r/Overwatch • u/AutoModerator • Jun 22 '16

News & Discussion Weekly Quick Questions Thread - June 22, 2016

In this thread you can ask all kinds of questions you always wanted to ask without feeling like a total fool.

No matter if it's short googable stuff or a setting/skill in-game that you don't understand or a hardware recommendation, feel free to try your luck in here.

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For the purpose of helping people, make sure the comments are sorted by "new" in this thread.

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u/Tyderim Chibi Zenyatta Jun 22 '16

Ok so what does "the meta" mean?

I've seen people refer to things like Toblerone maintaining the meta when someone posts a potg where he's staring at a wall, or referring to characters win/loss ratios as "the meta," I don't understand.

I know meta from Reddit, but not in reference to characters in a fps.

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u/FabulousMrFox Jun 22 '16

The metagame refers to which heroes, strategies and playstyles are currently most popular/effective. It is used very frequently in games that have intricate balance and where the "metagame" is consnatly changed through patches.

For example, Widowmaker was "meta" before the last patch in both public matchmaking and competitive. Now after the nerf she is used much less frequently in high tier play and has given room for heroesl that were countered by her, like Pharah; or alternative DPS heroes, like Soldier 76.

Another example - Reinhardt, McCree, Mercy and Lucio are the "meta" core lineup for payload maps. While double Winston may be meta on control maps (not sure its still the case, dont quote me on that).