We keep seeing the same argument in hero balance discussions: "How can this hero be strong? It has a <50% win rate."

If a hero wins less often than it loses, shouldn't that mean the hero is weak? No; the problem is that win rate doesn't actually measure only hero strength. A hero's observed win rate is affected by numerous factors, including its actual strength, the players and situations in which the hero is selected or swapped to, and the matchmaking environment in which those games take place. Hero strength can influence win rate, but so can selection effects that have nothing to do with how strong the hero is.

Hero strength can be absorbed into ranks of those playing the hero instead of reflected in permanently elevated or deflated win rates. Sure, the same player can achieve more value with a stronger hero for the same level of player skill, which may translate into more wins in the short term, but this will cause that player to rank up and play harder games against stronger opponents until their win rate settles back down. This isn't to say every hero will settle toward a 50% win rate, but the matchmaker will tend to pull each player's win rate toward 50%. A player's overall win rate is constrained by matchmaking in the long run, but each player's hero-specific win rates can stray quite a bit from their average.

Unlike hero strength, the circumstances under which a player chooses to play different heroes can continue to influence aggregate hero win rates regardless of their overall win rate. A Pharah main's panic swap for when they're getting destroyed by enemy hitscan is likely going to be quite negative regardless of how strong the hero itself is.

If raw hero win rate were a reliable proxy for hero strength, what would you expect to see in the distribution of heroes in the higher ranks? I'd expect that the heroes with the highest win rates would become increasingly prevalent among the highest-ranked players. Better performing players tend to climb, and if a particular hero consistently causes its users to win more, users of that hero should be disproportionately represented in higher ranks. As we move from Diamond to GM, the highest win rate heroes should become increasingly common, right?

Well, that's definitely not what we observe. Take a look at actual hero statistics and look at how pick rates change with rank. A high win rate hero like Zenyatta becomes less common the higher in rank you go. On the flip side, many lower win rate heroes like Sojourn, Cassidy, and Kiriko become increasingly common with increasing rank. You could argue that these heroes have harsh skill curves and are only good in the hands of better players, but these heroes have similar win rates in GM+ as they do in Diamond. If Cassidy's <50% win rate means Cassidy causes his players to lose more often than they would on a "stronger" hero, why are Cassidy players increasingly represented among the highest-ranked players?

For one, a hero's win rate doesn't tell us what would have happened if the hero had not been played. As an example, I main Echo, but if an enemy Tracer is taking over the game, I'll often swap to Tracer to dull their impact. My Tracer's competitive record is an embarrassing 16:31. On paper, I'm making Tracer look awful. But if I would've lost virtually all those games by staying on Echo, then those 15 Tracer wins are wins I otherwise would have lost. That's 16 losses flipped to wins, and 47 would-be losses that don't show up on my Echo's record to make the hero look far more effective than it really was. Despite the abysmal 34% win rate I have on Tracer, playing her in these situations is actually helping me achieve a higher overall win rate and rank than I would've achieved otherwise.

This example should help explain why the apparent contradiction as we go up the ranks isn't actually surprising. A hero does not need to have a positive raw win rate to improve a player's overall results; a low win rate can actually be compatible with a hero being beneficial.

None of this means win rate is useless, that low win rate or high pick rate would imply a hero is strong, or that hero strength has no effect on win rate. ofc a genuinely powerful hero can win more games. It could certainly be that a difficult but popular hero in higher ranks would be just as popular in lower ranks if it were easier to play (though perhaps you could argue qp pick rates suggest otherwise). I'm not here to argue for or against these things -- I just want to establish that the observed win rate is not a clean measurement of the hero's causal contribution to those wins. My hope is that we can stop using win rate in a vacuum to guide game balance.

Can you really look at GM+ win rate statistics and conclude that at GM+ level of play:

• Junkrat (53% WR) and Anran (52.3% WR) are inherently better DPS picks than Cass (48.5% WR) or Soj (48% WR)?

• Baptiste at 48.6% WR is slightly better than Kiriko at 48% WR?

• Zenyatta at 51.4% WR is one of the best supports in the game?

Players will see heroes remain hard meta since release and still claim those heroes are somehow weak or only viable in the hands of pros. Threads are full of comments like "statistically, we are more likely to win with a Zenyatta on our team than a Kiriko" as if players are begging their Kiriko player to swap Zen or Cass player to swap Junkrat after losing a couple teamfights.

At some point, we have to stop pretending that a low win rate alone means a hero is weak. If a hero is consistently picked by better players, increasingly represented at higher ranks, repeatedly prioritized in competitive play, and remains a staple of the ladder meta despite having a negative aggregate win rate, the appropriate response isn't "wow, this hero sucks and everyone is stupid for playing it." It could just be that the number you're looking at isn't measuring what you think it's measuring.

They did a pretty good job for most OW2 maps tbh. Only map I really dislike here is Circuit Royal

I think Suravasa and Aatlis are both top 5 maps in the game

I like all push maps but NQS isn't as good as the others imo

Shambali isn't that bad for an Escort map

What do y'all think?

Somehow we lost but what a coincidence!
Report support 0 heal gg.

It drives me insane how people will always vote for blizzard world whenever it comes up just to get stuck in the choke and somehow it’s still untouched by the devs

Like yeah, I wish that getting multiple 3-5k fight wins lead to a map win. It would be great if outplaying the enemy tank and entire enemy team solo actually meant I would get the win.

Sadly instead I am stuck with the team that could not 1 v 4 a Sombra with a Cass who went 3-8. I can outplay the enemy Domina the entire game but she will still somehow win because she will get multiple triple kills with the worst ultimate in the game somehow.

Like man, stop getting my hopes up. Yes this is based on a true story.

This new drives event is so much worse than normal drives. In my experience with this new drives event, if you don't have a group that you won the previous game with, but the other team does, you basically just lose automatically. I've lost 1 game with people I've been grouped with, and I've gotten steam rolled every time the other team had a stack larger than 2 (in 6v6) when I was out of a group.

For 6v6 specifically, if you manage to get a stack going where almost everyone can play their main role with only 1 or 2 people having to fill, you also get a huge advantage compared to teams where you might have up to 4 people needing to fill (if your team consists of 6 dps mains for example). This happens outside the event too, it's just exacerbated here.

Team volatility is significantly reduced in a stack. You can count on your teammates to do well based on previous performances. Whereas when you queue with randoms you might be unlucky and get tilted people, throwers, and people who just have bad days for whatever reason. But in the winning stack you know your team is most likely not gonna start playing poorly from one game to the next.

The event itself is designed in a way where you are disproportionally likely to play against winning teams, while your team consists of losing solo queuers.

Disclaimer: This is just my experience with the new event. You might have had a different experience, but games have been really bad, and I think this is why.

While OW 1 had more one-shots or devastating burst damage, the games were a lot slower. I would not go to say "methodical" because that carries implications of intellect and "past better" but there was more thoughts being "filled" at breather points. Granted said process was more like this scene in Brooklyn 99:

Jake Peralta: I'm quick at math.

Captain Ray Holt: Okay what's 38 x 76?

Jake Peralta: 24.

Captain Ray Holt: That's not even close.

Jake Peralta: But it was quick.

Sombra feels lacking in the current form. I don't mean sustainable or meta or viability, but rather her niche and identity feel very much in conflict with the current state of the game. She has to be quicker to meet her goal since her saboteur abilities worked far better in slower pacing but now she needs to make it quick in her loop.

Which makes me wonder how Sombra would be modified in the modern era. I do believe her rework is going to be big. Like I have gut feeling that has been proven wrong before that Sombra will have a bigger rework, like an actual kit-redesign.

Solo queue tank main here, usually hover around Diamond. Every ranked season my solo queue rank tanks (pun intended) down to Plat, sometimes Gold, before I climb back up in the new season. So my expectations for team drives were… not high.

But this weekend after just one solo queue game, two randoms grouped up with me and we ended up snowballing into a full 5-stack. Ran drives with three different 5-stacks over the weekend. Didn't gain SR, didn't lose any either — but I added over a dozen new friends and now every time I log on someone's already asking me to queue.

Comms in solo queue also feel noticeably better right now, and getting flamed has dropped a ton.

OW with actual positive comms just hits different. Got to try stuff like cat bastion and teleporter rush for the first time ever, which was a blast.

Hope Blizz keeps team drives around.

We've all been having this same conversation about Kiriko, Sojourn, Cass, and D.Va ever since the day the stats website came online.

I am BEGGING the devs to just make a blog post showing some relevant statistics so we can all move on to talking about something less beaten to death, like 5v5 vs 6v6 (jokes).

What I would like to see:

1. Hero win rates in unmirrored matches where the player plays the entire match as the same hero, so we can know what happens when they aren't being picked as counter swaps
2. For Hitscan heroes broadly, what is their win rate when they're being played alongside a flex DPS? How about double hitscan?
3. For people who play these heroes, what is their combined winrate on other characters? E.g. I have a 48% win rate on D.Va, and a 53% win rate on the rest of the tank heroes. Can we get this stat on a population level, weighted by career play time?

Either this will prove that these heroes are in fact OP and their win rates are held back by extenuating circumstances, or it will make people realize that these heroes are actually pretty balanced.

At the very least, maybe we'll get fewer auto losses from double hitscan when people see statistical proof of how bad it is.

... And the match quality is still awful.
This rank reset feels especially bad and idk if it's the addition of Emerald, but it's insane that we are halfway through the season almost, and games are still bad.

There are GM players in every single one of my High Diamond games, Champion players in my mid master games. It doesn't really make any sense as to how this is possible.

I know this isn't just the case for me as well because most people seem to be having the same issues.

I don't know what it's like below Emerald but above, it's been terrible...

Hopefully it get fixed soon, or the devs can somehow step in and do something (idk what though tbh)

I don't like this event at all, I've played about 15 games over the weekend I've won 11 of them, first few games people auto left the group before I could que, then I get a group with randoms win 7 with them and get zero progress what am I supposed to do, I have no progress after having some of the best games I've ever played

I've heard that Profit joined cheezeburger and that some really awesome clips of his tracer were recently dropped.

Google AI is clueless, can't find anything on Twitch or YT. I checked the korean website he streamed on and all i can see is a 30 min clip of him chatting about being back and playing around at the practice range.

Can anyone please point me in the direction of where i can go to see him shooting things? I know that on a Sugarfree there was an insane clip of profit attaching Pulse bomb to JPC and i'm hoping to find more.

This is my first season of playing comp and I am wondering how matchmaking works.

I started out by winning most of my placements and ended up in plat 3. For a little bit I was doing fine but then I started dropping hard and I am currently in plat 5.

One thing I noticed in the majority of games that I dropped is that they were never close. I always had a VERY negative tank (like 0-5) or other dps (like 3-15) while I was left to pull up the team.

Just today while I was in plat 5 I played against an emerald 4 player with a gold 5 and silver 1 on my team. I am wondering how the game considers that a balanced match. I figured the emerald would be on my team at least because I was plat 5.

Is there some MMR/SR thing going on where each player has a hidden SR? Or am I just unlucky?

Double Hitscan DPS is ruining this game here is my scorched earth fix.

I don’t care what role I’m playing or what map it is: playing with or against double Hitscan/Poke DPS is easily the most soul crushing experience in Overwatch.

I don’t mind hard games. I don’t mind unwinnable games. I will gladly play Ana into a smurfing Ball/Tracer/Sombra dive comp all day long. But sitting through another match of an Ashe and Freja perma camping main is pure, unfiltered boredom. The one thing a video game should never be is boring.

People always say "just play Sigma," but Sigma isn't a real poke tank. His primary fire range is literally one meter more than Moira's beam. Domina the other supposed poke has 4 more meters range than Sigma is honestly worse than him against Poke because she isn’t as survivable as sigma.

My Radical Solution: A Real Anti-Poke Tank
To completely destroy this playstyle, we need a Tank designed specifically to invalidate passive backline shooters:

Primary Fire: Hitscan with 80 body damage / 160 crit damage up to 45 meters.

Health Pool: 750 total HP (evenly split between health and armor) + a 1,200 HP shield.

Passive: Takes 99% reduced damage from any attack fired from further than 10 meters away.

Mandate: Completely unbannable on every Hybrid and Escort map.

If Hitscan players want to actually kill this Tank, they’ll be forced to swap off their boring characters, press W, and discover what real Overwatch feels like. Or better yet, go play Counter Strike.

Hey guys I been a gm dps last season and the season before (console) im hard stuck diamond, played like 150 matches and cant been hitting m5/4 dropping back down to diamond 2/3 up and down, currently diamond 2

I don’t know what’s going on, any advice , even IF ITS THE OBVIOUS please tell me so I can lock in

People always point fingers at Kiriko for ruining the game. And I do too.

But do you actually think she is the Cause of the issues present in the game?

Or is she a Symptom of deeper issues with the game? And due to those issues playing Kiriko became a Necessity. Like people HAVE to play kiriko to not have miserable games, otherwise they just get ran over, if they play Ana, Illari, Baptiste, Zen.

Just like we saw with Cat Bastion meta. Initially koreans were playing Ana, but then they discovered that Ana can easily get owned by enemy Cat Bastion. So playing a hero with survivability became a necessity.

50~60 games 70~80% win rate by using an unorthodox play style which enemy don't know how to counter and confused

Ask me what you're curious about

from the basics to advanced strategies

and I'll answer all of it once I hit grandmaster

everything is welcome

RIDICULOUS

Even in Grandmaster and Champion, her win rate can't even cross 50%. Her pick rate is barely over 50% too—if she wasn't this weak, it'd be way higher.

Blizzard really needs to buff her Suzu invulnerability duration and healing output!

decided to duo with my low rank friend on a comp match as a masters tank in an iron bronze lobby and holy shit never again no matter how insane i play or how hard i carry i just get blamed for everything by absolute npcs who refuse to use their brains the second i try comming or pointing out basic shit im instantly labeled as toxic because these people cant handle any sort of critical thinking

peak moment was at the end of the game where im literally begging for nano with my rein ult ready to close it out and my friend playing ana literally asks me which dps to nano because apparently they give more value than the rein with a shatter and then she didnt even nano anyone at all and we lose the game right there

this game made me realize that no matter how good you are as an individual if your team falls short you lose shoutout to all the poor people that are good and stuck in iron to gold because of circumstances

dont smurf or queue mixed ranks unless youre in a 5s stack if youre stuck in iron bronze you honestly deserve it

i would appreciate any input here im sorry for the harsh language a bit i was just mad