Blizzard Entertainment has launched a ban on heroes Overwatch 2 In April, and if you’re playing competitive games in Season 16, you’ll notice that certain heroes (such as Sombra, Zarya, Symmetra, Ana, Mercy) are one of the most consistently banned characters. Newly published data from Blizzard indicates that there may be some qualifying, and the frequency of banning those heroes is likely to ultimately result in some consequences. Some heroes may be rebalanced or more substantially changing, the developers say in part as a result of a consistent ban.
“Sombra leads the PC pack with an impressive 85% ban rate, followed by Doomfist with 59% at Zarya 43%,” Blizzard said in a blog post. “On the console, Sombra is further banned at a further 93% rate. She is followed by Zariya at 57% and Symmetra at 23%.”
Gavin Winter, senior systems designer at Blizzard, said that the banned hero data from the past month will be used “to signal changes in balance.” Overwatch 2. “More niche or map-specific heroes may need to be more generalized if they are banned in places where they are always working,” Winter said. “A very unpopular hero may see more adjustments regardless of their performance. Ultimately, there are no specific changes to the work based on this data yet. Hero banned data alone won’t disrupt the balance of heroes.”
It’s obviously unclear what exactly means for characters like Zarya and Symmetra, but if a character like Sombra can’t play in 85% of competitive games Overwatch 2 That’s a big problem as players don’t like to face her. If you can only play a character that is competitive, what are the points to invest in?
That said, subtracting some tiebreaking decision-making habits in the non-hero system, Blizzard “is happy with how it works overall.” Winter said, “We believe the system meets most of its goals and look forward to how hero bans evolve over time, especially as we start releasing more data on hero victory and future pick rates!”
Blizzard will have more control over how matches play in Season 17, which is scheduled to launch a new map voting feature in late June.
