Overwatch Hero Counters Explained #2 — DPS Role
It definitely took a while but as promised, this is hero counters for the DPS role. If you haven’t checked out the previous one for the Tank role, you can read it here. Going with alphabetical order, first up we have Ashe.
To determine Ashe’s strengths and weaknesses, we need to first understand her kit. She has a Coach Gun that allows her to knockback enemies and get herself into a better high ground position that is usually not as easily accessible by other DPS such as McCree or Soldier, which makes her quite mobile with a good escape mechanism. This allows her to be quite sturdy against most flankers (especially Reaper as she can knock him back and make his short-range gun useless while going for a head shot on his huge head hit box), and weak against heroes that can deny her good positioning such as Winston, D.Va, and Wrecking Ball. Next is her Dynamite, which is generally used in two ways: 1. Area denial, 2. Charging up B.O.B and potentially getting a kill with the extra damage. I think in lower ranks, people underestimate how much damage her Dynamite can deal and create opportunities for a kill. It is essentially just as strong as an Anti-Nade; if not, stronger (when the target is not in a position to receive any heals). Finally, let’s talk about her Viper, Ashe’s main primary weapon. It is a weapon that excels in mid-range as it has a significant fall off damage after that range. This makes her naturally weak against opponents with a long effective range such as Widowmaker or Ana and strong against opponents with a short effective range such as Reinhardt, Mei, and Brigitte.
You might argue that Ashe is weak against Reinhardt because of his shield that blocks her from sniping, but in my opinion, it’s really easy to get her dynamite off by throwing it and shooting it right above his shield, getting easy ultimate charge. Whereas Orisa’s shield would be harder as the curved shape makes it harder to get an effective Dynamite.
Ahh Bastion, the ultimate hero that dominates the lower ranks. I honestly love this guy. So much hilarious moments I can remember of how it makes the enemy team looks so stupid or less hilariously, how my team looks so stupid. In all seriousness, I think Bastion is quite a good last ditch strategy for a team with only 1min on the clock before overtime. His strength? Dishing out an unbelievable high amount of damage, melting Tanks (easiest one to melt: Winston and I would consider Bastion a hard counter to Winston to be honest. So please don’t play Winston into Bastion, you’ll just be feeding like 99% of the time!) and preventing the enemy team from advancing effectively, but this comes at the compromise of being stationary. Which actually makes Bastion very predictable and hence why he is a bad pick in higher ranks where teams can coordinate to destroy Bastion strategies. Why he works so well in lower ranks is because people in lower ranks have a hard time coordinating to take out the Bastion while easily coordinating to set up a Bastion bunker.
It is important to note that Bastion can only target one hero at a time and going solo when your team is dead/not able to follow up is stupid as the Bastion and his team can easily focus on you. It’s the same principle with flanking. Don’t go on flanks when your team is not there because you’ll just get focused on and die, and your team cannot make use of the space you’re creating by flanking in the first place. The best you can do as a solo player is wait for your team to group up before engaging on the Bastion
What I think are strong counters to Bastion include Sigma, D.Va, Hanzo, Genji (for stupid Bastions who shoot at Deflect), Sombra, Mei, Ana, and Zenyatta just from the top of my head. Below, I’ll briefly explain how they do so.
- Front-lining with Sigma’s Kinetic Grasp can create a lot of space for your team and if the Bastion is not behind a shield, following up with Accretion will deal significant damage and stun him for 1–2 seconds where your team can easily follow up and kill him
- Dive in to the Bastion with Defense Matrix and kill him at short-range with D.Va’s primary weapon
- Since Hanzo is projectile, you can perfectly peek and shoot at the Bastion taking minimal damage at most while charging up your ultimate which can easily kill the Bastion or force the Bastion and his team to reposition since Dragonstrike goes through shields
- Just Deflect and kill that stupid Bastion, if the Bastion is not that dumb then might consider switching cause Genji is not actually that great of a counter
- Get a sneaky angle to hack the Bastion to force him out of his turret form or the Reinhardt to drop his shield
- Just Ice Wall the Bastion off his team, then kill his team or Ice Wall him up so that he is exposed while your team can follow up
- Get an off angle to sleep and nade the Bastion, following up with a few left-click and boom, dead
- Orb of Discord the Bastion, spam left-clicks to drop the shield (or take an off angle) and proceed to kill the Bastion
Obviously, the best way is to coordinate with your team to take out the Bastion. If it takes two to setup, it takes at least two to kill.
I think compared to most other DPS, Doomfist has quite a large hitbox that makes him quite vulnerable as a flanker-type hero, albeit his larger health pool and passive ability which grants him temporary shield (per hit of his ability) compensates quite well for this. This means that it’s quite easy for Doomfist to overextend and die quite easily if he is being focused on. The key to Doomfist is to not be the primary focus and get easy picks on the backline, making him generally strong against squishies who doesn’t have much means to fight back or escape such as Ana, Zenyatta, and Widowmaker. On the other hand, because Doomfist is very dependent on his abilities/mobility to do work, he is easily shut down by Sombra’s Hack or any kind of CC, like McCree’s Flash Bang.
Very similar strengths and weakness to Pharah so I’m only mentioning her strengths and weakness that are unique to Echo here. Please refer to Pharah’s section for her general strengths and weakness, including hero counters. Now looking at Echo’s kit, the abilities that completely differentiates Echo from Pharah is probably her Ultimate (Duplicate) and her Focusing Beam which deals 50 per second, or 200 per second if the target’s HP is 50% or lower. This makes Echo great for counter plays and melting Tanks (like Reaper). She is especially strong against Sigma as her beam goes through Kinetic Grasp.
I think Genji’s strength and playstyle is very similar to Doomfist. A mobile, flanker-type hero. Though compared to Doomfist, he relies more on his ultimate to make plays and hence mostly pokes for ultimate charge and goes for a kill when an opportunity arises instead of simply going in to look for a kill. Because Genji’s Swift Strike cooldown resets after an elimination, ideally the play would be dashing in to confirm the kill and dashing out to safety. However, in the case where an attempt kill is unsuccessful, he has Deflect to bail him out while waiting for Dash to come online. This makes Genji almost impossible to kill whenever he engages which is why heroes that are able to bypass his Deflect are good counters to him. In the Tank line-up, Zarya and Winston are great counters since their primary fire go through Deflect and the fact that Zarya can bubble to peel her teammates (making Genji’s flank harder) and Winston‘s capability to chase Genji down. In the DPS line-up, Symmetra and Mei are quite good. Both of their primary fire go through Deflect while Symmetra’s turrets make it harder for Genji to flank and Mei can also slow down his movement. For the supports, Brigitte is great due to her ability to Bash and fend him off from any further engagement.
While Hanzo is mostly played at the back, shooting arrows and hoping for one of them to land a kill, he has a high damage output at short to medium range from his Storm Arrows. This makes him stronger than most snipers in medium range and good for shield break. He is also quite mobile and is able to get to high ground fairly easily to get more value out of his arrows. Nevertheless, he is still weak against flankers like Tracer and Genji. Although there is basically only one hero he counters, which is Bastion, Hanzo is great for his sonic arrow to give extra vision and his ultimate that synergizes well with other ultimates such as Zarya’s Graviton Surge.
Junkrat’s grenades while hard to precisely aim with, deals a huge amount of damage which makes him strong for area denial and shield break. That’s why he is strong on maps like Temple of Anubis (Point A), Mumbani (Point A), and Lijiang Tower: Control Centre where there are a lot of chokes to spam his grenades through, and heroes like Reinhardt and Bastion are tough matchups against him. Just by aiming at the general direction where the Bastion is situated at, Junkrat can easily take out the shields and kill the Bastion. As for the heroes he is weak against, Pharah would be one because of how he aims his grenades. Although it is possible to kill a flying unit with Junkrat, it is remarkably difficult and hence makes Pharah possibly the best counter to Junkrat. Another great hero counter though is Zarya as she can charge her beam very easily with Junkrat’s spam damage. While not necessarily a counter to Junkrat himself, with her high-charge beam, she can easily dominate games.
As a hitscan hero, McCree is naturally strong against flying units like Pharah, Echo, and Mercy. However, what makes him unique as a hitscan hero is his ability to stun people with his Flash Bang. This gives McCree the ability to shut down mobile heroes like Doomfist, Lucio, and Tracer who heavily rely on their mobility to get value and interrupt ultimates such as Reaper’s Death Blossom, Genji’s Dragon Blade, and Moira’s Coalescence, or simply get a sneaky kill on unaware squishies using his Flash Bang + Fan the Hammer combo. As for McCree’s weakness, he is a hero with fairly poor mobility which means he is vulnerable to getting dove on. Hence, heroes like D.Va and Winston can easily kill him.
When played in the right hands, Mei can be very useful in disrupting the enemy team with her Ice Wall and her freezing effect from her Endothermic Blaster. To top it off, she is hard and annoying to kill with her Cryo-Freeze. She is particularly strong against Reinhardt because of this. Walling off Reinhardt from the rest of his team easily makes him vulnerable and freezing him would force him to drop his shield, which is an easy kill by then. Other tanks that Mei would go well against include D.Va and Wrecking Ball since her primary fire goes through D.Va’s Defense Matrix which lead to an easy freeze whereas Wrecking Ball’s movement are slowed (also might lead to an eventual freeze) making him a very easy target to shoot. Mei is not great for long ranges, however, and this forces Mei into a brawl style which means she is not great against long-range enemy team compositions such as Orisa, Widowmaker, and Pharah. She is also countered by Zarya whose bubble can nullify her freezing effect and gets her a hefty amount of beam charge which can easily out damage Mei’s primary fire.
Because Pharah is best played in the air doing tons of burst damage, good hero counters to Pharah would be ones that disrupt this playstyle. This would mean Sombra is a valid one as she can hack the Pharah to be flightless, rendering her to be suboptimal. However, getting the pick potential is far better which is why the best known counters to Pharah would be hitscan heroes that will force the Pharah to play more passively while creating opportunities for a kill. These heroes include Ana, McCree, Soldier:76, and Widowmaker. D.Va is also another great counter due to her mobility to go for the Pharah and shoot her at close range. While dealing with a single Pharah is easy, when the enemy team has a Phamercy, it is the team’s job to deal with them, not just the DPS. In lower ranks, it really irks me when the tanks or supports (especially a D.Va) ask the DPS to switch to hitscan to deal with the Phamercy like it’s simply the DPS job to deal with them when they could have done their part to help. Switching to D.Va or even Roadhog (hooking the Pharah) or Orisa (shooting at her to help bring her down) if you’re tank and to Ana, Baptiste, or Zen (Orb of Discord the Pharah) if you’re support can immensely help alleviate the pressure of the Pharah and also makes the DPS job to kill her easier. On the other hand, heroes that cannot contest her long range would suffer the most and whom Pharah is strong against. These heroes include Brigitte, Junkrat, Mei, and Reaper.
I think it is not an exaggeration to say that Reaper is the strongest character in Overwatch at 1v1 close range. The damage he can dish out at close range is lethal while being able to heal himself from 30% of the damage he deals make him very tanky as a DPS to kill. Additionally, he has a last resort escape with his Wraith form. Because of this, he is known to be a tank killer and is strong against pretty much all the tanks but Sigma since he can easily out damage them and heal himself in the process. Why Sigma is the only tank not as weak against Reaper is due to his abilities that is able to fend Reaper off. His Kinetic Grasp can absorb his damage and his Accretion can stun Reaper, forcing him to back off. Of course Reaper’s high damage output does come at a cost and that is he has to be close ranged which makes him weak against Pharah and Echo whom he has no way to contest at such a long range.
It is important to note that just because Reaper is short-range, doesn’t mean long-range heroes will counter him as he can easily close the distance using his Shadow Step.
Other heroes that somewhat counters him is Ana — due to her strong CC ability that is fairly easy to hit with Reaper’s fairly large hitbox and her anti nade that makes his passive healing disabled, McCree — due to his Flash Bang + Fan the Hammer combo before Reaper can use Wraith to escape, and Junkrat — due to his burst damage to one shot a Reaper.
Soldier:76 is a hero that defines a standard DPS character that can provide consistent damage at range while also being able to heal himself and quickly position himself with his sprint. This sorts of put Soldier:76 in a position where he doesn’t have much strengths or weakness against other heroes. His obvious strength is his mobility that allows him to access certain high grounds rather quickly and dealing with Pharah and Echo. His weakness, on the other hand, is probably any hero that can one shot him easily such as Roadhog or McCree with their typical combo. Other than that, there’s really not much to say about this hero since he’s built to be quite straightforward.
Sombra’s primary value lies in her Hack ability, which is very good against heroes who rely on their abilities and for maps with frequently accessed health packs. A prime example of heroes that would suffer from Sombra’s Hack are Reinhardt (No shield), Doomfist (No Damage/Mobility), and Wrecking Ball (No Mobility/No Health Packs). However, to get the most value out of her Hacks, Sombra needs to use her Stealth which can be discovered through Hanzo’s Sonic Arrows, making him the only counter I can think of. Rather than heroes, I think countering Sombra is mostly done through playstyle such as not being to reliant on your Reinhardt’s shield and taking natural cover, etc.
Symmetra is really more of a Support than a DPS and so she has to play around her team to get the most value.
Her turrets do work wonders in lower ranks (i.e., Bronze and Silver) though as people don’t notice it and can easily hard carry games
Her turrets work as some sort of area denial which deals 40 damage per second and slows down movement speed by 20%, but her true power is actually close range as she can deal a lot of damage when her beam is charged through objects such as enemies, barriers, and turrets. This results in her being strong against shield heroes such as Reinhardt and Sigma, but weak against long-ranged heroes especially Pharah as she has no way of dealing with her. Furthermore, because she has no means of survivability, Symmetra is quite vulnerable to getting dived on so Winston and Reaper are quite effective against her. D.Va is a vague one since she will lose out to a high-charged Symmetra quite easily but is probably effective otherwise.
While Symmetra’s turret work mostly for small area denial, Torbjörn’s turret can zone out large areas of maps, making him particularly good for defense and against flankers such as Tracer, Reaper, and Genji. It is also arguably good against a Dive strategy as the turret forces the Tanks to play slower with the extra damage output from the turret. As Torbjörn is a hero that plays around his turret a lot, heroes that can easily destroy his turret make great counters to him. Pharah would probably be the best counter to him as she can fly and locate the turret easily and two shots from her rocket should be able to bring the turret down.
As a mobile, flanker-type hero, Tracer is great against heroes with limited survivability such as Hanzo and Zenyatta. However, it really boils down how good the players are at 1v1. I’ve seen Hanzo’s and Zenyatta’s winning 1v1 against Tracer multiple times (so it can’t be luck but skill). Tracer doesn’t have any inherent weakness other than her low HP pool and being reliant on her mobility to make plays and so heroes that can reduce her health pool or shut down her mobility makes the best counters. This means Torbjörn and Symmetra work quite well because their turrets can make Tracer’s flanking missions harder. McCree and Brigitte are also great options because of their CC abilities.
To sum up Widowmaker, she is your standard Sniper you see in other games with additional skills that make her job easier (i.e., Grapple Hook to get her to good positions for sniping or repositioning from dangerous situations, and Venom Mine to help her warn of flankers and win 1v1 fights up close). As a squishy sniper that shoots from long range, she is weak against high mobility heroes who can easily fight her up close (e.g., D.Va, Winston, Genji, and Reaper) or deny her from shooting from long range (i.e., Shield Heroes: Reinhardt, Sigma, Orisa). Conversely, she is strong against heroes that will lose out to her long range position. These heroes include Ashe, Hanzo, McCree, and Mei. For Ashe and McCree, their effective range is much shorter than Widowmaker’s which basically means the damage falloff at a long range becomes significant. As for Hanzo and Mei, even though they don’t have damage falloff like hitscans, projectiles makes it harder to time to hit the Widowmaker.
And that’s it for the DPS role! Hopefully it has been quite useful. Next up will be the Support Role. Thanks for reading and happy Overwatch-ing!
