Who are the best Heroes to play in Overwatch for Season 23?
Overwatch has over 30 heroes to choose from and it can be daunting to know who's good at what they could do and who could get better. Despite the ever rotating metagame these heroes will be ranked based on how well they perform on average and how high their potential is for the current game's meta at the beginning of competitive season 23.
S Tier is composed of the best characters in the game. These are the characters that can dominate the game regardless of team comp, the best characters to help you climb out of the lower tiers into the upper echelon.
- Reinhardt 98/100 (Tank)
- Ashe 96/100 (DPS)
- Orisa 92/100 (Tank)
- Ana 89/100 (Healer)
- Moira 87/100 (Healer)
- Genji 85/100 (DPS)
A Tier has solid characters. Characters that are still viable in the meta but might need a little more help and coordination to play well and get the most out of the character.
- Hanzo 84/100 (DPS)
- Echo 83/100 (DPS)
- D.Va 81/100 (Tank)
- Sigma 80/100 (Tank)
- Mercy 78/100 (Healer)
- Tracer 76/100 (DPS)
- McCree 72/100 (DPS)
B Tier characters are the situational picks. These characters are great in certain situations but once those situations are past they quickly lose their value and you're better off switching to an A or S tier character.
- Brigitte 69/100 (Healer)
- Winston 68/100 (Tank)
- Baptiste 66/100 (Healer)
- Mei 65/100 (DPS)
- Zarya 63/100 (Tank)
- Roadhog 62/100 (Tank)
- Widowmaker 61/100 (DPS)
- Torbjorn 60/100 (DPS)
- Mercy 59/100 (Healer)
- Junkrat 56/100 (DPS)
- Reaper 54/100 (DPS)
- Soldier:76 52/100 (DPS)
- Sombra 51/100 (DPS)
C Tier are the characters that are rarely the best pick. There is almost always a better character to pick. Most of these characters are usually only good for people who "main" them who have dozens to hundreds of hours of experience playing these characters. Even then characters are not likely to be effective after the lower tiers.
- Zenyatta 49/100 (Healer)
- Doomfist 48/100 (DPS)
- Wreckingball 45/100 (Tank)
- Symmetra 42/100 (DPS)
- Pharah 41/100 (DPS)
Deep Dives into the Top 2 Tiers
Reinhardt (S Tier)
Charge! Reinhardt charging into the fray
Reinhardt, the armored knight with a hammer that might even be bigger than his ego. Reinhardt is basically the definition of a tank. His giant shield protects his entire team from damage. He has a charge ability that allows him to charge into a fight and take out an opponent when he does. He has a giant hammer to fight off opponents when he recklessly charges into a fight. He has a lot of armor to absorb damage while he's in the thick of a fight protecting him (hopefully) long enough for a healer to save him from himself. And Reinhardt's earthshatter which will incapacitate anyone on the opposite team on the ground in front of him giving him the chance to go in for the kill before they can kill him.
- High armor for survivability
- High damage absorbing shield
- Charge ability that takes out any squishy and does high damage to any other opponent
- Firestone the moves until it hits a wall dealing damage to any enemy that gets caught in its path
- Earthshatter that knocks down and incapacitates enemies on the ground in range
Reinhardt details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Reinhardt
Ashe (S Tier)
B.O.B. in Ashe in their gold gun skins
Ashe is the southern belle you don't want to cross. With her Omnic companion B.O.B. she is certainly one to be feared. When she uses her Ultimate she throws B.O.B. into the fight and for the next 10 seconds you have a 7th member of your team that not only pumps out damage but can contest the payload. Ashe also has a coach gun which can give you some much needed separation by knocking you and your opponent back so she can line up her shot. Her dynamite ability allows her to throw a bundle of dynamite which upon explosion causes damage over time to help soften or even finish up opponents.
- Basically creates a 7th teammate with her ultimate
- Coach shot deals enough damage to get opponent's damage low along with giving her the opportunity to create space and/or escape the area
- Dynamite can soften up enemies along with finishing them off.
- Her main gun deals decent damage whether it's in scope mode or not.
Ashe details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Ashe
Orisa (S Tier)
Orisa throwing down her "bongo"
A stout, at times totally immovable tank that wants to help. Her kit of having a high damage, nearly infinite shield combined with the ability to pull enemies together and an ultimate that makes everyone around her better she is by far the best pick when it comes to which hero you want soaking up damage and feeding your healers ultimate charge.
- Nearly infinite shield
- Powerful team lifting ultimate ability
- High armor to health ratio
- A cooldown ability that is nearly equivalent to an ultimate
- The ability to personally neutralize several powerful crowd control ultimates with a cooldown ability.
Orisa details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Orisa
Ana (S Tier)
Ana is a sniping healer who has topped lists of best healers in the game since her introduction. That's for one primary reason, her health grenade. An ability on the shorter side of cool downs which can boost every other healing ability and health pack for your team while leaving the enemy team unable to heal for several, possibly critical, seconds. When she finds her mark your team usually wins. Not only that but her sleep dart incapacitates any enemy it hits by putting them to sleep for several seconds and completely taking them out of the fight especially if you can get a kill on them right when they wake back up.
- Healing grenade buffs team while eliminating enemy teams healing ability
- Sleep dart is a powerful cooldown ability that can stop any ultimate that can be interrupted
- When hitting her shots she has the most non-ultimate healing per second in the game
- She has hit scan ability to deal with characters that spend a lot of time in the air
- Her ultimate not only buffs a single teammates damage it also instantly fills there health meter in totality
Ana details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Ana
Moira (S Tier)
Moira blasting her ultimate to make you submit to her will
The sadistic scientist Moira has some of the highest healing in the game. Her kit is rather different from most healers in that she has to charge up her healing capacity by doing damage. This puts her in the position of having to deal a decent amount of damage if you want to get the maximum potential from her healing. Keeping with the trend of choosing between giving her team life or bringing death to the enemy she can project an orb in any direction that bounces off surfaces and either heals teammates or damages your opponents depending on the situation at hand. Her ultimate ability is what really propels Moira into one of the best healers in the game. A devastating Dragon Ball Z-esque beam that penetrates shields to do both massive amounts of damage and healing to the respective teams while also healing herself in the process.
- Near teleporting like ability to escape when in trouble
- Ultimate Ability that can devastate your enemies while saving your own team in a pinch
- Healing/damage orbs to push allies or enemies one way or the other
- High damage capability
- High healing capacity
Moira details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Moira
Genji (S Tier)
Genji's spirit grows strong under the moon
Cyborg ninja perfectly explains Genji's character and the way you play him. Genji's greatness is based primarily on one thing, his mobility. He has the ability to climb nearly every vertical surface and with some of the best movement speed in the game he can dizzy his opponents. This combined with his ultimate, dragon blade, which invokes a dragon swirling around his katana truly makes him a cyborg enhanced ninja. At the heart of his play, much like Tracer, he is a glass cannon able to do a lot of damage but not able to take much. His abilities help to keep him alive with his deflect sending all projectiles including ultimates back to where they came from and his dash to help him get to health packs and out of sticky situations.
- Wall Climbing for almost all vertical geometry in the game
- High damage output through his Shuriken and his ultimate
- High mobility through movement speed amd dash ability
- Increased survivability and damage with deflect ability to send back incoming projectiles including ultimates
Genji details:https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Genji
Hanzo (A Tier)
The Dragon Consumes Hanze with his Dragonstrike
Hanzo, the other Shimada brother, is the dragon archer who doesn't miss. His character kit involves a creative use of his arrows to take out the opponent. His sonic arrows grant the ability to see enemies through walls in a small area for a certain amount of time, making it impossible to line up head shots before the opponent has even peaked or revealing the presence of flankers to not be caught off guard. His storm arrow ability allows him to shoot arrows rapid fire to quickly deplete an opponent's health bar (as long as you can land the shots). With dragonstrike Hanzo shoots an arrow that can go through walls and summons 2 spiraling dragons which at that point can't be stopped and move straight across the map.doing damage to anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the middle of it.
- Dragons that pierce walls and move through the map and anything in their path
- Storm arrows that shoot fast and hit hard to take out large enemies even tanks
- Wall run to get into high spot sniper spots
- Dash ability to quickly reposition and get into spots that might be difficult with just wall run
- Sonic arrow to see enemies through walls.
Hanzo details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Hanzo
Echo (A Tier)
Echo becomes a giant anthropamorphic bug in her butterfly skin
Echo, the copycat robotic hero that will probably take you down before you realize you're taking damage. Her simple kit is what makes her so easy and so deadly. Her flight ability allows her to get the high ground on almost any hero also allowing her to flank the enemy team and get out quickly. Her sticky bombs combined with her laser allow her to quickly do a large amount of damage very quickly to give her team a numbers advantage in early in a fight. But what sets her apart is her ultimate which allows her to copy anyone (besides another Echo) on the opposite team and quickly build their ultimate and unleash it, sometimes multiple times before the 15 second timer is up. This means you can get 2 junkrat tires or D.Va bombs and completely destroy a team before they know what hit them.
- Flight ability for repositioning
- Sticky bomb pairs well with her laser for fast takedowns.
- Laser pumps out damage to finish off opponents
- Powerful ultimate can get you several ultimates for one.
Echo details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Echo
D.Va (A Tier)
D.Va throwing attitude with her mech
D.Va the gamer turned fighter pilot takes damage as well as she dishes it out. Her mech grants her the ability to fly around which allows her to reposition basically at will. This gives her great opportunities to dive enemies especially small targets and then immediately get back to heal back up. This pairs well with her ultimate which allows her to leave her mech and initiate a self destruct that obliterates anything not in the vicinity by dealing the single most instant damage in the game. No tank would be worth their weight without being able to protect her teammates and that's exactly what defense matrix is for. It gives her the ability to absorb any projectiles caught in its radius, incredibly powerful for ultimates like Pharah and even Hanzo and Mei basically rendering it useless if used well.
- Self destruct does massive damage
- She can get her mech back without respawning basically giving her 2 lives
- Defense matrix absorbs any projectiles
- Flight gives her amazing reposition ability
- Getting guns do great damage up close and need no reload
D.Va details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Dva
Sigma (A Tier)
Sigma showing his power over gravity
The gravity physicist Sigma is a hybrid tank bringing in some of the best parts of off tanks and main tanks to create a powerful tank that can tank damage and dish it out too. His accretion rock has the ability to stun opponents out of cooldown more abilities, but more importantly out of ultimates. His damage production can match most DPS characters but with the additional ability to absorb damage directed at him giving him increased health capacity. This, along with his shield, allows him to play on the frontline of a battle supporting whatever tank he plays alongside on top of attracting a vast share of the attention from the opposing team.
- Can cancel certain opponents abilities and ultimates
- High damage dealing potential
- Can increase health capacity while cancelling out opponents damage
- Ultimate that can displace the opposing team and guarantees a vast amount of damage done
- Has a shield that can be projected in any direction in order to protect the team from wherever damage comes from.
Sigma details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Sigma
Mercy (A Tier)
Mercy's Servants Never Die in her Witch Skin
Mercy the Swedish Doctor that is more like a goddess that grants you a second chance. Mercy's character defining trait is her Resurrection ability which brings back one teammate to full health without them having to go through the respawn process. Her staff has two modes, healing and damage buff which, as their names suggest, either heal your teammate or give them a damage buff to tear apart opponents. Valkyrie, her ultimate, basically super charges her. Her movement speed is increased. Instead of floating she can start flying and rush to anyone on her team dead or alive as long as she can get line of sight on them. Her beam now can propagate to the entire team instead of one individual. But most importantly she truly becomes battle Mercy, having an infinite number of shots on her gun as long as her ultimate is active.
- Easy healing and damage buff for teammates
- Can reposition to any teammates in range
- Resurrection of teammates can eliminate opponents or even give your team a numbers advantage.
- Valkyrie creates a supercharged Mercy that can do everything better
Mercy details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Mercy
Tracer (A Tier)
Tracer showing off her guns and her spunk
Tracer has a line in Overwatch in which she says speed kills and for her that couldn’t be more true.. Tracer’s primary ability is her blink, a move that allows her to teleport short distances and making her a nightmare to track when she’s in the hands of anyone who knows how to use her. Her quick movements, her fast shooting guns, and a near uncanny ability to get out of sticky situations makes tracer a near must pick for anyone with the skills to handle her.
- Sticky bomb to kill any low health character it sticks to
- Quick fire shots that devastate slow characters
- Nearly unhittable with a high enough skill
- Ability to escape when a situation becomes too much to handle
- Such a pest that you have to either deal with her or get picked apart
Tracer details: https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Tracer
McCree (A Tier)
McCree competing with Widowmaker for best aim
McCree, former leader of the deadlock game and proprietor of the "It's High Noon" meme. The meme is a reference to his ultimate where he cries out his titular phrase and locks on to any opponent in sight with a guaranteed hit, possibly headshots if allowed to fully locked on. It's a deadly ultimate that can easily take out an entire team if caught unprepared. When not using his ultimate he can stun enemies with his flashbang. This stops enemies in their tracks rendering them useless for several moments, cancelling ultimates, and giving him the chance to take them out. His roll out attack allows him to create space (or close it) to take out enemies with his gun or with fan the hammer, an attack that empties his gun quickly in a wide area. It sacrifices his deadly accuracy but can more than make up for it in great quick damage to take out characters like Zenyatta and Tracer.
- High noon takes out most opponents
- Fan the hammer does a lot of quick damage for low health opponents
- Flashbang stuns enemies even if they're using their ultimate
- Roll gives him repositioning to get close or further away depending on needs
- Great accuracy gives him a lot of the advantages of a sniper with one of the faster shot speeds for the class
McCree details:https://overwatch.gamepedia.com/Mccree
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