The newest Overwatch patch has come out and brought along changes in the hero pool. Meet the top 10 best heroes to play.
Overwatch DPS - Tracer uses her ability to travel through time to fight crime
10. DPS Heroes
Let‘s talk about the damage heroes in Overwatch. This is by far the largest group and it is difficult to name any that really stand out. It depends all on your playstyle and especially on the team composition.
When picking your hero, it‘s important to factor in the other heroes in your team, specifically the tank. But the enemy team is also important and the battle situation might require you to adjust. Here are some recommendations from the current meta.
10.1 Hanzo
Hanzo is a sniper, formerly belonging to a Japanese Yakuza-Family and brother to hero Genji. He uses a bow and arrow, can wall climb and is in general a highly mobile character. His long range and high damage make him dangerous for all heroes. Without a scope he is one of the harder snipers to play and the way his arrows fly takes some getting used to. But even with the fairly high skills required for his play, he can totally make or break the game.
His abilities are ‘Sonic Arrow’, an ability with which he can make enemies visible through walls for his teammates, but only in a section of the map, and ‘Storm Arrow’, which allows him to shoot up to 5 arrows in quick succession even though he usually has a 0.5 second recovery time between shots. Positive is though, that Hanzo can both achieve headshots even from a long distance and the damage power of his Stormbow can reach depending on charge 27.5 to 125. This can easily give heroes with small health bars the finishing shot.
The strongest part of him is probably his ultimate, since it can tear through the map, doing damage even to hero‘s further away. Additionally it is so big, it can help clear the enemies of a point or corner them for a quick team kill.
What Makes Hanzo Great:
- Long range
- High Damage
- Powerful Ultimate
- Stormarrow
10.2 Soldier 76
His rifle shoots ‘Helix Rifles’ that cause a small explosion and can cause self-harm if fired too closely. His passive ability enables him to ‘Sprint’ any distance. This makes him a good flanker, but lets him regroup with the team fast to dive together.
Soldier 76’s ultimate ability ‘Tactical Visor’ is in line with the principles of aimbot. For 6 seconds the automatic rifle aims at the closest enemy target in sight that isn’t covered by a shield. This makes him deadly for flankers like Tracer or flying heroes like Phara and Mercy.
What Makes Soldier Great:
- Independent
- Self-reliant
- High damage
- Good for quick dives
9. Tracer
From all the DPS Heroes, Tracer is probably the one requiring the highest skill. But she is still the most played hero in the current meta. Her mobility is unparalleled and the way she can keep disrupting the enemy team and taking out the enemy support makes her probably the strongest damage hero in Overwatch.
Tracer is a British adventurer aiming to right wrongs all over the world. With her twin pistols and the ability to travel through time, she is almost impossible to keep up with in battle.
Her abilities include ‘Blink’, a quick burst of movement that lets her zip through the map, and ‘Recall’, a skill that enables her to rewind time to three seconds before. Her health returns and she is returned to the place on the map she was three seconds ago. This allows her to keep returning to poke at the enemy repeatedly.
Her pistols rapid fire 20 shots before reloading. With a quick reload time of 1.15 seconds she is one of the fastest heroes and due to her short range, headshots can still be fatal even though the damage of the bullets is a mere 1.8 to 6. Tracer is mostly played as a flanking hero and is especially effective in dealing with the enemy support.
Her strongest counter is Brigitta with her ‘Rocket Flail’, but even if the enemy supports are too guarded, Tracer can still push together with the team and make use of her fast charging ultimate.
Tracer’s ultimate ability ‘Pulse Bomb’ can be stuck to an enemy for maximum efficiency. It can blow up a whole team and with the speed it recharges when Tracer keeps poking the enemy team, it is a powerful tool in battle.
What Makes Tracer Great:
- High Speed
- High Mobility
- Recall
- Her ultimate
- Good for flanking
8. Sigma
Let’s see the top tanks of the meta. First off is Sigmarequiring high skill and a decent amount of experience, . The astrophysicist with his ability to bend gravity to his will is an allrounder that can shield his team, givinghimself a health boost and doingdecent amount of damage on his own.
Additionally, he has the ability to chuck a big chunk of debris at his enemies, knocking them down and rendering them immobile for 0.8 seconds, often enough time for DPS and supports to land critical hits. It’s called ‘Accretion’ and can’t be reflected by Genji.
Sigma can finish off enemies with his ‘Hyperspheres’, which he fires in pairs to cause small explosions that deal damage in a small area. They bounce from walls, floor and ceiling, giving Sigma an advantage on tighter maps. BUT careful about the self-damage his projectiles can cause at close proximity to the explosion.
His ‘Experimental Barrier’ is a very mobile shield, enabling Sigma to place it in any direction he likes. But due to its weakness, positioning is key for this hero. Always remain near cover to duck in and out regularly to prevent running out of resources and dying. Sigma is especially useful when your team is dominating the high ground.
With his ability ‘Kinetic Grasp’ Sigma can absorb 60% of damage and turn it into temporary shields, making him a harder kill, but if you decide to tank as Sigma, keep an eye out for Roadhogs as the hook can pull you out of cover and make you an easy target for any lingering enemies.
Finally, Sigma too has a strong ultimate. ‘Gravitic Flux’ lifts up enemies in a designated area and keeps them suspended for 2 seconds, before slamming them down hard and costing every hero 50% of their maximum health. This ult is very useful for ultimate-combos. Care is advised when it comes to the timing though, to not cancel out each other’s ult.
What Makes Sigma Great:
- Allrounder
- Crowd control through ultimate
7. Roadhog
This Australian Rebel was once permanently displaced in favour of the artificially intelligent robots called ‘Omnics’ and started a rebellion. The result of the following war was a big explosion that left the Australian outback a wasteland of Scrap.
In this wasteland the man that was Roadhog turns to a stone cold killer and begins to work with another Rebel to steal and loot. Due to the explosion his body has been altered and he relies on a gas mask to breathe.
His ability ‘Take A Breather’ is based on this concept and allows the tank to recover 300 health points over a time of 2 seconds. This makes him extremely hard to kill, especially since he can heal every 8 seconds.
Endangered are especially big heroes or flying characters like Phara when Roadhog gets his ‘Chain Hook’ out to pull his enemies closer. The hook and ‘Scrap Gun’ combo is almost always fatal for smaller characters like Tracer or Mercy.
His big body gives his teammates enough cover, but it’s important Roadhog players can gauge the strength with which the enemy team is keeping him in check, so he doesn’t feed them ultimate charge.
Heroes Roadhog has to be careful around: Ana and D.VA, since Ana’s Grenade can block Roadhog from healing, making it easy for high damage heroes like D.VA, who don’t have to reload, to kill him.
Roadhog’s ultimate ability is called ‘Whole Hog’. He fires 128 bullets a second for 5.5 seconds, amounting to a total of 4928 points of damage. Enemies within rage are additionally pushed back by him.
What Makes Roadhog Great:
- Bulky
- Can heal himself
- Strong ultimate for clearing points
- Useful against flying characters
6. Wrecking Ball
The genetically modified hamster ‘Hammond’ landed in the Australian Wastelands after he fled from a rebellion in his home, the lunar colony ‘Horizon’. There he built his escape capsule into a mecha to partake in the great mecha battles of the ‘Scrapyard’. As a mobile tank, he has one of the highest play rates amongst the current pro meta.
With his ‘Quad Cannons’ and the ‘Adaptive Shield’ Wrecking Ball is not just bulky in health, but also quite high on his damage stats. His ultimate ability additionally can deploy a massive field of proximity mines, giving him a sense of crowd control and it can help secure points or payloads.
The main part about Hammond is his mobility. He can ‘Roll’ around the map and ‘Piledrive’ into the enemy back lines or swing around on his As a Wrecking Ball player it is all about positioning in the map. It’s about knowing the enemies whereabouts and which heroes are easily flankable.
Wrecking Ball is a very independent character and due to the mostly disruptive design of his abilities, he can be a great catalyst for the team to get kills in during the ensuing chaos.
What Makes Wrecking Ball Great:
- Great movement
- Bulky
- Very disruptive to enemy team
5. Zenyatta
The Omnic is a monk aspiring to reach transcendental immunity to damage. On his path Zenyatta has become a mentor to many, including the hero ‘Genji’ whom he helped accept his cyborg nature.
With his ‘Orbs Of Harmony And Discord’ he can heal his teammates and boost the damage done to the enemies. Additionally he can use his ‘Orbs of Destruction’ in two fire modes, enabling him to be both used as a sniper character or as a hitscan.
Due to his high damage potential Zenyatta is often considered somewhat of a DPS himself. A good Zenyatta player isn’t a sitting duck, but can keep up with any flankers that might be coming for him and can hold himself in team dives.
His ultimate ability ‘Transcendence’ enables him to float and emit a blinding light. Within the light, all team members receive massive healing. His ultimate lasts for 6 seconds and can make a true impact as it can outheal several other hero ultimates.
What makes Zenyatta Great:
- Versatile
- Allrounder
- High damage
4. Ana
When it comes to Support heroes, the meta agrees on one thing. Ana has to be there. The aged sniper is the perfect allrounder. With a big arsenal of abilities and her ‘Biotic Rifle’, she can reach both, theenemy team and allies, from the safety of her own back lines.
Her ‘Sleep dart’ is probably one of the safest defences the support heroes in Overwatch have. Ana can sleep any flankers that get too close and while she is retreating, other team members can swoop in for the kill.
Ana,with 200 health, isnot the strongest hero and caution is advised, but the power of her ‘Biotic Grenade’ which can block enemies from healing is too much of an advantage to be ignored. Roadhog or a disturbing Wrecking Ball are easy prey to a good Ana.
With her ultimate ability ‘Nanoboost’ she can boost another allies’ damage boost and heal them by 250 health points. Many players already know about the so called ‘Nano-Blade’ with which Genji and Ana combine their ultimates, but Ana’s ult can sway the scales when keeping heroes alive or being combined with other ultimates like Winston’s or Soldier 76’s.
What makes Ana Great:
- Ultimate support
- High healing and damage
- Safe but effective
3. Brigitte
Brigitte is an armour expert. She is the niece to ‘Torbjörn’ and equipped with a ‘Rocket Flail’ and her shield. She is the bulkiest of support heroes and plays exceptionally well against Tracers.
When playing Brigitte, it’s important not to grow overly confident. She might be bulky, but she isn’t invincible. I would recommend playing Brigitte more defensively than usual. Especially staying close to her own team’s Ana can give her that bit of protection she needs to keep the team alive.
Brigitte can throw ‘Repair Packs’ to heal her allies, but with 36 damage for every hit from her flail, she is a respectable opponent and is better occupied fighting off the flankers to free up the other support and DPS.
What Makes Brigitte Great:
- Bulky
- Shield
- Protective qualities
2. Lucio
The DJ Lucio can slide along the map and boost his teammates healing or movement speed and switch between the boosts at will. Additionally, he can push back the enemy to protect his allies, interrupt an enemy in action or push them off the map. This ability is called ‘Soundwave’.
Lucio is a highly mobile hero, with his ability to wall ride and can be used well with a slow and bulky team, or with a fast and nimble team. ‘Soundbarrier’ is his ultimate ability and gives the whole team 750 points of shield, making for a good fail safe for the team to fall back to.
What Makes Lucio Great:
- Mobile
- Adaptable
1. Mercy
This hero is a bit of a personal favourite, but my love for her is shared by many. The angel-like hero can both heal and boost the allies’ damage while flying between the team members all over the map.
Mercy is a Swiss doctor called ‘Angela’. She is against violence, but doesn’t hesitate to protect the ones needing it the most. Armed with her ‘Caduceus Staff and Blaster’ she is ready to storm the battle in her Valkyrie-suit.
Her ability ‘Guardian Angel’ enables her to fly to any allies within range. The wings on her suit allow her to glide when falling from heights and the beam from her staff allows her to move about the map while constantly healing her team members.
Her ultimate ability ‘Valkyrie’ is a boost to her natural abilities and stats, while giving her free flight in the map for 15 seconds. But Mercy’s ultimate isn’t her strongest ability.
‘Resurrect’ allows Mercy to bring a team member that has died less than 10 seconds ago back to life. The hero returns to full health and all his cooldowns are set back.
What Makes Mercy Great:
- Wings
- Resurrect
- Allrounder
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