waaaaay over tho. Like 8-10 minutes when it says 20 minutes. 10 minutes is still pretty dang long but for me it’s worth it because the quality of matches generally feels a lot higher in masters compared to my plat/gold off roles.”
The issue isn’t even new, as Illari was introduced into Overwatch 2 back in August, and since then, the waiting times fopr support heroes have only increased. This is only made worse by the buffs that supports have been given this season, giving them much more DPS. “Illari getting released was the final nail in the coffin. She’s basically a dps with 120 healing per second and a turret with healing comparable to Mercy,” one player wrote. “They want you to play support so bad they’re literally just releasing dps heroes and giving them healing abilities. Even Illari’s ult is a dps ultimate.”
Perhaps if statistics show that support heroes have disproportionately high scores at the end of matches, then Blizzard might do something about rebalancing them, which will also likely bring down the number of players wanting to play them. But until that happens, support mains will have to cope with having to wait out long queues when they want to play.
