Overwatch Players Hear “I Need Healing” In Their Nightmares

Overwatch
“I need healing.” Yeah, well, get in line, buddy. In Overwatch, needing healing is a way of life. It’s also a thing you can spam in “All” chat until your teammates want to throttle you. And, of course, a meme.

genji: i need healing
genji: i need healing
genji: i need healing
genji: i need healing
genji: i need healing
angela: pic.twitter.com/ApbrWNYpSA

— ☕️dr. maid kisser™☕️ (@kirumitoujou) April 5, 2017

Genji: I need healing

Mercy: IM NOT A MIRACLE WORKER pic.twitter.com/nDH4FTpzuX

— 60’s Acid (@Asuraad) March 20, 2017

NEED HEALING pic.twitter.com/C7vp5Qw4oO

— Overwatch.TXT (@OverwatchTXT) January 13, 2017

A week after Overwatch came out, players noticed that Genji mains in particular like spamming “I need healing.” They’re squishy, so it’s probably true a lot of the time. What’s also true is that Genji players like to run away — far away — from their teammates, especially healers. Light years ahead, perched on some precipice in enemy territory, that’s when the wild Genji will shout his Mercy mating call. “I need healing!” he says. And he’ll say it, dozens of times, until a fed-up Mercy will risk death and fly over to him. Pour one out for all those selfless Mercys.

Genji mains who do this are the worst. They over-extend but also will die believing that they can monopolize the healer. They think they’re so important. Buddy, I don’t think so.

Me: *healing everyone on the point*

Teammate: *on the other side of the map* “I need healing”

Me: “Group up with me”

Teammate: pic.twitter.com/WO0FQNYHfb

— Art Daddy (@RamseyKaid) March 7, 2017

With the introduction of the sniper-healer Ana, the “I need healing” meme became even bigger. Genji’s movement is all dashing, jumping and flipping. Pharah players too are swooping around in the air. By design, they’re hard to hit, even for their own teammates. How the hell is Ana supposed to heal them when they’re doing everything in their power to avoid it? Stand still!

A major underpinning of the “I need healing” joke is the fact that a lot of people don’t like to pick support heroes. But in Overwatch, flexibility is important. Even “maining” one hero at all betrays a certain selfishness — what if your team doesn’t need that hero, and instead, they need a healer? I can’t tell you how many times five out of six players have chosen their hero and, as the yellow “NO HEALERS” warning flashes, the sixth chooses Genji. Inevitably, that Genji spams “I need healing.”

I want to be clear on my stance on this: If you need healing, switch to the healer. You are the master of your own destiny. Be the healer you wish to see in your team comp. I call this “Dave’s Law,” after my friend Dave who rarely does that.

Forget_Opinions

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That said, rule number one of Overwatch is: You must complain about Overwatch comp, loudly, at all times, and especially if you are the problem. Now that I’m picking up more DPS heroes, and moving away from my bread and butter tanks, I’ve caught myself spamming “I need healing” once or twice. Pharah, Sombra and Tracer all tend to stray away from the central team. For healing, I should return to the healers. Sometimes, I can’t. Sometimes, the healer is unavailable or we already have two healers so I can’t switch or I have other great, airtight reasons for hitting that “I need healing” macro. I don’t regret it. I only regret making that public. And publicly complaining about other people who do it.