Overwatch Most Important Concept for Each Hero

by DoucheyHowserMD

DVa – Peel – For the unaware: Peeling is the act of neutralizing a threat on a teammate or “peeling” the threat off of them. DVa is arguably the best peelers in the game as she has mobility to close the gap and matrix to negate incoming damage. (Also: Zarya, Brig)

Rein – Tempo – Reinhardt is strongest in brawl comps and these comps are very dependent on the pace of cooldowns, healing, and damage output. IMO, Reinhardt is the best hero at teaching when you should press W+M1 vs when you should press S+M2. He shows fights are not lost by giving up space, but rather won by giving up space at the necessary time. (Also: Monkey, Zarya, Baptiste)

Roadhog – Body blocking – This is a concept criminally underused in low to mid ranks. It’s incredibly simple. You’re fat. You have a ton of health and can outheal incoming damage. If your teammate is in trouble, put that ham in the way. (This doesn’t have to apply to just hog, or just tanks. I was body blocking for a low health mercy as ana yesterday while I was reloading)

Orisa – Holding Space – Taking space as Orisa is unintuitive. However, she holds space for a much longer time than most tanks because she enjoys poking the enemy from afar, forcing them to take creative routes or burn resources to get to her. A well positioned Orisa can make use of shields and natural cover making it hard for an enemy team to close the gap. (This is what also makes Sigma a good pair for Orisa, because he can make both holding and taking space a lot easier for Orisa.)

Sigma – Cooldown Management – Sigma can do almost everything. People have been calling him overkitted since he was launched. This can make it very hard for new players to manage all of his abilities and resources. No Tank is more reliant on using the proper ability at the right time to protect your team. Playing sig is a crash course in pressing keys at the right time. (Also: Doomfist, Genji, Ana, Baptiste)

Monkey – Taking space – This is probably the most important concept for playing Main Tank. Knowing what space to take and when to take it creates openings for your DPS to make plays which wins fights. Winston especially is good at teaching how to cut off enemies from teams, maintaining high ground advantage for your teammates, or blocking incoming healing (Also: Rein, Sigma)

Ball – Dive (Tank) – Dive is probably the hardest of the 3 major comp types (Brawl, Poke, Dive) to learn. The tempo is much different from Brawl and Poke. It’s also not intuitive and requires a lot of coordination. Ball is very strong in dive comps because of his ability to make everything chaotic which is why he is a good main tank. However, he can be difficult to learn because he can get punished much easier than most dive heroes when there is a lack of team coordination and follow up. (Also: Winston)

Zarya – Damage mitigation – As a tank, not all incoming damage is threatening. Learning which damage to block and which to eat for your supports heal is very important. Understanding this concept is what differentiates a low charge vs high charge Zarya (Also: DVa)

Ashe – High ground advantage – High ground is the strongest positional advantage in Overwatch. Maintaining high ground gives you better angles on the enemy, makes it harder for them to damage you and forces them to walk through a shooting galley to contest you. Ashe is especially strong poking from high ground and has the mobility to take advantage of it more than most heroes (Also: Hanzo, Baptiste, pretty much any hero)

Bastion – Teamwork – The hardest hero to take on when not working as a team and possibly the least worrying to face when your team is on the same page. Bastion highlights how a single hero can pick apart an uncoordinated team. (Also: Doomfist, Pharah, Genji)

Doom – Timing – Doomfist is an incredibly strong assassin. However, his massive hitbox causes him to struggle if he draws the attention of too many enemies. Doomfist is strongest after the Engage phase of fight begins, when the attention of the enemy frontline is directed at your own team. (Also: Ball, Genji)

Echo – off-angles – taking damage from multiple angles is one of the hardest threats to deal with. It causes you to spend resources on multiple fronts, putting your team in a vulnerable position. Echo’s mobility combined with her incredible damage, makes her both a huge threat and hard to deal with when positioned properly. (Also: Pharah, Tracer)

Genji – Ultimate economy – Genji is probably the most ult dependent hero in the game right now. Most of his value comes from his ability to get blade quickly and get a lot of value out of it. Using Blade in a lost fight, or using it in a fight that was already won can lose you future fights that should have gone to your team. Please don’t ask me about my Zoning blades (Also: Sombra, Lucio, Zen)

Hanzo – Fundamentals of Projectile aim – if you don’t know, there are two types of fire in OW. The first are projectiles that require you to lead your shots. Hanzo is the most deadly projectile hero in the game and will get no value if you can’t learn to properly anticipate the enemy and land arrows (Also: Pharah, Zen)

Hanzo – Burst Damage – OW often turns into a race of which team can get a pick first, winning a fight before it can begin. Hanzo excels at bursting down an enemy hero, either via a headshots or a series of storm arrows. Often played in double sniper comps with Widowmaker. (Also: Ashe, Widowmaker)

Junkrat – Spam – Quantity over quality baby. It’s as simple as that. Hard to aim, but deals a lot of damage to whatever it hits. (Also: Pharah, Lucio, Zen)

McCree – Fundamentals of Hitscans aim – the second type of Aim is Hitscan. McCree is the classic flick-scan hero. Gets the most value when he can flick and click someone’s head. This hero, along with Ana, is the only reason I can hit anything (See also: Ashe, Soldier, Ana)

Mei – Utility – Mei has one of the most useful kits in Overwatch. Where other heroes get value from dealing damage, Mei gets value from using her abilities to cut off enemies, wall off threats, stall out points, and freeze just about anything. (Also: Sigma, Brig)

Pharah – ngl I think I played Pharah once and I was trash. If I had to guess, the best thing she can teach you is using natural cover as flying around in the middle of the air is a death wish

Reaper – Brawl (DPS) – Brawl is a close range composition with short fights. Reaper is very strong at damaging certain pressure points in these comps until they break. (Also: McCree, Mei)

Soldier – FPS basics and Tracking – He’s literally a caricature of FPS heroes. Decent mobility, constant damage output, heals. If your are just starting out on DPS, this is not a bad pick. There’s a reason he’s what they throw you on when you first start up the game. He’s also helped my tracking and when I picked up Bap, I was already used to soldiers new recoil.

Sombra – Value – one thing lower ranks tend to overlook is the ability to get value in unique ways. Sombra is not a very good damage dealer compared to most DPS. However, Sombra can win fights by hacking the right target at the right time. Hacking a Rein when he’s pressured or an ulting enemy can swing the fight in your teams favor. (Also: Mercy)

Symmetra – Defenders advantage – now this isn’t true on all maps, but on the maps where Symmetra is the strongest, it can be next to impossible to push into a Symmetra stronghold. Sym provides her team with a massive advantage to the point that your tanks can play very passively and force the enemy to press W into their own death.

Torbjörn – Anti-dive (DPS) / BMing – Don’t ever attack me or my daughter again. I will hammer u.

Tracer – Dive (DPS) – Tracer is a textbook dive hero. She’s fast, annoying, and hard to kill. She teaches you a lot about target prioritization and angles in dive comps. (Also: Genji)

Widowmaker – Sightlines – a good widow isn’t strong because they hit every shot. They’re strong because they give the enemy the fewest possible angles on them while still maintaining sightlines to get kills. A widow 1v1 is usually won by the person with better gamesense, not mechanics. (Also: Zen)

Ana – Positioning – A bad support is one who dies first. Ana is the second most vulnerable support but requires good LOS on your team to get value. Playing Ana means learning to stay away from the fight and off angles, while still healing your frontline. (Also: Zen)

Baptiste – Mixing Damage in with Healing – the difference between a decent Baptiste and a good Baptiste is one who can frag. If you are healbotting as Baptiste, you are not getting value out of his entire kit. Baptiste can heal and damage at the same time which can turn the fight in favor of your frontline. (Also: Moira)

Brig – Anti-dive (Support) – like father, like daughter. Although she isn’t as strong as she used to be, Brig can still thwart dive attempts on friendly squishies.

Lucio – Engage – the second phase of of team fights start by knowing when and how to engage on the enemy. Playing Lucio, you will learn this really quick because your teammates will just tell u lol. (Also: Doom, Genji)

Mercy – Support fundamentals – mercy was the first hero I played back on console. Nothing will teach you the basics of what your job is as a support like playing mercy. Her entire kit revolves around staying alive, enabling your teammates, and masking their mistakes. This isn’t to say she can’t be incredibly hard to play to the highest level though. (I have a lot of respect for a good Mercy. I can play most of the supports to a high level but damn am I trash at mercy)

Moira – Brawl (support) – your job as a support in brawl is to stay alive, spam heal what needs help, and damage what needs to die. No one does this quite like Moira. Bap has been used in brawl variants recently, but doesnt play quite as traditionally as Moira. (Also: Bap)

Zen – Target Prioritization – Using Zen’s discord has taught me more about prioritization than any DPS. Using discord applies the same logic as healing (which of my teammates is currently the most vulnerable) but against the enemy team. Playing Zen typically gives you a good view of the fight and teaches you who needs to go. (Also: Ball, Genji, Tracer)

If you are trying to learn these concepts, I recommend NOT playing mystery heroes. If you just want a taste of heroes, MH is great, but if you are trying to get comfortable with new concepts and playstyles, quick play is much more helpful.

I’ll take this time to tell you to turn on your damn allied health bars regardless of your role