Blizzard’s been shaking things up with their hero ban stuff in Overwatch 2. It’s like, if you’ve played any matches lately, you might’ve seen some familiar faces missing, right? Sombra, Zarya, Symmetra, Ana, Mercy—yeah, those ones. They’re getting banned a lot, like, religiously. So, Blizzard dropped some stats, and yep, turns out this ban fest is not without reason. But what does that mean for our favorite heroes? Changes might be on the way. Some characters might get a makeover, so to speak, all because they keep getting the axe in matches.
Anyway, the numbers kinda blew my mind. Sombra? She’s like, banned crazy 85% on PCs. Console players? Even higher, at 93%. Seriously, what’s up with that? And then there’s Zarya doing a decent job of being unpopular too, with her own 59% ban rate. And poor Doomfist and Symmetra, tagging along in the ban parade.
Gavin Winter, some big shot at Blizzard, talked about it. He’s all about using this info to tweak things in Overwatch 2. He said something like, if a hero’s always benched, maybe they need to be more straightforward or something like that. And those who nobody picks might get some love just because. But—but!—don’t hold your breath for a magic fix right now, because there’s nothing concrete yet. Basically, bans don’t solely decide how heroes get their revamp.
It makes you think though. If Sombra’s benched in 85% of competitive games, what’s the point? No shade, but investing time in a hero just to not play them? Ugh.
Blizzard’s mostly cool with the whole system, except for, you know, a few odd decisions here and there with the tie-breaking or whatever. Winter says they’re meeting goals and all that jazz. Excited about the future, blah blah. It gets spicy when they mention Hero Bans evolving, and more data is on the way!
By the way, hang tight for season 17 coming late June. There’ll be this new map-voting thingy. Who knows where that’ll lead, right?
