Overwatch roles

[Baffle]

I really well hidden turret would be of no use at all. I'm terrible at Overwatch.

 

[Frankster]

I think there should be a new category: troll.

Put sombra and mei there, maybe symmetra (or bastion under certain conditions?), i guarantee you this is a better role description then support/attack/defence for these particular characters.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Snip

The point is (and I'm sure you already know this) that some of the heroes have very niche use or have specific maps/situations where they are good in. If they truly were useless as you say, they'd see no play whatsoever. Why would pro players use them at all in tournaments if they were truly useless? Are you a pro player? Maybe you can give me some insight into this mindset of picking heroes for the purpose of losing.

Or maybe Pharah just isn't useless:
As you can see, King's Row is a great map for Pharah. Those are two of the best teams in the world. Notice how the Korean team had a McCree for the majority of the video.

Edit: Royally messed up the formatting.

 

[Zhukov]

Snip

The point is (and I'm sure you already know this) that some of the heroes have very niche use or have specific maps/situations where they are good in. If they truly were useless as you say, they'd see no play whatsoever. Why would pro players use them at all in tournaments if they were truly useless? Are you a pro player? Maybe you can give me some insight into this mindset of picking heroes for the purpose of losing.

Or maybe Pharah just isn't useless:

I was just guessing, based on my decidedly non-pro experience. You served up the proof showing that those pros of yours have no use for Pharah over 90% of the time.

That's more than enough for me to consider her useless in the current state of the game.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Snip

The point is (and I'm sure you already know this) that some of the heroes have very niche use or have specific maps/situations where they are good in. If they truly were useless as you say, they'd see no play whatsoever. Why would pro players use them at all in tournaments if they were truly useless? Are you a pro player? Maybe you can give me some insight into this mindset of picking heroes for the purpose of losing.

Or maybe Pharah just isn't useless:

I was just guessing, based on my decidedly non-pro experience. You served up the proof showing that those pros of yours have no use for Pharah over 90% of the time.

That's more than enough for me to consider her useless in the current state of the game.

Fair enough. I suppose we just have a different opinion of what constitutes useless in this game. I do absolutely agree that for 90% of cases in high level play, she is not a good pick.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I'd kinda lean more towards classing Pharah as a niche pick rather than useless tbh. I mean I really wouldn't put her in the same class of useless as Torbjorn against competent teams but she's still incredibly map dependent because of her vulnerability to counterpicks on most maps.


To move off that topic: As someone who plays tank basically 100% of the time in comp it'd be nice to see some variation from Rein. I love Rein, he's practically all I play when I'm taking a game seriously apart from occasional situational flips to Zarya or sometimes D.Va but given that he's the only one with that kind of true sustained tanking and protective ability it means he's needed almost all the time.

 

[Glongpre]

To move off that topic: As someone who plays tank basically 100% of the time in comp it'd be nice to see some variation from Rein. I love Rein, he's practically all I play when I'm taking a game seriously apart from occasional situational flips to Zarya or sometimes D.Va but given that he's the only one with that kind of true sustained tanking and protective ability it means he's needed almost all the time.

Yeah, they need to add a new tank in.

Idk how they could make one though, without adding another shield type thing. A taunt wouldn't work.

They could make a smaller shield guy who is more mobile (sort of like a spartan), or perhaps a guy who can run in and pop a damage return ability. Hmmmm.


Pharah isn't useless per se, it is more that she requires more effort to get shit done. Typical tier list, nothing new.

Offense tiers are probably:
A- McCree (all equally viable, depends on team comps)
-Reaper
-Genji

B-Soldier (can work, just not as well as the above)
-Tracer
-Pharah

 

[Broderick]

I agree that a lot of the characters could have a their categories changed. A good example that many people tend not to think about is Roadhog. At first glance, you might think he should belong in the tank category, however on further inspection, I think he is better suited towards Offence or Defense rather than tank. He has no active damage mitigation(no shields like every other tank has) and his abilities are more suited towards picking off enemies or controlling an area (a healing ability, a hook that can grab people, a mid range decent damaging ability, and a short range massive damage ability, and his ult which has massive knockback with decent damage).

You might think, "Well, he is fat as hell, so he can just body block shots and heal up afterward right?" and you would be correct, however this is a terrible tanking ability as it feeds enemy ultimate charges, while the other tanks active shielding mitigation does not(or mostly doesn't).

So, that leaves roadhog in a weird area. He does massive damage in short range, while having a couple crowd control effects and no active damage mitigation. If it wasnt for his massive health pool, he probably would have been in a different category. If anything though, a enemy roadhog near many squishy players can be enough to make some players back off, so there is that I guess.

 

[Zydrate]

Some of the classifications can be iffy; I am capable of playing Junkrat extremely offensively, though his kit is very defense-friendly. Two traps and his projectile can go over walls and bounce around corners. Still, I play him aggressive and outright throw my mine like it's a grenade. The trap is good for people who chase me.

 

[IceForce]

Maybe Pharah needs another 50 health or something, - bring her in line with Mei and Reaper at 250HP.

Mei wears a fur coat, and that somehow gives her 250HP, whereas Pharah is in a full body suit of armor, but only has 200HP.
/Overwatch logic

What is Mei's coat made out of? Military-grade ballistic weave?

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Maybe Pharah needs another 50 health or something, - bring her in line with Mei and Reaper at 250HP.

Mei wears a fur coat, and that somehow gives her 250HP, whereas Pharah is in a full body suit of armor, but only has 200HP.
/Overwatch logic

What is Mei's coat made out of? Military-grade ballistic weave?

You would think, by overwatch logic, she doesn't lose any health on her ult while everyone else freezes to death, and she can freeze herself in a pinch with health *gain*, so that coat must have some magical military fibers in it.

idk if I would go as far as a 50 health boost, but something to be done.

I also think they should revert soldier back to his old accuracy with his rifle, or give him some different sort of buff in regards to wielding that rifle.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I call D.va my "flank tank" because I've had many matches where I've managed to get behind the other team and wipe them all, or near all then hustle back to the front line (attack or defense) with a charged ult, hit the jets and drop a nuke from the sky on the returning team.
But yeah, she's mostly an off-tank counter to projectile-based characters and a great ult defense on most of the harder hitting ults. Defense matrix, when employed well, is great.
I've even managed to get a decent amount of kills outside the mecha, with the right support and knowing where I'm at on the map. D.va is good as long as you can remain mobile, but get pinned and flanked and she's toast.
Winkyface!

 

[LetalisK]

Widow is definitely in the wrong category. She's wayyy better on attack than on defense. And there's some game 'science' behind the reason why;

As a sniper in this game, camping somewhere and never moving will be the death of you. On defense, you have no choice but to set up somewhere and hold the position, but on attack you're constantly moving up, making sniping much more viable on attack.
In addition to this, Widow is extremely vulnerable to flankers, which is another reason why she's bad on defense. Whereas on attack, it's highly unlikely there will be defensive flankers (occasionally there are, but it's rare).
Then there's the whole 'spawn advantage' aspect of it. If, as a defender on the first point, you get picked off and killed (which can happen wayyy too easily when you're a sniper), then your team will almost certainly lose the first point, because the defender's spawn is so sooo far away and the attackers have spawn advantage.
The flipside of this is, if a Widow goes on attack for the first point, and gets a couple of pickoffs straight away, then that puts the attackers at an automatic man-advantage, and capping the first point should be almost guaranteed.
Then there's her ult, which is infinitely more useful on attack than it is on defense, because you can see exactly where the defenders are set up - where the hidden Bastions are, etc. But Infra-Sight on defense is not as useful, because the attackers only really come from one direction anyway.
On the last point of the map, the spawn-advantage is reversed in favor of the defenders, but playing Widow here on defense is usually a bad idea also due to all the ults going off and shit going down at that point of the match, making it hard to actually snipe anything.

So, next time you're on attack and someone on your team goes attack Widow, don't start yelling at them to change. Because it can actually work really well - better than using her on defense. (Only start yelling at them if it becomes obvious that they're a shit Widow.)

These are the same reasons I used Bastion on offense a lot. No one thinks of flanking him when they are on defense and I can suppress an entire area while my Reinhardts and Reapers hit from the other side.