My take on what heroes counter Hog in OW1.
| Hard Counter | Mei Sombra Ana Zenyatta |
|---|---|
| Soft Counter | D.Va Cassidy Hanzo Reaper Zarya |
| Neutral | Pharah Echo Junkrat Torbjörn Tracer Widowmaker Soldier Brig Baptiste Ashe |
| Not a Counter | Orisa Reinhardt Sigma Winston Ball Genji Symmetra Mercy Moira Lucio Doomfist |
| Debatable | Bastion Roadhog |
Feel free to disagree and tell us why.
Is this OW 1 or 2? Because for example Mei is no longer a hog hard counter in OW 2, she’s now not that great against him. Without the freeze she’s either neutral or not a counter
OW1. I’ll edit the post
can matrix a lot but owing to large hitbox gets shredded a lot by hog. i’d put dva in neutral
I’d put soldier up to soft counter because he has ridiculous sustained dps, and because he’s hitscan landing consistent headshots is very easy
Shouldn’t Roadhog be in the neutral tier?
I wouldn’t change too much, I think I would up Zarya to hard counter though (if she’s using bubbles properly)
I don’t think D.va is a counter to him, more the opposite. DM doesn’t block hog hook so her big hit box is an easy target.
Only way she can counter is saving an ally with DM and her guns are easy for her to hit, but I still think he is more a counter to her.
Not necessarily.
for example the Winston mirror is neutral. They both do air to each other.
But the Hog mirror is deadly and they mess up each others cooldowns.
But a well played dva can really deny hogs combo and damage since his shot pattern is so predictable, the hog is forced to deal with dva first, I think it’s soft counter but dva is one of the harder characters in the game to play to full potential so there’s a lot of dva’s that just make it look like a bad match up. Just imo (with dva as my most played hero at least)
Move Brig and Sig to soft counter.
Brig can stun Hog out of Breather, disrupt his hook from range with Whip Shot, and make her whole team practically invincible to Hog’s attacks with Rally.
Sig can block hooks, Grasp Whole Hog, and also stun Hog out of Breather.
Anyone who can CC Hog out of Breather is going to do well against him, taking away his primary mode of survivability.
I’d also place Bastion in Not a Counter, because one of the OG anti-Bastion strats was to Mei Wall him up and then hook him.
Too true. D.va is very good against Hog, taking half damage from him with her massive armor pool and saving anyone else who gets hooked with Matrix. Players who can’t manage their HP or positioning with D.va (the vast majority) will get demeched before they can really make an impact in the matchup.
Similarly, Hog is very good against Bastion, but poorly positioned Hog looks very bad against him. Some players think they’re invincible while they have Breather, but Bastion can shred right through it.
Neither hog has an inherent advantage over the other.
Yeah Dva counters Hog only if she isnt getting focused and correctly DMs the oneshots.
Otherwise, Dva sucks against Hog.
Hog is good against Bastion in a vacuum. The moment there is anything that blocks hook, he is an ult feeder.
I agree its ‘‘Debatable’’ because its conditional on the the existence of barriers protecting Bastion. If barriers exist, then Hog goes from great to dogpoop, and the tanks are better off picking Dva and Sigma.
Hog fits very well into the “break the shields, then kill the Bastion” strategy, along with Sigma. He doesn’t have to feed. He can peek from cover as he pounds the shield with right clicks. In that style, he’ll do better than D.va, who can’t pressure the shields without getting close enough to end up feeding.
Of course, if you go for a dive strategy, then D.va is required, using Matrix to buy time for your team to shut down the Bastion.
hog is decent vs bastion with shields unless one of the shields belongs to Orisa. then hog gets pulled and killed
He is great at breaking shields provided he can outsustain the enemy team’s defenses. Against a shielded Bastion tho? He is a walking ult charge dispenser. I rather the tanks take Sigma/Dva/Zarya to enable the team to kill bastion than them to try to solo hero the bastion as hog.
Dva is a pretty massive counter to roadhog, with both a boop and DM to make hook useless if he hooks anyone except her, and even then, DM and boost to escape, you have to demech her quickly or you wasted your cooldown and dva did her job admirably.
The key here is the Bastion can’t move. If Bastion’s sitting out in the open with two shields and the Hog is using natural cover, then Hog wins that fight eventually, and without taking much damage.
Sigma and D.va I understand. Your win condition against Bastion is usually to knock him out of Sentry Mode, which Sigma and Hog do best, but you could also try hard diving him with a whole team protected by D.va’s Matrix (in my experience, this is much more difficult). At the very least, I see where you’re coming from. D.va buys you time against the Bastion no matter what you’re playing, and that’s helpful.
Zarya, though… I can’t agree at all. I pretty much one-trick Zarya, but I change heroes for two matchups: Widowmaker and Bastion. Widow because bubble can’t save anyone from snipes and I can’t engage with her. Bastion because bubbles can’t save anyone from his damage. They pop instantly and your teammate still dies. Sure, you’ve got charge, but you have no win condition. Even Grav is useless because Bastion comps don’t move anyways.
That’s fair, but if your Bastion gets an Orisa, can my Hog get a Sigma? Sig can save him when he gets pulled.
Yeah but this is not really about inherent advantages.
If you play Hog in an actual match, the enemy Hog is a potential big threat to you.
It’s not like you can say “nah, I’m just gonna ignore that Hog, he’s pretty neutral to me”.
That’s not the case for a Winston mirror or a Mercy mirror.
Roadhog is good against a shield, singular, you get to a second shield, or a shield with added defense, and roadhog is rather useless. If you are really having issues with bastion, it is all about the dva or sigma eating the fire for a few seconds to get into a good position.
nothing of what you list is a counter and that’s a CORE reason why OW1 sucks atm. Hog + Sigma single-handedly destroyed the ladder as well as any “true tank players” left because Hog + Sigma single-handedly beat any other tank duo that has average coordination, except maybe 2x shield.
Reason for that is that Hog:
and
counters every tank with hook (most are 2 shot, or 1 shot with Hog team’s follow up which from masters+ nearly always happens).
Hog ult also instagibs any main tank with no counterplay (Winston, Rein, Ball, Orisa can sometimes survive)
Btw the heroes you list, none of them are counters, you are an Ana main right, I saw you on EU servers, you should know that Hog can just wait, play a bit different, and in the end you thought you are a counter but somehow he still hooked you.
Turns out you can still outplay even the hardest support lineup (Ana + Zen) as Hog, you just need to play a bit differently. Also be careful of putting damage on him because it makes him vape and he will solo ult your MT sooner (you should still shoot him cuz u know it’s how OW works just saying if he lives you are rewarding him for being bad/afk and vaping which is part of the reason Hog is so good, even if you do nothing you get fast ult charge through vape).
Mei and Sombra it’s ridiculous you would list these as counters even, Mei cannot withstand Hog’s damage and unless Hog is literally 1v6 doesn’t have the follow up damage to kill him, and if the Hog is 1v6 then any hero can beat him, even Genji or Soldier. Sombra is like, if you think you can get away with hack on a Hog, then you just think Sombra counters everyone because then you think you can hack any hero without them shooting you back. In truth all these heroes do is make the Hog modify his playstyle a bit, much like when they have a Widow you stand less in open areas, vs a Sombra, Hog plays more with the team and tries to maybe shoot tanks more (cuz it’s not like Sombra will do ever anything most Sombras wait behind their tanks for your flank that will never happen if you abuse Hog correctly).
The reason Hog is so good is cuz if you pick your fights and try to make them always 1v1s + pressure enemy tanks, you are legit unpunishable because the only way to punish you is that enemy team ACTIVELY calls to run you down as 4-5 people every fight, and that will never happen on ladder.
Listing Zarya as soft counters also denotes lack of understanding of the game, Zarya is 1 of weakest picks you can make vs Hog, she gets 2 shot and her bubbles do nothing, if you think you can “time” your bubble perfectly or “react” to hook… yeah no it doesn’t work like that, Hog grabs you and 2 taps you, if you hold your bubble he just runs you down with primary fire instead. Hog is a Zarya hard counter if anything.
Dva is decent vs Hog though I will agree on that and Hanzo too (a bit map-dependent and like you say he is a soft counter the main good thing about Hanzo is that you can sometimes force vape pre-fight making it awkward for Hog to engage).
tl;dr: Hog is LITERALLY a 1v6 hero on ladder atm. Think like season 4 Tracer. Moth Mercy. Just most people don’t know how to exploit him and the biggest 2 mistakes I see many Hog players do are: