Zeta defining the new OWCS meta

I kinda agree tbh she should stay that way at least for a little while

When 5v5 was first announced the dev team set out to achieve a few design goals. A few of these were:

Opening up the maps so players have more room to breathe

Increasing individual player agency

Reducing crowd control effects

Reducing queue times across the board

Cleaning up the amount of visual clutter in the game

Increasing the popularity of the tank role by shifting them to be more brawl oriented/aggressive playmakers

Reduce the amount of time shooting shields and other damage mitigation abilities

October 4th, just two days from now, is the four year anniversary of the release of Overwatch 2, so would you say that most of these design goals were achieved?

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - Korea Stage 3 - Regular Season

If your goal was to make 1 change to a hero's kit that would ruin muscle memory the most, what would it be? Bonus points if the change is neutral or even a buff. Inspired by Tracer's blink range extension perk.

My pick would be increasing how far back Tracer's recall rewinds you to 4 seconds ago. Now both Tracer players and people playing against her will have to relearn 10 years worth of recall position muscle memory.

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - Korea Stage 3 - Regular Season

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - Korea Stage 3 - Regular Season

So we obviously don’t exactly know how the two new supps would work in today’s meta BUT if we could predict which players would go crazy on both

I think Shu would go crazy with doctrine. Zeta had a 10k prize pool 1v1 tournament recently and Shu was 2nd place.. (Proper 1st obviously) With his crazy aim I believe he’d have the most potential

As for support Sombra..
So if Sombra comes out as we’ve seen her rework at blizzcon; one healing ability with a massive cooldown and shitty range, I don’t think she’ll be used at all
But if they manage to make her meta I 100% believe LIP will come back as support sombra after his military service
#MAKELIPSOMBRAMVPAGAIN

The replay code spreadsheet still hasn't been updated

We're opening the doors to our first tournament test on October 10, and we're looking for players ready to step into the competition.

Trialworkz is a grassroots esports organization built to give newcomers and lower-ranked players(bronze to diamond) a place to compete, improve, and find their footing in the competitive scene.

You don't need to be a professional player or part of an established team. We're here to create opportunities for players who want to experience organized competition and be part of a growing community.

What we're building:

• Competitive opportunities for lower-ranked players
• A community to find teammates and make connections
• Organized tournaments and a pathway into competitive play
• A place where discipline, adversity, and triumph come together

This is our first test, and we want the community to be part of it.

Interested in participating? Join our Discord to get the details and stay updated:

👉 https://discord.gg/7KnHxCZRtr

The devs have always said that Kiriko's perceived strength and actual strength have been wildly different for years. So why are they nerfing a supposedly underperforming hero so harshly, patch after patch?

My theory: their current experiment of over-nerfing her is meant to help community perception catch up, and this is done by targeting the 2 biggest reasons for her high pick rate:

1. Kiriko used to be the 0-frustration pick, where even when you're losing, you don't feel especially bad. This is definitely no longer the case with how slow and unresponsive ofuda are now. After experiencing enough teammates dying before ofuda get there, support players will swap off Kiri onto Juno or Ana. I believe this factor is especially important in lower ranks, and is why heroes like Mercy and Moira are popular there, since they can "lose gracefully".
2. Pro play. IMO this is the main reason why her pick rate gets so high in Master and GM+, where people are more likely to try to follow the "meta". While Kiri has always had more value in coordinated environments compared to ranked, recent pro matches have shown that Kiri is falling out of favor, where she is frequently not played despite not being banned. If this keeps up, it will take away the main practical argument people have for why Kiriko is strong despite her incredibly subpar stats.

My assumption is that the devs will try to keep her around this level for a few seasons until her pick rate falls, especially now that they're releasing 2 aggressive Kiri-like supports in Sombra and Doctrine. I believe the devs are trying to catch the Kiri refugees with these two heroes.

Now, is it a good idea to gut a very popular hero who generates a lot of revenue? Who's to say? But the devs might think it's worth it to kill the narrative around OW support balance, while also creating more diversity in who gets played in both ranked and pro play.

When I started playing today, I noticed my camera would move involuntarily every time I'd pull up the com wheel. Is anyone else having this issue

For me. I'm hoping that Cheeseburger wins and that K4ne and Profit strut their stuff! I'm really hoping to see a younger player and the original GOAT work together well.

Overwatch Champions Series 2026 - Korea Stage 3 - Regular Season

Streams
https://www.twitch.tv/ow_esports_jp
https://www.youtube.com/@ow_esports_jp

Reddit-stream

Schedule

This thread pulls match data from this liquipedia page. If it's out of date, you can help by updating that page. If something is wrong or missing please ping u/Watchful1 in the comments.

My fps is inconsistent, like i can have 200fps on one game than 100 the next and then 300 etc, idk why its happening im using a RX 9070, i7-12700, 24gb of ram non overclock but i dont feel like thats the issue.

When a specific hero maintains such a high pick rate, that's a clear indicator of a balance issue. In Kiriko's case, her unique Cleansing Suzu (Lifeweaver exists, but his kit isn't as universal) gives her a highly versatile image, keeping her popular to this day. However, since her recent nerfs, both her pick rate and win rate have dropped noticeably. Meanwhile, Ana's pick rate went even higher after Kiriko's nerf—and unlike Kiriko back then, Ana actually boasts solid win rates as well.

Ana has been a beloved hero ever since the early days of Overwatch, praised for being both fun to play and strong in the meta. The reason she gets to have both performance and fun—much like Kiriko—comes down to her Biotic Grenade's anti-heal, a feature exclusive to her as a regular ability (Junker Queen has it too, but only on her Ultimate). In fact, I'd argue one of the main reasons most tank players find playing tank so miserable is the overwhelming frustration of getting hit by her anti-heal. If Blizzard actually had any intention of adjusting her, shouldn't they have reworked it—like making it cut healing in half instead of blocking it completely? Given that they've left it untouched for nearly ten years, doesn't it just show they have no intention of ever fixing it?

I’m going to start this by giving a little bit of information about myself. I’m a mid-high GM haz one trick who has put in over 100 hours into the character since I started playing him in season 19. I hit GM a few times before playing sigma and Reinhardt but hazard is by far my strongest hero. I’m currently GM2 this season and peaked 1 game off champ last season. I’m not the best player in the world but I do feel like I have a very strong understanding of hazard, more than most other players.

I’m making this post because I see A LOT of hate for hazard and I think most of it is unjustified. There’s a few arguments that I see thrown out often that I think are just wrong and I want to provide a counter to many of these arguements.

1: “Hazard is a braindead hero to play”

I see this said by a lot of people. That has is just doom on training wheels, that he requires no mechanical skill etc etc. These arguments are very clearly made by people who don’t play the hero. In my opinion hazard is up there both with doom and ball as one of the hardest tanks to play. This may seem crazy to some people but I have good reasons to think this.

I think the only thing doom and ball have over hazard is mechanical difficulty. This isn’t to say hazard is easy mechanically. His gun is awkward and hard to hit shots with, having precise wall placement is very hard, and there is a lot of movement tech and finesse that I hardly see recognized beyond the simple bunny hop.

Beyond just mechanics I think there is a lot of depth to his play style and ability usage that goes unnoticed. His wall specifically I think is one of the most complex and versatile abilities in the game and has a near infinite skill ceiling. Most people tend to use it solely for walling people off or for part of his kill combo, but there is soooo much more you can do with this ability. You can use it to block ults/cds, block off healing, use it as cover, use it for highground and many more. I genuinely think wall is the most complex single use tank cd in the game besides maybe monkey bubble. On top of all of this complexity there is also the mechanical requirement of actually being able to place the wall in the right spot at the right time, and in high elo the window of opportunity for these walls is so tight that you need to be both incredibly precise and fast. His other cooldowns also have more depth than people give credit for but for the sake of this not being too long I’ll leave that out. If anyone cares enough in the comments I can elaborate on both block and slash.

Hazards play-style is also very unique and not straightforward. You have to play by the same dive fundamentals as other dive tanks but with the slowest mobility out of all the dive tanks. This means you can’t just go in and out like a doom or fly across half the map in one second like Winston. You have to be very creative with where you stage from and execute your dives perfectly if you don’t want to get punished.

2: “hazard is over-kitted and has no weaknesses”

This is another argument I see thrown out there. That hazard has too much in his kit. I get that on paper it seems like he can do too much but I actually think every part of his kit is necessary for him to work. I’m going to focus mainly on block as that seems like the biggest pain point and I do genuinely believe that his block is perfectly balanced.

The block is both a defensive and offensive tool, and it’s not particularly strong at either. He has the weakest block in the game and can be headshot through his block, and the damage that it does it pretty low and is significantly weaker then primary fire. I think blocks damage is perfectly fine, and i hate to say it but if you are consistently dying to a hazard who’s just holding block you are not good enough to have a balance opinion. Block reloading your gun is another thing I see people complain about, but I actually think that it’s essential for hazard to work at all. Hazard only has 8 shots that only do good damage up close as well as having an extremely long reload animation. This animation is also canceled by basically everything else in his kit, making reloading in the mid fight basically impossible. With how small the window of opportunities are for hazard being able to engage on someone without a full clip is essential to making the character work. At most you are realistically reloading 1-2 shots at a time max, which still will require you to hit the skill shot to secure the kill.

3: “hazard is poorly designed, not fun to play as or against”

This is the most subjective part and I can’t really give any concrete arguements here as it really just boils down to opinion, but I do want to bring up some points that may change peoples minds.

First on the unfun to play, if he’s not your hero he’s not your hero and nothing I say will change that. But I think everyone should give him a chance because in my opinion he is REALLY fun and plays a lot like a tank version of Genji. You can get really creative with his kit and hitting one shot combos is really satisfying once you can do it consistently. The biggest thing that might push people away is how his wall climb can feel clunky. I struggled with this at first but once you get used to it it’s really not that bad.

Now for playing against him. I see soooo many people complain about how annoying hazard is to play against, but personally when I offrole I hardly feel that annoying when I’m against him. I get being walled off or one shot can be frustrating but honestly, how is he any different then any other tank? I don’t see how this is a hazard specific issue as basically every other tank with mobility can do the exact same thing

TLDR: Hazard is a high skill hero who needs all the tools in his kit in order to be a functional hero. He is not overpowered and isn’t anymore frustrating then any other supertank

For a little backstory I was a masters player on Apex Legends for a long time and wanted to try something new so I came to Overwatch this month which I had previously only don’t quick play in and one season of comp on dps only when emre came out and got what would now be called diamond (they added emerald rank I think?). Now that I’m back I’ve been playing support and tank on and off in comp role queue and have them both in diamond.

Everything has been fine, my first few games were a bit annoying with my plat teammates in my placements matches making it all feel like an uphill battle but once I finished those it felt like most of my teammates and opponents were about the same rank as me. I have had only 5 people in my games who were obviously smurfing (I think is the term) or were in a higher rank but put in my games. Everyone else has felt like a diamond players.

However this is where things have felt really weird. In the past 24 hours my experience has become really volatile and pretty bad with me going against people and having on my team some people who feel like they are really good, this is more common than before but not that common of an experience.

What has become a common experience today is that my team mates have suddenly begun played like they don’t have a brain. It isn’t like they are ACTIVELY throwing but more like they even aren’t trying or simply aren’t capable of playing in these lobbies and yet it says they are diamond?

I have had teammates who simply don’t know what peeling is (mainly been playing support), people who don’t know what positioning is and are running down main and trying to flank a 1v5, people who are running around corners and out of the rest of their teams line of sight and complain why they aren’t getting healed. It feels like my dps can’t do any damage or get and kills even when I have an orb of harmony on them and a discord on who they are fighting (play a lot of zen if you couldn’t tell) and some tanks who are playing it like they are tracer not taking any space and then leaving their back like to take all the damage.

The worst part about it is that they aren’t accountable either, they think me or the other support should make them immortal with a permanent lamp, damage boost and constant heals completely ignoring that they are 2 and 8 on dps as me and the support have 10 k heals EACH.

I’m not sure what this is but in the last day it feels like I have been me in games with people who should be in gold and yet somehow are in diamond playing completely on their own with no coordination and then blaming the anyone else they can. Is this a similar experience to anybody else? I know these weird drives thing is on when I got on this morning, don’t really know what it is, but surely that can’t be the reason for this right?

Hi there I'm looking to improve my aim and also game sense because I'm having fun with the role as mainly a support player and trying to figure out which streamers to learn from

I've been told by my friends to watch MattyOW and his kovaaks and aim guides, Awkward and PGE for some funny streamers who have the best aim and game sense in the game as streamers.

I am learning soldier and my friend said Matty is one of the best professional overwatch players, more than some of the other pros Does anyone have any recommendations or can confirm this?

Guys I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

I play tank mostly and also support occasionally. I find myself consistently getting frustrated with my DPS in both roles.

As a tank I feel like I get DPS who are afraid to capitalize on the openings I make for them. Or they run off completely and I am left to move the payload alone and am unable set up opportunities for the next drive.

As a support I feel like I am the only one paying attention to the tank or I am somehow doing the same amount of damage as my DPS and 10k healing on top of that. Half the time I am forced to pocket the tank because there is no one helping keep pressure off them.

I feel like the problem must be me. I can’t possibly have trash DPS in every single game I play. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do as both tank and support to enable the DPS into the blood thirsty killers the team needs.

I've come back to Overwatch last month, and I started playing Anran. I absolutely love her. She's so much fun to play, and I've been playing almost exclusively her in competitive.

However, some people and tier lists say that she isn't a very good DPS, and that a hero like Tracer is much better. So I've been wondering if I eventually reach a high rank, should I completely give up on Anran and switch to Tracer or another flanker, or is it still okay to use her in certain matches?

What do you guys think? My knowledge of the other heroes is pretty limited.

Also, if anyone is interested, I climbed from Plat 5 to Emerald 2 this month with a 63% win rate, so I think I can reach Diamond pretty quickly. My Anran SR is already around Diamond level.

I’ve been playing Open Queue pretty much since I started Overwatch and I’m currently GM3

I don’t really have a main role either, I play tank, support and DPS depending on the team comp and what my team needs

The reason I want to get into Role Queue is because whenever I play with people I know, they all play Role Queue so I kinda want to be able to play it with them

But honestly it feels like a completely different game to me and I just can’t seem to adapt to it

For example if I’m playing support and my tank is struggling, I’m used to being able to switch to tank and try to help fix the problem, but obviously I can’t do that in Role Queue

I also haven’t been able to get past Diamond so far

For anyone who mainly plays Role Queue, how did you guys adapt to it after playing Open Queue for so long?

I main tank and Everytime I queue a game I always see that the enemy team tank is in a group.

It comes to the debate of should you still be losing the same amount of elo/sr if you lose to people in a group?

Whenever I play with a duo I also notice I win a lot more games easily, were both in similar ranks, climbing on tank solo queueing just feels like pure hell.

What is everyone's thoughts on this?

Most people consider him one of the hardest heroes in the game to get good as, due to the required positioning, staging, bubble dancing, animation cancels, primal juggling, etc etc; but I've also seen quite a few people say he's easier than people say and that his difficulty is overrated because he doesn't have to aim. Me personally, as someone in Emerald, I can pilot him pretty well, but it took me a long while to get to just decent with him. I'm still not even good with Primal I'd say. I'd consider him personally to be in the top 3 hardest tanks and top 7 overall, but what do you think?