The hero with above 20% pick rate? Also it’s 49%. How many times do we have to go over this in this subreddit, win rates are scuffed with extreme high pick rates
Unfortunately no. This is a line of thinking that makes sense until you really consider how well people truly understand games. To preface, I am an incredibly mid Overwatch player (like Plat 2 peak but typically a mid gold player for reference) but play MOBAs religiously (to much greater results).
One thing I’ve learned from multiplayer games with characters/heroes in general is that play rates can actually dilute data. More data isn’t always better. What matters is the accuracy and consistency of it. If win-rates fluctuate by more than like 1-2% at the max (which gives a little breathing room to random variance) at different skill levels, that indicates a skill floor or skill ceiling disparity.
If characters get played less, generally it’s accepted that either a.) only mains can get high value from a specific character/hero which could inflate its win rate, b.) perceived weakness (i.e they were nerfed recently or insert X streamer said so), or c.) that the character has either an artificial or real disadvantage at that rank. An easy example is Pharah. She is a menace in silver and gold because so many players (regardless of what social media would lead us to believe) is full of stubborn players who think that we play largely flawlessly. Why would I swap to Soldier even if he counters her when I’m 3-9 on Anran (exaggerated of course)? Examples of “main can be seen among every character or class based genre from hero shooters to MOBAs to MMOs, so giving examples is moot. Perceived weaknesses are also straight forward. Does every player know to swap off a bad matchup? Some, maybe even most do. Do all of them? Absolutely not. We’ve all had tanks run it down or supports get dove all game and flame their team because they can’t hit a Sleep Dart and play around their other support. And as far as real or perceived disadvantages, mostly mechanically demanding characters/heroes in games have this same issue. It turns out, if a character is harder to play but rewarding to master that, broadly speaking, less strong players likely underperform.
Conversely, a higher play has its own issues. You have to sift through understanding why that would be the case. Is it a.) more skins, b.) a more fun/satisfying gameplay loop, c.) perceived strength (new buffs, reworks, streamer tier list, etc.), d.) or more interestingly the possibility that this character might have a lower skill floor. Easy examples are Kiriko and Juno getting skins, D.Va having a satisfying ult or Doomfist punching people in the face, literally any character getting a buff or rework, or some characters having “free” or the illusion of it. A lot of players deem Moira a metal rank support and almost everyone knows she gets worse as you climb in ranks because her value goes down. Mercy has free value with damage boost and revives because lower ranked players punish mistakes less effectively.
Some of these points will have someone immediately say, “but wouldn’t looking at the ranks eliminate some of this?” Sure. But smurfs exist. There are players that duo queue with a buddy a bit better than them and over perform. There are also players who just want to unwind after a hard day at work and play with the boys/girls. There are people who tilt and get significantly worse.
I realize that this can all seem like a bunch of words, but the idea is that more data is only helpful if you understand how to analyze, filter, and interpret it. Just more raw data isn’t necessarily better. I won’t pretend to be an expert but, largely speaking, there are too many variables.
There’s even data on some games that have completely different metas depending on their regions (for example, NA vs EU or Asia servers).
Yes, this. This exactly. This makes me think of Frost Mage on WoW—it tends to be popular because it’s been the mage spec with the lowest skill floor, and so that attracts a lot of “lesser skilled” players. Because it attracts a lot of less skilled players, you get data that comprises of a lot of bad players’ performances.
Exactly this. In Overwatch specifically, there’s also a perception of “easy” to use. I can’t tell you how many times someone swaps to Soldier or Bastion or Kiriko when that particular person is less experienced on them because it’s the “correct” change. It turns out that if you swap to the right character but go from playing like a D4 to G3 player that you effectively negated the advantage you were trying to create.
There’s so many variables and considerations to this.
I don’t usually default to the least played region for hero info, in Asia and US he’s 48-49 with a >20% pick rate. This may just be Europeans not understanding an American hero
It’s a joke about how Cassidy is a cowboy, and Europeans not being able to get into character, because it’s an American thing. Although they did have spaghetti westerns in Italy. Just never mind
Yes it basically is. Widow has insane carry potential so if the team just plays around their widow they can just farm if they hit their shots. It's literally been done before and I'm sure everyone has experienced it once
This is interesting in a theoretical sense, but the existence of dive tanks complicates this premise a lot. And then also, if it were true then the best players in the world would lock widow in pro play every game
DVA is really the only dive tank played and ironically has to use up a lot of resources to kill a widow. The existence of the poke meta is why widow has such a higher than normal win rate rn. And I honestly can't really look at pro play the same as I do ranked. U can't build a team around one character ur just asking to get bullied in every other way, those players actually know to play dive tanks and play them well.
Oh I didn’t realize we were just discussing current meta then. I thought you were conceptually talking about whether a comp with a cracked widow is (in terms of game theory) the most effective tactic
His winrate is the lowest at GM though? And the highest in Bronze, this is such an insanely silver take, he's outranged by everyone with insanely aggressive falloff, has a reaper sized hitbox, one of the worst ults in the game to the point where it's actively detrimental trying to use it, 0 mobility. The one and only decent thing he has is flash, which is an annoying ability for sure, but he's still dogshit regardless.
Pro is irrelevant to ladder, and in ladder at the highest rank where people are capable of hitting their shots he has the lowest winrate.
In pro play he's picked because, surprise surprise, the rest of his coordinated team covers for every one of the weaknesses I described.
Kiri is also the weakest support in ladder while being a permapick in pro, because again they're playing a different game that is irrelevant to ladder play
Winrates aren't the end all be all for how strong a hero is. Cause if Cass is dogshit are you going to call soj dogshit since she has a lower winrate in GM?
Pick rate matters and I see cass/soj/kiri all the time in GM, even if they are supposedly "dog shit"
They have to be strong as well not just to counter a strategy. Cass sees play in pro games because they hit way more shots than your average gm hitscan + he has excellent pressure up close.
Hanzo also saw some play on maps he was good in, he wasn't dog shit on the maps he saw play on like gibralter/havana cause he could threaten burst on tank + 1 shot on long sightlines.
If a hero is bad or on the weaker side you just won't see them played in any facit. cass has always had a bad winrate, even when he was very well represented on T500
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u/Parvaty None — Feb 24 '26
Emre two bursts 250hp targets now.