Who Are You Liking?

I didn't want to make a 'WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE HERO' thread but this is essentially that without having to make the commitment to picking an actual literal favorite.

Overwatch has a colorful assortment of characters and at least one of them is bound to interest you or click with you, be it for their abilities or their personality or even their looks. Whatever. It's all good. With the beta approaching its open phase I figured now's a good a chance as any to see which hero or heroes people are liking to play. For those of you who haven't played yet, is there a particular hero you're interested in? For those of you who HAVE played, is the hero you like different than the one you expected to like going in? Let's just talk about the characters, alright?

The character I am liking the most is definitely Mei, which is surprising because in the defense heroes I was sure I'd be all in on Hanzo. But I really like Mei, she's adorable which is, well, adorable but also really good at controlling the other team (or being annoying, which is always fun). It's great on the Assault and the Control gametypes when she's defending and can effectively halt the enemy team's push or funnel them towards chokepoints with just a simple well placed ice wall. Her self heal is also really handy, especially when the attacking team decides to just go all in in the last minute and unload ultimates in the control point. I can't tell you how many times I've managed to keep the point contested while my team arrives to push the enemy away thanks to the ice block. Mei is definitely the hero I am going to use the most.

I'm also enjoying Lucio and Mercy when it comes to healing, though Mercy is a bit boring after constantly having to be the one to fill a support role. Lucio I just like because he uses the power of music and seems like he'd be right at home in a Jet Set Radio game. I want to like D.Va more than I do but I dunno, she's just not clicking for me. Zarya is also interesting me but I haven't had time yet to really get some games in with her.

On the offense side I mostly tend to stay away because I'm actually bad at offense. When I need to I go with Pharah or McCree. Pharah because I can sometimes get lucky with rockets and McCree because I like him better than the other offense people.

So, duders, who're you liking?

I only just got in during the early access portion of the beta so I haven't got to play that much. I'm liking Reaper and McCree. Tracer is proving to be more difficult to be effective than I anticipated but I'm starting to get a handle on her. I'm in a similar situation as you with D.Va, I want to play her but something isn't clicking. I feel totally useless whenever I choose her as a tank over Reinhardt or Roadhog, both of which I am enjoying although Reinhardt seems pretty boring beyond being a moving shield (I'm probably playing him wrong). I haven't done much on the support end of things because I feel like there's a lot of pressure being a good healer and I'm not confident in my ability in that department right now.

Side note: I don't want to throw around strong words like overpowered but I feel like Bastion can just be too unstoppable. Maybe I need to be better about flanking or learning to combat him but I feel like there should be a slower turn speed in his turret mode or something. It's kind of ridiculous when I get behind him and start shooting that he can proceed to do a 180 and melt me even though I got the jump on him.

I want to play Tracer, but she is such a bad character to learn the game with because she is incredibly reliant on map knowledge and positioning/flanking. As such I've been sticking to McCree, 76 and Reaper. I wish they went full 90's edge with Reaper and really leaned into it. Taking such a cheesy character and treating him so deathly serious is kinda lame. It's like he's supposed to be enjoyed ironically but they completely played it straight.

i always play healer in everything and Lucio heals with the power of sick wubs.

I have been playing way too much with Mei. Pyro is my favourite class in TF2, so it's not all that surprising. Been mastering the wall + ult combo you can do with her to trap a whole team in the ultimate.

If I ever have to support, I generally go with Zenyatta, though the nerfs made during the closed beta to him with his orbs are frustrating. I understand why the Orb of Discord got hit like it did, but it's annoying to Orb of Harmony someone for them to almost immediately run back out of your LoS (easy to do, due to Zenyatta's limited movement options compared to some characters) and thus the orb comes back after about 5 seconds. At least Zenyatta hits like a truck, especially compared to the other supports. Orb of Discord + a few headshots from him will even take down most tanks pretty quick. Also, he's a cool robo-monk.

If I'm ever picking an offense, it's generally 76. Nice consistent damage and heals for days.

So far I like Reinhardt and Torbjorn. I like playing tanks, and he's a mighty big target for the enemy team to shoot at while his teammates do their work. He can protect teammates with his barrier wall (like providing support for Bastion in his turret mode) or get in there with his hammer using his charge and start smashing people. What's really great is that the hammer's hitbox persists for the entirety of its swing animation so I can start the swing in the middle of a crowd and Beyblade it up like he was on-release Phantom in Dirty Bomb. His ultimate can really shine during fights on the objective where both teams are crowded together and can make a substantial difference between winning and losing that fight. As for Torbjorn, my favorite class in TF2 is the engineer and his kit rips directly off of that with minor changes, such as only getting a level 2 turret most of the time and being able to provide armor pickups instead of throwing down a dispenser. His ult provides the last upgrade for his turret for a limited time, but between him and his turret under ultimate he can deal a lot of damage.

I love me some Reinhardt, 76, Lucio, and Zenyatta. Haven't gotten to play too much, but that's who I was playing as for most of the beta.

Bastion is OP. This is coming from someone who played him almost exclusively too. I got a 75 person kill streak last night by positioning myself at a bit of a bottleneck and just decimating the other team. On some of my games I would purposely hold back because I thought I wasn't giving anyone else on my team a chance to kill anyone. Teamed up with Mercy, we were pretty much unstoppable. It doesn't take a lot to kill Bastion, however, regardless of the self-healing ability.

[edit] It was jumping on top of the Escort, transforming into the turret, and just let it take me around.

The only other one who's maybe more OP though is Reaper. Again, not the most durable character, and he doesn't have anything to heal himself with, but man does he dominate.

Having said that, my favorites were:

• Bastion: See above.
• Soldier 76: He's a good all-around character with a nice healing ability. I just wish the cooldown on the rockets were faster (or maybe not).
• Genji: Nothing much to say, he was a good, fast offensive character with a decent ultimate.
• Zeny: Played well, he's a pain in the ass. Super fragile, but not needing LOS is nice.

I tried a few others but they didn't really stick with me, D.VA was kind of cool as was Lucio. I did play Reaper, and while strong, not my favorite.

It seemed like a majority of people were playing as Roadhog, Widowmaker (obviously), Reaper, and Zarya. There were a few who played Mei and Pharah extremely well, and I saw a few good Hanzo players too.

Been trying to get good with Mei since I played WAY too much pyro in TF2, but also a lot of Widowmaker.

I've been playing a lot of Farah, she's fantastic! Rockets hit hard and her mobility is great, the knockback blast is really good situationally (especially near some of the cliffs and pits!). I've been experimenting with using the knockback on myself while flying to launch myself further or suddenly change directions too, it seems like there might be some cool techniques there.

Symmetra has been really fun although she definitely feels a lot weaker now than she was in the early betas, so that has spoiled me a little. The turrets are fun when defending, but they take so long to recharge that she is basically useless when attacking or moving constantly.

Widowmaker is definitely the coolest looking character, especially her Noire skin, but holy shit I cannot snipe in this game at all.

Oh and Bastion is broken as all hell still. Definitely the noob-toob of Overwatch. I'm sure everyone will figure out how to handle him and punish 6 Bastions defending a final objective, but right now it's still kinda frustrating.

My favorite heroes are probably D. Va and Lucio.

I'm probably the best with Lucio and Mercy, although I like how Lucio can do more in the game. I've had some great games with Mercy, especially on a map like Route 66, where I zip around, heal everyone on the defending team, and we win before they get the cargo to the first checkpoint, just because barely anybody died. At the same time, you are basically doing the same thing for the entire match: moving from person to person healing, or following a person and healing/providing a damage boost, and resurrecting if you can. With Lucio on the other hand, I can boost my team out of the gate to reach a command point before the other team, I can do pretty decent damage, while still healing, and I can buff my team while otherwise doing other stuff. The music aspect to his character is also a really nice touch. I haven't really spent any time wall running, but I feel like I'm contributing enough as is.

D. Va is probably my favorite character in general. I like how you can infer a lot about the character's histories and their backgrounds. For me, I find the e-sports aspect of her character both funny and fun. All of her abilities make for interesting combinations too. She is a tank character, who can put up a shield (I don't really use the shield though and sometimes I feel like I'm playing her character completely wrong because of it, but I'm still having fun and think I'm doing a pretty good job as her), she can boost across the map and can also fly up and land on top of buildings, and then you have the self destruct mechanism, which you can use when you know you're screwed or go all kamikaze and throw a bomb at the command point the entire enemy team is hanging out at.

So far the main characters I've played as are D. Va, Lucio, Mercy, Bastion, Torbjorn, Soldier: 76, and Reaper. I have barely played as Tracer, Pharah, Symmetra, Reinhardt, and Widowmaker. As for the others, I haven't touched them yet. I'm planning on digging in more with the open beta so I have exposure to at least everybody before the game launches, but I can at least comfortably play as every class, except for a sniper. Turns out I'm not a super great shot with Widowmaker's sniper rifle.

Symmetra, because APPARENTLY I'm havering too much issue with the lag compensation on shots and can't even grasp how McCree and Hanzo players manage to hit anything, and Torbjorn since his turret just does it for me, however his turret also upsets me because it's a peashooter in a lot of cases so setting it up is a hassle past the setup point. Whenever I have to shoot something though it's Roadhog

I like Reaper and Tracer more than I thought I would, they are generally pretty fast and I like hitscan weapons and running around behind enemies. Their abilities also work really well together and offer some nice tactical options. McCree is a perfect hero for me too since I love clicking on guys but I need to practice with him a little because my aim isn't as good as it used to be. Roadhog is really fun to play but I feel bad using him since he seems a little overpowered. I haven't spent much time with the defensive heroes but Mei is great and I like Hanzo especially because his bow is much faster and nice to use compared to the Huntsman in TF2.

The one character I'm most surprised about is Genji, who I actually don't enjoy playing at all. I thought Genji would be one of my favourites but his weapons feel like I'm throwing biscuits at the enemy and I don't know what to do with him yet. I'm having a little trouble with the support characters also, I find them kind of boring which I wasn't expecting. It feels like I'm doing nothing on Lucio when I'm running all around even though I'm healing people and shooting weak projectiles. Mercy is fine but seems like a less fun TF2 Medic. Zenyatta is a big letdown for me too, I thought he would be my go-to support character but again I find him kind of awkward to play and don't really have a feel for him yet, but hopefully that will change over time. I didn't like Winston either because his tickle gun does no damage.

For me thusfar, it's a tossup between Soldier: 76 and Roadhog.

76 just feels natural, like I can focus on the actual flow of the round/individual matchups without wrangling with weird abilities. Roadhog is just a killer ambusher and tough as hell to boot, which I appreciate. Only been playing for a day though.

Hanzo is a freakin murderer, though. I can't play him for shit but very often, enemies who do utterly shut me down. I might have to learn him better

Everyone actually.

But D'Va is my favorite

I didn't play much as her in the earlier betas but I'm suddenly warming to Mei, very much an "assist" kind of class. Creating temporary bottlenecks, slowing people down, etc. Satisfying to freeze someone just as a teammate strides by and punches their frozen body to death.

Bastion is probably my second favorite, finally clicked once I started being mobile and only going into turret mode for short bursts before repositioning. One of my favorite things in the game is playing Bastion on a Control match, just hanging back from the point and taking out people as they approach.

I've always gravitated mostly towards assist characters so I'm surprised at how much I'm liking a lot of the non-assist characters, especially Pharah and Bastion. Tarcer was another surprising pick because as much as I've gotten tired of her being shoved down our throats, she sure is pretty goddamn fun to play.

That said, Mercy is still my jam. Her skills seemed lame to me at first because they just felt kinda "standard," but after a minute, they just sorta...felt right? I'm not sure how to put it. Either way, she's easily my favorite at the moment.

Pharah, Junkrat, D. Va, Lucio/Zenyatta

I'm definitely maining D.Va - jumping into the backline and causing as much chaos as possible is just soooooooooo much fun, and that animation that plays when you enter the mech is cool as hell. I also really like Winston for the same reason, he's great at hunting down snipers and supports. Lastly, Symmetra because hiding 6 turrets above a doorway and getting Elimination messages popping up randomly never stops being funny.

@jjbsterling: @donchipotle: As both of you have said I really wanted to like D.Va, but it just isn't working out.

Bastion might be my favourite, but I've spent the most time so far with Roadhog. That grapple is too damn satisfying. Tracer is probably my favourite offensive character right now. Playing Tracer is super weird to me because you aren't really gunna get a lot of kills. You're off on your own for long periods of time harassing the enemy from behind, but unable to do enough damage to kill them. That said, if you're playing her well, you basically never die. Which is sweet.

Bastion seems to be the most powerful to me. Decent health, decent damage, lots of ammo and the ability to heal himself. Only real downside is he's a little slow mobility-wise. Seems a little OP. I really like the design and personality of Tracer though.

Lucio- My go to healer at the moment. Something about the jet set radio/Ibiza motif is very satisfying. The beats never get old and I feel like I get a surprising amount of kills with the wub wub gun. Sustaining a Reinhardt through a push and knocking fools over a ledge with the pulse just makes a character who ostensibly is just a walking healing totem feel very active and fun.

Torbjorn-All about that turret placement. Once I started getting the hang of placing Mr. Shooty Bangbang at blind crossings, the kills just start flowing like wine. His armor producing mechanic (Haha mechanic!) is handy for chokepoints, of which there are a lot in this game.

Junkrat-Been having fun with him lately. The bounce bomb is super fun and while I tend to just lob grenades as a supression for people to flank, you can really do some damage with his ult or even just a well place trap. The theme of agent of chaos really does say it all.

Roadhog-Man....with a team backing you up this dude is just nasty. Feels a lot like Stitches with his hookshot and gas huffing (I assume that's what he's doing).

Reinhardt- Swapping between meatshield to hold a point and rampaging bruiser is super fun. Suicide charging is hella entertaining and the one time I was able to score a triple kill by launching two dudes over a building into the abyss as I speared Zenyatta over the edge sold me.

Really, I like them all except Winston and Tracer, ironic I suppose since they are the two biggest stars of the game besides Widowmaker. I'm sure I'm just playing Winston wrong, but he feels so squishy. His abilities look like charging in and disrupting people should work, but I just get wrecked. And Tracer just requires more twitch muscles and map knowledge than what I have in me. I will stick to playing her in Heroes of the Storm. =P Good work Blizz, another super fun and super solid game.

I haven't had a chance to try them all but I like Tracer a lot because of all her mobility, Genji is fun to use too and his ultimate is wicked. Bastion is my favorite of the tanks because his immobile form is really powerful and you can heal yourself without cooldown. Junkrat is pretty fun and plays a lot like the demoman in TF2.

Had a lot of fun trying the PS4 beta out, gonna keep dipping my toes in to the different class types and stuff.

oh and Dva is fun but she has a bit of a learning curve, not sure how to play as her yet

Okay D.va is pretty fun.
https://gfycat.com/BruisedEmotionalEastsiberianlaika

My biggest problem with Tracer is that you don't do much damage and don't have much ammo, especially considering how long it takes to reload. I understand that she's a "mobility character", and maybe I haven't seen enough "high-level play".

well the game isn't fully installed on ps4 so i can't do much but honestly I haven't liked anyone so far. there are 2 sets of characters i can't access but man all of these characters feel incomplete and lacking. Maybe it'll click better in an actual match, but teh game won't even let me do a bot match while installing. Off the bat that mcree character seems to have a completely useless dodge roll wtih an 8 second cool down. Run being a specific character ability seems like a bad decision and makes the game feel kinda slow so far. I'll have to test in an actual match tomorrow i guess.

I've been playing past 2 days on ps4, I absolutely adore this game.

My favorites as of right now are definitely D.Va, Junkrat, Lucio, McCree, Mercy, Reaper, Roadhog, Tracer, and Zenyatta. 1-2 for each role type.

I can't play Hanzo for the life of me, I apparently really suck at bows.

EDIT: I absolutely love the Jojo and Gurren Lagann references with Reinhardt, they gave me a great laugh when I saw them. The same goes for McCree's 'BAMF' belt.

@oursin_360: Just a heads up, the dodge on McCree isn't for dodging. You instantly reload when you come out of the roll so it's more for a backup when you miss your shots or someone catches you by surprise on a reload. That's also why his cooldown is so long on that dodge.

I have to say Lucio is my favorite healer, but I just don't get any kills with him, but I feel like I know when to push people away correctly at least.

Favorite tank is roadhog by far. Hooking people is so satisfying and that self heal just makes him really good at staying in the frontline.

With offensive characters go back and forth between Genji and McCree. Although, I definitely do better with Genji. Overall, I feel like the really aggressive characters are the most fun to play with the exception of Tracer who is pretty hard to play.

I feel like Widowmaker is the only character I can consistently get kills with of the ones I've used.

So far I'm into Genji, Pharah, and Winston. McCree was pretty fun too. Oh, and Junkrat for using the mines to launch people (myself included).

I keep going back to that D. Va well. The mech is where it's at. In general I've been rotating between a few tanks because no one chooses them for the most part.

I've been liking Tracer and Widowmaker so far. If I play more D.Va, I might grow to like her. With Tracer, I really need to get a feel for the map because I keep getting stuck on corners whenever I try to blink away. Other than that, I'm having a blast at this beta.

Junkrat is great. Behind him are Pharah, McCree, Bastion, and Mercy. The mobility you get with Mercy is really cool, and rezzing people during clutch moments is cool as hell.

In going through all the big bruiser types, I found Zarya to be pretty neat once I figured out how she worked. Then I tried Winston and didn't really feel him too much. Next I guess I'll try Reinhart, Roadhog and D.va.

Don't forget his undying love for the Hoff.

Tracer is the only character I'm good at which is also a problem because I can feel her abilities imprinting terrible habits to manifest when I try to learn anyone else.

Pharah is by far my favorite. She's got a rocket launcher and a jetpack, what else could you possibly want. She also fits my style perfectly, where I will rarely fight head on and try to use the map against people. On that same note I do really well and have fun with Tracer/Reaper. McCree is cool too on maps where I can't flank as much. When I'm supporting it's largely been Lucio because he is probably the overall strongest out of them, but I think all four supports are fun in their own way.

Pharah is easily my favourite. Rocket launcher that shoots straight and bounces enemies? Check. Ability to direct hit and air juggle with rockets? Check. Sick jetpack? Check. Absolute beast when paired with a support (Mercy)? You betcha.

She's easily my "we're going to lose better switch over" character, getting 80% of the kills in a match is a lot of fun.

That being said "Justice rains from above" is possibly one of the worst delivered lines in video games since "I should've filled your dark soul with light",

Mercy is my go to character. Followed by Pharah, D.va and Junkrat depending on what's needed. I'm glad there are characters I can be effective with even with my old-man-hands.

I really, really like Mei. Freezing everything and blocking chokepoints is a lot of fun. Zarya is my go to tank, shielding people is really nice. Symmetra seems kind of nuts, and I got several plays of the game with her, up close her weapon is absolutely devastating, and clerverly placed turrets and a teleporter can really be a game changer.

I am constantly in disbelief how anyone can design a character like Reaper with a straight face, the things he says make me cringe because its so fucking silly.

I've mainly been playing Mercy, I didn't expect to like this game but I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I've been mostly sticking with Solider: 76 for my first few matches. I'm pretty new to FPS games that rely heavily on character abilities and team-play, so I feel most at home with the run-of-the-mill shooter guy.

Really enjoying roadhog at the moment, when he clicks its mayhem.

Reaper, Hanzo, Lucio, Roadhog and Reinhardt are the ones I do the best with. Really want to like D. Va but it kind of feels like Rein does her job better. Her weapons just feel bad to use.

I wanna like D.VA real bad but she has to be in melee for her guns to be good and she may as well have half health since her headshot hitbox is gigantic.

@bill_mcneal: Bastion is not OP. You should've seen him before him and Torb were nerfed down, now THAT was op. He used to gain 300 armor on top of his 300 health when he transformed into a turret. Play Genji and deflect his shit back if you have trouble with him, he's counterable.

I really love the zoning, mobility and bombardment Junkrat offers.

I also really enjoy Torbing. Setting up a turret and running around the battlefield collecting scrap is great fun. I especially like going though Rein's shields and shot gunning them at close range while they hold the shield up to protect themselves from my turret. That's always fun. Also the gun has a really long range so you can line up long shots and just fire them into far off choke points and hope to hit something. You can even kill Widowmakers that way if you can account for fall off!

I'm a Junkrat guy as well. You drop your mine and trap in just about any situation and someone will die to it. Also, firing all those tiny shots is incredibly fun.

Because I can't play a game without picking one of the harder characters to work with, I've mostly been playing Tracer. Once you know the layout of an area you can blink around and be the worlds biggest pain in the ass. Plus, I mean, come on. She's fucking adorable. I cannot get the hang of her ult for the life of me though - I've maybe gotten two successful sticks and blown myself up about five or six times.

When I take a defensive role I've been rolling Zarya, because I like shielding folks and also I like being able to launch grenades when the situation calls for it. I don't get a lot of kills with her but I do get a lot of assists, and that's just fine with me.

If I'm healing, I'm Mercy - here's a secret for you all: there is nothing more satisfying than killing someone as Mercy. I scored a triple kill last night off the back of a Zarya ult and it was maybe the most satisfying thing I've ever done in the game.