Overwatch:

Hero Pressure Theory

By Teslobo

WTF is This?

In Overwatch teamfights, nobody wants to die. That simple fact is the foundation for overwatch’s 3 categories of heroes. All players are averse to damage, creating an imaginary force that prevents them taking actions that would lead to damage - we will call this “pressure”.

In this presentation, I want to explain how pressure interacts with different heroes and hopefully help you to inform your future hero designs with pressure in mind.

Offense Heroes

Back before the patch introduced to the PTR on 5th June 2018, damage heroes were split into offense and defense, which was for good reason because the two roles are highly distinct.

The job of offense heroes is to create pressure on the enemy’s position while moving toward it, forcing them to either give up the position or die defending it, and usually do this through an even spread of range, damage and mobility so they can clear out a zone before making their way into it. Minor survivability also tends to be helpful to stop offense heroes keeling over mid-push. A game with only offense heroes would have the same feel as a Call of Duty match.

Offense Heroes are: Doomfist, Hanzo, Junkrat, McCree, Pharah, Soldier: 76

Defence Heroes

The defence heroes exist to create pressure in the same vein as offence heroes, however the similarities end there.

What makes a defence hero unique is that it can usually create even more pressure than an offence hero tends to be capable of, the caveat being that defence heroes are especially vulnerable to pressure and are unable to actually follow up on opportunities they create, making them better for zone denial than pushing. Decreased mobility is the best way to create a defence hero, although immobile placeables like turrets, or being crippled at closer ranges can also be helpful.

Defence Heroes are: Ashe, Bastion, Hanzo, Junkrat, Mei, Torbjorn, Widowmaker

(Due to Blizzard changing heroes to be more viable on attack, you may notice a couple of repeating heroes that appeared in offence. They’re in a weird limbo subject to Blizzard’s balancing requirements, but the release of Ashe following all those changes demonstrates they’re still committed to hard defensive heroes)

Assassin Heroes

A role category that did not previously exist but I’m hereby declaring it one. assassins are damage heroes that live outside the whole pressure metagame.

These heroes are utterly incapable of putting pressure on enemies, but their tendency for high mobility and sustain allows them to exist inside pressure zones and be highly resistant to the consequences. The role of assassins is to disrupt the logistics of the enemy’s pressure management by disabling their plans. Assassins tend to come with high burst damage to knock out targets instantly with 0 warning, causing their team to buckle under the pressure your team provides.

Assassin Heroes are: Genji, Reaper, Sombra, Tracer

Anchor Tank Heroes

In the broad strokes all tanks do the same thing: they reduce the enemy’s pressure output, allowing your team to do stupid and reckless shit they normally can’t get away with. However, a lot of tanks go about this very differently so I thought it was worth breaking down.

Anchor tanks are probably your most traditional form of protection from pressure. Anchor tanks have the power to designate a safe zone that protects allies from the effects of incoming pressure. Anchor tanks should ideally have either a mobility option or considerable range in order to help them to designate targets more flexibly. Additionally, anchors should come equipped with barrier-piercing abilities to break stalemates between two anchor points.

Anchor tanks: Orisa, Reinhardt

Dive Tank Heroes

On the other end of the spectrum from anchor tanks are the dive tanks, which have next to no concern with team protection, despite a tank’s job being to protect the team.

The job of a dive tank is actually to combine the traits of offence damage heroes and assassin heroes, breaking into enemy zones of pressure and then proceeding to exert its own pressure on the enemy team, with the goal of disrupting enemy pressure production instead of outright killing enemies like assassins do. High mobility, close range and crowd control abilities help dive tanks establish control of the zone the enemy wanted to use to their advantage. This achieves the same result as an anchor tank, just via different means.

Dive Tank Heroes are: D.Va, Winston, Wrecking Ball

Rook Tank Heroes

If anchor tanks were overprotective mothers keeping all their children safe and together and dive tanks were the older brother that beats up the school bully for you, rook tanks are the condescending dad that waits for you to mess up before giving you the “I told you so” routine.

Rook tanks have incredibly powerful tools that are hampered by limited scope (like a single target) or lengthy cooldowns. What this means is that rooks protect their team not through their actions but rather through their inaction. A hook or bubble waiting in the wings is a more than credible threat if a hero tries to pressure their way into range, creating an implied no-go region wherever a rook tank goes which severely hampers the enemy’s ability to put on pressure within these wide-reaching spaces.

Rook Tanks are: Roadhog, Zarya

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Support Heroes

The only category that doesn’t need splitting into 3, supports are fairly simple in their duty: amplify pressure.

When heroes are under pressure, their own ability to give out pressure becomes reduced, which is what dive tanks employ to help their team. The most obvious manifestation of this is hurt heroes needing to leave the fight to find a health pack, removing their pressure contribution to the fight. Support heroes exist at their core to mitigate incoming pressure so allies can continue to do their job. To do this, supports often need either high range or high mobility to be able to deliver support at a moment’s notice. Support heroes can also incorporate various utilities to raise the team’s pressure output far beyond what it’s usually capable of.

Support Heroes are: Ana, Baptiste, Brigitte, Lucio, Mercy, Moira, Zenyatta

The Symmetra Conundrum

While Symmetra could be put into the defence hero category I thought she should have a special discussion, because she’s pretty much a perfect case study of how not keeping to the principles of pressure set out here can make everything go wrong.

Yes Symmetra has the static placeables which could hallmark her for defence, but those turrets can be thrown straight onto enemy positions to create pressure and the teleporter gives her the mobility to go follow up on that. Despite this though she lacks the damage output reliability to be considered for offence, the efficacy of her zone control is wanting, her teleporter has a supportish utility attached to it and her ultimate blocks enemy pressure like a tank. Symmetra, after her numerous reworks has settled for Jack of All Trades; Master of none. And she’s coincidentally the least meta hero the game has ever seen. Hmmmmmmmmmm.