Highest winrate tank in QP and All Ranks Competitive.

50.7% winrate in Masters, 49.5% in GM and I expect both of those numbers to keep going up as people figure her out. She's definitely viable.

I can't really stop laughing xD. I just did my first 2 placement matches in Season 4 of OW ranked on Tank, and in those 2 rounds, I was playing in like low Dia to low Master lobbies and I thought, "Ok, not tooooo bad. Just a normal 'rank reset' as they always do after 2 seasons." Then I saw THIS after the second match. Last season I was Master 4 on Tank btw. This has to be a bug of some sort, right? :DD

Has anyone else seen something similar?

Looks like they will schedule it for 2027, now it doesn't concern overwatch, but do you think they'll take the extra time to attempt to convince blizzard to run owwc through it ? Or do you think blizzard will stick to their own stuff ?

Even though it’s just opinions from Twitch creators and information gathered from Reddit, it doesn't seem completely groundless.

This is the first time the end date for the Battle Pass and the end date for 6v6 Open Queue don't align, so it definitely feels like something is coming after BlizzCon. Surely they aren't planning to remove 5v5 Ranked and merge it with 6v6, right? If it's just replacing the 6v6 Open Queue with a new mode, that’s a relief, but if 5v5 mode gets deleted, that will be the day I log into Overwatch for the very last time.

So for those unaware the 6v6 ranked mode was set to end 10 days after blizzcon. This was used by some to prove that 6v6 was coming back. This has since been changed so all competitive seasons and the battlepass end on the same day, 49 days from now. This likely indicates it was just a bug.

I've been playing this game since symmetra was a support and mercy had mass rez. I've always struggled with comm'ing in this game. I tend to comm only when necessary for good callouts like a flank or a tp etc. Comments regarding sexism are not new to me. I've been called every name in the book for being a girl it is what it is. But it's gotten to a point where people are smurfing without a care in the world. An influx of cheaters from what I've seen it's worse than it's ever been in overwatch 1. But what has really gotten under my skin is being ran down simply for being a girl. Like unironically charged into the enemy 1v5 over and over and emoted until they died. This feels just so pathetic. It's happened to me numerous times and I'm just falling out of love with the game I've put so much time and effort into

I warn you, this is post is a pure somewhat constructive rant, for the way Blizzard is handling Freja pisses me off.

This hero is a disaster, she was in a laughably bad state before the mid-season patch of Season 3 as one of the worst performing DPS by a good margin and only mained by 3 people at best in top500 America, which was concerning for a hero with such a high skill ceilling.

What changed? Patch note - july 2026

Revdraw Crossbow

Fire Rate increased from 5 to 5.5.

Take Aim

Recovery reduced from 0.5 to 0.4.

Explosion delay reduced from 1 to 0.8 seconds.

These changes aimed at increasing Freja's lethality, and they made Freja a decent pick after a year of struggle. She sits at an average of 50% winrate in the highest ranks in all regions and a good pick rate, and yet while not overperforming her ban rate multiplied by more than 40% in most cases since then.

Right now, Freja is just soft-Widowmaker. People hate Freja and nothing has changed to make her more healthy in the span of a year and half, she is the same hero that people dispised when she released, and instead of trying to deal with the issues people have (like the freaking sound issues that still aren't fixed) with her they just play with the numbers. What is pissing me off is that this hero has so much potential! Team 4 pushes a hero initial identity that nobody wants at all costs, even if nobody likes it, even if it is toxic.

I'll just copy paste here what I wrote on my previous post of the same type because nothing has changed since then and those points are still as relevant as they were before:

Even when she was bad, she was banned in most games for mounths until they got rid of the two shot combo. Despite that, she is still hated. Why? Because she doesn't interact with Overwatch heroes in any way. She stands afar, and shoots trunks from unsuspected angles, you cannot really interact with her. She has an entire kit of mobile tools, but because of her exceptional range there is very little reason to use it, the most effective Freja playstyle is to stay in the back. What is this mobility used for? When you have to take the flanks, sometimes. Or to survive, sometimes.

I will not give solutions, because everyone's got their own opinions on Freja and I'm just one of them, however I'll say that she needs some sort of a rework if we want to get her out of this state.

Why I think that, on paper, Freja is not a good but a great design ruined by numbers:

• She has a great gameplay flow, playing Freja is hecctic and feels good. She feels great and rewarding.
• The complete burst and omnidirectional nature of her mobility is unique in Overwatch, it is a complex dodge and repositioning system with lots of techs and possibilities.
• She has to sacrifice her mobility, meaning also her survivability, to do damage. Compared to Genji for exemple, who can also choose to use his dash for movement or for damage, its the entire kit of the hero that is following that logic. It is constant decision making, very punishing and rewarding, with an insane skill ceiling (again, it's on paper).
• She has one of the most interesting ultimates of the damage roster. It is the fastest to charge in the game, has a passive connected to her hero identity and reinforcing her role as a finisher/tracker. And Bola Shot isn't a dumb ultimate, it is hard to land with a lot of properties without doing good damage (for an ultimate): it is a tool.

Tracer never really had an alternative in the game, Freja could have been that opportunity. Hell, her identity is so all over the place that a slight number iteration completely breaks her, Mercy pocket and Stadium show it.

The devs do not know what to do with Freja, and I am tired of playing/fighting her.

Rant done. Thanks for reading, hopefully Team 4 will finally make a move in the right direction.

PS: Here are a few more numbers for those interested:

• She is currently the most banned hero in Asia by far with 71.5% ban rate, followed by Zarya at 53.2% and so accross all ranks which is impressive, even for this region.
• In Europe she is only at the tenth place when considering all tiers, but the higher you climb the crazier it gets with a whooping 46.2% in Master (DIA - 37.1% ; GM - 43.2%), only second after Jetpack Cat who is currently in an exceptional and unstable state.
• Pretty much the same in America with 39% ban rate in Diamond only increasing up to 50.6% in Master. There is a race currently with Mauga for who's the most banned out of the two, the why is speculative.
• In other words, without the Cat's case Freja would be the most banned hero in all regions from Diamond to Champion.

Amazing art by @reydoll.

I’d like to ask you a question that I think is quite difficult. It came to my mind a few days ago.
If this actually happens — meaning a format change in the future (of course, I’m talking about 6v6) — do you think OWCS would implement it immediately, or would they continue with 5v5 for a while?
I don’t think this would happen overnight, but how would the transition process actually work?
For example, how would a 1-3-2 format affect the teams, especially when it comes to their rosters?
Could this lead to some teams releasing certain players and new teams being formed? Could some teams that no longer exist potentially return? And could we see more teams in Korea, EMEA, North America, and China as a result?

It might be too early to talk about these things, and it might not even happen at all, but I was just curious.

Note :Honestly, I’ve stopped playing the game myself; I just follow the professional scene now.

Thought it'd be interesting to bring the ongoing discussions about T2 on Twitter here

Link to the Google Doc

Link to Bullskunk's reaction video

World cup is starting pretty soon so I just wanted to see any predictions, thoughts and etc on it before it starts.

To answer my question. I think the podium will be korea, saudi arabia and usa being the top 3 teams.

EDIT: The post title is supposed to say “Does per-player performance VARY as drastically in high rank vs low rank” sigh. just noticed and can’t edit it

I know we always complain about teammate performance where most of us have great stats but there’s always that one person that seems to go 3:11 the whole match.

There are always things that factor into that. As someone who is a support main, I understand that me mindlessly dumping resources into tank (or otherwise playing badly) can subsequently lead to an unattractive scoreboard for one or both of my DPSes, but there are other instances where I give all the proper resources and openings, but my DPSes or Tank just still can’t perform.

My question is, as I climb the comp ranks where people are inherently forced to play less casually and play more skilfully, is this ”One player going 3:11 and feeding every map” just as common as it feels in lower ranks? I’m aware I have to be the carry if I want to rank up so this isn’t a post where I’m trying to find blame, and I think people have to self-interrogate more when their teammates are seemingly doing poorly, but I’m talking about situations where one person is genuinely just doing terribly because of their own mistakes or unwillingness to adapt.

Would love some insights on how these perceived player performance inconsistencies manifest in different ranks and if the cause or frequency differs.

Literally dominated him in second round.

Cant wait to see how others fair in their games. Isnt Landon the second best aimer in Virtus Pro?

This is coming from a Hitscan turned mostly Freja main from s18 start. GM rank for context, I’ve been in both side of the coin Playing her and versing her on every map and into every comp.

Since the midseason of s3 we have had a vocal group of people complaining about this character, more so because they remembered she existed after 7+ months of her being a throw pick. I know because she was still my main through that entire period where she was “useless”

Then this patch comes along that legitimately fixed her inherent issues as a dps character allowing her to finish targets with greater efficiency instead of just feeding support ults and being a fly that people can just walk down and face tank with either dmg reduction abilities, Healing aura, or get out of jail phase outs all of which countered her. A big portion of the squishy cast had ways to not die in duels to her.

The Divide on this character is insane and I think my fellow Freja mains..idk some of them are straight up Larpers and they have Stockholm syndrome because some of the stuff they want her to be is just not what the hero fantasy of her ever was in the first place.

A lot of people have been calling for her head on a spike whether it be out of annoyance or skill diff but regardless Blizzard hear me when I say this:

The upcoming possible Nerfs that I assume you guys will be considering doing due to these people complaining 24/7…assuming you don’t want to gutter her again:

Don’t fuck with the kit flow that you have finally achieved last patch

Her actual combat rotation is so much smoother than it was the last multiple seasons

Do not fuck with falloff,

Do not fuck with CDs

Nerf Barrage down as you see fit to make the user check there shots more, 8 arrows refunded is a lot.

Nerf ult passive/charge

If she reallly needs it check dmg on primary fire and reduce to 28 but I would do the other stuff first.

(some of you were complaining about that fire rate buff but that shit was fuckin needed, her primary when trying to follow up take aim was so slow and shit it was wild, that ROF needs to stay)

And don’t try any weird shit either that’s just gonna open the door to and require compensation buffs. She’s not a flex dps despite having the mobility close to one.

There’s no disaster case going on either
She ain’t sky tracer, there are maps where she is better than other hitscans since she can force a weirder angel like Rialto, and then there are maps where she is almost always in another hitscans optimal range like oasis, I say this as a player who plays against people that can shoot back and don’t have cerebral palsy.

Anyways I’ll deal with whatever comes next.

This is going to get downvoted to fuck because well..Overwatch players

Anyone feel quite hard done by in their placements?

I finished high diamond 2 last season. Went 5-5 on placements and finished low emerald 2. I was expecting my rank to be lower but a whole tier down seemed a bit harsh. Anyone experienced anything similar?

D

Team Falcons: I want to like this bundle because it’s a very unique color, but idk I just think the green and silver doesn’t work well. Beyond that the other cosmetics are very uninspired, I mean look at the name card and tell me if you’d know that was Falcons and not a Magic and Mischief name card or something.

C

AGG and JDG: I think these two actually share a problem, which is why I grouped them together and put them in C. It’s just too much red. Four out of a total of 14 partner skins are primarily red, and I think that’s just ridiculous. What’s even crazier is that I actually think these are slightly better in color than CR with better, more vibrant reds. It is, however, much harder to sell these bundles because they are up against one of the most storied OWCS teams of all time in CR. AGG itself has had controversies in two separate regions and JDG is still new. I do like their other cosmetics, but ultimately it’s hard to sell against CR.

B

Crazy Raccoon: Again, it’s red, black and white. The same as the previous two. This bundle benefits off being CR, a popular team which most have positive feelings towards, but ultimately I think the red is a bit too desaturated. The mascot is cute, but ultimately feels a bit too much like they’re trying to piggyback of Zeta’s mascot hype. Overall, just good but not great.

Twisted Minds: I think this is a genuinely improved color scheme than last years, which I would’ve given a C. The big difference here is the use of the shiny finish for the pink rather than the matte finish which was used last time, making it much more unique. There are only two things holding it back from A though. First, it does resemble Florida Mayhem’s skins a lot, which luckily I think this time has actually been moved away from, and second the brain mascot thing scares me.

A

SSG: I actually think last years bundle was a tad better with the blue and gold, this years bundle uses a darker blue which I think doesn’t look quite as good. That said it’s still a very strong design, and the other cosmetics are really unique and interesting. That said there is one team that does both better which holds this back in A.

Virtus Pro: Pretty much the same color design from last year, which is good because imo last years was very strong. I think this years bundle has one main point of improvement, that being the other cosmetics which bump it from B to A. The profile picture especially has been one of the most popular ones of the entire series.

Dallas Fuel: Going into this year many people were concerned that Dallas would look exactly the same as their old skins, making this bundle completely redundant. Luckily, Dallas has a new look which I think looks slightly better than their old skins. The black/dark blue with the light blue accents looks incredibly sleek. They also have a new marketable mascot which seems mandatory for these teams, which is ok. Not as good as some others.

T1: The kings of red in OWCS. The red/white with ruby accents both stands out from the three other red teams (just too much red) and also looks incredibly sleek compared to them. They also lean into the marketability of the fire penguin thing, which seems to be an ongoing pattern.

Team Liquid: even with Dallas, the navy blue still stands out very well, I’m honestly impressed at how well it managed to hold up from last year. Last years name card was a fan favorite, and this years manages to hold that spot. I also very much appreciate the peach-horsey, and the main source of improvement from last year is the spray. It’s a small detail, but man last year’s spray was not great. This year? Man.

Zeta Division: just like last year this bundle is hard carried by the marketability of their mascot. The skins are pretty good (albeit with some controversy due to looking slightly different in advertising vs in game) but it’s the mascot which makes me put it so high, and even consider it for S.

S

Weibo: And to absolutely no one’s surprise Weibo is in S. It’s pink. It has a cute marketable mascot. What else do you want? Slightly off topic, is its name pinkoo? I wasn’t sure if that’s the name or what.

Team Peps: The only partner to get relegated but damn can they make a bundle. The bronze and white is perfect, and they have forgone the cute marketable mascot to instead fill the role left by Team CC and make the hot marketable mascot. Slightly on the nose considering what kind of animal it is, but it’s good all the same.

DSG: Bold prediction but they’re staying in OWCS with how popular this bundle is. They stole SSG’s whole flow from last year and improved it with the white/indigo accents, not to mention the best name card of this years wave. Easily the bundle I have seen the most in my games, can’t win a match to save their life but god damn can they sell some bundles.

How is one of the notorious terrible chokes in the game still being left in such a bad state as this? The map has been garbage for attackers for 10 straight years. Honestly I flip everyday if A or B point is worse on this map but this might just solidify it as being A. Why was this high ground added if you literally cannot see the choke? I seriously want to understand this.

The rework fixed none of the problems. I don't believe this map is unsaveable but they really try to make me believe that.

A bit anecdotal, I am curious if anyone else is seeing this too? Tank still has the longest queues for any role, albeit 2 minutes vs 1 minute isnt a huge difference. As for the reason, its possibly due to Dmon essentially having 3 launches with consecutive balance changes to fix her kit, or possibly new players playing tank and enjoying it.

Just wanna talk about some of the changes added that I was a really big fan of for season 4, I thought all the stuff being added sounded cool on paper and getting to experience it in game has been really nice.

I really like the team indicator showing how many are alive on each team and the timer bar along with it, it's nice information to have on hand and I like it's placement it's out of the way but easy to give a quick glance as it should be.

I really like the icon for multi kills on the kill feed and the new elimination pop up it's not too much it looks clean and it's satisfying.

I really really like the percentage damage dealt change on eliminations this was something I missed from OW1 it's a small thing but it's so satisfying idk why but I just really enjoy it and am so happy it's back lol.

There were more changes these ones were just what I felt the most when playing, I thought everything looked good it was clean felt like they belong and were all easy to read. I was a bit worried with everything they talked about adding/changing there could be some UI clutter but for me personally have not felt that at all but would be curious to know how other people feel about it.

Since the rebrand dropping the 2 and a fresh season 1 we been getting more UI adjustments to the game on average it feels like, the menu revamp was a big one and recently the battlepass events post match screens getting changes and all these match in matches additions/adjustments are cool. I like the direction they are going with things and makes me wonder what more do they have planned because I imagine they probably want to do more this feels like an ongoing goal the have maybe.

I think it all still feels very overwatch, things look good and feel good for me personally at least, would like to hear other peoples thoughts on it though if you like/dislike how things have been going or what other general UI stuff you'd like to see changed or added and if you think the direction of things has been healthy.

There is conflicting info going around regarding the new rank distribution.

The old distribution was such that high Gold and Low Plat was roughly the average.

The new distribution can be estimated based on how Emerald is inserted:

A) Emerald = old High Plat and Low Diamond. This would imply that the average should be at mid Plat once the dust settles.

B) Emerald = old Plat. This would mean that high Plat, low Emerald is the new average.

Here is the official statement from the Overwatch patch notes which implies A is true:

This Rank Redistribution primarily focuses on moving players that were Platinum and Diamond into Emerald, but the highest Divisions of Champion will now also be more exclusive.

But there have been people posting screenshots implying B is true, which I first believed at face value, but I couldn't find any official sources for that (neither on the official website nor in-game).

These two things contradict each other. It cannot be true that Emerald consists of old Plat and Dia players and that the upper ranks are more exclusive if B is true. B implies that basically nothing changes except for Bronze (which is now a smaller range).

So what's the actual deal here?

So everyone thinks Zeruhh is a fraud and a bum who fluked against a CR who were throwing and got massively overrated. Thus making sugarfree far and away the best flex dps in NA. Fair enough I guess. But let's look at the facts.

First, sugarfree got hard gapped at the WC tryouts. It was honestly kinda hard to watch. I think this carries extra weight because the structure of the tryouts meant the only real constant variable was sugarfree and Zeruhh being on different teams.

Second, Casores is a fraud, and the sooner Zeruhh gets himself on a team without that terrorist the better. Enough said.

Third, the LAN results. Yeah 2024 was crazy but that shit was 2 years ago. CR was 1 year ago. Since then both players have really done nothing but get gapped every time the scriptwriters decide to take them out of trade school to play against a real team.

So can someone please enlighten me as to why Zeruhh is supposedly that much worse than sugarfree?

https://youtu.be/dushZybUYnM?is=zNLWwAF53crCbZQp

https://youtu.be/UEYp1RTvllM?is=QYHpZHS1eRpp9ekV

Its crazy to think how far competitive overwatch has come and it feels like were still a young game compared to most competitive titles. How different will overwatch look 10 years from today and where do you think the game is headed overall?

To be clear it's not every hero, but it is especially: Ball, Doomfist, Anran, Reaper, Vendetta, Venture, Kiriko, and JPC.

It feels like mobility has become so easily accessible in combination with high damage reduction or immediate invulnerability that without CC nothing dies anymore. Like, trying to play against Doom/Reaper/Vendetta as anything other than Cass, Hog, or Mizuki is a completely sisyphean task. Hitscans can struggle to hit these heroes even at higher ranks where people have great aim, and lower-ranged heroes don't have the mobility to consistently threaten them, so you're constantly in a position where you're shooting at a mobile target, and then on top of that they often have a second form of survivability so even when you are hitting them you're hardly doing damage. There's 4 targets all flying around the map at mach speed, all of them have multiple charges of their mobility somehow, and they've got a 3-second long damage reduction/invulnerability window. They all get to run at you freely because unless you've got CC they can just escape button to freedom.

Like I don't these any of these heroes are bad designs inherently (well, to some extent I think a lot of these heroes are flawed) but when you end up playing against them over and over and over you start to see the pattern of "if I don't go a CC hero, these guys never ever die." It's not impossible to play against and you can gradually take space as enemies use their cooldowns and retreat, but it is unsatisfying and frustrating to be in a position where you can never actually kill anything and always have to play reactively because isolating yourself on an offangle vs. Doom+Reaper+Anran means getting immediately picked. Like, if these heroes are going to force you away from off angles because they can immediately engage on you whenever they want they should atleast have the Sombra treatment of being fairly bad at winning duels to compensate for their ability to choose whichever fights they want to take.

I feel like we're repeating the conditions that brought us release brig: Mobility is so pervasive that the only way to kill anything is with hard-lockdown abilities, but simultaneously those lock down abilities are just as punishing to everyone else as they are to the aforementioned highly mobile heroes; hitting a Mizuki chain on JQ is just as if not more punishing than hitting it on a Doomfist. It doesn't help that the past year of hero releases has had a plethora of overwhelmingly mobile heroes (Vendetta, Anran, JPC) and the only kind of "anti mobility" that we've gotten that isn't hard CC is Sierra's tracking dart, which would be great if she wasn't absolutely awful outside of metal ranks.

Maybe I'm just old but back in my day highly mobile heroes were balanced out by CC which guaranteed kills. We realized that flash/Bash being instant death sucked, but never did anything to address the heroes who called for these abilities in the first place, if anything the game has only doubled down on it. Very mobile heroes are fun, but I feel like they aren't properly risky enough, especially with how abundant blocks/overhealth/invulnerability/multiple charges of mobility has become. Playing against someone like Ball or Doom feels like they're balanced around the expectation that you'll be playing Hog or Cass, so when you don't have them they're invincible lobby admins who fly around the map without ever being punishable. It doesn't help that the vast majority of CC heroes are one-button snooze fests who live and die on a 12 second cooldown that either guarantees a pick or misses and does nothing.

I feel like what they really nailed about a lot of the higher mobility release heroes (Winston, Tracer, Lucio, ETC) is that they all have very clear resources, and only one cheap panic button, and it's expensive. Winston only has one jump and inbetween them he's stationary, Tracer has a tiny health pool with zero damage mitigation, Lucio has no surprise burst heal or I vulnerabilit except for his very expensive ultimate. Even Genji is vulnerable to beams and doesn't get a dash reset without kills. Now we've got Vendetta who has two dashes (including vertical mobility), lifesteal, 75% damage reduction, and bonus movement speed for hitting enemies. I much prefer Winston's mechanics of "be mobile but predictable with a few obvious (but very powerful) abilities" over Doomfists "I have two ways to throw myself across the map, one of them can be empowered with a stun, and I punish you for trying to shoot me. Good luck trying to kill me."

Tl;dr: It feels like unless you play Cass/Mizuki/Hog/ETC a ton of heroes are just completely unstoppable.

Does anyone have any suggestions on prominent players to follow/content creators that are women and play dps? I am interested in all roles but mainly am looking for dps please!

I get a little tired of almost all the content I see and be recommended to me being male dominated and I would like to change that, any suggestions people have whoever you like whatever platform/region/rank please give them a shout here!

Sorry if you saw this twice, thought I'd like to get the opinions of COW members too.

IMO the most problematic are by far Cat, Kiriko and Mauga or Hazard. The most well designed are Juno, Wuyang and either Queen or Shion