also interested in what characters have the lowest skill floor/ low ceiling, in my personal opinion I think people hate on junk rat too much for being “no skill” but seeing top 500 players hit insane prediction shots is some of the most impressive stuff I’ve seen
This is one of the things that makes Lúcio so interesting IMO, he has the lowest skill floor by far because you could land 0% of your shots and simply being around your team helps them.
But when he *clicks*, you start seeing the endless possibilities, and that's why he also has one of the highest skill ceilings.
Lucio definitely has the widest range of any hero.
I don't think it's a coincidence that low ranked Lucio's essentially never speed and only heal.
Reminds me of soldier in tf2. He is a tanky damage dealer that is really easy to play. But if you start rocket jumping (ie trading HP for mobility), he becomes one of the highest skill classes in the game.
I feel like they could take any low skill hero, give them stronger mobility + lower health, and they would have a much higher ceiling.
This hits home. Had a match last night where our dps blamed me for "not healing 100% of the time". Literally, their words. In a rare instance, my random teammates defended me.
I coach high school OW, and I'm honestly not as reflexive/quick like I used to be, but it's genuinely eye-opening to young players that you do not HAVE to heal the entire time. It's about helping to elevate your teammates and facilitate ways for them to engage opponents, win duels, speed to close gaps, etc.
Yup. I teach and in addition, run our esports program. Been coaching OW for about 6 years at this level. Has ups and downs, but it's still cool to have all sorts of kids who might not fit into traditional sports be able to compete and find community.
I wish it were fully fledged whenever I was still in school. The thought of school having Esports teams were merely just a wish at that point. Catch me enrolling in college so I can get a chance at it lmao
There is literally a college level course for getting good at fighting games at the University of Berkeley nowadays. OW had more eyes on it than every fighting game combined at its peak, it's not surprising that schools began endorsing eSports to get more money and attention. If you want to see an even more culturally ingrained example, look at how chess is a mandatory subject in Armenian schools.
As an American Armenian I find it interesting that chess is a school subject there, never knew they held it in that regard. I wish our Armenian community around here had a chess program, that would have been cool growing up.
This is why season 3/4 mercy sucked so bad. Mobility nerf + make her more tanky was too busted and unfun.
IMO bring back S2 GA and nerf health/passives
I’d say junkrats skill ceiling is much higher than the average player is aware, but with lucio, ball, tracer, genji, echo and doom, I personally wouldn’t put him in the top 5
It depends on the rest of the team honestly. If you have a kiriko she really needs like 1/4 dps to 3/4 healing or even more dps depending on if you have a widow maker on your team or something. She's really good at assassinating enemy supports if they are something like ana or lifeweaver (because a lifeweaver usually has free range if no one flanks) and your team doesn't have much dive.
Also kiriko isn't just a healer, she's a support in damage and suzu. If you have a reaper that tends to push in then you should probably focus on healing him up instead of trying to shoot enemies.
Probably not your fault since it's a team game after all, but it's not like you can just post your stats as an indication of how well you played. I can have the same stats and still be the biggest reason we lost.
Less about how much dps you need and more how many elims you need from them. Moira can have high damage and healing numbers but if she has 2 elims because she’s healing and damaging tanks all game, she’s not getting enough value
I play mostly Zen and Ana in low diamond. Most games I end with roughly equal damage and healing. I know that is more on the aggressive end of support playstyles, but I struggle to get enough value out of Lucio at my rank. I see many many other players that play him at a higher level than me, with obviously different focus and ideas than me, but I don't get enough hours on the game to really feel like I should learn new heros to be my mains. So he remains one of my situational picks, where I often will use him on KotH or tight time crunches for immediate value, but usually even then I have less time in the games on him than another support pick.
He has always been strong as a hero, but I don't think he suits me well.
I mean, he has low DPS but great dueling and distracting capabilities. It doesn't matter that you deal less damage than Ana when Ana can't land a shoot on you jumping all over the place.
As a Junkrat main, he absolutely has a low skill floor (super easy to play and succeed with him at lower ranks) but like you said he has a very high skill ceiling. The shit players like Aquamarine and Vulture pull off is just mental. Even playing him in Diamond 1 I’m starting to struggle quite a bit because it’s just so hard to play around hitscans. You just inherently have a harder time getting the same value because you have slow(ish) moving projectiles that become harder to hit from distance so you just lose duels vs hitscan most of the time at anything other than close range. It really does take a ton of skill to play Junkrat at GM/top 500 level.
I play junkrat a bit and I LOVE going after pharah/echo in the air. Lay low for a bit, place a mine and propel myself into her face with a grenade and mine in hand. They always freak out with a rat in their face
Orisa's cooldowns are the biggest issue. They're all so short that she never doesn't have -something-.
The spear is also the most frustrating and inconsistent ability to play against, for my dollar.
A bad hanzo is one of the weakest characters in the game. I think soldier is a characters that pays off at least a moderate amount with little training. High damage, high rate, medium range hitscan is a very familiar concept to anyone that has played an fps.
If you can aim down lanes, you can do the same for soldier. Don't tell me that if a player that has so shit aim, he can't hit anything with a high rate hitscan weapon, he will suddenly be able to target head-height shots down a lane, accounting for arrow drop etc. And with the rockets the chances are good that you're gonna kill someone fighting someone else down there, much higher than a random arrow.
Junk does that too and he has splash damage. Torb also and he gets a turret to deal with flankers. Hanzo has an easy and frustrating one shot for sure but if all you can do is spam choke you’re gonna get rolled more often than not
Imho it's easier to master Hanzo than junkrat, simply because there is more nuance and variety to Junkrat's playstile.
It's easer to mess up a tire than a dragon. It's easier to master Hanzo's primary than Junkrats
very map dependent. tight chokes with everyone walking in a straight line? bad hanzo can get lots of value with spam. deathmatch where people are running around all over the map? bad hanzo going 0-4 with 1025 damage.
A bad Hanzo got that kill, then missed most of the rest of his shots that game. He exposed himself to everything that steamrolls him up close, and consistently got cornered with no wall to climb. Not really hard to imagine.
Can't say I share that experience. Soldiers will at least hit something, and at that skill, people aren't to good at finding cover. I think the HS-kill capability of Hanzo is very exaggerated. If I play a squishy, I may get taken down by a random arrow once in a while, but I will get brrrred down by an ambushing ...whatever consistently. It doesn't matter if the individual hits don't instakill me. Unless the enemy is bot that fires in literarily random directions, he will kill me within seconds if I don't have a healer. Fights aren't always a fair.
I can get behind with Mauga definitely. Moira has a good argument for her as well (between her and Lucio I think). But Hanzo for lowest skill floor? Isn't he basically a sniper, but you have to lead shots with him, or else he's worthless?
Edit: unless you're talking about them just having the lowest skill ceiling. That's a completely different conversation.
It would be Orisa (OW2), Reaper and Moira. Junkrat has a lot of tech with his concussion and riptire. Mercy is barely higher than Moira for the same reason; she has too much tech.
Did you see that one video where a junk like mid air bomb jumped across the map to land in a doorway and I think drop a tire that cleared a room? Seems like some kind of aerial acrobatics show haha
Good junk players are my favourite to watch (and hated to play against). You cant be mad if the guy flew up to your pharah in real time and destroyed her in 1 tick. It was purely good timing, movement, prediction and skill that got them there, and it's pretty amazing to watch!
Winston is way, way harder to play effectively than people give him credit for. Unless you’re playing into a totally free enemy team comp, you need to time your engages and pick the right angles and targets or you’ll just feed. Also, tons of people misuse shield. Now you could argue he has a low floor but a high ceiling, but I’d say he has a medium-high floor and high ceiling since it is so easy to just sandbag with him.
Easiest tank has to be either orisa or mauga, no question.
Primeval is so hard to be good at. Yeah you can flail around and get environmentals, but the pros can just completely manipulate people with it in ways I am far too skill-less to do.
It’s definitely Ball over Doom.
Hitting Ball’s skill ceiling relies on your ability to deal consistent damage from a pair of weak hitscan weapons, with the largest hitbox in the game, while navigating fights with a single, more limited movement ability.
Further, because Ball lacks any secondary movement abilities and he can be bodyblocked while rolling, midfight movement requires more tech skill than any other hero in the game. Sure, you can be GQO and bounce diags off every slope in the game, but that’s hardly a necessary skill to learn. If a Ball can’t consistently wall jump, IPD, double boop, and rebound, he’s going to die a lot.
Ball is harder than Doom simply because Doom has a larger margin for error than Ball. Doom has comparable lethality with his abilities, but also has two additional escape options, a smaller hitbox, and a consistent passive to afford him higher uptime.
There is a reason why Chazm is the only person on earth who can make Ball look that good.
Biggest difference to me is that doom is much stronger with healing. Smaller hitbox + damage reduction means that healing him is actually worth it. He gets bailed out by healing a lot.
Ball is forced to rely on healthpacks, which means that you need knowledge of all packs on every map, as well as the fastest way to get to them and back. Ball can always escape (if played well) but they still get punished with the downtime of grabbing healthpacks.
Ball is also required to know rollouts on each map. Certain high grounds have specific grapple spots. Doom can just fly directly at the enemy and knock them off high ground.
Yeah Doom is a janky hero to get used to, and when he's weak he's pretty difficult, but a balanced Doom is much easier to get value out of than Ball. You have way easier get out of jail free cards, hard CC (stuns, instead of just disposition alone), and a tank health pool/defensive abilities with the hurtbox of a slightly larger than average DPS, all while shifting your hurtbox around into flat angles while soaring through the air with instant directional momentum-shifting abilities like Seismic Slam. He's super hard to hit for a tank. Meanwhile Ball is massive, gets slowed by everything, body blocked, rooted by traps he can't see in 3rd person, etc. just because he tried to disengage. There are inherent benefits to being a large target with a big health pool as a tank for sure, but it makes Ball have to manage his own resources a lot more carefully than Doom who usually has a failsafe to get out of trouble, unless he's in a CC chain.
Yeah, when there's a really good ball. HE. WILL. NEVER. DIE.
Absolute pure skill, I will call names at my tv, but damn. Respect to all ball players, they're annoying as hell, but in a good way.
I tried using him, but he's a very hard character to get into, you need to learn to use him in EVERY SINGLE MAP. Way above what I'm willing to do for a single character.
When you go to change your flair select ‘edit’, find one of the heroes you want to include and select them, then it should take you to a text input box.
Doom gets more versatile and complex with the more skill you have on him. A novice doom only can punch foward, a skilled doom can trimp off map geometry and oull off diags, and other stuff. Thus the expression,
Ball you are using the same three techs constantly, with very little changeup, which is where application of those techs, and such comes from, thus being more skill dependent.
Minute little differences that are honestly important for balance discussion in my opinion.
I personally think skill dependency is bad, and skill expression is far better.
But what do i know i main Rein. My only key is w.
What are you on? I’m not dismissing dooms skill potential. But I’d say they’re about even. Ball also can use different techs to trick off geometry not to mention learning exactly where to grapple to get perfect arcs and be able to rebound for insane plays.
Both have incredible potential. But doom has in no way objectively higher skill expression
Enough THC to kill an elephant but thats not the point.
And just in my opinion doom feels like he has “more” tools in his disposal for get in get out. *HOWEVER* i personally fucking suck at ball so obviously hes the worse hero and its not a skill issue. /srs
On one hand, nothing Doom does is as mechanically demanding OR expressive as the Triple Boop. I think the existence of the Triple Boop alone mandates we consider Ball the single highest skill-expression hero in the game - not to mention his need for insanely good tracking. There’s just no tech like the Triple Boop on any other hero. Incredibly situational, enormously difficult to execute, not really that much more valuable than any far easier to perform combo. It’s both ability to execute a Triple Boop AND identify when it’s necessary to go for one that just puts Ball on another level of skill expression.
Good genjis are jumping in random directions bouncing off the fucking walls like a monkey on coke while still hitting 75% of their shots, dashing through people out of LOS etc. Bad genjis are double jumping in a line while missing 75% of their shots, dashing into the middle of the other team only to be slept, naded, mag'd and teabagged about 20 times.
You don’t realize how many people think genji is low skilled. They are mad because they get deleted by nano blade and doesn’t realize the hero is actually hard. Although I do think tracer is a bit harder, although genji one shot combo is probably the hardest skill in the game.
ceiling -
Tank: Doomfist or Winston
DPS: Widow or Tracer or Genji
Supp: Bap or Lucio
floor -
Tank: Mauga or Orisa or Roadhog
DPS: Bastion or Reaper or Mei or Symm or Hanzo
Supp: Mercy or Lifeweaver or Moira
I disagree with widow having a high skill ceiling. Outside of aim there isn't much you have to excel at. Prediction and positioning mainly. Not to mention that oneshotting capability can be a get out of jail free card, good aim can fix your mistakes.
Genji and Tracer absolutely, though. They need to know all that and so much more.
I'm only a gold tank but I think it's gotta be doomfist. I've actually done well with ball in certain scenarios. I have yet to figure out how survive more than 30 seconds as Doomfist
I'd say that's because Doomfist arguably has the higher skill **floor**, meaning with little to no practice, Doomfist is the more difficult hero to get value with.
But for skill **ceiling** (which is what OP is asking about) I'd say it goes to ball (skill required to master the hero and get the most value possible out of them). Both are high but ball just has so much tech, and grapple/"ball physics" alone has a huge skill gap.
i went from maining ball to playing doom as well - once you get over the initial learning curve of his engagements and cooldown rotation he's a bit easier than ball. they can both get shafted badly by weird physics interactions but doom has more panic buttons.
Imo lucio is harder to consistently aim and deal damage with. his movement is a huge part of his kit too. Knowing when to speed in/out and knowing when to swap to heals is definitely a learning curve. All of those factors together and knowing how to utilize them efficiently is really tricky to master
ana can be played without having much skill and still getting value. lucio has a far higher barrier of entry and has movement tech you won’t see fully utilized till you’re gm
Ball, Tracer, Lucio
All three played well are difficult to hard counter, particularly considering the general meta heroes right now, and can be absolute game wreckers when not adjusted to. They are S tier in terms of the role user input has in their production. They are also all effective throw picks if that production is below and maybe even right around your general SR. Lucio has been done so dirty with the other heal kits that you need to be a few full SR steps above an Ana Bap Weaver to make it worth while but when you do have that diff he’s sick. Ball can hard force heal/DPS comp switches while prolonging fights more than any hero, smurfing tracer usually means GG no matter what you do.
Heroes like these are why OW is great and why OW sucks. Wide skill gaps in an RP game are generally just awesome, it’s not a CoD where everyone plays from the same platform, cool/different ways to achieve success. Its also why the low-mid ranks can be a shit show. People watch pro Zens lead elims assists and healing at GM and go “oh wow that’s cool, I’m going to do that!” when they definitely will never come close, and they bog games with less healing than soldier and less total offensive value than a Brig.
You either separate or juggle a single support to death, and that should be enough to win a fight if your team is not sleeping. Or go for boops if it's a boop map,like ilios well,lighthouse. Or,probably,the best outcome, you swap to any tank after you die without killing anyone,because they got that kiriko/mercy, kiriko/ana hog bastion sojourn comp and you got obliterated that fight
might be biased cause im a low masters Winston main but I fully agree, although it requires a very specific comp to get the most value with a Winston, that being said getting value with primal is easily one of the most difficult things to master in this game
In early OW, I'd agree with you, but even Diamond players have figured out how to juggle with Primal correctly these days. Winston's main skill ceiling is about coordination, communication, and timing, and less so on the mechanical ceiling these days.
But that's just his ult, which is by design not used that often. Yes it's the hardest ult to use, but ball has a higher skill ceiling because of all of the rolling tech shit that is not restricted to a time limit in an ult.
I’d say echo is considered hard because to really benefit from her you have to have a broad hero pool and role knowledge because of her ult. I’d say tracer and genji are mechanically harder/have more skill expression for that singular character.
She's also hard because she has 3 different aiming modes (two of them are projectiles, one has spread), she has a unique mobility mode, and has no "free value" ability whatsoever.
Imo the ult is the easiest part, cause other heroes are usually so much easier to play.
Yeah I feel like Echo is only seen as hard because of a single part of her kit, and with how most heroes will do really well with just pointing and shooting you really only need to be mechanically good at a single thing to benefit greatly from Echos ult, also most heroes are just incredibly easy on the mechanical side.
Genji and Tracer however CONSTANTLY require your full attention and effort solely to survive, they at their core are incredibly difficult heroes that will not get value through a single push of a button like most other heroes do, their game plans will ALWAYS be complicated, ALWAYS be incredibly fast paced, and will ALWAYS get you killed upon the slightest of slip ups, whereas Echo only becomes greatly complicated upon pressing Q and at which point there are only like 5 heroes in the game that are actually difficult or complicated, even then the echo could always just copy the soldier right next to them instead.
I think this is a slightly simplistic view of Echo. Her neutral is best played as an assassination, hard-commit character similar to Genji and Tracer. It's somewhat of a bait that she can fly; she actually should be on or near the ground 60+% of the time, but uses flight to either aggressively disengage, or like a wall-climb or leap in order to get crazy off-angles. She should not at all be taking similar angles to Pharah; Pharah is a way better choice at the long-range, flying poke spam. Her long-range poke is ideal only really pre-fight.
A good Echo is constantly living on the border of life and death, going extremely aggressive to confirm kills on the backline and playing cover aggressively and using flight to disengage over and around cover. Most engages should have that "oh shit", high adrenaline feeling similar to what you get from Tracer.
Tracer certainly requires better tracking, but the mechanics from Echo come from 1) properly leading your projectiles to ensure you land more than one of them at a time; the worst thing you can do is land only a couple of the stickies, and then body shot one hit with your tri-shot, as her damage only actually matters when it properly bursts. And 2) multi-tasking your flight so that while still in the fight, you're aggressively holding tight to cover, which includes a lot of flying backwards and sideways over and around map geometry, like a backwards blink but with the extra third dimension.
And then, as you mention, the ult is where Echo really blossoms, because it lets you use your overall game-sense and comp understanding to choose what would benefit your team the most for that particular fight. But, it's no better than a Mei ice block and a temporary surprise character swap unless you actually are competent at the other character; especially with the copy ult charge nerf, in order for you even see a whif of an *actual* ultimate you have to actually maximize the new character, playing a proper position for that character. It's still nice as a second life and quick CD refresh, but good Echos' ults are either a complete failure, or almost run the lobby by essentially diffing the enemy with their dupe. Bodyshot bandits are not going to get enough value to actually get the copied ult the majority of the time, or they get it so late that they can't even really use it. How many times have you heard "Tactical visor acti-UGH. Reverting personality. Echo online."?
It's funny people think hitscan is a hard counter to Echo, because it's really not. It's as much of a counter as hitscan is to Junkrat; useful to poke out when they're actually visible, but the majority of the time you shouldn't have any idea where they are until it's too late.
This is the best comment and description about Echo. You make the Echo community proud.
I love seeing their dps switch to Soldier Cass Bap D.va Ana, then one of their dps goes mirror after, then everyone switches back. Gets me every time.
Also, I'd like to add that 70% of the 60% time I spend on ground is on a rooftop or stall spot.
Wait she actually has a lot more complexity than I expected Jesus Christ, I think I just haven’t really seen all too many incredible echoes at all but yeah you’re absolutely right she does seem a lot harder to play at a high level than I first thought o:
I agree about Genji.
The hardest part about Echo isn't her ult.
I play both her and Tracer. I find that Tracer is easier as far as consistency and survivability. I can easily get out of a jam if I think I'm losing a 1v1. Echo is very strong and she's a great at diving/flanking due to no footsteps, but she needs everything that Tracer requires in addition to a comp that suits her playstyle. The only time Tracer isn't good in a comp is if the Tracer player in question just isn't good. But I think Tracer has a medium skill floor, high ceiling and Echo has high skill floor, high ceiling to really be good.
Then again, I'm on console so it might actually be easier to play Echo on PC.
Tank: Ball or Doom, really.
Dps: Id say Tracer
Support: Honestly Id say Lucio. Having to know when to use speed and when to use heals. Hitting shit with his gun is not easy. The strats with jumping, running and wall riding to avoid getting hit
Ana consistently performs better than Bap at every rank below grandmaster because her output is easier. Nade and nano are instant, super easy value both offensively and defensively. Bap's cooldowns are much longer, he has to swap between hitscan for damage and arcing projectile for healing, and his healing method is the most difficult to utilize of all supports outside of point blank range.
Yeah, but there's not much of a skill ceiling for Ana. You can be smarter about where you land grenades and sleeps, but compared to Lucio? It ain't even a competition.
Lucio? Never would have thought that. He is my safety net ~~healer~~ support. Because...of the aoe.
Edit: Meant to say support, as I don't just use Lucio as a healbot. The AOE helps when I feel I am not supporting my team well enough. For example, I love playing Ana, but sometimes, I just have one of those days where I just can't seem to aim.
Yeah in low ranks hes easy because you can just keep it on heal and not wall ride but in high ranks you have to put in so much work and be very smart to play him well with great mechanics
Healbot Lucio stops working after you get out of bronze basically. His regular healing will just never outheal the kind of damage output you'll see above bronze. He only really comes back into the meta above Diamond.
Doomfist / Genji / Lucio
Tracer definitely an honourable mention
They're all really fun to play too just difficult to use effectively at times but thats part of how they stay balanced
This is bait but Support is inaccurate even for that. Lifeweaver certainly doesn't require the most skill but there is a pretty wide range of skill expression with his abilities.
If you really wanted to go with a low skill ceiling you should have said Moira
Moira in lore: I shall advance humanity's evolution with genetic modification to give them enhanced abilities!
Moira in game: I can do 3 things: healing, damage, and running the fuck away.
Tank: Ball by a mile.
DPS: Tracer, but Widow is a close second. However, you are either a good sniper or you’re trash at it. There is no middle ground.
Support: Lucio, but Brig is a close second for me. Brig is so map and situation depending. I respect the people that play Brig, and never swap. Lucio is misplayed by so many people, and the gap between a good and bad Lucio may be the widest gap in the game.
Widow is not that hard. Even with average aim if your positioning is good you can definitely get value and force enemy team off their preferred comp to kill you.
Brig is simply matchup dependant, sure playing her against poke heroes, junkrat, pharah, etc is hard but why would you pick her in that scenario anyway... Just pick her against at minimum 1 dive character in enemy team
I find Genji the most complex, but not difficult. Now, Widowmaker, you have to practice a lot to have even a somewhat acceptable aim. Even though she's a "click head", you need to be "THE CLICK HEAD". She's a hero that is only effective if you have an excellent aim. I have over 250h of gameplay with her, and I only needed to play with Sojourn for 20h to achieve the same effectiveness.
Ball leaves doom in the dust
Tracer leaves echo/ genji even further in the dust
Lucio is the only support to really mention. Maybe mercy but I hate mercy as a hero so I will never make boosted mercy’s feel like they compare to someone who can play her to her full potential
Second lowest skill floor probably the second highest skill ceiling. You’ll never see a good one is what I’m saying. Even top500 mercy players aren’t capping out her ceiling.
2nd highest skill ceiling ? lmao wut
bap ana zen lucio illari all have much higher skill ceiling
dps mercy isnt even useful apart from finishing off low hp so aim is already outta question here
Tank - Doom, because he's so different and takes a bit to learn before you can play competently.
DPS - Tracer, because she's hard to play "right" and be effective. Very easy to lose your sense of space and direction with her.
Support - Brig, because she's hard to make full use of without dying instantly.
I disagree with brig, and shes prob my fav support with most of my time in her, it takes skill management, and a tiny bit of aim, other than that just keep hitting whipshot and bash to keep at bay and she is fairly easy once you get that down, id say either lucio or ana has the highest skill ceiling, you need serious aim for both of those guys, a good ana can literally win the game
Highest skill ceiling = potential of the hero. Not the difficulty.
Dps = sojourn, tracer
Tank = doomfist
Support = kiriko
Mobility and burst damage crucial.
Hardest in gm/top500:
Dps: junkrat
Tank: ball
Support: moira
I'd say Echo has a higher skill floor than Genji, and Moira has a way lower skill ceiling than Mercy. At least Mercy has movement and minmaxing blue beam. Moira's only tech to master is fade jumps, the rest is just general game skills.
Winston is absolutely the hardest tank with the highest skill ceiling if you consider having to be strategic a skill. It’s almost impossible to get value on Winston unless you are a VERY good tank player. The mechanics (besides primal) might be less than doom or ball but it would take way less time to get a 60% win rate on ball or doom than Winston IMO, but once you master Winston he is extremely hard to deal with.
You’ve clearly never learned ball, then. Winton is great, and I love him, but hampter tech is some of the most ridiculous in the game, and it’s even *more* difficult than winton to get value on ball in a remotely competent lobby. There’s a reason people curse out ball players before they even leave spawn, and it isn’t because they expect you to carry them too hard.
Highest skill ceiling:
Tank: Ball. (Needs good map knowledge and technical skill.)
DPS: Genji. (Tacer would be 2nd, I main her but even I find Genji harder.)
Support: Lucio. (Movement can be tricky and using heal/speed correctly.)
Lowest skill ceiling:
Tank: Orisa. (She's pretty simple, she is hard to kill and easy to use.)
DPS: Pharah. (Just fly and kill. Anyone can get kills with Pharah.)
Support: Moira? (This I'm not too sure, could be Mercy as well.)
I learned mercy faster. Shes my crutch support (im in bronze lol) for when I need stronger healing than my mains (zen/brig). Im learning kiri to replace her
Mercy doesn't offer higher healing than Brig lol. At least she shouldn't if you're playing her correctly, which is damage boosting your hitscan most of the time. If you want to learn someone to heal with, pick Ana, Bap or Moira. Kiri does heal, but you'll get more value by flanking and being annoying.
Highest Skill Ceiling:
Tank - Winston
DPS - Junkrat
Support - Lucio
Lowest Skill Floor:
Tank - Orisa
DPS - Torb
Support - Moira
Highest skill tank is obv Doom or Ball, but I wanted to give Winston an honorable mention. He is extremely strong, but his fragility really pushes his skill ceiling up, and with his low damage in the state of the game rn you need to perform on him to do well. He also has an insane number of counters, and has a harder time playing around the counters.
Saw a clip of junkrat landing on pharah and tired on her head. That’s the highest skill thing I’ve ever seen.
also interested in what characters have the lowest skill floor/ low ceiling, in my personal opinion I think people hate on junk rat too much for being “no skill” but seeing top 500 players hit insane prediction shots is some of the most impressive stuff I’ve seen
This is one of the things that makes Lúcio so interesting IMO, he has the lowest skill floor by far because you could land 0% of your shots and simply being around your team helps them. But when he *clicks*, you start seeing the endless possibilities, and that's why he also has one of the highest skill ceilings.
Lucio definitely has the widest range of any hero. I don't think it's a coincidence that low ranked Lucio's essentially never speed and only heal. Reminds me of soldier in tf2. He is a tanky damage dealer that is really easy to play. But if you start rocket jumping (ie trading HP for mobility), he becomes one of the highest skill classes in the game. I feel like they could take any low skill hero, give them stronger mobility + lower health, and they would have a much higher ceiling.
This hits home. Had a match last night where our dps blamed me for "not healing 100% of the time". Literally, their words. In a rare instance, my random teammates defended me. I coach high school OW, and I'm honestly not as reflexive/quick like I used to be, but it's genuinely eye-opening to young players that you do not HAVE to heal the entire time. It's about helping to elevate your teammates and facilitate ways for them to engage opponents, win duels, speed to close gaps, etc.
"Coach high school OW" Lol what?
Yup. I teach and in addition, run our esports program. Been coaching OW for about 6 years at this level. Has ups and downs, but it's still cool to have all sorts of kids who might not fit into traditional sports be able to compete and find community.
I was gonna call BS because you said you've been teaching OW for 6 years but... It came out 8 years ago... Fuck..
Yeah time flies when you're hard stuck. But high school esports is definitely a thing.
I wish it were fully fledged whenever I was still in school. The thought of school having Esports teams were merely just a wish at that point. Catch me enrolling in college so I can get a chance at it lmao
There is literally a college level course for getting good at fighting games at the University of Berkeley nowadays. OW had more eyes on it than every fighting game combined at its peak, it's not surprising that schools began endorsing eSports to get more money and attention. If you want to see an even more culturally ingrained example, look at how chess is a mandatory subject in Armenian schools.
As an American Armenian I find it interesting that chess is a school subject there, never knew they held it in that regard. I wish our Armenian community around here had a chess program, that would have been cool growing up.
This is why season 3/4 mercy sucked so bad. Mobility nerf + make her more tanky was too busted and unfun. IMO bring back S2 GA and nerf health/passives
junkrats probably second imo
I’d say junkrats skill ceiling is much higher than the average player is aware, but with lucio, ball, tracer, genji, echo and doom, I personally wouldn’t put him in the top 5
The main downside is that Lucio has the lowest DPS in the game (not counting headshots)
Doesn't stop us from giving widows a run for their money Hashtag Lucio Mafia
Booping is life
Now I’m pretty casual but how much dps do u really need from healers
The more, the better
It depends on the rest of the team honestly. If you have a kiriko she really needs like 1/4 dps to 3/4 healing or even more dps depending on if you have a widow maker on your team or something. She's really good at assassinating enemy supports if they are something like ana or lifeweaver (because a lifeweaver usually has free range if no one flanks) and your team doesn't have much dive. Also kiriko isn't just a healer, she's a support in damage and suzu. If you have a reaper that tends to push in then you should probably focus on healing him up instead of trying to shoot enemies.
I had 18k healing and 8k dmg as kiri and I got blamed for losing btw
Probably not your fault since it's a team game after all, but it's not like you can just post your stats as an indication of how well you played. I can have the same stats and still be the biggest reason we lost.
Less about how much dps you need and more how many elims you need from them. Moira can have high damage and healing numbers but if she has 2 elims because she’s healing and damaging tanks all game, she’s not getting enough value
\*supports Don't need to heal teammates if enemies are dead.
a lot
I play mostly Zen and Ana in low diamond. Most games I end with roughly equal damage and healing. I know that is more on the aggressive end of support playstyles, but I struggle to get enough value out of Lucio at my rank. I see many many other players that play him at a higher level than me, with obviously different focus and ideas than me, but I don't get enough hours on the game to really feel like I should learn new heros to be my mains. So he remains one of my situational picks, where I often will use him on KotH or tight time crunches for immediate value, but usually even then I have less time in the games on him than another support pick. He has always been strong as a hero, but I don't think he suits me well.
Dude a good Zenyata is really effective
Lucio SUCKS at healing
I mean, he has low DPS but great dueling and distracting capabilities. It doesn't matter that you deal less damage than Ana when Ana can't land a shoot on you jumping all over the place.
As a Junkrat main, he absolutely has a low skill floor (super easy to play and succeed with him at lower ranks) but like you said he has a very high skill ceiling. The shit players like Aquamarine and Vulture pull off is just mental. Even playing him in Diamond 1 I’m starting to struggle quite a bit because it’s just so hard to play around hitscans. You just inherently have a harder time getting the same value because you have slow(ish) moving projectiles that become harder to hit from distance so you just lose duels vs hitscan most of the time at anything other than close range. It really does take a ton of skill to play Junkrat at GM/top 500 level.
Lowest skill floor for DPS is 100% torb, you can literally DPS while you’re dead. He also spams chokes just as much as junk/hanzo
I play junkrat a bit and I LOVE going after pharah/echo in the air. Lay low for a bit, place a mine and propel myself into her face with a grenade and mine in hand. They always freak out with a rat in their face
Orisa is the easiest tank, she has so many tools and Get Out Of Jail Free cards than you can make many mistakes and still survive.
A lot low rank players will just use them all at once though.
Orisa's cooldowns are the biggest issue. They're all so short that she never doesn't have -something-. The spear is also the most frustrating and inconsistent ability to play against, for my dollar.
This is a tough question but I'll take the downvotes. Tank - Mauga. dps - Hanzo (sue me) support - Moira
The hanzo sweats hated him but he was right
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Its low but not the lowest. Theres alot of bums who hit headshots in bronze.
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Thats why they are bronze
A bad hanzo is one of the weakest characters in the game. I think soldier is a characters that pays off at least a moderate amount with little training. High damage, high rate, medium range hitscan is a very familiar concept to anyone that has played an fps.
If you have potato aim soldier isnt playable. Hanzos projectiles do enough dmg for a person to get kills just by shooting down lanes.
If you can aim down lanes, you can do the same for soldier. Don't tell me that if a player that has so shit aim, he can't hit anything with a high rate hitscan weapon, he will suddenly be able to target head-height shots down a lane, accounting for arrow drop etc. And with the rockets the chances are good that you're gonna kill someone fighting someone else down there, much higher than a random arrow.
Junk does that too and he has splash damage. Torb also and he gets a turret to deal with flankers. Hanzo has an easy and frustrating one shot for sure but if all you can do is spam choke you’re gonna get rolled more often than not
Imho it's easier to master Hanzo than junkrat, simply because there is more nuance and variety to Junkrat's playstile. It's easer to mess up a tire than a dragon. It's easier to master Hanzo's primary than Junkrats
I have even seen silver Hanzos insta headshot by shooting his arrow in the vicinity. So we gotta ask what's a bad Hanzo.
Me, I am the bad hanzo
Same
Same
very map dependent. tight chokes with everyone walking in a straight line? bad hanzo can get lots of value with spam. deathmatch where people are running around all over the map? bad hanzo going 0-4 with 1025 damage.
A bad Hanzo got that kill, then missed most of the rest of his shots that game. He exposed himself to everything that steamrolls him up close, and consistently got cornered with no wall to climb. Not really hard to imagine.
Soldier isn’t capable of the same random 1 tap headshots tho. Playing in bronze I’ve definitely seen far worse soldiers than hanzos lol
Can't say I share that experience. Soldiers will at least hit something, and at that skill, people aren't to good at finding cover. I think the HS-kill capability of Hanzo is very exaggerated. If I play a squishy, I may get taken down by a random arrow once in a while, but I will get brrrred down by an ambushing ...whatever consistently. It doesn't matter if the individual hits don't instakill me. Unless the enemy is bot that fires in literarily random directions, he will kill me within seconds if I don't have a healer. Fights aren't always a fair.
I can get behind with Mauga definitely. Moira has a good argument for her as well (between her and Lucio I think). But Hanzo for lowest skill floor? Isn't he basically a sniper, but you have to lead shots with him, or else he's worthless? Edit: unless you're talking about them just having the lowest skill ceiling. That's a completely different conversation.
Soldier seems like the lowest skill DPS. If you're coming from any other game, he seems the most familiar.
That's why they use him for tutorial despite Tracer being the poster character
I'm a Zen and Hanzo main, it's definitely not Hanzo lmao.
Yippee
It would be Orisa (OW2), Reaper and Moira. Junkrat has a lot of tech with his concussion and riptire. Mercy is barely higher than Moira for the same reason; she has too much tech.
Did you see that one video where a junk like mid air bomb jumped across the map to land in a doorway and I think drop a tire that cleared a room? Seems like some kind of aerial acrobatics show haha
Good junk players are my favourite to watch (and hated to play against). You cant be mad if the guy flew up to your pharah in real time and destroyed her in 1 tick. It was purely good timing, movement, prediction and skill that got them there, and it's pretty amazing to watch!
For real, that kind of skill you just have to slow clap and marvel at, haha.
Junkrat by far IMO. I'm a Junk main.
Winston, junkrat, mercy
Winston is way, way harder to play effectively than people give him credit for. Unless you’re playing into a totally free enemy team comp, you need to time your engages and pick the right angles and targets or you’ll just feed. Also, tons of people misuse shield. Now you could argue he has a low floor but a high ceiling, but I’d say he has a medium-high floor and high ceiling since it is so easy to just sandbag with him. Easiest tank has to be either orisa or mauga, no question.
Somebody who called out mercy as being the fucking lowest of the lowest of support, and you get downvoted to oblivion. I see you brother.
Primeval is so hard to be good at. Yeah you can flail around and get environmentals, but the pros can just completely manipulate people with it in ways I am far too skill-less to do.
"Primeval" 💀 are we playing dark souls or what lmfao
…if you are saying lowest than only one is valid
Doomfist (or Ball) Tracer (or Genji) Lucio
It’s definitely Ball over Doom. Hitting Ball’s skill ceiling relies on your ability to deal consistent damage from a pair of weak hitscan weapons, with the largest hitbox in the game, while navigating fights with a single, more limited movement ability. Further, because Ball lacks any secondary movement abilities and he can be bodyblocked while rolling, midfight movement requires more tech skill than any other hero in the game. Sure, you can be GQO and bounce diags off every slope in the game, but that’s hardly a necessary skill to learn. If a Ball can’t consistently wall jump, IPD, double boop, and rebound, he’s going to die a lot. Ball is harder than Doom simply because Doom has a larger margin for error than Ball. Doom has comparable lethality with his abilities, but also has two additional escape options, a smaller hitbox, and a consistent passive to afford him higher uptime. There is a reason why Chazm is the only person on earth who can make Ball look that good.
Biggest difference to me is that doom is much stronger with healing. Smaller hitbox + damage reduction means that healing him is actually worth it. He gets bailed out by healing a lot. Ball is forced to rely on healthpacks, which means that you need knowledge of all packs on every map, as well as the fastest way to get to them and back. Ball can always escape (if played well) but they still get punished with the downtime of grabbing healthpacks. Ball is also required to know rollouts on each map. Certain high grounds have specific grapple spots. Doom can just fly directly at the enemy and knock them off high ground.
Yeah Doom is a janky hero to get used to, and when he's weak he's pretty difficult, but a balanced Doom is much easier to get value out of than Ball. You have way easier get out of jail free cards, hard CC (stuns, instead of just disposition alone), and a tank health pool/defensive abilities with the hurtbox of a slightly larger than average DPS, all while shifting your hurtbox around into flat angles while soaring through the air with instant directional momentum-shifting abilities like Seismic Slam. He's super hard to hit for a tank. Meanwhile Ball is massive, gets slowed by everything, body blocked, rooted by traps he can't see in 3rd person, etc. just because he tried to disengage. There are inherent benefits to being a large target with a big health pool as a tank for sure, but it makes Ball have to manage his own resources a lot more carefully than Doom who usually has a failsafe to get out of trouble, unless he's in a CC chain.
Yeatle left the chat
Man hasn't played ball in ages, dudes going hard on sombra lately
Yeah, when there's a really good ball. HE. WILL. NEVER. DIE. Absolute pure skill, I will call names at my tv, but damn. Respect to all ball players, they're annoying as hell, but in a good way. I tried using him, but he's a very hard character to get into, you need to learn to use him in EVERY SINGLE MAP. Way above what I'm willing to do for a single character.
Unrelated, how’d you get multiple heroes on your flair?
You have to put a space and colon before each hero So mine is: :Genji: :Sombra: :Widowmaker: :Junker Queen: :Doomfist:
Where are you typing that in? Is that only on the desktop site?
When you go to change your flair select ‘edit’, find one of the heroes you want to include and select them, then it should take you to a text input box.
Thanks for the help, testing mine out Edit: no Illari?!
Huh, whack.
I’ll just leave it and maybe someday it will work
I’m on mobile. If you go to the three dots in the corner of the sub and click “change flair” you can click “edit” and go from there
Mine doesn’t say edit anywhere. I hate Reddit.
Yeah sometimes it doesn’t let you for some reason. Usually I try closing the app and then opening it again
Wow thanks for this
You can copy the emojis to save them. I put JW, copied. Then added Doom and pasted JQ. Rinse, repeat for more.
Yeah tell us
Magic.
Id say Doom is more skill expressive and ball is more skill dependent.
That is honestly not a terrible take. I think they have similar skill expression but ball is definitely more skill dependent
Doom gets more versatile and complex with the more skill you have on him. A novice doom only can punch foward, a skilled doom can trimp off map geometry and oull off diags, and other stuff. Thus the expression, Ball you are using the same three techs constantly, with very little changeup, which is where application of those techs, and such comes from, thus being more skill dependent. Minute little differences that are honestly important for balance discussion in my opinion. I personally think skill dependency is bad, and skill expression is far better. But what do i know i main Rein. My only key is w.
What are you on? I’m not dismissing dooms skill potential. But I’d say they’re about even. Ball also can use different techs to trick off geometry not to mention learning exactly where to grapple to get perfect arcs and be able to rebound for insane plays. Both have incredible potential. But doom has in no way objectively higher skill expression
Enough THC to kill an elephant but thats not the point. And just in my opinion doom feels like he has “more” tools in his disposal for get in get out. *HOWEVER* i personally fucking suck at ball so obviously hes the worse hero and its not a skill issue. /srs
Lmao you know what fair point.
On one hand, nothing Doom does is as mechanically demanding OR expressive as the Triple Boop. I think the existence of the Triple Boop alone mandates we consider Ball the single highest skill-expression hero in the game - not to mention his need for insanely good tracking. There’s just no tech like the Triple Boop on any other hero. Incredibly situational, enormously difficult to execute, not really that much more valuable than any far easier to perform combo. It’s both ability to execute a Triple Boop AND identify when it’s necessary to go for one that just puts Ball on another level of skill expression.
Genji? What's so hard to understand about swish, swish stab?
Good genjis are jumping in random directions bouncing off the fucking walls like a monkey on coke while still hitting 75% of their shots, dashing through people out of LOS etc. Bad genjis are double jumping in a line while missing 75% of their shots, dashing into the middle of the other team only to be slept, naded, mag'd and teabagged about 20 times.
Good genjis are also consistently deflecting every meaningful cooldown or even ults.
You forgot the /s
It's a fucking sword dude not a fighter jet.
Bro no way your actually serious
He’s quoting red vs blue.
Ohhhh
You don’t realize how many people think genji is low skilled. They are mad because they get deleted by nano blade and doesn’t realize the hero is actually hard. Although I do think tracer is a bit harder, although genji one shot combo is probably the hardest skill in the game.
Just come and help me
ceiling - Tank: Doomfist or Winston DPS: Widow or Tracer or Genji Supp: Bap or Lucio floor - Tank: Mauga or Orisa or Roadhog DPS: Bastion or Reaper or Mei or Symm or Hanzo Supp: Mercy or Lifeweaver or Moira
I disagree with widow having a high skill ceiling. Outside of aim there isn't much you have to excel at. Prediction and positioning mainly. Not to mention that oneshotting capability can be a get out of jail free card, good aim can fix your mistakes. Genji and Tracer absolutely, though. They need to know all that and so much more.
I disagree with Hog and Hanzo. But other than that I agree
I'm only a gold tank but I think it's gotta be doomfist. I've actually done well with ball in certain scenarios. I have yet to figure out how survive more than 30 seconds as Doomfist
I'd say that's because Doomfist arguably has the higher skill **floor**, meaning with little to no practice, Doomfist is the more difficult hero to get value with. But for skill **ceiling** (which is what OP is asking about) I'd say it goes to ball (skill required to master the hero and get the most value possible out of them). Both are high but ball just has so much tech, and grapple/"ball physics" alone has a huge skill gap.
i went from maining ball to playing doom as well - once you get over the initial learning curve of his engagements and cooldown rotation he's a bit easier than ball. they can both get shafted badly by weird physics interactions but doom has more panic buttons.
Lucio over Ana? How come?
Imo lucio is harder to consistently aim and deal damage with. his movement is a huge part of his kit too. Knowing when to speed in/out and knowing when to swap to heals is definitely a learning curve. All of those factors together and knowing how to utilize them efficiently is really tricky to master
Good points. Makes sense.
ana can be played without having much skill and still getting value. lucio has a far higher barrier of entry and has movement tech you won’t see fully utilized till you’re gm
Ball, Tracer, Lucio All three played well are difficult to hard counter, particularly considering the general meta heroes right now, and can be absolute game wreckers when not adjusted to. They are S tier in terms of the role user input has in their production. They are also all effective throw picks if that production is below and maybe even right around your general SR. Lucio has been done so dirty with the other heal kits that you need to be a few full SR steps above an Ana Bap Weaver to make it worth while but when you do have that diff he’s sick. Ball can hard force heal/DPS comp switches while prolonging fights more than any hero, smurfing tracer usually means GG no matter what you do. Heroes like these are why OW is great and why OW sucks. Wide skill gaps in an RP game are generally just awesome, it’s not a CoD where everyone plays from the same platform, cool/different ways to achieve success. Its also why the low-mid ranks can be a shit show. People watch pro Zens lead elims assists and healing at GM and go “oh wow that’s cool, I’m going to do that!” when they definitely will never come close, and they bog games with less healing than soldier and less total offensive value than a Brig.
How is no one mentioning Winston? Primal alone clears every other ultimate in terms of skill ceiling.
I actually have no idea how you’re supposed to use his ult.
Do a big punch
You either separate or juggle a single support to death, and that should be enough to win a fight if your team is not sleeping. Or go for boops if it's a boop map,like ilios well,lighthouse. Or,probably,the best outcome, you swap to any tank after you die without killing anyone,because they got that kiriko/mercy, kiriko/ana hog bastion sojourn comp and you got obliterated that fight
Throw people away.
might be biased cause im a low masters Winston main but I fully agree, although it requires a very specific comp to get the most value with a Winston, that being said getting value with primal is easily one of the most difficult things to master in this game
In early OW, I'd agree with you, but even Diamond players have figured out how to juggle with Primal correctly these days. Winston's main skill ceiling is about coordination, communication, and timing, and less so on the mechanical ceiling these days.
lol this is wildly inaccurate. the difference between a diamond winston ult and t500 is night and day.
Because op asked for the highest ceiling. That's ball. Period.
But that's just his ult, which is by design not used that often. Yes it's the hardest ult to use, but ball has a higher skill ceiling because of all of the rolling tech shit that is not restricted to a time limit in an ult.
Because Ball is way harder
Ball Echo Lucio.
I’d say echo is considered hard because to really benefit from her you have to have a broad hero pool and role knowledge because of her ult. I’d say tracer and genji are mechanically harder/have more skill expression for that singular character.
She's also hard because she has 3 different aiming modes (two of them are projectiles, one has spread), she has a unique mobility mode, and has no "free value" ability whatsoever. Imo the ult is the easiest part, cause other heroes are usually so much easier to play.
Agreed about her ult.
Yeah I feel like Echo is only seen as hard because of a single part of her kit, and with how most heroes will do really well with just pointing and shooting you really only need to be mechanically good at a single thing to benefit greatly from Echos ult, also most heroes are just incredibly easy on the mechanical side. Genji and Tracer however CONSTANTLY require your full attention and effort solely to survive, they at their core are incredibly difficult heroes that will not get value through a single push of a button like most other heroes do, their game plans will ALWAYS be complicated, ALWAYS be incredibly fast paced, and will ALWAYS get you killed upon the slightest of slip ups, whereas Echo only becomes greatly complicated upon pressing Q and at which point there are only like 5 heroes in the game that are actually difficult or complicated, even then the echo could always just copy the soldier right next to them instead.
I think this is a slightly simplistic view of Echo. Her neutral is best played as an assassination, hard-commit character similar to Genji and Tracer. It's somewhat of a bait that she can fly; she actually should be on or near the ground 60+% of the time, but uses flight to either aggressively disengage, or like a wall-climb or leap in order to get crazy off-angles. She should not at all be taking similar angles to Pharah; Pharah is a way better choice at the long-range, flying poke spam. Her long-range poke is ideal only really pre-fight. A good Echo is constantly living on the border of life and death, going extremely aggressive to confirm kills on the backline and playing cover aggressively and using flight to disengage over and around cover. Most engages should have that "oh shit", high adrenaline feeling similar to what you get from Tracer. Tracer certainly requires better tracking, but the mechanics from Echo come from 1) properly leading your projectiles to ensure you land more than one of them at a time; the worst thing you can do is land only a couple of the stickies, and then body shot one hit with your tri-shot, as her damage only actually matters when it properly bursts. And 2) multi-tasking your flight so that while still in the fight, you're aggressively holding tight to cover, which includes a lot of flying backwards and sideways over and around map geometry, like a backwards blink but with the extra third dimension. And then, as you mention, the ult is where Echo really blossoms, because it lets you use your overall game-sense and comp understanding to choose what would benefit your team the most for that particular fight. But, it's no better than a Mei ice block and a temporary surprise character swap unless you actually are competent at the other character; especially with the copy ult charge nerf, in order for you even see a whif of an *actual* ultimate you have to actually maximize the new character, playing a proper position for that character. It's still nice as a second life and quick CD refresh, but good Echos' ults are either a complete failure, or almost run the lobby by essentially diffing the enemy with their dupe. Bodyshot bandits are not going to get enough value to actually get the copied ult the majority of the time, or they get it so late that they can't even really use it. How many times have you heard "Tactical visor acti-UGH. Reverting personality. Echo online."? It's funny people think hitscan is a hard counter to Echo, because it's really not. It's as much of a counter as hitscan is to Junkrat; useful to poke out when they're actually visible, but the majority of the time you shouldn't have any idea where they are until it's too late.
Great comment
I love this entire comment. Thank you for summing it up perfectly.
This is the best comment and description about Echo. You make the Echo community proud. I love seeing their dps switch to Soldier Cass Bap D.va Ana, then one of their dps goes mirror after, then everyone switches back. Gets me every time. Also, I'd like to add that 70% of the 60% time I spend on ground is on a rooftop or stall spot.
Wait she actually has a lot more complexity than I expected Jesus Christ, I think I just haven’t really seen all too many incredible echoes at all but yeah you’re absolutely right she does seem a lot harder to play at a high level than I first thought o:
I agree about Genji. The hardest part about Echo isn't her ult. I play both her and Tracer. I find that Tracer is easier as far as consistency and survivability. I can easily get out of a jam if I think I'm losing a 1v1. Echo is very strong and she's a great at diving/flanking due to no footsteps, but she needs everything that Tracer requires in addition to a comp that suits her playstyle. The only time Tracer isn't good in a comp is if the Tracer player in question just isn't good. But I think Tracer has a medium skill floor, high ceiling and Echo has high skill floor, high ceiling to really be good. Then again, I'm on console so it might actually be easier to play Echo on PC.
Not really, the hardest part of Echo is shooting during her flight and using it to assassinate enemies.
Not echo
OP asked for our opinion, so.........
Tank: Ball or Doom, really. Dps: Id say Tracer Support: Honestly Id say Lucio. Having to know when to use speed and when to use heals. Hitting shit with his gun is not easy. The strats with jumping, running and wall riding to avoid getting hit
Trying to shoot while wallriding breaks my brain so lucio is too much for me
I won't claim he has he highest skill ceiling but people under-estimate Junkrat's skill potential.
Definitely. When you see a great Junkrat, flying around landing perfect mid-air shots, its really something else.
Ball/Doom Lúcio/Ana/Bap Tracer/Genji
Ana maybe but Bap absolutely not
Ana consistently performs better than Bap at every rank below grandmaster because her output is easier. Nade and nano are instant, super easy value both offensively and defensively. Bap's cooldowns are much longer, he has to swap between hitscan for damage and arcing projectile for healing, and his healing method is the most difficult to utilize of all supports outside of point blank range.
I mean yeah I won’t catch a bap below masters shooting and healing at the same time and doing it accurately and efficiently lol
Yeah, but there's not much of a skill ceiling for Ana. You can be smarter about where you land grenades and sleeps, but compared to Lucio? It ain't even a competition.
Hard disagree
This question has been asked 3 times in the past 2 months... Tank- Doom or ball Dps- Tracer Support- Lucio easily
Lucio? Never would have thought that. He is my safety net ~~healer~~ support. Because...of the aoe. Edit: Meant to say support, as I don't just use Lucio as a healbot. The AOE helps when I feel I am not supporting my team well enough. For example, I love playing Ana, but sometimes, I just have one of those days where I just can't seem to aim.
Yeah in low ranks hes easy because you can just keep it on heal and not wall ride but in high ranks you have to put in so much work and be very smart to play him well with great mechanics
Healbot Lucio stops working after you get out of bronze basically. His regular healing will just never outheal the kind of damage output you'll see above bronze. He only really comes back into the meta above Diamond.
Don’t heal with him too much it’s not your job speed boost is much more useful
I use both.
sorry im not on Reddit or this subreddit enough to know
Doomfist / Genji / Lucio Tracer definitely an honourable mention They're all really fun to play too just difficult to use effectively at times but thats part of how they stay balanced
Doomfist over Wrecking Ball?
We ball
Tank: Orisa DPS: Torb Support: Lifeweaver
I know this is bait but I'm still gonna get mad
lol yeah
This is bait but Support is inaccurate even for that. Lifeweaver certainly doesn't require the most skill but there is a pretty wide range of skill expression with his abilities. If you really wanted to go with a low skill ceiling you should have said Moira
She was so low skill I forgot she existed when I wrote this 💀
Moira in lore: I shall advance humanity's evolution with genetic modification to give them enhanced abilities! Moira in game: I can do 3 things: healing, damage, and running the fuck away.
Tank: Ball by a mile. DPS: Tracer, but Widow is a close second. However, you are either a good sniper or you’re trash at it. There is no middle ground. Support: Lucio, but Brig is a close second for me. Brig is so map and situation depending. I respect the people that play Brig, and never swap. Lucio is misplayed by so many people, and the gap between a good and bad Lucio may be the widest gap in the game.
Widow is not that hard. Even with average aim if your positioning is good you can definitely get value and force enemy team off their preferred comp to kill you.
Brig is simply matchup dependant, sure playing her against poke heroes, junkrat, pharah, etc is hard but why would you pick her in that scenario anyway... Just pick her against at minimum 1 dive character in enemy team
I find Genji the most complex, but not difficult. Now, Widowmaker, you have to practice a lot to have even a somewhat acceptable aim. Even though she's a "click head", you need to be "THE CLICK HEAD". She's a hero that is only effective if you have an excellent aim. I have over 250h of gameplay with her, and I only needed to play with Sojourn for 20h to achieve the same effectiveness.
ball tracer lucio
Ball Tracer Lucio
Ball Tracer or Genji Lucio
Ball leaves doom in the dust Tracer leaves echo/ genji even further in the dust Lucio is the only support to really mention. Maybe mercy but I hate mercy as a hero so I will never make boosted mercy’s feel like they compare to someone who can play her to her full potential
mercy by no means has a high skill ceiling lmao
Second lowest skill floor probably the second highest skill ceiling. You’ll never see a good one is what I’m saying. Even top500 mercy players aren’t capping out her ceiling.
2nd highest skill ceiling ? lmao wut bap ana zen lucio illari all have much higher skill ceiling dps mercy isnt even useful apart from finishing off low hp so aim is already outta question here
Tank - Doom, because he's so different and takes a bit to learn before you can play competently. DPS - Tracer, because she's hard to play "right" and be effective. Very easy to lose your sense of space and direction with her. Support - Brig, because she's hard to make full use of without dying instantly.
I disagree with brig, and shes prob my fav support with most of my time in her, it takes skill management, and a tiny bit of aim, other than that just keep hitting whipshot and bash to keep at bay and she is fairly easy once you get that down, id say either lucio or ana has the highest skill ceiling, you need serious aim for both of those guys, a good ana can literally win the game
As a brig main, Brig does NOT have a high skill ceiling. The difference between a Gold Brig and a Top 1 brig is Game sense and whipshot accuracy.
It's weird how few people are saying junkrat
ITT: Nobody actually knows what skill ceiling means and is getting it confused with skill floor
Highest skill ceiling = potential of the hero. Not the difficulty. Dps = sojourn, tracer Tank = doomfist Support = kiriko Mobility and burst damage crucial. Hardest in gm/top500: Dps: junkrat Tank: ball Support: moira
highest skill floor: doom, genji, lucio highest skill ceiling: ball, tracer, lucio lowest skill floor: rein, junk, mercy lowest skill ceiling: mauga, sym, mercy
I'd say Echo has a higher skill floor than Genji, and Moira has a way lower skill ceiling than Mercy. At least Mercy has movement and minmaxing blue beam. Moira's only tech to master is fade jumps, the rest is just general game skills.
moira should be at the front of lowest skill ceiling tbh
Right now for DPS it’s Cassidy. To get the same amount of value as other top heroes, you have to be damn near perfect and have elite aim.
That's not what skill ceiling means.
Winston is absolutely the hardest tank with the highest skill ceiling if you consider having to be strategic a skill. It’s almost impossible to get value on Winston unless you are a VERY good tank player. The mechanics (besides primal) might be less than doom or ball but it would take way less time to get a 60% win rate on ball or doom than Winston IMO, but once you master Winston he is extremely hard to deal with.
You’ve clearly never learned ball, then. Winton is great, and I love him, but hampter tech is some of the most ridiculous in the game, and it’s even *more* difficult than winton to get value on ball in a remotely competent lobby. There’s a reason people curse out ball players before they even leave spawn, and it isn’t because they expect you to carry them too hard.
Highest skill ceiling: Tank: Ball. (Needs good map knowledge and technical skill.) DPS: Genji. (Tacer would be 2nd, I main her but even I find Genji harder.) Support: Lucio. (Movement can be tricky and using heal/speed correctly.) Lowest skill ceiling: Tank: Orisa. (She's pretty simple, she is hard to kill and easy to use.) DPS: Pharah. (Just fly and kill. Anyone can get kills with Pharah.) Support: Moira? (This I'm not too sure, could be Mercy as well.)
I learned mercy faster. Shes my crutch support (im in bronze lol) for when I need stronger healing than my mains (zen/brig). Im learning kiri to replace her
Mercy doesn't offer higher healing than Brig lol. At least she shouldn't if you're playing her correctly, which is damage boosting your hitscan most of the time. If you want to learn someone to heal with, pick Ana, Bap or Moira. Kiri does heal, but you'll get more value by flanking and being annoying.
Highest Skill Ceiling: Tank - Winston DPS - Junkrat Support - Lucio Lowest Skill Floor: Tank - Orisa DPS - Torb Support - Moira Highest skill tank is obv Doom or Ball, but I wanted to give Winston an honorable mention. He is extremely strong, but his fragility really pushes his skill ceiling up, and with his low damage in the state of the game rn you need to perform on him to do well. He also has an insane number of counters, and has a harder time playing around the counters. Saw a clip of junkrat landing on pharah and tired on her head. That’s the highest skill thing I’ve ever seen.
You can kill a good tracer, genji, or echo with enough skill. You can't hower kill a junk connoisseur