Hey girls and guys of the Overwatch community, I hope you’re having a lovely day. My day has been going great, but you know what would make it even better? If I could just go back in time! Would I go back to do something heroic like “kill Hitler” or prevent the creation of EDM? Nope! Not at all. I’d go back to early 2016. Why 2016? To warn the old “me”. I’d find him on his lunchbreak eating a spicy chicken sandwich in the back corner of a Kroger’s deli and tell him that there is a game coming. It’s a game called “Overwatch” and it was created in an evil laboratory by ummm…scientists. Yeeeeaaah EVIL scientists. Overwatch was created to torture prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay but broke out into the public and wreaked havoc. My old self would be way too stubborn to listen, so I’d have to screw up the timeline even more by staying and explaining to him why I’m taking blood pressure medication just to play a video game. “Listen up kid. Here are a just 5 of the most irritating, salt-inducing characters that forced me to make this trip:
5. Reinhardt
I wasn’t always a Reinhardt hater but I’ve surely become one of the biggest over the last two seasons. This character is THE most obnoxious character in the game. Easily. Ever since Brigette stunned, errr I mean, made her way into the game, she has taken her teacher Reinhardt to a new level of obnoxiousness. Her abilities simply amplify his already aggressive toolkit. Mainly because she causes the team to play closer together for a more solid defense and increases his health. As a Genji main I wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares of him smacking me left and right with that huge hammer while I’m trying to double jump away. The hammer swing’s range is so ridiculous that for some characters its useless to even try and escape. And don’t get me started on that Kool-Aid man-esque charge of his. I’ve had too many as Genji where I’ve jumped down from a wall to quickly help my team fight for the objective only to land in front of a charging Rein and get instakill pinned to a wall. On top of this, the Reinhardt players on my team always happen to be bad, while the ones on my enemy’s team tend to be semi-pro! My Rein’s will go from defending the whole team behind the shield, to charging in like a bull towards a red bandana. Putting themselves in danger. Enemy Rein’s will get 2 earth shatters in like a minute and ROFLstomp my team with 200+ iq charge plays. Not to mention he’s picked more than any other character in the game right now so that gets tiresome. Even with all this Rein isn’t the worst. He’s nowhere as annoying as…
4. Junkrat
Can you believe this dirty, Australian(and there’s nothing wrong with being Australian of course), low budget Joker knock off got buffed by Blizzard when he didn’t need it!? Of course you can, because it’s Blizzard! That’s what they do! Where do I even begin with this character? Well for starters, he does a STUPID amount of damage. And this is AFTER he was “nerfed”. Basically,
- If a Junkrat sneaks up on you… you’re dead.
- If you see him coming and don’t run… You’re dead
- You find him in a room and try to challenge him to a gentlemen’s game of fisticuffs? You’re dead
- You get stuck in a Junker trap placed in front of your spawn point?
- YOU
- ARE
- ALREADY
- DEAD!
And he’s already at 70% ultimate charge. What annoys me the most about Junkrat is that since he can murder most heroes in the game by mindlessly pressing buttons, he gets away with a lot of things other characters get murdered for. Things like just engaging 2 or 3 people on the enemy team with no back up, or going 1v1 against a freakin full health tank! This sucks because it causes the people who play the character to develop sloppy habits and an undeserved amount of confidence in their skills as a player. It’s not uncommon for Junkrat mains in competitive to aggressively get on the mic and say “HEY TEAM I HAVE 4 GOLD MEDALS. WHAT’RE Y’ALL DOING!? I’M TIRED OF CARRYING YOU!!” Well... yeah bro your character basically plays the game for you. Like really you could give the character to a newborn chimpanzee and I doubt there would be much of a difference in play. As much as Junkrat makes me want to throw my controller into my screen, at least he’s pretty easy to kill if you maintain your distance. He’s nothing like…
3. Tracer
Whoops!
Wrong photo. Who put that there… ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Much better! Now let me tell you a quick story: Back in the day when I was a young boy, 6 or 7 years old, my mother would always tell me to not smoke like her father did. She told me how smoking caused him cancer and took his life. Tears would flow from her eyes down her cheeks as she told me how my grandfather missed the major milestones of her life because of it. She urged me to never smoke as he did, so my kids wouldn’t suffer like her. So I promised her I would never touch a cigarette. It’s been a long time since then, but now I wonder if my decision was the right one. Why you ask? BECAUSE PLAYING AGAINST TRACER GAVE ME CANCER ANYWAY!!! >:( This time traveling Speedy Gonzales has caused me so much salt that I would literally sink in the Dead Sea. Like most of the characters on this list she is braindead. So autopilot that you could hand the controller to your baby sister, take a quick nap, and come back to see that she’s gotten a few play of the games. As my good friend once told me, “A lot of Tracer players aren’t really good at the game, they’re just good at Tracer.” The character is able to sneak up on you and put you on critical health before you even know what hit you. Aside from her ability to one clip you, she is very hard to kill and gets harder to fight as the skill of the Tracer player rises. Good Tracers can go a whole game with 2 or less deaths. This makes her so annoying because she’s a constant distraction to your team and a threat to your healers. To kill her you have to chase her blinking behind all over the map; This is assuming your character actually has the mobility to keep up with her. On top of this you have to avoid being killed by tracer yourself. If you do manage to quickly get her to critical health, she gets a second chance at life with her recall ability. So you basically have to chase her down then beat her twice to kill her. It’s ridiculous, I know. While you’re trying to do this, your team could be needing you and you won’t be there to help. When you finally manage to kill her it’s not even that rewarding because she gets back into the action from spawn so quickly. Overall Tracer is an oppressive character and I don’t have much positive to say about her. She’s long overdue for nerfs. Can you believe that she’s the only character in the game with NO hard counters? Yeah SCREW that character.
2. Moira
Isn’t it ironic that the most braindead character in the game is a scientist? Crazy right. Basically, Moira is simply a character that non-healers use when they have to play healer. Sorry, not sorry. It’s the truth. She’s annoying because playing her as a healer is optional so the rest of the team suffers when Moira players are more focused on fighting than healing. When you’re playing Mercy or Ana, you know you are supposed to be healing because their toolkits don’t allow you to be really effective at doing anything else. But with this pointy eared goth elf character, Moira, she’s effective at things besides healing--like hunting down low health heroes or killing flankers. An offensive Moira play of the game isn’t uncommon. Unlike other support heroes, she doesn’t require much team awareness to be effective with. Honestly the character is more like a light DPS that can heal instead of being an actual healer. She IS the only support hero that has a directly offensive ultimate after all. Moira has top tier survivability due to her self heal and mobility options and she builds her ultimate insanely fast due to her healing and oppressive biotic orb; An orb that sucks the soul out of low mobility characters like Mcree or Zenyatta. As dumb as Moira is, I’ve gotten used to her and can decently fight against her now. But THE most annoying character in the game is none other than …
1.Brigitte
Pro tip: Unless you are playing Junkrat, If you ever find yourself in a 1 on 1 situation with a high health Brigette, run away. Run as fast as you can. Because this character is an annoying nightmare that mauls pretty much every character in the game up close. For example imagine you’re a Reaper player who’s been doing work, laying damage, and building up your ultimate(which charges slower than most). Then you get ready to unleash it. The enemy team is grouped up, everyone is distracted. This is your time to shine and get that huge play. You jump down from a vantage point like Batman in the Arkham games diving down onto your soon-to-be victims. You then press your ultimate button and as soon as you start performing the death blossom animataion… WHAM! You get stunned by a “support” hero and then get beaten to death and hear “Mace to the face!” This is the reality for basically every up close hero in the game. Brigette oppresses pretty much everyone in her vicinity. She’s hard to kill, especially with her ultimate that allows her to tap into The Flash's Speed Force and keep up with almost anyone. I don’t know why Blizzard created such a monster but hey, it’s Blizzard. They live to see me suffer. Aside from being ridiculous herself and an easy mode character, the effect she has on her teammates is even more vexing. She simultaneously improves the survivability of everyone around her when she auto-heals them by fighting and can instantly recover any low health hero on her team. On top of that she has a good walk speed that allows her to help any nearby teammates that are being attacked. This same mobility that was given to her for defensive purposes also allows her to be an offensive nightmare and hunt down characters that can’t get away from her. And if she’s in rally mode… forget about it. She’s THE most annoying character and has single handedly made the game worse to play.
An Honorable mention: The Cheese Composition
An honorable mention of irritating characters that didn’t make this top 5 list are Bastion, Torbjorn, Symettra, and Orissa. A hero composition known as the Cheese Comp. They are called that because they work so well together will little effort and are used to scrub out a win against less coordinated teams. They are a bunch of easy mode characters that play the game for you. Low effort, high reward. It’s extremely annoying to play against. Especially when you’re in lower ranks like bronze, silver, gold, and diamond and teammates don’t know how to deal with it.
In Conclusion:
My past self would finally see why this game took so much of a toll on me that I looked like I was from 2050 instead of 2018. He’d probably heed my warning and be cautious in playing Overwatch.
I regret ever getting addicted to this game, but I’m in too deep now to just give up. It’s like having a house and kids with a wife you can’t even stand to hear talk.
You want to leave but you’d hate to make all the time you’ve invested into the relationship a waste. So you paint on a smile and try to stay positive.
But that’s life. Just make sure you have a healthy outlet for that inevitable frustration. Comment down below and let me know what characters give you trouble in Overwatch. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the game and your thoughts and criticisms on this article.
Until next time, gamers
