Boy games were long in 2017. Sure, this might have been the best year in gaming maybe in two decades, but I admire the person who got in all the ones worth playing with how bloody long they all were. If all these open-world games could kindly come to some kind of agreement to reduce their average length by about thirty hours next year, it’d be just great. All right, I’ll stop being a curmudgeon at this point as there’s a lot of great stuff to talk about.

Old Game of the Year: Overwatch

There are two reasons I didn’t play as many games as I wanted to this year: games being long and Overwatch. If 2017’s multiplayer shooters have done anything, they’ve only shown just how much all the extra polish Blizzard puts into Overwatch pays off. From the most tolerable loot box implementation out there, to their continued balance updates, to the Overwatch World Cup and upcoming Overwatch League, to Jeff Kaplan memeing in front of a fireplace for ten hours on Christmas Eve, Overwatch is a continued example of how to support an online competitive game. Sure, the Sym and Torb one-tricks are out there. Sure, it still exposes how toxic the online gaming community can be. But this would be my Game of the Year all over again in a heartbeat and is still the game I spend the most time with.

Best Looking Game: Cuphead

Honorable Mentions: Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

All the years of effort put into developing Cuphead’s super stylized look paid off in what might not just be the best looking game of 2017, but the best looking video game period. To be able to create a game that flawlessly mimics 1930's animation while playing like a dream, but also does so at a frame rate those original cartoons could never dream of pulling off is an astounding accomplishment.

Best Soundtrack: Persona 5

Honorable Mentions: Nier: Automata, Cuphead

These three games represent three of my favorite soundtracks of the past decade, but if I had to pick one, my heart demands I pick Persona. I’ve proverbially “worn the tape out” of this soundtrack. It’s not just about tracks you’ve all heard to death like “Life is Change” and “Last Surprise” either. The half-dozen chiptune pieces they created for a small daily activity show that same care and craft. The background music is excellent. The remixes of “Beneath the Mask” to create different moods are all excellent. The breadth of the soundtrack is incredible. This might be my favorite Persona soundtrack to date, and that’s saying something. I could keep writing about how much I like this soundtrack, or I could just direct you to those opening measures of “Rivers in the Desert” and let the game make its case for me.

With that being said, Nier’s soundtrack is amazing, and I’m glad it’s winning dozens of awards right now.

Most Disappointing and Worst Game of All Time: Mass Effect: Andromeda

Fuck this game.

Best Story: What Remains of Edith Finch

Honorable Mentions: Night in the Woods, Nier: Automata, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

I wrote a blog last year about how video game storytelling in 2016 felt disappointing and pedantic compared to recent efforts across the medium. 2017 was a make-good on last year, and Edith Finch was the best example of the unique methods the medium possesses for conveying story. The game seamlessly mixes dark comedy and tragedy through its series of vignettes about each member “America’s most unfortunate family.” The writers masterfully handle the game’s weighty subject matter through its fantastical storytelling, operating often times on the cusp of reality, yet always feeling poignant and easy to relate to. The Finch house itself is as detailed and developed as any human character.

Best Moment or Sequence: What Remains of Edith Finch – Lewis

Honorable Mentions: Super Mario Odyssey – New Donk City Festival, Nier: Automata – “Fear”

The culmination of everything I just wrote about Edith Finch is the story of Lewis: a ten minute punch to the gut that is so masterfully executed that in a year of memorable sequences, I never had a doubt what my favorite one was. By this point in the game, the player knows how the story of each Finch family member will end, yet there’s been such a Lemony Snickett level of dark humor applied to the subject matter at hand that it almost feels like it was all setup for this singular story. Lewis’s story is so relatable, so understandable, and so masterfully conveyed that entire works on the subject fail to adequately match its impact. Do yourself a favor: Edith Finch is neither long nor expensive. Play this game and experience this sequence in full context of the game. It’s worth the price of admission.

P.S. The GB crew picked the wrong moment from Nier. “I taught the children what fear is,” is the most haunting line from that game.

The Top Ten:

Honorable Mentions: Tekken 7, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Splatoon II

10) Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods in many ways is less the sum of its parts and more about individual sequences. If Edith Finch is a movie, Night in the Woods is a 13-episode Netflix series where some episodes are stronger than others and you’re not quite sure if the overall story was as good as the individual tales. Even still, those parts that hit feature some of the best writing and realized characters in video gaming. I only wish the investment in replaying it was a little shorter as it's not possible to experience every tale the game has in a single playthrough. Also, please patch the game to add a text log feature. Okay, I need to stop picking on the game as I still recommend it thoroughly. In particular, the relationship between Mae and Bea is one of my favorite things in gaming this year.

9) Horizon: Zero Dawn

Horizon is a game that just does everything well. It may not stand out in any individual aspect (save its amazing visuals) compared to other games this year, but it just does everything well. It's such a shame that it got lost a bit in the hype surrounding Zelda, as the two games do different aspects better than each other. Perhaps what it does best is set up a world where you want to see more, and yet the story of the game still feels complete if there never was a sequel.

8) Uncharted: The Lost Legacy

I think this might be my favorite Uncharted game. I wasn’t prepared for that following how good 4 was, but dialing back the scope of Uncharted into a much tighter-packed roughly eight-hour experience combined with moving the narrative away from Nathan Drake resulted in a game that could never be mistaken for “just some DLC they turned into a full game.” Naughty Dog got to experiment a bit with the Uncharted formula as well, including a fairly open-ended section unlike anything in the series to date. One can't help forget special praise to the incredible voice work of Claudia Black and Laura Bailey and their efforts in realize the relationship between Chloe and Nadine throughout the game. Oh and by the way, Uncharted is still the best looking video game series available on consoles.

7) Nier: Automata

Boy, I have conflicted feelings about Nier. Even months later, the unrealized potential of the game’s combat still irks me knowing what Platinum Games is capable of. Also, I played this alongside Yakuza 0, and Nier’s mundane, repetitive side quests are jarring following Yakuza’s diverse and creative ones. But leaving that aside, Nier is still such a unique and exceptionally crafted game that conveys its tale using all the methods video games have to offer. You owe it to yourself to play it as soon as possible, as the game just isn't the same once you know the various tricks and tools it has at its disposal.

6) What Remains of Edith Finch

The only reason Edith Finch isn’t closer to the top of the list is some sequences fall a bit flat. But boy, the ones that hit will hit you with the force of an out of control freight train. There's an awareness you can feel from the game's staff in understanding just how long the game needed to be and thus being able to coax the most out of each moment they had available. If there’s one game on my list I can unequivocally recommend that everyone play, it’s this one. I enjoyed The Unfinished Swan, but this is such a giant leap forward for Giant Sparrow.

5) Yakuza 0

I’ve long-admired Yakuza from afar, and I’ve appreciated its zany mix of mafia-melodrama and whimsical side quests from Let’s Plays. But Yakuza 0 represents not just a great bit of fan service and additional lore for older fans, but a great leaping off point for newcomers to the series. For a series with a story typically compared to Metal Gear, the tragic tale of the Empty Lot was surprisingly poignant and interesting from start to finish. The cast from its main leads down to Mr. Libido and a Dominatrix you who doesn't know how to be mean make up my favorite cast in games this year.

4) Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I thought this was going to be my Game of the Year for the longest time, which has creating a feeling as if I owe the game an explanation for its fourth place finish. I was having so much fun exploring the world of Breath of the Wild and completing shrines that I kind of just kept doing that without ever engaging with the game’s four primary dungeons. So when I finally decided eighty-plus shrines in to advance the story, it caught me flat-footed with how underwhelming, underdeveloped, and uncreative Breath of the Wild's dungeons were. In a series long-known for memorable dungeons and bosses, Breath of the Wild possesses what may be the worst dungeons in the entire series. And experiencing little else but them for about 10-15 hours straight soured what was until then a gaming experience I had few complaints about. The only thing I can compare it to is Deus Ex’s bosses: they left me wondering if a different team worked on the dungeons from the rest of the game. I love so much about this game, but a Zelda game with bad dungeons is like a Dark Souls game with bad bosses for me. Leaving that aside, this game deserves all the praise it has been getting, and I am completely okay with the industry at large accepting it as the Best Game of 2017.

3) Cuphead

On any given day, I could see shuffling around the order of my top three entries. Cuphead is an astounding accomplishment in game design. It’s not just stylish, but features perhaps the best representation of “tough, but fair” gameplay of 2017. Its memorable rogues’ gallery of bosses is as good as anything the Souls series has produced. You can feel the adoration the team has for old cartoons in each boss. While the game has its fair-share of references, it also allows for the player to mentally imagine how each boss would fit into their own individual cartoon worlds. The only complaint I can even muster about the game is some of the Run and Gun levels are fairly weak.

2) Persona 5

People spend far too much time concerning themselves how each aspect of Persona 5 compares to Persona 4. Worrying about Makoto compares to Chie and Morgana compares to Teddie only loses sight of all the good things Persona 5 does for the series. It features the best combat, the best dungeons, the best rogues’ gallery, some of the best S-links, and perhaps even the best soundtrack the series has produced to date. At times, the pacing does slow to a crawl, but the game’s climax manages to pull it all together in a way I sometimes feel Persona 4 didn’t. For a AAA game of such length to capture so much style is an impressive accomplishment, and one can only imagine how much extra length it added to the game's production time. I was fully ready to crown Persona 5 my Game of the Year and be satisfied with the pick despite its flaws, until…

1) Super Mario Odyssey

There’s something fitting about one of the best years in video gaming being topped off by one of the best Mario games in the series. Odyssey feels like the full realization of what Mario 64 wanted to be two decades prior. It’s a masterclass in game design. There is so much craft put into almost every screen in the game that you can get lost for hours just chasing down moons without progressing the game’s critical path. And yet the content is spread around in a way that allows you to easily pop in and out of the game for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, helping to fit with the portable nature of the Switch. Mario controls the best he has ever, allowing you to explore the environment in sometimes unexpected sequence-breaking ways. There’s also a deference for the series’ history throughout the game that hits just the right amount of fan service without being overly referential.

One can’t help but have a big goofy smile on their face the entire time they’re playing Odyssey. It’s just plain fun, and in a year that has not always been the best external of video games, pure fun is appreciated all the more.

So I've decided to start a series of quick blog updates as I try to clear my backlog from 2016 before games start happening again. It's worth noting that the first week's worth of updates will include what I've actually been playing the past two weeks. It's also worth noting I've been spending more time with two of my favorite games from 2016: Hitman and Overwatch.

As a quick Hitman update, I managed to beat Elusive Target 17 and have been working on my mastery level on a couple of maps. That game is still really good, and I wish I had gotten into it a little earlier now. And of course, I'll probably be playing Overwatch until the end of time. A couple of friends I purchased alternate accounts during the Christmas sale, and I've finally got my alternate up to level 25. So over the weekend, I'll probably do some comp placements on it.

On to the actual backlog games:

Obduction

While I won't say Myst was one of my favorite series of the era, I had played through Myst I through IV back in the day. I also was a big fan of The Witness, the modern day spiritual Myst, last year. With that being said, I thought the story and setting of The Witness were kind of bad. Sure, the island initially seemed like it might be interesting, but that potential was done in by a bunch of silly philosophical ramblings that ultimately said little. While I respect the world view of Jonathan Blow, the execution of what he wanted to present left a lot to be desired.

That brings me to Obduction, which simultaneously is offering that type of interesting exploration while perhaps not offering as interesting puzzle solving. I'm not terribly far into the game, but it does certainly scratch that Myst itch of exploring an alien world at my own leisure and getting lost in it. Much like Myst, the story is conveyed through a mix of diaries/books/papers and scenery. Without spoiling anything, this portion of the game is pretty fantastic and shows that the old Cyan team still excels at world building like few other teams can.

With that said, so far the game's puzzle solving hasn't been as captivating as other recent games such as The Witness or The Talos Principle. Some of the puzzles are rather basic and simply involve wandering about, pressing buttons, and moving the mouse about trying to locate something to click on. Others have been extremely clever and reward the player for carefully examining scenery and putting things together. With that said, the game might turn some people off with the way its puzzles lack a cohesive theme or style like say the Witness and instead reflect more of an old-school design philosophy.

So far, I'm enjoying my time with the game, but I'll admit it's not the best game to play after work, so it could take a bit to finish it.

Glittermitten Grove

I think everyone knows what this game is by this point. Thus far, I'm not too far into the actual meat of the Frog Fractions 2 section. I will say the actual Glittermitten Grove wrapper game was a bit more interesting than I thought it would be, though nothing I would want to play beyond the 45-60 minutes it took to find Frog Fractions 2 in it. There are definitely elements to the game that show it was a much smaller game in scope and thus perhaps not balanced the best way.

So far, the actual Frog Fractions 2 portion of the game is a lot of what you'd expect from Frog Fractions. And by that I mean a lot of referential humor mixed with offbeat riffs on various video games and a constant shift in gameplay style. I won't spoil anything about it other than to say if you liked Frog Fractions, you should probably play this at some point. And if you didn't play Frog Fractions, you should probably play that one first as it's free.

Owlboy

Now this is a game I had a lot of regrets about not getting to in 2016. I am a sucker for old-school Metroidvanias with unique designs. I could spend a couple paragraphs extolling the virtues of Owlboy: it looks amazing, the music is amazing, the story is whimsical, the humor hits the right notes, etc. Unfortunately, as I hit about the two-thirds mark in the game, one aspect of the game continues to weigh heavily on me: the gameplay.

I'm not really sure what Owlboy wants to be. In a lot of ways, it feels like the developers are guilty of trying to be too many things. For the most part, Owlboy plays like a mix between 2D action/adventure games and SHMOOPs. Otus has the ability to fly, thus the traditional platforming elements of these types of games are largely not present. In addition, Otus himself carries a second character with him during combat. Based on which character you select, you get different weapons at your disposal. This takes the place of say different beam weapons in a Metroid game.

In practice though, combat feels just all together off. Because Otus is holding on to a second character model, the SHMOOP sections feel cramped. In addition, Otus himself feels too floaty to carefully navigate any kind of cramped confines. Enemy design feels a little lackluster, and there isn't much variety to it in any given area. Early sections of the game seem to be designed around Otus having to ram or melee hit an enemy and then you having to switch to one of your teammates to finish them. These encounters feel clunky, and are thankfully less seen in the next two sections of the game I completed last night.

There are also a number of fairly basic stealth sections to the game. They're about what you'd expect from the better examples of a non-stealth game trying to insert stealth gameplay in that they're serviceable and inoffensive. The game's bosses thus far have been about the same as the rest of the game: perfectly fine, though nothing world-changing.

If I had to score this game right now, I'd begrudgingly call it 4/5 with the caveat the gameplay is closer to 3/5. I'll probably finish it over the weekend and be able to offer my final thoughts on it next week.

That's it for this week. Assuming I finish Owlboy and Glittermitten over the weekend, I plan on starting Headlander next.

Let's face it: 2016 sucked. But it was a hell of a year for video games at least. It was such a good year I needed an extra couple weeks to finish playing the last few games I had hoped to finish before writing this list. Let's get right down to it.

A Series of Random Awards/Complaints/Whinings

The Top Game I Have Sitting Around I Need to Play Still: Final Fantasy XV

Runners Up: Obduction, King's Quest

FF XV is the obvious one here. There was just no way to find time for it while finishing up a lot of other games this past month. But not finding time for Obduction might have been the more painful given my love for the old Myst games.

Favorite Moment or Sequence in a Game of 2016: The first 15 minutes of DOOM

Runners Up: Kirby: Planet Robobot's last twenty minutes, Dishonored 2 Mission 4

I will refrain from spoilers here on the latter entries, but I think by now everyone knows how amazing the opening sequence of DOOM is. In fact, it might be my favorite opening sequence to a game ever. The entry here some of you might not know about though is Planet Robobot. So if you never plan on playing the game, do look it up on Youtube. If the award was "hypest thing that happened in a game this year," it would have the category on lockdown.

Cav's Personal Most Disappointing Game of 2016: Zero Time Dilemma

Runners Up: Fire Emblem Fates, Dark Souls III: Ashes of Ariandel

Zero Time Dilemma was one big punch to the gut after another. On top of getting the game weeks after release due to the the pre-order watch fiasco, the game itself is kind of a mess. The animation is some of the worst in a modern game, the new characters are uninteresting, Junpei suffers some of the worst character assassination in a game in 2016, and the plot is kind of a mess. And I don't mean mess in a good way like most of the series. Fire Emblem Fates gets a nod here for splitting too little interesting content into three separate games.

Ashes of Ariandel is kept from the top spot here thanks to one sensational boss fight salvaging the worst piece of DLC content in a Souls game. It may sound weird to place a piece of DLC in a most disappointing category above full games, but the Souls series has produced some of the best DLC content in all of gaming. Of particular note, this follows Bloodborne's amazing Old Hunters DLC, which is my favorite piece of Soulsborne content.

Best New Character: Trico

Runners Up: Overwatch Cast Award (<3 D.Va ^o^), Delilah (Firewatch)

The heart and soul of The Last Guardian is your relationship with Trico. It's the emotional tale of you and your pet giant Bird-Dog who shoots lightning surviving against all odds. Every design decision of that game feels crafted around that fact. Every ounce of horsepower the PS4 has is put into making Trico look and act like a real animal. I'm somewhat cheating by listing the Overwatch cast as a group here, but it really is a testament to how well-designed just about every cast member is. That said, I think my personal favorite has to be D.Va thanks to the way she brings out nonstop fun BM (bad manners) out of just about everyone who plays her.

Games You Probably Forgot That You Should Check Out: Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

Runners Up: Master of Orion, That Dragon, Cancer

This is just a friendly reminder that the Steam sale is going on, and there are some good video games you probably haven't heard much about during GotY discussions still worth checking out. Deserts of Kharak is a fantastic and faithful prequel to the original Homeworld series that got lost in the shuffle. Master of Orion is a faithful recreation of what made the original Master of Orion game so much fun. Just keep in mind that MOO was always on the casual side of the 4x genre. That Dragon, Cancer is more an important game than a game you play for fun, but it might be 2016's best use of the video game medium for telling a story.

Favorite New Gaming System/Feature of 2016: Oxenfree's Dialogue System

Runner Up: Master of Orion turn rollback

This is just a reminder that I really freakin' love Oxenfree's dialogue system. If more adventure games could use this or something similar, I'd be pretty happy about it. Master of Orion meanwhile has one of the best convenience features in a 4x game: the ability to roll back to any previous turn. This cuts down the need to worry about saving in case you happen to mis-click on something or stops you from having to resume from a save half an hour ago because the Antarans suddenly invaded your homeworld.

Honorable Mentions, or Games 11-20 in Rough Order

• Dragon Quest Builders - Brad's summary is pretty spot on: it's about 6-8 bad design decisions removed from being a top 10 game.
• Forza Horizons 3 - Forza is typically good most years, but Horizons 3 is a particularly good entry.
• Kirby: Planet Robobot - Kirby might not be Nintendo's most popular series, but it might be the most consistently good one. Planet Robobot also happens to be my favorite Kirby game in some time. It just goes to prove the old saying: everything is better with mecha.
• Gears of War 4 - After how disappointing Halo 5 was, it was great to see Microsoft's other big shooter property brought back with far better results.
• Civilization VI - It's a much better game than Civ V out of the gate to say the least. The addition of districts really helps shake up the Civilization formula.
• Firewatch - The first of several indie adventure/walking simulator games in a row, Firewatch could have been a top ten game if the last portion of it had been executed just a bit better.
• Oxenfree - Oxenfree would have likely found its way into my top ten had its later content been better. Even still, yo that dialogue system.
• Abzu - Drew was right: Abzu was robbed in both Best Looking and Best Music this year. Abzu is a fantastic follow-up to Journey and produced maybe the best eye candy in a video game this year.
• Titanfall 2 - I enjoyed the hell out of Titanfall 2's single player campaign, but I haven't spent much time yet with its multiplayer as I'm not sure yet any of the modes are really for me.
• Dark Souls 3 - This omission hurts even more than not having a spot on my top 10 for Until Dawn last year. When I wrote my mid-year list, I predicted DS III was going to be an edge case. While it's a fantastic finale for the trilogy, it did follow Bloodborne (which I prefer). The deciding factor for leaving it at #11 was the disappointing Ashes of Ariandel DLC, of which I earlier listed my gripes.

Top 10 Games of 2016

10. Inside

I think I ended up liking sequences of Inside more than the game as a cohesive product. But that being said, those sequences are so good that it was enough to propel it into my top ten. Inside is an improvement on Limbo in every way. Its dark, nightmarish imagery will stick with you long after completion. The last section of the game is particularly memorable. I ended up enjoying the discussion around the game's message about as much as the game itself.

I just hope Playdead's next game can evolve a little further in the gameplay department now that they've kind of wrung out about all they can from this style of puzzle game.

9. XCom 2

It's somewhat difficult to balance my love for this game with the numerous technical issues surrounding its release. Despite that, I devoured XCom 2 for a solid 50+ hours when it first came out. XCom 2 is an improvement on the core of the original XCom in almost every way. While the early game might actually be a bit harder than the original, it did allow for a more diverse range of strategic options. If the Meta game was just a little better, it could have easily been in my top five.

It has been a really good year for strategy games of every type, but XCom 2 earns my top recommendation.

8. Hitman

I admittedly only picked Hitman up in November, so that may have kept it from ranking higher. Then again, the sheer amount of great content Hitman produced for Giant Bomb this year might have helped it crack the top ten despite that. This is definitely the game I look forward the most to playing more of next year either way. This is also the second year in a row Square Enix showed the rest of the industry how to best leverage the episodic gaming format.

I do kind of wish I had picked up on this earlier to fully experience all of the elusive targets and such, but this was a tough year to find time for everything.

7. The Witness

Even at the seventh spot in my top ten, a part of me still sighs every time I think about this game over the fact it could have been much higher. I love just about every aspect of this game's design. The Witness is the first of two puzzle game in my top ten to hold itself firmly to its core tenants, for better or worse. That said, I also hate just about every aspect of what passes for a "plot" with the game.

Don't get me wrong: i am glad Jonathan Blow had the artistic integrity to put himself out there the way he did. I just still think the execution is kind of bad.

6. Severed

Severed is not just a good game, but it's an important one in that it proves mobile games can be as complete as our idea of a traditional video game. Every moment of the game oozes style. The use of Aztec-inspired imagery and folklore perfectly straddles the line between macabre yet cool. Sasha's tale of revenge is also one of the best examples of how to best execute minimalistic storytelling this year.

A couple of small issues keep it from ranking just a bit higher, but if there's one game from my top ten I think more people need to play, it's this one.

5. Uncharted 4

Uncharted 4 would be the winner of a "game I didn't want, but it turns out I did" category if I had one. Naughty Dog clearly learned a lot from its work on The Last of Us and applied those lessons to the Uncharted series. Action is toned down here in favor of plot and character development. Combat is much more robust with new stealth elements added to the series. Naughty Dog also proves once again that it's capable of wringing out every last ounce of power the PS4 has available to it with one of the best looking games of 2016.

Also, did anyone ever expect Uncharted 4 to receive awards for Best Story without being in sneer quotes?

4. Dishonored 2

Dishonored 2 is very much the Thief 2 to the original game's Thief in the way it improved on and realized the potential of the first game. I would even go so far as to say it features the best level design in a game this year. The story might be a little rough, but I love the hell out of the game's rogue gallery. Much more than the first game, Dishonored 2 lets you shift between stealth and action without having to worry so much about messing up your desired ending. It also features a much better collection of enemies than the original.

As soon as I find time to play through it again, I also look forward to a second playthrough, this time as Corvo.

3. The Last Guardian

The Last Guardian is the first of three games I seriously considered for my top spot this year. I still can't quite process that this game even is out, never mind how good it is. The Last Guardian is a game of such artistic integrity that you can't help but respect it even if you don't like it. You can almost feel the game collapsing under its own weight as the PS4 struggles to keep it optimally running and Trico's AI sometimes acts kludgy.

But past all that is one of the most emotionally rewarding journeys you can take in a video game in 2016.

2. DOOM

Deciding between my top two games this year was like trying to pick a favorite child. Yo, that DOOM single-player campaign is pretty good. From the music to the art design, from the weapons to the enemies, from the shockingly good boss design in an FPS to the even more shockingly good platforming in an FPS, DOOM has an impeccably designed campaign. It's just too bad the multiplayer is so mediocre. Part of me still can't believe a DOOM game in 2016 could be this good.

Also, Mick Gordon might be my favorite composer in gaming right now. Please use more metal soundtracks, gaming industry.

1. Overwatch

I am almost embarrassed to admit how much time I've sunk into Overwatch at this point. Game developers dream of designing a game this well. Just about every aspect of Overwatch is so carefully and thoughtfully designed. I love the cast. I love the art design. I love both Quick Play and Competitive. I hate the salty mofos I run into in competitive, but I love the fact I can so easily mute them. I love the community surrounding the game. I hate the fact it's so addictive that I can't stop playing this game, but I love the fact I have twenty-three different characters with different playstyles that keeps it fresh and interesting. I haven't put this much time into an online shooter since my Team Fortress days, and I'm not sure I will again. But Overwatch reminded me this year of all of the best, and sometimes worst, aspects of a multiplayer shooter.

I play this game casually with friends from twenty to forty. I also amateurishly coach and shotcall for a six-stack group from six different countries. I help moderate a Discord channel with 25,000+ members now, and I still enjoy writing those Overwatch guides (I hope you've been enjoying them!) every so often. I enjoy watching EnVyUS, Rogue, Lunatic-Hai, and the rest compete at the highest level, and I enjoy watching streamers of every skill level and Youtuber's like Muselk and Tyrodin simply enjoy the game with friends.

Overwatch may not be your cup of tea, but you'd be hard-pressed to not show it admiration from afar. It's 2016's biggest hit game, and it just so happens to also be its best.

I'm growing tired of the complacency shown in video game storytelling.

For a few brief moments, I thought we might have turned a corner in 2015. From indie games such as SOMA, Cibele, and Life is Strange, to AAA games such as Witcher 3, it was actually a year where gamers could hold their heads high and proudly proclaim why yes, video games can tell meaningful tales. And then, 2016 was a crushing reminder how far the medium still has to go.

Gaming has gotten really good at world building. From the soulless dystopian City of Glass, to the post-Dollar Flu wastes of New York City, to the rising tensions over Augmentation of near-future Prague, we've had our fair share of interesting settings this year. And yet, the three games mentioned above feature the same level of trite, cliche storytelling that risks and says nothing. Factions in each of these games are depicted in less shades of grey and more extremist alternatives. The theme of each game can be summarized in the simplest of sentences. I dunno, ceding control to corporations might be a bad thing. The same mistake is repeated in each case in assuming presentation of a complex or interesting view is sufficient for discussion of that view. Attempts to be intellectual instead come off as pretentious.

It is tempting to say that the medium itself creates challenges for telling traditional stories. Open-world games that cede control to the player create pacing challenges for their writers. Action games must be careful not to bog down the flow of the game through long periods of plot exposition. Many indie games attempting to wrestle with progressive topics have suffered blowback from a gaming audience often preferring escapism over challenging their own world views.

Yet we've seen enough examples over the past few years that show there are spaces between the extremes to play with. The best example of this from 2016 is Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. The Uncharted series has long been derided as "National Treasure: the Video Game." The "plot" of the series is often referenced in the sneeriest of manners. Series protagonist Nathan Drake is depicted in-game as a puckish rogue even while mocked by fans for being more of a sociopathic serial killer.

Yet, Neil Druckman had shown his writing chops off in 2013's The Last of Us and its DLC followup, Left Behind. that it was possible to combine spectacle and intelligent storytelling in the same package. And the lessons Naughty Dog learned from those efforts were certainly on display here. Nobody could confuse Uncharted 4's plot with something especially deep. And yet, it manages to tell an entertaining tale of greed and obsession with strong themes and interesting three-dimensional characters.

Instead of ignoring previous characterizations, the game takes sometimes cartoonish aspects of existing characters to their natural conclusions. Nathan and Elena are forced to deal with domestic realities following years of adventure. Often times, we joke at the end of action movies that romances are doomed for failure once reality comes crashing down upon the protagonists. Uncharted 4 takes a very Incredibles take on what that would actually be like.It manages to wring just about every ounce of story from a series most had assumed finished and had little interest in revisiting.

Indie gaming of course continues to take chances, yet I'd hesitate to say it was as strong a year as the prior. The Witness's plot is at best a mess and serves more of a vehicle in presenting Jonathan Blow's world view. Inside is more of an abstract work more akin to art than literature. Firewatch has some of the most well-realized characters in a video game this year, but I'd suggest the characters are much more of interest than the plot. I love the presentation of Bound, but it's a lot more style and far less substance.

If there's one game in 2016 which takes full advantage of the medium for story purposes though, it's That Dragon, Cancer. Not enough praise can be placed upon the ways this game helps the player understand the helpless reality of a terminal disease. Gaming more than any other storytelling medium has the capability of making the viewer experience a story first-hand, and this is the best possible example of that in practice. Of course, this is a smaller indie title able to take chances in a medium dominated by escapist fantasy. That Dragon, Cancer deals with the total opposite, reminding players to cherish our fleeting existence for everything it is worth.

It's easy enough to dismiss this all as a rant about AAA storytelling, but that's hardly the case. After all, there is room for big-budget popcorn flicks as well as prestige pictures in Hollywood. Mafia III managed to find a happy middle-ground between the two with its gritty depiction of crime and racial tensions in 1960's New Orleans. If anything, the story is more the attraction here than the gameplay. Ten hours of plot instead are stretched into a thirty-plus hour open-world game and the result is significant pacing issues. Yet, it still manages to rescue what might have been an otherwise forgettable addition to the crowded open-world genre.

There are enough examples out there now to show that we need not accept gaming as an inferior storytelling medium. The minds that continue to create such well-realized worlds certainly possess the capabilities to tell interesting tales. It's far too easy to be cynical and believe video game storytelling needs to be safe so not to offend potential consumers. Here's hoping 2017 helps to buck one of my least favorite trends of 2016.

The year 2015 was a rough one for the shooter genre. Turtle Rock’s lofty hopes for Evolve as an eSport were crushed under the weight of microtransactions. It was soon followed by the pedestrian and tone-deaf Battlefield: Hardline. The fall brought us a series of middling shooters: Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Star Wars: Battlefront, Halo 5, and Rainbow Six Siege. Even while Battlefront and Black Ops 3 met commercial success, there was a general sense of fatigue with almost the entire shooter genre.

For nearly a decade, shooters have lived in the shadow of Call of Duty. In a post-Modern Warfare world, it’s perfectly understandable why other developers have wanted a piece of that sweet, sweet Call of Duty pie. As AAA production costs continue to rise, developers do have to consider sales, and CoD continues to be a license to print money.

The problem is, rather than finding their own Modern Warfare magic, shooter after shooter seemed to further incorporate elements of Call of Duty into their games. Perhaps the series that most reflected this trend was Halo. Despite being one of the most acclaimed and financially successful shooter series of the modern era, 343 seemed convinced the series needed to abandon its unique feel in favor of CoD-influenced conventions. This eventually culminated in Halo 5, a divisive game at best. Gone was the more methodical feel associated with Halo in favor of a faster twitch-shooter style complete with something many thought would never come to the series: aiming down sights. But it wasn’t as if Halo was the only offender here. Star Wars: Battlefront felt more like a Battlefield mod rather than anything resembling the kind of unique identity previous Battlefront games achieved.

Even while this was going on, the seemingly unstoppable success of Call of Duty was starting to wane. While Black Ops III did better than the previous year, it continued the downward trend of the series since it peaked with Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops II. Even while Advanced Warfare had its fans, it didn’t seem to go far enough to attract newcomers to the series. Meanwhile, Black Ops III felt like a clunkier copy of the slick Titanfall that had been released in the prior year. Flash forward to 2016 and the latest Call of Duty, Infinite Warfare, feels downright archaic.

Call of Duty copycats were hardly the only things sinking the shooter genre. Other trends generally disliked by players included games plagued by microtransactions, splitting the player-base through said microtransactions, and forced eSports. The game most emblematic of all three of these issues was the aforementioned Evolve; a game almost dead on arrival in large part thanks to corporate greed being at the forefront of almost every design decision. The desire to make a profit on a game is hardly something most gamers would fault developers for, but you need to establish an audience before you can start thinking of how to milk it.

The singular source of something different for shooter fans proved to be one of the biggest surprise hits of the year: Splatoon. A colorful, punk mix of shooters and paintball, the game enthralled players of all ages and experience levels. Sadly only available on the rapidly dying Wii U platform, Splatoon nevertheless sold over four million copies and became the newest hit franchise in Nintendo’s expansive catalog.

What were the secret ingredients that made Splatoon such a success? It largely comes down to a combination of accessibility and uniqueness. The shooter genre has long been unapproachable to newcomers, an especially problematic issue when designing one for a younger audience. Splatoon answered this issue by baking user friendly solutions into its design: shorter game length, no voice chat, and multiple roles for players beyond just killing opponents. Meanwhile, the game’s punk rock aesthetic, complete with a zany, original soundtrack and colorful art design created a unique identity for the game.

So that brought us to 2016, a pivotal moment for shooters where we’d perhaps see if anyone could turn the fortunes of the genre. While it proved there was an audience waiting for some something new from the genre, Splatoon did not offer some magical, repeatable formula that others could look to copy. The secret spice in the end was simply finding an identity all its own. And that was the theme we repeatedly saw in 2016 from shooters.

The constant theme from each successful 2016 game was the same we saw from Splatoon: a unique identity. Whether that game was an update on a classic series like Gears of War 4, a refinement on a recently new IP like Titanfall 2, or even a bigger bolder entry in a long-running series like Battlefield One, up and down the line we saw perhaps the best year for shooters in a decade.

The game perhaps most representative of the value in finding and owning a unique identity this year was DOOM. DOOM spent many years in development hell. At one point, a nearly complete version of the game was scrapped. The reason? The team eventually realized they had created DOOM of Duty rather than a modern take on DOOM. Had it been released as was, it would have likely been received much like DOOM 3. Thankfully, id realized this ahead of time and went back to the drawing board.

If you haven’t had a chance to catch up on Danny O’Dwyer’s excellent DOOM Resurrected documentary, it’s well worth a look. Perhaps what best encapsulates the revised design philosophy of the game is the game’s first fifteen minutes. Rather than bogging the game down via your typical table setting checklist of introducing plot and providing a tutorial to the player, the game takes all of about thirty seconds to put a gun in your hands before telling you, “there are demons, go kill them.”

I’d be remiss not to devote some time to 2016’s biggest hit: Overwatch. Blizzard was not the only developer this year to realize translating a MOBA into an FPS format had potential, but they were certainly the most successful. While some might call it a modernization of Team Fortress, Overwatch almost resembles a Smash Bros. style mashup of characters from multiple games under a common ruleset. From Soldier 76 (Call of Duty) to McCree (Counter-Strike) to Pharah (Quake), the game takes influence from numerous games. From simple to use characters like Mercy to complex ones like Ana, somehow Blizzard cracked the magic code of simple to play, hard to master, addictive and accessible gameplay that highlights almost every design doc, yet rarely comes to fruition.

Overwatch was also an example of how to promote an eSport. Rather than forcing it down the throats of players from the start, Blizzard waited several months after release to put out a casual competitive mode. While the first LAN tournament came shortly after release, efforts to really start promoting the eSport side of the game were fairly light at first. Once the game had been better established, Blizzard promoted the Overwatch World Cup at Blizzcon, and would follow it by establishing the Overwatch League: gaming’s first attempt at a salary-based professional gaming league. While we have yet to see if these efforts will be met with success, it’s an exciting idea to move eSports into something more professional and organized that will better reward the players.

Sure, we could spend time discussing the duds like Battleborn, but even then you could see buried within that game a desire to create something different. It was simply a case where Overwatch made every right decision, Battleborn made about every wrong one. But games like Battleborn do exemplify the risk of trying to be original. Unfortunately, such renaissance periods for a genre only come once playing things safe becomes less rewarding.

At least for now, a period of DOOM and Overwatch influenced games would not be a bad norm after years of Call of Duty clones. Paladins for example is a perfectly acceptable game in its own rights. And DOOM was so much fun that I for one welcome DOOM 2: Heller on Earth. There is a lot of room in the formulas of each of these games for developers to play with. As long as these games remember the lessons of the CoD-likes, shooters will be in a good place for years to come.

Sombra has been out a whole two days on the PTR, so it’s time to jump to a bunch of conclusions that will obviously all be proven correct. I’ve spent a lot of time the past few days playing her on the PTR as well as watching streams and analysis of her gameplay. While the following will be nothing more than speculation based on all this early information, I think there is a good sense forming around how Sombra will fit into the current game.

While Sombra is a “cleanup/flanker” in the vein of Genji and Tracer, her damage output is lower than either. She occupies more of a DPS/Support hybrid role, and this might be the key to understanding her. Her mobility allows her to dominate horizontal space the way Tracer can. But whereas Tracer commits to repeated attack runs, Sombra gets one shot to go in before having to retreat to safety. Her Machine Pistol has a larger effective range, but is limited by its bullet spread. While invisible, she’s one of the fastest characters in the game. Her most impactful use as a flanker comes from combining her abilities to surprise an enemy from behind, fire a full round directly into a character’s head, and then teleport back to safety.

The key to effective Sombra play comes from causing chaos. The simple worry about where Sombra is and who she’s out to flank/Hack is enough to move opponents out from their traditional bunched up formations. While Hack is a threat, it takes time to pull off and any damage Sombra takes will cut off the Hack attempt. On the other hand, there’s little you can do about EMP. When properly executed, it is more devastating an ability than even Graviton. With all Ultimates and abilities cut off for six seconds, it’s an almost guaranteed team wipe should you catch five or six people in it.

But how does this all come together in the larger picture of the game? In the more traditional 2/2/2 Meta, Sombra will likely struggle to justify a DPS spot on Defense and Control. Genji and Tracer already struggle on Defense due to their lower damage output, and Sombra is likely to run into the same issue. On Control, Tracer is just too good at what she does for Sombra to likely displace her, and Reinhardt is much less of a concern than in other modes. On Attack and Escort though, Sombra is likely to shine. This is especially true on Attack where an attacking team needs to only win two team fights to take the map, and defensive teams are almost always bunched up around Reinhardt’s shield.

That being said, what if instead of a 2/2/2 comp we consider a 3/2/1 comp with three DPS picks and either one Tank or one Support. After all, Sombra is a counter to every tank but Winston based on evidence thus far. My early impression is this might be where her true potential could be unlocked. Comps such as Genji/Soldier 76/Sombra/Winston/Zarya or D.Va/Lucio or Ana have some serious potential if they work the way I think they could. Static comps reliant on shields and crowd control now cut off from the abilities that sustain them could get bull rushed by faster dive comps.

Let’s start breaking this down in terms of what characters Sombra will most impact:

Who Stands to Lose From Sombra?

Reinhardt: Sombra may as well have been introduced as the Death Ball Buster. Between Hack and EMP, Sombra is going to be the top threat to a team reliant on Reinhardt’s Barrier. Even teams continuing to employ Reinhardt will need to consider spreading out to avoid a potentially game-ending EMP.

Zarya: For everyone complaining that Zarya lacked a hard counter, say hello to Sombra. If EMP poses a threat to Reinhardt, it’s actually fatal to the Russian. On top of losing access to her Barriers, EMP immediately halves her HP, leaving her as vulnerable as any other squishie. While her Barriers will block Hack and EMP, good Sombra players can just wait these out. And Zarya can hardly afford to just spam her Barriers in the hopes of avoiding EMP.

Mei: Mei has become a staple in Defensive lineups due to her ability to stall out a point while her teammates respawn. With one well-timed Hack or EMP, all that stall potential is removed. The idea of Mei being an off-tank is centered on always having Cryo-Freeze and Ice Wall at the ready, meaning she’ll be one of the most tempting targets for Sombra players to Hack.

Lucio: To be honest, I don’t think Sombra is going to impact Lucio much on Attack, Escort, or Control. Even with the threat EMP poses to Sound Barrier, his Speed Boost remains too valuable, and he always has the option of waiting for EMP to be used before popping his Ult. However, it may mean the end of picking Lucio on Defense. Between EMP’s team-wiping potential and the inability to rely on Sound Barrier at a moment’s notice, Mercy starts to make a lot more sense here.

Pharah: You know what Pharah didn’t need? The answer is yet another counter.

Who Stands to Gain from Sombra?

Soldier 76: For some time, McCree has kept Soldier 76 largely out of the Meta due to his superiority in the mid-range game. If the current buff to 76 on the PTR goes into effect, we’re poised to see 76 come back in a big way. His Tactical Visor will now have 1050 damage potential, and the Nano-Boosted version will eclipse 1500. However, Reinhardt’s shield, Mei’s ice walls, D.Va’s Defense Matrix, and Zarya’s shield bubbles all serve as deterrents to his Ultimate.

And that’s where Sombra comes in. With one well-timed EMP, all of those deterrents go away. The Wombo Combo potential between EMP and Tac Visor alone is enough to create some serious synergy between 76 and Sombra, but 76 may enable Sombra comps in other ways. His Biotic Field helps solve the issue of how to build a comp around Sombra, as 76 can serve as a pseudo healer. And just to top things off, 76 is one of the stronger Sombra counters in the game.

Winston: Every comp in pro Overwatch involves either Reinhardt or Winston. With Sombra being a strong Reinhardt counter, it stands to reason Winston will gain from Sombra. Winston also happens to be one of the game’s strongest counters to Sombra. She cannot hack through his Barrier, and Winston’s constant movements make it more difficult to catch both him and his team together in an EMP. As the icing on the cake, Winston is the best enabler in the game for Cleanup/Flanker characters to finish off weakened targets. Do not be surprised if Winston owns the highest pick rate (after maybe Lucio) in pro Overwatch in short order.

D.Va: While Sombra will counter D.Va to some extent, she may enable D.Va to finally occupy a larger role in the Meta. Reinhardt, Zarya, and Mei currently serve as the three biggest counters to D.Va. Well, if you look at the above list, those are three of the characters that stand the most to lose from Sombra. Combine this with the potential PTR buffs to D.Va’s movement speed while firing, another 100 HP in her already sizable health pool, and the fact Self-Destruct into an EMP’d team is a potential death sentence and D.Va is starting to look like a pretty attractive pick.

Mercy: As covered earlier, Sombra may finally loosen Lucio’s vice-like grip on the primary healer spot in every pro comp. It only stands to reason Mercy has the most to gain from this. But there are other reasons Mercy starts to make more sense in a post-Sombra world. Mercy players already hide when Resurrect is up, meaning she’ll be in relative safety from EMP in these cases. In addition, a long-standing issue with Mercy has been her lack of damage output, making it feel like it’s a 5 vs. 6 game when you take her. But if you’re using a combination of Mercy and a higher damage output character like a Reaper or Mcree while the other team is employing a Sombra and a Lucio, the damage potential of the two teams is a lot more even.

McCree: All that stuff I said earlier about Tactical Visor? That applies to High Noon as well. Like McCree really needed to be in a better spot in the Meta…

You're Taking This Very Seriously

Again, this has all been a lot of early supposition about what will happen once Sombra drops. We still don’t know what other changes currently being tested on the PTR will make it into Season 3. But from what I’ve seen so far, I personally am in love with both Sombra as a character and how she could potentially open up the game to a multitude of new comps and strategies. If you get a chance, I highly recommend downloading the PTR to give her a try. And if you’re a Reinhardt player, well, maybe you should start learning to love Harambae.

As there are ten different DPS options (per common Meta definition) that compete for just two spots in most Overwatch lineups, there is general confusion as to which characters work best in different situations. The following guide is an attempt to help players select the right DPS picks based on your composition, enemy composition, and game mode.

A couple of quick notes about this:

• If you lack a DPS that can counter or at least hold their own against the primary threats of the other team, someone should probably switch.
• Supports should generally be picked around your comp instead of the other team’s comp.
• Almost all compositions will be based around either Reinhardt or Winston as your primary tank.
• “More DPS” is never the correct response. Rather, the culprits behind struggling teams are typically the team comp, a general lack of proper focus fire, or poor Ultimate management.
• You can play DPS into teams with a single, sometimes even two counters to your pick, but don’t force it! If the other team is running Winston, Mei, and McCree, your Genji is likely going to have a bad day.

This guide breaks the damage of these ten characters into three types: Burst, Bulk, and Cleanup.

• Burst: High amounts of targeted damage to single opponents at the expense of overall damage output.
• Bulk: Large amounts of damage, often to multiple targets, that is less focused and often requires followup from a cleanup character to secure kills.
• Cleanup: Smaller overall damage output placed on characters with high mobility so they can safely get to and finish off weakened targets.

Some characters will have a primary and secondary type assigned to them.

Genji

Effective on: Attack, Escort, Control

Damage type: Primary - Cleanup, Secondary – Burst

Best used for: Flanking/diving back lines, creating space

Strong against: Reaper, snipers, Bastion, Junkrat

Countered by: McCree, Zarya, Winston, D.Va, Roadhog, Symmetra

Works well with: Winston, Zarya, Zenyatta, Ana

• Best for bypassing front lines, cleaning up/finishing targets weakened by other damage, and using mobility to engage from unexpected angles while quickly disengaging.
• To create burst damage, he must commit his Swift Strike in combination with Fan of Blades, which can leave him vulnerable.
• Should operate on the edges of enemy space and should not engage the front-line unless everything else is dead.
• Don’t force kills. Creating disruption and space can be just as effective. Build up his Dragon Blade before committing to larger fights.
• The Genji-Winston combo is highly effective as Winston can wear targets down for Genji to finish off.
• Generally ill-advised to use him on Defense.

McCree

Effective on: All modes

Damage type: Burst

Best used for: Flanker defense, mid-range hitscan

Strong against: Pharah, Reaper, Tracer, Mei, Soldier 76, Torbjorn

Countered by: Winston, D.Va, Zarya, snipers

Works well with: Reinhardt, Mercy, Zenyatta

• Rarely a good idea to take him without a Reinhardt to shield.
• Never flank with McCree save for surprise High Noons as he lacks the tools to stay alive on his own.
• While he works in all modes, Reinhardt is often a bad pick on Control and thus McCree can suffer there.
• Relies on Flashbang to counter several characters such as Tracer. If he whiffs it, the matchup turns against him.
• Demands a high level accuracy and a high amount of headshots to be truly effective. Consider using Soldier 76 if you can’t hit roughly 45% of your shots.

Pharah

Effective on: All modes

Damage type: Primary - Bulk, Secondary - Burst

Best used for: Using vertical space to create three-dimensional flanks, countering lineups reliant on close-range damage

Strong against: Junkrat, Reaper, Mei, Reinhardt, Zarya, Bastion, Torbjorn, Symmetra

Countered by: McCree, Soldier 76, snipers (Widow moreso)

Works well with: Genji, Tracer, Winston, Zarya, Mercy

• Causes wider splash-damage at the expense of targeted damage (though can score direct hits against tanks), thus should be paired with a DPS/off-tank who can finish off weakened targets.
• Has a symbiotic relationship with Mercy, who can heal/boost Pharah while using Pharah to slingshot around the map.
• If the other team has a Roadhog, you must be cognizant of his hook range at all times.
• Can cause serious problems for a team without a hitscan character. Do not try to counter a good Pharah with “cute,” unreliable tactics.
• Requires a Zarya bubble or the element of surprise to get any value out of her Ultimate.
• You can often play Pharah into one hitscan, but generally not two.

Reaper

Effective on: All modes

Damage type: Burst

Best used for: Tank busting, short-range flanking

Strong against: All tanks, Mei

Countered by: McCree, Pharah, Tracer, Genji, Soldier 76

Works well with: Zarya, Zenyatta, Ana

• High burst damage makes him especially effective at taking out targets before they can heal and depleting the large health pools of tanks.
• While capable of flanking, he should not flank beyond the range of where his Wraith Form can get him back to his team.
• Works in all modes, though is better on Control and Defense where maps are either fairly flat or your team controls the space around the engagement.
• Must use the element of surprise to take out many DPS characters.
• His ultimate can be nullified by any stun ability, so should be combined with a Zarya shield.

Soldier 76

Effective on: All modes

Damage type: Primary – Bulk, Secondary – Burst, Cleanup

Best used for: Multi-purpose hitscan, ease of use

Strong against: Pharah, Torbjorn, Reaper, Hanzo, Tracer

Countered by: McCree, Genji, Reinhardt (shield), Zarya

Works well with: Reinhardt, Tracer, Genji, Winston

• While not as effective as McCree in the hitscan role, he’s more forgiving, versatile, and has a better kit and Ultimate ability.
• Not an especially strong counter to most characters, but also does not have many especially unfavorable matchups.
• Like Pharah and Junkrat, his damage can be spammy and he can struggle to secure kills by himself without someone following up. At the same time, he can clean up weakened targets from a distance.
• Should not be used as a flanker despite his ability to run.
• While a good, neutral choice, there is typically a better, more specific DPS option for the situation.

Tracer

Effective on: Attack, Escort, Control

Damage type: Primary – Cleanup, Secondary - Burst

Best used for: Assassinating supports, harassing backlines, horizontal flanking

Strong against: Widowmaker, Mei, Junkrat, Reaper, Bastion, Hanzo, Symmetra

Countered by: McCree, D.Va, Winston, Torbjorn, Roadhog, Soldier 76

Works well with: Winston, Zarya

• Primary purpose at all times should be to take out enemy Supports or the greatest DPS threat.
• Avoid engaging tanks unless they are the only targets remaining.
• While she needs to be within close-range to do high burst damage, her low HP pool makes it risky to overcommit if a target is not near death.
• Shines on Control as most maps feature level, open areas.
• Tone down your aggression when Recall is on cooldown.
• Not a good option on Defense due to how fragile she is.
• Zarya’s Graviton when combined with Pulse Bomb is one of the game’s deadliest combinations.

Bastion

Effective on: Escort, Defense

Damage type: Primary - Bulk, Secondary - Burst

Best used for: Defending against tanks, area denial against slow-moving teams

Strong against: Reinhardt, Roadhog, Winston, Zarya, Torbjorn

Countered by: Genji, Tracer, Pharah, snipers, Junkrat, D.Va

Works well with: Reinhardt, Mercy

• Needs a Reinhardt to shield him and a Mercy to heal/boost and resurrect him in order to be effective.
• Strongly countered by D.Va as her Defense Matrix is time-based instead of damage-dependent.
• Best used to catch the other team off-guard. While he can be used to force a team off of a tank-heavy lineup, it is best to switch if the other team adjusts their tactics.
• Should reposition between successive attacks as he’s quite vulnerable when his location is known.
• While mostly effective on Defense, can find success on Escort by setting up on the Payload.

Hanzo

Effective on: Attack, Escort (while possessing spawn advantage)

Damage type: Burst

Best used for: Securing quick picks while on attack, mid-range sniping

Strong Against: Bastion, Torbjorn, Mei, Junkrat, Pharah, McCree

Countered by: Genji, Tracer, D.Va, Winston, Soldier 76

Works well with: Reinhardt, Tracer, Genji, Zarya

• More of a mid-range sniper option than Widowmaker.
• Scatter Arrow can be used to instantly kill many targets if properly aimed at the feet of an opponent. It is his most reliable defense in close-range battles.
• Sonic Arrow is especially effective when placed on the other team’s Reinhardt shield
• Best used at the point in a match where securing quick picks has more value, i.e. when you control spawn advantage.
• Not reliable enough to be effective on Defense.
• Dragonstrike is easy to dodge and only tends to secure a large number of kills when combined with Graviton or Blizzard. Otherwise, it’s more of a zoning Ultimate.

Junkrat

Effective on: Defense

Damage type: Bulk

Best used for: Defending chokepoints, making narrow pathways treacherous

Strong Against: Reinhardt, Bastion, Mei, Torbjorn, Roadhog

Countered by: Pharah, Genji, Tracer, Winston, Zarya, D.Va, snipers

Works well with: Reinhardt, Tracer, Genji, Winston, Mercy

• Does a high amount of less targeted area damage that needs to be followed up on to confirm kills.
• Spam damage is as likely to charge Zarya’s shield or enemy Support Ultimates if not properly targeted or followed up on, creating negative value for his team.
• RIP-tire is fairly easy to take out, so use it to zone out or target one key character.
• Do not use Junkrat outside of Defense, as his value comes from controlling space and not from countering specific characters.
• Steel Trap is his only real defense against flankers/divers, against who he is vulnerable.

Widowmaker

Effective on: Attack, Escort (while possessing spawn advantage)

Damage type: Burst

Best used for: Securing quick picks while on attack, long-range sniping

Strong against: Mei, Torbjorn, Bastion, Pharah, Junkrat, McCree

Countered by: Genji, Tracer, Winston, D.Va, Reinhardt (shield)

Works well with: Reinhardt

• Like Hanzo, best used at the point in a match where securing quick picks has more value, i.e. when you control spawn advantage.
• When deciding between her versus Hanzo, consider the range of the engagement and the geography of the map. She is better than Hanzo at longer range, but weaker than him in peek battles.
• Must score consistent headshots to find value.
• Not reliable enough to be effective on Defense.
• Switch immediately if you are being dived by a Winston, Genji, or D.Va.

Roadhog as a DPS Pick

This can be a bit of a controversial topic, but the truth is Roadhog is more of a DPS pick than a tank. Most of the time, he's slotted into the off-tank spot. However, a comp developed by the pro team Ninjas in Pyjamas emerged a few months ago known as the "Triple Tank" lineup. Despite the moniker, the truth was that it wasn't as much a lineup based on three tanks but that they just slotted their top tier Roadhog player, Hymzi, into a DPS slot. The comp has grown in popularity and now even sees use in all levels of competitive play.

When does it make sense to take Roadhog as a DPS pick instead of a tank pick?

• Your Roadhog player is good at consistently hitting his hooks.
• The other team is using several lower damage output DPS characters such as two of Tracer, Widowmaker, Hanzo, and Genji.
• On Control, especially maps like Nepal - Sanctum, where Roadhog can abuse narrow corridors.
• When you have an Ana, who can turn Reinhardt into a DPS with Nano Boost (after the next patch, this may no longer work as well).
• The Triple Tank is particularly effective at countering Winston-led comps not featuring a Reinhardt.

It is not suggested to run triple tank into a good Reaper or Pharah (unless you have a good McCree player in your other DPS slot, as he can counter both).

Originally my intention was to include a Symmetra guide here, but given the recent word from Jeff Kaplan that she would be receiving a significant rework in the coming months, I’m going to hold off for now. Honestly, there isn’t a lot to say anyway about how to play her. Her shield boosting ability is an odd relic of the game’s beta period. Her turrets only work on maps with singular choke points. if the other team has a Winston or D.VA, the turrets will be down before they do any real damage. The short version of what I was going to write is as follows:

• Use her on point A defense only
• Only use her on maps with obvious chokes such as Hanamura and Dorado
• Try to keep your presence concealed as long as possible to draw the other team into your turret nests
• Don’t immediately put the Teleporter down, but rather follow the same tactic a Mercy player would where you hide yourself and use it only when needed so the other team can’t destroy it ahead of time.

So instead, this will be general guide on working with your Support players and how to work them into team compositions. This will actually branch out to covering concepts beyond Support play, so consider this a more general guide for players of all roles. And I’m going to start this by explaining through an example why Symmetra is considered a bad pick. The following scenario occurred during a game I was in last week:

The Symmetra Gamble

My team was on attack on Numbani. I’m playing Reinhardt on a team with Zarya, McCree, Tracer, Mercy, and Zenyatta. Our Zarya, Zen, and I take the path up the stairs to come up above the point. Our Mercy, Tracer, and McCree flank from the back staircase. I observe that their team comp is Reinhardt, D.VA, Mei, Reaper, Mercy, and Symmetra. Reinhardt and D.VA are up top trying to defend against my group. The second I see the D.VA lit, I charge in to try to catch one of the two. I actually clip the D.VA, whose mech is just being finished off, and pin the Reinhardt, finishing him off moments later. Their team swarms in to take me out, which they do, but our McCree takes out their Reaper. They take out our Zen, but by this point their defense has completely collapsed and the point quickly falls to the remaining four on our team.

And herein lies the issue with Symmetra: she’s a gamble that your team can win the first team fight while at a disadvantage. While it’s not technically a 6 vs 5 fight, Symmetra has to survive the first encounter to have value. But her primary attack puts her in danger, her charge alt-fire attack is fairly easy to avoid, and thus it’s difficult for her to contribute to the fight. On top of this, picking her means sacrificing a more traditional role, in this case a second Support. So instead of the reliability of Zenyatta’s damage and healing, you have a gimmick character who needed us to enter the area through one specific entrance, and when we didn’t, got easily taken out without much contribution. Basically, the team comp they were using was built to sustain, but only if they could get to the second or third team fight with Mercy’s Rez and Symmetra’s Teleporter in their pocket. The gamble didn’t work, and the odds of it working fall drastically as you play against better teams. This is perhaps the most basic example I can offer as to why picks in Overwatch need to be thought of from a team perspective.

Which Supports to Pick and When

From a very general standpoint, here is a fast and loose guide to optimizing your Support picks:

Lucio is a must pick on Attack and Control/KotH due to the difficulty of engaging teams without Speed Boost. He is less necessary on Escort and Defense, though still a good pick. Lucio pairs best with Ana or Zenyatta in the second Support role. Lucio can work in combination with Mercy, but it puts a lot of pressure on the other four members of your team to make up for the pair’s lack of damage output.

Mercy is never a required pick, though she excels on Defense and to some extent Escort. On the other hand, she’s generally a bad pick on Control/KotH due to the frantic, open nature of it. Basically, you need some way of stashing her for her resurrects. She works better in Reinhardt-backed Death Ball lineups over Dive Comps.

Ana excels on Attack and Escort, but is less useful in other modes outside of triple and quad tank lineups. On Defense, she tends to be a good pick for countering another team using Ana, but I would recommend Zenyatta over her in most other cases as his Ultimate is more likely to bail you out of a bad spot. She works better in tank heavy lineups over traditional 2/2/2 ones.

Zenyatta is a solid pick in any mode and comp. He tends to pair best with Lucio since Speed Boost can compensate for his poor mobility. Ana and Zenyatta is typically not an advised combination, as it reduces Ana to basically a less reliable Mercy. Zenyatta is especially a good option if the other team has a Genji, as Transcendence remains the game’s best counter to Dragon Blade.

Team Comp Basics

Let’s face it: teams are rarely built around the Supports. Rather, you’re likely to pick Supports after the other five players have locked in three DPS picks and a Roadhog to help balance things. For the sake of argument though, let’s talk about your more standard organized formations and which Supports fit into them.

Overwatch’s version of the classic MOBA “Death Ball” simply refers to a team playing behind a Reinhardt shield as a group. A Zarya or Roadhog tends to be in the off-tank spot and a McCree or Soldier 76 tends to be in the role of the hitscan DPS. At most, these lineups might have a single flanker DPS. Because the team is both grouped up and protected, both Mercy and Lucio work well in this comp.

A “Dive Comp” is the other standard style of formation in Overwatch and instead tends to be built around Winston (or D.VA in some cases) as the primary tank. This is a more mobile formation that typically includes a Zarya in the off-tank role due to her ability to throw shields onto flanking DPS characters along with the Winston or D.VA. In this formation, Lucio is an absolute must for his speed boost to initiate the attack.

As for your second support pick in these comps, it’s really comes down to how you fill out your team. If you pick Ana, she needs to be paired with someone who can benefit from her Nano-Boosts: Reinhardt, Roadhog, Reaper, etc. If you have numerous flankers off in the distance, Zenyatta tends to be better unless you have a highly skilled Ana capable of hitting consistent shots.

Basic Calls and Comm Traffic

The following is a quick starter guide to common communications you should be giving your teammates throughout a match and what your teammates should know to do in each situation. Get used to keeping communications short and sweet during engagements.

• Die on point – Your Mercy is letting you know her Resurrect is ready and wants you to die on the point so she can bring you back together. This is an especially good counter to the other team’s Ult stacking You should not use your own Ultimates before being resurrected or attempt to keep yourself alive in this situation, though you do want to try to eliminate as many opponents as you can.
• “Need heals” – When you need healing, keep it simple. “Need healing badly” is about the extent of what your Supports need to hear.
• *Blank* is orbed – Your Zenyatta is telling you that he has put his Discord Orb on a specific target he wants you to focus fire.
• *Blank* is asleep – Ana has put someone to sleep. If you choose to wake them up, you better be able to immediately kill them. Otherwise, leave them alone.
• *Blank* can’t heal – Ana has hit a target with her grenade, and you should immediately focus fire them.
• Speed boost in *blank seconds followed by a direction* - Lucio is telling you when and where he’s going to boost the team in. Group up and go in that direction.
• Nano-Boost calls – Just make sure you as Ana let your teammate know they’re about to be boosted.
• *Flanker* is *location* – If you spot a Reaper, Genji, etc. coming into your backline, let your teammates know as soon as you spot them.

“I’m Under Attack,” or “Who Needs to Stop What They’re Doing and Kill That Genji”

We’ve all experienced the following: the Supports are being dived, they call for help, and instead of teammates helping, a debate occurs as to who is supposed to help out. Players soon turn toxic, and these teams end up losing every time. This following section is for everyone, not just Support players, in the hopes I can help reduce the confusion in the community that leads to these situations.

First off, the team’s primary tank needs to worry about tanking, not killing the nimble enemies in the backlines. The other team would love nothing more than to force your Reinhardt to drop their shield and try to fight a Tracer. The same goes for Winston in a Dive Comp. Yes, Winston is typically an amazing counter to Genji, but he needs to concentrate on causing distractions.

So congratulations off-tank; you’re on escort duty. If you’re playing Zarya, throw a shield on whoever is being targeted. If you’re playing Roadhog, you’re a fantastic counter to just about every diver and flanker, and they’ll have to come within hook range to attack your Supports If you’re playing D.VA, you can boost into anyone’s face, your Defensive Matrix can absorb fire, and you can beat most divers and flankers one-on-one save Reaper. If you’re Winston outside a Dive Comp, you are the best Genji and Tracer counter in the game.

Next, any backline hitscan or long-range projectile DPS characters need to assist. McCree, you are not a flanker. You should be in the safety of your team’s backline where you can protect Supports while still being able to fire on anyone. Soldier 76, the same goes for you, even if your sprint and healing allows you to flank. This same point applies to snipers. There’s no reason for any of you to be firing into a 2000 HP Reinhardt shield as opposed to the 150-250 HP squishie flanker out in the open.

Now, a note to flanking DPS players: while it’s typically not your responsibility to protect the Supports, what you need to understand by picking Genji, Tracer, or Reaper that the Supports aren’t there to babysit you. There is a reason Reaper has his Shadow Form and Reaping abilities. There’s a reason Tracer has her Recall ability. You are expected to keep yourself alive with the tools the game provides if you’re away from your team. You are expected to know where health packs are located throughout the map. If you are off on your own and constantly dying, that means you’re doing something you’re not supposed to do. If you want your Supports to heal you, you have to come back to the rest of the team for healing.

Finally, Supports need to look after Supports. If you’re Mercy, you can heal whatever Support is being attacked. If you’re Lucio, you can Speed Boost them out of danger and use your Soundwave to bump opponents off their attack runs. If you’re Ana, you can put opponents to sleep, you can use your grenade to either heal or damage flankers, and you can heal whoever is being attacked. And if you’re Zenyatta, your Discord Orb needs to be on whoever is attacking your backline.

Pushes fall apart without Supports. If you can’t keep your Supports alive, you need to do whatever it takes to remedy the situation or you’re going to lose. If that means changing the comp, you need to do it. And I don’t mean a minute away from losing, but within the first two minutes of the match. Yelling at your Support players over the mic is not going to fix things. Continuing to go about playing the game as if protecting your Supports is a job for someone else isn’t going to help you rank up. This is simply put the way the game was designed. Don’t tell me “But in the last game I was in our Zenyatta kept killing their Genji.” That means the Zenyatta player was likely significantly better than the other team’s Genji. Or it means he was getting more help than you realized.

Genji, Tracer, and Reaper are characters all designed to create one vs. one engagements in the middle of team fights. You are not losing because these players beat your team on their own. You are losing because you allowed that Genji to take your team on one at a time rather than forcing him to engage you as a group. But that’s the beauty of Overwatch: if you understand how character complement one another, you can beat better players through the use of good teamwork.

Now that we've covered our primary healers, this guide will focus on the DPS/Support hybrid characters. I’d like to start by debunking a popular misconception about “advanced” characters in this game. Those star ratings indicate the learning curve for the character, not necessarily the “skill” needed to play them or how good the character can be. Fighting game players know this all too well. Ryu and Ken are considered fairly simple characters in most Street Fighter games while the likes of an Akuma typically is “more advanced.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean playing one makes you “more skilled” or you need to leave those characters to better players.

Unless you’re a godlike Ana player, in which case you might be an alien or a robot, and you can friend me on Battle.net.

Zenyatta

Not satisfied with having to play either a DPS or a healer? Then Zenyatta might be for you. I liken Zeny to a hybrid command unit in strategy games: he does a little bit of everything, excels at nothing, and also needs to be escorted at all times. Zen players are Overwatch’s kings of multitasking. Learning how to deal with the sheer amount of moment to moment tasks needed to play him effectively is the biggest hurdle you’ll need to overcome.

The first thing to understand about Zen is while he’s a DPS/Support hybrid, his stronger half is his DPS. Never pick him as your team’s primary healer, as that 30 health per second just isn’t enough. There are two major advantages of Harmony Orb over other healing options: it can be used as a “set it and forget it” ability, and it can be used to heal your flankers. You’ll need to stay in that character’s line of sight for it to remain active keep in mind, as both Harmony and Discord Orb are removed if you lose line of sight for three seconds (though they remain active during those three seconds). At the start of a fight, consider Harmony Orb as a tool to give one of your DPS teammates or your diving Winston/D.VA an advantage. Only bother moving it to other targets if they’re in more serious danger such as being focus fired upon or if the primary healer can’t get to them at the moment.

Despite the recent nerf, Discord Orb remains one of the game’s most powerful abilities. If you want to play Zen at higher levels, you have to pick up the game sense and command skill to identify key targets on the opposing team and call out to your teammates who to fire on. If you have a good Zeny teammate willing to call out their orbs, pay attention and try to prioritize those targets. Discord Orb has numerous uses. It’s good for bullying opposing flankers. It is devastating against Pharah players. It carves significant chunks out of the giant health pools of opposing tanks. Proper Discord Orb placement is your top priority at all times.

What targets should you prioritize? To borrow a football analogy, take what the other team gives you. All things being equal, you’d love to prioritize the other team’s Supports, but if they’re not in a vulnerable state, it’s not of much help. If your teammates can follow up on it, then by all means. More often, the priority needs to be any flankers or divers: Winston, Genji, Reaper, Tracer, D.VA, and I’ll include Pharah here as well. Not only are these characters immediate threats, but they like to operate beyond the protection of their teammates. Take the opportunity while they’re vulnerable to eliminate them or force them to retreat. Next, Roadhog is always a priority target as he’s such an imposing threat that you need to get rid of him in a hurry, and your Discord Orb will make that 600 health a much more reasonable amount to plow through. After that, it grows murkier. If your flankers are attacking someone, put it there. If someone is lit, put it on them to help finish them off. The more you play, the more you’ll come to understand just how many uses Discord Orb has.

Zen’s Destruction Orbs take some getting used to. It’s a projectile attack with a pretty fast travel time and a sometimes deceptively small hitbox. For this reason, Zenyatta excels at melting tanks, but struggles against nimbler opponents such as Genji and Tracer. That doesn’t mean you can’t win these fights, but better Tracers and Genjis aren’t going to move in predictable patterns and will likely win one-on-ones. It takes a lot of practice to learn how to lead targets, so try to keep fights in straight lines as much as you can. Your alt-fire charge attack should be saved for peek battles only, as any time you’re charging it up, you won’t be able to change the placement of your Orbs.

Finally, there’s Transcendence: the probably best Ultimate ability in the game right now. Also known as the “press Q to cockblock Genji” ability, Zen becomes invincible for 6 seconds and provides 300 healing per second to any teammates nearby. Please make note of this, as too many players are under the belief it makes teammates invincible. It does not protect against the following: Rip Tire, Self-Destruct, some Nano-Boosted attacks, Pulse Bomb, Whole Hog (mostly if pinned against a wall), High Noon, direct hits from Bastion in tank mode, and even Bastion’s basic primary fire. Ana’s grenade also nullifies your ability to heal teammates as well. Keep all of this in mind, as finding value in Transcendence often decides matches. Keep it in reserve for countering abilities like Dragon Blade or when your team gets caught in a Graviton Surge. Personally, I look at what the other team has for its comp and pick one character who I tell my team “I’m going to try to counter x.” If you have a Lucio as a teammate, it’s best to work out with him in advance who is using their Ult for what and in what order.

Despite being able to deal more damage, Zen is the most vulnerable of four healers to opposing flankers. His hitbox is annoyingly wide, he has no movement abilities to help escape, and his only option to stop a diver on top of him is basically to kill it despite being intentionally designed not to win those matchups. You have to really put thought into where you position him. You need to be in the center of the backline group most of the time. If you’re too far back or not protected by a Rein shield, you can be easily dived, sniped, or hooked before anyone can assist you. Think of it like positioning a ship at the center of a formation. You want to be in a spot where you can overlook the entire field of play, pound away at the other team from afar, but still be safely where your teammates can guard you.

You’ll need to make use of all these individual elements of Zen to get full value out of him. He’s not a good pick if you just want to do a bit more damage while playing a healer. Rather, he’s a good off-healer because he can heal while providing DPS. If you’re a DPS main (insert meme here) and want to pick up a Support, Zen is perhaps the best choice for you.

Ana

So you tried Zen and decided, “This is too easy. Give me something where I need to multi-task as much, but I also have to aim to heal.” In the interest of full disclosure, I can explain how to play Ana a lot better than I can actually play her. Less than one percent of the player base can actually play her effectively, so don’t feel you need to learn her if she’s beyond your capabilities. If any Ana players want to chime in and take me to task for any of this, I won’t take offense. There’s a very good reason she’s considered the most difficult character in Overwatch to play. That said, you don’t have to fear learning Ana if you’re serious about it. Well, so long as you’re on PC. It’s mor

The biggest misconception with Ana is that you want to play her as an off-healer similar to the way you play Zen. In reality, she’s a hybrid Support heavier on the healing side than the DPS side. Her healing output is actually as high if not higher than Mercy. The best advice I ever received on where to start with learning her is to just get used to pocketing teammates similar to how you’d play Mercy. Despite being a sniper, Ana possesses no means to quickly move about, so she needs to be positioned in your backline with the tanks as opposed to trying to find sniping perches. Well, since you have to stick by your tanks anyway and it doesn’t take much aim to consistently hit them, start by pocketing your tanks.

So here’s the thing about viewing Ana as a “sniper:” the only difference between scope and hip-fired darts is the scoped ones are hitscan and the hip-fired ones are projectiles. They do the exact same damage, and Ana can’t hit headshots, so there’s no real benefit a lot of the time to trying to scope during fights. Even though her hip-fired darts are projectiles, they have a pretty fast travel time and thus don’t require leading at short to medium ranges. Halo players familiar with the DMR should probably have a good grasp as to how the rifle works as a hip-fire weapon. Rather, Ana is more of a utilitarian sniper. She can give your team a lot of what Hanzo or Widowmaker provides, except she does so while also serving as a support as opposed to a dedicated DPS. But for most firefights, you’re going to have to get used to firing from the hip. The sniping aspect is actually more important in a way when you have to make sure you hit a teammate in dire need of healing and can't afford to miss.

There’s quite a bit to understand about how Biotic Grenade functions. On you or your teammates, it heals 100 HP and boosts all other sources of healing by 100% for five seconds. On enemies, it causes 60 damage and blocks healing for five seconds. There’s also a catch with it: it’s Ana’s only means of healing herself. So as a bit of advice to you and your teammates, the other Support player should try to keep Ana healed so she can dedicate her grenade to better uses. When you need to heal yourself, try to at least splash any nearby teammates with it as well.

Biotic Grenade is one of the game’s best and most versatile abilities in the right hands. Cutting off the ability for a lit target to heal for five seconds just about guarantees their death. A well placed grenade can even neutralize Zenyatta’s Ultimate. On the flipside, doubling the healing a frontline teammate can receive for five seconds makes them extremely difficult to kill when backed by Supports. Spend time practicing how to aim the grenade at distance. You can have impactful games as Ana and never land a Sleep Dart, but proper use of her grenade can swing matches as much as Ultimates can.

Speaking of her Sleep Dart, it’s fairly self-explanatory how it functions, so I’m going to skip right to how to best make use of it. Stop me if you’ve seen this before: you just put the Ulting Roadhog to sleep when your teammates keep shooting him, negating that game-saving play you just made. It is vital to yell out “so and so is asleep” or “sleeping so and so” to warn your teammates to stop firing at something. Your teammates aren’t always trying to sabotage you: it’s just really counter-intuitive to have this one ability for which you need to stop firing. Sleep Dart’s best use is for shutting down Ultimates. Even most players with bad aim should be able to consistently hit large targets like Roadhog and Winston or stationary targets like Pharah or McCree using their Ults. This effectively can save your Lucio or Zenyatta from having to pop their more valuable Ultimates. When not being used as an Ult counter, think of ways you can swing matches by effectively removing a key player for a few valuable seconds. One popular example: if the other team’s Reinhardt keeps throwing out his Firestrikes at random, put him to sleep the second he drops his shield. One last note (thanks to @mikelemmer for this suggestion); the Sleep Dart has a small startup animation (about half a second) when you activate it, so practice adjusting your aim to compensate for this.

Ana’s Ultimate is one of the most potentially devastating in the game with the right team coordination. It boosts the target’s damage by 50%, reduces damage by 50%, increases speed by 30%, and lasts for eight seconds. It gets better. That teammate you just boosted continues to build Ult, so if they can pull off two or three rapid kills, then it chains into another Ult! It has a fairly low cost (even though a change on the PTR will be increasing its cost to the same as Mercy’s), meaning you’ll have it available in the majority of team fights. This is a bit more of an advanced topic, but attacking teams often like to do “trash pushes” where they try to bait out the other team’s Ults while saving their own for the following run. Nano-Boost might be the best Ult in the game for purpose given its rapid charge time and difficulty to counter without the use of Ultimates.

The best targets to boost either have their Ultimate ready or have large ammo clips so they’re not wasting time reloading. Reinhardt is always the best choice when you can’t combo off of another Ult, though the likes of D.VA and even Mei work well. Good choices when in combination with other Ults include Roadhog, Genji, Reaper, and Soldier 76. Two quick notes: warn your teammates before you’re about to boost them, and be very careful when aiming your boost. Also, teammates, please don’t walk in front of your Ana when she’s trying to Ult. Granted the expression on the Mercy player’s face when they find they’ve suddenly been Nano-Boosted is priceless…

As you can tell, there is a lot that goes into Ana. Don’t feel you have to learn how to play her to “complete” your Support knowledge. I think she’s an amazingly versatile character that is particularly potent when on Attack or Escort, but only if you can actually get value out of her. But it’s going to take a lot of practice if you’re more serious about using her in competitive play.

So you want to play Supports in Overwatch? Excellent choice! You’re in for a wild ride filled flankers diving you while your teammates are too busy shooting into Reinhardt’s shield, salty DPS players upset you stole their Play of the Game, and most importantly, being blamed for every single last thing that goes wrong. Support play is the backbone of every team in Overwatch. At any game above Gold level play, at least two of your six player slots need to be devoted to supports to have a reasonable shot of winning. Unlike in many MOBAs, Overwatch’s Supports are actually really fun to play. I primarily play Supports and have been coaching some friends lately and it gave me the idea to write something a little more tuned to the intermediate level of play regarding the role. There are a lot of good basic guides and a some more advanced guides that get into formations and such, but I wanted to write something more focused on getting you from say Gold-level Support play to Platinum.

Rather than trying to squeeze everything into one blog post, I’m going to break this into three parts: Introduction and Core Healers (Mercy and Lucio), DPS/Support hybrids (Zenyatta and Ana), and finally, Symmetra (for you psychopaths still trying to make her work) and a guide on team composition and for non-Support players to better understand how the role works and how to work with your Supports.

Introduction

Let’s start with some figures:

Now here’s another figure: Mercy’s DPS, which is 100. That’s right: Mercy’s pistol, which most players only break out in emergencies, actually has more per second value the healing any Support provides. Settle down: I’m not telling you all to break out your Battle Mercys. Rather, I want you to understand a very basic concept about Support play in Overwatch: healing is meant to give teammates an advantage in a fight, not make them invincible. You will die under focus fire, even if multiple supports are trying to heal you. This is why if you play Roadhog, stand in the middle of the road while being double healed, and try to tank half the enemy team, you’re still going to die. Also, you’re responsible for your Supports getting wiped out shortly thereafter by the Ultimate you just gave to the other team. Also, you're going to blame me afterward, so screw you in advance!. Healing might be the lynchpin of Support play, but it’s really only where it begins. It also leads to a lot of misunderstandings regarding how to best play Supports, which is why each guide will be tailored to the character rather than giving a lot of general advice.

Lucio

Lucio is the most selected character in both Quick Play and Competitive on almost every platform. Since ELeague play begun, he has been a top 3 pick pretty much every week, sometimes appearing in every team. Lucio is as bread and butter a character as you get in Overwatch. While mechanically simple, higher level Lucio play requires more game sense than possibly any other character in the game. Lucio players are the generals of pro teams. They’re the shot callers.

What is Lucio’s most important ability? If you just said his healing, you’re wrong. Lucio’s primary purpose is to dictate the pace of his battle through his speed boost. Most players learn Lucio the wrong way because the only Gold Medal you’re likely to see as him is total healing. If you’ve heard of the concept of “trash damage,” Lucio can be the king of “trash healing.” Support play is about keeping your teammates alive, not padding your healing stat.

Lucio heals a mere 12.5 HP/second. That means it takes Lucio two seconds to give a teammate enough health to survive one Mercy pistol shot. He’s a pretty terrible healer when it comes to keeping a specific target alive. Many players observe, but often don’t process this when they try to heal 450 HP on a tank, which takes a full 36 seconds minus Amp It Up. Amp It Up boosts his healing to 40 HP/second for three second. That means over 3 seconds of Amp It Up, Lucio will heal more than he will over the 9 seconds he isn’t using it. On the flipside, Lucio’s speed boost offers a 30% increase in movement speed to his teammates and a 70% boost during Amp It Up. To understand how significant an ability this is, an amped Roadhog has faster movement speed than a Genji without speed boost.

The idea you want to ultimately grasp is that while other Supports save teammates through healing, Lucio saves teammates by pulling them out of bad situations before they need as much healing. Typically, you want to get to the point where you use speed boost to initiate combat, position your team, rescue teammates from bad situations, chase down stragglers attempting to escape, and break off engagements. You primarily use healing when Amp It Up is available and during pitched battles where faster movement is less important. Most importantly, you need to learn proper management of Amp It Up, because that twelve second cooldown is an eternity in the middle of a team battle. Proper use of amped speed boosting will actually save just as many teammates from enemy Ultimates as Sound Barrier can.

The advice I have given to better learn Lucio is to stay on speed boost whenever Amp It Up isn’t available to healing when Amp it Up is available. Now this isn’t actually how you’re going to eventually play him, but to improve your game sense on when to use each, you need to really observe in game the moment to moment ways speed boost helps your team.

Further in support of this role is Lucio’s Soundwave, which pushes opponents in the direction you point it at. It is less an ability focused on damage and more about sending opponents into traps and toward or away from your teammates based on the situation. Yes, it’s also the ability used for “knock half the team off the edge” moments on certain maps, but don’t force those types of plays.

Lucio’s Ultimate is fairly straight forward in function: it provides a barrier worth 500 points for your teammates over a six second period, but drains by 100 points per second. Timing its activation is more important than the majority of Ultimates because of this. When you operate in tandem with a Zenyatta, it’s best to have a plan in advance for who will activate their Ultimate when because activating either ability is typically a split-second decision. Sound Barrier is effective against burst damage Ultimates such as Tracer’s Pulse Bomb and increases the time it takes High Noon to lock on while Transcendence is ineffective against these attacks (except for Zenyatta himself). Sound Barrier can even counter a Rip Tire if timed properly, though it isn’t enough to protect most teammates from D.VA’s Self-Destruct. Much like Transcendence, it’s an ability that works best as an Ultimate counter, though can be used to initiate a group battle if timed properly.

Finally, let’s briefly discuss Lucio’s Sonic Projectiles. Lucio has the worst DPS in the game next to Winston and Mei. Never attempt to take on anything in this game one-on-one except maybe an unsuspecting Mercy who doesn’t remember she has a pistol (a good Mercy will often beat you one-on-one). Think of Lucio’s offense as support fire. His projectiles need to be led against smaller targets, so it’s more effective to concentrate on focus firing down tanks and slower characters.

Mercy

Mercy is the spiritual descendant of the Medic from Team Fortress 2.She might be the easiest character in the game to pick up and play. There might not be another character that has the mental impact on an opposing team that a Mercy does. More than any other support, the other team wants you dead because of your Ultimate. Teams often will change their entire comp just to dive your team’s back lines to take you out. I hope you feel honored.

There’s not a whole lot to talk about her basic play because she’s meant to be so mechanically simple. You switch between healing and amping as needed and you pocket your squishier backline DPS characters like McCree if you can. So what goes into advanced Mercy play? In my opinion, there are three key elements: positioning, proper use of Resurrects, and knowing when to break out your Blaster.

Here’s the dilemma of the Mercy player: you have to stay connected to your team in order to heal them, thus you are limited as to where you can position yourself. But if you stay in any particular spot for too long, it makes you a lot easier to flank or dive on. Guardian Angel lets you bounce like a pinball from teammate to teammate, and constant repositioning will make it a lot more difficult for flankers to line up runs on you. This is particularly useful against Genji, who will struggle to burst kill a good Mercy as opposed to a more stationary Zenyatta. It’s also useful against Reaper, who takes longer to set up his flanking routes. I'm not letting you DPS scumbags who don't want to protect us Supports off the hook, but you do have to do your part while playing Mercy to foiling flankers and divers.

Positioning ties right in with her Ultimate ability: Resurrect. While simple to perform, there is a lot of strategy surrounding proper usage of the ability. Too many players will sit on a resurrect hoping to bring back more than one or two teammates thinking it provides “more value.” Too many players want to set up a “Huge Rez” even though it takes a great deal of planning to create those opportunities. And setting up those “Huge Rez” opportunities requires Mercy to actually choose moments to go hide rather than heal, which is a counter-intuitive mindset to get into.

Basically, you want to use Resurrect to salvage a team fight whether that be resurrecting one or five teammates. Mercy’s Ultimate is one of the fastest to charge in the game. Don’t feel you have to always save it for those Play of the Game moments. Wait too long, and anyone you bring back is likely to be put in a six versus two or three situation, which really isn’t of much help. The only real way to learn what those right moments are is to play a lot of matches and develop a good game sense about it.

“Huge Rez” opportunities typically require setup. Basically, if you know the other team is about to hammer your team with Ultimates, Mercy needs to hide and the rest of the team needs to group up. Then, after the team has been wiped, Mercy flies in, pulls off the “Huge Rez,” and thus it nullifies all the resources the other team just put into that battle. These types of situations rarely present themselves by chance.

So here’s where I talk about Battle Mercy. Don’t get too excited: this isn’t giving you the justification to try to earn Gold in eliminations. With that being said, there are a lot more situations than most think to take advantage of the Caduceus Blaster. Mercy’s 100 DPS is actually fairly middle of the pack for the cast. If players hit 100% of their shots, a teammate would have to do over 330 DPS to do more with the amp than Mercy could with her pistol, which is a figure only Bastion reaches without factoring in criticals. The pistol is also fairly easy to aim, making it very effective at close and medium ranges.

I’m not saying you should always use your Blaster over amping teammates. But for instance, what if you and the opposing team are in a pitched battle behind Reinhardt shields? If the other team isn’t flanking you and making you worry about heals, is there really any reason to amp your McCree for less value than firing away? On the other hand, if your McCree is trying to pick off a pesky Pharah, giving him a boost is a little more useful.

Besides the obvious case of self-defense, there’s one other case where Battle Mercy is underrated, and it goes back to positioning. Often times you’ll be in a situation where you’re a little out of range of a teammate being attacked, but flying to them exposes you to danger. In these cases, it might be better to break out the Blaster and try to eliminate the enemy rather than potentially risking yourself trying to get to healing range. I hate to say this in a way that makes it sound selfish, but if there’s one character who has to have a selfish mindset about staying alive, it’s Mercy. Do keep in mind, on PC it’s a lot easier to switch weapons with a flick of the mouse wheel than having to reach down to the D-pad on console.

That’s it for today. Hopefully this was of some help. If you have any comments, questions, or just want to complain about the fact I just convinced your friends to play Battle Mercy, feel free to leave a comment.