Genji
How You’re Supposed to Play: The modern-day ninja is practically built to take down Bastion and Torbjörn turrets with his bullet deflection ability. His ultimate ability is also fantastic, allowing you to slice and dice enemies into pink slurry. Pick your spots to attack and Genji can render even the stoutest defenses toothless.
How I Play: "Alright, my ult is ready to go! I’ll just activate it and dash off the edge of the stage. All according to plan..."
McRee
How You’re Supposed to Play: McRee’s cowboy motif may hint that he prefers to duel opponents one-on-one, but it’s more effective for him to take a high vantage point and pick off enemies from medium range. This sets him up perfectly to activate his High Noon ultimate ability, which can eliminate the entire enemy team in one fell swoop.
How I Play: “It’s Hiiiigh Noon. Oh, there’s no one in my field of view? Well pardon me then.”
Pharah
How You’re Supposed to Play: Pharah’s jetpack allows her to launch into the sky and hover while she rains down death with her rocket launcher. She packs quite a punch, but she also has a secondary effect of drawing enemy attention away from her teammates. Proper use of her ultimate ability will just about guarantee a Play of the Game.
How I Play: Pharah’s jetpack allows her to launch into the sky and hover while she rains down death with her rocket launcher. She packs quite a punch, but she also has a secondary effect of getting sniped by being the only thing in the sky worth shooting.
Reaper
How You’re Supposed to Play: His character design being a 12 year old’s fantasy of “badass” notwithstanding, Reaper is an excellent choice for racking up eliminations. His dual shotguns do plenty of damage, and his teleport and wraith abilities allow him to easily escape when outmatched. He can also heal himself by consuming the souls of fallen enemies, which make him the perfect hero for anyone who wants to lone wolf it.
How I Play: For all Reaper’s strengths, the guy has no range. I will conveniently forget this fact when I play as him and uselessly shoot at enemies across the level. I will then get yelled at by teammates and completely deserve it.
Soldier: 76
How You’re Supposed to Play: Soldier is an excellent choice for Overwatch newbies. Between his sprint ability and conventional rifle, anyone who’s played Call of Duty will feel right at home. Add to that his ability to heal himself and others, and you have a hero that is just as effective sneaking behind enemy lines as he is making a frontal push with his team.
How I Play: Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die. Spawn. Run. Die...
Tracer
How You’re Supposed to Play: Cheers love! Tracer’s whole deal is being the red cape in the bullfight. She zooms in, grabs the enemy’s attention, and leads them away from the objective while the rest of her team gets to the business of winning the match.
How I Play: Dual wielding guns means I’m a badass, so obviously I’m going to be all about my K/D. I’ll pop in, fire impotently at the other team’s Winston, die by electrocution, and completely neglect to use rewind to save myself. But it’s not me; the rest of my team sucks.
Bastion
How You’re Supposed to Play: Being one of the earliest heroes that the Overwatch community dubbed “overpowered”, it’s no surprise that Bastion is almost always a great pick. While not as impressive in his mobile form, players that find the right place to set up shop as a stationary turret will be rewarded with a torrent of eliminations.
How I Play: “How about I set up as a turret in the middle of the road as the payload is comi-” DIES
Hanzo
How You’re Supposed to Play: Hanzo puts the “scout” in “scout-sniper”. His sonic arrow ability, which reveals the location of any enemy near the arrow as it lands, can help his team formulate preemptive counter-strategies based on the enemy’s location and hero selection. But he’s also a sniper, which means when shit goes down he’s well equipped to wreck support units, leaving the opposing team with little in the way of reinforcements.
How I Play: I seem to have a special knack for finding the one vantage point where an enemy McRee is camping and proceed to die in humiliating fashion. Every. Single. Time.
Junkrat
How You’re Supposed to Play: Junkrat is most effective when he’s firing indiscriminately onto an objective held by the enemy. At worst, he softens up and drives back the opposing team. At best, he gets a couple of eliminations for almost no effort. Either way, it gets him to his Rip Tire ultimate ability faster, which allows him to eliminate the enemy team en masse.
How I Play: There’s something particularly embarrassing about getting stuck in an enemy Junkrat’s trap as Junkrat, but I manage to do it at least once per round. I also seem to have no understanding of how to arc shots, how to steer the Rip Tire, or how to lay a trap where someone would actually step on it.
Torbjörn
How You’re Supposed to Play: Looking like a World of Warcraft reject, the stout Torbjörn can nevertheless hold a point all by himself thanks to his ability to build a powerful turret. The trick with him is to never just focus on maintaining the turret, but instead supplement the turret’s fire with his surprisingly powerful rivet gun.
How I Play: The toughest thing about Torbjörn is that it’s difficult to get set up after the initial pre-match phase. There’s all too much chaos over the course of a match to get the time to effectively build a turret in an area where it will actually shoot something. So of course my turret gets blown up within the match’s first 10 seconds and I’m stuck running around like an incompetent Gimli.
Mei
How You’re Supposed to Play: Mei is all about disruption. Her ability to instantly generate an ice wall can stop an enemy team dead in their tracks, and her other ability to encase herself in indestructible ice can hold down a point for a precious few seconds while her team rallies. She also becomes Ms. Popular when she deploys her ultimate ability, freezing enemies and leaving them as easy pickings for teammates.
How I Play: The ice wall ability is incredibly effective… when placed properly. If you’re me, however, you’ll place the wall just behind the charging enemy, leaving nothing between Mei and certain death.
Widowmaker
How You’re Supposed to Play: This femme fatale is a pretty straightforward sniper. Her hookshot allows her to get to high up vantage points where she can nail headshots with impunity.
How I Play: I’m a real Rembrandt with Widowmaker, meaning that I can shoot out a perfect silhouette of my enemy without hitting them once. I will then immediately die from a D.Va spraying me from 50 yards away.
D.Va
How You’re Supposed to Play: The latest balance update has made D.Va into one of Overwatch’s best heroes. Her thrusters give her speed and her tweaked shield ability is very effective in protecting herself and allies. Being the only hero whose primary fire never needs reloading, she can also lay down suppressing fire for her teammates to safely move about the map. Her ultimate ability is also one of the best in the game, detonating her mech and creating a large and lethal explosion that only hurts enemies.
How I Play: That ultimate ability is great, if I can ever survive long enough to use it. More typically, I get shredded by the enemy within five seconds of contact, pop out of my mech, and get picked off by a Hanzo who wasn’t even aiming for me. Yeah killcam, I get it, my head is a magnet for arrows.
Reinhardt
How You’re Supposed to Play: If Overwatch was football, Reinhardt would be the linebacker. His massive energy shield can soak up incredible amounts of punishment, which is critical in pushing towards the objective or advancing the payload.
How I Play: “Alright everyone, form up behind me. We’re going to strategically push against the enemy to a well deserved victory. Oh, you’d rather just run ahead, leaving my shield to protect nothing? You’re the boss, Symmetra.”
Winston
How You’re Supposed to Play: Winston’s game is disruption. With an electric gun that has great spray but little damage, he’s able to leap into the fray and grab the attention of opponents while his teammates make short work of them.
How I Play: OOOH WA AH AH AH!
Roadhog
How You’re Supposed to Play: Roadhog is perfect of players who abhor such namby-pamby concepts as “dodging enemy fire” or “taking cover”. This hulking brute can use his chain-hook to lasso entrenched enemies and finish them off with a satisfying shotgun blast.
How I Play: Have you ever missed point blank with a shotgun? Because I have, over and over. It is an art, and I am Picasso.
Zarya
How You’re Supposed to Play: Zarya has the potential to be one of the most effective tanks in the game, as her ability to shield a teammate can essentially give you two damage sponges for the price of one. Her laser rifle can blunt the opposing team’s Reinhardt-led push by damaging the knight through his powerful shield.
How I Play: Shield’s up, I’m invincible! Aaaaand it’s gone two seconds later. Who’s going to kill me now? Lucio? Sure, why not.
Ana
How You’re Supposed to Play: The game’s newest hero, Ana is a long distance healer. Ostensibly a sniper, the goal with her is to shoot healing darts at her teammates from across the map while also picking off low health enemies when the opportunity arises.
How I Play: Missing enemies as sniper is one thing, missing allies in dire need of healing is another altogether soul-crushing experience. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever successfully put an enemy to sleep, seeing as my default response to a nearby opponent is to wildly swing around my aim cursor while screaming in panic. I then get killed by a Mercy.
Mercy
How You’re Supposed to Play: Every team needs to have at least one healer, and since Mercy is the most straightforward of the healers, she tends to get picked a lot. Not that straightforward is bad, mind you. Mercy’s healing staff (that doubles as a damage enhancer!) along with the ability to fly to her teammates makes her indispensable. Just stay alive long enough to pop her Resurrection ultimate ability and you’ll be your teammates’ best friend.
How I Play: Mercy is who I choose when I wish to abdicate responsibility for winning the match. “Of course we lost the point in 30 seconds, none of you jerks could hit a Roadhog to save your life! What’s that, I stuck to just healing our D.Va to charge my Ult? Get outta here with your logic! I’m Mercy, I can do no wrong! Now everyone vote for me in the post-match because I unselfishly played support.”
Lucio
How You’re Supposed to Play: Why a Brazilian character has an North American accent I’ll never understand, but aside from that Lucio is awesome. His ability to heal everyone in the vicinity is great for when you’re holding a point, but don’t sleep on his speed-up ability. In addition to shortening the team’s walk from the spawn room to the action, it can be used in the middle of battle to make his teammates harder to hit.
How I Play: Being a healer with low max health who must stay close to the action makes me target número um? You don’t say!
Symmetra
How You’re Supposed to Play: Symmetra is classified as support, but she feels more like hybrid defense/support character. She can give shields to her teammates, but that’s not why you should be playing her. Her turrets can act as an early warning system against enemies and can net you a few kills, but the real star of the show is her ultimate which allows placement of a teleporter that can drastically cut down the walk from the spawn room.
How I Play: Her primary weapon requires next to no aiming or precision? And it gets stronger the longer I hold it on the enemy? KILL KILL KILL!!!
Zenyatta
How You’re Supposed to Play: Zenyatta is a tough hero to wrap your head around, but a competent player can be a valuable addition to their team. His Orb of Harmony is one of the fastest ways to heal (outside of a health pack), but true mastery is shown by effective use of the Orb of Discord. Throw the Orb on an enemy tank and let your Soldier: 76 carve right through them. Better yet, throw a couple of daggers and finish them off yourself! Above all, make sure both Orbs are on somebody at all times.
How I Play: That line of sight requirement on the Orbs is a killer, and it’s what leaves me standing out in the open looking like a jabroni. If you see me pick Zenyatta, I’m probably drunk and we’re going to lose this match. Sorry.
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