Team Dignitas welcomed Marcel 'Veineless' Lehmannto the Overwatch team earlier in January. As a support player, Veineless has some serious insight to the recent changes to Ana, Lucio, and various competitive rules. In this interview Veineless talks about the latest PTR, as well as the changes to the meta that we might be anticipating from this update.

What drew you to Overwatch? What is your favorite thing about the game?

Veineless: My favorite thing about the game is that it combines aspects of so many different games, and even genres. Because of that, it brings together communities from a lot of games such as Team Fortress 2, Shootmania and even MOBAs such as Heroes of the Storm.

Some players see Lucio’s changes as a nerf, others as a buff. Do you think the increased healing will compensate for his radius being cut into a third?

Veineless: I think the Lucio changes will change the way teams have to play their comps. It just changes how Lucio works, it's not necessarily a nerf or a buff. His movement however, as well as his increased damage will help a lot. Overall, I'm not sure these changes will make Lucio played less, as the game feels pretty slow without (passive) speed boost and often requires speed to engage.

Part of why Lucio is always in the game is his ability to stay alive and still be useful for his team. It’s more necessary to protect an Ana, Mercy or Zenyatta if you want them to do their job effectively. With Lucio’s decreased AOE radius, if he runs from enemies he won’t be as useful to his team. How is this rework going to affect the way teammates play around their Lucio?

Veineless: Lucio will play a more active role in the game. Both for dive comps as well as "standard" comps built around Reinhardt, he will change the way teams play. I think on defense, teams will play way more tank lineups and basically play a deathball, abusing synergies such as Soldier's Healing Station+Ana Biotic Grenade and then Lucio's heal boost. For offense, we might see Lucios play way more aggressively and basically help the divers himself doing DPS.

Compared to the other supports, do you think his increased speed during and after wall riding balanced? With Blizzard trying to combat stall tactics for defenders, how do you think this buff will play into contesting during overtime? PTR Lucio has the ability to get from spawn to choke on Eichenwalde in 5 seconds. Is Lucio still going to be a “must-have” because of his mobility paired with his survivability?

Veineless: Personally, I feel like the speed boost when Lucio jumps off a wall is way too overtuned. It takes you merely seconds to get back to first points. It actually kind of feels like some fun Arcade Game Mode settings sometimes. However, he needs some way of catching up to his teammates due to his reduced aura range. I don't really expect his pick rate to go down a whole lot, the speed boost is just too important for engagements and the overall flow of the game.

The new assault map tie-breaker system operates on an indivisible percentage of how much of the point each team controls (there have been gifs, not videos, of players capturing 1% of the point and winning). What is this going to mean in terms of team compositions? Will this promote more flankers, and how will Lucio’s speed changes pair with this new system?

Veineless: I think the PTR tie-breaker changes are very unhealthy for the game. While I do agree that there are too many ties, the current system forces teams to actively defend on the point, basically going against any form of map design, as you will constantly have someone on the point. However, flankers that will be the ones going for the point such as Tracer/Genji/Sombra/Pharah will be able to 1v1 heroes a lot of the times, resulting in the defending team sending more people to the point. This means you give up pressure on the choke, basically splitting up the entire team, therefore it ends up being better for the defending team to all hold on the point, which really changes the balance of every single map. I think the tie-breaker system should only take into account each third of the point capped instead of every single percentage point.

If the respawn timer for defenders increases when attackers outnumber them, do you think attackers have an unfair advantage with Lucio’s increased speed or with flankers like Sombra who can go invisible and run straight for the point? Do you think these changes are going to promote dive-heavy comps?

Veineless: There is no unfair advantage for either team comp with this system, because if you abandon the fight to contest the point in order to increase the defending spawn timers, you will lack fire power in the actual teamfight.

Ana recently received a slight nerf to her offensive fire. Do you think this balances her to the other supports or will she still run the meta?

Veineless: I think the change is really healthy for the game, however her Biotic Grenade is still too strong of an ability. Against dive comps, it heavily impacts the outcome of a fight as it both heals you but mainly damages the enemy flankers without great effort. The heal deny in particular is still too strong in my opinion.

Assuming that Lucio and Ana are still going to be the most played supports among professional players, are you anticipating another tank-heavy meta with the Lucio changes? What types of heroes are these two supports going to compliment most with their anticipated changes?

Veineless: Ana is still overall a very strong hero, her change didn't really impact which comps are being played. Depending on the teams' strengths, dive comps and tank-heavy comps are still viable. For Lucio, it's a little too early for me to judge, however, I think it will make tank-heavy comps much stronger on defense and might actually make solo support comps (Lucio+5) viable.

We mostly see Ana and Lucio in pro-team comps. With Lucio’s rework and Ana’s slight nerf to damage output, do you think we can expect to see Mercy and Zenyatta played more often?

Veineless: I think Mercy is in a good spot right now. The changes to her ultimate making herself invincible made it so much easier to work around tempo resses (1-2 man revives mid-fight). Ana not 3-shotting her also significantly increased the viability of the Pharmercy combo. Mercy is definitely going to be played more again. The changes to Zenyatta's spread as well as his rightclick recovery time significantly help with winning 1v1's, however, he is still very vulnerable to flankers due to his large hitbox. Overall, I don't think his pickrate will change too much, especially because teams are currently running dive comps on defense.

Compared to Ana and Lucio, do Mercy and Zenyatta offer their team the same utility? Is there anything you would like to see happen to Mercy or Zenyatta to make them more viable to professional players?

Veineless: Overall, I think the supports are mostly in a balanced spot right now. Ana is still a little bit overtuned, however Zenyatta and Mercy are both viable currently. Zenyatta fills a completely different role than Mercy and Ana, however, as he is basically another DPS hero with very little healing, mostly for flankers. The only change I would want to see is a reduction to Zenyatta's hitbox. This is the main reasons he is not seeing much play currently, due to dying to flankers way too quickly as they will almost never miss any shots on him. Comparatively, maybe Mercy could use a slight heal increase as Ana still has significantly more healing than Mercy, who is supposed to be the main solo-target healer.

Any shoutouts?

Veineless: I've been streaming regularly lately, so shoutout to all my viewers! Been having lots of fun streaming! :)