'Overwatch' Season Two Tier List, New Strategies To Win Your Competitive Play Games

Season two has come to Overwatch, bringing with it a ton of hero changes that have drastically changed the meta. Zenyatta and Lucio are no longer the top-tier gods they once were, making room for other heroes to get some time in the spotlight. Overbuff compiles a weekly roundup of the best heroes by tier, using data gathered from competitive matches. Though the meta report dosen’t take regular ranked games into account, it’s still a great way to take a look at how the meta has evolved.

Here’s Overbuff’s tier list as of Sept. 5:

S Tier (>=95% Usage Rate ): * No one!**

A Tier (>80% Usage Rate): No one!

B Tier (>50% Usage Rate): Zenyatta, Lucio, Zarya, McCree, Reinhardt, Winston

C Tier (>20% Usage Rate): Mercy(!), Genji, Tracer, Reaper

D Tier (>5% Usage Rate): Pharah, Roadhog, Mei, Ana, D.Va, Hanzo, Soldier 76

F Tier (<5 % Usage Rate): Junkrat, Widowmaker, Bastion, Torbjorn, Symmetra

McCree and Mercy are back in the meta again, for better or for worse. The cowboy gunslinger received a pretty sizable nerf last patch, knocking him down from his top-tier pedestal. Now, he’s back and he’s angry, proving how great a Flashbang can be in dealing with flankers. Mercy has always been outclassed by Lucio, but now that his beats drop for less, she can start shining again.

Ana is the newest hero added to Overwatch , and she’s had quite a “toxic” effect on the meta. Ninjas in Pyjamas were the first ones to use what Overbuff is calling the “3v3” strategy, which according to Overbuff: “consists of Ana, Zenyatta and Lucio on Support and Reinhardt, Zarya and Winston/Roadhog on Tank. The strategy revolves around Ana’s ability to generate Nano-boost extremely quickly by spamming heals on targets beefy enough to stand up to opposing team’s poke damage. Once she’s reached full charge – often far earlier than any other Hero – she cashes in her ultimate on Reinhardt or Winston to get early pick-offs and charge the rest of the team’s ultimates in turn. Each team fight then cycles back and forth – either the Tanks drop their ultimates or Ana has a Nano-boost ready to go.”

Right now, this strategy is beyond busted. Zenyatta’s Discord Orb has been nerfed to the ground, making tanks an even bigger threat. A Nano Boosted tank can decimate an enemy team and push with relative ease. There isn’t much you can do when a charged up Reinhardt is swinging his hammer a mile a minute into your face.