If you're looking for a beautifully designed team-based shooter that features interesting character designs, smooth visuals, and challenging gameplay elements, then Overwatch is the game for you. This aesthetically pleasing Blizzard release features a full rost❀er of creative personalities that are endlessly locked in a struggle for the well-being of future Earth.
Overwatch has taken the First-person Shooter genre by storm. During its worldwide release back in May of 2016, Overwatch managed to attract over seven million players in a little over a week. That number grew to a massive 25 million players by January of 2017. Pair all of this with an impressive 91 Metacritic Score (90 on the PS4) and it's easy to see why Overwatch is such a smash hit.
Much like Team Fortress 2, Overwatch features a multitude of heroes (and some villains) to choose from. E💜ach has their own unique playstyle and the full stock of playable pawns has something for everyone. Due to its competitive nature, this has Bܫlizzard hard at work cranking out constant updates and balancing fixes to ensure the game feels as fair and fun as possible.
That being said, it doesn't mean that all characters shine equally. Overwatch rewards skill, practice, and dedication, but there are some heroes that come equipped with better abilities and functions overall. This is why it seemed important to rank all 24 current Overwatch heroes from worst to best.
It is important to note that Overwatch is a hero-swapping game, allowing you to quickly change classes upon each death. Because of this, some characters were c༒reated as direct "hero counters." This list takes a look at each hero overall, counting♔ their abilities and utility as a grade.
Who is your number one? Let us know!
24 Zenyatta
This hurts me emotionally. Ze💙nyatta is a wonderful character, a pure Omnic monk that is simply too good for this world. It's painful to include him at the bottom of this listꦍ, but he is here for a couple reasons.
Zenyatta is a bit of a one trick pony, with both of his abilities coming in the form of attachable orbs. The harmony orb can latch onto one teammate at a time, providing them with a healing over time effect. The discord or🉐b creates the opposite effect, latching onto a single enemy and forcing them to take double damage from all sources.
While bot♎h of these mechanics are useful in their own right, they don't provide enough oomph to lift Zenyatta higher up the list. The harmony orb is a bit lacking in its heal amount, and discord orb doesn't offer Zenyatta any elusiveness. His ultimate ability will provide rapid healing for anyone around him, but this healing isn't enough to stop hard nuking from focused ✃fire, a Junkrat tire, or a D.Va mech explosion.
23 Winston
Winston is a unifier. This hyper-intelligent gorilla scientist is responsible for activating the Overwatch protocol and bringing all its for🅘mer heroes together.
Unfortunately, Winston is a much better scientist than he is an Overwatch hero. This gorilla guardian is by no means a pushover, but in terms of tank effectiveness and damage output, he falls rather flat. His shielding ability offers quick cover for teammates, but comes at the cost of a lengthy cooldown. His nifty jump pack allows him to reach areas inaccessible to some, wh🧜ich can be very handy in eliminating snipers (and annoyingly good G♛enji players).
Aside from that, Winston isn't much of a threat. His survivability relies on him diving in and out of danger, thanks to a lower 🃏health pool and a lack of armor or shields. Characters with high damage output can take down an unassisted Winston fairly quickly. His tesla cannon does travel through shields, is incapable of deflection, and can attack multiple players at once. Sadly, the damage output is low enough that skilled players can quickly escape.
22 Orisa
Orisa is the newest face to the Overwatch universe. This Omnic protection bot was created by Efi Oladele, an 11-year-old child prodigy with a seꦡrious adoration for robotics. Orisa comes off as a young A.I., boasting child-like innocence and a lawful police-influenced attitude. Her tanky exterior offers more protection than Winston, but her current setup of utilities leaves a lot to be desired.
Orisa is capable of calling down a shield, similar to Reinhardt and Winston, but notably smaller and anchored 🦋towards one direction. A secondary ability allows her to overcharge her shields, making her temporarily invulnerable to stuns and less susceptible to damage. Her ultimate ability is a beacon that grants all teammates in a given area increased damage output. Orisa's real bread and butter is her weapon, a massive chaingun that does so🃏lid DPS and features a secondary fire capable of pulling enemies towards a specific location.
All of this looks great on paper, but in-game Orisa is rather easy to burst down. Her shield doesn't offer neaꦿrly as much mobility as Reinhardt's and her movement speed is rather sluggish. To make matters worse, her ultimate ability can be destroyed rather quickly by focused fire.
21 🃏 Widowmaker
Every shooting game needs at least one sniper. If you're looking for a cold and calculated damage deal🎃er, then Widowmaker is right up your alley. Her fancy firearm features two modes, a fast-firing bullet spread and a chargeable precision scoped single-shot.
Her abilities are rather basic. She makes use of a grappling hook that can pull her into unique sniping positions or give her an edge in escaping a would-be attacker. The venom mine acts♚ as an attachable proximity device, poisoning anyone💝 who steps too close to it. Her ultimate ability will give her entire team the ability to see and track enemies through walls.
All of this sounds fantastic in theory, but lengthy ability cooldowns, a weak damage-over-time effect, and a serious skill requirement force us to rank Widowmaker much lower in this countdown. A skil🅰led flanker can easily pick off the blue-skinned sniper and once she becomes the focus of ⭕attention, it can be hard to land the headshots she desperately needs to survive.
20 Torbjorn
From a character design standpoint, Torbjorn is pretty amazing. This pint-sized engineer is easy to dismiss due to his short stature, but carries enough firepower to quickly lay wastജe to his enemies.
While other heroes spend their💙 time battling along the front lines, Torbjorn is feverishly building turrets and supplying his allies with useful armor packs. His weapon lobs projectile bolts that do massive damage and his alternate fire shoots a painful shotgun-like spread. If you hear "Molten Core," be prepared to face ♏an insanely strong turret and its fired up owner for a short period of time.
Torbjorn is a bit lower on this list due to his lack of escape and team dependency. Without shielding, his turret is an easy target for any character with a long range weapon. That being said, if a team builds themselves around a Torbjorn, he becom♒es a major headach♏e.
19 Sombra
Sombra is a sarcastic hacking genius that uses cunning and trickery to assault the battlefield. Her skill set makes her a fantastic choice for flanking the enemy team, but a lackluster ultimate ability✅ ♕and high player skill level places her at number 19 on this list.
Her hack ability has a multitud📖e of uses. Sombra can hack enemy health packs, abilities, and ultimates, while simultaneously offering faster recharging health packs for her team. She has a cloaking ability that𒆙 makes her completely invisible for a short time and a long range teleportation beacon that can help her escape trouble.
The issues come from Sombra's uninspired ultimate, which shoots out an AOE EMP that hacks multiple enemies at one time. It doesn't last as long as we'd like and it won't affect certain characters ultimate's at all. Sombra is a great flanker, but a bit of a high learning curvꦑe✅ for inexperienced players.
18 Lucio
I love Lucio. His character movement is entertaining, his skill set is unique, and he has an upbeat attitude that is strong enough t💮o make even the grumpiest person smile. He's a stylish AOE healer that rewards fast movement and tactical placement.
Lucio uses the power of music to heal and buff ꦦhis allies, via a switchable soundtrack that can seamlessly flow from a subtle healing boost to a gentle rise in movement speed. His secondary "Amp it Up" skill increas♊es this effect dramatically for a short period of time. What makes Lucio so unique is that he can heal a team simply by being around them. His weapon of choice is a booming sound wave gun, that comes complete with a secondary knockback attack.
Lucio๊ finds himself in the bottom twelve due to his general inability to help his team as a solo healer. His amped up healing beats offer a nice influx of health for his allies, but when the music isn't turned up to 11, the effect is rather weak. Teams that embrace Lucio as a secondary healer will find a 💙useful hero with a life-saving ultimate ability, fantastic survivability, and decent knockback.
17 Bastion
This plucky little sentient Omnic killing machine was the main complaint when Overwatch first released. His immensely powerful sentry mode had many players (myself included) frustrated and anxious. He's gone through a lot of changes in the rece𒁏nt year, but familiarity is what put him at number 17.
Bastion can freely cycle between recon and sentry modes. When patrolling as a recon, our robotic friend deals damage via a self-mounted assault rifle that does quite a bit of damage when aimed correctly. His sentry mode forces him into a stationary position, but offers one of the most powerful weapons in the game, a 200 round chaingun that can melt almost any hero in seconds. His secondary ability is a pretty nifty self-hea🔜l that uses a rechargeable resource ability and can be activated in both modes. He can even turn into a tank with his ultimate ability.
Bastion has been up and down the buff rollercoaster already, but his bottom 12 placement comes from age. As more players became familiar with Overwatch's maps, mechanics, and skills, Bastion began to have a harder time picking off his opponents. Overwatch is known as a hero swapping game and Bastion has quite a few counters🎉.
16 Hanzo
Hanzo is technically a sniper but uses a unique weapon in the Overwatch universe. This di🍌shonored Japanese bowman favors an arrow over a bullet and his powerful strikes can be a nightmare in the right hands.
Each of Hanzo's arrows can be nocked, allowing him to accurately pinpoint when to take a shot at his foes. His sonic arrow acts 🧜like a miniature version of Widowmaker's ultimate, scouting enemies and marking them through walls for himself and allies. Scatter arrow is an intensely powerful shot that sends out tons of tiny shards when it strikes a character or surface. His ultimate ability is incredibly powerful when used correctly, as it sends out two massiveꦕ dragons that pass through any objects and melt heroes caught in their path.
Hanzo has great placement ability, as he can cli𒉰mb walls and obstacles, but lacks much escape. If targeted by a flanker, Hanzo is usually easy prey. That being said, his scatter arrow and general headshots can instantly destroy another hero or even a tank under the right circumstances. His weapon has no scope, but his arrows offer a larger hitbox than most weapons.
15 Pharah
Pharah is easily one of the most entertaining heroes to pick up. Her sky high antics and powerful rockets can decimate heroes with lower health pools, with a nic🏅e added splash damage effect for shots that may not directly connect. Her powerful weaponry and ability to burst down tanks and turrets make her a very valuable commodity to a team.
Pharah can leap high into the sky and float around by way of jet pack resource, which refills over time. Her supreme maneuverab🔜ility makes her especially good at destroying snipers and close-quarter fighters. She even has a knockback, which can be used to toss enemies off cliffs or as an escape mechanism if a fight gets out of hand. Her ultimate ability rains justice from the skies, in the form of a concentrated rocket barrage.
As entertaining as she is, Pharah has a glaring issue that bumps her♔ quite a few rungs down our list. She moves rather slowly when navigating the sky and her ultimate makes her completely stationary for a few moments. Because of this, Pharah is rather easy to pick off and a dedicated long-range hero will give her trouble.