'Overwatch' Capture The Rooster Guide: Best Heroes And Strategies To Capture The Flag

Like every Overwatch event, Year Of The Rooster also features a special event brawl called Capture The Rooster. It’s a traditional Capture The Flag game mode with Overwatch flair thrown in. It may not be as insane as Mei’s Snowball Fight or Junkenstein’s Terror, but it’s still a really fun Brawl that’s worth playing. If you need that one win and are having problems defending or capturing that flag, here are some handy tips, along with the best heroes for this YOTR game mode.

The Basics

In Capture The Rooster, two teams of six start on opposing sides of one of Lijiang Tower’s three maps: Night Market, Garden or Control Center. Your goal is to capture the enemy flag and bring it back to your own base: sounds simple enough. In order to pick up the flag, you need to stand on its base, like if you were trying to capture a control point.

Once the flag is yours, head back to your own flag and drop theirs off for a point. The goal is to either three flags or more flags than your opponent when the timer runs out after seven minutes. All transportation abilities, from Tracer’s blink to Winston’s hop are allowed, even while holding the flag. This makes for a hectic, if at times poorly balanced, game mode.

But Capture The Rooster isn’t supposed to be fully balanced, which is why there are a few heroes that feel more powerful than the rest. You can use Tracer or Genji to zoom around the map, Torbjorn to defend your flag or Bastion just to cheese. Remember that this shouldn’t be taken seriously, it’s not real Overwatch after all.

Best Heroes

Symmetra- There is nobody in the game better at holding down choke points than Symmetra. Drop six of her turrets near where the enemies will funnel in and watch them all get torn to shreds diving through her laser beams. Defense is just as important as offense in this game mode, if you can’t hold your flag down, you’ll just end up losing quickly. You’ll need teammates who actually know how to attack since you’ll be stuck on babysitting duty at your flag.

Winston- The peanut butter loving gorilla is having quite the New Year. He’s got a new Legendary skin, a comic so beautiful it made me tear up and is an absolute beast in Capture The Rooster. If Symmetra is the best defender, Winston is the best on attack. That leap can put in serious work, getting him in or out of trouble whenever needed. Go into a monkey berserker rage and leap across the map while the enemy struggles to keep up. Just watch how busted Winston can be here.

D.Va- Like Winston, D.Va is a great attacker. She can duel any squishy heroes trying to sneak into your base or take out anyone dumb enough to get in her face when capturing an objective. My favorite strategy (though it might not always be successful), is to drop a D.Va ultimate while capturing the flag, then use my booster jets to get back to home base. Don’t chase too deep or die for something stupid and it’s GG.