Just curious since people complain about, and also “one-tricks” complain about people who “refuse to switch”.
One very legitimate reason not to switch in my book is that the player simply isn’t good at the requested hero, so switching to that hero would actually be worse than not switching.
How many heroes do people think a player should be comfortable enough to play Competitive in for a given role? Remember that your number will be multiplied by 3 if the player queues in Flex, so if you say 5 heroes per role, that’s 15 heroes total, unless you want players to stick to one role.
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Hard question… It depends a lot on which heroes and when (for example during the start of the game, you could only learn Tracer & Lucio to do enough).
I"ll start with the general answer and say as much as you can. There’s noting bad about knowing more and having more tools to deal with a situation. Each hero has its niche and so it’s important to know as much as you can.
But if you have to limit yourself, I would say from each role at least one of each playstyle.
Tanks
One mobility tank, reinhardt and one other tank you’d like.
Dps
one hit scan, one diver, one turret, one projectile
Support
one aoe, one single target healing. (or just learn Ana and/or mercy)
Too hard to answer….so I just play all of them 
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Dependent on the role, for DPS I highly recommend maining 5 heroes for me this is Hanzo, Tracer, Soldier 76, Reaper, and Widowmaker and having at least 3 sub mains for me this is Junkrat, Mei, and Sombra.
Its not a tough question at all. Transferrable skills do exist.
Tank: Learn 1 mobile tank and 1 Barrier/Zoning tank
DPS: Learn 1 Flanker, 1 Midrange Hitscan and 1 Projectile any range
Support: Learn 1 Main healer and 1 off Healer (utiliy based)
With transferrable skills, going from 7 to 15 should be a matter of 1 month. 15 is almost half the roster so thats perfectly acceptable.
I’d say two. One for defense and one for offense.
I originally mained Orisa so i can make her work on both offense and defense. But Zarya edges out on attack and i swap to her when i can’t make Orisa work there (and if i happen to be playing to win).
On DPS, it’s Sombra when i’m playing aggressively and Mei when it’s defensively.
For support, it’s Baptiste and Zen. One for aggressive and one for REALLY aggressive.
i think you would be the grand master of mystery heroes if they ever made it into competitive…
10000 games and what did you have? a 79 percent win ratio?
I’d say 3 or 4.
For DPS, pick a sub-role first.
Like Hitscan or Flex Dps
You can look at the hero pools for pro players to get a good idea of groups to pick up.
Example:
Flex - Pelican - Liquipedia Overwatch Wiki
Hitscan - MER1T - Liquipedia Overwatch Wiki
I think you forget my skill level
A high win ratio in mystery heroes is not that rare I guess. I think something is wrong.
Me and my friends have several houndreds of hours in mystery heroes each and everyone has a win ratio of 86 to 92%.
However, my win ratio dropped to 70 something percent one day. I don’t remember losing hundres of games on a single day…
Oh and on topic, I would say 3 to 4 are okay.
I only ever play Ana/Baptiste/Mercy and I’ve never had trouble with team comps
Maybe at least 3 heroes?
Raw numbers aren’t as important as coverage,v ersatility, meta status, and even then that’s not entirely equivalent to appeasing your teammates, especially trashcans that lose their 
every time pharah fires a rocket.
To actually answer the question though, I’d recommend a dive tank, a barrier tank, a long range hitscan dps, a flanker, a high throughput support and a fast support. Contesting the point is just too valuable to go without a speed option.
You play as many as you want. That’s why you play the game and the gameplay allows you to switch.
After that it comes down to who you like as well as the hero you can get in the zone consistently to carry with.
It’s all up to how much fun/time commitment you have for this or any game.
And these devs ridiculously overbuff some heroes you only need 30 minutes to an hour before the bare minimum to perform above average on a meta hero.
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Turn off voice chat and play who you want. Seriously. That’s the only way to have any fun in this game.
It depends on what you want to play…
I learned Main Tanks (Shield Tank) then Off Tanks (Non-Shield Tank)… I can play them all to a degree (D.Va and Ball still give me trouble)
As for DPS it’s between Hitscan and Projectile… I do play a fair number of DPS but I feel most comfortable as Tracer
Support it’s more about what utility you can get use out of… Lucio’s speed boost is more helpful to Rein then to Winston or Ball… If you are good at aiming then Ana, Bap or Zen
TL;DR it all depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go
I’d recommend having two heroes in your role that you main. Hopefully ones that play a bit differently, like Soldier and Junkrat. From there, have two more you feel comfortable on, but aren’t necessarily your best. That should give you the flexibility to fit into many comps.
Yes, the meta slaves will still scream when you don’t pick exactly what they want, but they usually aren’t the greatest strategists in the world, so it’s OK to ignore their screeching.
I’ve always look at learning most heroes across all roles, but try to be proficient on at least 2 per role.
All this talk of maximizing your one or two heroes instead of understanding how most of them work (if you feel you spend a significant amount of time playing OW) seems redundant to me. But that largely depends on what you want to achieve.
Do you want to climb ranks? Just have fun and relax? Learn as much as you can about the game? It’ll be different for every player and we all value something on a personal level that another player won’t care as much about.
It’s not a job, so just play as many as you want.
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