Trolls Already Found A Way To Grief Gamers Using Overwatch 2's Lifeweaver Support Hero
Lifeweaver is a new support hero coming to Overwatch 2, that promises to add new and diverse strategic gameplay to the game with his unique repositioning abilities. However, the hero has come under fire due to his trolling potential with teammates. One of his abilities known as Life Grip is designed to snatch a teammate from a life-threatening situation to Lifeweaver’s location. However, the ability has been found among playtesters to be an effective trolling tool for killing teammates by swinging them off map borders and into sinkholes.
Life Grip is a very unusual ability, in that it allows Lifeweaver players to reposition teammates at will, with or without the teammate’s permission. Other repositioning abilities, like Symettra’s teleporter, don’t do this and allow all players to control whether or not they will be transported to another location. We suspect Blizzard designed Life Grip this way, so Lifeweaver players can save teammates quickly and don’t have to sit around waiting for the other player to request to be pulled away.
Playtesters demonstrated this exploit perfectly in a recent TikTok, where Lifeweaver players found they could use Life Grip in conjunction with another ability known as Petal Platform to swing friendly players off map borders with ease. It's a trick any player can pick up and is easy to execute on a consistent basis. There are countermeasures in place that prevent friendly players from being pulled off map edges, however, they don’t seem to apply when using Lifeweaver’s platform ability.
Trolling isn’t the only issue with Life Grip. It also has the potential to disrupt a lot of Overwatch 2 matches in general, especially in competitive ranked matches where team synergy means everything to win a fight. If players don’t agree on how aggressive or defensive the team should be when taking an objective, pushing a cart, or escorting a robot, Lifeweaver players can boss players around and wring them back to keep them in line, instead of supporting the team like the character is supposed to do.
It will be interesting to see what Blizzard has to say, or what it’ll do regarding this potential issue. Hopefully, it won’t come down to a complete deletion of Life Grip in favor of an entirely new ability.
Lifeweaver is a Thai-based hero, whose job is to heal teammates and repositioning friendly heroes to win fights in Overwatch 2. His power comes from plants, and all of his abilities revolve around some sort of plant-based ability. His primary fire heals allies by up to 65 HP when fully charged, and his alternate fire deals damage to players by streams of thorns shooting out of his gauntlet. Lifeweaver’s repositioning capabilities include a hovering platform (Pedal Platform) that will rise into the air when stepped on, as well as a dash ability. Then of course there’s Life Grip where Lifeweaver can relocate friendlies to himself to save them from harm. His ultimate is a healing ability that spawns a tree that heals all allies in its general vicinity. Lastly his passive allows players to pick up a healing orb if Lifeweaver dies.
Lifeweaver and his trolling potential will arrive on April 11th along with the Season 4 update of Overwatch 2.
