There are 10 support heroes present in Overwatch 2. There’s Mercy which everyone knows about, and then there’s Moira, Ana, kriko, Zenyatta, etc. Now there’s an addition to this support hero list and a new character has been introduced to this class. This new support hero is really good at upfront battle and his abilities are literal life lifesavers in scenarios.
We are talking about lifeweaver in this blog. I am going to discuss him in depth giving every bit of information that you need to get better at the character. If you carefully follow this guide and apply everything I have said in it you will be a much better player with lifeweaver. Now before jumping into the blog. I would like to tell you about his origin story a little because after knowing his backstory you’ll feel more connected to him.
Niran Pruksa Manee or Life Weaver was born in Chiang Mai Thailand. He was the middle child of his wealthy parents. His rich had high expectations of him. However, he did not like the life that his parents chose for him he preferred to wander around with his peers in the vast walled gardens. His parents resisted and sent him to the prestigious Vishkar Architech Academy. Where he became An artist, activist, and inventor. Thanks to his new-found invention he can heal wounds, cure illnesses, and may one day save everyone on the planet.
Now that his backstory is out of the way let’s talk about his playstyle. Which playstyle suits him and how should you position yourself to play with him?
Playstyle:
Like every other non-pocket healer Life Weaver also has two playstyles. one is a little more direct and aggressive. The other one is more traditional support style which provides healing and stays at the backside of the team. I’ll talk about each of them here extensively so you will know which one suits your taste so you can adapt to that play style.
Lifeweaver can be a good DPS in the right hands since he has more damage per bullet than Soldier 76. You could use his Thorn Volley to spam the opponents since the fire rate is also higher than Soldier 76 and Sojourn. You could just hold your thorn volley down on enemies and deal damage upwards of 300hp. Since you are playing as a damage hero you could not help out your allies that quickly. Because in this playstyle you are always taking fights and dealing damage
If you want to help your allies out You’ll have to take a moment to relocate to assess your teammate. Which is in my opinion worth it if you are killing it as a DPS. His petal platform provides him with opportunities to take on enemies from different angles more efficiently. The Rejuvenating Dash gives life weavers much-needed mobility to play around on the map.
The second playstyle is a little more basic but gets the job done. So you just have to play at mid-lane trying to deal damage whenever you can and most importantly heal your allies. Now there are variations to this playstyle as you could play situational. You could go berserk for a few moments and then come back to your allies and heal them or grab them out of trouble or you could just stay back heal whenever you could and take a fight or two.
The reason that this playstyle is a little less impactful is that Life Weaver doesn’t have the best healing abilities in the world. Yes, he could heal his allies or grab them out of trouble but if we go about sheer healing abilities. Lifeweaver is still a little behind in that department. So my recommendation would be to play with him aggressively if you got the aim.
His abilities and how to properly use them:
Thorn Volley And Healing Blossom:
So these two are the primary fires of life weaver. The right-click or “thorn Volley” is his damage and the left click or “Healing Blossom” is his healing abilities. Thorn Volley has 60 ammo which deals damage at around 6 hp per thorn meaning you could 360 damage with a full clip. Now for a support hero, I think the damage is more than enough but seeing it as a sole damaging weapon the fire rate of Thorn Volley makes it a vulnerable weapon to use because Lifeweaver is a hybrid healer.
On the brighter side, his healing blossoms provide an instant health boost of 80 hp when fully charged or you could spam it for a 10 hp boost. The healing blossom has a clip size of 16 with a reload time of just 1.5 seconds. The max range of the healing blossom is 30 meters so you could use it at a distance and be on the safe side.
Petal Platform:
The petal platform provides an elevated position when stepped upon. So it has 400hp of health and a cooldown of 12 seconds but the cool thing here is that it has no downtime unless someone shoots it and finishes its health the petal platform stands or someone steps on it. So you could just place it anywhere you want and wait for your teammates to step on it and it will get activated.
Now there are several things that the petal platform is good for. The first and most obvious one is that it provides an elevated angle to the allies. It also provides much-needed staircases to climb up on things. You could combo it with your ally’s ultimates. There are several use cases other than these. So go on try it in your games and learn as you play.
Life Grip & Rejuvenating Dash:
The life grip of Life Weaver is an incredible ability since you can just snatch your allies right from the mouths of enemies. So what it can do is it can grab any of your allies towards you and it also heals them a bit in the meantime. The cooldown of the life grip is 19 seconds while the max range is 30 meters. So you could just grab your ally from a safety distance which is in my opinion really great thing for a support hero. Now there are also variations to this ability. Firstly you could use it to save your allies from an ultimate, you could use it to get them out of focus.
Let’s talk about his dash a little bit and how it is slightly different from Tracer’s dash. Firstly the Rejuvenating Dash only gets you far for about 7 meters and it only does it one time, unlike Tracer’s dash which gets you 7.5 meters in distance per dash and 22.5 meters in total. On the brighter side, the Rejuvenating Dash heals you in the way and provides a little bit of mobility to lifeweaver.
Tree of Life:
At last, let’s talk about his ultimate so life weaver can grow a tree out of nowhere. What this tree does is it provides its allies waves of health boosts. So it instantly boosts the health of the allies for 150 hp and after that, it gives 90 hp for every pulse which gets converted to over health after getting fully healed by it. The duration of the Tree of Life is 15 seconds which is more than enough to capture and secure an objective or to ensure a footing while committing. The maximum range of the pulse effect is 30 meters which allows the players to take more picks and be more aggressive.
Team compositions:
As a support hero, lifeweaver could pair with a lot of heroes. Here are some of my favorite hero picks that I think you should pair with him.
Soldier 76:
Soldier 76 and Life Weaver can be a dynamic duo. Since Soldier 76 is self-sufficient he can heal himself and can sprint nonstop while Lifeweaver can damage the enemies and can provide live support whenever the soldier wants That is a really good pair of hands to start a game with.
Ana:
The next hero that can be a good duo with lifeweaver is Ana. Ana is a versatile support hero she has the highest pick rate out of anybody in the game. So Lifeweaver and Ana can be the backbone of any team if utilized properly her long-range healing ability coupled with Lifeweaver’s damaging ability can come in clutch in matches.
Baptiste:
Pairing Life Weaver with Baptiste can be a good idea since Life Weaver lacks in the mobility department that is where Baptiste can help his team out where Life Weaver can not. Other than that Baptiste also has a higher amount of healing than Lifeweaver. Pairing them in a single team can be a real value addition.
Wrapping it up:
That is it, I have tried to cover everything about lifeweaver. Whether it is his backstory, his playstyle, or his abilities, I have covered it all in this blog. In case I missed anything you could comment down below and should let me know about it. I would appreciate it.