Who is the best Overwatch 2 hero? As of Season 18, 44 heroes are available to choose from. Starting with Blizzard’s hero shooter can be quite daunting. It’s not always easy to know how strong a character you choose is when you constantly stand up against various counters and team comps.
Of course, just because a hero says it’s a must-see doesn’t mean you won’t be able to do a better job with your favorite Overwatch two letters. That said, most players should be able to see this. Overwatch 2-tier list For a quick snapshot of who will play and why. Rank all your Overwatch 2 heroes with free PC games, from Titanic Tanks to Squishy Support.
Overwatch 2-tier list
First, some housekeeping. The Overwatch 2 tearlist is not divided into specific roles, but there is a hero in each role represented in almost every bracket. S-Tia is the best category, representing heroes at the top of the game’s meta, without having to dominate a particular team comp or strategy. Layer A picks are not necessarily worse than the counterparts in the S-layer, but they are generally difficult to use and do their best. B, C, and D tiers represent the lower tier of the Overwatch 2 roster.
There are some similarities, but it is worth pointing out that overwatching two stadium codes on DPS, support, and tank roles doesn’t exactly match this guide. If you’re interested in the stadium, our guide will break down what makes each character powerful in this individual game mode.
Here’s the Overwatch 2-tier list for Season 18:
Tier | hero |
s | Sojourn, Kiriko, Widowmaker, Ana, Tracer, Torbjörn, Winston, Zarya |
a | Freja, Lúcio, Juno, Hazard, D’A VA, Ramattra, Sigma, Ashe, Cassidy, Echo, Zenyatta, Pharah, Symmetra, Junker Queen, Brigitte, Mauga |
b | Wuyang, Doomfist, Venture, Genji, Reaper, Soldier 76, Wrecking Ball, Orisa, Illari, Mei, Baptiste, Junkrat, Moira, Sombra |
c | Reinhardt, Hanzo, Roadhog, Bastion, Mercy |
d | Lifeweaver |
S layer
stay
It’s easy to think of Sojourn as a Soldier 76, but it has a much higher skill limit. Attacking enemies with Sojourn’s main weapon will charge her Railgun and have access to the Hitscan beam, which can deal 200 damage when landing a headshot.
Her ultimate offers a constant railgun fee in a short period of time, and each shot can be pierced, so landing the shot will allow you to wipe your team in seconds.
Kiriko
Kiriko stands out as Blizzard’s main way to switch to support DPS users. Her healing output is impressive in its own merits, but it is also further supplemented by Kiriko’s incredible mobility and shockingly high damage output. In addition to that, she can provide her team with temporary immortality at the moment of clutches that allow her to instantly decide the game.
Widow Maker
The widow’s ability to defeat support heroes with one recharged headshot is to always make her a powerful choice with the right hand, especially as it makes the solo tanks of enemy teams vulnerable. Her extreme range means that, especially thanks to the buffs of her shots, the enemy widow maker can only act as an immediate threat, allowing her to stay on a high point of view and avoid small skirmishes.
That said, her viability as a team pick is almost entirely map-dependent, and although she excels on large maps with open space, she is of little use when fighting at close range. If you insist on choosing WidowMaker, you will need to learn how to play as an additional DPS hero as a backup option to manage situations where Sniper won’t cut it.
cave
With Overwatch 2, it is important to keep the tank alive. This is why ANA is one of the best support available. She can heal your team’s tanks and confuse enemy tanks with sleep darts. The ability to seamlessly switch between healing-friendly and harmful opposition heroes is multi-purpose and quite easy to use, despite her being a sniper.
Plus, Ana’s Nano Boost Ultimate can completely change the game when used at the perfect timing, causing great damage to friendly heroes.
tracer
Tracer is the face of Overwatch and is one of the most difficult heroes to play in the game. Her slight Max health allows her to quickly wipe the tracer without being careful. That said, her mobility is excellent and she is one of the best characters in the meta right now.
In addition to this, Tracer is good for destroying and destroying one strong damage with one damage. She is also one of the very few glass cannons fast enough to avoid roadhog hooks, and a great alternative to mobile flankers like Genji and Sombra.
Trubjorn
The Swedish engineer was once a victim of the fast meta of Overwatch 2, but no longer. With two incredibly powerful perks that sport big DPs with overlord reloads and providing a ton of power to the turret, Tove is in a great place.
Winston
“Monkey One” may be one of the most common callouts in Overwatch 2, but Winston is more than a typical chimpanzee. This magnificent ape is a great diver, protecting your team with a dome-shaped bubble shield and capable of jumping into enemy backlines to wreaking havoc. His moving Tesla Cannon was a simple lock-on and channel of the original Overwatch, but OW2 brought Ortho fire that allowed him to fire it like a regular weapon – he is now much more useful outside of nearby combat.
Zariya
Zaria suffered a similar fate to Genji. At the time of release, she enjoyed a great position as one of the best performing tank heroes. But soon she received Nalf’s barrage of barrages to increase the window of vulnerability. Since then, she has received much needed love, especially with the introduction of the perks of Season 15.
As a result, Zariya can still hold herself, and then some – her cannon deals a lot of damage when she gains a certain amount of fee, and her ultimate can drive at least one hero out of the battle.
Tier
Freja
Freja, an inductee for Season 16, doesn’t live much in the extremely rough power fantasy, finding herself buried by heroes like Hanzo and Ashe. Hotfixes are buffing buffs to her mobility tools, so she carves out the niche as a top-notch complementary pick for diving the comp.
Pike
Playing as Lúcio can sometimes feel like it’s not helping a team that much, but the constant passive healing with the timing ultimate has become an asset to any team. His high mobility is perfect for distracting attention from the hero you are healing, and his soundwave, or boop, will make him fatal with maps with bottomless pits and cliffs to knock on enemies.
Keep ult on hand. This will effectively cancel enemy Arti and turn the situation completely over. His projectile timing is not easy, but once you get it, you can provide a lot of damage output. Combining him with ANA can lead to some incredible speed and nano-boost attacks, allowing antinades timing over the sound barrier to swing the team’s fight hard.
Juno
The new girl in Season 12, Junho shakes the Meta when she was introduced, and Narfu, who received in Season 13, did not stop her from taking control. Juno’s Mediblaster clashed with NERFS, clashing with its falloff range and overall healing, but her mobility remains untouched, ensuring her viability as one of the game’s best supporting heroes.
Being able to heal from afar and have the option to enter and exit combat, she is very convenient and helps her have one of the most busted ultimates in the game now.
danger
An incredibly mobile tank, Hazard is excellent at diving in and out of combat, allowing you to easily concentrate on the backline of vulnerable enemies. In Hazard, both the single-target DPS ability and his ultimate shower are gigantic areas with spikes, damaging enemies trapped in radius. He can also expand several walls and give him a unique attack angle.
d.va
With one of the most effective ultimates in the game and a rounded kit, the D.VA is more powerful than ever. Her mobility makes her particularly effective at reducing damage and supporting heroes. Also, if you can successfully infringe the enemy’s backline as part of the diving comp, you can do a lot of work.
In addition to this, the D.VA’s defense matrix directly counters many powerful abilities, including Moira’s Bio Orb, Reinhard’s Fire Attack, and Ana’s Sleep Darts.
Ramatra
As the first Tempo tank to debut in Blizzard’s hero shooting game, Ramattra’s kit is versatile due to its design. His omnic form is a defensive stance, providing access to his void accelerator staff and void barriers.
Alternatively, trigger Ramatra’s Nemesis form to exert an eight-second offensiveness, and infuse him with the extra armor needed to survive a direct melee attack on enemy teams that ignore shields and barriers.
sigma
Sigma wasn’t leaning forward in Overwatch 1. He’s even more durable with the Overwatch 2. Plus, he now poses a real threat to most of his heroes.
Sigma is excellent on maps with many busy areas. It is almost impossible to miss his projectiles, and his gravity flux ultimate allows him to separate offensive enemies from the pack, making it easy for Hissan’s teammates to dispatch. However, you may feel that you are not doing anything on a particular map.
Ash
Overwatch 2’s 5V5 format and very mobile heroes mean there’s more open space on the battlefield. This had a rather significant effect on the potency of Ash’s dynamite, which deals a lot of damage in busy areas. She’s a big damage pick, but it’s difficult to farm for her ultimate abilities in dynamite, so you’ll need to land your shot to make the most of her.
But her long-term major fire means she can put pressure on without the threat of a closet hero, and Bob is an excellent tool for routeing enemies and turning the tide of the match.
Cassidy
Like Hanzo, Cassidy is great when landing all the shots, and it’s awful if you’re having a day off. His stun grenade was replaced by an Overwatch 2 magnetic ren bullet, removing the ability to deal with tanks himself. Magnetic Handren bullets are extremely effective against other DPS heroes and can deal up to 100 damage in under 2 seconds. Cassidy’s main problem is that he has no chance of survival against any particular hero.
He was able to compete with most of the heroes in the game when Cassidy stunned the Flash Bang, but now his overall damage output is not enough to save him in dangerous situations. Cassidy’s role is no longer hampered by enemy players’ conflicts, but focusing on the short-range heroes of the current meta means that this change offers a limited range that will help you escape your life.
echo
ECHO is much weaker in Overwatch 2 due to its overlapping ability, preventing it from cloning tanks and introducing enemy teams with steam. Nevertheless, she is still a DPS hero who crushes a highly mobile tank with a diverse array of projectiles, beams that melt barriers, and unique ability to replicate her ultimate and enemies.
Zenyatta
Zenyatta is undoubtedly the most difficult support hero to master due to his skilled ceiling, forcing players to grasp strange abilities. However, his ultimate is worth learning his gameplay style as he can stop a coordinated attack on his own by providing his team with constant healing for five seconds.
Farah
Fara hasn’t changed at all, but her aviation maneuverability and damage output could prove fatal on her right hand. She needs a dedicated healer when fighting Hitscan damage heroes like Soldier 76.
On rare occasions when enemy teams do not run Hitzan’s heroes, they can punish them with a deadly Farrah and Mercy combo to deal catastrophic amounts of damage from the sky.
Symmetra
If the hero needs modifications now, it’s Symmetra. Her kit was relatively effective in the first game that was charged from the Shield, but with only a few tanks on the battlefield, she isn’t that strong and keeps dives open from the more agile heroes on the roster. Symmetra has the ability to teleport teams to the field at the start of a match, and is used to some extent as part of a rush comp, in order to get them a step closer to their purpose than their opposing team.
Junker Queen
Proving a bit too strong as both the beta attacker and the tank, Junker Queen’s abilities were nerfed to make her a threat when she fired. She has since received buffs to several abilities, including her passive. Her passive heals for additional wound damage remaining on the enemy after the enemy is applied and dies.
As the seasons drove through, Junker Queen settled into a comfortable place as a medium-layered hero. You rarely suffer playing her, as it’s a safe bet for the tank main.
Bridget
As a brawl support with the potential for tanks, Bridget offers his teammates a suite of passive buffs and protection. She can also get kills when combo mace attacks and shield bashes, but I recommend using the latter as an escape rather than as part of a full-front attack.
Although she hasn’t been arrested enough to return to OG Overwatch Day, Bridget is still an incredibly versatile hero and can keep your team healthy with each swing of Mace.
mountain
Mauga can cause headaches for players due to their overwhelming power as a tank. The regular tank counter works against Mauga, but you need to play completely to defeat him. In Season 18, he is not as dignified as he has in the past, but remains a decent choice.
Layer b
wuyang
A new support hero featured in season 18, Wuyang will continue to keep his teammates alive with Wuxing University’s Water College Healing Technology. His water-based abilities, especially his main attacks, have a clear possibility, allowing you to control the water ball to cause damage from afar. It’s still in its early days, but one thing is for sure. He is definitely not a meta-breaking support hero like Kiriko and Anna, and unfortunately he lands in the B rank.
Doomfist
Doomfist is good at hunting backliners, snipers and air heroes, but his attacking abilities are all very effective only in close combat. As a diving tank, he doesn’t offer much shielding to your team and he’s not as mobile as a hero like Winston. We currently don’t see much of a reason to randomly choose him on the aforementioned monkeys.
Venture
The Venture is a budding archaeologist featured in Season 10 and is one of the freshest characters ever. They can drill into the ground with a drill and emerge from underneath them with enormous force. They have been readjusted several times since joining the roster, which primarily results in lower impact damage, but with time the damage increases, making it meaningful to drill-based weapons.
Ventures could one shot the player, but if they can dodge them in any way, they will have to take a while to recover, making them vulnerable to counterattacks. I think ventures are solid choices, but they are not close to dominant forces.
Gen
Genji has benefited greatly from the shift to the Overwatch 2’s 5V5 match format and the removal of crowd control capabilities that previously made him vulnerable.
If you can slide behind the backline, you can chain Swift Strikes to take out vulnerable heroes like Mercy and Widowmaker. However, you must keep an eye on ammunition while diving. To get the most out of Genji’s kit, you need to be familiar with Overwatch 2 maps and try to sneak up on and not catch them more effectively.
grim reaper
The Reaper is still the best tank buster, and is particularly strong against off-tanks like the D.VA and Winston. With a kit that deals a ton of damage to his name and allows him to reposition and destroy it, Reaper should be in a great place. However, the speed of the current Meta game makes it difficult for him to make an impact.
Soldier 76
Overwatch 2 has a lot of powerful DPS heroes, while Soldier 76 has one of the simplest and most effective kits in Lot. He can sprint and self-heal, which is great for getting away from a pinch, but in fact his strength lies in the amount of damage he can deliver with a standard assault rifle. His massive ammunition clips and generous fire rates ensure that beginners and professionals will enhance this damage, but in many ways he can be considered a stepping stone for high-performance heroes.
wrecking ball
Wrecking balls have declined and flowed in viability since launch. His main strengths are always his mobility, large health pools and regeneration shields, making him a very durable tank. Despite being technically fit into the fast-paced meta, wrecking balls don’t dive as much as Winston or Hazard.
Idol
Orisa’s automatic cannon ensure that your frontline is always deadly. She can escape imminent death by combining Four Follyphy and Javelin’s spin abilities to confuse and push enemies with the javelin of energy. Her terra surge abilities can also penetrate barriers, so you no longer have to resort to your team to break through enemy defenses. Her ability to stay on the battlefield is virtually unparalleled, and she offers enough usefulness to most teams benefit from her presence.
ILS
Irali, featured in season 6, quickly became one of the healers for both competitive and esports level play. She has returned to Season 9 due to a massive game change, but has since struggled to become more than a mid-way pick.
May
She may have less chance of crowd control than before, but her weapons no longer freeze enemies in place. May is very good at setting fires and closing goals. As Overwatch 2 only has one tank per team, May’s ability to absorb damage can really make her powerful, especially if the tank needs to hold the area while it is healed. It is also worth mentioning that using her ice walls to pick up a straggler is still a viable strategy, but the opportunity to do this is a little more limited in Overwatch 2.
Baptist
If you want to support yourself on the frontline, Baptist is a great hero. His main fire really puts him in danger with his right hand. He can self-heal and offer temporary immortality – roll it all together and you have a hero who will come to the clutch regularly.
His EXO boots can also help you reach a higher perspective. You can escape some ultimate with it. A dedicated Baptist Main can certainly justify your position on most team comps, but there’s no denying that Kiriko is also a great alternative pick.
Junkrat
On a map with lots of tight corridors, the Junkrat was a devastating pick. His trap has been badly nerfed in Overwatch 2 and no longer pins players to step into it, but that doesn’t slow his roll. On the contrary, he has a two-hit combo. This combo can be pulled apart by throwing a grenade at you and dropping a concussion mine at the same time.
On top of this, Junkrat’s Ultimate has always been strong, allowing bottlenecks to wipe out the entire team and disrupt the line of defense that has been strengthened with points.
Moira
Moira’s key strength lies in her survivability thanks to Fade, allowing her to easily enter and exit battles, and her ultimate is perfect for clearing crowded areas. Her healing abilities are as powerful as ever, and don’t require the incredible purpose of making the most of Moira. Her Damage Biotic Orbs remain a constant threat on the battlefield. This is to eliminate health from unsuspecting players in harsh areas.
Moira is the type of healer that deals a lot of damage along with her healing obligations, and has gained lots of assists because she has done little. Choose Moira on a small map that is easy to heal large numbers of teammates in the enclosed area.
Sombra
Sombra was redoing over in Overwatch 2, increasing damage output, but not focusing on the abilities of obstacles. Her hacking abilities now add large damage amps to targets. This can be applied when invisible, perfect for backline attacks.
Sombra is great when paired with dive-oriented heroes like Winston and Genji, both of which are in great places. Also, her EMP just shuts down people nearby and makes her a great support option.
Layer C
Reinhard
Regardless, the true tank of Overwatch 2, Reinhardt is good at absorbing enemy fire and leading the rest of the team into battle. A properly timed charging can pick up squishes, but the big ultimate can quickly win the battle.
Hanzo
As always, if you can hit a shot in Hanzo, he is one of the best damage heroes in the game. But it’s pretty big, especially when Overwatch 2 has improved mobility and there’s no one enemy hero. When paired with the right set of heroes, Hanzo’s Ultimate can wipe out the entire team on the spot, but his inability to deal with a highly mobility hero will slam him for sale.
Roadhog
Forget the dog at the top, here is the lowest pig. Roadhog easily benefited from the tank changes in season 11, falling behind the rest of the pack. He can still thrust the average hook out, but he doesn’t have a good time against the shield base or high mobility tank/off tank that currently dominates the meta.
Fortress
Despite being reworked, Bastion still has a bit too many ducks sitting in Overwatch 2. It has strong DPS potential against agile tanks like Winston, but it can be dismantled before it gets damaged. That said, this possibility has been extended to support the characters, and Bastion is easy to send out.
While it is certainly possible to secure a match against your team’s Bastion, reliance on his supportive heroes to help him perform at his best means sacrificeing your team’s composition, which is rarely worth the trade-off.
mercy
it hurts. The impact on the healers back in season 9 has done a lot to mercy, but she hasn’t recovered yet. She still brings value to her allies’ ability to increase damage, but this support-based character is not worth worrying. They can do some kind of work with your involvement, so hopefully you will find a great Farrah player to get into your pocket, but she is far from the best support of the game.
d layer
Lifeweaver
LifeWeaver is a more utility-centric support with rugged healing and access to abilities, allowing you to reposition allies in a pinch. He has a little more skill expression than mercy, for example, but there is still a lot of support that is a much more appealing pick.
In season 15, Lifeweaver was given a lifeline with the introduction of perks, but was not enough to compensate for his basic flaws.
That’s all you need to know about the current Overwatch 2-tier list and meta. Check out the Overwatch 2 Character Guide to learn more about the latest heroes joining the roster. Or take a look at the best Overwatch 2 Cross Hire settings for your chosen character. This allows you to give edge while climbing Overwatch 2 rank in competition mode. If you’re looking for other hero shooters, check out our Marvel rivalry list of the best characters in the game now.