I think I finally figured out a common thread among all the heroes that get the most hate. The heroes that seem to ruin every game you’re in and make everyone rage when playing against.
Often they’re described as “unfun” to play against, and that very subjective claim is hard to back up as many people tend to point out. The other thing that gets pointed out a lot (not always) is that many of the characters people hate seeing on the other team are considered to not be very good, usually based off comp stats.
So why is it that heroes can be statistically weak and also feel like “OP garbage”?
All the heroes have one thing in common
They punish bad enemies rather than rewarding good players
Think about, what is to me, the biggest offender in this category, Mei. She has a very low pick rate on Overbuff meaning she isn’t valued, she doesn’t bring much to comp play, that is she’s seen as “weaker” than other higher picked heroes. So why does she feel so oppressive and “unfun” to play against for many of us in QP?
Because if she catches you where you shouldn’t be, you die. If you’re alone and Mei sees you before you see her she will almost always kill you, and there’s not much you can do to stop it. In a more functional team her range and kit don’t help that much. She has some niche uses but she doesn’t offer the same value as other heroes. Her best use isn’t in helping you’re team it’s in hurting the enemy team.
Look at the next two biggest offenders, Sym and Tjorb
They currently hold the 2nd and 3rd worst pick rates respectively on Overbuff. They clearly don’t bring much value to a team, that’s why they are used almost never. Yet when you play in an unstructured casual environment they can feel like the absolute worst and massively OP.
If the team is uncoordinated, new, or just faffing about and not focusing their turrets then they go unchecked and just rake in kills. We’ve all seen the PotG in QP that is Tjorb just picking his nose while a clueless enemy team just walks into the turret and dies one by one.
In this situation Tjorb the player did nothing, the enemies did all the work for him. He was rewarded not for his skill but for their incompetence. Sym can function in much the same way. A cluster of her turrets going unchecked spell disaster for the enemy team. In both cases the turrets are easily managed with even the smallest amount of coordination, but without that they’ll absolutely run the battlefield.
Now lets look at the king of the bottom, Bastion. Bastion has the lowest pick rate on Overbuff. Bastion has gone mostly unchanged since the game’s start (much to the dismay of many players) He feels either absolutely useless or just devastating, and the thing that dictates which of those two he is, is almost always the other teams ability to handle the Bastion.
An unchecked Bastion with just a little support will shred the enemy team if gone unchecked. His massive DPS output will mulch almost anything if you’re team doesn’t stop it. I remember when the game launched and almost every PotG was just bastion sitting in one spot as the enemy team walked into a hailstorm of bullets. Once again Bastion in these situations does very little, he can’t do much by design as he’s stationary, but an uninformed enemy team makes it very easy for him.
For comparison lets look at the DPS that has the highest pick rate on Overbuff (over the past 6 months) McCree. I rarely see McCree hate threads. He isn’t really viewed as oppressive and unfun to play against. I can’t really recall a situation where I felt getting killed by a McCree was “BS”.
This is because McCree must go and get his kills. If he’s at range he needs decent enough aim and relies heavily on headshots (even better aim). He has his stun and FtH that can be used to quickly end enemies, but it isn’t guaranteed. His stun/FtH combo plays very similarly to Mei’s freeze/spike combo the main differnece is there is much more counter play with McCree.
Mei has a 1.5 sec to kill you once stunned, McCree only has .07 He isn’t designed to be able to just punish you if he gets you alone the way Mei is. He can if he’s good and is able to maximize FtH but often he wont and his window of opportunity is very small.
Finally I’d like to talk about Widowmaker, a hero who recently has been the topic of a lot of rage and discontent. Widowmaker can feel so over the top because she actually benefits from both being damning to unskilled enemies as well as damaging in the hands of a skilled player, she ostensibly is the bets of both worlds.
If you’re stationary, out of cover, moving in a straight and predictable manner or any of the three Widow is very good at punishing you. Her high damage and one hit capability with headshots means she will end you for your ignorance. However, she can also be used with great skill to kill you even if you are playing well. This means she can be absolutely devastation in both unstructured casual play as well as coordinated comp play.
She gets the benefit of capitalizing on both sides of the coin, which is why she can feel so absolutely oppressive. A decent Widow in QP is both punishing you for your ignorance as well as outplaying you with their skill.
What does all this mean? I dont really know, but I Think it draws a line and to me connects some dots that highlight bad design choices as a whole for certain heroes. In a perfect world this would be recognized by the devs and they could start testing ideas against whether or not abilities or heroes are actually strong when used right or strong when countered wrong. Ideally it should be a bit of both
