When I watch Overwatch,
it is really easy to be impressed by the flashy plays.
You know, the Widowmaker headshot that I would never make,
the Doomfist Ult that wipes an entire team
or the Pharah Barrage that clinches the match.
The people you rarely see in these moments
are the support players.
You know, the video game equivalent of the mom friend
who always has Advil in their bag.
But, supports are the unsung heroes of Overwatch.
They are always there providing
crucial buffs for their team.
- They are the backbone of team fights.
If you lose a tank, not necessarily a wipe.
You might be able to make it happen,
but if you lose the healers,
it's almost always going to be a wipe.
- This is Seth King, AKA Achilios,
who's been an Overwatch caster since 2016,
which was 10 years ago.
- There's a lot really, like, minor plays
that supports can make.
What it means for how the fight turned out
or how that, even how that series turns out of that map,
can be crazy.
- But to what degree can one decision really make
to the outcome of a match?
Well, this is eSports so yeah, it can change everything.
Let's take one moment on one map
from last year's Overwatch League Playoffs,
where a mix of skill, luck,
and amazing support, changed the game.
- [Caster] Dding gets picked.
And, that's the Barrage out of the picture.
Oh, they got the gutsy Rez off though,
he's back in the fight.
Unbelievable, and now Diem is there.
Yeah, point blank Barrage,
two kills just like that.
That's gonna open it up,
and this is as far as Vancouver Titans are going to go.
- That's the clip and if you don't get what's
happening in it right now, don't worry.
We're gonna build up to a galaxy brain view of this thing.
Right now, what you need to know is,
it's the playoffs between the Vancouver Titans,
and the Shanghai Dragons.
They're tied, and whoever wins this map
will have a lead and whatever emotional boost comes with it.
- [Caster] Knowing that they're going to get EMP'd
at some point in this long fight.
- So, when I look at this moment I see a mess.
There's just chaos on the objective.
The Dragons are defending the last point on Volskaya,
and the Pharah player, Dding dies, gets resurrected by Coma
and then blasts everyone away.
That's what I see with my rookie eyes.
Like, I understand that this is really high-level play.
That's obvious from how fucking fast everyone is moving,
but I want an expert to break it down for me.
Luckily, we got experts.
- People love to be told stories,
and that's essentially what it is in an Overwatch match.
It's an ever-evolving story,
and our job is to present it and try to frame it for you
so you can understand it.
- This is Robert Kirkbride, AKA Hexagrams, AKA Hex.
Hex is an Overwatch caster and you've heard his voice
all over.
- Oh, they got the gutsy Rez off though,
he's back in the fight.
Looking back on it now that it's in slow motion,
and I get to actually see it,
it wasn't really a gutsy Resurrection,
it had to be done.
It had to be done.
- But, why?
On the surface, this moment looks
like it's about two people.
Dding, who just died, and Coma on Mercy, who resurrects him.
But, pro Overwatch players are never just thinking
about one thing at a time.
There's six people on a team.
To understand the complexity of this play,
I have to tell you about Gamsu,
who was fighting for his life on the objective.
I have to tell you about Luffy,
who's decisions literally made it possible
for this play to happen.
And, I have to tell you about Stitch,
playing Sombra for the Vancouver Titans,
who made the right play but ended up super unlucky.
He and his team did their best
to shut this whole thing down.
[Hex] - Stitch is able to take out Youngjin.
Looking very good.
[Caster] - This is looking so good now,
for the Vancouver Titans.
[Host] - In the beginning of the match,
the Titans took point A from the Shanghai Dragons.
- Already giving up first point is brutal for Shanghai,
'cause that should have probably been a hold.
That's mentally devastating here.
- Neither team has any room for error.
As the Titans start their assault on point B,
each team is looking to charge up their ultimate abilities.
Ultimate's are going to be crucial in winning this map.
Neither team has a lot of time.
Anyone who gets their Ult,
will only have one chance to use it effectively.
Some characters already have their Ults.
For the Shanghai Dragons, support character Ana
has her Nano Boost, which will let her boost one
players attack power.
And, DDing, on Pharah, has a devastating rocket barrage
that does a ton of damage, but it's tricky to get off,
because it makes him a huge immobile target.
For the Titans, Slime on Lucio,
has a Sound Barrier that will protect his team
from taking damage.
And, Twilight on Moira, has Coalescence,
an incredibly powerful beam of delicious healing juice,
that damages the enemy team as well.
Twilight turns this beam directly on Dding.
- Right at the beginning of that point,
the first they try and do is they use Coalescence,
then go around the corner,
and they try and actually make a play onto Dding in the sky.
That forces him like, all the way into that back corner,
which gives Vancouver a tick on the point.
- This is Matt Morello, better known as Mr. X.
He didn't call this particular match,
but he does a really good job of explaining it.
In the kerfuffle, the rest of the Dragons manage
to build their Ults and then use them.
Which kind of sucks because they don't get a single kill.
Why?
Slime, the Titans support has saved his Sound Barrier
for just this moment.
[Hex] - If he's gonna survive, Sound Barrier
used, he's trying to clear it up.
- But, Dding doesn't use his Ult.
He's chasing Titans player Haksal into this back room,
at which point Stitch sneaks up behind Dding,
kills him, sets off his Ultimate, the EMP,
which will prevent the Dragons
from using their special abilities.
[Hex] - Nevermind, DDing gets picked.
And, that's the Barrage out of the picture.
- Coma has to make a decision in that scenario.
It's, "Do I wait for DDing to respawn?"
- Here's what he has to think about.
Dding is the only Dragons player with an Ult that's ready,
Gamsu is the only tank left on the point.
The Titans are focusing on him,
and if he goes down too, the Dragons are boned.
Only one other person can give meaningful healing to Gamsu,
and that person is Luffy.
And Luffy is in trouble.
- Luffy has actually, one of the really difficult jobs here,
because as he Nano Boosts Gamsu, he actually gets jumped
on by Bumper, who's playing Winston.
- Here's the thing, Ana can't heal through shields,
and Bumper has just trapped Luffy
in a beautiful shield bubble.
Let's visualize.
If Luffy can't get out, Luffy can't heal Gamsu.
Gamsu, the Dragons tank, is the only person
that can hold the point,
and if they lose the point, they lose the game.
Therefore, if Luffy can't heal Gamsu,
Coma needs to babysit, and can't resurrect Pharah,
who has a loaded gun sitting in the other room,
ready to go off.
But, Luffy actually saves the freaking day here
by hitting Bumper with a sleep dart,
and so Coma is left with the job that only a Mercy can do.
Resurrecting a player.
He's also making full use
of another of Mercy's unique abilities, Valkyrie.
Valkyrie is Mercy's Ultimate,
and arguably the most important thing,
is that it lets Mercy fly.
- It's like you're in free-cam mode on a map editor
map pack here.
You can move around wherever you want.
- Let's go back to that moment that Stitch
sets off the EMP, effectively preventing the Dragons
from using special abilities for five seconds.
EMP is a nightmare.
For a Mercy player, the EMP takes away all mobility.
It effects Guardian Angel, which will let them
zip to any players side.
And, it would kill their ability to use Valkyrie.
Five seconds is a long time to be immobile
for a squishy character like Mercy.
- So, I'd say the mobility is one of the most important
things in the game, if not the most important.
No matter who you're playing, if you don't have an escape,
then there's a higher likelihood that you'd get picked off,
that you could be staggered.
- But, Coma dodges the EMP,
and once he does, he activates Valkyrie.
- I think that Coma's really smart about when he pops Valk.
We call it in the League a lot
a preemptive Valkyrie,
which is pretty much is a correct Valkyrie.
Before you're into the fray of things,
before the bullets start flying,
you want to be in position to avoid those bullets.
If you're Valking after somebody died,
or two people died, it's probably too late already,
and it's gonna be difficult for you to really
get the massive work done.
Coma's just thinking, "What happened to my Pharah?
"I don't have an escape now.
"We're in trouble here, what do we have left in the bank?
"Okay, we got a Barrage, this is our last chance.
I gotta go get him."
- So, here we are.
Coma is in full Valkyrie mode.
He gives Gamsu a bit of juice,
and then leaves him in Luffy's capable hands.
Then, he sails over everyone's heads,
and into the back room to resurrect Dding.
- They don't expect it, and actually,
one of the most surprising things is,
Dding pops up, and just doesn't even go up to the sky.
He just walks through the room,
hits a direct rocket,
then takes a great angle on the Pharah as well.
- That clears two Titans off the point.
The rest is just cleanup.
The Dragons win this map, and a one-point lead.
But, so many things could have gone wrong.
- Coma gets hit by that EMP,
Mercy can't really do anything in that instance,
'cause she can't fly, she loses all mobility.
I mean, the way she has survivability, Mercy,
is by having her mobilities.
Being able to use the Valkyrie really early,
pretty much the same time as the EMP goes off,
keeps him alive, really keeps the team alive.
If Gamsu goes down on the point,
it's an interesting situation because at that point,
they probably have to resurrect Gamsu instead of Dding.
Because if you don't have Gamsu in,
you can't contest the point.
- And, one thing that did go wrong,
ended up being right.
Because Dding died, he wasn't able to use
his rocket Barrage early.
- It's the only Ultimate left on the board.
Everybody's used everything.
Dding couldn't.
It's the last thing on the board
and it just happens to be the game winning play.
- But, this flashy Pharah Barrage that clinched the match,
isn't just about Pharah.
- The Pharah Mercy play,
yes it's a lot about Mercy's position
and it's about being a unit
and working in that positioning together.
Because, both those heroes are so dependent
on using buildings, using angles, using architecture.
- Pulling just this one 15 second play apart,
shows how important support players are
to every big play in Overwatch.
And, just how much they're juggling at a time.
Their decisions can completely change the outcome
of a fight, and the role is not as simple as,
"Keep everyone alive".
Whether they're speed boosting their team
into a ball of murder,
blasting the enemies with a functional death ray,
or reviving crucial teammates in the nick of time,
support players are a force to be reckoned with,
and Overwatch League wouldn't be the same without them.
(upbeat electronic music)