Blizzard’s take on the class-based-shooter is so vibrant and full of personality, that each individual character has inspired its own army/fandom. And yet, some heroes are still better than others.
Here is our definitive ranking of Overwatch heroes, ranked from worst to best.
Soldier 76
Bastion
Torbjorn
Genji
Hanzo
Zenyatta
Junkrat
Roadhog
Widowmaker
McCree
Symmetra
Reinhardt
Pharah
Lucio
Zarya
Winston
Tracer
Reaper
Mercy
Mei
D.VA
Comments
47 responses to “Overwatch Heroes, Ranked”
Why write an article that seems designed purely to get people to argue or disagree with you? Overwatch is all down to personal taste. No one hero is “better” than the rest…
Yeah I know. I mean, ‘best’ according to what attributes? D.Va is awesome for hit-and-run tanking and clearing out an objective with her ultimate, but just last night I defended a payload and locked the opposing team in their spawn, getting a 13 player kill streak in the process with Torbjorn’s turret.
Exactly. I love D.va, but I am terrible with her. Still wouldn’t say she’s worse than another hero, just that I am worse using her than I am with others. This list seems more of a subjective “I like to play these characters the most” list, but who can tell without any reasoning as to why Patricia has ranked them this way. Design? Gameplay? Who she’s best at using? Coolest voice lines?
She can love whoever she wants, but if she’s going to call this a “definitive” list, she should at least provide some evidence to support it.
It’s all about the clicks yo!
Give us some fucking reasoning at least!
LOL. The list may as well be random or alphabetically sorted. It’s utterly meaningless. Clickbait at its worst.
I just went over to Kotaku USA. She does it on purpose. Her rule is apparently she doesn’t explain it and just leaves it there.
So basically “I want to be lazy”.
What a luck lustre article with an arbitrary (and wrong) list. Who would be so lazy as to … [checks author]… never mind.
Subjective clickbait is subjective (also clickbait).
Soldier76 terrible? What?
I wish his helix rockets had a bigger radius but apart from that, he’s golden.
I know right.. in fact I don’t know any character I flatly refuse to play. they are all so fun.
haha great trolling.
Best Kotaku US articles ranked:
Such a yawn article. Every single time these kind of articles gets posted the poster gets absolutely roasted and very few in the comments discuss the game, and rightly so.
Saying that I played for the first time last night and the rocket launcher flying chick and the roboturret dude are so fun.
Two weeks from now you guys can re-release this article and label it “Here are names of all the Overwatch Heroes”.
You won’t even need to type up any text. It’ll be perfect for the usual standard of clickbait.
My list of Overwatch hero names was better anyway.
Given you don’t play the game I’m sure it would’ve been =P
Hey I tried it once!
That makes me more qualified than most commenters on anything 😛
So, seeing as it’s a shitty “article”, let’s discuss what people like to play.
I really enjoy playing as Lucio, Mercy and Zenyatta. I find I do well as support and it’s probably my best class.
As Mei, I enjoy building walls in front of Bastions. >=D
As Tank, I prefer D Va, but I’m not very good as her. I am worst with Zarya.
Sniper, I prefer Widowmaker. I’m not a great sniper, so having the assault rifle backup is a life saver.
Offense, I like the flexibility of Generic Soldier man 76. =P
What do you main, prefer? Any tips?
This would of been a great article for a “tell us dammit”, who do you like to play. Good job on trying to bring some dialogue into the article that won’t end in tribal warfare.
My fav characters are Symmetra, Tracer, Lucio and Reaper.
Symmetra is used on all defense objectives to setup a good line of defense and that portal is helpful to the team as it gets players straight back into the actions to hold points. Well placed turrets can stop flanks, or kill off someone on low HP after they have been involved in a fight.
Lucio is great on capture the point to give my team a speed boost at getting to the objective and once there can heal the team, and he has pretty decent attack. He is also great on the levels where people can be knocked off a ledge with his push type attack.
Tracer for offense as teams usually spawn camp at the start, tracer has been great at getting behind the opposition and getting to the objective, forcing the defense to lose their positions and run back to kill me, gives my team the ability to push up the map and kill people while they are scattering back to the objective and have not reset their defences.
I use Reaper if the enemy is heavily entrenched and contesting an objective as someone to try and flank and kill off 2 or 3 people to let my team move up, but he is more of a contingency plan.
My last go to character has been Winston (although I don’t actually like using him I will bring him in for a specific role to help the team), when we are struggling to move a payload, just being out slayed by the opposition or they have turrets setup picking everyone off 1 by 1, I use him to sit on the objective and throw a shield up to get the thing moving forward.
I am a terrible symmetra. I would love to get better as her, but I find I just die too quickly.
She is awesome once you get the hang of her. I understand dying too quickly and my experience has been how the team is playing can significantly affect your ability to play her.
The other thing I have noticed when coming up against other Symmetra’s is people have held too far back as the last line of defence, scared of dying or placing turret’s in poor and obvious positions on the map where they will irritate, but don’t make a big enough impact. I usually try to get her as the first line of defence and also flanking protection. Place the turrets in more thought out locations then on the ground near the objective such as different corners / rooms / obstacles and setup 2 – 3 killzones. Also I don’t setup for the instant kill in one spot, happy for them to take damage and get past 1 zone and then enter the next one and die when they see a team member and look to engage straight away thinking they beat the trap.
This helps when the opposition make their push I want the first damage they are receiving to be from turrets, so when they have to deal with them, there is an exposure for my team to start hitting them. Then if they try to flank and they take a bit of damage on the way through, I kill them off with a turret on certain routes.
The other advice I can give for using this character is spacing of turrets, other players I have seen place them very close together, i.e. 2 turrets on top of each other = 2 times the damage. One Reinhardt swing, well place Junkrat gren, Hanzo ultimate or any shooter can quickly dispatch them. I try to have them in relatively close proximity where they will both deal damage, but not on top of each other where they get taken out too quickly.
Hope you keep trying with her, as I have found it really fun to control bottlenecks and congestion points.
I will definitely give her another go. Maybe during AI matches where I won’t frustrate other players as I’m learning. Really appreciate the advice!
my fav hero by far is tracer. shootouts with her seems sooo fast paced.
though I tried reindhart for the first time last night.. and loved him..
Tracer is the one character I have yet to play because everyone else always picks her =P
I care about team composition and will leave my choice to last.
However, playing against her, she seems to be good at ambushing the enemy. Get in, take out, zip out.
Only just started playing last night so havent really had much of a chance. Got railroaded into a couple of parties where everyone decided to go Offense and fucked the team balance. But other than that its been good.
Offense: Definitely Mcree or Reaper. Reaper’s teleport is crazy good if you’re playing against idiots. “Oh hey, I’m gunna park this sniper character over here, this is a great position! Oh whats that, you teleported behind me and shot me in the back? Well done good sir.”
Defense: Widowmaker so far but havent really had much of a chance to play defense.
Tank: Definitely Reinhardt. Although the hammer is kind of annoying. When playing tank I’m more used to Heavy from TF2 where I dont have to walk up to someone to hit them. Just need to get better I guess.
Support: So far Mercy, but again havent had much of an opportunity.
Yeah, Reinhardt’s hammer is a bit off putting in a FPS. However, I spent most of the beta unaware of his fire strike attack
I love all of them.
Lately I’ve been playing a fair bit of Lucio, Torbjorn and Reinhardt. Before that it was D.Va, Mercy and Soldier 76. I’m keen to try out Zenyatta a bit more.
The only heroes I’m not yet that comfortable with are Zarya, Genji and Hanzo.
Zarya just confuses me. I think I get how she’s supposed to be played, but while I understand it, doesn’t mean I can execute it
guys we should just start our own website, the best content is in the comments anyway.
We’d call it Notaku.
Truth.
You know. I saw Patricia’s name. I knew this was just going to be a list. I told myself several times not to click on it because I knew there would be zero substance to this article….
I failed myself, and all of you, faithful commenters of Kotaku Australia, for adding to the hit count for this article. I’m sorry…
Theres more info in the header gif than the article itself…
Clickbait to cash in on Overwatch’s popularity… and sadly it’s worked… pointless useless list without any reasoning. Pathetic.
List is upside-down.
I mean to be fair you could just say “copy pasta is upside down”
*Fixed
Overwatch heroes strengths and weaknesses imparted in no particular order
Soldier 76
-Great entry hero. Has a lot of versatility with a healing field, accurate weapon with decent magazine size, reload speed and fire rate and top notch accuracy made even better with an ultimate that makes all of the bullets hit all of the things. Sprint too is super useful.
Bastion
-PLAY OF THE GAME!
But honestly, solid hero for holding points providing you have some support, either a team to distract or a super awesome hidey hole. Turret form makes for a formidable source of damage and tank form ulti for pushing out against overwhelming numbers.
Torbjorn
-Offers support in armour bonuses and that turret can be surprisingly resilient, racking up a great many kills with only minimal attention. Ultimate makes you a 1 man army especially in tight quarters where you can maximise splash damage.
Genji
-The siege breaker. Moves quickly, can duel very well with standard kit. Has remarkable accuracy at range and up close especially with ult is deadly. A well timed assault with a Genji ultimate can quickly result in a team kill. Primary answer to bastion turtles.
Hanzo
Kit seems sub-standard at first but an on demand radar shot can make or break a push or defence. If singled out, unless you have especially good reflexes you will usually find yourself dead but at range, or when unnoticed you can keep plinking away dealing loads of damage, especially to targets who stand still for long periods of time, snipers, mcree or as a secondary answer to bastion turtles.
Zenyatta
Offensive support, has great ranged accuracy on par with sniper style heroes. Discord orb can allow you to chew through even a roadhog like butter. Healing orb is ok, if a little difficult to micromanage and you are squishy as all hell but your ult is gamechanging especially if you desperately need to be somewhere right now and alive even when surrounded by enemies.
Junkrat
Consistent high AoE damage allows for offensive pushes. the ability to bounce projectiles around corners or into windows helps to make short work of heavy defenses, high mobility and explosive jump plus an ulti that can clear a room faster than a D.VA ult. make him a pretty worthy addition. Also he explodes when he dies.
Roadhog
Offensive tank, loads of health and can single handedly disrupt an entire enemy team between hooking healers from groups to an ulti that can bounce everyone wherever you are pointing. Having an on demand self heal on a relatively short cooldown means you will be sticking around for a while in a fight. Lacks a little in offense unless you are holding your gun directly to the head of an enemy. Can also pull bastion out of skill form.
Widowmaker
Fairly mobile sniper with a primary fire machine gun for close quarters fighting. You are far more useful at range with the ability to take most targets low, if not out entirely with a head shot double tap. You will also rack up a surprising amount of damage with well placed poison mines. One of the most useful ultimates in the game being able to see the entire enemy team through walls, you can make short work of offensives or track down someone trying to outflank you.
McCree
One of the best duelers in the game due to flashbang fan fire. Long reload means missing shots is often times catastrophic but being able to reload with your roll means you can drop the health of even big targets fairly quickly. Ultimate ability makes for gamechanging plays but it is best to wait for an opportune moment, positioning is key, as is timing else you will likely find yourself with nothing to kill.
Symmetra
Another offense oriented support is especially good in defensive set ups. Her turrets can make for super frustrating choke points and her surprisingly high damage output can make it very difficult to ignore her. She does however have only short range and for offensive pushes can be a little lackluster but her ultimate for teleporting people into the fight without long runs back straight up wins games.
Reinhardt
Fantastic for payload escorts, his shield can last a pretty long time when not being focused. His charge can be finicky to land accurately but can be used to remove opposing reinhardts or healers out of a fight. Well placed ultimates too can be gamechangers. Plus who doesn’t like swinging a huge rocket powered hammer around and throwing fiery projectiles that pass through groups.
Pharah
Another turtle breaker. her mobility is fantastic and rocket splash is useful in almost all scenarios. Her ultimate can quickly clear a point of enemies and her ability to remain high keeps her out of reach of a number of other heroes.
Lucio
Highly mobile support for defensive purposes, his movement speed aura is one of the most useful abilities in the game. Healing aura makes fights take longer for enemies and his ultimate can counter high damage enemy ultis by increasing your teams health to the point where it can be shrugged off. Damage output isn’t that great but it gets the job done and some maps with cliffs makes for interesting opportunities for his knock back.
Zarya
Can be an immovable wall of ass kicking or a wet noodle, depending on whether she has her shield up. Most useful in situations where you are already under fire. Her damage output can be buffed up to pretty outstanding levels. She is great at dueling and her ulti makes it possible to go 1v5 on a defended point with a q and a few right clicks.
Winston
Is a monkey. His shield is a bit underwhelming, as is his laser. but he can pound on you pretty hard and he can quite easily close distances with his leap. His ulti buffs his already high health and he can quickly disrupt grouped up enemies while outputting reasonable damage by flailing his monkey arms around.
Tracer
Has a butt. Able to single out stragglers, healers or otherwise squishy targets with ease due to amazing mobility and if she has her ultimate up can even take down tankier heroes fairly easily. Tricky to play well however. Her health pool is quite low and you too can be singled out by a stray shot or focused down by a good mccree flashbang, farah rockets and so on.
Reaper
Deadly up close with the tools to get into close range unscathed. his movement ability can also be used to clear Mei’s frosted debuff before it turns you to an icicle. Ultimate ability clears defended positions quite easily and a moderate supply of health means you can get into a fray and come out the other end more often than not.
Mercy
Highly mobile defensive healer, with good communication her damage buffing ability can make already great heroes even more powerful. Bastion, junkrat, mccree, roadhog and so on. Team revival wins games too.
Mei
Super frustrating to play against, strengths lie less in damage output (though she certainly doesn’t lack it) and more in her ability to cut off enemy advancements with ice walls and zone out key locations with her blizzard ultimate. Being able to freeze a target makes for easy headshots and even frozen roadhogs die quickly when you have a few seconds to aim for the head.
D.VA
A source of consistent damage output with the ability to reposition easily via flight. Her mech is a pretty large target but her ability to either use it as a huge bomb or replenish it if it dies make it difficult to put D.VA down from long range.
*Fixed
Please tell me @nexi got paid for this “comment”.
Y’know, for actually putting in work and WRITING.
Well done, yo.
in other words.. all heroes are great..
you can work for kotaku
Awesome work mate!
I don’t understand
what sort of list is this? from what point of view? Details make all the difference. EG personally I hate bastion in the game with a passion but he is actually one of the strongest in the game.
Personally I love Tracer, Mei, Mercy and D.Va. I think they are the best in the game but that doesnt mean one way or the other they are the best in the game. They are just one I do best with.
Overwatch is not a game of which character is best, it’s a game of personal preference.
With that said… you’re wrong. Reinhardt is the best.
Clearly I wrote this list.
I put D.va at #1 but because I have goldfish memory I forgot to place Pharah as #2. Randomised all the rest.
It would appear that the article is written in response to maybe a survey done at Kotaku US? I assume this because the article states “our definitive ranking of Overwatch heroes”.