being a strategist is a thankless job

Over the past couple of years, I've put a lot of hours into shooter games, namely Overwatch 2. After all my time playing, I've learned that I like playing the role of Support. In this role, I feel like I can be the most effective for my team. However, with this role comes a lot of responsibility and a lot of blame. Coming to Marvel Rivals I knew that the role of Strategist would be the best pick for me and so far it's been going well. A bit of a learning curve having to get used to everyone's kit and finding the one that fits my play style the best but overall it's been quite enjoyable. Until recently.

I've been doing my best to rank up as a Strategist in Comp, playing primarily as Invisible Woman (I've found that her kit matches my playstyle the best). Throughout my time playing I've learned that in this game, blaming the Strategist is far more common than I've ever experienced in any other game. Now I can take some fault for my mistakes. Sometimes it is on me for missing force fields or not healing a teammate in time. But what I just experienced in my last match almost caused me to crash out.

We were on a push map and we got past the three checkpoints but we weren't able to push it through the finish line. It happens, right? However, this time one of my teammates decided to go on the mic and say "If you don't know how to play healer then you should just hop off because it's a waste of time." I look at our team comp, and I've been the only healer on the team the whole time. To me, that's pretty damn impressive for having almost made it through to the end. But for my teammate that wasn't enough. When I pressed him and suggested that he play as a second Strategist, he returned "Oh I usually play Duelist but I'm playing Vanguard because we don't have one." He was playing the very role I was doing my best to pocket the whole round since we only had one Vanguard as well. But apparently, that wasn't enough.

The second round starts and still I'm the only Strategist. After voicing my frustration that I was doing my best another teammate decided to pop in (albeit in a more constructive manner) and ask what my healing amount was. I responded 12,000 but apparently, that wasn't enough to justify my effort again. For them, it should have been more.

Why is the role of Strategist only measured by the amount of healing one puts out? The role is not meant to be a healbot, someone who just stands in the back and heals unwaverlngly. The role is to support. There are so many other abilities in the Strategists' kits that go beyond just healing the team. Sure, that's an objective of the role but it's not the only one.

I know I'm wishing for ice water in hell when I said this, but I wish that more players were just an ounce more sympathetic to the role. When a teammate decides to run into a 1v6 why then do I need to be blamed because they exploded? I can't make you invincible. My role is to support but when I'm supporting players who don't have basic game sense about ALL roles, then there's only so much I can do.

Please tell me there are other Strategist players out there who can relate.